All are invited to join us for a talk on Ajami Sources of Knowledge: The Case of the Muridiyya Tradition by Fallou Ngom, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the African Language Program at Boston University. It will take place on Thursday, February 23rd, in Bass Library LO1.
Muridiyya is an African Islamic tradition dating to 1883, founded by Cheikh Amadou Bamba, and is widespread in Senegal and the Gambia. Ngom's research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the adaptations of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, and Ajami literatures—records of African languages written in Arabic script. He seeks to understand the knowledge buried in African Ajami literatures and the historical, cultural, and religious heritage that has found expression in this manner. His work has appeared in several leading scholarly journals, including African Studies Review, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Language Variation and Change, and International Journal of the Sociology of Language. He is the author of Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and The Muridiyya (Oxford University Press, 2016).
The talk is sponsored by Yale University Library's SCOPA committee, the Yale African Students Association, and the Yale Muslim Students Association.