Renewers of the age : : holy men and social discourse in colonial Benaadir / / by Scott Reese.

• Superior document: Islam in Africa, v. 9
• Author: Reese, Scott Steven.
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Islam in Africa ; v. 9.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (259 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Studies of nineteenth and twentieth century Islamic reform have tended to focus more on the evolution of ideas than how those ideas emerge from local contexts or are disseminated to a broad audience. Using the urban culture of southern Somalia, known as the Benaadir, this book explores the role of local ʿulamāʾ as popular intellectuals in the early colonial period. Drawing on locally compiled hagiographies, religious poetry and Sufi manuals, it examines the place of religious discourse as social discourse and how religious leaders sought to guide society through a time of troubles through calls to greater piety but also by exhorting believers to examine their lives in the hopes of bringing society into line with their image of a proper Islamic society.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Materials / S.S. Reese -- Chapter One. Introduction: The ‘Ulamā’ As \'Local Intellectuals\' / S.S. Reese -- Chapter Two. Religious History As Social History / S.S. Reese -- Chapter Three. Saints, Scholars And The Acquisition Of Discursive Authority / S.S. Reese -- Chapter Four. Urban Woes And Pious Remedies: Sufis, Urbanites, And Managing Social Crises In The Nineteenth Century / S.S. Reese -- Chapter Five. When Is Kafāʾa Kifayah? Sufi Leadership, Religious Authority And Questions Of Social Inequality / S.S. Reese -- Chapter Six. The Best Of Guides: Sufi Poetry, Theological Writing And Comprehending Qādiriyya Popularity In The Early 20Th Century / S.S. Reese -- Epilogue: End Of The Sufi Era / S.S. Reese -- Appendix One Khulafāʾ Of Shaykh Uways B. Muḥammad Al-Barawī / S.S. Reese -- Appendix Two / S.S. Reese -- Bibliography / S.S. Reese -- Index / S.S. Reese.