The Coherence of Contradiction

Shahab Ahmed shows that the magnitude of contradiction in Islam is far greater than modern analysts realize. Yet there is, he says, something in this contradiction that makes it coherent—something for which whoever seeks to understand Islam in its multifaceted entirety should look at. I propose that the insights of the book should be utilized to study the unity of conflicting traditions even in non-Muslim societies of Africa before colonialism downsized custom.