On October 11, 2024, from 15:00 pm to 17:00 pm, the Sub-Saharan African Studies Research Group of the Institute for International and Area Studies (IIAS) at Tsinghua University hosted the first lecture of the 2024-2025 autumn semester “Ahmadiyya in West Africa: Global Islam and African Local Motility”. The lecture was held both online and offline and was delivered by Dr. Deng Zheyuan, Lecturer of Department of World History, School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University. The event was moderated by Dr. Wang Shujian, Assistant Professor at the Institute for International and Area Studies, Tsinghua University.
About 60 people attended the lecture, including IIAS faculty members and doctoral students, scholars and students from both home and abroad, and others interested in the topic.
At the beginning of the lecture, Dr. Deng Zheyuan systematically introduced the origin, claims and controversies of the Ahmadiyya. Then, he shared the theoretical framework of “Global Islam” proposed by Nile Green, a professor of History at UCLA. The framework defines it as a Muslim organization that has spread its religious ideas across regions since the late 19th century with the help of globalized communication, transportation and organizational technology.
The second part of the lecture focused on Islam in Africa and the development of the Ahmadiyya in Nigeria. Dr. Deng Zheyuan pointed out that his research mainly emphasizes local motility from the perspective of religious infrastructure, focusing on western-style Muslim schools and education in Lagos.
At the end of the lecture, Dr. Deng Zheyuan shared the Ahmadiyya approaches to deal with Nigeria's education policies, such as refusing to accept government compensation, emphasizing “services to the humanity” and actively running schools through private networks.
During the Q&A session, Dr. Deng engaged in a lively discussion with IIAS students and faculty, as well as other online and offline participants. Topics included the subject of “African local motility”, the impact of western-style education and culture on the education of the Ahmadiya, the significance of infrastructure in religious context, the connection between the Ahmadiyya in Nigeria and headquarter, and how archives and materials are collected during the field work.
