Top Muslim Scholars in Africa

Muslim scholars in Africa

Muslim scholars in Africa(O,T)

Introduction

 The Library, Documentation and Information Department at the African Studies Centre in Leiden has compiled a web dossier on Muslim Scholarship in Africa to coincide with a workshop on the same topic co-organized by LUCIS and the African Studies Centre on 23 April 2015. This dossier provides titles on Muslim intellectuals and religious experts that are available in the ASC Library. The entries are listed with the most recent publications first. Each title links on to the similar record within the library’s online estimate, which provides further bibliographic details and abstracts, loan information and links to the complete text (if available).

In recent years there has been considerable attention to the social and political aspects of Islam in Africa. Among the overall public there's also heightened awareness about Islam and Muslim religious leaders publicly life, not least with preoccupations with issues like radicalism. However, most explainers usually ignore the rich intellectual occurrence by African Muslims, which spans many centuries. In fact, many scholars of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa have little access to what's published in Arabic and African languages. In turn, most scholars who use Arabic sources usually specialise in the presumed heartlands of Islam, the center East, almost entirely ignoring most of Africa. In contrast, over the past few decades various scholars who are growing in number have been studying Muslim scholars in Africa and their intellectual production. They rely upon sources, in Arabic as well as in some of the other major languages of communication for Muslims in Africa such as Hausa and Swahili. As much of this scholarship, which relies upon such sources, shows, the social and political aspects of Islam in contemporary Africa cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the role of Muslim intellectuals, both past and present. As elsewhere, such intellectuals both reflect and influence the social dynamics of their times. Their literary production, including books, sermons, poems, and public performances are of enormous importance to African Muslims within the ways they understand and practice Islam, how they organize their lives and their relations with others, and how they engage in political and social action.

Given the breadth of existing publications touching on this theme, we have decided to draw particular attention to some post 2005 work in this field. In addition to the core section containing works on Muslim scholarship in all its breadth, two smaller sections on topics touching on female authority and Qur’an tafsir are added. Finally a few relevant bibliographies, (primary) sources, some of which are available in translation, and links to some selected webresources are included.

Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa: A Catalog of the Herskovits Library(Biggest Library) Collection

The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University houses a crucial collection of Arabic script materials from West Africa . It contains over 5,000 items collected from Africa and donated to the library by several Northwestern professors. Original, hand-written manuscripts tracing quite 60 percent of the content, which also  comprise “market” editions (photocopies of hand written works that are often sold in African marketplaces), printed editions, and photocopies. Most are in Arabic, though some are in Ajami-African languages like Hausa, Fulfulde, and Wolof written within the Arabic script.

Old Kanembu Manuscripts, SOAS digital library

The digital collection of Old Kanembu manuscripts provides a web access to at least one of the earliest written sub-Saharan languages in manuscript form. Old Kanembu written in Arabic script was a language of Qur’anic interpretation within the ancient Borno Sultanate. it's survived in marginal and interlinear annotations within the early Qur’an manuscripts dating from the 17th to 19th centuries and in various other religious texts dating from the 19th century to 1980’s

Bibliography on Islam in contemporaneous Sub-Saharan Africa , Paul Schrijver(Name of Book)

This bibliography on Islam in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa lists over 4,000 references to secondary literature in European languages about Islam in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa . It supplements and updates two existing bibliographies, Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa: A parcely Annotated Guide(Islamic Guide Line) by Samir Zoghby and Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: a get Bibliographic Guide by Patrick Ofori, both of which were compiled with in the 1970s.

Contains a bibliography of Qur’an translations including some African languages like Afrikaans, Mande and Swahili

Pluralism and Adaption within the Islamic Practice of Senegal and Ghana

Pluralism and Adaptation within the Islamic Practice of Senegal and Ghana may be a digital library of multi-media resources that demonstrate how innovative Africans are within the history of Islam and Islamic practice and the way they still live and knowledge Islam. Four digital galleries – two from Senegal and two from Ghana – emphasize pluralism - the coexistence and indeed the mutual respect among people of various religious persuasions - and adaptation – situations where Islam takes root during a particular society and culture that changes over time.

Islamic manuscripts from Mali

Islamic Manuscripts from Mali modes 32 manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and thus the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, both in Timbuktu, Mali. The manuscripts sacrificed online are displayed in their entirety and are an exemplary grouping that showcase the big variety of subjects covered by the written traditions of Timbuktu, Mali, and West Africa .Timbuktu manuscript.

Ajami webresources

This is a search guide of the Boston University Library on Ajami webresources. Ajami may be a modified Arabic script that has been used for hundreds of years to write down many African languages including Hausa, Mandinka, Pular, Swahili, and Wolof. (Wolof-language Ajami is understood as Wolofal).

The Manuscripts of the Riydha Mosque in Lamu (In Kenya)

The manuscript collection of the Riyadha mosque is exclusive from several perspectives. Firstly, it provides a crucial overview of the historical orientation of Islamic education in East Africa . the gathering also contains works which will be found nowhere else. Several of the manuscripts have monuments that name owners over decades, indicating the economics of books and reading. Finally, the presence in many of the manuscripts of inter-linear Swahili translations within the Arabic script opens for research on the utilization of the Arabic script before colonial education.

The Institute for the Reading of Islamic Thought in Africa

The Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) is that the first research facility within the us devoted entirely to the study of Islam and Africa. ISITA was founded in 2000 by John O. Hunwick of Northwestern University and R. Séan O’Fahey of the University of Bergen.

Tombouctou manuscripts project

 This project has been considerably concerned with the various content of the manuscripts, the circulation of students and concepts , the economy of the manuscript book, and other aspects of the “work of scholarship” in Timbuktu. However, the scope of the project is widening, to surround writing cultures from other parts of the African continent.

Islamic Africa: a get , Annotated Webography(WG) by Peter Limb

Arabic Literature of Africa (ALA)

The six volumes of Arabic Literature of Africa provide a survey of Muslim authors writing in Arabic in Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa and a bibliography of their works. Declining with in the tradition of the great works of Brockelmann and Sezgin, it forms a basic mention tool for the study of Arabic writing in grounds of the African Islamic world that fall outside the parameters of those works.

West African Arabic Manuscript Project

A bi-lingual database that was developed to explain a set of Arabic manuscripts in southern Mauritania (Boutilimit). It subsequently has been wont to catalogue seven other West African collections including the manuscript libraries at the Institut Mauritanien de Recherche Scientifique, Northwestern University, and therefore the Centre Ahmad Baba in Timbuctu. The database features a program designed to spot manuscripts and authors when only fragmentary information is out there , in Arabic or Roman script, for records now in more than 23,000. Experimental linkage of digital images of manuscript texts to the records is currently underway.

Swahili web: the Swahili resource website

SwahiliWeb may be a resource destined both for the research community and for the overall public and intended to facilitate access to unpublished or difficult to locate documents handling or originating within the Swahili world. this may include journal articles, manuscripts, maps, sound files, photographs and film. it'll function a digital archive for materials that are difficult to consult elsewhere, or are damaged or threatened in their present state; and it'll make sure that basic tools for research and for locating sources on the Swahili hosted elsewhere are more easily accessible.