Non-Europhone Intellectuals

Notes

Notes 1. In the meaning given it by Foucault (1969-70), the library refers to ‘a documentary field that comprises books and treatises traditionally recognized as ‘valid’ in a specific field. The library also contains a mass of statistical information, as well as a collection of accounts and observations published or transmitted, that concern this field. As they constitute a group of statements ‘belonging to the same discursive formation (Foucault 1969:44 et seq.), the writings of a given library create a system of representation’. 2. In the Western meaning of the term, the birth of the social sciences can be traced to the works of Western philosophers such as Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, just to cite some of them, whose common denominator is their critical attitude towards the structures of the authorities of medieval Western Europe, i.e. the monarchy and the clergy. At the end of the nineteenth century, the contributions of authors like Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Ferdinand Tonnies gave to the social sciences their current form, i.e. a focus on the study of the real world as opposed to the speculation characteristic of the Enlightenment philosophers, and the emergence of different specializations created by the intellectual division of labour. See Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, Kenneth Thompson, Modernity. An Introduction to Modern Societies, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell, 1996:4. 3. Commenting on the article of Achille Mbembe ‘African Modes of Self-Writings’ in Identity, Culture and Politics: An Afro-Asian Dialogue, No. 2, 2001:1-35, Nira Wickramansinghe (2000:38) points out that the title ‘African modes’ is problematic: it would make no sense in Asia because there no-one would identify themselves as Asian. 4. There were 300 bishoprics in North Africa before the invasion of the Vandals who deChristianized the region, thus preparing the terrain for the expansion of Islam. 5. See the later section on Political/Intellectual Revolutions. 6. Accessed on October 2002. 7. Even if it is better known as the Burda (Mantle, in Arabic), the title of this panegyric of the Prophet is al-kawakib al-duriyya fi madh khayr al-bariyya (The shining planets, or the eulogy to the best of all creatures). Its author was Sharaf al-din al-Busiri al-Sanhaji (1226-1294). For a French translation, see Boubakeur (1980). 8. The name of the movement Jamc at izalat al-bida wa iqamat al-sunna (The Society for the Removal of Heresy and Reinstatement of Tradition), which is the largest single reform movement in post-colonial West Africa, is inspired by the title of this book (Kane 2003). 9. Our information on this university is based on data supplied by this author. 10. See the papers of the international symposium. 11. See ‘Timbuktu Bi-national Presidential Project: South Africa and Mali’, in Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal Noticeboard, 22 February 2002 in www.islamsa.org.za/noticeboard/html. ...