Against substance dualism, Shaykh Ala al-Din ibn Mahmud al-Kirmani argues that the soul and the body are not two distinct substances but one single reality appearing under different manifestations.


He avoids calling this unity a “substance” in the philosophical sense, because that would preserve the dualism he seeks to overcome. Instead, he speaks of the human self as one reality that appears as embodied (tajassud) in one respect and as abstract (tajarrud) in another.

In 18th-century West Africa, Islam was a powerful counterforce to transatlantic slavery and European commercial influence. Historian Paul Lovejoy notes that Muslim-ruled states like Fuuta Toro systematically withheld captives from Atlantic traders after 1760,—
leading to 80% of enslaved peoples originating from non-Muslim regions in West-Central Africa. This resistance was rooted in earlier reform movements, beginning with the Mauritanian Nasir al-Din’s 1673-1677 revolt against Senegambian elites who profited from the slave trade.