Dawn for Islam in Eastern Nigeria

A History of the Arrival of Islam in Igboland

Egodi Uchendu

Islamkundliche Untersuchungen Band 303

Klaus Schwarz Verlag
Language: English
1. Edition (2011)
Paperback, Illustrations, 284 pages
ISBN 9783879973835

The story of the emer­gence of Islam in Nige­rian Igbo­land, »the heart­land of Chris­tianity in Nigeria«, is taken simul­ta­neously with the exami­na­tion of the social recon­fi­gu­ra­tions that occurred in Igbo­land deri­ving from the intro­duc­tion of Islam into this part of the country.
An important outcome of this study is the infor­ma­tion it provides on the nature, depth, and success of the advance of Islam in recent times using as a site of discus­sion Eastern Nigeria and the Igbo society in parti­cular where long­held fric­tions had existed with the (Muslim) Hausa ethnic community whose members cons­i­dered them­selves the original worship­pers of Allah in the Western Sudan.
Regar­ding the kind of Islam favored in the study area, one half of the Igbo Muslim popu­la­tion are sympa­thetic to the very conser­va­tive views found in Hausa­land that has shown some strong connec­tion with Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam. The other half are less swayed by the Wahhabi senti­ments and favors a middle-ground approach to Islam akin to the tradi­tional Sufi orders common in West Africa in earlier centu­ries.
A distin­gu­is­hing feature of the book is the provi­sion of academic mate­rial for under­stan­ding Islamic revo­lu­tions and for contex­t­ua­li­zing the post­co­lo­nial advance of Islam in Africa.
Dr. Egodi Uchendu is fellow of Alex­ander von Humboldt-Stif­tung Bonn/Germany.