Poetry in Pursuit of Prophetic Perfection:
Ma'rifa, Rationality, and Poetry, Reflections on the Legacy of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Oludamini Ogunnaike (University of Virginia)

online lecture │30 May 2024 │ 6:00 pm (CET)

This talk will provide a brief introduction to some of the works and legacy of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975), one of the most important Sufi intellectuals of the 20th century, whose movement, the Fayda Tijaniyya, is the largest Sufi order on the African continent, and one of the largest Muslim movements in the world. After a brief exposition of Niasse's epistemology of ma'rifa, based on his works and interviews with his disciples, the talk will explore the central role of poetry in transmitting and cultivating ma'rifa and seek to understand why poetry is such a favoured tool for this kind of epistemic cultivation in Niasse's and many other Sufi communities.

Oludamini Ogunnaike is an Associate Professor of African Religious Thought at the University of Virginia. His research is focused on the intellectual and aesthetic dimensions of Sufism and indigenous religious traditions of West Africa. He is the author of “Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions” (Penn State University Press, 2020) and “Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Arabic Madīḥ Poetry and Its Precedents” (Islamic Texts Society, 2020). He is currently working on a podcast series and book on Sufi poetry and poetics, as well as a monograph, Introducing Africana Philosophy for Equinox press.

 

You can find more information about the lecture series here.

Contact: Dr. Raid Al-Daghistani – raid.aldaghistani@uni-muenster.de

ZOOM-Code: https://wwu.zoom-x.de/j/68440994551