Shiʻi cosmopolitanisms in Africa : Lebanese migration and religious conversion in Senegal / Mara A. Leichtman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface: Islam and politics -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: locating cosmopolitan Shiʻi Islamic movements in Senegal. Part 1. The making of a Lebanese community in Senegal -- Introduction to Part 1. French colonial manipulation and Lebanese survival -- Senegalese independence and the question of belonging -- Shiʻi Islam comes to town: a biography of Shaykh al-Zayn -- Bringing Lebanese "back" to Shiʻi Islam -- Part 2. Senegalese conversion to Shiʻi Islam. The vernacularization of Shiʻi Islam: competition and conflict -- Migrating from one's parents' traditions: narrating conversion experiences -- Interlude: ʻUmar: converting to an "intellectual Islam" -- The creation of a Senegalese Shiʻi Islam -- Coda: on Shiʻi Islam, anthropology, and cosmopolitanism.

Print version record.

Mara A. Leichtman offers an in-depth study of Shi'i Islam in two very different communities in Senegal: the well-established Lebanese diaspora and Senegalese "converts" from Sunni to Shi'i Islam of recent decades. Sharing a minority religious status in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, each group is cosmopolitan in its own way. Leichtman provides new insights into the everyday lives of Shi'i Muslims in Africa and the dynamics of local and global Islam. She explores the influence of Hizbullah and Islamic reformist movements, and offers a corrective to prevailing views of Sunni-Shi'i hostility, demonstrating that religious coexistence is possible in a context such as Senegal.

English.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide