Historian Mohammed Artan on Somalia, the Netherlands, and Islam in East Africa
On The Islamic History Podcast an interesting talk with Mohammed Artan a Somali-Dutch historian student of Islam. Mohammed Artan was born in Somalia, raised in the Netherlands, and currently lives in England. He is the director and founder of Looh Press, a publishing company specializing in Islamic, African, and Somali studies resources. He vividly talks about his experiences with assimilation and social pressures in the Netherlands and his work on the histories of Muslim Kingdoms in Northeast Africa.
Mohammed Artan is a publisher, student of Islāmic discipline and historian.
He was born in Somalia, raised in the Netherlands and, now lives in England. He is now the director and founder of Looh Press, a publishing company specialising in Islāmic, African, and Somali studies resources.
He has a degree in film and videography and taught several years filming. The last two decades he studied and continues to study traditional Islamic sciences and spent time with with wide-range of scholars in the sacred sciences and historians. His interest intersects with Islāmic studies, Islam in East Africa, and ancient East African history.
Mohammed Artan is currently translating and annotating several classical Arabic texts on the history of Muslim Kingdoms in Northeast Africa, including Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-‘Umarī’s Masālik Al-abṣār Fī Mamālik Al-amṣār and al-Maqrīzī’s al-ilmām bi-akhbār man bi-arḍ al-Ḥabashah min mulūk al-Islām.
These works vividly describe economic, ethnographic and political history of eight African Muslim Dynasties in the Horn of Africa and their struggle for supremacy against the Christian Solomonic empire, occurring against the background of the Crusades in the Middle East. These books critically investigate the established narrative of Christian-Ethiopia as “a beleaguered fortress in the midst of a sea of Islam”.
Mohammed personal interests include: travelling, reading, promoting reading culture, nature, filming, and photography.
He has toured globally and continues to tour his popular introductory course titled ‘Introduction To Somali History: Scratching the Surface.’
For more see: The Islamic History Podcast
