From The Back Cover

Living Knowledge in West African Islam examines the actualization of religious identity in the community of Ibrahim Niasse (d.1975, Senegal). With millions of followers throughout Africa and the world, the community arguably represents one of the twentieth century's most successful Islamic revivals. Niasse's followers, members of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, gave particular attention to the widespread transmission of the experiential knowledge (ma'rifa) of God. They also worked to articulate a global Islamic identity in the crucible of African decolonization.

The central argument of this book is that West African Sufism is legible only with an appreciation of centuries of Islamic knowledge specialization in the region. Sufi masters and disciples reenacted and deepened preexisting teacher-student relationships surrounding the learning of core Islamic disciplines, such as the Qyean and jurisprudence. Learning Islam meant the transformative inscription of sacred knowledge in the student's very being, a disposition acquired in the master's exemplary physical presence. Sufism did not undermine traditional Islamic orthodoxy: the continued transmission of Sufi knowledge has in fact preserved and revived traditional Islamic learning in West Africa.

About The Author

Zachary V. Wright, Ph.D. (2010), Northwestern University, is Assistant Profes-sor of History and Religious Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar. His previous publications have been in the field of African Islam, Sufism, and Islam-ic education. He translated a number of West African Arabic texts, and was the leading translator for Ibrahim Niasse's renowned work on Sufism, the Kashif al-Ilbas or Removal of Confusion.