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13 pages, 308 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

From a Neglected to a Crowded Field—The Academic Study of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa

by Ousmane Oumar Kane

Religions 2022, 13(5), 461; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050461 - 19 May 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1849

Abstract

An estimated five hundred million Muslims—close to a third of the global Muslim population and half of the African population—live on the African continent [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

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30 pages, 468 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Global Shinqīṭ: Mauritania’s Islamic Knowledge Tradition and the Making of Transnational Religious Authority (Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century)

by Zekeria Ahmed Salem

Religions 2021, 12(11), 953; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110953 - 01 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4874

Abstract

Today, Bilād-Shinqīṭ or Mauritania is often portrayed as an unparalleled center of classical Islamic tradition supposedly untouched by modernity. While previous scholarship has concerned itself mostly with Mauritania’s local intellectual history on one hand and its recent global fame on the other, in [...] Read more.

Today, Bilād-Shinqīṭ or Mauritania is often portrayed as an unparalleled center of classical Islamic tradition supposedly untouched by modernity. While previous scholarship has concerned itself mostly with Mauritania’s local intellectual history on one hand and its recent global fame on the other, in this paper, I document instead how, in less than two centuries, Mauritania has become not only a point of scholarly reference and symbolic/representational space of excellence in Islamic knowledge, but also one with an astonishing amount of global reach. Thus, I explore the ways in which Mauritania has continued to asserts its relevance and scholarly authority on a global scale. Drawing on a variety of historical, literary, and anthropological sources, I historicize the rise and mythologization of Mauritania as a peerless center of traditional sacred scholarship. I specifically examine how a number of widely different Muslim actors under changing circumstances continue to invoke, perform and re-invent Shinqīṭ/Mauritania. In documenting what I call Global Shinqīt over the longue durée, rather than simply illustrate how the so-called Muslim peripheries shape central traits of transnational normative Islamic authority, I argue instead that mobility, historical circumstances, and scholarly performance combined are at least as instrumental in the credible articulation of authoritative Islamic knowledge as normative discourses issued by supposedly central institutions, personalities, and religious bodies located in the so-called “heartland of Islam.” In so doing, I destabilize the center/periphery framework altogether in order to explore how Islamic religious authority is actually construed and operates under shifting cultural and political conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

25 pages, 403 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Globalization and Missionary Ambition in West African Islam. The Fayda after Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse

by Cheikh E. Abdoulaye Niang

Religions 2021, 12(7), 515; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070515 - 08 Jul 2021

Viewed by 4238

Abstract

For more than 10 years, we have been observing the Fayda Tijaniyya and its ramifications around the world. Starting in 2006 we have been conducting observations in Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Mauritania. Between 2015 and 2017, we closely followed some developments of [...] Read more.

For more than 10 years, we have been observing the Fayda Tijaniyya and its ramifications around the world. Starting in 2006 we have been conducting observations in Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Mauritania. Between 2015 and 2017, we closely followed some developments of the Fayda in the French capital and in other European cities. In parallel to these field investigations, we have been interested in the new religious arrangements that are gradually emerging in the United Kingdom. More recently, in 2020, we benefited from a stay in the USA which allowed us to widen our observation framework. From there, we were able to collect empirical material consisting of several dozen interviews, direct observation notes, private and public documents (reports, administrative documents, correspondences, letters of recommendation, press articles, travel chronicles and private videos, among others). In the Fayda Ibrahimiyya, the global culture suggests an update of the mode of inheritance, but in addition it makes emerge a new framework of activity essentially composed of a device of formation with global character, of a hybrid diplomatic-religious space, finally of a humanitarian action which appears as a missionary presenza. We first show that the conjunction of these three registers of action has as a condition, a process of articulation and appropriation through which the actors of the Fayda manage to convince of the link of identity that prevails between their own history and that of the founder. The conclusion of the article is devoted to a critical discussion in which we postulate that the imagination of a homogeneous global community comes up against a form of local resistance that is a counterpoint and probably an anti-globalizing replica. The historical socio-anthropology of comprehensive inspiration that we favour allows us to finely approach the interdependencies between these three registers and the narrative elaborated locally by the supporters of this community. The paradigm of mobility in which we place the Fayda, allows us to grasp the scope of the globalization of practices and uses, as well as the tension that operates between a dynamic of continuity and a dynamic of rupture that crosses for some decades this religious community. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

18 pages, 306 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Connections of Maghrebin and Sub-Saharan Intellectuals: Trajectories and Representations

by Mansour Kedidir

Religions 2021, 12(4), 281; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12040281 - 19 Apr 2021

Viewed by 1710

Abstract

Faced with the complex reality of their countries in the grip of multifaceted crises, the intellectuals in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa are baffled. Indeed, this situation, with a wealth of lessons, ought to challenge them to reflect together on the current upheavals [...] Read more.

Faced with the complex reality of their countries in the grip of multifaceted crises, the intellectuals in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa are baffled. Indeed, this situation, with a wealth of lessons, ought to challenge them to reflect together on the current upheavals in their societies. Nevertheless, faced with the intricacy of current problems and their heterogeneity, these intellectuals find themselves scattered. Yet, in the past, they were bound by the same objectives. Thus, if the religious elites of the Maghreb had, during the 15th century, forged links with scholars of sub-Saharan Africa, a second wave of intellectuals succeeded them to think about the liberation of Africa and the Pan-African ideal in colonial and post-colonial contexts. However, immediately after this generation disappeared, the one that followed did not resist the disenchantment of the populations and the expansion of Arabism that influenced the formation of a generation of Maghrebin thinkers. With the bankruptcy of the socialist regimes, this hiatus heralded an era of intellectuals crumbling to the point that, with globalisation in the 21st century and the eruption of a plurality of questions, they found themselves helpless in these countries. Apart from a few attempts at building common frameworks for reflection such as those of CODESRIA or the “Esprit Panaf” pavilion at the Algiers International Book Fair, links between intellectuals from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa are rare. Opposed to this type of scholars, mainly Francophone and secularised, a second type of intellectuals, rather Islamised, sharing the same representations, dominate the different spaces of the countries concerned. This paper is an attempt to explore the historical trajectory of these two types of intellectuals and then explain why, in recent decades, such a connection has marked the future of the relationship between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

21 pages, 391 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bilad al-Brazil: The Importance of West African Scholars in Brazilian Islamic Education and Practice in Historic and Contemporary Perspective

by Ayodeji Ogunnaike

Religions 2021, 12(2), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020131 - 19 Feb 2021

Viewed by 4768

Abstract

While it is well established now that the middle passage did not entirely separate Africans who were forcibly brought to the Americas from their home cultures and traditions, these connections are often studied and understood in the form of survivals or ancestral memory. [...] Read more.

While it is well established now that the middle passage did not entirely separate Africans who were forcibly brought to the Americas from their home cultures and traditions, these connections are often studied and understood in the form of survivals or ancestral memory. This paper argues that in major urban centers in Brazil until around the time of World War I, West Africans not only managed to recreate Islamic communities and intellectual traditions, but maintained important contacts with their homelands. In much the same way that scholars have argued that the Sahara constituted an avenue of exchange and connection between North Africa and Bilad al-Sudan, I argue here that the Atlantic Ocean was not an insurmountable barrier but provided opportunities for African Muslims to extend the traditions of Bilad al-Sudan into Brazil—albeit to a much lesser extent. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

12 pages, 202 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Path of the Prophet in Unsettled Times: Sudan’s Republican Brotherhood Looks Abroad

by Steve Howard

Religions 2021, 12(2), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020100 - 02 Feb 2021

Viewed by 2167

Abstract

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909–1985) founded the Republican Brotherhood in the early 1950s to promote social reform through a new understanding of divine revelation which had emerged during his two years of khalwa or retreat. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Republican Brotherhood [...] Read more.

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909–1985) founded the Republican Brotherhood in the early 1950s to promote social reform through a new understanding of divine revelation which had emerged during his two years of khalwa or retreat. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Republican Brotherhood attracted a few thousand followers to Ustadh Mahmoud’s teachings, whose foundation was the discipline of tariq Mohamed, “the Path of the Prophet.” This Path was a challenging design for life that embraced gender equality and social justice against the backdrop of an increasingly Islamist-oriented Sudan. In the 1980s, the height of the Brotherhood’s membership, the Republicans confronted Sudan President Gaafar Nimeiry’s imposition of his version of “Islamic Law,” with publications and street corner lectures. Through peaceful protest, the Republican’s point was that Islamic Law would only be oppressive to the millions of non-Muslims in the country and to women. The result of this resistance was the 1985 arrest and execution of Taha for trumped-up charges of apostasy. In the decades following the passing of their teacher, the Republicans have kept a low profile in Sudan while trying to maintain both their faith and some social cohesion. In reaction to both the Islamist political conditions in Sudan and the failing economy, many Republicans have joined the Sudanese flight abroad, with modest communities of Republicans now established in the Gulf States of Qatar and UAE, as well as the United States. Through field work and interviews with members of these three communities, I have tried to understand the effort to sustain the discipline of the Path of the Prophet by Republican brothers and sisters under circumstances of the extremist orientations of Gulf politics, or the “moral ambiguity” of the United States. This study is part of a larger book project on the Republican Brotherhood following the execution of Ustadh Mahmoud. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

20 pages, 321 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Racializing the Good Muslim: Muslim White Adjacency and Black Muslim Activism in South Africa

by Rhea Rahman

Religions 2021, 12(1), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010058 - 15 Jan 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4556

Abstract

Founded in Birmingham, England in 1984, Islamic Relief is today the world’s largest and most-recognized Western-based Islamically-inspired non-governmental organization. Framed by an analysis of processes of racialization, I argue that Islamic Relief operationalizes not a singular, but multiple Muslim humanitarianisms. I examine what [...] Read more.

Founded in Birmingham, England in 1984, Islamic Relief is today the world’s largest and most-recognized Western-based Islamically-inspired non-governmental organization. Framed by an analysis of processes of racialization, I argue that Islamic Relief operationalizes not a singular, but multiple Muslim humanitarianisms. I examine what I suggest are competing racial projects of distinct humanitarianisms with regards to HIV and AIDS, health, and wellness. I consider the racial implications of British state-based soft-power interventions that seek to de-radicalize Muslims towards appropriately ‘moderate’ perspectives on gender and sexuality. In South Africa, I argue that Black Muslim staff embrace grassroots efforts aimed towards addressing the material and social conditions of their community, with a focus on economic self-determination and self-sufficiency. I claim that the orientation of these Black Muslim grassroots initiatives denotes a humanitarianism of another kind that challenges the material and ethical implications of a humanitarianism framed within a logic of global white supremacy, and that is conditioned by racial capitalism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

22 pages, 368 KiB

Open AccessArticle

NGOization of Islamic Education: The Post-Coup Turkish State and Sufi Orders in Africa South of the Sahara

by Ezgi Guner

Religions 2021, 12(1), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010024 - 30 Dec 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4244

Abstract

This article analyzes the recently formed transnational networks of Islamic education between Turkey and Africa south of the Sahara through the study of the neglected case of Erenköy Cemaati. The expansion of the schools affiliated with Erenköy Cemaati cannot be divorced from Turkey’s [...] Read more.

This article analyzes the recently formed transnational networks of Islamic education between Turkey and Africa south of the Sahara through the study of the neglected case of Erenköy Cemaati. The expansion of the schools affiliated with Erenköy Cemaati cannot be divorced from Turkey’s Africa strategy and the growing importance of education within it since the late 2000s. Although Sufi orders and state institutions historically represent two divergent and conflicting streams of Islamic education in Turkey, the analysis of Erenköy Cemaati’s schools in Africa south of the Sahara reveal their rapprochement in novel ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tanzania, and Senegal, this article shows that the complex relations between the Turkish state and Sufi orders in the field of education in Africa are facilitated by a constellation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Situating ethnographic data in historical context, it argues that the Islamic schools of Erenköy Cemaati are produced by the overlapping processes of the NGOization of Sufi orders in response to earlier state repression in Turkey and the NGOization of education in the wake of the neoliberal restructuring in Africa. While contributing to our understanding of post-coup Turkey and its evolving relations with Africa south of the Sahara, this article provides at the same time a new window into the NGOization of Islamic education on the continent. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

18 pages, 594 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fisibilillah: Labor as Learning on the Sufi Path

by Youssef Carter

Religions 2021, 12(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010003 - 23 Dec 2020

Viewed by 2086

Abstract

At the core of this study of spiritual empowerment and Black Atlantic Sufism lies the pre-occupation of understanding precisely the manner by which particular Muslim subjectivities are fashioned within the bounds of the Mustafawi Sufi tradition of religious cultivation through charitable giving and [...] Read more.

At the core of this study of spiritual empowerment and Black Atlantic Sufism lies the pre-occupation of understanding precisely the manner by which particular Muslim subjectivities are fashioned within the bounds of the Mustafawi Sufi tradition of religious cultivation through charitable giving and community service in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. This article examines Black Atlantic Muslim religiosities and argues that West African Sufism in diasporic context—which draws upon nonwestern theories of the body and theories of the soul—can be theorized as a philosophy of freedom and decoloniality. In the American South, spiritual empowerment becomes possible through varying forms of care and bodily practice that take place in a mosque that is situated on a former slave plantation. Meanwhile, that empowerment takes place through discourses on Islamic piety and heightened religiosity in a postcolonial Senegal. Spiritual empowerment occurs, as I show, through attending to the body and spirit as students connect themselves, via West African Sufism, to a tradition of inward mastery and bodily discipline through philanthropic efforts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africa, Globalization and the Muslim Worlds)

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