The present volume is the first of a projected series of six volumes whose purpose is to provide a bio-bibliographical overview of the literature in the Arabic language of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa. Our aim is to provide for Islamic Africa a reference tool comparable with those of Carl Brockelmann and Fuat Sezgin for the wider Islamic world.

The Muslim regions of Africa, although rich in writings in Arabic and in various local languages in most of the branches of the Islamic sciences and literary genres, are poor in those research tools that are t…