Jihad of the Pen

Rudolph Ware is associate professor in the department of history at the University of Michigan, and the founder and director of the IKHLAS research initiative for the study of Islamic Knowledge, Histories and Languages, Arts and Sciences. He is the author of The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa (2014) and several articles on slavery in Islamic Africa and the Atlantic World.Zachary Wright is associate professor of history and religious studies at Northwestern University in Qatar. His research concerns Islamic revivalism and the religious sciences, especially Sufism, in North and West Africa from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. He is the author of Living Knowledge in West African Islam: The Sufi Community of Ibrahim Niasse (2015).Amir Syed is a visiting assistant professor of the history of the Islamic world at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include issues related to the construction of religious authority, scholarly culture, and Islamic knowledge practices.

Outsiders have long observed the contours of the flourishing scholarly traditions of African Muslim societies, but the voices of the most renowned voices of West African Sufism have rarely been heard outside of their respective constituencies. This volume brings together writings by Uthman b. Fudi (d. 1817, Nigeria), Umar Tal (d. 1864, Mali), Ahmad Bamba (d. 1927, Senegal), and Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975, Senegal), who, between them, founded the largest Muslim communities in African history. Jihad of the Pen, Journey of the Soul offers translations of Arabic source material that proved formative to the constitution of a veritable Islamic revival sweeping West Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Acknowledgments Note on TranslationIntroduction: Zachary Wright Four Saintly BiographiesIslamic Intellectual Production in West AfricaIslamic Law in West AfricaPhilosophy and MetaphysicsWomen Scholars of West AfricaStructure of the BookShaykh ¿Uthman b. Fudi: Rudolph Ware, with translations by Aisha Bewley and Muhammad Shareef Roots of the Religion (Kitab usul al-din)Sciences of Behavior (¿Ul¿m al-mu¿amala)Book of Distinction (Kitab al-tafriqa)Shaykh ¿Umar al-Futi Tal: Amir SyedReminder for the Seekers (Tadhkirat al-mustarshidin)Lances of the Party of the Merciful (Rimah hizb al-Rahim)Vessel of Happiness (Safinat al-säada)Shaykh A¿mad Bamba Mbacké: Rudolph WareThe Valiant One (al-Sandid)Pathways to Paradise (Manasalik al-jinan)Gifts of the Benefactor (Mawahib al-Nafi¿)Shaykh Ibrahim ¿Abdallah Niasse: Zachary WrightThe Spirit of Etiquette (Ruh al-adab)The Removal of Confusion (Kashif al-ilbas) The Jeweled Letters (Jawahir al-rasäil)Poetry for the Prophet (from Diwawin al-sitt)Conclusion: Rudolph Ware