Author : Dorrit van Dalen
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004324488
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)
Book Synopsis Doubt, Scholarship and Society in 17th-Century Central Sudanic Africa by : Dorrit van Dalen
Download or read book Doubt, Scholarship and Society in 17th-Century Central Sudanic Africa written by Dorrit van Dalen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventeenth century was a period of major social change in central sudanic Africa. Islam spread from royal courts to rural communities, leading to new identities, new boundaries and new tasks for experts of the religion. Addressing these issues, the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī acquired an exceptional reputation. Dorrit van Dalen’s study places him within his intellectual environment, and portrays him as responding to the concerns of ordinary Muslims. It shows that scholars on the geographical margins of the Muslim world participated in the debates in the centres of Muslim learning of the time, but on their own terms. Al-Wālī’s work also sheds light on a century in the Islamic history of West Africa that has until now received little attention.