The Study of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The academic study of Islam and of Muslim societies in sub-Saharan Africa has developed during the past thirty years more as part of African studies than of Islamic studies. Islamic studies in Africa has therefore not been so deeply influenced by the orientalist heritage of Western scholarship that prevailed among those who studied Islam in the central Muslim regions. On the other hand, the global resurgence of Islam that has taken place during the same period, in all its social, political, religious and indeed academic forms, has had a profound influence on African Islamic studies.