Sorcery or Science?

Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century, Sīdi al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sīdi Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim though...

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1. Verfasser: Marcus-Sells, Ariela
Format: Online
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Penn State University Press 2023
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Online-Zugang:ONIX_20230911_9780271093079_6
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author Marcus-Sells, Ariela
author_browse Marcus-Sells, Ariela
author_facet Marcus-Sells, Ariela
author_sort Marcus-Sells, Ariela
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century, Sīdi al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sīdi Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa.Known as the Kunta scholars, Mukhtār al-Kuntī and Muḥammad al-Kuntī were influential teachers who developed a pedagogical network of students across the Sahara. In exploring their understanding of “the realm of the unseen”—a vast, invisible world that is both surrounded and interpenetrated by the visible world—Ariela Marcus-Sells reveals how these theologians developed a set of practices that depended on knowledge of this unseen world and that allowed practitioners to manipulate the visible and invisible realms. They called these practices “the sciences of the unseen.” While they acknowledged that some Muslims—particularly self-identified “white” Muslim elites—might consider these practices to be “sorcery,” the Kunta scholars argued that these were legitimate Islamic practices. Marcus-Sells situates their ideas and beliefs within the historical and cultural context of the Sahara Desert, surveying the cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen and the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds. Erudite and innovative, this volume connects the Islamic sciences of the unseen with the reception of Hellenistic discourses of magic and proposes a new methodology for reading written devotional aids in historical context. It will be welcomed by scholars of magic and specialists in Africana religious studies, Islamic occultism, and Islamic manuscript culture.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1135112024-04-02T22:13:25Z Sorcery or Science? Marcus-Sells, Ariela African history thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHH African history Sorcery or Science? examines how two Sufi Muslim theologians who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century, Sīdi al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sīdi Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826), decisively influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa.Known as the Kunta scholars, Mukhtār al-Kuntī and Muḥammad al-Kuntī were influential teachers who developed a pedagogical network of students across the Sahara. In exploring their understanding of “the realm of the unseen”—a vast, invisible world that is both surrounded and interpenetrated by the visible world—Ariela Marcus-Sells reveals how these theologians developed a set of practices that depended on knowledge of this unseen world and that allowed practitioners to manipulate the visible and invisible realms. They called these practices “the sciences of the unseen.” While they acknowledged that some Muslims—particularly self-identified “white” Muslim elites—might consider these practices to be “sorcery,” the Kunta scholars argued that these were legitimate Islamic practices. Marcus-Sells situates their ideas and beliefs within the historical and cultural context of the Sahara Desert, surveying the cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen and the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds. Erudite and innovative, this volume connects the Islamic sciences of the unseen with the reception of Hellenistic discourses of magic and proposes a new methodology for reading written devotional aids in historical context. It will be welcomed by scholars of magic and specialists in Africana religious studies, Islamic occultism, and Islamic manuscript culture. 2023-09-11T07:31:54Z 2023-09-11T07:31:54Z 2022 book ONIX_20230911_9780271093079_6 9780271093079 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/113511 eng image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://muse.jhu.edu/book/99973 Penn State University Press e4e05b94-0f85-49a1-ba66-543b1dd40087 9780271093079 232 open access
spellingShingle African history
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHH African history
Marcus-Sells, Ariela
Sorcery or Science?
title Sorcery or Science?
title_full Sorcery or Science?
title_fullStr Sorcery or Science?
title_full_unstemmed Sorcery or Science?
title_short Sorcery or Science?
title_sort sorcery or science
topic African history
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHH African history
topic_facet African history
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHH African history
url ONIX_20230911_9780271093079_6
work_keys_str_mv AT marcussellsariela sorceryorscience