Islam and Modernity: Alternatives in Contemporary Senegambia and Ghana

FAIN: RZ-51461-12

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
Walter Hawthorne (Project Director: December 2011 to May 2017)

The preparation for online publication of texts, images, interviews, and interpretive essays, examining the practice of Islam in West Africa. (36 months)

Five Africanists from Michigan State University and Indiana University will create online galleries of primary oral and written sources and interpretive essays, to be published in a free website entitled "Islam and Modernity" that will enrich our understanding of Islam and the contemporary world. Muslim societies throughout the world have had to confront Western domination and forms of modernity in the last two centuries. West African Muslims in Senegambia, Ghana and other areas have developed original institutions and what we call "alternative modernities" in pedagogy, gender and class opportunity, interfaith conversations, and other domains. This proposal responds to the Endowment's "Bridging Cultures" initiative through resources to broaden the understanding of Americans about Islam and its West African expressions and to challenge widely held assumptions about the Muslim faith and Africa. The proposed project will be conducted from October 2012 to September 2015.

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