Ebook: West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina Jawāb al-Ifrῑqῑ - The Response of the African

Chanfi Ahmed shows how West African ʿulamāʾ, who fled the European colonization of their region to settle in Mecca and Medina, helped the regime of King Ibn Sa’ud at its beginnings in the field of teaching and spreading the Salafῑ-Wahhabῑ’s Islam both inside and outside Saudi Arabia. This is against the widespread idea of considering the spread of the Salafῑ-Wahhābῑ doctrine as being the work of ʿulamāʾ from Najd (Central Arabia) only. We learn here that the diffusion of this doctrine after 1926 was much more the work of ʿulamāʾ from other parts of the Muslim World who had already acquired this doctrine and spread it in their countries by teaching and publishing books related to it. In addition Chanfi Ahmed demonstrates that concerning Islamic reform and mission (daʿwa), Africans are not just consumers, but also thinkers and designers.

Biographical note
Chanfi Ahmed has been trained in Islamic studies and received his PhD in Social History at the EHESS in Paris. Until 2013 he was a Research Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. His books include Islam et politique aux Comores, Paris, 2000, Ngoma et mission islamique (Daʿwa) aux Comores et en Afrique orientale. Une approche anthropologique, Paris, 2002; Les conversions à l’Islam fondamentaliste en Afrique au sud du Sahara. Le cas de la Tanzanie et du Kenya, Paris, 2008.
Readership
Scholars and students of Islam in West Africa and Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia.