"These books are very important to my family and me, the librarian said, as the midday sunlight spilled in through open wooden doors. My relationship with them is like that of a father and his son, he continued. We must protect them until God takes the land and all the people who are on the land."
"Chinguetti is also at the mercy of a changing climate. Mauritania, in northwest Africa, is 90 percent Sahara desert and has faced desertification for centuries. Now, human-induced climate change is an accelerant."
"Those pressures are a big deal for precious books, said Andrew Bishop, a researcher at the University of Wyoming."
Chinguetti, a historical town in Mauritania, was once a center for Islamic learning and rare books. The el-Habot family library is among the few remaining, with librarian Muhammad Gholam el-Habot expressing a deep familial bond with the manuscripts. The town has seen a decline as residents move to larger cities, and it faces severe climate challenges, including desertification and extreme weather, which threaten the preservation of its valuable literary heritage.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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