Field and river

20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES20)
Mekelle University, Ethiopia

"Regional and Global Ethiopia - Interconnections and Identities"
1-5 October, 2018

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THE MUSLIM SCHOLARS’ CONTRIBUTION OF KADITO CLAN (FAMILY) AT DALE TRADITIONAL SCHOOL: THE CASE OF AWSA SULTANATE [Abstract ID: 1304-09]

MOHAMMED Idriss Moussa, Head of Afar-Af Department Semera University; M.A. Ethiopian Linguistics and Philology Addis Ababa University

In this presentation, Arabic MSS from the ʽAfar-speaking part of Ethiopia, particularly MSS copied or written by the Kādīto family (main clan of the Đālé al-Šarīfa tribe) will be studied. This family was a leading contributor to Islam in the Awsa Sultanate through its Đālé traditional school. A branch of the family settled in the Tajorra Sultanate in the northern part of the Republic of Djibouti over several centuries. Many manuscripts and documents of this scholarly family have been lost, as informants recount, above all during the Derg regime. The elderly people in the locality assert all in all that a history of this family can be handled by oral sources that have come down from generation to generation. This paper deals with this famous scholarly clan of Kādīto and their well-known traditional school at Đālé. In particular, this study focuses on the manuscripts of the Kādīto family originating in the library of Ɖāle traditional school. As the first step of my research, four MSS in Addis Ababa brought from Ɖālé by ʽAli Aḥmad Kādī who himself belongs to the Kādīto clan. Further, my research pursued to locate more MSS during my three field trips to the area of Đālé. In the library at Đālé it is succeeded in finding many manuscripts by Kādīto scholars as well as some MSS from outside Đālé. All available sources and particularly key informants will support the preparation of this paper.