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Book Cover
E-book
Author Kane, Ousmane, author

Title Beyond Timbuktu : an intellectual history of Muslim West Africa / Ousmane Oumar Kane
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016

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Description 1 online resource (282 pages)
Contents Timbuktu studies: the geopolitics of the sources -- The growth and political economy of scholarship in the Bilad al-Sudan -- The rise of clerical lineages in the Sahara and the Bilad al-Sudan -- Curriculum and knowledge transmission -- Shaping an Islamic space of meaning: the discursive tradition -- Islamic education and the colonial encounter -- Modern Islamic institutions of higher learning -- Islam in the postcolonial public sphere -- Arabophones triumphant: Timbuktu under Islamic rule
Summary "By 2013, many people worldwide had heard about Timbuktu as a center of learning where thousands of Arabic manuscripts are preserved, some of which were destroyed by fanatics during the French counteroffensive to halt the expansion of Islamists in Mali. But few people know that Timbuktu was only one of many centers of Islamic learning in precolonial West Africa. This book analyses the rise and transformation of Arabo-Islamic erudition in West Africa from the beginning of the spread of Islam through the colonial period to the twenty-first century. It highlights the contribution of Muslim scholars in the production and transmission of knowledge and in shaping state and society in West Africa. It argues that no study of the history of education or knowledge production in West Africa will be complete unless it pays attention to this intellectual tradition. The book further shows how European colonialism obstructs historiography so that we know so little about it. Finally, the book analyze the transformation of West African educational system, in the twentieth and twenty first century and shows that far from declining, the Islamic tradition of West Africa has gained vitality in the postcolonial period."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Islamic learning and scholarship -- Africa, West -- History
Islamic learning and scholarship -- Mali -- Tombouctou -- History
Education -- Africa, West -- History
Education -- Political aspects -- Africa, West -- History
HISTORY -- Africa -- West.
Civilization -- Islamic influences
Education
Education -- Political aspects
Intellectual life
Islamic learning and scholarship
SUBJECT Africa, West -- Intellectual life
Africa, West -- Civilization -- Islamic influences
Subject West Africa
Mali -- Tombouctou
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674969377
0674969375