We have pleasure in presenting to readers the fourth volume of our projected series of six volumes whose purpose is to provide a bio-bibliographical account of the Arabic literature of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, and, in so far as is feasible in the present state of research, the literatures in African languages used by Muslims. Our aim is to provide for these regions a reference tool comparable with those of Carl Brockelmann and Fuat Sezgin for the wider Islamic world. Indeed, in so far as …