While in the Ottoman Regency of Tunis after returning from pilgrimage around 1809 C.E., the Timbuktu cleric and religious puritanist, Aḥmad b. al-Qādī b. Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Fulānī al-Timbuktāwī wrote Hatk al-Sitr ʿammā ʿalayhi sūdān Tūnis min al-kufr (Piercing the Veil: Being an Account of the Infidel Religion of the Blacks of Tunis), which he dedicated to the ruler of the Beylic, Ḥammūda Pāsha (r. 1782-1814 C.E.) In this treatise, al-Timbuktāwī provided a vivid account of the Hausa Bori cult and entreated Tunisian authorities to imprison or even re-enslave its practitioners whom he distinguished from the heterogeneous Black population in the Regency. This critical edition and complete translation of Hatk al-Sitr places the story of al-Timbuktāwī's encounter with the Bori practitioners not just in their Maghribi and Sudanic African contexts, but also in the environment of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jihad and Islamic revivalism. The result is an insight into a discourse on Bori, jihad, and race and enslavement in the context of the African Diaspora to the Islamic World.

While in the Ottoman Regency of Tunis after returning from pilgrimage around 1809 C.E., the Timbuktu cleric and religious puritanist, Aḥmad b. al-Qādī b. Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Fulānī al-Timbuktāwī wrote Hatk al-Sitr ʿammā ʿalayhi sūdān Tūnis min al-kufr (Piercing the Veil: Being an Account of the Infidel Religion of the Blacks of Tunis), which he dedicated to the ruler of the Beylic, Ḥammūda Pāsha (r. 1782-1814 C.E.) In this treatise, al-Timbuktāwī provided a vivid account of the Hausa Bori cult and entreated Tunisian authorities to imprison or even re-enslave its practitioners whom he distinguished from the heterogeneous Black population in the Regency. This critical edition and complete translation of Hatk al-Sitr places the story of al-Timbuktāwī’s encounter with the Bori practitioners not just in their Maghribi and Sudanic African contexts, but also in the environment of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jihad and Islamic revivalism. The result is an insight into a discourse on Bori, jihad, and race and enslavement in the context of the African Diaspora to the Islamic World.

“Wolfe does an exemplary job of detailing the ceremonies performed at Mecca and the reasons behind them . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, starred review This updated and expanded edition of One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries—including two new contemporary narratives—creating a comprehensive, multifaceted literary portrait of the enduring tradition. Since its inception in the seventh century, the pilgrimage to Mecca has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city forbidden to non-Muslims. These very different literary traditions form distinct impressions of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry. Along with an introduction by Reza Aslan, featured writers include Ibn Battuta, J. L. Burckhardt, Sir Richard Burton, the Begum of Bhopal, John F. Keane, Winifred Stegar, Muhammad Asad, Lady Evelyn Cobbald, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and Malcolm X. One Thousand Roads to Mecca is a historically, geographically, and ethnically diverse collection of travel writing that adds substantially to the literature of Islam and the West. “Serves as an excellent introduction to a religion, people, culture, and philosophy.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel

‘KUMBA AFRICA’, is a compilation of African Short Stories written as fiction by Sampson Ejike Odum, nostalgically taking our memory back several thousands of years ago in Africa, reminding us about our past heritage. It digs deep into the traditional life style of the Africans of old, their beliefs, their leadership, their courage, their culture, their wars, their defeat and their victories long before the emergence of the white man on the soil of Africa. As a talented writer of rich resource and superior creativity, armed with in-depth knowledge of different cultures and traditions in Africa, the Author throws light on the rich cultural heritage of the people of Africa when civilization was yet unknown to the people. The book reminds the readers that the Africans of old kept their pride and still enjoyed their own lives. They celebrated victories when wars were won, enjoyed their New yam festivals and villages engaged themselves in seasonal wrestling contest etc; Early morning during harmattan season, they gathered firewood and made fire inside their small huts to hit up their bodies from the chilling cold of the harmattan. That was the Africa of old we will always remember. In Africa today, the story have changed. The people now enjoy civilized cultures made possible by the influence of the white man through his scientific and technological process. Yet there are some uncivilized places in Africa whose people haven’t tested or felt the impact of civilization. These people still maintain their ancient traditions and culture. In everything, we believe that days when people paraded barefooted in Africa to the swarmp to tap palm wine and fetch firewood from there farms are almost fading away. The huts are now gradually been replaced with houses built of blocks and beautiful roofs. Thanks to modern civilization. Donkeys and camels are no longer used for carrying heavy loads for merchants. They are now been replaced by heavy trucks and lorries. African traditional methods of healing are now been substituted by hospitals. In all these, I will always love and remember Africa, the home of my birth and must respect her cultures and traditions as an AFRICAN AUTHOR.

Sakina is an embroidery artist growing up in the shanty town of Indian Nairobi, a railroad settlement in British East Africa in the early 1900s. At home there are many storytellers like her stepmother, grandfather and uncle whose stories blend into histories of India and East Africa that flare her child's imagination. In her tormented married life, while becoming a woman, Sakina finds comfort in the art of the beadwork of the Maasai.Bead Bai is one woman's story inspired by lives of Asian African women who sorted out, arranged and generally looked after huge quantities of ethnic beads in urban and isolated rural parts of the British East African Empire. The availability of wide varieties of beads and colours from the entrepreneurial Indian bead merchant reaching out to the most distant communities, heightened diverse vernacular expressions of body décor. Often it was the Bead Bai - the merchant's wife, mother and daughter, who handled beads that today comprise singularly the most significant material for maintenance of this feminine and indigenous art heritage of East Africa. This is a historical novel drawn from domestic and community lives evolving around women's art. Both are of considerable social and artistic values among two culturally unalike people living side by side as separate yet inter-reliant societies on the savannah. One object is the bandhani shawl of the Satpanth Ismailis, a trading settler Asian African community adhering austerely to a distinct faith tradition rooted in Sufism and Vedic beliefs that imbibed Sakina's spiritual life. The other is the emankeeki, a beaded neck to chest ornament of the Maasai, a pastoralist African people to whom the savannah is the ancestral home and source of their art, spirituality and well-being that Sakina came to value as a part her own life.Note: From the 1970s following the expulsion of Asians from Uganda, Satpanth Ismailis from East Africa began coming to the West, particularly to Canada, in large numbers. Many Bead Bais came with their families to the new country. Some lived through their senior years with their sons and daughters, and some died in nursing homes. Today their descendents live across the provinces of Canada and the greater Asian African diaspora.

In Where Hope Takes Root, the Aga Khan sets out the principles that inform his vision. Democracy, he says, must be nurtured in ways that are practical and flexible. Pluralism must be embraced, so that it exists both in fact and in spirit. A diverse, engaged civil society will advance these values. Education is also a critical component, not only in developing countries but in the West. Until the Western world acquires a deeper knowledge of Muslim civilizations, His Highness asserts, no truly meaningful dialogue can take place. In a world too often divided along economic, political, ethnic and religious lines, the Aga Khan's words are welcome. Eloquent, inspiring and deeply challenging, they express the hope - and the conviction - that profound change is possible.

A quest for the legendary Blue Manuscript of medieval Islam becomes a voyage of self-discovery for characters from east and west in this fascinating, many-layered novel. The Blue Manuscript is the ultimate prize for any collector of Islamic treasures. But does it still exist, and if so, can it be found? In search of answers to these questions, an assortment of archaeologists heads for a remote area of Egypt, where they work with local villagers to excavate a promising site.But as social and cultural preconceptions amongst both visitors and hosts start to unravel, the mystery seems only to deepen and darken ... What do the fables of the village storyteller mean for the westerners, and can their emotional equilibrium and scholarly integrity survive exposure to the realities of the world they have studied from afar? Interspersed with the testimony of the early medieval calligrapher who created the Blue Manuscript, Sabiha Al Khemir's subtle, graceful narrative builds into a rich tapestry of love, hope, despair, greed, fear and betrayal. Intensified at every turn by the uneasy relationship between Islam past and present, and between Islam and the West, The Blue Manuscript is a novel which will resonate long after the astonishing solution to its mystery has finally been revealed.