Chingueti, Mauritania – Bookkeeper Muhammad Gholam al-Habot gently pulled a pair of white gloves over his thin hands and began his daily routine in his quiet high-ceilinged library lined with steel bookshelves.
He opened a thick manuscript printed in Arabic. After turning over its brown and worn pages, looking for damage, El-Habot closed the book with a satisfied sound, rubbed his fingers over the wrinkled leather cover, and carefully placed it in a white cardboard box.
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“These books are very important to me and my family,” said the librarian, as afternoon sunlight streamed in through the open wooden doors. He spoke in Hassaniya Arabic, the dialect spoken in Mauritania, his voice low, his sentences halting and poetic. Thick flies buzzed around his long oval face as he worked.
He further added, “My relationship with him is like that of a father and his son.” “We must protect them until God takes the land and all the people who live on the land.”
The El-Habout Family Library is one of the few libraries of its kind still operating in the medieval fortress town or Ksar Chingueti in the northern Adrar region of Mauritania. It was once a center of commerce and Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries, but has now been largely abandoned as, over the decades, locals have sought opportunities in larger cities.
Chinguetti is also at the mercy of the changing climate.
Mauritania, in northwest Africa, is 90 percent Sahara desert and has been facing desertification for centuries. Now, human-induced climate change is accelerating. Sandstorms and sudden storms occur more frequently, while extreme hot or cold weather lasts longer than usual.
These pressures are a “big deal” for precious books, said Andrew Bishop, a researcher at the University of Wyoming who studies climate impacts on Saharan cultures.
“Extreme heat and less predictable rainfall patterns mean texts are increasingly being damaged by water or heat, leaving many manuscripts beyond repair. What’s more, the clay libraries themselves are not built for sudden rains and prolonged heat exceeding 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit),” he told Al Jazeera.
Many of Chinguetti’s 4,500 residents now live outside the abandoned Ksar’s original range in cement buildings made of dried stone and red clay bricks. There are fears that the entire area, which is about 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) – about the size of Prague – is at risk of being buried by the surrounding sand dunes in the long run, although there is no clear timeline yet.
Islam’s ‘seventh holiest city’
El-Habot didn’t always want to be a bookkeeper.
But when his father became ill in 2002, he discarded approximately 1,400 manuscripts out of obligation. He said that being selected is a matter of honor in his culture.
There is no question of it now, said the 50-year-old librarian. He imagines that both of his sons would decline this duty, as many of their peers have left to seek economic opportunities in the capital city, Nouakchott, or elsewhere.
“It’s something we have to do; it’s a family obligation,” Al-Habot said with a surprised expression. “This is not a question to be asked.”
Family manuscripts are sacred because they are rare. Munim’s ancestor, Sidi Mohammed Ould Habout, was one of about two dozen Chingueti scholars who traveled the Muslim world from Egypt to Andalusia between the 18th and 19th centuries in search of knowledge.
Between them, scholars collected a vast corpus of approximately 6,000 scripts. He covered almost every subject: Islamic jurisprudence, hadith or teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, mathematics, medicine and poetry. Some works came from scholars themselves, including the elder El-Habot, who wrote about the science of poetics.
The books were stored in about 30 libraries in Chingueti, which were open to people from all over the world.
At the time, the city was famous for its location at the crossroads of trans-Saharan trade routes connecting the Sahel and the Maghreb. Camel caravans guided by nomadic Berber traders transported goods – mostly salt and gold – between North Africa and the southern kingdoms, using the city as a way station, turning it into a commercial centre.
Muslim pilgrims traveling to Mecca on foot or camel would gather at Chingueti and prepare themselves spiritually and mentally for their long, arduous journey before heading to Cairo. Islamic and scientific texts were exchanged, bought and sold in the town.
In West African history, Chinguetti was said to be the seventh holiest city in Islam. Others nicknamed it the “Sorbonne of the Sahara”, according to UNESCO.
Managed libraries from generation to generation. Over time, as the caravan trade declined due to new European sea routes, the old town became vacant and many libraries closed.
“Chinguety was the mother of all peoples,” El-Habot said, referring to the city’s old status as the region’s main capital. Indeed, the area now known as Mauritania was called “Bilad Shinkit” or the land of Chinguetti. In the local Soninke language it translates to “waterfall of horses”.
“People had to leave because they wanted to feed themselves, get education for their children and also get better opportunities for themselves,” El-Habot said. He said there was no university nearby and only a few primary and middle schools.
Munim said, some people in his family have also moved ahead. Those like him who stayed here wanted to honor the three wishes of their ancestors.
“His wish was that the library remain in Chinguetti, that it be open to all seekers of knowledge, and that a male descendant of his who was religiously and morally upright be the bookkeeper,” El-Habot explained. Not following those instructions could incur God’s wrath, he said.
Chinguetti’s decline is largely due to a lack of support for its traditional lifestyle, Bishop said. Annual rainfall in Mauritania has decreased by 35 percent since 1970, making it difficult for herders to graze dates or grow the fruit.
In 1996, UNESCO granted World Heritage status to Chingueti and three other Mauritanian cassocks, cementing their rich heritage. The few still living in the old town are permitted to undergo renovations to retain its original stone architecture and distinctive Moorish structure, but only minimally, where houses are lined along narrow streets that lead to a mosque with a square minaret.
Just outside Chinguetti are the excavated ruins of Abwere, a town of 25,000 believed to have been founded in 777 AD, and believed to be the “original” Chinguetti. Locals believe that its inhabitants left the settlement in 1264, possibly after some conflict. Over time, this area was completely swallowed by sand.
saving manuscripts
He acknowledged that El-Habot’s work, although enjoyable most of the time, is also difficult.
Preserving old books by reprinting or digitizing the most worn manuscripts before they become unreadable is an expensive process. He often needed chemicals to keep away book-eating insects and had to raise funds for more suitable storage.
Then, there is the weather, which is beyond his control. Mauritania experiences a hot dry season between April and December, followed by bitterly cold winter months. Older emeralds are sensitive to both extremes and can become brittle, El-Habot said. Sometimes, when it is very hot, he places buckets of water around the library hall to increase humidity.
Meanwhile, there is a risk of water damage from flash floods.
Visitors to the library usually pay a small fee, but tourist numbers to Mauritania declined sharply in the mid-2000s, when armed groups attacked foreigners. The COVID-19 pandemic also reduced passenger flow.
Mauritania has since put a halt to the violence. Tourists are slowly coming back, El-Habout said, and some of the locals who left have also returned.
In 2024, a $100,000 UNESCO restoration project provided air conditioning units, computers and printers, as well as shelving units and storage boxes to 13 family libraries to stimulate the sector. But most libraries remain closed, their texts scattered among members. The lack of capacity of young people, who are not as interested in preserving Chinguetti culture, will remain a challenge, Bishop said.
Back in the library, El-Habot continued to work, his thin frame hunched over his manuscripts. He opened a book and pointed excitedly at its pages: they depicted the Moon in its luteal phase and an eclipse. The third page shows the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
“I have to protect this heritage,” El-Habot said in his low voice. “For me, and also for all humanity.”
