International records / OpenAlex research

Oral history in Muslim Africa: Al-Maghili legends in Kano.

The thesis analyzes oral traditions collected from 1985 to 1989 in Kano, Nigeria in order to examine the position of oral history in a segment of Muslim Africa. It strives to combine the skills of Africa area studies specialists with the tools of Islamicists to draw a more precise picture of this portion of Muslim Africa. The study contends that written history is relatively recent in Kano, despite centuries of Arabic literacy, because of the negative sufi attitude towards political power. The thesis argues that to understand Kano's local oral history, the research must be au fait with the Hau…