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.

Bringing together cutting-edge research from a range of disciplines, this handbook argues that despite often being overlooked or treated as marginal, the study of Islam from an African context is integral to the broader Muslim world. Challenging the portrayal of African Muslims as passive recipients of religious impetuses arriving from the outside, this book shows how the continent has been a site for the development of rich Islamic scholarship and religious discourses. Over the course of the book, the contributors reflect on: The history and infrastructure of Islam in Africa Politics and Islamic reform Gender, youth, and everyday life for African Muslims New technologies, media, and popular culture. Written by leading scholars in the field, the contributions examine the connections between Islam and broader sociopolitical developments across the continent, demonstrating the important role of religion in the everyday lives of Africans. This book is an important and timely contribution to a subject that is often diffusely studied, and will be of interest to researchers across religious studies, African studies, politics, and sociology.

While nearly one in every five people in the world today is Muslim, Islam is spreading most rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three Africans today practices a form of Islam. Sub-Saharan Africa is today home to over 150 million Muslims. Although immensely varied, African Islam, the authors demonstrate, is defined by three overarching beliefs. First, African Islam is local Islam, with no ordained clergy or international body to regulate doctrine. At the same time, the importance of Islam as a source of communal identity, both within African societies and as part of the worldwide Islamic community, is a defining feature of the African Muslim worldview. Finally, there is a pervasive belief among African Muslims that the West is on a new crusade against Islam. At a time of growing interest in the worldwide expansion of Islam, the Islamic revival in Africa deserves special attention. With in-depth coverage of Islam in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Pride, Faith, and Fear provides both a general overview of African Islam and a detailed picture of Muslim politics--which are increasingly national politics--in some of Africa's most populous regions.

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.

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.