The Library of the Sufi Brotherhood al-Nāṣiriyya in Tamgrūt, Morocco

Abstract Research into the history of libraries as institutions in the Islamicate world, rather than as reservoirs of the oldest and rarest manuscripts, has been gaining momentum in recent years. However, libraries in the western part of the Islamicate world have not yet received sufficient attention. The library of the Sufi brotherhood al-Nāṣiriyya in Tamgrūt is an outstanding example that was founded in the mid-seventeenth century on the edge of the Sahara in southern Morocco. There, Maḥammad b. Nāṣir al-Darʿī (d. 1085/1674) and his son Aḥmad b. Nāṣir “al-Khalīfa” al-Darʿī (d. 1129/1717) established a centre of knowledge that quickly became well-known, far beyond Morocco’s borders, for its imposing library, which still houses an impressive collection of 4,777 manuscripts today. This paper traces the history of the library from its founding to its closure during French colonial rule and its reopening after Moroccan independence. It considers the library as a physical structure and an organization, as well as how it functioned as a fundamental part of higher education in the Sufi lodge. Then, I present the results of a statistical analysis of Ḥamīd Laḥmar’s six-volume catalogue published in 2013. Through this analysis, which focuses on 873 manuscripts from the collection that were dated and copied by identified copyists before 1720, I construct a profile of the library that highlights how research into such institutions can help correct long-held assumptions about the intellectual history of the Islamicate world in the early modern period.