Esoteric Knowledge in Islamic West African Literature is adapted from a PhD I obtained at London University in 2006.
It discusses the initiatory journey of the soul as depicted in two texts: Kaïdara, an oral tale from Mali, and Ambiguous Adventure, a novel by the Senegalese writer Cheikh Hamidou Kane.
It explores how the spoken word can affect the consciousness of the listener, and initiate them into deeper levels of self-knowledge. It also posits that esoteric knowledge is fundamental to what makes us human and that, with the advancement of secular culture, traditional methods for attaining esoteric knowledge have been erased, perhaps for ever, leaving us exiled on the surface of reality. It also suggests that, without an understanding of esoteric knowledge, the message of these initiatory tales cannot be fully understood.
Kaïdara was transcribed by the Malian ethnographer, Amadou Hampâté Bâ. It is a charming, poetic story about three friends, Dembourou, Hamtoudou and Hammadi, who go to the Land of the Dwarves (the barzakh), where, after encountering many symbolic events, they meet Kaïdara, the guardian of gold and knowledge. Kaïdara bestows upon each of them three oxen-loads of gold and they are tested on what they will do with it. The one who passes the test by utilising the gold ethically is told the meaning of the symbols.
Ambiguous Adventure is a modern novella, about Samba Diallo, a Senegalese boy who is forced to terminate his spiritual training with his teacher in order to attend a school set up by the French colonisers, where he learns to ‘join wood to wood’. Ambiguous Adventure perfectly encapsulates the psychic pain of a soul that is forced to disconnect from its pathway to an esoteric knowledge of Being, for the sake of material ‘progress’. The price for living in the modern secular world is existential death. This novel is the reverse of the initiatory tale.
Price £26/$35 including postage.
To pay by card, please click on the button and select Check out as guest.
Order your copy, click here:
To order your copy with postage tracked, click here:
To order the e-pub version click here:
£5.00/$8.00