Over the course of the last 1400 years, Islam has grown from a small band of followers on the Arabian peninsula into a global religion of over a billion believers. How did this happen? The usual answer is that Islam spread by the sword-believers waged jihad against rival tribes and kingdoms and forced them to convert. Lamin Sanneh argues that this is far from the whole story. Beyond Jihad examines the origin and evolution of the African pacifist tradition in Islam, beginning with an inquiry into the faith's origins and expansion in North Africa and its transmission across trans-Saharan trade routes to West Africa. The book focuses on the ways in which, without jihad, the religion spread and took hold, and what that tells us about the nature of religious and social change. At the heart of this process were clerics who used religious and legal scholarship to promote Islam. Once this clerical class emerged, it offered continuity and stability in the midst of political changes and cultural shifts, helping to inhibit the spread of radicalism, and subduing the urge to wage jihad. With its policy of religious and inter-ethnic accommodation, this pacifist tradition took Islam beyond traditional trade routes and kingdoms into remote districts of the Mali Empire, instilling a patient, Sufi-inspired, and jihad-negating impulse into religious life and practice. Islam was successful in Africa, Sanneh argues, not because of military might but because it was made African by Africans who adapted it to a variety of contexts.

Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam

History

Sanneh, Lamin

Africa

Oxford University Press

This fascinating study explores the ?clash of civilizations? between the secular government and Muslim traditions in West Africa, appraising the challenge of separating the administration of the state from the deeply held beliefs of the Islamic peoples of the region. Lamin Sanneh, awarded Senegal's highest national honor for his scholarly work, pla

The Crown And The Turban: Muslims And West African Pluralism

Reference

Routledge

This work takes as its subject the emergence of a distinctive Third-World - particularly African - Christianity, as it uncouples itself from the Western cultural package in which Christianity was introduced there. A major shift in the Christian population of the world is taking place. By the turn of the century 80 per cent of Christians will live in non-Western countries - a reversal of the situation a century ago. In the past, missionaries were accused of "imperializing". Today, the focus is reversed - non-Western nations have much to teach the West about the Gospel.

Encountering the West: Christianity and Culture - an African Dimension (World Christianity Series)

HarperCollins, Publishers

Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

In 1792, nearly 1,200 freed American slaves crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in Freetown, West Africa, a community dedicated to anti-slavery and opposed to the African chieftain hierarchy that was tied to slavery. Thus began an unprecedented movement with critical long-term effects on the evolution of social, religious, and political institutions in modern Africa. 
 Lamin Sanneh's engrossing book narrates the story of freed slaves who led efforts to abolish the slave trade by attacking its base operation: the capture and sale of people by African chiefs. Sanneh's protagonists set out to establish in West Africa colonies founded on equal rights and opportunity for personal enterprise, communities that would be havens for ex-slaves and an example to the rest of Africa. Among the most striking of these leaders is the Nigerian Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a recaptured slave who joined a colony in Sierra Leone and subsequently established satellite communities in Nigeria. The ex-slave repatriates brought with them an evangelical Christianity that encouraged individual spirituality--a revolutionary vision in a land where European missionaries had long assumed they could Christianize the whole society by converting chiefs and rulers. 
 Tracking this potent African American anti-slavery and democratizing movement through the nineteenth century, Lamin Sanneh draws a clear picture of the religious grounding of its conflict with the traditional chieftain authorities. His study recounts a crucial development in the history of West Africa.

Harvard University Press

In 1792, nearly 1,200 freed American slaves crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in Freetown, West Africa, a community dedicated to anti-slavery and opposed to the African chieftain hierarchy that was tied to slavery. Thus began an unprecedented movement with critical long-term effects on the evolution of social, religious, and political institutions in modern Africa.
Lamin Sanneh's engrossing book narrates the story of freed slaves who led efforts to abolish the slave trade by attacking its base operation: the capture and sale of people by African chiefs. Sanneh's protagonists set out to establish in West Africa colonies founded on equal rights and opportunity for personal enterprise, communities that would be havens for ex-slaves and an example to the rest of Africa. Among the most striking of these leaders is the Nigerian Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a recaptured slave who joined a colony in Sierra Leone and subsequently established satellite communities in Nigeria. The ex-slave repatriates brought with them an evangelical Christianity that encouraged individual spirituality--a revolutionary vision in a land where European missionaries had long assumed they could Christianize the whole society by converting chiefs and rulers.
Tracking this potent African American anti-slavery and democratizing movement through the nineteenth century, Lamin Sanneh draws a clear picture of the religious grounding of its conflict with the traditional chieftain authorities. His study recounts a crucial development in the history of West Africa.

Many historians of religion now recognize that Christianity is a global faith whose most vibrant expression and growth are found today in the non-Western world. But no one explores this reality and its implications for modern life with the depth of learning and personal insight of Lamin Sanneh. This book is unique in the literature of world Christianity, not least for its novel structure. Sanneh's engaging narrative takes the form of a self-interview in which he asks questions about the cross-cultural expansion of Christianity and provides insightful answers and meaningful predictions about the future. This technique also allows Sanneh to track developments in world Christianity even while giving attention to the responses and involvement of indigenous peoples around the world. Sanneh's own background and lifelong involvement with non-Western cultures bring a richness of perspective not found in any other book on world Christianity. For example, Sanneh highlights what is distinctive about Christianity as a world religion, and he offers a timely comparison of Christianity with Islam's own missionary tradition. The book also gives pride of place to the recipients of the Christian message rather than to the missionaries themselves. Indeed, Sanneh argues here that the gospel is not owned by the West and that the future of the tradition lies in its "world" character. Literate, relevant, and highly original, Whose Religion Is Christianity? presents a stimulating new outlook on faith and culture that will interest a wide range of readers.

Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel beyond the West

World

Eerdmans

Summoned from the Margin tells the story of Lamin Sanneh's fascinating journey from his upbringing in an impoverished village in West Africa to education in the United States and Europe to a distinguished career teaching at the Universities of Yale, Harvard, Aberdeen, and Ghana. He grew up in a polygamous household in The Gambia and attended a government-run Muslim boarding school. A chance encounter with Helen Keller's autobiography taught him that education and faith are the key to overcoming physical and personal hardship and inspired his journey. Burning theological questions about God's nature and human suffering eventually led Sanneh to convert from Islam to Christianity and to pursue a career in academia. Here he recounts the unusually varied life experiences that have made him who he is today. Watch the trailer:

Summond from the Margin: Homecoming of an African

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

This fascinating study explores the clash of civilizations” between the secular government and Muslim traditions in West Africa, appraising the challenge of separating the administration of the state from the deeply held beliefs of the Islamic peoples of the region. Lamin Sanneh, awarded Senegal's highest national honor for his scholarly work, places Islam within the context of Africa's receptive and pluralist environment, explores the religious and historical background of present-day conflicts, and shows that achieving solutions will depend equally upon Christian and Muslim theological resources.As Sanneh explains, Muslims took advantage of Africa's religious tolerance to begin a process of change that culminated in a unified Islamic view of religion, state, and society. European colonialism and missionary efforts both bolstered and complicated the development of this faith as a result of the pressures secularism brought to bear on Islamic tradition. Sanneh points out that perhaps ironically, due to the same tolerance of differences, Christianity was able to flourish in parts of Africa, and its followers more readily supported the Western secular idea of the separation of church and state.Offering a comprehensive evaluation of the key points of colonial and interreligious friction, Sanneh explores the effects of conflict of belief on religious, educational, and political institutions in the region. The book will be essential reading for students of comparative religion, African, missions, and Islam.

Westview Press

This book explores the clash of civilizations between the secular government and Muslim traditions in West Africa, appraising the challenge of separating the administration of the state from the beliefs of the Islamic peoples of the region. It is useful for students of comparative religion.

This book attempts the first major study of the Jakhanke people. The Jakhanke have since the thirteenth century been a specialist group of Muslim clerics and teachers, living among the Serakhulle, from whom they sprang, and the Manding, whose language they speak. Despite the nineteenth-century ambience of militancy, they maintained their tradition of consistent pacifism and political neutrality which is unique in Muslim Black Africa. Their manuscripts and clan histories survive today in precious family collections and libraries. The author has drawn on these histories, present-day interviews, travellers' observations and colonial reports to weave a fascinating, comprehensive study of the Jakhanke for the first time in any language. The author traces the details of their wanderings and analyzes important themes such as their system of education, their function as dream-interpreters and amulet-makers and finally, the dark side of the coin, the dependence of their way of life on the institution of slavery. Includes photos and maps.

The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University Press of America

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sanneh, Lamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sanneh, Lamin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sanneh, Lamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam

The Crown And The Turban: Muslims And West African Pluralism

Encountering the West: Christianity and Culture - an African Dimension (World Christianity Series)

Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel beyond the West

Summond from the Margin: Homecoming of an African

The Crown And The Turban: Muslims And West African Pluralism

The Crown And The Turban: Muslims And West African Pluralism

The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics