In a rather unremarkable way this special issue brings together two deeply misunderstood and misrepresented themes: Africa and Muslim education. Unremarkable, because as articulately expressed and described in this volume, Islam and Muslims are deeply etched into the African milieu, reverberating across a kaleidoscope of tradition and culture. Africa has always known the presence of Islam’s vibrancy in much the same way as Islam has always enjoyed a sense of belonging in the sacred primordiality of Africa’s soil. And yet this vibrancy has largely been obscured. This issue contributes to changing the discourse of casting Africa under a dark, uncivilized veil to justify the colonization not only of her people but her soul. It sheds a new light on various Muslim communities and more specifically on education and brings into question the misinformed constructions of Muslims as the archetypal “Others.” If the West is progressive, modern, educated, and rational, then both Africa and Islam must be backward, uncivilized, uneducated, tradition-bound, irrational, and obsolete—in need of both liberation and re-civilization.