In the last two centuries, itinerant Muslim clerics played a huge role in changing the social and religious landscape of the Senegambia region. Dr. Assan Sarr will examine Islam and Islamization in West Africa through the history of the Tijāniyya, a prominent Sufi order with its ties to these clerics in the region.
Assan Sarr is an associate professor of History and African Studies at Ohio University. He is the author of Islam, Power and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin: The Politics of Land Control, 1790–1940 with the University of Rochester Press. He is also the author and co-author of several book chapters and articles, which have appeared in African Economic History, African Studies Review, Journal of West African History and Mande Studies.
Part of the Kennedy Center's fall 2023 lecture series, "Preserving and Transforming Culture."