Chinguetti the library of the desert (Mauritania)

Chinguetti la bibliothèque du désert
Chinguetti (Arabic: شنقيط) is a ksour or ancient trading centre in northern Mauritania, lying on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar.
Founded in the 13th century, as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small threatened city continues to attract visitors who admire its spare architecture, exotic scenery and its ancient libraries.
The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city feature reddish dry stone and mud-brick houses,featuring flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia tress that have long disappeared from the surroundings. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.
Notable buildings in the town include The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti,an ancient structure of dry stone featuring a square minaret capped with five ostrich egg finials; the former French Foreign Legion fortress; and a tall watertower. The old quarter of the Chinguetti is home to five important manuscript libraries of scientific and Qur'anic texts, with many dating from the later Middle Ages.
The Chinguetti region has been occupied for thousands of years and once was a broad savannah. Cave paintings in the nearby Amoghar Pass feature pictures of giraffes, cows and people in a green landscape quite different from the starkly beautiful sand dunes of the desert landscape found in the region today.
The city was originally founded in 777, and by the 11th century had become a trading center for a confederation of Berber tribes known as the Sanhadja Confederation. Soon after settling Chinguetti, the Sanhadja first interacted with and eventually melded with the Almavorids, the founders of the Moorish Empire which stretched from present-day Senegal to Spain. The city's stark unadorned architecture reflects the strict, "Malikite" Islamic beliefs of the Almavorids.
After two centuries of decline, the city was effectively re-founded in the 13th century as a fortified cross-Saharan caravan trading center 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 still date from this period.
For centuries the city was a principal gathering place for pilgrims of the Maghreb to gather on the way to Mecca and it became known as a holy city in its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to the Arab Peninsula. It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship in West Africa. In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries all of Mauritania was popularly known in the Arab world as "Bilad Shinqit, "the land of Chinguetti." Chinguetti is sometimes said to be the seventh holiest city of Islam. There is no recognition of this claim outside of West Africa, but whatever its ranking, 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 medieval manuscript libraries without peer in West Africa, and the area around the Rue des Savants was once famous as a gathering place for scholars to debate the finer points of Islamic law. Today its deserted streets continue to reflect the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.
Today, along with the cities of Ouadane, Tichitt and Oualata, Chinguetti has been designated as a World heritage site. The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti, is widely considered by Mauritanians to be the national symbol of the country. Mauritania's recently discovered offshore oilfield was named Chinguetti in its honor.
While difficult to get to, Chinguetti's stark beauty and exotic, medieval Islamic architecture make the region an interesting, if challenging, tourist destination for both the adventurous traveler and the Islamic scholar.
VALPARD FILMS http://valpardfilms.free.fr

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Mauritania
• Mauritanie
• Mauretanien
• モーリタニア
• 모리타니
• 毛里塔尼亚
• nouvelles
• frontieres
• book
• livre
• buch
• libro
• Chingueti
• Cinguetti
• Cingueti
• Chinguetti
• شنقيط
• موريتانية

[lotorobly]

this look like the moon

a place where to forget softdrinks

[samowski728]

Mother and teacher have a secret life, i am here and refuse to listen to anymore so ur not going to hear anymore of me.

[Farid295]

Красиво там! тихо и спокойно

[xxxTheMadShangixxx]

@TheLazyEvangelist How does following this guy wherever he comments tell your side of the story? He isn't even talking about you and you show up and post your bat-shit-crazy bullshit. You just admitted to stalking him and you try to justify it by claiming that he's been "hacking" you, a claim of which you've provided no proof. I find it disturbing that a mother and a teacher would have a secret life as a YouTube cyberstalker. What would your employers think?

[TheLazyEvangelist]

@keytoothed Good, now that there's a way for people to check comments from me to you, I'm going to have to do this MORE and I will start by telling our story... DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL OUR STORY? IS that what you want, or do you want to call this off?

[TheLazyEvangelist]

He fucking HACKED ME and now I have to stalk him MORE TO TELL MY SIDE OF IT SINCE PEOPLE WILL BE DOING THAT. And why did you flag my video and disable my account?

[xxxTheMadShangixxx]

@TheLazyEvangelist How am I a stalker? I'm not the one following this guy around. You are. Clicking on @keytoothed and seeing all the trolling you do is proof of that. You've been exposed. You could've proved yourself right by leaving keytoothed alone, but you start this account and continue to harass him further, thus once again proving what a whackjob you are. Quit following the guy around and being a creepy stalker.

[TheLazyEvangelist]

@xxxTheMadShangixxx WHY DID HE NOT BLOCK ME FROM MYSPACE? The place I first knew him from. Isn't it because I DON'T CONTACT HIM THERE? Isn't is because I DON'T stalk him? He actually is a hacker and I can prove it but you DISABLED MY ACCOUNT WITH A FALSE FLAG and want to act like other people are in the wrong. WHY ARE YOU A FALSE FLAGGER? Keytoothed this is how low you've sunk, this guy has had so many channels because he just harasses people, and he false flags.

[TheLazyEvangelist]

@TheMadShangi How long have I been following him around? When did I start contacting him on YT? How long AFTER he went after nuclear night? Where did I know him from before? Who deleted whom? And why? Why is everything I say true, but then he says things like "She accused me of being her father." "Your father tried to make you his wife and so you ran away to Asia." ? But I say things like, "this comment is almost verbatim from my blog" (paraphrase), too much to go into MS and your'e a stalker.

[xxxTheMadShangixxx]

@TheLazyEvangelist Jedi, I would say the net criminal is you. You have bizarre stalking tendencies and it needs to stop. You need to stop following around keytoothed and get back to your own life. Your real life.