Dehistoricizing Islam In Africa

The Walking Qur’an by Rudolph T. Ware III ambitiously takes on African and Islamic studies in a call to make the study of Islam in Africa more central to the two fields that have left it lying in a double margin. By arguing that a series of root metaphors from the tradition suggest an implicit theory of embodied knowledge that constitute an authentic Islam, however, Ware particularizes West African and Muslim forms of religiosity and dehistoricizes present struggles and points of social contention. The resulting narrative appears to legitimate claims made by the religious establishment within Senegal today while making claims to legitimate authority possible among the African American Muslim community.