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Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: a Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-colonial Period . By Nehemia Levtzion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Pp. xxvi+228, maps. 50s.

DR. LEVTZION rates Islam in West Africa ' one of the better-known topics in African History' (p. xxiv). Nevertheless, his study of the Muslim communities of the Middle Volta Basin makes readily available for the first time a mass of data on what is a most interesting though peripheral part of the Muslim world. The work is divided into three parts. In the first, on trade patterns, the author discusses the commercial activities in the region of both Mande and Hausa traders, for it is against this background that the creation of the Muslim communities with which he is concerned has to be seen. In the second part he traces the development of particular communities, including those of Gonja, Dagomba, Mamprusi, Wa, and Sansanne Mango, being especially concerned with the question of the assimilation of the Muslims to the socio-political systems of these ' Middle Voltaic states '. This central section, the author tells us, is based upon eleven months' field-work, and draws upon the testimony of more than a thousand informants. The area covered, it may be added, is one approximately equal in size to the British Isles. It can scarcely be a matter of surprise, therefore, that such extensive coverage has been achieved at the expense of analytical depth. The series of descriptive sketches he offers is undoubtedly valuable, and his introductory remarks disarm the critic. Nevertheless, one does feel that some consideration of such important Islamic institutional features as the pilgrimage, the application (or otherwise) of Muslim law, sufism, and Qur'anic and higher education, is quite essential if the reader is to obtain any real understanding of the qualitative development over time of these isolated yet dynamic communities.