Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa - Ousmane Oumar Kane

Renowned for its madrassas and archives of rare Arabic manuscripts, Timbuktu is famous as a center of Muslim learning from Islam's Golden Age. Yet Timbuktu was one among many scholarly centers to exist in precolonial West Africa. Beyond Timbuktu charts the rise of Muslim learning in West Africa from the beginning of Islam to the present day, examining the shifting contexts that have influenced the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge over the course of centuries. Ousmane Kane corrects lingering misconceptions that Africa's Muslim heritage represents a minor thread in Islam's larger tapestry. West African Muslims have never been isolated. The Sahara was not an insuperable barrier but a bridge that allowed the Arabo-Berbers of the North to sustain relations with West African Muslims through trade, diplomacy, and intellectual and spiritual exchange