The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3913586
AutoresJ Fleisher (0000-0002-6505-9666), Timothy Insoll (0000-0002-3072-3088)
Año2004
Volumen37
Número1
Páginas131
Fecha de publicación2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe International Journal of African Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0361-7882 • E-ISSN: 2326-3016
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/4129078
OpenAlexW338553478
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas95

The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. By Timothy Insoll. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xv, 470; 125 illustrations. $95.00 cloth, $37.00 paper. Timothy Insoll's detailed overview of archaeology of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa can be read as both an encyclopedic summary of Iron Age archaeology as well as a challenge to begin thinking about archaeology of religion and religious practice. In many ways, this volume is a much-needed and more nuanced revision of works such as J. S. Trimingham's regional summaries and overviews of influence of Islam on sub-Saharan Africa.1 Additionally, it serves as a materialist companion to Nehemiah Levtzion and Randall Pouwels's recent History of Islam in Africa (2000). This ambitious volume focuses on material correlates of Islam and Islamic practice, delineates what an archaeology of Islam might look like, and how it might be attempted. Insoll rightly indicates that although archaeologists might recognize that Islamic practice was one of most significant processes in development of many societies after seventh century A.D. (through trade, politics, and social processes of conversion), they have not yet found a cohesive language to investigate and express those themes. The bulk of volume is a detailed assessment of archaeology of Islam in seven regions (Ethiopia and Horn of Africa, Nilotic Sudan, East coast, Western Sahel, Central Sudan, West Sudan and forest, and the interior). Insoll's regional summaries show dexterity in working with minutiae of regional archaeological sequences. This work perhaps necessarily duplicates a considerable amount of summarizing done by other fine texts, such as Graham Connah's Civilizations (2002) and David W. Phillipson's Archaeology (1993), although it includes numerous more recent findings. Whereas Connah uses archaeological data to demonstrate processes of Iron Age urbanization and state formation, Insoll's particular contribution is to investigate processes of religious transformation during similar periods. To accomplish this goal, Insoll first argues that an archaeology of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa requires an integration of multiple sources, including those of archaeology, ethnography, history, architecture, and linguistics. second, Insoll attempts to establish a material baseline for what he defines as two discrete religious traditions: Islam, and pre-Islamic African traditional religions. These archaeologically detectable manifestations include ritual architecture, diet, domestic spaces, burials, and art. Third, Insoll emphasizes that archaeology of Islam must be investigated as a process, whereby Islam is contested, resisted, accepted, or integrated, thus bridging his concepts of traditional religions and Islam. He is careful to note, however, that this is no simple process from one tradition to another, but one where peoples throughout continent developed syncretic forms of religious practice that resulted in a plurality of Islams. Insoll favors trade between populations and Muslim traders as most common reason for conversion to Islam (as seen in chapters on Western Sahel, Nilotic Sudan, East coast, and West Sudan)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Geography · Islam · African history and culture analysis · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History