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2 - Local Wisdom

Contestations over l’ḥjāb in the Eighteenth–Nineteenth Centuries

from Part I - Knowledge and Authority in Precolonial Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

Erin Pettigrew
Affiliation:
New York University, Abu Dhabi
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Summary

Chapter 2 uses a colloquial expression from contemporary Mauritania – “al-ḥikma kuntiyya aw fūtiyya” – to examine Mauritanian narratives that place the consolidation and localization of the Islamic esoteric sciences in the Sahara in the eighteenth century. The expression shows how Mauritanians today associate these sciences with the powerful scholarly and commercial network of the Kunta, a confederation known for its Islamic learning, and the Fulbe torodbe scholars who established theocratic states in West Africa. Both communities continue to associate these sciences as solely embedded in networks linked genealogically to Arab identity. This colloquial expression shows how Mauritanians today conceive of this esoteric religious wisdom as deployed at the very local level, spread through two regionally important religious communities, yet simultaneously connected to the longer history of Islam in the Muslim world, and circulating at the global level of Sufi networks. By the end of the nineteenth century, differences in interpretation and practice of the Islamic esoteric sciences had amplified: questions regarding which esoteric and medical techniques were permitted within Islam and which were not were intensely debated, as scholars from the Saharan West elaborated their own intellectual positions and political objectives in the ways they classified these sciences.

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Chapter
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Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara
Islam, Spiritual Mediation, and Social Change
, pp. 74 - 106
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Local Wisdom
  • Erin Pettigrew, New York University, Abu Dhabi
  • Book: Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara
  • Online publication: 19 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009224581.004
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  • Local Wisdom
  • Erin Pettigrew, New York University, Abu Dhabi
  • Book: Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara
  • Online publication: 19 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009224581.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Local Wisdom
  • Erin Pettigrew, New York University, Abu Dhabi
  • Book: Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara
  • Online publication: 19 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009224581.004
Available formats
×