Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Islam in Africa Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution: Islam in Eighteenth Century Mampurugu
Author:Davis, David C.
Year:1997
Periodical:Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs
Volume:17
Issue:1
Period:April
Pages:43-63
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:Islam
political change
economic development
History and Exploration
Religion and Witchcraft
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/13602009708716357
Abstract:This paper examines the relationship between the mosque and the marketplace in the Mamprusi State of Mampurugu in the middle Volta basin (now Ghana) in the mid-18th century. What can account for the economic, cultural, religious and political changes that marked this period in the history of many West African States? Are these events a 'renaissance' in the context of historical change in this area of the world? The broad global historical context of the 18th-century Islamic movements of renewal and reform is complex. In West Africa, States of later medieval times were in the process of a major transition, with old empires gone and new, smaller States developing; new routes and markets to the south along the coast competed with older trans-Saharan routes for the products of the savanna. It was within this context of economic and political change that Mampurugu flourished. Contact with the larger Muslim world was crucial to this development. Such cosmopolitan interaction involved both traders and teachers, and economic and religious networks developed. Local 'ulama' developed critical ties with political leaders. It was this combination of local integration and cosmopolitan interaction which led to the increased Islamization of Mampurugu in the mid-18th century and an Islamic 'renaissance'. Bibliogr., ref.
Views
Cover