澳门六合彩

Khaled Esseissah is a historian of Islam, colonialism, slavery, race, and gender, with a focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century West Africa. He is currently working on my book manuscript, Emancipation, Authority, and Global Muslim Citizenship: Har膩峁玭 Reformist Intermediaries in Colonial Mauritania, 1902-1960. This book considers the important religious and civic contributions of Har膩峁玭 peoples of Mauritania under French colonial rule, a group that has historically been assumed to be oppressed and structurally limited in their abilities to alter their circumstances. It analyzes the Har膩峁玭 peoples as intentional historical actors who asserted their rights as full Muslim citizens in colonial Mauritania. As a research scholar who is also a member of this community, he reconstructs the biographies of Har膩峁玭 men and women who went from being oppressed by the local Muslim elites to playing a decisive role in the making of the French colony in Mauritania. They became Muslim authorities, demanding social and religious equality with the B墨岷撃乶 or Moors (a mix of Arab and Berber communities who define themselves as 鈥渨hite鈥�) during the colonial period (1902 through 1960). In this book, he offers a new concept of 鈥済lobal Muslim citizenship鈥� to discuss how Har膩峁玭 intermediaries utilized the opportunities created by the colonial state to display Islamic values typically associated with Saharan intellectual elites and Islamic leadership, aiming to establish full Muslim citizenship for themselves and their wider community. They imagined themselves as part of the ummah (the Muslim global community) by participating in all acts of worship from which they had previously been excluded. They also emancipated enslaved persons, protected runaways, and provided them with jobs, shelters, and education. In so doing, Har膩峁玭 intermediaries influenced the path toward freedom and global Muslim citizenship. Through a careful analysis of Arabic manuscripts, French colonial documents, interviews, and oral traditions, this study will greatly broaden our understanding of Islam, colonialism, citizenship, religious authority, and emancipation in all post-slavery societies.

Upon completion of his current book manuscript, he plans to work on a second book project, tentatively entitled Maw膩l墨, Craftspeople, and the Making of a Subaltern Muslim Scholarly Community in the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Sahara. This book unsettles long-standing narratives about Arabic literacy, manuscript culture, archival power, and Islamic knowledge production and preservation in Islamic Africa in the Sahara region (now Mauritania) by bringing due attention to the little-known phenomenon of scholars and scribes among the maw膩l墨 (Har膩峁玭) and craftspeople (M士al墨min) communities. Using a wide range of oral and written accounts, this study explores the significant contributions these groups made to advancing the scholarly traditions of African Muslim societies. Though racial and social structural barriers have contributed to the silencing of these groups, both in the past and the present, this study reveals that non-elite Saharan Muslims participated in various and complex means of spreading Arabic literacy, either by making the tools required for knowledge production and preservation, such as wooden tablets and pens (as was the case for mu士al墨min), or by providing unpaid services for elite families (as was the case for Har膩峁玭). His historical fieldwork also verifies that the M士al墨min and Har膩峁玭 were not incidental in the process of knowledge production. Instead, they worked as professional copyists in libraries in fabled towns such as Tish墨t, Wal膩ta, and Nema. Historical records also show that a cluster of subaltern Saharan Muslims was well versed in Islamic sciences and Arabic literature. They wrote books on different important subjects related to Arabic grammar, fiqh, and poetry. In so doing, Har膩峁玭 and Mu士al墨min communities immensely contributed to manuscript culture and produced Islamic knowledge often attributed to the families of knowledge from zaw膩y膩 (clerical) groups in Mauritania. This research will de-center Saharan intellectual history by looking beyond zaw膩y膩 communities, and thus deepen our understanding of subaltern Muslims鈥� role in the production and preservation of Islamic manuscript and intellectual heritage.