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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | German Images of Islam in West Africa |
Author: | Weiss, Holger |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Sudanic Africa |
Volume: | 11 |
Pages: | 53-93 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Togo Cameroon Germany |
Subjects: | Islamic studies African studies colonialism History and Exploration Development and Technology Religion and Witchcraft |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/25653340 |
Abstract: | From 1908 onwards, several investigations on Islam in Africa have been launched by prominent German specialists in Oriental and Islamic studies. Two contradictory positions on Islam can be seen: the 'threat of Islam' (this stance was taken mostly by the Christian missions) and the 'potentiality of Islam' (supported by, for example, Carl Heinrich Becker, the leading expert in German Islamic studies). Since not much, if anything, was known about the social, political and religious structures of the Muslim population of Africa in the early 20th century, and even less about the number of Muslims in the German colonies, three large investigations on Islam in Germany's West African colonies were launched: one by Becker in 1908-1909, one by Martin Hartmann in 1911, and one by Diedrich Westermann in 1913. This paper focuses on the investigations in Togo and Cameroon. An evaluation of the findings of the investigations conclude the paper. App., notes, ref. |