Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power, And Schooling In A West African Muslim Society

Book Summary

"I know of no one who has taken such an ambitious swath of time and donesuch a good job of showing the continuity and change across those one hundredyears.... a splendid achievement, the result of decades of research and reflection."-- David Robinson Controlling Knowledge examines the history ofWest African Muslim society in the Republic of Mali, formerly the Soudan Fran?ais, in the 20th century. Focusing on the transformation of Muslim institutions --especially modernized Muslim schools (m?dersas) and voluntary organizations -- overthe past hundred years, Louis Brenner uncovers the social and political processesthat have produced new forms, definitions, and expressions of Islam that arepatently different from those that prevailed a century earlier. Brenner's studyshows that Muslim society in Mali is religiously pluralistic and that it hasdeveloped different ways of relating religious obligations to prevailing social andpolitical conditions. Although they were heavily influenced by French and MiddleEastern models, Brenner demonstrates that it was in opposition to French colonialauthority that the first m?dersas and voluntary associations appeared. The complexarray of power relations within which these institutions evolved, under Frenchcolonial rule and in the postcolonial secularist state, is revealed in thisthoughtful book. Controlling Knowledge makes a major contribution to ourunderstanding of Muslim history in Mali and West Africa, both in recent decades andover the long term.

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