Being as Good Muslims as Frenchmen': On Islam and Colonial Modernity in West Africa (original) (raw)
Related papers
From the Colony to the Post-colony: Sufis and Wahhabists in Senegal and Nigeria
Conflicts and encounters between Sufis and Islamists have persisted throughout much of Islamic history in areas such as the Middle East, the North Caucasus, and the Indian sub-continent. In this context, two cases from West Africa are particularly interesting. In colonial Senegal, Wahhabi influences were common, and during the 1950s, they even seemed to pose an alternative to the hegemony of Sufism in the colony of Senegal. Yet in the creation and development of the post-colonial state, the centrality of Sufism has apparently confined the influence of the Wahhabists to the margins. In Nigeria, on the other hand, the influence of the Wahhdbiyah was marginal in the colonial period and the Sufi tariqas maintained their status and appeal to the masses; from the 1960s onwards, Wahhdbi influences gradually diminished the power of Sufism amongst Nigerian Muslims. This article explores and compares the dynamics that developed between Sufis and Wahhdbists in Senegal and Nigeria, from the colony to the post-colony. Inasmuch as Senegal and Nigeria represent the Francophone and Anglophone colonies and post- colonies, analyzing the historical development of different colonial heritages will clarify the apparent similarities and differences in relations between Sufis and Wahhdbists in these two spheres of influences
Africanizing Islam: The Layennes of Senegal
This article traces the processes by which Limamou Laye interpreted Islam. Working from the assumption that Islam is not a monolith, we assert that Islam, as do all of the portable religions, is interposed upon indigenous cosmological understanding thus allowing the convert and posterity to own it. Through this process, Islam ceases to be a foreign religion. In the case of the Layennes, Limamou Laye their founder does not succumb to syncretism. On the contrary he proclaims the superiority of Islam over the traditional Lebu religion. In doing so he encapsulates his message in the tools of Lebu public discourse thereby legitimizing and " Lebuizing " Islam. We also assert his assertion as a reincarnation of the prophet not only localizes Islam, but also answers the issue of Arab chauvinism in Islam. The processes that facilitated Islamic expansion in Africa has been traditionally characterized as primarily violent jihads or gradual diffusion led by merchant/ missionaries and clerical communities. The truth of the matter is much more varied and nuanced. Trends can be identified, but too much emphasis on one trend or another lends to oversimplification of a complicated set of processes. Understanding the complexity of Islamic expansion opens the door to a more detailed analysis of the evolution of Islam in Africa thereby providing tools for analytical inspection of the future of Islam and more pointedly Islamism in Africa.
Introduction: Islam and Muslim Life in West Africa – Practices, Trajectories and Influences
De Gruyter eBooks, 2022
Islam has become one of the main themes of research in African studies in the last two decades. In academic engagement with West Africa, in particular, only a few topics have attracted more interest and contributions. Consequently, the literature has grown diverse, multidisciplinary and engaging, while examining topics such as pietism, gender relations, authority, activism and, increasingly, violence and security. On the ground, Islam is highly visible in the media and at the centre of public life because of so-called jihadi attacks on state institutions, widespread religious entrepreneurship, the emergence of new authoritative figures and a dynamic challenge to traditional power structures that shape the experiences of being Muslim. What can we learn from these developments? What dynamics do they draw attention to? What new and local research perspectives are they inspiring? What do these perspectives add? This volume is informed by these questions and adds to a history of academic engagement with Islam in West Africa. Inspired by a locally framed agenda, it offers the floor to scholars from the region, providing them with visibility and urging them to elaborate on their insights. As the initiators of major political entities (e.g. Ghana, Mali, Macina, Songhay, Sokoto), Muslim communities in West Africa have been shaped by their encounters with European imperialism, which organized their lands into possessions, protectorates, territories and then colonies. Imperialism was a process of social subjugation that led to the establishment of the modern state: an institution that subordinated political logic to its regulatory power. Prior to European imperialism, however, Muslim traders and scholars developed ties and connections across and beyond West Africa, illustrating the fact that Muslims have regularly engaged in educational networks, economic exchanges and cooperation beyond the confines of their polities. While historic ties with the Maghreb, Egypt and the Hijaz contributed to the making of Muslim West Africa, connections with modern
Islam (Oxford handbook of Modern African History)
The chapter delves into the plural ways in which colonial encounters transformed the course of Islam and Muslim societies both north and south of the Sahara. Though it focuses specifically on the imperial age set forth by the French conquest of Algiers in 1830, it also favours a long duration approach — making incursions into both pre- and post-colonial periods — to better delineate the dialectic of continuity and change brought about by the colonial situation. The chapter analyses the changing perceptions and policies that the various colonial powers, most importantly the French and the British, developed vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims, and how colonial actors and Muslim leaders eventually worked out subtle patterns of accommodation. But it calls for even more attention to how Islamic thought and Muslim societies were transformed from within in the course of the twentieth century, with emphasis on Sufism, Salafism, the challenge of Islam vs. Western modernity, and the colonial phenomenon of conversion to Islam. The chapter combines historiography, historical analysis, and an Islamic-studies approach to present key themes and debates of relevance to those subjects.
This study is an examination of the anti-imperialist ideas which were developed by the judiciary of the Sokoto Caliphate at the onset of the British invasion of the Central Bilad's-Sudan. It highlights the important role of the judiciary in both checking the limits of Islamic executive government as well as providing the legal basis for resisitance to European imperialism. In 1803 Shehu Uthman Danfodio successfully initiated the political and military aspects of his reform movement in Hausaland, but also foretold that a century later would emerge what he called 'the Hour of Christians' which would overshadow the Caliphate and all Muslim lands until the appearance of the Awaited Mahdi. It was the historical consciousness which informed the scholars and idealogues of the Caliphate for more a century. This collective memory was protected and transmitted by the scholars and particularly the judiciary, who eventually became the flagbearers of social, political and religious reform during the upheavals of European imperialism in Africa.