Classification in Indexes and Bibliographies among West African Scholars During the 11th-13th Centuries AH

Abstract:
    There was an immense importance of the indexes and bibliographies of scholars in West Africa during the 11th-13th centuries AH in disseminating Islamic sciences through unbroken chains of narrators, and despite their being the best means of preserving the chain of transmission and narrators that is a characteristic of the Muslim community, and their significant contribution to revealing aspects of the history of the region’s intellectual and cultural movement, despite all of that, the study of these indexes, in particular, has become something that many contemporary scholars have overlooked and have not given much attention to.
   The study of bibliographies and indexes among West African scholars represents a fundamental step in understanding the region›s scientific and intellectual heritage. These bibliographies provide primary sources that reveal the movement of scholars and the dissemination of knowledge. They also contribute to tracing the networks of scholarly education and religious authorizations between traditional centers of learning such as Timbuktu, Djenné, Chinguetti, and Kano. Furthermore, they aid in reconstructing local scientific history, highlighting the cultural and intellectual value of West African scholars and their role in transmitting Islamic knowledge across generations.
  Accordingly, this study takes the bibliographies of some of the region›s leading scholars as a research problem to identify their contributions and added value to the development of bibliographic classification in the Islamic world. This is achieved through explanation, analysis, and description, presented in the following sections:
Section 1: The concept of bibliographies and their importance in education and historical documentation in West Africa.
Section 2: The interest of West African scholars in bibliographies during the transmission of knowledge.
Section 3: The interest of West African scholars in classification within bibliographies, their motivations, types, and methods of arrangement.