Privacy
This is a reading room. You can read all of it without telling it anything about yourself.
Who runs this site
The First Refuge, at ferrand.africa, is kept by Abd al-Rahim Ferrand and built and operated by his studio, Ameen Systems, in the United States. For anything about privacy, write to privacy@ferrand.africa. By mail: The First Refuge, PO Box 2, Darlington, SC 29540.
What is collected when you visit
Server logs. Like every web server, the one behind this site records each request: the time, the page, your IP address and the browser you used. These logs are used to keep the site running and to spot attacks. Archived logs are deleted within 90 days.
Nothing else. There are no visitor accounts, no comment forms, no newsletter and no contact form. The site does not ask for your name or your email address.
Cookies
The site sets no cookies for readers. Its network provider, Cloudflare, may set a short-lived security cookie if it needs to check that a visitor is not an automated attack. That cookie is used for security only, never for advertising.
Analytics and advertising
There are none. No analytics script, no advertising, no tracking pixels and no social media widgets run on these pages. Fonts and images are served from this site itself, so reading a page does not contact any other company’s servers.
Who processes data for this site
Namecheap, Inc. (United States) hosts the site and holds the server logs.
Cloudflare, Inc. (United States) carries traffic between you and the site, filters attacks, and sees the same request details a server would. Under the site’s security rules, visitors from some regions may be turned away by Cloudflare before they reach the site.
Ameen Systems (United States) built the site and watches over it from its own server through a plugin called Ameen Bridge. That connection carries technical status, such as software versions, uptime and error logs. It does not carry information about visitors.
Nobody else. No data is sold or shared for marketing.
If you write to us
Email sent to this site’s addresses is read by the keeper and kept only as long as the conversation needs. It is not added to any list.
Signing in
Only the site’s keeper signs in. Failed attempts to sign in are recorded with their IP address by Loginizer, a security plugin that runs on this site’s own server, to block repeated guessing. Those records are deleted within 90 days.
Where AI is used
Writing. The text was drafted and fact checked with the help of an AI system, then checked against the listed sources. The keeper answers for it.
Images. No image on this site is generated by AI. The pictures are historical works in the public domain, and the map is drawn by code from public map data.
Your data. Nothing a visitor does on this site is sent to an AI system, because the site collects nothing from visitors.
Your choices and rights
You can ask what the site holds about you, and ask for it to be corrected or deleted, by writing to privacy@ferrand.africa. Because the site keeps only server logs, the answer will usually be short. Wherever you live, you will get a reply within 30 days.
Children
The site is written for general readers and students. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.
Quotations, endorsements and payments
The site carries no testimonials and no reviews. It sells nothing and has no subscriptions, so there is nothing that renews.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the change is noted on the sources page.