Roman Loimeier
Assistant Professor at the Center for African Studies/affiliated faculty
in the Department of Religion
Ph.D. University of Bayreuth
Islamic Studies, Islam and Muslim Societies in Africa

Office: 490 Grinter Hall
Phone: (352) 392-2183
Email: loimeier@africa.ufl.edu

Roman Loimeier is Assistant Professor at the Center for African Studies and affiliated faculty in the Department of Religion. He did his M.A. in Social Anthropology, Religious Studies and Sociology at the University of Freiburg (Germany), his Ph.D. as well as his ‘Habilitation’ in Islamic Studies at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He also studied at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) in London and had a variety of positions as research fellow, senior research fellow and visiting professor at the universities of Bayreuth, Helsinki, Göttingen and Berlin as well as the ‘École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales’ in Paris. His academic work has focused, since 1981, on the history, anthropology and contemporary development of African Muslim societies with a regional focus on Senegal, Northern Nigeria and Tansania.

Apart from the history, anthropology and contemporary political development of African Muslim societies, Loimeier has cultivated a long-standing interest in the development of Muslim movements of reform and the way in which issues of reform have been translated into quotidian realities, in particular, in the sphere of Islamic education. More recently, Loimeier has done research on the negotiation of concepts of time in Muslim societies and the question as to how disputes over concepts of time reflect larger religious and political conflicts in Muslim society.

Research has led to numerous publications in German, French and English, most notably and recently:

• Nigeria: The Quest for a Viable Religious Option, in: Miles, William (ed.). Political Islam in West Africa. State-Society Relations Transformed. Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 43-72, 2007
• Sufis and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, in: Princeton Papers, Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. XV, Sufism and Politics: The Power of Spirituality (guest editor Paul Heck), Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, 59-101, 2007
• Perceptions of Marginalization. Muslims in Contemporary Tanzania, in: Réné Otayek und Benjamin Soares (ed.). Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 137-56, 2007
• The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th Century East Africa (edited volume, with R. Seesemann), LIT, Hamburg, 2006
• Translocal Networks of Saints and the Negotiation of Religious Disputes in Local Contexts, in: Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions (ASSR, Paris), Nr. 135, 17-32, 2006
• Is there something like „Protestant“ Islam, in: Die Welt des Islams, 45, 2, 216-54, 2005
• Translating the Qur?n in subsaharan Africa: Dynamics and Disputes, in: Journal of Religion in Africa, 35, 4, 403-23, 2005
• Patterns and Peculiarities of Islamic Reform in Africa, in: Journal of Religion in Africa, 33, 3, 237-62, 2003