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Tuchscherer, Konrad, and C. Magbaily Fyle. "Introduction to the History of African Civilization: Precolonial Africa, Vol. I." International Journal of African Historical Studies 34, no. 2 (2001): 457. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3097520.
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Kane, Ousmane. "ARABIC SOURCES AND THE SEARCH FOR A NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY IN IBADAN IN THE 1960s." Africa 86, no. 2 (April 6, 2016): 344–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0001972016000097.
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According to the late Ali Mazrui, modern Africa is the product of a triple civilizational legacy: African, Arabo-Islamic, and Western (Mazrui 1986). Each civilization left Africa with bodies of knowledge rooted in particular epistemologies and transmitted in written and/or oral form. In the first half of the twentieth century, what became known as the colonial library (Mudimbe 1988: x) had provided the sources and conceptual apparatus for studying African history, but from the mid-twentieth century onwards, nationalist intellectuals sought to deconstruct European colonial intellectual hegemony through the search for alternative sources and interpretations of African history. Notable among these intellectuals is Cheikh Anta Diop, whose work highlighted the close connections between Egypt and the rest of the continent to claim Ancient Egypt's historical legacy for the continent. Nigeria's first university – University College Ibadan, which later became the University of Ibadan – provided a forum for talented Africans and Europeans to pursue the project of decolonizing African history. Jeremiah Arowosegbe's survey provides insights into the rise and decline of academic commitment in the African continent, with particular reference to South Africa and Nigeria.
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Mazrui, Alamin. "The Indian Experience as a Swahili Mirror in Colonial Mombasa." African and Asian Studies 16, no. 1-2 (March 16, 2017): 167–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15692108-12341376.
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People of Indian descent had long interacted with the Swahili of East Africa. This interrelationship became particularly momentous during British colonial rule that gave additional impetus to Indian migration to East Africa. In time East Africa, in general, and Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city, in particular, became home to significant populations of Indian settler communities. Motivated by an immigrant psychology and relatively privileged status under colonial rule, Indian immigrants took full advantage of the opportunities to become remarkably successful socially and economically. Local inhabitants were fully aware of the success of Indian immigrants of East Africa, and for some of them, the Indian record became a yard stick for their own successes and failures. Among these was Sheikh Al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui (1891-1947), famed for his reformist ideas about East African Islam. Using his Swahili periodical, Swahifa, he tried to galvanize members of Swahili-Muslim community towards the goal of community uplift by drawing on the experiences of East African Indians as a way of referring them back to some of the fundamentals of a progressive Islamic civilization in matters of the economy, education, and cultural preservation. In this sense, the East African Indian “mirror” became an important means of propagating Sheikh Al-Amin’s agenda of an alternative modernity rooted in Islamic civilization.
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Zaprulkhan, Zaprulkhan. "Membangun Dialog Peradaban." Edugama: Jurnal Kependidikan dan Sosial Keagamaan 3, no. 1 (July 31, 2017): 49–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.32923/edugama.v3i1.683.
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In 1989 Francis Fukuyama with his article The End of History? In the journal The National Interest revolves a speculative thesis that after the West conquered its ideological rival, hereditary monarchy, fascism and communism, the constellation of the world of international politics reached a remarkable consensus to liberal democracy. A few years later, Samuel P. Huntington came up with a more provocative thesis that ideological-based war would be a civilization-based war in his article, The Clash of Civilizations? In the journal Foreign Affairs. It reveals that in the future the world will be shaped by interactions among the seven or eight major civilizations of Western civilization: Confucius, Japan, Islam, Hinduism, Orthodox Slavs, Latin America and possibly Africa. Huntington directed the West to pay particular attention to Islam, for Islam is the only civilization with great potential to shake Western civilization. Departing from the above hypotheses, this paper will specifically discuss the bias of Fukuyama and Huntington's thesis on Islam, and how its solution to build a dialogue of civilization by taking the paradigm of dialogue from Ibn Rushd and Raghib As-Sirjani.
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Pada tahun 1989 Francis Fukuyama dengan artikelnya The End of History? Dalam jurnal The National Interest revolusioner tesis spekulatif bahwa setelah Barat telah menaklukkan lawan-lawan ideologisnya, monarki herediter, fasisme dan komunisme, konstelasi politik internasional mencapai konsensus yang luar biasa untuk demokrasi liberal. Beberapa tahun kemudian, Samuel P. Huntington muncul dengan tesis yang lebih provokatif bahwa perang berbasis ideologis akan menjadi perang berbasis peradaban dalam artikelnya, The Clash of Civilisations? Dalam jurnal Luar Negeri. Ini mengungkapkan bahwa di masa depan akan dibentuk oleh interaksi antara tujuh atau delapan peradaban utama peradaban Barat: Konfusius, Jepang, Islam, Hindu, Slavia Ortodoks, Amerika Latin dan mungkin Afrika. Perhatian Huntington pada Islam adalah potensi terpenting untuk mengguncang peradaban Barat. Berangkat dari hipotesis di atas, makalah ini akan secara khusus membahas bias tesis Fukuyama dan Huntington tentang Islam, dan bagaimana mereka akan mengambil paradigma dialog dari Ibn Rushd dan Raghib As-Sirjani.
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Haron, Muhammed. "Second International Congress on Islamic Civilization in Southern Africa." American Journal of Islam and Society 33, no. 3 (July 1, 2016): 150–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v33i3.931.
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In 2006 the first International Congress of Islamic Civilization in SouthernAfrica was hosted by AwqafSA (www.awqafsa. org.za) and IRCICA (Centrefor Islamic History, Art, and Culture www.ircica.org) at the University of Johannesburg.IRCICA, the prime mover and funder of this and similar conferencesand congresses worldwide, has been actively promoting these platformsto bring academics, scholars, researchers, and other stakeholders together tohighlight research outputs and findings that reflect upon the status and positionof Muslim minorities worldwide. Since Southern African Muslim communitiesform an integral part of Africa’s Muslims, it decided to host a follow-upevent in the region.IRCICA once again teamed up with AwqafSA, which had been in closecontact with IRCICA since the 2003 Uganda “Islamic Civlization in EastAfrica” conference. For this congress, AwqafSA partnered with the InternationalPeace College of South Africa (IPSA) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). It also teamed up with ITV, Radio Al-Ansaar, and the MinaraChamber of Commerce. Since UKZN was the main academic partner, thecongress was held from March 4-6, 2016, at the Senate Chambers of UKZN’sWestville campus.The organizers’ objectives for the congress were to (a) increase people’sknowledge of the history and heritage of Southern Africa’s Muslims, (b)strengthen cooperation among Muslim and African nations and their peoplesby producing and disseminating Islamic and cultural knowledge, and (c) offera forum for the true understanding of Islamic culture in the world.Donal McCracken (acting dean of research, College of Humanities) officiallywelcomed the delegates. Following his opening remarks, the audienceheard from the representatives of the Congress Organizing Committee.Zeinoul Cajee (CEO, AwqafSA), Halit Eren (director-general, IRCICA), andShaykh Ighsaan Taliep (IPSA). Eren underscored the importance of these ...
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Wright, Laurence. "Culture and civilization in south Africa: Some questions about the ‘African renaissance'." English Academy Review 16, no. 1 (December 1999): 60–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10131752.1999.10384457.
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Rassool, Ciraj, and Leslie Witz. "The 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival: Constructing and Contesting Public National History in South Africa." Journal of African History 34, no. 3 (November 1993): 447–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853700033752.
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For all approaches to the South African past the icon of Jan Van Riebeeck looms large. Perspectives supportive of the political project of white domination created and perpetuate the icon as the bearer of civilization to the sub-continent and its source of history. Opponents of racial oppression have portrayed Van Riebeeck as public (history) enemy number one of the South African national past. Van Riebeeck remains the figure around which South Africa's history is made and contested.But this has not always been the case. Indeed up until the 1950s, Van Riebeeck appeared only in passing in school history texts, and the day of his landing at the Cape was barely commemorated. From the 1950s, however, Van Riebeeck acquired centre stage in South Africa's public history. This was not the result of an Afrikaner Nationalist conspiracy but arose out of an attempt to create a settler nationalist ideology. The means to achieve this was a massive celebration throughout the country of the 300th anniversary of Van Riebeeck's landing. Here was an attempt to display the growing power of the apartheid state and to assert its confidence.A large festival fair and imaginative historical pageants were pivotal events in establishing the paradigm of a national history and constituting its key elements. The political project of the apartheid state was justified in the festival fair through the juxtaposition of ‘civilization’ and economic progress with ‘primitiveness’ and social ‘backwardness’. The historical pageant in the streets of Cape Town presented a version of South Africa's past that legitimated settler rule.Just as the Van Riebeeck tercentenary afforded the white ruling bloc an opportunity to construct an ideological hegemony, it was grasped by the Non-European Unity Movement and the African National Congress to launch political campaigns. Through the public mediums of the resistance press and the mass meeting these organizations presented a counter-history of South Africa. These oppositional forms were an integral part of the making of the festival and the Van Riebeeck icon. In the conflict which played itself out in 1952 there was a remarkable consensus about the meaning of Van Riebeeck's landing in 1652. The narrative constructed, both by those seeking to establish apartheid and those who sought to challenge it, represented Van Riebeeck as the spirit of apartheid and the originator of white domination. The ideological frenzy in the centre of Cape Town in 1952 resurrected Van Riebeeck from obscurity and historical amnesia to become the lead actor on South Africa's public history stage.
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Sassi, Jonathan. "Africans in the Quaker image: Anthony Benezet, African travel narratives, and revolutionary-era antislavery." Journal of Early Modern History 10, no. 1 (2006): 95–130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006506777525511.
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AbstractThis article compares Anthony Benezet's influential 1771 antislavery tract, Some Historical Account of Guinea, with the sources from which he gleaned his information about Africa and the slave trade, the narratives published by European travelers to West Africa. Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker and humanitarian reformer, cited the travel literature in order to portray Africa as an abundant land of decent people. He thereby refuted the apology that cast the slave trade as a beneficial transfer of people from a land of barbarism and death to regions of civilization and Christianity. However, Benezet employed the travel narratives selectively, suppressing contradictory evidence as well as controversial material that could have been used to construct an alternative depiction of African humanity. Nonetheless, Benezet's research shaped the subsequent debate over the slave trade and slavery, as antislavery writers incorporated his depiction into their rhetorical arsenal and proslavery defenders searched for a rebuttal.
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Palabıyık, Mustafa Serdar. "Ottoman travelers' perceptions of Africa in the Late Ottoman Empire (1860-1922): A discussion of civilization, colonialism and race." New Perspectives on Turkey 46 (2012): 187–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0896634600001552.
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AbstractThe Ottoman encounter with European colonialism over their African territories during the nineteenth century contributed to a renewed interest in Africa and its inhabitants. This resulted in several official and non-official travels to this continent at the end of which the travelers published their memoirs. This article intends to analyze Ottoman perceptions of Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by drawing upon Ottoman travelogues. It concludes that the travelers established paradoxical accounts regarding the implications of European colonialism for Africa and the ethnic taxonomy of the African people. They perceived European colonialism as a civilizing mechanism on the one hand, and treated it as the most significant reason of African “backwardness” on the other. Similarly, while they criticized the European colonial discourse based on the superiority of the white race over others, they established similar ethnic taxonomies establishing hierarchies among African tribes.
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Koonar, Catherine. "“Christianity, Commerce and Civilization”: Child Labor and the Basel Mission in Colonial Ghana, 1855–1914." International Labor and Working-Class History 86 (2014): 72–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0147547914000106.
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AbstractFocusing specifically on colonial Ghana between 1855 and 1914, this article aims to situate the history of child labor in colonial Africa within the larger historiography of African labor history. Relying primarily on the records of the Basel Mission, this article complicates the narrative of labor history by studying how the mission acquired and sustained the labor of children and youth at various mission stations as part of the greater “missionary project.” This article argues that childhood in colonial Ghana can be viewed as a site of contestation between the competing interests of patriarchy, race, and colonial and missionary authority, in which the labor of children was used to achieve a larger degree of control and influence in the region.
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Mgadla, P. T., and Dickson Mungazi. "To Honor the Sacred Trust of Civilization: History, Politics and Education in Southern Africa." International Journal of African Historical Studies 18, no. 1 (1985): 164. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/217982.
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Conklin, Alice L. "« Democracy » Rediscovered : Civilization through Association in French West Africa (1914-1930)." Cahiers d’études africaines 37, no. 145 (1997): 59–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/cea.1997.1988.
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Alexander, John B. "Lost Civilizations: The Secret Histories and Suppressed Technologies of the Ancients by Jim Willis." Journal of Scientific Exploration 34, no. 3 (September 15, 2020): 608–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.31275/20201813.
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Lost Civilizations is at once intriguing but also challenging to all conventional wisdom. Perhaps that is as it should be and Willis certainly created an interesting compendium of mysterious archeological events combined with a generous exploration of mythology. Readers of the SSE Journal should know I am not a fan of the “Out of Africa” theory. There have been too many recent discoveries made to support the notion that human life began in a single remote location. We can think of the discovery of the Denisovan that interbred with hominids that did migrate from Africa. What Willis repeatedly points to is apparent DNA anomalies in which samples indicate connections between groups for which there is no logical explanation. As an example, there are traces in Australia that are commensurate with those from South America that must have occurred long before any known contact had happened. While Willis would agree, Lost Civilizations suggests the timelines may be off by many thousands of years, a concept that is hard to integrate into demonstrable history. If somebody built things, where did such previously unknown groups come from? It is in questioning that Willis adds significant value. What do we mean by “lost civilizations” is basic to the book? But more fundamentally he asks how is “civilization” defined? There are multiple definitions and he states that what it means to be civilized does not equate to the organization of villages or cities. Further, if civilizations were “lost” where did they come from and where did they go? How did seemingly thriving communities suddenly cease to exist? Then, why is it that some societies not only physically disappear, but also seem to be erased from the memories of survivors or other groups that may have interacted with them. His examples of lost groups abound and signal a warning to modern society. If previous complex organizations disappeared, often with no immediate trace, could the same thing happen to our current civilization.
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Akubor, Emmanuel Osewe. "Emerging Religious Movements And Their Implications In African History And Heritage." European Scientific Journal, ESJ 12, no. 2 (January 29, 2016): 365. http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esj.2016.v12n2p365.
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Africa has often been referred to as the Home of Civilization. This reference is based on the fact that most of the continent evidences how man has, over time, interacted meaningful with his environment to produce all that he needs to make history. Archaeological remains in Egypt have shed light on this development as far as Africa is concern. Other remains found particularly in central Eastern Africa have been widely recognized such that the area is now widely accepted as the origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes). This is evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago. These later ones include Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis, and H. ergaster, with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia dating far back to circa 200,000 years ago. Now, this rich historical heritage is being threatened by the emergence of some religious movements in Africa. The reason for this is that these religions see the preservation of these relics as idolatry and unacceptable. Data obtained from primary and secondary sources were deployed to carry out the study, and the study was carried out with an analytical and narrative historical method. Findings indicate that while the European world continue to beg for the preservation of these artifacts and in some cases preserve these artifacts and relics in their museums, the emerging groups continue to target these historical artifacts for destruction. This paper argues that this trend is unhealthy for the development of history and preservation of the continent’s heritage. Furthermore, it asserts that once this wanton destruction is not checked, there is a high possibility that in the nearest future, nothing would be left to study in African history.
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Leedy, Todd H. "History with a Mission: Abraham Kawadza and Narratives of Agrarian Change in Zimbabwe." History in Africa 33 (2006): 255–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.2006.0016.
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He was the first man who was clever enough to realize he could sell some green maize at the mine in Penhalonga… Even to build the good houses, you had to come and copy from Kawadza. To buy ploughshares, they had to come and copy from Kawadza… Even those who bought cars, they had to copy from Kawadza… Chief Gandanzara used to walk on foot whenever he wanted to meet anyone. But because of seeing Kawadza riding a horse, he himself decided to ride on a horse… We can say in Mani-caland, or we can say in Zimbabwe, most of the good things were started with Kawadza.Histories of Africa produced during the colonial period generally begin with the premise that indigenous societies existed in a timeless, static condition. The sort of broad social changes that formed the very basis of history had seemingly never occurred within Africa. Therefore history in Africa began with early European contacts and colonial-era accounts proceeded to chronicle the variety of European activities in Africa. Even more than most Europeans in the colonies, missionaries viewed themselves as direct agents of change and therefore creators of history. Their personal accounts, usually written for public consumption back home, inevitably included both struggles and successes inherent to mission work. More specifically, in their accounts of agricultural change among African societies, missionaries frequently attempted to script for themselves the central role as protagonists driving a story of progress and civilization. In order to highlight the problematic nature of missionary accounts and their influence on other interpretations, I examine here a variety of historical sources relating to Abraham Kawadza. His life experiences support a self-peasantization approach to rural history that challenges any mission-centric interpretation of agrarian change in colonial Zimbabwe.
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Schreier, Joshua. "Recentering the History of Jews in North Africa." French Historical Studies 43, no. 1 (February 1, 2020): 47–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00161071-7920450.
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Abstract Recent work that readjusts French Jewish historians' lenses to include France's empire in North Africa is essential, but it does not necessarily expand the range of questions beyond the logic or contradictions of empire. Looking at Jewish history from “outside” the empire, in contrast, may de-emphasize the critical focus on the failures of enlightenment, assimilation, or civilization that have been central both to colonialists' self-definition and to subsequent historiography. Drawing on work that traces the history of a group of powerful Jewish merchants in mid-nineteenth-century Oran, this article posits that North African Jews influenced the early French colonial order. In so doing, it underlines the inadequacy of imported (but enduring) anthropological, popular, or legal identifiers such as indigènes, subjects, or citizens while emphasizing how Maghrebi Jews were often influential figures in the extra- or transimperial networks that both defied and shaped France's early North African empire. Pour importantes qu'elles soient, les recherches récentes plaçant l'Empire français en Afrique du Nord au centre de l'histoire juive française ne se sont pas dégagées de certaines problématiques bien établies, notamment celles centrées sur la logique interne de l'Empire et ses contradictions. Cet essai constitue une tentative de considérer l'histoire juive de « l'extérieur » de l'Empire, visant par là à repenser l'importance longtemps mise sur les échecs (ou les réussites) des Lumières, de l'assimilation, ou de la mission civilisatrice—idées qui ont longtemps joué un rôle essentiel dans la façon dont les colons se sont définis et dans la formulation des questions historiographiques liées à l'entreprise coloniale. Cet article traite d'un groupe de grands négociants juifs d'Oran au milieu du dix-neuvième siècle pour montrer que les juifs d'Afrique du Nord étaient des agents puissants ayant non seulement exercé une influence déterminante sur l'ordre précolonial, mais aussi sur les premières décennies de la colonisation française. Ce travail souligne ainsi les limites d'identifiants anthropologiques, populaires, ou légaux tels qu’« indigènes », « sujets », ou « citoyens ». Il souligne en outre que les juifs maghrébins avaient souvent une influence considérable sur les réseaux trans-impériaux qui ont à la fois défié le nouvel Empire français en Afrique, et qui lui ont donné forme.
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Osadolor, Osarhieme Benson, and Leo Enahoro Otoide. "The Benin Kingdom in British Imperial Historiography." History in Africa 35 (January 2008): 401–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.0.0014.
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The body of knowledge that constituted British imperial writing, and the expression that interacted with it were attempts to engage European readership on the imperial adventure in Africa in the age of the new imperialism. This study is an attempt to address the complex issues involved in the production of historical knowledge about precolonial Benin to justify British colonial rule. The argument advanced in this paper is that, since imperial discourse set out to deal with history in terms of civilization, British imperial writing was a struggle to articulate certain ideas about Benin into a position of dominance before the British public. As Mary Louise Pratt explains, “depicting the civilizing mission as an aesthetic project is a strategy the west has often used for defining others as available for and in need of its benign and beautifying intervention.” British imperial discourse will form the basis of the discussion in this paper.Imperial discourse and its subjectivity raises questions about issues of power and privilege of those writers who were determined to sustain their voices in the debate on European imperialism in Africa. Their approach to the constitution of knowledge about Benin was one of many ways that opened the frontiers of knowledge about African states and societies to redefine civilization, albeit for the purposes of understanding various meanings and implications in this intellectual assault. This provides a vital entry point for examining the European colonial approach to the construction of the image of Africa. The aim is to demonstrate how this process suggests a connection from imperial expansionism to forms of knowledge and expression that reaffirmed metropolitan authority in the context of colonial subjugation.
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Osiri, J. Kalu. "Igbo management philosophy: a key for success in Africa." Journal of Management History 26, no. 3 (February 29, 2020): 295–314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jmh-10-2019-0067.
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Purpose This paper aims to present the Igbo management philosophy as having the potential to bring about success in Africa and propose a framework that comprises a set of values and three key institutions: the marketplace, the family and the apprenticeship system. The paper shows that effective leaders are servant-leaders who sacrifice for others. Design/methodology/approach This paper relied on earlier and contemporary peer-reviewed, news media and books. These materials offered insight into what Igbos believed, how they behaved and how they historically organized their lives. Materials authored by both African and non-African authors were considered. Findings The researcher concluded that Igbos developed a management system based on a philosophy that is African, which is different from the Western system. A framework for the Igbo management philosophy is derived from complex interactions of values and institutions in Igbo societies. The researcher finds that a set of values, particularly, the value of sacrifice, is crucial for ensuring effective business leadership. Originality/value Western influence on management has persisted. However, with the economic rise of China, Asian philosophical thought has taken a more center stage in academic management scholarship. Even though human civilization occurred in Africa, it is perplexing that African management systems are not mainstream. There has been research on indigenous African systems and African management philosophy in general. Previous scholarship has also explored the Igbo culture as a whole and their apprenticeship system; however, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time a framework for an Igbo management philosophy is proposed.
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Bekler, Ecevit. "The True Face of Pre-Colonial Africa in “Things Fall Apart”." Respectus Philologicus 25, no. 30 (April 25, 2014): 96–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/respectus.2014.25.30.7.
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The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known to be one of the most influential African writers and holds an important place in postcolonial studies. His main aim was to reconstructthe wrongly established beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of the Western world regarding Africa. To realize his aim, he made careful selections in his choice of language, which contributed greatly to sharing his observations, ideas, and beliefs with the rest of the world. He wrote his novels in English, believing that doing so would be more powerful in conveying the true face of pre-colonial Africa, rather than in Nigerian, which could not be as effective as the language of the colonizers. Achebe’s complaint was that the history of Africa had mainly been written by white men who did not belong to his continent and who would not judge life there fairly. With his novels, he changed the prejudices of those who had never been to Africa, and he managed to convert the negative ideas and feelings caused by the portrayal of his continent to positive ones. Things Fall Apart is a novel whose mission is to portray Africa in a very realistic and authentic environment, contrary to the one-sided point of view of the colonizers. The novel presents us, in very authentic language, with many details about the customs, rituals, daily life practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and even jokes of the African Igbos. Chinua Achebe thus realizes his aim in revealing that African tribes, although regarded as having a primitive life and being very far from civilization, in fact had their own life with traditions and a culture specific to themselves.
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Franklin, V. P. "Reflections on History, Education, and Social Theories." History of Education Quarterly 51, no. 2 (May 2011): 264–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2011.00336.x.
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Historians need social theories to conduct their research whether they are acknowledged or not. Positivist social theories underpinned the professionalization of the writing of history as well as the establishment of the social sciences as “disciplines,” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. August Comte's “science of society” and theories of evolution were attractive to U.S. historians and other researchers dealing with rapid social and economic changes taking place under the banner of American and Western “progress.” Progressive and “pragmatic” approaches were taken in dealing with the social wreckage created by the expanding industrialization, increasing urbanization, and huge influx of southern and eastern European immigrants. In addition, social theories and philosophical trends also served as the ideological underpinning for historians writing about the “white man's burden” that was said to have brought European and American “civilization” to the indigenous peoples in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the islands of the Pacific who came to be dominated by military might with collaboration from local elites.
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Strechie, Mădălina. "The Punic Wars: A “Clash Of Civilizations” In Antiquity." International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION 21, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 650–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/kbo-2015-0110.
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Abstract The conflict that opposed the Carthaginians, called puny by the Romans, and the Eternal City, was one of epic proportions, similar to the Iliad, because, just as in the Iliad one of the combatants was removed forever, not only from the political game of the region, but also from history. The Punic Wars lasted long, the reason/stake was actually the control of the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most important spheres of influence in Antiquity. These military clashes followed the patterns of a genuine “clash of civilizations”, there was a confrontation of two civilizations with their military blocks, interests, mentalities, technologies, logistics, strategies and manner of belligerence. The two civilizations, one of money, the other of pragmatism, opposed once again, after the Iliad and the Greco-Persian wars, the Orient (and North Africa) with the West, thus redrawing the map of the world power. The winner in this “clash” was Rome, by the perseverance, tenacity and national unity of its army to the detriment of Carthage, a civilization of money, equally pragmatic, but lacking national political unity. So the West was victorious, changing the Roman winners in the super-power of the ancient world, a sort of gendarme of the world around the Mediterranean Sea which was turned into a Roman lake (Mare Nostrum.)
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EDWARDS, DAVID N. "MEROE AND THE SUDANIC KINGDOMS." Journal of African History 39, no. 2 (July 1998): 175–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853797007172.
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The kingdom of Kush (Meroe) represents one of a series of early states located within the Middle Nile. At its greatest extent controlling more than 1,000 km. of the Nile valley from northern Lower Nubia to Sennar on the Blue Nile, its scale, longevity and cultural achievements are remarkable (Fig. 1). While its origins in the early millennium b.c. and its demise around the fourth century a.d. still remain obscure, it is one of the earliest and most impressive states yet found south of the Sahara. This notwithstanding, the place of the Kushite state and its civilization within the history of sub-Saharan Africa remains far from clear.The early development of complex societies in the Middle Nile within the frontiers of the modern republic of Sudan raises many questions concerning the role of external influences and cultural contacts on the region. The ever present shadow of Pharaonic Egypt looms large in most studies, and very close links are still maintained between Meroitic (and Nubian) studies and Egyptology. One result of the undoubted Egyptocentrism which has for so long dominated research in the region has been the neglect of many research areas likely to be of interest to archaeologists and historians working elsewhere in Africa. The political structuring and organisation of power within the Kushite state still remain little studied, while little interest has been shown in trying to contextualize it, either in relation to later kingdoms of the Middle Nile or indeed in the history of state development in Sudanic Africa as a whole. All too often it seems still implied, if not explicitly stated, that the early development of social/political complexity in the region, with the rise of Kerma, Napata and Meroe and their attendant cultural achievements, may be largely explained by, and understood in terms of, Egyptian models: ‘secondary states’ on the margins of a great civilization, unique within, and effectively unconnected with, other regions of sub-Saharan Africa.The concern of this paper is briefly to reassess a number of questions concerning our perceptions of the Kushite state, which also have implications for our understanding of the long-term history of early states within the Middle Nile and their relation to other parts of Sudanic Africa.
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Noyes, John K. "Nomadic fantasies: producing landscapes of mobility in German southwest Africa." Ecumene 7, no. 1 (January 2000): 47–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096746080000700103.
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In nineteenth-century Germany, ‘nomadism’ was an epithet frequently applied with little distinction to pastoralist, hunter-gatherer and semi-agriculturalist societies. It was used as a description not only of actual indigenous social organizations or economies, but also of a propensity to wander, an inconstancy and hence an obstacle to civilization. This was not confined to anthropological and ethnographic discourse. It also influenced policymaking in the colonies, particularly in discussions of land rights and land utilization. At the same time, discussions of nomadism, when applied to indigenous populations, awakened associations with a key theme in German national identity and national history - that the German nation had once shared this love of wandering. Debates on nomadism in the colonies expressed certain perceptions of German identity, but also anxieties about the mobility of labour and capital. The example chosen in this paper is German southwest Africa at the turn of the century.
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Puzanov, Daniil V. "The “Abrahamic Metacivilization” of the 8th –13th Centuries." Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 464 (2021): 143–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/15617793/464/17.
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The article substantiates the expediency of considering the system of Christian and Islamic medieval civilizations as a single Abrahamic metacivilization. Heuristic possibilities of the term are revealed on the basis of research works on sociology, philosophy, world and domestic history. The features of the perception of civilizations and religions are analyzed from the point of view of the world-system perspective and global history. The definition of local civilization is being clarified. The definition of metacivilization is given. It is noted that, since the 8th century, on the territory of Asia Minor, North Africa and Europe, a system was forming whose unity was based on a combination of two universal cultures: the Hellenistic (science and law) one and the system of teachings of the Abrahamic religions. The expediency of designating this system as “Abrahamic metacivilization” is substantiated. It could not have arisen before the 7th–8th centuries. Along with the Arab conquests, the importance of religions in communications in the designated territories was growing, and the zone of influence of the Abrahamic religions was seriously expanding. The author proposes to leave open the question of the upper chronological framework of the phenomenon. The Abrahamic metacivilization disappears either in the 13th century (when its Hellenistic component begins to erode) or in the 15th century (with the formation of the capitalist worldsystem). Like world-systems, the Abrahamic civilization had a hierarchical structure, which depended on the degree of political power centralization and the completeness of the state ideology formation. The metacivilization center was represented by Byzantium and the empires of Islam. It seems promising to use the term to study some aspects of the legal, cultural, social and economic history of medieval states with an official Abrahamic religion, including the study of interfaith transactions. It seems promising to study from such positions the early history of Eastern Europe, whose many regions still preserved the tribal structure. The possibility of using the term “Abrahamic metacivilization” in historical ethnography (for example, based on some provisions of R. Redfield’s theory, in which the mechanisms of globalization and global processes were for the first time considered from the standpoint of social anthropology) is also substantiated. An advantage of the term is its specific territorial-chronological reference. It is noted that the term “Abrahamic metacivilization” can be used in studies with different methodological bases.
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Mouser, Bruce. "Origins of Church Missionary Society Accommodation to Imperial Policy: The Sierra Leone Quagmire and the Closing of the Susu Mission, 1804-17." Journal of Religion in Africa 39, no. 4 (2009): 375–402. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/002242009x12537559494278.
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AbstractA series of events in 1807 changed the mission of the early Church Missionary Society in Sierra Leone from one that was designed initially and solely to spread the Christian message in the interior of West Africa to one that included service to the Colony of Sierra Leone. Before 1807, the Society had identified the Susu language as the appointed language to be used in its conversion effort, and it intended to establish an exclusively Susu Mission—in Susu Country and independent of government attachment—that would prepare a vanguard of African catechists and missionaries to carry that message in the Susu language. In 1807, however, the Society's London-based board and the missionaries then present at Sierra Leone made a strategic shift of emphasis to accept government protection and support in return for a bargain of government service, while at the same time continuing with earlier and independent goals of carrying the message of Christianity to native Africans. That choice prepared the Society and its missionaries within a decade to significantly increase the Society's role in Britain's attempt to bring civilization, commerce and Christianity to the continent, and to do it within the confines of imperial policy.
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Mortel, Richard T. "Madrasas in Mecca during the medieval period: a descriptive study based on literary sources." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60, no. 2 (June 1997): 236–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x00036387.
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The madrasa as an institution dedicated to the teaching of one or more of the fourmadhhabs, or schools, of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, often in conjunction with the ancillary Islamic sciences, including Arabic grammar, the study of quranic exegesis (tafsīr) and Prophetic Traditions (ḥadīth) alongside more secular disciplines such as history, literature, rhetoric, mathematics and astronomy, began to proliferate in the eastern Islamic lands from the fifth century/eleventh century, although its origins are traceable as far back as the early fourth/tenth century in eastern Iran. As the religion of Islam and its accompanying civilization spread into new territories, e.g., Anatolia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the institution of the madrasa not only accompanied this diffusion but also lent it active support.
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ARENSON, ADAM. "Anglo-Saxonism in the Yukon: The Klondike Nugget and American-British Relations in the ““Two Wests,”” 1898––1901." Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 3 (August 1, 2007): 373–404. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/phr.2007.76.3.373.
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During the Klondike Gold Rush, Americans and Britons connected their joint local experiences with the simultaneous colonial conquests in Cuba, the Philippines, South Africa, and China through the ideology of Anglo-Saxonism. From 1898 to 1901 Dawson's newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, and commercial photography demonstrated the power of this symbolic language of flags and balls, heated rhetoric and dazzling cartoons. The Klondike Nugget, the first newspaper in town and the only one run by Americans, took up the claims of global Anglo-Saxonism with the most fervor, although its sentiments were often echoed in the Canadian-edited Dawson Daily News. Differences re-emerged, especially over the boundary between Alaska and Canada, but this brief episode remained deeply imprinted in narratives of the ““two Wests””——both of the North American frontier West and the West as Anglo-Saxon civilization——told at the turn of the twentieth century.
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Damodaran, Vinita. "‘Natural Heritage’ and Colonial Legacies: India in the Nineteenth Century." Studies in History 29, no. 1 (February 2013): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0257643013496684.
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The article examines the ways in which the British imperial context, ideologies relating to national heritage—both cultural and natural—were not just extended but developed in a colonial context, and how they have been subsequently redefined and reconstituted in the post-colonial era. From a nineteenth-century romantic antiquarianism drawn to the ruins of a lost civilization, we can see the growth in status of scientific disciplines of archaeology and palaeontology and natural history in the colonies, and an equivalent diffusion of heritage legislation from the Indian subcontinent to East and Southern Africa and even to metropolitan Britain by men like Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, whose interest in monumental architecture led him to protect the Taj Mahal and later to take these interests to Britain where he was instrumental in helping to formulate the ancient monuments’ consolidation and amendment Act in 1913.
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Classen, Albrecht. "Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017, viii, 505 pp., 8 maps." Mediaevistik 31, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 270–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/med012018_270.
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To do justice to history in the global context would require to pursue global history, which is not just a chiasmic play on words. No major country, no people, no great civilization, and no significant culture has really existed in total isolation, with just a few exceptions. But most scholars are simply not able to cover everything, and it would <?page nr="271"?>be hubris even to aim for that goal. Traditionally, medievalists have mostly focused on western, central, southern, and somewhat also northern Europe, for instance, but then this comes to a limit very quickly since linguistic barriers and also difficulties gaining access to the relevant sources and archives make this all very difficult. Recent years have also seen efforts to open the perspective toward the Arabic, Indian, and Asian world, whereas the American cultures remain mostly ignored in the medieval context. The opposite side probably faces the same difficulties, since Chinese or Japanese medievalists have to cope with a very long and expansive history as well, or the Indian or Indonesian historians, for example, which leaves no room or time to explore the connections, if there have ever been any, to other cultures.
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Wisnicki, Adrian S. "INTERSTITIAL CARTOGRAPHER: DAVID LIVINGSTONE AND THE INVENTION OF SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA." Victorian Literature and Culture 37, no. 1 (March 2009): 255–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150309090159.
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Upon returning to England in December 1856 after sixteen years in the interior of southern Africa, David Livingstone, the celebrated missionary and explorer, received an enthusiastic welcome. Already a household name because of his well-publicized discoveries and travels, Livingstone now found himself a hero of national stature. The Royal Geographical Society and the London Missionary Society organized large receptions in his honor; he received the freedoms of several cities, including London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow; Oxford University awarded him an honorary D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law); and Queen Victoria invited him to a private audience (Schapera ix-x). Likewise, the encyclopedic narrative of his adventures, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857), garnered numerous favorable reviews, sold some 70,000 copies, and ultimately made the explorer a rich man. Livingstone's narrative, wrote one early reviewer, opened up “a mystic and inscrutable continent,” while the story of Livingstone's famous four-year transcontinental journey – the first such documented journey in history – inspired admiration for being “performed without the help of civilized associate, trusting only to the resources of his own gallant heart and to the protection of the missionary's God” (“Dr. Livingstone's African Researches” 107). In promoting the Zambesi River as a natural highway into the interior of Africa and in advocating for the three C's – Christianity, commerce, and civilization – as a means to ending the slave-trade and opening the continent's natural riches to the outside world, Missionary Travels also struck a resounding chord with the public. Reviewers welcomed Livingstone's pronouncements, while describing the missionary as “an instrument, divinely appointed by Providence for the amelioration of the human race and the furtherance of God's glory” (“Livingstone's Missionary Travels” 74).
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Edaich, Said. "The city of Fas and the University of al-Qarawiyyin: a common destiny." Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne 16, no. 4 (1) (September 17, 2019): 237–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.25167/osap.1214.
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Human history has always been linked to a spatial concept, a place that can be a state, a city, or any other geographical determination. The researches on Rome and Athens, Baghdad and Damascus provide ample information with a direct impact on understanding the evolution of human civilization. Fas, the Moorish city which initiated the Moroccan State, has always aroused the interest of historians and specialists. It is a unique social model and a city that has been able, thanks to its University Al-Qarawiyyin, to withstand all the harsh changes for centuries. This paper is intended to follow the evolution of this city through the expansion and historical dominance in North Africa and Europe throughout centuries.
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Biddlestone, Jessica. "The Olive Grove of Rome." French Politics, Culture & Society 38, no. 3 (December 1, 2020): 111–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2020.380306.
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In 1892, the French resident general in Tunisia launched the first state-sponsored colonization effort in the Tunisian protectorate. Based on Paul Bourde’s study of ancient Roman agriculture, the colonization plan explicitly sought to remake Roman prosperity in central Tunisia by fostering the cultivation of olives. Examining Bourde’s study of the ancient past and his work as director of agriculture in Tunisia, this article explores the connections between the study of the Roman Empire and the development of colonialism in North Africa. In tracing this history, this article highlights how the study and use of Roman ruins in French Tunisia inspired an appreciation for the role that technology and material development played in supporting the spread of Roman civilization and culture.
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Tuchscherer, Konrad, and P. E. H. Hair†. "Cherokee and West Africa: Examining the Origins of the Vai Script." History in Africa 29 (2002): 427–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3172173.
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A cornerstone of the Western intellectual heritage is the fervent belief in the power of the written word to transform man and society. In this tradition, the existence of writing serves as a hallmark for civilization and a marker to separate history from prehistory. While a great deal of scholarly work has dispelled many myths about literacy, thus bridging “the great divide” between the written and the oral, our intellectual and emotional attachment to writing persists. This appears to be especially the case in reference to the origins of writing systems, many of the latter being claimed and reputed to have been “independently invented.” For those peoples most involved historically in such developments, the invention and use of original scripts are points of pride, and hence claims for the “authenticity” of the scripts, that is, for their invention and coming into use having been an entirely indigenous undertaking, are passionately guarded.Historians of writing, however, are cautious of claims for independent invention. From ancient to modern times, the history of the development of writing has been characterized by a balance between “independent invention” and “stimulus diffusion.” While epigraphers and paleographers attempt to unravel the inevitably obscure origins of certain ancient scripts possibly devised in environments free from external influence, no script devised in the last two thousand years is likely to have emerged totally independent of the stimulus of some diffused knowledge of the previous history of scripts—at the very least, the mere idea of writing. Nonetheless, for many modern observers, any suggestion of an outside stimulus on the development of such scripts is considered virtual heresy, tantamount to an attack on the intellectual ability of the peoples who claim to have single-handedly devised the scripts.
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Greenwood, Emily. "A Tale of Two O's: Odysseus and Oedipus in the Black Atlantic." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 83, no. 3-4 (January 1, 2009): 281–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002454.
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[First paragraphs]Crossroads in the Black Aegean: Oedipus, Antigone, and Dramas of the African Diaspora. Barbara Goff & Michael Simpson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. xii + 401 pp. (Cloth US$ 150.00)Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey. Robert G. O’Meally. New York: DC Moore Gallery, 2007. 116 pp. (Cloth$ 45.00)Commenting on cultural imperialism under European colonialism, Frantz Fanon (1990:39) remarked that “The settler makes history; his life is an epoch, an Odyssey.” In Fanon’s analysis the settler’s sense of history derived from the history of the “mother country,” rather than the history of the colony that he or she inhabited. But history did not stop here: the reference to the Odyssey reminds us that behind the modern colonial metropolis was a fictional line of descent reaching back to a Greco-Roman cradle, such that theEuropean settler could lay claim to an even more ancient cultural inheritance. The two books examined here make short work of these classical imperial fictions; O’Meally demonstrates how Romare Bearden’s collages of theOdyssey collaborate with Homer, jazz style, to produce an epic that Black America can recognize as its own. If the voyage of Odysseus is sometimes taken to symbolize the migration of ancient Greek civilization toward the West, Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson interject the troubled figure of Oedipus, who plays Poseidon to the settler’s Odyssey, disrupting the voyage and confusing the trajectory (p. 268).Both studies are timely and speak to a wave of recent research on Black Classicism – an examination of the work to which the classical tradition has been put in Africa and the African diaspora, ranging from the hegemonic appropriation of Classics by colonizers and slave-owners to the use ofClassics as an ironic counterdiscourse that writes back to racism and imperialism, or as a source of mythopoiesis in the formation of modern black identity.
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Temitope, Adeoye Olubusola, Oyelowo Oyetayo Job, Adebisi-Fagbohungbe Tola Abiodun, and Akinyemi Olukayode Dare. "Eco-Diversity of Edible Insects of Nigeria and Its Impact on Food Security." Journal of Biology and Life Science 5, no. 2 (August 10, 2014): 175. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jbls.v5i2.6109.
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Inspite of the strong aversion shown to Entomophagy (consumption of edible insects) due to civilization, insects have played an important part in the history of human nutrition in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas. Hundreds of species have been used as human food. Globally, about 14 insect orders contain one or more species of edible insects. Africa is one of the leading continents that consume insects as food. In Africa, insects form part of the traditional diets of millions of people and are also used as feed for their farm animals. Nowadays, Entomophagy is a major entomological research interest with focus on its future prospect for food and feed security. Nigeria, the focus of this study is very rich in forest edible insects due to its marked ecological and climatic diversity. Some of the popular edible insects are grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetle grubs and adults, winged termites, bee, wasp and ant brood as well as winged ants, cicadas, and a variety of aquatic insects. Despite their importance as food, biodiversity and conservation efforts have focused mainly on other groups of animals, ignoring the vast world of insects. Therefore, there is a compelling need to collect data on the diversity and conservation of edible insects in Africa, and to make this information available to all interested parties. This study provides information on the list and distribution of these edible insects in Nigeria, their harvesting, processing and preservation techniques, their seasonality, nutritional value and the potential for expanding the market.
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Chidebe, Chris. "Nigeria and the Arab States." American Journal of Islam and Society 2, no. 1 (July 1, 1985): 115–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v2i1.2782.
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Nigeria is the most populous state in Africa south of the Sahara. Her geography and her history together make her an interesting sociopolitical and cultural experiment. It is a land with believers in both Islam and Christianity. A country whose northern parts were the prizes of jihadic victory of a highly Islamized Fulani elite, and whose southern portions are inhabited by peoples who were voluntarily or involuntarily brought under the control of the marching Christian soldiers determined to expand the domain of imperial Europe and committed to recruiting souls for Jesus. Nigeria is a meeting ground for two periods in African history. It is the place where Islam still rejoices over its past glories and successes; it is also a place where Euro-Western Christianity has made a major breakthrough. It is against this background, and with such facts in mind, that the subject of Nigerian-Arab relations is here explored. I divide this paper into four parts. The first part is a brief historical sketch of the impact of Arabs and Islam on the Nigerian society and the Nigerian mind. The second part addresses itself to the early post-colonial period in NigerianArab relations; the third part discusses Nigerian-Arab relations under military rule in Nigeria; the fourth part discusses Nigeria's Third Republic and the Arab states. A. Islam, Arabs and NigeriaThe arrival of Islam in northern Nigeria dates back to the 11th century and constitutes a major development in the history of this region of Africa. It not only linked the Hausas, the Fulanis, and other Islamized ethnic groups with the wider world of Islam to the north, northeast, and west, but it also opened up the possibility of Muslim expansion southwards. Indeed, one of the effects of lslamization in Northern Nigeria was the emergence of a full-fledged Islamic culture and civilization in certain parts of what we now call Nigeria. The sphere of ...
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Dominique, Oba. "The Socio-cultural and Political Role of Women in The Teke Kingdom XIXth - XXth Centuries." Randwick International of Social Science Journal 2, no. 2 (April 30, 2021): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.47175/rissj.v2i2.210.
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The Teke company recognizes a heavy responsibility of women in their status as wife and mother and in their participation in different social, cultural and political activities. In this matrimonial society, the Teke woman is a true artist in the history of the Teke kingdom. On this subject, the political history of the Teke kingdom invokes the implication of the woman in the management of the kingdom and in the sense that the role of the woman is very noticed in this Teke civilization which continues to resist as best it can the perverse effects of globalization. As one of the last kingdoms in Central Africa, the Teke kingdom, which resisted during slavery and European penetration, has long known the importance of women. It was in this sense that it had made it possible to place her in the socio-cultural and political sphere. The Teke woman being a dynamic woman worked with great ardor, occupying an important place within the kingdom where her presence was almost noticed everywhere.
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Voll, John O. "JOHN HUNWICK, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa⊂di's Ta⊃rikh al-s―ud―an Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents, Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999). Pp. 477. $141.00 cloth." International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 4 (November 2000): 532–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743800002695.
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Al-Sa⊂di's Ta⊃rikh al-sudan is an essential source for the history of West Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries and a significant volume in the library of Muslim history. Although a French translation by Octave Houdas has been available for more than a century, al-Sa⊂di's history has been used primarily by specialists and is known more generally only through references to it in textbooks and monographs. The publication of John Hunwick's translation makes this important work readily available to a broad audience in a readable and very usable form.
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Sulhan, Ahmad. "Islam Kontemporer: Antara Reformasi Dan Revolusi Peradaban." Ulumuna 12, no. 1 (November 5, 2017): 143–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v12i1.395.
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The 19th and 20th centuries were periods for main transformation in Muslim history: periods of degradation and conquest, independence and revolution, renaissance and reform. Toward the 19th century, world power moved from Muslim world to Europe. It was remarked by emerging power of British, France, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Italy and Portuguese. They dominated Muslim societies in Asia, Africa, and Middle East in economic, military, politic and ideological aspects. Muslim societies’ responses to Europe domination were diverse from rejection and confrontation to emigration and non-cooperative attitudes of traditional Muslim. They planned reform, reconstructed Islamic thinking and beliefs, reformed theology and Islamic law, and emphasized Muslim’s self-esteem significance, unity and solidarity in facing cultural threats and Europe colonialism. However, not few secular Muslims and reformers, were proud and greatly imitated Europe civilization and cultures. They did secularization that ended khalifah system in order to reconstruct Muslim societies.
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Brett, Michael. "The Realm of the Imām the Faṭīmids in the tenth century." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 59, no. 3 (October 1996): 431–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x00030585.
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Despite their period from the tenth to the twelfth century, at the height of the Middle Ages; despite their position in Egypt, at the centre of the civilization of the Near and Middle East; and despite their prominence as the third Caliphate of Islam, the Fāṭimids lack a satisfactory modern history of their dynasty. This is partly because of the length of their life, which covers the histories of so many hundreds of years; partly because of the span of their empire from North Africa to Egypt and Syria, stretching across the histories of so many regions; and finally because, at the level of Islam itself, their empire was divided between their dawla or state and their daՙwa or doctrine. The doctrine, which focused on the Fāṭimid Imām as the quṭb or pole of faith, gave the dynasty its peculiar strength and endurance. The failure of that doctrine to supersede the Islam of the schools, however, left the Fāṭimids increasingly isolated and ultimately vulnerable. Standing outside the mainstream of Islamic tradition, the dynasty's own version of its history was disregarded. Instead, its components passed out of their original context to be incorporated into the regional or universal histories of subsequent authors. Maqrīzī was alone in compiling his Ittiՙāẓ al-ḥunafā' as a history of the dynasty in Egypt, introduced by a miscellany of information on its origins and previous career.
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PERBI, AKOSUA. "West Africa: An Introduction to its History, Civilization and Contemporary Situation. By EUGENE L. MENDONSA. Durham NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2002. Pp. 660. $50, paperback (ISBN 0-89089-649-6)." Journal of African History 46, no. 2 (July 2005): 374–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853705500811.
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Boucher, David. "Reclaiming history: dehumanization and the failure of decolonization." International Journal of Social Economics 46, no. 11 (November 4, 2019): 1250–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijse-03-2019-0151.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show, with reference to the writings of important decolonization theorists and liberationists, how Nazism in Europe and the establishment of the UN had a significant impetus in awakening the sense of injustice in colonised peoples in Africa and the Lesser Antilles. Colonized peoples were denied human rights through a process of dehumanization, which involved seizing “native” histories and representing them as backward, depraved and savage, awaiting the arrival of European civilization. Marxism, further supported this narrative by denying that “primitive” peoples had histories, and being unable to account for race and racism because of its emphasis on class. Colonization evolved, not into decolonization, but neo-colonialism because of the complicity of “native” bourgeois elites. Design/methodology/approach The methodology combines historical narrative with theoretical insight from the point of view of the colonised, such as Fanon, Cabral, Mimmi, Ceasare, Nkrumah, etc. It is hermeneutic in its methodology. Findings Peoples of the Lesser Antilles and Africans were dehumanized; denied human rights; and dehistoricized. Prominent liberation theorists develop these themes and reject elements of Marxism in order to reflect the unique experiences of the colonised. Colonization gets under the skin of the colonised and persists in contemporary societies. Colonization was replaced by neo-colonialism, not decolonization. Research limitations/implications The implications are to bring to the fore the importance of colonialism in relation to western practises of anti-Fascism and the promotion of human rights, while perpetrating Fascist modes of behaviour and denying human rights in colonised countries. Far from being simply an historical phenomenon the insidious implications persist. Social implications The demonstration of how deep the roots of colonialism go, and how difficult the task of decolonization has become as a consequence of systematic western “penetration”. Originality/value It looks at colonialism and its widespread injustices through the activists who suffered at the hands of a system of rule based exploitation and dehumanization effected not only by seizing their land, but also their history language and culture, ensuring that decolonization became transformed into neo-colonialism.
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Livingston, Alexander. "Fidelity to Truth: Gandhi and the Genealogy of Civil Disobedience." Political Theory 46, no. 4 (August 31, 2017): 511–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0090591717727275.
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Mohandas Gandhi is civil disobedience’s most original theorist and most influential mythmaker. As a newspaper editor in South Africa, he chronicled his experiments with satyagraha by drawing parallels to ennobling historical precedents. Most enduring of these were Socrates and Henry David Thoreau. The genealogy Gandhi invented in these years has become a cornerstone of contemporary liberal narratives of civil disobedience as a continuous tradition of conscientious appeal ranging from Socrates to King to Rawls. One consequence of this contemporary canonization of Gandhi’s narrative, however, has been to obscure the radical critique of violence that originally motivated it. This essay draws on Edward Said’s account of travelling theory to unsettle the myth of doctrine that has formed around civil disobedience. By placing Gandhi’s genealogy in the context of his critique of modern civilization, as well as his formative but often-overlooked encounter with the British women’s suffrage movement, it reconstructs Gandhi’s paradoxical notion that sacrificial political action is the fullest expression of self-rule. For Gandhi, Socrates and Thoreau exemplify civil disobedience as a fearless practice of fidelity to truth profoundly at odds with liberal conceptions of disobedience as fidelity to law.
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Nicewicz-Staszowska, Ewa. "Moravia l’africano delle Storie della preistoria." Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies 10, no. 1 (November 7, 2019): 12. http://dx.doi.org/10.15845/bells.v10i1.1415.
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In 1976 Alberto Moravia, then sixty-nine years old, won the Andersen Prize for the Mustafà, la volpe del Sahara, his first children’s tale. Then followed the stories about others humanized animals, first published in the “Corriere della Sera” and in the various editions of selected stories, and later collected in the volume Stories of Prehistory (1982), which brought Moravia the Viareggio Prize in 1983. Apart from the deep affection that Moravia felt for animals and nature in general, that form of narrative has its roots in the numerous African journeys he undertook since 1962. For Moravia, the Black Continent, “the most beautiful thing that exists in the world”, was an artistic discovery and an “antidote to the highly refined, sophisticated and mechanical civilization”. Africa, a place “still amid prehistory and history”, was for him – as in some respects it was for Pasolini – the depository of primordial values in the process of disappearing, due to the imminent industrialization. In the Stories of Prehistory Moravia speaks of those universal values, always opposed to the vices, and views them through curiosity that is usually inaccessible to adults. His children’s tales – always funny, sometimes hilariously merciless – occupies a separate position within the oeuvre of the Roman writer and gained him many fans. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of those aspects of Moravia’s work which have not been reflected yet and are still very relevant today.
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Quirin, James. "Oral Traditions as Historical Sources in Ethiopia: The Case of the Beta Israel (Falasha)." History in Africa 20 (1993): 297–312. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171976.
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It is axiomatic that historians should use all available sources. African historiography has been on the cutting edge of methodological innovation for the last three decades, utilizing written sources, oral traditions, archeology, linguistics, ethnography, musicology, botany, and other techniques to bring respect and maturity to the field.But the use of such a diverse methodology has brought controversy as well, particularly regarding oral traditions. Substantial criticisms have been raised concerning the problems of chronology and limited time depth, variations in different versions of the same events, and the problem of feedback between oral and written sources. A “structuralist” critique deriving from Claude Levi-Strauss's study of Amerindian mythology has provided a useful corrective to an overly-literal acceptance of oral traditions, but often went too far in throwing out the historical baby with the mythological bathwater, leading some historians to reject totally the use of oral data. A more balanced view has shown that a modified structural approach can be a useful tool in historical analysis. In Ethiopian historiography some preliminary speculations were made along structuralist lines,5 although in another sense such an approach was always implicit since the analysis of Ethiopie written hagiographies and royal chronicles required an awareness of the mythological or folk elements they contain.Two more difficult problems to overcome have been the Ethiopie written documents' centrist and elitist focus on the royal monarchy and Orthodox church. The old Western view that “history” required the existence of written documents and a state led to the paradigm of Ethiopia as an “outpost of Semitic civilization” and its historical and historiographical separation from the rest of Africa. The comparatively plentiful corpus of written documentation for Ethiopian history allowed such an approach, and the thousands of manuscripts made available to scholars on microfilm in the last fifteen years have demonstrated the wealth still to be found in written sources. However, such sources, although a starting point for research on Ethiopian history, no longer seem adequate in themselves because they focus primarily on political-military and religious events concerning the monarchy and church.
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Dalimunthe, Latifa Annum. "ANALISIS KAJIAN KEMUNDURAN DAN KERUNTUHAN DINASTI FATHIMIYAH (SEBUAH STUDI PUSTAKA)." NALAR: Jurnal Peradaban dan Pemikiran Islam 1, no. 1 (July 29, 2017): 59. http://dx.doi.org/10.23971/njppi.v1i1.902.
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<p><em>The Fathimiyah caliphate, one of the Ismaili Shi'ite Islamic dynasties, in 909 AD in North Africa after defeating the Aghlabiah Dynasty in Sijilmasa. In history, the glory of Fathimiyah dynasty includes the system of government, philosophy, science and literature. After the reign of the caliph Al-Aziz Fathimiyah dynasty began to decline until the collapse. Problem formulation: How the formation of Fathimiyah dynasty. How to advance the civilization of the Fathimiyah Dynasty? How the decline and collapse of the Fathimiyah dynasty.</em></p><p><em>Research Methodology: The research process is done by taking literature study from literarure, books. To discuss the results of research done by linking descriptions of literature, and books.</em></p><p><em>The results show that: The founder of the Fathimiyah Dynasty was Sa'id ibn Husayn. At the end of the 9th century AD, Abu Abdullah al-Husayn al-Shi'i, one of the main propagandists of the Shiite leader of Isma'iliah, was from Yemen son of the Berber tribe in North Africa, as the main envoy of Imam Mahdi and managed to influence the Berber community. Ziyadatullah al-Aghlabi 903-909 M (Aghlabiah dynasty) is in power in North Africa centered in Sijilmasa. Having succeeded in establishing his influence in North Africa, Abu Abdullah Al-Husain wrote a letter to the Ismaili Imam, Sa'id bin Husain As-Salamiyah to leave immediately for Utar Africa. In 909 AD Sa'id proclaimed himself a priest with the title Ubaidullah Al-Mahdi. In history, the glory of Fathimiyah dynasty includes the system of government, philosophy, social conditions, scholarship and literature. The decline and disintegration of the Fathimiyah Dynasty, the caliph Fathimiyah initially controlled all activities, but among the caliphs there were those who handed the supervisory duties to the amir, because the age of the caliph was underage and did not even understand the political world. For example, after Al-Aziz died, Abu Ali Al-Mansur was eleven years old appointed to replace him with the title of Al-Hakim. The final period of the Fathimiyah Dynasty rivalry for the post of prime minister is increasingly widespread, such as Syawar with Dhargam. End of Nuruddin Mahmud's entry to help him reclaim his power from the hands of Dhargam. Al-Adhid, the last Fathimiyah caliph passed away 10 Muharram 567 H / 1171 M. then the Fatimid dynasty was destroyed after reigning for about 280 years, then Saladin holds the Caliphate.</em></p>Keywords: dynasty, fathimiyah
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FRANKLIN, ARNOLD. "ROBERT BRODY, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998). Pp. 404." International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2 (May 2002): 384–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743802262121.
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This detailed and clearly written book is an invaluable window onto a period of Jewish history that has remained largely unknown to all but a handful of specialists. For more than six centuries two important institutions of Jewish learning and leadership dominated Babylonia, a loose geographic term used by Jews to refer to an area roughly corresponding to modern-day Iraq. From the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 11th century, the heads of these yeshivot (s. yeshivah), known as geonim (s. gaon), exercised a combination of spiritual and political authority over Jewish communities throughout the Near East, North Africa, and Europe. Their most enduring impact on Jewish civilization, however, was the canonization of the Babylonian Talmud, which, as a result of their efforts, became the cornerstone of all forms of medieval rabbinic Judaism. Brody's book, based on a mastery of the primary sources as well as recent work in the field, provides the first comprehensive summary of the achievements of the geonim in almost fifty years, a task made both challenging and imperative by the progress of research on materials from the Cairo Genizah since the publication of S. Assaf's Tequfat ha-geءonim ve-sifrutah in 1955.
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Nakládalová, Iveta. "Bestia Triumphans: Enrique Stanko Vráz in Beijing in 1901." Annals of the Náprstek Museum 42, no. 1 (2021): 3–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.37520/anpm.2021.001.
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This study focuses on a description of the Boxer Rebellion in Beijing, in the first months of 1901, written by E. S. Vraz during his second journey to China. Enrique Stanko Vraz (1860–1932) was a Czech naturalist and explorer, renowned for his travels to Africa, Latin America, and Asia, which he depicted in a series of books addressed to a broader public. His travelogue on Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion is particularly engaging, since it shows the country in the midst of great turmoil and chaos, just after the uprising had reached its climax. It is also extremely interesting from the ethnographical and anthropological perspective, because Vraz not only comments on the activities of the allied forces in China, but he also describes the Chinese people, their customs, Chinese culture and society, and in doing so develops an interpretation of the kingdom, governed by the dichotomy between ‘civilization’ and modernity, on one hand, and ‘barbarism’ and obscurantism, on the other. Vraz’s narrative therefore seems to be inexorably bound to an ethnocentric paradigm, so characteristic of travel writing at the beginning of the 20th century. I argue, however, that this statement is oversimplifying, and that Vraz’s text is self-aware of these antagonisms and therefore defies any straightforward reading.
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Campbell, Kermit E. "Rhetoric from the Ruins of African Antiquity." Rhetorica 24, no. 3 (2006): 255–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rh.2006.24.3.255.
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Abstract Recent studies in comparative rhetoric have brought much needed attention to traditions of rhetoric in non-Western cultures, including many in Africa. Yet the exclusive focus on contemporary African cultures limits understanding of the history of rhetoric in Africa. Although extensive data on African antiquity is lacking, we know that early Nubian and Ethiopian cultures were highly civilized, socially and politically. Literacy in the ancient cities of Napata, Meroe, and Axum, and in the medieval city of Timbuktu suggests that black Africa was not exclusively oral and not without recourse to a means of recording its uses of language. This essay adds a historical dimension to comparative studies of rhetoric in Africa, showing the depth and complexity of this little known aspect of African civilizations.
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Miles, William F. S. "Black African Muslim in the Jewish State: Lessons of Colonial Nigeria for Contemporary Jerusalem." Issue: A Journal of Opinion 25, no. 1 (1997): 39–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047160700502510.
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This paper represents an essay into Africanist social history and experimental biography. Thirteen years ago the pages of this journal carried a debate between Ali Mazrui and Hailu Habtu concerning Western and Semitic (Arab and Jewish) cultural influences in subsaharan Africa. In response to Professor Mazrui’s argument on the Jewish religious, metaphorical, economic, and political impact on Black Africa (foreshadowing Greco-Roman and Islamic influences), Professor Habtu vigorously rejected the “hidden premise...of an African cultural vacuum, or near-vacuum, destined to be filled by ‘universalistic’ civilizations.”