Dr. Bilal Ware is a historian of Africa and Islam. He is professor at UC Santa Barbara. He earned his Ph.D. in 2004 at the University of Pennsylvania where he trained in African History, African-American History, and Islamic Intellectual History. His research spans the last thousand years, centering on West Africa, while reaching into the Mediterranean lands of Islam and the Atlantic worlds of the African Diaspora.

Walking Quran: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469614311/the-walking-quran/

Jihad of the Pen: The Sufi Literature of West Africa: https://www.amazon.com/Jihad-Pen-Sufi-Literature-Africa/dp/9774168631