Mauritania

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...