Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA)

Inaugurated in 2000, ISITA is the first research center in the United States specifically devoted to the study of African Islamic culture.  ISITA seeks to raise awareness of Africa’s rich Islamic intellectual and literary heritage by encouraging collaboration and interaction between scholars and by publishing works on African Islamic thought and the transmission of knowledge.  ISITA currently conducts three separate projects, each of which is funded by a separate source.

• Constituting Bodies of Islamic Knowledge:  Deepening and Expanding the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa.  Funded by the Ford Foundation, this three-year project (2005-2008) supports field research in Africa, workshops, conferences, and publications that address how African Muslims actively shape religious life through their engagement with texts and bodies of religious knowledge, ranging from historical manuscripts to popular contemporary materials such as videos and DVDs

• Increasing Access to Arabic-script Materials in the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.  The Melville J. Herskovits Library at Northwestern houses an important collection of Arabic script materials from West Africa (primarily Nigeria).  With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ISITA is working to make these materials more accessible to scholars by creating a web-based catalog that will launch in 2007.

• Islam and the Public Sphere in Africa.   With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, ISITA is organizing a conference and producing an edited volume on the theme of “Islam and the Public Sphere in Africa.”  The conference will be held at Northwestern from May 17 – 19, 2007 and will include panels on the 2007 presidential elections in Senegal and Nigeria.

For more information about ISITA, please contact Rebecca Shereikis, ISITA Program Coordinator.

Activities

Launching of Arabic Manuscript Web Catalog and Symposium on “Studying Islam and Africa at Northwestern”

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
2:00-5:00 pm
Forum Room, University Library

In January 2008, the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) will launch a new web catalog of the Arabic manuscript materials from West Africa in the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.   The product of a recent grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the catalog provides access to information about over 5,000 items (including handwritten manuscripts and market and printed editions) in the Herskovits collection.  When the project is completed it will represent the culmination of over two decades of work on this collection by several generations of scholars of Islamic Africa at Northwestern.

To celebrate this occasion and bring the website to the attention of a larger audience, ISITA will host a launching event on January 23.  In addition to showcasing the new website, this event will highlight the intellectual significance of the manuscript collection and demonstrate its importance to the careers and intellectual development of three generations of scholars at Northwestern.  It will include:

• Demonstration of website

• “The Intellectual Pedigree of Umar Falke,” by Muhammad Sani Umar (religion, and ISITA Director), on the intellectual biography of the Nigerian scholar whose personal library forms the core of the manuscript collection.  
• “Studying Islam and Africa at Northwestern:  Three Generations of Scholars and their Connections to the Herskovits Arabic Collection,” including talks by David Owusu-Ansah (Professor of African Studies, James Madison University), David Easterbrook (Curator, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies), and John Hunwick (Professor Emeritus of History and Religion, Northwestern).

• Reception
  

Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa:  A Catalog
of the Herskovits Library Collection. (Click for link)

Friday, February 1, 2008
3:00 pm
"Islam and Arabic into West Africa"
John Hunwick, Professor Emeritus History, NU
Location: PAS, 620 Library Place, Evanston Campus

ISITA workshop on "Texts, Words, and Images:  New Media and Islam in Africa"

October 22 and 23 at the Program of African Studies seminar room, 620 Library Place, Evanston. For questions or further information, please contact Rebecca Shereikis,
r-shereikis@northwestern.edu or 847-491-2598.

ISITA Hosted Conference on “Islam and the Public Sphere in Africa”


ISITA sponsored a three–day international conference (May 17-19, 2007) on the theme of "Islam and the Public Sphere in Africa." The interaction of Islam and politics in the recent presidential elections in Senegal and Nigeria were a special focus of the conference, although it included presentations on other African countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Morocco.

The conference opened with a keynote address on May 17 by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im (Emory University), titled : "Islam, Politics and the State: Mediating Permament Paradox" (location: Omni Orrington Hotel). For more information contact Kate Dargis (847-491-7325).

Click the links below for a pdf version of the conference program and the keynote address poster.

Conference program

Keynote address poster

Conference Poster

Conference Photos

Two days of panels followed at Norris University Center.

For more information, contact Kate Dargis (847-491-7325).

ISITA Launches Chicago-area Islam and Africa Seminar

From left to right: Rebecca Shereikis (PAS, Northwestern University), Aly Dramé (Dominican University) and Zachary Wright (Northwestern University)

This new seminar is designed to bring together students and faculty in the Chicago area with an interest in Islam and Africa. It meets on a quarterly basis at PAS to discuss a paper circulated in advance. It opened in the Fall of 2006 with a
presentation by Kim Searcy (history, Loyola University) entitled
“Ritual, Ceremony and the Articulation of Power During the Sudanese Mahdiyya” with Butch Ware (history, Northwestern) as a discussant.

In the winter 2007 quarter, presentations included Paulo Farias (see related story) and Zachary Wright (history, Northwestern) with a paper entitled ’Filled with God’: the Discourse on Embodied Knowledge within the Community of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse" with Aly Dramé (history, Dominican University) as a discussant. Contact ISITA Coordinator Rebecca Shereikis for more information on joining the seminar or to be added to the mailing list.

ISITA February Events Featured Historian Paulo Fernando Moraes de Farias

Prof. John Hunwick (Northwestern University) and Prof. Paulo Farias (University of Birmingham)

From February 5-10, ISITA hosted Visiting Scholar Paulo Fernando Moraes de Farias of the University of Birmingham. Moraes de Farias is a distinguished historian of the early precolonial history of Africa. On February 7 he delivered a lecture to the Chicago-area Islam and Africa Seminar (see related story) titled “Epigraphy as Discourse” based upon his 2003 book: Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali.

He discussed his extensive work with epigraphs in Arabic and Tifinagh dating from the 11th - 15th century from the area around Gao, explaining why the rich corpus of sources have been neglected in constructing historical accounts of this region. Farias argued that epigraphic evidence forces a reconsideration of the prevailing interpretations (based largely upon the Timbuktu chronicles) of the region’s history and the process of Islamization in West Africa.

On February 9, John Hunwick (emeritus, history and religion) organized a seminar on “Islam and Arabic in the Western Sahara” in conjunction with his preparation of volume VI of the Arabic Literature of Africa Series which will cover Arabic writings from the Western Sahara/Mauritania region. Presentations included: John Hunwick, “The Origin of Islam and its Entry into Africa"; Paulo Farias, "The 'Eccentric Regulations' of Ibn Yâsîn, the Almoravid (Western Sahara, 11th c.)"; and Ruediger Seesemann (Religion): "The Tijâniyya: Its Origin and Movement across the Western Sahara."

ISITA Co-Sponsors Workshop on “Islam and the Public Sphere in Senegal”

Prof. Thioub (AROA president) and Prof. Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Northwestern University)	Workshop participants

ISITA collaborated with the West African Research Center (WARC) in Dakar, Senegal to organize a one-day workshop on March 12 in Dakar on the theme of “Islam and the Public Sphere in Senegal.” The event is part of a larger ISITA project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which will culminate in an international conference on “Islam and the Public Sphere in Africa” to be held at Northwestern from May 17-19, 2007.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne (philosophy) organized and chaired the
conference, which took place at WARC. Forty-two people attended,
including academics, reporters, students, and specialists in politics
and religion. Topics addressed included: new paradigms for understanding politics and religion in Senegal, the constitutional principles of secularism, religious education and human rights, women and the public sphere, media and religious lobbies during the elections, and the phenomenon of militant Islam in Senegal. The six presenters will attend the May conference at Northwestern. The presentations were followed by lively discussion, and at the end of the workshop the participants requested that WARC organize more events of this kind, especially on issues related to Islam.

Interview of Prof. Diagne in Sud Quotidien " L' islam et la sphere politique au Senegal" (03/16/2007)

Fourth Annual International Colloquium

Report from the Fourth Annual International Colloquium, "Gender and Islam in Africa: Discourses, Practices, and Empowerment of Women," held May 20-22, 2004