Professor Hall's research is focused on the intellectual and social history of a region of West Africa called the Sahel, which straddles the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It encompasses the modern countries of Mauritania, Mali and Niger. Most of the research that he has carried out has been based in and around the northern Malian town of Timbuktu, in a sub-region of the Sahel called the Niger Bend. He has worked in Timbuktu because it is the site of remarkable collections of written sources in Arabic from across the Sahel and further a field in the Muslim world. His work is located...

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Mohamed Hamed

Middle Eastern and Near Eastern Studies Librarian

UC Berkeley Library

Mohamed Hamed joined the University of California, Berkeley Library in 2017 as the new Middle Eastern & Near Eastern Studies Librarian. Mohamed joins the Library from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where, for the last seven years, he has been the Middle Eastern & African Studies Librarian. He has earned a BA, MA, and PhD in Library and Information Science from Cairo University. Previous professional affiliations include The American University in Cairo, Santa Monica College Library, and Arabic Language instruction at UNC Chapel Hill. Professionally Mohamed...