Rüdiger Seesemann
Department of Religion

Rüdiger Seesemann (Ph.D. in Islamic Studies, University of Mainz, Germany), Assistant Professor of Religion. His major fields of specialization are Islamic Mysticism, Islam and Modernity, Islam and Politics, Islamism, and Islamic Education, with a focus on the contemporary period and a regional emphasis on Africa South of the Sahara. In two subsequent studies, he has dealt with two of the most important Muslim religious leaders in West Africa (Ahmadu Bamba und die Entstehung der Murîdîya, Berlin: Schwarz, 1993; Nach der Flut: Ibrahim Niasse (1900-1975), Sufik und Gesellschaft in Westafrika, Habilitation Thesis, University of Bayreuth, Germany, 2004), both of whom have a long record of intriguing encounters with French colonial rule in Afrique Occidentale Française.

Seesemann is involved in several research activities dealing with Islam in French and English speaking parts of Africa. As a collaborator of a larger research program run by the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA, based at the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University), he coordinates research on the Tijani corpus of Islamic literature, much of which has been produced by Muslims living in French colonies. The photo shows the entrance to the building that houses the tomb of Ahmad al-Tijani, founder of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, in Fes, Morocco.

seesemann@northwestern.edu