Contesting Religious Authority in Ghana: Perspectives of Literary Works of Aminu Bamba

Abstract

This paper examines the literary works of Aminu Bamba as a perspective of his contributions to Islamic reform and counter to religious unorthodoxy propagated by some religious elites in the Tijaniyya movement in Ghana. It pays particular attention to his interpretations of issues that pertain to theology, jurisprudence, and conflict resolution competences. Whereas this paper takes into cognizance the fact that aspects of his ideas on Islamic theology and jurisprudence were not original as they are well reflected in the mainstream traditional Islamic scholarship, the paper analyses the uniqueness of his ideas that center on eradicating religious unorthodoxy within the Tijaniyya. The article argues that Bamba’s reform ideas considerably depart from the Sufi-Salafi polemic that the debate on Islamic reform always characterize in Ghana.