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A Short Report on Newly Identified Manuscripts of Miṣbāḥ al-Arwāḥ: A Treatise Authorizing Takfīr in the Early Sokoto Caliphate Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Kota Kariya
Miṣbāḥ al-arwāḥ fī uṣūl al-falāḥ, written by a fifteenth-century Maliki scholar from Tlemcen, Muḥammad al-Maghīlī (d. c. 1505), had a great influence on the religious and legal thought of ʿUthmān b. Fūdī (d. 1817), the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, and the issue of takfīr in the history of his jihad movement. Although this work has not been fully examined because only one manuscript was previously
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No Longer ‘Christian’ Education: Ulama Edupreneurship in Ilorin 1995–2022 Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-31 Sakariyau Alabi Aliyu
Due to its Christian roots, western education in Nigeria was initially resisted by Muslims as Judeo-Christian agenda, despite some acquiescence and appropriation of values of western education for Islamic education system. However, from the mid-1980s, neoliberal economic policies led to decline of government responsibility over education, and by the new millennium, private enterprise had become the
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The Qurʾān and Knowledge of God in West Africa: The Sufi Tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Zachary Wright
Qurʾān exegesis (tafsīr) in African Muslim societies represented the pinnacle of scholarly achievement, and public explanation of the Qurʾān was the event that marked the emergence of one of Africa’s most successful Sufi revivals, the “Community of the Flood” of the Senegalese Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (d. 1975). Niasse’s network of knowledge transmission, foregrounding the direct experiential knowledge
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ʿAjamī Literacies of Africa: The Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, and Wolof Traditions Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Fallou Ngom, Daivi Rodima-Taylor, David Robinson
African ʿAjamī literatures hold a wealth of knowledge on the history and intellectual traditions of the region but are largely unknown to the larger public. Our special issue seeks to enhance a broader understanding of this important part of the Islamic world, exploring the ʿAjamī literatures and literacies of four main language groups of Muslim West Africa: Hausa, Mandinka, Fula, and Wolof. Through
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ʿAjamī Script in Senegambian Mandinka Communities Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Ousmane Cisse
The article discusses the rich oral and written traditions of the Mandinka communities in West Africa. Their oral traditions, which are embodied by the jali (griot) caste, have served for centuries to transmit multiple forms of knowledge between generations. Besides their oral traditions, multiple forms of literacy coexist with illiteracy in the Mandinka communities in Senegambia. The first form of
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The Fuuta Jalon ʿAjamī Tradition Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 David Newman Glovsky, Abubakar Jalloh
Fula ʿAjamī texts have served as an important pedagogical tool, allowing for the spread of Islamic knowledge. ʿAjamī texts were crucial to compiling and circulating Islamic knowledge, inculcating “proper” behavior, and disseminating knowledge about the region’s history. This article situates Fula ʿAjamī texts in the broader history of Fuuta Jalon, emphasizing the role of these texts in the region’s
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The Geographic Spaces of ʿAjamī in West Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Karen S. Barton, Fallou Ngom
The article highlights the geographical dimensions of African ʿAjamī traditions, with an emphasis on the Wolof, Fula, Mandinka, and Hausa traditions. It examines the spatial variation of these traditions, as well as their specific uses in different geographical spaces, places, and realms. The article shows how ʿAjamī documents – both historic and contemporary archives – are ubiquitous across Muslim
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The Role of ʿAjamī in Hausa Literary Production Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Jennifer J Yanco, Mustapha Hashim Kurfi
Islamic education and literacy were present in Hausaland long before the jihad of Usman ɗan Fodio, which culminated in the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1804. While ʿAjamī made its way into Hausaland with the spread of Islam, its use today is not limited to sacred or religious texts. In fact, it serves as a medium for the diffusion of information through newspapers, personal correspondence
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African ʿAjamī Library Project: A Ten-Year Retrospective Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Eleni Castro
This article provides an in-depth look at the past ten years of the African ʿAjamī Library project, founded and led by Dr. Fallou Ngom, Professor of Anthropology and former Director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, with the goal to serve as a digital continental open access public repository of aggregated digitized ʿAjamī texts from non-Europhone Africa. With over 31,400 pages of
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African ʿAjamī in the Digital Environment: Typographic and Technological Challenges Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Mark Jamra, Neil Patel
With Africa poised at the threshold of a typographic renaissance, its writing systems often face unique challenges when entering the digital environment. This chapter offers an overview of the current state of technical support for the digitization and creation of African ʿAjamī texts, the fonts and input methods currently available for that task, and the technical challenges remaining to be resolved
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“Beating the Drums in God’s Wrestling Arena”: Spirituality Translated into Local Metaphor in Wolof Sufi ʿAjamī Poetry Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Gana Ndiaye, Margaret Rowley, Elhadji Djibril Diagne
How do ʿAjamī scholars translate Sufi spirituality and esoteric concepts into a language accessible to their audience? The body of Senegalese Wolof ʿAjamī poetry often seeks to translate divine concepts into a language that is local, both in time and place. This translation takes place within the local language in all of its literary dimensions. For the Wolof ʿAjamī poet, proverbs, parables, and metaphors
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Word as Nourishment: Mandinka Proverbs of Senegambia Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Bala Saho
Using Mandinka ʿAjamī sources, the article explores the meaning, purpose, and usefulness of proverbs among the Mandinka people of Casamance, Senegal and The Gambia who speak the variety known as Western Mandinka. Proverbs are by nature vehicles for the transmission of moral, ethical, and philosophical wisdom in society. Therefore, they serve as pivotal educational tools. This article examines their
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Fables (Qiṣaṣ) and Muslim Cultural Discourse in Nigeria Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-13 Musa Ibrahim
Qiṣaṣ, historical and moral stories told in the Quran and hadiths, are among the factors that make and reshape Muslim cultural discourse. While Quranic sources are short and often not elaborated enough to provide a context from which different scenarios could be created, Muslims rely on fables from contested sources to adapt the qiṣaṣ to various cultural environments, languages, and media. In this
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A History of a Traveling Qurʾān Manuscript in Inhambane, Mozambique Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-04 Chapane Mutiua
The present article traces the history of a Qurʾān manuscript that, according to oral testimony, travelled from Oman to Inhambane via Zanzibar between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The manuscript is kept at the Jam’a Mosque in the city of Inhambane, southern Mozambique. Inhambane fell under the sphere of influence of the ancient sheikhdom of Sofala, founded by Swahili Arab traders
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Transoceanic Print Histories: Twentieth-Century Swahili Muslim Networks in the Indian Ocean Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-23 Annachiara Raia
At a time of sociocultural changes that started questioning established Islamic learning traditions (independence years, post-Cold War/book market liberalization), printing diasporas exerted influence on the circulation of Islamic texts in East Africa: published overseas (Cairo, Beirut, and the Indian subcontinent) and/or locally reprinted on the Swahili-speaking Islamic coast, they came to play a
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End Times and the Modern World: The Ahmadiyya in Colonial Ghana Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 John H. Hanson
The Ahmadiyya, a messianic Muslim missionary movement that expanded globally from South Asia, provided religious, social, and educational services and offered a compelling End Times message in colonial Ghana. An Ahmadi missionary arrived at the invitation of African Muslims, who learned about the movement from the Ahmadiyya’s English-language publications. Africans negotiated the terms of the mission’s
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The Formation of Muslim Minorities within a Muslim Majority Context: the Case of Shia Groups in Nigeria Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Musa Ibrahim
Focusing on al-Ḥaraka al-Islamiyya fī Nayjīriyā (Islamic Movement in Nigeria), which is the largest Shia group in the country, this article examines Shia’s growth and social relations between its members and the Sunni majority. It analyses how the imn uses its structure, networks, and reform programs to spread Shia at the grassroots despite theological and political opposition from the Sunni majority
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Introduction: the Formation of Religious Minorities in Muslim Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Terje Østebø, Benedikt Pontzen
Minorities are not defined by mere numbers but must be considered as emergent formations within their wider surroundings. As such, minorities are defined by the relations to their majorities, especially by the differences to, but also by their exchanges with them, which have an impact on their lives and communal identities. Minorities emerge in larger processes and narratives by which their surrounding
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ngo-ization as Legitimization: The “Engineering” of a Senegalese Shi‘i Islamic Development Model Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Mara A. Leichtman
Senegal’s Shi‘i Muslim leaders have been establishing religious centers as ngo s, which bring material and spiritual development to neighborhoods and villages. Obtaining ngo status grants legitimacy and convinces a growing network of followers of the wider benefits of adhering to a minority branch of Islam. This article uses a framework of “development brokerage,” “religious engineering,” and “translation”
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Reconsidering the Intellectual Relationship between Muḥammad al-Maghīlī and ʿUthmān b. Fūdī: A Comparative Examination of Ajwiba and Sirāj al-Ikhwān Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-30 Kota Kariya
It has been frequently stated that ʿUthmān b. Fūdī (d. 1817), founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, was influenced by the works of Muḥammad al-Maghīlī (d.c. 1505), a Maliki jurist from Maghrib, in the formation of his religious and juristic views. However, their intellectual relationship has not been fully scrutinized based on a concrete and detailed comparison of their works. By closely comparing two of
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Of Patience and Pity: Rewriting and Reciting the Widely Travelled Islamic Poem “The Hawk and the Dove” in East Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Clarissa Vierke
The Swahili poem of “The Hawk and the Dove” (Kozi na Ndiwa) has long been popular along the Swahili coast. In brief, the poem tells the story of the prophet Musa, who is put to the test by the angels Mikaili and Jibrili, disguised as a dove and a hawk. The dove, fleeing the famished hawk, finds refuge in the folds of Musa’s clothes. The bird of prey, approaching Musa, claims its right to the dove,
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Faithful Journeys: Unpacking the Religious Luggage of Senegalese Murid Migrants in Europe Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-11-21 Mayke Kaag
This contribution aims to approach the theme of a traveling Islam by starting from moving people and considering how their religious “luggage”—in terms of beliefs, ideas, and practices—travels with them and what this means for the circulation of religious ideas in Africa and beyond. The paper focuses particularly on Senegalese migrants of the Murid Sufi order residing in Italy and the Netherlands;
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The Ahmadis of Cape Town and the Spectre of Heresy: Polemics, Apostates and Boycotts Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-10 Nadeem Mahomed
The principal issue which this paper addresses is the identity and status of the minority Ahmadi community within the larger majoritarian Sunni Muslim community in Cape Town (itself a minority in the country), which was characterised by hostility, violence and exclusion perpetrated against the Ahmadi community. By examining archival material, local Muslim publications and interviews regarding events
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A Beninese Imam’s Controversial 2019 Election Campaign: Muslim Leadership and Political Engagement in a Minority Context Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-10 Frédérick Madore
In Benin, the general furor surrounding the 2019 legislative elections held without opposition parties caused many to overlook the fact that Ibrahim Ousmane, a well-known imam from Cotonou, was ultimately elected to the National Assembly. His decision to run in the elections had sparked intense debates over political participation, the criteria used to select the community’s “legitimate” representatives
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Between the Local and the Global: The Iranian Revolution and Sunni-Shia Relations in South Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-10 Goolam Vahed
This article charts the contours of Sunni-Shia relations in South Africa, with a particular focus on the period since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which was received positively by many Muslims in a context of American hegemony globally and heightened anti-apartheid political activism locally. The growth of Saudi Arabian funded religious organisations within the Sunni majority community, and similar
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Media Representations of Local Muslim Associations’ Acts of Charity in Zambia’s Multi-Religious but Christian-Dominated Context since the 2010s Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-10 Nelly Mwale
Using media representations, this article explores how the media presents Islamic charity in a multi-religious but Christian-dominated context of Zambia. It shows that representations of local Muslim associations’ acts of charity ranged from rendering support to the vulnerable (in the form of donations of assorted items to communities, schools, hospitals and prisons), to undertaking community development
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The Quest for Survival, Cohesion and Voice for the Muslim Minority in Maniema, dr Congo Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-10 Ashley E. Leinweber
The history of the Congolese Muslim minority was one of marginalization. Islam arrived in the Maniema province of eastern Congo in the pre-colonial period with Swahili-Arab traders in search of ivory and slaves. Congolese Muslims experienced intense repression during Belgian colonial rule, resulting in detachment from politics and the state. In addition, deep internal divisions at local, provincial
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Ambiguous Positionings: The Politics and Experiences of Moral Learning at Gülen Movement Schools in Urban Tanzania Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Kristina Mashimi
This article examines the ambiguous positionings of the Gülen Movement (gm) in the religiously mixed setting of urban Tanzania, particularly in education. It argues that the gm has capitalised on its identity as a not-explicitly-Muslim minority group within the privatised educational market in Tanzania, making its schools an option for Muslim and Christian families alike. Against the backdrop of Tanzania’s
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Kenyan Muslims’ Minority Status: Theological Divisions, Ethno-Racial Competition and Ambiguous Relations with the State Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Hassan Juma Ndzovu
On the surface, Islam in Kenya presents a continued competition between Sufi-oriented orders and the Salafi-minded Muslims. This article argues that the controversies between “traditional” and “modern” forms of Islam in the country is an indication of the plurality of ways in which Muslims, in a minority context, makes sense of their religious identities. Changing political circumstances in Kenya in
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A Muslim Minority and the Use of Media: Charismatic Aesthetics of the Ahmadiyya in West Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Katrin Langewiesche
The minority status of the Ahmadiyya is linked to the doctrine of this movement, described by some as heterodox, by others as non-Islamic, but also in connection to their minority demographics, whether in Burkina Faso, the country under scrutiny here, or within the overall Muslim population. The article examines the special case of the Ahmadiyya to answer general issues regarding the transnational
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A State of (Dis)unity and Uncertain Belonging: The Central African Republic and its Muslim Minority Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Laura Collins, Gino Vlavonou
This article examines how existing in a larger socio-political environment of contested national belonging shapes Muslims’ experiences in the Central African Republic (car). We draw on data gathered between 2017 and 2019 from various archival sources and in-depth interviews with Muslim religious leaders and non-Muslims in car’s capital, Bangui. We argue that through claims to autochthony a dual logic
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Studying Muslim Minorities in Subsaharan Africa: Preliminary Remarks Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Dorothea E. Schulz
The introduction to the special issue on Muslim minorities in Subsaharan Africa argues that a focus on the circumstances and challenges faced by them opens up productive lines of inquiry into forms of religious coexistence and plurality, in Subsaharan Africa and elsewhere. Starting from a conceptual reflection on different forms of religious plurality, the article enters a plea for more a sustained
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An Embassy from the Sultan of Darfur to the Sublime Porte in 1791 Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-03-03 A.C.S. Peacock
This article presents documents relating to the embassy sent by Sultan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān of Darfur to the Ottoman Sultan Selim III in 1791. These include an original Arabic letter which is an unusually early surviving example of sultanic correspondence from the Sahel. The documents permit a new interpretation of the purposes of the embassy, as well as an examination of chancery practice in Darfur, and
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Muhammad Bello’s Curriculum of Study, as Detailed in Ḥāshiya ʿalā muqaddimat Īdāʿ al-nusūkh and Shifāʾ al-asqām: the Books and Teachers of Sokoto’s Second Ruler Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-03-03 Paul Naylor
In Muslim West Africa it is common practice for scholars to make a note of their teachers and the books they studied with them. Such bibliographical records both certify academic credentials and, in the nineteenth century, were a vital part of political legitimacy as a series of scholar-warriors took power across the Sahel region. Muhammad Bello, who ruled Sokoto between 1817 and his death in 1837
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Print Culture, Islam and the Politics of Caution in Late Colonial Dar es Salaam: A History of Ramadhan Machado Plantan’s Zuhra, 1947–1960 Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-03-03 James R. Brennan
This article examines the history of Ramadhan Machado Plantan’s newspaper Zuhra, an independent African weekly newspaper that served as both an advocate for Dar es Salaam’s Muslim African community, as well as a kind of spiritual advisor and diviner. The content of Zuhra engages with a host of issues that were germane to its reading public, some of which were conventionally nationalist (segregation
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“Useful” Knowledge and Moral Education in Zanzibar Between Colonial and Islamic Reform, 1916–1945 Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-03-03 Caitlyn Bolton
The introduction of colonial schooling in Zanzibar was aimed at improving economic productivity, drawing on an exchange of educational theory with the American South to ensure a labor supply for the post-emancipation plantation economy. Yet colonial officials faced a key problem: students did not attend, preferring instead to continue studying in Qur’anic schools, institutions roundly derided by colonial
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Reading Ibāḍī Women’s Legacies through Stone Town’s Built Environment Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-17 Kimberly T. Wortmann
This article explores how women of means in nineteenth-century Zanzibar used their built legacies to convey their piety and authority even though they were not active in public religious life. The focus of the study is an old Ibāḍī mosque named after its founder, ‘Aisha bint Jumʻa al-Mughayri, and the tombstone of her younger female relative Muhayra bint Jumʻa al-Mughayri. While the details of the
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Application of Muslim Family Law as a Form of Customary Law in Accra, Ghana Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Fulera Issaka-Toure
This article examines the central role of the malam (Islamic scholar) in the application of Muslim family law in a legal plural tradition in Accra, Ghana. It demonstrates that the role of the malam as a legal actor is one which is not self-ascribed, yet his deployment of such role is significant in how we understand the interaction of various bodies of laws and their hierarchies. The article shows
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Application of Muslim Personal Law in the Kenyan Courts: Problems and Prospects Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Abdulkadir Hashim
This paper examines the application of Muslim personal law in the Kenyan courts. It addresses jurisprudential issues which engage conventional government judges, magistrates and kadhis (Islamic judges). The interaction between the conventional and religious courts has paved the way for a conflict of laws on matters related to Muslim personal law and has led to an interesting scenario of constructive
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Introduction: Current Perspectives on Islamic Family Law in Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Fulera Issaka-Toure, Ousseina D. Alidou
This special issue of Islamic Africa brings together new critical perspectives on the status of Islamic Family Law, commonly referred to as sharīʿa, within four African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Senegal – each reflecting distinctive gendered cultural, colonial and postcolonial realities. The introduction provides a general overview of the state of the art on Islamic family law in Africa
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Mauro Nobili, Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith: Aḥmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Madina Thiam
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Mamadou Lo, Un Aspect de la Poésie “Wolofal” Mouride: L’Éducation Morale et Spirituelle de l’Aspirant (al Murid) dans la Production de Sëriñ Mbay Jaxate. Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Fallou Ngom
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Stephanie Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad: Sokoto Jihadism and the Islamic Frontier in West Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Paul Naylor
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Katherine Ann Wiley, Work, Social Status, and Gender in Post-Slavery Mauritania Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Khaled Esseissah
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Silvia Bruzzi, Islam and Gender in Colonial Northeast Africa: Sitti ‘Alawiyya, the Uncrowned Queen Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Alaine Hutson
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Sarah Hillewaert, Morality at the Margins: Youth, Language, and Islam in Coastal Kenya Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Tabea Scharrer
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“Please Give Me My Voice”: Women’s Out-of-Court Divorce in a Secondary City in Senegal Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-17 Annelien Bouland
Divorce is not uncommon among Muslims in Senegal and tends to take place outside of court, even if the Senegalese Family Code has made out-of-court divorce illegal. Yet little is known about how women in particular may obtain divorce outside of the court. This article provides ethnographic material on the way women divorce out-of-court, and the repertoires of justification they draw on. In line with
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Muslim Family in Northern Mozambique: Sharīʿa, Matriliny and the Official Legislation in Paquitequete Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-09 Liazzat J. K. Bonate
Although Islam has a long history in coastal northern Mozambique, the question of how Muslims manage family life there is little understood. Based on the analysis of historical, ethnographic and legal records, and a case study of a bairro (Port., ward) called Paquitequete in the contemporary coastal city of Pemba in Cabo Delgado province, this article focuses on Muslim family and gender relations in
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Alusine Jalloh, Muslim Fula Business Elites and Politics in Sierra Leone Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Lorenzo D’Angelo
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Thurston, Alexander, Boko Haram: The History of An African Jihadist Movement Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Scott MacEachern
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Diagayété, Mohamed, Barth à Tombouctou: Lettre d’Aḥmad al-Bakkāy al-Kuntī à Aḥmad b. Aḥmad, émir du Māsina (1854) Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Amir Syed
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Oludamini Ogunnaike, Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: a Study of West African Madīḥ Poetry and its Precedents Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Zachary Wright
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Elisha Renne, Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Hannah Hoechner
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Free Choice Theory and the Justification of Enslavement in the Early Sokoto Caliphate Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Kota Kariya
The Sokoto Caliphate, which was based on Islamic law, depended considerably on widespread systematic slavery in political, economic, and social spheres. According to Islamic law, it is only permitted, in principle, to enslave non-Muslims or unbelievers, and ʿUthmān b. Fūdī, the founder of the Caliphate, labeled his principal enemies (i.e. the rulers of the Hausa states and Bornu and their followers)
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The French Médersa in West Africa: Modernizing Islamic Education and Institutionalizing Colonial Racism, 1890s–1920s Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Samuel D. Anderson
This article examines the origins and development of colonial Franco-Muslim education, with specific reference to the Médersa of Saint-Louis in Senegal. Often described as a failed experiment on the part of the French administration, the médersa nevertheless marked the first effort to “modernize” Islamic education in West Africa. This article argues that the médersa evolved, and eventually closed,
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Halal Consumption as Ethical Practice: Negotiating Halal Certification in South Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Shaheed Tayob
In recent decades, the halal certification logo has emerged as a global phenomenon. Halal certification is an attempt to produce a new discursive and material basis for the practice of halal. Halal is extended into new places and products. In South Africa Muslim consumers now query the halal status of tomato sauce, bottled water and even food consumed at the homes of friends and family. Certification
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Theorizing Sunniyat as a Mode of Being: An Asadian Perspective from South Africa Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Auwais Rafudeen
Reflecting on thoughts by Talal Asad, this paper suggests an approach to theorizing Sunniyat – the approach to Islam taken by those commonly called “Barelvis” – in South Africa by focusing on sensibilities and dispositions. It specifically examines the kinds of sensibilities that are cultivated by adherents in their relationship to the Prophet as well as in their practice of everyday ethics. The aim
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Contours of Change: Muslim Courts, Women, and Islamic Society in Colonial Bathurst, the Gambia, 1905–1965, written by Bala Saho Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-12 Alaine Hutson
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Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria: Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty, written by Hannah Hoechner Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-12 Nermeen Mouftah
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Du lac Tchad à La Mecque. Le Sultanat de Borno et son monde (xvi e –xvii e siècle), written by Rémi Dewière Islamic Africa (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-12 Rachida Chih