Chinguetti ( ; ) is a

ksar Ksar or qṣar (), in plural ksour or qsour (), is a type of fortified village in North Africa, usually found in the regions predominantly or traditionally inhabited by Berbers (Amazigh). The equivalent Berber languages, Berber term used is ' ( ...

and a medieval trading center in northern

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

, located on the Adrar Plateau east of

Atar Atar, Ahtra, Atash, Azar () or ''Dāštāɣni'',, s.v. ''agni-.'' is the Zoroastrian concept of holy fire, sometimes described in abstract terms as "burning and unburning fire" or "visible and invisible fire" (Mirza, 1987:389). It is conside ...

. Chinguetti had a population of 4,800 as of 2013. Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery, and ancient libraries. The city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert; high sand dunes mark the western boundary and several houses have been abandoned to the sand. The town is split in two by a

wadi Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...

. On one side, there is the old sector, and on the other the new one. The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses constructed of reddish dry-stone and mud-brick techniques, with flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.

History

Occupied for thousands of years, the Chinguetti region was once a broad

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

; rock paintings at Agrour Amogjar, in the nearby Amogjar Pass, feature images of giraffes, cows, and people in a green landscape. It is quite different from the

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s of the surrounding

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

, which make up most of the region today.

Founding

The city was founded in AD 777. The name ''Chinguetti'' means "spring of horses" in the Azayr language, an extinct dialect of Soninke that was heavily mixed with

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

. The area, at that time far more green than today, was home to agricultural peoples ancestral to several sub-Saharan ethnic groups, including the Soninke.

Center of Trade

By the 11th century, Chinguetti had become a trading center for a confederation of

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

s, known as the ''

Sanhaja The Sanhaja (, or زناگة ''Znāga''; , pl. Iẓnagen, and also Aẓnaj, pl. Iẓnajen) were once one of the largest Berbers, Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zenata, Zanata and Masmuda confederations. Many tribes in Algeria, Libya ...

''. They eventually melded with the Almoravids, represented by Abdallah ibn Yasin, who would eventually control an empire stretching from present-day

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

to ''

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

'' in modern-day

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. The city's stark, unadorned

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

reflects the strict religious beliefs of the Almoravids, who spread the

Maliki The Maliki school or Malikism is one of the four major madhhab, schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas () in the 8th century. In contrast to the Ahl al-Hadith and Ahl al-Ra'y schools of thought, the ...

te rite of

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

throughout the Western

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

. After two centuries of decline, the city was effectively re-founded in the 13th century as a fortified trading-center for nomadic trans-Saharan caravans, and as a means of 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 date from this period.

World Heritage Site

In 1996, UNESCO designated Chinguetti, along with the cities of Ouadane, Tichitt and Oualata, also in the dunes area, as a

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

. Notable buildings in the town include The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti, an ancient structure of dry-stone construction, featuring a square minaret capped with five

ostrich egg The egg of the ostrich (genus ''Struthio'') is the largest of any living bird (being exceeded in size by those of the extinct elephant bird genus '' Aepyornis''). The shell has a long history of use by humans as a container and for decorative ...

finials; the former

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

; and a tall watertower. The old quarter has five important manuscript libraries of scientific and

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

ic texts, with many dating from the later

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. In recent years, the Mauritanian government, the U.S. Peace Corps, and various NGOs have attempted to position the city as a center for adventurous tourists. Visitors may "ski" down its sand dunes, visit the libraries, and appreciate the stark beauty of the Sahara. The Friday Mosque is widely considered by Mauritanians to be the national symbol of the country. The recently discovered offshore

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

was named Chinguetti in its honor.

Religious importance

For centuries, the city was a principal gathering place for

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

s of the

to gather, on their way to

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. It became known as a

holy city A holy city is a city important to the history or faith of a specific religion. Such cities may also contain at least one headquarters complex (often containing a religious edifice, seminary, shrine, residence of the leading cleric of the religi ...

in its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to the

Arab Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

. In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries, all of Mauritania was commonly known in the Arab world as '' Bilad Shinqit,'' "the land of Chinguetti." It is sometimes said to be the seventh-most holy city of

, 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 A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

libraries without peer in West Africa. The area around the ''Rue des Savants'' (or “street of intelligent ones”) was once famous as a gathering place for scholars, and as a place to debate the finer points of

Islamic law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, intan ...

. Today, the quiet city still offers the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.

Climate

In 2021 Chinguetti was featured in a BBC documentary ''Life at 50 degrees C'', which looked at ordinary people living in increasingly inhospitable areas.

Gallery

File:Chinguetti mosquee.jpg, The Great "Friday Mosque" File:Chinguetti-biblio.jpg, Inside a Qur'anic Library File:ChinguettiNewTown.jpg, New town architecture of Chinguetti

Notable residents

* Ahmad ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1863–1913), who was born and lived here, is one of Mauritania's most famous writers. * Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1887–1973), an Islamic scholar.

Notes

External links

Map showing Chinguetti: Fond Typographique 1:200,000", République Islamique de Mauritanie: Chinguetti Sheet NF-28-VI

UNESCO on Chinguetti

Mauritania Today – Chinguetti

''Saudi Aramco World''
U.S. Department of State Reports – Mauritania

Palin's Travels – Chinguetti

Desert libraries

Shinqit Forum
{{Authority control 777 establishments Adrar region Populated places in Mauritania Populated places established in the 8th century World Heritage Sites in Mauritania Archaeological sites in Mauritania Holy cities 8th-century establishments in Africa Ksars