Author : John Hunwick
Year : 2005
Moving eastward to consider Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, our
information is very patchy and uneven. However, one contrast with other areas of
Muslim Africa is that northeastern Africa has received the attention of a number
of distinguished Orientalists. Thus Enrico Cerulli has written with great authority
on the Arabic writings of Somalia while Ewald Wagner has comprehensively
catalogued, described and analysed the indigenous writings, in Arabic, Harari,
and Silte, of the city state of Harar.9 More recently researchers such as Hussein
Ahmed (Addis Ababa), Scott Reese (Northern Arizona University ), Alessandro
Gori (Naples) and Jonathan Miran (Michigan State University) have been
8 ˘asan b. Mu˛ammad al-Fti˛ b. Qarıb Allåh; see ALA I, 113.
9 See Afrikanischen Handschriften, II, Islamiche Handscriften aus Äthiopien, Stuttgart, 1997.
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actively engaged in mapping and cataloguing in the region. What is known to
date of the Islamic writings of northeastern Africa is brought together in ALA
IIIA, entitled The Writings of the Muslim Peoples of Northeastern Africa,
published by Brill, early in 2003.