ARABIC SOURCES AND THE SEARCH FOR A NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY IN IBADAN IN THE 1960s

Extract

According to the late Ali Mazrui, modern Africa is the product of a triple civilizational legacy: African, Arabo-Islamic, and Western (Mazrui 1986). Each civilization left Africa with bodies of knowledge rooted in particular epistemologies and transmitted in written and/or oral form. In the first half of the twentieth century, what became known as the colonial library (Mudimbe 1988: x) had provided the sources and conceptual apparatus for studying African history, but from the mid-twentieth century onwards, nationalist intellectuals sought to deconstruct European colonial intellectual hegemony through the search for alternative sources and interpretations of African history. Notable among these intellectuals is Cheikh Anta Diop, whose work highlighted the close connections between Egypt and the rest of the continent to claim Ancient Egypt's historical legacy for the continent. Nigeria's first university – University College Ibadan, which later became the University of Ibadan – provided a forum for talented Africans and Europeans to pursue the project of decolonizing African history. Jeremiah Arowosegbe's survey provides insights into the rise and decline of academic commitment in the African continent, with particular reference to South Africa and Nigeria.