‘Disobedient’ Perspectives on African Muslim Arts

Mignolo's “epistemic disobedience” challenges (neo)colonial assumptions about Sub-Saharan Muslim arts. Superficialities of human life (zahir in Arabic) are in dialectic with divine truths (batin) as the hidden side of every reality. Acid-etched calligraphic blades of Sudan are a first focus, with “disobedient” cryptic messages directed to jinn rather than people. A Senegalese compound composed of reed as the stylus with which one writes God's Word permitted residents to dwell in a protective text. The inside of a Liberian mask performed in fraught moments of community conflict is inscribed with cryptic devices and phrases invoking the helpful intervention of jinn.

Keywords: arts invoking jinn ; dancing a disobedient device ; Liberia ; living in a text ; Mahdist period of Sudan ; Muslim mystical arts ; Senegal ; Sudan ; the dialectic of zahir and batin ; vernacular Muslim architecture