The Ibadi Muslims, a little-known community, have lived in towns and villages of North Africa for over a thousand years. This Muslim community originated from Basra in 7th century, found their way in 8th century in part of the north Africa- also called the Maghrib - and evolved throughout Middle Ages. Passing through a turbulent history, Ibadi Muslims developed a unique system of knowledge transmission, combining peoples and texts with the holy mission of preserving their traditions beyond geographies and across successive generations. In this episode we delve into the fascinating world of the Ibadis, to explore their community, and to better understand their collective history, tradition, and legacies.  

Paul M. Love Jr. is Associate Professor of North African, Middle Eastern, and Islamic history at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He received his Ph.D. from University of Michigan, he is a former Fulbright scholar, and received three prestigious Critical Language Scholarships from the United States Department of State. Paul’s main research interest is the collective history of Ibadi communities. He researches and writes monographs on Ibadi traditions. Paul visits public and private collections in search of Ibadi manuscripts, teaches history courses, and writes a specialised blog on different aspects of Ibadi communities and culture entitled Ibadi Studies. 

What we cover in this episode

• Ibadi Muslims: Emergence and evolution 
• Ibadi Muslims: Knowledge transmission&community building
• Ibadi scholars: Great jurists and successful merchants

Conversation key insights

• The tie between people, books and ideas make up the core of knowledge transmission in any school of thought.
• Ibadis were part of a geographic/regional ‘love for books’ and ‘love for paper’ in the Middle Ages in North Africa.
• Sira is a litreture genre in Ibadi tradition: A collective biography of community with the intention to draw boundaries and define identity.
• Ibadis of West (North Africa) and East (Oman) recognise a shared origin though they mainly developed through distinct trajectory paths.  
• Ḥalgha education system was an interactive group learning acitivity which involved sitting in circles and reading aloud.

Terms

• Ibadī اباضی: A school of thought in the history of Islam
• Abyad ابیض: White
• Maghrib مغرب: Part of North Africa
• Sira سیره: Biography
• Mālekī مالکی: A school of law in Sunni Islam

A passage from Rihla

I left Marrakesh in the company of the exalted cortege, and we reached the city of Sallee, then the city of Meknes, the wonderful, the green, the brilliant, with orchards and gardens and with plantations of olives surrounding it on all sides. Then we arrived at the capital, Fez. There I said farewell to our master and set out on a journey to the country of the Blacks. I reached the city of Sijilmasa, a very beautiful city. It has abundant dates of good quality. The city of al-Basra is like it in the abundance of dates, but those of Sijilmasa are superior. The Irar kind is unequalled anywhere. Here I stayed with the jurist Abu Muhammad al-Bushri, whose brother I had met at Qanjanfu in China. How far apart they are! He treated me with the greatest generosity [Travels of Ibn Battuta, Hamilton Gibbs, Hakluyt Society].

Recommended reading: Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, mobilization, and the making of a written tradition

We acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples as the enduring Custodians of the land from where this podcast is produced.