Chinguetti
Chinguetti
شنقيط(Arabic) City of Libraries | |
|---|---|
 Old town, Chinguetti | |
  Chinguetti Location in Mauritania | |
| Coordinates:20°27′N12°21′W/ 20.450°N 12.350°W | |
| Country |  Mauritania |
| Region | Adrar Region |
| Department | Chinguetti |
| Area | |
| • City | 529.0 km2(204.2 sq mi) |
| Population (2013 census) | |
| • City | 4,800 |
| •Urban | 3,227 |
| Official name | Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | iii, iv, v |
| Designated | 1996 (20thsession) |
| Reference no. | 750 |
| Region | Arab States |
Chinguetti(/ʃɪŋˈɡɛti/shing-GHET-ee;Arabic:شنقيط,romanized:Šinqīṭ) is aksarand a medieval trading center in northernMauritania,located on theAdrar Plateaueast ofAtar.Chinguetti had a population of 4,800 as of 2013.[1]
Founded in the 13th century as the center of severaltrans-Saharan traderoutes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery, and ancient libraries. The city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert; high sand dunes mark the western boundary and several houses have been abandoned to the sand.
The town is split in two by awadi.On one side, there is the old sector, and on the other the new one. The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses constructed of reddish dry-stone and mud-brick techniques, with flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.
History
[edit]Occupied for thousands of years, the Chinguetti region was once a broadsavannah;rock paintings atAgrour Amogjar,in the nearbyAmogjar Pass,feature images of giraffes, cows, and people in a green landscape. It is quite different from thesand dunesof the surroundingdesert,which make up most of the region today.[2]
Founding
[edit]The city was founded in AD 777. The nameChinguettimeans "spring of horses" in theAzayr language,an extinct dialect ofSoninkethat was heavily mixed withBerber.The area, at that time far more green than today, was home to agricultural peoples ancestral to several sub-Saharan ethnic groups, including theSoninke.[3]: 15, 71
Center of Trade
[edit]By the 11th century, Chinguetti had become a trading center for a confederation ofBerbertribes,known as theSanhaja.They eventually melded with theAlmoravids,represented byAbdallah ibn Yasin,who would eventually control an empire stretching from present-daySenegaltoal-Andalusin modern-daySpain.The city's stark, unadornedarchitecturereflects the strict religious beliefs of the Almoravids, who spread theMalikiterite ofSunniIslamthroughout the WesternMaghreb.
After two centuries of decline, the city was effectively re-founded in the 13th century as a fortified trading-center for nomadic trans-Saharancaravans,and as a means of connecting the Mediterranean with Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the walls of the original fortification disappeared centuries ago, many of the buildings in the old section of the city date from this period.
World Heritage Site
[edit]In 1996, UNESCO designated Chinguetti, along with the cities ofOuadane,TichittandOualata,also in the dunes area, as aWorld Heritage Site.[4]Notable buildings in the town includeThe Friday Mosque of Chinguetti,an ancient structure of dry-stone construction, featuring a square minaret capped with fiveostrich eggfinials; the formerFrench Foreign Legionfortress;and a tallwatertower.The old quarter has five important manuscript libraries of scientific andQur'anictexts, with many dating from the laterMiddle Ages.In recent years, the Mauritanian government, the U.S. Peace Corps, and various NGOs have attempted to position the city as a center for adventurous tourists. Visitors may "ski" down its sand dunes, visit the libraries, and appreciate the stark beauty of the Sahara.
TheFriday Mosqueis widely considered by Mauritanians to be the national symbol of the country.[2]The recently discovered offshoreoilfieldwas named Chinguetti in its honor.
Religious importance
[edit]For centuries, the city was a principal gathering place forpilgrimsof theMaghrebto gather, on their way toMecca.It became known as aholy cityin its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to theArab Peninsula.It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship inWest Africa.[5]In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries, all of Mauritania was commonly known in the Arab world asBilad Shinqit,"the land of Chinguetti." It is sometimes said to be theseventh-most holy cityofIslam,[6][7]The city remains one of the world's most important historical sites both in terms of the history of Islam and the history of West Africa.
Although largely abandoned to the desert, the city features a series of medievalmanuscriptlibraries without peer in West Africa. The area around theRue des Savants(or “street of intelligent ones” ) was once famous as a gathering place for scholars, and as a place to debate the finer points ofIslamic law.Today, the quiet city still offers the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.[8]
Climate
[edit]In 2021 Chinguetti was featured in a BBC documentaryLife at 50 degrees C,which looked at ordinary people living in increasingly inhospitable areas.[9]
| Climate data for Chinguetti | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 26.0 (78.8) |
28.6 (83.5) |
30.9 (87.6) |
33.5 (92.3) |
37.1 (98.8) |
40.5 (104.9) |
41.3 (106.3) |
40.4 (104.7) |
39.0 (102.2) |
36.0 (96.8) |
31.1 (88.0) |
26.2 (79.2) |
34.2 (93.6) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 11.5 (52.7) |
13.0 (55.4) |
15.4 (59.7) |
17.7 (63.9) |
21.0 (69.8) |
24.7 (76.5) |
25.7 (78.3) |
25.5 (77.9) |
24.5 (76.1) |
21.3 (70.3) |
16.7 (62.1) |
12.2 (54.0) |
19.1 (66.4) |
| Averageprecipitationmm (inches) | 2 (0.1) |
2 (0.1) |
2 (0.1) |
0 (0) |
1 (0.0) |
2 (0.1) |
6 (0.2) |
18 (0.7) |
18 (0.7) |
7 (0.3) |
4 (0.2) |
2 (0.1) |
64 (2.5) |
| Source:Climate-data.org | |||||||||||||
Gallery
[edit]-
The Great "Friday Mosque" -
Inside a Qur'anic Library -
New town architecture of Chinguetti
Notable residents
[edit]- Ahmad ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiti(1863–1913), who was born and lived here, is one of Mauritania's most famous writers.
- Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti(1887–1973), an Islamic scholar.
See also
[edit]- Chinguetti oil field,Mauritania's first offshore oil field
- Greater Mauritania,(بلاد شنقيط; Bilād Šinqīṭ; Bilad Chinguetti)
- TheChinguetti meteoriteis a find reputed to come from a large unconfirmed “iron mountain”, located in the nearby of the town.
- Documentary filmMAURITANIA - Ouadane to Chinguetti
- Documentary filmThe FORTIFIED town of Chinguetti | SLICE
Notes
[edit]- ^"Chinguetti (Agricultural Urban Commune, Mauritania) - Population Statistics, Charts, Map and Location".citypopulation.de.Retrieved2024-02-16.
- ^abMaglaty, Jeanne (March 2009)."Endangered Site: Chinguetti, Mauritania".Smithsonian Magazine.Smithsonian Institution.Retrieved1 January2024.
- ^Webb, James (1995).Desert frontier: ecological and economic change along the Western Sahel, 1600-1850.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 29.ISBN0299143309.Retrieved25 December2023.
- ^Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata,UNESCO World Heritage Centre,retrieved2017-08-21
- ^"The Importance of Mauritanian Scholars in Global Islam".Middle East Report Online.2021-04-13.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-04-13.Retrieved2021-10-31.
- ^"Chinguetti in the Mauritanian Sahara is the seventh holiest city of Islam".Researche Gate.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-11-13.Retrieved13 November2021.
- ^George Thomas Kurian (1978),Encyclopedia of the Third World: Laos to Zambia,vol. 2, Facts on File, p. 965
- ^"Inside the abandoned city of ancient libraries".BBC.4 March 2020.
- ^"Life at 50 Degrees".BBC.2021.
External links
[edit]
- Map showing Chinguetti: Fond Typographique 1:200,000 ", République Islamique de Mauritanie: Chinguetti Sheet NF-28-VI
- UNESCO on Chinguetti
- Mauritania Today– Chinguetti
- Chinguetti's manuscripts,Saudi Aramco World
- U.S. Department of State Reports – Mauritania
- Palin's Travels– Chinguetti
- Desert libraries
- Shinqit Forum
| Cultural | ||
|---|---|---|
| Natural | ||
| Authority control databases:National |
|---|
