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The Walking Qurʾān: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa , written by Rudolph T. Ware III

The Walking Qurʾān: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa , written... Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014: 330 pp. $32.95. Rudolph Ware has written a most insightful and stimulating book about the preservation of Islamic values and knowledge-transmission in West Africa. The principal purpose of his study, as articulated in his Introduction, is “ to highlight and historicize an embodied approach to knowledge that was once paradigmatic but now thrives in few Muslim societies . It is ironic – considering the racial and spatial logics at work – that many of these societies are far from Arabia in the African West” (29). In this quest he highlights the distinction between ‘Islam in Africa’ and ‘African Islam’ and argues persuasively that many scholars have fostered an inaccurate description of the qualities of Islam in West African communities. His analysis is based on a wide variety of sources, including – most importantly – “autobiographical narratives, and archival accounts of dozens of students who grew up in Senegambian Qurʾān schools during the twentieth century” (p. 41), and supplemented by Arabic texts about education, his three years as a participant observer, fifty-two interviews, seven archival collections, newspapers published in Senegal, and more than four hundred scholarly studies. Furthermore, because of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Islamic Africa (continuation of Sudanic Africa) Brill

The Walking Qurʾān: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa , written by Rudolph T. Ware III

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Book Reviews
ISSN
0803-0685
eISSN
2154-0993
DOI
10.1163/21540993-00602010
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014: 330 pp. $32.95. Rudolph Ware has written a most insightful and stimulating book about the preservation of Islamic values and knowledge-transmission in West Africa. The principal purpose of his study, as articulated in his Introduction, is “ to highlight and historicize an embodied approach to knowledge that was once paradigmatic but now thrives in few Muslim societies . It is ironic – considering the racial and spatial logics at work – that many of these societies are far from Arabia in the African West” (29). In this quest he highlights the distinction between ‘Islam in Africa’ and ‘African Islam’ and argues persuasively that many scholars have fostered an inaccurate description of the qualities of Islam in West African communities. His analysis is based on a wide variety of sources, including – most importantly – “autobiographical narratives, and archival accounts of dozens of students who grew up in Senegambian Qurʾān schools during the twentieth century” (p. 41), and supplemented by Arabic texts about education, his three years as a participant observer, fifty-two interviews, seven archival collections, newspapers published in Senegal, and more than four hundred scholarly studies. Furthermore, because of

Journal

Islamic Africa (continuation of Sudanic Africa) – Brill

Published: Jul 6, 2015

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