The Library of the Shinqiti Intellectual Muhammad Yahya Al-Walati as a Model

Abstract

This article examines the library of the Shinqiti intellectual Muhammad Yahya Al-Walati as a model of private book collections in the Shinqiti and Maghrebi cultural environment. It highlights the role of the individual scholar’s library in intellectual formation, cultural production, and the preservation of scholarly memory. The article presents the cultural and social context in which Al-Walati’s library emerged and identifies the sources through which it was formed, including personal acquisition, scholarly travel, gifts, endowed books, and dedicated collections. It also discusses the Shinqiti scholar’s relationship with books through reading, copying, ownership, annotation, and teaching, showing how the library became a space for research and knowledge exchange. The article reviews the nature of the library’s holdings and the fields they represent, including jurisprudence, language, Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, literature, logic, and other branches of Arab-Islamic learning. It concludes that Al-Walati’s library was not merely a set of books, but a heritage witness to the history of reading, acquisition, and scholarly endowment in Shinqit and an important entry point for studying private libraries in Arab heritage.