Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba.(Book review)

Publication: Research in African Literatures

Publication Date: 22-JUN-08

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Indiana University Press

Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba

BY ERIC ROSS

Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2006.

xv+ 290 pp. ISBN 1-58046-217-0 cloth

Touba, the Muslim holy city founded by Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke in 1887, is Senegal's second largest urban site and the capital for the country's powerful and populous Mouride order. In this book, Eric Ross interprets Touba s spatial production in relation to the practices of Sufi Islam, West African urban design, and the processes of urbanization. His analysis of Touba as a city in the landscape is impressively researched and lucidly presented in four chapters that weave the author's...

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