Beyond African Orality - The ''Ajami Poetry of Serin Mbay Jaxate

This book brings to English-speaking audiences the voice of one of sub-Saharan Africa's greatest Sufi poets: Sëriñ Mbay Jaxate of Senegal. Mbay Jaxate composed poems in his native Wolof tongue using an enriched form of the Arabic script called Ajami. As a moralist and social critic, his poems relentlessly promote the pursuit of spiritual and moral excellence, which he construed as the best investment for everyone to flourish in this life and achieve paradise in the hereafter. The sixty poems in this book make accessible for the first time to English readers his rich African Sufi insights.

List of contents

• Introduction


• Part I: Praise Songs: Celebrating Spiritual and Moral Excellence


• Part II: Prayer Songs: Pleading for Spiritual and Moral Flourishing


• Part III: Didactic Songs I: Cultivating Spiritual Excellence


• Part IV: Didactic Songs II: Cultivating Moral Excellence


• Part V: Songs of the Hereafter: Preparing for Tomorrow


• Conclusion


• Glossary


• Sources and Bibliography


• Notes


• Index

About the author

Fallou Ngom is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. His research focuses on African 'Ajami literatures (African languages written in Arabic script). He has held Fulbright, ACLS, and Guggenheim fellowships. His work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US Department of Education, and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. His book, Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya (Oxford University Press, 2016), won the 2017 Melville J. Herskovits Prize for the best book in African studies. He received the 2024 Boston University Provost's Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award.

Product details

• Authors: Fallou Ngom, Fallou (Professor of Anthropology Ngom, Ngom Fallou
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 17.09.2025, delayed
• EAN: 9780197807798
• ISBN: 978-0-19-780779-8
• No. of pages: 248
• Series: AAR Religion in Translation
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Other religions; Poetry, RELIGION / Theology, RELIGION / Islam / Sufi, RELIGION / Islam / History, RELIGION / Mysticism, Theology, mysticism, Literary studies: general, Islamic Theology, Literary studies: poetry and poets, Sufism & Islamic Mysticism, Islamic groups: Sufis, Poetry / poems by individual poets, Classic poetry / poems, West Atlantic and Volta Congo languages