By Amir Benkelai
The digital project titled “Islam West Africa Collection” by Frédérick Madore is the successor to his award-winning project “Islam Burkina Faso Collection” which has gone offline. The successor includes other nations of West Africa: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. Both projects come from Madore’s body of research and interest in the developing Islamic societies of late 20th century West Africa, where he has archived several resources including but not limited to newspapers, flyers, ads, etc. His work is an incredible effort at bringing African history into English scholarship through archival projects done in the region. For this review, because of the sheer size of the project, there will be a focus on his timeline for the history of “Hajj in Burkina Faso”, where parts of the archive can be explored.
In Tim Sherratt’s paper “Unremembering the Forgotten”, he explores how “histories are ‘forgotten’ not because they are unremembered or undocumented” but that they “sit uncomfortably along more promulgated” histories (Sherratt 127). That is, in the context of Burkina Faso, the history of something like the Hajj would only exist in its own archives but is not as known as, for example, its own independence struggle. Yet, this very part of history contains tragedies and ideals that have constructed the nation. In terms of the timeline, this manifests as the consequences of committing to Hajj, such as being unable to fully return home and thus settling in Sudan or even bringing in home new ideas that cause governmental change. Hence, to simplify the review, it will be going over key examples of what is done well and bad, advantages plus disadvantages, stakeholders, and how it was created.
The stakeholders here are the people of Burkina Faso and the Islamic community. The contents of the timeline are made up of newspapers and articles archived from Burkina Faso and translated into English for the timeline. These writings tell the previously unrecognized stories of people in Burkina Faso, but also the unrecognized story of the Islamic community in the region. An example of this is the slide on the spread of Wahhabism by people returning from their pilgrimage, where several archival resources are cited (Madore, Hajj). It explains how Islam shifted with the introduction of Wahhabism from pilgrims who returned and, in another slide, goes on to cite the creation of a committee to help Muslims engage in Hajj in a safer means (Madore, Hajj). Previously unknown and inaccessible history has now become accessible to all those with an internet connection.
However, in these cited resources, some of them link to collections instead of anything concrete. For example, “Saudi Arabia” in one slide leads to a collection of archived material on the role of that country within broader Burkina Faso Hajj politics (Madore, Hajj). It does not give a concrete idea, then, of where the information was necessarily gathered; the user must scroll through the materials to figure it out. This is something that occurs a couple of times across the timeline. Like Sherratt’s experience in accessing data to create his digital project, Madore does offer insight on the process by which he digitalized pre-existing archives. This, then, implies that Burkina Faso’s archives exist but not in the digital world. That is, Madore had come down to do it for them as part of his research (Madore, About). As Sherratt comments, “access is political”, where here the “political” is the reason behind why the archive may not have been digitalized (Sherratt 130). That is, the act of having the means to digitalize is political in terms of having access to the technology to do so. However, by having an outsider undertake this work, more good is achieved than bad.
It sounds contradictory, but as Madore cites, this “addresses important gaps in the accessibility of resources on Islam in West Africa” by bringing to English scholarship knowledge that was previously unknown, unremembered (Madore, About). In archiving, Madore has moved away from “digitization projects [that] have prioritized manuscripts” and instead focuses on newspapers but also Islam resources that were shared between members, thus preserving them for as long as the drives spin (Madore, About). This act of preservation, of remembering, and of bringing light to the history of Muslim communities to better understand the infrastructure of West African politics is a challenge to the archiving ethic of only preserving what is deemed “important” by arbitrary measures.
This is one of its larger advantages, the other being that individuals can submit entries to be reviewed and then added to the collection. In terms of the timeline, its information is very detailed and well presented, with the links directing users to places they can explore. The disadvantage here then is that these links tend to be collections instead of something specific, but the quotes on the left-hand side do lead to a proper resource. Another advantage is that it entices a user to want to learn more, as it gives enough detail to be sufficient, but also leaves room for questions, like: what happened to the “forgotten Burkinabè”? (Madore, Hajj). The disadvantage, here, becomes that it may be sometimes impossible to answer the questions that are prompted by the gaps of information because that very information may be sparse. However, there are some notable further references, and an entire collection on Hajj alone that is accessible.
It is worth noting here that people within Burkina Faso may be able to somewhat go and see these archives, but likely not all, since Madore did go to newspaper publication offices to access their items. He did a similar thing with some national archives. The ability to access these, as a citizen, may not all be there. This ties back the “access is political” idea but also Sharrett’s idea of how “access will never be open” (Sherratt 130; Sherratt 132).
Therefore, to conclude, this timeline project and the broader collection it is a part of work to the preservation and recognition of African history in combating the political side of access.
Madore, Frédérick. “About · Islam West Africa Collection · IWAC.” Islam.zmo.de, 2023, islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/page/about. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
---. “Hajj in Burkina Faso · Islam West Africa Collection · IWAC.” Islam.zmo.de, 2023, islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/page/hajj-bf. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
---. “Home · Islam West Africa Collection · IWAC.” Islam.zmo.de, 2023, islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/page/home. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
SHERRATT, TIM. “Unremembering the Forgotten.” Debates in the Digital Humanities 2019, edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein, University of Minnesota Press, 2019, pp. 123–40. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctvg251hk.15. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.