Dakar, Jan 5 (APS) – The ”Jimsaan” editions presented, Saturday, at the L’Harmattan Senegal bookstore, the work ”Chefs et marabouts” written by the American historian David Robinson and which highlights light the emblematic figure of the almamy of Fouta, Abdoul Bokar Kane.
”Chiefs and Marabouts” is the French version of the book ”Chiefs and Clerics: The History of Abdul Bokar Kan and Futa Toro, 1853-1891”, published in 1977.
The presentation was marked by the interventions of eminent historians, notably those of the Senegalese Ibrahima Thioub, former rector of the Cheikh-Anta-Diop University of Dakar, Abdoulaye Bathily, Penda Mbow, Mamadou Diouf and Boubacar Barry.
According to Professor Ibrahima Thioub, reading ”Chiefs and Marabouts” allows us to consider the explanation of the defeat of the ”States of Senegambia” against the European colonial powers.
”The endless fractures, conflicts, alliances and misalliances within the powerful classes of Senegambia have been mutually weakened under the eye (…) of the colonizer,” he said, praising the work carried out by Robinson.
For Professor Abdoulaye Bathily, this “remarkable work” will contribute to the “decolonization of the history” of African content.
”For me, it is the social dimension of this story that interests me a lot, and which allows me to better understand society, the oppositions, the problems. How was this nation structured, organized?”, for his part, indicated Professor Penda Mbow.
David Robinson, who received the title of doctor honoris causa from the Cheikh-Anta-Diop University of Dakar in 2007, is a recognized specialist in the history of Africa.
For over forty years, he has conducted research on Islam in West Africa at Yale University in the United States and, since 1978, at Michigan State University, where he received the title of professor emeritus, in 1992.
He is notably the author of the works ”Muslim societies and French colonial power in Senegal and Mauritania 1880-1920”, ”The holy war of al-Hajj Umar: Western Sudan in the middle of the 19th century”, ”The time of the marabouts. Islamic itineraries and strategies in French West Africa c.1880-1960”.
SOFT/FKS/ABB/OID
