Research Catalog

Title

Permanent pilgrims : the role of pilgrimage in the lives of West African Muslims in Sudan / C. Bawa Yamba.

Author

Yamba, C. Bawa.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, c1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xii, 237 p., [4] p. of plates : ill., 4 maps; 25 cm.

Summary

"To the Hausa pilgrims in Sudan, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is more than an episode in a devout life. The journey, with the hardships entailed in crossing savannas and the desert, is a way of life into which they are born, work, raise families, and die. The pilgrims define themselves as transients and live in villages they consider temporary, yet they have lingered en route to Mecca, sometimes for generations." "Permanent Pilgrims explores this cultural phenomenon, describing how the Hausa maintain the permanent pilgrimage. C. Bawa Yamba examines why these people allow themselves to live in a state of permanent transition, why they perpetuate a myth of eventual arrival. Moving from their historic beginnings in Nigeria to the rural and urban lifestyles of present-day pilgrims, Yamba presents a thorough ethnography of the Hausa, arguing that for them the pilgrimage is a symbolic journey analogous to life."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Hausa (African people) > Sudan
• Muslim pilgrims and pilgrimages > Sudan
• Sudan > Religious life and customs

Note

• Revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Stockholm, 1990.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-230) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Ch. 1. Introduction -- Ch. 2. The history of West African migration to Sudan -- Ch. 3. The rural dwellers: moral virtues, secular constraints -- Ch. 4. The urban dwellers: landlords, clients, fakis and beggars -- Ch. 5. The Islamic pilgrimage and the West African subculture in Sudan -- Ch. 6. Divine design and its consequences for the achievement of pilgrimage in this life -- Ch. 7. The pilgrimage as a paradigm for life -- Appendix II: Some brief biographical notes on the key informants quoted in the test.

ISBN

1560986123

LCCN

^^^95068001^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library