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Book | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Saints and Somalis: popular Islam in a clan-based society |
Author: | Lewis, I.M. |
Year: | 1998 |
Pages: | 174 |
Language: | English |
City of publisher: | London |
Publisher: | Haan |
ISBN: | 1874209871 |
Geographic terms: | Northeast Africa Somalia |
Subjects: | Islam Sufism Somali |
Abstract: | This book brings together in a single volume the author's collected material on characteristics of popular Islam amongst the Somali of the Horn of Africa. The tension between mystically mediated views of man's relation to God and more ritualistic interpretations of religion provides the main focus - Sufism on the one hand and sceptical criticism of this mystical understanding of Islam on the other. The essays deal in particular with the cult of different types of saint and the mystical power generally attributed to holy men in Somali culture. They also look at some popular practices which are at the margins of orthodox religion, such as spirit possession cults associated primarily with women. The book includes an annotated catalogue of Arabic manuscript sources on Somali Islam which the author collected during his fieldwork and published jointly with B.W. Andrzejewski just before his death in 1994. |