In his work Timbuctoo the Mysterious, Félix Dubois (1896) describes a typical Koranic school:
“It is a picture one constantly sees in the Sudan. In the shade before the schoolmaster’s house, a collection of children are gathered together in the coolest corner. Arranged in circles and sitting on their heels, they repeat verses of the Koran in chorus, following the inflections, marking the pauses, and imitating the tone indicated to them. They learn to form the Arabic characters by copying a page of the holy book on the wooden tablets which take the place of the too costly paper. From time to time the tablet is washed and set in the sun to dry, after which it is again ready for use.
Reading and writing being accomplished, the master delivers a grammatical and exegetical explanation of the text. He either takes the words one by one, or grouped in sentences, and discourses on the rules of syntax, explains the meaning of the passage, and adds some religious or historical reflections. When the entire Koran has been gone through, the parents, who have offered weekly presents of cowries [shells used as money] or in kind, make a final and more extensive present to the professor, and invite him to a little fete given to their friends and acquaintances.” (290-92)
Based on Dubois’s description, what can you glean about the society within which this Koranic school is situated?
