Sub-Saharan Islamic Archives and African Philosophy

Reclaiming the Sub-Saharan Islamic Archive in Philosophical Debate

Kane introduced his work as an effort to “bring the Islamic archive of Africa into the debate about the production of knowledge in Africa.” He noted that contemporary African intellectual discourse, often conducted by Europhone scholars trained in European languages, has largely overlooked the vast corpus of Arabic and Ajami manuscripts produced on the continent. “In that debate, the Islamic library was completely absent,” Kane observed, pointing to a dual rationale for this absence: first, many African scholars “did not have the linguistic competence to read the Arabic texts,” and second, research on the Islamic scholarly heritage had long been confined to specialized Islamic studies circles, with little crossover into mainstream intellectual scholarship and philosophy. By training in both Arabic-Islamic studies and Western academia, Kane has worked to bridge this divide, encouraging broader scholarly engagement with Africa’s Islamicate intellectual legacy.

In the last two decades or so, I worked on the Islamic archive in Africa with the purpose of bringing it in the debate about the production of knowledge in Africa, a debate which was taking place among Europhone circles, among intellectuals who were trained in European language. And in that debate, the Islamic library was completely absent. There are two reasons for that. One, of course, is that those intellectuals did not have the linguistic competence to read those Arabic texts. But the second one was that a lot of research was done on this Islamic archive, but in specialized research centers in Islamic Studies, and the departments of social science and of philosophy, they wouldn’t engage this research. […] So, what I have tried to do myself was to establish those debates among Western scholars.
— Ousmane Kane

Kane’s scholarship directly challenges influential accounts of African knowledge that omit Islamic contributions. He cited examples of prominent works such as Valentin Mudimbe’s The Invention of Africa and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture which, despite their breadth, did not engage with the Islamic archive, likely due to the authors’ linguistic limitations and disciplinary focus. “I was saying that there is another side of the story,” Kane explained, describing how his own books (notably Non-Europhone Intellectuals and Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa) were written to bring attention to the thinkers outside the Europhone sphere. These works aimed to refute the assumption that most intellectuals in Africa are Europhone by documenting the enduring tradition of Arabic and Ajami scholarship in West Africa. Kane highlighted how scholars in the Islamic tradition—jurists, theologians, Sufi philosophers, and others—have for centuries produced texts and ideas that merit a central place in Africa’s intellectual history, even if they have been ignored by secular academia. This intervention, he noted, is not merely historical but also epistemological: it calls into question the colonial biases in defining what counts as African philosophy or knowledge, and urges a more inclusive understanding that embraces indigenous intellectual traditions alongside European-language contributions.

Decolonizing Knowledge Dissemination

One theme that emerged was the accessibility of scholarship to African audiences, which Kane framed as a decolonial imperative. Monika Rohmer commended Kane’s commitment to publishing his work in both English and French, the primary colonial languages in West Africa, as a means of widening its reach. Kane recounted how, about a decade ago, he became acutely aware that “a lot of very important works [on Islam in Africa] were in English” and thus inaccessible to many African readers. Moreover, the cost of academic books posed a serious barrier. “A book published by a major university press will cost about $30 at minimum… the research is not benefiting the people about whom the research was conducted,” he observed. In response, Kane established an independent publishing house in Africa to produce affordable editions of scholarly works. “I decided to get the copyrights of some important books, translate them and publish them at a very affordable price in Africa.” For example, after Harvard University Press published Beyond Timbuktu, Kane secured the rights to issue a low-cost French translation locally. He undertook similar efforts for other works (including a study on Senegalese immigrants and a volume on Islamic scholarship in Africa), selling them at much lower prices or distributing free copies to African scholars. This strategy, Kane noted, ensures that research about Africa actually circulates within Africa, rather than being locked behind paywalls or high prices in the Global North.

Kane’s initiative connects to broader moves to decolonize knowledge networks. He praised the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) as a pivotal platform in this regard. “CODESRIA brought African intellectuals from different traditions – Lusophone, Francophone, Anglophone – together on common themes,” Kane explained, “and they did a lot of translation, facilitating networking among African scholars.” Founded by the Egyptian-French Marxian economist and political scientist Samir Amin, CODESRIA has fostered a pan-African scholarly community, funding research and enabling African academics to set their own research agendas free from Northern tutelage. Kane noted that CODESRIA’s translation efforts have made works available in multiple languages (for instance, Non-Europhone Intellectuals was rendered into French, English, Arabic, and Spanish). Such endeavors, along with open-access initiatives, are lowering linguistic and economic barriers, effectively democratizing the intellectual space. As Anke Graness pointed out, even some traditional print publications (she gave the example of Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s The Ink of the Scholars) are now available in open-access formats via CODESRIA’s website. This highlights a collective effort to overcome the colonial legacy of fragmented audiences and to enable African scholars and students to engage with research in their own contexts.

The Tripartite System of Contemporary African Education

Sool Park steered the discussion toward the on-the-ground situation in African education, asking whether the traditional system of Quranic memorization and commentary, described in Kane’s lecture, remains active today or whether it is primarily a historical phenomenon. Kane’s response sketched the complex legacy of colonial education alongside older systems. West Africa, he noted, has a long lineage of Islamic learning, “a tradition of knowledge transmission spanning at least eight centuries,” with Quranic schools and scholarly lineages that long predate European colonization. Colonial rule, however, introduced European-style schools (teaching in French or English) that often marginalized or supplanted indigenous institutions. In postcolonial Senegal, these forces resulted in three parallel systems of education, namely traditional Quranic schools, secular state schools, and hybrid institutions. The first category refers to the daara or Quranic learning circles, where students memorize scripture and study classical Islamic sciences under a cleric’s guidance. Kane noted that these are characterized by personalized teacher-student relationships and an immersive religious curriculum. The secular state schools are institutions following the French colonial model, with a European-language curriculum and pedagogy. These became the official national education system, often displacing the status of older schools. More recently, more and more hybrid (Franco-Islamic) institutions appear, with mixed curricula combining Western and Islamic education. These schools attempt to bridge the two worlds, teaching both the standard national curriculum and Arabic/Islamic subjects.

Kane emphasized that in practice, many families navigate all three systems in parallel, which leads to complex interactions and tensions in educational systems and learners’ lives. For instance, a child might attend a Quranic school at dawn, a public secular school during the day, and perhaps extra Islamic studies in the evening, a schedule that speaks to the difficult balancing act families perform to give children both Islamic and Western knowledge. He recognized that this pluralism is both a richness and a challenge: it creates diversified forms of literacy and values, yet also poses questions about how to integrate these realms coherently.

Linguistic Plurality in African Academia

Turning to language politics, Anke Graness asked Kane about the status of indigenous African languages in scholarship. Given Senegal’s rich vernaculars (Wolof, Pulaar, etc.), she asked, is it possible to write academic works in these languages, or are French and Arabic still the dominant vehicles of intellectual production? Kane’s answer drew a revealing contrast between Senegal and Nigeria. “In Nigeria, they actually have strong university departments for local languages – you’ll find journals and even newspapers in Hausa and Yoruba,” he noted, underscoring Nigeria’s relative success in elevating certain African languages to academic status. By contrast, in Senegal, African languages are not widely used in academia. There are no university departments dedicated to Wolof or other local tongues, and virtually all higher education and scholarly publication takes place in French (or occasionally Arabic). Kane shared that even he struggled to find formal courses to learn Wolof when he wanted to; the infrastructure simply wasn’t there.

This disparity led to reflections on postcolonial language policy. Graness’ question implicitly touched on a decolonial aspiration – whether Africans want to theorize and publish in their own native languages. Kane acknowledged movements in that direction, but the reality in places like Senegal remains that colonial languages monopolize academic and public discourse. Monika Rohmer added that there are grassroots efforts to introduce African languages into school curricula (for example, some Senegalese schools now teach basic literacy in Wolof alongside French), but progress is slow. Rohmer emphasized that adopting African languages in academia involves not just translating terminology but also overcoming prejudices that equate modernity with French/English. The politics of language thus emerged as a crucial component of decolonizing knowledge, revolving around the question of whose voices and which languages carry intellectual authority. Kane and others suggested that while immediate change is challenging, encouraging bilingual scholars and creating reference works (dictionaries, technical glossaries in Wolof, etc.) are practical steps toward gradually widening the linguistic bandwidth of African scholarship.

Identifying Philosophical Texts in the Islamic Archive

Anke Graness steered the discussion to the manuscript heritage, asking whether the traditional scholars of West Africa thought of their own works in philosophical terms. Did any manuscripts self-identify as falsafa (philosophy) or kalam(theology), she queried, and what is being done to make these Arabic and Ajami texts accessible to researchers? Kane replied that one practical hurdle has been the lack of standardized transcription for Ajami scripts (African scripts written in Arabic letters). “Ajami is not standardized,” he explained, “but efforts are underway to do so.” He highlighted the creation of the West African Arabic Manuscript Database (WAAMD) by Charles Stewart, which over the past decades has catalogued and digitized tens of thousands of manuscripts. “This database is making the manuscripts accessible,” Kane noted, adding that researchers can now search for keywords across collections, showing that many philosophy-related keywords do appear in the listings. While West African authors may not always label their works as philosophical in a modern sense, the content often engages philosophical questions. He mentioned Uthman dan Fodio’s influential treatise on governance as an example, which contains elements of political philosophy but is traditionally not classified as a work of philosophy. The scholarly community is beginning to recognize this through tools like the WAAMD, which open up new avenues for intellectual historians and philosophers to explore the corpus.

Kane remarked that some manuscripts classified under poetry, rhetoric, or devotional literature may also contain philosophical dimensions. A Sufi poem might implicitly debate metaphysics, and a legal treatise could invoke ethics. Unlocking the philosophical potential of the African Islamic archive may require cross-disciplinary reading practices, with literary scholars, philosophers, and historians working together to interpret the texts in context. Kane emphasized the need for trained philosophers to engage deeply with these manuscripts: the texts might not present philosophy in familiar Western formats, but they grapple with questions of ontology, epistemology, ethics, and political theory within an Islamic frame.

Commentaries as Philosophical Texts

Leon Krings wondered whether the practice of translating Arabic texts into local Ajami scripts led to creative and novel philosophical or theological insights, emerging from the linguistic interplay between Arabic as a lingua franca in the Islamic world and local languages with their distinct grammatical structures.

Kane agreed that the translation and commentary processes indeed had the potential to foster new philosophical and theological perspectives. He noted that commentaries should not be considered secondary to primary works because they themselves were often sources of original thought that led to new developments in Islamic philosophy. He cited the example of Hajj Umar Taal’s work. Taal, a 19th-century West African scholar, wrote a renowned treatise long assumed to be merely a commentary on Sufi doctrine, “but it is now recognized as an elaborate and original analysis of theories of sainthood.” In other words, Taal used the commentary form to advance a novel argument about spiritual authority. Kane agreed that a skilled commentator isn’t necessarily a mere follower of an already existing doctrine. The commentary genre allowed African scholars to both situate themselves in a tradition and push its boundaries. Abbed Kanoor added the example of Averroes, whose commentary on Aristotle is considered a major philosophical text in itself. Leon Krings drew a cross-cultural parallel to the Japanese Zen master Dōgen, who in his magnum opus Shōbōgenzō created an original Zen philosophy through commentary-like essays in the vernacular. By writing in classical Japanese rather than Chinese, he ended up producing new philosophical perspectives unavailable to either of these languages alone.

Syncretic Orders of Knowledge

The discussion turned to the question of syncretism. How do modern African thinkers and communities navigate between Islamic and Western paradigms? Leon Krings asked whether Kane knows of African thinkers that attempted a syncretism or synthesis between traditional and modern systems of thought. Kane responded with a personal anecdote: “I myself grew up straddling both worlds,” he said. “In the mornings I was in Qur’anic school, in the afternoons in a French school. Moving between these systems was just part of life.” This lived experience underscored Kane’s view that there is considerable fluidity between knowledge systems. He argued that many African individuals have long been commuters between several intellectual traditions, fluent in the languages and taxonomies of both Islam and modern secularism. Kane gave examples of prominent figures who combine extensive Islamic seminary training with Western academic careers, including contemporary Islamic scholars who engage Western philosophy. Such figures embody a synthesis in practice, even if not formally acknowledged by academic institutions. Abbed Kanoor added to this perspective by mentioning a case where an American analytic philosopher went to Iran, became Muslim, and is now teaching at a major religious center.

Kanoor asked whether Islam in Africa, particularly in Senegal, has been perceived as a form of colonization, and if so, how it is distinguished from other forms of foreign presence. He also inquired whether various theological and philosophical schools, such as the Muʿtazila, Ashʿarism, or philosophical traditions like Ishrāqī and Mashshāʾī thought, found reception in Sub-Saharan Africa, analogous to the well-documented plurality of Sufi orders in the region. Kane acknowledged that while Islam and the Arabic language originated outside Africa, their introduction occurred very early, becoming deeply embedded in African cultural identity. He mentioned the Afrocentric perspective, which sees Islam similarly to Christianity as a form of colonization, but argued that historically, when African intellectuals speak of colonization, they usually mean European colonial rule. Kane emphasized the complexity of Islam’s integration, noting it as part of Africa’s “triple heritage,” a concept articulated by Ali Mazrui, recognizing the coexistence of indigenous, Islamic, and European elements. Kane argued this historical coexistence makes Islam integral rather than foreign or merely colonial. He also explained that historically Sub-Saharan Africa has predominantly adhered to Maliki Sunni Islam since the Almoravid movement (11th century), which displaced earlier Shiite and Ibadi influences. He noted recent diversification due to intensified global interactions, mentioning that various theological and philosophical currents, including Shiism, have gained a presence in contemporary Africa. Kane affirmed significant contemporary theological pluralism resulting from increased travel, global interconnectedness, and education in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran, and Egypt, leading to diverse theological expressions alongside the longstanding plurality of Sufi orders.

Inter-Islamic Scholarly Networks and the Question of Positionality

Yoko Arisaka asked about the extent of recognition African Islamic scholarship receives in mainstream Arabic-speaking academia, questioning if it is genuinely integrated or merely appropriated under Eurocentric frameworks. She also inquired about scholarly exchange between West and East African Islamic traditions.

Kane explained that West African scholars have long been part of wider Islamic networks. Through the Hajj pilgrimage and study travels, many scholars from Timbuktu or Sokoto, for example, spent time in major centers like Cairo, Fez, or Mecca. Such individuals often obtained scholarly licenses (ijaza) and were recognized as peers by their Arab or Persian contemporaries. This means the idea of a strict divide between sub-Saharan and ‘mainstream’ Islamic scholarship is historically inaccurate. There was always circulation, even if 20th-century academia compartmentalized these traditions. Kane also highlighted modern efforts to ensure African scholarship gains its due recognition. He noted that today numerous conferences and scholarly networks are devoted to Islam in Africa, often bringing Arab North African and Sub-Saharan researchers together. CODESRIA’s initiatives, again, serve as a model: it consciously bridges linguistic and regional divides by funding collaborations across the continent.

Rolf Elberfeld followed up by asking about the extent of collaboration between North African and Sub-Saharan scholars in the field of Islamic studies. He inquired whether scholars from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia are invited to conferences on Islam in Africa and whether contemporary academic networks are bridging the historical divide between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Elberfeld observed that standard representations of Islamic philosophy often neglect Sub-Saharan traditions, and asked whether these perspectives are beginning to be more fully integrated.

In response, Ousmane Kane acknowledged that while he has not given a lecture in Cairo, he was recently invited to deliver a lecture in Morocco at the prestigious Hassanian Lessons (Durūs al-Ḥassāniyya), an annual scholarly gathering held under the patronage of the King. Reflecting on scholarly networks, Kane noted that many African scholars participate in these forums and that Arabic-speaking countries, competing for intellectual leadership in the Muslim world, have actively fostered academic connections by offering grants, organizing conferences, and establishing institutes across African nations. These initiatives have created a dense network of scholarly exchanges between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In a second question, Elberfeld turned to a more personal reflection, inviting Kane to elaborate on the intellectual and existential tensions he experienced in moving from studying Islamic texts as a believer to analyzing them from a scholarly, cultural perspective. He drew a parallel to the European context, where the objectification of religious texts in the 17th and 18th centuries led to profound shifts in the understanding of sacred scriptures, and asked Kane whether similar frictions arose in his academic engagement with the Islamic archive.

In response, Kane drew a parallel between his own intellectual trajectory and the “reading revolution” in Europe during the eighteenth century, when the advent of printing and the proliferation of books transformed the relationship between readers and sacred texts. Traditionally, Islamic education in Africa was based on a limited canon of revered texts, with scholars maintaining a deeply intimate relationship to this corpus. However, with the rise of print culture and new information technologies, access to a much broader range of texts has reshaped scholarly engagement.

Speaking personally, Kane reflected on the positionality involved in his scholarship. As a Muslim studying Islamic texts, he acknowledged that his perspective is inevitably shaped by his belonging to the community he studies. Kane emphasized that he does not believe in a strict ideal of objectivity or neutrality in scholarship. Rather, he argued for clarifying one’s intellectual position, noting that his interpretations are informed by his insider perspective and that other scholars—especially those without intimate ties to the tradition—may approach the material differently.