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Black African Muslim in the Jewish State: Lessons of Colonial Nigeria for Contemporary Jerusalem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

William F. S. Miles
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Extract

This paper represents an essay into Africanist social history and experimental biography. Thirteen years ago the pages of this journal carried a debate between Ali Mazrui and Hailu Habtu concerning Western and Semitic (Arab and Jewish) cultural influences in subsaharan Africa. In response to Professor Mazrui’s argument on the Jewish religious, metaphorical, economic, and political impact on Black Africa (foreshadowing Greco-Roman and Islamic influences), Professor Habtu vigorously rejected the “hidden premise...of an African cultural vacuum, or near-vacuum, destined to be filled by ‘universalistic’ civilizations.”

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1997 , pp. 39 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1997 

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Footnotes

*

Dr. William F. S. Miles completed a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Fellowship during the 1996-97 academic year at the University of Mauritius. He is currently professor of Political Science at Northeastern University, Boston

References

Notes

1. Ali M., Mazrui, “The Semitic Impact on Black Africa: Arab and Jewish Cultural Influences,” Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 13 (1984): 3–8 Google Scholar.

2. Hailu, Habtu, “The Fallacy of the ‘Triple Heritage’ Thesis: A Critique,” Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 13 (1994): 26 Google Scholar.

3. Joseph J., Williams, Hebrewisms of West Africa. From Nile to Niger with the Jews. London: Allen and Unwin, 1930 Google Scholar.

4. Williams, Hebrewisms of West Africa, pp. 106-7.

5. LoBagola, , An African Savage’s Own Story. London: Alfred K. Knopf, 1930 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor David Killingray for bringing the LoBagola autobiography to my attention.

6. William F.S., Miles, “Jewish in Muslim Black Africa,” Issue 15 (1985): 45-8Google Scholar.

7. “Old Jerusalem” refers to the walled section of the city. It is divided into four quarters: Armenian, Christian, Jewish and, the largest, Muslim. The Muslim quarter is dominated by the Haramesh-Sharif, or Temple Mount. Until the final half century of Turkish Ottoman rule (1537-1917). the walled city was Jerusalem and the population mostly Arab. After 1864 Jews constituted a majority of Jerusalemites and began settling outside the city walls. Growth of Jerusalem outside the Old City continued throughout the British Mandate (1917-1948). Between 1948 (as a result of the Israeli War of Independence) and until 1967 (the Six Day War), Jerusalem was partitioned into Jordanian (Arab East) and Israeli (Jewish West) sectors, with the walled city falling entirely within the East. Today, Old Jerusalem constitutes a very small proportion of the total land mass of the city.

8. Michael Hamilton, Burgogne, Mamluke Jerusalem. An Architectural Study (Jerusalem: British School of Archaeology, 1987), pp. 119-21Google Scholar.

9. Mark, Duffield, “Change among West African Settlers in Northern Sudan,” Review of African Political Economy 26: 45-6Google Scholar.

10. Burgogne, Mamluke Jerusalem, p. 121.

11. Maud, Sissung, “Noirs, et Palestiniens,” Jeune Afrique 1637 (May 17 1992): 11 Google Scholar.

12. Abraham E., Millgram, Jerusalem Curiosities (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1990), p. 256 Google Scholar.

13. El-Haj here uses the traditional Hausa term for Jerusalem, Kudus. At other times, he uses the anglicized form.

14. Duffield, “Change among West African Settlers,” pp. 45-6.

15. David Dent, “Mideast Militant. Black Palestinians,” Emerge (March 1992), p. 10.

16. Michael, Crowder, A Short History of Nigeria (New York: Praeger 1962), p. 201 Google Scholar.