Reviews for Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa

The average rating for Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-06 00:00:00 Cesar Maya I think this is a re-read from a few years back as I kept getting that feeling that I've read this before. Not that that was a problem as this is such an excellent book. What I like about it the most is that it challenges the tendency among academic historians to dismiss the role of religion on historical movements and actors in a search for the source of modernity. This is a pretty consistent blind spot in historical writing in this and the last century, so it is good to see someone actively challenging the assumptions behind it, especially in a field of study which is a touchstone of the search for modernity- love it or loath it. The Enlightenment is the touchstone for all those who uphold a modernist view of history and for those who want to challenge the 'modernist' experiment. The vision of reality by both of these camps tends to exclude the influence of religion in such a way as to distort reality. Barnett's book is an interesting challenge to that. Barnett's main argument is that the gains in religious toleration were not the achievement of a deistic, Enlightenment movement which undercut the perquisites and arrogance of organized religion, but rather the result of the advocacy of dissenters within uni-religious states such as Britain in the late 17th century, France and Italy in the eighteenth century. He argues that even the classic arguments of the philosophes were infused by dissenting Protestant and/or anti-clerical Catholic arguments. Further, he notes the comparatively small numbers of philosophes as opposed to the large numbers of religious movements such as English Dissent and Jansenism. He makes a strong case for the emergence of religious toleration in the 18th century as the result of politico-religious strife which combined opposition to royal absolutism and criticism of the collusion of churches with this absolutism. This book is well-worth working through, even for those, like myself, whose main historical interests aren't necessarily modern. Given the importance of the Enlightenment 'myth', it is hard to escape the importance of this challenge to it.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-03-15 00:00:00 Patrick Gabriel I read the edition published by Seedsowers. Amazing this book was banned by the church.