Thursday, October 8, 2009
John Hanson
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow
and Associate Professor of History at Indiana University

The Greater and Lesser Jihad in the History of Muslim West Africa
7:30 p.m.
Hepburn Auditorium

Jihad often is defined as ‘holy war,’ but it refers to a range of religious activities, from the ‘greater jihad’ of non-violent spiritual efforts to the ‘lesser’ jihad of military action in defense of Islam. This lecture reviews these perspectives and discusses the ways West African Muslims pursued ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ jihads during the past two hundred years. Examples will be drawn from Senegal, Mali, and Nigeria.