Rather than obscure the weight of Islamic law in Africa, this volume on Sufi literature in West Africa should thus serve to remind readers of the complex and varied legal discourses in African Muslim societies. There is much work to be done in giving voice to these legal debates with more thematic external resonance. As the above examples indicate, Sufi communities are often, perhaps not surprisingly, an important lens through which to view the more contemporary implementation of Islamic law in African Muslim societies.
Philosophy and Metaphysics
Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy exploring the nature of ultimate reality, attempts to explain things like cosmology, the human soul or spirit, or bodily resurrection and the afterlife. The classical Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) argued against the situation of metaphysics within Hellenistic (rational) philosophy, suggesting instead that such matters were better known through divine inspiration to a Prophet or “unveiled” gnostic (al-‘arif al-mukashshaf).69 Even if later Muslim scholars largely endorsed al-Ghazali’s epistemological intervention against philosophy (falsafa), metaphysical writing proliferated throughout the Muslim world, West Africa notwithstanding. If common parlance has come to (or should) recognize philosophy simply as elevated cognition, and metaphysics as the most profound and challenging branch of philosophy, then it is important to admit of a vibrant philosophical tradition in West African Muslim societies. The fact that many such “philosophers” considered themselves Sufis, mystics, or “sages” (hukuma) need not obscure the very vibrant presence of philosophy in Islamic Africa.
Academic reference to African Muslim philosophy is still in its early stages. But already Souleymane Bachir Diagne has argued that the Arabic textual tradition of Sudanic Africa demonstrates “a new philosophy of time” and “a philosophy of becoming, a thought of time as creative movement.”70 Oludamini Ogunnaike asserted that philosophy as a discipline, especially through the experience of colonialism, has increasingly internalized a Eurocentric bias that overlooks the more expansive definitions of ancient philosophy capable of considering the philosophical contributions of African Muslims.71 Elsewhere, building on Diagne’s work to outline a number of texts that could be read as African Muslim philosophy,72 Ogunnaike insisted that “African intellectual traditions should not be treated as mere objects of inquiry to be learned about . . . but should be approached as subjects of study to be learned or learned from.”73 The interjection of African Muslim metaphysics into contemporary university philosophy curricula thus depends on the retrieval of source materials that would force further consideration.
While certain of the writers in this volume do address metaphysics, these references are far outweighed by the exigencies of community formation. For example, ‘Umar Tal and Ibrahim Niasse, in writings not translated here, both reference the flow of divine flux (fayd) through a series of cosmological presences, and the nature of the human spirit/soul (ruh) as opposed to the soul/ego (nafs). But generally, such writings were not formal subjects of learning for students. The main source of metaphysical understanding in the community of Ibrahim Niasse, the Sirr al-akbar dictated by Niasse to his closest disciple, ‘Ali Cissé, was transmitted privately only in manuscript form. A defector from the community, Muhammad al-Maigari, published the work in 1981 as part of an attempt to discredit Niasse’s teachings—in this case, no doubt by linking Niasse to the metaphysical explorations of Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240) in the minds of his “Salafi” detractors.
Evidence of metaphysical inquiry sometimes emerged more publicly with intellectuals who did not bear the same weight of community organization and instruction. Coincidentally, two prominent examples of African Muslim philosophy actually come from the communities of ‘Uthman bin Fudi and Ibrahim Niasse. ‘Abd al-Qadir bin al-Mustafa (known as Dan Tafa, d. 1864) was the son of Shaykh ‘Uthman’s eldest daughter Khadija.74 Among his numerous writings are a number of “philosophical” texts,75 including a treatise on visionary knowledge that provides intriguing insight on the human soul:
As for the state of sleep, the soul (ruh) continues to abide in its skeletal abode even when its gaze is raised to [look into] the angelic world (al-‘alam al-malakuti). With this, it procures understandings that otherwise would not be. This is because the accomplished soul does not see except through the spiritual gaze (al-nazar al-ruhani). You will realize this when you have come to know that the human soul is not lodged in the body, for it has not separated from its original spiritual center. If it were to be separated, it would be annihilated, just as this physical body would be destroyed were it to depart from its center and nature. The soul is received in this skeleton by virtue of its regard (nazar) towards the body, and the custom of spirits is to dwell in the place of their gaze. So by the soul’s gaze towards the body it comes to dwell therein, but it is not fixed in the body. This is a wondrous matter indeed! The intellect cannot understand this from its own perception. By God, it is only perceived through unambiguous unveiling (kashf) or righteous faith.76
Dan Tafa thus explains a difficult conundrum concerning the connection of the human soul to the body. Many theorists, such as the Syrian ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1731), postulated that the soul left the body during sleep to perceive the unseen world and then return with insight.77 But if such were the case, how could the sleeping body remain alive without the presence of the soul–spirit in it? Dan Tafa suggests that the “accomplished soul” in fact extends far beyond the body and remains connected with the unseen (al-ghayb), and that sleep allows such a soul to gaze into the unseen without having to actually leave the body.
Such a concept invokes a conception of the human soul’s magnificent breadth that permitted its knowledge (ma‘rifa) of God. Probably Dan Tafa would have been familiar with this notion, cogently expressed in the Tijaniyya’s primary source book, Jawahir al-ma‘ani, circulating in the Sokoto Caliphate by the time of Muhammad Bello’s reign (1817–37).78 According to Ahmad al-Tijani, “God created the soul (ruh) 980,000 years in length, and the same in width. And He left it a long time in His nurturing care, caressing it in the tenderness of His kindness, graciousness, and manifest love for it.”79 African Muslim scholars, in dialogue with each other, thus developed a compelling metaphysical understanding of the human soul’s reality that both infused the physical body and extended to the unseen world without being limited to either location.
Elsewhere, African Muslim scholars expounded on the notion of successive divine manifestations that many have linked to the Emanationist philosophy of Neoplatonism.80 While such a discussion is evident from Ibrahim Niasse’s work, Sirr al-akbar, it is developed further in the Arabic writings of his Fulani student, Hasan Dem (d. 1996, Senegal). In responding to a question about Shaykh Ahmad al-Tijani’s being called the “renowned isthmus” (al-barzakh al-ma‘lum), Dem develops a sophisticated understanding of the notion of barzakh in relationship to paradigmatic sainthood and the cosmological presences evocative of Emanationist metaphysics:
There are three types of intermediary worlds: the isthmus (barzakh) between truthfulness and sainthood (walaya), and [then] between axial sainthood (qutbaniya) and prophecy. The third is hidden: tongues do not speak of it, pens do not write about it. For this is the soul (ruh)