Renowned Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui has died in the US aged 81 after being ill for several months.
Kenya�s President Uhuru Kenyatta said Africa had been robbed of one of its greatest scholars.
Mr Mazrui had been �towering� academic whose �intellectual contributions played a major role in shaping African scholarship�, he added.
He had been a professor at Binghamton University in New York at the time of his death.
Leading pan-Africanist
His body will be flown to Kenya for burial, said Khelef Khalifa, chairman of Kenya�s Muslims for Human Rights group.
�His nephew, Alamin Mazrui, has confirmed that the professor�s wish was to be buried in Kenya,� he is quoted by the local Daily Nation newspaper as saying.
Mr Mazrui was a leading pan-Africanist whose academic research focused on African politics, north-south relations and political Islam.
He had authored numerous books, including The Africans: A Triple Heritage and Christianity and Islam in Africa�s Political Experience: Piety, Passion and Power.
In 2005, the US journal Foreign Policy and British journal Prospect listed him as among the world�s top 100 public intellectuals.
Mr Mazrui is survived by his wife and six children.
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