Although Islam is not new to West Africa, new patterns of domestic economies, the promise of political liberalization, and the proliferation of new media have led to increased scrutiny of Islam in the public sphere. Dorothea E. Schulz shows how new media have created religious communities that are far more publicly engaged than they were in the past. Muslims and New Media in West Africa expands ideas about religious life in West Africa, women's roles in religion, religion and popular culture, the meaning of religious experience in a charged environment, and how those who consume both religion and new media view their public and private selves.

First published in 1994, this volume brings together essays from the celebrated scholar of African history, Nehemia Levtzion. The articles cover a wide range of themes including Islamization, Islam in politics, Islamic revolutions and the work of the historian in studying this field. This collection is a rich source of supplementary material to Professor Levtzion’s major publications on Islam in West Africa. This book will be of key interest to those studying Islamic and West African history.

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.

Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa

Most writers have assumed that the spread of the Islamic faith has tended to weaken and undermine the foundations of traditional African society and culture. In this interesting and original study Professor Bravmann re-examines and refutes the assumption that the aniconic attitudes of Islam, especially the prohibition of representational imagery, have had a detrimental effect on the visual arts in the areas of West Africa influenced by this universalistic faith. The strength and flexibility of West African societies and their art forms is clearly revealed in the major part of this study, which is devoted to a detailed examination of the impact of Islam upon traditional art in the Cercle de Bondoukou and west central areas of Ghana. The text is illustrated with numerous photographs showing a variety of art forms and masquerades in the region.

Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa shows you the relationship between architecture and Islamic identity in West Africa. The book looks broadly across Muslim West Africa and takes an in-depth study of the village of Larabanga, a small Muslim community in Northern Ghana, to help you see how the built environment encodes cultural history through form, material, and space, creating an architectural narrative that outlines the contours of this distinctive Muslim identity. Apotsos explores how modern technology, heritage, and tourism have increasingly affected the contemporary architectural character of this community, revealing the village’s current state of social, cultural, and spiritual flux. More than 60 black and white images illustrate how architectural components within this setting express the distinctive narratives, value systems, and realities that make up the unique composition of this Afro-Islamic community.