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ISLAM IN AFRICA/AFRICANS AND ISLAM*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2014

Scott S. Reese
Scott S. Reese*
Affiliation:
Northern Arizona University
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Abstract

This essay discusses some of the recent trends in the scholarship on Islam and Africa that contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the historical relationship between African Muslims and the global ecumene of believers. Rather than looking at the faith as an insular African phenomenon, this piece examines the links between Africans and the wider community of believers across space and time. Such an approach has important ramifications for our understanding of the dynamics of Islam. However, it also challenges many of the assumptions underpinning the geographic area studies paradigm that has dominated the academy since the Second World War. This essay suggests the adoption of a more fluid approach to scholarly inquiry that reimagines our largely continental attachment to regions in favor of a more intellectually agile methodology where the scope of inquiry is determined less by geographic boundaries and more by the questions we seek to answer.

Keywords

Islamhistoriographyregionalglobal
Type
JAH Forum: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 17 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

Author's email: scott.reese@nau.edu

References

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25 I would like to thank one of the four anonymous reviewers of this piece for this especially useful insight into the interplay between the global and the local within the discursive tradition.

26 A comprehensive examination of the literary legacy of Nana Asma'u can be found in the underappreciated work by Mack, B. B. and Boyd, J., One Woman's Jihad: Nana Asma'u, Scholar and Scribe (Bloomington, IN, 2000)Google Scholar.

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