Questions driving this seminar will include: Is Islam foreign to Africa, or is it local? What were the historical relationships between Muslims and non-believers, broadly, and between Muslim scholars and mystics and state power, more narrowly? How have the means and the ends of Muslim political engagement in sub-Saharan Africa changed over the last millenium, and particularly under colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries? We will read several texts written by African Muslims of the 16th through the 20th centuries, in addition to the work of historians, anthropologists, and others who have addressed the history of Africa's Muslims. 4 pts.