‘I have to protect them’: The man guarding Mauritania’s rare Islamic books
Chinguetti was once a popular desert library town attracting scholars from the Muslim world to its precious collections.
AI Summary
Chinguetti, a medieval fortress town in Mauritania that was once a major center of Islamic learning, is now largely abandoned as residents have migrated to larger cities. Muhammad Gholam el-Habot and a handful of other families operate private libraries preserving rare Arabic manuscripts in the town, with el-Habot carefully maintaining and protecting the collection as part of his family's legacy. The libraries face increasing threats from climate change and desertification, as extreme heat, unpredictable rainfall, and more frequent sand and flash storms in the Saharan region damage the fragile historical texts.