This book invites us to imagine differently, to write our own intellectual futures, and to forge education that is both African and Islamic.
Review by ADNAAN ADAMS
Living African Philosophy of Higher Education by Emeritus Professor Yusef Waghid. Springer Briefs in Education. ISBN 978-3-032-00390-4
Introduction: A philosophy lived through others
Yusef Waghid, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Education, stands among South Africa’s and the African continent’s most respected and globally recognised intellectuals.
In the opening pages of his latest and most innovative work, I think, Living African Philosophy of Higher Education (Springer, 2025), Waghid begins not with abstraction, but with deep ethical gratitude. He acknowledges two of his earliest mentors, Wally Morrow and Nelleke Bak from the University of the Western Cape, not simply as academic influences, but as individuals whose ‘lucid, coherent, and careful analyses of texts’ (p. 1) shaped his philosophical trajectory. Waghid also acknowledges the influence of the seminal thoughts of Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu.
Elsewhere, equally profound is Waghid’s recognition of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, the Malaysian Muslim philosopher and one of his definitive mentors, who introduced the concept of adab, the rightful action, conduct, and discipline, as the cornerstone of Islamic education. Al-Attas offered a rethinking of Islamic education through ta’dīb (good education), arguing that the often-cited concepts of tarbiyah (rearing) and taʿlīm (learning) were insufficient on their own. Waghid echoes this paradigm shift through his own conceptual development of taʿarruf (associational knowing) – a Qur’anic term (Al-Hujurat, 49:13) –meaning to know one another, as a critical educational philosophy that emphasises mutual recognition, ethical engagement, and the dignity of learning encounters.
This act of recognition is not incidental; it embodies ubuntu, a philosophy that insists we are formed through others, not apart from them.
In the spirit of Ubuntu as a lived philosophy, Waghid models what he preaches, that philosophy is not detached, sterile, or merely intellectual. It is deeply relational, historical, and enacted through recognition, interdependence, and ethical presence. His very method, honouring those who shaped his voice, illustrates the values that underpin African philosophical thought. Ubuntu, here, is not only a subject of theory; it is already performed before the first chapter begins.
From ubuntu to imagination: A fourth genre emerges
Building on his previous three philosophical commitments – ubuntu, deliberative iteration, and political resistance – this latest work introduces a fourth genre that signals a significant shift in African educational thought: fiction. This is no retreat from reality. Rather, fiction becomes a creative, ethical, and pedagogical force that enables teachers and students to imagine new intellectual, political, and social horizons, in his case particularly on the African continent and elsewhere (pp. 33–39).
Where earlier works like Education, Crisis and Philosophy (2022) focused on democratic engagement, and African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered (2014) articulated ubuntu as a guiding ethic, Living African Philosophy of Higher Education invites us to imagine an education that is alive, dynamic, and responsive.
Fiction, Waghid argues, is not merely literary. It is philosophical. It opens a space where learners can move beyond critique and resistance and toward creative authorship, the construction of their own theories and voices. This methodology, tested with honor and doctoral students, pushes learners beyond impersonation. As Waghid reflects (pp. 49), the goal is not for students to simply adopt his thinking, but encourage towards independent thinking, and from there, to imagine anew.
Resonance with Qur’anic Ethics and Muslim Intellectual Heritage
For Muslim Views readers, many of whom seek to understand how Islamic ethics intersect with contemporary educational and philosophical challenges, this book is especially relevant. Waghid’s recent article in Muslim Views, ‘On Human Dignity and Fairness’ (2025), reinforces this connection. Rooted in Qur’anic values of karāmah (human dignity) and ʿadl (justice) including the divine declaration that ‘We have honoured the children of Adam (Al-Isra, 17:70), his work offers an African philosophical lens that is profoundly compatible with Islamic moral reasoning.
Ubuntu and Islamic ethics converge in their insistence on the dignity of the other, the importance of fair deliberation, and the obligation to resist injustice. Waghid’s invocation of fiction as a tool for liberation mirrors the Prophetic tradition of storytelling, where parables, prophetic stories and lived experiences reveals ethical truths and challenged unjust social orders.
In this light, Waghid’s work doesn’t just offer a model of African higher education, it offers a framework of living philosophy that resonates with the Living Sunnah that’s dynamic, ethical, and responsive to context (complexities of our time).
Why it matters to the Muslim community
In an era where education is often reduced to employability metrics or ideological contestation, the deeper purpose of learning risks being overshadowed. Education, then, is no longer about cultivating the full humanity of the learner but about producing compliant labour or ideological subjects. In contrast, works such as Living African Philosophy of Higher Education by Waghid seek to revive education as a living, relational, and justice-oriented act, one that not only prepares students for the world, but also enables them to reshape it.
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Furthermore, this book does not provide all the answers. Instead, it does something more courageous: it invites us to imagine differently, to write our own intellectual futures, and to forge education that is both African and Islamic.
Closing reflection
By honouring his teachers, cultivating student imagination, and drawing deeply from African thought, Waghid gifts us a philosophy that is not only academic, but alive. For Muslim educators, learners, and community leaders, this book is more than a scholarly intervention. It is a mirror, calling us to revisit our traditions, whatever they may be, reimagine our futures, and revive the prophetic possibility of education as a path to justice, creativity, and collective dignity, for all who live on the African continent and beyond.
In addition, bolstering the concept of taʿarruf with fiction transforms it into an imaginative encounter, one that invites students to step beyond their own realities and write in ways that honour difference. Fiction, in this sense, is not a form of escapism, but an ethical act of empathy, a mode of knowing through imagined recognition. By embedding taʿarruf into his fourth genre, Waghid extends his African philosophy of higher education into a deeply Islamic-African epistemology where learning becomes an act of ethical imagination, divine recognition, and prophetic possibility. It is through taʿarruf that fiction as pedagogy becomes truly alive, nurturing humanity just as ubuntu does, together forming a living African philosophy of higher education.
- For more reading on Emeritus Professor Waghid’s works and output, visit themuslimthinker.org
Adnaan Adams is the founder of The Muslim Thinker.
