Free Delivery Over $100
|
|
|||
|
||||
OverviewOver the course of the last 1400 years, Islam has grown from a small band of followers on the Arabian peninsula into a global religion of over a billion believers. How did this happen? The usual answer is that Islam spread by the sword-believers waged jihad against rival tribes and kingdoms and forced them to convert. Lamin Sanneh argues that this is far from the whole story. Beyond Jihad examines the origin and evolution of the African pacifist tradition in Islam, beginning with an inquiry into the faith's origins and expansion in North Africa and its transmission across trans-Saharan trade routes to West Africa. The book focuses on the ways in which, without jihad, the religion spread and took hold, and what that tells us about the nature of religious and social change.At the heart of this process were clerics who used religious and legal scholarship to promote Islam. Once this clerical class emerged, it offered continuity and stability in the midst of political changes and cultural shifts, helping to inhibit the spread of radicalism, and subduing the urge to wage jihad. With its policy of religious and inter-ethnic accommodation, this pacifist tradition took Islam beyond traditional trade routes and kingdoms into remote districts of the Mali Empire, instilling a patient, Sufi-inspired, and jihad-negating impulse into religious life and practice. Islam was successful in Africa, Sanneh argues, not because of military might but because it was made African by Africans who adapted it to a variety of contexts. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Lamin O. Sanneh (D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and Professor of History, Yale University)Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc Dimensions: Width: 16.40cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 24.20cm Weight: 0.646kg ISBN: 9780199351619ISBN 10: 0199351619 Pages: 376 Publication Date: 15 September 2016 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsAuthor's Note Acknowledgments Introduction: Issues and Directions Part One: Historical Genesis Chapter 1: Beyond North Africa: Transmission and Synthesis Chapter 2: Beyond the Veil: Almoravids and Ghana Chapter 3: Beyond Desert Trails: Mobility and Settlement Chapter 4: Beyond Routes and Kingdoms: New Frontiers, Old Heartlands Part Two: Clerical Emergence Chapter 5: Beyond Trade and Markets: Community and Vocation Chapter 6: Beyond Homeland: Religious Formation and Expansion Chapter 7: Beyond Tribe and Tongue in Futa Jallon: Religion and Ethnicity Chapter 8: Beyond Consolidation: Rejuvenating the Heritage Chapter 9: Beyond Confrontation: Crisis and Denouement Chapter 10: Beyond Confinement: Mobile Cells and the Clerical Web Chapter 11: Beyond Consensus: A House Divided Part Three: Wider Horizons Chapter 12: Beyond Jihad: Champions and Opponents Chapter 13: Beyond Politics: Comparative Perspectives Chapter 14: End of Jihad?: Tradition and Continuity Bibliography Timeline Glossary IndexReviews[T]he level of scholarship, critical use of historical and religious source material, and insightful interdisciplinary approach make this book not only a good read but an outstanding contribution to Islamic, West African, and comparative religious history Highly recommended. --<em>CHOICE</em> Sanneh makes a persuasive argument that the growth of West African Islam has been, and continues to be, primarily pacific rather than coercive. The level of scholarship, critical use of historical and religious source material, and insightful interdisciplinary approach make this book not only a good read but an outstanding contribution to Islamic, West African, and comparative religious history. -<em>CHOICE</em> <em>Beyond Jihad</em> is a grand narrative of the pacifist practice of inter-generational peaceful conversion and assimilation of Islam in West Africa, masterfully told by a multilingual, intellectually honest, and scholarly rigorous native son. The unique combination of down-to-earth yet sophisticated analysis by a compassionate yet impartial narrator is to be savored in multiple readings. With its expansive and comprehensive yet integrated span of religious traditions and their rejuvenation, commerce and travel, politics and anthropology, identity formation and transformation in the ancient and recent past to the future, this book is highly instructive for undergraduate and graduate students and their teachers in a range of fields and disciplines. -Abdullahi An-Na'im, Emory Law School, author of <em>What is an American Muslim?</em> and <em>Islam and the Secular State</em> This important study of Islam's peaceful development in the history of West Africa comes as a vital antidote to the scholarly overemphasis on jihad and syncretism as its defining characteristics. Drawing upon his considerable erudition and lifelong engagement with the region, Sanneh reconstructs the everyday practices of Islamic clerical work in teaching, worship, devotion, and pastoral care, showing how these fixed the habits of Muslims, most of whom never saw jihad. At a time when our media is dominated by images of religious extremism this timely book reminds us that Islam was established in West Africa not by force but though peaceful, gradual means in the hands of traders and clerics. -David Maxwell, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College <em>Beyond Jihad</em> offers a welcome and much-needed alternative to much of the current alarmist discourse about religious extremism and violence in West African Islam. A distinguished scholar of West African religious practice, Lamin Sanneh offers a historically grounded and finely nuanced account of the much deeper and more significant tradition of tolerance and openness that has characterized Muslim religious practice in the region. -Leonardo A. Villalon, Professor and Dean, University of Florida The level of scholarship, critical use of historical and religious source material, and insightful interdisciplinary approach make this book not only a good read but an outstanding contribution to Islamic, West African, and comparative religious history . Highly Recommended. --<em>CHOICE</em> Beyond Jihad is a grand narrative of the pacifist practice of inter-generational peaceful conversion and assimilation of Islam in West Africa, masterfully told by a multilingual, intellectually honest, and scholarly rigorous native son. The unique combination of down-to-earth yet sophisticated analysis by a compassionate yet impartial narrator is to be savored in multiple readings. With its expansive and comprehensive yet integrated span of religious traditions and their rejuvenation, commerce and travel, politics and anthropology, identity formation and transformation in the ancient and recent past to the future, this book is highly instructive for undergraduate and graduate students and their teachers in a range of fields and disciplines. -Abdullahi An-Na'im, Emory Law School, author of What is an American Muslim? and Islam and the Secular State This important study of Islam's peaceful development in the history of West Africa comes as a vital antidote to the scholarly overemphasis on jihad and syncretism as its defining characteristics. Drawing upon his considerable erudition and lifelong engagement with the region, Sanneh reconstructs the everyday practices of Islamic clerical work in teaching, worship, devotion, and pastoral care, showing how these fixed the habits of Muslims, most of whom never saw jihad. At a time when our media is dominated by images of religious extremism this timely book reminds us that Islam was established in West Africa not by force but though peaceful, gradual means in the hands of traders and clerics. -David Maxwell, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College Beyond Jihad offers a welcome and much-needed alternative to much of the current alarmist discourse about religious extremism and violence in West African Islam. A distinguished scholar of West African religious practice, Lamin Sanneh offers a historically grounded and finely nuanced account of the much deeper and more significant tradition of tolerance and openness that has characterized Muslim religious practice in the region. -Leonardo A. Villalon, Professor and Dean, University of Florida Author InformationLamin Sanneh is D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and Professor of History at Yale. He is the author of several books, including Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (OUP 2007). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
||||
