Research data collection "Islam in Africa"

Since 1984, the Department of Islamic Studies at the University of Bayreuth is collecting material on African Islamic societies. These materials - newspaper cuts, journals, pamphlets, books published in Africa, theses written at African universities, research papers, tape recordings, slides, and all kind of "grey" literature have been organized to form what has become the "Materialsammlung Islam in Afrika".

The research data collection "Islam in Africa" is open to scientific research and provides visiting scholars with different services (computerized data access, copying facilities and others). The collection concentrates on African Islamic societies in the colonial and postcolonial periods as well as the present. Regional emphasis is put on the countries of the Maghreb, Egypt, the Sahara, West Africa, the Sudan and the East African Coast. All material is organized according to present-day African political structures, i.e. alphabetically from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Thematically, the archive contains material on topics such as religious practice, Islam and family, Islamic law, Sufism, Islamic education, Islamic organizations and movements, politics and society, history, culture, economy, Islam and other religions, and biographies of eminent Muslim personalities.

The archival collection is affiliated with the Department of Islamic Studies at the University of Bayreuth and the Institute of African Studies (IAS). It was also affiliated with Research Group C4 within the Humanities Collaborative Research Center SFB/FK 560 "Local Agency in Africa in the Context of Global Influences" (ceased in 2007).

For further information, kindly get in touch with Dr. Franz Kogelmann.