Pragmatism in the age of Jihad

by Michael Angelo Gomez

"Bundu is an anomaly among the precolonial Muslim states of West Africa. Founded during the Jihads which swept the savannah in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it developed a pragmatic policy, unique in the midst of fundamentalist, theocratic Muslim states. Its founder, Malik Sy, set the state on a distinctive course, and the ruling Fulbe group kept its distance from subsequent Islamic revolutionary movements and tolerated the diverse religious and social practices of its Soninke, Malinke, and Wolof subjects. Located in the Upper Senegal and with access to the Upper Gambia, Bundu played a critical role in regional commerce and production and reacted quickly to the stimulus of European times."--BOOK JACKET. "Drawing upon a wide range of sources both oral and documentary, Arabic, English, and French, Dr Gomez provides the first full account of Bundu's history. He analyses the foundation and growth of an Islamic state at a crossroads between the Saharan and trans-Atlantic trade, p