EXAMINING THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ISLAM AND HERITAGE IN WEST AFRICA

Abstract

Heritage is broadly viewed as a cultural construction of the present that is deeply ingrained in the past. Since the 1990s, Africanist scholars, mostly historians, have engaged with the concept of heritage in Africa, focusing on how post-colonial African countries conceptualized heritage after many of them achieved independence in the 1960s. Presently, there are many works on how local and national as well as international movements, have complicated the concept of heritage in Africa. However, most of these works have concentrated on the national and cultural constructs of heritage with very few on religion, especially Islam. This paper explores how scholars have presented the subject of Islam and Heritage in West Africa. It is a historiographical essay that argues that Islam and Muslims in West Africa are not aliens to the conceptualization and the development of heritage in Africa. They have played several roles in safeguarding their intangible and tangible heritages and in some ways, assisted in conserving cultural heritage of their respective regions. Thus, this work does not only allow us to appreciate the contribution of religion (Islam) to the construct of heritage, but it also contributes to the literature on the history of Islam and Muslim societies especially in West Africa.