Customer Reviews

Muslim Societies in African History (New Approaches to African History)

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Islam did struggle in Africa to anchor its roots.

Its influence made a huge impact on African subculture.

Arts, ethics, architecture, and political ideologies of today are in part remnant of such influence.

However, the African tribal psychology did not totally succumb to Islam dogma.

Confrontation did happen in the past.

And today, such confrontation extends to other segments of our social life.

The book refers to this confrontation, and to the ethnic identity of African societies that is still struggling against rigid Islamic view of modernization and contemporary social values.

I enjoyed the book.

It is not a reflection of my personal opinions, nevertheless it depicts an accurate picture of our social condition, national identity and resistance at a cultural level.

If you are looking for a book that will give the entire history of the African continent this is your book. It begins with how humans are believed to evolve from this area and then moves to ancient Egypt and beyond! It is a required text for my African Civilizations class in college and is extremely informational.

Professor Robinson is one among this nation's better scholars of the history of Islam in West Africa. However, therein lies the weakness of this particular title. This study of Islam in Africa essentially is a work that greatly privileges his region of specialization. Robinson concerns himself with Islam in North and West Africa, while he leaves out entirely any mention of the eastern Sudanic region, as well as Central and South Africa. He devotes scant attention to East Africa, and, where he chooses to include material from there, oddly enough, he directs his readers' attention primarily to Uganda, a part of Africa where Islam arrived only in the past two centuries and where it is still on its periphery. The far more venerable story of Islam among the Swahili of the East coast, perhaps the oldest Islamic tradition on the continent, barely gets mentioned.

Robinson deserves praise for covering some important themes, but even here he falls short because he fails to explore these systematically or in any depth. Readers who look for a narrative that furnishes them with an analysis of the ways Islam was introduced to Africa and its subsequent progress, will also be disappointed. The result of these inadequacies is a work that is spotty in its overall coverage and in the quality of the treatment the author provides his readers. Simply put, there are better works to be found elsewhere.