Presents a collection of papers on aspects of Islam in Africa. This book intends to establish an independent and indigenous school of African history that sees history through African eyes.
Islam is considered the worlds fastest-growing religion, and today more than 420 million Africans follow the Islamic faith. Since Islam was introduced to the continent during the seventh century a.d., it has had a profound political and cultural influence on Africa. This book traces the historical spread of Islam throughout Africa. It also examines current issues and controversies surrounding the Muslim faith in Africa, including fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, efforts to impose Islamic law in countries with mixed Muslim and non-Muslim populations, and religious-based violence.
This text explores the theme of intra-Islamic tensions in North and West Africa, the result largely of the rise of radical Islamist movements in countries such as Egypt, Algeria and the Sudan.
The first book length-work on Afa Ajura and translation of his complete poems This is the first English translation of and commentary on the collected poems of Alhaj YŠ«suf á¹¢Ä?liḥ Ajura (1910–2004), a northern Ghanaian orthodox Islamic scholar, poet, and polemicist known as Afa Ajura, or “scholar from Ejura.” The poems, all handwritten in Arabic script, mainly in the Ghanaian language of Dagbani and also Arabic, explore the author’s socio†‘religious beliefs. In the accompanying introduction, the translator examines the diverse themes of the poems and how they challenge TijÄ?niyyah Sufi clerics and traditional practices such as idol worship.
This handbook generates new insights that enrich our understanding of the history of Islam in Africa and the diverse experiences and expressions of the faith on the continent. The chapters in the volume cover key themes that reflect the preoccupations and realities of many African Muslims. They provide readers access to a comprehensive treatment of the past and current traditions of Muslims in Africa, offering insights on different forms of Islamization that have taken place in several regions, local responses to Islamization, Islam in colonial and post-colonial Africa, and the varied forms of Jihād movements that have occurred on the continent. The handbook provides updated knowledge on various social, cultural, linguistic, political, artistic, educational, and intellectual aspects of the encounter between Islam and African societies reflected in the lived experiences of African Muslims and the corpus of African Islamic texts.
"Africas Islamic Experiences- History, Culture, and Politics Edited by Ali A. Mazrui, Patrick M. Dikirr, Robert Ostergard Jr., Michael Toler & Paul Macharia This volume is rich in historic surprises about the fortunes of Islam in African experience, Islam first arrived in African while the Prophet Muhammad, the Founder of the religion, was still alive, Ethiopia provided asylum to early Arab Muslims on the run from persecution by fellow Arabs in pre-Islamic Mecca, Today Nigeria has more Muslims than any Arab country, including Egypt. This volume explores not just Islam's impact upon Africa but also Africa's impact on Muslim history. The book explores the geographical expansion of the religion, the revival of ancient Muslim rituals, and the politicization and radicalization of Islam in both colonial and pre-colonial Africa. Is Islam compatible with democracy? Can African Islam peacefully coexist with Christianity? How has Islam in Africa influenced architecture, Literature, race relations, gender relation, and cultural interpenetrations between Arabs and Black Africans? In this era of globalization is Islam a positive vanguard force or a trigger for parochialism and backward-looking nostalgia? In this era of terrorism and counter-terrorism can Islam be mobilized as a force for stability or has the religion been irretrievably hijacked by its own worst radicals? This volume does not try to answer all the questions, but it helps to lay the basic groundwork for understanding Islam much better in this new age.
Thoughtful and challenging, this book argues for a reassessment of the role historically played by Islam in Africa, and offers new hope for in creased mutual understanding between African people of different faiths. Drawing on a wealth of sources, from the colonial period to the most up-to-date scholarship, the author challenges the widely held perception th at, while Christianity oppressed and subjugated the African people, Islam fitted comfortably into the indigenous landscape. Instead, this penetrating account reveals Muslim settlers to be as guilty of enforcing slavery and conversion as those of their more maligned sister tradition. Only with an acknowledgement of the true roles of both faiths in African history, suggests Azumah, can the people of both traditions move themselves and their continent towards a new future of tolerance and self-awareness.
The history of the Islamic faith in Africa spans 14 centuries. This book provides a detailed mapping of the cultural, political, geographic and religious past of Islam in a single volume. Intended as a reference and textbook, it does not assume prior knowledge of the subject.