Arab is not Muslim

Arab is not Muslim

This item discusses Islam in Africa as its own intrinsically rich but globally integrated faith, not separated from the Middle East's Islam.

This item contextualizes the term and item "Umma", a community of believers, and draws inspiration from the article by Scott Reese: "Islam in Africa / African and Islam." Reese discussed at length the idea we hit on at the beginning of class that Arab is not the same as Muslim. Reese talks about how “African Islam” does not exist in a vacuum; rather, it is a living, breathing faith that is constantly reinterpreting foundational Islamic texts and putting them in conversation with new knowledge, and it is connected with the rest of the Islamic world through travel and intellectual and cultural exchange. Travel is an important part of Islamic culture and African culture, West African culture especially. While Islam in African communities is rich on its own, it is connected with the rest of the Islamic world, and it is not a lower tier of syncretism unaligned with the “Arabo-Persian islamic center”; there is no “folk” vs. “orthodox” Islam, an idea we discussed at length in class on the 14th. This connects to the other reading by showing how interconnected these different societies were, through caravans, travel, pilgrimage, and trade.

Scott S. Reese

The Journal of African History

Cambridge University Press

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