Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria [Paperback]

Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeriatells the story of Islamic reform from the perspective of dress, textile production, trade, and pilgrimage over the past 200 years. As Islamic reformers have sought to address societal problems such as poverty, inequality, ignorance, unemployment, extravagance, and corruption, they have used textiles as a means to express their religious positions on these concerns. Home first to the early indigo trade and later to a thriving textile industry, northern Nigeria has been a center for Islamic practice as well as a place where everything from womens hijabs to turbans, buttons, zippers, short pants, and military uniforms offers a statement on Islam. Elisha P. Renne argues that awareness of material distinctions, religious ideology, and the political and economic contexts from which successive Islamic reform groups have emerged is important for understanding how people in northern Nigeria continue to seek a proper Islamic way of being in the world and how they imagine their futuresspiritually, economically, politically, and environmentally.

A detailed study of clothing of men and women in northern Nigeria in all its complexity, from underwear on out.

1. The author of this book, Elisha Renne, is a senior scholar who is well respected for her work in Northern Nigeria. She is an anthropologist with concerns about medicine, dress, women's and gender studies, and material culture.

2. This book examines the history of Islamic reform movements in West Africa from the perspective of dress, textile production and trade, and pilgrimage. While it examines many expressive styles, the book is about how Muslims seek a proper way of being Islamic in the world and what this means for their well-being.