This catalog accompanies a fascinating and innovative exhibition documenting the art in medieval Saharan Africa, first shown at the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, from Jan. 26 to July 21, 2019, then at The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, from Sept. 21 2019 to
Feb. 23, 2020, and finally at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, April 8 to Nov. 29, 2020. To bring all those very valuable objects together and to organize this exhibit, represents a major task involving many people. Here I want to concentrate only
on the catalog itself, magisterially edited by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, Block Museum of Art.