The term ʿajamī has long been used by Africanists to refer to African language writing in the Arabic script, a tradition that has flourished in Muslim societies across the continent from the Atlantic to the Swahili coast. In this highly original work on the Muridiyya, an indigenous Senegalese Sufi order, Fallou Ngom expands the definition of ʿajamī through his coining of the word ʿajamization to mean something much larger, namely the interplay between Islamic and local traditions, which he characterizes as a process of enrichment. The power of this expanded view of ʿajamī lies in its potential to bring local written African knowledge, in African languages and in Arabic, to bear on scholarly understandings of Islam as experienced in Africa and elsewhere beyond the Arab world, which Ngom successfully does in this volume.

The point of departure for Ngom's exploration of the spiritual and intellectual life of Murids and the ways in which they remember their founder, the principal themes of this book, is a vast body of Arabic script writing in the Senegalese language Wolof, a robust tradition known locally as wolofal. The ʿajamī texts he focuses on for their illumination of Murid foundational beliefs include a collection of hagiographic poems about the founder of the order, Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba Mbakke (1853–1927), known familiarly as Bamba. These texts, many of which are devotional or didactic in nature, were written by Muslim intellectuals and scholars who were Bamba's contemporaries, namely Samba Jaara Mbay (1870–1917), Mbay Jaxate (1875–1954), Moor Kayre (1869–1951), and the most renowned of them, Muusaa Ka (1889–1963), all of whom also wrote similar poetry in Arabic. The poems, which are commonly recited or chanted by followers of Bamba, provide a counterpoint to the now classic European sociological works on the Muridiyya, such as the pioneering work of Donal B. Cruise O'Brien (The Mourides of Senegal: The Political and Economic Organisation of an Islamic Brotherhood [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1971]), who is treated unnecessarily harshly here, Jean Copans (Les marabouts de l'arachide [Paris: L'Harmattan,1980]), and Christian Coulon (Le marabout et le prince: Islam et pouvoir au Sénégal [Paris: Pedone, 1981]), and they complement more recent historical studies such as that of Cheikh Anta Babou (Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853–1913 [Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007]).

Ahmadu Bamba, a Sufi saint, was a Black African shaykh, an erudite Islamic scholar, a native Wolof speaker, a prolific Arabic language poet, and a perspicacious teacher who understood the spiritual and material needs of his disciples and framed his message accordingly. Although he eventually reached an accommodation with them, the French considered him a threat to colonial rule, resulting in his exile by the colonial authorities to Gabon (1895–1902) and subsequently to Mauritania (1903–1907). Bamba thus emerges from the scholarly literature as an anticolonialist hero of sorts, and the success of the Muridiyya is viewed as a product of the times. What the ʿajamī texts bring to the discussion, in terms of how Murids view their founder and their own spiritual and intellectual life, is a far different temporality in which Bamba and his mission were foreseen in the primordial covenant of the yawm alastu (Qurʾan 7:172), and where colonialism is but one of the many trials the saint had to face during his life, neither more nor less significant than the others. This is already a far cry from the West's self-referential periodization of Africa, and specifically of Bamba as primarily an anticolonial actor. With hagiographies, of course, one has always to be careful, but in this case, Ngom's goal is not to present a history of the Muridiyya, but to provide a sense of the ongoing circulation of texts, poems, and stories that constitute the foundation upon which Murids build their spiritual and intellectual life.

The ʿajamī texts also provide a counterpoint, Ngom argues, to the colonial construction of a peripheral Islam noir, a syncretic African Islam that was construed as essentially different from Islam as practiced by Muslims in Arab societies, and one that the French found less threatening to their colonial mission. Emblematic of this vision of African Muslims are the Baay Faal, an offshoot of the Muridiyya, and followers of one of Bamba's most steadfast supporters, Shaykh Ibra Faal, some of whom substitute work and good deeds for prayer and fasting, thereby feeding the narrative of a peripheral Islam. Ngom, however, presents us with a countertext, namely Shaykh Ibra Faal's 1889 Jadhb al-Murid (Attraction of the Murid), which is “deeply grounded in the canonical Islamic liturgical texts” and which provides a nuanced discussion of the paramount importance of intent in carrying out the duties of a Muslim (p. 98), from which his position on prayer and fasting can be derived as a principled, if unusual, stance. Much of Islam beyond the Arab World, in fact, serves to highlight the work and thought of an erudite Muslim elite, fluent in Arabic and Wolof and steeped in religious learning, who sought innovative and responsible ways to bring the message of Islam to a broader base, often through ʿajamī texts.

Aspects of Bamba's message that Ngom chooses to highlight include equality among all peoples, and the principle of non-violence. The first of these emanates from a historical context in which Bamba counted among his disciples a number of Arabo-Berber Mauritanians whose claims to ethnolinguistic superiority he rejected. Both aspects also link the figure of Bamba to that of Martin Luther King Jr., a connection that Ngom makes explicit through repeated referencing of the latter, suggesting a broader appeal of the Muridiyya to African-American Muslims.

The companion website to Muslims beyond the Arab World is well worth exploring. It provides a collection of original ʿajamī texts, as well as audio recordings of Muusaa Ka's Wolof poems that appear with their musical transcription in the book, chanted or sung here by professional musicians. Together, these constitute a rich archive of primary resources for future researchers, including linguists and ethnomusicologists.

Muslims beyond the Arab World would have benefited from a more diligent editor. There are a fair number of mistakes such as missing words and extra words, and Cruise O'Brien, a pioneering figure in Murid scholarship, appears throughout as O'Brien. In addition, Ngom's use of terms that come straight out of contemporary American institutional discourse (e.g., Bamba taught “anger management skills” [p. 79], had a “mission statement” for the Muridiyya [p. 85], and “celebrate[d] ethnolinguistic diversity” [p. 237]) seems somehow to strike the wrong register. Yet these are minor details that do not detract greatly from the overall contribution of the book which is substantial and possibly pathbreaking in its portrayal of an African language, Wolof, as a legitimate vehicle of Islamic erudition.