Publisher's Synopsis
The impact of Islam in sub-Saharan West Africa has been profound, but has been experienced very differently at different times and places. In these articles Professor Levtzion explores the varying patterns of Islamization as Islam spread south, its influence in social and economic terms as well as religious, and its role in the processes of state formation, and has developed a new approach to the historiography of the desert-sahel interface. Particular studies focus on the contrasts between rural and urban Islam and the roles of merchants and clerics, and on the Islamic revolutions of the 18th century. Others cast new light on trans-Saharan traffic, from the Jewish traders of Sijilmasa in the 10th century, to the relations between Mamluk Egypt and West Africa in the 16th. A final set of articles concentrates on the Arabic sources, both internal and external, which are fundamental for the history of the region.
