Preface 1. Introduction Robert Launay The Classical Paradigm 2. Styles of Islamic Education: Perspectives from Mali, Guinea, and The Gambia Tal Tamari 3 Orality and the Transmission of Qur'anic knowledge in Mauritania Corinne Fortier 4. Islamic Education and the Intellectual Pedigree of Al-Hajj Umar Falke Muhammad Sani Umar Institutional Transformations 5. Divergent Patterns of Islamic Education in Northern Mozambique: Qur'anic Schools in Angoche Liazzate Bonate 6. Colonial Control, Nigerian Agency, Arab Outreach, and Islamic Education in Northern Nigeria, 1900-1966 Alex Thurston 7. Muslim scholars, Organic Intellectuals and the Development of Islamic Education in Zanzibar in the 20th Century Roman Loimeier 8. The New Muslim Public School in the Democratic Republic of Congo Ashley Leinweber
Innovations and Experiments 9. The al-Azhar School Network: A Murid Experiment in Islamic Modernism Cheikh Anta Babou 10. Mwalim Bi Swafiya Muhashamy-Said: A Pioneer of the Integrated (Madrasa) Curriculum in Kenya and Beyond Ousseina D. Alidou 11. Changes in Islamic Knowledge Practices in 20th-Century Kenya Rüdiger Seesemann 12. Walking to the Makaranta: Production, Circulation, and Transmission of Islamic Learning in Urban Niger Abdoulaye Sounaye Plural Possibilities? 13. How (Not) to Read the Quran? Logics of Islamic Education in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire Robert Launay and Rudolph T. Ware III 14. New Muslim Public Figures in West Africa Benjamin F. Soares 15. Collapsed Pluralities: Islamic Education, Learning, and Creativity in Niger Noah Butler
Writing boards and blackboards are emblematic of two radically different styles of education in Islam. The essays in this lively volume address various aspects of the expanding and evolving range of educational choices available to Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. Contributors from the United States, Europe, and Africa evaluate classical Islamic education in Africa from colonial times to the present, including changes in pedagogical methods—from sitting to standing, from individual to collective learning, from recitation to analysis. Also discussed are the differences between British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese education in Africa and between mission schools and Qur'anic schools; changes to the classical Islamic curriculum; the changing intent of Islamic education; the modernization of pedagogical styles and tools; hybrid forms of religious and secular education; the inclusion of women in Qur'anic schools; and the changing notion of what it means to be an educated person in Africa. A new view of the role of Islamic education, especially its politics and controversies in today's age of terrorism, emerges from this broadly comparative volume.
Robert Launay is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University. He is author of Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town, an Amaury Talbot Award winner.
