Allo kafi gida. Secret contemporary plates from northern Nigeria.
| N° d'inventaire | 21997 |
| Format | 24.5 x 34 |
| Détails | 192 p., hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9788874398737 |
The Quranic tablets called allo kafii gida, preserved by the Hausa ethnic group who inhabit northern Nigeria, are shrouded in secrecy. The Hausa are afraid to reveal to outsiders the auspicious formulas that adorn these objects. And they also refuse to take the risk of displaying representations of human beings and animals in an iconoclastic Islamic context. Even today, radical Islam severely punishes the possession of allo kafii gida with penalties that can include execution. Had they not been rescued over time, all the tablets in this book would have been doomed to destruction by Muslim fundamentalists. The creators of the decorations that adorn the Quranic tablets are not mere illustrators; they are true storytellers: they painted on these wooden boards the stories that reflect their society's cosmic vision. Through artistic creation, they incorporated foreign and distant ideas into the Hausa system of thought, making these allo kafii gida veritable cosmological capsules on wood. In this difficult context, the owners of these works of art can be described as "conservatives", because these secret tablets, although linked to the Muslim religion, bear witness to Hausa cosmology. The objects whose photographs illustrate this work, unique in the field of non-European arts, belong to a private collection, the fruit of more than twenty years of research.
The Quranic tablets called allo kafii gida, preserved by the Hausa ethnic group who inhabit northern Nigeria, are shrouded in secrecy. The Hausa are afraid to reveal to outsiders the auspicious formulas that adorn these objects. And they also refuse to take the risk of displaying representations of human beings and animals in an iconoclastic Islamic context. Even today, radical Islam severely punishes the possession of allo kafii gida with penalties that can include execution. Had they not been rescued over time, all the tablets in this book would have been doomed to destruction by Muslim fundamentalists. The creators of the decorations that adorn the Quranic tablets are not mere illustrators; they are true storytellers: they painted on these wooden boards the stories that reflect their society's cosmic vision. Through artistic creation, they incorporated foreign and distant ideas into the Hausa system of thought, making these allo kafii gida veritable cosmological capsules on wood. In this difficult context, the owners of these works of art can be described as "conservatives", because these secret tablets, although linked to the Muslim religion, bear witness to Hausa cosmology. The objects whose photographs illustrate this work, unique in the field of non-European arts, belong to a private collection, the fruit of more than twenty years of research.