Some Notes on the Arabic Manuscripts in the Northern History Research Scheme (NHRS), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria (1962-2020)
Keywords:
Arabic Manuscripts, Ajami, History, Classification, PreservationAbstract
From the establishment of the Northern History Research Scheme (NHRS) in 1962 to the present, there are 1,913 Arabic manuscripts in its various repositories. Despite the plethora of manuscripts covering virtually all the branches of Islamic literature ranging from theology, jurisprudence, Arabic language and literature, philosophy, and astronomy to astrology, many researchers often do not have easy access to the contents of the manuscripts due to a lack of proper classification, as well as some obscurity surrounding their provenance. Using a qualitative, historical and descriptive methodology, this paper throws a little new light on the historical evolution of NHRS, its repositories, classification of manuscripts, and its challenges and prospects. It is part of the findings of the paper that despite a large number of Arabic manuscripts in NHRS, little is known about its corpus (literature) and the group of scholars. This is because, out of the 1,913 Arabic manuscripts available in the NHRS repository, about 900 manuscripts are anonymous.

Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
All articles in The Dyke are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Under this licence:
- Others may copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the work for any purpose, even commercially.
- Appropriate credit must be given to the original author(s) and source (The Dyke), along with a link to the license.
- Any changes made must be indicated.
Full licence details: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Archiving and Preservation
The Dyke supports long-term preservation of scholarly work through partnerships with digital repositories and indexing services, including Sabinet African Journals. Authors are also encouraged to deposit a copy of their published article in institutional or subject-specific repositories.