An exhibition of works from Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa

Sam Fogg will hold a groundbreaking exhibition Islam in Africa at his gallery at 15d Clifford Street, London W1, from 9–26 October 2007. The exhibition will showcase the diversity and richness of the Islamic art of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa. The first of its kind in the UK, the exhibition will include art objects and manuscripts from African Islamic traditions that have been almost entirely overlooked by major collections.

East Africa

In East Africa, Islam spread along the trade routes that connected the coast of Africa with the Arabian Peninsula and India. Arab merchants established settlements as early as the 10th century, which grew into cosmopolitan mercantile states such as Mogadishu, Barawa, Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa and Zanzibar.

The arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century heralded the decline of the city states and this only came to an end at the turn of the 18th century when the Omani sultanate succeeded in ousting the Portuguese from Mombasa and all the remaining coastal cities to the north.

In the first half of the 19th century Sultan Sayyid Sa’id reestablished Omani control over much of coastal East Africa and in 1840 transferred his capital to Zanzibar, which eventually became the seat of an independent sultanate. The Sultanate of Zanzibar presided over a lucrative trade in cloves and other African raw goods, particularly ivory. The influence of the British, who were sailing to India round the African coast and were keen to protect their maritime and mercantile interests from the Germans, was on the increase. It was from Zanzibar that the explorer David Livingstone started his second African expedition to search for the source of the Nile. A spectacular wooden panel, inscribed with Quranic verses intended to ward off malign influences, by repute came from Livingstone’s house. Such panels, as well as carved doors, are a distinctive feature of the architecture of Stonetown, Zanzibar’s capital.

Until the middle of the 16th century the Ethiopian plains were home to a cluster of sultanates that resisted and threatened the Abyssinian Empire. After the defeat of the great Adal Sultanate, in 1543, the Islamic presence in Ethiopia for the next three centuries was restricted almost entirely to the city of Harar

From the early years of the Harari Emirate is a beautifully copied and illuminated Quran, dated 1773, in its original distinctive Harari binding. Very few such early East African Qurans have survived. Like the other examples, this Quran is in a bold angular script with a commentary that zig-zags across the margins of the pages. These features recall the so-called ‘Bihari’ Qurans of 15th and 16th century North India and pose fascinating questions concerning cultural transfer between India, South Arabia and the East African coast.

Other items from Harari culture include wooden boards inscribed with verses from the Quran. Quran boards, found across the whole of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, were used as a means of teaching the Quran. Once the pupil had finished inscribing the verses, the surface of the board would be wiped clean. Some examples, though, are permanently inscribed and bear talismans, constituting another of the many examples of the blend of sacred text and ritual object that make sub-Saharan Islamic culture particularly rich in tangible forms of worship.

Despite the longstanding presence of Islam in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, very few manuscripts dating from before the 18th century have survived outside libraries in Islamic centres such as Timbuktu. This exhibition includes several manuscripts showing the development of the Western Sudani style through the ages. An early example is an 18th century copy of the medieval Spanish author al- Kala’i’s Life of the Prophet. The most striking feature of the manuscript is the numerous fullpage illuminated panels filled with a variety of patterns in ochre, yellow and red. The ingenuity of the designs makes this manuscript a showcase for the marriage of the Islamic tradition of geometric decoration and the West African genius for pattern.

A further development of the tradition is seen in a costly and pristine 19th century copy of al- Jazuli’s pilgrimage manual, the Dala’il al-Khayra.t Similar in format and design to the Life of the Prophet, the illuminated panels and lettering are brighter and make use of brilliant green. The quality of the script and illumination is matched by the superb leather binding with tooled decorative patterns, and a marvellous carrying case decorated with designs made from different coloured pieces of leather.

Representing the very culmination of the tradition is also an early 20th century printed Quran, the large, abstract and very bold patterns of which are the fullest and most colourful expression of Hausa Quranic illumination.

The Saharan fringes of the Sudan are represented in the exhibition by a magnificent 19th century Berber minbar (pulpit), probably from the Atlas region. With its original polychrome and over a metre and a half high, this is a splendid illustration of a North African Islamic tradition rendered in a distinctive and colourful local idiom. The minbar was acquired from a Paris jewellers, where it had been since the 1960s.