Horn and crescent : cultural change and traditional Islam on the East African coast, 800-1900
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Horn and crescent : cultural change and traditional Islam on the East African coast, 800-1900
(African studies series, 53)
Cambridge University Press, 2002
- : pbk
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 256-268
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this first major historical study of Islam among the Swahili, Randall Pouwels shows how Islam and other aspects of coastal civilization have evolved since about AD 1000 as an organic whole. Coastal Africans, he argues, simply adopted Islam as the spiritual vehicle best suited to their expanding intellectual needs and to meeting the opportunities presented by their physical and cultural environment. The culture and religion that developed were strong, rich, supple, self-assured. yet capable of accommodating change where it was unavoidable or preferable. All these characteristics were put to the test in the nineteenth century, when coastal peoples were subjected to intense Arabizing and Westernizing influences. Pouwels demonstrates how local people went on asserting their own traditions while assimilating what they chose from both worlds. East African Muslims, therefore faced the twentieth century divided on issues of local cultural autonomy and the need to conform to external cultural pressures.
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1. The roots of a tradition, 800-1500
- 2. The emergence of a tradition, 900-1500
- 3. A northern metamorphosis, 1500-1800
- Appendix
- 4. Town Islam and the umma ideal
- 5. Wealth, piety, justice, and learning
- 6. The Zanzibar Sultanate, 1812-88
- 7. New secularism and bureaucratic centralization
- 8. A new literacy
- 9. The early colonial era, 1885-1914
- 10. Currents of popularism and eddies of reform
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"