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.
Cutting-edge research in the study of Islamic scholarship and its impact on the religious, political, economic and cultural history of Africa; bridges the europhone/non-europhone knowledge divides to significantly advance decolonial thinking, and extend the frontiers of social science research in Africa.
A political theorist teases out the century-old ideological transformation at the heart of contemporary discourse in Muslim nations undergoing political change. The Arab Spring precipitated a crisis in political Islam. In Egypt Islamists have been crushed. In Turkey they have descended into authoritarianism. In Tunisia they govern but without the label of “political Islam.” Andrew March explores how, before this crisis, Islamists developed a unique theory of popular sovereignty, one that promised to determine the future of democracy in the Middle East. This began with the claim of divine sovereignty, the demand to restore the sharīʿa in modern societies. But prominent theorists of political Islam also advanced another principle, the Quranic notion that God’s authority on earth rests not with sultans or with scholars’ interpretation of written law but with the entirety of the Muslim people, the umma. Drawing on this argument, utopian theorists such as Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb released into the intellectual bloodstream the doctrine of the caliphate of man: while God is sovereign, He has appointed the multitude of believers as His vicegerent. The Caliphate of Man argues that the doctrine of the universal human caliphate underpins a specific democratic theory, a kind of Islamic republic of virtue in which the people have authority over the government and religious leaders. But is this an ideal regime destined to survive only as theory?
Gender and Islam in Africa examines ways in which women in Africa are interpreting traditional Islamic concepts in order to empower themselves and their societies. African women, it argues, have promoted the ideals and practices of equality, human rights, and democracy within the framework of Islamic thought, challenging conventional conceptualizations of the religion as gender-constricted and patriarchal. The contributors come from the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics, gender studies, religious studies, and law. Their depictions of African women's interpreting and reinterpreting of Islam go back into the nineteenth century and up to today, including analyses of how cultural media such as popular song and film can communicate new gender roles in terms of sexuality and direct examinations of religious and religiously based family law and efforts to reform them.
Renowned for its madrassas and archives of rare Arabic manuscripts, Timbuktu is famous as a great center of Muslim learning from Islam’s Golden Age. Yet Timbuktu is not unique. It was one among many scholarly centers to exist in precolonial West Africa. Beyond Timbuktu charts the rise of Muslim learning in West Africa from the beginning of Islam to the present day, examining the shifting contexts that have influenced the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge—and shaped the sometimes conflicting interpretations of Muslim intellectuals—over the course of centuries. Highlighting the significant breadth and versatility of the Muslim intellectual tradition in sub-Saharan Africa, Ousmane Kane corrects lingering misconceptions in both the West and the Middle East that Africa’s Muslim heritage represents a minor thread in Islam’s larger tapestry. West African Muslims have never been isolated. To the contrary, their connection with Muslims worldwide is robust and longstanding. The Sahara was not an insuperable barrier but a bridge that allowed the Arabo-Berbers of the North to sustain relations with West African Muslims through trade, diplomacy, and intellectual and spiritual exchange. The West African tradition of Islamic learning has grown in tandem with the spread of Arabic literacy, making Arabic the most widely spoken language in Africa today. In the postcolonial period, dramatic transformations in West African education, together with the rise of media technologies and the ever-evolving public roles of African Muslim intellectuals, continue to spread knowledge of Islam throughout the continent.
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.
The first comprehensive analysis of Muslim movements of reform in modern sub-Saharan AfricaBased on twelve case studies (Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar and the Comoros), this book looks at patterns and peculiarities of different traditions of Islamic reform. Considering both Sufi- and Salafi-oriented movements in their respective historical contexts, it stresses the importance of the local context to explain the different trajectories of development.The book studies the social, religious and political impact of these reform movements in both historical and contemporary times and asks why some have become successful as popular mass movements, while others failed to attract substantial audiences. It also considers jihad-minded movements in contemporary Mali, northern Nigeria and Somalia and looks at modes of transnational entanglement of movements of reform. Against the background of a general inquiry into what constitutes areform, the text responds to the question of what areform actually means for Muslims in contemporary Africa.Key featuresBiographies of reformist scholars complement the textCase studies are placed in the context of the dynamics of areform in the larger world of IslamAddresses the importance of trans-national entanglements and their formative powerFocuses on the dynamics of social and religious development, the political dynamics of Islamic areform and issues of youth, generational change and gender
Many of the most prominent figures in African-American Islam have been dismissed as Muslim heretics and cultists. Focusing on the works of five of these notable figures—Edward W. Blyden, Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Wallace D. Muhammad—author Edward E. Curtis IV examines the origin and development of modern African-American Islamic thought. Curtis notes that intellectual tensions in African-American Islam parallel those of Islam throughout its history—most notably, whether Islam is a religion for a particular group of people or whether it is a religion for all people. In the African-American context, such tensions reflect the struggle for black liberation and the continuing reconstruction of black identity. Ultimately, Curtis argues, the interplay of particular and universal interpretations of the faith can allow African-American Islam a vision that embraces both a specific group of people and all people.
