Tacit Textuality
Drinking the Qurʾan in Zanzibar Town
$126.64
- Hardcover
232 pages
- Release Date
20 October 2026
Summary
An ethnography about the practice of ingesting the Qur’an as medicine in Zanzibar
Tacit Textuality is an ethnography about the practice of kombe in Zanzibar, in which Qurʾanic verses are liquefied and consumed across religious divides for afflicted bodies to be healed. Primarily based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in two Zanzibari healing rooms, the book investigates three foci. Firstly, it delves into the minute details of preparing kombe—its …
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781512830088 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1512830089 |
| Author: | Hanna Nieber |
| Publisher: | University of Pennsylvania Press |
| Imprint: | University of Pennsylvania Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 232 |
| Release Date: | 20 October 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
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Critics Review
“Hanna Nieber describes the practice of drinking Qur’anic verses in Zanzibar with great sensitivity to variations in cultures, religions, and languages. The result: a marvelous meditation on the materiality of written texts.” - James W. Watts, Syracuse University
Hanna Nieber
Hanna Nieber is Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She has previously published work in Material Religion, Journal of Africana Religions, and Journal of Material Culture, among others.
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