Description:

Join the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) for a talk in our Works in Progress series.

Lunch will be served at the talk.

Umar Yandaki, doctoral student in the Department of History at Northwestern University, will discuss his research on the cultural and historical significance of urban spaces and the built environment in Muslim Northern Nigeria since the fifteenth century.  Specifically, his research investigates the material and sensory dimensions of Islamic practice in the Northern Nigerian city of Katsina by examining how Islamic notions of blessing and curse were inscribed onto centuries-old structures such as the city gates. At the heart of his research is Kofar Kwaya – the southern gate bound to oral traditions of an Islamic saintly curse – which serves as an entry point to explore the material expression of Islamic cosmology in the urban space.  

Yandaki’s summer 2025 dissertation research was partially funded by an award from the John Hunwick Research Fund administered by ISITA. 

Umar Yandaki is a third-year PhD student in African History.  He obtained his BA from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria and his MA from Northwestern University. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 2018 Wazirin Sokoto Junaidu Prize for best History graduate at Usmanu Danfodiyo University and the George Romani Prize for the best History research paper by a First Year Graduate Student at Northwestern University.