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Acknowledgements This book was written as a working paper when I was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa at Northwestern University. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Professor John Hunwick, Director of the Institute, who introduced me to the study of the Arab-Islamic intellectual tradition of sub-Saharan Africa and put his personal library at my disposal during my research work at Northwestern University. This book is dedicated to him. Professor Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, who was at the Institute at the same time as I was, was kind enough to read the first version of this text, making some very useful suggestions, which I so much appreciate. I would also like to thank Achille Mbembe, Mamadou Diouf, Ebrima Sall, Mahmood Mamdani, Habib Kébé, Cheikh Tidiane Fall, Boubacar Diakhaté and Muhamed Sani Umar for their suggestions. Last, but not least, I am grateful to the three anonymous evaluators Ousmane O. Kane ...

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