Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa

Harvard University, 16-18 February 2017

Conference Convenors: Ousmane Kane, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary
Islamic Religion Harvard Divinity School and Professor of Near Eastern Languages and
Civilization Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Matthew Steele, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,
Harvard University

Sponsored by: Harvard Divinity School, The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies
Program, Center for African Studies, and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and
Civilizations (NELC)

Sitting at the intersection of African, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies, Islam in Africa has
long suffered from a crisis of disciplinary identity. Neither strictly area nor solely religious
studies, Islam in Africa has only recently received attention within the academy. The shift is
overdue. Africa has influenced scholarship throughout the Islamic World for better than a
millennium. With the spread of Arabic literacy, African scholars developed a rich tradition of
debate over orthodoxy and meaning in Islam. The rise of such a tradition was hardly
disconnected from centers of Islamic learning outside of Africa. From Mecca to Sind, African
scholars have played significant roles in the development of virtually every field of Islamic
sciences.

Islamic scholarship in Africa remains as significant today. By the end of the twentieth century,
thousands of integrated curriculum schools and dozens of modern Islamic universities have
redefined Islamic studies across Sub-Saharan Africa. The spread of communications technology
has reshaped Islamic scholarship still further. New representations of Islamic scholarship have
formed across Africa through teaching websites, mp3s, and social media apps. The emergence
of these new spaces, both physical and virtual, holds the potential for recasting notions of class,
authority, canon, and orthodoxy common to the study of Islamic scholarship in Africa today.

This conference aims to rethink how such an evolution occurred. It will be the first of two
meetings, both intended to bring together specialists from Western academia and the Islamic
World. Because it takes the definition of scholarship and Muslim Africa in deliberately broad
terms, the conference welcomes paper proposals from all disciplines, methodologies, and time
periods.
The conference will be divided across two themes.

The first seeks to reconsider pre-modern scholarship in Islamicate Africa. Of interest is not only
the material produced by Islamic scholars, both textual and oral, but also the cultural, political,
and epistemological spaces framing their work. Possible topics include:

Intellectual History and Movement Across Pre-Modern Africa

Law, Legal Literature, and Judicial Practice
Archives, Manuscript Culture, and Knowledge Transmission
Classical Islamic Education(s) and Canon Formation(s)
Commentary, Genre, and Literary Criticism
Teaching Texts: Abridgement and Versification
`Ajami and Non-Arabic Islamic Scholarship
Historiography and Representations of Islamicate Africa

The conferences second theme considers the ways in which Islamic scholarship is experienced
in Africa today. The panels will focus on contemporary knowledge practices, paying close
attention to both continuities and ruptures linking modern with pre-modern scholarship in Africa.
Possible topics include:

Islamic Higher Education: Curricula, Politics, and Shaping Subjectivities

ICT and the Reconfiguration of Islamic Knowledge Transmission
Digital Humanities and Constituting Islamic African Scholarship
Knowledge Practices: Rethinking Traditional/Modern Divides
Quranic Study: Language, Community, and Contest
Study Circles, Text, and Performance
Book Culture and the Making of Islamic Texts in Africa today
Aural, Visual, and Experiential Practices of Knowledge Production

Submission Guidelines

Paper proposals should include a 300-word abstract and an updated CV with current institutional
affiliation and contact information. Proposals from advanced graduate students and recent PhD
recipients are especially welcomed. Financial support may be available to defray costs for
invited participants. Please submit proposals to the following address:
harvard.islamafrica@gmail.com by 1 June 2016.