Oludamini Ogunnaike
Oludamini Ogunnaike [oh-loo-DAH-mee-NEE oh-goo-NIGH-kay] is Professor of African Religious Thought and Democracy at the University of Virginia.
Full Bio
He specializes in the intellectual and artistic dimensions of West and North African Sufism and Yoruba oriṣa [OH-REE-SHA] traditions. He received his PhD from the department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and his A.B. in Cognitive Neuroscience and African studies from Harvard College. He is the author of:
Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Penn State University Press, 2020) winner of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) Outstanding First Book Prize;
Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madīḥ Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020);
The Book of Clouds (Fons Vitae, 2024),
Curls in the Night of Meaning: The Layla Poetry of the Shādhiliyya (forthcoming with SUNY Press in 2026),
and, with his brother Ayọdeji, Yoruba Mythology, (forthcoming with Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers in September 2026)
as well as numerous articles about Sufism, poetry, and Islamic intellectual history in West Africa.
He is also the host of a podcast, The Logic of the Birds, about Sufi poetry and poetics.