Re-Reading the Barġawāṭa

Bibliographic Data

ID16645691
AuthorsConor Dube (0000-0002-6996-636X, Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume72
Issue1-2
Pages133-242
Publication date2025-04-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueArabica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0570-5398 • E-ISSN: 1570-0585
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15700585-20241690
OpenAlexW4409789648
LanguageEN
References cited38

Scholars have long relied on a limited set of Arabic sources, particularly geographies, to reconstruct the history and beliefs of the Barġawāṭa, a Berber group of the Atlantic coast with an indigenous prophetic legacy and a ‘Qurʾān’ in the local language. The present article revisits these texts, arguing that they must be understood as two distinct veins of tradition: an early account by Ibn Ḥawqal and a separate presentation by al-Bakrī that became hegemonic. It then builds on the work of Allaoua Amara, who first noted the promise of legal compendia in studying the Barġawāṭa, presenting a set of previously neglected legal rulings from ʿAbd al-Mālik Ibn Ḥabīb that are the earliest known source on the Barġawāṭa and cast a critical, independent light on the movement’s origins and practices. Finally, it reconsiders the historiography of the Barġawāṭan faith, arguing that it was an early indigenous conversation with the new religious grammar of Islam rather than a later ‘decolonial’ rejection of the conqueror’s faith

Linguistics · Reading (process · African history and culture studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · North African History and Literature · Philosophy

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