Projekt

Knowledge transmission has been a central tradition ever since the founding of Islam. The spread of printing technologies to the Muslim world in the 18th and 19th century and later European colonialism and post-colonial developments facilitated the spread of book usage and rise in literacy levels in the interior of Africa. Since the liberalization of the air waves and opening up of democratic space in the early 1990s, there has been unprecedented growth of private print (especially faith-based media), broadcast and news media in Africa. Among the Kenyan Muslims, the Friday Bulletin, a freely distributed English language weekly publication of Nairobi's Jamia mosque has emerged as the voice of the religious constituency in the last 10 years. Despite its prominent role in knowledge mediation, this crucial newsletter has attracted little academic attention. Aside from religious proselytism, the Bulletin serves as a forum for dissemination of national and international news with direct bearing on the faith community, an avenue for marketing of business products and a space for advertisement of educational institutions and job opportunities. This project aims at a textual and contextual analysis of the knowledge production, transmission and consumption of the Friday Bulletin between the years 2003-2013. It examines how its producers engage with, select, re-shape and appropriate knowledge in new and creative ways. The project aims at opening up new frontiers in understanding the fundamental role these forms of mediation play in sensitizing religious communities and creating and appropriating knowledge within the growing literate Muslim communities in Kenya who constitute 11-12% of the total population.

• Prof. Dr. Brigitte Reinwald

  Universität Hannover
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Historisches Seminar
  Fachgebiet Geschichte Afrikas
  Hannover
  

• Dr. Halkano Abdi Wario

  St. Paul's University
  Limuru
  Kenia