Introduction:

The text discusses three interconnected topics in the book: authorship, libraries and manuscript repositories, and intellectual currents. Authorship reflects the cultural reality of any nation, influenced by its material, social, and political conditions. The book examines the writing movement among Algerians at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, during a historical period when the Algerian people were subjected to colonization, losing their land and wealth. The manuscript repositories were looted, and transferred to French public and private libraries, and the people faced cultural isolation.

Algerian scholars have a long history of collecting books and establishing libraries, dating back to the introduction of Islam to North Africa. Even rulers contributed to building libraries, as exemplified by the story of Ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustum, who purchased several books from the East. With time, each scholar endeavored to create a personal library, accompanied by scribes, and manuscript repositories were established in various regions of Algeria.

During the French colonial period, the colonizers were astonished by the intellectual production of the Algerians. They seized and destroyed a significant portion of it, while some scholars fled with valuable manuscripts abroad. Libraries, as cultural manifestations, became arenas of cultural and intellectual conflict between the colonizers and the Algerian people. The book explores the colonial efforts to establish libraries and shape them according to colonial policies, as studying the remaining manuscript repositories after fifty years of occupation, particularly in the southern region historical reasons.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Muslim intellectuals in Algeria were divided into three ideological currents based on their stance towards colonial culture and their proposed solutions. The traditional conservative current, deeply rooted in popular circles, opposed any foreign influence attempting to alter Algerian culture. On the other hand, an assimilationist current sought to adopt French culture to attain French citizenship with equal rights and duties, even influencing aspects of daily life such as family, clothing, names, and places. The third current, the reformist, aimed to improve the condition of Muslims without abandoning their identity, drawing on reformist ideas from the East.

In such circumstances, how can we envision the literary movement in Algeria? What are its characteristics and features? How did manuscript repositories contribute to cultural life in Algeria? How did private and public libraries evolve in Algeria at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century? What are the intellectual trends in Algeria during this period? These questions will be addressed by examining the literary movement in the natural and social sciences, focusing on educational books and investigations. Additionally, the study will explore the establishment and development of public libraries, university libraries, municipal libraries, manuscript repositories, and the spread of manuscripts in Algeria during this period, the intellectual currents in Algeria at the end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th century will also be analyzed.

Adrar (Algeria) 23 -09-2023