Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam

About the author

Habeeb Akande: Habeeb Akande is a British-Nigerian author and historian, born and raised in London to a family of Nigerian descent. He took a first-class degree in Business and Film Studies at Kingston University and qualified as a chartered accountant, then studied Arabic, Islamic law, and Islamic history at al-Azhar in Cairo. His writing moves between two fields. The first is race in Islamic history: his best-known book, Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam (Ta-Ha Publishers, 2012), examines the concepts of blackness, slavery, interracial marriage, and prejudice in light of the Qurʾan, Hadith, and early historical sources, and compiles biographies of notable black and North African Muslims, from Companions of the Prophet to later figures. He places this work in the tradition of earlier scholars who wrote on the subject, including al-Jahiz, Ibn al-Jawzi, and al-Suyuti. A companion volume, Illuminating the Blackness, turns to Africans and African Muslims in Brazil. His second field is sexuality and intimacy in Muslim and African cultures, treated in works such as A Taste of Honey, Kunyaza, and Women of Desire. He is the founder of Rabaah Publishers, an independent house in London, and a member of the Society of Authors.