Telling Stories, Making Histories

Download or read book Telling Stories, Making Histories written by Mary Wren Bivins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-03-30 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through reconstruction of oral testimony, folk stories and poetry, the true history of Hausa women and their reception of Islam's vision of Muslim in Western Africa have been uncovered. Mary Wren Bivins is the first author to locate and examine the oral texts of the 19th century Hausa women and challenge the written documentation of the Sokoto Caliphate. The personal narratives and folk stories reveal the importance of illiterate, non-elite women to the history of jihad and the assimilation of normative Islam in rural Hausaland. The captivating lives of the Hausa are captured, shedding light on their ordinary existence as wives, mothers, and providers for their family on the eve of European colonial conquest.