Chinguetti, Mauritania | Oct. 24, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET | 2 min read

Standing in the cool, dry air of the stone library that he has safeguarded for almost half his life, Mohammed Abdullah Ould Gholam Habott recounts how male ancestors in his family cobbled together their collection over three centuries. To purchase Moorish texts, for example, his great-grandfather traveled all the way from the isolated Mauritanian desert city of Chinguetti to Andalusia, an autonomous community in southern Spain.

Mr. Habott is responsible for taking care of more than 1,400 manuscripts at the Habott Library, one of only a few family-run libraries still active in Chinguetti. The manuscripts are among the oldest in West Africa. Many are religious texts, including interpretations of the Quran, but others deal with astrology, grammar, and language.

Mr.…