Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts (edited by Ousmane Oumar Kane)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts ed. by Ousmane Oumar Kane Amiri Yasin Al-Hadid Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts OUSMANE OUMAR KANE, ED. James Currey/Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2021, 489 pages. Ousmane Oumar Kane, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, has edited a brilliant book entitled Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts. Professor Kane’s genealogy and scholarship can be traced back to early Qur’anic and Arabic instruction from his mother. His grandfather is the famous Sufi Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, founder of a Tijaniyya Tariqa in Senegal, West Africa, with a global following of millions. The central thesis of Professor Kane’s book is this: Islamic scholarship in Bilad al-Sudan (Land of the Blacks) was equal to that in other regions of the Ummah of Prophet (pbuh) such as Al-Azhar in Kemet (Egypt) and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The University of Sankore in Timbuktu, Mali, is an excellent example of universities in Bilad al-Sudan that were competitive with the aforementioned universities. As a matter of historical record, there was always a robust exchange of commodities, gold, salt, and ideas along the trade routes between the Maghreb (North Africa from Kemet to Morocco) and Bilad al-Sudan. The book rejects the false notion of an Islam noir of divinations, libation, and ancestral veneration in sub-Saharan Africa and authentic Al-Qur’an wa Sunnah Islam in centers of learning in other parts of the Muslim Ummah (p. 19). Western orientalists place North Africa in the Middle East because it is a part of the Arabic-speaking linguistic community and Mediterranean Greco-Roman history. On the other hand, sub-Saharan Africa is separated from its classical Kemetic (ancient Egypt) and Islamic heritage and marginalized as Bilad al-Sudan (Black Africa). This cultural and historical alienation is problematic for Muslim Africa because Islam and the Arabic language have created more religious unity and cultural harmony than political disunity and social conflict. In his Philosophy of History, Hegel asserted that sub-Saharan Africa had no history worthy of serious intellectual discourse (p. 2). This book is a cutting-edge project because it attempts to reconcile the dialectical tensions between Islamic Studies, African Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. These three disciplines or area studies have compartmentalized the canon, epistemology, and paradigm of Islam, [End Page 153] Arabic, African culture and civilization and marginalized the universality of Islamic thought and civilization in the African cultural context (p. 412). Islamic Scholarship in Africa is a major contribution to Professor Kane’s project of building a new discipline at Harvard centered on the intellectual history of Islamic scholarship in sub-Saharan Africa or Bilad al-Sudan. It is divided into four parts: “History, Movement and Islamic Scholarship,”; “Textuality, Orality and Islamic Scholarship”; “ Islamic Education”; “Ajami, Knowledge Transmission and Spirituality.” These subjects have intellectual implications for core curriculum development of the new discipline. Thematically, the edited volume is the outgrowth of a series of international conferences and workshops of scholars convened during the years 2017– 2019. In addition to the book overview introduction, each part has its own introduction that can serve as a road map to guide the reader through the scholarly landscape. Arabic religious and technical terms are used throughout the book; however, readers who are not familiar with all the Islamic terminology can refer to the glossary if definitions are needed. The book is accessible to scholars in the field as well as readers that are familiar or curious about the subject matter. There are 16 chapters arrayed across the four parts of the book. The 19 contributors included in the volume are erudite scholars in the Islamic sciences, Arabic, African languages indigenous to Bilad al-Sudan, and experts on their assigned topics. Each scholarly essay is worthy of an in-depth review; however, space will not permit this level of discussion. Therefore, representative samples will be selected from each of the four parts. The Hajj or Pilgrimage to Mecca of Mansa Musa in 1324 CE and El-Hajj...