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M. Sani Umar

Associate Professor of Religion Photo of M. Sani Umar
Office: Crowe Hall, 1860 Campus Drive, 4-136
Phone: (847) 491-5488
E-mail: m-umar@northwestern.edu

M. Sani Umar (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1997) is Associate Professor of Islam with research interests in Islam and Colonialism in West Africa, Islamic Law, Sufism-Anti-Sufism in West Africa, Contemporary Islamic Thought and Liberalism, Islamic Intellectual Traditions of West Africa, and the Theory and Methodology of Academic Study of Religion. Before joining Northwestern faculty in 2007, Dr. Umar taught at Lawrence University in Appleton  (Wisconsin) and Arizona State University in Tempe (Arizona). He has received many honors and awards, including appointment as Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2006-2007, and Global Fellow at the International Institute, University of California, Los Angeles in 2003-2004, where he conducted research on contemporary Islamic discourses and liberalism. He is also currently working on Islam, democratization and politics in Nigeria and West Africa. In August 2007, Dr. Umar was appointed the Director of the Institute for Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) at the Program of African Studies of Northwestern. He is the author of Islam and Colonialism: The Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria, (Brill, 2005), and numerous essays in edited volumes and the leading journals of Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, and African Studies. Samples of his publications include:

  • “Reading Islamic Themes in Barth’s Travels and Discoveries through the Lenses of Edward Said,” in M. Diawara, P. F. de Moraes Farias and Gerd Spitller, eds. Heinrich Barth et l’Africa, (Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 2006) pp. 201-214.
  • “Mass Islamic Education and the Emergence of Female Ulama in Northern Nigeria: Background, Trends, and Consequences,” in Scott S. Reese, ed., The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa, (Leiden: Brill, 2004) pp. 99-120.
  • “Islamic Discourses on European Visitors to Sokoto Caliphate in the Nineteenth Century,” Studia Islamica, 95 (2002): 135-59.
  • “Education and Islamic Trends in Northern Nigeria: 1970-1990s,” Africa Today, 48 # 2 (Summer 2001): pp. 127-150
  • “Muslims’ Eschatological Discourses on Colonialism in Northern Nigeria,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 67 #1 (March 1999): pp. 59-84.