And what else?
Spent the morning at the Manuscript Library in interesting discussions with Mohammed(right, our new recruit from the Ecole Normale Superieure), Garba and Yelfa the Archivists. It was with regards to a little manuscript with an intriguing subject matter: an encounter between the Prophet Mohammed and Satan. This was listed under the Heading ‘History’ in our database destined for the British Library. I objected that it could not possibly be termed ‘History’, and a conversation ensued which was quite enlightening on the difference between our cultures- for Garba and Yelfa and many believing Muslims, this could be labelled ‘History’, because they believe it is true!
Mohammed our new recruit sided with me however, and we managed to push through our view that a library should adopt a more academic stance, and therefore ‘History’ should keep itself to the accounts of events in the physical world. Such accounts are normally called ‘Tariqs’, such as the famous ‘Tariq es Soudan’. We came to the conclusion that the encounter between Mohammed and Satan should go into the literature section...

Talking of literature, Mohammed told me he has come across manuscripts at the library with love poetry by a well known poet: the deliciously and improbably named Imroul Kiss!