Unveiling Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Islamic Reforms [1 ed.] 9789004233133, 9789004215252

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Unveiling Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Islamic Reforms

Islam in Africa Editors

John Hunwick Rüdiger Seesemann Knut Vikør VOLUME 14

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/isaf

Unveiling Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Islamic Reforms By

Ousman Murzik Kobo

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kobo, Ousman Murzik.  Unveiling modernity in 20th century West African Islamic reforms / by Ousman Murzik Kobo.   p. cm. — (Islam in Africa ; v. 14)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-90-04-21525-2 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-23313-3 (e-book) 1. Wahhabiyah— Ghana—History. 2. Wahhabiyah—Burkina Faso—History. 3. Islamic modernism—Ghana. 4. Islamic modernism—Burkina Faso. 5. Islam—Ghana. 6. Islam—Burkina Faso. I. Title. II. Series: Islam in Africa ; v. 14. BP195.W2K63 2012 297.8’14096625—dc23

2012021564

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISSN 1570-3754 ISBN 978 90 04 21525 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 23313 3 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For Rashid

Contents Abbreviations .................................................................................................... xi Preface ................................................................................................................. xiii Acknowlegdments ........................................................................................... xxxiii Maps .................................................................................................................. xxxviii Introduction ...................................................................................................... The Scope of the Study ...................................................................... Methodology: Archives with Voices ............................................... Unveiling the Discourse of Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Reforms ................................................................... Radicalism and Coexistence in West Africa’s Tradition of Islamic Reform and Renewal ...................................................... Ahmad b. Abd al-Halim Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) .................. Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Maghili al-Tilimsini ............... El Hajj Salim Suwari ........................................................................... Uthman dan Fodio .............................................................................. Hajj Umar Tall al-Futi ........................................................................

1 15 17 21 32 34 37 41 44 46

Part One

History Introduction to Part One ............................................................................... 1 Islam Prior to the Colonial Period ...................................................... Islam in Burkina Faso prior to the European Conquests ....... Islam in Ghana prior to European Colonialism: Compromises and Coexistence with the Asante .................. 2 Managing the “Islamic Menace”: Islam under British and French Rule ........................................................................................ Mahdism and the Discourse of “Islamic Fanaticism” in Colonial West Africa ................................................................. Taming Islamic Knowledge: Colonialism and the Development of the Madrasa ..................................................... French Policy toward Islam in Burkina Faso .............................. British Colonial Attitude toward Muslims and Islamic Schooling in Ghana ........................................................................

52 53 55 63 71 75 85 88 92

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contents Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo and French Policies toward Muslims in Burkina Faso .............................................................. 94 The Muslim Configurations at the End of Colonial Rule ........ 111 Part Two

Early Implantation Introduction to Part Two .............................................................................. 3 From the Students of the Sheikh to the Followers of the Prophet: Genesis of Wahhabism in Burkina Faso .......................... Early Implantation of Wahhabism: The Malian and Senegalese Influence ...................................................................... Communauté Musulmane de Haute Volta (Burkina Faso) .... El Hajj Muhammad Malick Sana .................................................... Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo ............................................................... Aboubacar Kanozoe of Paghtenga ................................................. Message and Influence ...................................................................... The Growth: 1966–1972 ...................................................................... Recruitment Strategies ....................................................................... The Mosque and the Spread of Wahhabi/Sunna Doctrine .... Internal Conflicts ................................................................................. 4 “Seeing” God: Tarbiya and the Beginning of Wahhabism in Ghana ...................................................................................................... Hajj Yussif Salih Afa Ajura ................................................................ Veiling the Bride: Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura’s Cultural Reform ..... Anti-Tarbiya and the Founding of Ambariyya ........................... Smashing the Idols and Burning the Talismans: Sheikh Adam Appiedu’s Reform in Asante ..........................................

120 121 121 126 128 130 131 133 139 143 145 147 153 154 156 162 171

Part Three

Maturation: 1970s–1990s Introduction to Part Three ............................................................................ 5 Mouvement Sunnite of Burkina Faso, 1973–1988 ........................... The Reconstituted Communauté Musulmane and the Conflicts of 1973 .............................................................................. The Formation of the Mouvement Sunnite de Haute Volta (Burkina Faso) .................................................................................

184 187 189 198



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Burkina Faso and the Arab/Muslim World ................................. 201 The Sunna Movement, Phase II ...................................................... 204 6 Promoting the Good and Forbidding the Reprehensible: Wahhabism in Ghana, 1970–1998 ........................................................ Hajj Umar’s Intellectual Development ......................................... Islamic Research and Reformation Center .................................. Secularly-Educated Muslim Professionals and the Diffusion of Wahhabism in Accra ................................................................ The Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center I (1970–1986) ....................................................................................... Wahhabi-Inclined Reform in Kumasi ........................................... 7 The Triple Heritage of West African Wahhabism: Islamic Reform and Modernity from Within and from Without ............. The Indigenous Context .................................................................... The Middle Eastern Connection ..................................................... The European Context: Some Elective Affinities between West African Wahhabism and Western Modernity ............ Islamic Schooling and West African Wahhabi Reform ........... Patterns of the Development of Madrasas in Burkina Faso .. Patterns of the Development of Madrasas in Ghana ............... Madrasa Schooling and Muslim Fanaticism ..........................

211 211 213 216 224 230 237 238 238 241 251 254 257 271

Part Four

A New Phase of Wahhabism, 1990 to Present Introduction to Part Four .............................................................................. 8 From Rejection to Coexistence ............................................................ The Search for Coexistence and the Dissolution of the Mouvement Sunnite (1988–1998) .............................................. The Search for Coexistence and the Decline of Wahhabism in Ghana ............................................................................................ Indigenizing Wahhabi-Inclined Reform in Ghana .................... The Takfir Debate ................................................................................

282 283 285 289 297 299

9 “Conscripts” of Modernity and Wahhabi Reform ........................... 311 References .......................................................................................................... 339 Appendix ............................................................................................................ 357 Indexes ................................................................................................................ 361

Abbreviations CJAS IJAHS JAAS JMAS JMMA JRA

Canadian Journal of African Studies International Journal of African Historical Studies Journal of Asian and African Studies Journal of Modern African Studies Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs Journal of Religion in Africa

Preface Personal Reflections on History This book reflects a personal and intellectual understanding of the history of Muslims’ struggles for spiritual purity in West Africa and how these struggles transformed local intellectual and political landscapes. I attempt to understand how the confluence of religious and material factors provided the foundation for the reception of Wahhabi-inclined reforms in Ghana and Burkina Faso starting from the late 1950s, and to assess the extent to which these factors help to explain Islamic revivalism in the subregion and beyond during the postcolonial period. I argue that what we often describe as Wahhabi reformism or its West African version evolved from local religious contestations, but subsequently became integrated into the Islamic resurgence and reform that became more evident throughout West Africa and other parts of the Muslim world starting from the early 1970s. The following rather long preface is a personal reflection, intended to provide an unusual intellectual lens by which to highlight the local origin of the Ghanaian manifestation of this global Islamic resurgence. My childhood reminiscence, which I narrate below, allows me to dismiss outright suggestions that Wahhabism was imposed on Africans by foreign forces. I witnessed the debates that culminated in the rise of this movement, not from the perspective of an adult or an intellectual, but from the perspective of a child in search of religious meaning. Such a perspective may allow a historian to carefully navigate the complexity of the issues of subjectivity and objectivity, and navigating such a complexity is crucial for an unbiased documentation of historical events, and for the avoidance of teleological analyses. The debates that culminated in the rise of Wahhabism occurred in both urban and remote parts of Ghana among groups of preachers who were deeply concerned about religious and spiritual matters. My research in Ghana and Burkina Faso more than three decades later enabled me to revisit these disputes from the critical viewpoint of an intellectual. The confluence of personal observation, childhood reminiscences, a rigorous academic training, and extensive ethnographic research allow me to conclude that contrary to common perceptions, this twentieth-century variant of the West African tradition of reform was not imposed onto

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“gullible” West Africans by radical foreign elements. Rather, these ideas developed organically from local religious dynamics. Similarly, the evidence from Ghana and Burkina Faso demonstrates that, contrary to widely held beliefs, the rise of these reforms in West Africa was not inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979; they had, in fact, reached their maturation before the advent of the Iranian revolution. This observation provides further evidence that West African Muslims were at the center and not the fringes of Islamic intellectual and doctrinal debates. By locating myself in some aspects of this narrative I intend to broaden the scope of our sources by recognizing the importance of a peculiar form of “ethnographic presence” that will hopefully contribute to debates about insider/outsider objectivity, and the ways in which the personal observation of a historical event, especially one that is traced to a childhood experience, can provide a powerful foundation for historical inquiries.1 My story begins on a Friday at Boadua in the Eastern Region of Ghana when I was about eight years old. Over half of the residents of this rural community were Muslim migrant workers who had come from various parts of West Africa (northern Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Nigeria) to take advantage of Ghana’s booming economy during the colonial period. Some also came from Northern Ghana. While a majority of them were employed by the diamond mining company, others were private diamond dealers and traders, while a few concentrated on offering religious services. At the end of the noon Friday prayer that day, the imam (the community’s spiritual leader) announced that some Muslims were coming from Asamankese, seventeen miles away, to preach. The imam added that these preachers belonged to a new religious movement, whose followers claimed to have seen God, yan-angan-allah (Hausa: those who have “seen” God). I remember the congregation was immediately gripped with anxiety when the imam mentioned the phrase ganin allah (Hausa: “seeing God”). Individuals sitting next to each other engaged in fretful conversations about this “strange” news as they tried to make sense of what seemed clearly an apostasy. The imam pleaded with the congregation to exercise restraint. I remember him adding that the coming of the preachers from Asamankese might represent God’s test of the community’s endurance 1 Kirsten Hastrup, “The Ethnographic Present: A Reinvention,” Cultural Anthropology 5, no. 1 (Feb. 1990): 45–61; Roger Sanjek, “The Ethnographic Present,” Man 26, no. 4 (Dec. 1991): 609–28. See also Cheikh Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853–1913 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007).



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and self-restraint in the face of adversity. With a carefully crafted sermon about the spiritual merits of patience and trust in God (Hausa: tawakali), he pleaded for the community to come together to pass this apparently very challenging divine test by restraining themselves. His speech was interrupted by a member of the community widely known for his physical strength and erratic behavior. Clearly agitated, this individual yelled, “I will kill those infidels (Hausa: kaafurai) if they come to this town.” The angry exchange that ensued between him and the imam divided the congregation into two factions, with the majority standing firmly behind the imam while a few gravitated toward the sarkin karfi (Hausa: the master of strength). Clinging to the folded prayer mat that I was carrying for an adult I had accompanied to the mosque and staying close to him so that I could eavesdrop on the adult conversation, I heard someone remark that this particular group of Muslims had stopped observing the daily Islamic rituals, because, having seen God and received His grace, they were no longer obliged to perform the daily prayers that were meant for those “ignorant” of God’s generous mercy. Someone also added that he too had heard that members of this group publicly indulged in practices that violated Islamic prohibitions because they claimed that God has forgiven them all their sins. The veracity of these claims was undoubtedly dubious and should not concern us here. Obviously, this small Muslim community was gripped by fear; not only the fear that God might vent His anger on the community for allowing the group to observe their “sacrilegious” rituals in the town, as everyone appeared to believe would happen, but also an anxiety over a potential breakdown of communal unity. To prevent a deeper division in the community, the imam continued his call for peace by visiting several homes throughout the evening to plead against confronting the “heretical” preachers. His diplomatic skill probably helped to avert what could have been a violent clash between those who claimed to have “seen” God and those who considered such a claim blasphemy. According to my vivid recollections, no physical confrontations occurred that evening. While the community seemed apprehensive of the divine consequences of what they believed to be a sacrilegious ritual brought to the town, I was torn between my yearning to see God on the one hand, and the anxiety that had engulfed the community on the other. Like most children of my age, I suppose, I had been pondering the nature of God. Lying quietly at night on my mat spread on the dusty floor in the Qur’anic students’ room, I often asked myself questions about God’s identity, origin, and purpose in creating human beings. I was particularly baffled by what I may describe

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today as the ambiguity of life and death. In my solitary imaginative nocturnal journeys into the mystery of His existence, I imagined Him in a variety of shapes and colors, only to find Him shapeless and colorless. One night I imagined Him a turbulent giant swirling in a violent whirlwind, only to find Him calm and peaceful, smiling or frowning at me with different faces. The terror I experienced in this fantasy forced me to fall asleep. Some other nights I imagined Him surrounded by light, only to find Him engulfed in a dark mist from which He seemed to have evaporated. In short, He appeared in my fantasies and disappeared without creating a vacuum of His absence, because He seemed to be always there even though my mind could not grasp Him in any specific form. Imagining Him in every possible form and negating those possibilities tormented me to the point of insomnia. Sometimes, I had to close my eyes to shut Him out of my imagination so I could sleep, but to no avail. Yet no pleasure seemed to match this solitary wandering into a mysterious universe that raised questions but offered no answers. One day when I was in second grade (before the event at Boadua), we were asked to draw our favorite pictures. We were given crayons and told to use them sparingly. I drew a figure full of overlapping colors surrounded by clouds. I must have used more crayons than I was supposed to without drawing anything meaningful, at least so my teacher thought. For me the image was difficult to draw because it eluded literal reality. I was punished for not doing the assignment and for wasting the crayons. I knew intuitively that the teacher would be even angrier if I had told her that I was trying to draw God. I therefore accepted the punishment, neither protesting, nor divulging my inner secrets. Fear of being punished or scolded prevented me from telling anyone about my wild imaginings, so I continued to indulge myself in an ambiguous fantasy of torment and pleasure. Thus, while the adults were upset about the seeming blasphemy being brought to the town by the preachers from Asamankese, I was eager to have my questions answered. For the first time, an opportunity had presented itself that would allow me to see God outside of the perplexing mist of my imagination, a mist that often consumed Him. I had a few personal questions to ask Him, including where mum and grandpa were, how they were doing and especially why they had to die. I also wanted to ask Him why He allowed our teachers to whip us so mercilessly for occasional tardiness or for making a mistake in reciting the multiplication tables, or even for trying to draw Him. I therefore could not understand



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why the adults were quibbling over what I thought should really interest everyone, the ability to “see God!” I knew that the event would take place at the big lorry park (bus station) that also served as the night market where vendors sold cooked food, cigarettes, kerosene, and so forth; all public gatherings took place in this open space. Anxious to know whether the event would really take place, I went to the lorry park during the early evening hours to see what preparations were being made. I was happy to see a number of local residents, who had obviously organized the visit, preparing a big stage. Chairs and benches had been arranged in a semi-circle facing the stage. Floodlights were being mounted on long poles and two huge loudspeakers were placed by the stage. The person preparing the microphones yelled, “Allah! Allah! Testi mike! Allah! Allah! Testi mike!” I knew he was testing the microphone. By adding “Allah, Allah!” to the usual phrase, “testing mic,” he heightened the spiritual tone of this gathering. All these arrangements whet my curiosity. Apparently, my absence from the house had been noticed; immediately after I reentered the compound, I was summoned, along with the other children, and warned not to go to out of the house that evening. Since we did not have Qur’anic lessons on Fridays, we were usually allowed to go out and play at the lorry park after completing a few rounds of begging. This evening we were told not to go out and beg. I detested this restriction so I began to plan how to sneak out to go to the event. Afraid to go alone, I convinced two inquisitive and adventurous friends to join me. Their company would not only boost my courage but would also make it possible for me to shift the blame onto one of them if we were caught; at least it was better to share the punishment than to suffer alone and be mocked by the rest of the children. To persuade them of the spiritual merits of our mission, I told them that we should go and throw stones to disperse the crowd. I gave them a brief lecture about the benefits of defending God, definitely my own rendition of the debate at the mosque that afternoon. I must have made them feel proud that we were going to wage a “jihad” against God’s “enemies.” At home around 8:00 p.m. or so, I heard the loudspeakers announce the beginning of the event and the air was filled with the chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah (there is no god but God) in different rhythmic styles and melodious tones. The chanting was suspended to allow the scholars to preach, mostly in Kotokoli (a northern Togolese language) and Hausa (a northern Nigerian language and the lingua franca of Ghanaian Muslims). These sermons were in turn interrupted

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by a renewed chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah punctuated by a chorus, munkirai baa suganin Allah (Hausa: the rejecters will not see God). Then the chanting began all over again. Later, when the adults had entered their respective bedrooms and the compound was deserted, we quietly sneaked out of the house, stuffed our pockets with pebbles and headed to the event. We reached the spot just when the tempo of the chanting was very high. The voices of women and men collapsed into a single beautiful chorus of la-ilaha illa-Llah, so melodious that the harmony seemed to capture and silence every living soul in the vicinity. Mesmerized, I told my friends not to fling their stones until I gave the order. They innocently agreed. I wanted to prolong our intrusion for as long as it took for God to appear on the stage; after that I would deliver another sermon to deter them from stoning the “apostates.” However, as we stood quietly listening and watching individuals collapse into trances and be carried by the crowd amidst ecstatic chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah, one of my friends could no longer contain his own ecstasy, or perhaps his rage. Without asking my permission, he threw a few pebbles into the crowd and stirred a brief stampede. We were immediately seized by three men as we attempted to escape. Recognizing us as the children of a powerful man in the town (the other two were children of distant relatives under my father’s guardianship), and fearing that they could be in trouble if they harmed us, the men gave each of us a few hard slaps on our buttocks and told us to disappear. We were grateful that the penalties were only a few slaps even though we remained apprehensive of an impending punishment at home if the men reported the incident to my father. They never told him and the issue probably remained a secret among the three of us. But I could not forgive Kasim, the boy who had thrown his pebbles at the crowd, and thus foiled my chance to see God. Back home, disappointed, I curled up on my mat and contented myself with another solitary nocturnal cosmic journey into a universe of unanswerable questions. That night was nonetheless special because I believe I undertook this journey floating on the rhythmic chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah that had filled the air; the few slaps on my buttocks did not dislodge the magnetic effervescence of that chanting. I may have stayed up until the event was over or perhaps I was sedated by the chanting and fell asleep, I do not recall. With my penchant to see God now heightened by that fateful event, I began to plan how to meet these preachers again. A few months later, I convinced my dad to allow me to visit my grandmother at Asamankese during the school break. He agreed. I had lived with her in this town



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until I joined my dad at Boadua a couple of years earlier to begin school. Asamankese is a much larger town than Boadua and the Muslim community engaged in cocoa farming and kola nut trading. Arriving at Asamankese, I strained to hear hints about a special event similar to the one that occurred at Boadua a few months earlier. It turned out that only a small group in this town indulged in what I would learn later to be a perversion or rather a popular expression of tarbiya (esoteric spiritual lessons that sought to allow the initiate to experience the divine Essence). Tarbiya and fayla (or fayda, literally “flood,” but used metaphorically to mean the effervescence of God’s immense blessings), were part of the teachings of the eminent Tijaniyya scholar, Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse of Kaolack (Senegal), who had visited Ghana in 1952 and initiated many Muslim scholars into his branch of the Tijaniyya (see the introduction and chapter 5). Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse developed this esoteric practice from the teachings of the founder of the Tijaniyya order, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani (1735–1815). Although I paid careful attention to adult conversations in the hope of hearing about a gathering such as the one that took place at Boadua, I heard nothing of the sort. I courageously asked my grandmother about it in a way that I see now was quite pretentious. However, she did not want to talk about that topic, and warned me to guard against my potentially destructive curiosity. I thought she might have been right with this timely warning because it reminded me of another secret. One day, before the episode at Boadua, I had fallen asleep in class and drifted away into my fantasy world when our classroom was darkened by a rain-soaked cloud. As was usually the case on a day like this, the teacher asked us to put our heads on our desk and take a nap. Instead of taking a nap, I turned my face toward the window so I could watch the rolling clouds. I found them fascinating, especially the lightning that cut through them. As I watched the clouds, I saw a figure that I believed was God. Or, as psychologists would explain, I carved out my own figurative representation of God in the clouds and that image assumed a reality in my imagination. As I followed the image across the clouds, I fell asleep, only to be vigorously shaken by my older brother who announced the passing away of my favorite granduncle living at Akwatia, less than three miles from Boadua. Although he was over eighty years old when he passed away, I blamed myself for his death because I thought God took him away to punish me for what I now call “my cosmic intrusions.” Since then I struggled against those fantasies, though not always successfully. The episode at Boadua gave a new impetus to that cosmic intrusion because the preachers from Asamankese led me to believe that it was possible to physically see God. Having no one to

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talk to about my inner trauma, I made efforts to follow my grandmother’s warning, just in case those preachers were wrong. Two years later, my father moved to Accra, the capital of Ghana. Fearing that he might not be able to raise me and my older brother properly in Accra, he sent us to live with our maternal grandmother’s family at Nsawam, a town twenty-two miles from Accra, and less than forty miles from Asamankese. The Muslim community of the town was concentrated at Adoagyiri-Zongo. This community was first settled by my grandmother’s father, about seventy years earlier. Thus, I was sent to another community in which my family had some influence. Even more important, as I learned later, Nsawam had become one of the major hubs of Islamic studies in Ghana, as well as the nurturing place of the emerging fayla culture. Under the tutelage of Mallam Adamu Samundini and other scholars, Nsawam competed with Accra and Kumasi for religious studies and provided the environment for the emerging fayla culture to flourish. Young men of the town were often invited by other communities as far away as Accra to recite zikirin fayla, which they composed using different melodies of la-ilaha illa-Llah, to glorify God, the Prophet Muhammad, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse, and prominent local scholars.2 By the early 1970s, this culture had virtually displaced the local gumbe cultural group that had previously provided the musical entertainment for special events such as weddings and naming ceremonies. This culture also absorbed the energies of the Muslim youth of the town and prevented them from indulging in the James Brown disco culture that had arisen in the urban centers of Ghana. The fayla culture was not only new and vibrant, but it seemed to offer Muslims an acceptable form of spiritual and social entertainment. Most of the adults and a few of the teenagers in this town had been initiated into the Niassiyya-Tijaniyya. Finding myself in this vibrant community, I believed I would learn how to see God, in spite of my grandmother’s warning. Interestingly, despite the centrality of the fayla culture in this community, I never heard anyone claim to have seen God. I later learned that these scholars dismissed those who claimed to have seen God as deviators from the teachings of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse. They also considered such public proclamations of what I now understand to be the Sufi notions of ma’rifa (esoteric knowledge of the divine) 2 Mervyn Hiskett analyzes some of these songs in “The Community of Grace and its Opponents, the Rejecters: A Debate about Theology and Mysticism in Muslim West Africa with Special Reference to its Hausa Expression,” African Language Studies 17 (1980): 99–140.



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and ru’ya (vision of the divine), to be a violation of the secrecy of such knowledge.3 The calm atmosphere at Adoagyiri-Zongo was disturbed one day when, at the end of a Friday prayer, the imam announced that a group of Muslims was coming to the town to preach. He called them Wahhabiyyawa (Hausa: followers of the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab) and munkirai (those who rejected the Tijaniyya order and the spiritual leadership of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse). He explained that this group hated the Prophet Muhammad because they preached against honoring him through the celebration of his birthday and singing qasida to glorify him. Yet he also warned the congregation that the visitors had already obtained a police permit and therefore had the right to preach in the town. Adding that this group was known to travel in large convoys and carry arms to protect themselves, he warned us to stay home and to avoid confrontations with the preachers. I learned later that this event occurred in June 1972. He completed his speech by blaming the individuals who invited the preachers for bringing fitna (conflict and divisiveness) to the community. The main culprit was one Mr. Kadir. Mr. Kadir was one of only two adults in this community who possessed some Western education and he was the one often consulted for help to obtain official life cycle records and to assist in bailing out individuals in police custody. His involvement with the preachers from Accra antagonized his relationship with the community. Still afraid of the thought of “seeing” God, I saw this visit as an opportunity to learn how to suppress my self-tormenting indulgence. I believed these preachers would help me avoid the cosmic intrusions that enticed and tormented me. Although we had been warned not to go out that night, when their loudspeakers announced the beginning of the event that was taking place at the front of the Friday mosque I sneaked out to listen to what this so-called munkirai had to say. The arrangement was similar to the one at Boadua a few years earlier—a huge make-shift stage with chairs and benches facing the stage had been set up, along with loudspeakers, microphones, and a number of floodlights. They had also placed

3 The history of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse and the impact of his concepts of fayda and tarbiya on the development of the Tijaniyya are the subjects of Rüdiger Seesemann’s recent book, The Divine Flood: Ibrahim Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth-Century Sufi Revival (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). In chapter 3, Seesemann provides detailed analyses of the controversy generated by Sheikh Niasse’s teachings among Tijaniyya leaders and scholars in Senegal and Mauritania during the 1930s. I discuss this further in chapters 5 and 6.

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large containers filled with highly caffeinated hot tea at vantage points to help the audience remain awake, as was often done during such events. As I approached the gathering, I understood why it was crucial not to confront this crowd. It seemed as if half of the people of Accra had inundated this small town. I also understood the community’s apprehension; its doctrinal hegemony had never been so threatened by such a powerful group. The stage was huge and the preachers were surrounded by a tightly packed crowd, guarded by young men brandishing machetes, wooden clubs, cutlasses, and so forth. This was not a place to play the pebble game, I understood. I must have been the only child there but no one bothered me. The preachers talked about the need to love the Prophet Muhammad in the right way and to be guided only by the Qur’an and Hadith (sayings and deeds attributed to the Prophet). They declared Tijaniyya practices innovations that violated Islamic laws and derided Tijanis who claimed to have seen God. “No one can see God,” one of the preachers insisted. Like me, they understood this to mean “seeing” God literally. Although their arguments sounded logical and appealing, there was no chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah or songs glorifying the Prophet Muhammad, and this, I thought, was strange! While their message encouraged me to abandon my quest to see God, one of their arguments bothered me. They dismissed as “nonsense” the Tijani claim that the Prophet Muhammad appears at their group zikr (remembrance of God) held every evening; this speaker argued that it is impossible for the Prophet Muhammad, who had died several centuries ago, to appear at several places at the same time. I remember him saying something to the effect that, “The Prophet is dead; dead people don’t come back.” The statement was logical but it was articulated in such a disparaging tone that it seemed to me to diminish the Prophet’s eminence. While the logic of their argument persuaded me of the validity of their message, this statement seemed imprudent, and admittedly, bothersome to me. The following morning, I could not contain my conversion. I went quickly to my maternal great uncle and confessed that I had gone to listen to the preachers from Accra. I was not concerned about being punished because I knew he loved me too much to punish me over such a minor breach of rules. He asked me what they said and I told him everything I heard, except their statement about the Prophet’s appearances, because I wanted to convince him that they too loved the Prophet. He asked me rather mockingly, “So you think they are right?” I answered in the affirmative and explained why I thought their arguments were convincing. He appeared to agree with me. I felt exhilarated for having “converted” him.



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With this victory, I ran to Mallam Samundini. Some of the preachers from Accra, like Mallam Hamza, were his students and practiced the Tijaniyya while they were studying with him, but abandoned it when Hajj Umar Ibrahim (see chapter 6) returned from Saudi Arabia to preach against the Tijaniyya. I confessed to him that I had gone to the event and proceeded—excitedly—to offer him my personal rendition of the sermons I had heard. I probably embellished parts of the sermons to give them added credibility. Sensing the exuberance in my voice as I described and rationalized the strength of the sermons in my own pitiful words, he too asked me, “okay, they are right hahh?” I responded in the affirmative. And he remarked dismissively, “That’s right” [Hausa: haka nanne]! I quietly celebrated another victory for the preachers from Accra. Within a few days, Tijaniyya scholars organized their rebuttal. The gathering, which took place at the same spot, was even bigger. People came from the surrounding towns and others came from Accra. Obviously, there was a dire need for reassurance and communal support. The preachers from Accra had harshly criticized the Tijaniyya and it was crucial to patch it up again to sustain the very essence of that community’s identity and spiritual energy. They responded to every critique the Accra preachers had made a few nights earlier. Like the event at Boadua, the fun of the night was the zikirin fayla. At the end of the Tijaniyya rebuttal, I was confused, because I agreed with the Tijanis as well. But they did not touch on the issue that was most important to me, the idea of “seeing God,” and I thought this was odd. What confused me most was the fact that both groups quoted from the Qur’an and Hadith to support their arguments. Both my great uncle, Chief Alhaji Mumuni Salif, and my teacher, Mallam Samundini, inquired whether I had attended the event and what I thought of the Tijaniyya preachers. I do not recall my exact response. Perhaps I was too confused to respond and might have said something I did not mean. It was only after I matured that I realized that these two adults had prudently avoided a debate with an eleven-year-old who had barely completed studying one-tenth of the Qur’an. But in doing so, they left me to wonder, for two decades or more, in a state of utter confusion about God’s identity. I was particularly confused when one of the Tijaniyya preachers responded to the Wahhabi preacher’s claim that the Prophet is dead and even if he were alive, he could not appear simultaneously at hundreds of Tijaniyya spiritual gatherings. Using the analogy of the sun appearing at multiple places simultaneously, this preacher explained that like the sun, the Prophet Muhammad has been empowered by God to appear in millions of places at the same time. I learned later that each group was

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drawing from a specific type of knowledge to explain the possibility or impossibility of the appearance of the Prophet in multiple places simultaneously. While the preachers from Accra were using logic to dismiss the Tijanis’ claims, the latter reaffirmed the validity of their claims in a mystical sense, but with a powerful analogy. * * * It is understandable if the reader feels the urge to dismiss these incidents as exotic or even eccentric, and to declare the events at Boadua and Nsawam the folk Islam of ignorant Africans, as European colonizers had long remarked (chapter 2). For decades, this is exactly how I felt. After all, who would readily believe that Muslims in remote rural communities far from the heartland of Islam (the Middle East) would engage in any complex discourse about Islam? Only a certain level of education led me to understand that this seemingly primitive religious behavior was a local version of Muslims’ struggles over the relationship between humankind and the divine, a struggle that has had popular and intellectual dimensions throughout the history of Islam and throughout the Muslim world for hundreds of years. The threshold of my intellectual development that led me to appreciate religious expressions and to avoid value judgments began in June 1996. I had been admitted to the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study history, and was invited by Professor Thomas Spear to visit the campus. I had Karen Armstrong’s book, A History of God;4 perhaps I was taken by its captivating title, but I had not yet read it. I decided to read it during the trip. This book answered most of the questions that had tormented me for two decades. I completed it by the time I arrived in Madison, and read it again on my return trip. It was in this book that I first saw the word “Sufism”; it was in this book that I first understood what “seeing God” meant; it was this book that helped me to understand, implicitly, that the Tijaniyya (not mentioned in the book) was an Islamic mystical brotherhood, and although new, its core belief had been expressed in Islam for over a thousand years. For the first time, I was exposed to the notion that most religions share a common feature at the mystical level of their teachings. But this fundamental denominator of the monotheistic faiths is also a source of profound controversy. In Islam, it is this very contentious

4 Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994).



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space that nourishes doctrinal debates among individuals and groups genuinely eager to protect the purity of their faith, irrespective of their place or time. From this book I understood, at least vaguely, why this level of spirituality would forever remain a contested but indestructible space, precisely because the Qur’an positions itself in relation to both mystical and rational (exoteric) knowledge. Despite this somewhat comforting knowledge, I began my graduate education without the slightest idea of what I was going to study. I was certainly not interested in studying the history of God, and there was no such course in the curriculum to tempt a heart yearning to resolve a seemingly cosmic contradiction. In a conversation with the historian, the late Professor William Brown, during my second semester, he realized how ignorant I was of the history of Islam in general and that of Africa in particular. One day, noticing that I was discussing historical events quite out of context, he remarked, mockingly: “you seem very perceptive!” He then wrote down the titles of four books that I “must” read in the following order: Jamil Abun Nasr’s The Tijaniyya: A Sufi Order in the Modern World;5 David Robinson’s The Holy War of Umar Tal;6 B. G. Martin’s Muslim Brotherhoods in 19th Century Africa (the 1976 edition);7 and Lansiné Kaba’s The Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in French West Africa.8 In fact, these books constituted a perfect well-ordered selection for my gradual entry into the field. These materials helped me to make sense of the conflicts at Boadua, Asamankese, and Nsawam, and to place Karen Armstrong’s discussion within my own spatial contexts. From these materials I learned that what I considered primitive religious expression and conflict was actually the unfolding of a historical struggle between the Tijaniyya and the Wahhabi movement, a history that was itself part of a timeless and universal struggle among Muslims over issues of doctrine and orthodoxy. These seemingly remote and “primitive” events were common in the history of Islam, and defy our normative conception of historical time and space.

5 Jamil Abun-Nasr, The Tijaniyya: A Sufi Order in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965). 6 David Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 7 B. G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in 19th Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 8 Lansiné Kaba, The Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in French West Africa (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974).

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The reader might be surprised to learn, as I did later, that the greatest intellects of Islam, at the pinnacle of Islamic civilization and at the very intellectual centers of the so-called Muslim heartland, from Baghdad to North Africa and Andalusia (the Iberian Peninsula) had confronted this complex issue centuries earlier. They too were divided by the notions of the human capacity to “see” God or experience the divine presence in human souls; they also contemplated the anthropomorphic conception of the relationship between humans and God and whether annihilating oneself in the divine ( fana) is acceptable or even possible. For example, Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), perhaps the most prominent Muslim scholar of the twelfth century, found himself tormented by this debate, only to emerge with a newfound knowledge of Sufism and ultimately become a major proponent of the doctrine of ma’rifa. Conversely, Ahmad b. Abd al-Halim Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), a leading scholar of his time, embarked upon a struggle to suppress what he considered the eccentric and popular religious expressions associated with Sufism in Egypt and Syria. Scholars continue to debate whether Ibn Taymiyya abandoned his affiliation with the Qadiriyya or only attempted to eradicate popular practices, and not Sufism itself. Several examples can be cited to demonstrate that there was nothing unique about the debates among Muslims at Boadua, Asamankese, and Nsawam; only the contexts, space, and time distinguish these events and the debates surrounding them from those pursued centuries earlier by the greatest Muslim thinkers. By looking back at the struggle over religious purity during the events narrated above with a keen academic insight, I was able to understand how a Sufi adherent could become its staunch opponent, and conversely, why an individual could reject Sufism and then embrace it later or at least acknowledge its authenticity (chapter 8). The short reading list provided by Professor William Brown led me to understand that the history of a religious movement is worthy of academic pursuit. Thus, while my childhood reminiscences laid the foundation for my understanding of the complexity of religion, the belief that the study of religious movements can be the basis of an academic career was reinforced by my later observations of the development of Islam in the United States toward the end of the twentieth century. While living in the United States for more than a quarter of a century, certainly a good chunk of time for a reasonably intimate knowledge, especially given my persistent curiosity, I have observed the different trajectories of US relations with the Muslim world, as well as the changing public presence and perceptions about Islam. I knew a time when the word “Islam” or “Muslim” was



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unfamiliar to most Americans (unless they could associate it with the Nation of Islam or conflicts in the Middle East), and a time when Islam conjured the image of merciless terrorists. I also remember a time when there were fewer than a dozen mosques in the whole of New York City, and a time when one could find a mosque within a five-mile radius in most of the city’s boroughs. This public presence is visible in many other cities as well. In these twenty-five years, I observed a shift from Islam as an Arab religion or the religion of the Nation of Islam founded by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, to Islam as a mosaic of racial, cultural, and ethnic identities. For example, I remember when most Americans did not know that there were Muslims of European origin, much less Muslims of African origin. Today, the trans-color, trans-ethnic and trans-racial nature of Muslim identity is vivid in American public space. For much of these twenty-five years, one hardly ever saw three women wearing a Muslim veil on the campuses of most US universities on any given day. Today, not only have Muslim women brought different styles and shades of veiling to the public space, but they have also led Muslim and non-Muslim scholars and policy makers to engage in a debate about the religious, cultural, and political implications of wearing a headscarf or asserting a feminine Muslim identity. Yet, despite the evidence of a sustained growth of Islam during the late 1980s and early 1990s, due primarily to a combination of America’s involvement in the politics of the Muslim world and the civil wars in many Muslim countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the heinous tragedy of September 11, 2001 further confused the American and European public about the relationship between Islam and violence. I began the research for this book at this crucial moment in the historical relationship between the Western world and Islam. On September 8, 2001, I arrived in Ghana to begin my fieldwork. Three days later, like most people around the world, I sat watching the despicable horrors that had stricken the United States. The events of that day became a historical landmark in the history of Islam and the West. The September 11 attacks were connected in the popular and intellectual imaginations, accurately or not, with the Wahhabi movement. Is this the same Wahhabi movement whose history I had come to research? This question puzzled me as I tried to make sense of the event, and the impending difficulties that the incident would impose on my project—who would want to talk about Wahhabism to a scholar from the United States at this time? This event sparked scholars’ interests in assessing if Islam is compatible with modernity, and if the absence of modernity explains the recourse to violence

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as a means of political engagement pursued by Muslims. By the time I completed my research in September 2002, the subject of Islam and modernity was being examined by scholars of all shades, as if the pursuit of “modernity” is the answer for our search for religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence between Muslims and the West. Besides, the underlying discourse of the relationship between Islam and Western modernity assumes that the Western world has a monopoly over the historical origin of what we call modernity today. What an anachronism! In this discourse, Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order9 became a canonical reference point for refuting or supporting a putative “culture war” between Islam and the West. The catastrophic terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001 hurt Americans in particular, but the entire world as well. It also damaged the image of Islam, as the perverted interpretations propagated by a minute segment of its followers began to dominate our collective memories. Interestingly, a new yearning to understand Islam began after this sad event. For evidence of this new yearning, one need only look at the number of students taking courses related to Islam or Islamic culture in any university, or note the number of non-Muslim American and European scholars and policy makers who exert considerable energy to dispel negative public perceptions about Islam and the ideologically driven notions of “culture war.” This openness is a great opportunity for fostering a universal religious coexistence that must not be lost in the complexity of international politics, and the deliberate fostering of religious conflicts pursued by some radical elements among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The notion of “culture war,” or what Mahmood Mamdani describes as “culture talk,”10 reverberated perhaps even more strongly among Muslims. Not only did some respond to the prevailing discourse in the West about what constituted a good or a bad Muslim, a futile exercise the British and the French had pursued in their efforts to control Muslims in their respective colonies in Africa (chapter 2) and other Muslim societies, but many also engaged in a fruitful appraisal of Islamic doctrines developed during the classical era. For example, since September 11, a number of Muslims have questioned the historical validity of some sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad, as well as some of the interpretations of Qur’anic 9 Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 10 See Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Three Leaves Press, 2004).



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verses inherited from classical Islamic scholars. The controversial arguments of Fazlur Rahman in the 1970s, which questioned the authenticity of a number of hadith,11 have reemerged implicitly or explicitly in a number of academic monographs and popular articles, whether the authors care to trace their arguments to him or not. Islam appears to be going through a reformation imposed by events external to its beliefs but consistent with its tradition of periodic renewal and revival. Years of personal observations and perceptions, as well as current events, sharpened by a rigorous academic training, have influenced me to take on this profound project and have informed the narrative tone of this book. I hope that its content will contribute to a more diverse and nuanced intellectual discourse about Islamic spiritual, political, and social activism. The burden on scholars and policy makers is enormous. It is particularly important that we sharpen our analytical tools to reflect both academic and popular usages of the range of vocabularies that form the bases of our analyses (see the introduction and chapter 9). Oftentimes, academic definitions of specific words or ideas differ from popular definitions of these very vocabularies, concepts, and ideas. Recognizing the confluence of academic and popular usages of vocabularies that shape religious discourses is crucial in confronting the ubiquitous acknowledgment that Muslims’ radical discourses are not necessarily directed against non-Muslims, nor do they represent the tools of anti-Western radicalism. That is too simplistic. French and British colonizers made similar erroneous conclusions about West African Muslims (see chapter 2). Expressions of personal or group piety, emphases on specific cultural identities, polemics over doctrinal issues, struggles over political space, debates over the relationship between secular and religious norms, and so forth are not necessarily ingredients of terrorism. Rather, they often (though not always) represent the ways Muslims grapple with the changing global political economy and cultural interactions, and reflect the ways that Muslims have attempted, for over a thousand years, to safeguard the purity of their faith, a purity that is itself very ambiguous and complex, as my childhood reminiscences suggested to me and as my intellectual training confirmed. It is the struggle over this “purity” that provides a profound space for contesting a range of spiritual, political, and cultural issues. Islam is not unique in such internal struggles for spiritual and cultural authenticity, 11 Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) and Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

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or in its competition for political space; one can find identical patterns in the histories of many faiths. This is not to deny that there are individuals in Islam who quote Qur’anic verses and hadith out of context to incite politically-motivated violence against real or imagined adversaries. Instead, I argue that we do not legitimize the interpretations of a few self-proclaimed purists by simplifying and projecting their interpretations as the standard. This study seeks to demonstrate that there is nothing homogenous about Muslims’ doctrinal debates, political activisms, and engagements with the Western world. Indeed, one cannot empirically homogenize the activities of people of any other faith. Furthermore, there is no doubt that Islamic discourse can adopt a radical posture. The question is, in what contexts does an Islamic discourse become radicalized and by whom? Do these radicals achieve and maintain a monopoly over Muslims’ discursive space? Do such radical assertions remain uncontested even within a particular “radical” group? These questions constitute the challenge facing scholars who study the histories of religion. I hope that the reader will find some answers to these pertinent questions in the following pages as I chart the shifting trajectories of Islamic reform discourses in Ghana and Burkina Faso for a period of about fifty years, and transnationalize these discourses, taking care to place them within their local historical contingencies. For the period covered in this book, I attempt to unveil what is often overlooked in Muslims’ theological debates and the shifting contexts that highlight the malleability of these debates. The theater of my analysis is located in places that do not readily come to mind when most people talk about Islam. Yet this remote theater offers some guides to challenge the teleological and unconvincing homogenization of Islamic spiritual expressions and cultural identities prevalent in the popular mental landscape and academia. The communities I have studied bring fresh insights into understanding Islamism from within and from without, as forcefully as those in any part of the so-called Muslim heartland. In undertaking the present study, I found myself in the unique position of being a scholar with extensive training in historical methodology and ethnographic research, and being a Ghanaian whose childhood reminiscences allow me to offer a holistic historical narrative of this important time. Interestingly, the early clash between the Tijaniyya and the Wahhabi movement in Ghana coincided with my childhood spiritual struggles. Both groups were searching for the “Truth.” This search disrupted my own search for the “Truth,” that is the ever elusive Truth! Finally, there is no doubt that the elective affinities sketched in this book, between the rise of Wahhabi ideas in West Africa and the European



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discourse of modernity, may appear extravagant and distasteful to those who consider European modernity antithetical to Islamic cultural and spiritual expressions. It may even be painfully abhorrent to those for whom the idea of modernity is irredeemably connected to the horrors of European colonialism in Africa as well as the arrogance of Europe in staking an exclusive claim to a historically universal idea; European ideas of modernity after all came from all over the world. While skeptically faithful to postcolonial theory, I think we need to revisit some of the claims historians have made on behalf of historical actors and the specific historical period in which these activists operated. It took me some time to admit that history is not sensitive to my intellectual proclivities. I therefore hope that my colleagues who are uncomfortable with conflating European modernity with African religious expressions will follow my arguments in the spirit of skeptical tolerance and open-mindedness. It might as well be a historical fact that Africans, regardless of faith, were not impervious to the ideas floating around them, foreign or local. What seems historically interesting is to interrogate the ways these ideas were refashioned and localized by historical actors in need of a powerful discursive tool against well-established opponents. I conclude this rather long preface with Dale Eickelman’s statement, made in 1998, which formed the bases of my inquiry. He notes: . . . We will look back on the latter half of the 20th century as a time of change as profound for the Muslim world as the Protestant Reformation was for Christendom. Like the printing press in the 16th century, the combination of mass education and mass communications is transforming this world . . . In unprecedentedly large numbers, the faithful . . . are examining and debating the fundamentals of Muslim belief and practice in ways that their less self-conscious predecessors would never have imagined. This highly deliberate examination of the faith is what constitutes the Islamic Reformation. Unfortunately, buzzwords such as “fundamentalism,” and catchy phrases such as Samuel Huntington’s rhyming “West versus Rest” and Daniel Lerner’s alliterative “Mecca or mechanization,” are of little use in understanding this reformation. Indeed, they obscure or even distort the immense spiritual and intellectual ferment that is taking place today among the world’s nearly one billion Muslims, reducing it in most cases to a fanatical rejection of everything modern, liberal, or progressive . . .12

12 Dale F. Eickelman, “Inside the Islamic Reformation,” Wilson Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1998), 181. See Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: Free Press, 1958), quoted in Eickelman, op. cit.

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As Eickelman will probably acknowledge, Islam underwent different phases of “reformation” in different areas and times in the Muslim world prior to the modern era. He is nonetheless right in asserting that the wave of reform that began in the nineteenth century and continued into the twenty-first century cannot be compared to previous reforms in Islam’s history. This book is about the West African variant of this reform tendency. By paying close attention to West African Muslims’ appropriations and localizations of ideas of modernity to enhance their spiritual purity, I seek to demonstrate that in spite of cultural differences, the rest is in the West and the West is in the rest; the Rest does not isolate itself from the West and the West remains an integral part of the Rest. This empirically visible human interaction, albeit culturally contingent, cannot be repressed by ideologically-driven notions of cultural impropriety.

Acknowledgments The research out of which this book developed was supported by several institutions. A Summer International Travel Grant from the Global Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin in 1998 supported preliminary research that evolved into this project. The David L. Boren International Research Fellowship and an international travel grant from the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, supported fieldwork from 2001 to 2002. The West African Research Association’s Summer Travel Grant supported archival research at the Senegalese National Archives in Dakar in the summer of 2003. A faculty travel and research grant from Gettysburg College in 2006 also allowed me to conduct further research in Ghana during the summer of 2006, and a faculty travel grant from the Mershon Center for International Security Studies made it possible for me to conduct final research in Ghana and Burkina Faso during the summer of 2008. A Graduate Studies Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation, along with fellowships from the University of Wisconsin funded my graduate training prior to conducting research for this manuscript. I thank these institutions for their generosity. This book could not have been written without the guidance and input of my dissertation supervisor Florence Bernault, and my mentors Thomas Spear and William Allen Brown. They, along with Michael Chamberlain, encouraged and challenged me to pursue this study with the utmost rigor. Jo Ellen Fair and James Sweet also read the original dissertation and provided me with very helpful comments. I thank all of them for their support and critical interventions. Florence Bernault and Thomas Spear continued to follow the development of this project not only through constant encouragement, but also by reading and providing feedback on portions of the manuscript. I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to them. Their intellectual rigor and indefatigable support were indispensable for my intellectual development. I extend my special appreciation to my mentors at Gettysburg College, William Bowman and Frank Chitegi, as well my mentors at the Ohio State University, James Bartholomew, Claire Robertson, Walter Rucker, and Ahmad Sikainga. I thank Ahmad Sikainga for his friendship, continuing support and guidance. Claire Robertson deserves additional mention here for always being there when needed. I particularly appreciate her close reading of the final

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version of this book and very important suggestions and corrections. Similarly, James Bartholomew and William Childs read some portions of this book and provided me with very insightful comments. I thank all of them. The immense intellectual support of many scholars, friends, and colleagues facilitated this book’s progress. I am indebted to Marie MiranGuyon, Sean Hanretta, and Rüdiger Seesemann for their generosity in sharing ideas and providing feedback throughout the process of researching and writing this manuscript. Thank you for your sustained intellectual support and friendship. Sean Hanretta was involved in this project from the beginning and generously intervened at various stages of the research and writing. Marie Miran-Guyon discovered this project later, and became personally interested in it and committed herself to its ultimate fruition. As she once remarked, “this work deserves attention.” Marie, please accept my gratitude. I must not neglect to recognize the support of my colleagues and friends in graduate school, especially Jeremiah Kitunda, Meredith Terretta, Dior Konate, Naaborkoh Sackeyfio, Cedric Jourde, Susan O’Brien and Steven Volz, Robert Houle, and many others. I also thank Suleimana Mumuni, Abdulai Iddrisu, Yunus Dumbe, Kwame Osman Owusu, Leonardo Villalon, Ousseina Alidou, and Stephen Howard for their friendship, encouragement, and support. I am very grateful to David Robinson for voluntarily reading the dissertation out of which this book developed and offering very helpful suggestions. I equally owe deep gratitude to Jean-Louis Triaud for sharing his knowledge and materials with me. With his generosity, I was able to sharpen some of the arguments I made on Burkina Faso. This book benefited tremendously from the work of the pioneers of the study of Islam in Africa. Without their diligence and intellectual rigor in laying out the methodological perimeters and conceptual frameworks of studying the histories of African Islam, and convincingly demonstrating that the study of Islam in Africa matters, this project would probably not have been undertaken. It was only after reading their numerous works that I realized the importance of studying the history of Islamic movements in Africa. This book builds on their earlier research in other parts of West Africa. I should also recognize the indispensable friendship and guidance of a number of colleagues at the Ohio State University: Leslie Alexander, Nina Berman, James Genova, Stephen Hall, Jane Hathaway, Stephen Dale, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Anthonia Kalu, Kelechi Kalu, Scott Levi, Stephanie Shaw, and Judy Wu. Thank you for your keen interest in the success of



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this project. Many other friends and colleagues offered me crucial encouragement throughout the process of writing. These include Philip Brown, William Childs, Alcira Duenas, Derek Heng, Lilia Fernandez, Alice Conklin, and Mytheli Sreenivas. I also warmly acknowledge the direct and indirect contributions made by all my colleagues in the History Department of the Ohio State University. The warm receptions, encouragement, and assurances provided by these colleagues made academic life appealing and the writing process exciting. Your queries, “how is the manuscript?” as well as your generosity in sharing your experiences energized me to proceed and persevere even when the urge to surrender weighed heavily on me. I wished I had the space here to acknowledge you all individually. My sincere gratitude also goes to Brill’s anonymous readers for their critical insights and attention to details. Their meticulous readings prompted me to add some details that I had taken for granted and to use the appropriate tone. I was also blessed with great series editors, especially Rüdiger Seesemann, as well as Brill’s assistant editor, Nicolette van der Hoek and my copyeditor, Valerie Joy Turner. Thank you for your patience, rigorous demands, and interest in the subject of this project. A number of individuals laid the foundation for my interest in academia and therefore deserve a special mention. I thank Sharon Robinson and Charles Salim, whose sustained reassurances meant a great deal to me. I must also acknowledge my teachers and mentors at City College of New York for instilling in me the love for qualitative teaching, research, and mentoring. Among these are Marina Fernando, Chudi Uwazurike, Vincent Boudreau, Carolyn Brown, and Ms. Gloria Thomas. I extend a very special recognition and appreciation to these individuals. My very sincere gratitude also goes to the many individuals in Ghana and Burkina Faso who generously provided the information that I used in constructing my arguments. I thank especially Adam Zeigha, Sheikh Aboubacar Maiga II, Mallam Sani Murtala, Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, Hajj Umar Ibrahim, Imam Sayouba Ouedraogo, Mamoudou Bande, Mr. I. B. Barro, Mr. M. S. Baba, Mallam Musah, Hajj Shuab, Hajj Sarki, Hajj Yussif Alawaihi, Mallam Musah Morre, Mallam Ibrahim Shaaban, Dr. Aboubacar Doukoure, Imam Aboubacar Sana, and all those whose voices form part of the narrative in this book. Without their boundless patience, generosity, and willingness to correct and suggest new ways of looking at history, the content of this book would have been much less than it is now. I hope the history I reconstructed here reflects their expectations, although I remain fully responsible for its shortcomings.

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I also thank the staffs of the departments of history at Gettysburg College and the Ohio State University, especially Chris Burton and Carla Pavlick, who made sure I obtained the financial support I needed to accomplish this task. Many thanks to Debra Moddelmog and Sebastian Knowles, for their illimitable support, guidance, and encouragement. I would also like to express my gratitude to several graduate students of the History Department at the OSU, Henryatta Ballah, Robert Clemm, Felice Knight, Dawn Miles, Keren Ngonya, Nicole Jackson, and Stephanie Honchell for their friendship and support. Fatimah Jibril served as my research assistant during fieldwork and I thank her for the care she applied to this project. A great big thank you goes to my friends at the Starbucks on Brice Road in Columbus for providing me with a warm reception, warm tea, and a comfortable space. I reserve my deepest gratitude and felicitation to my family, relatives, and friends. I thank my wife Ramatu and my children Bilal, Fatimah, Muhammad-Ali, Rashida, and Kalimah. Their patience and love enabled me to complete this project; words alone cannot express what I owe them. Ramatu deserves a special expression of gratitude for creating the right atmosphere for me to focus on this project, while demanding nothing in return but the accomplishment of a task to which she has remained a vivid accomplice. I extend my gratitude to other members of the family as well: Yussif Labaran, Mumuni, Abubakar, Cheikhna, Abdul Wadud, Moctar, Zak, Muhammad, Issa, Hamaullah, Zulkanain, and many more. I thank their families as well. I also express my deep gratitude to my aunt Rabiatu Shuab and her husband Ibrahim Musah Sore, for their continuous support and love. I say a big “thank you” to Sharon Ousmane Robinson for her love, friendship, encouragement, and inspiration. Sharon read and commented on a section of this manuscript and deserves additional acknowledgement. Mariam also deserves recognition for her kind words of support and constant encouragement throughout the process of research and writing. I express my appreciation to my longtime friends Ibrahim, Kalamu, Amanda, Yaa Baba, Musah, Ahmad, Faruk, Mallam Baba Gambo, Osman Shadow, Zak, Issah and Zeliatu, Jennifer Stokes and Kwame Arkonoh for all their love and support. I will forever cherish the memories of my parents Musah Kobo and Mariam Nuhu, my son Rashid (to whom I dedicate this book), my grandmother Hajia Hawa and my adopted grandma, Lilian Palmer Tally (Mama). All of you wanted nothing in return for your support but my success. I hope I met your expectations. None of the people acknowledged in these



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pages incur any debts, obligations, or responsibilities for the content of this book; I bear full responsibility for its quality and/or shortcomings. Finally, I give my immeasurable gratitude to God, the owner of knowledge, who taught humankind by the pen and provided guidance. All gratitude is due to Him in the first instance.

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Introduction Since September 11, Western scholars and the public at large have increasingly depicted Islamist movements as radical, violent, anti-modern, and belligerent, at least in their attitude toward the Western world. While in general these perceptions are based on specific events, such portrayals offer incomplete and simplified views of complex historical phenomena related to Muslims’ religious and political activism. Labels and soundbites have, in many cases, reduced Muslims’ religious and mundane activities into a seamless whole, as if all Muslims have identical objectives and pursue similar political or religious agendas. The following transnational comparative analysis of twentieth-century West African Islamic reform movements seeks to bring historical nuance to our understanding of the factors that inspired (and continue to inspire) Islamic revivalist movements and the shifting political environments that shaped (and continue to shape) their religious discourses, their strategies of reform, and their political engagements. Focusing on Ghana and Burkina Faso, I explore the local contingencies that gave rise to Wahhabi-inclined reforms in West Africa, and the claims of these reformers to purge Islam of innovations. I link the mass appeal of this reform tendency to Muslims’ quests for spiritual purity within the context of Islamic orthodoxy, as well as to the desire to transform local Islamic customs and practices to conform to what many Muslims considered modern religious expressions. Considering the prevalence of and reliance on the European discourse of modernity and modernization programs pursued by African elites immediately following independence from colonial rule, the connection between the search for an intersection between spiritual purity and the ideas of modernity (discussed below) is not entirely unexpected. What may seem surprising is the elective affinity that emerged between Muslims educated in European institutions and young Arabophones (local scholars trained in the Arab world) over religious orthodoxy, and the way this affinity provided the foundation for the rapid growth of these twentieth-century reforms immediately after independence. The decline of European colonialism, starting from the late 1950s, gave rise to a new group of Muslim reformers who perceived an opportunity to transform the social, religious, and cultural foundations of their

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societies. Deeply concerned that European rule initiated the decline of Islamic education and provided the foundation for spiritual backsliding, these reformers saw the emerging postcolonial state as an opportunity to revive Islam and to reform its local practices. The Qur’anic injunction, al-amr bi-l-ma’ruf wa-l-nahy ‘an al-munkar (lit. “the requiring of what is acceptable and the rejection of what is reprehensible”), inspired a relentless struggle against what they perceived to be unacceptable religious innovations and syncretism, which they claimed were fostered by the existing Muslim intellectuals affiliated with the Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhoods. In their attempts to “liberate” Islam from these Sufi influences, they declared Sufism a religious innovation (bid’a) unknown during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. They also denounced Sufi rituals, especially the exuberant adulation of the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim holy men, as excessive, bordering on anthropomorphism, or associating others with God (shirk). In addition to seeking a higher standard of religious praxis, these new preachers also addressed Muslims’ broader social concerns, which they traced to specific outdated customs. For example, they criticized Muslims’ indulgence in ostentatious lifestyles and ceremonies, which, they argued, contradicted the Prophet Muhammad’s humility and modesty. Rather than squandering resources on flamboyant lifestyles and ceremonies, they encouraged Muslims to invest in their children’s educations in order to improve the economic conditions of future generations. By the 1970s, these reformers had gathered a significant following among diverse social groups, especially the emerging merchant elites, urban masses, and Muslims educated in secular institutions who were eager for change in local Islamic customs; change that would accommodate the postcolonial environment. For reasons analyzed throughout this study, people in these social categories had become disenchanted with onerous customs, such as being responsible for the welfare of kin and relatives, and submitting to the authority of Sufi leaders, who demanded gifts in exchange for spiritual blessings. They therefore welcomed ideas that emphasized not only spiritual purity, but also encouraged modesty, individualism, and the promotion of social, intellectual, and political reforms. Although these young scholars and their ideas evolved from specific local religious and social concerns, they came to be associated with the eighteenth-century Arabian reformer, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92), whose reform Saudi Arabia had endorsed since the establishment of the kingdom in 1932. Indeed, they later drew inspiration from the



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teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and other Hanbali scholars, including the thirteenth-century Damascene reformer Ibn Taymiyya (discussed further below). Like Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, these West African reformers emphasized a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet Muhammad’s era as the only legitimate path to religious purity. They insisted that to be a Muslim, one had to practice Islam exactly as it was believed to have been practiced by the Prophet and the generation that immediately succeeded him (the salaf ). Identical with Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s radical polemics against popular Sufi rituals and his extensive use of phrases such as shirk and bid’a to demarcate the boundaries between acceptable and objectionable religious norms, these reformers also deployed such controversial concepts to deconstruct local Sufi beliefs and to undermine the intellectual credibility and political authority of the established ulama (Muslim scholars) associated with the Sufi brotherhoods. Shirk and bid’a thus provided the doctrinal and political discursive framework of their polemics. The link between their radical arguments and those of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab led the established elites to call them “Wahhabi” and their reform “Wahhabiyya,” although they called themselves Ahl al-Sunna (“People of the Prophet’s Traditions”).1 Indeed, 1 It is difficult to give a name to this twentieth-century West African Islamic reform movement that shared some affinities with the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd alWahhab. The term “Wahhabism,” which I use in this book for the purpose of analytical convenience, only came to be associated with these movements during the latter part of the colonial period, although both the English and the French had earlier labeled some Islamic movements in North Africa as Wahhabi, having appropriated the name from the Ottomans. The adherents of these movements never called themselves Wahhabis. Rather, they called (and still call) themselves Ahl al-Sunna and are recognized as such, albeit reluctantly, even by their opponents in Ghana and Burkina Faso. However, the name Ahl al-Sunna is also problematic because, by definition, every Muslim is a member of Ahl al-Sunna. To avoid this confusion, some scholars preferred the word “reformers.” But this word is equally problematic because there were many Sufi-inclined reformers. “Islamists” further compounds the problem because of its loaded political implications. By widespread academic usage, “Islamism” denotes an Islamic political movement or one that utilizes religion to achieve political power in order to create an Islamic state. Replacing the secular state with Islamic rule was never part of the agendas of the groups I studied. “Salafiyya” is equally problematic because no group in Ghana or Burkina Faso was willing to accept that label. Many of the leaders argued that while they believed in the ideas of returning to the Islamic practices of the Prophet’s era, they were not interested in the kind of politics the Salafi movement pursued. Moreover, the Salafi movement was associated with Middle Eastern politics. I use Wahhabism and its derivatives because of the historical and intellectual connections (overt or not) between the leaders of the movements I studied and the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. These connections came about through their education in Saudi Arabia, or through relationships with Saudi philanthropists and charity organizations. This historical connection cannot be overlooked merely for the sake of convenience. Moreover, the influence of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s

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changes in the global political economy during the 1970s encouraged the leaders of this reform to solicit financial support from wealthy Arab nations and philanthropists in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states (see chapters 4, 5, and 6). While these subsequent external connections are fundamental to the mutations of various organizations associated with the new reform trend, we cannot overlook their local origins and the doctrinal disputes that led to their emergence in the first instance. Similarly, we should not ignore the specific historical contexts within which they emerged and how these contexts shaped their strategies of reform. This book thus explores two themes in the historiography of this twentieth-century variant of the West African Islamic tradition of reform: their local and historical origins, and their pursuits of modernity. Through biographical analyses of the leading scholars often associated with the preaching of Wahhabi-inclined ideas in Ghana and Burkina Faso, I demonstrate the movement’s local origin and proceed to analyze the factors that inspired the leaders to connect their movement with the Arab world. In the second theme, I trace the gradual evolution of Wahhabi institutions to the alliance that developed between Arabophone scholars and Muslims educated in colonial institutions. I argue that in order to understand fully the ways Wahhabi leaders engaged with modernity, we should pay attention to the involvement of urbanized Muslim public functionaries in the movement’s development and interrogate why Wahhabism appealed to them. The blossoming of this movement throughout Muslim Africa, as in other parts of the Muslim world, during the 1970s led some scholars to connect them with oil wealth in the Arab world (the petrodollar factor) as well as the Iranian revolution of 1979.2 However, a number of Africanist social scientists questioned these connections and sought explanations in local religious and historical dynamics. These include, but are not limited to the pioneering works of Lansiné Kaba, Jean-Louis Triaud, Louis Brenner, and C. Hames on Francophone West Africa.3 In the Anglophone

teachings in their broader arguments cannot be ignored simply because the world today considers his teachings a source of religious intolerance. Wahhabism in West Africa had a different agenda. 2 Donal Cruise O’Brien, Symbolic Confrontations: Muslims Imagining the State in Africa (London: Hurst, 2003), 185. 3 In the interest of space, I refer to only a few materials from that vast literature. Kaba, The Wahhabiyya; J.-L. Triaud, “Le mouvement réformiste en Afrique de l’Ouest dans les années 50,” Sociétés Africaines, monde arabe et culture islamique (Paris, Mémoires du CERMAA, no. 1, INALCO [1979]): 195–212 and “ ‘Abd al-Rahman l’Africain (1908–1957),” in



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countries, the Yan Izala movement, which began in Northern Nigeria and expanded into Niger, has also been explored extensively by Ousmane Kane, Roman Loimeier, and Muhammad Sani Umar, among others.4 However, this earlier research concentrated on the Muslim majority nations—Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Nigeria. The rise of this movement in countries with Muslim minorities—Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Burkina Faso—thus received limited attention until the 1990s. Marie Miran’s study of Muslim reformers in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin,5 Emmanuel Gregoire’s work on Niger, along with that of Barbara Cooper, Housseina Alidou, and Madeline Masquelier on the impact of this reform on women in Niger,6 brought keen insight that helps us understand more deeply the movement’s trajectories in Muslim minority nations as well. The attention paid to women in the works of Cooper, Alidou, and Masquelier is particularly important in demonstrating not only how this conservative movement affected women, but also the recognition that African Muslim women engaged with this movement to empower themselves while remaining loyal to strict orthodoxy. Their studies thus allow us to recognize women’s contributions in the development of this twentieth-century Islamic reform movement, especially the ways women carefully navigated their aspirations for orthodoxy, the limitations imposed on them by some conservative preachers, and their appropriations of Western material cultures into indigenous customs in order to project a new feminine Muslim identity. Yet, research on the history of this specific movement in Ghana

Radicalismes islamiques, ed. Olivier Carré et Paul Dumont (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1986), tome 2: 162–78. C. Hames, “Deux aspects du fondamentalisme islamique. Sa signification au Mali actuel and chez Ibn Taim’ya,” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 50, no. 2 (Oct.– Dec. 1980): 177–90; Louis Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power, and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001). 4 Roman Loimeier, Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1997); Ousmane Kane, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria: A Study of the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Muhammad Sani Umar, Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule (Leiden: Brill, 2005). David Westurland and Eva Ronsander’s edited volume has been very useful in helping me sharpen the discussion on the relationship between Islam and modernity in West Africa. David Westerlund and Eva Evers Rosander (eds.) African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997). 5 Marie Miran, Islam, histoire et modernité en Cote d’Ivoire (Paris: Karthala, 2006). 6 Barbara Cooper, Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in Hausa Society in Niger, 1909–89 (London: James Currey, 1997); Ousseina Alidou, Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005); Adeline Masquelier, Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

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and Burkina Faso is conspicuously limited, despite the growth of the Muslim population and Muslims’ political activism since independence. This is because until very recently, scholars have focused more on Islam during the precolonial period. The few unpublished theses and published monographs, such as the important works of Mervyn Hiskett, Sulemana Mumuni, and Holger Weiss, have not adequately explored the historical roots of this movement.7 As Holger Weiss accurately notes, despite the growing interest in studying Islam in that country, “[t]he beginning of the Ahlus-Sunna in Ghana is only superficially known.”8 Similarly, the important works of René Otayek, Issa Cissé, and Maïmouna Dao on Burkina Faso, along with a number of unpublished master’s theses, only scratch the surface of the history of this vibrant religious movement in that country.9 The absence of comprehensive studies of this movement in Muslim minority nations has obscured our understanding of the transformation of West African Muslim societies at the end of colonial rule, especially the religious and cultural debates this transformation generated, the complexity and the dynamics of the reformers’ arguments, and the way in which colonial rule and the nationalist discourse of the 1940s and 1950s influenced the reformers’ discursive framework. By transcending the colonial linguistic divide, this book seeks to fill these conspicuous lacunae in the historiography of West African Islam. I demonstrate how the

7 Hiskett, “The Community of Grace and its Opponents”; Sulemana Mumuni, “Muslim Non-Governmental Organizations and Social Welfare in Muslim Communities in Ghana,” in Innovations and their Contextualizations in African Muslim Societies’, Workshop organized by the Department of Islamic Studies, University of Beyreuth in Cooperation with Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, February 9–10 (Beyreuth, 2001); Holger Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism: Muslims, the State and Society in Ghana from the Precolonial to the Postcolonial Era (Helsinki: Studia Orientalia, 2008). 8 Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism, 384. Abdulai Iddrisu’s forthcoming book, Contesting Islam in Africa: Homegrown Wahhabism and Muslim Identity in Northern Ghana, 1920–2010 (Durham, NC: Africa World Series, Carolina Academic Press), will be a great contribution to understanding this movement in Northern Ghana. However, I have not had access to its contents to be able to refer to it in more details. 9 René Otayek, “Muslim Charisma in Burkina Faso,” in Charisma and Brotherhoods in African Islam, ed. Donal B. Cruise O’Brien and Christian Coulon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 90–112; Issa Cissé, “Introduction à l’étude des médersas au Burkina Faso: des années 1960 à nos jours,” Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université de Ouagadougou, 1989; Maïmouna Dao, “Le wahhabisme à Ouagadougou de 1964 à 1988,” Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université de Ouagadougou, 1991, and her more recent work, Maïmouna Koné-Dao, “Implantation et influence du wahhābisme au Burkina Faso de 1963 à 2002,” in L’islam politique au sud du Sahara: identités, discours et enjeux, ed. Muriel Gomez-Perez, 449–59 (Paris: Karthala, 2005).



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confluence of various historical themes facilitated the movement’s genesis between the 1950s and the end of the millennium. These include the dynamism of local religious contestations; the relationship between local and external religious ideas; the introduction of secular education in Muslim societies by Christian missionaries, and the social and cultural dislocations felt by Muslims trained in these institutions (chapters 7 and 9); how the nationalist discourse reverberated in Muslims’ religious landscape; the connection that developed between West African Muslims and the Hijaz during the twentieth century and how this connection allowed Muslims to localize Middle Eastern Salafi ideas of educational reform and religious purity (chapters 7 and 8); and the resilience of European discourse and the praxis of modernity that helped to shape doctrinal debates and strategies of proselytism pursued by the reformers (chapter 9). These factors indicate an intersection of religious and secular ideas pursued by the reformers, and therefore deserve to be explored more extensively in order to better understand how the movement located itself within the colonial and the postcolonial periods when secular ideas permeated religious discourses. The evolving relationship between religious and selected secular ideas became more visible when some secularlyeducated Muslims embraced the religious preachers and helped in creating national movements. Although overlooked by earlier scholars, the pivotal contributions of Westernized elites to the development of ideas associated with Wahhabism suggest that this segment of the Muslim population was searching for ways to identify Islamic purity with ideas inherited from colonial rule. This search reflects an evolving sensitivity among some Muslims concerning the nature of religious orthodoxy and the relationship between orthodoxy and the colonial discourses and practices that had infiltrated into Muslims’ intellectual debates toward the end of colonial rule. As Helen Tilley notes, many of the postcolonial reforms engaged with “the multiple conditions of modernity introduced and consolidated via colonial processes.”10 In his study of the rise of Wahhabism in Francophone West Africa during the interwar period, Lansiné Kaba hinted at the attractions of Wahhabi ideas to Muslims trained in French institutions. He notes that the introduction of Wahhabism “revealed to many Westernized African

10 Helen Tilley, “Introduction: Africa, Imperialism, and Anthropology,” in Ordering Africa: Anthropology, European Imperialism and the Politics of Knowledge, ed. Helen Tilley and Robert J. Gordon (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2007), 17.

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civil servants that Islam was not a system as reactionary as the attitudes of many marabu [sic] (Muslim clerics) had suggested.”11 Yet Kaba does not explore further the precise contributions of these semi-assimilated civil servants in the development of the Subbanu Association precisely because at that time, these elites continued to see Islamic activities as the domain of religious scholars. Toward the end of the colonial period they had become more conscious of their self-acclaimed responsibilities to the community and therefore joined the Arabic scholars in seeking to transform the society. Although by the late 1990s a number of prominent works have explored the ways Muslim organizations engaged with ideas of modernity, the participation of non-Arabophone intellectuals in doctrinal discourses has not featured prominently in the exant literature.12 By paying attention to the role of non-Arabophone elites in the genesis of locally-constructed Wahhabi notions of religious purity and social transformations, we may be able to interrogate more deeply the connections between this Islamic resurgence and the transformation of Muslim societies during colonial rule. Located at the periphery of the Muslim world, Ghana and Burkina Faso are ideally suited for comparative analysis of this movement. The geographical proximity of these neighboring countries, their different colonial legacies (Ghana is Anglophone and Burkina Faso is Francophone), the strikingly parallel patterns of the development of Islam in these countries during the colonial period, and the identical contexts in which Wahhabiinclined reform emerged and flourished during the early decades of independence, make them ideal for comparative historical analyses. Moreover, the different levels of economic development and the different pace at which Islam grew in these societies during the postcolonial period provide 11  Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, 16. 12 David Westerlund and Eva Rosander’s edited volume cited above opened new ground and was followed by a number of publications including those of Kane, Housseina Alidou, Marie Miran, and Madeline Masquelier, also cited above. To place the discussion in a broader perspective, the reader may also want to consult the following provocative works (others are cited in appropriate places in the discussion): Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995); R. D. Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for Islamic Authenticity (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1997); Mousali Ahmad, Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and Islamic State (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1999). The Fundamentalist Project at the University of Chicago sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and directed by Martin E. Marty and Scott Appleby was a response to new academic interests in exploring the resurgence of religious fundamentalism during modern times and how they engaged with modernity.



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additional features for a fruitful transnational comparison that accounts for similar historical patterns as well as divergences. With GDP per capita income at $713 in 2008,13 Ghana is wealthier and more urbanized than Burkina Faso, which had a per capita income during the same period of only $480.14 Ghana’s GDP in 2008 was about $17 trillion15 compared to Burkina Faso’s $7.9 trillion.16 Ghana’s enormous mineral deposits, arable lands, and 65.8 percent literacy rate in 200817 (compared to Burkina Faso’s 28.7 percent literacy rate in 2007), demonstrate its potential for rapid economic development. In comparison, Burkina Faso, located in the arid Sahel region, is subject to desertification and struggles to maintain stable economic growth. The two countries’ different levels of economic sustainability are further indicated by their varying unemployment rates: Ghana’s unemployment rate was estimated at 10.4 percent in 2008,18 compared to Burkina Faso’s 2.4 percent in 1998.19 The religious demography of the two is also different. According to the 2000 population census, Ghana had 18.9 million people, of whom only 15.6 percent were Muslims; 68.8 percent were Christians.20 Burkina Faso, however, boasted 60 percent Muslims out of a population of 13 million people.21 Finally, both countries experienced political instability during the first two decades of independence— including the rise of revolutionary governments in the early 1980s (Ghana

13 Ghana: World Bank Development Indicators, http://data.worldbank.org/country/ ghana, accessed September 16, 2010. 14 Burkina Faso: World Bank Development Indicators, http://data.worldbank.org/ country/burkina-faso, accessed September 16, 2010. 15 Ghana: World Bank Development Indicators. 16 Burkina Faso: World Bank Development Indicators. 17 Ghana: World Bank Development Indicators. 18 Burkina Faso: World Bank Development Indicators. 19 Ibid. The current figures are unavailable but are likely higher than those of Ghana due to population growth and the return of Burkinabé citizens from Côte d’Ivoire since the Ivorian civil war broke out in 2001. The lower unemployment rate in Burkina Faso appears inconsistent with the overall position of the country’s economy in comparison to Ghana. My guess is that those engaged in farming were considered employed, and the majority of Burkinabé were farmers. 20 2000 Population and Housing Census, Ghana Statistical Service, Accra, 2002. The World Bank development indicators referred to above estimate Ghana’s population in 2008 to be 23.3 million people. 21  According to a study in 2006, 60.53 percent of Burkinabé were Muslims, and 20 percent were Christians. The remaining 20 percent comprises followers of various indigenous religions. See Bakary Traoré, “A la recherche d’une voie Africaine de la laïcité. Islam et pluralism religieux au Burkina Faso,” Islam et société au sud du Sahara: diversité et habits singuliers, sous la direction de Jean-Louis Triaud, 28, no. 2 (2010): 9–54. The World Bank development indicators referred to above estimate Burkina Faso’s population in 2008 to be 15.2 million people.

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from 1981 to 1996 and Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1998)—and these have had some impact on the evolution of Wahhabi-inclined reforms. Today, both countries are considered stable democracies. The story in Unveiling Modernity begins in the 1950s when colonialism was ending. During this period, some Muslim elites in Ghana and Burkina Faso emerged to question the orthodoxy of local Islamic practices, especially those associated with the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood. The Tijaniyya brotherhood had emerged as the dominant Islamic group by the end of the colonial period, having virtually displaced the much older Qadiriyya when a number of Qadiri scholars embraced the Tijaniyya. Founded in North Africa by Sheikh Ahmad Tijani (1735–1815), the Tijaniyya spread very rapidly, reaching West Africa in the mid-nineteenth century, just as colonialism was expanding in the region.22 In general, Tijanis were, and still are, distinguished by their daily routine of spiritual litanies performed individually and in groups, their chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah during social gatherings, their annual celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (mawlid), and their quest for spiritual elevation through the intermediary of a spiritual mentor. Like all Sufi brotherhoods, the Tijaniyya’s leadership was hierarchically structured to emphasize the centrality of spiritual rank and to distinguish the leaders from the followers based on both the leaders’ knowledge and their spiritual elevation. In Ghana, the movement began in the early 1950s when Yussif Afa Ajura—a hitherto obscure scholar in Tamale (then the capital of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast)—emerged to challenge a variant form of the Tijaniyya Sufi litany called the tarbiya, which was introduced into Ghana by Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse of Senegal (chapter 5). Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse was himself an international leader of the Tijaniyya brotherhood, with followers throughout West Africa and the Sudan.23 But the

22 The most comprehensive study of the origin of the Tijaniyya is still Abun-Nasr, The Tijaniyya. See also David Robinson and Jean Louis Triaud, La Tijaniyya, une confrérie Musulmane a la conquête de l’Afrique (Paris: Karthala, 2000); Jillali El Adnani, La Tijaniyya 1781–1881: Les origines d’une confrérie religiuse au Maghreb (Paris: Editions Marsam, 2007). For a quick summary of the order’s doctrine, practices, and various branches, see Patrick J. Ryan, “The Mystical Theology of Tijānī Sufism and Its Social Significance in West Africa,” JRA 30 (May 2000): 208–24. 23 For the history of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse, see Rüdiger Seesemann, “Three Ibrahims: Literary Production and the Remaking of the Tijaniyya Sufi Order in Twentieth-Century Sudanic Africa,” Die Welt des Islams 49 (2009): 299–333; Rüdiger Seesemann, “The Shurafā’ and the ‘Blacksmith’: The Role of the Idaw ‘Alī of Mauritania in the Career of the Senegalese Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (1900–1975),” in The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa, ed. Scott Reese (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Ousman Kane, “La confrérie ‘Tijâniyya Ibrâhimiyya’ de



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enthusiastic response to the Sheikh and his teachings in Ghana enraged a number of local scholars who considered the tarbiya a religious deviation and the adulation of the Sheikh excessive. Concerned about the seeming anthropomorphism of those initiated into the tarbiya, especially those who claimed to have seen God, Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura declared the practice apostasy and aggressively campaigned against it. Afa Ajura was soon associated with Wahhabism, precisely because of his rejection of the new social movement that was developing around the tarbiya and Sheikh Niasse’s charisma and spiritual powers. However, Afa Ajura’s campaign did not lead to the formation of a national Wahhabi movement under his leadership. An arguably national movement emerged in the early 1970s when Hajj Umar Ibrahim, the first Ghanaian trained in Saudi Arabia, returned home to preach Wahhabiinclined reform in Accra, Ghana’s capital (chapter 6). Hajj Umar won the support of the emerging urban public functionaries, whose social positions derived from their secular education. In 1972, these urban professionals assisted him in creating a national movement, the Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center (GIRRC), in which they assumed leadership of the organization’s daily activities (until the late 1980s), leaving Hajj Umar and other religious scholars to be responsible for spiritual activities. Because Hajj Umar received his training in Saudi Arabia and the group presented an ardent criticism of Tijaniyya practices, the Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center came to be identified with Wahhabism, although they called themselves Ahl al-Sunna. By the early 1980s, many branches of the Wahhabi movement had emerged throughout Ghana, founded independently by locally trained scholars (such as Sheikh Yussif Afa Ajura) and a number of scholars trained in the Arab world, all of whom rejected the Tijaniyya leadership. A parallel movement began in Burkina Faso in 1963 when two scholars, Muhammad Malick Sana and Sayouba Ouédraogo, who had been deported from Saudi Arabia, rejected the practices of the local Tijaniyya as un-Islamic. They went further to preach against other local practices, such as the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, the therapeutic use of the Qur’an, the consultation of Muslim learned men for spiritual solutions to mundane problems, and the extended observances

Kano et ses liens avec la zâwiya mère de Kaolack,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 3 (1989): 27–40; Christopher Gray, “The Rise of the Niassene Tijaniyya, 1875 to the Present,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 2 (1988): 34–60.

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of funeral ceremonies. Declaring all these practices prohibited (haram) and insisting on returning to the Islam of the Prophet’s era, these Meccan returnees were initially well-received among urban elites and young merchants in Ouagadougou. Although ideas associated with Wahhabism had spread among merchants of Bobo-Dioulasso on the southwestern fringes of the country as early as the late 1940s, it had not reached the majority of Burkina Faso until these scholars began preaching among the Mossi, the largest ethnic group (chapter 3). As with Hajj Umar’s activities in Accra— although without discernible influence across the borders—the teachings of the Meccan scholars (Makka moimba in Morrè) attracted young public functionaries and led to the founding of a Wahhabi organization in 1973. They named their organization Mouvement Sunnite de Haute Volta (renamed Mouvement Sunnite de Burkina Faso in 1984). As in Ghana, these professionals became the organization’s de facto leaders until 1988. Quite clearly, the history of this movement in broader West Africa, but Ghana and Burkina Faso in particular, would be incomplete without a careful analysis of the roles of these professionals who transformed the preachers’ messages into national Wahhabi-inclined organizations. These urban professionals were products of the secular education offered mostly by Christian mission schools and secular institutions financed by colonial administrations. In support of the colonial “civilizing mission,” many colonial educators generally dismissed African mores and beliefs as irrational and retrogressive traditions, and projected European beliefs, customs, and practices as modern and as sources of human advancement (chapter 9). Islam also came under scrutiny. For many colonial educators and officials, Islam represented all the values that Europeans had rejected in the wake of the Enlightenment era. By default, then, colonial education encouraged Africans to be critical of their customs and to embrace European values or to add these values to their repertoire of indigenous knowledge and customs. In what ways did such criticisms influence the perceptions of Muslims educated under this intellectual paradigm and did those perceptions influence their decisions to embrace the reform ideas of the Wahhabi-inclined preachers? The proceeding discussion addresses these questions to deepen our understanding of the historical and intellectual contexts under which Wahhabism developed in West Africa, without overlooking its relationship with other reforms that preceded it. To explore these contexts, I pay close attention to the impact of secular education on Muslim’s doctrinal debates (chapters 7, 8 and 9). Toward the end of colonial rule, secular education began to emerge as the main source of public employment and social mobility in West



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Africa. This created a profound dilemma as many Muslim parents had to decide whether to risk their children’s exposure to Euro-Christian ideas in public schools but provide them with the opportunity for employment in the public sector, or ignore secular education altogether and risk their children’s economic futures. Only a few gambled on the evidently powerful attraction of European education and vocational skills.24 The handful of Muslims who had attended these schools developed distinct and subjective identities that placed them in an awkward position in their communities. Although ambivalent about European culture, they accepted some European ideas, and while seeking to become part of the established Muslim community, they frowned on its seemingly backward disposition and “archaic” religious rituals. In particular, they found the Tijaniyya and its institutions aristocratic, “exploitive,” and “retrogressive.” These elites experienced other forms of cognitive dissonance as well. Sometimes their education brought them respect because it represented an important source of social mobility and power, but at other times it provoked derision and rejection from other Muslims because their knowledge was derived from “infidel” institutions. Equally important, their knowledge of European languages and skills threatened the local Muslim power structure rooted in Arabic knowledge. But the relatively small population of these emerging elites made it easier for the established Muslim leaders to ignore them. Colonial education therefore nurtured new elites who ambivalently shared the colonialists’ negative attitude toward African traditions and local Islamic practices, even as they claimed to resist European cultural assimilation and wanted to be seen as defenders of indigenous traditions. For Muslims, the fundamental ideological and intellectual contradictions 24 Muslims’ resistance to colonial education cannot be overemphasized. Even when colonial governments assuaged the Muslim population by forcing missionaries to minimize the religious content of their curriculum, only a few parents defied the popular norm and allowed their children to attend mission schools. For instance, in colonies like Mali and Senegal where the French created madrasas that offered both Islamic and secular courses, or in Sierra Leone and Nigeria where the English established similar institutions, only a few Muslim parents allowed their children to attend these schools. This resistance was even stronger in colonies with Muslim minorities where the options were more limited. Fisher’s discussion of Muslims’ attempts to develop a Western-style Qur’anic school in southern Ghana (then, the Gold Coast) is particularly interesting in demonstrating British colonialists’ indifference to Muslim schooling. J. H. Fisher, “Islamic Education and Religious Reform in West Africa,” in Islamic Education in Africa: Research and Action, ed. Richard Jolly (Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House, 1969). For an analysis of this tension among Muslims of Northern Ghana, see Abdulai Iddrisu, “Islamic and Western Secular Education in Ghana,” JMMA 22, no. 2 (2002): 335–50.

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they experienced as a result of their ambivalent social and intellectual locations on the one hand, and their indigenous cultural identities on the other, was further buttressed by the nationalist discourse that challenged the colonialists’ self-acclaimed cultural superiority. This nationalistic tendency allowed them to be proud of their African and Muslim identities. Yet, they remained uncomfortable with the Muslim cultural and spiritual status quo fostered by the Sufi brotherhoods, which they considered “folk” Islam rooted in “ignorance” and “superstition,” just as they rejected the pressure to assimilate European cultural expression and mannerisms. While they struggled to relocate themselves strategically in the postcolonial framework such that they could retain the privileges that came with secular knowledge, and avoid the charges that they embraced “traditions,” including religious “traditions,” which were seen by their peers as “backward,” they remained on the margins of their societies until they encountered the Wahhabi preachers. These preachers helped them to resolve some of those contradictions and to answer the question of how they could become modern outside of the European framework. From the perspectives of these elites, the Wahhabi preachers’ rejection of the local Islamic status quo as syncretic validated the notion fostered in colonial discourses, that African Islam had been adulterated with indigenous customs. As they understood it at the time, the Wahhabi preachers brought the “pure” Islam of the Prophet’s era. They also placed the preachers’ messages within the nationalist struggles that encouraged a shift in political power to elites whose training seemed ideal for the postcolonial state. What emerged as a local variant of Wahhabism therefore allowed these “conscripts of modernity” to negotiate their re-entry into the Muslim community on their own terms (chapter 9). In Unveiling Modernity, I stress that even before Ghanaian and Burkinabé scholars returned from their training in Saudi Arabia during the 1960s to preach the Wahhabi doctrine of religious purity, colonial education had unwittingly prepared the minds of some Muslims for the reception of such a radical message. The Wahhabi preachers’ dismissal of beliefs in metaphysical forces as superstition and magic (sihr) resonated well with what the secularized elites had learned during their colonial educations. Similarly, the Wahhabi preacher’s rejection of the Islam of the Sufi brotherhoods as unorthodox and bid’a fit comfortably in the colonialists’ dismissal of local Islam as syncretic. At this early stage, these elites were not sufficiently trained in religious education to be critical of the colonialists’ discourses about Islam. What seemed to matter was that the Arabophone scholars confirmed some of the colonialists’ arguments. Thus colonialism



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had inadvertently prepared the mental landscape of many urbanized secularly-educated Muslims to receive the Wahhabi message. An analysis of these elites’ attitudes toward Islam demonstrates that they stood at a crossroads of imminent cultural change, and Wahhabism became the vehicle that stimulated that change. They embraced the Meccan preachers as models of authentic Islam and provided them with material and intellectual support to propagate a new version of Islam that they considered more authentic and more congruent with the modern world. In other words, Wahhabism allowed these elites to discreetly escape their marginalization within Muslim communities and become mediators of the contradictions between religious purity and the constructive ideas inherited from colonial rule. If European colonialists had declared Arab Islam superior to African Islam and sought to preserve the latter because it conformed to European expectations of less militant religious praxis, Arab Islam had come to Africa in African garb but with a powerful religious and cultural discourse that reshaped the Muslim religious landscape. At the peak of its development during the early 1980s, adherents of Wahhabism probably comprised not less than one-third of the urban Muslim population, although the movement’s impact in rural areas remained relatively small. It is worth noting, however, that the Wahhabi discourse did not dominate the intellectual landscape; rather, it remained one of a number of other “orthodoxies,” all tracing their validity to the Islamic holy texts. Nonetheless, by the end of the millennium, the discursive doctrinal space created by the advent of Wahhabism had transformed both the Wahhabi movement and its primary adversary—the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood— in ways that have evaded the attention of earlier scholars. The Scope of the Study This book covers the Volta Basin and surrounding areas that stretch from northern Burkina Faso to coastal Ghana, a distance of approximately eight hundred miles in length. People of this region are by no means culturally homogeneous, nor were they all Muslims. However, one can locate a contiguous territory that includes a number of centralized states that share a common Muslim cultural identity—Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Wala (in Ghana), as well as their kin group, Mossi in Burkina Faso. This group is connected genealogically to a common ancestral myth and a common linguistic root, the Morrè-Dagbani group of languages. South of Dagbon is the Gonja (in Ghana). Although linguistically distinct from

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the Morrè-Dagbani group, Gonja is also a Muslim territory, and arguably embraced Islam earlier than their Morrè-Dagbani neighbors (chapter 1). Interposed in this contiguous territory, where Islamic culture had become pronounced by the twentieth century, were various other groups that did not embrace Islam in large numbers, although they share some pre-Islamic Savannah cultural attributes with their Muslim neighbors. The largest groups are the Frafra, Kusasi, Konkomba, Dagati, Gurunshi, and Lobi. In Burkina Faso, a number of ethnic groups embraced Islam much earlier than Mossi (chapters 1 and 2). These include Fulbé and Tuareg (on the northern border with Mali), Gurma (located at the confluence of Burkina-Niger-Togo borders), and other groups generally considered part of Mande-linguistic grouping—Marka, Samogo (Samoy), and BamanaBobosé. In general, the Mande/Djula, whose language is the lingua-franca of Muslims in the southwestern part of Burkina Faso and the third official language after French and Morrè respectively, is connected with the larger Mande/Djula trading diaspora. Although during the precolonial period the Volta Basin was economically very vibrant as people engaged in a number of occupations, including trading, leather works, and textile-weaving, by the end of the colonial period it had been impoverished by the shift of economic activities to the coastal areas under colonial rule. Subsequently, the increasing aridity, along with the expansion of the Sahara Desert, contributed to the region’s persistent poverty. In addition to the Volta Basin, this study also covers Akan and Ga-Adangbe, stretching from the southern frontiers of the Savannah (in Ghana) to the Coast of Guinea. Here, the relatively smaller population of indigenous Muslims was augmented by labor migrants from Islamized parts of West Africa starting from about 1900. Akan-speaking territories comprise more than sixty percent of southern Ghana and they are culturally and linguistically more homogeneous than those in the Volta Basin. Historically, this region was the main source of kola nuts and gold that fed the trans-Saharan trade carried out by Muslim merchants of Mande/ Djula and Hausa origins. Thus, this territory has had economic and cultural interactions with Muslims since the fourteenth century. In their own myth of origin, Akan trace their origins to the Mande/Djula, from whom they separated and emigrated to what is today Ghana. Akans in general and Asante in particular, as well as their southerly neighbors, the Ga-Adangbe and Ewe, have remained largely non-Muslims till today. Seeing the region as a contiguous territory allows me to present a more holistic picture of the patterns of the spread of Islam and the degree of



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the influence of Islam in these territories, without neglecting local peculiarities. Due to the high concentration of Muslims in the urban centers, I focused my attention on Muslim organizations in the major cities: Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale in Ghana, and Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, where the movement emerged and flourished. In Burkina Faso, I focused primarily on Mossi, the largest ethnic group, and only briefly on Bobo-Dioulasso. Besides their size relative to other groups, Mossi were latecomers to Islam; they resisted conversion and remained hostile to their Muslim neighbors for centuries (chapters 1 and 2). The Wahhabi preachers analyzed here were all of Mossi origin, although there were non-Mossi Wahhabi-inclined intellectuals whose activities have not been examined extensively in this study. Methodology: Archives with Voices Ghanaian and Burkinabé reformers, whose activities form the bulk of my analysis, did not articulate their works in writing as did theorists and reformers in other parts of Muslim Africa. Instead, they spread their message through recorded sermons and street preaching in order to reach their largely non-literate followers. As a result, this study depends extensively on oral data garnered through ethnographic techniques—formal interviews and informal conversations—with the founders of various reform organizations, their followers, and other Muslims, including members of the Tijaniyya brotherhood. I describe these oral sources as archives with voices. Archives with voices provide a wealth of historical materials that may otherwise be lost to researchers over time.25 Admittedly, oral sources tend to be problematic for many Western historians. But we cannot realistically ignore the fact that written sources in public or private depositories emerge from oral discourses, perceptions, direct experiences, observations, interpretations, and reinterpretations of events. Historical events have to be recorded at some point. Furthermore, oral sources

25 It was precisely because of this limitation that Elizabeth Hodgkin urges the use of ethnography to inquire directly from religious leaders about the objectives and motivations that inspired them to embark on reform. She argues convincingly that failure to extract information from these leaders results in overgeneralizations, and crucial information pertaining to a specific group or country or even individuals thus becomes compromised. Elizabeth Hodgkin, “Islamism and Islamic Research in Africa,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 4 (1990): 73–132.

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can become the victim of teleology, i.e., a kind of narrative in which the present informs the past. Yet this is precisely the value of oral sources, especially life histories. Interrogating what seems teleological or contradictory within the narrative structure uncovers deeper historical data. For example, I noticed that my informants’ interpretations of the relationship between Islamic spiritual purity and modernity changed from one generation to another (chapter 8). Yet this seeming contradiction represents nodal points that, in subtle ways, invite the researcher to pay close attention to historical shifts. In pursuing these archives with voices, I conducted extensive field research among Ghanaian and Burkinabé Muslims between 1998 and 2008. In Ghana, I interviewed Tijaniyya leaders and their followers, as well as current and former leaders and members of various Wahhabi movements in Kumasi, Accra, Tamale, Koforidua, Nsawam, Cape Coast, Takoradi, and Nandom, a town bordering Ghana and Burkina Faso. Likewise, in Burkina Faso, I interviewed both members of the Wahhabi movement and Tijaniyya leaders in Ouagadougou, Ouahigouya, and Rahmatoulaye. Because of the contemporary nature of this study, archival sources have not been very helpful, though I consulted archives in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Senegal for background information. Using biographies and interviews to construct the history of a complex and controversial religious movement entailed some specific difficulties that the historian using such an approach must pay close attention to, especially the tendency for informants to provide only the information they feel comfortable sharing. Initially, I adopted structured interview techniques. However, I realized that this approach only produced the type of responses I unconsciously elicited; therefore I adopted an open-ended interview format that provided my informants with the opportunity to tell me what they believed to be relevant historical information. This approach yielded crucial information that had hitherto not been made available to previous researchers. For example, earlier researchers in Ghana and Burkina Faso had not learned about the central role of secularly-educated Muslims in the development of Wahhabism in the two countries. Wayne Fife is therefore accurate when he notes: An open-ended approach . . . will allow scholars the necessary flexibility to cope with the particularities of the contextual differences that they encounter while doing their own fieldwork. I see research methods as being rather like tools within a tool kit. Well informed scholars should be able to reach into their kits and extract the method or technique of research that will best help them deal with the situation they currently face—enabling them



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to get the most complete information possible within that specific research context.26

The tool kit analogy is apt. Indeed, in research such as this, the scholar cannot be constrained by the methods of one discipline. As the reader will notice, my approach is multidisciplinary, including historical, sociological, political, and anthropological methods. A multidisciplinary approach is obviously crucial for anaylzing contemporary religious movements. As such, I also conducted participant observation during which I listened to sermons and observed how the religious and social attitudes of those affiliated with Wahhabism differed from their Tijaniyya coreligionists. This approach helped me to interrogate more deeply the meaning of the Wahhabi dogma to its followers. While a researcher using oral methods has limited control over teleological influences on the data, the ethnographic approach often rectifies some of these shortcomings. At any rate, historians must generate raw materials for the construction of a particular history. As Thomas Spear remarks, “Intellectuals need historical raw materials to construct their stories if their reinterpretations are to ring true.”27 These historical raw materials allowed me to bring out the pivotal roles of Muslims educated in secular schools in the creation of Wahhabi movements. My intention was to study the history of Wahhabism by focusing on the religious scholars, as has been done by other historians. However, at the beginning of my research in Ghana, Mallam Sani Murtala, a Tijaniyya leader who had debated with Wahhabi scholars for more than a decade, suggested that the Wahhabi movement would not have flourished if they had not received the support of a number of young public functionaries (karaakai, a Hausa corruption of the word for clerks).28 He noted that these elites saw Wahhabi ideas as a modern version of Islam suitable for those who possessed European knowledge ( yanboko). He himself had attended a secular school but dropped out before completing elementary school. He gave me a list of these early followers and provided some details of their roles in the movement’s development, making sure to emphasize the personal and political factors that drew them to Wahhabism. Fortunately,

26 Wayne Fife, Doing Fieldwork: Ethnographic Methods for Research in Developing Countries and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 2. 27 Thomas Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa,” JAH 44 (2003), 26. 28 Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Nima (Accra), March 31, 2001.

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many of them were still alive. In my conversations with them, they confirmed what I had learned earlier and added essential details and nuances that only an insider would know, in addition to their own interpretations, as expected (chapter 6). When I started my research in Burkina Faso, I did not expect to encounter an identical pattern of development of a Wahhabi-inclined movement there. Rather, I expected my findings in Ghana to provide a contrast to those in Burkina Faso, thus helping me to highlight unique local historical contingencies within a comparative framework. But in the course of an interview with my main informant, El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo (aka, El Hajj Salifou Bouse), a prominent businessman and a former local representative of the leader of the Rahmatoulaye branch of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya (chapter 2), informed me that young French-educated professionals facilitated the development of Wahhabism in Mossi territories.29 He gave me a list of these French-trained professionals—all of them male—whom he quickly dismissed as individuals who had failed to become full-fledged, assimilated African Frenchmen and who had thought Wahhabism would transform them into African Arabs (see also chapter 9). The testimonies of these two informants changed the focus of my research. Although Tijanis, the information they provided me was corroborated by the founders of these organizations and thus proved vital to my project. Even their commentary that the public functionaries became interested in Wahhabism because they thought it would help undermine the influence of the Tijaniyya proved accurate and helped me analyze the perceptions of these more secularized Muslim elites toward Sufi beliefs. These obviously judgmental remarks also led me to pay attention to the influence of European education on the early followers of this movement and provided a lead to unveiling the ways Muslims appended their notions of modernity to the reform movement, especially during the early stage of the movement’s development. After completing my dissertation, out of which this book developed, a number of short visits to Ghana and Burkina Faso between 2006 and 2008 gave me the opportunity to reevaluate some of the arguments I made earlier in the dissertation. During these visits, I paid close attention to what the discourse of modernity meant to Muslims, and how the historicization of that discourse can help us better understand the movement. The open-ended approach not only resulted

29 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.



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in revealing crucial historical data, but also allowed the historical actors to point me toward what they considered their history. In the process, they forced me to reconcile my slanted academic and ideological biases with local notions of history. Unveiling the Discourse of Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Reforms Since the early 1990s, Africanist historians, anthropologists, and political scientists have been interrogating the ways Africans sought to “provincialize” the pervasive European discourse of modernity in order to recreate indigenous knowledge.30 The resurgence of Christian and Islamic religious expressions at the end of colonial rule, and the ways religious leaders appropriated and refashioned European concepts to enhance the local appeal of their messages led scholars to pay attention not only to the resilience of European ideas, but also to how these ideas were localized. I began my intellectual training at the height of this new trend in African historiography, a trend that sought to carefully circumvent European influences on the production of African knowledge. Thus, although I had read extensively on the possible relationship between the various expressions of the Salafi movement and modernity in the Arab world, my personal knowledge of the activities of Wahhabi preachers in Ghana did not lead me to associate Wahhabism with modernity. Like many academics,

30 Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South Africa Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) and Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff (eds.), Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). For responses to the Comaroffs’ thesis, the reader may consult Elizabeth Elbourne, “Word Made Flesh: Christianity, Modernity, and Cultural Colonialism in the Work of Jean and John Camoroff,” American Historical Review (hereafter AHR) 108, no. 2 (April 2003): 435–59; Steven Feierman, “The Comaroffs and the Practice of Historical Ethnography,” Interventionists 3, no. 1 (2001): 24–30; and David Schoenbrun, “Conjuring the Modern in Africa: Durability and Rupture in Histories of Public Healing between the Great Lakes of East Africa,” AHR 111, no. 5 (December 2006): 1403–39. Although not dealing with Islam and modernity directly, these materials provide significant background to intellectual discourse on the issue of modernity. The list of other relevant materials is long, but the reader may want to consult the following as well. Peter Gerschiere, Birgit Meyer, and Peter Pels (eds.), Readings in Modernity in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); Timothy Mitchell (ed.), Questions of Modernity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).

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the provocative preaching styles of these scholars, their intolerance of Muslims who disagreed with them, the lack of secular education in the intellectual formation of many of the Arabophone scholars, their insistence on long beards, their claims to exclusive spiritual purity, and their insistence on excluding women from public spaces had led me to dismiss them as anti-modern. Moreover, I was always conscious to not impute diffusionists’ ideas into local historical dynamics and was eager to accentuate local agency, so I frowned on any suggestion that Africans’ religious expressions originated from outside sources. As I understood it at the time, the movement came from the Arab world, although its message was propagated by local scholars. The European influence was thus tenuous at best. Having been influenced by Foucault and other postmodernists, I found any tendency to universalize European modernity distasteful. It took time for me to reflect on how my perception of the African appropriation of foreign vocabularies differed from my informants’ understanding of the historical significance of the processes of appropriation. During a number of interviews, I was frustrated by my informants’ references to “modern,” “modernity,” “progress,” “solidarity,” “civilization,” “authentic traditions,” “irrationality,” and so forth, to describe not only their initiatives and aspirations, but also Africans’ relationship with Europe and the Arab world. Having grown up in Ghana and traveled widely across West Africa prior to beginning my studies in the United States, I am aware of the popular usage of these vocabularies. But Western academic training had forced me to frown on the uncritical use of these ideologically-loaded vocabularies. I therefore considered my informants’ references to these European vocabularies not only demeaning to Africans and a pitiful failure to appreciate African agency, but also excessively Eurocentric, couched in the discourse of the European self-acclaimed cultural superiority. In the European popular and intellectual discourse, “modern” refers to Europe’s transition to a new civilization, and stands in contrast to Africans’ static “traditional” societies. Many of my informants had embraced this idea. For instance, one informant noted: “Europeans brought us modernity, and it is our responsibility to make it happen. This is the only way our society can compete with the advanced world.”31 He might as well have replaced the word “modernity” with “civilization” to heighten my irritation. The general public also annoyingly brandished these vocabularies in formal and informal discourses without critical insight or reflection of how such usage

31 Name withheld.



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reinforced Eurocentric notions of a “backward” Africa in need of modernization. I wondered why these informants had failed to understand that Africa’s persistent economic decline and political instability derived more from inequity in the international political economy than from irrational economic behavior and erratic political action pursued by Africans. Such surrender to colonial pretenses made me uncomfortable. In effect, I was disillusioned that my informants were not telling me what I wanted to hear—that is, an outright condemnation of everything associated with European colonialism. Eager to provincialize32 European discourse in postcolonial African historical narratives and to de-essentialize African Islamic history, which I believe I had initially set out to do, I unwittingly expected my informants to disown their interpretations of their own history and acquiesce to my conception of what constituted “acceptable postcolonial history”—local history devoid of colonial narrative strings or references to colonial discourses and influences. With this expectation, admittedly the result of my nationalist and intellectual sensitivities, I underestimated the overarching impact of the colonial moment and the resilience of its discourse in the minds of the colonized. Conversely, I neglected to pay attention to the creativity of “the colonized mind” (to use Fanon’s words) in appropriating the colonial cultural and material discourse to reinforce local struggles against the remnants of colonial rule. In other words, I neglected to pay attention to the ways the colonized used colonial discourse against itself. At one point, I rudely interrupted an informant’s response to my question about what he meant by “modern,” “modernity,” and “modernism,” which appeared frequently and interchangeably in his remarks without the cultural pride I expected from a former anti-colonial activist. Before responding, he stared at me in bewilderment and probably wanted to ask if, despite my education in the United States, I did not know the meaning of these words. Instead, he graciously offered a number of definitions that only made sense to me much later, when I had learned to suppress my penchant for postmodernism rooted in Western academic training at the turn of the millennium. Then, I was able to admit that history is unconcerned with an ideological comfort zone or with political correctness. Yet, these ubiquitous European vocabularies continued to haunt me. Over time, their repetition desensitized my apprehension of the resilience 32 I use this phrase as it is used by Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).

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and invasiveness of European discourse in my informants’ mental landscape. But it also began to dawn on me that the local use of these terms was not burdened with ideological and racial implications and the painstaking demands of intellectual nuance that my training in Western academia had led me to expect. Upon careful examination, I realized that those words and phrases constituted a string of tropes liberally employed to denote a transition from a precolonial and colonial past to a postcolonial world. From my informants’ perspectives, this transition had freed them from subservience to ancient customs, traditional hierarchies, and European domination. In other words, many Ghanaian and Burkinabé Muslims, and indeed, non-Muslims as well, found these words and phrases convenient linguistic tools to express their struggles against both European domination and resilient customary practices they considered retrogressive and burdensome. Obviously, my informants had assimilated the colonialists’ critique of African customs, but they did not seek to reproduce this critique. Instead, they found ways to respond to it by refashioning those vocabularies in new contexts and in new social, religious, and political struggles. The re-articulation of these vocabularies reflected an attempt to create new cultural and social norms distinct from both the colonial and the precolonial eras. With careful attention, I realized that many of these words had no precise local derivatives, although what the terms implied existed in practice in these societies. Attwell describes the source of this borrowing more succinctly in his definition of modernity: Modernity is the currently governing concepts of what it means to be a subject of history. It refers not only to technology and the emergence of an administered and industrialized society, but also to that fluid but powerful system of ideas that we inherit from the bourgeois revolutions of Europe in the late eighteenth century—ideas such as autonomy, personhood, rights, and citizenship . . . These concepts, or their equivalents, could be found in many cultures, of the past and the present, where they exist independent of the Western paradigm. Nevertheless, the force with which the post-Enlightenment ideoscape has been imposed on the world over the last 300 years or so has ensured that most societies have now come to define themselves in relation to it.33

European terms thus offered a new way of expressing the new world in which postcolonial Africa found itself. Yet these terms were used with a remarkable linguistic precision and conceptual soundness. After all, there 33 David Attwell, Rewriting Modernity, Studies in Black South African Literary History (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 3–4.



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is a reason the word “modernity” appeared in the European vocabulary although the word “new” could express a similar shift from one historical era to another. “Modern” and its various cognates evoke a specific historical moment that should be understood not only in the struggles that gave birth to that historical moment, but also in the ways it helped to express the boundaries between that moment and the present. This recognition alerted me to my responsibility to write a history not to suit my intellectual and ideological convenience, but to write a history that will be recognized by those whose history I purported to write. Since the beginning of colonial rule, Africans have been part of the production of the colonial knowledge of Africans, yet their voices are often repressed either by notions of intellectual impropriety or by the erroneous assumption that only the voice of the ethnographer matters.34 As JeanHarvé Jezequel notes, “in order to recover. . . . ‘subaltern voices,’ we need to look carefully for the many small traces they left behind them.”35 These vocabularies are some of the traces of the processes of indigenizing and contributing to the production of colonial discourses within local settings. In failing to carefully historicize these vocabularies to unveil how Africans deploy them to assert new social, religious, and political identities, we may be further repressing the voices of those who form historical knowledge. After a careful reading and rereading of the data I collected over a period of ten years, I could no longer overlook the centrality of European discourse in demarcating the boundaries between Africa’s past and its anticipated future. For Muslims in particular, I realized that such a localization of the European discourse of modernity served as a powerful instrument for attracting followers, including less-educated urban masses, to the movement. “Progress,” “freedom,” “advancement,” “traditions,” “modern,” “modernity,” and “modernization” were all common terms understood in the context that they were used by postcolonial leaders to articulate the postcolonial agenda. What postcolonial elites referred to as “modern” included economic and social development, political representation, freedom of expression and movement of people, freedom from the control of elders, social equality, human material progress, etc. But these essentially secular ideas permeated the religious space

34 Jean-Harvé Jezequel, “Voices of Their Own? African Participation in the Production of Colonial Knowledge in French West Africa, 1910–1950,” in Ordering Africa: Anthropology, European Imperialism and the Politics of Knowledge, ed. Helen Tilley and Robert J. Gordon (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2007): 145–72. 35 Jezequel, “Voices of Their Own?,” 153.

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and gained new ontological meaning precisely because these objectives or expectations were not limited to the secular realm but appealed to religious people as well. To present a religious idea as “modern” or “progressive” was enough to attract many less literate urban dwellers, eager for a shift from “tradition” to “modern”—a shift that had been made part of the aspiration of independence from colonial rule. Conversely, to declare any behavior or attitude “traditional” was to undermine its legitimacy and social appeal. Whether they were aware of it or not, many of my informants had embraced Eurocentric ideas that equated “tradition” with backwardness or a lethargic process of human advancement, and considered “modernity” a dynamic force that promises material salvation. “Modernity” thus came to represent profound intellectual, social, and cultural discourses, perhaps as powerful as the anti-colonial discourse from which it evolved. Frederick Cooper has remarked succinctly that researchers eager to talk about modernity need to listen carefully to be sure that “modernity” is what they hear.36 I had been hearing modernity for several years, but I had considered my informants either insensitive to African cultural achievements or ignorant of the ways these arguments justified, in subtle ways, European domination. Admittedly, my personal ideological and intellectual biases almost prevented me from fully appreciating the fluidity and transformative nature of these tropes. I particularly failed to pay attention to how these vocabularies speak directly to the past and to the relationship between the past and the present. Even more surprising were the ways in which these terms expressed the aspiration for religious purity. From my informants’ perspectives, human material progress and religious purity were not antithetical, but complementary. Similarly, the secular origins of European concepts did not hinder their appropriation into a non-European ecclesiastical space. Despite the nationalist attitudes of a number of my informants, they found no contradiction in rejecting some local customs and elevating those of foreign origins. For instance, while rejecting local traditions as “archaic,” my older informants considered Arabian or Gulf Islamic culture to be more authentic and modern, although rooted in the ancient tradition of the Prophet Muhammad. I have tried to explain this paradox by listening to how the word “modern” and its derivatives were and are used and to trace the development of local perceptions of these vocabularies to colonial education (chapter 9). 36 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), ch. 5.



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My fieldwork experience made me more sensitive to my ideological baggage. As an African historian recording and analyzing the history of African societies, I charge myself with the responsibility of recognizing local agency and distancing myself from the history I record. I am thus conscious, and rightly so, of the tendency to impute diffusionists’ ideas of early twentieth-century European scholarship that declared Africans ahistoric. Yet we also need to avoid suggesting that Africans remained insensitive to European ideas floating around them for decades. Appropriating and localizing knowledge has historically been part of the human endeavor, and Africa must not be considered the sole exception to a universal practice. Doing so would simply replace one racialized paradigm with another, albeit a more subtle one. It would be historically inaccurate to assume that West African Muslims remained untouched by Western ideas after almost a century of European colonialism and the overarching presence and resilience of globalization. Such an argument simply underestimates the enduring effects of colonial discourse and practices that left a profound mark on the independent state. This is not to glorify the colonial presence, but to acknowledge its enduring impact. Thus, we need to see how European ideas were appropriated and indigenized to render them meaningful in constantly changing local and international political, social, and cultural environments. By inundating me with their version of the “modernity talk,” my informants helped me to appreciate the ways in which historians can capture and unearth specific historical moments by historicizing the local uses of these vocabularies across time and space and within the contexts of social and cultural transformations. Furthermore, while many scholars would be uncomfortable associating Islam with modernity, a careful analysis of the discourse of twentiethcentury Muslim reformers in West Africa might unveil some parallels between the ideas of modernity articulated by these reformers and the ways that modernity was understood in the era of the European Enlightenment.37 Just as “modernity” was understood in Western Europe 37 A number of scholars have warned against the tendency to essentialize the relationship between Islam and the European discourse of modernity. For example, Armando Salvatore notes, “Islam and Modernity, modernity and Islam: different approaches to historiography and social sciences attempt to find a significant connection between these two, allegedly separate, certainly distinct forces of history. The option of seeing both entities in an ultimate effort to de-essentialize them, is not itself sufficient to overcome the tension inherent in their juxtaposition . . . It is often the case that de-essentializing Islam results in re-essentializing modernity on the basis of some over-simplified—whether explicitly or implicitly—Kantian definition of the latter.” Armando Salvatore, Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity (Ithaca, NY: Ithaca Press, 2000), xiii.

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during that time as the substitution of superstition with science and rational reasoning, Wahhabism sought to replace the Islamic status quo with what its adherents considered a more “authentic” and “rational” religious behavior.38 Whether religious expressions can be explained logically or “rationally” is an interesting subject of inquiry (see the preface). Similarly, the concept of modernity in the minds of many Ghanaian and Burkinabé Muslims was not entirely different from that of Western Europe when the West was transitioning to the modern era. Both the Reformation and the Enlightenment era sought to end theocracy and the divine rights of kings as sources of legitimate authority and demanded that individuals be given the right to pursue religious knowledge directly from the sources and to end the monopoly of the clergy to interpret the sacred texts. They campaigned to end the censorship of dissenting ideas and promoted rational discourse and personal judgment on fundamental human activities. In fact, Enlightenment philosophers hoped religion would be banished from public space, if not disappear altogether from humanity, in order to unleash the forces of modernity. Yet, many of these philosophers remained loyal to their Christian faith.39 Thus, while advocating the human freedom of self-expression and belief, the Enlightenment advocated the exorcism of the influence of supernatural forces from the human imagination in order to allow rational and scientific thinking to flourish. The belief in demons was frowned on, as such beliefs came to be associated with an era of enchantment rooted in ignorance.40 Knowledge and reason became the source of legitimate authority, not a birthright or the divine right of a king. New printing technology facilitated this push toward making religious and scientific knowledge available to the public. At the level of polity, this period, roughly from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, can be considered the threshold of the development of individual liberty and representative 38 For a broader survey of the historiography on modernity in Western discourse, see Michael Saler, “Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review,” AHR 111, no. 3 (June 2006): 692–716. 39 Margaret Jacob explores this paradox in The Enlightenment, A Brief History with Documents (Boston and New York: Bedford and St. Martins’ Press, 2001), vii. For the complex relationship between religion and politics in the Enlightenment discourse, see James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley (eds.), Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002); Alan Charles Kors (ed.), (Preface), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 40 For the resilience of the practice of exorcism even during the era of the Enlightenment, see H. C. Erik Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).



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government that culminated in ending theocratic, aristocratic, and oligarchic regimes in the Western world. The Enlightenment thus opened the floodgates of scientific discovery and gave birth to what is considered modernity in the Western world. Europeans of this period saw modernity as a transition from mysticism to science. Modernity was expected to disenchant the world of marvels by offering scientific explanations for the visible and the invisible human universe. As part of this disenchantment of the human mental space, the human capacity to relate to supernatural forces, real or imagined, became a threat to Europe’s transition to a new era. Those elites whose power was rooted in these “forces of imagination” or captivated by occult powers had to be swept away. Thus, modernity became the instrument deployed by the emerging scientifically-oriented intellectuals and rational, calculating mercantile elites against the dominant elites and the institutions from which they derived their powers. Comparable with Europe of the Enlightenment era, the idea of modernity embedded in the nascent stage of Wahhabism in Ghana and Burkina Faso sought to disenchant its adherents of the spiritual, social, and mental universe that “enslaved” them to superstition. This idea is also true for the broader Islamic resurgence in the Arab world, generically described as Salafiyya. Like the Wahhabi movement with which it coexisted, the Salafi movement advocated a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet Muhammad’s era by embracing modernity. Referring to Jamal al-Din alAfghani (1839–97), the main architect of this movement, Kevin McDonald notes, Al-Afghani considered Islamic civilization to be profoundly threatened by European imperialism, believing Islam had become weak and decadent through contamination by local cultures and traditions. To respond to European colonization, he argued, Muslims needed to reengage with Islam of the Prophet. For al-Afghani, a correct interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith (actions and sayings attributed to the Prophet) was completely compatible with modern science and rational thought; it would encourage diligence, hard work and frugality, facilitating the development of rational civilization, capitalism and democracy. Al-Afghani’s core conviction was that the modernization of Islam required a return to its origin . . .41

41 Kevin McDonald, “Globalization, Civil Imagination and Islamic Movements,” in Muslim Modernities: Expressions of the Civil Imagination, ed. Amyn Sajoo (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 191.

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Printing technology offers another parallel development between the Reformation and twentieth-century Islamic reform. In the same way that printing facilitated the development of the Protestant Reformation by allowing individuals to access the content of the holy texts, the widely available Islamic literature during the early postcolonial period— especially English and French translations of the Qur’an—allowed twentieth-century Islamic reformers to engage with and flourish among elites literate in English and French, those with no religious training, as well as those trained in religious studies. This is the root of the various expressions of the Salafi movement that began in the Middle East toward the turn of the twentieth century. The earliest expressions of the Salafiyya sought to end European domination by imitating, perfecting, and Islamizing European modernity, in effect reconciling Islam with the benign aspect of Western modernity. The Salafi movement condemned the visitation to the tombs of holy men, excessive beliefs in the spiritual blessings (baraka) of Sufi sheikhs, and many aspects of popular practices associated with occultism. The Salafi leaders also addressed the suffering of the Muslim masses under colonial and semi-colonial rule. With the support of secularly-educated Muslim elites, the Wahhabi movement in Ghana and Burkina Faso also addressed the suffering of Muslims under colonial regimes, and criticized Sufi leaders for exploiting gullible followers with the promises of spiritual empowerment. During the early twentieth century, the idea of modernizing Islamic schooling and rejecting local traditions was one of the projects pursued by Egypt which spread to sub-Saharan Africa through the activities of younger scholars who had studied at al-Azhar University. In French West Africa, these former Azhar students combined commercial activities with teaching and preaching Salafi/Wahhabi ideas (chapter 3). Their teachings, as Kaba notes, were clearly part of a global nineteenth-century Islamic resurgence inspired by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and later elaborated and diffused by Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) and others.42 Both al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh advocated a combination of modernizing Islamic institutions and reforming Muslim practices in order to meet the challenges of modern times, which at the time were defined in the context of European colonialism and cultural hegemony. For these leaders, Islamic spiritual regression and European domination were two sides of the same coin. Colonialism and the spiritual retrogression 42 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya.



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it fostered destroyed the Islamic cultural heritage. The solution rested on appropriating and deploying the very skills and technology that had allowed Europeans to dominate Muslim territories (chapter 9). In other words, European political and cultural domination could only be neutralized with European skills, and Muslims’ spiritual regression encouraged by European influences could only be redressed by a new interpretation of the Prophet’s traditions. For them, this tradition was the only authentic one. As a result, aspects of indigenous “traditions” were dismissed as “superstitions” and signs of religious backsliding. It must be emphasized that this early attempt to use European modernity against itself was not static, as the difference between these early generation Islamic thinkers and those of the mid-twentieth century, such as Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), clearly suggests.43 Much as the earlier generation of Salafi leaders like al-Afghani and Abduh sought to bridge the gap between Western material success and Islamic purity as part of a larger project of spiritual reform, sub-Saharan African Muslims engaged in a similar discourse with modernity as the central intellectual and popular trope. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’ accurately remarks, “one cannot forget that a large segment of the leadership of Islamism is Western-trained, and that some use their Westernized education as a means of asserting their tradition in a highly volatile and changing world.”44 Juxtaposing Islamic reform with modernity is obviously ambiguous, and drawing parallels between Islamic reform and seventeenth-century European Enlightenment seems even more problematic and perhaps anachronistic because, in reality, the tendency toward rationally-centered religious reform began much earlier in Islam.45 However, such comparisons help to explain tensions within Muslim societies during the transitional period from colonialism to postcolonialism—tensions that continued through the end of the millennium.

43 The literature on this subject is enormous. The reader will find some pertinent sources in Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), and his most recent book, Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History (London: Pluto Press, 2003). Sayyid Qutb rejected the modernizing tendencies of earlier Salafis and advocated a complete rejection of the West. See, for example, Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 22. 44 Abu-Rabi’, Intellectual Origins, 56. 45 See, for example, Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl’s Influence on Modern Western Thought (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2007). Further discussion on this subject can be found in the concluding chapter.

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In associating Islamic reform with modernity, I do not assume that the definition of what constituted religiously acceptable modernity remained static in these movements. The following analyses clearly suggest that the definition and utilization of ideas of modernity changed with each generation of scholars sympathetic to some form of Wahhabi ideas. Factors such as a search for inter-doctrinal coexistence and dialogue promoted by younger generation Wahhabi scholars starting from the early 1990s are important in delineating such shifts and in highlighting the often overlooked plurality of Islamic theology in general, and the dynamism of West African reforms in particular. For example, when I interviewed younger Wahhabi scholars trained in the Arab world during the late 1980s, they too referred to the need to modernize local practices and institutions. However, they emphasized other forms of “modernity” that were quite unique: inter-doctrinal solidarity, religious coexistence (even with Shi’i and members of the Ahmadiyya movement), participation in political processes, and the inclusion of secular curriculum in the intellectual formations of young Muslims in order to nurture a more “effective” Muslim political leadership. They thus preached against provocative sermons, which they declared contrary to the “authentic” teachings of the Prophet Muhammad regarding the need to preserve the unity of the umma. Sermons that provoked conflicts, they insisted, not only contradicted the Prophet’s methods of preaching, but also served to justify the stereotype that Muslims are prone to violent confrontations (chapter 8). These ideas have nothing to do with European concepts of modernity, but modernity was often invoked as if its powerful range of meanings legitimized every argument. As I understood it, my informants saw “modernity” as a local expression of a universal ideal located in both worldly and spiritual space, and “modernization” represented the process leading to that ideal. Yet to them, “modernity” embodied a practical characteristic that allowed them to declare themselves “progressive,” in contrast to the status quo, which they declared static. This tendency among Wahhabi leaders to refashion and articulate ideas of modernity seems to distinguish their reform from the precolonial reforms in the subregion. Radicalism and Coexistence in West Africa’s Tradition of Islamic Reform and Renewal The twentieth-century West African reform associated with Wahhabism is a unique variant of West Africa’s tradition of spiritual reform and



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renewal. Unlike previous reforms led mostly by Sufi leaders, however, the twentieth-century reformers positioned themselves as bitter critics of Sufi religiosity. The following summary of the biography of some of the major Muslim intellectuals whose teachings profoundly shaped West African Islamic reforms is intended to highlight the ways Wahhabism fits into, but is also distinguishable from, that tradition.46 The lives and writings of these religious leaders have been analyzed thoroughly by historians since the 1960s. My purpose here is only to briefly explore the ways their ideas influenced Islamic activism in the region and to provide the reader with sufficient historical context to understand the arguments put forth by the twentieth-century reformers analyzed in this book. These precolonial reformers and intellectuals were all concerned about the putative decadence of Islam in their respective societies. It is noteworthy that while drawing from the same Islamic sources (the Qur’an and Hadith), each offered different arguments and strategies for implementing reform. As will be shown, while some can be considered radical or militant, others appear more moderate, peaceful, or quietist in their approaches. However, we must be cognizant of the fact that such labels may incorrectly collapse complex historical contingencies into a seamless historical narrative. More importantly, such labels suggest that the reform promoted by each 46 Although I examine the histories of only Muhammad al-Maghili, Ibn Taymiyya, alHajj Salim Suwari, Uthman dan Fodio, and Umar Tall, others, such as Nasir al-Din and Sheikh Moctar al-Kunti are equally important for understanding West African tradition of reform. For Nasir al-Din, see for example, David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000). For Sheikh Moctar al-Kunti, see William Brown, “The Caliphate of Hamdallahi, ca 1818–1864: A Study in African History and Traditions,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1969; Joseph Geneviere, “Les Kounta et leurs activities Commerciales,” IFAN 12 (1950): 1111–27; Abdul Aziz Batran, The Qadiryya Brotherhood in West Africa and the Western Sahara: The Life and Times of Shaykh al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (1729–1811) (Rabat: Publications de l’Institut des études africaines, 2001); John Ralph Willis, “The Western Sudan from the Moroccan Invasion (1591) to the Death of al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (1811),” in The History of West Africa, vol. 1, ed. J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (New York: Longman Group, 1985); Louis Brenner, “Concept of Tariqa in West Africa,” in Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam, ed. Donal Cruise O’Brien and C. Coulon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). For a broader discussion of local contexts of West African traditions of reforms, see, among others, Charles Stewart, “Southern Saharan Scholarship and the Bilad al-Sudan,” JAH 17, no. 1 (1976): 73–93; Louis Brenner, “Muslim Thought in Eighteenth Century West Africa: The Case of Shaikh ‘Uthman b. Fudi,” in Eighteenth-century Renewal and Reform Movements in Islam, ed. Nehemia Levtzion and John Voll (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987): 39–67; see John Ralph Willis, “Jihad fi Sabil Allah, its Doctrinal Basis in Islam and Some Aspects of its Evolution in Nineteenth Century West Africa,” JAH 8, no. 3 (1967): 395–415; and Philip Curtin, “Jihad in West Africa: Early Phases and Interrelations in Mauritania and Senegal,” JAH 12 (1971): 11–24.

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of these scholars remained static across time and space. This is not the case, and our analyses of Wahhabi-inclined reform in the region provide ample evidence to demonstrate the deficiency of academic and popular labels in unveiling the dynamism of religious ideas. Ahmad b. Abd al-Halim Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) Ibn Taymiyya may be considered the fountain of modern Islamic reform, in spite of the fact that he implemented his reform prior to the modern era. In his voluminous works, Ibn Taymiyya attempted to offer a comprehensive concept of jihad fi sabil li-Llah (“struggle in the way of God”) that seeks to protect Islam from what he considered internal religious innovations. Such innovations, he insisted, initiated Islam’s political decline in the first instance. The effects of his arguments on future generations of Muslims was (and still is) so pervasive that Alfred Morabia considers him the last medieval theoretician of jihad, one who not only revived the principles of jihad as an intellectual discourse, but also elaborated its political essence.47 Henri Laoust reached a similar conclusion even earlier.48 In his seminal works, he concludes that Ibn Taymiyya transformed the precepts of jihad fi sabil li-Llah from a mere voluntary act of devotion to a central religious obligation. Jihad thus became the means of fulfilling the Qur’anic injunction to “promote good deeds (ma’ruf ) and fight the reprehensible (munkar).” Thus, while he is presented by his admirers and detractors alike as an uncompromising mujahid with a narrow view of Islamic purity, a careful examination of Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments regarding the merits, the objectives, and the objects of jihad suggests neither unparalleled extremism nor significant deviation from the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. Rather than extreme militancy and indiscretion, his concept of jihad shows a remarkable accommodation to the political circumstances of his time. And rather than irrational belligerence toward non-Muslims, Ibn Taymiyya’s concerns were directed against internal “enemies” of Islam, those Muslims who insisted on adapting Islam to the

47 Alfred Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya, Dernier Grand Theoricien du Gihad Medieval,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 30 (1978): 85–100. 48 Henri Laoust, Essai sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politiques de Taki-D-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya (Cairo, 1939). Also “Le Reformisme d’Ibn Taymiya,” Islamic Studies 1, no. 3 (Sept. 1962): 27–47.



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ritual practices of other faiths.49 His fervent devotion to Islamic purity often, however, led him to adopt an uncompromising attitude and to condemn his fellow scholars who failed to embrace his teachings.50 The early thirteenth century marked the climax of the decline of Islamic civilization. The defeat of the Almohads in 1212 at Las Navas de Tolosa marked the beginning of the decline of Muslim dominance in Andalusia.51 Further east, a series of Crusades that began in the early eleventh century initiated the decline of the Abbasid empire, culminating in its final collapse in 1258 with the Mongol invasion. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was followed by a series of unsuccessful attacks on Damascus (where Ibn Taymiyya’s family had taken refuge).52 These upheavals reinvigorated the legacy of jihad left behind by the Almoravids and the Almohads, two movements that had their origins in North and West Africa.53 By 1299 when the Mongols re-invaded Syria in a second attempt to capture the territory from the Mamluks,54 Ibn Taymiyya was already an adult and part of a circle of Syrian scholars who were pondering the crisis and how to respond. In 1298, he requested permission from the Mamluk sultan of Damascus to preach jihad among the populace in order to mobilize believers in a campaign against the Armenian Christians who had entered into a pact with the Mongols,55 an alliance he believed would potentially tilt the balance of power in favor of the Mongols. Armed with this warrant, Ibn Taymiyya became an itinerant preacher of jihad, traveling to and from Cairo and Damascus, inspiring Muslims to join the Mamluks in a holy war against the “infidels.” In the course of mobilizing local populations for jihad against the Mongols, Ibn Taymiyya formulated a doctrine that elevated jihad from a highly commendable voluntary act of devotion to a

49 For this argument, see, for example, Muhammad Memon, Ibn Taymiya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1978); Niels Olesen, Culte des Saints et Pelerinages chez Ibn Taymiyya (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1991). 50 See Donald Little, “Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?” in History and Historiography of Mamluks (London: Variovum Reprints, 1986). 51  Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 87. 52 See Merlin Swartz, “A Seventh-century (A.H.) Sunni Creed: The ‘Aqida Wasitya of Ibn Taymiya,” Humaniora Islamica 1 (1973), 93. 53 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 87. 54 The Mongols first invaded Syria in 1260, but were defeated by Mamluk soldiers. See Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 355. 55 Olesen, Culte des Saints, 92; Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 93–4.

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central religious obligation;56 future generations would even interpret his concept of jihad as inclusive of acts Muslims are politically obligated to undertake. For Ibn Taymiyya, jihad was the only effective means by which the Islamic state could guarantee its existence in the face of external and internal threats. Jihad, he argues, was part of the function of the state (although rulers were obliged to seek the good counsel of the ulama to assess whether a potential situation merited a military response).57 But who were the objects of jihads, and under what conditions was offensive jihad justified? Ibn Taymiyya argued in his Majmu’at rasa’il that jihad against non-Muslims was justified only in response to a direct or potential threat. Non-Muslims who demonstrated clear signs of peaceful coexistence with Muslims, he emphasized, should not be attacked because of their infidelity, nor should they be forced to convert to Islam. He warned that forceful conversion or military expeditions intended to seek conversion to Islam violated the Qur’anic injunction that there should be no “compulsion in religion.”58 However, he argued extensively that offensive jihad against other Muslims for the purpose of protecting the religion’s purity was acceptable and necessary.59 With reference to this “internal” jihad, he suggested, though not as thoroughly as his admirers elaborated—especially Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92)—that armed jihad was permissible against Muslims who practiced bid’a. The central principle of jihad, he emphasizes, is the eradication of innovation from Islam. The Prophet, he argues, decreed that Muslims should fight religious innovation by force of arms, by forceful persuasion, or by contemplation. It was permissible, therefore, to use arms (if necessary) against heretics and defectors. Consequently, while armed jihad against non-Muslims was limited to defense and deterrence (two principles that are broad enough to fit into any criteria), offensive jihad was permissible against “bad Muslims.” Offensive jihad, he maintained, was justifiable against heretics and dissenters because they were internal enemies of Islam, enemies more dangerous to the religion than Christians or Jews.60 His concept of jihad 56 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 97. Laoust, Essai, 360. 57 Laoust, Essai, 32. 58 Laoust, “La Reformisme,” 29. 59 Olesen, Culte des Saints, 92; Morabi, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 87–88. 60 Laoust, Essai, 367. He therefore dismissed the Ismailiya, Nusairiya, Hakimiya, and Batiniya as infidels because their adoption and propagation of pantheistic arguments about God made them more harmful internal and external enemies of Islam than Jews and Christians. In a letter to the Mamluk sultan of Damascus that sought to justify and



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should, however, be seen in the larger context of his aversion to religious innovations that he believed were polluting the essence of Islam. And these arguments were formulated under conditions specific to the midthirteenth-century Islamic world. Furthermore, despite his impatience and denunciation of fellow ulama who refused to subscribe to his occasionally erratic responses to events, overall his intellectual expositions demonstrate profound pragmatism and an attempt to avoid creating his own innovations. Henri Laoust notes that one of Ibn Taymiyya’s conflicts with his contemporaries concerned the insistence that they adapt the Sharia to the existing social and political circumstances in order to protect the religion’s purity and to revive Muslims’ political hegemony, which was threatened by the Mongols.61 Ibn Taymiyya’s influence appeared to have hibernated for centuries until he was rehabilitated by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Maghili al-Tilimsini Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings probably spread east toward North Africa, where we can find, during the fifteenth century, identical arguments pursued by the Algerian scholar al-Maghili (d. 1508). Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Maghili al-Tilimsini remains one of the most controversial scholars and religious activists in Africa since the fifteenth century.62 Like Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili was concerned about what he declared syncretic religious practices among his contemporary North and West African Muslims. Considered by most scholars as a radical and uncompromising revivalist, al-Maghili charged the scholars and ruling elites with the responsibility of purging Islam of syncretism and religious innovation. His attempts to engage indigenous rulers and the ulama directly in religious reform are evident in his recommendations to Askia Muhammad Touré of Songhay. After extensive travels in the urban centers of North and West Africa to promote his puritanical vision of Islam, he arrived at the court

encourage military assault on Nusairis in Kasrawan, Ibn Taymiyya argues that it is justified to attack all those who insult and denounce the Prophet’s Companions, fail to observe fasting and the five daily prayers, refuse to believe in Heaven and Hell, and fail to prohibit the eating of pork. Laoust, Essai, 124–25. 61  Laoust, “Le Reformisme,” 42. 62 Mervyn Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition of Reform in the Western Sudan from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, no. 1/3 (1962): 577–96.

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of Askia Muhammad between 1498 and 1502, at a time when the young Songhay kingdom was embroiled in bitter dynastic struggles.63 The pious Askia Muhammad, who had come to power by overthrowing the heir of Sonni Ali Ber, consulted al-Maghili on religious and political issues.64 Al-Maghili’s responses to the Askia’s concerns reveal his intolerance and uncompromising attitude toward religious laxity.65 In response to Askia Muhammad’s query regarding the alleged involvement of the ulama in occult practices, for example, al-Maghili notes that “It is said by the Scriptures and the Sunna and the consensus of the learned that many of the Qur’an readers of this community are only venal ulama, they are more harmful to Muslims than all the mischief-makers.”66 Similarly, he stressed that a good Muslim ruler was responsible for eradicating religious syncretism, protecting the poor, ensuring fair taxation and avoiding unjustified seizure of the properties of orphans and innocent merchants. Complaining about the “un-Islamic” character of some African rulers, especially their putative fusion of Islam and indigenous practices, their unfair taxation policies, and their lack of Islamic knowledge,67 alMaghili concluded that such leaders had become infidels and were thus legitimate objects of jihad; in fact, society should be purged of their corruptions and ineptitude. He also charged the ulama with the responsibility of protecting the religion against foreign influences; if they failed in this responsibility, they could be declared infidels. The declaration of other scholars as infidels on account of religious backsliding or their failure to purge Islam of syncretism laid the foundation for the tension that

63 Batran suggests that the date of this visit was 1498 and Hiskett suggests 1502. See Abd al-Aziz Batran, “A Contribution to the Biography of Shaikh Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd-alKarim Ibn Muhammad (Umar-A ‘Mar) al-Maghili, al-Tilimsani,” JAH 14, no. 3 (1973), 392; and Hiskett, “The Islamic Tradition,” 578. Hunwick appears to accept 1498 as the date of al-Maghili’s visit. See John Hunwick (ed. & trans.), Shariah in Songhay: The Replies of alMaghili to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 41. 64 Lansiné Kaba, “The Pen, the Sword, and the Crown: Islam and Revolution in Songhay Reconsidered, 1464–1493,” JAH 27 (1984), 256. Charlotte Blum and Humphrey Fisher dispute the assumption prevalent in the literature regarding a possible conspiracy between Askia Muhammad and the clerical elites of Songhay. See “Love for Three Oranges, or, the Askiya’s Dilemma: The Askiya, al-Maghīlī and Timbuktu, c. 1500 A.D.,” JAH 34, no. 1 (1993): 65–91. 65 The reader can also find several sources on the Songhay Empire, Askia Muhammad Touré and al-Maghili in Brent Singleton, “Rulers, Scholars, and Invaders: A Select Bibliography of the Songhay Empire,” History in Africa 31 (2004): 357–68. 66 Quoted in Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition,” 581. 67 Ibid., 580.



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would develop between the ulama and indigenous rulers centuries later. Similarly, al-Maghili’s demand that religious scholars assume the responsibility of preventing the ruling elites from abusing their powers encouraged activist scholars to seek the overthrow of indigenous rulers. What had earlier characterized a shared space between the scholars and the ruling elites, in which each respected the other’s domain, was, for centuries, disrupted by al-Maghili’s legal dispensations as religious elites saw themselves as protectors of the faith and the downtrodden.68 Al-Maghili’s arguments were also believed to have given legitimacy to a proliferation of messianic and mahdist movements in the region that continued into the early decades of the colonial period (chapter 2). Belief in mahdism, which teaches that in every century God sends a reformer to renew the faith and impose social justice, is common in Islam. But al-Maghili transformed it into a powerful instrument of militant reform in West and North Africa, as many pious individuals assumed that they might be the mahdi of their time. Al-Maghili thus laid the foundation for a more radical approach to Islamic reform that paralleled that of the North African Almoravids and the Almohads between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Hiskett comments: It will be seen that al-Maghali played an important part in establishing the Muslim reform tradition in the Sudan. We may attribute to him the introduction of the Messianic idea, together with its call to militancy. To him was due the first authoritative condemnation of the abuse of the Shari’a involved in what the sources term maks, and he thus set off a protest which echoed down the centuries. It was also he who called attention to the activities of the venal malams [scholars], whom he rightly recognized as the primary obstacles to reform. Finally, he preached the doctrine of a central theocracy under the rule of the Shari’a which was revived by the Shehu [Uthman Dan Fodio] 300 years later, while the judgments which formed the justification for the Askia’s wars of conquest were available to support the Fulani jihad.69

Like Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili’s arguments emerged during a time when the Muslim world was experiencing decline, spurred by the defeat of the Muslims in Andalusia, and the influx of Muslim and Jewish refugees from the Iberian Peninsula into North Africa.70 Therefore, there are 68 Ibid., 583. 69 Ibid., 586. 70 Batran, “A Contribution,” 383; Hunwick, Shariah in Songhay, 32; and John Hunwick, “Al-Maghili and the Jews of Tuwat: The Demise of a Community,” Studia Islamica 61 (1985): 155–83.

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some parallels between al-Maghili and Ibn Taymiyya in terms of the contexts within which their ideas evolved, despite the vastly different time periods in which they lived. As a result of these teachings, a number of hagiographies emerged in North and West Africa between the fifteenth and eighteenth century that raised the merits of jihad to a higher level of religio-political devotion, though the majority of intellectuals ignored that radical message in favor of moderate positions that encouraged peaceful coexistence. A brief discussion of the probable influence of Ibn Taymiyya’s concept of jihad on African intellectuals, including al-Maghili, is necessary here for our broader understanding of the history of reform in West Africa. Although the direct influence of Ibn Taymiyya on al-Maghili may be difficult to demonstrate and lies beyond our scope here, we should examine a few points that are important for our purpose. Both Ibn Taymiyya and al-Maghili interpreted the Qur’anic injunction, “promote what is good and suppress what is reprehensible,” to mean that Muslims are divinely ordained to purge the society of social and political inequities and religious accretions. This injunction formed the central arguments of both Ibn Taymiyya and al-Maghili, and resonated with many militant reformers who came after them. Ibn Taymiyya constructed a comprehensive concept of jihad fi sabil li-Llah that simultaneously sought to protect Islam from increasing internal innovation and anthropomorphism, as well as from external political threats. Like Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili was resentful of what he considered foreign influences in Islam and struggled to eradicate these influences. In part, this resentment led him to organize the persecution of Jews in Algeria in spite of the opposition of majority of the ulama.71 Further, like Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili redefined the concept of takfir to justify jihad against Muslim rulers who failed to adhere to Islamic principles. Interestingly, both Ibn Taymiyya and al-Maghili also carefully avoided opening the gate of takfir (declaring other Muslims polytheists on account of religious laxity) too wide. Rather, Ibn Taymiyya reserved this extreme indictment for Muslims who persisted in combining Islamic norms with pre-Islamic practices. He called them mushrikun (polytheists). Like Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili was also careful not to reduce all religious lapses to heresy. According to Hiskett, al-Maghili reserved this indictment for Askia Muhammad’s important adversaries, Sonni Ali and his descendants. It is, however, noteworthy that as a result of their radical interpretations of 71 Hunwick, Shariah in Songhay; Batran, “A Contribution,” 381–88.



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Islamic concepts, both Ibn Taymiyya and al-Maghili were ignored by a majority of the scholars and rulers of their respective epochs and societies, only to be revived some centuries later. For example, the deployment of takfir as a discursive and political instrument of reform was revived by Uthman dan Fodio (discussed below) and his descendants in the Sokoto Caliphate during the nineteenth century, and by Wahhabi-Sunna reformers during the twentieth century. It is fair to emphasize that al-Maghili and Ibn Taymiyya left significant personal and doctrinal legacies for future generations of Muslim scholars. Ibn Taymiyya’s concept of jihad against Muslims accused of fomenting innovation was elaborated and codified by some of his admirers, particularly Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. As an extension of Ibn Taymiyya’s argument, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab stressed that innovation (bid’a) was tantamount to disbelief and since the purpose of jihad is to rid Islam of bid’a, it was permissible to use armed jihad against Muslims who persisted in accretion and syncretism.72 These arguments, in various modified forms, inspired many reform movements from Asia to North and West Africa. Although the extent of Ibn Taymiyya’s direct influence on West Africa prior to the twentieth century remains to be fully established, the traces of his arguments are discernible in the treatises of various reform movements in the early nineteenth century. As a Qadiri scholar73 whose intellectual influence in the Muslim world from the thirteenth century onward cannot be disputed, it is quite possible that Ibn Taymiyya’s influence remained embedded in the various Qadiri hagiographies circulating throughout North Africa. If Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments resonated in the writings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab during the eighteenth century, al-Maghili’s influence also resonated in the works and reforms of Uthman dan Fodio and other Fulbé jihadists three hundred years after al-Maghili’s demise. El Hajj Salim Suwari Whatever the extent of the influences of al-Maghili on the Fulbé jihad initiated by Uthman dan Fodio three hundred years later, the radical ideas embedded in his scholarship did not dominate West African traditions of 72 Memon, Ibn Taimiya’s Struggle, 529. 73 George Makdisi, “Ibn Taymiyya: A Sufi of the Qadiriya Order,” American Journal of Arabic Studies 1 (1973): 118–29.

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Islamic reform. Rather, such radicalism competed with an equally powerful discourse of religious tolerance and doctrinal coexistence. One of these discourses that has been well-recorded and had significant influence in our immediate region of interest is that of Hajj Salim Suwari.74 The history of what Ivor Wilks and other scholars have described as the “Suwarian tradition” or the “Suwarian tendency”75 is crucial for understanding the history of Islam in the Volta Basin. The literature on the subject is vast and has been thoroughly analyzed by scholars.76 A brief discussion here should therefore suffice in placing the influence of this scholar in the context of this book’s theme. Suwari has been considered a contemporary of al-Maghili by a number of scholars, including Ivor Wilks, although Lamin Sanneh prefers to place him in the mid-twelfth to thirteenth century.77 The dispute over chronology notwithstanding, historians agree that Suwari’s “scrupulous and principled disavowal of jihad as an instrument of religious and political change”78 has had an enduring influence on West African Muslims from the Senegambia to the Volta Basin up to the colonial conquests. In rejecting violent jihad as an instrument of reform or conversion, Suwari argued that unbelief was the result of ignorance rather than wickedness, and that since God intended some people to remain in a state of ignorance, true conversion could only occur in God’s appointed time.79 He 74 Ivor Wilks, “The Transmission of Islamic Learning in the Western Sudan,” in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. J. Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). Lamin Sanneh, “The Origins of Clericalism in West African Islam,” JAH 17, no. 1 (1976): 49–72. 75 Ivor Wilks, “ ‘Mallams Do Not Fight with the Heathen:’ A Note on Suwarian Attitudes to Jihad,” Ghana Studies 5 (2002), 216. See also Ivor Wilks, “The Juula and the Expansion of Islam into the Forest,” in The History of Islam in Africa, ed. Nehemia Levtzion and Randall Pouwels (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 96–98; Ivor Wilks, Wa and the Wala: Islam and Polity in Northern Ghana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 112–15. 76 In addition to Ivor Wilks’ numerous publications on the subject, especially, “The Transmission of Islamic Learning,” the reader should also consult Sanneh, “Origins of Clericalism,” and T. C. Hunter, The Development of an Islamic Tradition of Learning among the Jakhanke of West Africa, PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1977. For a concise discussion of Suwari and his influence in West African Islam, especially in Asante, see chapter 9 of David Robinson’s Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). The reader will find the following more recent references to the Suwarian tradition equally interesting: Ousmane Kane, “Islamism: What is New, What is Not? Lessons from West Africa,” African Journal of International Affairs 11, no. 2 (2008): 157–87. Sean Hanretta’s review essay offers an excellent commentary on Robinson’s discussion of the Suwarian tradition, Sean Hanretta, “Muslim Histories, African Societies: The Venture of Islamic Studies in Africa,” JAH 46, no. 3 (2005): 479–91. 77 Sanneh, “The Origins of Clericalism,” 67. 78 Ibid., 69. 79 Wilks, “The Juula,” 98.



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insists further that since humans must not interfere with God’s plans, jihad was not an acceptable method of spreading Islam. Jihad, he argued, was not only contradictory to the Qur’an, but also fragments and weakens Muslims, and projects a negative image of Islam among non-Muslims. For Suwari, the responsibility of a Muslim scholar was not to organize and wage jihad, but to acquire and diffuse knowledge, which would prevent scholars from religious backsliding or being led into unacceptable political engagements. Acquiring and disseminating knowledge, Suwari argued, guarantees the religion’s purity by nurturing a new generation with the appropriate knowledge and guiding the community from neglect of its religious responsibility. Suwari’s recommendations are believed to have guided many itinerant Mande/Djula scholars who traversed the transSaharan trade routes from the Sahel to the forest zones of what is today Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in pursuing a peaceful coexistence with nonMuslims.80 He is particularly remembered for encouraging peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims, including non-Muslim rulers who had authority over Muslims.81 As Sanneh notes, “What is clear is that his emphasis on the peaceful propagation of Islam and on the establishment of institutions and structures designed to consolidate and bolster the image of Islam in numerous parts of the Western Sudan was among his most original and far-reaching contributions to Sudanic Islam.”82 Suwari’s influence partly explains the virtual absence of direct attempts by Djula merchants and clerics to convert Asante and other Akans with whom they traded for more than two centuries (chapter 1). Yet, Hausa merchants who traded with Asante from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century also pursued similar strategies of coexistence, even with those impacted by the Fulbé jihads of the early nineteenth century. This may suggest that in general, the process of Islamization in West Africa was characterized by coexistence with non-Muslims, during which Muslim clerics spread the religion in a rather more subtle fashion than earlier attempts to impose the religion on unwilling souls. From this point of view, the jihadi revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (below) were exceptions that must be contextualized, rather than considered a generalized historical pattern, and the different interpretations of jihad offered by al-Maghili and Hajj Suwari suggest that no single approach to

80 Ibid., 96–98. 81  Sanneh, “The Origins of Clericalism,” 63; Wilks, “The Juula,” 98. 82 Sanneh, “The Origins of Clericalism,” 64.

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religious reform dominated the subregion. I now transition to the early nineteenth century Hausaland. Uthman dan Fodio Although al-Maghili was highly revered as a scholar and leader of the Qadiriyya Sufi order,83 his radical teachings were conveniently ignored for three hundred years. The most important scholar and ruler for whom his writings served a crucial purpose was another Qadiriyya scholar, Uthman dan Fodio, founder of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1804. A highly revered Fulbé scholar, Uthman dan Fodio came into conflict with the Hausa rulers of what is today Northern Nigeria when he criticized their oppressive rules— exploitative taxation of the population, illegal seizure of properties, their failure to protect Islam’s purity, and the enslavement of Muslims. These “un-Islamic” practices, dan Fodio argued, were also endorsed by the established mallamai (Hausa: teachers, from the Arabic mu’alimun) who were patronized by the ruling elites. As the conflicts between him and the ruler of Gobir, his main opponent, escalated, dan Fodio emigrated to Gudu, from where he intensified his tirade against his adversaries.84 By the end of 1803, when war seemed inevitable, dan Fodio sought guidance in the Islamic texts for the definition of legitimate jihad against a Muslim state that had neglected its responsibility toward Islam and the Muslims under its jurisdiction. Al-Maghili’s argument three centuries earlier provided some guidance, precisely because the conditions of Hausaland appeared so similar to those of Songhay, for which al-Maghili had offered his legal opinion.85 Scholars unanimously agree that dan Fodio did not reach out

83 Batran, “A Contribution,” 393. 84 For a more thorough discussion of dan Fodio and the social and intellectual contexts of the Sokoto jihad, see especially Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1994). 85 Hiskett’s description of the Islamic situation in Songhay is worth quoting: “This correspondence [between Askia Muhammad and al-Maghili] represents the Western Sudan in the late fifteenth century as the scene of a confrontation between an encroaching Islam and a still vigorous paganism. Islam appears to have become widely but superficially accepted among the petty rulers of the area, but had brought with it neither security nor territorial unity, while the Shari’a appears to have been little more than a cover for the legalizing of arbitrary imposts. Animism and popular necromancy were rife and there was also within the general pattern of conflict, a tendency for the two systems to drift into synthesis, as a result of the accommodations of the venal malams. This process of synthesis was disturbed by the reforming zeal of al-Hajj Muhammad Askia, and by the intrusion of the militant evangelism of al-Maghili.”



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to resuscitate al-Maghili’s arguments to justify the war, but rather the activities of Hausa rulers appeared to fit perfectly into what al-Maghili described as the legitimate reasons for armed struggle when all channels had been exhausted.86 Up to the eighteenth century, al-Maghili was still considered an authority on Islamic law and immortalized throughout Africa as a leader of the Qadiriyya order. He had visited Hausa states and left his imprint on local memory.87 In Kano, for example, the scholars, some of whom claimed to have descended from the Prophet Muhammad, traced their intellectual genealogy to al-Maghili.88 He was thus a qualified mentor for dan Fodio, also of the Qadiriyya order. Moreover, it was the turn of the century and dan Fodio’s followers were already considering him the mujaddid (the renewer of the century), a claim he himself did not endorse. The social, religious, and political conditions of Hausaland, as well as the timing of dan Fodio’s rise to intellectual prominence, therefore contributed to legitimizing a jihad against Hausa, which dan Fodio concluded was divinely sanctioned.89 Hiskett notes, Thus the Shehu’s [i.e., Dan Fodio’s] movement is to be seen as arising, in part, out of a conflict of doctrine and a climate of theological controversy which already existed. It was neither extreme nor fanatical, but of moderate orthodoxy, opposed to quietism and accommodation with non-Islamic custom on the one hand, and to intransigent exclusivism on the other.90

However, once the Hausa were defeated and the Sokoto Caliphate established in 1804, the use of takfir to legitimize jihad against indigenous rulers whose political legitimacy came under scrutiny provided the foundation for an expansionist policy pursued not by dan Fodio himself, who quickly withdrew from political engagement after defeating his main adversaries, but by his brother Abdallah and his son Muhammad Bello.91 This led most scholars to conclude that the ascetic dan Fodio only reached out to al-Maghili’s radical writing, especially his Taj al-din fi ma yajib ala almuluk as a last resort. Nonetheless, after reviving al-Maghili, dan Fodio

86 Kane, “Islamism,” 172. 87 Batran, “A Contribution,” 393n80. 88 Ibid. 89 Dan Fodio was more directly influenced by the teachings of his immediate master, Jibril b. Umar, who had also been influenced by al-Maghili. See Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition,” 589; Kane, “Islamism,” 171. 90 Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition,” 591. 91  Hiskett, The Sword of Truth.

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opened a new channel for religious contestations that fueled Fulbé jihads throughout the region, until the colonial conquests. Hajj Umar Tall al-Futi Among the religious scholars whose activism is important for understanding West African traditions of religious reform and renewal, none seemed to have pursued a larger political ambition than Sheikh Umar Tall (1797–1864). Another Fulbé scholar and a jihadi comparable to dan Fodio, Umar Tall’s attempt to create a Muslim state stretching from the Senegal Valley to the Niger bend was frustrated by a combined force of Muslims and non-Muslim rulers, as well as by French imperial expansion. His powerful spiritual and intellectual influences, however, have remained up to the present. He is also different from the rest in two major respects: his religious and political missions coincided with French colonial expansion from the Senegal Valley into the Niger bend, thus contributing to his demise, and he belonged to a different Sufi brotherhood, the Tijaniyya order. Born in 1797 in Fouta Toro (present-day Senegal), Umar Tall is remembered today as the first propagator of the Tijaniyya order in West Africa. Having been initiated into the order at a young age, Umar Tall assumed the responsibility of not only diffusing it by initiating followers attracted to him by his charisma and erudition, but also by creating a new state comparable to the Sokoto Caliphate. Umar Tall resided in Sokoto on his way from Mecca, and even married one of dan Fodio’s granddaughters.92 Here, he was influenced not only by the historical dynamics and religious argumentation that brought Sokoto into existence, but also by a desire to apply Uthman dan Fodio’s success in creating an Islamic state comparable to Sokoto. His political ambition challenged both the hegemony of the Qadiriyya and the increasing penetration of the French from Senegal into the interior of West Africa. This poor timing, along with a number of military miscalculations, ended Umar Tall’s political ambition. He initially achieved significant military victories between 1848 and 1857, and these brought, albeit very briefly, almost the entire Niger Valley under his control; but in 1864, Umar Tall succumbed to the combined military might of the various ethnic groups in the region—Tuaregs, Fulbé, and

92 Robinson, The Holy War.



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Bambara—who besieged his army as they waited for the arrival of French forces from Senegal.93 While his military campaigns and his attempt to create a Tijaniyya state are important for historians, it was his diffusion of the Tijaniyya that left an enduring historical mark on West African Islam. The Tijaniyya was still incubating when Umar Tall became its main evangelist in West Africa. His branch of the order, which I will return to in relevant sections of this book, is known in the literature as the Umarian-Tijaniyya, or the Twelve-Bead Tijaniyya (chapter 2). By the time of the imposition of formal colonial rule, the Umarian-Tijaniyya had already begun to compete for religious influence with the much older Qadiriyya. And by the first decade of the twentieth century, the Tijaniyya, through a quietist evangelism of scholars associated with the order, had become the largest tariqa. The oral sources consistently argue that the founder, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, never endorsed violent jihad, and insist that Umar Tall’s wars emerged from a specific historical context and not from the disposition or ideology of the Tijaniyya. Umar Tall’s writings continue to serve as the central spiritual manual for many Tijanis, including those of other branches. Today, the Tijaniyya is the largest tariqa in Ghana and Burkina Faso, as in other parts of West Africa. The extent to which Umar Tall was influenced by the radical teachings of al-Maghili through his relationship with Sokoto scholars is an interesting question, one which unfortunately cannot be addressed here. However, the parallels between the Sokoto jihad and that of Umar Tall are evident, except that as a Tijaniyya scholar and mystic, Umar Tall may not have traced his intellectual genealogy to al-Maghili, a Qadiriyya scholar. Although several branches of the tariqa emerged throughout West Africa during the colonial period, most of them trace their genealogy to Umar Tall. Only one, the Hamawiyya, developed its own silsila (chain of transmission) independent of Umarian influence. Also called the ElevenBead Tijaniyya, this branch gained influence throughout French West Africa starting from the 1920s, and became the main branch of the order in Burkina Faso (chapter 2). The French erroneously associated this branch with militancy, despite the peaceful disposition of its leader, Sheikh Hamaullah of Nioro (in the French Sudan, now Mali).94 In Ghana, the 93 Ibid., 248–49. 94 For a more recent discussion of the erroneous interpretation of the Hamawis belligerence, see Sean Hanretta, Islam and Social Change: History of an Emancipatory Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Benjamin Soares, Islam and Prayer

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evangelism of the Niassiyya branch (named after Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse) accounts for the rapid growth of the Tijaniyya in that country after the colonial period (chapters 2, 5, and 6). * * * What is the origin of Wahhabism in West Africa and how does it relate to the Sufi-led reforms discussed above? Lansiné Kaba suggests that the reforms of Uthman dan Fodio and Hajj Umar Tall had some connection with the “Wahhabi revival in Arabia.”95 Suleyman Nyang even traces its rise to the Almoravid and Almohad reforms of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.96 However, the depths of these influences have yet to be fully explored.97 Our present knowledge leads us to situate precolonial reforms within the context of the internal Sufi reforms that were inspired by the independent teachings of many hadith-oriented scholars, including Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sheikh Ahmad Tijani. While the early phase of the rise of Wahhabism in the Hijaz emerged out of a specific historical context, including the rise of new hadith-oriented scholars among Sufi leaders,98 the twentieth-century expressions of Wahhabism in West Africa can be considered to have developed out of Muslims’ experiences of colonial rule and their expectations of new religious freedom being offered by the postcolonial state. Many early adherents of Wahhabism believed that, compared to the colonial regime, the postcolonial state was religiously neutral and had provided the mechanism for legitimizing new religious expressions as part of pursuing cultural and social transformations. In this regard, the conclusion reached by Louis Brenner and others, that Wahhabi reform represents both continuity and a rupture in the West African historical tradition of reform, appears quite a compelling

Economy: History and Authority in a Malian Town (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). 95 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, 5. Kaba refers to a proposition made earlier by Murray Last that one of dan Fodio’s teachers, Jibril bin Ahmar, had been exposed to the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab during his visit to Mecca. 96 Suleyman Nyang, “Islam in West Africa” in The Politics of Islamic Revivalism: Diversity and Unity, ed. Shireen Hunter, 204–25, and “Islam and Politics in West Africa,” Issue: A Journal of Africanists Opinion 13 (1984): 20–25. 97 See, for example, Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods for a discussion of other Sufi brotherhoods that emerged from the new emphases on hadith. 98 See for example, John Obert Voll, “Hadith Scholars and Tariqahs: An Ulama Group in the 18th Century Haramayn and their Impact in the Islamic World,” JAAS 15 (1980): 267–70 and Nehemia Levtzion and John Voll (eds.) Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 7.



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way to situate the movement in the context of West African reform and revival, while still recognizing its distinctiveness. Brenner notes, [Wahhabism] is a break with the past insofar as its adherents denounced and distanced themselves from what they considered to be Traditional/ Orthodox Islam in the form of the brotherhoods and local Qur’anic pedagogy. But it also represents a continuity as one among a lengthy series of transformations in which Muslims have reordered and reorganized themselves to respond to new demands and new conditions.99

As mentioned earlier, the main vocabularies of all the West African reforms are identical: words such as shirk, bid’a, and kufr were the central discursive tropes of most of the reforms. During the twentieth century what changed were the contexts in which these ideas were formulated and articulated. In the case of Wahhabism in West Africa, these contexts included (1) European colonialism that facilitated a historical connection between West Africa and the Hijaz; (2) the nationalist struggles of the 1950s; (3) the emergence of independent states; and (4) the rise of oil wealth in the Arab world during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when subSaharan African languished in poverty. What are the characteristics of those Muslims who are often considered adherents of Wahhabism? Jean-Louis Triaud identifies some defining characteristics that can be described as a rejection of older traditions and the introduction of new symbolic ritual practices and religious identity. According to Triaud, Wahhabi/Sunna reformers in French West Africa share some common traits: (1) they were isolated from other Muslims whom they declared mushrikun (polytheists); (2) they used special outward signs of ritual practices (such as praying with arms crossed over the chest); (3) they formed associations distinct from those of the Sufi brotherhoods; (4) they rejected all forms of popular piety (including consultation of marabouts and rituals at saints’ tombs), which they declared apostasy; (5) they referred exclusively to the Qur’an and the Sunna of the Prophet, and denounced other Islamic jurisprudence; and (6) they vehemently opposed Sufi brotherhoods, which they declared heretical innovative sects.100 To these characteristics, Brenner adds the popular association of

99 Louis Brenner (ed.), Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 62. 100 Triaud, “ ‘Abd al-Rahman,” 166. I am indebted to Harrison and Brenner for this reference, and I have adopted some of Harrison’s translation from the French, See Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 1860–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 196.

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members of the Wahhabi movements with the accumulation of wealth.101 We may add the exclusion of women from public spaces and the enforcement of the niqab (the face covering worn by women). Members of the Wahhabi/Sunna movements were also known to observe strict codes of religious behavior and sometimes subscribed to extreme interpretations of the sacred texts. While these identifying features are helpful in distinguishing Wahhabi/ Sunna adherents from other Muslims, such designations only compound our analytical difficulties. First, as discussed in chapter 8, Wahhabi identity and strategies of proselytism did not remain static throughout its history. For example, younger generation Wahhabi-inclined reformers during the 1990s repudiated dress codes associated with the Arab world and adopted local garments to emphasize their return to the local Islamic culture. This generation also established cordial relations with the established Muslim leadership dominated by Tijaniyya scholars in an effort to promote intradoctrinal coexistence. Further, as noted, earlier Sufi reformers also emphasized the Qur’an and Sunna in their rituals and sermons, observed strict religious codes, pursued economic activities, excluded their women from public spaces, and transformed their messages to conform with specific times and spaces. Considering the difficulties in strictly isolating Wahhabi religious expressions and identities from those of earlier Sufi-inclined reformers, I suggest we focus our analytical lenses on the relationship between the rise of the West African variant of Wahhabism and Muslims’ search for ways to marry their faith with the ideas of modernity inherited from their colonial past.

101 Louis Brenner, “Two Paradigms of Islamic Schooling in West Africa,” in Modes de transmission de la culture religieuse en Islam, ed. Hassan Elboudrari (Cairo: Institut Français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1993), 162. See also Muhammad Sani Umar, “Changing Islamic Identity in Nigeria from the 1960s to the 1980s: From Sufism to AntiSufism,” in Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Louis Brenner (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 154–78; and E. Grégoire, “Islam and the Identity of Merchants in Maradi (Niger),” in Muslim Identity, ed. Brenner, 106–15.

Part One

History

Introduction to Part One This section provides a general overview of Islam in Ghana and Burkina Faso during the precolonial and colonial periods, highlighting comparable and divergent patterns of its development. I explore at some length French and British colonial policies toward Islam in West Africa more broadly, and in Ghana and Burkina Faso more specifically. I place the discussion in the larger context of regional colonial policies, in an attempt to identify the policies pursued by European colonizers toward Muslims in colonies they considered “Islamized,” in contrast to those considered less so. I argue that European colonial rule inadvertently facilitated the expansion of the Muslim populations, especially in areas that the colonialists had perhaps accurately defined as less “Islamic,” if by this they meant the Muslim population was smaller in comparison to the population of the Sahel region.

Chapter One

Islam Prior to the Colonial Period What role did Islam play in the private and public spheres of the various autonomous societies that formed Ghana and Burkina Faso after independence from European colonialism? To what extent were Islamic norms and practices adhered to in these societies just before the colonial era? The present chapter offers some responses to these questions in order to provide the reader with a general picture of the Muslim cultural, political, and intellectual landscapes prior to European colonialism. I discuss these societies as part of a broader network of ethnic groups in the basin of the Volta River. Some of these ethnic groups share a distant ancestral lineage that is still reflected in their cultural and linguistic affinities. This is the case of the Morrè-Dagbani group of languages that stretches from Dagomba in the northern part of modern Ghana to Mossi in Burkina Faso. Within this vast territory are several other ethnic groups that do not claim this broader regional genealogy. These groups include the people of Gonja, but also the Gurunshi, Lobi, and Dagati. Further south, stretching from the forest zone to the coast, is another large linguistic family, the principle one being the Akan group of languages in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Interposed within this large linguistic group are other ethnic groups such as the Ga-Adangbe and several others that I will not mention in this chapter because of the limited influence of Islam there. The discussion that follows focuses primarily on the vast Volta Basin, where the presence of Islam goes as far back as the fifteenth century, or earlier, though its impact varied over time and space, as explained below. I also include the Akan territories in this discussion; like the Volta Basin, the people of this area had been in contact with Muslim merchants for centuries, though Akans did not embrace Islam in large numbers. Viewed in the context of a contiguous regional linguistic family and in terms of kinship ties, we are able to present a clearer image of the different patterns of Islamization experienced in these societies over time and the factors that explain similarities and differences within these patterns. Admittedly, such a macro approach may sacrifice some specific local historical contingencies. Fortunately, there are abundant micro historical

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analyses of many of these societies that will help readers interested in a specific territory. This section of the book draws on such micro histories to present a broader regional picture without losing the specificity of each ethnic or territorial group. Before proceeding any further, it may be helpful to define what I mean by “Islamization.” Given that colonial authorities searched for an “Islam” that conformed to their preconceived notion of Islamic identity and culture it is important to define what we mean by an Islamic society. For the purpose of the arguments in this book I consider an African society Islamic if that society meets at least four of the following criteria: (1) a segment of the population shows an outward expression of Islamic piety and this is not contested by the ruling elites; (2) there is a continuous genealogy of rulers professing to be Muslims, even if others accused them of syncretism; (3) the indigenous custom is considered Islamic by the ruling elites and their subjects even if, in reality, these customs were appropriated into Islam and sanctioned by the religious elites; (4) local life cycle rituals such as naming ceremonies, weddings, and funerals are performed according to Islamic guidelines as understood by local clerics of the time, even if these rituals bear some traces of indigenous customs (I discuss Muslim doctrinal contests over these rituals throughout the book); (5) political leaders and their subjects adopted Arabic/Islamic names, including localized variants of these names; (6) there exist popular Muslim learned men whose teachings attract students and disciples from other parts of West Africa and the activities of these learned men are not seen as threatening to the polity; and (7) there is sufficient architectural evidence, such as mosques, that testify to the material presence of Islamic influences in the distant past. These criteria are discernible from the ways these societies articulate their Muslim identity. In the distant past, being a Muslim in these societies meant wearing outfits that were identified with Muslims; going to the mosque on Fridays; fasting, at least outwardly, during the month of Ramadan; observing Muslim festivities, such as the two Eids; and observing Islamic dietary restrictions (at least visibly). When this range of factors is taken into account, we see clearly the ways individuals identified with Islam culturally, even if their practices fall short of Islamic standards. Furthermore, these criteria will guide us in inquiring more deeply into recurring debates among Muslim scholars, debates over what constitutes orthodoxy and how different religious leaders articulate diverse ideas of orthodoxy over time and space.



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Islam in Burkina Faso prior to the European Conquests Burkina Faso today comprises several ethnic groups, some with larger Muslim populations than others. While during the precolonial period groups such as the Mande/Djula, Marka, Fulbé, and Gourma have generally been associated with Islam or considered themselves culturally Muslims, at least in terms of a visible adoption of some form of Islamic regalia among the ruling elites, the overwhelming majority remained non-Muslim up to the time of the European conquests. Among the nonMuslim are the Mossi (the single largest ethnic group), but also minority groups such as Gurunse, Lobi, and Bobosé. In this book, I focus on the Islamization of the Mossi, which began during the nineteenth century but accelerated during the colonial period and thereafter. Until the colonial period, the history of the Mossi was characterized by state-building led primarily by two powerful Mossi kingdoms: the Yatenga in the northwest with its capital at Ouahigouya, and Mogho Central, further south of Yatenga with its capital at Ouagadougou (now the capital of Burkina Faso) (see map 1). These two kingdoms, or empires, lasted for several centuries, according to oral and written sources, perhaps longer than any single centralized state in West Africa.1 Though they lived on the southern fringes of the epicenters of West African Islamic activism and were pursued by leaders of powerful Muslim empires—Mali and Songhay—Mossi rulers and their subjects resisted conversion to Islam for centuries. Neither did the rulers encourage the adoption of Islamic customs. Rather, Mossi ruling elites (nakomsé) isolated and protected indigenous customs and traditions (rogonmiki) from Muslim proselytizers and positioned themselves in opposition to their Muslim neighbors, including Mali and Songhay, which they periodically raided for booty using their cavalry skills. Mossi oral traditions narrated by Laghle-naba accentuate this early hostility toward Islam and its patron kingdoms to the north.2 A number of Arabic manuscripts corroborate the oral traditions in ways that make it difficult to assess whether the hostilities were driven by

1 Andreas W. Massing, “The Wangara, an Old Soninke Diaspora in West Africa?” Cahiers d’études africaines 158 (2000): 281–308. 2 Mossi historical narrative by Laghle-naba (the Chief of Laghley, a suburb of Ouagadougou), Ouagadougou, audio tape, no recording date. See Ivor Wilks, “The Mossi and the Akan States, 1400–1800,” in History of West Africa, vol. 1, ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (New York: Longman Inc., 1985): 465–502; see 467n11.

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economic and political imperatives or by resistance to Islam. For example, both the Tarikh es-Soudan and the Tarikh al-fatash chronicle various Mossi aggressions against the empires of Mali and Songhay. According to the Tarikh es-Soudan, the Yatenga kingdom immediately south of Mali sacked and burned Timbuktu, Mali’s capital, in 1328 and again in 1333. The chronicler of the Tarikh es-Soudan provides a dreadful description of one of these attacks: “Seized with fright, the people of Mali fled and abandoned the city to its assailants. The Mossi ruler entered the city, and after killing all the people he found there and seizing all the goods he could, he burned the city and returned to his own country.”3 This description by a Muslim chronicler seems a bit slanted to emphasize the barbarism of the “infidel” invader, thus leading the reader to assume that Yatenga’s aggressions were motivated by a resentment of Islam, though this was probably not the case. Massing convincingly suggests that Muslim raids were designed to obtain rare goods, especially salt, from communities that happened to be Muslim.4 However, the description in the chronicles parallels Yatenga oral traditions. Like the Arab chronicles, the oral traditions emphasize Yatenga’s defeat of a belligerent Muslim neighbor, probably to glorify the powers of Yatenga and accentuate the effectiveness of Mossi cavalry. Clearly, there was intense animosity between Yatenga and the Muslim states to its north over political sovereignty and state expansion, and Islamic identity became one of the main areas in which these tensions were visible. These tensions persisted for centuries. It was this constant threat from a powerful non-Muslim state to the south that led Songhay to pursue a series of military campaigns against Yatenga between 1492 and 1498, or even earlier.5 Sonni Ali, the founder of the Songhay empire, perished in one of these campaigns in 1492.6 Yet Sonni Ali seems to have been motivated more by security concerns than religious motivations, since he himself was not considered a “good” Muslim by the scholars of Timbuktu, a factor that contributed to a

3 ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Abdullah b. ‘Imran ben ‘Amir al-Sa’di, Tarikh es-Soudan, vol. 1, trans. O. Houdas, (Paris: Larouse, 1900), 16–17; quoted in Elliott D. Skinner, “Islam in Mossi Society,” in Islam in Tropical Africa, Studies Presented and Discussed at the Fifth International African Seminar, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria January 1964, ed. M. Lewis (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 352–53. 4 Massing, “Wangara,” 219. 5 Skinner, “Islam in Mossi Society,” 353; Peter Clark, West Africa and Islam: A Study of Religious Development from the 8th to the 20th Century (London: E. Arnold, 1982), 59. 6 Massing, “Wangara,” 288.



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conspiracy against him that was pursued by local scholars, and ultimately led to his demise and the shift of the dynasty to the Askias.7 The 1498 invasion of Yatenga by Askia Muhammad Touré was couched in religious terms, although there was evidently also a political motivation to bring an “infidel” state into the emerging Songhay state. Askia Muhammad overthrew the Sonni dynasty with the support of the ulama of Timbuktu, then, charged with religious zeal, he offered the king of Yatenga a choice between Islam and destruction. In defiance, the king gave Askia Muhammad’s emissary a powerful response: “Return to your master and tell him that between him and us, there will only be war and combat.”8 Although Touré’s attack in 1498 was the most decisive defeat in Yatenga history (which is narrated with a combination of emotion and humor in Yatenga even today), it failed to convince Mossi aristocrats to embrace Islam. Neither did Askia Muhammad succeed in incorporating Mossi territories into Songhay. Instead, Songhay’s hostilities strengthened the Mossi resolve to resist Islam, which for them, as the oral history carefully highlights, was inferior to the belief in Mossi ancestral spirits (tenkougouri).9 The attitude of Yatenga Mossis toward Islam was similar to that of the other Mossi kingdom, Mogho, located southeast of Yatenga with its capital at Ouagadougou. Like Yatenga, Mogho rulers also refused to give in to the overwhelming pressure to embrace Islam until the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Thus Mossi rulers and their subjects generally maintained their nonMuslim identities before the eighteenth century.10 Clearly, the ruling elites did not consider conversion to Islam crucial for consolidating state power. Yet this should not lead us to assume that the relationship between the Mossi kingdoms and their neighbors was always belligerent; these relationships often depended on individual rulers and the prevailing political climate in the region more broadly. Located on the trans-Saharan trade route, the Mossi also participated in the commercial activities of

7 Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition,” 579–80. 8 Clark, West Africa and Islam, 93. 9 The oral history of Mossi kings celebrating their various victories over neighboring kingdoms often credits their ancestral spirits (tenkougouri) for their successful campaigns against Muslim forces. Mossi historical narrative by Laghlé-naba, Ouagadougou, audio tape, no recording date. For a discussion of these materials, see Michel Izard, “Introduction a l’histoire des royaumes Mossi, 1,” Recherges Voltaiques 12 (Paris, 1970): 56–70; 108–13. 10 Nehemia Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: A Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-colonial Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 165–66; Wilks, “Mallams,” 228.

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the region, at least by taxing merchants passing through Mossi territories to reach the Akan goldmines to the south; in exchange, merchants were granted free passage and protection. For reasons that relate to changing regional, political, and economic dynamics during the late seventeenth century, the Mossi began to welcome Muslim merchants in their midst.11 There appears to have been a gradual shift from raiding to encouraging trading relationships with these merchants; this can be noted by the growth of these merchants in the major Mossi cities—Ouahigouya, Ouagadougou, and Koudougou.12 As illustrated by Assimi Kouanda and others, a significant population of Djula and Fulbé Muslim learned men, merchants, and refugees settled among the Mossi.13 Mossi oral traditions emphasize that most of the first generation were refugees escaping from religious turmoil and persecution from other parts of the Western Sudan. These were followed by other refugees, probably fleeing the Moroccan invasion of Songhay in 1591 and, as Massing suggests, the reconsolidation of the Songhay kingdom in 1592 by Askia Nourou, stretching from what is today Fada n’Gourma (southeast of modern Burkina Faso) northward into southeastern Niger.14 Close to the frontiers of the Mogho kingdom, this reconstituted Songhay state probably encouraged a less belligerent relationship with Mogho, thus allowing the Mossi to be more receptive to foreign Muslim merchants. These groups eventually assimilated into Mossi culture and adopted the Mossi language (Morrè) but retained their Islamic identity and ethno-names. These Mossi of foreign provenance came to be known as Yarsè and Maransè (Mossi of Djula-Mande or Soninke origins) and Silmimosse (Mossi of Fulbé origins).15 Ethno-names that have become Mossi, such as Sana, Guira, Maiga, Sore, Sankara, and Sanfo are living testimonies of early Mossi openness to Muslim foreigners, who later became the lynchpins of the early incubation of Islam. Apparently, for Mossi rulers during this period, it was more acceptable to be an outsider practicing Islam in Mossi territory than for the indigenous population to

11  Clark, West Africa and Islam, 59. 12 Massing lists the towns of the first settlement to include: Mane, Zitenga, Kaya, Bulsa and Bilanga. “Wangara,” 291. 13 Assimi Kouanda, “Les Yarsè: fonction commerciale, religieuse et légitimité culturelle dans le pays Moaga,” Doctorat 3e cycle, Universite de Paris I, 1989. See also Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 165–67. 14 Massing, “Wangara,” 291; Wilks, “Mallams,” 228–29. 15 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 170.



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embrace Islam. Islam remained the religion of foreigners living among the Mossi up until the eighteenth century.16 During the early eighteenth century, the taboo against conversion to Islam among the ruling elites began to change. The influence, however, came not from the north, but rather from the south, when the Mossi sister states of Mamprusi and Dagomba embraced Islam. We know, for example, that Naba Saga, perhaps the most highly revered Mogho king, sent his two sons to Mamprusi (in what is today Northern Ghana) to study the Qur’an and this led to the conversion of his heir, Mogho Naba Dulugu, around 1750.17 The precedence set by Naba Dulugu continued through the reign of Mogho Naba Koutou (c. 1850–71), during whose reign Qur’anic schools were said to have flourished in the capital Ouagadougou and elsewhere in the kingdom. The Mogho kingdom therefore had a consistent genealogy of Muslim rulers starting from at least the eighteenth century. The Mossi thus offer further evidence in support of the well-established notion that Islam spread in West Africa mostly through the activities of foreign traders, and then gradually permeated the ruling elites, who either encouraged the conversion of their subjects, or discouraged mass conversion in an attempt to maintain Islam as an elite religion. In the case of the Mossi, Islam remained the religion of the merchants and a few members of the ruling elites until the colonial period. If by the early eighteenth century Islam had begun to punctuate the Mogho ruling elites, Yatenga remained defiant of any suggestion to bring Islam into the court (discussed further in chapter 2) as the hostilities with its Muslim neighbor persisted. At the height of the Fulbé jihads of the nineteenth century, for instance, we observe renewed attempts to bring Yatenga into the Islamic orbits pursued by self-styled jihadi rulers. In 1830, the Muslim Fulbé state of Masina under Ahmadou Lobbo invaded Yatenga and was repelled. This was followed by another invasion led by Ba Lobbo in 1867. Yatenga stood its ground, decisively defeating Ba Lobbo as well. The defeats of Fulbé Masina, which had earlier conquered the Fulbé state of Jelgooji north of Yatenga, fortified Yatenga’s abhorrence of Islam, as the oral tradition emphasizes, perhaps posthumously; nevertheless, it is

16 Levtzion notes that two of the king’s brothers, Ngadi and Sigiri, also converted to Islam, Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 167. For the process of Islamization among Mamprusi, especially the genealogy of Muslim rulers and their relationship with Mande and Hausa imams, see D. C. Davis, “Strategies of Minority Survival: The Case of the Gambaga Imams,” JMMA 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1986): 232–46. 17 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 167.

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suggestive of what was then considered a noble act in defense of Yatenga ancestral religion and territory.18 The written sources support the notion that the Mossi in general, but Yatenga in particularly, resisted conversion to Islam until the coming of the Europeans. Reiterating what he collected from oral sources, Delafosse notes: Certain populations seem particularly hostile to Islamization, which does not appear to have made any progress among them since the Hegira [ jihad?]. It is the case, for example, of the very populous Voltaique family, and of the principal one among these peoples, the Mossi. These latter have been in contact with Muslims very close to ten centuries, they count among them an appreciable number of Mohammedan strangers (the Yarsés), and yet they have remained totally pagan.19

Delafosse’s study, along with the observations of other early Europeans who arrived in Mossi territories during the colonial conquests, had a profound impact on French colonial attitudes toward Islam in Burkina Faso as early as the first decade of colonialism. Colonial records are replete with statistics stressing the pitifully negligible size of the Muslim population, especially among the Mossi. For instance, according to sources cited by Audouin and Deniel and others, in 1914, barely fifteen years after the colonial conquests, the Muslim population of the cercle of Ouahigouya was 12.9 percent, out of which only 1.2 percent was Mossi, the rest being “Fulbé-Rimaibe and Yarsè-Marka.”20 This perception persisted for most of the colonial period, despite the visible sign of the growth of the Muslim population among the Mossi. For example, in his 1926 annual political report, in which every colony offered an assessment of the “religious question,” Governor Hessling, the colony’s first governor, notes: “In Upper Volta [Burkina Faso after 1984], there is no ‘religious question’ as such. The majority of the populations are animists, the Muslim population relatively small, and the Christian population, though rapidly growing, represents a minute proportion of the population.”21 His comment in the 1927 annual political report repeated his earlier observation, but added some specifics.

18 Michel Mardi, Le Yatenga précolonial: un ancien royaume du Burkina (Paris: Karthala, 1985), 110–11. 19 Maurice Delafosse, Le pays, les peoples, les langues, l’histoire, les civilizations du HautSénégal-Niger, vol. 3 (Paris: Larouse, 1912), 187. 20 Jean Audouin and Raymond Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta a l’epoque coloniale by Jean Audouin and Raymond Deniel (Paris: Harmattan, 1978), 34–35. 21  ANS 2G26/16, “Rapport politique annuel et administratif,” 1926, Gov. Hessling.



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The Muslim population in the colony was negligible . . . The Muslim population of Ouagadougou could only be considered Islam of the second zone. . . . Only in Ouahigouya and Koudougou did the Muslim population appear to have increased. Dori was the most Islamized district. Qur’anic schools remained underdeveloped in parts of the colony where the teachers only taught rudimentary Islam, and most of them did not even know how to read Arabic.22

To further accentuate the negligible importance of Islam, he commented on the condition of Muslim schooling as follows: “There are seventy-six Qur’anic schools with a total of 452 students in the district of Ouagadougou [the largest district and the colonial capital]. The teachers claimed to be either Tijanis or members of the Qadiriyya, and other than prayer books none of them possessed any book of particular relevance.”23 Up to the height of the colonial era (1930s and 1940s) when the population of Mossi Muslims increased significantly, colonial administrators continued to argue that, besides Fulbé and Tuareg in the north, Mossi and other ethnic groups remained predominantly non-Muslim. The 1949 report is even more telling of how the French continued to maintain the illusion that the Mossi resisted conversion to Islam. The governor notes in his report: “In [Burkina Faso] apart from Fulbé and Tuareg, the word Islam does not invoke the significance one would find among other black Africans. There was no leader compared to notable Tijanis like Umar Tall, Malick Sy, or the Qadiriyya Ahmadou Bamba, or the economic progress of Senegalese brotherhoods. Neither were they as loyal as other African Muslim leaders.”24 The paternalistic attitude in this observation is obvious and I comment on it elsewhere. The above discussion suggests that unlike the Mossi’s neighbors, Islam did not become the religion of the Mossi courts of Yatenga and Mogho until the early eighteenth century, in the case of Mogho, and the twentieth century in the case of Yatenga. The diffusion of Islam among the population began during colonial rule at the turn of the twentieth century. A further remark concerning religious animosities is warranted at this point. How do we explain Mossi hostility toward Islam? I believe, in agreement with Massing and Levtzion, that Mossi hostility toward Islam and Muslim states to the north of Mossi territories related to economic factors, and not religious imperatives. The Mossi territory was not rich in the resources on 22 ANS 2G27/10, RPA, et administratif, Haute Volta, 1927, 108. 23 Ibid., 107. 24 ANS 2G49/28, RPA, HV, 1949, 62.

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demand in the regional market (salt and gold). Furthermore, Mossi could not participate in long distance trade, since this was firmly in the hands of Mande/Djula Muslims, who controlled the elaborate networks and had influence among the political elites of the various commercial cities on the trading routes. Extracting taxes from merchants crossing the Mossi territory was also probably insufficient or unreliable in sustaining the polity, especially if the trading routes shifted away from Mossi territories. The most practical option left for the Mossi was to use their superior cavalry to raid their wealthy neighbors and the caravans traversing Mossi territory. I suspect Mossi oral sources highlight the religious factor to justify the need to defend ancestral religion and customs against a foreign religion in the same way the Barbary states of North Africa emphasized hostilities between Muslims and Christians to legitimize what seemed clearly economic and political imperatives. Levtzion comments: “ . . . in rejecting Askiya’s ultimatum, the Mossi rejected not the religion of Islam per se, but Islam as the religion of the northern powerful neighbor, acceptance of which might have implied political submission.”25 It is also worth noting that the Mossi’s openness to Islam was inspired by the acceptance of Islam by Mamprusi in today’s Northern Ghana, to whom Mossi kings trace their genealogy and consider them their “fathers,” meaning their ancestors.26 Consequently, when Mamprusi rulers embraced Islam, Mogho rulers followed their lead. Levtzion notes: The Mamprusi chief is regarded as the ‘father’ of the Mossi chiefs. Sons, one tradition says, imitate the father; so when Moro-Naba Dulugu [Mogho Naba Dulugu] heard that the Mamprusi chief had an imam besides his other ministers, he wished to have an imam in his court as well. He therefore invited a Muslim from Zitenga, and made him the first imam. This Muslim, Mustafa Baghayogho, was a member of a family of Timbuktu origin, who had first settled at Mane, and then at Zitenga, both in Mossi. [. . . ] Islam had been introduced to Mamprusi during Na Atabia’s reign early in the eighteenth century, over half a century before Naba Dulugu’s reign. [. . . ]27

Thus, understanding the process of Islamization within a regional context is crucial to unveiling identical and divergent patterns that connect societies through ancient kinship genealogy, as well as through Islam. I now turn my attention to Ghana and begin with the Asante, who belong to a

25 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 164. 26 Ibid., xiv; Wilks, “The Mossi and the Akan States,” especially 467–76; Davis, “Strategies,” 233. 27 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 167–68.



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different linguistic group and lie outside the Volta Basin. It has remained a non-Muslim society until today, despite the warm reception it granted to Muslim merchants and medicine men for at least two centuries. Islam in Ghana prior to European Colonialism: Compromise and Coexistence with the Asante The Muslim landscape of Burkina Faso prior to the colonial period is remarkably comparable to that of Ghana during the same period. Like Burkina Faso, the territories that formed the present day Ghana had pockets of Muslim areas, while a good portion had no exposure to Islam whatsoever. In addition, Ghana has a peculiar climatic division that seems to correspond to cultural affinities. Whereas the people of the north, located in the Savannah belt in the lower Volta Basin (see map 2) share some common linguistic and cultural affinities that connect some of them to the Mossi, the people of the forest zone further south stretching to the coast, also shared common cultural, linguistic, and kinship ties. This is especially true for the large Akan family group, as mentioned in the first section of this chapter. On the other hand, Ga-Adangbe and Ewe, as well as numerous others, also belonged to their specific linguistic groups. The main linguistic group in the south that concerns us is Asante, the largest of the Akan family group and the territory that had a more extensive connection with Muslims and Islam than its southern neighbors. The historical relationship between the Asante and Islam deserves only a brief mention here, since it has been analyzed quite thoroughly by competent historians and anthropologists since the 1960s. Here the reference is only intended to place the Asante in the larger regional trade networks, to offer a comparison of the attitudes of the Mossi and the Asante rulers toward Islam and to provide a general background for understanding the various ways Islam appealed to different societies. Ivor Wilks provides some important lines of comparison between the Mossi and the Asante with regard to the process of Islamization.28 This brief discussion also seeks to lay the foundation for my analysis of Adam Appiedu, an Asante Muslim reformer of the postcolonial era, and one of the major educational and cultural entrepreneurs of postcolonial Ghanaian Islam (chapter 5). My discussion of the Asante will also be necessarily brief because, since

28 Wilks, “The Mossi and the Akan States.”

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Asante ruling elites have remained non-Muslims, any detailed discussion of that polity is an unnecessary digression. Founded in the late seventeenth century, the Asante kingdom remained the largest and most powerful state in that region until the colonial conquest.29 By the time of its final defeat by the British in 1901, the kingdom (or empire) had stretched from the southern fringes of the present-day Asante region to parts of Northern Ghana and westward toward the frontiers of modern Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Akans in general (Asante included) comprised the vast majority of Ghana’s population (close to half of the country’s population).30 Like most parts of West Africa, Islam entered the Asante and other Akan territories between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or earlier, through the commercial activities of people of Djula/Mande origins. From an earlier trading diaspora founded at Begho or Begro (a town in the Brong Ahafo Region), these traders extended their commercial activities into the Asante and other Akan territories, from where they obtained gold dust, the main trading commodity, while selling salt and other North African goods to the Akans. These merchants were warmly received by the Asante ruling elites. Pioneering scholars of Asante history have demonstrated how Asante rulers, unlike their Mossi counterparts, recognized the political, intellectual, and economic importance of these traders to the kingdom’s prosperity and to 29 Ibid., 493. The primary and secondary literature on Asante history is vast. The primary sources include Joseph Depuis, Journal of Residence in Ashantee (London: Cas, 1824); the reader may find the various works of Wilks particularly accessible. See, for example, M. Priestley and Ivor Wilks, “The Ashanti Kings in the Eighteenth Century, a Revised Chronology,” JAH 1, no. 1 (1960); Ivor Wilks, Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). 30 Taking an accurate population census in Ghana, as in other parts of Africa, is a highly complicated and politicized process. Even given the difficult aspects of the politics of enumeration characteristic of population censuses throughout the world, the case of Ghana is further complicated by the ambiguity of ethnic identification, by the current regional divisions in which a region contains mostly the indigenous population but also a large number of migrants from other regions, as well as the descendants of external migrants from other parts of West Africa. For example, when one calculates the population of Akans in the predominantly Akan regions (Brong Ahafo, Asante, Eastern, Western and Central Regions), the population of Akans exceeds ten million out of the nineteen million Ghanaians. However, there are a large number of other ethnicities living in these regions. See Table 7, 2000 Population and Housing Census, Summary/Reports of Final Results, Ghana Statistical Services, Accra, March 2002. In addition, many individuals may identify themselves with a specific ethnic group depending usually on facts, precluding different parental origins, but sometimes also based on convenience, which further complicates the actual numbers. When religion is factored into the equation, the issue becomes even murkier. It was for this reason that Ghana’s 2000 population census was challenged by Muslims who argued that the Muslim population had been undercounted.



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the spiritual and political powers of individual Asante rulers.31 As David Owusu-Ansah cogently argues, the most important benefits of Muslims to the Asante, besides the trade they brought to that vibrant kingdom, was the various medicinal and spiritual services they offered the ruling elites to ensure good health for the rulers and military victories.32 The peaceful relationship that existed between the Asante and the Muslim community was remarkable and scholars have traced it to the intellectual influence of Hajj Salim Suwari, whose teachings rejected violent jihad and encouraged peaceful coexistence between Muslims and their non-Muslim hosts (see the introduction). From the stretch of the Volta Basin into the Asante, merchants and itinerant scholars influenced by Suwari’s ideas of peaceful coexistence pursued congenial relationships with people of the Asante. Suwari’s teachings, as argued in the introduction, probably led these merchant/scholars to avoid proselytizing in the empire. This attitude also led the Asante rulers to see Islam as non-threatening to the polity and useful for the spiritual powers and trade it brought to the Asante. One could argue that Suwari merely endorsed what was clearly a pragmatic approach. Considering the small size of the Muslim population, any attempt by a foreign cleric to pursue strategies of conversion not approved by the Asante rulers would have been suicidal and detrimental to commerce.33 Moreover, the Asante rulers warmly welcomed foreign Muslims and provided them with significant social influence. Regardless of the context in which these merchant/scholars drew on the teachings of Suwari to justify their strategies of peaceful cohabitation with nonMuslim rulers, the strategy gave Islam a good image and facilitated its local reception even though, in places like Asante, it did not lead to the conversion of the ruling elites. Thus, although neither Asante rulers nor their subjects converted to Islam in large numbers, the image of Islam remained favorable among them, as observed by many European visitors 31  Depuis, Journal; Wilks, Asante in the Nineteenth Century; David Owusu-Ansah, “Islamization Reconsidered: An Examination of Asante Responses to Muslim Influence in the Nineteenth Century,” Asian and African Studies 21 (1987): 145–63; David Owusu-Ansah, Islamic Talismatic Tradition in Nineteenth Century Asante (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991). 32 Owusu-Ansah, Islamic Talismatic Tradition; David Owusu-Ansah, “Prayer, Amulets, and Healing,” in The History of Islam in Africa, ed. Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 481–82; David Owusu-Ansah, “Islamic Influence in a Forest Kingdom: The Role of Protective Amulets in Early 19th Century Asante,” TransAfrican Journal of History 12 (1983): 100–33. 33 Jean-Louis Triaud and and David Robinson, Le temps des marabouts: itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française v. 1881–1960 (Paris: Karthala, 1997), 10.

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during the nineteenth century.34 If Akan speakers and their neighbors in what is today southern Ghana did not embrace Islam during the precolonial period in any significant proportion, this is not the case of the large territory of the Middle Volta Basin north of Asante. The early penetration of Islam in the customs and polities of the more centralized states of Wala, Dogomba, Gonja, and Mamprusi, which probably began as early as the sixteenth century but reached a climax during the eighteenth century, correlates with the activities of Mande/Djula merchants and scholars, followed in the early nineteenth century by the Hausa. A number of towns in these societies flourished based on trade, and as scholars among the traders settled permanently in these towns, those towns became centers of Islamic learning as well.35 Levtzion identifies several of these towns dotted along trade routes that served as centers of Mande trading networks and hubs of Islamization. These included YendiDabari (“Ruined Yendi,” the ancient capital of Dagomba), Buipe, Mpaha, Gambaga, and Salaga.36 The legends of a number of these ethnic groups, especially Gonja, Dagomba, and Wala, attribute the founding or at least the consolidation of their states to Mande-speaking Muslim warriors and scholars.37 For example, the state of Gonja is said to have been founded in the sixteenth century by Mande-speaking Muslim warriors called Gbanya. These warriors helped to defeat the Mossi and the Dagomba who had hitherto ruled over the people of Gonja. The Mande warriors were assisted by Muslim merchants, who had established themselves in Gonja before the invasion. Similarly, the Dagbani attribute the founding of their state to invading Muslims from the north, probably Mande-speaking people. Further west is the Wala kingdom at Wa. Similar to the societies listed above, the Wala also constructed a genealogy of the expansion of the kingdom to include the influence of foreign Muslims.38 As Ivor Wilks and Nehemia Levtzion have recorded, the Wala also offer three stages of Islamization beginning with Mande warriors, followed by Mande scholars, and subsequently, during the nineteenth century, with Hausa merchants and scholars. This is typical of the process of the gradual diffusion of Islam 34 See, for example, Depuis, Journal. 35 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 6–7; Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (New York and London: Longmans, 1984), 45. For a summary discussion of the Islamization of these Northern Ghanaian ethnic groups, see Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism. 36 Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs. 37 Hiskett, The Development of Islam, 120ff. 38 Wilks, Wa and the Wala, 48–49.



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and its integration with indigenous practices, at least among the ruling elites of centralized West African states that embraced Islam. By the early eighteenth century, several generations of the Mande/Djula settlers had become localized, and had thus evolved into local clerical lineages in the major urban centers, becoming, in effect, religious leaders with significant influence among the ruling elites.39 During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Hausa merchants dominated the kola trade and gradually replaced Mande/Djula merchants.40 This was the beginning of the development of Hausa influence in this region: Hausa scholars and language dominated the local intellectual landscape, gradually obliterating most of the traces of Mande/Djula influence.41 Although the increasing importance of kola nuts in the trans-Saharan trade attracted Hausa merchants, the Sokoto jihad pursued by Uthman dan Fodio and his followers from 1804 till the occupation of the Sokoto Caliphate by the British in 1901 probably played an important role in encouraging Hausa/Fulani scholars to combine trade with proselytism.42 A Dagomba chronicle, for example, mentions the visits of emissaries from Uthman dan Fodio to Dagbon.43 Like the Mande before them, the Hausa founded immigrant residential quarters, called zongo, in major northern cities including Salaga, Krachi, Yendi, Tamale, and Gambaga; these still bear signs of the Hausa presence. Yet, despite the probable influence of the Sokoto jihad on these merchants, the Hausa also lived peacefully with their Muslim neighbors, as well as with their non-Muslim hosts, primarily the Asante and other Akans. * * * In both Ghana and Burkina Faso, Islam was introduced by foreign merchants and scholars generally described as Djula or Wangara (people of Mande-Soninke origin) and subsequently as Hausa. Trade in gold and kola nuts took these merchants as far as the Akan forests of what is today southern Ghana. Ghana and Burkina Faso, however, present a particular

39 Ivor Wilks, “The Tradition of Islamic Learning in Ghana,” Arabic Collection, Institute of African Studies (University of Ghana (Legon), Accra, 1966), 4; Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 13. 40 Paul Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola: Hausa Kola Trade, 1700–1900 (Zaria, Nigeria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1980). 41  Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 13. 42 See the discussion of dan Fodio and the Sokoto Caliphate in the introduction of this book. That section also provides a list of important readings. 43 Wilks, “The Tradition,” 6.

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paradox; the most powerful states in these two territories (the Asante kingdom and the two Mossi kingdoms of Yatenga and Mogho) remained outside the expanding Islamic influence for centuries. Although the rulers of these kingdoms allowed Muslim merchants and scholars to settle among them and even obtained the services of Muslim diviners and scribes, they carefully resisted conversion to Islam. Whereas we can explain the resistance of the Asante kingdom by its location further south, where it was, perhaps, beyond the vigorous activities of Muslim proselytizers, the Mossi rulers’ resistance to Islam during the precolonial era has continued to puzzle historians. The centralized states of Northern Ghana, the Mossi neighbors, and their kin were more receptive to Islam, at least from the early sixteenth century or earlier. The genesis of Islamization in both Ghana and Burkina Faso thus follow the patterns observed in other parts of West Africa—it was a slow and gradual process in which the ruling elites embraced Islam while the vast majority of the population remained non-Muslim for a long period of time. Obviously, the extent to which the ruling elites adopted Islam and opened up the polity to Islamic influence, as elsewhere, depended on the personal piety of individual rulers, but the strategic interests of the ruling elites also played a significant role in the long term, especially when Islam could strengthen the political and economic bases of the society without undermining indigenous traditions. This partly explains why Islam did not become the religion of the Asante despite the warm reception they gave Muslim traders and medicine men. Islamic norms conflict with Asante customs related to state functions and the personal “purity” required of the Asantehene (the king of Asante) to perform some of his political and religious functions.44 The indifference and sometimes hostility of the Mossi ruling elites toward Muslim proselytizers also explains why that territory remained largely non-Islamic until the colonial era (in the case of Yatenga, and in the case of the Mogho kingdom, less than a century before the coming of Europeans). In contrast, the rulers of many of the centralized states of what is today Northern Ghana not only allowed Muslim traders and learned men to settle among them and to freely proselytize, but also found something valuable in Islam and embraced it, at least outwardly. Based on the criteria for identifying an Islamized society in the larger Volta Basin listed above, I consider the centralized states of

44 It is generally known in Ghana that bodily incision, for example, disqualifies one from becoming an Asante ruler.



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Dagbon, Gonja, Mamprusi, and Wala to be Islamic. All these states meet more than four of the criteria. I have also examined the societies from Northern Ghana to the Mossi in Burkina Faso. As a cultural unit the centralized kingdoms shared some cultural and linguistic affinities. A majority of the people of this vast region consider themselves Muslims today and they are recognized as such by their neighbors. Yet this is a new development that started in the eighteenth century and accelerated during the twentieth century. By analyzing these varied groups as a cultural unit (without losing sight of local historical contingencies), we may be able to explain more clearly the interconnectedness of state formation, trade, and conversion to Islam. For example, we see reconstructions of the genealogy of the ruling elites of Dagomba, Gonja, and Wala that accentuate Muslim influence. This is not the case with Mamprusi and Mossi aristocrats, who accepted Islam but maintained their ancient genealogy without adding a Muslim genealogical string to it. In my opinion, the inclusion of a Muslim genealogical link to Dagomba, Wala, and Gonja traditions starting from the seventeenth century is not an indication of a fabricated genealogy, but rather signifies a break with the past, whereby the new state considered itself part of a new broader trend in the region marked by the acceptance of Islam as the state religion, at least formally. Mossi and Mamprusi rulers did not find such a linkage necessary even as they joined other groups in the region in embracing Islam. The spread of Islam was thus peaceful, and the tradition of cohabitation persisted into the colonial period. Though there were some minor and sporadic intra-Muslim doctrinal disputes, we do not have an example of violent confrontations among Muslims equivalent to events in the Western and Central Sudan. Similarly, violent confrontations between Muslims and non-Muslims over religious issues were practically nonexistent. Interestingly, the various indigenous religions allowed Islam to share their sacred space, cohabitating with Islam in ways that facilitated pragmatic inculcation. This situation is not remarkably different from many other parts of West Africa. As many historians have pointed out, most of the jihads in the region arose from attempts to purify Islam rather than to impose Islam on non-Muslims.45 This is not to deny the attempts to

45 See Ousmane Kane for an excellent summary of this argument, “Islamism: What is New.” For a much older but still useful discussion of this topic, see for example, Nehemia Levtzion, “Islam in West African Politics: Accommodation and Tension between the

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expand the Islamic sphere (dar al-Islam) pursued by some pious Muslims elsewhere in the region (including Askia Muhammad Touré and the leaders of Masina discussed above with reference to Yatenga). Rather, these jihads represented isolated cases in the Volta Basin, and appear to have been motivated by political exigencies, including persistent Mossi harassment,46 which were absent in the vast region of the Volta Basin. In this region and in the Akan territories as well, Muslim clerics remained under the tutelage of the ruling elites up to the coming of Europeans. Thus, while elsewhere in West Africa Muslim clerics had begun to challenge the authority of indigenous rulers starting from the seventeenth century, the relationship between these clerics and indigenous rulers in the Volta Basin continued to be characterized by a division of power and functions that fostered peaceful coexistence and religious tolerance. This vast region demonstrated a remarkable religious pluralism, wherein Muslims, Christians, and observers of indigenous faiths lived side by side for centuries, occasionally frowning upon each others’ practices and when the need arose, tapping into each others’ occult powers for mundane purposes.47 The Volta Basin offers a good example of religious coexistence comparable to other parts of West Africa where Muslims constituted an influential minority. This peaceful cohabitation with non-Muslims persisted into the colonial period and partly explains the rapid expansion of Islam under colonial rule. In the interest of order and less expensive colonial rule, both the English and the French inadvertently suppressed potential religious conflicts, thus making it easier for Muslim clerics to proselytize freely in hitherto non-Muslim societies. The process of Islamization had begun a century or so earlier; European colonialists just inadvertently accelerated the process. Obviously, it was not the intention of European colonizers to facilitate the growth of Islam; this occurred in spite of some attempts, especially by the French, to obstruct Islam’s expansion. I turn to this in the next chapter.

‘ulamā’ and the Political Authorities,” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 18, Cahier 71 (1978): 333– 45; Curtin, “Jihad in West Africa”; Willis, “Jihad fi Sabil Allah.” 46 See Massing, “Wangara.” 47 The image of a mallam among Akans was not that of a pious Muslim teacher and religious leader, but a spiritualist, someone who could effect change through his ability (they were always males) to access metaphysical powers. The other descriptive name for this Muslim spiritualist is kramo, a Mande corruption of the Arabic karama (charisma in English), but also designated as a religious teacher.

Chapter Two

Managing the “Islamic Menace”: Islam under British and French Rule In the previous chapter I argued that by the early twentieth century, Islam had been successfully woven into the cultural and religious fabric of most of the centralized states of the Volta Basin. Although Islam had been known in the region primarily as the religion of foreign merchants, the nominal and actual conversion of a number of rulers of the Volta Basin, especially during the nineteenth century, took Islam to a new threshold. Thus the penetration of Islam into these societies began just a few decades before the European conquests and then accelerated during the colonial period. This chapter examines Islam during the colonial era. A great deal has been written on the development of Islam in the Northern Territories of Ghana under British rule, however, it is difficult to accurately assess the size of the Muslim population in relation to non-Muslims because of the limited data available. Based on the observations of European visitors and the historical records left by Muslim scholars, historians are cautious not to exaggerate the size of the Muslim population. The general impression is that prior to the nineteenth century the population of those who professed to be Muslims was essentially small in comparison to the nonMuslim population, although the existence of an Islamic culture can be dated back to the sixteenth century or even earlier.1 In contrast, both oral data and the observations of early European visitors to the territories that later became Burkina Faso (the Upper Volta) under the French allow us to conclude with some certainty that the Muslim population as a whole was sparse prior to the colonial era. Similarly, the depth of the penetration of Islam into local cultures was limited, although the process was underway. For the Volta Basin as a whole, one can only argue that the presence of Islamic culture in the form of Islamic regalia and observations of Muslim holidays and festivities appears to have preceded large-scale conversion; this is rather typical of the process of Islamization in West Africa generally. I have also noted 1 For the most recent discussion of this subject, see Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism, especially 134.

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that the conversion of the ruling elites did not disturb the religious coexistence that prevailed between Muslims and non-Muslims, as indicated by the limited aggressive proselytism during this period. While scholars have been unable to provide a clear picture of the relative size of the Muslim population prior to the colonial period, they agree that by the end of the colonial era, Islam had become, by all measures, the religion of the majority of the inhabitants. Historians have explored this paradox and concluded that in their search for order, stability, and inexpensive colonial rule through a system of indirect rule, European colonizers inadvertently facilitated the expansion of Islam. There is ample evidence from the predominantly Islamized colonies of the Western and Eastern Sudan to support this conclusion. In these places, European patronage of powerful Muslim leaders made it possible for these leaders to freely propagate their faith and to gather followers under the watchful eyes of helpless colonial authorities. This rather pragmatic maneuvering has been carefully analyzed with reference to the French, and by more competent scholars since the 1960s. Robert Launay and Benjamin Soares describe it as a pragmatic division of spheres, in which European administrators (in this case the French) controlled political matters, while Muslim leaders maintained their religious influence.2 David Robinson describes it as a strategy of “accommodation”; this I discuss further below.3 In addition to these strategies, the adoption of indirect rule in which the political influence of Muslim rulers was extended over non-Muslims also facilitated Islam’s growth during the colonial period. In the historiography of Islam under colonial rule, it is now well-established that colonial administrators’ alliances with Muslim elites and the utilization of pre-existing Islamic legal and administrative infrastructures reinforced Islam’s position as a source of sociopolitical power and thus easily attracted new converts. While the historical records in the more Islamized colonies suggest that European patronage, as well as the new social and political infrastructures that emerged under colonial rule, contributed to the unprecedented growth of the Muslim populations, this is not the case with less Islamized colonies like Ghana and Burkina Faso, where colonial administrators did not establish pragmatic alliances with Muslim leaders. How do we explain this variation and what does it mean for our attempts to understand the

2 Robert Launay and Benjamin Soares, “The Formation of an ‘Islamic Sphere’ in French Colonial West Africa,” Economy and Society 28 (1999): 497–519. 3 Robinson, Paths of Accommodation.



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relationship between Islam and European colonialism? This chapter offers some explanations with reference to Ghana and Burkina Faso. I compare the policies pursued by the French and the British toward Islam and Muslims in the Volta Basin in order to highlight the contradictions embedded in colonial policies and assess how Muslim elites took advantage of the colonial presence to win new converts and to develop new institutions of learning. Interestingly, French and British attitudes toward Islam and Muslims in Burkina Faso (Upper Volta until 1984) and Ghana (Gold Coast until 1957) respectively, were in some ways identical. Here, the British and the French did not establish specific Islamic policies in these territories, which they considered non-Muslim, nor did they cultivate long-term relations with powerful Muslim elites. It is nonetheless important to place the discussion in a regional context so as to clearly delineate variations in colonial practices and determine how the size of the Muslim population affected colonial policies toward Muslims in each colony. Regionally, the main contours of European attitudes toward Islam derived from a pervasive apprehension of Islam as a potential force in mobilizing anti-colonial rebellion, as suggested by the sporadic rise of mahdism during the first decade of colonial rule. The period of colonial conquests also coincided with the rise of a number of Muslim reformers seeking new followers and building states. The expansion of the Tijaniyya, which emerged as the dominant Sufi brotherhood in the region during the twentieth century, occurred just as the European penetration reached a new threshold.4 This, along with the spread of mahdism, heightened Europeans’ apprehensions. Meanwhile, other new Muslim intellectuals with powerful religious and political arguments, such as the Salafiyya in Egypt, were gaining strongholds in the Middle East and other parts of Muslim Africa. Apprehensive of potential Islamic threats, both the British and the French adopted policies, albeit in an ad hoc manner and inconsistently, aimed at curtailing real or perceived threats of “Islamic fanaticism.” Colonial rulers pursued a major strategy of controlling Islamic knowledge and seeking to instill European ideas into the Muslim psyche. To an extent, the policies of the French and the British toward West African Muslims were consistent, at least in the realm of their attempts to prevent the spread of Islamic

4 This is also true about the rise of the Muridiyya, an offshoot of the Qadiriyya in Senegal.

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knowledge, which, they believed, would develop into what they called “Islamic fanaticism.”5 While the policies pursued by both the French and the British in their more Islamized colonies might have had some positive effects on the development of Islam during the colonial period, this was not the case with Ghana and Burkina Faso. Here, rather than assisting the development of Islam, colonialists left Muslim leaders in charge of Muslim affairs, including Islamic education, but maintained a keen surveillance on these leaders to ensure that religious activities did not threaten colonial order. Ghana and Burkina Faso therefore offer a more convincing explanation of how the development of Islam during the colonial period is traceable to Muslims’ own efforts rather than to any specific European policies. I explain this with reference to the history of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo in Burkina Faso. Robert Launay and Benjamin Soares’s argument that European colonialism inadvertently resulted in two spheres, one religious and the other political, is applicable not only to the more Islamized colonies but also to those colonies that administrators declared less “Islamized ” for the purpose of colonial rule.6 What distinguishes Ghana and Burkina Faso from the relatively more “Islamized” colonies was the limited involvement of colonial administrators in the development of Muslim institutions. Holger Weiss describes this situation as a “benign neglect.”7 These colonies provide us with a particular insight into the operation of these separate spheres. Moreover, perhaps by mere coincidence, or possibly by accurate observation, the criticism of Wahhabi-oriented preachers regarding the practices of African Muslims reflected those of colonial administrators as well. Just as colonial administrators dismissed local Islamic practices as syncretic or “superstitious,” Wahhabi-inclined scholars in many parts of West Africa declared the prevailing Islam “unauthentic.” As I explain below, the parallels between European criticisms of local Islamic practices and those of Wahhabi-inclined scholars encouraged the reception of Wahhabism among urbanized Muslims, especially those trained in colonial institutions. The colonial moment is thus a crucial flashpoint for explaining the

5 Brenner, Controlling Knowledge. 6 Launay and Soares, “The Formation.” See also chapter 8 of Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy. 7 Holger Weiss, “Variations in the Colonial Representation of Islam and Muslims in Northern Ghana,” Ca. 1900–1930, JMMA 25, no. 1 (April 2005), 87.



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receptivity of Wahhabi ideas during the late colonial period and the early decades of independence. During the first decade of colonial rule, however, the main concern of European administrators centered on eradicating any religious tendency that would affect colonial order. This concern resulted from the activities of a few Muslim leaders who claimed to be the mahdi (redeemer of the epoch). Mahdism and the Discourse of “Islamic Fanaticism” in Colonial West Africa French and British colonial policies and practices toward Islam in their respective colonies have been examined quite extensively by several scholars since the 1960s, although the subject continues to attract attention, as the most recent literature indicates. I will therefore highlight those strategies that are crucial for understanding the arguments presented in this book. European colonial penetrations into West African Muslim societies varied in intensity depending on location and the colonial power. Whereas the British fought and conquered the Sokoto Caliphate before succeeding to impose colonial rule over Northern Nigeria, British dominance in other places, including the Gambia and the interior of the Sierra Leone Colony, was achieved with limited resistance, especially after the collapse of the Samori Empire in 1896. With reference to Ghana, after defeating the Asante state in 1896, British officials successfully convinced the various rulers of the territories north of Asante to accept British protection.8 These territories came to be united under the Protectorate of the Northern Territories. In contrast, French troops encountered Muslim and non-Muslim forces as they attempted to colonize the territories that later became Burkina Faso. The most important Muslim resistance was that of the Marka jihadi leader, Ahmadou Demé, al-Kari of Boussé. Ahmadou Demé began his reform activities just before the French conquests. Claiming to be the Mahdi sent to reform his society, he successfully mobilized the population to drive away the French, but succumbed to the massive firepower of French forces in July 1894.9 A similar fate awaited Karamogo Ba, the

8 Wilks, Wa and the Wala; Davis, “Strategies”; Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism. 9 Myron Echenberg, “Jihad and State Building in Late Nineteenth Century Upper Volta: The Rise and Fall of the Marka State of Al-Kari of Bousse,” CJAS 3, no. 3 (1969), 532.

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Almamy of Lanfiéra, in 1896. Ba had earlier supported the French against rival Muslim leaders in the hope that the French would help him propagate Islam. However, realizing that the French were not interested in helping him, he turned against them in a bloody confrontation that resulted in his execution and that of his followers.10 Such uncoordinated local resistance against the French continued even when colonial rule seemed to have been effectively established. For example, after converting a few followers to Islam, a self-proclaimed mahdi, Alassane Moumini, mobilized the local population in early 1908 to resist French taxation. Later that year, he organized a militia of 2,000 men to confront French forces, only to be massacred by French provincial guards.11 Thus, by the turn of the nineteenth century, the French claimed Muslim leaders’ loyalty had been achieved. For instance, the governor-general of French West Africa remarked in 1904 that “Islam continues to progress slowly, but continually. None of its manifestations can be interpreted as a sign of tendencies hostile to our domination. The religious leaders are, on the contrary, mostly devoted to us.”12 However the sporadic rise of individuals claiming to be mahdis, as discussed above, led the French to distrust Muslim loyalties. Not willing to take chances, colonial administrators developed elaborate police and intelligence networks that surveyed and documented the activities of all Muslim clerics. The popularity of Salafi ideas in the Middle East and the strengthening alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Germany intensified French and British apprehensions of possible pan-Islamic rebellion. After suppressing the Mahdiyya movement in the Anglo-Sudan (1885 to 1896) led by Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, the British confronted another mahdist movement in Northern Nigeria immediately following the conquests of the Sokoto state. Led by a blind cleric, this mahdist rebellion spread to French Niger and northern Cameroon, posing a significant threat to British, French, and German colonialism.13 The extent to which the mahdi rebellion in Northern Nigeria 10 Hamidou Diallo, “Islam et colonisation au Yatenga (1897–1950): étude de quelques aspects,” Le mois en Afrique. Études politiques, économiques & sociologiques afri­caines 21, nos. 237/238 (1985), 36–37. 11  Ibid., 10–11. Suspected of having supported this rebellion, the Mossi chief of Kippirsi, the town where Moumini gathered most of his followers, was also severely punished by the French and deposed. 12 Governor-general to the minister of colonies, May 10, 1904. Cited in Donal Cruise O’Brien, “Towards an ‘Islamic Policy’ in French West Africa,” JAH 8 (1967), 314. 13 For the Northern Nigerian Mahdi movement, see Lovejoy and Hogendorn, “Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1950–6,” JAH 31 (1990): 217–44. For mahdism and German perceptions of Islam, see Holger Weiss,



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spread to other parts of West Africa is unclear.14 Although these encounters were relatively less intense than earlier Muslim-French skirmishes in the more Islamized colonies, they nonetheless shaped French administrators’ perceptions that Islam could provide the platform for anti-colonial sentiments. Like the French, the British were also concerned about the spread of mahdi rebellion in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (Ghana), which they suspected would be organized by Mallam Musah, a Fulbé preacher from Nigeria. In 1905, Mallam Musah arrived at Yeji, an important trading town on the southern estuary of the Volta River, where he actively preached “true” Islam and helped the Muslims of the town build mosques and Qur’anic schools. Mallam Musah’s criticisms of religious laxity, such as the consumption of alcohol by some of the ruling elites who claimed to be Muslims, alarmed colonial administrators. Fearing that such criticisms might endanger the peaceful religious atmosphere of the town, British administrators expelled him from Yeji, but allowed him relocate to Wa, another important Islamic center on the western fringe of the Northern Territory, where he was enthusiastically received by the people. As Holger Weiss notes, anxious for some kind of Islamic “civilizing influence” in the territory, the local administrator allowed him to proselytize freely.15 However, within a month, he was accused of inciting religious conflict and expelled from the colony.16 With the “suppression” of Mallam Musah’s alleged xenophobic propaganda, the British claimed victory over a real or perceived mahdist threat.17 During the same period, the French also claimed to have brought the mahdist threat to an end. Nonetheless, the fear of potential Muslim rebellion led to the development of a new discourse about Islam that emphasized its threat to colonial rule at the same time that colonial authorities hoped it would instill some moral values on indigenous Muslims. In the minds of colonial authorities, therefore, Islam came to stride between “a semi-civilized religion” that “German Images of Islam in West Africa,” Sudanic Africa, A Journal of Historical Sources 11 (2000): 53–94. 14 Jean-Yves Marchal, Chronique d’un cercle de l’AOF, Ouahigouya (Haute Volta) 1908– 1941 (Paris: ORSTOM, 1980); Diallo, “Islam et colonization.” Up to the 1920s, the idea of mahdism had not completed disappeared. For example, in 1923, El Hadji Moussa, another self-acclaimed Mahdi, mobilized Fulbé in the Dori region to rebel against the French. El Hadji Moussa was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. ANS 10G12 (107), Lt. Gov. Hesling’s report, Affaire politique, Ouagadougou, August 9, 1923. 15 Weiss, “Variations,” 79. 16 Ibid., 79n67. 17 Ibid., 79n72.

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could help to foster social order, and a potential threat to colonial rule. To navigate between these two extremes, the British and the French each developed a new discourse about Islam that centered on whether it was qualitatively comparable to the Arab world, or syncretic. The higher the “quality,” they argued the more belligerent it was likely to be. Muslim clerics were therefore classified as either “good” or “bad” based on their level of Islamic knowledge, which Sufi brotherhood they affiliated with, and how rigorous their teachings and practices appeared to colonial authorities. The few years before the outbreak of World War I marked the climax of this discourse. The Sufi orders (the Qadiriyya and the Tijaniyya) were both scrutinized for their radical messages or loyalty toward local colonial administrations. For instance, in Northern Nigeria, as Patrick Ryan notes, the British considered members of the much older Qadiriyya order “good Muslims” on account of their putative tolerance toward what the colonialists considered religious syncretism, while members of the Tijaniyya were declared “bad Muslims” because of their rigid adherence to Islamic orthodoxy and their emphasis on the acquisition of religious knowledge. The French classification of Muslims, between malleable and threatening, is even more telling, though the policies that developed from these classifications remained inconsistent throughout the colonial period. The French developed a more elaborate policy toward Muslims than the British, as well as a more extensive intelligence network that they believed was necessary to prevent the rise of “radical” Islam. In 1906 they established the Islamic Affairs Bureau in Dakar to enforce new rules governing religious activities and to gather intelligence on Muslim leaders and their activities throughout the federation.18 The Arrêté sur l’Indigénat, the main body of laws concerning Muslims, for example, prohibited the circulation of Islamic literature not approved by the colonial administration and restricted Muslim clerics’ proselytizing activities, including regular visits to their students. The law also required all travelers to obtain a laissez-passer before departing, and to report to the colonial authorities on arrival at their destinations. Establishing Qur’anic schools and building mosques also had to be approved by local administrators.19

18 In the circular to administrators and provincial commanders of the colonies on the subject of Islamic movements, 1906 Circular no. 5. ANS 15G103, Affaires Musulmans, 1903– 1914. This folder contains files on marabouts in Haute-Sénégal-Niger, Ponty’s 1903 and 1906 circulars, and files on the nature of Islam in the colonies. 19 ANS 15G103.



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The first decade of the twentieth century thus represented a shift in the French attitude toward Islam, from one of trust to fear and ambivalence. Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the writings of scholaradministrators who claimed some knowledge of Islam. William Ponty, the governor-general of French West Africa (1908–15), championed this new trend. In a series of memos, he cautioned provincial administrators to distrust the sincerity of Muslims and keep a vigilant eye on them. To prevent the rise and diffusion of anti-colonial ideas, he required administrators to “restrict the diffusion of Islamic literature and ideas that nourish such antagonism.”20 In the few years preceding World War I, Ponty defined the “Islamic menace” to include outward expressions of rigorous piety, erudition, charisma, and social influence. Piety, charisma, and knowledge thus represented the defining characteristics of a potentially dangerous Muslim, even if such a leader had formally or informally declared his loyalty to the French. Ponty goes further to identify the type of Islam that the French should encourage to flourish, or suppress. In defining the different textures of Islam that had the highest potential for threatening colonial order, Ponty distinguished between what he called “Islam noir” (Black Islam or African Islam), which he defined as syncretic and superstitious but receptive to colonial rule, and what he defined as “Islam arabe” (Arab Islam), the latter being a strict adherence to orthodoxy, but belligerent and threatening to colonial rule. West African Muslims, he argued, were largely loyal to colonial rule precisely because of the lower standard of their “Islam.” He noted: “Our Muslims simply adapted the Qur’an to their ancestral customs and superstitions . . . Instead of substituting their ancient beliefs with the new law [of the Qur’an], they simply added it to their fetishism.”21 Elaborating further on this distinction, he stressed that Islam noir was characterized by magic and mysticism, while Islam arabe “emphasized the five pillars of Islam, condemned superstitious beliefs associated with the production and sale of gris-gris (talismans), and the use of zam-zam (holy water obtained from a well in the K’aba).” For

20 Circular No. 29C, “On the Subject of Using French in the Indigenous Judicial Proceedings, and Administrative Correspondence.” From William Ponty, governor-general of FWA to the lieutenant-governor of Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey, Upper Senegal and Niger, the Commissioner of the General Government and Civil Territories of Mauritania, May 8, 1911, ANS 19G4, p. 1 (p. 73 of folder). A “Muslim police force,” which was staffed with officers secretly selected from among non-Muslims, served as the main instrument of French intelligence gathering and enforcement of the laws. Pierre Englebert, Burkina Faso: Unsteady Statehood in West Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999). 21  Ponty’s letter to Clozel, ANS 17G8, 14.

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Ponty and other administrators who came after him, the “syncretic Islam noir” was to be preserved against foreign ideas emanating from the Arab world.22 The racism and colonial arrogance of downgrading the purity of African Islamic practices is obvious and illustrative of the colonial attitude of the time. However, we need to understand the strategic purpose of separating African Islam from that of the Arab world: it allowed French colonial administrators to assume that they could divide, manipulate, and control the Muslim umma. But the separation also allowed them to pay close attention to the rise of ideas considered inimical to colonial stability, whether such ideas were organic or came from external sources. As Christopher Harrison argues, the notion of separating West African Muslims from the Arab world remained the core agenda of French administrations, especially during Ponty’s reign.23 In 1911 Ponty encouraged his successor, François-Marie-Joseph Clozel, to exert considerable energy in barricading West African Muslims from the Arab world: “If the Islam of our West Africa is to be kept unsullied by foreign influences then it is essential that the linguistic barrier between black Africa and the Arab world be maintained.”24 He went further, suggesting that in order to ensure an effective separation of the two Islams, colonial administrators should encourage local customs involving the consultation of diviners and the belief in the magical powers of talismans, while maintaining a vigilant watch on individuals preaching against these practices, including “foreign charlatans.”25 This attempt to “quarantine” West African Islam from the rest of the Muslim world continued until the end of World War II. Ponty also considered knowledge of the Arabic language a dangerous source of fanaticism. Criticizing the existing policy of using Arabic in colonial administration as detrimental to the French “civilizing mission,” he recommended the substitution of Arabic with French; he insisted that this would expose West African Muslims to the benign and relatively “superior” French culture and civilization.26 As he articulated in his 1908 book,

22 Circular No. 105C: Surveillance of Muslim Press. From William Ponty, governorgeneral of FWA to the lieutenant-governor of Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey, Upper Senegal and Niger, the Commissioner of the General Government and Civil Territories of Mauritania. Dakar, November 15, 1911. ANS 19G1, 2. 23 Harrison, France and Islam. See also Jean-Louis Triaud, “Islam in Africa under French Colonial Rule,” in The History of Islam in Africa, ed. Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000): 16–187. 24 Circular No. 29C; also Harrison, France and Islam, 51n89. 25 1906 Circular No. 5. 26 Circular No. 29C.



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la Politique des races, he saw Islam as an obstacle to the “civilizing mission” of the French and blamed his predecessors for favoring Islam’s progress and failing to recognize its tendency to “quickly adopt the character of a more or less dissimulated resistance to all European innovations.”27 He observed more emphatically, “Everyone knows that the study of French is the most effective one can employ against [religious] fanaticism, and experience teaches us that Muslims who know our language are less imbued with prejudice than those who know only Arabic.”28 Incoherent as these policies might seem in retrospect, they provided a general framework that guided French administrators throughout the federation. Paul Marty summarizes the French agenda in his book, published in 1919: “One of the chief principles of our Muslim policy in West Africa [is] to win over and turn to our advantage the forces of Islam, wherever this religion has triumphed over local animism, but to carefully avoid helping its development in fetishist societies, much less working ourselves to aid its diffusion and more vigorous implantation.”29 Thus by the end of World War I, French colonial policies had begun to emphasize “la mission civilizatrice” in the broader French agenda, and in covert or subtle ways sought to undermine Islamic cultural influences in order to fully expose Muslims to French civilization and modernization. Yet French policies were neither consistent nor always enforceable. Rather, colonial policies and practices varied from one period to another, and largely depended on the relationship between a specific administration and local Muslim allies. Nonetheless, by linking advanced Islamic learning with religious fanaticism, French administrators (at least theoretically) justified the need to limit Muslims’ mobility, to control Islamic schooling, and to restrict Muslims’ access to Islamic literature wherever possible. Jonathan Reynolds argues that, comparable to the French, the British considered Muslims in their territories, especially those of Northern Nigeria, the largest British colony in Africa, good Muslims precisely because their knowledge of Islam was limited. To safeguard this loyalty, colonial administrators attempted to isolate Northern Nigerian Muslims,

27 Ibid. 28 Circular of William Ponty, August 30, 1910, L’Afrique Française. Bulletin du Comité de l’Afrique Française du Comité du Maroc, 1910, p. 341, cited in Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 41. 29 Paul Marty, Etude sur l’Islam au Sénégal, vol. 2, 122, cited in O’Brien, “Towards an ‘Islamic Policy,’ ” 315.

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whose loyalty remained unwavering, from foreign ideas.30 Almost two and a half decades after the British conquests of Northern Nigeria, British officials considered the Qadiriyya a “conservative” religious order and a less “fanatical” form of Islam; this, despite the strong resistance of Qadiriyya rulers against the British conquests. In comparison, they saw the relatively new Tijaniyya order as a “fanatical” brotherhood that emphasized rigorous religious practices and the acquisition of knowledge. Captain G. Callow’s remark in 1926 is quite telling: The majority of the Muslims here [Adamawa] follow the Khadariya form of worship. It appears to be by far the most lenitive [soothing] sect . . . and perfectly harmless to the state; I think it would be quite impossible to arouse followers of this sect to any fanaticism, they take their religion much too easily, rather in fact like the average Englishman of today, who reserves his devotional exercises for Sundays—if it is too wet to play golf.31

This remark is not surprising given that Lord Lugard, the master theorist of British colonial rule in West Africa, had codified the colonial perception of Islam in Africa: Islam is a religion incapable of the highest development, but its limitations clearly suit the limitations of the people. It has undeniably had a civilizing effect, abolishing the gross forms of pagan superstition and barbarous practices, and adding to the dignity, self-respect, and self-control of its adherents. Its general effect has been to encourage abstinence from intoxicants, a higher standard of life and decency, a better social organization and tribal cohesion, with a well-defined code of justice.32

As Reynolds correctly commented, while Lord Lugard appeared to admire and defend Islam, he was also cognizant of the realities that by promoting Islamic rule in Northern Nigeria the British also “unavoidably encourage the spread of Islam, which has the advantage of being subject to waves of fanaticism, bounded by no political frontiers.”33 This remark echoes Ponty’s earlier observation, further demonstrating European colonial administrators’ perception of Islam as a force for change but also a

30 Jonathan Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims: Islam and Indirect Rule in Northern Nigeria,” IJAHS 34, no. 3 (2001): 601–18. 31  Cited in Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 608. This section draws extensively on Jonathan Reynolds’s article cited above; I am indebted to him. Arewa House (Kaduna, Nigeria) K.2867/14, September 25, 1926, Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 607. 32 Lord F. Lugard, Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (London: Blackwood and Sons, 1922), 78. Quoted in Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 611–12. 33 Ibid., 603.



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potential threat to colonial rule. With this view of Islam, British colonial authorities, comparable to the French, also attempted to control Muslims’ mobility, limit the establishment of Islamic education, and restrict the diffusion of Islamic literature in Northern Nigeria. For instance, Northern Nigerian pilgrims were required to obtain passports before leaving on the pilgrimage. The possession of passports allowed colonial authorities to closely observe their movements and the individuals they met during the trip to and from Mecca.34 Like the French who identified a segment of the Muslim leadership as allies and others as enemies of both colonial rule and the Islamic status quo, British officials in Northern Nigeria also reinforced their alliance with Hausa Qadiriyya aristocrats and sheltered these elites against rival scholars and Sufi orders such as the emerging Tijaniyya. Reynolds observes: During the 1920s, the British often referred to those Tijaniyya who advocated any change from the status quo as Pseudo-Tijani. Thus, those who deviated from the normative Islam as constructed by the British colonial office in the early twentieth century were somehow illegitimate. This suggests a pronounced attitude that the suitable nature of society for Africans should be static—that change, particularly any change not managed by the colonial rulers, was a negative force.35

The Tijaniyya’s elaborate transcolonial network, its rivalry with the Qadiriyya brotherhood, and its emphasis on religious learning (from the point of view of British colonial administrators) constituted a profound threat to both the British administration and the Qadiriyya rulers of the region. Not only did colonial administrators consider the Qadiriyya non-threatening, they also concluded, quite arrogantly and naively, that Qadiriyya leaders fostered a “pedestrian” Islam for the purpose of selfpreservation. The Resident Officer of Kano remarked in 1925: The Hausa States and countries of the former Sokoto and Gando Empires were and are still content with their modicum of Moslem and Arabic learning and look to their national hero, Shehu dan Fodo, as their inspired leader and Khalifa . . . I suggest that the right line for Government is to encourage Residents in the former Sokoto and Gando dominions—while keeping a close watch on foreign missionaries of the Mahdia, Tijani or other persuasions—to take a quiet but active part in reawakening interest in the

34 Ibid. As Reynolds quite accurately observes, the British benefited significantly from the massive intelligence the French were collecting throughout the AOF, Algeria, and Chad. 35 Ibid., 616.

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chapter two history of Dan Fodio’s Jihad and the study of Bello’s book, Infaku’l Maisur, which not only gives that history in detail but prescribes the teaching, the prayers, and ceremonial of the dan Fodio Tariqa, which is still the inspiration and model of the mass of Moslems in the Northern Provinces.36

Interestingly, colonial authorities not only ignored the content of dan Fodio’s reform, which emphasized spiritual purity and encouraged Islamic education throughout the caliphate, but they also viewed it as the source of religious backsliding. Muhammad Bello’s Infaq al-maysur, which the resident officer correctly identified as the main source of the history of dan Fodio’s 1804 jihad and reform, emphasized strict observance of the Sharia.37 Yet colonial authorities continued to emphasize that Nigerian rulers were reluctant to promote higher Islamic learning for fear that such knowledge would endanger their own religious and political dominance. The British Resident in Kano continued: “The Emir [of Kano’s] remark about the learning given in Kano being all that is required for anyone suggests that the movement started in our schools a few years ago to devote more time to Arabic and importing teachers from the East is misguided, our policy should be one of disorientation.”38 The extent of mutual borrowing among French and British colonial administrators is difficult to ascertain. However, it appears that they pursued identical policies in their more Islamized colonies, policies that guided their relations with Muslims in the Muslim minority colonies such as Ghana and Burkina Faso. For example, the conclusion reached by the Resident of Kano echoes Ponty’s argument in 1911 that the use of Arabic in French colonial administration retarded effective French control over their conquered territories. Colonial authorities could not ignore the need for Arabic in colonial administrations and therefore experimented with new Islamic schooling—madrasas that combined religious and secular courses—as a means of preparing Muslim cadets to be used in colonial administrations. For many colonial administrators the madrasa schooling provided the means for nurturing Muslims’ interest in colonial rule and to prevent the development of radical religious ideas.

36 Arewa House 15543, January 28, 1925, Resident Kano to Secretary, Northern Provinces. Cited in Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 608. 37 Muhammad Bello, Infaq al-maysur fi tarikh bilad al-takrur, ed. C. E. J. Whitting (London: Luzac & Co., 1957). 38 Arewa House 15543, January 28, 1925, cited in Reynolds, “Good and Bad Muslims,” 607.



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Taming Islamic Knowledge: Colonialism and the Development of the Madrasa Colonial Madrasa schooling, which represented attempts to “modernize” and secularize Islamic education by teaching Muslim students secular knowledge, sought to achieve two objectives: train new elites in Arabic and secular knowledge to enable them to work for colonial administrations, and promote specific Islamic knowledge that would suppress potential anti-colonial rebellion. Prior to the use of English and French in administering colonies considered “Islamic,” both the British and the French had used Arabic as the primary colonial language. The shift from Arabic to a European language did not occur until after World War I. Moreover, as part of their struggle to tame religious “fanaticism,” the British and the French believed it was crucial to nurture a new generation of educated Muslims who would identify their interests with those of their colonizers. In 1906, to achieve this dual strategy, the French opened the first madrasa in French West Africa (FWA) at Jenne in Mali, followed by that of St. Louis in Senegal in 1908, and that of Timbuktu (Mali) in 1911. Along with religious studies and Arabic, these schools also taught young Muslim elites the French language and culture in an attempt to expose them to French civilization and to curtail the influence of Islamic culture. As the governor-general of the FWA noted unambiguously, “The new médrasa would be our most effective answer to Islamic propaganda.”39 The inspector of education for the FWA summarized the administration’s objective in his 1921 report: The médrasas are Muslim educational establishments designed in principal to divert to the profit of French policy the influence that the marabout exercise over the Muslim population. The médrasas are meant to dissipate the pretension of the Muslim world against our civilization. To this effect, they trained interpreters, secretaries for the Muslim course, etc. and they developed advanced Qur’anic studies while giving the students a proper view of the civilizing role of France.40

As early as the 1820s, British administrators in the Colony of Sierra Leone, Britain’s oldest West African colony, had adopted Arabic as the official 39 ANSOM, Soudan, 1/11, Rapport politique AOF 2 ème trimestre, 1906, cited in Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 41. 40 ANM, 1-G-72FR: Quoted in a letter from the Director, Ecole Régionale de Tombouktou to the Governor of Soudan Français, February 25, 1936, cited in Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 42.

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language of correspondence with indigenous rulers.41 Believing that Arabic was the medium of communication among Muslims in the interior and because they needed Muslim intermediaries in colonial administrations, the British encouraged the study of Arabic and discouraged the establishment of mission schools in predominantly Muslim areas of the interior. By the 1830s, however, the Christian Mission Society (CMS) began to pressure the colonial government to end what many missionaries considered the favoritism toward Islam that prevented the Society from obtaining new converts, especially in the interior. Responding to these complaints in 1833, Governor Findlay prohibited Muslim teachers from dwelling in the liberated African villages (created for freed slaves). This was followed in 1840 by Governor Doharty’s instructions to destroy two mosques built by Muslims in these villages.42 These restrictions were soon abandoned, when in 1841 Dr. Madden, who had been dispatched to investigate the operation of the colonial government, warned against any policies that could incite Muslims to rebel against the European presence, thus discouraging the imposition of restrictions on Muslim educators.43 As a result, earlier colonial policies that had restricted Muslims’ activities were abandoned after the 1860s, culminating in the establishment of Islamic schools. In 1870 the Caribbean-born Edward Blyden initiated the teaching of Arabic at Fourah Bay College. Ironically, the CMS, which had earlier opposed the administration’s use of Arabic, also established a Muhammadan School in 1876 in the hope of attracting Muslim children to the mission.44 As the first director of Muslim education, Blyden established an educational scheme for Muslims that combined secular and religious courses, and adopted the grading system of mission schools in order to raise the standard of Islamic schools. Blyden himself opened his own madrasa in Fourah Bay in 1887, and between 1890 and 1912 the government supported local initiatives to establish a madrasa system of education throughout the colony and protectorate.45

41  David Skinner, “Islam and Education in the Colony and Hinterland of Sierra Leone (1750–1914),” CJAS 7, no. 3 (1976), 503. Also PRO: CO 268/8 vol. 3 (1810); PRO: CO 267/38, cited in Skinner, ibid. 42 PRO: CO 267/119; PRO: CO 267/172, cited in Skinner, “Islam and Education,” 513. 43 Ibid. 44 PRO: CO 267/384, Dispatch no. 338. Mr. Sunter’s Report on Schools, August 1, 1890, cited in Skinner, “Islam and Education.” 45 Muhammadan Education Ordinance of 1902 (PRO: CO 267/462), cited in Lamin Sanneh, The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West African Pluralism (London, 1997), 151.



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In the Gambia as well, British colonial administrators established similar schools in Bathurst and Armitage during the turn of the century, specifically to train Muslim cadets for employment in the colonial administration.46 Although juxtaposing Qur’anic and secular studies allowed these schools to qualify for government financial assistance, the schools encountered enrollment and retention problems because, as Fisher observed, the scheme was tainted with the original sin of “infidel” sponsorship.47 Doubtful of the administration’s intention, most Muslim parents refused to send their children to these schools. Perhaps the most successful of these Muslim schools sponsored by British colonialists were those founded in Northern Nigeria. In 1922 the Katsina College was founded as an Anglo-Arabic college, followed in 1934 by the Northern Provinces Law School at Kano, which trained Muslim judges for the colonial administration. In 1947 it was renamed the School for Arabic Studies.48 Like the French madrasa, the schools established by the English were intended to promote the interests of colonialism. The remarks of Sir Hugh Clifford, the governor of Northern Nigeria, at the opening of the Katsina College, are worth repeating here. He noted: “[The College was designed] to lead the northern Nigerian Muslim elite without undue distraction into the modern age with their religious values protected, but with a little cricket thrown in it.” With the usual colonial paternalism, he added that the graduates of the college would propagate not only the lessons they had “learned from books which they will here acquire, but the way that good Muhammadans should live, the good manners, good behavior and the courteous deportment without which mere booklearning [sic] is of little worth.”49 In other words, the graduates of the college would adopt the English colonialists’ definition of what constituted a good Muslim, and would promote modernity. However, while a number of Muslim leaders cooperated with colonial authorities for strategic and pragmatic reasons, the colonialists’ attempts to induce, through colonially sponsored Muslim schooling, doses of European culture and scholarship, met with subtle and overt resistance. Muslims created madrasa schooling, which expanded immediately after the colonial period.

46 Sanneh, The Crown, 151n14. 47 Fisher, “Islamic Education,” cited in Sanneh, The Crown, 150. 48 Muhammad Sani Umar, “Education and Islamic Trends in Northern Nigeria: 1970– 1990s,” Africa Today 48, no. 2 (2001): 223–29. 49 Sanneh, The Crown, 149.

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While both the French and the British experimented with ways to encourage Muslim schooling and use it as the means of transforming Muslims’ attitude toward the colonial establishment, there were no identical attempts in Ghana and Burkina Faso, where the development of Islamic institutions were left in the hands of Muslim clerics. This is not to suggest that the European initiatives in the societies mentioned above made any significant contributions to the development of Islamic knowledge; rather, the neglect of Muslim schooling further supports the argument that both the French and the British considered the presence of Muslims in Burkina Faso and Ghana negligible. The development of madrasa education, which combined secular and religious education formulated in such a way as to induce European ideas into the Muslim psyche, represented a profound strategy that sought to manage the Muslim “menace.” As Brenner and Harrison rightly argue, the French had no intention of fostering the development of Islam or Islamic schooling, they simply wanted to reach out to Muslims by controlling the kind of religious education available. Similarly, as Reynolds and Sanneh argue, the British saw the madrasa as the main entry into Muslims’ religious landscape. Both projects were unsuccessful. Muslims themselves transformed the structures of Islamic education from the older Qur’anic schooling, which emphasized rote learning at the primary level and reserved the study of Arabic for an advanced level, to madrasa schooling. The development of madrasa schooling by the British and the French thus represents another area that allows us to identify the identical strategies colonial administrators pursued to “control,” as Brenner notes, Muslims’ religious education and social formation. French Policy toward Islam in Burkina Faso In the discussion above I have drawn examples from British and French colonial policies toward Muslims in colonies with large Muslim populations. While these represented the broader practices, the English and the French pursued different strategies in their relations with Muslims in Ghana and Burkina Faso, two colonies that had been declared “nonIslamic.” French administrators considered Burkina Faso the border between the Islamized and non-Islamized parts of the French federation. Its Islamic history is unique and thus allows us to assess the effectiveness of French policies toward Islam.



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As noted, at the time of the French conquest, Muslim leaders attempted to prevent the French from colonizing their territories.50 Although these encounters were relatively less intense than Muslim-French encounters in Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali, they nonetheless shaped French administrators’ perceptions that Muslims were numerically small but potentially dangerous. In the absence of formidable local Muslim allies to negotiate better concessions with the French, the Burkina colony, which was also very poor in natural resources, experienced one of the harshest colonial rules in the French federation. Here we have some examples of the harsh application of the 1907 law discussed above.51 Following the recommendation by Clozel, then the lieutenant-governor of Haute-Sudan, that violators of the 1907 law be punished to the extent permitted by that law, a Muslim scholar from Ouagadougou received a fifteen-year sentence for attempting to open a Qur’anic school in Ouahigouya (about one hundred miles further north) in 1912 without first obtaining permission from the local administrator.52 Clozel was an ardent believer in the responsibility of French colonialists to protect indigenous African customs against Islam.53 He argued: We must restore to fetishism its powerful personality of the past, which our excessive centralization has almost caused to disappear because of our failure to understand and appreciate [those customs]. . . . It seems to me that such enterprise should be undertaken immediately [so that] our most “trustworthy” auxiliaries would be the chiefs, the indigenous judges, and our school teachers. . . . In order to direct their initiatives and render them more effective . . . we have to undertake the codification of the more widely known customs: those of the Bambara, Malinke, Bobosé and Mossi.54

50 Marchal, Chronique d’un cercle de l’AOF; Diallo, “Islam et colonization.” 51 Circular No. BC 11: From François Clozel, the governor-general of French West Africa, to the lieutenant-governor of Upper-Senegal-Niger, Commandants, Military Territory of Niger and the region of Timbuktu, and Administrators and Provincial Commanders, August 12, 1911. ANS 15G103, 4, under section “Organisation de la police Musulmane.” 52 Ali Ouédraogo, “Le Mouvement Islamique dans l’Etat Mossi du Yatenga,” Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université de Dakar, 1984–85, 77; Issa Cissé, “Les médersas au Burkina, l’aide arabe et l’enseignement arabo-islamique,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 4 (1990), 33. After serving his sentence he was deported to Ouagadougou. 53 Circular No. BC 11, 3. 54 Ibid. This codification of African civilizations led to the voluminous works of Maurice Delafosse and Paul Marty, which subsequently guided French policies and reconstruction of ethnicity. Maurice Delafosse, Les noirs de l’Afrique (French Edition) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 1922); Paul Marty, Etudes Sur l’islam au Sénégal,

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Clozel also believed that the best strategy for preventing the spread of radical Islamic ideas was to curtail the expansion of Islam altogether. Burkina Faso was the dividing line. Here the French allowed the Catholic Church to establish its first mission in French West Africa, in contrast to policies pursued in other parts of the federation, where Christian missionaries were denied such permission. In 1901, a year after the territory officially became a colony, the White Fathers established their first Mission at Koupèla, followed by one in Ouagadougou the same year.55 The archival records clearly suggest that colonial officials expected the Catholic Church to act as a fortress against Islam’s expansion further south. The two Mossi kingdoms of Yatenga and Mogho, as noted, had resisted Islam for centuries prior to the arrival of the French. By permitting the Catholic Church to establish its first mission in French West Africa there, a mission that subsequently expanded south into Northern Ghana, French colonial authorities implicitly or explicitly allowed Catholic missionaries to contribute to preventing the Islamization of the Burkina people and others south of that territory. Despite a degree of ambivalence toward the Catholic Church among some colonial administrators after the 1905 law that separated church and state, in Burkina Faso the relationship between administrators and missionaries remained cordial throughout most of the colonial period.56 The relationship between Monseigneur Joanny Thévenoud of the White Fathers, who arrived in 1903, and the administrator Henri Marie Joseph, posted in 1911, was particularly amicable, and established a precedent followed by subsequent administrators. Édouard Hessling, the first governor of the colony (1919–28), and his successors Louis Fouset and Albéric Fournier were all known to be sympathetic to the White Fathers’ mission.57 If in France the Catholic Church was independent from the state, in Burkina Faso the Church became an extension of the colonial state and

vol. 1: Collection de la revue du monde Musulman, ed. Ernest Leroux (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1917). 55 See ANS 2G30.10/1, Rapport politique annuel, Haute Volta, 1930, 1. 56 See Joseph-Roger de Benoist, Église et pouvoir colonial au Soudan français: les relations entre les administrateurs et les missionaires catholiques dans la Boucle du Niger, de 1885 à 1945 (Paris: Karthala, 1987): 314–15. For an administrator’s view of the role of the Church in the colonial enterprise, see de Benoist’s summary of various records of both colonial administrators and diaries of missionaries, 384–85. Paul Baudu, Vieil empire, jeune Église: monseigneur J. Thévenoud, 1878–1949 (Paris: Edition la Savane, 1957). 57 de Benoist, Église.



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was granted the responsibility of promoting the French “civilizing mission” through its monopoly in educating the people of the colony.58 The fact that the French made no effort to establish the Islamic schools that were being experimented with in other parts of the federation further testifies to the administration’s plans not to allow Islam to flourish in this colony.59 As Otayek and others have observed, there is a strong indication that some colonial officials cooperated with missionaries to limit the development of Islamic education, despite opposition in the metropole to such collaboration.60 As late as the 1940s, colonial administrators continued to view the Catholic Church as an agent of French culture and a solution to the “Islamic menace”. In a letter to the governor of the French Sudan (now Mali) concerning the district of Ouahigouya where missionaries had difficulties attracting young Mossi, the inspector of administrative affairs, Jean Rappenne, pleaded with the governor to give missionaries full power to recruit children for their schools.61 In 1949 the governor argued that in order to block the expansion of the “fanatic” Hamawiyya, the colony needed highly inspirational and enthusiastic missionaries who would be tolerant of all groups and be willing “to spread the aroma of life and not the odor of death.”62 Compared to the colonies where Muslims constituted a sizable majority, the development of Islamic institutions in Burkina Faso suffered as a result of a combination of limited resources, colonial prohibitions against Muslim mobility and the establishment of Islamic schools, and the favorable position the White Fathers’ mission enjoyed in the colonial administration. By the late 1920s the stagnation of Islamic schools, or the lack of them, had become evident.63 The annual political reports from 1923 to 1930 consistently note that Qur’anic schools were underdeveloped and their teachers mediocre.64 While mission education flourished (though still much less than in other colonies), Qur’anic schools languished. 58 Englbert, Burkina Faso, 131. 59 René Otayek, “L’affirmation élitaire des arabisants au Burkina Faso,” in Le radicalisme islamique au sud du Sahara, ed. René Otayek (Paris: M.S.H.A, 1993), 232. 60 Ibid. 61  Jean Rappenne’s letter to the governor of Sudan: Surveillance of Hamaliyya activities, May 17, 1941. ANS 15G39 (17): Rapport politique, Sudan, cercle of Ouahigouya, Inspector of Administrative Affairs (1932, 1938–1941). 62 ANS 2G49/28, RPA, HV, 1949, 62. Although he did not elaborate, he was probably referring to an alleged bloody insurgence in Bobo-Dioulasso in 1941 in which the Hamawiyya were implicated, or to the general belief that the Hamawiyya were belligerent. 63 Englebert, Burkina Faso, 130. 64 Ibid.

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chapter two British Colonial Attitude toward Muslims and Islamic Schooling in Ghana

Like the French, the British did not consider Ghana (Gold Coast until 1957) an Islamic territory despite the significant population of Muslims in the north. As a result, the British also neglected to develop Islamic institutions, leaving these in the hands of Muslim communities and individuals. As was the case with the French in Burkina Faso, but unlike the British in Northern Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the British also tacitly allowed mission schooling to flourish, especially those that qualified for government subventions. From their stations in Burkina Faso, the White Fathers established other missions at Navrongo and Lawra in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, where the populations were mostly non-Muslim. In accord with the policy in the more Islamized colonies, the British discouraged the establishment of Christian missions in areas with large Muslim populations, such as among Dagbani, Gonja, and Wala. Thus, until the end of the colonial period, the White Fathers’ schools remained the only means of obtaining secular education in the Northern Territories. In southern Ghana (the Gold Coast Colony), beginning in the early 1800s, various Protestant missionaries established several schools. Humphrey Fisher has given us an idea of the nature of Muslims’ attempt to develop Islamic schooling in the heart of Christian-dominated Fanteland.65 He recorded that in 1896 a Fante Muslim convert, Benjamin Sam, established a new Islamic school at Ekroful that patterned itself on the format of mission schools. This was followed by two more at Ekotsi and Kroboase in 1901. Sam had been a member of the Wesleyan Church and converted to Islam in 1885. Realizing the absence of schools for Muslim children (who were extremely few during this time since the majority of Fantes were Christians), Sam offered secular and religious education, but within an Islamic pedagogical environment. Yet, as Humphrey Fisher has commented, there was nothing distinctively Islamic about the content and structure of these schools; neither Arabic nor the Qur’an was taught and none of the teachers had any training in Islamic education.66 The materials purchased in 1901, for example, included two Bibles and one catechism.67

65 Humphrey Fisher, “Early Muslim-Western Education in West Africa,” Muslim World 51, no. 4 (1961): 288–98. All the schools were in the Christian-dominated Central Region. 66 Ibid., 294. 67 Ibid., 291. The students also learned Christian songs such as “Oh! I Would Own my Tender Care,” and “Holy Father Mighty God.” Although all the students were supposedly



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Sam accommodated the structure of these schools in order to qualify for a government subsidy.68 However, the financial support he obtained from the government was too limited to maintain a regular teaching staff and adequate school supplies. The schools also failed to attract students and therefore collapsed within two decades.69 The Ahmadiyya Mission initiated a combination of Islamic and secular education with its mission, established in Fanteland in 1920;70 they also attempted to extend their activities to the Northern Territories. Here, the mission encountered initial resistance from the colonial administration and from the local community. Concerned about the reactions of the exclusively Sunni Muslims of the north to the Ahmadiyya, who were seen (by Sunni Muslims) as a deviant Islamic group that rejected the final prophethood of Muhammad, the colonial administration discouraged the establishment of Ahmadiyya in the Northern Territories. Ahmad Nizar, the Ahmadiyya leader, persisted in his demands for permission to establish an Islamic school in the North until, in 1932, the superintendent of education for the Northern Territory recommended that the mission be allowed to establish its school since Muslims needed their own educational institution.71 The school closed within a year—a result of low enrollment, due to Muslims’ resistance to the Ahmadiyya doctrine. Further west in Wa, however, the mission’s schools eventually flourished as local Muslims embraced the Ahmadiyya. For the bulk of the Sunni Muslim communities in the Northern Territories and the Colony of the Gold Coast, mission schools remained the only option for obtaining secular education, which they continued to resist until very close to the end of the colonial period.

Muslim, the small number of Fante Muslims combined with the school’s pedagogical content and structure reduced the schools to virtual Christian or secular institutions. 68 The report noted that “this is the first Muhammadan school to be placed on the Assisted List.” Fisher, “Early Muslim-Western Education,” 290. 69 Ibid., 292. By 1910 the Ekroful school had collapsed due to a plague that killed many of the students and affected regular attendance. 70 See for example, “The Ahmadiyya Movement,” NRG 8/19/5, 17 June 1931; and “The Ahmadiyya Movement in the Gold Coast, 1921–1931,” NRG 8/19/1, 25 June 1931. 71  Letter of Permission to Preach in the Protectorate of the Northern Territories from CCNT, Tamale, to the Local Head of the Ahmadiyya Mission, Saltpond, January 24, 1932, PRAAD, Tamale, NRG 8/19/5. I should note that Mr. Thompson, superintendent of education for the Northern Territory, was not interested in Islamic education as such but rather secular education, which he believed the Ahmadiyya mission would include in its schools.

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Islamic knowledge and piety thus posed fundamental dilemmas for British and French colonialists in West Africa. Nervous about what colonial officials considered the Islamic “fanaticism” prevalent in the Islamic heartland, both the French and the British pursued policies intended to isolate West African Muslims from other parts of the Muslim world. By associating piety and knowledge with potential threats to colonial rule, colonial authorities not only justified repressing or marginalizing charismatic leaders who eschewed incorporation into the network of loyal subjects, but also attempted, though unsuccessfully, to inhibit the development of Islamic schooling and religious reforms that they considered threatening. Their concerns derived not from local rebellions against colonial rule, of which there were none after the 1920s, but rather from the fear that new and radical Islamic ideas developing in the Middle East might spread to West Africa. The French, more than the British, pursued policies designed to curb the influence of charismatic Muslim leaders. In the remaining sections of this chapter, I analyze more specifically French policies toward Muslims in Burkina Faso. Here, in contrast to the British colony of Ghana, we see more clearly how charismatic and radical reformers engaged with colonial rule. I focus on the relationship that evolved between Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo and the French in order to demonstrate how Islam developed in these societies, not as a result of the patronage of French administrators, but through the initiatives of Muslim elites who took advantage of the colonial presence to expand Islam’s frontiers. Sawadogo also helps us to see more clearly the ambiguities of French policies toward Muslims, especially in the so-called less Islamized colonies. Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo and French Policies toward Muslims in Burkina Faso The history of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, who embarked on a peaceful jihad of conversion among the Mossi during the colonial period, provides a convincing explanation for the growth of Islam in Burkina Faso at the height of French colonialism. His founding of the Rahmatoulaye branch of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya provides a rare window into French colonial policies toward Islam, especially in the colonies seen by the French to have fewer Muslims. His relationship with the French particularly suggests the limitations of the French administrators’ ability to fully control the diffusion of ideas they considered inimical to colonial rule. The biography of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo also provides an excellent example



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of a strategy pursued by a number of Muslim reformers; a strategy that tolerated French rule but avoided any close affinity with the administration. Colonial authorities, unable to identify him with any overtly aggressive activities, also sought ways to coexist with him. To a large extent it was this mutual strategy of coexistence between colonial rulers and Muslim elites, rather than the collaboration/resistance theory that dominated earlier literature, that convincingly explains how the growth of Islam did not affect colonial stability or, conversely, how colonial rule did not inhibit the expansion of Islam. The history narrated here, which combines oral and archival sources to reconstruct French policies toward Muslims in the colonies, and specifically with regard to Muslim practices that were considered “un-Islamic” by the French, provides an opportunity to examine the development of Islam during French colonialism, to understand the French colonial policies in “less-Islamized” colonies, and to reconsider the relationship that developed between French administrators and charismatic Muslim leaders. As argued earlier, unlike Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, and Guinea, where Islam was well-established before the colonial conquest, Burkina Faso had only a limited exposure to Islam prior to the arrival of the French, and the Muslim population was negligible, at least from the perspective of French administrators. For this reason, the French did not cultivate the friendships with charismatic Muslim leaders that would have helped to promote a positive image of the French presence. Until the turn of the millennium, the historiography of French policies toward Islam concentrated on determining the extent of Muslim leaders’ collaboration or resistance to French colonialism.72 Inspired by theories of nationalism and anti-colonialism, local and Western scholars have explored the various strategies Muslim leaders employed to protect their religion and society against “infidel” domination. Those leaders who resisted French expansion through armed struggles were declared 72 For example, Robinson, Paths of Accommodation; Robinson and Triaud (eds.), La Tijaniyya; Robinson and Triaud (eds.), Le temps des marabouts; Brenner, Controlling Knowledge; Harrison, France and Islam; David Robinson, “French ‘Islamic’ Policy and Practice in Late Nineteenth Century Senegal,” JAH 29 (1988); Donal Cruise O’Brien and Christian Coulon (eds.), Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); O’Brien, “Towards an ‘Islamic Policy’ ”; Myron Echemberg, African Reactions to French Colonial Conquest: Upper Volta in the Nineteenth Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971); Jean-Louis Triaud, La légende noire de la Sanusiyya: une confrérie musulmane saharienne sous le regard francais (1840–1930) (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1995).

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resistors and thus loyal to their people, while those who cooperatd with the colonialists were dismissed as collaborators. Muslim leaders who submitted to French rule received the administration’s support, and this enhanced their positions within their respective societies and allowed them to gain followers. By arguing that these leaders managed to gather followers and spread Islam under the watchful eyes of the French, the literature implicitly concludes that collaboration proved beneficial for Islam’s development by allowing the so-called collaborators to preserve Islamic institutions, and it even facilitated Islam’s expansion despite hostile French policies. Yet by focusing on strategies of collaboration or resistance, scholars have overlooked more subtle forms of mutual dependency between colonial administrators and Muslim elites. In his recent work, Paths of Accommodation, David Robinson shifts the discourse from collaboration and resistance to strategies of accommodation pursued by colonial administrators and Muslim leaders. He notes, quite convincingly, that Muslim leaders in the Senegal-Mauritanian region “negotiated relations of accommodation with the Federation of French West Africa [in which] they preserved considerable autonomy within the religious, social and economic realms, while abandoning the political sphere to their non-Muslim rulers.”73 In return for their retreat from politics, which was essential for colonial stability, the French rewarded these allies by protecting them against their rivals. The rivals of these Muslim elites were either suppressed by French administrators or sent into exile, thus fostering new Muslim leadership favorable to the French. What is particularly incisive in Robinson’s argument is the recognition of mutual dependency between the French and Muslim leaders in the contexts of intra-Muslim rivalry. The shift from a focus on Muslims’ strategies to recognizing the ways the French opened up channels of communication and reached out to Muslim elites is particularly important in understanding the complexity of religious politics. However, Robinson’s work also fails to recognize that Muslims’ retreat from overt politicking did not mean they withdrew from other, more restrained forms of political action. By accepting French patronage and benefiting from colonial administrators’ suppression of other Muslim rivals, these leaders indeed participated in colonial politics in ways that were considerably subtle, but still formidable. Rather than accommodation, perhaps we should look at the ways

73 Robinson, Paths of Accommodation, 1–2.



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in which Muslim leaders engaged with colonialism through the concept of “coexistence.” The idea of coexistence differs from Robinson’s strategy of accommodation by its emphasis on the peaceful cohabitation between the French and Muslim leaders, albeit in an atmosphere of mutual distrust and even antagonism. Coexistence helps to explain how the limited resources available to French administrators in remote parts of the French West Africa (henceforth AOF) compelled some administrators to “cohabit” with potentially threatening charismatic Muslim leaders who avoided any alliance with the French. It also helps to explain the strategies some colonial administrators employed to ensure colonial stability in the absence of formidable allies, and how other Muslim leaders pursued their missions in the absence of colonial protection. The analysis of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo provides an excellent example of a strategy that combined tolerance of French rule with a focus on religious matters and the avoidance of overt political activities. I argue that Boubacar and French administrators coexisted in a “peaceful” atmosphere of mutual distrust. While the French perceived him as a potential threat, his avoidance of overt political action and his careful compliance with colonial laws confused colonial administrators, making it difficult for them to assess his political motives. Thus, contrary to earlier nationalist historiographies that suggest that Boubacar Sawadogo resisted French colonial rule, a closer reading of the archival sources, combined with oral testimonies of surviving members of his community, indicates that he strategically avoided any form of confrontation with the colonial administration, which he saw as a necessary evil.74 For him, God brought the French to facilitate the growth of Islam in ways that neither the French nor the established Muslim scholars understood. Probably born in 1883, Boubacar Sawadogo began his religious career in 1920 after more than a decade of religious training in North Africa, the

74 My observation thus differs from Boukary Sawadogo’s work that implies Maiga resisted French rule. See Boukary Sawadogo’s MA thesis, “L’implantation et la diffusion du Hamallisme á Ouagadougou depuis 1936,” Université de Ouagadougou, 1990 and doctoral dissertation “Confréries et pouvoirs, la Tijaniyya Hamawiyya en Afrique Occidentale (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger),” Université de Provence, 1998. Also see Boukary Sawadogo, “Islam confrérique au Burkina Faso, la Tidjaniyya Hamwiyya au moogo Central,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara,” no. 10 (1996): 7–23; Assimi Kouanda and Boukary Sawadogo, “Un moqaddem hammaliste au Yatenga au debut du XX siècle,” in L’invention religieuse en Afrique: Histoire et religion en Afrique noire, ed. Jean-Pierre Chrétien (Paris: ACCT-Karthala, 1993).

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Sudan, and Mecca.75 According to oral tradition, he was converted to Islam by a Hausa merchant from Ilorin, Nigeria, called Awudu or Abdul, who lodged in Boubacar’s family house. The year of his conversion is not certain, but it must have been between 1900 and 1902, when the young Boubacar (then Raguima Sawadogo) was about eight years old. During this period few of the indigenous people of the Yatenga kingdom had converted to Islam; the few Muslims in the kingdom were mostly Djula and Hausa merchants, as well as Yarsè and Silmimosse (Mossi of Mande and Fulbé origin respectively).76 The Muslim population was even more sparse in the sheikh’s hometown, Namissguima, about thirty kilometers northeast of Ouahigouya, the Yatenga capital. Here, besides a few itinerant Mandé and Hausa merchants, there was not a single indigenous Muslim at the time Boubacar Sawadogo converted.77 Deeply committed to their ancestral customs and widely renowned for claiming occult powers derived from ancestral spirits (tenkougouri), the people of Namissguima resisted Islam in order to preserve their ancestral religion.78 Because his father was a prominent community leader, the young Boubacar Sawadogo had to conceal his conversion to avoid scandalizing the family. While serving as the merchant’s errand boy and cook, he also secretly learned the Qur’an. Noting Boubacar Sawadogo’s deep interest in Islam and seeing how quickly he had learned the Qur’an, Awudu advised him to go to Mali to further his education in the Islamic sciences and to return to convert his kinsmen.

75 Personal communication, Sheikh Aboubacar Maiga II, Rahmatoulaye, April 4, 2002. For his year of birth see Julliet Van Duc, “Le pélerinage des Voltaïque/Burkina Faso aux lieux saints de l’Islam, passé- présent,” University of Paris I, Sorbonne, 1988, 283. For Hamali litanies, see David Robinson, “L’espace, les métaphores et l’intensité de l’Islam Ouest-africain,” Annales Economic, Sociétés, Civilisation, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1985). The 1943 annual political report noted that he was born in 1895, which is impossible since that would make him fifteen years old when he left to begin his studies. 2G43/18, RPA, Sudan, Province de Yatenga. 76 In 1914 the Muslim population of the cercle of Ouahigouya was 12.9 percent (mostly Fulbé-Rimaibe and Yarsè-Marka) and only 1.2 percent of Mossi were Muslims. Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 34–35; Assimi Kouanda, “La progression de l’Islam au Burkina Faso pendant la périod colonial,” in La Haute Volta coloniale: témoignages, recherches, regards, ed. Gabriel Massa and George Madiéga (Paris: Karthala, 1995), 241; For the role of Yarsè in the propagation of Islam among Mossi, see Kouanda, “Les Yarsè.” I have not read this dissertation but as the title suggests, it deals with the history of Yarsè and their relationship to indigenous Mossi. 77 Adam Zergha Ouédraogo and his brother Saidou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, March 3, 2002. 78 Personal communication with elders in Rahmatoulaye, February 28, 2002. People of Namissguima were renowned for their fetish powers.



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Boubacar Sawadogo is believed to have left home between 1907 and 1910,79 studied briefly at Ahmadou Touré’s famous Qur’anic school at Barmadougou in Mali, then proceeded to Fez, Morocco. After completing the study of some of the major Islamic literature at Fez, he continued to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage. Like most pilgrims during this period, he worked briefly at al-Fasher in the Anglo-Sudan (today the capital of the Darfur region) in order to earn enough money to pay for the rest of his journey.80 While working at al-Fasher he attached himself to a renowned deputy (muqaddam) of the Tijaniyya, Sheikh Ahmad Salmoy, whom he served in the hope of receiving a spiritual blessing (baraka). Having demonstrated his interest in mysticism and his readiness to submit to spiritual authority, Sheikh Salmoy initiated him into the Tijaniyya and authorized him to return home and propagate Islam and the Tijaniyya litany through a peaceful jihad. As Boubacar Sawadogo recorded for his followers, Sheikh Salmoy81 advised him to avoid unprovoked violence in personal and religious matters, and to use his rosary, instead of his sword, to attract people to Islam. “Restrain yourself against aggression and God will protect you against your enemies,” Sheikh Salmoy instructed him.82 From the Anglo-Sudan, Boubacar Sawadogo continued to Mecca, probably between 1916 and 1917, before returning to Burkina Faso in 1920.83 During his travels Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo concluded that not only was the Muslim population in his society small, but that the Islamic practices fostered by the dominant elites did not conform to the standards he observed in the larger Muslim world. Against this background, he believed he had been called to propagate genuine Islam, as practiced by the Prophet. However, in his early attempts to convert his kinsmen of Namissguima, he encountered stiff resistance from the elders who soon drove him out, forcing him to settle in a nearby land where he built his

79 According to colonial records, he left home in 1910. ANS 2G30/10, HV, RPA, 1930, 53. But elders of Rahmatoulaye suggested that he left before 1910; personal communication with elders in Rahmatoulaye, February 28, 2002. 80 Kouanda and Sawadogo, “Un moqaddem,” 334. 81  Sheikh Ahmad “Salmoy” is probably Sheikh Ahmad Salma of whom others, including R. Seesemann, have written. I am exploring this connection. See for example, Rüdiger Seesemann, “The Writings of the Sudanese Tijânî Shaykh Ibrâhîm Sîdî (1949–1999) with notes on the writings of his grandfather, Shaykh Muhammad Salmâ (d. 1918), and his brother, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghâlî (b. c. 1947),” Sudanic Africa 11 (2000): 107–24. 82 El Hadji Adam Zeigha Ouédraogo and his brother El Hadji Saidou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, March 3, 2002. Also see El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002. 83 ANS 2G30/10, HV, RPA, 1930, 53.

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community and named it Rahmatoulaye (God’s benevolence). Here he attempted to replicate the strict religious community of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. Encouraged by his dismissal from Namissguima, which enabled him to claim that, like the Prophet, he had performed hijra (migration to avoid religious persecution), Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo encouraged other Muslims being persecuted by non-Muslim Mossi rulers to join him in the new community of free Muslims. In addition to the standard Islamic prohibitions, he forbade smoking, chewing tobacco, and listening to music.84 While divination and magic were common practices among the scholars, Boubacar Sawadogo declared them, along with promiscuity, to be cardinal sins punishable by dismissal from the community and expulsion from the Tijaniyya. In an attempt to strictly observe the Prophet’s traditions (Sunna), he imposed a strict separation of the sexes and instructed women to wear the veil, and demanded that husbands be responsible for their families. He even prohibited begging by Qur’anic pupils (called Allah garibu), a common practice throughout West Africa and an integral part of Qur’anic education and socialization.85 The Tijaniyya group zikr (wazifa) held after the evening prayer (maghrib) and the recitation of the shahada (la-ilaha illa-Llah) before each of the daily prayers further distinguished the Rahmatoulaye from the rest of the Muslim community.86 Adults learned the Qur’an and other Islamic sciences at the zawiya (Sufi lodge) during the early morning hours, while children received Qur’anic lessons at night. According to colonial records, Boubacar Sawadogo was often surrounded by up to 150 adult students studying the Qur’an and other Islamic sciences.87 Like many Sufi communities, he promoted strong fraternal bonds and mutual dependence among his followers, and obliterated social distinctions while encouraging spiritual distinction. This pluralistic and fraternal atmosphere attracted people from diverse social groups.

84 The only music permitted in the community was the synchronized chanting of lailaha illa-Llah (“there is no god but Allah”), and qasida (poems glorifying God, the Prophet Muhammad, and Tijaniyya sheikhs including Sawadogo). For a list of these prohibitions see “Ouagadougou et Ramatoulaye a l’heure du Maouloud,” in Carrefour Africain, May 6, 1972. Name of correspondent unknown. See also ANS 2G30, RPA, C. I, 1936, 85–86. 85 Mahmadi Sawadogo, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, February 4, 2002. Up to the time of my research this prohibition was still enforced. Therefore, unlike in other parts of the country, one would not see Qur’anic school children begging in Rahmatoulaye. 86 The latter ritual is one of the features that distinguishes Hamawi from other Tijaniyya practices. 87 ANS 2G30/10, RPA, 1930, 54.



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Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo’s popularity spread at a rapid pace among some Mossi scholars, individuals considered to be of slave origins, and youths who rebelled against their elders and sought refuge in Rahmatoulaye.88 His followers also included minority groups like Boussansé, who found his egalitarian teachings appealing, as well as ex-soldiers who had served in the French army.89 With these diverse followers, along with his new interpretation of Islamic practices, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo threatened the very social fabric of Mossi society and customs. Consistent with the Islamic teachings that Muslims pay taxes ( jizya) to the authorities that protect them, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo personally ensured that his followers paid their poll taxes (l’impôt de capitation) regularly. As head of his community, he personally supervised the collection of these taxes and even paid for those who did not have the means.90 Thus, by imposing strict discipline on his community, preaching nonaggression, and ensuring that his followers paid their taxes without compulsion, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo avoided confrontation with the French authorities, who in turn left him alone to spread his ideas. Rahmatoulaye therefore became a spiritual center where the Sharia and what Sheikh Boubacar considered good social behavior were strictly enforced. Just as the Catholic Church provided sanctuary and new opportunities for marginalized members of society, Rahmatoulaye became a sanctuary for marginalized individuals. All this did not appear to alarm French administrators, who probably welcomed the order he imposed on his people. Here, the very knowledge and piety that the French considered signs of fanaticism were fostered without any apparent restrictions from the French. In this respect both the Catholic Church and the newly established Tijaniyya communities at Rahmatoulaye competed for converts when traditional social and political structures broke down at the advent of French colonialism. How did French administrators respond to Boubacar Sawadogo’s rising popularity at a time when the administration in Dakar and Paris considered charismatic Muslim leaders potential threats to the stability of the colony?

88 Colonial authorities and Mossi notables accused him of causing social tension since youngsters rejected their parents’ authority. See, for instance, ANS 2G36 RPA, Côte d’Ivoire, 1936, 85–86. 89 One of these was Tasséré Sawadogo, who was discharged in 1930. ANS 2G32/16, RPA, HV, 1932, 63. 90 This collective payment of the poll tax continued until Thomas Sankara abolished it in the late 1980s.

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Even before his return to the colony after his studies and pilgrimage, the colonial administration had identified Boubacar Sawadogo as a potential threat. On his arrival in Ouagadougou in 1920, the administration accused him of leaving the colony without official authorization and detained him briefly, during which time a French-appointed Muslim cleric was asked to interrogate him and assess his objectives. The cleric cleared him, but recommended that some of his Arabic manuscripts be seized.91 However, in 1921 his fiery sermons, criticism of established scholars and non-Muslim Mossi ruling elites, as well as the rapid growth of his followers alarmed the local commandant de cercle (the district administrator) of Ouahigouya, who summoned him for further interrogation. Finding his activities to be essentially religious, the commandant released him and advised him to tone down his sermons.92 In that year’s annual report the commandant noted that “no incident resulted from [the Sheikh’s] xenophobic propaganda.”93 “Xenophobic propaganda” could mean anything from radical religious ideas to threatening the lives of European settlers. That same year Boubacar Sawadogo left for Nioro, Mali, to visit Sheikh Hamaullah in order to enhance his spiritual position. Sheikh Hamaullah had emerged as a powerful young Tijaniyya scholar who rejected some of the Tijaniyya litany propagated by Hajj Umar Tall, who first propagated the order in West Africa. Although Hajj Umar Tall had clashed with the French, who assisted his local rivals in a bloody confrontation that resulted in his death in 1864, by the 1900s his descendants had accepted French rule. The Umarian branch (Tijaniyya followers of Hajj Umar Tall) therefore remained the dominant, if not the only, branch of the order until the rise of Sheikh Hamaullah. Notably, a violent clash in Kayede (near Nioro) between Sheikh Hamaullah’s followers and the established Tijaniyya community led the French to declare Hamaullah and his followers fanatics, especially as two of his sons were implicated in the conflict. During Sawadogo’s visit in 1921, Sheikh Hamaullah appointed Boubacar Sawadogo his deputy and granted him permission to initiate individuals to the order, which the French called the “Hamawiyya.” The Hamawiyya 91  Juliette Van Duc argued that he was arrested and imprisoned briefly when he arrived in Ouahigouya in 1920 for leaving the colony to perform hajj without authorization, in violation of the 1907 law. See “L’administration coloniale française et les pèlerins de la Mecque: le cas des Voltaïque,” in La Haute Volta coloniale, témoignages, recherches, regards, ed. G. Massa and G. Madiéga (Paris: Karthala, 1995), 254. I have not seen a record of this arrest. 92 ANS 2G21/13, HV, RPA 1921, 8. 93 Ibid.



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recited the main Tijaniyya litany eleven times instead of twelve, thus the French used the name “Tijaniyya onze-grain” or Eleven-Bead Tijanis. Boubacar Sawadogo’s relationship with Hamaullah obviously alarmed colonial officials. Not only had he built a new Muslim community in the midst of the Mossi, the largest ethnic group in the colony, which the French had hoped would remain non-Muslim, but he also embraced Sherif Hamaullah, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, whom all colonial sources had accused (wrongly, as it turned out) of instigating a religious uprising in Mali. While the local administrators grudgingly ignored his potential threat because he had not violated any specific law, his connections with the Hamawiyya, seen as radical by the French, raised serious concerns. The 1920s saw the expansion throughout the federation of what later became the Hamawiyya. In Burkina Faso, two other branches emerged among the Fulbé of Dori and Jelgooji, led by Boubacar Bellem and Abdoulaye Doukouré. Both centers were less than hundred miles from Rahmatoulaye. When the colony was partitioned in 1932, all three Hamawiyya centers were attached to the French Sudan (now Mali), thus bringing the various Hamawi groups under one administration, the district of Ouahigouya. And these three centers evolved into the fastest growing Hamawiyya communities in the French federation, as their followers established Hamawiyya communities in Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Ghana, in addition to Mali proper where that branch originated. The French paid close attention to Rahmatoulaye for three reasons. First, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo’s intentions were not very clear. Second, the Mossi, as noted, was the largest ethnic group in the colony and the Sheikh’s influence continued to grow in Mossi diasporas in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where previously non-Muslim Mossi and other ethnic groups converted to Islam and became part of the various zawiyas established by Boubacar Sawadogo’s followers. Third, unlike other scholars in other parts of the federation who opened channels of communication with the French, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo did not show any sign that he was open to direct communications with the French, such that he would allow them to extend their patronage to him. This is also true for the other Hamawi leaders. Essentially, he remained a sort of ambiguous, if not enigmatic, figure. If we apply the French policies outlined in the early part of this chapter as the standard by which to measure actual colonial practices, we would expect local administrations to have imposed some form of restriction on his group. In practice, however, local colonial authorities prudently left him alone, though they maintained close surveillance of his activities.

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Ironically, the colonial reports between 1921 and 1940 viewed him very positively. For example, in 1924 the commandant reported the rapid growth of the Hamawiyya and described Boubacar Sawadogo’s sermons as “essentially religious, based exclusively on the Qur’an.”94 To report to Dakar that a scholar’s sermons were based “exclusively on the Qur’an” meant that the scholar posed no immediate danger to the colonial order. The 1930 annual political report provided some figures on the Muslim population that suggests the ambiguity of the relationship between the Sheikh and the French. It noted that Boubacar Sawadogo’s followers had reached 67,000 out of the total Muslim population of 109,000 in the district of Ouahigouya.95 The governor’s report attributed this growth to the Sheikh’s ardent proselytism: Sawadogo, an intelligent, ardent proselyte who hated Europeans passionately, had acquired a great deal of influence in the surrounding Mossi regions, up to Ouahigouya, as well as in the Fulbé districts of Todjiam, where his eloquent speech and energy attracted people who listened to him and believed him. While the spread of eleven-bead Tijaniyya in the region must always be attributed to his efforts, his fame did not seem to exceed the district where he lived. Whatever the reasons, out of the Muslim population of 109,000 in Ouahigouya, 67,000 were members of eleven bead Tijaniyya.96

Although baffled by this rapid growth of the Hamawiyya beyond Rahmatoulaye, the administration recorded in the 1931 report that Boubacar Sawadogo’s followers were responsible for spreading his teachings beyond Ouahigouya, since he himself did not travel beyond the district.97 To accentuate his influence among the Mossi, the report added that out of the 3,547 Burkinabé conscripted workers in Niger, 853 claimed to be Muslims and followers of Boubacar Sawadogo.98 Apparently, it was not the number of converts that seemed to alarm the local administration and therefore be worth reporting, but rather the fact that they all claimed to be the Sheikh’s followers. In 1936 the governor of Côte d’Ivoire noted with regard to Koudoughou, part of the former Yatenga kingdom but annexed to Côte d’Ivoire in 1932: In Koudougou, especially the subdivision of Kaya, the teachings of the marabout of Namissguima is spreading far and wide. His doctrine prohibits

94 ANS 2G24/21, HV, RPA, 1924. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 ANS 2G31/10, RPA, HV, 1931. 98 Ibid.



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his followers from having social relations with people who used tobacco, that is the fetishists; they must neither shake their hands nor greet them, let alone participate in their funeral rites. His teachings have resulted in serious disputes among Mossi, and appear to fragment families.99

During this time, the French had won the support of many Tijaniyya leaders throughout the AOF. But it seems that the Hamawis refused to be co-opted. In search of a more unified Tijaniyya under the leadership of leaders the French considered loyal, Dakar dispatched Seydou Nourou Tall, the grandson of Hajj Umar Tall, on a regional diplomatic mission. Seydou Nourou Tall’s West African tours included Mossi territories, where in 1934 he visited Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo at Rahmatoulaye. During this meeting, he advised the Sheikh to abandon the Hamawiyya and join the dominant branch, founded by Hajj Umar Tall.100 Rather than disputing Seydou Nourou Tall’s spiritual authority or criticizing the French for meddling in Muslim affairs, Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo agreed to abandon the Hamawiyya. But he went a step further. Always cautious not to antagonize the French, he instructed his followers to add one extra bead to their tasbih (rosary), to match the twelve used by the Umarians so as to give the outward impression that they had abandoned their own branch. This was quite a strategic move, given that the number of beads in the rosary had become one of the ways the French assessed the group any Muslim belonged to; adding the extra bead concealed their identities, but not their litany. Such a strategy was even more important for the Sheikh’s followers, who habitually hung their rosaries around their necks to distinguish themselves from other Muslims. As the relationship between the Hamawis and the colonial authorities became tense, especially after the crises in Nioro, it was necessary for the Hamawis to maintain a low profile. The French, who attached a great deal of symbolic and spiritual value to the number of beads in the Tijaniyya rosary and considered the TwelveBead rosary as a sign of non-resistance, accepted Boubacar Sawadogo’s adoption of the twelve as a genuine conversion to the less-threatening Umarian branch. But the rosary was only a convenient counting instrument that had no spiritual significance in the litany; Boubacar Sawadogo did not alter the preaching of his litany in practice. Adding an additional

99 ANS 2G36/31, RPA, Côte d’Ivoire, 1936, 85–86. 100 Umar Tall is recognized as the main propagator of the Tijaniyya in West Africa. He was defeated in a battle with French-supported rival groups in 1864.

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bead, which was conveniently ignored during group zikr, did not affect his spiritual attachment to Sheikh Hamaullah. Although the commandant later realized the deception, he did not press the Sheikh about breaking his promise but rather ignored the issue altogether. It is probable that the commandant did not consider conversion from the Hamawiyya to the Umarian a necessary step toward communal reconciliation favorable to the French. Perhaps, keeping them separate so that they expended their energies in internal rivalry was much better for the French than communal reconciliation. At any rate, so far from the capital of the federation, it seemed that the local commandant was more concerned about local religious context than a federal one, which was just too complicated for his meager resources. The local religious context did not, by itself, seem threatening, nor did the Sheikh involve himself in or encourage religious disturbances.101 Although Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo was perceived as potentially dangerous, colonial authorities also realized the importance of not exaggerating this threat or conflating religious charisma with fanaticism. Thus, on a number of occasions, the commandant found it necessary to declare him “nonxenophobic,” an observation that seemed crucial in the relationship of coexistence that had emerged between the colonial administration and the Sheikh’s community. By the 1930s the annual celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (mawlid), which Boubacar Sawadogo organized, had become a significant event that attracted followers throughout the federation. In 1934 an unusually large number of the Sheikh’s followers applied for travel documents (laissez-passer) to attend the mawlid at Rahmatoulaye. Alarmed by this unprecedented demand, the administrators in Niger and Côte d’Ivoire inquired from their colleague in charge of the Sheikh’s district whether they should refuse the applications for security reasons, as required by the 1906 law that restricted visitation (ziyaara) to religious leaders. The commandant responded that they should allow people to attend the mawlid. He added that Boubacar Sawadogo was engaged only in religious activities and that the mawlid had never served as an occasion for recruiting religious fanatics at Rahmatoulaye.102 This communication appeared in two subsequent annual reports. In that of 1936, for example, the governor reported:

101  ANS 2G42/3 RPA, Sudan, Province of Ouahigouya, 1942, 52. 102 ANS 2G40/10 RPA, Sudan, 1940.



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In the region of Ouahigouya (considered the most important center of Hamawiyya in the Soudan), nothing special occurred with regards to the activities of Raguimia Sawadogo, the notable Mossi who was suspected in 1934 of pan-Islamic propaganda and xenophobic subversion. He has not done anything [strange] with regards to his teachings and general demeanor. His prestige is remarkable [and] the quality of his Islam striking.103

By noting that the quality of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo’s Islam was remarkable, the governor elevated the standard of the Sheikh’s practices, which were normally portrayed as falling within the parameter of presumed fanaticism. Yet, in this case, the local administrators did not find it necessary to interfere with his activities, and neither did he interfere with theirs, as will be shown soon. The 1941 annual report estimated that Boubacar Sawadogo had converted at least 30,000 Mossi to Islam.104 The figure rose to 53,000 in 1943.105 Unlike other estimates that included Muslims who were initiated into the Hamawiyya, as well as new converts to Islam, the 1941 and 1953 figures refer exclusively to new converts, who were probably also initiated into the Hamawiyya. While colonial figures are notoriously unreliable, these figures suggest the administration’s perceptions of the Sheikh and his religious activities. Describing Boubacar Sawadogo’s influence in the colony and beyond, the governor of French Sudan (Mali), who was in charge of the district of Ouahigouya (annexed to Sudan), remarked: “Sawadogo writes and speaks Arabic, has acquired great importance . . . [and] his teachings in favor of Hamawiyya are great. His followers can be found in every village, and the marabouts of the districts are in good relations with him.”106 As far as colonial authorities were concerned, therefore, Boubacar Sawadogo was not only the most important religious personality among Mossi from Yatenga and beyond, but his association with Sheikh Hamaullah also placed him among radical religious leaders and thus made him a potential threat to colonial order. Yet there was no record of his confrontations with colonial authorities in the reports I consulted in the archives in Dakar (I have yet to see what is contained in the folders in Bamako and Aix-en-Provence). Until 1941 they continued to view his “xenophobic propaganda” as non-threatening, which would seem

103 ANS 2G36/18, RPA, Sudan, Province of Ouahigouya, 1936, 85. My emphasis. 104 ANS 2G42/3, RPA, 1942, Sudan, Province of Ouahigouya, 53. 105 ANS 2G43/18, RPA, Sudan, Province of Ouahigouya, 51. For the first time colonial authorities described his activities as an Islamic reform; ibid., 64. 106 ANS 2G41/20, RPA, Sudan, 1941, 158.

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paradoxical.107 Interestingly, while the archival records point to areas of coexistence with the Sheikh, the oral sources also emphasize that he carefully avoided confrontation with the colonial authorities, even as he resisted any alliance with them. According to surviving elders, the commandant de cercle visited Rahmatoulaye several times and was pleased with how the community was organized. There is thus a clear agreement between the oral and the archival sources; both point to a relationship of cohabitation, albeit in an atmosphere of mistrust, between the Sheikh and colonial authorities. While Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo avoided confrontations with the French, his tirade against Mossi aristocrats and other Mossi Muslims who he declared apostates continued to create tension in the society up to the end of the colonial period. These were the groups directly affected by his teachings: he had challenged the political legitimacy of the established scholars and accused them of encouraging divination and religious laxity. On the part of Mossi aristocrats, his teachings broke an ancient hostility against Islam held by the Yatenga ruling elites. The 1941 annual report describes his relations with these groups: Raguimia [Boubacar Sawadogo] shows his hostility to other Muslims who were not part of his sect as well as the Mossi fetish chiefs. He prohibited his followers from having contact with other Mossi and demanded that they not participate in the funeral rites of their non-Muslim parents. . . . In the villages his followers separated themselves from other Muslims, while they engaged in a tacit struggle against those who practiced ancestral religions to which Mossi are profoundly attached. The king of Yatenga himself complained about the dangerous influence of this marabout in his kingdom, and confirmed that if the authorities would allow him, he would destroy the threats at its root.108

Apparently, the commandant ignored the Yatenga king’s offer to eliminate the Sheikh in order to bring an end to his menace, demonstrating that the administration had no interest in an alliance with the kingdom against the Sheikh. This was a pragmatic move on the part of the commandant, who suspected what such confrontation would entail. At any rate, the Sheikh had not done anything threatening to colonial rule that merited repressive measures or a tacit agreement with his enemies to eliminate him.

107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., 158–59.



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The other group, whose opposition remained even stronger, was the cohort of scholars who considered the Sheikh’s claim to spiritual superiority self-serving. It is not surprising that they opposed him, since his polemics were directed at them. Similar to other reformers throughout West African history, he persistently criticized these scholars for practicing what he considered bid’a, for reducing Islam to magical rituals, and for promoting superstitious beliefs in order to enhance their sociopolitical prestige and livelihood. For this he declared them apostates and demanded that they renew their shahada with him or face God’s wrath on the Day of Judgment.109 While many of these scholars accepted his teachings and joined him, others rejected him completely and sought ways to antagonize his relationship with the colonial administration. For instance, according to the Rahmatoulaye’s oral history, the Sheikh’s opponents sought the support of colonial authorities to suppress him by fabricating stories about illicit activities in Rahmatoulaye and accusing him of inciting religious conflicts. Surviving members among the Sheikh’s earliest followers remembered that colonial authorities often responded by inviting him to answer the scholars’ charges. These convocations were described in Mossi as moimbollé (convocation of scholars).110 But in almost all of these cases, the commandant found the charges brought against Boubacar Sawadogo frivolous and dismissed them. However, according to oral sources, on one occasion the commandant detained him for five weeks in an attempt to intimidate him and persuade him to restrain his harangue against these scholars. He was later released when the commandant realized the Sheikh would not change his position. After releasing him, the commandant warned the Sheikh’s opponents not to initiate another frivolous accusation. This detention was perceived by other scholars as a repressive action against the Sheikh. From the point of view of the surviving elders in Rahmatoulaye, the commandant did not intend to repress the movement, but attempted to assess the extent to which the Sheikh was committed to his mission. While for the most part Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo’s main adversaries were his fellow Muslim scholars, with colonial authorities acting as mediators, the political climate of World War II led the Vichy regime to take extra security measures. In early 1940 the provincial administrator 109 El Hadji Adam Zeigha Ouédraogo and his brother El Hadji Saidou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, April 5, 2002. 110  Ibid. I have not found any records of these arrests in the archival materials I examined.

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of Ouahigouya instructed Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo to not receive guests or engage in preaching activities. He was later invited to relocate to Ouahigouya, the provincial capital. According to colonial records, he agreed to do so without protest.111 It is interesting that the colonial records make it clear that the Sheikh was persuaded rather than forced to go into exile, perhaps as a precautionary measure. The 1941 report describes in detail the Sheikh’s relations with other groups in the colony and suggests stricter surveillance.112 That same year, a group claiming to be Hamawis attacked European residents at BoboDioulasso. In Nioro too, some members of the Hamawiyya exacerbated colonial authorities’ paranoia about an imminent pan-Islamic subversion by engaging their rivals in a violent confrontation. These events necessitated the arrests and exile of all Hamawi leaders. It was under these circumstances that the administration fabricated charges against Boubacar Sawadogo to support what seemed a dire need to remove him from the colony for security reasons. The trumped up charges are well-known: He was accused of disrupting the social stability of Mossi society, and of pretending to be behaving properly but in fact maintaining relations with Sherif Hamaullah, who had been accused of stirring up religious conflict in Nioro. They also accused him of deceiving the provincial administrator by instructing his followers to add one more bead to their rosaries in order to conceal their Hamawi identity.113 For these offenses he was sentenced to ten years, which he served at Médine near Kayes in Mali and later in Timbuktu.114 It is interesting to note that colonial authorities had to look back to the 1930s to find excuses to incarcerate Boubacar Sawadogo. Oral data emphasizes that he was arrested because of his association with Hamaullah, and not because he had committed any specific offense. This explanation is essential in demonstrating the Sheikh’s spiritual loyalty to Hamaullah; yet a closer reading of colonial records supports the oral 111  ANS 2G40/10, RPA, Sudan, 1940, 29. During this period the governors of both Niger and Côte d’Ivoire sent telegrams to the governor in Sudan about the Sheikh’s followers in their colonies. In response, the governor of Sudan advised them to record the names of all people traveling to visit the Sheikh, the purpose of their visits, and their districts of residence; ibid. See also ANS 2G42/3, RPA, Sudan, 1942, 52; ANS 2G40/4, RPA Côte d’Ivoire, 1940. 112 See the above quotation from the 1941 report. 113 ANS 2G41/20, RPA, Sudan, 1941, 158–59. This file mentions the leaders of the Hamawiyya as Cherif Hamalah, Raguima Sawadogo, Abdoulaye Doukouré, Bounafou Nimaga, and Souaibou Cissé. 114 See Arreté général No. 44–58 of December 17, 1941. ANS 2G41/20, RPA, Sudan, 1941. For more precise information see ANS 2G42/3, RPA, Sudan, Province of Ouahigouya, 53.



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testimonies that his connections with Hamaullah provided the critical justification for his incarceration. After serving five years of his sentence, he was released in 1946 under a general French amnesty. He passed away that same year. The Muslim Configurations at the End of Colonial Rule The above discussion suggests that the process of Islamization in Ghana and Burkina Faso, which had probably begun to accelerate during the early nineteenth century, reached a new threshold during the colonial period. By the end of this period, the Muslim landscape had changed significantly. Prior to the end of French colonial rule in 1960, Muslims in Burkina Faso comprised three major groups: the Qadiriyya (the oldest Sufi brotherhood); the Tijaniyya, which became more popular during the colonial era; and a new group associated with Wahhabism because its adherents adamantly rejected the Sufi brotherhoods. In addition to these three, other Muslims, who were not affiliated with any of the three groups mentioned above, were described as “independent” Muslims.115 Although the Qadiriyya had been practiced in West Africa for centuries, it probably only reached the Volta Basin in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through Mande, Hausa, and Fulbé scholars and traders.116 It remained the dominant tariqa until perhaps the early 1950s, when the rise of the Tijaniyya, especially the Hamawiyya branch, initiated its precipitous decline.117 Similarly, in Ghana, the rise of the Tijaniyya in the 1930s, especially the Niassiyya branch, which reached Ghana during the 1950s, precipitated the disappearance of the Qadiriyya. According to French colonial records, which were notorious for their statistical inaccuracy, there were approximately 167,080 Qadiris in the colony in 1938 compared to 125,300 Tijanis and 59,550 nonaffiliated Muslims.118 The province of Ouagadougou comprised 25,000 Muslims, among whom

115 See, for example, ANS 2G38/28, RPA, 1938, Côte d’Ivoire. After the 1932 partition the southern part of the colony was apportioned to Côte d’Ivoire. 116 It is possible that Fulbé refugees who settled in Yatenga and other parts of Mossiland, especially after the Sokoto jihad and the campaigns of Ahmadou Lobbo and Ba Lobbo, introduced the Qadiriyya in Mossiland. 117 However, this period also marked the beginning of its decline. The 1930 report, for example, noted that the Tijaniyya was systematically displacing the Qadiriyya. ANS 2G30/10 HV, 51. 118 ANS 2G38/28 RPA, Côte d’Ivoire, 1938.

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6,000 were Tijanis and 4,000 Qadiris.119 It is difficult to explain the factors that resulted in the decline of the Qadiriyya order in Ghana and Burkina Faso, as in many other parts of the West African subregion. In their usual oversimplification of the complexity of Islamic religious expressions, colonial authorities explained that the Qadiriyya lost its appeal among Muslims who preferred the more flexible Tijaniyya.120 In my opinion, the ardent proselytism and charisma of leading Tijaniyya sheikhs and the ways these scholars took advantage of the colonial environment to gain new followers best explain the expansion of the Tijaniyya at the expense of the Qadiriyya. The example of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo provides some evidence for Burkina Faso. In the case of Ghana, Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse of Kaolack can be credited with the growth of the Tijaniyya in Ghana (chapter 6). There is no record of any Qadiriyya leader pursuing the active recruitment of followers during this period that is comparable to the Hamawiyya sheikhs in Burkina Faso or the Ghanaian muqaddameen of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse. Although I address the Tijaniyya order in more detail elsewhere, it is crucial at this point to offer a brief description of this order in Ghana and Burkina Faso, to provide a background to the tensions that developed between its followers and the emerging scholars associated with Wahhabism. The Tijaniyya, which arrived in Burkina Faso in the late nineteenth century, comprised two main branches: the oldest branch, the Umarian (also called the Twelve-Bead), and the Hamawiyya (which the French designated the Eleven-Bead). The Umarian branch had probably been in Burkina Faso, especially among the Fulbé as early as the 1870s when Tijaniyya influence began to spread from Ségu southward across the Niger bend. The Hamawiyya reached Burkina Faso in the 1920s, as discussed above. By the end of the colonial period, the Hamawiyya had emerged as the dominant Muslim group throughout the colony. The Qadiriyya, for example, declined both in terms of the number of adherents and in Muslim religious leadership, while the influence of Umarian branch remained obscure, as the three major Hamawiyya branches founded by Boubacar Sawadogo, Abdoulaye Doukouré, and Boubacar Bellem dominated the Islamic landscape. Today most Tijanis belong to either the Abdoulaye Doukouré (with its headquarters in the Hamdallahi suburb of Ouagadougou); or the Boubacar Sawadogo branch with its headquarters

119 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 58. 120 See, for example, ANS 2G31/10, RPA, HV, 1931, 58.



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at Rahmatoulaye. Both of these also have zawiyas throughout the country, as well as in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali. Each of these branches primarily attracted people of the cluster of ethnic group of the founders— Mossi, Busanse, and Gurma for the Rahmatoulaye branch, and the Fulbé and Tuaregs for the Doukouré branch. The Wahhabiyya was a latecomer, arriving in Burkina Faso through the Subbanu Association in the 1940s and the Muslim Cultural Union during the 1950s. The influence of these two externally inspired Wahhabiinclined movements remained limited until the return of rival Mossi scholars from Saudi Arabia in the early 1960s. It is important to highlight the ethnic background of these scholars because, unlike the Subbanu and the Muslim Cultural Union whose followers came from Mali and Senegal (chapter 3), the Meccan returnees who established Wahhabi institutions were indigenous people from the largest ethnic group, the Mossi. This ethnic origin facilitated their reception among Mossi and thus increased the number of their followers precipitously (chapters 4 and 5). While Islam was gaining a stronghold in Northern Ghana starting from the nineteenth century, its expansion reached a new milestone in southern Ghana during the colonial period. A major factor was colonial labor migration, which began during the period of the conquests in the late 1800s. The first group of these colonial migrants were mostly Hausa/Fulani (or, more accurately, Northern Nigerian) soldiers deployed by the British in the Anglo-Asante wars between 1874 and 1901. During these conflicts, the Asante kingdom is also believed to have hired foreign mercenaries consisting of Mossi, Dagbani, Hausa, Gurunsi, and Zerma to fight for them. At the end of these wars, the British stationed a Hausa-dominated regiment in Kumasi and Cape Coast, which further increased the Muslim population in the south.121 However, it was primarily the vibrant colonial economy that allowed Islam to reach a new threshold in what is today southern Ghana. The demand for labor in the gold mines, menial labor in public construction, and in the cocoa plantations, led to a large influx of individuals from other West African Savannah Muslim societies (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Northern Nigeria, northern Benin and northern Togo). The harsh nature of French forced labor recruitment (corvée) also contributed

121 W. E. F. Ward, A History of Ghana (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1967), 281. Ward notes that the British recruited people from the Northern Territory who were thought to be Hausa because they spoke a corrupt form of Hausa as a lingua franca. This observation indicates the extent of the influence of the Hausa language in the north at this time.

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to the emigration of individuals from Francophone territories to Ghana.122 The strong colonial economy in the south also attracted internal migrants, that is, those from the Northern Territories—Dagomba, Wala, Mamprusi, and Gonja—who were mostly Muslims. Other groups in the Northern Territories, such as the Frafra, Dagati, and Gurunsi, who were mostly nonMuslims, also migrated south, where many of them embraced Islam from their neighbors in the predominantly Muslim residential areas in urban and rural southern towns. The Frafra community studied by Keith Hart was one of several northern ethnic groups including Gurunsi and Dagati who adopted Islam as part of the process of settlement.123 Grindal’s study of the process of Sisala conversion to Islam in the south provides further evidence of the ways Islam offered non-Muslim migrants, who shared the Savannah culture with their Muslim kin, some communal support away from home.124 During the same colonial and early postcolonial periods, the Muslim population of Asante and Fante as well as Ga (people of Accra, Ghana’s capital), also grew quite significantly. The development of Islam in the coastal areas probably began before the colonial conquests. A number of freed Muslim slaves from Brazil settled further south along the coast, especially among the Ga during the 1880s. The extent to which these settlers converted the Ga to Islam is yet to be fully explored, but preliminary inquiries suggest that their presence created a small cluster of Ga Muslims, and these included new converts. Among Fante, on the other hand, the firm establishment of Islam is traceable to the emergence of the Ahmadiyya Mission starting from the early 1920s; the mission established its headquarters at Saltpond.125 We noted that prior to the coming of the Ahmadiyya, a small population of people from Saltpond had embraced Islam in the 1880s when a Fante merchant, Benjamin Sam, converted to

122 The 1908 annual reports of the Northern Territory note that French labor recruitment and tax policies drove many Mossi further south into the Gold Coast. By 1928, as Jean Rouch notes, there were over 60,000 Mossi migrants in the Gold Coast, driven by a combination of forced labor recruitment and military conscription during World War I. Jean Rouch, Migrations au Ghana (Enquete: 1953–1956) (Paris: Place du Trocadero, 1956), 169. 123 For the case of Frafra, see Keith Hart, “Migration and Tribal Identity among the Frafra of Ghana,” JAAS 6 (1971), 33. 124 B. Grindal, “Islamic Affiliations and Urban Adaptation: The Sisala Migrants in Accra, Ghana,” Africa 43, no. 4 (1973): 333–46. 125 NRG 8/19/6, Colonial Secretary’s Office, Accra, April 4, 1944. The most comprehensive study of the Ahmadiyya in West Africa, albeit a bit dated, remains Humphrey Fisher, Ahmadiyya: A Study in Contemporary Islam on the West African Coast (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).



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Islam and returned to preach it among his kinsmen.126 We know little about this community beyond the school built by Benjamin Sam. Today, the Ahmadiyya has strong following in Northern Ghana as well, especially in Wa, where the movement began as early as the 1930s.127 According to many observers, Ghana still has the largest concentration of Ahmadis in the world outside England, due primarily to the reception it received from colonial authorities, indigenous converts, and the secular postcolonial state. The success of the Ahmadiyya Mission stemmed primarily from its offering of secular education as well as its elaborate social and economic network. Many Ghanaians actually consider the Ahmadiyya, more than the Wahhabi-inclined reform, as the precursor of the process of modernizing Islamic schooling. However, an extensive elaboration of the mission is outside the scope of this study, as my focus is “orthodox” Sunni Islam, of which the Ahmadiyya are not generally considered a part, because of their belief that the founder, Ahmad Gulam, was the last prophet (Sunni Muslims maintain that the Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet).128 British colonialism also contributed to the development of Islam in other ways. It particularly reinforced the dominance of Hausa in Islamic scholarship and religious leadership. British administrators showed some preference for Hausa leadership in local Muslim institutions and thus inadvertently reinforced what was then emerging as Hausa-dominated Islamic leadership. This was most likely because of the Hausa origin in Northern Nigeria, another British colony, and the British assumption that Muslim leadership in Ghana was dominated by Hausa even prior to the colonial period.129 The Hausa, who had attained some hegemony in Islamic education from the early nineteenth century, having displaced the Mande intellectual influence, took advantage of the colonial presence to establish their dominance in Muslim institutions, especially in Qur’anic education, and to position imams throughout the British possessions. The eventual dominance of Hausa in the scholarly community and in Muslim leadership reached a new threshold as the Hausa language became the Muslim community’s lingua franca. The dominance of Hausa teachers in the Qur’anic schools as well as the support that Hausa enjoyed from

126 Humphrey J. Fisher, “Early Muslim-Western Education.” 127 A folder at the Northern Region Archives in Tamale contains an extensive document of the history of the Ahmadiyya in Ghana. See NRG 8/19/6. 128 For the details of the various variants of Ahmadi belief system, see Fisher, The Ahmadiyya, especially Part II (chs. 5–8). 129 See Rouch, Migrations au Ghana, 143.

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the colonial administration identified Islam with Hausa. In their schools, Hausa teachers taught their students the Hausa language and the religious texts were translated from Arabic to Hausa. Those who graduated from these schools became part of the Hausa educational networks and propagated the education and influence they had acquired from their Hausa teachers to their own ethnic communities. Sermons were often delivered in Hausa, even in non-Hausa communities. Through their monopoly of Islamic education the Hausa language and practices thus came to dominate Ghanaian Islamic culture. As in Burkina Faso, the expansion of Islam in Ghana, especially in the south, where population density was and still is much higher than in the north, can thus be located in the colonial era. * * * The expansion of the Muslim population, along with the development of Muslim institutions during French and British colonial rules in West Africa, remains one of the paradoxes of the colonial presence in the subregion. In his study of the development of Islam in West Africa, Peter Clark notes: The available statistical data, which must be handled with caution, and a great deal of other evidence points to a very rapid expansion and development of Islam in West Africa during the colonial era (c. 1900–1960). Indeed, in terms of time scale the rapidity and extent of this expansion and development were without precedent in the previous eleven hundred and fifty years of Islam’s history in West Africa. By the 1800 . . . while some parts of the region had only been very superficially influenced by Islam, others remained almost entirely non-Muslim.130

This paradox has continued to attract the attention of historians. The preceding discussion of the development of Islam in Ghana and Burkina Faso offers some explanation for how Islam grew more rapidly during the colonial period than in the precolonial era. Whereas in the more “Islamized” colonies of Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Nigeria, European colonizers established close alliances with Muslim notables and shielded Islam from Christian evangelism, in Burkina Faso, and to some extent in Ghana as well, the colonial rulers provided space for Christian missionaries and Muslim proselytizers to compete for the souls of the non-Muslim population. Although occasionally providing tacit support to Christian

130 Clark, West Africa and Islam, 184.



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missionaries charged with providing social control through education, for the most part, these attempts, especially by the French, who encouraged the White Fathers’ mission to block the expansion of Islam among Mossi, were not carried out aggressively. Furthermore, in both Ghana and Burkina Faso, there was no direct attempt by colonial administrators to seek the support of Muslim leaders in fostering colonial order. As such, neither the French in Burkina Faso, nor the English in Ghana felt obliged to protect the proselytism of Muslim leaders who, unlike some of their peers in the more Islamized colonies, had avoided patron-client relationships with colonial establishments. Thus, in the less Islamized colonies, one must pay close attention to the activities of Muslim reformers, such as Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, whose ardent proselytism accounts for Islam’s rapid development in Burkina Faso, despite attempts by the French, albeit inconsistently, to inhibit its growth during the early decades of colonial rule. The French, more than the British, also inadvertently weakened the authority of indigenous chiefs who had customarily held Islam at bay. Recall the Yatenga ruler’s request that the colonial administrator of Ouahigouya allow him to destroy the influence of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo. Without the power to protect indigenous religions against Islam, these leaders either embraced Islam to tap into its political energy or watched helplessly as their subjects converted. In this case, Clozel’s efforts to empower indigenous leaders in order to limit the expansion of Islam failed. It is also worth noting that whereas both the French and the British attempted to prevent the rise and diffusion of new ideas associated with the North African Salafi movement and Wahhabi doctrines that might threaten colonial rule, ultimately they only delayed the diffusion of these ideas. The evidence thus suggests that the contradictions of colonial rule and its ambivalent relationship with Islam, along with the movement of people following the establishment of colonial economies, provided new opportunities for Muslim notables to expand the frontiers of Islam. The colonial period is therefore an important threshold in the development of Islam and Islamic institutions in West Africa more broadly, but Ghana and Burkina Faso in particular, though it was not part of the colonial mission to facilitate the expansion of the Muslim population or the development of Muslim religious institutions. On the contrary, both the French and the British sought ways to slow the development of Islam. They were not successful precisely because of the contradictions between what was desired and what seemed feasible, and between ideology and

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practice. This contradiction was compounded by the fact that many colonial administrators were not inclined to facilitate the development of Christianity either. These are generally described as the “anti-clerics.” Thus, in the broader policy, religion per se came to represent the ambivalence of colonial regimes; religion seemed important to colonial authorities only when it appeared to impinge on colonial order. The credit for Islam’s expansion in West Africa and for the innovation of Islamic institutions and pedagogical methods should therefore be attributed to the activities of Muslims themselves.

Part Two

Early Implantation

Introduction to Part Two In Part II I examine the local origins of Wahhabi-inclined movements in Ghana and Burkina Faso before the rise of Arab oil wealth in the 1960s, arguing that Wahhabism arose out of local religious debate over the validity of Sufi rituals. With reference to Burkina Faso, I examine the city of Ouagadougou, where Wahhabism began with the arrival of local scholars who had been repatriated from Saudi Arabia in 1963, after living there several years. Many of these pioneering preachers of Wahhabism had earlier connections with the dominant Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya of Rahmatoulaye, and on their return, they disassociated themselves from the Tijaniyya, which they declared unorthodox. In Ghana, I trace the early development of Wahhabi-inclined reforms to two cultural entrepreneurs, Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura in the north and Sheikh Adam Appiedu in Kumasi. I examine how the teachings of a specific variant of the Tijaniyya initiation, tarbiya, introduced into Ghana (then the Gold Coast) by the renowned Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse of Kaolack (Senegal), provoked a doctrinal contest that laid the foundation for the development of Wahhabi-inclined discourse. I discuss the ways opposition to the tarbiya facilitated the rise of Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura of Tamale (then capital of Northern Ghana). Afa Ajura combined a critique of this variant of the Tijaniyya with cultural reform. I then analyze the contributions of another important leader, Sheikh Adam Appiedu of Kumasi.

Chapter Three

From the Students of the Sheikh to the Followers of the Prophet: Genesis of Wahhabism in Burkina Faso This chapter examines the early transplantation of ideas associated with Wahhabism in Burkina Faso, beginning with a discussion of its early mutation among the Mossi, the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso, immediately after the colony’s independence from France. I argue that although some ideas associated with Wahhabism spread to Burkina Faso through Malian and Senegalese itinerant scholars, merchants, and madrasa entrepreneurs, it remained confined to non-Mossi territories until the end of the colonial period. Further, its diffusion among the Mossi began when a few of the Mossi scholars who had gone to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage and acquire additional training in the Islamic sciences returned to preach ideas of religious purity often identified with Wahhabism. These scholars had some connections to the established Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya of Rahmatoulaye, but embraced Wahhabism while in Mecca, and returned to challenge the doctrinal validity of the Hamawiyya. Arguing that they were no longer students of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, but rather the direct followers of the Prophet Muhammad, these Meccan returnees combined their anti-Tijaniyya polemics with a broader social and cultural reform that reflected the need to reform local social and cultural practices along the lines of Saudi Islamic orthodoxy. Early Implantation of Wahhabism: The Malian and Senegalese Influence In his seminal work on the Wahhabi movement in Francophone West Africa, Lansiné Kaba notes that the movement spread to Burkina-Faso through the activities of the Subbanu Association that had begun in Mali (then French Sudan).1 The activities of the Subbanu Association clearly suggest the influence of Muslim religious and political activism in the Arab world, directed against the established Muslim leadership and the

1 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, especially chapter 5; also Triaud, “Le mouvement réformiste.”

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dominance of European rule. Subbanu arguments, however, also demonstrate specific local dynamics, especially French policies and attitudes toward Islam. Founded in 1949 in Bamako by Malian students educated at al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Subbanu, as Kaba illustrates,2 combined the development of new madrasa schooling with public evening lectures that emphasized strict orthodoxy. Consistent with the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, but also influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Subbanu preachers stressed conformity of Islamic rituals and culture to the literal interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunna. Their main polemics were directed at the intellectual foundations and rituals of the Sufi brotherhoods, including the veneration of Muslim holy men, the belief in the ability of the Prophet and Sufi sheikhs to intercede in spiritual and material matters on behalf of Sufi devotees, and the commemoration of the Prophet’s birthday, the mawlid. They declared all these practices, along with the zikr in Sufi brotherhoods, as heretical innovations introduced into Islam after the time of the Prophet and his immediate Companions had passed away. Members of the Subbanu also emphasized the need for modern Islamic education as a vehicle for the effective transformation of Muslim cultures and spiritual practices. Kaba notes that the “largest impact of the Subbanu Association and school was to increase religious consciousness and reinforce indigenous educational aspiration throughout a large part of Guinea, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast and the Sudan.”3 Merchants and itinerant scholars associated with the organization spread their ideas along the Djula trading networks stretching from Kankan in Guinea, passing through Bamako and Sikasso in Mali, and Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, to Bouaké in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond. As an important commercial entrepôt within the Djula network, Bobo-Dioulasso became an important center of this genre of reform.4 However, the evidence suggests that the Subbanu failed to spread beyond Bobo-Dioulasso and the surrounding towns. Even here, it remained confined to the merchant elite for whom affiliation with Wahhabism was both spiritual and practical: Wahhabism provided an infrastructure for

2 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya. 3 Ibid., 163. 4 Although a majority of these reformers were Mande speakers, Maïmouna Dao notes that two Mossi Yarsè merchants, El Hadji Guira Abdoulaye and his brother Salif Guira, embraced Wahhabism at Bouakè in the 1950s and returned to Bobo-Dioulasso where they influenced others to join them. Maïmouna Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” 26.



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developing commercial networks among its followers and freedom from the gift-giving obligations associated with membership in the Sufi brotherhoods. In addition, the Wahhabi preachers’ rejection of spiritual seclusion (khalwa) and excessive time spent performing zikr were practical ideas for aspiring and existing transnational traders who were constantly on the move. It is not surprising that the Subbanu-inspired reform failed to transcend the Djula commercial network. Considering that there were fewer Mossi merchants during this period and given the overwhelming dominance of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya in Mossi, Fulbé, and Tuareg territories, Wahhabism was seen as the religion of non-autochthonous peoples.5 Though the Subbanu Association failed to spread to Mossi territories, beginning in the early 1950s the activities of preachers and teachers associated with the Union Culturelle Musulmane pushed the frontiers of Wahhabi-inclined ideas beyond Bobo-Dioulasso into Mossi territories. The Union Culturelle Musulmane (Muslim Cultural Union, henceforth MCU) was founded in Dakar in November 1953 by Cheikh Fass Touré.6 A cultural and spiritual reform movement (though not as anti-Sufi as the Subbanu), the MCU emerged as part of Muslims’ responses to the effects of French policies on Islam in the AOF.7 Focusing on inspiring Muslims to improve their economic conditions, improve Islam’s image, and seek to undermine French dominance, MCU leaders traveled to other Francophone territories to preach about religious purity and to help Muslims effectively refute the negative image of Islam that was fostered by French propagandists.8 The leadership particularly criticized the French for destroying Qur’anic schools while allowing Catholic schools to flourish. The MCU’s major contribution to the development of Islam in West Africa, Loimeier argues, was the expansion of madrasa schooling that made Arabic more accessible to students than in earlier traditional Qur’anic schooling.9 The MCU targeted

5 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002; El Hadji Guira Umar, personal communication, Ouahigouya, March 10, 2002. 6 Lucy Behrman, Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 162; Roman Loimeier, “Cheikh Touré: Un Musulman Sénégalais dans le siècle,” in Islam et Islamismes au sud du Sahara, ed. Ousman Kane and Jean-Louis Triaud, 155–68 (Paris: Karthala, 1998). 7 Loimeier, “Cheikh Touré,” 183; Roman Loimeier, “Patterns and Peculiarities of Islamic Reform in Africa,” JRA 33 (Aug. 2003), 243. 8 Behrman, Muslim Brotherhoods, 162. 9 Loimeier, “Cheikh Touré,” See also, Roman Loimeier, “The Secular State and Islam in Senegal,” in Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics, ed. David Westerlund (London: C. Hurst and Company Publishers, 1995), 184; Loimeier, “Patterns and Peculiarities,” 243.

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youth as the foundation for building a new Muslim society, thus it focused on madrasa schooling to facilitate the younger generation’s acquisition of the sacred texts. Due to the political climate following World War II, when the French were reconsidering their colonial schemes, colonial authorities were more receptive to such schools than they had been in the 1940s when the establishment of these schools was viewed with great suspicion. Considering Islamic and Arabic education necessary for sustained cultural and spiritual reform, the MCU, even more than the Subbanu, concentrated on reviving the Arabic language. In 1957 MCU branches were established in Bobo-Dioulasso by two Guinean reformers, Morry Diakité and Condé [also spelled Kondé] Mory.10 See further discussion in chapter 7. It was through the activities of the MCU that many parts of Burkina Faso, especially Mossi territory, first became exposed to what we can consider an aspect of Wahhabi-inclined reformism, even though some of the MCU leadership, including Cheikh Touré, maintained their Sufi allegiances.11 Eager to promote Muslim solidarity across the French federation, MCU leaders avoided the provocative preaching that often resulted in intra-Muslim confrontations.12 The absence of direct opposition to the Hamawiyya attracted Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga, who inherited the leadership of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya in 1946, after the death of his father Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo. Maiga embraced the MCU and spearheaded the founding of a branch at Ouahigouya in 1958, despite rumors that the MCU was an anti-Tijaniyya organization.13 For Sheikh Maiga, the new Islamic schooling promoted by the MCU, and the knowledge of Arabic among its teachers were crucial for Islam’s development; he therefore ignored these rumors. In Ouagadougou as well, a Mauritanian scholar 10 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 118. Informants pointed out that these teachers, all affiliated with the MCU, were inclined toward Wahhabism though they did not preach its doctrine or teach it to their students. Interview with Mahmoudou Bandé at Ouagadougou, February 23, 2002; Dr. Aboubacar Doukouré, at Ouagadougou, February 28, 2002; Sheikh Aboubacar Maiga II, at Rahmatoulaye, March 2, 2002. Dr. Doukouré was among Baamoy’s first students. As will be shown in the next chapter, the Muslim Community of the Upper Volta, for example, employed the Malian, Baamoy Tounkara, to teach Arabic at its madrasa; Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga of Rahmatoulaye (d. 1986) also employed two Senegalese teachers in 1959 to teach in the Rahmatoulaye Madrasa. 11  In Burkina Faso, unlike in Senegal, the MCU was remembered as the first group to spread Wahhabi ideas among the Mossi. El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 16, 2002; El Hajj Mahmoud Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, August 2, 2006. 12 Personal communication, Abdul Aziz Maiga, Rahmatoulaye, February 10, 2002. 13 Some scholars, including Loimeier, have argued that Cheikh Touré never abandoned his affiliation with the Tijaniyya. Loimeier, “Patterns and Peculiarities,” 243.



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and merchant, Maulay Hassan, founded a branch of the MCU in 1958, but named it the Muslim Community of Ouagadougou, which evolved into the Muslim Community of Upper Volta in 1962.14 By emphasizing Muslim unity and refusing to directly criticize Sufi brotherhoods, the MCU had greater appeal to the broader Muslim community among the Mossi than the Subbanu Association had. In Senegal, for example, a number of Sufi leaders became affiliated with it, including Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse, Abdul Aziz Sy (the son of Sheikh Malick Sy), and Sheikh M’Backé.15 It is therefore not surprising that the organization also appealed to Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga of Burkina Faso, who viewed the MCU’s infrastructure of reform and education as essential.16 However, a more direct impact by the Subbanu and the MCU never developed, especially among the Mossi, and the wide diffusion of Wahhabism in the urban and rural areas of Burkina Faso did not begin until the return of scholars trained in Saudi Arabia during the early 1960s. The rest of this chapter focuses more specifically on the development of this genre of reform after independence in 1960. I begin with a brief discussion of Communauté Musulmane, which developed from the Muslim Community of Ouagadougou inspired by the Muslim Cultural Union. The formation of Muslim Community of Ouagadougou suggests clearly that toward the end of colonial rule, Muslims were beginning to develop a new religious identity characterized by unity. Its mutation into a national organization at the end of colonial rule also indicates Muslims’ aspirations to project themselves as one umma at the national level despite their doctrinal differences. The establishment of new postcolonial national Muslim organizations was a common phenomenon throughout West Africa, and indicative of Muslims’ attempts to reorganize themselves to protect their political interests and religious identities. The Wahhabi movement appeared at the same time that these national organizations were emerging. This is the case of Burkina Faso and Ghana as well as other parts of West Africa. The simultaneous emergence of organizations that compete for followers obviously laid the foundation for conflicts and doctrinal realignments. But it also indicates Muslims’ engagements with issues of orthodoxy and

14 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 18. 15 Behrman, Muslim Brotherhoods, 164. Behrman notes that all these personalities allied with the MCU because of its emphasis on reform and its opposition to the Union Progressiste Sénégalais (UPS) dominated by the Catholic politician Leopold Senghor. 16 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta.

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religious identities, as well as competition over Muslim representations at a time of profound change. Communauté Musulmane de Haute Volta (Burkina Faso) The Communauté Musulmane du Burkina Faso (henceforth Communauté Musulmane or Communauté)17 was founded in 1962 by Muslim leaders of a variety of doctrinal affiliations to collectively promote Islamic reform. Conceived as a non-doctrinal organization, the Communauté focused on organizing Muslims throughout the country to speak with one voice in order to protect their interests in the postcolonial state. Its major agenda included the construction of mosques and establishing madrasa-type Islamic schooling. As reflected in Article 4, Chapter III of its constitution, which emphasized that Islamic reform was to be pursued within the framework of Muslim solidarity, early Communauté leaders saw Muslim unity as a crucial foundation for their reform agenda.18 They thus discouraged doctrinal polemics, at least in theory, in order to ensure the desired unity. Yet this posed a fundamental dilemma because the organization’s agenda was, in a subtle way, critical of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya. The leadership was dominated by two major factions: Muslim clerics who had earlier rejected Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, and some Wahhabiinclined merchants in Ouagadougou. This subtle antagonism led to the withdrawal of Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga from the leadership only a few months after it was founded. It was clear even from the beginning that the Communauté saw itself as the rival of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya of Rahmatoulaye in a competition for control over the growing Muslim population. Moreover, located in the capital city and claiming to be the national representative of Muslims with the support of the government and Mogho Naba (the King of the Mossi), the Communauté obtained more formal recognition and influence than the hitherto largest Muslim group, the Hamawiyya. With this influence many members of the Communauté 17 I prefer to use the shortened French name as is used locally, because it avoids the use of too many abbreviated names that can be cumbersome, and it avoids changing the abbreviation from MCUV (Muslim Community of Upper Volta) to MCBF (Muslim Community of Burkina Faso) from 1984 on, when the country’s name changed. 18 Archives de la Communauté Musulmane, Report of the December 1962 Congress held at Ouagadougou. Article 4 states: “The Communauté Musulmane of Upper Volta is apolitical. Its activities are essentially religious, educational, and cultural. Its religious conduct is based on the moderate opinion of the first generation Companions of the Prophet, who avoided all forms of religious excesses.”



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antagonistic to the Hamawiyya saw the opportunity to minimize Sheikh Sidi Muhammad’s influence among the Mossi. Thus, despite its attempts to avoid controversy, the rivalry between the Mossi of Yatenga and the Mossi of Ouagadougou (Mogho Central) also affected the kind of solidarity envisioned by the organization’s leaders. This conflict has been analyzed by Assimi Kouanda19 and therefore should not detain us here, except to note that with the emergence of Wahhabism in the late 1960s, the more Wahhabi-inclined Communauté leaders saw a new opportunity to undermine Rahmatoulaye’s influence. This did not work out, as the Wahhabi preachers refused to succumb to the Communauté’s strategies of proselytism, as I discuss below. During the colonial period many West Africans who went to Mecca to perform the hajj or combined the pilgrimage with educational pursuits remained there for decades, often because of the difficulties of funding their return trips. During this period Saudi Arabia was a poor country and employment was difficult to find. Consequently, many pilgrims resorted to begging in order to feed themselves and, if possible, fund their return journey. By the 1930s the condition of stranded West Africans had become desperate, and Saudi Arabia pleaded with colonial governments to help the pilgrims return home. These pleas were ignored because colonial authorities were concerned that the pilgrims would introduce radical religious ideas to the colonies. This was particularly the case with the French, as analyzed by Juliette Van Duc.20 When Burkina Faso became independent from France in 1960, the pilgrims requested the new government’s assistance; the government responded by paying for the return of 98 of these pilgrims in 1963, and another 112 in 1964.21 The return of these pilgrims is considered the beginning of the growth of Wahhabism in Ouagadougou and other Mossi areas. To understand this development, we turn our attention to the pioneering scholars who created the first 19 Assimi Kouanda, “Les conflits au sein de la Communauté musulmane du Burkina Faso: 1962–1986,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 3 (1989): 7–26. 20 According to Juliette Van Duc, stranded French African subjects had become a social problem for the Saudi Arabian government. The Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs continually pleaded with his French counterpart to issue travel documents to the stranded pilgrims so they could return home. Arguing that most of them had to beg to feed themselves, the Saudi minister insisted that there were too many to remain in Arabia. But the French colonial office declined to help for fear that the pilgrims might bring militant Islamic ideas to the colonies. Juliette Van Duc, “Le pélerinage,” 253. 21  Communiqué of the second general assembly meeting held in Ouagadougou, December 1964. Archive of the Communauté Musulmane du Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou.

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Wahhabi community in that city and assess how they spread their ideas to other parts of the country. El Hajj Muhammad Malick Sana Muhammad Malick Sana is widely recognized as the first Mossi scholar trained in Saudi Arabia to return and actively preach Wahhabi ideas among the Mossi.22 He was born between 1928 and 193023 in Rajaatenga, about thirty-six kilometers south of Ouahigouya, the Yatenga regional capital.24 His father, Malick Sana, was among Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo’s earliest followers. He lived in Rahmatoulaye until the early 1930s, when he left the colony with his wife and two sons, Abubakar and Muhammad, to perform the pilgrimage. During this period West African pilgrims traveled to Mecca on foot, staying briefly to work in economically active areas such as al-Fasher in the Anglo-Sudan, in an effort to finance the rest of the trip.25 The Sana family settled and probably worked in al-Fasher. Before reaching Mecca, however, Malick Sana passed away, leaving his two sons and their mother, who later proceeded to Mecca. Upon his arrival, Muhammad enrolled in Qur’anic classes taught at the Kaaba by various scholars, including the renowned scholar Ibrahim Foulata (Fulani), who is believed to have originated from West Africa.26 In early 1956 Malick Sana’s oldest son, Alhassan Sana,27 went to Mecca to bring back the stranded family, but Muhammad decided to remain in Saudi Arabia to complete his studies. In 1963 he was among the first group of stranded pilgrims to return.

22 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 21, 2002, and El Hadji Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, February 7, 2002. Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” 32. 23 Informants suggested that Muhammad was barely forty years old when he returned to Burkina Faso in 1963. El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, February 7, 2002. However, one of his identity cards that I saw states that he was born in 1930. 24 I reconstructed his life history from interviews with many people, including El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo (February 7, 2002), Mahmoudou Bandé (February 21, 2002), Imam Sayouba (April 12, 2002), and in conversations with his relatives at Rahmatoulaye, his cousins Hajj Yussif Sana and Hajj Rahmani Sani in Accra (Ghana), as well as his maternal cousins in Hamley on the western part of the Ghana-Burkina border. 25 For a study of Muslim pilgrims from Burkina Faso during the colonial period, see Van Duc, “Le pélerinage.” 26 I have not been able to ascertain Ibrahim Foulata’s origin. Foulata, meaning Fulani, was a common nickname used by Arabs to designate a West African. 27 Alhassan Sana had been asked to continue his studies in Rahmatoulaye with Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo when the Sana family left for Mecca. El Hajj Alhassan Sana, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, February 17, 2002/August 2, 2006.



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Upon his return, Muhammad Sana went to Rahmatoulaye, the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya community to which his father had belonged and where his mother and brothers were living. In my fieldwork interviews, elders in Rahmatoulaye still recalled the warm reception they organized for Muhammad Malick Sana, whose return after several years of education in Mecca seemed a treasure to a community yearning for knowledge. Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga (d. 1986) immediately offered him a wife and encouraged him to remain in the community and teach at the madrasa. In addition to teaching, he was also invited to offer evening sermons that were open to all members of the community.28 With this opportunity to preach to the tightly controlled Rahmatoulaye community, Muhammad Sana gradually began to preach his own brand of reform, which included warning people against visiting the tomb of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo to solicit his baraka (spiritual blessings), a popular activity that brought some resources to the community. He also preached against the Tijaniyya litany (wird) and the annual celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, all of which were central to Rahmatoulaye’s spiritual essence. Sheikh Sidi Muhammad became aware that Muhammad Sana was critical of the community’s practices, and under pressure from community leaders, he barred Sana from further preaching. The community became hostile to his presence and Muhammad left Rahmatoulaye after barely a year. He briefly settled in Ouahigouya, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to propagate his ideas in a community largely within Rahmatoulaye’s sphere of influence.29 He subsequently settled in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, where he established a school, but left later to settle in Ouagadougou. Here too, he established a madrasa and built a small mosque on his grandfather’s property at Tanghin, a suburb of Ouagadougou. During his short sojourn at Bobo-Dioulasso, Muhammad had met Souleymane Ouédraogo, then deputy director of the National Aviation of Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). Within a year of resettling in Ouagadougou, Souleymane Ouédraogo was also transferred from Bobo-Dioulasso to that city and the two reconnected. Souleymane Ouédraogo introduced Muhammad to some of his friends and colleagues among the French-trained public functionaries, including Ahmadou Bandé and Iddrissa Semdé. Muhammad thus began to gather around him 28 This connection with Rahmatoulaye, as will be shown later, became a liability for Muhammad’s leadership career in the Sunna movement he initiated. 29 El Hajj Alhassan Sana, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, August 2, 2006; Yussifou Sana, personal communication, Accra, August 12, 2006.

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a cohort of younger-generation, French-trained Mossi who aspired to a new Islamic mode of religious expression and found Muhammad’s ideas appealing. This cohort soon became the lynchpin of the founding of a strictly Wahhabi organization in Ouagadougou.30 These young men had been affiliated with the Communauté and introduced Muhammad to the organization. As noted, some Communauté leaders were already inclined toward Wahhabism and therefore invited Muhammad Sana to preach at the Central Mosque. According to Mahmoudou Bandé, Muhammad Malick Sana was the first to preach the Sunna at the Central Mosque in 1964 or 1965, during which he won the admiration of a number of public functionaries.31 His firebrand style of preaching and his fluency in Arabic made him very popular, at least initially, and he was soon joined by Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo, another Meccan returnee. Through these early preaching engagements, the two initiated the rise of Wahhabism in Ouagadougou. Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo was probably the most important figure in the diffusion of the Wahhabi movement in Ouagadougou because he provided the movement with spiritual leadership until its final demise in 1999. Born between 1935 and 1937 in Boloumtenga in the Province of Kombisiri, his father, Ousmane Ouédraogo, was a scholar. Around 1954, before leaving for Mecca to acquire advanced Islamic studies, Sayouba had completed the Qur’an with his father.32 By his own account, he spent nine years in Mecca studying under various scholars at the Kaaba, including Sheikh Yahya, a highly renowned Hadith scholar. By the time he returned home he had studied the jurisprudence of Ibn Hanbal (780–855) and had also become familiar with the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) and his students, as well as the works of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703– 92). These were the major Islamic figures whose works were endorsed by the Saudi government.

30 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 21, 2002; El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002. 31  Mahmoudou Bandé, Ibid. El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, Ibid. 32 This province was one of the most important centers of Islam among Mossi even during the precolonial period. Skinner, “Islam in Mossi Society”; Maurice Delafosse, HautSénégal-Niger (Paris: Larose, 1912); Louis Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan (Paris: Larose, 1912).



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On his return home in 1964 among the second group of repatriated pilgrims, Sayouba settled in the house of his elder brother, Mustapha, at Kamsoghin, a suburb of Ouagadougou. It was here that he began preaching the Wahhabi doctrines he had adopted in Mecca, usually during the late evening hours. Kamsoghin was also the residence of Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga. Like Muhammad Sana, Imam Sayouba was an eloquent preacher, and like Sana, his radical sermons and firebrand style of preaching attracted curious listeners, among them Sinare Djebrè, a local merchant sympathetic to Wahhabi/Sunna ideas. Sinare Djebrè recognized the similarity between Sayouba’s message and that of Muhammad Malick Sana, and encouraged the two to work together in promoting their ideas.33 Another important individual among the Meccan returnees who facilitated the development of Wahhabism in Ouagadougou was El Hajj Aboubacar Kanozoe of Paghtenga. Aboubacar Kanozoe of Paghtenga Aboubacar Kanozoe was the oldest of the group called Makka moimba (Meccan scholars), though he did not return until 1968.34 Like Muhammad and Sayouba, Kanozoe, who originated from Paghtenga near Ouahigouya, had lived and studied in Mecca. He left Paghtenga in the late 1930s and was stranded in the Anglo-Sudan for more than twenty years, due to financial difficulties. He finally reached Mecca and performed his pilgrimage in 1966.35 Like Muhammad Sana’s father, Aboubacar Kanozoe was a notable scholar and a devout follower of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo. During that year’s pilgrimage he visited the Burkinabé pilgrims to preach to them about how to perform the pilgrimage. Since most of the pilgrims were affiliated with the Hamawiyya, he also tried to persuade them to abandon the tariqa. Salifou Sawadogo, the hajj organizer and agent for the Hamawi pilgrims, remembers this encounter. I quote him extensively because of the richness of the information, which was corroborated by others.

33 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002. 34 All my informants, including Imam Sayouba (the only living member of the trio), consider Kanozoe one of the founders of the movement. 35 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.

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chapter three Because of the activities of Imam Sayouba and Muhammad Malick Sana in Ouagadougou, we had been warned about a new religion that had appeared in Mecca called Wahhabiyya, which was teaching Muslims not to honor the Prophet and our sheikhs. We were strongly advised to remain focused on the activities of the pilgrimage and to refrain from associating with strangers who might confuse us. One day an old man visited us and introduced himself as Aboubacar Kanozoe of Paghtenga. I had heard about him and I knew some of his relatives who were still living in Rahmatoulaye. He preached to us in the following words: “Now, my children, you have come to Mecca and you are now exposed to the truth. You must abandon the old ways you were taught because those were deviations from the Sunna. At the end of his last hajj, the Prophet stated that he had completed formulating Islam and that there should be no additions to what he had preached. Any addition to the religion is a deviation and every deviation leads to hell. I advise you to hold steadfast to the Prophet’s Sunna and avoid accretions.” He also admitted that he was once Sheikh Sawadogo’s follower. We asked him why he abandoned the Sheikh’s teachings and he replied that he discovered the truth in the course of his travels in the Arab world. He insisted that only the Prophet’s way is the Truth; all others were deviations. For that reason he abandoned the Sheikh to become a follower of the Prophet. We realized he was preaching Wahhabi ideas. Some of the young men threatened to beat him up, but I stopped them and reminded them that he was not only an old man who deserved our respect and protection, but was also the Sheikh’s student; even if he had abandoned the Sheikh, the Sheikh would not abandon him. He left us but visited us again at Mina, where he preached to us about the requirements of the pilgrimage but did not insult our Sheikh.36

This testimony further supports the argument that the early generation Wahhabi preachers in Burkina Faso had some intellectual connections with the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya of Rahmatoulaye. The title of this chapter came from a statement allegedly made by Aboubacar Kanozoe, that they left the colony as students of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo but returned as students of the Prophet Muhammad.37 For Kanozoe and others, Mecca was a transformative experience that must be shared with the rest of the community; that experience included avoiding intermediaries between them and the Prophet. Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo had been considered by many as the most pious and the most educated Mossi scholar during the colonial period. He himself had been influenced by the ideas of reform during his stay in the Anglo-Sudan on his way to Mecca. He too sought to promote the Sunna

36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.



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and to encourage Muslims to imitate the Prophet’s lifestyle, but he also introduced the Tijaniyya, which for these Meccan scholars was a deviation from Islamic orthodoxy. Kanozoe returned to Burkina Faso with his family, probably in 1968, and settled in Ouagadougou. Like Muhammad Sana, he visited Rahmatoulaye. A number of individuals confirmed that in 1969 he attended the celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (mawlid), and was warmly received by Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga, who honored him by inviting him to speak during the festivities. After the mawlid he returned to Ouagadougou, where he met Imam Sayouba, Hajj Zakariyya (another Meccan returnee), and Muhammad Sana. The life histories of these three pioneering Sunna preachers provide us with a general picture of their intellectual origins and early activities. First, only one, Imam Sayouba, was not originally affiliated with the Rahmatoulaye branch of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya. Second, like many earlier reformers, they were inspired by the Qur’anic injunction to “promote the good and forbid the evil” (ta’muruna bi-l- maruf wa tanhawna an al-munkar), an injunction that has been the intellectual and spiritual source of Islamic revivalism throughout the religion’s history. Third, they all lived and studied in Saudi Arabia and returned home with the intention of reforming local Islam based on the concept of Islamic purity promoted by scholars of Hanbali jurisprudence, especially that of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Although they learned the doctrine of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in Saudi Arabia, they were not sent as missionaries by the Saudi government or sponsored by foreign philanthropists. Rather, they believed they were providing religious services and would be rewarded in paradise. Imam Sayouba noted that he returned after his education because he realized how low the standard of Islam was in his home community, and that it was his responsibility to promote religious purity and raise the standards of religious practices. Message and Influence As discussed, the Meccan scholars first came into the spotlight when, between 1964 and 1965, the Communauté Musulmane invited them to preach at the Central Mosque of Ouagadougou on Fridays. The opportunity to preach at the Central Mosque, located in the city’s main market, exposed them to a larger audience. This period can be considered the beginning of an organically developing Wahhabism. To a large extent,

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their sermons were familiar: warning those who indulged in divination and dismissing some customs as superstitions and instructing people on the correct performance of the daily rituals. They also exhorted Muslims to refrain from all prohibitions and to depend only on the Sunna and the Qur’an as sources of spiritual guidance. Rather than focusing only on obligatory aspects of the faith, as most preachers tended to do, the Meccan scholars emphasized the spiritual merits of imitating all aspects of the Prophet’s life, including wearing a beard, keeping one’s physical body and environment clean, and avoiding substances like tobacco, which contaminates the body.38 Most of the elders I spoke with remembered how the Meccan scholars educated residents of the city about both simple and complex aspects of the religion more effectively than other scholars before them. In other words, they were admired. Their late afternoon lectures attracted merchants, many of whom waited long after the lectures to ask specific questions about Islam. The scholars’ responses to complex questions inspired admiration from the crowds, as did their fluency in Arabic; command of Morrè, the Mossi language, despite their long sojourn in the Arab world; and their ability to quote extensively from the Qur’an and other Islamic texts. As their fame grew, their admirers began to create myths about them. For example, Muhammad Sana was alleged to have been inspired by a jinn during the journey to Mecca and this jinni endowed him with mental clarity and knowledge.39 Even locally trained scholars expressed great admiration, at least outwardly, for their Meccan-trained colleagues. As one of their admirers told me, “They made it possible for the Mossi to prove to those foreign scholars (Djula, Fulbé, and Hausa) that the Mossi have now come of age. We now have our own scholars who speak Arabic fluently and know the Qur’an very well. Never again will we be considered ignorant of the religion.”40 38 Archives of Mouvement Sunnite, “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 13. 39 El Hadji Hamidou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, February 6, 2002. This myth embellished and legitimized Sana’s knowledge. Such myth making is common in West Africa. Lansiné Kaba describes how, prior to the introduction of modern transportation, West African Muslims associated pilgrims’ success in traversing treacherous terrain during the trip to Mecca on foot to their possession of superior spiritual powers that allowed them to defeat evil jinns that they encountered during the long journey. By associating the source of Muhammad Sana’s knowledge to supernatural forces, these myths sought to enhance his charisma. 40 El Hadji Salifou Zongo, personal communication, Tanghin, Ouagadougou, February 12, 2002. Others, including Mahmoudou Ouédraogo, corroborated this statement. Personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.



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As people began to ask questions, however, these preachers were compelled to confront the more controversial issues that they had previously avoided for fear of inciting confrontations with other scholars. In doing so, they more aggressively criticized the Tijaniyya, as well as the therapeutic uses of the Qur’an that were prevalent among the local scholars. The Prophet Muhammad, they pointed out, prohibited all forms of innovation, even if such innovations seem justifiable and logical by human calculation. In several of their sermons they also repeated that visiting the grave of a deceased sheikh to ask for his spiritual assistance in healing and other personal matters was equivalent to idol worship. This was clearly directed at Rahmatoulaye, where the tomb of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo had become a spiritual site where some individuals believed their prayers would be answered. The Meccan scholars insisted that even the Prophet after his death has no power to help anyone; only God has the power to help and therefore Muslims should address their needs to God directly and not make supplications through intermediaries. By attacking Sufi doctrines and activities associated with members of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya at this early stage of their preaching, Muhammad Sana and Sayouba appealed to other scholars associated with the Communauté Musulmane who were already critical of the Rahmatoulaye.41 The Meccan scholars also addressed common social, economic, and cultural issues. Arguing that the Prophet Muhammad worked to support himself and did not depend on charity or miracles, they encouraged their listeners to avoid idleness and not expect their conditions to be changed by miracles. The Prophet’s traditions, they insisted, required Muslim men to be responsible for their families and not place that responsibility on their wives or on others. This important socioeconomic issue ran counter to the division of labor in Mossi culture, which required women to contribute to the family’s economy by cultivating specific crops and vegetables to feed the family, while the men assumed other responsibilities. They also condemned Muslim diviners for encouraging and promoting idolatry and syncretism and for corrupting the holy Qur’an by mixing it with profane materials (blood and bones of animals, for example) to produce amulets. Although crucial and generally valid, these sermons were also provocative because the use of esoteric formulae for miraculous healing, and other forms of nontraditional remedies, had long been part of the spiritual activities of many of the local scholars, activities that provided 41 See Boukary Sawadogo, “Confréries et pouvoirs.”

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them with economic sustenance and social prestige. To declare these practices haram (forbidden) was to threaten their sources of influence and sustenance, thus provoking bitter confrontation with scholars who engage in these practices. Furthermore, they criticized Muslim clerics for keeping alms collected during public gatherings rather than using the collections for the development of Muslim institutions or distributing them to the poor (massakin) as instructed in the Qur’an. They also began to condemn ostentatious local customs and cultural practices (funeral rites, naming ceremonies, weddings, and social relations), which they argued were excessive and needlessly expensive. Elaborate funeral rites, especially the gathering of people on the seventh and fortieth days to say mass prayers for the deceased, were declared unacceptable remnants of pre-Islamic African customs. Declaring flamboyant weddings and naming ceremonies to be unnecessary and wasteful, they advised Muslims to be modest and not squander their resources on these practices that contradicted the Prophet’s Sunna. The Meccan returnees’ criticisms of the Hamawiyya had made them convenient allies with the Communauté leadership, who saw an opportunity to undermine Hamawiyya influence. However, these scholars were not specifically interested in religious politics, but rather sought to address concrete religious issues. The attacks on divination, elaborate ceremonies, and the failure to distribute alms according to criteria established by classical Islamic jurists offended Communauté scholars who generally officiated social and cultural activities and pocketed the collections at the end of these ceremonies. Many of them were also known to indulge in the very practices the preachers considered magic (sihr), practices that the Hamawis also condemned. Enraged by attacks on these deeply entrenched customs, and because many of their members complained about the possibility that these controversial sermons would divide the community, the leaders of Communauté Musulmane decided to prohibit the Meccan scholars from any further preaching within the vicinity of the mosque.42 The debate among Communauté leaders that led to the expulsion of the Meccan scholars is important in understanding the organization’s fragility and the ambiguity of its ideas of reform. This fragility contributed to the establishment of Wahhabi-inclined organizations, when some individuals who earlier joined Communauté now found it to be as conservative as the Hamawiyya it criticized. One faction of Communauté leadership, 42 “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 2.



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composed principally of clerics, insisted on the removal of the reformers. They argued that the unity of the umma should override religious concerns because division among Muslims would only perpetuate Christian dominance over Muslims in public offices, which they viewed as the main threat facing Muslims.43 Another faction, led by the president, El Hadji Ousmane Sibiri Ouédraogo (1962–66), argued in favor of the reformers by referring to their potential contribution to Islam’s development in the country.44 In the end those who insisted on dismissing the Meccan preachers prevailed and the preachers were ostracized. However, the Meccan scholars attracted three important groups who later formed the core of the emerging Wahhabi movement: youngergeneration merchants; secularly-educated Muslim public functionaries; and unskilled workers, especially those involved in menial jobs in the market. Through their sermons, Muhammad Sana and Imam Sayouba inspired younger merchants to not waste their capital soliciting the baraka of pious Muslims or believing that anyone could miraculously influence their success. Success in commerce, the Meccan scholars argued, resulted from hard work, good planning, conservative spending, and the reinvestment of profits, not the miraculous intervention of a sheikh. They emphasized that a trader’s responsibility to God was the zakat (compulsory alms) to help the needy. This message inspired some young merchants to become independent of the trade networks dominated by their elders affiliated with the Hamawiyya. Interestingly, unlike some parts of West Africa, where withdrawal from Sufi-controlled commercial networks generated conflict among merchants, there is no evidence that merchants affiliated with the Wahhabi movement in Burkina Faso clashed with their elders who remained affiliated with the Hamawiyya. Rather, the two coexisted without animosity, each doing what it believed was right. For their part, the young public functionaries agreed with the Meccan preachers’ condemnation of superstition and the recommendation that

43 El Hadji Youssif Kouanda, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 10, 2002. 44 El Hadji Ousmane Sibiri was a wealthy merchant at Bobo-Dioulasso before migrating to Ouagadougou in the late 1950s. Like most wealthy merchants in Bobo-Dioulasso during this period who converted to Wahhabism, he too was believed to have converted because of his affiliation with the Muslim Cultural Union. According to Audouin and Deniel (though none of my informants confirmed it), he was instrumental in transforming the Ouagadougou branch of the MCU into Communauté Musulmane de Ouagadougou in 1960, and also initiated the founding of Communauté Musulmane in 1962. See also “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 8; Imam Sayouba, interview, April, 21, 2002. He confirmed that El Hadji Sibiri was sympathetic and helpful to the Sunna preachers.

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Muslims must engage in hard work. Having internalized their secular colleagues’ criticism of Islam as a backward and superstitious religion, they welcomed the preacher’s exoneration of Islam, even if that meant blaming the established Muslim community for fostering practices that gave Islam that bad image in the first instance. For this emerging Muslim group, the preachers represented a new breed of Muslim scholars who had emerged at the right time in the nation’s Islamic history.45 After the death of El Hadji Sibiri in 1966, the scholars affiliated with Communauté Musulmane organized to respond to the Meccan preachers’ polemics. They declared that the Meccan preachers were mercenaries paid by foreign interests to destroy Islam. They further accused them of trying to “Arabize” local customs and practices by insisting on the Arabian version of Islamic orthodoxy at the exclusion of other equally valid doctrines. They emphasized that the reformers’ narrow education led them to accept Saudi customs as universally binding and so they failed to recognize the heterogeneity of authentic Islamic customs and practices derived from diverse cultural milieux.46 Islam, they insisted, accommodates local customs that do not contravene the Sharia.47 One of these clerics remarked during a group interview: God intended Islam to be easy for its adherents; that is why some Qur’anic injunctions are moderated to facilitate obedience. This is also explained by the seemingly contradictory sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad; he offered an opportunity for everyone to be able to practice the religion without feeling overburdened. God said in the Qur’an that He does not impose on His servants more burden than they can bear. Islam is not a religion of extreme rigorous religious behavior, but a religion of moderation. Individuals differ in terms of what they can do. Who can ever fully imitate Abu Bakr, Ali, or Umar, or Uthman, let alone the Prophet? The Sunna preachers were trying to make Islam too difficult for the believers. How can one justify imposing on Muslims practices that are not fundamental to the religion, even if the Prophet did it? To overburden people is to chase them away from the religion. Not all of us are endowed with the character and strength of the Prophet.48

One leader went so far as to argue that declaring a jihad against these “heretical” preachers was a religious obligation that must be pursued

45 El Hadji Mahmoudou Ouédraogo, personal communication, February 24, 2002. 46 Ibid. 47 Group interview, Ouagadougou, February 19, 2002. 48 El Hajj Ibrahim Touré, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 13, 2002.



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with all available resources.49 Declaring the Meccan returnees Wahhabis whose teachings had been rejected by majority of Muslims, Communauté leaders intensified their own condemnation of the preachers and encouraged residents of Ouagadougou to drive them out of the city.50 Between 1966 and 1972, the relationship between Communauté Musulmane and the Meccan scholars was characterized by a contest over the meaning, implication, and strategies of Islamic reform. This further demonstrates the dynamism of Islam during this period, as Muslims grappled with the relationship between their faith and the social, economic, and political transformations of their society since the advent of colonialism. For Muslims trained in French institutions, their interest in these debates stemmed from their search for an “Islam” amenable to their social position in the postcolonial situation; that is, they sought an Islam that helps to answer the non-Muslim criticisms of Islam and provide them with a voice in Muslim affairs. The Growth: 1966–1972 Though prohibited from preaching at the Central Mosque, the Meccan scholars continued to attract followers between 1966 and 1972. During this period a core group began to consolidate as they met regularly to listen to sermons and discuss acceptable Islamic practices and customs. Their main agenda was not, primarily, to create a new organization, but to preach in the styles they had adopted in Mecca. But they also saw themselves as separate from both Communauté and the Tijaniyya-Hamawiyya, and were not prepared to compromise their own positions.51 After departing from Communauté, Imam Sayouba organized a Friday prayer at his uncle’s house at Kamsoghin while Muhammad Sana led a Friday prayer at his new mosque at Tanghin.52 According to prevailing local customs of the time, the Friday prayer was the time when all Muslims of the city were expected to gather in one place. Refusing to pray behind a specific imam could be interpreted as a rejection of his spiritual authority. Some even

49 El Hadji Mahmoudou Ouédraogo, personal communication, February 24, 2002. 50 Ibid. 51  These include Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo and his uncle Halil Ouédraogo, Muhammad Sana and his half brother also called Muhammad, El Hadji Sanoussi (another Meccan returnee), Ahmadou Bandé, and Souleymane Ouédraogo, who would become the movement’s national president in 1973. 52 Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 19, 2002.

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believed, erroneously, that organizing an independent Friday prayer close to a major mosque was prohibited by Islam. Thus, from the perspective of Communauté leaders, when Imam Sayouba organized a Friday prayer at a location within walking distance of the Central Mosque, he had rejected their imam. Unwilling to give in to the rise of a rival organization in Ouagadougou, Communauté leaders mobilized to suppress the group. Arguing that the Meccan scholars were inciting division among Muslims, Communauté leaders, who had the support of local and national politicians, including the Catholic president Maurice Yaméogo, convinced the mayor of Ouagadougou to bar Sayouba from observing the Friday prayer in Kamsoghin.53 In demanding that Imam Sayouba and his followers not hold their juma’a (Friday congregational prayer) independently, the mayor explained that there were two large mosques (that of the Hamawiyya and the Central Mosque) in the same suburb, and there was therefore no need for another mosque in such close proximity (less than two miles distant). Quite clearly, the issue had become politicized. Under the influence of the powerful cardinal, Paul Zoungrana (1917–2000), Yaméogo had grown suspicious of Islamic activities that bore some foreign influence and therefore sided with the Communauté in this Muslim dispute.54 The headquarters of the Catholic Church was also located in Kamsoghin, which suggests that the cardinal, the president, the mayor of the city, along with the leaders of the Communauté, had a common interest in suppressing a Muslim group whose teachings were considered inimical to the city’s peaceful religious climate. Only the president of the Communauté, Ousmane Sibiri, who had embraced Wahhabism during his residence in Bobo-Dioulasso, continued to sympathize with the Meccan scholars. He would have preferred to keep the Meccan scholars within the Communauté so that their knowledge could benefit the community, but the Meccan scholars’ uncompromising attitude made it difficult for him to protect them.55 Forced out of the city center, Muhammad Sana offered his residence at Tanghin for the group to observe the Friday prayers and meet regularly.56 Tanghin was several miles from the city center and one of the old but nondemarcated suburbs of Ouagadougou; in the 1960s it was a sanctuary for

53 El Hadji Ibrahim Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 2, 2002. 54 Ibid. 55 Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 19, 2002. 56 Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” 33; interview with Imam Sayouba, Ouagadougou, April 19, 2002; “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 3.



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diverse social groups who could not afford to live in the city. Lacking infrastructure (clean water, electricity, schools, roads, and a hospital), land was relatively cheap and rents very low, making it possible for unemployed urban migrants, low-salaried public functionaries, and young petty traders to rent or build low-cost mud and straw houses. Tanghin and many such suburbs (called non-lottie) were affordable communities where diverse social, occupational, and religious groups were able to live as squatters.57 Tanghin had neither a mosque nor a madrasa when Muhammad Sana settled there in 1965. He therefore built both adjacent to his house, in an effort to serve the community.58 Because of these initiatives the few moimba (religious leaders) in the community, most of whom had very limited education, submitted to his leadership and allowed him to serve as their imam and to officiate in social and cultural activities.59 Control over these activities gave Muhammad Sana the opportunity to teach his doctrine without harassment by Communauté leaders. Thus, by the time Imam Sayouba and the others joined him, Muhammad Sana had already laid the foundation for a new community. Gradually the group began to see its mission as divinely ordained. Their rejection by the Communauté Musulmane and subsequent eviction from Kamsoghin were interpreted as divine signs that they were on the right track. This is evident in the ways they posthumously constructed their experiences to parallel the Prophet Muhammad’s rejection by the people of Mecca and his emigration to Medina. As Sayouba noted: We cannot claim to have been sent by God to spread the Prophet’s Sunna. However, when you are harassed and rejected because you instruct people to follow the right path, you should know that you’re going in the right direction because this is not a test for those you are trying to change; it is rather a test of your commitment to ensuring the primacy of Sunna in the community’s activities.60

57 Among Mossi and perhaps other ethnic groups as well, many individuals avoided extravagant lifestyles for fear of being bewitched. This fear led many relatively wealthy individuals to conceal their material achievements by living among the poor in obscure communities such as Tanghin. Thus it would be erroneous to assume that all residents of these ostensibly poor communities were indeed poor. The significance of these socioanthropological issues to the popularity of the Ahl al-Sunna in these communities is crucial, but beyond the scope of this work. 58 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 16, 2002. Also Moctar Cissé, Ouahigouya, March 2, 2002. 59 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, ibid. 60 Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 19, 2002.

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Convinced that their departure from Kamsoghin to Tanghin symbolized a hijra, the two reformers intensified their tirade. They declared as haram such commonly accepted practices as smoking, listening to music, dancing, associating with non-Muslims, shaking the hands of women, or being seen in the company of women besides one’s immediate family.61 Although seemingly trivial, these prohibitions were a significant departure from existing sociocultural norms. Men were accustomed to shaking women’s hands. Smoking and chewing tobacco were acceptable among adults, though children were forbidden to use tobacco. The mixing of the sexes during cultural and social activities was also normal, and women were not isolated in public or within the household. Prior to the arrival of the Meccan preachers, only Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo had prohibited these practices and the Hamawiyya continued to observe these restrictions, further demonstrating their theological proximity to the Meccan scholars’ ideas, despite their doctrinal differences. As part of their insistence on imitating the Prophet, Muhammad Sana and Sayouba encouraged their followers to observe an austere lifestyle by avoiding expensive, flamboyant clothing, regardless of their wealth, and to wear their pants and gowns above the ankle in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad’s modesty.62 In addition, they insisted on wearing beards as the Prophet and his Companions are believed to have done. These recommendations appealed to wealthy individuals eager for spiritual revival, and also consoled the poor who could not afford to live otherwise. Equally important, they appealed to upstart merchants and low-salaried public functionaries for whom glamorous lifestyles, imposed on the society by ancient customs, drained their meager resources. The emphasis on avoiding conspicuous consumption appealed to many wealthy individuals who tended to avoid flamboyant lifestyles for fear of attracting the evil eye (a common belief among the Mossi up to this period). As members of a new religious group, they justified their avoidance of luxury as imitation of the Prophet rather than superstition.63 Interestingly, local Wahhabi ideas

61  Ibid. Whether these practices were prohibited or merely discouraged will be considered elsewhere. 62 The Prophet is believed to have adopted this dress code as part of his austere lifestyle, and in order to avoid dragging dirt into the mosque. 63 This is another anthropological aspect of Wahhabism that has remained unexplored. It was common knowledge among the Mossi that showing off one’s wealth often attracted malignant forces that would either destroy the wealth or cause the individual’s untimely death. For this reason, in spite of their wealth, most Mossi lived in mud and thatched houses; this partly explains why the city of Ouagadougou, for instance, remained largely



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helped individuals who were afraid of showing off their wealth to justify their modesty on religious grounds. As such, the teachings of these scholars allowed wealthy individuals to accommodate local beliefs and their personal desire to adhere to rational economic behavior within the repertoire of religious orthodoxy. Perhaps the more vivid presence of Wahhabi/Sunna adherents was indicated by their women, who were not only secluded from public spaces but also required to wear the black niqab (the face covering worn by women) hitherto unknown in the city except in the Hamawiyya community. Unmarried women, including prepubescent girls, had to wear a veil when in a public space. Women were not allowed to engage in gainful employment outside their homes or even to shop for food in the market; men assumed the responsibility of engaging in all activities that involved contact with the public. These impositions not only restricted women’s economic initiatives, but also deprived them of an important source of income that they obtained by economizing on the daily allowance (“market money”) they received to buy and prepare meals for the family. These prohibitions and dress codes not only doctrinally distinguished the emerging Wahhabi community from the bulk of the Muslim population (except the Hamawis), but also became cultural markers contested by future generations of Sunna scholars. Recruitment Strategies The reformers attracted most of their followers through personal contacts. Since individuals were connected to broader intertwining networks of families, friends, relatives, and colleagues, interpersonal contacts were perhaps the most effective method of recruiting followers during this early stage. It was through such personal contacts that Souleymane Ouédraogo, for example, influenced his two friends and school colleagues, Iddrissa Semdé and Ahmadou Bandé, to join the group.64 The new followers in turn encouraged their friends and relatives in other parts of the city to invite Sana and Sayouba to preach in their communities during social rural until Thomas Sankara’s rise in 1984. During the 1984–88 revolution, Thomas Sankara discouraged this belief and encouraged the wealthy to build modern houses in order to beautify the city. The city’s subsequent development can be attributed to Sankara’s criticism of that superstition. 64 Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 12, 2002; El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, April 11, 2002.

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functions. Imam Sayouba pointed out that after they stopped preaching at the Central Mosque they became even busier, spending most weekends attending weddings and naming ceremonies, especially on the city’s peripheries where Communauté scholars would not go. He recalled, Living in the remote outskirts without good roads, people who invited us to their weddings or naming ceremonies or to help them bury their dead were usually full of appreciation when they saw us because they knew it took a great deal of sacrifice to come to their communities. But for us this was precisely our mission, to demonstrate that, as the Prophet had said, the umma is one community in which members shared their joys and sorrows. In conducting da’wa, there is no room for laziness. Like traders, public gatherings are our markets, and we must go wherever people are gathered.65

Thus, they attracted followers by catering to the needs of communities often ignored by the Communauté. As their activities spread to other parts of the city, the two preachers and their followers found themselves responding to invitations throughout the country. While many of these invitations came from people who had only heard about them, some came from other returnees from Mecca who were living in other parts of the country, thus leading to the establishment of a network of returnees that contributed to the growth of Wahhabism. As Imam Sayouba suggested, the Sunna preachers associated with the Subbanu and MCU failed to gain mass followers even in Bobo-Dioulasso because they focused on trading instead of da’wa (proselytization). Though there was a Sunna community at Bobo-Dioulasso decades before we started preaching, it remained confined among individuals. Around 1969 a member of the Sunna invited us to a wedding. At the end of the official ceremony, they began to distribute food and the guests began feasting. I got up and instructed them to suspend the feasting because I wanted to say a few words about Islam. I took the opportunity to preach for about half an hour, and invited other scholars to do the same. This became part of their routine whenever there was a social gathering. We had been doing that here in Ouagadougou and that was how we spread the Sunna. If the Sunna scholars in Bobo had followed the Islamic principle that every Muslim gathering was an opportunity to spread God’s message, most of Bobo’s Muslims would have been observing the Sunna decades before we returned home.66

In addition to interpersonal contacts and active proselytization, the reformers also used marriage to attract and bind followers, an ancient

65 Personal communication, Imam Sayouba, Ouagadougou, April 19, 2002. 66 Ibid., April 12, 2002.



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Mossi custom that resonated in the strategies of the emerging Wahhabi community.67 Aboubacar Kanozoe, for instance, offered his daughters only to individuals who agreed to join the new Sunna community. His six daughters, along with those of his relatives on whom he had some influence, were all married to individuals who agreed to become part of the Sunna-based community. He also reserved the right to take back the woman if the husband later abandoned the community.68 Because they viewed the rest of the Muslim community as “impure,” members of the emerging Wahhabi community reserved for themselves the right to marry women from communities they had declared “impure,” but refused to give their women away to those who did not embrace Wahhabism, justifying their position with the widely held belief that Muslims are allowed to marry non-believing women but Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men.69 In other words, the rest of the ummah was dismissed as unbelievers, but their women were lawful to members of the Sunna community. Women were therefore the most conspicuous members of the community. In their black niqab these women embodied and displayed the Wahhabi identity more visibly than the men. The Mosque and the Spread of Wahhabi/Sunna Doctrine Even at this early stage the mosque was becoming an important space for reinforcing the Wahhabi doctrine and for constructing a cohesive community. Having declared other Muslims religious innovators, the Wahhabi reformers forbade their followers to pray behind non-Wahhabi imams. While preaching the spiritual merits of praying at the mosque and paying attention to the minutest details of formal Islamic rituals, they also cautioned against hyper-rigorous rituals not substantiated by the Prophet’s traditions. Praying in the mosque was made almost obligatory and this also provided a larger audience for the evening sermons. Imam Sayouba explains,

67 See also Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” 33. 68 For example, he gave one of his daughters first to El Hajj Souleyman Diaré, a member of the Hamawiyya, who had expressed interest in the Sunna. When it became obvious that Diaré would not convert to the Sunna, Aboubacar Kanozoe immediately annulled the marriage and remarried the young woman to one El Hajj Lansané Moigo, a devout Hamawiyya who joined the Sunna after the marriage. Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002. 69 Ibid.

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chapter three We encouraged people to come to the masjid [mosque] not only because it was more meritorious than praying individually, but also because we wanted them to learn the correct ways to perform the salat by observing and learning from the learned among them and to listen to sermons about Sunna and “true” Islam.70

While members of the tariqas, for example, performed collective zikr at the end of each prayer, Sunna imams spent a few minutes after each prayer to recite and explain Qur’anic passages and Hadith that reinforced the Sunna dogma. The role of the mosque as a ritual space, a school, and a counseling center became more apparent when members of the Sunna built their mosque at Zongoetin in 1978. The mosque provided followers with the opportunity to learn the Islamic sciences by participating in study circles held between the last two prayers, maghrib and ‘isha. Organized according to subject areas—Qur’anic recitations, Hadith, the sira (life history of the Prophet), and Sharia—the participants gained specific knowledge that bolstered their commitment to the movement and its creed. At the same time, the study circles made it possible for participants to gain an understanding of Islam without the usual commitment to being a formal student of a traditional scholar. The traditional symbolic and/or material reciprocal exchanges between students and teachers, characteristic of traditional ilm and Qur’anic schools, were absent in the pedagogical relationship that emerged from the majlis system.71 Rather, most of the teachers had occupations and only volunteered part of their time for teaching. Those who did not have any other source of income received small stipends directly from the sadaqa (alms) offered by members for the maintenance of the mosque. Many of these teachers were madrasa students who volunteered to teach adults, and earn some income in the process.72 Thus, Wahhabi-inclined reformers justified their collection of sadaqa on the grounds that it was given back to the community, especially the needy, including Qur’anic students and their teachers. Moreover, unlike the traditional Qur’anic and ilm schools that required ritual submission to the teacher (regardless of the student’s age), study 70 Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 12, 2002. 71  These included services offered by the student to the teacher in exchange for esoteric litany or knowledge, and the commitment to the teacher’s intellectual and spiritual chain of authority (silsila). The majlis system provided training to mostly adult and advanced Qur’anic school students; the students and the teacher(s) interacted by exchanging and debating ideas, with the teacher guiding the discussion and clarifying issues. 72 Personal communication, Mahmoudou Bandé, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.



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circles were impersonal and thus helped to democratize the opportunity to acquire knowledge.73 Resounding with Qur’anic recitations and the melodious adhan (call for prayer), Sunna mosques not only stirred piety and love of the Qur’an, but also an admiration of the Arab world. Similarly, their distinct dress codes portrayed a group passionately committed to the Prophet Muhammad and his traditions, as they understood it.74 Their lifestyles and social and cultural activities—encouraging the acquisition of wealth without being boastful and refusing to show off their wealth through ostentatious gift-giving on special occasions—gave the impression that the community was fostering piety while encouraging the individual acquisition of wealth. Perhaps because of this, the movement attracted followers ranging from individuals seeking spiritual renewal or wealth, to those for whom it represented a revolutionary departure from the “archaic” practices of the established scholars. Internal Conflicts By 1972 Wahhabism in Ouagadougou had gained many followers and was thus ready to become an independent organization. Away from the harassment of Communauté, and isolated in its nucleus of seven to twelve members in 1965,75 it had reached more than two thousand in 1972.76 Members had organized to build two madrasas, one at Kalgondé and the other at Ouidi, and had a total of 1,265 students by 1978.77 They were also preparing to build a mosque in Zongoetin, a suburb of Ouagadougou close to the center of the city and not far from the Central Mosque of Ouagadougou. Thus, having matured in the outskirts of the city, Wahhabism returned to

73 In this process the Wahhabi movement reintroduced the classical centrality of the mosque (known in classical Islam as the majlis system) into Muslim activities. In many parts of the Muslim world, the advent of Sufi tariqa organizations replaced the majlis with the zawiya both structurally and symbolically, though they remained functionally identical. In Burkina Faso, however, the use of the masjid for social activities was a new phenomenon (the mosque used to be considered so sacred that eating was prohibited there) and therefore part of the symbolic identity of the Wahhabi movement. 74 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002. 75 Dao’s figure is twelve but I was told there were only seven. See Dao, “Le Wah­ habisme,” 33. 76 El Hadji Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Ouahigouya, March 28, 2002. El Hadji Abdul Qadir was once a trader in Ouagadougou; he frequented the Sunna mosque at Zongoetin, though he never officially considered himself a member of the Sunna community. 77 Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” 83.

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the center of Ouagadougou with a renewed force during the early 1970s. In Bobo-Dioulasso members completed a mosque; by the most conservative estimates its membership exceeded three thousand, scattered throughout the city of Bobo-Dioulasso and the surrounding towns and villages.78 These developments occurred amid internal power contests and personal conflicts among the leadership. The first in what would become a series of power struggles occurred between Imam Sayouba and Muhammad Sana. When the group transferred their activities to Tanghin, Muhammad Sana served as the imam and spiritual leader. According to Sayouba, no one questioned Sana’s leadership until late 1968 when he began reciting the shahada (la-ilaha illa-Llah) at the beginning of each of the five daily prayers. Because this practice was associated with the Hamawiyya, Sayouba declared it bid’a, and warned his colleagues against falling into shirk. Sana persisted, however, arguing that the practice conformed to authentic Islamic doctrines. Unable to convince him that he had deviated from the Prophet’s Sunna, Imam Sayouba and his followers stopped observing prayers in Muhammad’s mosque and moved to Zongoetin, where Ahmadou Bandé, one of the French-educated professionals, offered his residence for meetings and prayers.79 Up to the end of 1969 the group remained split between these two principal scholars, in spite of the intervention of Aboubacar Kanozoe, who was highly respected by both factions due to his age and knowledge.80 According to other informants, however, the conflict had begun much earlier but reached a climax in 1968/69 when a Saudi scholar visited the group.81 Muhammad Sana, who had apparently invited this scholar,

78 Informants have given me figures ranging from two thousand to four thousand. These figures are certainly unreliable on their own merits. Their importance here rests more on their symbolic meaning than accuracy. Most observers, including the movement’s adversaries, confirmed that the movement had made unprecedented strides, which were indicated by the number of people attending their mosques during the Friday prayers and at their da’wa sessions. Nonetheless, informants also agreed that members of the Sunna remained a minority among Burkina Muslims even at the peak of the movement’s development. 79 Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 23, 2002. Separate interview with Sayouba’s associate, El Hadji Amadi Ahmadou Ouédraogo, at Ouagadougou, April 22, 2002. Also in “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 4. 80 “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 5. El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 16, 2002. 81  El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, ibid. Mahmoudou Bandé, Ouagadougou, February 26, 2002. Mahmoudou Bandé was the youngest member of the community during this time and the younger brother of Ahmadou Bandé, who offered his residence at Zongoetin for group meetings and prayers after Imam Sayouba and Muhammad Sana had split.



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appealed to him to solicit funds from Saudi philanthropists to help them build a mosque. The guest wrote back and informed Sana that he had raised some money for the proposed mosque. These sources stressed that as soon as the other members heard about the impending funds they wrote to inform the sponsor that Muhammad Sana was no longer their leader because he had converted to the Tijaniyya and was practicing bid’a. Realizing that they were likely to fight over the control of these funds, Muhammad Sana instructed his friend to not send the money, with the excuse that he had been denied a permit to build the mosque. He promised to notify the sponsor when they found a new site but never contacted him again.82 Muhammad Sana subsequently emigrated to Bobo-Dioulasso, where he preached the Sunna for some time, then settled at Hamle on the Burkina-Ghana border. Imam Sayouba confirmed that a Saudi philanthropist had promised them money to build a mosque, but he denied that his conflict with Sana had anything to do with the promised funds.83 He also agreed that the proposed funds were never sent but was unaware that it was Muhammad who had stopped the transfer. This issue may seem trivial, but it is central to understanding the evolution of this movement in particular and many Wahhabi organizations in Ghana as well, where disputes over foreign grants contributed substantially to the subsequent disintegration of Wahhabi-inclined organizations.84 The competition for the position of imam did not end with Sana’s departure, however. After Sayouba and his followers moved to Bandé’s residence in Zongoetin, Imam Sayouba and Ahmadou Bandé were selected to serve as alternate imams of the Friday prayers. Because Zongoetin was located in the center of the city, closer to the central market, the group was able to attract followers from among the youth, urban merchants, and madrasa students. As their followers increased, the Communauté Musulmane continued to pressure city administrators to suppress them. During this time, however, the Catholic president Maurice Yaméogo was overthrown by the military headed by a Muslim, General Aboubacar Sangoulé

82 Interview with Mahmoudou Bandé, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002, and Salifou Sawadogo, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002. 83 Interview with Imam Sayouba, Ouagadougou, April 12, 2002. Also in “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 8. 84 Three factors were mentioned in these conflicts: money, power, and doctrine. We shall examine these elsewhere. The effects of funds from the Arab world on the history of the Wahhabi movements throughout West Africa is becoming an increasingly important theme for historians that I will examine in detail elsewhere. See also Sanneh, The Crown, 74.

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Lamizana (1916–2005). This coup was not related to religious politics, but rather was a result of the failures of the Yaméogo regime to develop the country. Lamizana was not prepared to intervene on the part of any particular Muslim group at this time and therefore ignored demands from Communauté leaders to repress the Wahhabis because they were threatening religious peace in the city. However, in order to establish a legal status and strengthen their rights under the law, the secularly-educated cohort formed a committee in 1969 to direct their activities and to represent them whenever summoned by government officials to respond to Communauté’s complaints.85 This committee confirmed Ahmadou Bandé and Imam Sayouba as imams of the nascent organization.86 Around 1971 some of the members complained that Bandé was not translating the Friday sermon (khutba) from Arabic to Morrè and therefore asked him to allow Imam Sayouba to lead all the Friday prayers.87 Though Bandé could read the Qur’an, he could not understand its content. This request, which clearly questioned Bandé’s Arabic competency (he had a secular education), resulted in another conflict that threatened to further fragment the community in Ouagadougou. However, the situation was saved by the timely intervention of Souleymane Ouédraogo, who rejoined the group after a brief departure from the city on official assignment. As part of this reconciliation, he and Iddrissa Semdé successfully convinced Ahmadou Bandé to step down and allow Sayouba to serve as the sole imam.88 From that point on, the Western-educated members (Souleymane Ouédraogo, Iddrissa Semdé, and Ahmadou Bandé) assumed the formal leadership of the rapidly growing Sunna community, leaving Imam Sayouba to serve as the religious head.

85 The committee comprised the following: President: El Hajj Lassane of Bilbalogho Vice President: Kouanda Halidou 2nd Vice President: Mahmoudou Bandé (younger brother of Ahmadou Bandé) 3rd Vice President: Ali Cissé 4th Vice President: Saidou Dankambari (also known as Saidou Boxer). “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 9. 86 Ibid., 12. 87 Bandé, we should mention, was selected to serve as imam not because of his competence in Arabic (though he had some Islamic education), but rather in accordance with the Islamic principle that privileged the person who provided a place for prayers, if qualified, to serve as imam. Curiously, none of the Western-educated individuals was included in this committee, and Souleymane Ouédraogo, the first Western-educated person to join the group, was not included. 88 “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 11.



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The controversy over the position of imam, a controversy that historically fragmented Muslim communities in Burkina Faso as in other parts of West Africa, continued to haunt the organization. These conflicts had several implications. While the problem between Sana and Sayouba might have been instigated by rivalry and then heightened by an impeding grant, it also indicated the formation of new leadership criteria. To be a Wahhabi/Sunna spiritual leader or imam, one had to abide by a rigidly defined Sunna dogma that excluded other doctrines. To neglect any aspect of that dogma was to become a mushrik (polytheist), and thus be ejected from the community. It is important to highlight this point because it became central to the ultimate decline of Wahhabi movements, not only in Burkina Faso, but also in Ghana. The rejection of Ahmadou Bandé, on the other hand, suggests a growing tension between Western-educated members and Arabophone scholars over the movement’s leadership, a tension that became fully visible in the 1980s and laid the grounds for the organization’s disintegration. * * * In Burkina Faso a proto-Wahhabi movement was introduced by the Subbanu Association in Bobo-Dioulasso and surrounding areas along the Djula trading network. However, these early Wahhabi-oriented teachings failed to spread to Mossi-dominated territories until the return of Burkinabé scholars from Saudi Arabia at the end of the colonial period. Wahhabism can therefore be considered a part of the new movements that arose with the postcolonial state whose roots can be traced to the colonial period. The similarities of these scholars’ message with that of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, along with their training in Saudi Arabia, suggest the movement’s close proximity with the type of Sunna endorsed by Saudi Arabia. Although the country was in need of such scholars, their radical method of proselytization and their denunciation of local Muslim customs alienated many mainstream Muslims. Their message also conflicted with the aspirations of the leaders of the Communauté Musulmane, who preferred moderate reform that would not jeopardize Muslim unity. Their confrontations with the Communauté Musulmane’s leaders, which I discuss further in chapter 5, resulted in their banishment from the city’s Central Mosque, an act designed to prevent them from recruiting followers. Yet by the end of the 1960s they had gained a significant number of followers in Ouagadougou and other parts of the country. In closing, it is important to compare the new Wahhabi movement with its predecessors, the Subbanu Association and the Muslim Cultural Union.

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These groups all emphasized a literal interpretation of the Qur’an, a strict imitation of the Prophet, and a condemnation of Sufism. However, unlike the Subbanu and the MCU, whose leaders were mostly foreigners, the leaders of the postcolonial Wahhabi movement were indigenous people from the largest ethnic group, the Mossi, which until the colonial period had generally resisted conversion to Islam. The Meccan scholars thus appealed to Mossi and other indigenous people more than the Subbanu and MCU. The early appeal of Wahhabism was therefore partly nationalistic and partly religious. Moreover, while the Subbanu and MCU were largely elitist organizations, Wahhabism transcended intellectual, social, and ethnic boundaries, and encouraged an alliance between Arabophone and secularly-educated elites in its leadership structure (chapters 5 and 6). In the next chapter, I examine the rise of proto-Wahhabi-inclined movements in Ghana through the biographies of Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura and Sheikh Adam Appiedu. These two began their intellectual careers on the eve of Ghana’s independence, further suggesting a salient connection between this movement and independence from colonial rule. It seems clear that independence from colonial rule provided a new space for Muslims to engage in religious reform and contests for religious leadership.

Chapter four

“Seeing” God: Tarbiya and the Beginning of Wahhabism in Ghana In the last chapter we detailed the rise of Wahhabism among the Mossi, the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso, after the return of Arabian-trained Mossi scholars from Mecca in 1963 and 1964. While the foreign connection of the rise of Wahhabism in Burkina Faso prior to the 1970s is uncontested, these scholars were not sent by a foreign government or by philanthropists to spread a Wahhabi version of Islamic reform. Rather, these scholars embraced Wahhabism during their self-sponsored education and sojourn in Mecca. During the colonial period, the West African intellectual connection with the Maghreb shifted to Cairo and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. They were part of a group of aspiring young scholars who combined the pilgrimage with religious education. In support of the argument that they were not sponsored to spread Wahhabism, I refer to the fact that they had to be repatriated by the government of Burkina Faso, under pressure from the Saudi government to return Burkinabé pilgrims who had been stranded in the kingdom for several years. Even if we trace the emergence of Wahhabism to the activities of the Subbanu Association during the 1940s and 1950s along the Mande trading diaspora communities in Bobo-Dioulasso, we cannot overlook the foreign origin of Wahhabism, since members of the Subbanu Association came from Mali and had themselves been educated at al-Azhar University in Cairo. Yet like the Meccan scholars, the Azharists also sponsored their own studies and returned to fulfill what they believed to be a spiritual requirement rooted in several Qur’anic verses and hadith, one that imposes on devout Muslims the responsibility of promoting religious purity and suppressing reprehensible behavior in their societies. The present chapter takes us to Ghana during the waning years of British colonialism. Here we encounter the implantation of ideas associated with Wahhabism as early as the 1950s, although this proto-Wahhabi movement did not geminate until the 1970s. We demonstrate that the rise of Wahhabism is traceable to local doctrinal disputes along with the aspirations of some scholars to transform local Islamic practices to reflect what they considered authentic Islamic customs and a modern religious

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expression. In other words, Wahhabism in Ghana was homegrown. The biographical narratives of two major scholars, Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura and Sheikh Adam Appiedu, provide ample evidence in support of this position. The early 1950s was an important period in Ghana’s political history. The nationalist struggles reached a climax in 1951 when Kwame Nkrumah’s victory in the Constituent Assembly election paved the way for the colony’s impending independence from British rule. But this political victory also contributed to a further transformation of the Muslim religious landscape. In an attempt to consolidate Muslim support for his party, the Convention People’s Party, Kwame Nkrumah is believed to have invited Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse of Senegal to Ghana to help foster unity among Muslims whose support he needed in the next stage of the independence struggle.1 A rising star in the regional Tijaniyya leadership and a panAfricanist by all measures, Sheikh Niasse was already gathering followers throughout West Africa and the Sudan.2 During the late 1940s and early 1950s he engaged in a continental tour, not only spreading his Sufi doctrine, but also encouraging the dismantling of colonialism.3 Sheikh Niasse’s visit to Ghana affected the development of the Tijaniyya there, since his followers saw in the Sheikh an opportunity for a powerful spiritual immersion under the guidance of an extremely devout and charismatic black leader. However, it was the controversy generated by his introduction of the tarbiya (an esoteric Sufi ritual that promised to unveil the divine Reality to initiates) that reshaped the local Islamic landscape and laid the foundation for the emergence of Wahhabism (see the preface). Hajj Yussif Salih Afa Ajura An eloquent preacher, political activist, and cultural architect, Hajj Yussif Salih Afa Ajura is widely considered to have been the initiator of Wahhabi reformism in Northern Ghana (then the Northern Territories). Yet little has been published on his contributions to the rise of this movement in 1 Though most Muslims believed that Kwame Nkrumah invited the Sheikh to pray for his success in subsequent elections, other sources argued that he wanted the Sheikh to help galvanize Muslim support for the Convention People’s Party in order to draw support from Muslims otherwise sympathetic to the Muslim Association Party. However, I have not been able to find any official record of the invitation though most of the surviving Muslims leaders close to Nkrumah admit he met with the Sheikh several times during the visit. 2 Hiskett, “The Community of Grace.” 3 Seesemann, The Divine Flood.



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Ghana.4 Mervyn Hiskett’s article, the only published work I know that specifically looks at the polemics between Wahhabi adherents and Sheikh Niasse’s followers, does not mention him.5 Afa Ajura’s reluctance to write or permit anyone to write his biography contributed to the limited attention he has received from Western scholars. Yet the history of Wahhabism in Ghana is incomplete unless we trace its development to Afa Ajura’s reform activities. The following is an attempt at reconstructing his biography and the history of the movement he initiated based on information I garnered from his surviving associates and sons, particularly from his eldest son Hajj Hallawaihi, who was authorized by Afa Ajura to provide the family’s history.6 Like most people born during the colonial period, Afa Ajura’s exact date of birth is unknown. He is, however, believed to have been born before 1920 at Ajura, an old commercial town bordering the Asante and Brong Ahafo Regions of Ghana, during one of his parents’ kola trading trips. He came from a long line of learned men that includes his great-grandfather, a scholar and an imam. After studying the Qur’an with his maternal uncle

4 A noted exception is John Pobee, Religion and Politics in Ghana (Accra, Ghana, 1991). But even Pobee focuses more on Afa Ajura’s political activism than his religious contribution and therefore tends to view the Ambariyya, the religious/educational institution founded by Afa Ajura, as the instrument of his political activism. There is also a newspaper article in the May 28, 1983, Ghanaian Times about him, though it is quite sketchy. 5 Hiskett, “The Community of Grace.” Weiss’s article on social welfare in Northern Ghana mentions the Ambariyya but does not mention Afa Ajura (though Weiss interviewed some of the leading scholars and administrators of the Ambariyya). Holger Weiss, “Reorganising Social Welfare Among Muslims: Islamic Voluntarism and Other Forms of Communal Support in Northern Ghana,” JRA 32 (2002): 83–109. See his list of interviews. Similarly, his most recent publication barely discusses Afa Ajura’s contributions to the reformist tendency and the Ambariyya madrasa discussed in the book. See Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism. There are, however, a few unpublished theses that mention Afa Ajura, albeit in passing, notably the works of Salifu Seidu, “The Influence of Islam on the Dagomba in the Twentieth Century,” master’s thesis, University of Ghana (Legon), Accra, 1989; Sulemana Mumuni, “Islamic Organizations in Accra: Their Structure, Role and Impact in Proselytization of Islam,” master’s thesis, University of Ghana (Legon), Accra, 1994; Mumuni, “Muslim Non-Governmental Organizations.” Phyllis Ferguson’s dissertation may contain important information but I have not been able to read it; “Islamization in Dagbon.” Abdulai Iddrisu’s dissertation and forthcoming book will expand on our understanding of the religious and political activism of this reformer. 6 Afa Ajura initially wanted to speak with me directly during my research in 2002, but after more than two months of waiting without success for his health to improve, he authorized Hajj Hallawaihi to provide me with whatever information I needed. Although I collected a great deal about his biography from his associates and students, especially those who had worked with him for a considerable length of time, such as Hajj Issa Musah Moro and Mallam Shaaban, I believe I only scratched the surface of the biography of this great Dagomba scholar and political activist.

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Mallam Halidu at Saba, he proceeded to study the major Islamic texts (injilah, asmaawi, akhdari, and tafsir) with renowned scholars of the time, including Mallam Bello of Kejebi and Mallam Awudu of Kpalume (all important Muslim towns along the Volta River Basin).7 It was the norm at the time for young Muslims to acquire practical vocational skills after completing the Qur’an, in order to support themselves and not depend on charity from the community for sustenance.8 These skills included tailoring, driving, auto repairs, carpentry, and painting. At the end of his studies Afa Ajura decided to learn hat weaving at Amansu in the Asante region, where he worked briefly before returning to Tamale in the 1940s to establish a Qur’anic school. He organized a night school in the corridor of the family house and daytime classes in the back alley of the house when the number of pupils was much larger. A portion of the mud wall of the house was painted black to serve as a blackboard. In addition to teaching he also organized evening preaching sessions to educate adults on a number of religious topics. In the course of these sessions he questioned the orthodoxy of some local practices, especially customs related to the rites of passage (naming and wedding ceremonies and funeral rituals). It was his radical interpretation of the non-conformity of local customs with authentic Islamic customs that first brought him to public attention. Veiling the Bride: Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura’s Cultural Reform In his quest for spiritual purity, Afa Ajura first became concerned about seemingly un-Islamic customs in Daghani marriage and funeral ceremonies, two areas in which pre-Islamic African customs were often blended with approved Islamic practices.9 An important aspect of the Dagbon 7 In those days most children were sent to learn with distant scholars even if their own parents were scholars. This custom was intended to ensure that students acquired both knowledge and the spiritual discipline crucial to their success. 8 Although a Qur’anic education was a source of social influence and power, students were discouraged from depending on it for their livelihood. Popular vocational training included driving, tailoring, masonry, and hat weaving, and the more ambitious learned watch repair. Learning, teaching, and preaching Islam were considered aspects of the individual’s piety, the desire to spread the religion, and not a permanent profession. Even those who ended up devoting themselves to the service of Islam as teachers or preachers had some practical vocational training such as tailoring. See also the biography of Hajj Umar Ibrahim in the next chapter. 9 Hajj Halawai Yussif Ajura, personal communication, Tamale, May 17, 2002, and Hajj Issa Musah Moro, Tamale, June 1, 2002. For example, the Qur’an’s recommendation that deceased relatives should be remembered with prayers and almsgiving helped preserve



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marriage ceremony, as in many other parts of Ghanaian Muslim communities during this period, was the ritual cleansing of the bride in preparation for adult life. The description that follows was derived from interviews with older women in Tamale, Kumasi, and Accra who provided details to elaborate on what I learned from male informants. I was also fortunate to observe the practice in a rural town in the Eastern Region of Ghana in the summer of 2002; this suggests that the practice persists even today in rural areas, though it has been significantly modified. In this ritual the bride, covered only with a piece of cloth tied to her loins, was seated on a wooden mortar in an open space and encircled by a crowd of women. At the center of the circle with the bride was the ritual bathing specialist, called aliwanka (in Hausa), who scooped and poured cold water mixed with herbal concoctions over the bride’s naked body while chanting incantations appealing to the bride’s ancestors to protect her against all evil in her marriage and make her marriage fruitful by giving her children. The aliwanka’s chanting was interposed with singing from the other women. The lyrics of these songs were highly profane, composed for such occasions. The profanity was accompanied by sexually suggestive rhythmic dancing that corresponded to the tempo of drums and the xylophone played in the background by young men. In the midst of this, the bride was expected to cry loudly as she was provoked by her friends’ teasing and touching of her sensitive parts with wooden pestles. The combination of profane lyrics, body rhythms, and the sexually suggestive metaphor of the function of pestles and mortar (symbolically male and female organs respectively) reinforced the rituals’ deliberate profanity, aimed to suppress the bride’s shyness as she transitioned into the matrimonial world.10

pre-Islamic ancestral veneration common throughout Africa, while Islam’s proscriptions against promiscuity reinforced the customary African prohibition of premarital sex and control over female sexuality. Afa Ajura scrutinized both customs for their conformity with orthodoxy. 10 In many West African societies, grains and other food products are ground into powder form or paste in a mortar with wooden pestles. The mortar is carved out of a tree trunk; the pestle is also made out of a small tree trunk, sharpened and made bulky at one end to facilitate pounding of either grains (corn, millet, rice) or pastes (boiled yam, cassava, etc.). These are generally women’s activities. In the rural areas, especially in the north, women usually join hands to help each other pound grains into powder. These activities are usually moments of socialization during which women not only assist each other in their chores, but also share stories of their experiences and other happenings in the community, and even entertain themselves by singing and dancing to the rhythms of the sounds produced by the interspaced pounding of several pestles.

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In a broader context, the profanity of the ritual was a form of therapy that facilitated the bride’s rite of passage. In a society where the mentioning of sexual organs in public was prohibited, the prohibition was suspended during this part of the ceremony in order to allow other women to participate in the bride’s ritual transition to adulthood and to prepare her mind for what she had earlier been taught to avoid. Each stage of the ritual was intended to relate to a specific aspect of the private world of marriage. The cleansing ritual exposed the bride’s body to the public for the last time. After this period her body became sacred and was to remain covered from all except her husband. References to copulation in the songs, the profanity of the dancers’ body movements, the specific rhythms of the drums and xylophones, along with the symbolism of the mortar and pestles were intended to expose her to adult language and activities in preparation for her first encounter with her husband.11 The words of some of the songs also specifically informed her of her rights and obligations in the marriage. The ritual’s profanity was thus a form of marriage counseling, sex education, and mental preparedness. Such psychological preparation was important because of the age at which women were forced into marriage (usually between twelve and fourteen years) and the expectation that they were virgins. The herbal concoction mixed with henna purified the bride of the impurity of adolescence and protected her from the evil eye. The aliwanka was expected to use her spiritual powers to ward off evil spirits that might interfere with the bride’s marriage or childbearing. For this service she received handsome gifts from the bride’s mother. It was also crucial for the bride to pretend to be afraid of the world of adults awaiting her and to show, by her sobbing, how much she would miss the love and comfort of her natal home. The bride’s tears served as a message that alerted the groom and his family that she had a loving home to return to if they failed 11 A line in one of these songs that I heard from a former aliwanka in Kumasi can be translated as follows: “It hurts, but it will hurt only once. The rest is pleasure for the rest of your life.” Although when I spoke with Mma Hawa she was in her late eighties, she still bemoaned the loss of that freedom (a sort of poetic license) that allowed women to exchange profanity in public space. She complained bitterly about the intrusion of the “self-acclaimed religious purists” who interfered in women’s private affairs. “Do you wonder why marriages break down so easily these days?” she asked me, “It is because young women have been deprived of the appropriate initiation into marriage and they are allowed to be involved in sexual activities before marriage. In my childhood days, we looked forward to the day our bodies would be touched and purified by the aliwanka, as she poured lalley (henna) all over our bodies. Oh! That blessed moment.”



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to treat her well. The society, on the other hand, saw her sobbing as a sign of humility and nervousness, which suggested that she was unspoiled. The final part of the marriage ceremony was an assessment of the bride’s virginity, performed by requiring the newlywed couple to sleep on a white bedspread on their first night so that the blood stain on the bedspread will serve as a testimony to her sanctity. If found “unspoiled,” a procession of women, accompanied by male drummers, would march through the community to display the stained bedspread as testimony to the bride’s virginity, and thus her cultural worthiness. This was followed by feasting, provided by the groom’s family. Although the bride’s chastity was clearly a great social asset to her husband, it also honored her parents, whose skills in “properly” raising their daughters would attract future suitors to the family. For this the bride’s husband would reward her mother with money and other precious materials. Even more important, it was a landmark for the bride, because the public proclamation of her virginity was a historical record of her chastity in the community’s collective memory and provided the foundation for the historical narrative of her progeny, who would be remembered as descendants of a virtuous woman. Conversely, if she were found “spoiled,” not only would her parents share her shame but her progeny would be the unfortunate beneficiaries of the negative sociocultural stigma associated with a “spoiled” bride. The problem was therefore not only religious, but also sociocultural because the historical stigma that was appended to the chronicle of the offspring of an “impure” woman was at the core of culturally embedded social differentiation and prejudice against some unfortunate individuals. Marriage was thus a crucial landmark that continued beyond the bride and the groom. The origins of these customs, which were common among West African Muslim societies, though they varied from one society to another, is unclear, but are likely to have predated Islam. They were, however, appropriated and sanctioned by Islam’s proscription of premarital abstinence, which conformed to local customs as well. The name of the bathing ritual specialist, the Hausa word aliwanka, suggests a Hausa origin, which allows us to identify it as Islamic, since the Hausa were among the propagators of Islam in Ghana. Although the public proclamation of a bride’s purity violated her privacy, perpetuated patriarchy, and placed the burden of the customary reputation of a generation on the woman, the practice also forced parents to protect their young daughters from deceitful men. It was probably for this reason that the custom endured and obtained the

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support of Muslim scholars, though these scholars knew of Islam’s discouragement of profanity in the public domain. However, Hajj Afa Ajura saw things differently. Arguing that Islam prohibits a public display of a couple’s privacy and the exposure of a woman’s nakedness, he condemned the custom as un-Islamic.12 I titled this section “Veiling the Bride” not because Afa Ajura insisted on the traditional norms of veiling, which were generally observed, but rather as a metaphor to describe his rejection of a custom that exposed a woman’s body, displayed a married couple’s privacy to the public, and engraved the memory of her success or failure to maintain sanctity (in terms of chastity) on the community’s memory landscape for a long time to come. I learned from elders in many parts of Ghana that by the 1950s urbanization had already begun to render the custom obsolete. Because young women could not be protected against the vices of large, multicultural cosmopolitan towns in which many young women worked outside their homes to help their families, the ritual became a mere formality, wherein a family that suspected their daughter was no longer a virgin would stain the bedspread in advance. But this also resulted in conflicts among families when husbands protested the bride’s claim. Moreover, as young women began to choose their husbands, parents could not determine if the couple had engaged in premarital sex and therefore agreed not to embarrass the families of both the bride and bridegroom. In addition, people began to frown on the custom, as it increasingly became an embarrassment. It was probably against this growing disinterest that Afa Ajura attacked the practice, though his objections were couched in religious terms rather than sociological explanations. In this campaign against an ancient custom endangered by urbanization, other Muslim scholars in Tamale generally agreed with Afa Ajura. The opposition came instead from tradition-conscious elderly women, who questioned his intrusion into women’s space. They accused him of encouraging promiscuity and seeking to destroy Dagbon customs. Among Ghanaian Muslims, as in most of Muslim West Africa, marriage ceremonies were and still are women’s domain. Although the ultimate pronouncements are made by men, all other activities are determined and dominated by women. In spite of this opposition the practice gradually disappeared, at least in Tamale and other Dagbani urban centers.

12 This is based on conversations with some of Afa Ajura’s sons at Tamale. This argument is widely known among Afa Ajura’s followers.



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Hajj Afa Ajura also attacked pre-Islamic funeral customs and beliefs in the importance of appeasing ancestral spirits that had survived centuries of Islamization. In pre-Islamic Dagbani customs, as in other ethnic groups in the lower Volta Basin, each community had funeral specialists who prepared the deceased for burial in exchange for some form of remuneration, usually pieces of cloth, cash, and whatever else the deceased’s family could afford. But because Islam also required some expertise in preparing the deceased for burial, the functions of the pre-Islamic funeral ritual specialists survived and were Islamized. Like the pre-Islamic specialists who were paid to prepare the dead for burial, Muslim burial specialists had to learn their trade and were remunerated in the form of sadaqa (alms) from the bereaved families. Thus the traditional functions of the pre-Islamic burial specialists and the gratuities offered them did not change significantly under Islam, but were slightly modified and sanctioned by Muslim learned men. Hajj Afa Ajura condemned the reliance on burial specialists because the Prophet had encouraged members of the family to prepare their deceased for burial themselves, so as to protect the privacy of the dead. In addition, the practice imposed financial burdens on bereaved families who, according to the Sunna, should be assisted by the community during their period of mourning and not be burdened. But Afa Ajura went further by also questioning the rationale behind organizing the extended funerals that, by this time, had virtually become celebrations during which the essence of remembering the dead was superseded by feasting. Noting that the insistence on extended burial and funeral activities camouflaged preIslamic ancestral veneration, Afa Ajura declared the practice heathen and insisted on its obliteration. He also emphasized that Islam’s recommendation for offering sadaqa to solicit God’s mercy on behalf of the deceased should not be interpreted to imply that the religion tolerated ancestor worship or sanctioned a belief in ancestors’ ability to help or harm the living. In the pre-Islamic custom, families were required to perform rituals intended to appease the dead and to demand that they protect the living. Afa Ajura argued that any prayers or alms intended to appease the ancestors or solicit their intercession was shirk (apostasy), and that the dead had no power whatsoever; only God’s powers are constant and eternal. In these arguments Afa Ajura encountered some resistance from some Muslim clerics who insisted that he had overinterpreted the implications of these rituals. They rebutted his argument by insisting that both hadith and the Qur’an recommend the offerings of sadaqa on behalf of the deceased.

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Yussif Afa Ajura also addressed local problems associated with witchcraft. Dagbani society, like many others in Ghana, had always been plagued by a fear of witchcraft that often threatened the society’s stability. In Dagbon, the mid-twentieth century was one such period of heightened fear of bewitchment that resulted in an increase in consultations to fetish priests, called atigari, to determine the cause of relatives’ deaths and expose the culprit if the deceased was bewitched.13 Rampant fear, suspicion, and accusations of witchcraft not only endangered the community’s stability by dividing kinsmen and antagonizing neighbors, it also resulted in the increasing acquisition of occult powers by many individuals—undertaken for the purpose of protecting their families or seeking retribution against a suspected witch or wizard. On his return home Afa Ajura was outraged by Muslims’ participation in this practice and the established scholars’ failure to condemn it. Arguing that consulting diviners and resorting to sorcery violated the believer’s tawakkul (belief in God’s omnipotence), he called on Muslims to refrain from such practices and to put their trust in God. During this early phase of his career, Afa Ajura adopted a nonconfrontational method of proselytism, focusing specifically on suppressing practices he considered unorthodox, in consultation with more experienced and perhaps better educated local scholars. Many of the older scholars considered him polite and conciliatory; this approach, however, changed when he began preaching against the Tijaniyya. Anti-Tarbiya and the Founding of Ambariyya Yussif Afa Ajura’s fame as a cultural and religious reformer during the formative years of his career did not seem to have extended beyond Dagbon, but his undaunted opposition to the introduction of tarbiya in Ghana propelled him to some degree of national prominence. I described in the preface how the practice of tarbiya, referred to as “seeing God,” contributed in providing the impetus for the rise of Wahhabism in Ghana. We can trace this development to Tamale in the 1950s where Hajj Afa Ajura’s denunciation of tarbiya and the Tijaniyya led to the development of a proto-Wahhabi community in that city. Apparently, the controversy over the issue of seeing God began much earlier than the events in Boadua, Asamankese, and Nsawam that I described in the preface. The disputes 13 Hajj Halawai, personal communications, Tamale, May 16, 2002; also Issa Musah, personal communication, Tamale, March 17, 2002.



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over tarbiya in Tamale, which preceded the rise of Wahhabism in Accra and other southern cities, created a deeper cleavage among Muslims of that city, a cleavage that took the form of Dagomba chieftaincy and political alignments.14 The discussion that follows examines the transformation of the Tijaniyya after the visit of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse in the 1950s and describes how this visit transformed the intellectual and cultural landscape of Islam in Ghana, and initiated the rise of communities sympathetic to the ideas of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The controversy over tarbiya during this period allows us to suggest that Wahhabi movements in Ghana emerged from local doctrinal disputes. Until the mid-twentieth century, the Tijaniyya was not widely known in Ghana precisely because membership was restricted to literate and pious adults. Moreover, its leaders made some efforts to insulate it from the general Muslim population, lest some assume it was part of the religion’s requirements. As a result of this tendency toward separating Tijaniyya practices from the prescribed Muslim rituals, members of the order observed the main group zikr, the wazifa, in the mosque before the dawn ( fajr) prayers when most people were asleep.15 The only conspicuous Tijanis were members of the Hamawiyya, mostly Mossi migrants and followers of the Rahmatoulaye branch of the order. But the Hamawiyya was an isolated community, often frowned upon by other Tijanis and nonTijanis alike because its members chanted la-ilaha illa-Llah before each of the daily prayers and wore their rosaries around their necks, which some considered strange. The public obscurity of the Tijaniyya changed after Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse’s visit to Ghana in 1952. After visiting Accra and Kumasi, Sheikh Niasse arrived in Tamale in May 1952 amid great fanfare.16 His visit to Tamale, as in other parts of the country, was marked by a frenzy of fervent veneration, as enthusiastic aspirants swamped him to solicit his baraka. The warm reception he received was noted succinctly by an administrative officer: “Sheikh Ibrahim went to Tamale yesterday and received such an ovation at the airport that he was in danger of injury . . . Over six hundred people met 14 See Iddrisu’s forthcoming book, Contesting Islam in Africa. 15 Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Accra (Nima), May 10, 2002; Hajj Rashid Shaaban, Kumasi, June 13, 2002. 16 Ashanti Regional Archives, D.1989, Kumasi. Cited by Hiskett, “The Community of Grace,” 107. Hiskett refers to a letter in the above folder dated May 18, 1952 that states that Shiekh Niasse was invited to Northern Ghana by Dagbani notables (including the Ya Na, the paramount chief of Dagbon, and Gulpe Na, the chief of Tamale). This folder was unavailable during my research in the Ashanti regional archives in May 2002.

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him at the airport.”17 This observation reflects the reception he received elsewhere in Ghana.18 During this visit, Niasse appointed new deputies (sing. muqaddam, pl. muqaddameen), and authorized them to initiate other new followers, including young men and women, into the Tijaniyya under his spiritual leadership. In effect, he encouraged the popularization of the order by breaking the old restrictions that had limited the membership to only pious adults and scholars. Sheikh Niasse justified this break with tradition on the premise that no one was too young to receive God’s grace. He also instructed his followers to perform the wazifa in the late evening between maghrib and ‘isha prayers, the last two of the five daily prayers respectively. The shift from predawn to the late evening exposed Tijaniyya rituals to the public and encouraged its leaders to openly preach its spiritual merits. Clearly, the predawn hours were not convenient for its new aspirants, the youth, who generally found it difficult to go to the mosque during that time. Consequently, within a short period the Tijaniyya became a popular religious expression, as individuals who had formerly waited idly in the mosque between the last two prayers were initiated into the order and able to participate in the zikr. The mass initiation into the Tijaniyya occurred simultaneously with the introduction of tarbiya, Sheikh Niasse’s most important contribution to Tijaniyya litanies. If the Tijaniyya was virtually inconspicuous among Ghanaian Muslims prior to Sheikh Niasse’s visit, tarbiya was hardly known except among the learned. The few scholars who routinely indulged in any form of mystical exercises often guarded their secret knowledge and avoided public discussions about it. However, insisting that the knowledge of God should not be restricted to an elite group, Niasse encouraged his deputies to practice tarbiya, and to initiate and guide their followers, regardless of gender, age or extensive knowledge of the Sharia, on that mystical journey. With this authorization and the lure of experiencing divine illumination, membership of the Tijaniyya soared in the urban centers, and along with this popular upsurge came fantastic claims among deviant members that they had seen God. The most important study that elucidates the history, as well as the spiritual and doctrinal implications of the controversies of the concept

17 Ibid. 18 Mallam Issa Musah Moro, personal communication, Tamale, March 17, 2002.



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of tarbiya, is Rüdiger Seesemann’s recent biography of Sheikh Niasse, The Divine Flood. Seesemann defines tarbiya as: . . . spiritual training, dispensed by a qualified shaykh or spiritual master, based on a set of rules, meant to guide the aspirant during the journey (suluk, lit. ‘wayfaring’) on the Sufi path, with the aim of purifying one’s self and achieving mystical union with and experiential knowledge of God. . . . The aim of tarbiya is to perfect one’s belief (iman) in and worship (ibada) of God by attaining mystical knowledge (ma’rifa), a type of knowledge that is different from rational, discursive knowledge . . .19

Three points are worth noting in this definition, which Seesemann elaborates throughout The Divine Flood with reference to Tijaniyya and other Sufi literature. First, as an experiential exercise, tarbiya or other forms of the search for divine knowledge has been central to Sufi practices throughout the Muslim world from the earliest periods of Islam. Second, the foundation and purpose of the experience resulting from that spiritual exercise was to ensure the purity of one’s faith and a deeper appreciation of the law; it was not intended to undermine the sacred law. Seesemann is certainly right when he notes that to Niasse, “spiritual training was the best method to become an accomplished believer.”20 Furthermore, the practice of tarbiya, or its more widely known rituals in search of the divine vision (ru’ya), has long been contested among Sufis, and between them and their opponents, as mentioned in the preface. However, it is worth highlighting that although tarbiya was integral to the Tijaniyya litany, Sheikh Niasse’s formulae made such mystical training relatively easier to accomplish, in comparison with other mystical exercises that emphasized self-deprivation and extended period of seclusion. Related to tarbiya in the broader teachings of Sheikh Niasse, was fayda, literally, “flood,” but understood metaphorically as the continuing overflow of divine grace. Although the idea was rooted in the Tijaniyya, Sheikh Niasse rearticulated it to emphasize his claim to be the contemporary spiritual fountain of that mystical flood to all Tijanis. This meant that in order to benefit from that divine grace, the aspirant must embrace Sheikh Niasse. The expectations of fayla, as it was (and is still) known among Ghanaian Muslims, drew followers to him and helped in creating a new Tijaniyya community centered on the adulation of God, the Prophet Muhammad, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, and Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse. As

19 Seesemann, The Divine Flood, 71–72. 20 Ibid., 68.

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understood by his followers, the fusion of the aspirant’s love for the Prophet, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, and Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse, culminated in a deeper and purer love for God since these individuals had themselves perfected their love for God and were therefore capable of interceding on behalf of the follower. In other words, one cannot reach God without going through the hierarchically ordered spiritual channel. In return for this continuing love, the aspirant received abundant divine grace, transmitted from God to Sheikh Niasse through the Prophet Muhammad and Sheikh Tijani. And this divine grace was reflected in the material world in the form of spiritual superiority relative to others, a total submission to God, and the ability to accumulate and dispense baraka to others. This “Community of Grace,” as Hiskett rightly called it, became part of a blossoming community of Sheikh Niasse’s jama’at al-fayda throughout Africa and beyond.21 The core of this community was the younger generation, for whom the fayla provided spiritual elevation and social empowerment. Since a majority of the privileged learned men had become members of Niasse’s fayla, the young aspirants who associated with these men viewed themselves as socially and spiritually distinct from their non-initiated peers. Wearing their rosary around their necks and chanting la-ilaha illa-Llah in rhythmic frenzy during group zikr or public gatherings, these young followers distinguished themselves from their peers and claimed to have reached a higher stage of spirituality. The fayla zikr comprised of the chanting of la-ilaha illa-Llah replaced other forms of musical entertainment during social gatherings and life-cycle events in many parts of Ghana. Initiation into the Tijaniyya and participating in various fayla activities therefore became the means by which many urban youths expressed their piety, their love for the Prophet, Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, and Sheikh Niasse. In doing so, they claimed to have received the divine grace and thus spiritual superiority over their non-initiated peers. Other Tijanis and non-Tijanis who failed to embrace Sheikh Niasse became munkirun (rejecters of the Sheikh’s spiritual eminence and the divine grace that flowed from him). In effect, Niasse’s visit in 1952 transformed the Tijaniyya from an elite institution to a mass spiritual, cultural, and social movement carefully woven into the fabric of Ghanaian Muslims’ daily religious rituals, cultural expressions, and social networks. Evidently, his innovative ideas received a warm reception among most of the established scholars in Ghana. 21 Hiskett, “The Community of Grace.”



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However, his teachings of tarbiya did not escape scrutiny from among Tijanis and non-Tijanis alike. This opposition intensified when some of the Sheikh’s followers openly claimed to have seen God, or had become God, and as a result substituted the daily prayers (salat) with zikr, which they claimed was superior to the obligatory daily prayers intended for those who had not attained the divine grace.22 The dispute in Ghana mirrored similar opposition against the tarbiya in Senegal in the 1930s, where there too, some of the Sheikh’s followers publicly discussed their mystical experiences and even claimed that they had reached the highest stage of spiritual awareness and were therefore no longer obliged to observe the daily prayers and Islamic prohibitions. Rüdiger Seesemann has analyzed this conflict in Senegal and Mauritania extensively.23 In Ghana, as in other parts of West Africa, relatively few made such public claims, as I illustrated in the preface. However, their utterances, which seemed clearly anthropomorphic, provoked resentments against Sheikh Niasse, despite his attempts to distance himself from such misguided followers.24 Whereas in the south, the Sheikh’s immense spiritual influence, along with pre-independence political rivalry among Muslims (see chapter 6) contributed to minimize the debates over tarbiya during the 1950s, the controversy was kept alive by Yussif Afa Ajura in Tamale, who consistently declared the practice heretical.25 Afa Ajura’s aggressive campaign against tarbiya and later Tijaniyya doctrines as a whole brought him into direct confrontation with prominent Tijanis in Tamale and Yendi, especially Mallam Muntaka, with whom he debated the orthodoxy of the Tijaniyya and the tarbiya for more than two decades.26 As Tamale became the theater for contesting the orthodoxy of the tarbiya, the prominent graduate of al-Azhar University, Mallam Maikano, made several trips to Tamale to join Tijani scholars there in

22 Hiskett observes that the substitution of zikr for the five daily prayers probably provided some people with an excuse to avoid the more time-consuming daily prayers in order to have time for other activities. Hiskett, “The Community of Grace,” 115. I think this perspective ignores the fact that zikr is equally time consuming. 23 Seesemann, The Divine Flood, especially chapter 3. 24 Ibid., 116–117. 25 Mallam Dawda, personal communication, Accra (Nima), June 27, 2002, and other Muslim leaders who preferred to remain anonymous. 26 Among Niasse’s prominent followers in the north were the renowned scholar Sheikh Abdallah Yendi, who became Sheikh Niasse’s muqaddam for the north, as well as Mallam Muntaka, Alhaji Tahiru Degbeley, Mallam Nasasiru-Din, and Alhaji Yakubu. Mallam Issa Musah Moro, personal communication, Tamale, March 17, 2002.

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defense of Sheikh Niasse and the Tijaniyya against Afa Ajura’s denunciations. The debates between the two groups often ended in exchanges of blows and personal injuries.27 Meanwhile, in Accra, some scholars, including Tijanis who opposed the tarbiya, also mobilized to preach against it. This campaign reached a climax in 1964, when a group of scholars from the south visited Afa Ajura and held a preaching session with him in Tamale.28 Later that year, an organization of scholars in Accra called Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul (Association for the Love of the Prophet) invited Afa Ajura to participate in their annual commemoration of the Prophet’s birth (mawlid).29 That year’s mawlid was an important landmark in shaping the local version of Wahhabi/Sunna dogma. Prior to this symposium, the scholars’ opposition to Sheikh Niasse’s teachings focused primarily on tarbiya, and not the Tijaniyya. At this gathering Hajj Afa Ajura dismissed the Tijaniyya as an accretion to Islam since the Prophet did not practice it. He also rejected the mawlid as another innovation in the religion because it was not known to have been observed by the Prophet or the rightlyguided caliphs. This denunciation of the Tijaniyya outraged some practicing Tijanis in the Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul, including Mallam Kamal Din (now Deputy National Chief Imam of Ghana), who walked out of the symposium in protest. Meanwhile, others, including Mallam Hamza of Nima, accepted Afa Ajura’s arguments and defected from the Tijaniyya.30 Thus, Afa Ajura’s declaration of Tijaniyya beliefs and practices as unacceptable innovations shaped the anti-Tijaniyya discourse that became the cornerstone of Wahhabism in Ghana starting from the 1970s. The controversy over tarbiya in Ghana reflected similar concerns among some Tijanis in other parts of West Africa regarding the effects of such mystical doctrines on ordinary Muslims, especially in places where the majority of the Muslim population had neither a good grasp of the Sharia

27 Mallam Basha, personal communication, Tamale, May 16, 2002; Sheikh Said Umar, personal communication, Tamale, May 22, 2002. It is not clear if these confrontations resulted in any loss of life. While some noted that one person from Ambariyya was killed during one of these confrontations, I was unable to confirm this claim. For a brief history of Mallam Maikano, see Hiskett, “The Community of Grace.” 28 These scholars included Mallam Hamza Abdul Salaam of Nima (Accra), Mallam Baba, and two scholars from Togo, Mallam Salih (aka Charlie), and Alhaji Abubakar Maula (aka Sheikh Maha). Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Accra (Nima), January 10, 2002. 29 These included Mallam Shaaban of Accra New Town, Mallam Riyaan of Tema, Mallam Muhammed Mufta’a Naafiu, Mallam Labaran (who founded the Bushirat Press in Accra), Mallam Bello, and Mallam Kamal Din. 30 Personal communication, Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, Accra (Nima), January 10, 2002.



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nor a full enough knowledge of the complexity of Sufi doctrines to understand the broader implications of such immersion into mysticism. The most noticeable opposition obviously came from non-Tijanis, for whom tarbiya represented a blasphemy. Yussif Afa Ajura was the main vanguard of this opposition in the north, and profoundly influenced the debates in the south as well. However, it is worth noting that the tension generated by the Sheikh’s teachings in Ghana was negligible when compared to that of Senegal in the 1930s. This was primarily because, by the 1950s, Sheikh Niasse had established himself as a renowned international scholar and a leading Tijaniyya sheikh with large numbers of followers throughout West Africa and beyond. Thus, most Muslim scholars in Ghana embraced him unquestionably, not only because of his uncontested charisma and erudition, but also because of the spiritual, social, and political capital he had already accumulated. We recall that he most likely came to Ghana under the auspices of the prime minister, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who was destined to lead Ghana to independence from Britain. It was primarily this overwhelming support that made it difficult for Afa Ajura’s opposition to gain critical momentum in the south, where most Muslims ignored the clamor of a few lesser known scholars and others, like Afa Ajura, were prominent but isolated in the north and marginalized by the Hausa-dominated Muslim leadership. Besides, only a minority among Tijanis made eccentric claims about their spiritual immersions and these people were often dismissed as lunatics by moderate Tijanis. In other words, as was the case in Senegal and other places, more soberminded members of fayla succeeded in containing the excesses of exuberant adherents; obviously, by the 1960s, the Sheikh’s community had become more sophisticated in responding to such internal crises and dissension. Afa Ajura and his cohorts were also unable to transform their opposition into a mass movement that could compete with the vibrant fayla movement; this allowed the Tijanis to maintain their dominance in Muslim leadership throughout the country by ensuring that the imams of large cities continued to be drawn from among Tijanis or scholars sympathetic to the order. Afa Ajura’s failure to win a majority of northern Muslims to his side, the limited impact of his polemics in the south, and the ineffectiveness there of the Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul contributed to minimize the impact of his opposition to the Tijaniyya. While it is thus important to credit Afa Ajura with the establishment of the doctrinal foundation of Wahhabi-inclined reform in Ghana and for mapping out its agenda and shaping its identity, he had little impact beyond his followers in Tamale and the surrounding areas.

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His influence in the north, especially among Dagombas, was sustained by the Madrasat Ambariyya, the school and community he founded in Tamale in the late 1950s. This school became the source for the dissemination of the Wahhabi/Sunna dogma and identity, as students were sent from distant places in the north to study there. By the early 1970s the Ambariyya had become a full-fledged institution around which Afa Ajura’s community evolved. An executive committee, council of ulama, and a board of directors were appointed to oversee the school’s activities.31 In 1971 the Ambariyya was officially inaugurated and registered in the national gazette, and a few years later it became an Anglo-Arabic school.32 By the end of the 1960s, Afa Ajura’s community, often identified with the school and called Ambariyya, had distinguished itself from the rest of the Muslim community in Northern Ghana in terms of its doctrine, identity, and institutional organization. The Ambariyya became the proto-Wahhabi/Sunna community in Dagbon, preceding the advent of Wahhabism in Accra and other major southern cities. This biographical sketch of Hajj Afa Ajura’s career illustrates that Wahhabi-oriented reform in Ghana emerged from local doctrinal disputes over the orthodoxy of some Sufi practices. Second, the foundation for its development was established by certain locally trained scholars whose objective was to eradicate the Tijaniyya from local Islamic expressions. However, this early opposition to Tijaniyya doctrines failed to blossom into a mass movement during the 1950s and the 1960s. Although Afa Ajura accumulated followers in the north, especially among Dagombas, his initial success in Accra in 1964 did not result in a unity between the Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul and the Ambariyya in forming a national popular movement. The Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul disintegrated quickly, probably as a result of the deportation of non-indigenous Ghanaians in 1969/70.33 The Ambariyya, on the other hand, remained confined to Tamale and surrounding towns. Led by a Dagomba and drawing its followers mostly from that ethnic group, the Ambariyya neither expanded beyond the north during this period, nor succeeded in weakening the tight network of Hausadominated scholars throughout the country, who were also mostly Tijanis. 31 Although Ambariyya was the name of the madrasa, his followers came to be identified by that name. 32 The madrasa was informally opened in 1969, but the official inauguration was in 1971, as indicated by a letter of invitation sent to the district commissioner of Northern Region. 33 See for example, Ousman Kobo, “We are Citizens Too: The Politics of Citizenship in Independent Ghana,” JMAS 48, no. 1 (2010): 67–94.



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As late as the first decade of the millennium, Tijaniyya scholars continued to dominate Muslim leadership, even in Tamale and Yendi, as indicated by their control over the cities’ central mosques. Comparable to Burkina Faso, the rise of a national Wahhabi-oriented reform movement in Ghana occurred later, with the return of the first group of Saudi-trained scholars, who obtained the support of secularly educated Muslim elites in creating Wahhabi/Sunna communities in the urban centers. By then, the locallytrained scholars had established the fertile ground that allowed the antiTijaniyya message to flourish. One of these locally-trained scholars whose ideas of reform also impacted the development of Wahhabi-inclined institutions was Sheikh Adam Appiedu of Kumasi. Smashing the Idols and Burning the Talismans: Sheikh Adam Appiedu’s Reform in Asante Among contemporary Muslim scholars whose activities impacted the transformation of Islamic schooling in Ghana during the 1970s, Sheikh Adam Appiedu was among the most outstanding. From the beginning of his career he combined Islamic and secular education in an attempt to nurture a new generation of Muslims who would possess the necessary skills to sustain themselves while providing service to their communities. Worried about the effects of the lack of secular education on Muslims’ socioeconomic development and political participation, Appiedu was unique in fostering a climate that encouraged Muslims to embrace secular education as well as religious training. For this reformer, a combination of religious education and Western literacy was the best way to suppress the prevailing belief and reliance on miracles common among Muslims. This point is crucial. While the Muslim Cultural Union in Francophone Africa had earlier adopted similar strategies by encouraging Franco-Arabic schools, it was clear that between the end of the colonial period and the first decade of independence, the structure and content of Islamic education were changing, and Adam Appiedu was among the pioneers. Adam Appiedu can also be considered the first scholar to openly preach ideas often associated with Wahhabism among Asante Muslims, though it remains unclear the extent to which he embraced the totality of the Wahhabi dogma. In the comparison made in chapter 1, between the Mossi kingdom (Burkina Faso) and the Asante empire (Ghana), we noted that both societies resisted Islam despite centuries of interaction with Muslim traders. Drawing on colonial records and oral sources, we find support for

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this argument in Islam’s rapid expansion among the Mossi during the colonial period because of the activities of Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo. In the case of the Asante, by contrast, only a small percentage embraced Islam. The majority of Asantes today consider themselves Christians from all Christian denominations. Between the late 1950s and early 1970s, however, the Muslim population among the Asante expanded quite significantly, probably more than at any other period in Asante history. Unfortunately, there are no reliable figures to support this position, though it is common knowledge among Asantes and supported by the visible presence of mosques in both urban and rural Asante, that probably up to ten percent of this ethnic group are Muslims. If the Ahmadiyya Mission successfully increased Fante conversion to Islam, Adam Appiedu is often credited with the expansion of Islam among Asante and other Akan groups. A thorough biography of this important scholar remains to be written. Here I offer only a sketch of his contribution to the development of Wahhabi-inclined reform in Ghana, the transformation of Islamic education, and the role he played in encouraging the conversion of Asantes to Islam. As denoted by the subtitle of this section of the chapter, his reform activities among Asante Muslims were an effort to “purify” their practices and beliefs, and to gain new converts. Sheikh Adam Appiedu was born at Bonsu near Nkoranza in the Brong Ahafo Region. His father, Alhaji Mahama Kwame Ayi, who had converted to Islam at a young age, wanted his son to become a leading Akan Islamic scholar and spread Islam among his kinsmen. He therefore sent Appiedu to study the Qur’an at Techiman but later transferred him to Wenchi, where he completed the Qur’an and some of the classical texts with Mallam Sheikaru between 1948 and 1949.34 Appiedu then proceeded to Kumasi for advanced studies with the scholar and political activist Mallam Usman Alfa Lardan. His arrival in Kumasi in 1950 coincided with his teacher’s participation in Ghana’s pre-independence party politics. As a founding member and leader of the Kumasi branch of the Muslim Association Party (MAP),35 Alfa Lardan’s political activities during this period distracted him from teaching, which affected his students’ progress, although the matured and self-motivated Appiedu continued to study on his own. When Nkrumah deported Lardan to Kano (Nigeria) in 1957 on the pretext that he was not a Ghanaian and that his presence endangered public

34 Both Techiman and Wenchi are in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. 35 See chapter 6.



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order, Appiedu followed him in order to complete his studies.36 While in Nigeria he also took advanced Arabic classes at Madrasat al-Markaz, the famous Islamic school in Lagos. In 1959, he returned to Ghana and established himself in Kumasi. Two years of study in Nigeria had a significant impact on Adam Appiedu’s intellectual and social development. His observation of Muslim practices in Nigeria convinced him of the necessity of reforming Islam in his own society and expanding educational opportunities for Ghanaian Muslim youths.37 He observed that whereas, in general, Nigerian scholars discouraged the use of the Qur’an for concocting charms and indulging in divination (duuba in Hausa), these practices were considered normal by many Ghanaian scholars of his time. And whereas Nigerian scholars generally did not expect to be rewarded for officiating in communal and private social events, their counterparts in Ghana considered such remuneration an entitlement. This is not surprising, given the strength of the Yan Izala movement in Northern Nigeria during this period. While at Markaz he acquired anti-Sufi ideas often associated with Wahhabism, clearly the extension of Yan Izala influence,38 but he also found the structure and pedagogical styles of Madrasat al-Markaz, which emphasized Arabic grammar at a very early of stage of students’ training, a useful model to emulate. As discussed, this prototype of a new Islamic schooling system that mimicked the organizational structure of secular schools was already developing in many parts of West Africa, but was yet to be widely implemented in Ghana, where traditional Qur’anic education still dominated

36 Although a party organized by predominantly Hausa and other Muslim migrants from neighboring West African countries, the MAP posed the most profound threat to Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) in the urban centers during the series of elections from 1948 to 1956 leading to Ghana’s independence. Accused of fragmenting Muslim communities during the preindependence elections, and concerned that their political influence could continue to threaten public order, Nkrumah’s government deported Lardan along with other MAP leaders whose parents were not Ghanaians. See Enid Schildkrout, People of the Zongo: Transformation of Ethnic Identity in Ghana (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 209; West Africa (December 18, 1954), 1108; and West Africa (December 25, 1954), 1203; Immigration Act No. 15 of 1957; Deportation (Amended) Act No. 49 of 1958, and the Deportation (Amended) Act No. 65 of 1959 (Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1957). 37 Sheikh Harunah Appau, personal communication, Kumasi, June 13, 2002. 38 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Accra, May 2, 2002. Sheikh Abubakar Gumi’s teaching influenced both the teachers and students of Madrasat alMarkaz. For Abubakar Gumi’s teachings and influence in Nigerian politics, see Ousmane Kane, “The Izala Movement in Nigeria,” in The Fundamentalist Project, ed. Martin Marty and Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

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Islamic schooling (see chapter 7). Thus Appiedu left Nigeria with the aim of preaching the new doctrine he had acquired in Nigeria and instituting the model of Islamic schooling used in the Madrasat al-Markaz. Blaming the widespread belief in magic among Muslims on the earlier processes of the spread of Islam, wherein the merchants and mallams created the impression that these beliefs were integral to Islam, Appiedu sought to dismantle those beliefs and educate Muslims about the incompatibility of Islam and magic. The merchants and itinerant scholars who spread Islam in southern Ghana had left a legacy that linked the religion with the possession and dispensation of occult powers. As various studies have shown, among those earlier preachers were healers and charm makers who concentrated largely on providing nonreligious services to political elites and neglected religious teaching and winning over converts. For most Asante, Islam represented a source of potent occult powers and Muslim scholars were seen as spiritual healers. The role of Islamic charms among the Asante was recorded by colonial officials who visited Kumasi in the late eighteenth-century, a subject that has been extensively studied by many scholars. To cite one example, David Owusu-Ansah notes: Despite the diverse functions performed by the Muslims in metropolitan Asante, all accounts indicate that their major role was the production and distribution of Islamic charms and amulets designed for personal protection against all manners of misfortunes: sickness, injury or death in battle, barrenness and so forth. The high value placed upon the Muslim amulets by Asante authorities was undoubtedly the basis of Muslim influence in the nation. The amulets were in demand from all sectors of the society.”39

As a result, the popularity and fortunes of Muslim scholars in Asante depended more on their knowledge of esoteric texts than of religious texts.40 Similarly, Islamic education developed a dual purpose: acquisition of religious studies and learning secret sciences for economic sustenance. By the twentieth century the association of Islam with spiritual powers had not only legitimized magic making and the therapeutic use of Islamic sacred texts, but had also led scholars to ignore legal prohibitions 39 David Owusu-Ansah, Islamic Talismatic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Asante (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 1991): 8–9. See also Owusu-Ansah, “Islamic Influence.” 40 A historical issue that has not been explored by scholars concerns the extent to which the demand for Islamic charms affected the rate of conversion among Asante and other southern Ghanaians. This question is important in view of the fact that Islam failed to make significant headway among the Asante despite centuries of contact with Muslim preachers.



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against such practices. Appiedu concluded, like many during this period, that the method of Islamic education was partly responsible for fostering superstition in society. He also considered Muslims’ rejection of secular education detrimental to their own economic progress in contemporary society where such knowledge was crucial for social mobility and economic success.41 Appiedu’s first project was to reform Islamic schooling by combining it with a secular curriculum. Secular education would not only provide Muslims with employable skills, but would also help to banish superstition and syncretic practices. Secular subjects such as math and science would encourage students to understand natural phenomena through scientific reasoning rather than superstition. While earlier graduates of Qur’anic schools often acquired vocational skills that helped them support themselves, by the late 1950s, interest in vocational education such as bicycle repair, tailoring, mechanics, painting, and so forth had diminished among Muslim youth as public employment became widely available. Yet the lack of secular education often confined people to manual labor. The declining interest in practical skills along with the lack of secular education resulted in a serious unemployment problem among Muslims. To redress these problems, in 1959 Appiedu established an Anglo-Arabic school at Tafo-Zongo, a suburb of Kumasi with a large Muslim population. Initially the school was well received by the people of the community, among whom he propagated the idea of communal ownership of the Islamic school. He gave this agenda the slogan “Unity is Strength” and encouraged financial, manual, and moral contributions from the entire community. For some Muslim parents who had rejected secular schools run by Christian missions for fear their children would abandon Islam, the Anglo-Arabic school provided secular education in an Islamic environment. By the 1970s the school had expanded, with new branches established in other parts of the city. In 1971 Appiedu established the first orthodox Sunni Muslim secondary school in Ghana.42 Like Afa Ajura’s Ambariyya, “Unity is Strength” became the bedrock of Appiedu’s educational and religious reform. Because he avoided controversial subjects and shied away from the Tijaniyya controversy, he was well received by the leading Kumasi scholars, who were mostly practicing Tijanis.

41 Personal communication, Sheikh Harunah Appau, Kumasi, June 13, 2002. 42 Ibid.

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However, this initial coexistence soon gave way to an increasing hostility that eventually undermined the progress of his reform in the Zongo community. The first in what became a series of disputes with the mallams centered on Appiedu’s advice that rather than keeping donations collected during public and private events, the money should be invested in the community, in mosque renovations and building schools. He also advised them against giving talismans made from Qur’anic verses to non-Muslims who did not perform the ablutions that are required even of Muslims before they touch the Qur’an.43 He similarly appealed to the mallams to use their esoteric knowledge only to help other Muslims, and not in imitation of local fetish priests who turned such knowledge into profit-making vocations. It is important to emphasize that Appiedu was careful not to claim that the therapeutic use of the Qur’an was haram, which would have contradicted a number of verses in the Qur’an itself that emphasize its healing powers. Rather, he circumvented the problem by suggesting that those who had been endowed with magical healing powers should use that power to help without charging fees. In this case Appiedu touched on a sensitive subject; the mallams responded by questioning the depth of his knowledge. The ensuing conflict was exacerbated by another controversy: funeral-related activities. On this subject he argued that it was unacceptable for the mallams to impose financial burdens on bereaved families during their mourning period. As part of the funeral ceremonies in Ghana, mallams traditionally recommended a “special supplication,” known as fiddau, to request God’s mercy on behalf of the deceased. Customarily, at the end of the recitation the bereaved family offered sadaqa (alms) to the mallams; generally they shared the money among themselves. The theological validity of fiddau remained controversial. While some scholars rejected it as an accretion, a majority insisted that it was supported by the Qur’an and Hadith, which recommend remembering deceased relatives with prayers and sadaqa.44 43 A Muslim is considered physically unclean if s/he has not performed the ablution and other ritual washing of the body after a bodily discharge. On this subject he was referring to the notion that the use of Qur’anic verses in amulets desecrated the Qur’an by exposing it to an impure environment and substances. 44 Fiddau comprised a recitation of Qur’anic passages or the entire Qur’an, followed by reciting the shahada silently a number of times (usually 7,000). Although the Qur’an and hadith encourage the remembrance of the dead in prayers, there was a controversy about the authenticity of fiddau, with some arguing that it had no historical precedence traceable to the Prophetic traditions. Others argued that because there were no precise prescriptions of such special prayers, any ritual on behalf of the deceased that involved recitation of the Qur’an and the shahada was valid.



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Adam Appiedu took the position that even if the recitation of fiddau is acceptable in Islam, the mallams should follow the Prophet’s recommendation that neighbors support bereaved families with food and basic necessities for at least forty days to ease the pain associated with losing a loved one. For this reason it would seem inappropriate to expect rewards for funeral-related services from a bereaved family, including the performance of fiddau. He further cautioned them not to forfeit God’s benediction by accepting material rewards for performing meritorious religious deeds. Instead, they should reject any sadaqa associated with that service because it constituted a payment and nullified the spiritual benefits. Clearly, Appiedu saw fiddau as an extra spiritual exercise that mallams recommended in order to increase the collection of sadaqa from the community. Yet rather than declaring it haram, as other scholars tended to do, he appealed to the mallams’ spiritual conscience and communal obligation. It is interesting to note that many mallams, as well as the general public, objected to this attempt to proscribe a well-established practice.45 For discouraging a practice that brought them extra income, the mallams declared Sheikh Appiedu a Wahhabi. In retrospect, it seemed that Appiedu failed to understand how entrenched this practice was. Because they were not paid for their services to the community and had no other stable sources of income, sadaqa supported the scholars. But it is equally important to understand the sociocultural and spiritual dimensions of such offerings from the perspective of the givers. Since the Qur’an recommends that the living offer prayers and sadaqa to solicit God’s mercy on behalf of the deceased, most people were eager to make abundant offerings in order to guarantee the salvation of their deceased relatives. But failure to make such offering was also frowned upon by the community as a deplorable negligence of one’s responsibility to the deceased. To the general public, therefore, it seemed that Appiedu was discouraging them from seeking salvation for their deceased relatives; they therefore supported the mallams against him. Appiedu’s failure to convince the general public should be contextualized in the history of Islam in Ghana. Several years before he had begun preaching, a visiting Nigerian scholar had stirred up this controversy when he preached that sadaqa on behalf of the deceased was bid’a

45 Opayin Kwame Appiah, personal communication, Suame, Kumasi, June 10, 2002. Also Mallam Issa, personal communication, Kumasi-Tafo, June 6, 2002.

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because it replicated pre-Islamic offerings to ancestral spirits.46 Elders in Kumasi remembered that the controversial preacher, who was suspected of being a Wahhabi or a member of the Ahmadiyya Mission, was eventually driven out of town—before his teachings could corrupt the community. Although Appiedu did not declare sadaqa to be haram, the mallams demonized him by associating him with the unpopular teachings of that infamous Nigerian preacher. The fact that he had studied in Nigeria and at Markaz, a notable institution sympathetic to Wahhabi ideas, reinforced the allegation that he had been influenced by “heretical” Nigerian Wahhabi or Ahmadi teachings. Declaring him dangerous to the community, the mallams instructed their followers to withdraw their children from his Anglo-Arabic school. Dismissing the school as haram because it taught secular courses and imitated Christian mission schools, children from the Zongo community who continued to attend the school were harassed in an attempt to bankrupt the school. How a school that had initially enjoyed popular support became a casualty of such doctrinal disputes is a complicated though interesting issue, but beyond our scope here. Suffice it to mention that Appiedu’s innovative educational system also threatened the local mallams, as they competed with him for the financial benefits of operating a madrasa. The popularity of his school also meant some of the mallams lost the opportunity to nurture a future generation that favored their interpretation of Islam.47 Marginalized by the Hausa-dominated scholarly community in Kumasi and arrested in the north for inciting religious conflicts during a preaching tour, an accusation believed to have been orchestrated by rival scholars, Appiedu joined the Ghana Muslim Mission (GMM) in 1962.48 The GMM evolved from an indigenous Muslim organization in Accra in the 1930s and became a full-fledged national organization in 1958, when indigenous southern Ghanaian Muslims rejected the Ghana Muslim Representative 46 Personal communication, Sheikh Harunah Appau, Kumasi, June 13, 2002. 47 While in theory a Muslim was expected to assist another Muslim without expecting any direct reward, some scholars, including Wahhabi-inclined scholars, now agree that it is acceptable to demand some remuneration for services rendered to other Muslims, even if it involved the use of the Qur’an. 48 Personal communication, Sheikh Harunah Appau, Kumasi, June 13, 2002. In 1967 he embarked on preaching tours in the north, only to encounter another obstacle. During one of these tours he was arrested when a group of people reported him to the police for inciting people against the military junta that overthrew Nkrumah’s regime the previous year. It is unclear why he was rejected by northerners, but his sermons appeared to threaten local mallams. Although he was later released when exonerated by further investigation, the experience discouraged him from proselytizing in the north.



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Council established by Kwame Nkrumah in 1957 because it was dominated by Hausa immigrants. As a national organization whose members had significant secular education, the GMM’s objectives of educational reform and Islamic propagation converged with Appiedu’s program.49 While it provided Appiedu with a national institutional framework for effecting social and religious reform, he too provided the Mission with stable leadership and an intellectual vision, especially in Asante. With his help, by the early 1980s the Mission had established Anglo-Arabic primary and secondary schools throughout Asante, Western, Central, and Brong Ahafo Regions with financial support from the European Union, Ghana Education Services, and various Arab philanthropists. The Islamic Secondary School that he founded in Kumasi in 1971 with a combination of personal funds, communal work, and a grant from King Faisal of Saudi Arabia became the foundation for producing a future generation of Muslim scholars.50 At the height of his career, Appiedu also embarked on preaching tours to educate Akan Muslims and to convert new ones. He traveled to many rural areas and asked Akan Muslims to pull down the talismans they had hung in their homes to ward off malignant spirits and witches. These were burned, as he advised these Muslims to depend on God, not talismans, for the fulfillment of all their needs. Those who converted to Islam were also asked to bring out anything they kept that they believed possessed spiritual powers. These were also burned or smashed into pieces. This period coincided with the expansion of the Ahmadiyya Mission from Fante areas to other Akan people. Adam Appiedu believed, as did most Sunni Muslims, that the Ahmadis were not Muslims; with the help of his students and other scholars among the members of the Ghana Muslim Mission, he confronted them in public debates. He and his followers not only sought to

49 The majority of early GMM members had been Ga and Fante. Up to the time Appiedu joined them, perhaps in 1962, most of its members in Kumasi were northern Ghanaians who were also looking for an institution that would help them assert their identity in Hausa-migrant dominated Muslim institutions. 50 The school was first named Ghana Muslim School. The Ahmadiyya Mission had earlier opened the T. I. Ahmadiyya Secondary School in Kumasi. Students from his AngloArabic school were imbued with Sunna ideas at home even before they left for the Arab world. The first of these students, Saidu Alhassan Atta (left in 1962), Alhassan Aminu Oteng, and Osman Adam Gyimadu (1967) studied at al-Azhar, Egypt. Beginning in 1969 most of his students went to the Islamic University at Medina. These included Dr. Ahmad Umar Abdallah (current national president of Majlis A’alah [to be discussed later]); Dr. Salis, now a lecturer at the University of Ghana (Legon), (left in 1969); Ibrahim Saidu Kyunadu (1970); and Harunah Appau (1978), to name only a few. Personal communication, Sheikh Harunah Appau, Kumasi, June 13, 2002.

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debunk the orthodoxy of the Ahmadiyya, but also to reconvert their followers to mainstream Sunni Islam. Because he combined education with the conversion of Akans to Islam, Adam Appiedu is generally considered the most important postcolonial Asante Muslim reformer. An informant summarized his achievement: We consider Sheikh Adam Appiedu the “father” of Asanti Islam. Unlike the Hausa who came to Asante not to convert but to trade and to sell magical accoutrements to gullible Asante rulers, Appiedu gave us Islam in its pure form. As a result of his teachings, we grew up detesting all forms of magic associated with Islam because Islam is a true religion and not busumsom (idol worship).51

As an Asante whose grandparents were not Muslims, and who was painfully aware that only a minute portion of his kinsmen had embraced Islam in spite of more than two centuries of contact with Islam, Appiedu was eager to introduce a new interpretation of Islam that would appeal to converts while reforming the practices of those born into Islam. In this respect he also appealed to their modern sensibility. Like Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, he saw himself as both a reformer and a propagator of the faith among his people, but he also knew that the task of reform and conversion required the transformation of the public’s perception of Islam and the projection of a new image of the faith as a progressive religion. His vision of Anglo-Arabic Islamic schooling provided Islam of this period with a new image; that of Muslim children wearing school uniforms, taking secular courses, and competing effectively with the well-established schools in Kumasi for the best grades in national examinations. Islam was no longer the religion of mostly immigrant populations and northerners, but was also becoming the religion of a significant proportion of the indigenous population. The GMM provided him with a stable network for this reform and he, in turn, provided the GMM in Asante with charismatic leadership. * * * The biographical narratives of Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura and Sheikh Adam Appiedu demonstrate that Wahhabi-inclined reforms in Ghana were initiated by local scholars seeking to bring local customs into conformity 51 Nana Issaka Agyiman, a mechanic at Suame, Kumasi, personal communication, June 16, 2002. Nana Agyiman confirmed stories I had heard from Appiedu’s students that he traveled from village to village and destroyed talismans that people had planted in their houses for protection against evil forces.



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with the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions, the Sunna. This evidence thus challenges the notion prevalent in earlier literature that ideas of reform associated with Wahhabism were introduced into West Africa by Saudi Arabia. The evidence presented here clearly demonstrates that these ideas evolved from local doctrinal debates, a position reached earlier by Ousmane Kane in his studies of the Yan Izala in Nigeria. While both Afa Ajura and Appiedu preached against local accretions and emphasized a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet’s era, they also addressed sociocultural issues rooted in their specific communities. These issues also related to changes in these societies; changes accompanying urbanization and the rise of the postcolonial state. Afa Ajura’s condemnation of bridal cleansing rituals, funeral rites, and the belief in witchcraft stemmed in part from his concern about religious purity, but was also informed by the rapid urbanization in his society. Similarly, his educational program, along with that of Adam Appiedu, demonstrated a shift toward a new form of Islamic schooling that appropriated modern structures borrowed from secular institutions. Adam Appiedu’s emphasis on a combination of secular and religious education was an attempt to prepare Muslims to engage with the changes in Ghana’s economic and political transformation, in which secular knowledge had become the main source of political power and economic sustenance. The histories of these pre-1970 reforms also challenge the notion that popular religious resurgence in postcolonial Africa resulted from the acute economic crisis in the 1970s. As in Burkina Faso, different expressions of ideas often associated with the Wahhabi doctrine predated both the economic crises and the petrodollar politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This observation further supports the argument that Wahhabism, whatever this ambiguous name may refer to, was integral to West African traditions of reform and renewal pursued by scholars of diverse doctrinal inclinations. By the late 1970s, however, these reforms had been integrated into the global Wahhabi or Salafi resurgence, benefitting not only from opportunities to study in the Arab world, but also by direct financial support from wealthy Arab nations and philanthropists. This is the subject of the next section.

Part Three

Maturation: 1970s–1990s

Introduction to Part Three In this section, I examine the factors that facilitated the rapid growth of Wahhabi-inclined organizations in the urban centers of Burkina Faso and Ghana during the early 1970s and late 1980s. The mass receptivity of a religious message is obviously contingent upon the right contexts—historical, cultural, socioeconomic, and political—without which the message has a limited impact, regardless of its validity or the eloquence of its preachers. Focusing on religious appeal alone will not suffice in demonstrating the complexity of a religious movement. The diffusion of Wahhabi reform in the two countries prior to the early 1970s was limited precisely because, compared to the post-1970s period, conditions were not favorable for its mass reception. The pre-1970s period can therefore be considered an incubation phase, and the post-1970s as the phase of maturation. In Burkina Faso, the Meccan scholars established their credentials quite forcefully during the 1960s, and then expanded their activities to rural suburbs of the city of Ouagadougou and other Mossi towns. They also linked their endeavors with locally-trained scholars in Bobo-Dioulasso and surrounding towns. Here too, internal conflicts in the local branch of the Communauté Musulmane encouraged a number of urban professionals to side with the Meccan preachers, who were considered outside local power structures that seemed to resist change. In Ghana, by contrast, Adam Appiedu and Yussif Afa Ajura were active in their respective domains but their impact at the national level was quite limited until the 1970s. The post-1970s context favored the mass reception of the radical doctrine and sociocultural ideas embodied in the preachers’ messages more than the 1960s had. The sudden explosion of Wahhabism’s appeal after 1970, as evidenced by the large number of Muslims claiming its cultural identity and believing in its doctrines, suggest that we must pay attention to other factors, while remaining cognizant of the effects of the foundations laid by its preachers up to this time, after all the preachers themselves had matured along with the movement they initiated. The period from 1970 to the late 1980s was an important watershed in the development of Islam in both countries. The Wahhabi movement and other Muslim organizations that began at the end of the colonial period reached a new threshold in their respective developments. Similarly, local



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political landscapes and the international political economy had also changed dramatically. The formal end of colonialism in 1957 in Ghana and 1960 in Burkina Faso provided Muslims with the liberty to travel to the Islamic heartland for education or the hajj, or a combination of the two. The relatively cheaper and faster transportation after World War II facilitated Muslims’ mobility and connected West African Muslims with the Middle East and the Gulf states more strongly than before the 1960s. In addition, during the early 1970s, migration to urban centers began as a result of unemployment in rural areas and the expectation arose that the postcolonial state would provide lucrative employment opportunities to those possessing vocational skills and Western literacy. This new influx into urban centers not only exacerbated the already declining employment opportunities and thus increased the population of urban poor, but also tested the claims of the postcolonial regime to deliver on its promises of economic development. The overthrow of the first postcolonial regimes in Burkina Faso and Ghana (on January 3, 1966 and February 24, 1966 respectively), due in part to these regimes’ failures to improve economic conditions, testifies to the difficulties facing early postcolonial governments. These conditions were worsened by natural disasters—droughts and famine—that swept across the predominantly Muslim Sahel region of West Africa during the early 1970s. The political and economic difficulties were further compounded by the rising cost of imported fuel during the OPEC oil embargo, which deeply affected impoverished oil-importing countries like Ghana and Burkina Faso. Concurrently, certain Arab states became relatively wealthier as a result of oil revenue that accrued from the OPEC embargo, and were thus in a stronger position to help their relatively poorer coreligionists and to promote a global Islamic reform in accordance with their preferred doctrines (as was the case of Saudi Arabia under King Faisal b. Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, 1964–75), or Arab cultural nationalism (pursued by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt). The competition between King Faisal and Gamal Abdel Nasser for control of the Muslim world that had been the rule during the 1960s ended with the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970, thus placing Faisal in a stronger position to extend his influence in Muslim Africa. The core of Faisal’s foreign policy toward Africa was the spread of Wahhabi reform intended to purge Islam of what Saudi scholars considered religious accretions and innovations fostered by the Sufi brotherhoods. The Iranian revolution in 1979 added to the complexity of the developing Ghanaian and Burkinabé Islamic landscapes.

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In Ghana in particular, by the 1970s the Niassiyya-Tijaniyya had become well-established in the urban centers, much to the discontent of those who considered the popular religious expression associated with the belief in fayla as antinomian. In both Ghana and Burkina Faso, the desire for a more modern religious expression, the aspiration for religious reform in opposition to the Tijaniyya, the increase in urban poverty, and the changes in domestic politics and the global political economy all contributed to provide an environment conducive for Wahhabism to flourish. It is in this context that we seek to understand the celerity with which Wahhabi-inclined reform established itself on the Ghanaian and Burkinabé Islamic landscapes after the 1970s.

Chapter Five

Mouvement Sunnite of Burkina Faso, 1973–1988 In this chapter we return to the discussion we began in chapter 3, where we examined the return of the Meccan scholars and the processes by which they sought to spread their reform. Like Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, who combined the conversion of the Mossi to Islam with the spread of the Tijaniyya Sufi order, these Meccan scholars also combined conversion with the spread of their own interpretation of Islam. There are some clear parallels in the teachings of the Meccan scholars and those of Boubacar Sawadogo: both saw the Islam of their time as impure and syncretic, and thus called on the established Muslim leadership to abide by the Prophet’s tradition and refrain from associating Islam with magic; both took their reformist ideas from the Hijaz (Sudan belonging to the broader Hijaz-Egypt network); both reform movements also sought to create a new community that would enable their followers to live according to the strict prescriptions of the Sharia; both groups traced the genealogy of their reforms to the Prophet’s hijra (migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E.); and both successfully prevailed over stiff opposition from the dominant scholarly community. The Meccan scholars, connected in some ways with the earlier community founded by Sheikh Boubacar Sawadogo, rejected his teachings after their education in Saudi Arabia precisely because of the Sufi foundations of his reform. An understanding of these factors allows us to locate Wahhabism within the local religious dynamics and to link it with West African traditions of reform, even as we recognize its departure from that tradition and the unique postcolonial context within which it developed. This chapter examines the mutations of the movement during the period from the 1970s to the 1990s. The Wahhabi movement in Burkina Faso did not sustain its initial momentum. The chapter also highlights the intersection of Islamic reform and domestic politics in both colonial and postcolonial settings, as well as the relationship between local Muslims and their coreligionists in other parts of the Muslim world. We begin the discussion by looking at a simultaneous development within the Wahhabi movement and the Communauté Musulmane and proceed to explore their competition for Arab financial and educational resources.

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As mentioned in chapter 3, the two organizations emerged around the same time and engaged in competition for followers, especially individuals inclined toward new religious ideas. After seven years (1965–72) of intermittent verbal and occasionally violent confrontations between members of the Communauté Musulmane and those of the nascent Wahhabi movement, violent altercations broke out throughout the country in 1973. The chain of events began in early April when certain individuals affiliated with the Communauté attacked the Wahhabi mosque at Zongoetin. The attack came in response to persistent sermons by the Meccan preachers that declared other Muslims infidels destined for hell on account of their failure to live according to the Prophet’s model. Referring to a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is alleged to have remarked that toward the end of time the Muslim community would be divided into seventy-three sects but only one, the Ahl al-Sunna, would enter paradise with him, one of the preacher warned his audience not to be among the doomed seventy-two. In essence, this preacher declared the rest of the Muslim community infidels. The sermon so angered leaders of the Communauté Musulmane that they called on their followers to drive members of the Wahhabi community out of the city.1 Bobo-Dioulasso was also engulfed in confrontations between Wahhabi followers and their opponents. Here the struggle began when the Wahhabi/ Sunna community requested the dismissal of the Central Mosque’s imam at Dioulassoba because, they alleged, his knowledge of the Qur’an was limited. This imam, they argued, had been appointed to the position because of family connections rather than intellectual qualifications. As the imam’s followers and his opponents poised for confrontation in early June, the local leaders (not affiliated with the Wahhabi community), petitioned the regional police commissioner to organize a reconciliation meeting to resolve the conflict. The commissioner scheduled the meeting, but subsequently called it off when he suspected that it might end in violence. The cancellation of this meeting enraged these elders who had earlier suspected the commissioner of sympathizing with the Wahhabi/ Sunna community. In response, they allowed their followers to attack the Wahhabi community. By mid-July the wave of clashes had reached the village of Maouana in the district of Solenzon and spread to Tougan, Toma,

1  El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002.



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Safané, and Boromo. By the end of the year many parts of the country had been engulfed in these intra-Muslim altercations.2 These conflicts demonstrate that the Wahhabi movement had begun to attract new followers more rapidly than had been anticipated by its opponents among the Tijanis and the non-Tijanis alike. In spite of, or perhaps as a result of, their rigid doctrine, rigorous attention to the details of Islamic prohibitions, and the new cultural identity they introduced, the Meccan scholars attracted a diverse group of Muslims to their fold; by the end of 1973, it had grown from a small and informal group to a bureaucratically organized national movement. Although equally threatened by the popularity of the Meccan scholars, the Hamawis cautiously avoided conflict with them because, as discussed, members of the Wahhabi community were still viewed as “brothers,” even if they no longer practiced the tariqa. The intensity of the conflicts also suggests that both the Communauté Musulmane and the Wahhabi movement were undergoing a process of institution building and each was eager to stake a claim as the legitimate representative of the umma. We therefore begin with an examination of this institution building within the Communauté. The Reconstituted Communauté Musulmane and the Conflicts of 1973 The Communauté Musulmane’s claim of promoting Muslim solidarity was first tested when the leadership failed to accommodate members of the Hamawiyya. Thus its initial enthusiasm for creating a unified Muslim umma dissipated when Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga withdrew his membership.3 The Communauté’s opposition to the Meccan scholars, whom the younger generation still admired, exposed some internal friction within the organization between the religious leaders associated with the Mossi king and a faction composed of younger generation merchants and Western-educated elites who described themselves as “progressives.” These young men sought to undermine the dominance of the older elites,

2 Siaka Diallo, “L’évolution de l’Islam à Bobo Dioulasso, des origines à la crise de la communauté Musulmane de 1973,” Mémoire de Maîtrise, Université de Ouagadougou, 1991 (especially 92–113). The phrase “Communauté Musulmane” in the title of Diallo’s thesis refers to the Muslim community of Bobo-Dioulasso and not the national organization. 3 Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga withdrew from the Communauté because of doctrinal controversies, institutional rivalry, and emerging regional politics between the Mossi of Yatenga and those of Ouagadougou. El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002.

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whom they declared “conservative,” over the organization’s leadership. For analytical convenience, we will use these labels. While the conservatives drew their support from the Mogho Naba, the progressives obtained their support from the wealthy merchant El Hadji Ousmane Sibiri Ouédraogo, the organization’s president. The progressives shared a common vision of Islamic reform that combined socioeconomic progress with spiritual purity. They were also prepared to accommodate other religious groups for the purpose of unifying their efforts to build a postcolonial Muslim community. Responding to a new trend throughout West Africa characterized by the creation of national Muslim organizations, many members of this group wanted all Muslims to belong to one national organization despite their doctrinal differences. Thus, though they embraced the Meccan scholars’ dogma, they were uncomfortable with their provocative style of preaching. This explains why some of them remained with the Communauté in the hope that they could transform it from within in order to promote moderate Islamic ideas. As a national organization the Communauté was in a good position to promote such ideas nationally, provided it employed the right language and strategy. The aspiration to combine Muslim unity with the modernization of local customs—defined as the avoidance of mysticallyoriented religiosity, the curtailing of expensive ceremonies, the opportunity for all Muslims to participate in the development of their religion and community, and the establishment of Franco-Arabic schools that would offer Muslim children both religious and secular education—set them apart from the relatively older leaders who wanted to maintain traditional ways and continued to view secular education as alien to Islam. The conservative leaders also wanted to preserve existing norms of selecting religious leaders, norms that conflicted with the younger generation’s objective of introducing modern ways for this selection process, such as voting for contending candidates after a careful review of their credentials. This group insisted that Islamic law required such a procedure for appointing an imam. Assimi Kouanda has analyzed the evolution of this conflict, which he traced to 1962 when the organization was being formed. For example, during this period, the wording of the organization’s objectives provoked intense debate that can be described as a clash between tradition and modernity. The progressives suggested the following wording: “To protect the religious interests of all Muslims, to eradicate from Islam all forms of obnoxious influences and corrupt practices, to use the appropriate means to struggle against all forms of superstition and



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exploitation of believers’ gullibility.”4 The italicized words were the main contentions. The older elites objected to this wording on the grounds that the meaning of “superstition” was too ambiguous to define the organization’s mission. They wanted to know how the society would assess which practices were authentic and which ones constituted “superstitions” and “corrupt practices.” Who were the exploiters and who were the gullible believers? The young so-called progressives persisted in their opposition. As the debate proceeded, the issue of naming a national imam was also raised. At the time, the imam of the Central Mosque of Ouagadougou, El Hadji Mahama Baguian, had been appointed by the Mogho Naba and had allegedly sworn allegiance to him in a pre-Islamic Mossi ritual.5 Since the Central Mosque of Ouagadougou was also the Communauté’s national headquarters, Imam Baguian would automatically become the Communauté’s imam and, consequently, the de facto national religious leader. But the progressive faction rejected Baguian on the grounds that he had sworn allegiance to the Mogho Naba. An imam, they argued, must swear allegiance only to God. Arguing that his involvement in an “un-Islamic” oath disqualified him from becoming the national spiritual leader, they insisted on the appointment of a new imam based on Sharia guidelines. The rejection of Imam Baguian angered the Mogho Naba and his faction, who viewed it as an attempt to undermine the authority of the court in the emerging national Muslim community. As a Muslim and the most powerful traditional leader, it was fitting that he retained this influence. As the controversy threatened to fragment the nascent organization, the president, El Hadji Ousmane Sibiri, who was also the Mogho Naba’s father-in-law, convinced his followers to accept the imam because of his old age, implying that they would have an opportunity to elect an imam of their choice in the near future. The two groups compromised on the retention of Imam Baguian and the wording of the organization’s objective. As Kouanda notes, this compromise allowed the formation of the organization and provided temporary respite from the disagreements. The temporary respite collapsed in 1966. That year, both the imam and the Communauté’s president passed away (May and December, 4 Article 4 of the Constitution. Archives of the Communauté Musulmane of Burkina Faso; also in Kouanda, “Les conflits,” 9. My translation. 5 Kouanda, “La crise,” 10. El Hadji Youssouf Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 10, 2002.

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respectively). The demise of these two leaders paved the way for the progressive faction to challenge the extension of the Mogho Naba’s authority into the Islamic religious ecclesiastical space. At the same time, a Muslim military general, Sangoulé Lamizana, had overthrown the civilian regime and for the first time, a Muslim had become a head of state. Taking advantage of these changes, the young progressives intensified their campaign to see to it that the organization reflected the ethnic diversity of Burkinabé Muslims; the king’s exclusive right to select the organization’s imam, they insisted, would give it a semblance of Mossi domination. They selected El Hadji Abdoul Salaam Tiemtoré as the new imam without consulting the Mogho Naba or other Mossi traditional leaders. The Mogho Naba and the conservative faction responded by refusing to recognize the new imam since they had not been consulted.6 The king claimed, quite rightly, that since the Central Mosque was located in his territory, his role in the selection of the imam could not be ignored. Moreover, tradition dictated that the king decides on the imam of his territory. Yet traditional authority had obviously lost its value in the postcolonial dispensation. With the loss of Sibiri’s diplomatic skills, the two factions became locked in a protracted and bitter struggle over the choice of the national imam for over half a decade.7 Many other young Mossi Muslims, angered by this affront on tradition (rogonmiki) and on the supposedly all-powerful Mossi king by a small cohort of urbanized elites, were poised to defend the king’s traditional rights at all costs. Out of frustration at this protracted conflict, some members of the progressive faction, especially those sympathetic to Wahhabi/Sunna doctrine, abandoned the Communauté and joined the emerging Wahhabi community.8 This conflict demonstrates the nature of the clash between Islam, tradition, and modernity in defining a new method of allocating religious authority. The Mogho Naba and his followers wanted to retain traditional customs while the so-called progressives, in opposition to customary practices, envisioned a Muslim community defined not by ethnicity and ethnic leadership, but formed as a multiethnic nation-state. Knowledge and the nation-state defined this new community as the younger elites embraced the transformation of their society. It was in this situation that General

6 Kouanda, “Les conflits,” 11. 7 Although El Hadji Sibiri was still alive when the conflict began, he was too ill to be involved. 8 El Hadji Youssifou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 10, 2002.



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Aboubacar Sangoulé Lamizana, the first Muslim head of state (1966–79), intervened. At the early stage of the conflict, General Lamizana declined to intervene despite invitations from many leaders who insisted that his intervention was needed to settle the dispute. For Lamizana, this dispute was religious and local, not national. However, as the crisis escalated in 1972, he concluded that the conflict was threatening national order and damaging Islam’s image and he therefore intervened by confirming Imam Tiemtoré’s appointment, and asking the Mogho Naba to appoint a separate imam for the palace.9 In effect, Lamizana’s intervention ended the Mogho Naba’s attempt to influence the Communauté’s leadership, thus he seemingly rid the organization of any semblance of ethnic control. But he also ended any modicum of influence the king had in national Muslim affairs. Although he was not Mossi, Lamizana’s decision was based on pragmatism rather than any anti-Mossi sentiment.The Muslim community at large appeared to be more concerned about peace than following customs, especially a tradition that seemed to belong to the past. Moreover, Ouagadougou had become a national capital and therefore the city’s mosque and its leadership must reflect a national, as opposed to an ethnic identity. In West Africa, disputes over mosque leadership were and still are pervasive. While such conflicts might seem trivial, even absurd, since imams were usually not paid for their services, a close examination of their causes allows us to tease out the underlying doctrinal, political, or social tensions. The dispute between the Mogho Naba and the younger generation urban elites (mostly Mossi) demonstrates the extent to which Mossi kings lost their political influence after the colonial conquest. As noted in chapter 2, Mossi kings had resisted Islam, though they allowed Muslims to settle around the king’s palace and even employed them as scribes and charm makers. In order to control the Muslim population, the Mogho Naba assumed the responsibility of appointing the city’s imam, usually from among the Yarsè and Maransè (foreign Muslims who had assimilated Mossi culture and language), and required the appointed imams to swear allegiance to the throne (even though the ruler was not a Muslim himself ). In these ways, Mossi kings were able to contain the economically powerful and religiously cohesive Muslim community of mostly non-Mossi.

9 Kouanda, “Les conflits,” 12. Also Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 18, 2002.

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Although we do not know exactly when Mossi kings began appointing imams, it seems to have already been the norm when Captain André visited Ouagadougou during his French West African tour in the early 1920s. He noted in 1923 that the imam of Ouagadougou, Soumaila Bagaya, had been appointed directly by the Mogho Naba.10 Governor Hessling, the colony’s first governor, also noted in 1927 that Imam Bagaya acted as the Mogho Naba’s Minister of Muslim Affairs,11 but André also observed that Hausa settlers refused to recognize the Mogho Naba’s appointed imam because of his allegedly limited Islamic knowledge.12 While we may never know the motives behind such opposition, it is clear that the shift of political power from the palace to the colonial office made it possible for Hausa and other non-Mossi Muslims to challenge the court’s interference in Muslim affairs. By the 1950s, with the support of the colonial administration, the Hausa and Djula, who comprised a majority of the Muslim scholars, chose the imam of the city’s Central Mosque.13 Eager to separate the Mossi state from Islam to reflect the French ideology of separating state and religion, and anxious to prevent the king from tapping into Islamic political energy, French administrators supported a coup against the old tradition that allowed Mossi rulers control over the most important religious position among local Muslims. These young progressives could therefore refer to precedence in colonial practice. Even as colonialism was waning in the early 1950s, French administrators would not allow a Mossi ruler to reassert his traditional power on local Islam. This was the case in 1951 when Mogho Naba Kougouri converted to Islam. As a Muslim, he believed that there would be no opposition to his attempt to extend his traditional authority into the Islamic space. That year he appointed a Mossi, Ibrahim Kouanda, as the imam of the Central Mosque, in spite of Hausa and Djula opposition backed by the governor. The Hausa/Djula coalition argued that the Mossi, who had only recently converted to Islam, were not competent to lead the Muslim community.14 In support of this opposition against the king, Governor Mouragues threatened to reject the construction of a proposed Central Mosque unless the .

10 ANS, 2G23 (108), “Information sur Islam,” Captain P. J. André’s report. Captain André was dispatched to assess the situation of Islam in Francophone West Africa. 11  ANS, 2G27/10. Haute Volta, Governor Hessling’s rapport annuel, politique et administratif, 1927. 12 ANS, 19G23 (108), André’s report, 32. 13 Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 11, 2002. 14 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 66–67.



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king withdrew his candidate.15 Mouragues had earlier advised the king to not compromise his spiritual responsibility to the Mossi people by converting to Islam, but in spite of this the king became a Muslim. However, in the matter of the appointment of the imam of the Central Mosque, the king acquiesced since the construction of the Central Mosque was important to him as well. The governor’s advice that the king should not undermine Mossi customs by embracing Islam reflected the colonialists’ perception of the Mossi as non-Muslims, and their demarcation of Mossi territory as a dividing line between Islamized and non-Islamized Francophone territories. We recall Ponty’s instructions to the colonial administration, articulated in La politique des races, that the French had the obligation to protect indigenous customs from Islam’s aggressive onslaught. As noted in chapter 2, Clozel reiterated this argument and added that by encouraging the Mossi and other non-Islamized ethnic groups to protect their customs against Islam, the colonial administration would not only ensure colonial order, but would also contain the spread of Islam. Clearly, Governor Mouragues was not concerned about Islam’s systematic obliteration of the Mossi ancestral religion, which was occurring under colonial watch; rather, he was worried that the Mogho Naba’s conversion would destabilize the colony’s social and ethnic equilibrium, since the Mossi were becoming not only the ethnic majority but also, relative to other groups, the Muslim majority.16 In Ouagadougou, for example, twenty-seven of the sixty-six clerics were Mossi.17 Mouragues calculated that since the Mossi were the largest ethnic group and the capital was the traditional capital of the Mossi kingdom, Mossi leadership of Islamic institutions would not only tilt the balance of power and influence in their favor, but would add Islamic influence to the king’s traditional authority. The opposition to the Mogho Naba’s

15 Ibid. 16 Mouragues’ letter to the governor-general of AOF, November 15, 1951, Ouagadougou, Archives Musulmane de Haute Volta. Cited in Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en HauteVolta. Whereas annual reports between the 1920s and 1940s consistently remarked that “the Islamic question” was of secondary interest in most parts of the colony, by the 1950s administrators began to report Islam’s alarming growth rate. See, for example, Governor Édouard Hessling’s report, ANS, 2G21/13. According to statistics compiled by Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Interior, in 1950 the Muslim population was 11 percent but reached 20 percent in 1959 and 30 percent in 1973; Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 65n23. The Muslim population of Ouagadougou alone doubled between 1948 and 1955, reaching 14 percent in 1955. See Afrique occidentale, rapport politique annuel, 1955, referred to in Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta, 64. 17 Audouin and Deniel, L’islam en Haute-Volta.

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extension of his powers into the religious domain reflects changes in the country’s religious landscape and power. The Mogho Naba’s conversion probably paved the way for many Mossi aristocrats (nakomsé) to embrace Islam or at least legitimize Islam in the Mossi cultural landscape. Yet the younger Mossi progressives affiliated with the Communauté still did not allow ancient customs and elites rooted in those customs to invade the new political environment inherited by the postcolonial state. They believed that Islam in the postcolonial context had to be independent of traditional authority. For these elites, whose reference point was the colonial order, the end of colonialism also meant the end of the influence of traditions and customs in Islamic institutions. While opposition to the Naba’s imam in 1951 was instigated by Hausa and Djula merchants, the opposition in 1972 was led by young Mossi Muslims. Although they argued that their goal was to ensure that the country had a qualified national imam and they wanted to limit Mossi influence in the organization, the imam they appointed, Imam Tiemtoré , was Mossi and was selected by the Mossi-dominated Communauté leadership in Ouagadougou.18 The argument concerning the need for plurality in the organization’s structure therefore seemed to have provided the excuse for a coup by a modern-oriented younger generation of Mossi elites against their traditional leaders. If in 1951 Governor Mouragues had been worried that the Mogho Naba’s influence in Muslim affairs would destabilize the ethnic-power equilibrium and thus the colony’s stability, General Lamizana also seemed concerned about the ethnicization of a national Muslim organization. The Mogho Naba’s attempt to assert his authority over Muslim institutions was the court’s last bid for direct influence over the country’s postcolonial institutions. His influence in the Communauté would have given him a niche, albeit a small one, in the postcolonial state. Although Mogho Naba Kougouri, enthroned in 1957,19 actively participated in the founding of the Communauté Musulmane, the resolution of the 1972 dispute over the imam ended the court’s influence in Muslim affairs as a younger generation of Mossi Muslims assumed control of the organization and its institutions. Mogho Naba Saaga and the king of Yatenga had struggled to achieve the reunification of the colony in 1947, only to see political 18 In addition, the organization’s president, El Hadji Amadi Ouédraogo, and most of the officials were Mossi. 19 Joseph Cuoq, Les Musulmans en Afrique (Paris: Editions C. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1975), 202.



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power transferred to mission-trained Mossi commoners.20 If Mossi kings lost their political power to the French after the colonial conquest, the court’s bid to regain some of those powers and influence in postcolonial institutions also failed because the younger generations did not want to reproduce ancient power structures or allow elites bounded in tradition to encroach on the Islamic space. In Elliott Skinner’s words: The real struggle for [postcolonial] power was between the traditional Mossi chiefs and the young Catholic-trained Mossi politicians. The chiefs lost, and subsequently, the Mogho Naba, the most important Mossi chief, became a Muslim. Whether this conversion was the result of internal conviction or a reaction to defeat by Christian commoners, is still a moot question.21

If the sincerity of the king’s conversion is rendered doubtful by the prevailing political climate, the purpose of opposing the extension of his powers into Islamic space by younger generation Mossi Muslim nationalists is apparent: tradition must surrender to modernity in the new religious and political environment; modernity itself had to be indigenized. The dispute over the Communauté’s imam demonstrates that in the struggle for postcolonial power the adversaries of the Mossi traditional elites were not limited to mission-trained Mossi elites, but also included a younger generation of Mossi Muslims. New elites among Mossi Catholics and Mossi Muslims were not anxious to reproduce the ancient regime after independence. Moreover, like the colonial state earlier, the postcolonial state under Lamizana also participated in the confinement of traditional powers. The concern of Lamizana’s government for order led it to interfere in Muslims’ affairs. Despite the rhetoric and ideology of negretitude, cultural authenticity, the African personality, and so on that pervaded the vocabularies of the nationalist movements, nationalist leaders were not prepared to legitimize traditional powers in postcolonial religious and political institutions. In fact, tradition itself, like colonialism, seems to have been shoved aside, if not rendered obsolete.

20 The colony was split into three in 1932, with each portion attached to neighboring colonies: Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Mali. For the role of Mossi kings in the reunification of Burkina Faso, see Bougouraoua Ouédraogo, “Les rôle des élites voltaiques dans la reconstitution de la Haute-Volta,” in La Haute Volta coloniale, ed. Massa and Madiéga (Paris: Karthala, 1995), 450. 21 Skinner, “Islam in Mossi Society,” 368.

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The Formation of the Mouvement Sunnite de Haute Volta (Burkina Faso) The confrontations that ensued between the emerging Wahhabi community and other Muslims clearly resulted from doctrinal disputes, but they also stemmed from the movement’s rapid growth. As the attention of the Communauté leaders was consumed by internal dispute, the Wahhabi preachers, who now included some locally trained scholars, pursued their vision more aggressively. After defeating Mogho Naba, the progressiveminded elites in the Communauté turned their attention to the rival organization; this intensified the conflict and forced the Wahhabi community to formalize their organization in order to qualify for police protection. They named it the Mouvement Sunnite de Haute Volta (and renamed it Mouvement Sunnite de Burkina Faso in 1984 to reflect the country’s new name). Henceforth I will refer to it as Mouvement Sunnite. The Mouvement Sunnite was organized quite differently from any other Muslim organization of the time. Its organizational structure was composed of two tiers (the Executive Council and the Council of ulama), in which the Executive Council comprised elected representatives, all of whom were secularly-educated, and was responsible for administering the organization.22 The Council of ulama, made up of the leading Arabophone scholars with the imam as the head, was charged with providing moral guidance, preaching, and officiating at all celebrations and rituals. This institutional arrangement allowed the two types of education, French/ secular and Arabic/theological, to complement each other and efficiently promote the organization’s visions of religious and cultural reform. The two-tier arrangement also sought to prevent potential conflict between the Western-educated leaders and the Arabophone scholars. Previously, when functions overlapped, conflicts had resulted between Imam Sayouba and the Western-educated member Ahmadou Bandé; when the two were selected as co-imams, alternating in leading the Friday prayers, the organization avoided overlapping functions and conflict.

22 The Executive Officers: President: Ouédraogo Souleymane (Deputy Commander of Ouagadougou Airport) Vice President: Iddrissa Semdé (secondary school teacher at Ziniare) General Secretary: Kabore Issaka (public servant) Assistant Secretary: Sawadogo Moumouni (retired army officer) General Treasurer: Ilboudou Amadou (employee at Post Telegraph, and Telecom­ munication, PTT) Deputy Treasurer: Congo Ousmane (public servant)



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In 1973 the Western-educated elites wrote the organization’s constitution and presented their application for a permit (récépissé) to the government. The Communauté’s first move was to block the application. In trying to convince the government to not recognize Mouvement Sunnite, the Communauté insisted that the nation should have only one official Muslim organization and that the Meccan preachers were sowing religious discord. Labeling them proxies of foreign governments who aimed to instigate doctrinal dispute among Muslims in order to destroy the religion, the Communauté leaders urged the government to not encourage the Wahhabis to further fragment Muslims.23 They argued that the Wahhabi doctrine had been formulated by enemies of the Prophet to minimize his spiritual preeminence in the religion. They cited as an example the Meccan preacher’s rejection of the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday.24 The validity of this argument is not important for us here, as both groups sought to demonize the other in order to maintain control. Government officials, however, agreed with them and refused to grant the permit. El Hadji Yussif Sana recalls the situation: For four months government officials (all of them Christians) would not even look at our faces when we entered their offices. They would ignore us and let us sit there for hours. Then they would come and ask us questions like: “Who are you people?” “Are you not Muslims like members of Communauté?” “Why are you instigating trouble instead of working with other Muslims to help your religion?” Or they would tell us to go away because the country could not have more than one Muslim organization. One day, Souleymane had to remind an official that Muslims, like Christians, have their differences; “We too have our ‘Catholics’ and ‘Protestants,’ ” he told them. The officials knew that the law was on our side but they could not help us because the instruction came from the “top.”25

In a letter to the minister of interior, the Wahhabi leaders called the administration’s attention to Article 14, Chapter 2 of the national constitution,

23 Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002. El Hadji Mouctar Ouédraogo (aka Mouctar Cissé), Ouagadougou, March 2, 2002, “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 6. In a petition to the Minister of Interior and Security, Communauté leaders at Bobo-Dioulasso even claimed the Sunna leaders were foreigners who had come to Burkina Faso after they had been deported from Mali for instigating intra-Muslim conflicts. Diallo, “L’évolution,” 121. 24 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 7, 2002. It is unclear who “they” refers to in citing the Wahhabi condemnation of extravagant funeral rites as an example. 25 El Hadji Yussif Sana, personal communication, Accra, Ghana, July 21, 2003. Yussif Sana is Muhammad Malick Sana’s cousin, and currently lives in Accra.

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which recognizes individuals’ religious rights. However, probably under instruction from top government officials sympathetic to the Communauté, the bureaucrats in charge of such applications dismissed the argument on the premise that Mouvement Sunnite was not a different religion from Islam.26 The raging confrontations between the Communauté and members of the Mouvement Sunnite forced the government to step in. After consultation with the head of state and other Muslims in the administration, the minister of interior, Somé Youré Gabriel, registered the Mouvement Sunnite and granted it a récépissé in December 1973.27 The struggles leading to the official recognition of the Mouvement Sunnite would have been trivial if not for their centrality in illustrating the interplay of domestic concerns and the changing global political economy in the evolving importance of the Mouvement Sunnite. Having supported the Communauté Musulmane against Mogho Naba, the government was now committed to ensuring a cohesive Muslim community. Recognizing a rival organization would undermine this commitment, especially since the Communauté was performing important functions for Muslims and the nation. Besides ensuring Muslim support for the political status quo, the Communauté also built mosques and madrasas throughout the country, and obtained scholarships for students to study in the Arab world.28 It claimed credit for the growth of the Muslim population from 25 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 1970.29 Further, in 1972, it created the Cultural Committee of Muslim Youth of Burkina Faso30 to involve the youth in community development, such as teaching adults the Qur’an and cleaning neighborhoods.31 By establishing the Cultural Committee and encouraging parents to send their children to madrasas instead of Qur’anic schools, the Communauté also endeavored to reduce street begging by Qur’anic school pupils, some of whom were alleged to have engaged in antisocial

26 A copy of this letter can be found in the annex section of Maïmouna Dao’s master’s thesis, “Le Wahhabisme.” 27 “Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” 7. Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 2, 2002. Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 12, 2002. 28 For instance, in 1972 alone the Communauté obtained a total of forty-two scholarships: fifteen from Algeria, seven from Saudi Arabia, ten from Egypt, and another ten from Morocco. Archives of Communauté Musulmane de Burkina Faso. 29 Ibid. Also published in Carrefour African, April 8, 1972, 3. The figures were as follows: 1,972 converts in 1969; 2,041 in 1970; and 2,116 in 1971. 30 Comité culturel et [sic] de la jeunesse Musulmane de Haute Volta. 31  The Archives of Communauté Musulmane de Burkina Faso.



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activities.32 Additionally, the Communauté was recognized in the Arab world as the representative of Burkinabé Muslims. From the government’s perspective, the Communauté’s function was valuable for the nation as a whole and therefore its authority must not be undermined. The government’s recognition of the Mouvement Sunnite, against the will of its allies in the Communauté, stemmed more profoundly from the movement’s growing connections with Arab governments and philanthropists. It was clear that the movement was no longer merely a local phenomenon, but also part of a transnational network of Islamic resurgence supported by wealthy Muslim nations. The government did not want to alienate the nation from these emerging sources of financial support for national development generally, and for the development of Islam in particular.33 These considerations were reinforced in 1974 by the head of state’s impending pilgrimage, during which he planned to meet many Arab leaders, including King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Formally recognizing the Wahhabi organization was thus a pragmatic diplomatic move to allay any suspicion among Saudi elites that the head of state was preventing the spread of religious ideas supported by the king. Like many leaders of impoverished Muslim countries in Africa, Lamizana hoped to tap into the petrodollars of favorable Arab allies to help his country. A new form of dependency was thus emerging between impoverished African countries and wealthy Arab nations, one in which the basic requisites included support for the Palestinian cause, but also support for the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi doctrine. The Mouvement Sunnite’s leaders recognized this new leverage, which was made possible by their association with a powerful pan-Islamic religious movement supported by the king of Saudi Arabia. This shift was also new in the history of West African Islamic reforms. Burkina Faso and the Arab/Muslim World At a time when most newly independent African countries avoided diplomatic relations with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians, the government of Maurice Yaméogo, the first president of independent Burkina Faso

32 As early as 1962, people of Ouagadougou and other major cities complained about vagrancy by Qur’anic school students, called Allah garibu; the Communauté assumed the responsibility of ending those activities. Carrefour Africain, July 8, 1962. 33 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.

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and a Catholic, maintained close relations with Israel. This relationship reached a climax when Yaméogo visited Israel in July 1961, the first visit by a leader of an independent African state. Confirming his country’s commitment to a cordial relationship with Israel, his famous statement appeared in Israeli newspapers: “As far as we are concerned, you may be assured that when an occasion presents itself we shall coordinate and dedicate our efforts so that Israel can continue to prove its vitality.”34 On July 11, 1961, he signed a Treaty of Friendship and an Agreement for Technical Cooperation with Israel. These treaties became a model followed by other African countries friendly to Israel.35 Further, in early January 1962, following a continent-wide opposition to Egypt’s alleged interference in the affairs of other African nations, Yaméogo expelled the United Arab Republic’s mission.36 In April of that year he visited the Vatican, the first African head of state to do so. While Yaméogo’s preference for Israel may have been influenced by his Christian background, he also expected the country to benefit from Israeli technical assistance. As a consequence of his political overtures toward Israel, Burkinabé Muslims claimed that he neglected their interests. Even more important, besides politically isolating Burkinabé Muslims from the Arab world, he also created the impression locally that his government was a Christian government. In 1966, General Aboubacar Sangoulé Lamizana, a Muslim, reversed this policy after he overthrew Yaméogo’s regime. There is no evidence that religion played any significant role in the coup, since many of the other coup leaders were Catholics. Rather, the reversal of this policy was pragmatic, as it allowed Burkina Faso to tap into the new Arab wealth. A poor country where interfaith coexistence had been the norm, most of the citizens did not really pay attention to this shift, since, in reality, it was

34 Joseph Churba, “UAR-Israeli Rivalry Over Aid and Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1957– 1963,” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1965, 121–22. According to Churba, Yaméogo undertook this journey on behalf of the Conseil de l’Entente, a customs union formed by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Benin. To counter Yaméogo’s overture toward Israel, the Nigerian prime minister, Sir Tafawu Balewa, also visited Egypt that same week to demonstrate Muslim’s solidarity with the Arab world. Churba, “UAR-Israeli Rivalry,” 261. 35 This treaty was ratified by the National Assembly of Upper Volta in July 1962 as Law No. 16–62 and signed by the president on July 5, 1962, as Decree No. 245 PRES-l’AN. See Carrefour Africain, July 6, 1962. 36 Churba, “UAR-Israeli Rivalry,” 254. Many African countries, including Egypt’s allies like Ghana and Guinea, also expelled the UAR diplomats when Egypt was suspected of instigating the Congolese crises that led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. For Yaméogo, however, that general suspicion provided an excuse for strengthening his country’s relations with Israel.



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expected to benefit the entire country and not only Muslims. A year after coming to power, the government established diplomatic relations with Algeria, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, and in 1970 with Libya and Egypt as well. In 1975 the country joined the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the Muslim World League, and the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and in 1976 it joined the Afro-Arab Cooperation (AAC). Membership in these organizations allowed the government to benefit from multilateral and bilateral economic assistance from the Islamic Solidarity Fund and the Muslim World League, which were limited to Muslim countries, as well as from nonreligious intergovernmental organizations like the Special Arab Aid Fund for Africa (SAAFA), the Arab Fund for Technical Assistance to Arab and African Countries (AFTAAAC), and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (ABEDA).37 For a poor country like Burkina Faso, whose economy was devastated by drought and the high cost of imported petroleum, such economic assistance was crucial to the entire country. The 1970s were thus a watershed in Burkina Faso’s relations with the Arab world, but it was even more important for Burkinabé Muslims, who began to obtain economic and cultural assistance from their religious counterparts in the Arab world.38 For example, in 1967 Saudi Arabia offered six scholarships to the Communauté Musulmane for Burkinabé madrasa students to study at the Islamic University of Medina.39 Arab countries also contributed to the construction of madrasas and mosques throughout the country. In 1968 Algeria contributed five million CFA

37 Robert Anton Mertz and Pamela MacDonald Mertz, Arab Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (Grünewald: Westview Press, 1983), 31–32. The Islamic Development Bank, founded in 1975, was responsible for financing economic and social development projects and promoting foreign trade between Arab countries and other Muslim nations. The Islamic Solidarity Fund, founded in 1974, supported social welfare programs, and Islamic educational and cultural activities. The Muslim World League (MWL), founded in 1964, was responsible for funding the construction of mosques and other religious buildings, as well as promoting Islamic education and missionary activities. 38 This policy has become a permanent feature of Burkina Faso’s foreign policy that was pursued by all subsequent governments, all of whom were led by non-Muslims. In 1996 the OIC conference was held in Ouagadougou and was hosted by President Compaoré, a Christian. For the objectives of the Islamic Conferences, see Journal of the Muslim World League (July 1979), 24. 39 Up to the early 1980s Burkina Faso received at least ten scholarships each year from Saudi Arabia. In 1968 Algeria offered fifteen scholarships and Morocco fifteen. Egyptian scholarships varied between ten and twelve each year between 1973 and 1979. However, these grants began to decline beginning in 1985, to just one in 1993. Archive de CMBF, Ouagadougou.

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francs for the construction of the Franco-Arab school of Sikasso-Cira at Bobo-Dioulasso and one hundred million CFA francs for the construction of the Madrasa Centrale at Ouagadougou. In 1972 Libya contributed fortyeight million CFA francs for the construction of the Ouagadougou Central Mosque.40 Between 1973 and 1982 the Communauté Musulmane received a total of sixty-five free plane tickets from Saudi Arabia to be distributed to individuals who wanted to perform the pilgrimage but did not have the means. With the support of Burkinabé and Arab philanthropists, in 1973 the Communauté Musulmane purchased a three-story building in Mecca to house Burkinabé pilgrims and students.41 The Mouvement Sunnite also requested financial help, primarily from Saudi Arabia, to build mosques and schools as well as for scholarships for its students to study in Arab universities. In 1978 Saudi Arabia agreed to finance the construction of the Mouvement Sunnite mosque at Zongoetin. By reaching out to the Arab world, General Lamizana clearly opened new opportunities for Burkinabé Muslims regardless of doctrinal affiliation. However, the evidence also indicates that Mouvement Sunnite probably benefitted even more because it now competed with Communauté Musulmane for the resources coming from the Arab world, such as scholarships, grants to build mosques and plane tickets to perform the hajj. The new doctrinal and economic affiliation with the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, transformed the Mouvement Sunnite significantly. Unlike Communauté Musulmane, which was considered doctrinally neutral but the representative of all Muslims in the country, Mouvement Sunnite had to justify its commitment to a Saudi version of authentic Sunna through regular public lectures, and indeed, through hyper rigorous sermons to demonstrate its activism. These the Wahhabi preachers pursued aggressively, with Saudi officials in the country looking over their shoulders. The Sunna Movement, Phase II By the early 1980s the Mouvement Sunnite had become an independent community, with its own identity, leadership structure, and channels of contacts in the Arab world. Its mosque at Zongoetin, Ouagadougou, built in 1978, was an enormous structure that rivaled the Central Mosque less

40 A. Samb, “Les relations Arabo-Africaines de 1955 jusqu’aux années 1970,” Thèse doctorat 3è cycle en études Arabes, Université de Paris VII, 1983, 91. 41  Personal knowledge.



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than one mile away. They received consumer goods (rice, oil, clothing, meat, and so on) donated by Arab philanthropists, and distributed them to their members. The leaders were often sponsored to attend international conferences and symposia.42 In the process, the Mouvement Sunnite fulfilled its primary objective of consolidating all of its followers into a single national organization.43 Their leaders in Ouagadougou embarked on a mobilization drive at the grassroots level, recruiting followers and inspiring them to organize branches in their communities. These followers were then organized hierarchically from the village level to the national headquarters in Ouagadougou. Members at the village level elected representatives to the provincial level, which in turn elected representatives to attend important meetings in Ouagadougou. With these opportunities to participate in the organization’s decision-making apparatus and even become leaders in their respective communities, the Mouvement Sunnite empowered its followers. Some gained fame, prestige, and connections with government officials as a result of their leadership in the local branches of Mouvement Sunnite. The organization was financed by the sale of membership cards, individual contributions, and donations from foreign philanthropists. The organization also claimed to be democratic and encouraged equality among members. Every member was entitled to cast a single vote to elect officials. This vision of equality attracted people who saw the organization as representing some form of modernity; indeed, it contrasted sharply with other Muslim organizations in which members were given no opportunity to participate directly in decision making. The annual convention, usually held at Ouagadougou, attracted members from all parts of the country and provided them with the opportunity to establish mutual support networks. The development of such networks in commerce and education was one of the major socioeconomic achievements of the Wahhabi movement in Burkina Faso, as in other West African societies. In the commercial sector, for instance, members who were distributors often supplied goods to their fellow members in the retail sector on credit and flexible terms of payment. Wealthy merchants also provided capital to aspiring traders who lacked the capital to start their own business. This was crucial because a bulk of the Mouvement Sunnite’s followers were often poor, unemployed young men who had

42 Mahmoudou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 2, 2002. 43 See Article 3 of the constitution.

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emigrated from the rural areas to the cities in search of employment. Unable to find work, many of them offered informal services, such as loading and unloading merchandise in the market, and running errands, in exchange for gifts. Government functionaries who were members of the Mouvement Sunnite also assisted others in obtaining employment, and in the process, expanded the organization’s followers.44 Scholars have emphasized the centrality of this pattern of mutual support in Wahhabi movements and imply that it represented a new form of spirituality that combined economic success with spiritual renewal, similar to Protestant ethics. However, this combination of economics and religion was not unique to the Mouvement Sunnite. The Subbanu Association also established mutual support networks in the early 1940s that facilitated the success of certain merchants in Bobo-Dioulasso.45 In Ouagadougou and other predominantly Mossi cities and towns, members of the Hamawiyya also assisted each other through similar arrangements. One of these sheikhoukarambisi, once a powerful merchant in Ouagadougou, recalled how the emergence of Wahhabism undermined the monopoly of the sheikhoukarambisi in the commercial sector. [We] had a great monopoly in the major markets of many cities like Ouagadougou, Tenkoudougou, Koudougou, and Ouahigouya. The supply of cement, lumber, flour, rice, and sugar were all in our hands. Any retailer who wanted these goods could only get them from one of the sheikhou karambisi. We supplied the goods on credit basis (since most small traders could not afford to pay outright), but we favored our own members by extending the duration of payment. With our members in Ghana, Niger, and Côte d’Ivoire, we controlled the credit market and the flow of goods. Since most of these goods were imported, fellow members in these countries helped us establish contacts with the sources of supply. The only product we did not control was fabric, which was in the hands of Lebanese and Syrians. However since the rise of the Sunna, we lost part of these monopolies. Young petty traders, assisted by their “brethren” in Abidjan and Bobo-Dioulasso, became big merchants in Ouagadougou and other cities and towns.46

44 Abdoul Salaam Sana, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 16, 2002. 45 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya. 46 Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 2, 2002. The sheikhoukarambisi’s control over the wholesale sector is perhaps exaggerated, but it demonstrates the vitality of Mouvement Sunnite and the way it inserted itself in Islamic and economic institutions and, in the process, facilitated members’ social mobility.



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Annual conventions like mawlid celebrations not only provided a forum for religious discussions, but also provided opportunities for members to meet and establish contacts. The expansion of madrasa schooling and the construction of mosques represented one area in which the Mouvement Sunnite’s success was evident. They increased the number of madrasas from two in 1972 to twelve in 1986 in Ouagadougou alone, and from two to seven in Bobo-Dioulasso during the same period.47 Although initial funds for building mosques and schools were raised locally, by 1975 the organization had become dependent on Arab/Muslim philanthropists. These schools, as well the opportunity to study in the Arab world after graduating fom the madrasa, were partly responsible for the popularity of the Mouvement Sunnite among youth who were interested in opportunities to study in the Arab world. Although the Communauté Musulmane also obtained scholarships for their students, a combination of intense competition and favoritism in that organization resulted in the denial of scholarships to otherwise qualified students.48 For example, all six of the scholarships the Communauté received from Saudi Arabia in 1967 were given to the sons of influential people affiliated with the organization, in open discrimination against students from the Mouvement Sunnite and the Hamawiyya-Rahmatoulaye communities. The case of Mahmoudou Bandé, the younger brother of Ahmadou Bandé,49 illustrates how the Communauté Musulmane leaders used their control over scholarships as leverage in competition with other groups or to punish adversaries. In 1972 the Communauté organized an examination for madrasa students to compete for ten scholarships received from the Egyptian government. Mahmoudou Bandé achieved the highest score in the examination. However, the Communauté leaders canceled the results on the pretext that they made a mistake by not inviting students from other parts of the country to participate in the competition. Although

47 During my research in 2002 there were sixteen schools, though all of them, including Sunna mosques, were closed due to conflicts among members. 48 For example, none of the eleven students from Rahmatoulaye who studied in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia between 1967 and 1985 received a scholarship from Communauté. Mahmoudou Maiga, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, May 2, 2002. 49 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 14, 2002. As discussed in chapter 2, Ahmadou Bandé was one the Western-educated elites whose family house became the meeting place of the nascent Wahhabi movement after they left Muhammad Malick Sana’s house.

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Bandé scored the second highest mark in this second nationwide examination, the Communauté leaders still denied him the scholarship on the premise that he was a Wahhabi who would return to propagate a divisive doctrine after his studies. Enraged, Bandé’s family appealed for help to the minister of foreign affairs, Dr. Joseph Conombo, who was from the same district (Kombisiri) as the Bandé family. Still bent on denying Bandé one of the scholarships, the Communauté leaders informed Conombo that it had already distributed the scholarships to the winners. The minister appealed to the Egyptian government for an additional scholarship, which he then gave to Mahmoudou Bandé.50 Mahmoudou Bandé was not simply a student, he was the youngest active member of the Wahhabi movement; despite his age, he participated in public preaching in which he disparaged other Muslims. In his own words: “While the adult preachers were discreet in their language, I was not. I used the strongest and most provocative language I could think of. I described Muslim leaders like Sheikh Sawadogo in terms that I cannot repeat to you.”51 The Communauté thus tried to punish Bandé for being a Wahhabi, and a radical one for that matter.52 The Mouvement Sunnite initially appeared impartial in its distribution of scholarships and therefore attracted students who were not well connected with the traditional elites. The argument that the control over scholarships was a source of power, prestige, and influence may seem trivial, but it is central to understanding how external factors influenced local religious politics during the 1970s and 1980s. For an impoverished country like Burkina Faso, a free ticket and scholarship to study in the Arab world was an important source of prestige and income. Students not only received an education, but also stipends which, especially for those studying in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, exceeded the salaries of some public functionaries in Burkina Faso. Moreover, at the end of the academic year, students of Saudi universities were given round trip tickets to go home for the holidays. Many took home expensive goods that reinforced their prestige and popularity. Study in the Middle East and the Gulf states thus became a major aspiration of 50 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 2, 2002. As the only organizer of the annual pilgrimage, the Pilgrimage Committee was known to discriminate against pilgrims from the Sunna and Hamawiyya communities; this led the members of the Hamawiyya to form their own agency in 1977. 51  Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, June 19, 2006. As will be shown later, Mahmoudou Bandé abandoned Sunna after completing his studies, was initiated into the Tijaniyya, and became the Mouvement Sunnite’s fiercest adversary. 52 Ibid.



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Muslim students, and as demand for these scholarships grew, so did the influence and wealth of those who controlled the scholarships. * * * In this examination of the evolution of the Mouvement Sunnite in the context of changing domestic and international politics, I argue that Wahhabism, which began as a local phenomenon in the 1960s, had by the early 1970s become part of a global network of Islamic revival and reform, deriving its spiritual guidance and inspiration, as well as its material resources, from Arab/Muslim philanthropists and institutions financed by Middle Eastern governments. In Burkina Faso the other Muslim organizations, the Communauté Musulmane and the Association of the Tijaniyya, competed with the Mouvement Sunnite for grants and donations from private philanthropists by claiming to promote religious purity as well. Through a combination of pan-Islamism and political solidarity with wealthy Arab nations, the Burkina government also successfully obtained economic assistance from the Arab world. For Muslim organizations and the government, the Arab world thus became not only a source of spiritual revival, but also a source of economic assistance and cultural rejuvenation. This dependency on foreign assistance objectified and materialized Islamic reform, though only for a short period. The self help initiatives that had sustained the organization’s early phase diminished as the organization became dependent on external sources. A clear manifestation of this materialization can be seen in the high rate of corruption and nepotism in many of these organizations throughout West Africa, and also in the conflicts that arose as claims and counterclaims of ownership of properties mounted among the leaders. By the early 1990s when Arab financial assistance dwindled, inter-doctrinal conflicts gave way to conflicts within the Mouvement Sunnite, leading to its fragmentation. The patterns of the development of the Mouvement Sunnite analyzed in this chapter are identical with the development of Wahhabi-inclined organizations in Ghana, especially the national organization, Islamic Research and Reformation Center. I now turn to the Ghanaian organization, beginning with a brief biography of Hajj Umar Ibrahim.

Chapter six

Promoting the Good and Forbidding the Reprehensible: Wahhabism in Ghana, 1970–1998 While it took the Meccan scholars in Burkina Faso almost a decade (1964–72) to gain the critical mass to create a formal organization, in Ghana Hajj Umar accumulated a mass of followers within a short period (1969–72). The reasons for his popularity and the short duration it took for his message to reach a broader segment of society can be located in the pre-existing tensions among Muslims; the pervasive economic impoverishment of urban Muslims during this period that created widespread social discontent; and Umar’s charisma and erudition that attracted a powerful segment of the society—the secularly-educated elite. Some of the issues Hajj Umar addressed—the unacceptability of the esoteric sciences, including divination and unapproved methods of Islamic healing, his condemnation of the tarbiya (Sufi esoteric initiation), and his insistence on the Qur’an and Sunna as the only legitimate sources of Islamic beliefs—had been preached earlier by various scholars, including some Tijaniyya scholars. In Accra-Nima where he began his career, scholars like Mallam Hamza and the Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul had earlier preached against the Tijaniyya (chapter 4). Yet their message did not resonate with the masses until the return of Hajj Umar from Saudi Arabia in 1968. Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura and Sheikh Adam Appiedu also did not succeed in attracting unwavering followers beyond their respective ethnic communities. As the following discussion will illustrate, Hajj Umar’s success, like that of the Meccan scholars in the Mouvement Sunnite of Burkina Faso, stemmed from the support he received from a cohort of urban Muslim professionals trained in secular institutions. Hajj Umar’s Intellectual Development Hajj Umar Ibrahim was the first Ghanaian student to graduate from the Islamic University of Medina and the first Saudi-trained scholar to preach what would be widely considered the Wahhabi doctrine in Ghana. Born around 1934 in Koforidua to a successful cocoa farmer, Hajj Umar began his Qur’anic education with Mallam Issaka Wangara, who combined

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cocoa farming with teaching. Like most Qur’anic school students, Umar and his peers in Mallam Issaka’s school worked on the farm during the day and studied at night. After Umar completed a portion of the Qur’an, Mallam Issaka referred him, along with other students, to a more competent teacher, Mallam Bunyaminu. Mallam Bunyaminu combined teaching with traveling to provide spiritual consultancy services, taking his students with him on some of his tours so that they would continue studying while helping him prepare concoctions for his clients. In 1946, during one of these trips to Nima, a suburb of Accra, Bunyaminu stayed much longer than anticipated. Concerned that Umar’s education was not advancing because of the teacher’s constant traveling, Umar’s mother encouraged Mallam Bunyaminu to settle permanently in Nima. Because he was also a tailor by profession, Umar’s mother helped him open a shop in Nima, where he taught his students tailoring during the day and the Qur’an at night. Yet when the teacher passed away in 1950, Umar had neither completed the Qur’an nor had he mastered tailoring, which disappointed him immensely. “After several years of studies, I did not even complete the Qur’an,” he lamented.1 In 1958, he decided to continue his studies at alAzhar University in Egypt. His mother’s savings were not enough for a plane ticket for the trip, so Umar decided to travel to Cairo by road through the Sudan. However, the Egyptian embassy in Sudan denied his visa on the grounds that he should have obtained one in Ghana before departing. Unable to obtain the visa, in 1960 he proceeded to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj and then try to enter Egypt from Saudi Arabia. Having arrived before the hajj season, he enrolled in Arabic classes at Baab al-Umra, one of several specialized schools near the Kaaba, where he studied Arabic grammar and the Qur’an while waiting for the hajj. While in Mecca he realized that he did not need to go to Egypt. Rather, he could study at Dar al-Hadith, one of the prestigious hadith schools in Medina. Fortunately he gained admission to this renowned institution despite his limited Arabic even at this stage of his training. There he met other West African students. The director of the institute, Sheikh Umar al-Fullati, was a Fulani from Nigeria, and there were other West Africans among the teachers. These included the highly respected hadith scholar Sheikh Hamid Bukur, probably a Malian by origin. Eager to ensure the success of their fellow West Africans, these scholars not only 1 Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, July 2, 1998, Nima (Accra). Also April 19, 2002, Abeka (Accra).



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pressured West African students to excel, but also helped them obtain financial support from local philanthropists so that they could concentrate on their studies. As he remembers, with such support, he completed the equivalence of elementary school within two years. The early 1960s marked a new beginning in Saudi Arabia’s Islamic foreign policy; it sought to establish the kingdom’s preeminence in the Muslim world by promoting Islamic reform based on the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was for this reason that the kingdom founded the Islamic University of Medina in 1961 to train scholars from the Islamic periphery and then support them in spreading the Wahhabi doctrine of reform in their own societies.2 The university specialized in religious subjects: the Qur’an, Sharia, da’wa (Islamic proselytism), and hadith. Students who did not have a background in Arabic could take two years of Arabic before pursuing their college degrees. With the recommendations of Umar’s mentors among the West African scholars, he was admitted to the Islamic University in 1962 but was required to spend the first two years in the Arabic preparatory institution annexed to the university, which had been established for students whose native language was not Arabic. He completed a bachelor’s degree in Sharia and hadith in 1968. As was often the case during this period, graduates were employed by Darul Iftaa to preach in other Muslim societies. Umar was posted to Nigeria, but he asked that he be sent to Ghana to be closer to his ailing parents.3 Umar’s request was accepted, and he was posted to Ghana in 1968 to teach Arabic and Islamic studies. Islamic Research and Reformation Center Umar returned to Ghana and established himself in Nima. Nima was an ideal location for introducing new religious ideas. An urban slum with a

2 Reinhard Schulze, “La da’wa saoudienne en Afrique de l’ ouest,” in Le radicalisme Islamique au sud du sahara: da’wa, arabisation et critique de l’occident, ed. René Otayek (Paris: M.S.H.A. 1993), 25. The university’s objectives were stated in its charter published in the May 11, 1962 edition of the Muslim World League (Rabita al-Alam al-Islam Muslim, founded in Mecca in 1962): “The University was created to revive Islamic dogma. Muslims throughout the world conveyed at Medina to learn the doctrine of true Islam and to return to their countries to propagate it.” The university’s first president was the Kingdom’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ach-Sheikh, from the family of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. His co-president was the renowned scholar Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, who was responsible for the supervision of education from 1961 to 1975; Schultz, ibid. 3 Darul Iftaa was one of the Saudi institutions responsible for hiring and posting Sauditrained students to conduct da’wa in their societies.

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large Muslim population and adjacent to two other slums (Mamobi and South Accra New Town) and some affluent neighborhoods (the Airport Residential Area, Kanda Estate, and South Ridge), Nima was also a politically active and religiously dynamic community. The suburb had begun as a temporary residential quarter for Muslim migrant workers from Northern Ghana and other West African countries who worked for European residents as household servants—gardeners, cooks, security guards, and so on. With its tightly packed mud houses and narrow alleyways, lack of basic social amenities, and high unemployment, in the 1970s Nima epitomized the city’s growing poverty and lack of development. It was popularly seen as the hub of the city’s antisocial elements; its youngsters were considered rowdy, unruly, and undisciplined. As one elder observed, Some believed the people of Nima were ideal for mercenary work. They often claimed that if one needed to mobilize people for mutiny, Nima was the right place to start. Though they exaggerate our conditions and social activism, there is some truth to the stereotype. For example, Kwame Nkrumah recruited most of his abongo boys in Nima and our boys in the military participated in every military coup d’etat in Ghana.4

Yet Nima was also the headquarters of the Ayawaso constituency, which at that time was one of the most populous political constituencies in the country. A politically vibrant community, Nima’s residents were also known for their loyalty and their self help initiatives, which seemed an ideal environment for a new, even radical religious dogma. It was also here that Afa Ajura and the members of Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul began to preach against the Tijaniyya. Nima’s social conditions and high concentration of Muslim activists thus provided fertile ground for Umar’s radical doctrine that emphasized social equality and condemned the alleged corruption and extortion of traditional scholars.5 In spite of its cohesiveness, however, it was clear by the early 1970s that tensions were brewing between the established mallams and the youth, and this tension facilitated the development of Wahhabism. Although the younger generation, in their early twenties, formed the bulk of Umar’s followers, it was rather the middle-aged men between thirty and forty who promoted

4 Mallam Hajj Zakariyya Musah, personal communication, Accra New Town, December 12, 2001. 5 Some leaders admitted that the high employment in Nima and adjacent suburbs during the early 1970s facilitated their recruitment. While it is important for historians to avoid sociological and environmental determinism, such a view is widely acknowledged by the actors themselves.



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and protected him. This group was occupationally and ethnically diverse, but united primarily by their aspiration to transform their community. Angered by what they considered to be irreligious practices fostered by the established leaders, these elites saw Umar as a force that would propel the kind of change they envisioned. A former member described the climate that facilitated Umar’s warm reception among the urban masses: I hated those mallams for lying and exploiting our mothers. My mother sold peanuts and cigarettes in the market to help feed us. Though she often complained about not having money, she always found money to give to the mallams to perform some miracles for her. Our situation worsened when our father passed away. I had to stop going to school and makaranta (Qur’anic school) because my mother could not afford the fees. Though I no longer believe some of the things the Sunna preachers had told us, I cannot overcome my resentment for those mallams. If only they had told my mother to spend her money on our education instead of giving it to them to educate their own children, I could have obtained some education and I would have been a better person.

This observation, by an individual whose identity I was asked not to reveal, reflects a growing hostility toward these diviners (maalamai tibbo), as they were called, that was intensified by the economic crises of the 1970s. Yet those who expressed such resentment clearly failed to understand that it was precisely the prevailing hardships that drew parents to seek supernatural remedies for this suffering. Economic hardship therefore encouraged the expansion of the occult market as well. The early appeal of Umar’s message therefore derived primarily from the fact that he was not part of the educational establishment that nurtured such beliefs. If Umar’s foreign education increased his credibility, it also affected his integration into the existing intellectual network.6 Consequently, he had to either seek integration into this established scholarly network by compromising some of his beliefs, or create his own social and intellectual niche. He attempted both, but inevitably ended with the second option. He requested permission from the established scholarly community of Nima to establish a madrasa at Nima’s Central Mosque, popularly known as Masallakyin Sarkin Kado (Sarkin Kado’s Mosque). They granted him the permission. His Arabic lectures initially attracted many of the mallams in Nima who were interested in Arabic grammar. Although

6 The Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul that emerged in the early 1960s to challenge the antinomianism of the tarbiya would have provided Umar with the crucial socio-intellectual base, but it had been dissolved before Umar’s arrival.

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eventually they stopped attending his lectures (when they realized that he was not a specialist in grammar (nahw) but a hadith scholar and therefore did not have much to contribute to their Arabic knowledge), they instructed their advanced students to take hadith lessons with him.7 At the same time, his novel message attracted a group of young secularlyeducated professionals who had been disenchanted by the activities of the fayla movement. This group became the lynchpin of the new Wahhabiinclined reform in Accra. Secularly-Educated Muslim Professionals and the Diffusion of Wahhabism in Accra Many urban public functionaries and schoolteachers attended Umar’s lectures out of curiosity about his training in Saudi Arabia. Eager to find out if the practice of Islam in Saudi Arabia was the same as that practiced in their own society, they attended Umar’s lectures quite regularly, especially when they found his criticisms of what they called “local superstitions” appealing. Anxious for the freedom to question religious practices that did not seem to conform to “common sense,” they found Umar’s arguments against taqlid (blind acceptance of religious dogma) particularly empowering. Umar stressed that taqlid was harmful to the development of Islam because it denied Muslims the opportunity to question practices that seemed doubtful.8 By encouraging his audience to ask questions, even the most seemingly provocative ones, these individuals became more comfortable attending his lectures and posing questions that the established mallams would have found offensive. In response to these questions, Umar condemned the science of divination and declared talismans and other therapeutic uses of Qur’anic verses haram. He also denounced the belief in the ability of ancestors and pious Muslims to influence the lives of the living. Pious ancestors, he reasoned, had no power or influence over the living; thus soliciting their assistance or believing in their

7 Many of them had studied Arabic grammar under Mallam Dan Tano of Kumasi (chapter 7), who specialized in Arabic grammar. These included prominent scholars like Mallam Sani (who later initiated opposition against Hajj Umar’s anti-Sufi teachings). Abdallah Gambo, personal communication, New York City, August 2002. Abdallah Gambo, a graduate of King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and currently the chief imam of the Ghanaian Muslim community in New York City, was among Mallam Sani’s students who were instructed by their teacher to attend Hajj Umar’s classes. 8 Muhammad S. Baba, personal communication, Washington, DC, November 12, 2002.



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postmortem spiritual powers was equivalent to believing in the powers of lifeless objects. In other words, such beliefs constituted idol worship. In a society where some non-Muslims kept and worshipped idols in their homes, associating Muslim beliefs with idol worship was quite offensive. This argument particularly appealed to the secularly-educated professionals who were already frustrated by what they considered the “superstitious Islam” of the established scholars. For this group, Umar’s arguments seemed more rational and comprehensive, particularly when compared with the metaphysical and esoteric teachings of the traditional mallams. Muhammad Baba, one of his earliest followers and a teacher at a local private technical school, summarized how Hajj Umar’s message demystified Islam: Hajj Umar’s preaching attracted youngsters and Western educated people like me. I, along with my friends, for example, would occasionally stop by to listen to his sermons. We gradually became interested and therefore attended his preaching sessions more regularly. Prior to discovering him, we had lost interest in listening to sermons. We were tired of hearing about God’s wrath on the Day of Judgment when the unbelievers would be thrown into hell and gouged by monster-like angels. For us, their message was neither progressive nor inspiring, nor did it seem to provide hope for human salvation. Islam seemed too superstitious, gloomy, and pessimistic. Hajj Umar offered us something different, something intellectually appealing and comprehensive. His message was polished, factual, more interesting, and informative. So we often stopped by to listen to him and to ask tough questions that one would not dare ask our traditional scholars. His answers made us realize how easy and appealing Islam was. The more we listened to him, the more we identified with his message. We therefore advanced from a mere audience to active participants in disseminating his message.9

Another follower observed: Although some of us were uncomfortable with those superstitious practices, we had never questioned their doctrinal basis. We frowned on them but accepted them as the dark side of our religion. By declaring divination, the use of talismans, and drinking of Qur’anic verses that had been written and washed off wooden tablets as haram, Umar revived our trust in Islam and reinvigorated our spirituality. I can say that some of us were disgruntled

9 Muhammad S. Baba, (also known as M. S. Baba), personal communication, September 22, 2002 (telephone interview). M. S. Baba was among the founders of the Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center, and served as its secretary until he left for the United States in 1973. He is now an account manager with the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.

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While these followers saw Umar as a reformer seeking to purify the religion of foreign accretions, others considered him a sociocultural revolutionary. Witness Abdallah Dauda, a clerk at a private mattress producing company, who traveled from Achimota (about eight miles north of Nima) to listen to Hajj Umar’s sermons: I was a practicing Muslim and by that I mean I prayed regularly. But Islam, as we practiced and believed it, seemed so replete with superstitions that I sometimes doubted if Christians were not better followers of God. God, I believed, loved beauty, a clean environment, and human progress. What was beautiful or clean or progressive about us? Our illiteracy and polygamous practices that resulted in numerous children we could not raise, or our noisy and unclean environments? By practicing polygamy, the traditional scholars created the impression that having several wives was a sign of piety and producing numerous children signified one’s gratitude for God’s bounty. Whenever I compared our mosques with churches and our imams with Christian priests, I felt frustrated. For me, Hajj Umar was not only a mujaddid (a spiritual renewer) but even more fundamentally, a sociocultural revolutionary. He came to transform not only our practices, but also our culture and belief system that were the foundations of a viable religion. His emphasis on social and economic progress and spiritual purity appealed to me and people in my circle.11

The above testimonies demonstrate that the secularly-educated Muslims were attracted to Hajj Umar because they saw an opportunity to address social, cultural, and spiritual practices they believed hampered the material and spiritual progress of Muslims. Imbued with the belief that their secular knowledge empowered them to provide leadership to their society and to steer it in the direction of material and spiritual advancement, this cohort of young English-educated urbanites saw Hajj Umar and his message as the gateway to establishing a new Muslim community that would answer to those who condemned Islam as a backward faith. If the practices of the established elites had tarnished Islam’s image, the opportunity had presented itself to exonerate Islam from the pessimistic representation fostered in secular schools and popular discourse. During their training in secular institutions, these elites had learned to frown on metaphysical explanations of natural phenomena and to consider belief in esoteric

10 Alhaji Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Accra New Town, January 12, 2002. 11  Mallam Dauda, personal communication, (Abofu) Accra, January 17, 2002.



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sciences as superstition. The nature of colonial education, whether through Christian missions or nonreligious institutions, implicitly suggested that Islam itself was inferior to Christianity precisely because it fostered these superstitious beliefs. (See chapters 7 and 9 for detailed discussion of this subject). Umar’s teachings provided them with a new understanding of Islam and blamed its bad image on the established mallams who, due to limited education or the desire to protect their sources of spiritual and social powers, encouraged syncretic practices. Consequently, the Wahhabi message, as reformulated by Hajj Umar to address specific local circumstances, not only reactivated their interest in Islam but also provided the religious justification for questioning the spiritual leadership and intellectual validity of the established Muslim leaders. His argument that religious authority and social relations were valid only if they followed the Prophet’s example was equally insightful in encouraging a generational shift in authoritative discourse. Umar argued that the Prophet encouraged social equality and projected himself only as a Messenger of God and the community’s leader, someone accountable for his mistakes just like any ordinary person. The Prophet, he insisted, also discouraged excessive reverence of adults, especially squatting in front of them to show respect. Referring to a hadith that prohibited Muslims from bowing to other humans, Umar argued that the customary gestures of respect, such as bowing to or squatting before adults, verged on idolization because only God deserved these gestures, which were part of the daily prayer rituals.12 He also dismissed a dominant belief that a student must seek his teacher’s spiritual blessing (baraka) in order to succeed in life (chapter 7). Arguing that students’ academic success was contingent upon hard work and the depth of the teacher’s knowledge, he encouraged students to select their teachers carefully and not waste their time worshipping their teachers in anticipation of miracles. Here, Umar’s antipathy toward the belief in baraka can be traced to his own experiences in Qur’anic school. But he was also a product of a modern pedagogical structure in which the relationship between the teacher and his students was prearranged by the institution and teachers were paid for their services. He went further to argue that only higher morality and piety differentiated individuals with respect to God, not social or kinship origins,

12 Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, June 13, 1998, Nima (Accra); December 14, 2001, Abeka (Accra). Also, Mr. Barro, personal communication, December 2, 2001, Nima (Accra).

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a statement that referred to those who claimed leadership of Islamic institutions based on parental connections.13 It is important to note that this fusion of spiritual and social equality struck at the very foundation of Ghanaian Islamic leadership, institutions, scholarship, and customs. The process of Islamic intellectual training in Ghana was traditionally buttressed by the belief that a scholar’s charisma, public visibility, and affection derived from his teacher’s baraka, without which even the most intelligent scholar would remain obscured or overshadowed by those with inferior erudition but more baraka. A teacher’s baraka was believed to illuminate his students’ knowledge and enhance their public visibility. By claiming spiritual control over students’ success through the ability to dispense or hold back baraka, the established scholarly community maintained their students’ submission and loyalty. Yet the use of baraka to ensure loyalty and submission was also the means by which the established scholarly community perpetuated its hegemony. Umar’s argument sought to subvert the established scholars’ monopoly over doctrinal interpretation and to undermine the very foundation of the strong intellectual networks that allowed them to pass on their positions to their offspring or their favorite students. Umar’s insistence on social equality was quite provocative in a society where unquestioning submission to hierarchical authority was so deeply rooted; it affected not only the hierarchically structured Tijaniyya, but also the traditional rulers who had lost their ability to enforce their authority after the advent of colonial rule. Umar’s denunciation of any form of authority that infringed on the individual’s total submission to God, and his argument that sadaqa collected during social events belonged to the entire community and not to the officiating mallams, an argument Adam Appiedu had made earlier, also offended a majority of Muslim scholars, including those who were not affiliated with the tariqa. It was these attacks on the sociocultural institutions of Ghanaian Islam, more than the denunciation of the Tijaniyya (since not all scholars were initiated into

13 The emphasis on social equality and denunciation of excessive reverence for adults, blind submission to authority, and belief in baraka were all complex arguments that Umar simplified to attract followers. For example, while Islamic sacred texts emphasized piety as a criterion for spiritual differentiation, those texts also recognized intellectual and social inequalities as God-given conditions. Both sources also emphasized the importance of parents’ baraka, submission to authority, and respect for all adults. Although Umar only intended to caution Muslims against extending God’s attributes to humans, his followers interpreted the arguments to mean the rejection of elders’ authority.



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the tariqa), that united influential local leaders and scholars against Umar and his followers. For these leaders, Hajj Umar and his group threatened the foundation of Muslim social stability, and this included the unity of the umma, respect for elders, and religious tolerance.14 Without doubt, Wahhabism as articulated by Umar justified the rejection of religious authority not sanctioned by the Qur’an and Sunna. This challenge was crucial to the transformation taking root in Ghanaian Muslim society after the anti-colonial struggles. Prior to Umar’s return, a group of young men in Accra and other cities had begun to accuse their leaders of the embezzlement of community resources.15 They criticized these elders for squandering the sadaqa and other collections intended for renovating or building mosques, and then they initiated what came to be described as the “Mosque Accountability Initiative” to compel community leaders to account for public funds. One of these activists recounted their loss of confidence in the mallams’ leadership. Our situation was outrageous. Every Friday in practically every mosque, the mallams appealed for donations to repair mosques and to pay utility bills. Yet the walls of these same mosques continued to crack, the roofs leak, and the windowpanes rot. To give you some concrete examples of our leaders’ lack of accountability and vision, for more than twenty years we had been contributing money to rebuild the Accra Central Mosque, but nothing was done until Rawlings pulled it down in 1984 and turned the place into a public parking lot. At Koforidua around 1975, an Egyptian teacher of a madrasa solicited grants from his government to build additional classrooms and to renovate the Central Mosque. However, the money was squandered. This situation was countrywide. The problems we were addressing were therefore not only issues of spiritual purity, but also matters of social and leadership accountability.16

14 Alhaji Tanko, personal communication, June 30, 1998, Kumasi. 15 This struggle began when Muslim leaders in Accra failed to account for over two years of donated funds to build a new central mosque at Aboso-Okai. Alhaji Osman, personal communication, Aladjo (Accra), August 19, 1998. 16 Issaka Salih, personal communication, Nsawam, June 30, 2002. This struggle has left its historical mark through publicly visible balance sheets in mosques throughout the country. In most mosques, there is a blackboard on which the mosque’s financial activities for a number of months are written. Such publicly visible ledgers ensure not only accountability but also transparency. They have remained a living testimony to a struggle that preceded the rise of Wahhabism, but would be justified by local Wahhabis’ insistence on public accountability. This was embraced even by the Tijanis, though several Wahhabi organizations were charged with financial misappropriations as well.

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These attempts to impose social accountability on community leaders reflected a new self-imposed communal responsibility pursued by young Muslims eager for responsible governance within Muslim communities. As products of the struggle for independence, this generation sought a shift from a tradition that prohibited the questioning of elders’ social responsibilities to a new attitude wherein the voice of the younger generation had to be heard and heeded. The younger generation’s dissatisfaction with their elders’ resistance to change was also reflected in intergenerational conflicts during the nationalist struggles of the 1950s. Ignored in the colonial regime’s development projects (social amenities and schools, for example) that left Muslim areas far less developed than other segments of the society, younger Muslims saw the end of colonialism as an opportunity to develop new institutions and Muslim communities. For this reason, urban youth organized themselves into various associations, called Muslim Youth Association (MYA) or Muslim youth organizations, in order to promote their interests. While serving as forums for the youth to mobilize resources for the community and articulate their grievances with the elders, many of these organizations evolved into political wings of the various pre-independence political parties, especially Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP). Yet within the community, the expectations of the postcolonial state and the strategies for promoting Muslims’ interests varied, with the older generation, and some of the youth as well, preferring a party with a unique Islamic identity. The consequence of this debate was the 1951 transformation of the Muslim Association of Accra, an interest group formed by Muslims of Accra in 1948, into a political party named the Muslim Association Party (MAP). Despite the small Muslim population in the urban centers of the south, from which this party drew most of its followers, it challenged Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP, the most popular nationalist political party at the time. It successfully competed with the CPP in the Accra and Kumasi municipal elections between 1948 and 1951, and its sponsored candidates won no fewer than one third of the seats in each city. Deceived by its performance in the 1948 municipal elections, some elders expected it to win a significant victory in the national election as well. Given the changing political configurations of the time, such as the rise of the Northern People’s Party that was likely to share the votes of northern Muslims with the very strong CPP, such expectations seemed idealistic. Nonetheless, those elders affiliated with the MAP refused to dissolve that party to enable urban Muslims to cast their lot with the CPP,



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which was destined to win the election. The rivalry between the two factions fragmented the Muslim community in the major southern cities.17 The political choices made by some Muslim leaders and the political conflicts that resulted from these choices continued to divide urban Muslim communities for more than two decades. In contrast, the nationalist struggles empowered those with European education to see themselves as better qualified to lead their communities in the postcolonial state. The pre-independence atmosphere created by Nkrumah’s rejection of the colonialists and his rhetoric against traditional rulers, whom he accused of complicity with the colonialists, reverberated in the Muslim community as the youth saw the opportunity to seek changes within their own community using nationalist vocabularies. Like Nkrumah, they labeled their leaders “colo,” remnants of colonialism, which angered other youth who sided with the elders. The conflicts that ensued have been thoroughly analyzed by a number of scholars.18 Our purpose here is only to suggest that Wahhabism benefited from this decline in the elders’ reputation, as Hajj Umar confirmed that Islam sanctioned an organized opposition against elders if their behavior violated the Sharia. Challenging the authority of elders had long been considered unacceptable by Islamic and African Muslim traditions. We saw this in the earlier discussion of the ways young urban Mossi Muslims challenged the Mossi king’s influence on the Communauté Musulmane. It is thus quite accurate to argue that the end of colonialism also initiated intergenerational shifts in Muslim communities such that the younger generation began seeking a modern religious identity that openly challenged a hitherto unchallengeable social and political order. The youths’ message seems clear: the postcolonial state belonged not to tradition but to a new dispensation we call modernity. As products of this dispensation, the younger generation understood its language and the power embedded in that language; it was their world and they were poised to defend their new position. However, unlike the case in Burkina Faso, Ghanaian youths’ attempts to assert their influence on the hierarchies of Muslim communities were not 17 Ousman Kobo, “We are Citizens Too,” 72–73. See also Ahmed-Rufail Misbahudeen, “The Muslim Association Party: A Test of Religious Politics in Ghana,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 6 (2002): 99–114; Jean-Marie Allman, “Hewers of Wood, Carriers of Water: Islam, Class and Politics on the Eve of Ghana’s Independence,” African Studies Review 34, no. 2 (1991): 1–26. Sean Hanretta, “Kafir Renner’s Converstion: Being Muslim in Public in Colonial Ghana,” Past and Present, no. 210 (February 2011): 187–220. 18 See the short list in footnote 17 above.

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as successful. During the first few years of independence their influence as social elite diminished and the various Muslim youth organizations withered. The reasons for this are complex, and relate to the resilience of the Zongo-Muslim culture in which social and religious stability depended on a combination of Islamic and traditional African notions of authority and loyalty, both of which discouraged rebellion against authority without legitimate justification. Moreover, belatedly realizing the importance of traditional social structures for the stability of Muslim communities, Nkrumah, after winning the election, ignored the younger generation and sought the patronage of the older elites. As a surviving member noted, “Nkrumah dumped us for the very traditional elites whose authority he encouraged us to reject.” The advent of Wahhabism in Accra, Kumasi, and other major centers revived these earlier struggles by providing the secularly-educated Muslim professionals with an opportunity to challenge the type of Islam the elders fostered. If the Islamic notion of respect for elders’ authority had discouraged the youth from aggressively contesting their elders’ leadership during the 1950s, the local conception of the Wahhabi doctrine provided a religious justification for challenging practices that seemed to retard the progress of the umma. By dismissing a majority of Muslim leaders as apostates either because of their Sufi practices or their practice of miracle healing, the Wahhabi doctrine provided the means of questioning the status quo. It was, therefore, secularly-educated elites and other urban youth who were motivated to join Hajj Umar at least partly by the desire to take control of Muslim communities from what they considered a defunct leadership in order to construct a spiritually pure and socioeconomically progressive Muslim society. Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center I (1970–1986) In spite of the initial enthusiasm for Hajj Umar’s message, the process leading to the formation and institutionalization of the Wahhabi movement in Accra was gradual; it reached an important milestone when one of the educated elites, Alhaji M. S. Salley, a retired army officer and resident of Nima, offered part of his house to the group to serve as a mosque. Situated adjacent to the main Nima commuter station and market, M. S. Salley’s mosque was strategically located to facilitate the movement’s development; the shoppers, store owners, and taxi and bus drivers became an audience for Umar’s sermons, which were amplified by



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loudspeakers. During the evening lectures, commuters and traders from the adjacent market stopped to listen to Hajj Umar. Gradually the periodic evening lectures became a daily routine. After the lectures Umar and his cohort among the secularly-educated professionals often engaged in debates over controversial religious issues. It was during one of these debates that, according to some sources, Salley’s wife remarked that the group seemed to be engaged in serious “research.” Indeed, this was precisely what they were doing. From that point, the members referred to these daily meetings as “research.” M. S. Salley and his group also helped the nascent movement by inviting other like-minded scholars of Nima to join the group.19 With the support of these new mallams, the Wahhabi dogma spread rapidly throughout Accra and the surrounding districts and Hajj Umar received invitations to preach during public activities. After establishing branches throughout Accra and surrounding towns, they extended their activities to Kumasi, the hub of the Islamic scholarly network in southern Ghana, where in 1972 they won the support of the famous Tijaniyya scholar Mallam Abdul Samad. Abdul Samad was perhaps the organization’s most important asset. Like Hajj Afa Ajura, Abdul Samad received all of his intellectual training in Ghana. After initially studying the Qur’an with his father, he attempted to memorize the Qur’an with the imam of the Syrian and Lebanese community in Kumasi. Unable to complete the memorization of the Qur’an, Abdul Samad studied Arabic grammar with the renowned grammarian Mallam Dan Tano (chapter 7), after which he established a madrasa in Kumasi Sarbon-Zongo. Although he was widely recognized as an eloquent Wahhabi preacher and scholar, it was his book on the fallacy of the Tijaniyya that made him famous.20 The book’s preface was written by the eminent Saudi scholar, the provost and director of education at the Islamic University of Medina, Sheikh Bin Baz, and was published simultaneously with that of another African scholar, Abdul Rahman bin Yussif

19 These included Mallam Hussein Zakariyya Umar, who had both an Islamic and secular education; Mallam Hamza, who was a member of the Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul; and Mallam Kamal Din, who, we recall, had dropped out of the Jam’iyyat when Afa Ajura declared the Tijaniyya heretical. The group appointed Kamal Din the organization’s first imam, but he resigned when Umar’s anti-Tijaniyya agenda became clear. 20 Abdul Samad Habibullah, Risalat al-dai ila sunna al-zajiru an al-bid’a (Medina, Saudi Arabia: Darul Salaam Press, 1982).

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al-Ifriqi.21 The two books soon became the major anti-Tijaniyya texts at the University of Medina and were distributed free of charge to students. Along with Mallam Hamza, another Tijaniyya defector mentioned above, Abdul Samad provided Wahhabism with some legitimacy and supported Hajj Umar in the preaching sessions. Hajj Umar, however, admitted that the movement’s early foundation was laid by the secularly-educated elites that benefited his movement most.22 Reacting to the Wahhabi preachers’ affront and the ways they demonized not only local Tijanis but also the tariqa’s leadership, including Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse and Sheikh Ahmad Tijani, Tijaniyya scholars also organized evening preaching sessions to refute the Wahhabis’ message (see also the preface). As confrontations between the two groups intensified, the police often stepped in, but sided with the Tijanis and declared the Wahhabis “troublemakers.” Frustrated by this discrimination, the Western-educated cohort formalized their organization in 1972, and named it the Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center (GIRRC).23 Muhammad S. Baba, the organization’s first secretary, noted: Due to persistent harassment by members of the Tijaniyya, I proposed that we formalize the organization in order to legally qualify for protection under the law. So I wrote the constitution, prepared the necessary materials, and registered it as a religious organization. Although the police continued to support the traditional mallams who were recognized as community leaders, the registration allowed us to insist on recognition and protection.24

The name chosen for the organization—Research and Reformation— should stimulate our curiosity. As mentioned earlier, a remark by the wife of Alhaji M. S. Salley led the group to describe their activities as “research.” The word “research” thus reflected the group’s search for authentic Islam. However, the word “reformation” seems to have been adopted from the 21  Abdul Rahman bin Yussif al-Ifriqi, Divine Light According to the Tijaniyya Tariqa (Medina: University of Medina Press, 1976). 22 Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, Nima (Accra) June 29, 2002. 23 One particular case illustrates the traditional leaders’ influence among law enforcement officials. In early 1972 members of GIRRC went to Kumasi to preach but were prevented from doing so by the Asante Regional Secretary, who dispatched a police officer to instruct them to return immediately to Accra and never return to Kumasi with their divisive religion. However, the promptness with which he dispatched the police and the kind of message delivered suggests that the request was probably made by the local leaders. Hajj Umar, personal communication, Accra, July 2, 2002. 24 Interview, M. S. Baba, September 2, 2002, Washington, DC. See also “Statement of Defense of Defendants,” Suit No. 638/1989, 1. The Superior Court of Judicature in the High Courts of Justice, Accra, Ghana, 1989.



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history of the sixteenth-century Christian Reformation and was an effort to reinforce the group’s commitment to Islamic reform. The history of the Reformation was a popular middle and secondary school topic during this period, especially in Protestant schools. Mr. Barro observed: We called the organization “Research and Reformation” because our aspiration was to conduct thorough research to determine what constituted authentic Islam and then reform our society accordingly. That kind of reform is revolutionary. To reorient our leaders to the right path, we preached and debated with them. When that failed, we declared them mushrikun (polytheists) and warned people to avoid them. The strategy was effective because we attracted many of their followers and therefore weakened their hold on the umma. Our long-term project was to drive them out of the mosques and schools by replacing them with better imams and teachers. We therefore encouraged Hajj Umar to solicit scholarships for our students to study in the Arab world so they could take over from those mallams. Those students would be the future leaders of a spiritually pure society.25

Mallam Zakariyya, one of the few secularly-educated elites who was also well versed in Islamic theology, would not go so far as to link their aspirations to the Christian Reformation. However, in the course of my conversations with him and others, indirect comparisons were often made to the ways the Reformation transformed the European religious and political landscape by initiating the end of theocracy in Europe. The similarities between the Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center (henceforth, GIRRC), and the Mouvement Sunnite are striking, even though the organizations were unaware of each other. Like the Mouvement Sunnite in Burkina Faso, GIRRC also adopted a two-tier leadership structure, with the secularly-educated elites occupying the executive positions that required bureaucratic skills, while the Arabophone (i.e., the religious scholars) provided spiritual leadership and conducted da’wa.26 25 I. A. Barro, personal communication, June 15, 2002. 26 The executives were Director: Alhaji M. S. Salley (retired military officer) Assistant Director: Ibrahim Abdullahi Barro (Director of Postal Service, Nima) Secretary: Muhammad S. Baba (teacher, Accra City Commercial and Technical College) Assistant Secretary: Alhaji Labaran, Assistant Secretary (school teacher) Financial Secretary: Hussein Zakariyya Umar (graduate of O’Railly Secondary School and a madrasa teacher) The spiritual leaders and preachers included Hajj Umar Ibrahim, Mallam Hamza, Harunah Rashid, and Mallam Kamal Din (the imam). Kamal Din, who remained a Tijaniyya, resigned from the GIRRC when the preachers began to attack the tariqa. His younger brother, Hajj Shuab Ibrahim, whom Hiskett interviewed and incorrectly described as the founder of

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This division of labor, as mentioned with regard to the Mouvement Sunnite, was intended to promote efficiency. But it was also inspired by changes in the two countries in which secular education was considered useful for leadership, even in religious organization. Yet this arrangement also undermined the direct influence of the Arabophone scholars such as Hajj Umar, the organization’s principal architect and spiritual leader. Evidently, he was relegated to a subordinate position of spiritual services due to his lack of secular education, while members of the executive branch controlled the organization’s finances and spoke on its behalf in formal forums. Officially, the religious elites were also accountable to the executive branch, as illustrated by the fact that the executive branch controlled the collection and allocation of the organization’s resources. For example, while all the members of the mosque committee that was established to supervise the construction of an Islamic center were selected from the Arabophone scholars, they had to report to the executive branch and justify all their expenses.27 Although the Arabophone elites reluctantly accepted their relatively inferior positions because the executive members possessed administrative skills and Western literacy, they remained dissatisfied. The diminishment of Umar’s official role was the primary source of the organization’s disintegration a decade later. Umar stated that he deferred leadership to them because they were older. One of the founding members of GIRRC admitted that they realized belatedly that Hajj Umar had not been given a “proper official title” in the organization’s constitution and that he was probably upset, though he did not protest. But the same member also noted that Umar’s leadership was evident and commensurate with his intellectual training. The organization’s president had to be able to speak and write English and Umar had no such skills. Perhaps Umar’s paramount position in the organization was indeed taken for granted since he was the most publicly visible and vocal figure, though his official role appeared to be oriented more toward public service and less toward decision making. This ambiguity demonstrated the difficulty of achieving an effective power-sharing mechanism between the two groups that reflected the

Sunna in Ghana, returned after his studies at the University of Medina and joined the GIRRC. He was the second Medinan-trained scholar to return to Ghana after Hajj Umar. 27 I. A. Barro, personal communication, June 15, 2002. Mallam Hussein Zakariyya, personal communication, July 3, 2002. Also in court documents.



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organization’s vision of marrying modern skills derived from European knowledge with the “pure” Islam the organization claimed to foster.28 Like the Mouvement Sunnite, GIRRC was formalized in order to obtain official government recognition and to give its followers a new religious identity. Members were required to register and pay annual dues, and were encouraged to donate generously to meet the organization’s administrative costs and other expenditures. Although the public was invited to participate in the organization’s activities, only registered members who paid their annual dues regularly could attend meetings and vote on matters that required members’ direct input. With its central objective to propagate religious purity and modernize Muslim institutions, members of GIRRC decided to build an Islamic complex that would include a mosque, a madrasa, and a public library. The projects began around 1974, with funds generated locally through members’ contributions and donations from wealthy individuals, including the Syrian and Lebanese communities. Contributions ranged from the donation of the land itself to sacks of cement and individuals’ labor. Although by the mid-1970s, Saudi Arabia had begun to donate funds to Muslims throughout the world to build madrasas and mosques, leaders of GIRRC refused to solicit such funds because they wanted to maintain their local initiatives and did not want to be associated with a foreign power as their adversaries claimed they were, rather they wanted to prove that Ghanaian Muslims could develop institutions without external support.29 The Islamic center would serve as an icon of local Muslim initiatives and a living testimony to “modern” leadership. It was also intended to highlight the positive effects of the younger generation’s rebellion against the traditional mallams by contrasting GIRRC’s achievements with the traditional elites’ inertia. With a mosque and a modern madrasa equipped with a library and recreational facilities, the Islamic center was expected to attract students from all over the country and beyond. This ambitious project would also transform Islam’s image in the minds of those who considered it a backward religion. It was believed that foreign financial contributions would nullify all these positive expectations and even justify the label that they were paid by Saudi Arabia to propagate a doctrine that the rest of the Muslim world had rejected a century earlier. 28 Ousman Kobo, “The Development of Wahhabi Reforms in Ghana and Burkina Faso, 1960–1990: Elective Affinities between Western-Educated Muslims and Islamic Scholars,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 51, no. 3 (July 2009). 29 I. A. Barro, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 15, 2002.

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However, five years later the resources had been exhausted and contributions were not forthcoming. Given Ghana’s economic situation at the time—high inflation and unemployment, increasing poverty, and political instability—local contributions could not be relied on. Consequently, the leadership submitted to an overwhelming consensus that aid should be requested from the Arab world. In 1979 the Muslim World League offered assistance.30 After accepting a Saudi grant, which became public knowledge, GIRRC leaders could no longer deny Saudi influence in their activities. Since 1974 GIRRC had been applying for scholarships for its students and had become the main consultant for Saudi Arabia’s assistance to Muslim organizations in Ghana, whether in the form of cash or scholarships. Most applications for admission to Saudi and other Middle Eastern universities had to be validated by GIRRC. By the early 1980s GIRRC had become the main hub for the diffusion of Wahhabi-inclined reform in Accra and surrounding towns, in the same way that the Mouvement Sunnite became the main Wahhabi organization in Burkina Faso. While Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura’s Ambariyya remained confined to the north and Adam Appiedu was unable to spread his teachings among Zongo-Muslims of Kumasi although his influence spread to other Akan areas, the GIRRC was able to acquire a wide scope within the first five years of its founding. With branches in most major towns and regional capitals, the GIRRC became the de facto national representative of the various Wahhabi organizations. Locally, government officials also recognized social documents issued by the GIRRC, such as divorce and marriage certificates, as authentic. Wahhabi-Inclined Reform in Kumasi Although Mallam Abdul Samad was widely acknowledged as the first to directly preach Wahhabi/Sunna ideas among Zongo Muslims in Kumasi (while Appiedu preached among the Asante), it was Adam Baba, a Sauditrained scholar, whose name became associated with Wahhabism in that city. Born in Kumasi and educated by various local scholars including his father and Abdul Samad, Adam Baba left to study in Saudi Arabia in 1964, returning in 1976 with a bachelors degree from the Islamic University of

30 Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, June 2, 2002; I. A. Barro (deputy director of the GIRRC), June 15, 2002; and Mallam Hussein Zakariyya, July 3, 2002. All these interviews were held individually in Accra.



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Medina, and a master’s degree from King Bin Saud University in Riyadh. Like Hajj Umar, he was appointed by Saudi Arabia to propagate Wahhabiinclined reform after completing his studies. But unlike Umar, Adam Baba had practiced the Tijaniyya and had been initiated into the tarbiya before leaving to study in Saudi Arabia.31 Before returning to Ghana Adam Baba established contact with Saudi philanthropists who promised to help him build a madrasa. However, his initial attempt to obtain assistance failed because his donors refused to support privately owned schools and instructed him to organize a communal school instead.32 His father had established a madrasa earlier, and to meet the philanthropists’ conditions Adam Baba appealed to proprietors of other schools in the community to form an amalgamated school in order to qualify for assistance and thus benefit the entire community. However, only two of the seven schools in the community agreed to join him. The amalgamated school was opened at Tafo-Zongo in 1978 and named Madrasat al-Azhariah.33 By the time of the merger, Adam Baba’s sermons had already begun to attract followers, especially the youth and madrasa teachers.34 In spite of the refusal of some proprietors to join the new school, Baba declared the Azhariah communal property, allowing him to qualify for grants and raise funds locally through donations. The community provided free labor in addition to donations of cash and building materials. The Azhariah, like the Islamic center proposed by the GIRRC and Madrasat Ambariyya in Tamale, was an ambitious project that anticipated adding lessons at various academic levels from primary to secondary school, and including secular courses. By 1986, following Adam Appiedu’s model, Azhariah had become the second-largest integrated madrasa in Kumasi, with branches in several towns surrounding Kumasi. Like Afa Ajura’s Ambariyya, which was both the official name of the madrasa and the name of the community founded by Afa Ajura, Azhariah was officially the name of the madrasa 31  Mallam Osman, personal communication, Kumasi-Tafo, July 5, 2002. 32 Litigation over ownership of these properties continued to plague the various Wahhabi institutions. Most of them remained unresolved precisely because of the difficulties of assessing ownership of a property that involves foreign donations, members’ contributions, and in some cases, personal contributions of the main leader. By requiring scholars to convert their schools into public ventures in order to qualify for financial support, the philanthropists inadvertently created a complicated ownership process that plagued most Sunna organizations. 33 These were Mumuniyya and Nuru’l Islam. 34 These included Mallam Abdul Wahhab, also known as Mallam Fari, and Mallam Abdul Mumin of Mumuniyya, who was the organization’s chief imam during my research.

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but also a reference to the community that Adam Baba had founded. And like Afa Ajura, the community recognized Adam Baba as the founder and spiritual leader. A committee comprised of members with secular education and other local leaders administered the school.35 The early 1980s was the climax of the Wahhabi movement in Ghana. With the GIRRC in Accra, Adam Appiedu and the GMM working among the Asante and other Akans, Adam Baba and Abdul Samad in Kumasi, and Sheikh Yussif Afa Ajura in the north, the movement had become part of Ghana’s postcolonial religious configuration. While exact figures are unavailable, it is likely that during the early 1980s, the number of Muslims claiming some form of affiliation or sympathy with Wahhabism exceeded two million. However, the Tijanis maintained their hegemonic dominance in Muslim institutions throughout the country, as indicated by their control of central mosques in large cities. By the early 1990s, however, the various Wahhabi organizations had begun to disintegrate while the Tijaniyya regained its numerical strength. Unlike the Mouvement Sunnite in Burkina Faso that was essentially a national organization, Wahhabism in Ghana comprised a loose network of independent organizations whose leaders cooperated in promoting the Wahhabi creed while competing for financial assistance from the Arab world. But because of its location in the capital, its proximity to various Arab embassies, and its large number of registered followers throughout the country, the GIRRC functioned informally as the umbrella organization and Hajj Umar was seen by many as the movement’s de facto leader. As the first Saudi-trained scholar to return and preach the Wahhabi/ Sunna reform, he was appointed by his colleagues to the position of the National Chief Imam of Ahl al-Sunna in 1996. * * * Although the mass appeal of Wahhabism in Ghana derived primarily from Muslims’ search for spiritual purity, its rapid growth during the 1970s was also facilitated by a number of factors, including resentment against the established Muslim leadership, the rise of secularly-educated Muslims, the declining local economies, and the rise of oil wealth in the Arab world.

35 A formal constitution was not written until after Adam Baba’s death in 1988, but some individuals within the organization prevented it from becoming a binding document. Surviving members also recollected that one of the Saudi Arabian religious institutions donated four thousand dollars for the construction of the school, but the bulk of that money was added to a fund established for a proposed Sunna mosque in Kumasi.



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Support from the Arab world made it possible for Wahhabi-inclined preachers to finance new madrasas and mosques, further indicating that their teachings were approved by scholars of the Islamic heartland. But Wahhabism also emerged at a time when Muslims were seeking a new mode of religious expression that conformed to modern realities. It was precisely the Wahhabi preachers’ condemnation of beliefs in supernatural forces and the emphasis on rational religious behavior that attracted the secularly-educated elites. From their training in secular institutions these elites had learned to frown on such beliefs as superstitions, a common reference in Christian mission as well as secular schools. One of the historical phenomena that made Wahhabism distinct was its implicit claim that it would foster some form of Muslim modernity that was compatible with the aspirations of postcolonial elites. While critical of local Islamic practices they lacked the religious training to create a new community. It was in this context that Umar’s teachings attracted them. Hajj Umar seemed the epitome of a modern Muslim scholar whose teachings could be considered not only authentic but also crucial to the needs of a modern society. Umar thus filled a void in the elites’ quest for spiritual purity and reassured them of Islam’s progressive outlook and message. Modern ideas and other secular institutions continued to serve as the standard to be selectively emulated. The transitional period from colonialism to independence also marked new intergenerational dialogues and conflicts that favored the development of the Wahhabi movement. The struggle leading to Ghana’s independence encouraged younger generation Muslims to challenge their elders’ authority in spite of Islamic and African cultural norms that encouraged submission to authority. Hajj Umar’s emphasis on religious piety as a criterion for obeying authority legitimized rebellion against Muslim scholars, whose teachings he and his secularly-educated allies declared spiritually bankrupt. The intellectual development of Hajj Umar and Adam Baba discussed in this chapter highlights two emerging trends in West African Islamic scholarship during this period. First, we observe a shift from self-sponsored education that had characterized West African intellectual pursuits for centuries, to a modern phenomenon whereby students applied for scholarships as part of their intellectual pursuits. Although Umar and other West African students of his generation sponsored their own trips to the Arab world, consistent with the West African Muslim tradition of pursuing knowledge in distant lands, they were also the first generation of African students to receive scholarships from the Saudi government.

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Umar’s generation was also the first to be employed by Saudi institutions after completing their studies. Such opportunities were unavailable to earlier students, such as the Meccan scholars in Burkina Faso and others of their generation who studied in Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia under very challenging circumstances.36 The availability of scholarships to study in the Arab world during the postcolonial period, especially between 1970 and the late 1980s, thus contributed to the growth of Arabophone scholars throughout West Africa. Though by no means a homogeneous group, these Arabophone elites distinguished themselves from the locally trained scholars by their mastery of the Arabic language, even though the depth of their training in the Islamic sciences was limited to the doctrinal focus of their specific institution. Moreover, unlike the Meccan scholars who obtained their education by studying with individuals in the traditional majlis system, Umar’s generation at the University of Medina was the first to receive modern formal university education from Saudi Arabia. It is important to note the emergence of this new intellectual culture in which financial support encouraged and facilitated the pursuit of Islamic education.37 Egypt initiated this trend in the 1960s under Gamal Abdel Nasser as part of his cultural reform and his competition for control of the Muslim world with Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia. By the late 1960s, under King Faisal, Saudi Arabia replaced Egypt as the cultural and spiritual hub of the Muslim world.38 But King Faisal’s objectives were specific: to reform global Islam with the Wahhabi doctrine and to curtail the influence of communism in the Arab world. There is no doubt that King Faisal, whose mother descended from Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, intended to use Saudi wealth to suppress what he sincerely believed to be the reprehensible religious innovations prevalent in the Muslim world, and to modernize Islamic institutions. It was precisely this policy that facilitated the

36 We may here mention Alhaji Salifu Sinar, Dr. Abdul Razak Tahir (who taught Islamic Studies at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria), and Ghana’s former ambassador to Saudi Arabia. 37 Understanding this historical shift is crucial to explaining the effects of the changing international political economy on the development of West African Islamic scholarship. Generally, Islamic scholarship in the Arab world has historically been facilitated by waqf (endowments) that supported both individuals and institutions, but we have no records of the existence of such institutions in West Africa. 38 See for example, Suleyman Nyang, “Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Policy toward Africa,” Horn of Africa 5, no. 2 (1982): 2–17; and “Islam in West Africa.” Also Schulze, “La da’wa Saoudienne.”



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growth of Wahhabis in Ghana and Burkina Faso, as in other parts of West Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, tracing Umar’s intellectual odyssey allows us to explore the reorientation of West Africa’s intellectual connection from the Maghreb to Egypt and the Hijaz, a connection that had begun as early as the nineteenth century, when the haramayn (the Kaaba and the Prophet’s mosque in Medina) and al-Azhar became important centers for intellectual discourse, especially for hadith scholars.39 Lansiné Kaba observes that Wahhabi/Sunna reformism diminished the cultural influence of the Maghreb upon sub-Saharan Islam and increased that of the Middle East . . . Soudanese (i.e., Malians) Muslims looked more to the Middle Eastern intellectual centers in their search for enlightenment and new ideas, where before they had turned toward Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. Two places in particular increased in importance: Cairo with its al-Azhar University, . . . and Mecca the holy city where Wahhabiyya doctrine has been official since the conquest of the Hijaz.40

By the end of the World War I, al-Azhar had virtually replaced Fez in Morocco, al-Zaytuna in Tunisia, and Sijilmasa in Algeria, among others, as popular intellectual centers for West African scholars. The Subbanu Association and the Muslim Cultural Union were among the groups that emerged from this renewed interest in al-Azhar in the twentieth century. This shift was not only intellectual but also cultural and doctrinal. By the end of the 1970s the Hijaz, rather than the Maghreb, had become West Africa’s source of intellectual training and cultural exchange.

39 This shift seems to have resulted from the increasing popularity of hadith studies. The haramayn, as John Voll and others have argued, became the meeting place of the muhadithun (hadith scholars). See Voll, “Hadith Scholars and Tariqahs”; also Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (Syracuse, NY: Westview Press, 1994). 40 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, 47.

Chapter seven

The Triple Heritage of West African Wahhabism: Islamic Reform and Modernity from Within and from Without In his popular documentary and book, The Africans: A Triple Heritage, Ali Mazrui describes modern Africa as a hybrid of three cultural heritages— indigenous African, Islamic/Middle Eastern, and European—that correspond to the continent’s geographical location.1 Although controversial in some circles, I find it useful in explaining the historical and intellectual origins of Wahhabism in West Africa. The rise of Wahhabi-oriented reforms demonstrates clearly the intersection between West African traditions of Islamic reform and revival, the Salafi/Wahhabi reform active in the Middle East and the Gulf States during the nineteenth- and twentieth-century, and colonial rule. West African Wahhabism also indicates a salient confluence of Western modernity, Islamic modernity as propagated by the Salafi movement in North Africa, and African or locally constructed modernity. The idea of a “triple heritage” is particularly discernible in the languages that formed the intellectual foundations of Wahhabi-inclined elites: local languages in which the intellectual debates occurred; the Arabic language (the language of Islam), which formed the intellectual foundation and social influence of the Arabophone elites; and English or French, which the secularly-educated elites utilized in the formal activities of various Wahhabi organizations. Language was clearly important as the media for preaching and sermonizing. As Elizabeth Hodgkin accurately suggests, “For the Islamist, the choice [of language] tends to be between three possibilities: English or French, to speak to the whole nation or the Western world; Arabic, to address the smaller, local, Arabic-speaking elite, the wider Muslim world, and, most importantly, to employ the symbolic language of Islam; or African languages for more localized and perhaps more popular reading [and preaching].”2 This chapter examines how the history of Wahhabism in West Africa can best be understood in the contexts of these three legacies or traditions.

1 Ali Mazrui, The Africans: A Triple Heritage (London: Little Brown and Co, 1987). 2 Hodgkin, “Islamism,” 206–07.

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The history of Wahhabism charted in this study demonstrates clearly that it emerged and evolved out of local doctrinal disputes engaged by indigenous scholars. Although some of the pioneering Wahhabi reformers were educated in Saudi Arabia, others, including Sheikh Yussif Afa Ajura and Sheikh Adam Appiedu, did not study in the Arab world and yet preached ideas often associated with Wahhabism even before the return of Sauditrained Ghanaian scholars. Moreover, regardless of the sources of intellectual formation, all West African reformers addressed locally contingent issues. As discussed earlier, the locally-specific social and economic issues that concerned Wahhabi preachers in both Ghana and Burkina Faso included the importance of family planning to ensure the ability to offer children the best upbringing and education; the parsimonious use of economic resources to avoid wasting meager resources; the condemnation of Muslim diviners who were accused of exploiting other Muslims by claiming to possess supernatural powers; the encouragement of Muslim solidarity in the face of overwhelming Christian domination; and political participation to ensure that Muslims’ interests were protected. These ideas demonstrate the need to address local issues that developed from the colonial and post-independence contexts. I discuss this indigenous context further in the section on madrasa schools below. The Middle Eastern Connection Many of the Wahhabi preachers in both Ghana and Burkina Faso were influenced by events and intellectual discourses prevailing in other parts of the Muslim world. Historically, West African Muslim intellectuals were not isolated from the rest of the Muslim world; rather, they had always been part of the intellectual networks that stretched from the subregion to the Maghreb and the Hijaz. This is also true of the twentieth-century Muslim intellectuals (discussed below). As noted, the difference between the earlier intellectuals and those of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries concerned the shift from the Maghreb region to Egypt and the Gulf states. In the premodern period, West African students and scholars acquired advanced training in the Islamic sciences in institutions within the region or further north in Fez (Morocco, founded in 859 C.E.) and



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Zaytuna (Tunisia, founded 864 C.E.).3 Improved road networks starting from the early nineteenth century meant that many West African scholars and students turned increasingly toward the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as al-Azhar in Egypt (founded 972 C.E.)4 for their intellectual network. This connection was strengthened during the colonial period and thereafter, resulting in a historical shift from the Maghreb to the Hijaz that has remained till today. Consequently, new intellectual and reformist ideas, as well as modernization projects resulting from the Egyptian nahda (the cultural renaissance that began in the nineteenth century) resonated in West Africa as well. West African scholars and students who studied in Egypt, such as the members of the Subbanu Association documented by Lansiné Kaba,5 as well as those who traveled to the Hijaz for pilgrimage, returned home with new ideas which they employed in redirecting the West African historical tradition of reform in a new direction, a direction characterized by anti-Sufi polemics. These intellectuals also initiated, in many parts of West Africa, the madrasa pedagogical model that had gained root in the Middle East (discussed below).6 The central theme of the Egyptian nahda, which included the modernization of Islamic education and the transformation of Muslim political institutions, also formed the core of the reforming projects of the twentieth-century reform movements throughout West Africa. For example, the Muslim Cultural Union founded in Dakar in 1953 by Cheikh Fass Touré, which had significant influence on Francophone Muslims just before independence, emphasized modern Islamic education in contrast to traditional pedagogy. Even those who did not study in Egypt or the Hijaz, such as Touré, were profoundly influenced by the innovative thought of leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Algeria.7 Having been influenced by the Salafi movement in North Africa during their brief sojourn in Algeria, Touré and other leaders of the Muslim Cultural Union encouraged the modernization of

3 Wadad Kadi, “Education in Islam—Myths and Truths,” Comparative Education Review 50, no. 3 (Aug. 2006), 314. 4 Kadi, “Education,” 314. 5 Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, 47. 6 Lansiné Kaba has noted that the early appeal of Salafi/Wahhabi ideas emerged from among West African Muslim scholars trained in Egypt starting from the late 1930s. Kaba, The Wahhabiyya, 47. 7 Loimeier, “Cheikh Touré.”

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Islamic education throughout Francophone territories. Moreover, during the early 1960s, West African Muslims saw the Middle East as a source of Islamic education. Just as mission-educated Christian elites looked to the West for spirituality, intellectual development, and material opportunities, Muslims increasingly identified with the Middle East as a source of authentic spirituality, cultural rejuvenation, and economic opportunities. The attraction to the Middle East came from local initiatives and inducements from influential Arab leaders who reached out to Africans as part of a new pan-Islamic agenda. For example, in the late 1950s Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser had developed a propaganda tool through Radio Cairo International that encouraged West African Muslims to replace the colonialists’ culture with that of the Arab world.8 By the 1960s, Saudi Arabia had also implemented policies designed to attract African students. This connection with the Gulf states continues even today, albeit very limited in comparison with the 1980s. The relationship between West African traditions of reform and those of the Arab world, especially North Africa and the Gulf states, as well as the incorporation of ideas of modernity into the twentieth-century reform, was driven by changes in West African Muslim societies brought about by the impact of Western/secular education offered mostly by Christian missionaries. This tendency became more evident with the rise of Wahhabism, whose leaders appropriated Western concepts in a struggle against colonial policies that eroded Muslims’ influence. The emphasis of secular education on “rational” religious expressions and the belief in scientific explanations of natural phenomenon also reverberated in the Wahhabi struggles against “superstitious” practices allegedly fostered by the established Muslim elites (chapter 9). Whereas the dismissal of indigenous African practices as “superstitions,” is not new in the West African tradition of Islamic reform—Uthman dan Fodio and his followers, for example, made similar arguments in the early 1800s against local scholars, whom they declared venal mallams—the twentieth-century reformers’ emphasis on “superstition” was unique in other ways. Specifically, they blamed religious regressions not only on the so-called “venal” charlatan Muslim medicine men, but also on Muslim scholars affiliated with the Tijaniyya and the Qadiriyya, and attempted to explain these with reference to extant Western discourses of material progress. The appropriation

8 Unfortunately Nasser’s pan-Islamic and pan-Arab policies in West Africa have not been explored by scholars of West African Islam.



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of ideas and practices of modernity therefore derived from local initiatives, Middle Eastern influences, and clearly, from European colonial education. The European Context: Some Elective Affinities between West African Wahhabism and Western Modernity A major theme of this book concerns the extent to which Wahhabi-inclined reforms in West Africa generally, but Ghana and Burkina Faso in particular, appropriated and Islamized ideas of modernity inherited from secular education and the nationalists’ struggles in order to appeal to urbanized Muslims eager for a new religious expression conducive to their lifestyles. By contextualizing these twentieth-century reforms in European colonialism, especially the effects of colonial education in shaping Muslims’ perceptions of what constituted religious purity, I argue that there existed some affinities between the twentieth-century reforms associated with Wahhabism and ideas of modernity prevalent in colonial education and the discourse of the nationalist struggles. I stressed earlier that the main objective of the various Wahhabi-inclined reforms in West Africa was the promotion of religious purity. But religious purity was defined broadly to include transforming social behavior and cultural norms, redefining the criteria for legitimate religious authority, elevating Muslims’ social status and improving their material existence. Religious purity thus goes beyond the struggle against heretical innovation (bid’a) and anthropomorphism that borders on idol worship (shirk) to encompass a broader societal transformation. This accords with the perception of many individuals who saw Wahhabism as a vehicle to help bring Muslims into the “modern era.” In the view of many of the early converts to Wahhabism, the adaptation of modern ideas and practices to the needs of Islam in the twentieth century was the path to religious purity and acceptable cultural norms. One of the main features of Wahhabi organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso that demonstrates their affinity with Western ideas of modernity can be seen in the ways Wahhabi leaders utilized democratic principles of governance in their organizations. The adaptation of Western democratic arrangements parallels, at a micro level, ideas of political representation introduced in the postcolonial state. For example, Wahhabi leaders granted members the right to vote for the organizations’ leadership and to stand for election. By opening up leadership positions to all members based on a set of qualifying criteria, the early Wahhabi

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preachers and their secularly-educated cohorts claimed to be modern and democratic, a claim that attracted a significant following during the movement’s nascent stage. Although it became clear, belatedly, that the so-called elections only entrenched and legitimized the dominance of a set of elites, the initial impression was that the opportunity to elect leaders distinguished their organizations from any other Muslim organization where such opportunities were unavailable. Modeled along the structure of postcolonial political and business organizations, the leadership of the Mouvement Sunnite in Burkina Faso and the GIRRC in Ghana included a president, a vice president, a financial secretary, an organizing secretary, and so forth. Compared to the ways that Islamic institutions had been organized in Ghana and Burkina Faso prior to the rise of these organizations, the adoption of formal bureaucratic structures in Wahhabi institutions was a novel practice. Before the 1970s none of the Tijaniyya groups in Ghana and Burkina Faso had a written constitution or formal bureaucratic structure, largely because the leadership remained anchored in the traditions of the Sufi hierarchy, in which a combination of spiritual rank and esoteric knowledge determined leadership. Although such bureaucratic structures can be discerned in indigenous institutions, Wahhabi leaders and their followers refer to the Prophet’s shura to legitimize their adoption of such institutional arrangement (discussed below). The organizations also claimed to promote the freedom of speech and accountability. Amadi Ouédraogo, one of the early members of the Mouvement Sunnite in Burkina Faso noted: There was no Muslim organization in which the poor were allowed to speak freely during meetings and to challenge the view of even the most powerful individual in the organization. In both the Communauté and the Tijaniyya, only the rich and powerful individuals could express their views. The Prophet Muhammad’s community at Medina knew no social or gender distinctions, and we emulated that community and the respect the Prophet showed all individuals, regardless of social origins. The Prophet’s model continued during the time of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. But the model was lost when the Islamic state became a dynasty. I am not in a position to argue that dynastic rule is contrary to Islam, but dynastic rule denied freedom to Muslims. We wanted all our members to see themselves as part of the organization, to vote for candidates or to stand for election. If nothing else, their membership card [offered to all paying members], which is their ballot paper on the day of election, is their instrument of power.9 9 Amadi Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, August 4, 2006. In 2002 when I tried to interview Amadi Ouédraogo, he would not speak with me, but with the



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The claim that the Mouvement Sunnite encouraged social and gender equality is clearly contestable; there were no women in the leadership and I have not been able to obtain any valid information that women participated directly in decision-making. For our purposes here, however, what matters is the way the leadership conceived of their organizations’ relationship with members and the fact that they traced their model to the Prophet’s consultative institution of shura, which they believed allowed the umma to participate in decision-making irrespective of gender, knowledge, or social status. The idea that this Islamic consultative system of shura is equivalent to modern democracy is, clearly, debatable. The Western origin of the model adopted by Wahhabi organizations is, however, less ambiguous. Considering that many of the secularly-educated elites who imported this bureaucratic model into the Wahhabi organizations they helped to create were administrators, accountants, and teachers, it is not surprising that they used these business and administrative models to ensure administrative efficiency. A number of them told me that they wanted their organizations to set the stage for a new model of Islamic organization that reflected the modern era, one that recognized the importance of combining religious and secular knowledge to ensure accountability and efficiency. As noted, the two national Wahhabi organizations had written constitutions that not only symbolized a departure from what these leaders considered an archaic power structure, but also demonstrated the leaders’ willingness to allow the organizations to reflect an inclusive decisionmaking process that mirrored a postcolonial political arrangement. The constitutions detailed the organizations’ objectives, criteria for leadership, election procedures, and the rights and responsibilities of members.10 The adoption of bureaucratic arrangements legitimizing leadership through an electoral process, even if in the end the elections were self-serving, persuaded followers that the new organizations were essentially modern, but satisfied the Prophet’s requirement that the community should participate in decision-making. Furthermore, both the Mouvement Sunnite in Burkina Faso and the GIRRC in Ghana adopted dual power-sharing structures that were also

permission of Imam Sayouba, he gave me a copy of an uncompleted history of the organization which he was drafting at the time. 10 Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain copies of these documents; I believe some of the leaders had these documents but were reluctant to give them to me because there are several unresolved lawsuits.

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unique to these organizations. This arrangement reflects the leaders’ desire to accommodate and utilize secular knowledge in order to ensure administrative efficiency. Secular knowledge served the organization’s mundane activities, while Islamic knowledge served its religious responsibilities. Prior to this period the two types of knowledge had been viewed locally, even if erroneously, as separate and incompatible, since one was sanctified by the Qur’an and the other supposedly rejected by the same Qur’an as a “sacrilegious knowledge.” As the early Arabophone elites accepted the leadership of individuals trained in Western-styled schools, most of whom had only limited religious knowledge, their “sacrilegious” secular knowledge attained some legitimacy even on the religious plane. For Wahhabi leaders, the knowledge of accounting and the ability to communicate with the non-Arabic-speaking public were essential to the organizations’ success. The adoption of a dual power structure points to a tendency toward privileging knowledge, including secular knowledge, over family connections, as the main criterion for religious leadership. Basing leadership solely on knowledge further allowed the Wahhabi organizations to claim to be “modern” in contrast to the status quo, whereby power derived from membership in the scholarly lineages or Sufi affiliations. The appropriation of modern ideas did not threaten the centrality of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s traditions in guiding individuals and the community, as one might expect; rather, it allowed these sources to legitimize the role of practical secular ideas in servicing Islam. To demonstrate the influence of modern/secular knowledge on the local articulation of the Wahhabi religious mission we can draw additional evidence from the organizations’ official names. As noted in chapters 5 and 6, language and historical context informed the selection of names for these organizations. In the Ghanaian organization, the words “Research” and “Reformation” were consciously selected to reflect the organization’s search for authentic faith. For the more secularized leaders of the movement, the parallel between the Christian Reformation and their own agenda was indisputable. Just as the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation preached individual spiritual purity and salvation and in the process undermined the Catholic Church’s ecclesiastical hegemony in Europe, the Wahhabi preachers’ message provided the vehicle for a religious and social transformation.11 In Burkina Faso, on the other hand, 11 The parallel between Wahhabi-inclined reform and the Christian Reformation has been considered by a number of scholars. See for example, Indira Falk Gesink, “Islamic



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the word “movement” in the organization’s official name suggests that the Western-educated elites saw their mission in the context of a social and religious movement identical to that taking place in Europe and, indeed, the Middle East. I asked a number of surviving founders why they did not consider the Arabic derivative. The response ranged from “It did not occur to us to look for an Arabic name,” to “We wanted people to understand our objectives and the French word was convenient.” Another suggested that the word “mouvement” best described the organization’s mission.12 In other words, the colonial vocabularies conveniently explained the content of their mission. I am therefore inclined to argue that, considering the source of their education and the subjects covered in mission schools, European religious movements probably helped them articulate their own visions. Like leaders of the Reformation, the Wahhabi preachers emphasized individual spiritual purity and instructed followers to seek religious guidance from the original sources, and not fall prey to the “deceptions” of self-proclaimed spiritual healers and sorcerers. We should understand the context in which the movements emerged. Colonialism had been overthrown and political power had been transferred to colonially constructed elites who were themselves products of colonial rule, instead of to the traditional rulers, the custodians of political power prior to the advent of colonial rule. These radical transformations reverberated in the Islamic sphere, in which new elites demanded that tradition retreat before a new cultural expression consistent with the rise of the postcolonial state. Wahhabism served as a source of empowerment for new elites that emerged from colonial rule. In the same way the Enlightenment sought to undermine the powers of aristocratic elites and to empower new elites associated with new knowledge rooted in scientific rationality, Wahhabism also provided otherwise disenfranchised groups among younger Western-educated Muslims and Arabophone elites in Ghana and Burkina Faso with a niche in the larger Muslim religio-political landscape. The organizations’ dual leadership structures provided secularly-educated elites with leadership opportunities in Muslim institutions, opportunities that had been denied to them earlier because of their lack of religious Reformation: A History of Madrasa Reform and Legal Change in Egypt,” Comparative Education Review 50, no. 3 (Aug. 2006): 325–45; Kai Kresse, “ ‘Swahili Enlightenment?’ East African Reformist Discourse at the Turning Point: The Example of Sheikh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui,” JRA 33 (Aug. 2003): 279–309; Roman Loimeier, “Is there Something like Protestant Islam?” Die Welt des Islams 45, no. 2 (2005): 216–54; Writing in 1998, Dale Eickelman argued that the Muslim world had entered an era of reformation comparable to the sixteenth-century Christian world. Eickelman, “Inside the Islamic Reformation.” 12 Amadi Ouédraogo, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, August 14, 2006.

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training. Conversely, secular education and French assimilation policies, which encouraged the adoption of a Western lifestyle, also made it difficult for them to see themselves as fully part of a community that they considered retrogressive. The emergence of Wahhabism allowed these individuals to integrate into the Muslim community from which they had earlier isolated themselves. The Wahhabi movement also made it possible for them to participate in religious dialogue and contribute directly to the creation of a new Islamic religious space. Colonial rule introduced the idea that social, cultural, and political organizations had to be registered with the government to be considered “legitimate.” The postcolonial state inherited and elaborated on this form of legitimization, forcing Wahhabi organizations already threatened by established Muslim groups to apply for government recognition and insist on government protection. The fact that the secularly-educated elites in the Wahhabi movements modeled their organizations along Western bureaucratic structures was therefore not accidental; it derived from the organizations’ relative subordination vis-à-vis the established Muslim leadership and the need to create, in their view, superior organizations.13 But the idea derived from secular knowledge, which those educated in Western-styled schools brought to the organizations. Wahhabism also provided marginalized Arabophone elites with some social, intellectual, and religious influences. Like Muslims trained in Western secular institutions, local scholars who had embraced Wahhabi ideas during their intellectual formation in the Arab world also felt disenfranchised by the community they had returned to serve. Their uncompromising rejection of local customs made it difficult for them to accept or belong to a scholarly community they claimed fostered un-Islamic practices. Similarly, their reliance on scriptural authority rather than the ijma (consensus) of the scholars, their denunciation of Sufism, and their rejection of the authority of the dominant schools of jurisprudence (madhahib, s. madhhab) further alienated them from the local mainstream Muslim scholarly community that was anchored in Sufi traditions and Maliki jurisprudence (the dominant madhhab in West Africa). The alliance with professionals trained in secular institutions therefore helped to facilitate their own search for religious leadership. The secularly-educated leaders who embraced Wahhabism also employed metaphors traceable to colonial education. In Ghana when the 13 I. A. Barro, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 22, 2002.



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Arabophone elites rejected the authority of the executive branch dominated by the secularly-educated elites and refused to abide by the organizations’ bylaws (chapter 8), one of the leaders described their subsequent relationship with Arabophone elites with reference to George Orwell’s 1945 satirical novel, Animal Farm. We were made to believe that ours was an organization where social distinction did not matter. We believed that we were all equal before God and before the organization’s laws. We later learned that some were more equal than others. We paid little attention to potential power struggles because we were only volunteering our services while they received salaries from Saudi institutions. What mattered to us was to save our society from spiritual and social decay. By sharing power, we believed we could effectively achieve our objectives. But, alas! We were duped into believing that all of us were working for God; some were working for Saudi Arabia, or at least were paid by Saudi Arabia to work for God. We antagonized our neighbors, whom we declared polytheists [reference to Tijanis]. Now they are telling us that those are not polytheists, but Muslims who simply committed minor sins forgivable by God if they repented. You see how we lost everything, our neighbors, our friends, our organization, our mission; we got nothing and they got everything. I can only hope that, unlike Boxer, our efforts will not be in vain when we meet God.14

This argument highlights some elective affinities that existed between the discourse of reform articulated by West African Wahhabi-inclined elites and ideas traceable to the Enlightenment era that formed the basis of colonial education and influenced the secularly-educated elites. The vocabularies of both Wahhabism and the Enlightenment discourse included: “rationality,” “progress,” “superstition,” “mysticism,” “ecclesiastical hegemony,” “individualism,” and so forth (see chapter 9 for further discussion). Just as the Enlightenment sought to free the European mental landscape from the claws of mysticism and belief in supernatural forces by offering scientific explanations for natural phenomena, the discursive framework of West African preachers associated with Wahhabism emphasized the rejection of beliefs that seemed illogical and not derived from the Qur’an or hadith. Because they considered these sources timeless sources of knowledge, Wahhabi preachers always refer to them to explain supernatural forces and claimed God’s knowledge must always be considered rational beyond human comprehension. In Ghana and Burkina Faso, scholars inclined toward Wahhabism encouraged their followers to

14 I. A. Barro, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 22, 2002.

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use good judgment to assess the claims of supernatural powers made by some Muslim clerics. They not only rejected local beliefs in witchcraft and magic as superstition, but they also criticized the belief in esoteric knowledge associated with Sufi metaphysics. Thus, in their search for a new religious meaning that conformed, in their view, to modern conditions, they derided beliefs in occult powers because these powers cannot be subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. In a recorded sermon, Hajj Umar noted: Explain to me how drinking a portion of the Qur’an written and washed-off a wooden tablet can serve as a form of remedy or even change anything. These practices are only intended to deceive people. . . . Anyone who drinks such a concoction is only drinking water mixed with black ink; there is nothing in it that can heal or magically solve one’s worldly problems. This is haram.

A Tijaniyya scholar responded that if the healing powers of ingested Qur’anic verses cannot be proven scientifically, by extension reciting Qur’anic verses has no merit in healing either. In other words, it was all a matter of belief. “Any attempt to subject the Qur’an to human rationality results in denying its miraculous origin and content. Remember the Qur’an declares itself to be a source of physical and spiritual remedy. This aspect of the religion cannot be explained scientifically; it is a matter of belief that cannot be investigated in a laboratory.”15 In an interview, Hajj Umar Ibrahim explained to me that the Prophet Muhammad recommended that Muslims invoke God’s healing mercy by reciting the Qur’an, not by drinking its liquefied content. This resort to rational reasoning is common in Wahhabi polemics throughout West Africa, though clearly they encountered difficulties dismissing the validity of miraculous healing, since this can be traced to the Qur’an and hadith. The contradictions encountered by these reformers when they resort to rationality is not different from the difficulties encountered by European thinkers who attempted to offer scientific explanations for everything, but had to admit to the “unknowable” realm where no explanation could be offered. In the end, the significance of some of these arguments rested not on their validities, but rather on the simple fact that the audience found them novel and appealing. The extent to which the Enlightenment project succeeded in disenchanting the human mental universe from ancient superstitions thus

15 Hajj Yussif Ali, personal communication, Accra, July 3, 2006.



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remains an open question.16 Similarly, it is unclear the extent to which the Wahhabi project was able to eradicate indigenous beliefs associated with the invisible world from the local Islamic belief system. Wahhabism had to come to terms with the reality of African cosmology in the same way that contemporary Western scholars who thought that modernity, in line with propositions put forth by Enlightenment philosophers, would drive religion out of the public sphere, must come to terms with the reality that religion is too deeply engrained in the human universe to be eradicated by factors related to modernity—advancement in science and technology, material progress, individual freedom and so forth. The resurgence of religious fundamentalism throughout the world since the early 1970s,17 along with the popular appeal of homeopathic remedies and traditional medicine, is a clear testimony to the resilience of religion in the human universe; beliefs in supernatural forces and the pursuit of modernity therefore had to remain uneasy bedfellows. By arguing that Muslim reformers appropriated and refashioned Western modernity to further their reform agenda and by comparing the Enlightenment and Reformation eras with West African Wahhabism, I am aware of the intellectual provocations I am inciting.18 During follow-up research for this book in 2008, I tried to understand more deeply how European ideas influenced the mental landscapes of my informants. I asked one of the only three surviving members of the secularly-educated elites who founded the GIRRC, which of the European philosophers influenced him the most. Without any hesitation, he mentioned John Locke and David Hume and then tried to remember another philosopher with a French name. I suggested Rousseau, and he agreed. When I asked him why these three, he explained that John Locke developed the principles

16 A number of recent studies have shown that these practices persisted during the Enlightenment. See for example, Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment; David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna ( Jews, Christians and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). See also Saler’s historiographic review “Modernity and Enchantment.” 17 The four-volume series of The Fundamentalism Project, edited by Martin Marty and R. Scotte Appleby, and published by University of Chicago Press between 1993 and 2004, resulted from the belief that religious fundamentalism was proliferating around the world. 18 For a similar argument, see Loimeier, “Is there Something Like Protestant Islam?”; Kresse, “Swahili Enlightenment”; Randall L. Pouwels, “Sh. al-Amin B. Ali Mazrui and Islamic Modernism in East Africa, 1875–1947,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 13, no. 3 (Aug. 1981): 329–45.

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of liberty and religious tolerance that created modern democracy in the West and helped Africans obtain their independence from colonial rule. In his late eighties, he remembered vividly that his generation enjoyed reading about these powerful philosophers and political theorists. He claimed to possess a copy of a book by John Locke and proceeded to search for it but could not find it. When I suggested that Locke endorsed slavery and had supported laws that enhanced the powers of slaveholding elites in America, he was slightly surprised. However, he defended Locke as “a man of his time,” whose ideas transcended such personal shortcomings. Considering that many of his generation read the works of the Enlightenment philosophers for the empowering messages contained therein, and not the detailed histories of these philosophers, his ambivalence is understandable. European ideas thus emerged as a powerful instrument for subverting the disequilibrium between African and European cultures that colonial education had perhaps inadvertently imposed on Africans, including Muslims (chapter 9). These ideas were more forcefully expressed in the nationalist struggles. In spite of and perhaps as a result of its ambiguity, the “modernity discourse” was profoundly central to the nationalist struggles and provided the framework for redefining social, religious, and political leadership. Thus, despite their nationalist rhetoric and Africa-centered ideology, nationalist leaders declared themselves to be “modern” and “progressive,” and sought to emphasize a new cultural and social identity that was neither deeply indigenous nor overtly European. The nationalist struggles in which Muslims throughout West Africa actively participated had a profound impact on how young Muslim elites sought new Islamic cultural, economic, and political attitudes that conformed broadly to the aspirations of postcoloniality. Although carefully avoiding religious rhetoric in their campaigns against colonial rule, the secular nationalist struggles utilized the vocabularies of modernity and these vocabularies permeated other social and intellectual movements, including Islamic revivalism, and also laid the foundation for the pursuit of religious plurality by the postcolonial secular state. By observing religious neutrality, the early postcolonial state became a liberated space (compared to colonial rule) in which marginalized groups could freely pursue their own religious preferences. It is worth noting that while students of colonial institutions were being inculcated with the essence of religious toleration, rationality, liberty, freedom of choice, and knowledge as a legitimate source of power and influence, colonial rulers pursued religious tolerance only when it



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suited them, and denied liberty and political representation to the colonized. The emphases on freedom and individual responsibility were contradicted by the imposition of collective punishment. Similarly, while encouraging Africans to adopt Western modernity, colonial authorities disparaged those Africans who absorbed or pretended to absorb too much modernity; those who emulated Europeans too closely were considered too de-tribalized and thus potentially subversive.19 The nationalist struggles sought to redress these contradictions by creating a uniquely African modernity. However, having been influenced by European ideas of human material progress, the nationalist leaders did not completely subvert the colonial paradigm, but rather operated within it. Achille Mbembe succinctly summarizes the colonial project of modernity as a universalizing project aimed at inscribing “the colonized in the space of modernity.”20 For our purpose here, this inscribed modernity reverberated in the early phase of West African Wahhabism in ways that allow us to argue that the secularly-educated urban Muslim professionals who joined the Wahhabi movement and assisted in its development believed that Wahhabism was compatible with the ideas of modernity they had learned from Westernstyled schools (more in chapter 9). These ideas included individualism, leadership derived from knowledge rather than ancestry, rational uses of economic resources, the use of an electoral process even in religious organizations, the rejection of “superstition,” and the desire to transform the religious status quo by undermining the legitimacy of established religious leaders. One can identify these ideas in the nationalist discourse as well, thus allowing us to recognize some relationship between the arguments and practices of this variant of West African reform and the nationalist discourses that were launched against colonial rule. Islamic Schooling and West African Wahhabi Reform The triple legacy of Wahhabi-inclined reform is also evident in the processes leading to the transformation of Islamic schooling from the historically established Qur’anic school model to that of the madrasa. Here we see clearly how the confluence of Western, Middle Eastern, and locally evolved pedagogical models produced a unique Ghanaian and Burkinabé Islamic school system. The outcome of this transformation also highlights 19 See Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism.” 20 Achille Mbembe, “On the Power of the False,” Public Culture 14 (2002), 634.

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an enduring success of the Wahhabi-inspired reform. I place the discussion in a broader regional scope, albeit very briefly, in order to accentuate the ways multiple factors produced this transformation. A regional scope also allows us to see variations in this transformation across colonial boundaries. In chapter 2, we discussed how the British and the French both introduced a more secularized version of madrasa schooling in the Muslim majority colonies as part of their attempts to channel Muslims’ intellectual energy into colonial service. The French called these schools “madrasa,” which seemed to be the first time the name madrasa was used to describe Islamic schooling in many of the areas where the schools were established (Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania). The British and the French had adopted the name madrasa and the pedagogy associated with North African Muslim schooling, where the model had been part of a modernizing project pursued by local scholars. As noted, this project failed although it indirectly inspired what emerged as a radical transformation of Islamic schooling that bears the same name, madrasa. Although the French in particular failed to lure Muslims to the French madrasas, between the 1940s and the end of colonial rule, West African Muslim educators themselves initiated the transformation the French had envisioned, without the secular underpinning colonial authorities had included in their project. The leaders who engaged in this educational transformation aimed to nurture a new generation of Muslims who would reject colonial rule and the prevailing Islamic spiritual and intellectual leadership. The name madrasa signified not only a new pedagogical model, but also the rise of new Muslim elites whose intellectual network transcended the subregion to include the Middle East and the Gulf states. This transformation occurred throughout West Africa, reaching a climax during the first decade of independence.21 If West African Muslim intellectuals were, previously, more connected with intellectual centers in Morocco (especially Fez), Algeria, and Tunisia (especially Zaytuna), the colonial era produced new Muslim elites connected with Egyptian and Saudi intellectual centers. These new intellectuals became sympathetic to Wahhabi and Salafi doctrines, which in West Africa were not easily distinguishable. As explained below, the early phase of indigenized madrasas (that is, those established by local Muslims) was associated, rightly or

21 For a detailed discussion of the various stages of Islamic education and the evolutions of these stages, see, Kadi, “Education,” 313–15.



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wrongly, with teachers who were sympathetic to Salafi/Wahhabi ideas as well as those affiliated with the Sufi brotherhoods, especially in Ghana. Much has been written about the history of this transformation and its relationship to the rise of Wahhabi/Sunna reform in many parts of West Africa, although the history of this transformation in Ghana in particular, but Burkina Faso as well, remains to be fully explored.22 It is important to understand the different features of the Qur’anic and madrasa models in order to explain why the madrasa model appealed to educators affiliated with Wahhabism, and to demonstrate the affinities between the madrasa system and modernity. The salient features of the madrasa in contrast to Qur’anic schooling were its pedagogical structures and materials that emphasized the acquisition of Arabic grammar along with the memorization of the Qur’an. Whereas “traditional” Qur’anic schools emphasized memorization and recitation of the Qur’an at the early stage of training, and reserved the study of Arabic grammar for a more advanced stage of learning,23 the madrasas stressed the study of Arabic grammar as the first step to assimilating the holy texts. This emphasis allowed students to learn the Qur’an and other texts within a short period, thus reducing the time spent in acquiring religious knowledge. Furthermore, whereas Qur’anic school students sat on the floor and wrote their lessons on whitewashed slates (walaga in Mossi, or allo in Hausa), madrasa classrooms were furnished with chairs, tables, and blackboards and the students wrote in exercise books. As early as the 1960s, the advanced students read Arabic stories from materials imported from 22 French policies toward Islamic education have been analyzed extensively. See for example, Corinne Fortier, “Mémorization et audition: L’einseigenment coranique chez les maures de Mauritanie,” Islam et Société au Sud du Sahara 11 (1997): 85–108; G. Hardy, Une conquête morale: L’enseignement en AOF (Paris, 1917); Brenner, Controlling Knowledge; Harrison, France and Islam; Sedou Cissé and Hamadou Hampaté Bâ, L’enseignement islamique en Afrique noire (Paris: L’Harmattan 1992). For more recent works on Islamic schooling in Senegal, see Rudolph T. Ware III, “Njàngaan: The Daily Regime of Qur’ânic Students in Twentieth-Century Senegal,” IJAHS 37, no. 3 (2004): 515–38 and Cheikh Anta Babou, “Educating the Murid: Theory and Practices of Education in Amadu Bamba’s Thought,” JRA 33 (Aug. 2003): 310–27. For Burkina Faso, see Issa Cissé, “Introduction à l’étude des médersas.” Other relevant materials include Bintou Diarra, “Les écoles coraniques au Mali: problèmes actuels,” CJAS 19, no. 2 (1985): 359–67; Fisher, “Islamic Education”; Lansiné Kaba, “The Politics of Quranic Education among Muslim Traders in the Western Sudan: The Subanu Experience,” CJAS 10, no. 3 (1976): 409–21. 23 Wilks, “The Transmission of Islamic Learning,” 166. Wadad Kadi describes the structure of these schools, “The subjects taught at the kuttab varied from place to place but included memorization and recitation of the Qur’an, reading, writing, spelling, voweling letters, arithmetic, and some basic religious duties, like the rules of ablutions and prayer.” Kadi, “Education,” 313.

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the Arab world.24 Moreover, in the pedagogical and social organization of the Qur’anic schools, the students became part of the teacher’s household, where they offered services in exchange for their education. Kaba’s description of the structure of Qur’anic schooling in Mali is comparable to that in Ghana and Burkina Faso. He notes that Qur’anic students “participated in the maintenance of the teachers’ homestead and farms, fetching water and firewood, cutting grass, grazing animals, plaiting the straw, sewing cloths, and tilling the gardens.”25 These chores were viewed as part of the rewards due to the teacher, as methods of apprenticeship into real life, and as part of inculcating religious discipline. The system of the madrasa, in contrast, required students to pay fees, attend classes at a fixed time, and return home at the end of the day’s session, similar to the Westernstyled secular and mission schools. Whereas the French, as discussed in chapter 2, attempted to transform Islamic education in the more Islamized colonies, they ignored Muslims in Burkina Faso. Here, the transformation can be traced to scholars and eduators sympathetic to Salafi/Wahhabi ideas from the 1940s on. Similarly, while the British attempted to transform Muslim education in Northern Nigeria, Gambia, and Sierra Leone to train new Muslim cadets to serve colonial administrations, no such attempts were made concerning Ghana, where the madrasa system was adopted simultaneously by Wahhabiinclined and Tijaniyya scholars.26 It is therefore accurate to argue that the introduction of madrasa schooling in both Ghana and Burkina Faso resulted primarily from local initiatives. Next I summarize these developments in Burkina Faso and Ghana, and follow with a discussion of why Wahhabi reformers found the madrasa regiment particularly useful for their projects. Patterns of the Development of Madrasas in Burkina Faso According to Issa Cissé, the first madrasa in Burkina Faso appeared in areas influenced by the Muslim Cultural Union (MCU)—Bobo-Dioulasso,

24 Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, August 4, 1998. 25 Kaba, “The Politics of Quranic Education,” 411. 26 According to an archival record cited by Holger Weiss, in 1906, Captain B. H. Taylor, the district commissioner of the Black Volta District, had proposed the establishment of Muslim schools in the Northern Territories. However, his proposal was not approved by A. E. G. Watherston, the Commissioner of the Northern Territories from 1905–1909. Weiss, Between Accommodation and Revivalism, 198.



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Nouna, Tougan, and Ouahigouya—that lay within the Djula trading network.27 The MCU, I argued earlier, established or inspired the establishment of madrasas throughout the AOF as part of its reform activities and its struggle against French Islamic policies. As Cissé argued, through the influence of the MCU, the children of scholars affiliated with Sufi brotherhoods transformed their parents’ Qur’anic schools to madrasas by teaching the Arabic language at the primary level of religious training. Many of these young educational entrepreneurs had received their own training in madrasa institutions in Mali. For example, Sanogo Mahmoud, who had studied at several schools in Mali, including the famous Saada Madrasa at Ségu between 1947 and 1956, returned in 1957 to transform his father’s Qur’anic school in Bobo-Dioulasso.28 Ibrahim Dienopo, also the son of a local scholar, transformed his father’s school in Bobo-Dioulasso in 1958. Unlike Sanogo Mahmoud, Ibrahim Dienopo studied only with his father, but became convinced of the madrasa’s pedagogical effectiveness. For these young educational reformers the madrasa represented an effective method of education that also transformed the student into a modern individual both culturally and socially. Mahmoud noted that after studying with his father for several years, he realized that Qur’anic schooling was not transforming him into a “civilized man” (un homme cultivée), nor was it teaching him Arabic. Seeing Islamic education as a source of “civilization” obviously demonstrates the influence of French discourse on this individual, and many others like him. But it also suggests that Muslims expected Islamic schooling to transform the individual culturally as defined by the French notion of civilization. This expectation became an important criterion for assessing the value and effectiveness of Islamic education during this period, and inspired the push toward educational reform. In addition to the children of established traditional elites who may or may not have been affiliated with Sufi brotherhoods, we have the example of Sufi leaders like Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga who established a madrasa at Rahmatoulaye in 1958 and appointed two non-Sufi Senegalese Arabic teachers to manage the schools, despite the protests of other Hamawiyya elders. Like Mahmoud and Ibrahim Dienopo, Sheikh Sidi Muhammad was convinced of the madrasa’s effectiveness compared to Qur’anic schooling. The influence of the MCU was evident in a number of

27 Issa Cissé, “Introduction à l’étude des médersas,” 24. 28 Cissé, “Les médersas au Burkina.”

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schools that emerged during this period. In 1958, a few individuals affiliated with the MCU established a madrasa at Sikasso-Cira in Bobo-Dioulasso, with 160 students.29 The first director of the school, Ndiaye Diawara, was a Senegalese member of the MCU. Similarly, Moctar Sy, the first director of the madrasa at Nouna, was also a Senegalese member of the MCU. At the end of colonial rule, the initiative was picked up by the Communauté Musulmane, which embarked on the construction of madrasas in major towns throughout Burkina Faso. The first was Madrasa Centrale at Ouagadougou in 1962, followed by those of Nouna and Ouahigouya in 1965. Interestingly, the first two directors of the Madrasa Centrale were Malians, Bamoin Tounkara and Baba Innoussa, and the first director of Communauté’s madrasa at Ouahigouya, Hamed Tao, was also a Malian.30 All these directors were believed to be affiliated with the MCU. The preceding discussion suggests that the emergence of the madrasas in Burkina Faso was connected in some respects with the MCU, an organization that was locally believed to be affiliated with Wahhabism although the leadership in Senegal, where it was founded, never saw itself as part of the emerging Wahhabi movement. The literature also points to local initiatives pursued by younger generation scholars who saw the need for transformations such as those that were already occurring in neighboring societies. It must be mentioned that, as in other parts of West Africa where this transformation instigated generational conflicts and opposition, the introduction of madrasas in Burkina Faso did not occur unchallenged. In some localities Muslim leaders rejected the madrasas because of their adoption of the structure and methods of mission schools. This was the case in Nouna, where some elders declared the madrasa an infidel school and discouraged members of the community from enrolling their children. However, these elders later offered their complete support when one of the marabu received a letter from Saudi Arabia that he could not read. Eventually, the letter was read and translated by a ten-year-old madrasa student.31 This incident convinced local leaders that the world around them had changed.

29 Monteil Vincent, L’Islam noir (Paris, 1964), 312, cited in Cissé, “Introduction à l’étude des médersas,” 14. 30 Aboubacar Maiga II, personal communication, Rahmatoulaye, May 2, 2002; Abou­ bacar Doukouré, May 6, 2002. 31 Sidi Muhammadou Tounkara, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 15, 2002.



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Similarly, in spite of his overarching authority over his followers, Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga encountered opposition when he proposed to build a madrasa at Rahmatoulaye in 1958. While he believed the madrasa would become the new method for educating Muslims and did not want his community to lag behind that transformation, the more conservative elders of the community insisted that the school would produce children who would rebel against the community’s way of life. These elders did not oppose him because the madrasas threatened their position, but rather because they were aware that those who had established madrasas in other parts of the territory were antagonistic toward the tariqa. This provides further evidence that the early phase of the transformation of the madrasa in Burkina Faso, as in many parts of Francophone West Africa, was associated with the rise of Wahhabism, although members of the Tijaniyya also embraced those changes. Patterns of the Development of Madrasas in Ghana The emergence of madrasas in Ghana followed a different pattern from that of Burkina Faso and other West African societies, although the precise process is difficult to explain. It may be accurate to argue that the transition from Qur’anic or makaranta type of schooling to madrasas was so smooth that one cannot identify a precise moment when the shift occurred. In fact, the madrasas that emerged were, for the most part, simply an internal transformation of Qur’anic schools that evolved a new structure and pedagogical style. This is rather typical of many parts of West Africa, as the case of Burkina Faso discussed above suggests. There were also instances in which a particular school began anew as a madrasa. A number of scholars, including David Owusu-Ansah, Sulemana Mumuni, Abdulai Iddrisu, and B. A. R. Braimah (to mention only a few), analyzed this transition in order to expand on earlier works by Ivor Wilks and others.32 My purpose here is to add to this growing interest and to connect this development with the early appeal of Wahhabism.

32 For Ghana, a short list of influential works include, David Owusu-Ansah, “History of Islamic Education in Ghana: An Overview,” Ghana Studies 5 (2002): 61–81; Hajj Sulemana Mumuni, “Islamic Literacy Tradition in Ghana,” Maghreb Review 28, nos. 2–3 (2003): 170–85; Abdulai Iddrisu, “Islamic and Western Secular Education in Ghana”; B. A. R. Braimah, “Islamic Education in Ghana,” in Religion in a Pluralistic Society, ed. John Pobee (Leiden: Brill, 1976); Wilks, “The Transmission of Islamic Learning.”

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In some respects, Syrian and Lebanese merchants contributed to the development of madrasa schooling in Ghana. Some of these merchants offered Arabic lessons privately and voluntarily to enthusiastic students. Mallam Dan Tano of Kumasi, the renowned Arabic grammarian, studied with one of these Syrian/Lebanese merchants in Kumasi. Unfortunately Mallam Dan Tano’s contribution to Islamic scholarship in Ghana has not been explored, although he is widely known to have invigorated the study of Arabic grammar among Ghanaian scholars and their students.33 As a young Qur’anic school student Mallam Dan Tano is said to have appealed to an Arab merchant to teach him the Qur’an. But the Arab, whose name and precise nationality is unknown to my informants (but suggested that he was probably a Syrian or a Lebanese), offered to teach him grammar (nahw) instead. Within a couple of years, Dan Tano had mastered Arabic grammar. His teacher told him to apply that knowledge to facilitate not only the proper recitation of the Qur’an but also the comprehension of its content. After completing his studies, Dan Tano established a school in the corridor of his house in Kumasi, where he trained a new elite of Arabic grammarians who returned to their respective towns and established schools that combined the structure of the madrasa with traditional Qur’anic rote learning.34 Most of Dan Tano’s students had already studied the Qur’an and the major Islamic texts, and many of them were already teaching before they decided to pursue an advanced study in grammar. For most West African Muslim scholars, the study of grammar was a continuous process because it was integral to mastering the commentary on the Qur’an (tafsir), which was (and still is) considered the most difficult aspect of Islamic studies, due to the complexity of the classical Arabic.35 As a result of the demand for nahw, grammarians such as Mallam Dan Tano attracted not only students at an early stage of their studies, but also some of the established scholars. Mallam Samundini of Nsawam, mentioned in the preface, was among these established scholars who studied with Mallam Dan Tano in order to improve their knowledge of grammar. Mallam Samundini was already an established scholar with a large number of students. Because of his advanced training, he stayed only briefly with Mallam Dan Tano.

33 Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Accra, June 1, 2001. 34 Ibid. Also Mallam Muhammad Issa, Kumasi-Zongo, September 13, 2001. 35 As noted, many of the scholars in Nima attempted to study Arabic grammar with Hajj Umar when he returned from Saudi Arabia but withdrew when they realized he had nothing to add to what they already knew (chapter 6).



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On his return, he trained his children in grammar and left them in charge of the madrasa he had established at Nsawam, while he concentrated on teaching advanced students grammar.36 Being only twenty-two miles from Accra, Mallam Samundini’s school at Nsawam became an important center for training Arabic grammarians, attracting students from Accra and its vicinity, including popular scholars of Accra such as Mallam Sani Murtala and Mallam Hamza. By the early 1960s, this school had become an extension of Dan Tano’s school outside Kumasi. Mallam Dan Tano recommended that his students study the major Islamic texts with Mallam Samundini, thus establishing a closer link between the two centers. Although he is not known to have practiced any tariqa, most of Dan Tano’s students were affiliated with the Tijaniyya.37 It is therefore accurate to argue that in Ghana, members of the Tijaniyya were in the forefront of the transformation of the traditional makaranta or kuttab (Qur’anic) schools into modern madrasas. The above analysis also suggests that Syrian and Lebanese merchants and scholars played a role in this transformation. These Arabs came to Ghana for the trading opportunities provided by the colonial economy. Until the colonial period, few Arabs traveled to these societies, where long distance commerce remained in the hands of West Africans. This observation provides further evidence of the influence of the colonial legacy on the transformation of Islamic schooling during the twentieth century. The madrasa, as discussed below, became the major institution of Wahhabi-inclined educators. The introduction of madrasa schooling was also pursued by individual Ghanaians who studied in Mecca or Cairo during the early 1940s. Among these was Hajj Umar Muhammad Nyohini (also known as Afa Nyohini) of Tamale, who had studied in Mecca. Like Mallam Dan Tano, Mallam Nyohini’s contribution to the development of Islam in Northern Ghana awaits a careful study. On his return from Mecca probably in 1958, Mallam Nyohini established Madrasat al-Nahdah at Tamale. Many recognize him as the first to establish madrasa schooling in Tamale (aside from the unsuccessful Ahmadiyya School established during the 1940s).38 36 Mallam Nuru Samundini, personal communication, Nsawam, Ghana, September 22, 2001. Also Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Accra, June 1, 2001. 37 These included Mallam Samundini, Mallam Osman Shaributu (the current chief imam of Ghana), and Mallam Sani Murtala, whose father was among the first to establish a madrasa in Accra. 38 Hajj Ibrahim, personal communication, Tamale, May 24, 2002; Alhaji Yussif Alawaihi, personal communication, Tamale, May 25, 2002 and June 2, 2006; Mallam Basha, personal communication, Tamale, May 25, 2002 and June 3, 2006.

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Early generation Wahhabi-inclined reformers such as Hajj Afa Ajura are also credited with initiating madrasa schooling. Hajj Afa Ajura’s school, the Ambariyya, began in the late 1950s. (I have not been able to establish a more accurate date for the establishment of this school.) However, by the 1970s the Ambariyya had become the largest madrasa in Northern Ghana. Like most madrasas, the Ambariyya began as a Qur’anic school in the corridor of Afa Ajura’s house. Alongside the rote learning method of the traditional Qur’anic school, Afa Ajura taught his students basic grammar. As the number of students grew rapidly during the late 1960s, he purchased a tract of land on the outskirts of Tamale and constructed a two-classroom block that became Madrasat Ambariyya.39 The official innaugruation of the school in 1971 was attended by the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian ambassadors, who donated generously to the school and recommended it to their governments for additional financial support. The Saudi ambassador for instance, recommended that the Saudi government support the school financially, and encouraged Saudi universities to admit Ambariyya students. Egypt also sent a number of teachers to the Ambariyya, further enhancing the school’s reputation in Ghana.40 The prospect of studying in Saudi Arabia encouraged many parents to send their children to the Ambariyya. As mentioned earlier, Afa Ajura combined teaching with reform that was clearly sympathetic to Wahhabi ideas, and this further enhanced the Ambariyya’s appeal among a segment of Tamale Muslims. Like Afa Ajura, Adam Appiedu also initiated his madrasa in the late 1950s after graduating from the Madrasat al-Markaz in Lagos, Nigeria. But while most madrasas during this period taught only Islamic courses, Appiedu’s school included secular courses, particularly English and mathematics. Appiedu’s school can therefore be considered a pioneer in what would become Anglo-Arabic schools, and this school, along with the Ambariyya, is one of the earliest madrasas founded by scholars sympathetic to ideas associated with Wahhabism, although these scholars did not study in the Arab world.41 There were also a number of self-educated men who studied Arabic through correspondence courses, especially those offered by Radio Cairo, called Arabic by Radio.42 Students received printed materials from

39 Alhaji Yussif Alawaihi, personal communication, Tamale, May 25, 2002. 40 Abdulai Iddrisu, “Islamic and Western Secular Education in Ghana,” 340. 41 For a list of Qur’anic school teachers in Kumasi, see Owusu-Ansah, “History of Islamic Education in Ghana,” 64–65. 42 Ahmad Nizaam, personal communication, Kumasi, July 2, 2002.



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Egypt and listened to Radio Cairo’s broadcasting of the lessons on shortwave radio every evening. Ahmad Nizaam was one of these self-educated scholars: I transformed my teacher’s school to a madrasa when I knew very little Arabic grammar. Through Arabic by radio correspondence courses, I learned grammar along with my students. I practiced what I learned the previous night by teaching it to the students while it was still fresh in my mind. I memorized Arabic words by pronouncing them to the students, which they repeated after me. But I became interested in the madrasa primarily because I wanted to help my teacher. Instead of writing the lessons on each student’s wooden tablet (allo), I made them learn the verses together by writing them on a blackboard. The blackboard not only saved time, but also helped weaker students to learn along with others because group repetition facilitated the memorization process.43

Mallam Ibrahim Basha of Tamale was one of these self-educated men who began their teaching careers as Qur’anic school students. Mallam Basha also remained committed to the transformation of madrasas into Anglo-Arabic schooling and pioneered the creation of the Ghana Islamic Education Unit, the madrasa component of the ministry of education. He was particularly instrumental in the development of the northern region’s branch of the Islamic Education Unit in 1987.44 Mallam Ibrahim Basha was a student of Hajj Shuab, the renowned Dagomba scholar who resided at Takoradi in the western region. As an advanced student, Hajj Shuab allowed Basha to teach at the madrasa. Having been influenced by what he observed in secular schools, Basha reorganized the madrasa to incorporate the structure and material culture of secular schools. For example, he replaced the wooden slates with notebooks and pencils, which parents were required to supply, along with printed Qur’ans. The students practiced writing the Arabic alphabet at a very early stage, even as they memorized portions of the Qur’an. Like many of the madrasas that had expanded throughout Ghana during this period, Mallam Basha’s students read these lessons from a chalkboard and copied the lessons into their exercise books. He inspected their writing and awarded grades, which encouraged the students to compete among themselves for higher grades. In addition, quite typical of the characteristic of the madrasa, Mallam 43 Ibid. Also Abdallah Gambo, personal communication, New York, May 2, 2003; Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Nima (Accra), August 4, 1998. 44 Mallam Ibrahim Basha, personal communication, Tamale (Ghana), May 25, 2002. See also Iddrisu, “Islamic and Western Secular Education,” 342; Owusu-Ansah, “History of Islamic Education,” 80.

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Basha composed a school anthem, which the students sang every morning as they marched in lines to their classes; they sang the anthem again to end the day’s lessons. The school’s daily regiment included standing in a parade during which their uniforms were inspected for cleanliness and then they recited prayers from the Qur’an, before marching to their respective classes. He also randomly inspected the students’ hair, teeth, and fingernails for compliance with his basic hygiene guidelines. Students who failed this hygiene inspection were punished and allowed to stay for the day or sent home depending on the severity of their shortcoming.45 This regiment was typical of most madrasas in Ghana and mirrored the public secular school’s daily regiment. After leaving Takoradi, Basha introduced his model to the Nuriyya School at Kumasi, and subsequently in his own school in Tamale, also named Madrasat Nuriyya.46 Although Mallam Basha eventually joined the Sunna movement, the madrasas he had taught at earlier belonged to Tijaniyya scholars; this further indicates the dominance of Tijaniyya educators during this early stage of the development of the madrasa. This point is important in demonstrating that at no point during the early development of the madrasa in Ghana did Wahhabi-inclined reformers achieve a total monopoly over ownership of these schools. However, by the early 1980s, they had begun to dominate madrasa education, primarily because of their own training and because of grants they received from Muslim philanthropists. Yet, even here, we have to recognize that a good number of these Arabophones returned to Ghana and affiliated themselves with the Tijaniyya, either through practice or association, thus helping to sustain the position of the Tijanis in offering Islamic education. Nonetheless, to a large extent, the development of the madrasas became associated with the rise of Wahhabism. Many scholars and teachers sympathetic to Wahhabi ideas saw the madrasa as a means of undermining the Tijaniyya’s social and intellectual network by nurturing a new generation of elites imbued with the Wahhabi dogma.47 Seeing the Qur’anic school system as the foundation for beliefs associated with ilm al-tib or sihr, they believed that the emphasis on exoteric knowledge in the madrasa would eventually eliminate Muslim scholars’ involvement in such practices. We recall that scholars associated with Wahhabism 45 Mallam Ibrahim Basha, personal communication, Tamale (Ghana) May 25, 2002 and August 19, 2006. 46 Ibid. 47 Mallam Sani Murtala, personal communication, Nima (Accra), August 2, 2006.



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preached against these practices and saw the Qur’anic school model as helping to nurture these practices. From their perspective, there were some parallels between traditional Qur’anic pedagogy and some institutions associated with Sufi brotherhoods. Like Qur’anic schools, the tariqas emphasized personal attachment and adulation of the Sufi sheikh. And, like the Qur’anic school teacher whose students offered services in the hope of obtaining blessings for their intellectual and material progress, the Sufi Sheikh’s followers were obliged to offer him gifts and services in the hope that his mystical powers would help them spiritually and materially. The expectation that the Qur’anic teacher possessed some secret formula, which he only offered to his loyal students, in addition to his blessings, reinforced students’ attachment to the teacher in the same way that Sufi initiates became attached to their Sheikh because of the belief that God had endowed the Sheikh with miraculous powers that could be dispensed to loyal followers. The relationship between Sufi initiates and their Sheikh, and that between the Qur’anic schoolteacher and his students can be explored by examining how the tariqa reinforced student-teacher relations.48 Among the Tijaniyya-Hamawiyya in Burkina Faso, this relationship is described as karanbilim (Morrè: literally, studentship) but implies both an intellectual relationship and a spiritual apprenticeship that involves voluntary submission to the Sheikh’s spiritual authority. The phrase sheikha-jama’a (Morrè: the sheikh’s followers) describes the brotherly community of followers who may or may not be initiated into a spiritual relationship with the Sheikh. It was a privilege to be described as sheikha karambigha (the Sheikh’s student), a position reserved for those much closer spiritually to the leader. Usually, these “students” were themselves scholars but had not attained the higher level of spirituality of the Sheikh. Among the Tijanis in Ghana, the more metaphorical almaajirain sheihu (Hausa: the Sheikh’s students) was employed to denote this relationship rather than the more precise mabiyan sheihu (Sheikh’s followers), which is used to describe the Sheikh’ relationship with the community. Thus a wealthy or a more politically powerful member of the community was referred to as the “Sheikh’s student” and not his follower in order to emphasize the submission of the powerful individual to the Sheikh. In other words, other forms of power (exoteric knowledge, wealth, political position, and limited spiritual achievement) remained subservient to the Sheikh’s spiritual power. 48 See Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, especially chapter 3.

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By combining the literal and metaphorical notion of student-teacher relations, the institution of the tariqa guaranteed a hierarchical structure in which the Sheikh remained at the pinnacle. In the tariqa institution, limited knowledge of religious texts is considerably less important than the intimate knowledge of the Supreme Being (ilm al-ma’rifa), although exoteric knowledge of Islamic law has always been the platform for attaining and sustaining spiritual elevation. Similarly, a Qur’anic schoolteacher who is believed to possess powerful secret knowledge (asrar) was highly respected by his students and often attracted students interested in both exoteric and esoteric knowledge. Referring to the relationship between Qur’anic schools and asrar, Mallam Basha observed: Anyone who started his or her education through the Qur’anic school method knew the importance of learning secret numerology because without it the Qur’anic school graduate was useless among his peers. Most scholars trained in the Qur’anic school system prided themselves on their possession of secret formulae, which was seen as a source of prestige as well as economic sustenance. As a result, even those mallams who knew that tibbo (secret science) is haram could not resist it because it helped them feed their families. But the source of this belief in the secret sciences was the Qur’anic school, where students were encouraged to acquire such knowledge either through service to a mallam or by paying for it. To curb this practice it was important to suppress the Qur’anic school method. Like Qur’anic schools, the madrasa encouraged talqin (memorization of the Qur’an), and some Qur’anic schools, though very few, taught Arabic grammar (I learned basic Arabic from my Qur’anic schoolteacher). What separated the madrasa from Qur’anic schooling was the absence of secret knowledge in the madrasa curriculum.49

Moreover, just as the tariqa built and sustained an elaborate network of followers, Qur’anic school students formed a unit that was hierarchically organized with seniors and subordinates, as well as peer support groups crucial for their collective survival during their intellectual formation. This often developed into a network of peers, identical with old student networks in secular schools. Like a tariqa institution, these students saw each other as “brothers.” Many Wahhabi-inclined educators thus saw the traditional Qur’anic pedagogy as inadvertently helping to promote religious heterodoxy. The madrasa model was expected to encourage a new belief in rational exoteric knowledge, while minimizing metaphysical beliefs. To demonstrate

49 Mallam Ibrahim Basha, personal communication, Tamale (Ghana), May 23, 2002.



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a departure from the notion of spiritual mentorship associated with Qur’anic pedagogy, the madrasa impersonalized student-teacher relations and avoided phrases that mimicked Sufi institutions. For example, madrasa students identified more directly with their schools than with their teachers. In Ghana, for example, the more impersonal danmakarantan Nuriyya (Hausa: a student of Nuriyya) replaced the much older attachment to the teacher wherein students identified their source of education with the name of their teacher, such as almaajirin Mallam Nuru (the student of Mallam Nuru, the school’s founder or proprietor). In this example, Nuru, the founder’s name became Nuriyya in the madrasa’s name. The identification of students with the madrasa rather than the teacher also helped diminish the supposed mystical relationship between students and teachers characteristic of Qur’anic schooling.50 For Wahhabi-inclined reformers, the attachment of students to the teacher rather than the school was anachronistic since the school is expected to continue to operate after the teacher’s death. It was partly for this reason that some madrasa proprietors adopted impersonal names rather than the founder’s name. We discussed earlier the founding of schools such as the Ambariyya and Azhariah. Thus, we have Madrasat Ambariyya instead of Madrasat Afa Ajura, for example, although the school was founded by Sheikh Yussif Afa Ajura. This shift, though not as widespread as the above statement might suggest, indicates the need to see a particular madrasa as a permanent institution of knowledge in the same way secular schools were structured to outlast the founder. But the inspiration also came from the Arab world where, during this period, the name “madrasa” was associated with new pedagogical infrastructure distinct from the older ilm and majlis system, although the old system coexisted with the new. The preceding discussion demonstrates the ways Wahhabi-inclined reformers saw the Qur’anic school pedagogy as a potential foundation for fostering beliefs they associated with religious heterodoxy. These characterizations were not entirely accurate. The Qur’anic schools had earlier produced the best scholars and promoted spiritual purity along with the teaching of correct ritual practices. That model also existed throughout the Muslim world. The dismissal of the Qur’anic school system as nurturing irreligious practices is therefore self-serving, since the practice of sihr

50 Sidi Madi Maiga, personal communication, Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), May 2, 2002; Mallam Zakariyya, personal communication, Accra (Ghana), June 19, 2002.

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and ilm al-tib also existed outside the madrasa environment. While the Arabophone elites emphasized the possibility of utilizing the madrasa’s pedagogical model to discourage “irreligious” beliefs, members of the Tijaniyya who were in fact among the first to establish madrasas in Ghana downplayed the dubious connection between the madrasa and a specific doctrinal inclination. For them, the importance of the madrasa was its efficiency, as well as the ways it accommodated the new social and economic environment associated with modernity, such as increasing urbanization and the monetary economy. The madrasa effectively adapted itself to these changes and utilized new pedagogical materials to enhance efficiency. Improvement in print media and transportation during the twentieth century made Islamic literature and instructional materials widely available and cheaper in West African societies. The availability of these materials also encouraged a restructuring of the learning environment to shorten the time spent at each stage of learning.51 The emergence of the madrasa was thus associated with modern pedagogical materials and technology. But there was a local component to these changes that also appeared to derive from the transformation of Muslim societies during colonial rule. The main concerns of Muslim educators that spurred the development of the madrasa included the way the madrasa regiment suited the urban economic structure, social relations, and culture. The madrasa accommodated urban lifestyles and the monetary economy in which teachers needed fees more than students’ services, while parents needed their children to help with household chores. In economic terms, madrasa schooling satisfied the needs of both parents and teachers, and in sociological terms it freed the teacher from being responsible for other people’s children in a difficult urban environment. It was primarily for this reason that in both Ghana and Burkina Faso the madrasa developed more rapidly in urban centers than in the rural areas. The use of uniforms, chalkboards, furnished classrooms, and the charging of fees were items appropriated from the secular school system to make Islamic schooling more effective. These resources not only facilitated the acquisition of Islamic knowledge but also prepared a new scholarly elite capable of integrating local communities with the global Muslim community through their knowledge of Arabic. The appropriation of secular schools’ pedagogical culture demonstrates how Muslims employed 51 Mallam Abdul Samad, personal communication, Nsawam (Ghana), August 13, 2006.



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secular resources to reassert their Islamic identity, thus deflecting Western/ Christian domination. In a sense, then, the madrasa represented Muslims’ response to the advent of new pedagogical models and the availability of intellectual resources that made it possible to train a large number of students efficiently within a short time. For example, students of the madrasa were able to memorize large portions of the Qur’an faster than they could have in a Qur’anic school system. The ability to read Arabic at a younger age, along with the availability of tape-recorded recitations from the Arab world, facilitated the memorization of the Qur’an. By carefully adapting modern structures and pedagogical methods to the needs of Muslim children in the madrasa, these teachers offered Muslim children a modern educational environment within the context of Islam. The madrasa model also made it possible for Muslim educators to compete effectively with modern secular schools in order to maintain Muslims’ interests in Islamic schooling at a time when secular education had become the main source of material success in African societies. It is thus accurate to argue that the transformation of Islamic schooling from the Qur’anic system to the madrasa model was connected with the availability of less expensive pedagogical materials such as books, papers, pencils, chalkboards and even shortwave radios and a postal system that allowed some individuals to acquire Arabic lessons through correspondence courses. The invention of shortwave radio was particularly helpful in reinforcing the acquisition and retention of Arabic as students could listen to news and other programs directly from the Arab world. The shortwave radio also linked West African Muslims with the Arab world both intellectually and doctrinally, and helped to accentuate the influence of modern technology in connecting West African Muslims with their coreligionists in the Arab world. The use of Western technological tools to enhance the Islamic message is quite widespread throughout Africa. In her study of Ivorian Muslim reformers, Marie Miran notes this passionate shift toward modernizing local Islam. Her informants insisted that “real Islam” accommodates modernity by recognizing the importance of combining “faith with reason.”52 From the perspectives of these informants, mostly Arabophone intellectuals, Islam rejects neither rational reasoning nor the benefits of science and technology.53 These reformers thus utilized new information

52 Miran, Islam, histoire et modernité, 454; see also chapter 6. 53 Ibid.

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networks (television, newspapers, radio, and internet resources) to propagate their ideas.54 Elizabeth Hodgkin describes this appropriation: Thus, whether modernist intellectuals or “fundamentalist” in bias, Islamism sees itself as an active, outward looking “revolutionary” movement. What is interesting is how those in the Islamic revival combine traditional with entirely new methods of proselytization. For example, traditional skills of oratory, the use of poetry, the ability to show a certain weight of religious knowledge, are integrated with the modern technology of media: newspapers, radio, TV, cassettes, etc.55

The use of these modern technological tools helped to spread the message and to enhance the status of individual leaders and scholars. The quest to modernize Islamic schooling and accept secular education as a crucial element of Islamic revivalism is also suggested by the increasing popularity of secular courses in the madrasa curriculum; courses that offer the necessary skills for Muslims to operate in the more secular world that they live in. Lamenting the limitations imposed because of his lack of secular education, Hajj Umar remarked, Our desire to revive Islam and to conduct da’wa was undermined by our inability to speak the national language—English or French. We were trained primarily to preach. But the function of a Muslim leader is not only to preach but also to be able to protect their [Muslim] interests at the national level. How could we articulate our grievances to public officials when we do not speak English?56

Another noted, “Illiteracy generates poverty and both encourage superstitious behavior.”57 This statement echoes our discussion on the pivotal roles played by secularly-educated Muslims in the development of Wahhabism in both Ghana and Burkina Faso. Hajj Umar admitted that without these elites, he and his colleagues would have remained mere preachers. In order to justify the importance of secular education and modern technology to the development of Islam, the reformers made references to a popular statement attributed to Prophet Muhammad: “Pursue knowledge even to China.” The Prophet himself was projected as a man for all times and spaces. Muhammed Iqbal, the early twentieth-century Pakistani scholar, described the timelessness of the Prophet Muhammad’s identity and

54 Ibid., 455. 55 Hodgkin, “Islamism,” 207. 56 Hajj Ibrahim Umar, personal communication, Abeka, Accra, June 28, 2006. 57 M. S. Baba, telephone interview, September 2, 2003.



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practices in the following words: “The Prophet of Islam seems to stand between the ancient and the modern world. Insofar as the source of his revelation is concerned, he belongs to the ancient world; insofar as the spirit of his revelation is concerned he belongs to the modern world. In him life discovers other sources of knowledge suitable to its new direction.”58 West African Muslim reformers therefore found no contradictions in marrying tradition with modern technology and discourse, or in utilizing secular pedagogical tools to enhance the efficiency of religious lessons. Starting from the late 1970s, the madrasa reached a new threshold as Muslims saw it as a substitute for secular schools that were believed to negatively effect the religion and culture of Muslim children. Although secular schooling remained the means for material success and social mobility within the secular state, many Muslim parents continued to be concerned about the possibility of their children abandoning Islam as a result of what they might learn in secular schools. Since most of these parents had not attended secular schools, they believed in the myth that secular education had a tendency to discourage its students from observing Islamic norms. The popularity of madrasas from the late 1970s also stemmed from the increasing poverty among urban Muslims. Lacking the means to pay for their children to attend secular schools, the only viable option left for most parents was the relatively less expensive madrasa schools, even if these schools did not prepare students for public employment. As one parent told me, “it is better for the children to have some kind of education than no education at all, after all Islamic education is what God recommended. If my children are unable to obtain government employment, they can teach Islam and God will take care of them the same way He takes care of all those who devote their time to Islam.” Many parents consoled themselves with the belief that Islamic education had two purposes, the most important being to serve God and the umma, and then to be able to earn a humble living. As a result of the high unemployment rate among graduates of secular schools during the 1970s and 1980s, many parents preferred the madrasa, where at least the student acquired moral and religious lessons. For those educated in madrasas, oil wealth in the Arab world provided a new opportunity in the form of scholarships to pursue advanced studies.

58 Mohammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought (Lahore, 1965), 126, quoted by Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 72.

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Local madrasas prepared students for admission to foreign institutions.59 As the madrasas became more established, they also became the filtering institutions for foreign universities that needed to know where to place students. Having been recognized by many Middle Eastern institutions, the large madrasas not only sent their students to these institutions, but also assessed and provided diplomas that stipulated the student’s level of education, in order to help the foreign institutions in placing the student at the appropriate level.60 These factors made the madrasas quite popular among young Muslims, more so than secular schools, precisely because these scholarships sometimes exceeded the salaries of most public servants. At a time when Ghana and Burkina Faso encountered high rates of unemployment, a scholarship to study in the Arab world was far more advantageous than completing a secular education and facing fewer public employment options. However, the decrease in oil revenue during the mid-1980s forced Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting Arab nations to drastically reduce these grants.61 It was during this period that proprietors of madrasas began to expand their curriculum to include secular courses. By the early 1900s, the madrasa system had evolved into religious/secular schools, also called Franco-Arabic and Anglo-Arabic schools. Their curricula included science and mathematics, local languages, and business subjects. These changes allowed Muslims to acquire secular and religious education within an Islamic environment.

59 According to Mahmoud Saleh, the number of foreign students (Africans included) in Saudi universities increased dramatically between the 1970s and 1982. In 1970, they represented 18.6 percent of the total student enrollment, and 23.9 percent in 1982. That year number of foreign students in the kingdom reached 15,730 (only 3,539 were females). Mahmoud Abdullah Saleh, “Development of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia,” Higher Education 15, nos. 1–2 (1986), 22. 60 Hajj Mubarak Abdallah (Zuu Tutugri), personal communication, Tamale, May 23, 2002; Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, Abeka, Accra, August 5, 2006. 61 According to most Arabophone elites, in 1984 or 1985 King Fahd of Saudi Arabia declared that Saudi Arabia would no longer pay foreign graduates of Arabian universities to conduct da’wa in their own societies. He is said to have insisted that since the Kingdom had educated these scholars, it was their responsibility and religious obligation to return and spread Islam among their own people. According to these sources, under pressure from Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, King Fahd agreed to decrease the number of du’at (preachers) sponsored by Saudi Arabia and reduce the number of annual scholarships offered to foreign students rather than abolish the well-established system of sponsoring preachers. As the Chancellor of the Islamic University of Medina, Chairman of the Department for Scientific Research (1975–1992) and later Grand Mufti (1992–1999), Bin Baz was at that time the most influential Saudi scholar.



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Madrasa Schooling and Muslim Fanaticism Since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the madrasa in the Muslim world has been increasingly seen as a source of religious fanaticism, a place for inculcating religious hatred against the West. Indira Gesink describes the situation quite succinctly: According to contemporary media opinion, the problem with Islam, and by implication, with Islamic education, is that it never underwent a reformation that freed individual religious inquiry from the control of a religious hierarchy. Thus, it has been assumed that Islam and Islamic education remain bound to rigid seventh-century codes of belief . . . This opinion is indicative of Eurocentric assumptions and is subject to considerable scholarly debate. First, Islam was never controlled by a single authoritative hierarchy or body; there existed great diversity of belief from early times, and religious personnel served as repositories of oral literature and as legal advisors rather than as absolute moral authorities. Second, many of the religious practices and legal principles that constitute Islam evolved over time as the product of constant reform and adjustment.62

Helen Boyle notes further, . . . after those critical events, issues related to Islamic schools grew from a relatively academic area of study within the fields of education, Islamic studies, and Middle Eastern studies to encompass a more heated public debate, both in the West and in Islamic countries, on the role of these schools in the growth of terrorist groups calling themselves Islamic.63

For many Western observers, therefore, madrasa schooling is one of the main sources of the animosity between the West and the Muslim world. French administrators in West Africa had made a similar argument almost a century ago (as noted in chapter 2). Viewing madrasa schooling, which emphasized mastery of Arabic, as a potential source of religious fanaticism, the French made efforts to channel its development toward the benefit of colonial rule. When this failed, French authorities attempted to obstruct its development and expansion in across Francophone territories.64 Yet the forces that undermined colonialism came not from the

62 Gesink, “Islamic Reformation,” 325. 63 Helen N. Boyle, “Memorization and Learning in Islamic Schools,” Comparative Education Review 50, no. 3 (Aug. 2006), 478. For a specific discussion on Saudi Arabia’s education and anti-Western attitudes, see for example, Michaela Prokop, “Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Education,” International Affairs 79, no. 1 (Jan. 2003): 77–89 and Michael Scott Doran, “The Saudi Paradox,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 2004): 35–51. 64 Harrison, France and Islam; Brenner, Controlling Knowledge.

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products of madrasa, but from mission-trained elites who understood the colonialist’s language and political strategies. Similarly, many observers of Middle Eastern politics would argue that religious fanaticism can be fostered as much in the madrasa as in secular schools. It is now known that the most radical Muslim individuals were not only trained in madrasas, but also in Western secular schools.65 This suggests that other factors besides the madrasa’s pedagogy account for religious intolerance, wherever such intolerance prevailed. The history of madrasa schooling in Ghana and Burkina Faso suggests that the madrasa served as the meeting place between Islamic and Western pedagogical models; Muslims encouraged this integration in order to achieve pedagogical efficiency and nurture a new generation of intellectuals prepared for a modern society. Today, the Ghanaian and Burkinabé ministries of education have incorporated the madrasas institutions into the nations’ educational infrastructures. Many of these schools that met the ministries’ standards receive public funding. Not only have local governments embraced these schools as valid educational institutions, but some international agencies have also offered financial support to these schools. I was surprised to find out that the European Union, for example, has offered grants to a number of these schools throughout Ghana as part of their support for African educational initiatives. Evidently, madrasa schooling in Ghana was not seen by the European Union as an institution that nurtures religious fanaticism. An examination of the transformation of madrasa schooling in Ghana and Burkina Faso thus dispels a popular myth in the West that madrasas nurture and foster anti-Western sentiments. Here we see clearly a different image of this institution that helps in reassessing its functions within Muslim societies and its relationship to ideas of modernity. The discourse and practice of veiling is related to the madrasa and the complex relationship between modernity and Islamic orthodoxy in Ghana and Burkina Faso during the era of independence. Here, we see an ambiguous internalization of the concept of “modern” and “modernity.” Prior to the advent of Wahhabism, young unmarried women in Ghana and Burkina Faso were not required or encouraged to wear the veil or to attend the Friday noon prayers. Veiling was the exclusive domain of married women, which they guarded jealously. However, starting from the early 1980s, Wahhabi-inclined preachers encouraged unmarried young women to cover their hair when in public, arguing that veiling was not 65 M. Karbal, “Western Scholarship and the Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World,” American Journal of the Islamic Social Sciences 10, no. 1 (1993): 49–59.



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limited to age or married status. They also encouraged young unmarried women to attend the Friday noon prayers. However, many mothers were ambivalent about this imposition, for fear that the wearing of the veil by unmarried women might lead potential suitors to assume that the woman was married, thus delaying marriage. Many of the girls who were caught in this dispute remember that they were excited to share in an identity hitherto reserved exclusively for married women, and believed it enhanced their Muslim identity. While the controversy centered on the possibility of confusing a young woman’s matrimonial status, I also learned that many parents objected to these changes because they were uncomfortable with their daughters sharing an adult “privileged identity.” Thus, the madrasa provided some form of empowerment to young women—the madrasas in Ghana and Burkina Faso were open to both sexes indiscriminately—and the opportunity to attend the Friday prayers and wear the veil without charges of karambani (Hausa: behaving like an adult) minimized age differentiation in religious space. To cite one example, Hajia Kande, who attended the madrasa only on the weekends because she attended secular school during the weekdays, recalled: I was always anxious to go to makaranta (madrasa) because I could wear my veil. It was a beautiful veil. My father bought it for me from a Syrian merchant for my fifteenth birthday. People often said that I looked beautiful and modern in my veil. Because it was a new thing in the community, we saw it as modern and we competed over the best way to wear it. Because our mothers did not allow us to veil except when we were going to makaranta or the mosque, I started going to the mosque in the evenings and on Fridays for the juma’a prayer so that I could display my veil. I was always jealous when someone had a prettier veil than mine, I admit. My mother complained that wearing the veil had made me lazy because I was always looking for the chance to go to the mosque instead of staying home to help with the cooking. But it encouraged me to learn Islam at an early age.66

During my research in Ghana, I inquired from a number young woman why they wore headscarf; before I left Ghana in the mid-1980s, young women wore the veil only when they attended the madrasa and were within its vicinity. The responses I received ranged from fulfilling a spiritual requirement to a combination of religious requirement, fashion, and seeking to appear “modern.”67 While some considered it a religious requirement, others saw it as a new fashion that enhanced beauty and chastity, while 66 Hajia Kande, personal communication, Nsawam, October 12, 2001. 67 Interview with a group of women in Accra and Kumasi who were familiar to this writer.

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reinforcing obedience to Islamic law. As a result, today, the importation of veils and women’s garments from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and even China is one of the most lucrative businesses in Ghana, as in many parts of West Africa. In Ghana, this commercial activity is conducted almost exclusively by women. Women invest in being fashionably modern Muslims in ways that cannot be explained by the models employed in gender studies in the West. My preliminary conclusion is that, contrary to the belief that veiling symbolized gender oppression, the issue of veiling is very complex and culturally contingent. The young women I interviewed mostly in Ghana considered veiling a form of “liberation” in the context of modernity; veiling allowed them to share in an adult identity and broke the age barrier in religious practices. I found it revealing that young women embraced veiling without any social pressure to do so, and even when it caused displeasure to their parents, who were genuinely concerned about what might be seen as their daughters’ false matrimonial identity. In the end, veiling was understood as a religious requirement observed by those willing to do so regardless of age or marital status, although it would be awkward in these societies for a married woman to fail to wear a veil while in public. * * * The emergence of Wahhabi-inclined reform was consistent with West Africa’s tradition of spiritual reform and renewal going as far back as the advent of Islam in the region, but these became more vigorous during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.68 Wahhabism was nonetheless unique in the ways it represented a meeting point between local traditions of reform, Salafi/Wahhabi ideas prevalent in the Middle East during the nineteenth-century, and European pedagogical models and intellectual traditions that accompanied colonialism. The trajectories of the various Wahhabi organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso were deeply influenced by these three traditions. Because it arose in West Africa when it did—in its specific context, Wahhabism is distinct from previous reforms pursued by Sufi-inclined reformers. Particularly unique is its attempt to incorporate Western ideas and pedagogical models to enhance the quality of religious education and encourage a new Muslim identity that conformed to the transformation of the society following colonial rule.

68 See for example, Willis, “Jihad fi Sabil Allah”; Curtin, “Jihad in West Africa.”



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I argue that the discourse of this variant of West African reform traditions was a discourse of spiritual purity. Yet, as in other reform movements in the subregion, it was also a discourse of religious and social empowerment at a moment of profound historical change—the advent of the postcolonial state, the popularity of fluency in Arabic, and the dominance of European languages and skills at all levels of the society. The driving force in the agendas pursued by reformers sympathetic to Wahhabism also points to an attempt to wrestle Muslim leadership from established scholarly communities in order to assert new social, cultural, and intellectual models. Wahhabism thus evolved out of a contest over who can articulate Muslims’ interests and what language would appeal to Muslims’ spiritual and cultural sensibilities in the postcolonial state. The end of colonial rule thus represented a moment of potential generational shift, in which younger generations equipped with the knowledge of English or French and fluency in Arabic sought leadership in their societies. It is for this reason that I suggest that we must pay attention to the three legacies or traditions that laid the foundation for the mass appeal of Wahhabism in Ghana and Burkina Faso, and probably the West African subregion as a whole. Those who possessed European languages and skills (Muslims and non-Muslims) saw the end of colonial rule as marking the end of an older power structure derived from traditions. This older power structure had to be replaced by people who possessed a specific knowledge of the new political structure created by European colonialism. Similarly, indigenous intellectuals educated in the heartland of Islam considered their knowledge superior to that which prevailed in their own societies. Based on their fluency in Arabic (and not necessarily extensive knowledge of the Islamic sciences), these elites saw themselves as the natural inheritors of Muslim leadership in the postcolonial state. This is true for Muslims educated in colonial institutions as well. For both the Arabophone and the secularly-educated Muslim elites, Wahhabism provided the means for undermining the Islamic status quo in order to create a new community suited to the modern era as they saw it. In their struggle to assume leadership of Muslim institutions or to contribute their voices to local Islamic communities, this younger generation had no advantage vis-à-vis their leaders. The only tool they had at their disposal was the language and practical application of “modernity” that allowed them to engage in a war of words with the more established elites, a war that paralleled the contest that had taken place between “tradition” and “modernity” in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.

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For the secularly-educated Muslims and their Arabophone coreligionists analyzed in this book, modernity represented a practical idea and a powerful discourse that helped to legitimize the displacement of older elites and older institutions by those who possessed modern knowledge, including secular knowledge. Secular knowledge was a particularly powerful tool at the end of the colonial period; it originated from a liberated domain in which personal ability rather than social origin or pedigree determined mobility within it. For many early Wahhabi adherents, modernity also referred to everyday experiences and expectations, and provided a framework for assessing material progress, social relations, intellectual formation, cultural sophistication, and spiritual piety. Modernity was about a new social and cultural attitude, it was about change. They took it for granted that appropriating European ideas into the religious domain and replacing indigenous customs and mannerisms with those of the Arab world might be controversial or even perhaps reinforce Eurocentric arguments that Africans were borrowers and not inventors. Not having been exposed to racism and the painful implications of the neglect by European scholars of Africans’ historical achievements, many of those who encouraged the appropriation and refashioning of European ideas did not seem concerned about ideological correctness. What seemed to matter to them was the utilization of their knowledge to serve Islam regardless of the origin of those ideas. We therefore cannot ignore the evidence that in their search for a strategic balance between orthodoxy and practical knowledge, West African Muslims in general but Wahhabi-inclined elites in particular did not reject pragmatic ideas from their colonial past just because those ideas originated from a non-Muslim milieu. Rather, they sought ways to Islamize these ideas. Here I raise the question Leila Ahmad posed decades ago: “And why should any human being be asked to do without some useful invention, political, technological, or of any kind, because it originated from among some other tribe?”69 Indeed, Muslim intellectuals developed their polemics within the context of this Enlightenment discourse inherited by the modern Western world: At least as regards the Islamic world, the discourses of resistance and rejection are inextricably informed by the languages and ideas developed and disseminated by the West to no less a degree than are the languages of those

69 Leila Ahmad, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 237.



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openly advocating emulation of the West or those who . . . are critical of the West but nonetheless ground themselves in intellectual assumptions and political ideas, including a belief in the rights of the individual, formulated by Western bourgeois capitalism and spread over the globe as a result of Western hegemony. . . . The revitalized, reimagined Islam put forward by the Islamic militants . . . is an Islam revitalized and reimagined as a result of its fertilization by and its appropriation of the languages and ideas given currency by the discourses of the West.70

Nonetheless, the local origins of this process of appropriation and refashioning of external ideas should not be underestimated. In the same way the Egyptian nahda, for example, sought to transform Muslim institutions to respond more forcefully to European cultural hegemony, twentiethcentury West African reformers sought ways to diminish European cultural domination on Muslims by utilizing the very discourses that Europeans had employed earlier to justify colonial rule. It is in this context that the involvement of Muslim professionals in the development of Wahhabism in Ghana and Burkina Faso, and indeed, in the West African subregion as a whole helps to illustrate the complexity of Wahhabi reform and the ways its adherents drew intellectual resources from both internal and external sources to legitimize their arguments and to attract followers. Through an analysis of their role in the genesis of local variants of Wahhabism, we see a careful recasting of ideas and symbols of modernity that the nationalist movements had conjured earlier to galvanize support for the anti-colonial struggles. These elites employed their practical skills to create a national religious movement modeled along Western bureaucratic structures with Wahhabism as its main dogma and cultural identity. In doing so, they revealed to Wahhabi-oriented Arabophone scholars that Islamic purity did not have to exclude modern ideas rooted in Western discourse, or even confine itself to a conservative dogma. As lynchpins in the early phase of the development of various Wahhabi organizations, they attested that Western or secular ideas could be rehabilitated to serve Islam in a modern context and reduce any contradictions that seemed to exist between Islamic purity and material concepts and resources. By deemphasizing the contradictions embedded in the relationship between Western notions of “modernity” and the ancient traditions of the Prophet Muhammad’s era, these urban Muslim professionals helped to transform the Wahhabi message into a powerful instrument that 70 Ahmad, Women, 235–36.

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facilitated their insertion into the religious hierarchy that had hitherto been a domain of religious elites. A careful analysis of the intersection of some salient ideas derived from European education into the Wahhabi agenda (such as the inclusion of democratic principles in selecting the organization’s leadership, the adoption of bureaucratic institutional arrangements, etc.) allows us to suggest that the movement’s fundamental trust derived not only from its anti-Sufi polemics or the financial resources it obtained from wealthy Arab nations and individuals, although these were also important, but also from the ways it tapped into the repertoire of the nationalist discourse of modernity and “anti-tradition” to articulate religious, cultural, and social transformations. For their part, the Arabophone elites had recognized the importance of secular knowledge and modern institutions in the success of their missions. They were not prepared to return to old ways of doing things, rather they embraced innovative strategies that enhanced the quality of their spiritual, intellectual, and social existence. For this reason, they readily adapted Islamic schooling to postcolonial contexts, even when that meant appropriating the new pedagogical tools that had enhanced the efficiency of secular schools. Similarly, their references to ideas coming from the Arab world strategically reinforced the intellectual and spiritual connections between local Muslims and their coreligionists in the Arab world. * * * In the preceding chapters, I have argued that Wahhabi-inclined reforms in Ghana and Burkina Faso emerged from local debates over Islamic orthodoxy as well as Muslims’ aspirations for cultural transformation and intellectual development. Wahhabi preachers attracted followers mostly in the urban centers precisely because they articulated a new vision that seemed to respond more forcefully to the conditions in which Muslims found themselves at the end of the colonial period. I argue that Wahhabism was distinct from other reforms particularly because of the colonial and early postcolonial contexts within which it developed. The active participation of Muslims educated in secular schools established by colonial educators reveals this distinction more clearly. These elites’ understanding of religious reform was connected with the notions of social equality, individual liberty, the rejection of customs and beliefs associated “superstition,” and a preference for rational explanations of religion and natural phenomenon. Although identical ideas existed in all Islamic reforms, they seem to have been more forcefully articulated by Wahhabi preachers in ways that made sense to many urbanized Muslims, especially those educated in colonial institutions.



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Although Islamic reforms involved the search for a religious purity that accords to the pristine Islam of the Prophet Muhammad’s era, the twentieth-century reforms also sought new ways of practicing Islam that not only conformed to the teachings of the Prophet, but also worked in the specific conditions of Muslims during the twentieth century. The aspiration for modernity, whether articulated by European colonizers, indigenous nationalist leaders, or Muslim modernizers in the Arab world, had become too deeply rooted in the psyches of most Africans to be ignored. Thus, more secularized Muslims sought not a return to the prevailing Islamic customs, but rather to some form of Islam that seemed to respond to the overbearing but enticing discourse and practices of modernity. This yearning for modernity led the secularly-educated elites to quickly embrace Wahhabi preachers, especially those educated in the Arab world, whose ideas seemed not only authentic, but also strategic in a broader program of cultural and social transformation. The pressure to conform to European notions of “progress” was so strong that these elites neglected to reflect on the degree to which they had internalized the negative stereotypes of African Islamic customs propagated and reinforced through colonial education (more in chapter 9). Scholars sympathetic to Wahhabi/Sunna doctrine and their secularlyeducated cohorts also shared some common elective affinities that made Wahhabism appealing.71 First, their intellectual formations occurred under a pedagogical structure that was markedly different from indigenous Islamic pedagogy (see chapter 7). Second, the Muslim elites educated in European institutions and the Wahhabi preachers had been trained to look down on indigenous traditions and admire foreign cultures, identities, and achievements, and sought ways to introduce these into their own societies. Third, both elites saw an opportunity in the emerging postcolonial state to create new institutions that would help them implement their vision of what they believed constituted authentic Islam amenable to the new African context. Wahhabism provided the theological justifications for the creation of such institutions as well as powerful arguments for seeking to dislodge Muslim communities from the established ulama. Yet, in appropriating and localizing external ideas, they unwittingly undermined indigenous traditions and thus left room for their own ideas to be challenged by future generations. While the emphases on renewing one’s faith by returning to the Sunna and the Qur’an were in some ways appealing, the appropriation of Western modernity, the insistence on 71 Kobo, “The Development of Wahhabi Reforms.”

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Middle Eastern customs, and even the failure to acknowledge the plurality of the Prophet’s traditions, exposed the internal contradictions embedded in the movement. These contradictions undermined the movement’s intellectual and theological foundations during the 1990s.

Part Four

A New Phase of Wahhabism, 1990 to Present

Introduction to part four I begin this section with a discussion of the declining influence of Wahhabism. The late 1980s witnessed the decline of what may be described as cooperative Wahhabism, in both Ghana and Burkina Faso. The GIRRC was dissolved in 1986 after latent conflicts between the secularly-educated elites and the Arabophone scholars reached an unsettling level. That same year, conflicts between Adam Appiedu and the Ghana Muslim Mission in Kumasi brought Adam Appiedu’s influence in that organization to an end, and saw the weakening of the organization’s earlier cohesion among members in Kumasi. Adam Baba passed away in 1988, and that same year the Azhariah community encountered internal dissension. In Burkina Faso, the resignation of the Mouvement Sunnite’s national president, Souleymane Ouédraogo, in 1988, set the stage for the organizations’ slow but ultimate disintegration. There were no discernible mutual influences among these events, except that the decline of these organizations reflected a decline in the mass appeal of Wahhabism throughout West Africa and in other parts of the Muslim world. The collapse of these organizations gave rise to new Arabophone elites who remained somewhat sympathetic to the Wahhabi dogma, but distanced themselves from their predecessors’ radical approach to reform. This shift became more evident from the late 1980s, when some inconsistencies within the Wahhabi polemics against the Tijaniyya began to unravel. If the early phase of Wahhabism was marked by extensive appropriation, this tendency began to diminish during the 1990s when younger elites sought to re-indigenize the reform discourse and attitudes. The adoption of Middle Eastern and Gulf cultural attitudes and costume particularly came under severe criticism. The new mode of expression had to take into account the values of indigenous customs that did not contradict the core tenets of Islam. Wahhabism had to be localized without undermining its spiritual essence.

Chapter eight

From Rejection to Coexistence Wahhabiyya is a religious revolution in decline. Like all revolutions, it initiated change but failed to embrace change. The teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (may God be pleased with him) revived the Prophet’s Sunna at a time when its practice had declined sharply and many Muslim scholars ignored the prevalence of inexcusable bid’a and shirk. His teachings also laid the foundation for the anti-colonial sentiments expressed by Muslims throughout the world. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was therefore a genuine mujaddid. Some of his followers, however, became arrogant from the power and influence they obtained as a result of their alliance with the Saudi kingdom. In their efforts to radically revive Sunna, many of his followers failed to study Islam deeply enough to appreciate the multiplicity of practices that are universally acknowledged as valid. As a result, they failed to reinvigorate the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in ways that would have allowed his legacy to remain positive and everlasting throughout time.1

It was evident throughout West Africa during the 1990s that Wahhabism had lost its initial steam. Explaining this phase of the Wahhabi movement’s gestation is therefore crucial for understanding its trajectory in a long dureé as well as the transformative nature of West African traditions of Islamic reform and renewal. Such a transformative tendency also reflects the history of various Wahhabi-oriented Islamist movements globally, as the above statement by a former Wahhabi/Sunna activist suggests. From this perspective, Gilles Kepel is quite accurate that “Islamism,” a term I resist using because of its political connotations, declined during the last decade of the twentieth century.2 However, I depart from his main thesis that the waning of Islamism produced a violent reaction by some of its proponents who were poised to prevent its ultimate demise by transforming the hitherto internal jihad against other Muslims into a global jihad against the Western world.3 Rather, the evidence from many parts of 1 Name withheld. 2 See Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony Roberts (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006). See also David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009); Natana DeLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 3 See Kepel, Jihad, vii. See also Doran’s remark in “The Saudi Paradox,” 33. “If the attacks on the United States represented a change in radical Salafi tactics, then one must

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West Africa suggests that this new phase of Wahhabism was characterized by an emphasis by younger Arabophone elites on moderation, accommodation, and coexistence with other Muslims, as well as on a recognition of the modern secular state. A number of scholars have reached a similar conclusion in their studies of other West African Muslim societies.4 A critical appraisal of the mutations of Islamic movements therefore must take into account the historical and spatial contexts in which specific groups emerged and evolved. It is also important not to lose sight of the fact that Islamic reform is primarily a religious commitment pursued by individuals who expect an eternal and not a worldly reward from their activities. Likewise, Muslims’ struggles for religious purity cannot be explained fully by concepts derived from the pursuit of worldly matters. Thus, as I emphasize in this chapter, contrary to ideas in the West that teleologically consider Wahhabism a monolithic and static belief system antagonistic to the Western world, the West African variants of Wahhabism are dynamic across time and space. Here, Wahhabism went through a full cycle from radical rejection of Sufism to accommodation of Sufi practices and leadership, and from uncritical denunciation of indigenous customs to recognition of indigenous expressions of Islam, even as many preachers sought to separate authentic faith from indigenous belief systems. This shift began in the late 1980s when a large number of Arabophone scholars returned home with new ideas markedly different from those of their predecessors. Declaring that earlier Wahhabi scholars went astray by adopting radical and provocative methods of preaching and imposing foreign customs on indigenous Muslims, these Arabophone elites encouraged religious coexistence. They considered it a more authentic practice of the Sunna, supported by both the Qur’an and hadith, than the approach pursued by their predecessors. Furthermore, whereas earlier generations of Wahhabi preachers isolated themselves from the larger Muslim community, which they declared heretical, this younger generation emphasized integration and solidarity. And whereas earlier Wahhabi scholars declared other Muslims infidels or apostates on account of their failure to

wonder what prompted bin Laden and Zawahiri to make that change. The answer is that the attacks were a response to the failure of extremist movements in the Muslim world in recent years, which have generally proved incapable of taking power (Sudan and Afghanistan being the major exceptions).” 4 Miran, Islam, histoire et modernité; Kane, Muslim Modernity; Leonardo Villalón, Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).



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abide by a specific interpretation of the Sunna, this younger generation condemned such uncritical declarations of takfir as contrary to the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunna. Moreover, the denunciation of Muslims as infidels contributed to a weakening of the Muslims’ collective approach to meeting a myriad of challenges, such as persistent poverty, the attraction of Western culture among Muslim youth, and the aggressive proselytism of Christian evangelists seeking to convert Muslims to Christianity. It was this change in attitude, which came with a generational shift among local Islamic intellectuals, that precipitated a decline in the mass appeal of Wahhabism, especially in urban centers. By the end of the millennium, Wahhabism as we know it between the 1970s and early 1980s, which was characterized by radical opposition to the Sufi brotherhoods and local Islamic customs, had declined significantly, having been replaced by a more moderate and accommodating amorphous movement, sometimes indistinguishable from other non-Sufi oriented Muslim groups, although its adherents were still seen as Wahhabi or Ahl al-Sunna. The present chapter analyzes this shift in the Wahhabi reform agenda. I begin by examining the disintegration of the major organizations discussed in chapters 5 and 6. I then discuss, albeit briefly, the shifting discourse of takfir among this generation. A core strategy of most Wahhabi-inclined reformers, like many of the earlier Sufi-led reforms, centered on the declaration of takfir (dismissing other Muslims as polytheists on account of minor or major religious deviations), in order to justify excluding them from the community or repressing their activities. I discussed this classical debate in the introduction, noting the complexity of the argument related to a selected group of reformers—Ibn Taymiyya, al-Maghili, Hajj Salim Suwari, Umar Tall, and Uthman dan Fodio. Here, I further interrogate the complexity of the concept with reference to the mutations of Wahhabi reform. The Search for Coexistence and the Dissolution of the Mouvement Sunnite (1988–1998) Maïmouna Dao identified two factors that precipitated the decline of the Mouvement Sunnite in Ouagadougou. The most important catalyst, as she rightly points out, was a dispute between the organization’s president, Souleymane Ouédraogo, and his deputy, Iddrissa Semdé; the dispute fueled a scandal that was initially generated by Souleymane Ouédraogo’s invitation to Tabligh Jama’at to conduct da’wa in Ouagadougou, and

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culminated in the collapse of the organization.5 My research revealed the interplay of a number of factors including those identified by Dao. For example, while the invitation to the Tabligh widened the pre-existing rift between Souleymane and his deputy, there is also evidence that most of the organization’s leadership were already uncomfortable with Souleymane’s overture toward other Muslim groups, especially his insistence that Mouvement Sunnite preachers tone down their diatribe against other Muslims. In the course of my research I learned that during the early 1980s, Souleymane had begun to express a desire for reconciliation between the Mouvement Sunnite and other Muslim groups. It was for this reason that he invited Tabligh Jama’at to Ouagadougou in the hope that their persuasive arguments about the importance of Muslim unity would help promote the peaceful coexistence and solidarity he envisioned. As the president of the Mouvement Sunnite, Souleymane Ouédraogo had had the opportunity to represent the organization in meetings and conferences across the Muslim world. During these travels, he realized that the issues that divided Muslims in Burkina Faso into doctrinal factions were essentially trivial in other societies where different doctrinal orientations coexisted without animosities.6 For example, in 1985, he attended a conference in Senegal organized by the Federation of Islamic Associations of Senegal (FAIS), an umbrella organization formed by the country’s thirtythree Muslim organizations.7 His experience at this conference energized him to use that model to encourage religious coexistence among Muslims in Burkina Faso as well. In 1986 he joined the leaders of the Hamawiyya and the Communauté Musulmane to discuss the possibility of creating a similar forum in Burkina Faso so that Muslims could speak with one voice in addressing their concerns with the government. However, this proposal was rejected by his colleagues in the Mouvement Sunnite, especially the older generation Arabic scholars, who insisted they would not unite with mushrikun.8 His encounter with the Tabligh Jama’at reinvigorated his

5 Dao, “Le Wahhabisme.” 6 Mahmoudou Ouédraogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 5, 2002. Mahmoudou was a personal friend of Souleymane. 7 This federation, founded in 1962, was named the Federation of National Muslim Associations of Senegal; it changed its name to FAIS in 1974. For discussion of FAIS, see Loimeier, “Cheikh Touré.” 8 Aboubakar Sana, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 2, 2002; Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 6, 2002. Also telephone conversation with Salifou Ouédraogo, September 2, 2004.



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agenda and it was for this reason that he invited them to Ouagadougou to convince his community of the centrality of Muslim unity to the authentic practice of the Sunna. Souleymane had attended a conference in Paris in 1987 organized by Tabligh Jama’at, an organization founded in India in 1920, and now one of the largest Islamic missionary organizations in the world. Impressed by their message of solidarity, Souleymane invited them to Burkina Faso to conduct da’wa. Early in 1988, a contingent of the organization arrived in Ouagadougou for a month-long mission. It seemed that his colleagues were not informed in advance of the visit. At any rate, some of the senior members of the Mouvement Sunnite organized a protest and obtained the support of the Saudi Arabian consular officer to pressure Souleymane to find other hosts for his guests.9 Declaring the Tabligh a covert Sufi brotherhood responsible for secretly propagating Sufism in Asia, the senior members of the Mouvement Sunnite did not want to meet the guests or allow them to preach in the Sunna mosque. As the controversy ignited, latent power struggles arose among the leadership and threatened to fragment the organization, Souleymane resigned and advised his guests to leave.10 Most of my informants, including former members of the Mouvement Sunnite, however, insisted that the Tabligh debacle was used as an excuse to justify the expulsion of Souleymane, who, during this period, had been demanding that the Mouvement Sunnite preachers tone down their harsh sermons against other Muslims. The testimonies of these informants suggest that on returning from a trip to the Arab world around 1986, Souleymane tried to convince his colleagues to accommodate other Muslims by pointing to the fact that some of the practices they declared haram, including the Sufi zikr, observing the mawlid, the use of rosaries, and the observations of extended funeral rites, were common practices in many parts of the Muslim world and therefore should not continue to divide Muslims.11 According to Aboubacar Sana, who completed his studies at the Islamic University of Medina, some of the Mouvement Sunnite’s preachers saw Souleymane’s overtures toward other Muslims as a betrayal

  9 Dao, “Le Wahhabisme,” Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, April 6, 2002. 10 In the early 1980s, Tabligh was emerging as a powerful Muslim missionary group rivaling the Saudi-sponsored Ahl al-Sunna; this explains the Saudi consular’s involvement in the dispute. 11   Mouctar Cissé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 2, 2002.

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of the organization’s mission and therefore sought an excuse to expel him. The Tabligh incident provided the excuse.12 Unity was particularly crucial for Muslims during the revolutionary regime of Captain Thomas Sankara. In 1984, Captain Thomas Sankara (1983–88) initiated a revolutionary program that sought, in addition to the economic and social development of the country, to empower the disenfranchised (women and youths) and encourage them to break-off from what he considered burdensome traditions. With the support of Sankara’s government, young revolutionaries, mostly Christians, criticized Muslim leaders for exploiting their followers and for oppressing women.13 Claiming to liberate women from the shackles of religious repression, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), organized and led by the youths, ordered Muslim women to cast off their veils because veiling symbolized oppression.14 Some members of the CDR also organized public concerts in which the actors derided local religious leaders, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Qur’an. In 1985/86 the government also introduced a weekly lottery and demanded that all citizens help raise funds for local development by purchasing tickets for the lottery.15 Though lotteries are prohibited by Islam as a form of gambling, the Muslim leaders failed to convince the government to exempt them from the program. Seeking to avoid humiliation by the CDR, many Muslims purchased the lottery tickets. The revolution of 1984 therefore exposed Muslims’ vulnerability and forced a number of Muslim leaders to reassess the degree to which doctrinal controversies had weakened their ability to respond to political repressions as a group. For Souleymane and other leaders, the time was ripe for unity. Yet his organization, which had begun as a radical religious reform, had become too anchored in its self-acclaimed spiritual superiority to join other Muslims in a collective struggle against the unprecedented repression of Muslims by a postcolonial government. Thus, while the Tabligh’s visit was the most obvious catalyst that precipitated the movement’s decline, the organization’s resistance to change at a moment when younger Arabophones were adopting conciliatory approaches to conducting da’wa played an important role in laying the foundation for its ultimate decline. Events in Ghana around the same time suggest that 12 Aboubacar Sana, personal communication, Ouagadougou, July 19, 2006. 13 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, April 2, 2002. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.



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Wahhabism had entered a new phase characterized by the search for solidarity, and this search undermined its core dogma that insisted on separation from other Muslims as part of ensuring religious purity. The Search for Coexistence and the Decline of Wahhabism in Ghana The events in Ghana leading to the disintegration of many of the major Wahhabi-inclined organizations were identical with those of Burkina Faso. In 1986, the spiritual head of the GIRRC, Hajj Umar Ibrahim, agreed to attend a reconciliation meeting with Tijaniyya leaders in Kumasi. After consulting with some of the Arabic scholars, and without informing the non-Arabophone leaders, Hajj Umar left Accra to attend the meeting that was to be held at the Kumasi Central Mosque. Having arrived during juma’a (the obligatory Friday congregational prayer), Umar joined the congregation and prayed behind the mosque’s Tijaniyya imam. Umar had earlier called Tijani scholars mushrikun (polytheists) and warned his followers not to pray behind such imams because they were equivalent to “infidels.”16 Hajj Umar’s visit and the reconciliation that took place not only surprised his colleagues in Kumasi, who were not informed of the arrangement, but also scandalized the Wahhabi/Sunna communities in both Accra and Kumasi, where youths associated with the Tijaniyya took to the streets in jubiliation over Umar’s putative submission to Tijaniyya authority. By the time of his return to Accra, the Wahhabi/Sunna leaders in Kumasi had dispatched a delegation to express their anger. Equally irritated that they too were not informed, members of the Executive Council of GIRRC organized a disciplinary committee, comprised mostly of secularly-educated cohorts, to reprimand Umar for failing to follow proper protocol.17 According to a member of this committee: Umar betrayed us when he prayed behind that imam because he had told us that praying behind Tijaniyya imams was tantamount to praying behind an idol worshiper. Besides, our members in Kumasi were not even informed of his meeting with the Tijaniyya leaders. His action, whatever the reasons, left

16 According to most of the Arabophone scholars in Ghana, the prohibition against praying behind a Tijaniyya imam had been issued in Saudi Arabia in the form of a fatwa by Bin Baz. According to former students of the Islamic University of Medina, Bin Baz argued that since the Tijaniyya was considered heretical, praying behind a Tijaniyya imam was equivalent to praying behind a non-Muslim. 17 Kobo, “The Development of Wahhabi Reforms.”

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chapter eight us humiliated and defenseless because it suggested that we did not believe in what we preached. Our followers in Accra and Kumasi were outraged. Therefore, to prevent further disputes, we invited him to explain his action in order for us to apologize to other members on his behalf. During our first meeting he did not give us an “appealing response” so we decided to call for a general meeting and announce his lack of discipline. The constitution stated that all members were equal and he had taught us that we were all equal and must be responsible for our conduct. Like the rest of us, Umar must be responsible for his conduct. We were neither prepared to accept the Animal Farm kind of relationship that set different standards for different people nor to allow individuals to violate the rules with impunity.18

Umar explained that he did not want to miss the obligatory Friday noon prayer by traveling to the Sunna mosque located several miles away. He further explained that since his mission was to reconcile his followers with the Tijanis, it was appropriate to pray in their mosque to demonstrate his commitment to the impending reconciliation. Members of the Executive Council were unconvinced and insisted on reprimanding Umar at a general meeting to show other members that no one was above the organization’s bylaws.19 Umar’s followers among the Arabophone elites, mostly his former students, as well as the organization’s youth wing stood firmly behind him. Calling the secularly-educated leaders “illiterate” because they had no religious training that qualified them to lead an Islamic organization, they demanded the dissolution of the Executive Council. While members of the committee were waiting for Umar to appear at the hearing, the organization’s youth wing stormed the office and walked away with all the property they believed belonged to the organization.20 Leaving the secularly-educated leaders with an empty office and no followers, the Arabophone elites, with the support of the youth wing, transferred their activities to the Islamic center still under construction.21 According to a lawsuit filed by members of the defunct Executive Council, Hajj Umar organized the youths to overthrow the Executive Council in order to prevent a planned auditing of the Mosque Cons­ truction Committee that he headed, which they claimed had embezzled

18 I. A. Barro (deputy director of GIRRC), personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 2, 2002. 19 Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communication, Abeka, Accra, June 6, 2002; also telephone conversation on September 20, 2009. 20 I. A. Barro, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 2, 2002. 21 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 3, 2002.



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the organization’s funds.22 Umar denied instigating their dismissal or embezzling the organization’s funds. He maintained that the youths were angry because the secularly-educated leaders had overstayed their mandate and had failed to organize elections to transfer power to others. Some had also informally left the organization earlier to pursue political careers.23 By dismissing the Executive Council and eliminating the role of secular education in the organization’s leadership, Arabophone elites assumed full control of the organization. In transferring the organization’s property to the Islamic center, Hajj Umar and his followers ostensibly claimed ownership of the Islamic center as well. The dissolution of the original GIRRC gave birth to GIRRC II (not an official name), which was distinguished by the virtual absence of the secularly-educated elites in the organization’s leadership.24 Hajj Umar assumed leadership of GIRRC II and appointed a committee of nine members selected from among the Arabophone elites to administer the new organization.25 Our interest here is not to re-examine these internal disputes but to explore the intellectual shifts that reshaped the organization during this period. The incident reveals a simmering conflict between the secularlyeducated founding members and the Arabophone intellectuals over legitimate leadership. But it also suggests the new attitude toward Muslim unity championed by the Arabophone elites, an attitude that many of the old guard ostensibly did not endorse. This might explain Hajj Umar’s refusal to inform them about his trip to Kumasi and his reluctance to involve any of the Wahhabi leaders in that city in the reconciliation. Between 1986 and 1996, Hajj Umar remained the virtual leader of the Arabophone elites. However, GIRRC II also began to crumble when Hajj Umar and the young Arabophone intellectuals disagreed over a number of issues, including the need to de-emphasize Saudi influence in the organization’s identity. As many of them informed me, the provocative preaching methods of the older generation Wahhabi/Sunna scholars, as well as

22 Lawsuit no. 639/1989, filed at the Superior Court of Judicature in the High Court of Justice, Accra, 19 April 1989. Statement of Claim, paragraph 10 (a, b, c, d, and e). 23 Lawsuit no. 639/1989, filed at the Superior Court of Judicature in the High Court of Justice, Accra, 22 May, 1989. Statement of Defense of Defendants, paragraghs 10 (a, b, and c) and paragraph 11. 24 In their lawsuit, Umar’s opponents did not contest the continued use of the name Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center, and its abbreviated form, “Research.” 25 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 1, 2002; Also Mallam Zakariyya, personal communication, Accra, August 1, 2006.

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GIRRC’s close affiliation with Saudi institutions made them uncomfortable. Following an incident in 1997, many of them left the organization and committed their energy to developing the Majlis (discussed below). It seems clear that their attempt to indigenize the organization and to maintain a reasonable detachment from Saudi Arabia was resisted, at least earlier, by Hajj Umar and his immediate allies. After their departure, Umar renamed the organization Ahl al-Sunna wa Jama’a and assumed complete control over its activities and gathered his own cohort of Arabophones.26 Some of the other organizations sympathetic to Wahhabism in Ghana also experienced internal crises. In 1988, members of the Ghana Muslim Mission sued Adam Appiedu for claiming ownership of some of the community’s properties. The Azhariah also faced a similar crisis when, immediately after the death of Adam Baba in 1988, a majority of its members challenged his family for claiming the organization’s assets.27 The Ambariyya in Tamale was the only major Wahhabi-inclined community that survived internal conflicts. This was because Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura quickly transferred the leadership to younger generation Arabophones and did not make a personal claim over the organization’s assets, at least that we currently know about. While leadership rivalry and claims to communal properties made by individual leaders are important in explaining the collapse of many of the Wahhabi/Sunna organizations examined here, it appears that the difficulty of embracing a new strategy of reconciliation, accommodation, and coexistence explains more forcefully the collapse of the largest organizations. The examples of Hajj Umar and Souleymane Ouédraogo led me to note the new shift toward Muslim solidarity and coexistence envisioned by Hajj Umar and Souleymane, and to see the role that this shift played in the collapse of their organizations. Both Hajj Umar and Souleymane had attempted to encourage other members of their communities to reunite with other Muslim communities, and these attempts initiated the collapse of their organizations. Interestingly, whereas in Burkina Faso it was the non-Arabophone leadership that sought reconciliation with other Muslim groups, in Ghana it was the Arabophones who sought reconciliation and were opposed by the secularly-educated leadership. Their discouragement of a reconcilation between Umar and the Tijanis is quite inexplicable. An

26 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 4, 2002; Mallam Zakariyya, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 4, 2002. 27 Alhaji Sarki, personal communication, Tafo, Kumasi, June 13, 2002 with Alhaji Usman present.



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alternative explanation is that these elites were frustrated by some contradictions in the Wahhabi message that had begun to unravel during this period; Umar’s secret visit to Kumasi being among a chain of events that led them to suspect the sincerity of their Arabophone colleagues. Evidently, by the end of the 1980s, the unity between Arabophone and secularlyeducated elites that facilitated the development of national Wahhabi organizations in both countries had collapsed, and the Arabophones assumed full control of what remained of the organizations. A related factor in explaining the disintegration of many of the Wahhabi/ Sunna organizations concerned their failure to sustain the support of younger Arabophone intellectuals who had returned home with a new vision that emphasized the unity of the umma. Many of these younger intellectuals who had lived and studied in various parts of the Muslim world at the height of the Iranian revolution of 1979 had acquired a new perspective on the importance of the solidarity of the Sunni umma. On the one hand, their education in the Sunni Muslim world taught them to reject Shi’ism. But the Iranian revolution was also quite empowering for Muslims, as Khomeini’s challenge to the West made many in the Sunni world surreptitiously proud. Yet, the Iran-Iraq war also exposed sectarian divisions in the Arab world that had, until then, been overlaid by a presumed universal umma.28 The Iranian revolution, which was followed by unrelated revolutions in both Ghana (1982) and Burkina Faso (1983), encouraged many of the younger Arabophone elites to reconsider issues of nationalism and to explore the complexity of the relationship between politics, social development, and religion. These elites had also observed a variety of Islamic cultures in the Arab world, and these observations had convinced them of the heterogeneity of Islamic cultures. They therefore refused to consider the “Gulf Islamic culture” as the standard to be emulated by all Muslims, since in the course of its expansion Islam had evolved into a myriad of culturally contingent practices. For these elites, West Africa was not an exception and they should therefore respect the Muslim cultural values that had evolved in their respective societies.29 Furthermore, during their studies in the Arab world, some of them came into contact with Sufism and embraced it or became sympathetic to it. Some also returned from their studies to assume leadership of the Tijaniyya organizations founded earlier by their grandparents. In Burkina Faso, Sheikh Aboubacar Maiga II became the leader of the Rahmatoulaye 28 Conversation with Sheikh Dawud Nuhu, Kumasi, June 14, 2002. 29 Dr. Aboubacar Doukouré, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 12, 2002.

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branch of the Hamawiyya, and Dr. Aboubacar Doukouré also assumed leadership of the Hamdallahi branch of the Hamawiyya in Ouagadougou from his father.30 Sheikh Aboubacar studied at al-Azhar and then in Mecca, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Hadith and fiqh (theology). Doukouré was among the first group of Burkinabé students to be awarded a Saudi scholarship to study at the Islamic University of Medina in 1967. He graduated in 1983, and was the first Burkinabé to receive a doctorate from that university.31 Both Aboubacar Maiga and Dr. Doukouré were internationally renowned scholars and members of several international Islamic scholars’ associations. These powerful individuals enhanced the credibility of the Tijaniyya, shielded it from the harsh criticisms of those who remained attached to the Wahhabi dogma, and reinforced its dominance. A number of the Arabophones also returned home and were initiated into the Tijaniyya. Mahmoudou Bandé provides a dramatic example. Mahmoudou Bandé began his intellectual career as a student imbued with the Wahhabi dogma. As a young Qur’anic student and the youngest Wahhabi preacher, Bandé was often charged with preaching about issues that many of the senior scholars avoided. As he admitted to me, he was never prudent in his diatribe against the non-Wahhabi leaders, calling them names that he was uncomfortable repeating. As a result, the Communauté Musulmane denied him a scholarship to study in Egypt, which he had won in an open competition (as noted in chapter 5); he later received one through the minister of foreign affairs, who was related to him. Bandé left Burkina Faso in 1972 to study at al-Azhar University. There, he encountered a number of contradictions in the Wahhabi dogma that he would only resolve much later. At home, our organization spread the message that smoking was haram and smokers were destined for hell. We arrived in the Arab world and found even teenagers smoking cigarettes in public even in al-Azhar. We were told not to squat before our elders because that sign of reverence was reserved only for God and those who bow to other humans would go to hell. But at al-Azhar, we saw students bowing, squatting, and kissing their teachers’ hands. This is the ultimate gesture of reverence in Arab culture [equivalent to Africans’ squatting]. We were made to believe that Sufi rituals existed 30 Aboubacar Maiga I was the grandson of Sheikh Maiga (see chapter 1). Sheikh Maiga and Aboubacar Doukouré’s father, Abdoulaye Doukouré, were the two Hamawiyya leaders of Burkina Faso incarcerated by the French in 1940 for allegedly instigating rebellion against the French. ANS 2G41/20, Soudan, Rapport politique annuéle. 31 Aboubacar Doukouré, personal communication, Ouagadougou, March 7, 2002.



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only among Africans and that those who practiced Sufi zikr were heretics. We saw people performing zikr in the Arab world. We were made to believe that divinations and other forms of secret knowledge were practiced only by Africans because they were ignorant of true Islam. We saw people in the Arab world visiting tombs of deceased sheikhs in search of baraka and solutions to worldly needs. We were told that using the rosary in prayers was haram and we were warned not to even touch them. We saw rosaries being sold throughout the Arab world, including in Mecca and Medina, and they are used widely by Muslims from all parts of the world. With this exposure, how do you expect me not to be confused? I was once almost beaten up by my colleagues when I chided them for smoking cigarettes and told them they would burn in hell.32

In other words, contact with Muslims in the Arab world exposed some contradictions in the Wahhabi message as propagated by the early generation preachers. However, Bandé’s experience was much more profound. He shared the following with me during my conversation with him on February 12, 2002. He said, while he was studying in Egypt, he noticed that many Sufi sheikhs would visit al-Azhar and whenever they came to town, the students would visit them and solicit their baraka. This behavior first shocked me and later made me very angry. One day, a popular sheikh from Sudan came to visit and was flocked, as usual, by students as well as visitors, including women, from across Cairo, all of them seeking his baraka. This man had come to town several times and my friends often insisted I went with them. I followed them one day and was appalled by the large gathering and the long queue of people waiting to kiss his hands or solicit his benedictions.33

While waiting for his friends, Bandé decided to join them in the queue just to satisfy his curiosity instead of standing idly by. When my turn came, I squatted in front of him. He asked me what I wanted. I hesitated and said I was a student and that I needed his blessings so that I would be successful in my studies. He asked me if I drank the milk. I was confused. I told him I did not understand. He then touched my head. Within a split second, I saw a dream I had several years ago on the night of laylat al-qadr [the Glorious Night, usually the twenty-seventh day of Ramadan]. He asked me if I remember the milk I drank. I nodded, shaking with fear and confusion.34

32 Mahmoudou Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 21, 2002. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.

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In that dream, the Prophet Muhammad instructed him to teach a large group of women gathered in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. Exhausted from the teaching, he was given a goblet full of milk to drink. The Sheikh did not pray for Bandé, but rather instructed him to continue with his studies until the time comes. He was also told that when the time comes, he would understand what the dream meant.35 Bandé left al-Azhar for the Islamic University of Medina. While there, he remained committed to the Wahhabi/Sunna dogma and was more pleased with the environment in Medina. He paid little attention to the Sheikh’s statement, having dismissed it as product of magic or sorcery. However, he stopped criticizing people who believed in Sufism, and on two occasions, actually visited Sheikh Sidi Muhammad Maiga of Rahmatoulaye when the latter visited Mecca. He also visited him at Ouagadougou. He completed his studies with distinction, and Darul Iftaa appointed him to conduct da’wa in Burkina Faso. However, a few days later, Darul Iftaa cancelled the appointment because it had received a petition signed by a number of the Mouvement Sunnite’s leaders that warned against hiring him because he had become a Tijani. Bandé had not yet become a Tijani, although he appeared to be on verge of conversion, having had another revelation a few months earlier that forced him to revisit the encounter with the Sudanese sheikh. Still seeing himself as a committed Wahhabi who only felt the need to respect the nation’s Muslim leaders regardless of doctrinal affiliation, Bandé felt betrayed by an organization he had helped to build and continued to serve. His real epiphany came a year after the withdrawal of his appointment. This epiphany led to his conversion to the Tijaniyya. During my research in 2002, Mahmoudou Bandé was the foremost adversary of the Mouvement Sunnite. He was considered to be among the leading Tijaniyya scholars in Burkina Faso. Very pious in his attitude and lifestyle, Bandé focused his mission on teaching women, in order to revive Islam in this neglected segment of the Muslim community. Women, he argued, are the lifeline of Islam. “Islam is stronger or weaker depending on the education and active participation of women.” His sermons, recorded on audio cassettes, were critical of the Mouvement Sunnite. He has a large following and organizes an annual celebration of the Prophet’s birthday that attracts people from many parts of the country and beyond.

35 Ibid.



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Mahmoudou Bandé’s experience at al-Azhar was rather typical among young Arabophones in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Generally, those educated in Egypt tended to be sympathetic to Sufism even if they did not embrace it. The series of revelations that culminated in his conversion to the Tijaniyya is rare but not unusual. With his support, the Tijaniyya reached a new height as the Mouvement Sunnite declined. The large number of Arabophones affiliating with the Tijaniyya or seeking accommodation with it helped to revive interest in the Tijaniyya, drawing followers from those who otherwise would have affiliated with a Wahhabi organization. Indeed, with Arabophones now equally distributed between the Tijaniyya and the Wahhabi-inclined organizations, the debate between Wahhabism and the Tijaniyya was no longer between locally-trained scholars and those trained in the Arab world who deployed their fluency to enchant listeners, but among the Arabophones themselves. If the fluency in Arabic had mesmerized some individuals into believing that Wahhabism was more authentic than the Tijaniyya, fluency in Arabic also served the Tijaniyya and reinforced its popularity, which has refused to wane until today. Indigenizing Wahhabi-Inclined Reform in Ghana For many younger generation Arabophone scholars, it was important to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of the indigenous nonArabophone scholars to the development of Islam, and to preserve local traditions that did not explicitly violate Islamic law. I now turn to these issues, paying attention to the shifts in Wahhabi dogma to see how these encouraged the indigenization of Wahhabi/Sunna reform, or perhaps made it an impossibility. In Ghana, the lynchpins of this process of indigenization of the Wahhabi message, identity, and agenda were members of the Majlis A’ala li Da’awatil Islamiyya (Supreme Council for the Dissemination of Islam; henceforth, Majlis).36 Founded in Kumasi in 1985 by former graduates of Saudi Arabian universities, the Majlis became a moderate wing of Ghanaian Arabophone elites.37 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir describes its origin and purpose:

36 There are many other organizations that are not crucial for our purpose. The interested reader should consult Sulemana Mumuni, “Muslim Non-Governmental Organizations.” 37 The founding members included Hajj Umar, Hajj Shuab (the second Medinan graduate to return after Hajj Umar and who had worked with GIRRC), Adam Baba, the founder

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In 1996, they elected Hajj Umar as the National Chief Imam of Ahl alSunna, the local name of groups associated with Wahhabism.39 Quite conspicuously, none of the senior local scholars, including Hajj Yussif Afa Ajura, Sheikh Adam Appiedu, Mallam Basha, and Mallam Abdul Samad were considered for the position.40 Obviously, foreign training, rather than age, was the criteria for selecting the imam.41 As a result, these leaders declined to join the organization that seemed to be a forum for graduates of Saudi and Egyptian universities. The Majlis provided many of the young Arabophone elites in Ghana with an intellectual niche to further their agendas. An examination of its agenda therefore allows us to explore more deeply changes in the Wahhabi dogma. Its objectives included promoting unity among the diverse Sunni communities by encouraging new interpretations of the Prophetic traditions and Qur’anic verses, especially some ambiguous traditions and verses that had been interpreted by their predecessors in ways that produced divisions among Muslims. In this search for religious coexistence and Sunni Muslim unity, members of the Majlis went as far as declaring that the preaching methods of their predecessors were incompatible with the recommendations of the Qur’an and the strategies pursued by the Prophet.42 Many of these younger scholars have repeated of Azhariah in Kumasi (discussed below) and Dr. Ahmed Umar Abdallah (the organization’s first president and one of the Arabists with advanced degrees in secular education). Personal communication, Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, Nima (Accra), June 6, 2002. 38 Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 6, 2002. 39 Ibid. 40 Mallam Ibrahim Basha, personal communication, Tamale, May 2, 2002. Also, Mallam Hussein Zakariyya Umar, Accra, July 3, 2002. 41 The majority of the Arabophone scholars I interviewed admitted that the locallytrained scholars were not among the founders but were later invited to join after they had protested their exclusion. 42 Conversation of members of the Majlis in their office in Nima (Accra), June 10, 2002. In attendance were Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir, Dr. Salis of Legon, and Dr. Ahmed Umar Abdallah.



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to me several times that their predecessors violated the Sunna by insulting and declaring other Muslims infidels bound for hell. They cited both the Qur’an and Sunna to support their argument. An important reference that I heard from most of them was God’s instruction to Moses on how to approach Pharaoh. The Prophet Muhammad’s methods of proselytizing to the people of Mecca were also referred to, to emphasize the need to employ the right methods in preaching. A common question that was posed to me during my conversation with these young scholars in both Ghana and Burkina Faso was: “How can you insult someone and expect him or her to listen to you?” Hajj Shuab inquired rhetorically. “Many individuals refused to listen to our sermons because we turned them off when we began by declaring them infidels or telling them their parents were burning in hell because they practiced innovations.”43 As suggested above, these younger Arabophone elites were deeply concerned about the issue of takfir (declaring other Muslims infidels on account of their religious lapses), which they insisted had been the main source of conflicts among Muslims. It is essential that we discuss the issue of takfir before proceeding, in order to place the discussion within a broader Islamic intellectual discourse. The Takfir Debate44 In their broader program of re-localizing or indigenizing Wahhabi/Sunna reform, these elites declared the use of takfir against other Muslims as contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. But the use of takfir, as mentioned in the introduction, was common but controversial. The Salafi/ Wahhabi usage of takfir can be traced to the writings of Ibn Taymiyya and Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. However, both Ibn Taymiyya and Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab were initially more concerned about popular Islamic practices than politics as such, and restricted its usage for fear of creating division among the umma. For example, Ibn Taymiyya argued that a Muslim becomes an infidel only after denouncing the

43 Hajj Shuab, personal communication, Nima (Accra), June 2, 2002. 44 In an article with the same title, Rüdiger Seesemann analyzes a doctrinal debate among Tijanis, although his argument reflects the complexity of Islamic doctrine of takfir. I find the phrase useful in explaining the doctrinal debate among Wahhabi/Sunna intellectuals. Rüdiger Seesemann, “The Takfír Debate, Part II: The Sudanese Arena,” Sudanic Africa 10 (1999): 65–110; “The Takfír Debate: Sources for the Study of a Contemporary Dispute Among African Sufis, Part I: The Nigerian Arena,” Sudanic Africa 9 (1998): 39–70.

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shahada.45 Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111) also declared that a Muslim who calls another Muslim an infidel becomes an infidel himself.46 Nonetheless, a number of influential scholars across the Muslim world continued to deploy it against adversaries. Sheikh Bin Baz was among those who provided some intellectual legitimacy to the deployment of takfir against members of Sufi brotherhoods. Expanding on the views of Ibn Taymiyya and Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the chairman of the Council of Senior Ulema during the 1980s, declared Sufi practices apostasy, and equivalent to infidelity.47 Bin Baz’s denunciation of Sufi rituals influenced most contemporary West African scholars, especially those who studied in Saudi Arabia between the late 1960s and early 1980s.48 Departing from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab/Bin Baz traditions, the younger Arabophone elites of the late 1980s and early 1990s declared the use of takfir the worst form of religious innovation since the advent of Islam and the main source of intra-Muslim conflicts. The Prophet never declared a Muslim an infidel on account of minor religious lapses or failure to emulate him. Rather, he encouraged constant repentance.49 In their denunciation of takfir, these elites encouraged a more conciliatory style of preaching, which they argued conformed to the Qur’an and Sunna. One of these scholars summarized his contention: Our predecessors made some fundamental mistakes in their provocative methods of preaching. The Qur’an teaches that we use wisdom and courtesy in inviting people to the religion. This was the Prophet’s approach. He did not win followers by insulting them; he appealed to their inner spirituality

45 Ibn Taymiyya, Minhaj as-Sunna an-Nabwiyyah (Beirut: Maktabat Khayyat, n.d.), vol. 1, 48. 46 See especially, Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Faysal al-tafriqa bayna l’islam wa al-zandaqa, ed. S. Dunya (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif, 1961), 15. 47 Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, et al., Fatawa Islamiyya [Islamic fatwas], vol. 1. (Beirut, 1988), 73. Also, Wujub al-zumul sunnah wa huzar final bid’a, trans. Muhammad Raquibuddin Hussain and Suhaib H. Abdul Ghaffar as The Indispensable Implication of Sunna and Caution Against Innovation (Saudi Arabia: Dar-us-Salam Publisher and Distributors, 1995). In 1970 he served the Chancellor of the University of Medina until 1975, when he was appointed Chairman of the Department of Scientific Research. He became the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and Head of the Council of Senior Scholars. Bin Baz was a household name among Saudi-trained scholars in Ghana and Burkina Faso. However, during the 1990s, probably as a result of the Gulf War, his popularity among these scholars began to decline as they sought to localize Wahhabi expressions and cultural identity. 48 See Schulze, “La da’wa Saoudienne.” 49 Sheikh Dawud Nuhu, personal communication, Kumasi (Ghana), July 14, 2002. Also, Dr. Aboubacar Doukouré, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 2, 2002.



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and logic with love and courtesy. God instructed Moses to use wisdom and humility to invite Pharaoh to the ways of God. All the other prophets received similar instructions. God’s recommended model of preaching therefore involves wisdom, humility, and above all recognizing that only God has the power to change people’s hearts.50

To a large extent, these elites’ rejection of takfir reflects the positions of many scholars in West Africa, as discussed in the introduction. In avoiding provocative sermons, emphasizing rapprochement toward the Tijaniyya leadership, and recognizing some indigenous Islamic traditions, the Arabophones gained the support of some older generation Wahhabi/Sunna scholars, such as Adam Appiedu. As noted, from the very beginning of his reform activities, Adam Appiedu adopted a conciliatory approach to religious and cultural reform and encouraged his students to adopt similar attitudes. Appiedu’s students, most of whom had both secular and religious education, were among the vanguard of this new movement toward religious coexistence. We recall Hajj Umar’s earlier attempt to reconcile with the Tijanis and how that led to the dissolution of the organization he helped to found. Umar continued in this shift toward religious coexistence, but failed to move as radically as desired by his students among the new Arabophone elites. In his old age, Sheikh Yussif Afa Ajura did not interfere with the new position adopted by his students. Rather, he left them to pursue whatever strategy they found pragmatic and consistent with the Qur’an and hadith. This degree of freedom allowed the Ambariyya to retain its dominant position among Dagombas of Tamale and surrounding towns. His eldest son, Yussif Halawai noted that his father recognized later that the limited Islamic books available to Muslims in West Africa prior to the 1970s led them to make some mistakes in declaring some valid Islamic practices bid’a. Hajj Afa Ajura thus encouraged his students who had access to more Islamic literature to correct those mistakes.51 In Ghana, these moderate Sunna elites’ search for integration into the broader Muslim community is indicated by their acceptance of the national Muslim leadership dominated by Tijaniyya scholars and their readiness to work with this leadership to formulate policies that affected all Muslims. One of these policies concerned Ghanaian Muslims’ demand that Muslim holidays be recognized as national holidays in the same way 50 Sheikh Aboubacar Maiga, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 15, 2002. 51 Yussif Halawai, personal communication, Tamale, August 16, 2008.

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Christian holidays were considered national holidays. Since the 1960s, Ghanaian Muslims had made this request to various governments, without success. In 1996, the government agreed to Muslims’ requests but demanded an advanced notice of the Eid days to enable the government to announce it to the public. Since Muslim holidays are not decided in advance until the moon is sighted, the government was willing to consider even three days advance notice, having become sensitive to the Muslim ways of doing things. The National Chief Imam therefore created a committee, named the Hilal Committee, to be responsible annually for deciding Muslim holidays. Membership was drawn from the various Muslim communities, including the Ahmadiyya. However, some Wahhabi leaders rejected the committee’s function on the grounds that the Prophetic tradition forbade announcing the Eid until the moon had been sighted. The established custom was that the National Chief Imam announced the beginning and the end of Ramadan based on either information received within Ghana or any other part of the world, especially West Africa, that the moon had been sighted. Nigeria happened to be the main place where information about the moon’s appearance had been accepted as valid by Ghanaian scholars. In 1996, many senior members of the Wahhabi/Sunna community in Accra ignored the Hilal Committee’s decision and insisted that they would observe Eid only if they sighted the moon themselves or if it had been sighted in Saudi Arabia. This decision complicated matters for the National Chief Imam who expected consensus on the matter in order to demonstrate to the government that Muslims could take a unanimous decision on even the most controversial issues. In response, the younger generation Arabophone scholars challenged their elders’ refusal to abide by the Committee’s decision. They argued that the correct Prophetic tradition advised Muslims to begin or end their fasting if the moon has been sighted in a neighboring community. Denouncing their elders’ persistent allegiance to Saudi Arabia, they noted that due to Nigeria’s closer proximity to Ghana compared to Saudi Arabia, it is more accurate for Ghanaians to depend on information from Nigeria than from Saudi Arabia.52 The debacle became the rallying cry of the younger Arabophones eager for a more indigenous outlook, and strengthened their argument— emphasizing the need to avoid uncritical allegiance to Saudi Arabia. By remaining firmly with the rest of the Muslim community and opposing

52 Sulemana Mumuni, personal communication, Accra, June 30, 2002. Also Musah Abdul Qadir, Accra, June 2, 2002.



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their elders, these younger Arabophones obtained the recognition of the established Muslim leadership, which integrated them into the national leadership. The Hilal Committee, as well as the Hajj Committee created later, came to be dominated by younger generation Arabophones and supported by the leadership of the Tijaniyya community. Similarly, in Burkina Faso, the leadership of the Communauté Musulmane, including the nation’s chief imam, is now in the hands of younger Arabophones. How does this shift reflect indigenous customs? As discussed in previous chapters, early Wahhabi leaders preached against extended funeral celebrations, which they considered a violation of the Prophet’s recommendations. I argued in chapter 6 that Adam Appiedu strategically avoided this complex debate, and instead focused his attention on minimizing the cost of these celebrations. For example, he encouraged officiating mallams to offer fiddau to the deceased without expecting rewards from the bereaved family. The young Arabophones adopted similar attitudes and participated in funeral celebrations without expecting any remuneration from the public in the form of alms-giving (sadaqa). An incident in 1998, which was narrated to me by one of these younger Arabophones helps to illustrate one of the ways these young scholars attempted to navigate this complex issue without alienating themselves from the community. In 1998, a group of Arabophone scholars from Kumasi went to conduct da’wa during a funeral celebration in a nearby town. At the beginning of the celebration, the local scholars in charge of the activities promised to allow them to preach but only at the end of the ceremony and for only ten minutes. They suspected that, having been considered “Wahhabis” known to criticize such funeral celebrations, the local clerics did not want them to preach and that was why they were relegated to the bottom of the list of preachers and four of them were to be allowed to share the ten minutes allocated to them. The Arabophones debated whether to stay or walk away. Out of respect for the deceased and the bereaving family that invited them, they decided to be patient. Toward the end of the ceremony, the traditional mallams shared the sadaqa collected during the ceremony and gave the Arabophone preachers their share even though they knew this group opposed the sharing of such offerings among the officiating mallams, preferring rather to give the entire collection to the bereaved family. While most of them refused to accept the sadaqa, the leader accepted it, to the dismay of his colleagues. This attitude surprised the leading imam. After a brief reflection, he announced to the public that some individuals had come from Kumasi to preach and encouraged the audience to wait and listen to them. The

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imam allowed them to preach for as long as they needed and the audience remained attentive throughout. At the end of the event, the imam declared that he allowed them to preach because they had shown respect to local customs when their leader accepted his share of the sadaqa. He is said to have added that if they were willing to work with the established community, the community was also ready to help them in their activities. This testimony further illustrates how young Arabophones sought integration into the broader Muslim community by avoiding controversies that only contributed to fragmenting Muslims, and by sometimes compromising their doctrinal positions. Whereas their predecessors isolated themselves from other Muslims and rejected the established scholars affiliated with the Tijaniyya, members of the Majlis sought accommodation and coexistence, which they seemed prepared to pursue even if that meant compromising their theological positions on complex cultural and doctrinal issues, especially controversial cultural matters that do not necessarily violate an individual’s belief in God. All the preachers at this gathering were trained at the Islamic University of Medina, and the leader had completed secondary school in Ghana before pursuing an Islamic education in Medina. He had completed his masters’ degree in Sharia, and was completing his doctorate at the time of this incident. By respecting tradition and honoring the local mallams, the leader demonstrated to the local scholars that he and his group represented a distinct group of scholars who might be sympathetic to the Wahhabi/Sunna dogma but were respectful of elders, as well as indigenous Islamic customs. I observed in Burkina Faso, too, that the younger generation Saudi-trained scholars often participated in communal activities such as funeral celebrations and the mawlid, in order to have access to a large audience. Realizing that in order to reform the society, they had to be part of that society, understand it on its own terms, respect the elders, and involve other scholars in the reform program, these elites transformed their strategies of proselytism in ways that appealed to both their constituency and other Muslims. The above testimony also demonstrates the resilience of local customs. Despite over two decades of berating indigenous Islamic customs, Wahhabism neither changed these practices nor undermined the influences of scholars anchored in local traditions. These younger Arabophones compromised their position in order to promote Muslim solidarity, which was crucial to the community, instead of pursuing controversial debates that have remained unresolved among Muslims throughout the world. As one of them told me, even the Prophet had to make some compromises in order to hold his community together.



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Every change has its time. If you try to impose change at the wrong time you will end up driving people away. What is the use of preaching when no one is there to listen? You have to win the trust of people before you can create an audience. And as God told Moses, wisdom and proper language are the keys to spreading God’s words.53

The shift from radicalism to moderation pursued by younger Arabophone elites also reverberated in their adoption of local customs and dress codes, as they began to carefully minimize their cultural and ideological connections with the Arab world. In Burkina Faso, many of them joined the Communauté Musulmane and became its leaders, while the Mouvement Sunnite declined. They also avoided the subcultural identity of earlier Wahhabi communities, such as the construction of separate religious spaces, the isolation of women from public spaces, and the emphasis on specific dress codes for men and women. The debates over veiling styles in Burkina Faso illustrate this cultural shift. Aboubacar Sana, the National Imam of Burkina Faso during my research, was driven from the Mouvement Sunnite in 1989 when he preached that the niqab represented a Middle Eastern veiling style and not necessarily the prescriptive Islamic standard. Though Sana had been working with the Mouvement Sunnite since 1985 when he returned from his studies at the University of Medina, teaching at their madrasa and participating in their preaching events, his criticisms of this core cultural identity of the Mouvement Sunnite antagonized his relationship with his colleagues. He related the incident leading to his departure as follows: The leaders of the Mouvement Sunnite required Muslim men to wear short gowns and the women to wear the niqab and burka. Anyone who failed to strictly follow their prescribed customs was accused of neglecting the Sunna and thus declared a non-Muslim and demanded to leave the community. I explained that the Prophet required men to wear their garments as far as their ankles [tahtaini] and not immediately below the knees as they believed. I explained further that the black abaya is an Arabian custom and not the standard Islamic code. I lived in many Arab countries [such as Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia] and each country has its own veiling code based on its own culture. In the Sudan, women cover themselves in white and that was perfectly acceptable. When I told them that these customs were neither Islamic nor a valid practice of the Prophet, they became furious. Why should we force our people to emulate foreign cultures when ours are equally valid? It is our duty to educate our brothers about “true” Islam so that they can distinguish between Islam and foreign culture.54

53 Sheikh Nuhu, personal communication, Kumasi, August 25, 2006. 54 Aboubakar Sana, personal communication, Kumasi, August 25, 2006.

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His struggles with the older generation scholars of the Mouvement Sunnite demonstrate attempts by younger generation Arabophone elites to eliminate foreign cultural influences from the Muslim community. The intellectual rapprochement pursued by the younger Arabophone elites reflects a broader phenomenon throughout West Africa and other parts of Africa as well. A similar shift, at least in rhetoric, can be gleaned in remarks made by Hasan al-Turabi. Al-Turabi is one of the most important Islamist leaders in Africa today, if not in the Muslim world as a whole. In 2006, he made the following remark during an interview on Arabiyya satellite television. I want women to work and become part of public life. God gave them certain advantages over us, and gave us certain advantages over them . . . I would like there to be equality between people, because we were all created from the same soul: God created from a single soul its mate. . . . I have not found a hadith that prohibits women from being Imams.

This obviously liberal statement uttered by one of the most conservative Islamist intellectuals of our time raised an intellectual and political storm within the Islamist community. Within the larger Islamic intellectual community, al-Turabi’s seemingly contradictory statement led to a new debate that focused not on his contradictory positions, which was obvious, but on the complexity of the Islamic sacred texts that make it possible for religious activists like Hasan al-Turabi to change their positions to suit their audiences. The International Institute for the Study of Islam in Modern Times (ISIM) served as one of the forums for these debates. In summarizing the diversity of opinions generated by al-Turabi’s utterances, Abdoulkader Tayob concluded that we cannot understand alTurabi’s putative contradictions unless we subject the sacred texts (the Qur’an and Hadith) themselves to a critical analysis. In other words, to understand such radical shifts from conservative positions to liberal ones, scholars must go beyond the individual to explore the texts themselves. After all, al-Turabi quoted Qur’anic verses and hadith to support his position.55 Tayob notes that it is valid to conclude that al-Turabi’s utterances are contradictory if we judge him on the basis of a value or set of values outside the texts. If the principal position is not a value, but a selection of texts, one can find no fault with defending the rights of women one day and denying them

55 Abdoulkader Tayob, “Shades of Islamism,” ISIM Review 18 (Autumn 2006), 18.



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another day. Turabi, in effect remained faithful to the texts . . . The only consistent feature of these processes of justification has been the selection of texts as a tool of legitimization.56

Like Hasan al-Turabi, Abubakar Gumi, the founder and leader of the Yan Izala movement, a Wahhabi-oriented movement in Nigeria, instructed conservative Nigerian men to allow their women to participate in national elections. Gumi went as far as remarking that politics takes precedence over religion (siyasa tafi sala), which sparked a controversy among his followers and between him and his opponents. * * * The late 1980s and early 1990s was an important intellectual watershed in the history of the Wahhabi/Sunna movement in Ghana and Burkina Faso particularly, but the West African subregion as a whole. During this period, a large number of Arabophone elites graduated from Middle Eastern universities and returned home to pursue careers as madrasa teachers and proprietors, community leaders, and preachers. By no means a homogeneous group, since they came from different social backgrounds, studied at different universities, and lived in different countries, these Arabophones nonetheless shared a common vision of Islamic reform that was sensitive to Muslim unity.57 They therefore shifted their strategies from a radical to a more moderate approach to proselytism. For this group, the pursuit of Muslim unity through compromise, mutual respect, and acknowledgment of the diversity of Islamic doctrines was crucial in 56 Ibid. For a more detailed discussion of al-Turabi’s vacillating attitudes, see Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim, “A Theology of Modernity: Hasan al-Turabi and Islamic Renewal in Sudan,” Africa Today 46, nos. 3–4 (1999): 195–222. 57 They cited the following verses to support their argument about the relative importance of Muslim solidarity. “And hold fast altogether to the rope of God and do not be divided. And remember the favor of God upon you, in that you were once enemies to one another, but He joined your hearts together, so that by His Grace you became brothers.” [Qur’an 3:103] “Let there arise from among you a group of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining the good and forbidding the evil. It is they who are the successful ones. And do not be like those who differed among themselves after the clear proofs had come to them; for them is a painful punishment.” [Qur’an 3:104–105] “And do not differ, lest you lose courage and your strength departs, and be patient. Indeed God is with those who are patient.” [Qur’an 8:46] “Indeed this umma of yours is a single umma and I am your Lord, so worship Me alone.” [Qur’an 21:92] “Indeed those who split up their religion and become sects, you have no part with them in the least. Their affair is with God who will tell them what they used to do.” [Qur’an 6:159]

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addressing spiritual lapses (perceived or real), and for educating people on correct religious practices. They called this a “new strategy for conducting da’wa.”58 Thus, rather than blind adherence to the Wahhabi dogma they acquired during their intellectual training, they interrogated its content and origin, and carefully separated what they considered contradictory to the Qur’an and traditions. Though a majority of them had studied in Saudi Arabia and were infused with Hanbali jurisprudence, they became more tolerant of the Ghanaian and Burkinabé Islamic culture rooted in Maliki jurisprudence. Unlike the earlier Meccan returnees who had lived most of their lives in Saudi Arabia, members of this group had lived in many parts of the Arab world, and had thus been exposed to a variety of religious practices and Islamic cultural norms that allowed them to appreciate the diversity of Islamic practices, including those of their own societies. Consequently, they paid attention to other interpretations of Qur’anic verses that differed from what they were taught during their studies, and avoided selecting and emphasizing specific hadith at the exclusion of other equally valid hadith. In pursuit of their radical shift toward coexistence, this generation of Arabophone intellectuals also avoided the self-proclaimed moral superiority associated with the earlier phase of the Wahhabi movement. While still emphasizing the need to live by the Prophet’s examples and follow his recommendations on a range of religious, social, and cultural practices, they also distinguished between recommended and compulsory Sunna. They insisted that voluntary Sunna should be encouraged but not imposed on the umma if such imposition endangered unity. Arguing that the degree of devotion to the voluntary traditions depended on individual effort, enthusiasm, piety, and level of knowledge, these young scholars encouraged dialogue rather than confrontation, even as they encouraged Muslims to exert considerable energy in imitating the Prophet’s lifestyle. Their search for coexistence is encapsulated in a number of rhetorical questions posed to me by many members of this group during interviews: “What was the point of denying people access to a mosque simply because they shaved their beards or their garments were too long?” “Why should a person be forcefully ejected from a mosque because he or she used a rosary when the Prophet did not clearly reject it?” “Why should a Muslim refuse to pray in a mosque because s/he does not like the imam or because

58 Aboubakar Sana, personal communication, Ouagadougou, May 1, 2002; Sheikh Nuhu, personal communication, Kumasi, August 25, 2006.



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the imam belongs to a different group?” “Didn’t the Prophet as well as the Qur’an warn Muslims to avoid factionalism?” The ideas implied in these rhetorical questions formed the foundation of their agenda. I observed in both countries that Muslims in general no longer shun mosques simply because of the doctrinal affiliation of the imam or the community that prays in that mosque. Rather, among the Sunni community, mosques now represent a liberated space for every Muslim regardless of doctrinal affiliation. The mutual accommodation resulting in their rapprochement with the established Sunni leadership encourages a more pluralistic religious behavior that allows Sunni Muslims to organize against the increasing threats of Shi’i Islam, the Ahmadiyya movement, and Christian evangelism, as the activities of these religious groups seems more threatening to Sunni Islam than the doctrinal debates that appears to have consumed the attention of earlier Wahhabi-inclined preachers.59 It is worth reiterating that the theological shifts championed by these elites are indicative of self-correcting mechanisms integral to Islamic reforms more broadly.60 We saw a parallel internal adjustment concerning Sufi brotherhoods during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that gave rise to reformed Sufi brotherhoods like the Tijaniyya, the most dominant Sufi brotherhood in West Africa today. In other words, Wahhabism was internally transformed in ways that suited its local context. In addition, these elites reinforced the importance of secular education to Muslims’ social, economic, and political development. They thus promoted the inclusion of secular courses in the madrasa system, which was more affordable and appealing to Muslims. While insisting on Muslims’ participation in political activities and encouraging younger Muslims to acquire both secular and religious education, they also sought to ensure that the pursuit of modernity did not lead to the uncritical emulation of foreign intellectual traditions and customs either from the Arab world or from the West. For them the unquestioned emulation of foreign cultures demonstrated the extent to which West African scholars trained in the Middle East had internalized the sense of racial inferiority imposed on them during their studies. In their search for coexistence and

59 Imitating the success of the Ahmadiyya movement in winning converts through education, the Shi’i established the first Islamic university in Ghana in the year 2000. 60 In several of her works, including her article on Muslim communities along the southern coast of West Africa, as well as her monograph, Marie Miran emphasizes the need for understanding the transformation of Wahhabi-inclined reforms.

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accommodation, this generation of Wahhabi reformers allowed the plurality of the sacred texts to legitimize an indispensable social and political accommodation. And the emphases on religious purity did not have to disparage local customs that did not clearly violate the Sharia. Thus, whereas some scholars61 have argued that the apparent decline of Wahhabism during the last decade of the millennium led some of its staunch adherents to turn against the West, which they blamed for the putative decline of Muslims’ political influence in the world, the evidence from West Africa does not support such a conclusion. Rather, here the evidence suggests that the decline of Wahhabism was itself precipitated and shaped by internal dissension against radical proselytism and the violent approach to resolving Muslims’ doctrinal disagreements. The radical approach to religious reform pursued by the earlier generation could not be sustained, since neither the Qur’an nor the Prophet’s traditions they claimed to uphold and defend support unprovoked violence and uncompromising attitudes in the propagation of the faith. This shift resulted from the internal intellectual challenges faced by Wahhabi scholars, and some inconsistencies in the teachings of earlier generation Wahhabi-inclined reformers. The younger generation Arabophones were eager to promote Wahhabism as a moderate doctrine consistent with what they believed to be the authentic teachings of the Prophet and the examples of other Qur’anic prophets, and indeed, in consonance with local intellectual traditions.

61 For example, Kepel, Jihad.

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“Conscripts” of Modernity and Wahhabi Reform Interest in the study of contemporary Islamism has been growing steadily since the 1990s, and accelerated after 2001, although the study of these movements in sub-Saharan African Muslim societies continues to lag behind studies of other parts of the Muslim world. This book locates itself in that growing literature by employing a transnational comparative approach to explore two major themes that are crucial for understanding the historical trajectories of this twentieth-century Islamic resurgence in West Africa: its local origin and subsequent transnational connections, and its putative engagements with modernity. Focusing on a number of reformist organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso through a biographical analyses of the important leaders, I conclude that Islamism in West Africa emerged intermittently prior to the 1960s, and arose from local doctrinal debates over religious purity between members of Sufi brotherhoods and an emerging cohort of Muslim intellectuals who called themselves advocates of the revival of the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions. These emerging scholars and preachers debated the established ulama, who were mostly affiliated with the Tijaniyya, over the doctrinal validity of Tijaniyya practices and certain local customs endorsed by the dominant scholarly community. The debate reached a crucial threshold during the late 1960s when a number of local scholars who trained in the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, returned to add their intellectual authority to the doctrinal contests by supporting those who opposed Sufi brotherhoods. Seeing themselves as strict followers of the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions, they declared that the established ulama were religious innovators (and even apostates), on the grounds that Sufi cultural and spiritual expressions deviated from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. The Sufi leaders dismissed these opponents as advocates of the teachings of the eighteenth-century Arabian reformer, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whose radical doctrine, according to mainstream Muslim scholars throughout the Muslim world from the nineteenth century onward, was too narrow and divisive. The intense debates over doctrinal differences and the conflicts that ensued laid the foundation for local expressions of what is generally associated with Wahhabi revivalism.

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The evidence from Ghana and Burkina Faso thus supports the conclusion that contrary to a widely held belief, these West African Islamic revival movements were neither inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979 nor imposed on “gullible” Muslims by foreign elements. Rather, the movements emerged from local religious dynamics. However, by the late 1970s, the movements had become part of a global Wahhabi-inclined resurgence financially and intellectually sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which had embarked on an aggressive campaign to rid Islam of what Saudi scholars considered religious innovations fostered by the Sufi brotherhoods.1 This subsequent connection established by the movements’ leaders in coordination with Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arab world is therefore part of the story, but not the entire story. Admittedly, the opportunity to tap into foreign assistance to further the reform agenda transformed the reformers’ strategies and the contents of their message quite profoundly, and in the process, reshaped the Muslims’ intellectual landscapes and doctrinal affiliations. Moreover, just as previous reform movements led by Sufi-inclined scholars evolved from a radical approach toward reform to encouraging doctrinal coexistence, Wahhabism in West Africa has also traversed a similar cycle within the limits of its religious requisites. In addition, although Wahhabism, as argued, did not dominate the Islamic spiritual and intellectual landscapes in Ghana and Burkina Faso, it certainly provoked changes in the practices of its adversaries—the Tijaniyya—inasmuch as it induced

1 Saudi Arabian financial support and educational opportunities was available from the 1960s to Muslim individuals and organizations that claimed to pursue religious reform. Ghanaian and Burkinabé reformers therefore applied for these grants from Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations as well as from wealthy Arab philanthropists by claiming to be engaged in the sort of reform Saudi Arabia considered doctrinally commendable. Many of the reformers astutely shaped their discourses and strategies of proselytism along a broader framework that appealed to Saudi Arabian and other Arab donors in order to convince donors of their commitment to promoting authentic religious rituals and adherence to the Sunna. Many of the leaders even embellished the pervasiveness of irreligious rituals supposedly practiced by members of the Tijaniyya, their doctrinal rivals. In some instances, conflicts with other Muslims were deliberately instigated in order to provoke rivals into physical confrontations. These orchestrated conflicts were videotaped and shown to donors in order to convince them of the resilience of local “heterodoxy” and show them the intensity of the struggle against those who persisted in “corrupting” Islam. Many sympathetic wealthy Arab and public institutions therefore donated generously in solidarity with the indigenous reformers, who were considerably few in number. But these solicitations began after the reforms were already close to maturation. Understanding local Wahhabi-inclined reformers’ connections with the Arab world along these lines helps to recognize Africans’ agency without overlooking the ways such opportunities transformed the reformers’ agendas and strategies.



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changes within its own internal logic. Consequently, by the time it began to decline (starting from the 1990s), primarily from its own internal contradictions, neither Wahhabism nor the Tijaniyya remained the same. In tracing the historical trajectories of various Wahhabi-inclined organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso, I noted that the local expressions of Wahhabism in the two countries remained fluid and were punctuated by a number of factors, including a new understanding of the pluralism of Islamic doctrines, the necessity to preserve local Muslim customs that are rooted in the Maliki school of jurisprudence adhered to by West Africans, and the need to respect indigenous religious authorities for the purpose of ensuring solidarity among the umma. In analyzing the histories of this movement, I deliberately avoided engaging forcefully with the theological debates for two reasons. Delving too deeply into controversial debates that have remained unresolved for centuries, even in the Muslim heartland, would only lead to unnecessary digression without adding much to our understanding of the movement’s history, which is my main concern. I therefore paid very close attention to the political and sociological factors that help to more accurately document the histories of the various organizations within the scope of the study, and to map out their identical and diverse trajectories. Thus my main objective is to analyze the intersections of religious debates, the shifting political and economic resources available to Muslims at the end of the colonial period, and the changes in religious identities and the ways the postcolonial states provided a new space for contesting social, religious, and political influences. Moreover, a careful examination of the doctrinal debates pursued by Wahhabi adherents demonstrates that such religious expressions that seek to revive the traditions of Prophet Muhammad are not new in West Africa; various Sufi-oriented West African reformers from the sixteenth century or even earlier made identical arguments in their attempts to purge local Islamic practices of religious accretions and innovations. However, I also noted that Wahhabism should be distinguished from the earlier reforms not only because of its rejection of Sufi practices, but also because of the colonial and postcolonial contexts within which it evolved. The end of European colonialism in the 1960s and the rise of independent states added unique intellectual, political, and sociological impetuses to Muslims’ doctrinal debates and strategies of proselytism, suggesting that Muslims appropriated ideas of modernity inherited from the colonial past and used them in the service of Islam. To explore the ways ideas and practices of modernity became fused with religious discourse in this

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twentieth-century reform, I have focused on the pivotal contributions of Muslim elites educated in Western-styled schools and their role in the genesis of the national Wahhabi-inclined organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso. While the focus pursued by other scholars on the activities of Arabophone scholars is obviously crucial in understanding the intellectual and spiritual foundations of this movement, the present inquiry into the involvement of non-Arabophone elites allows us to interrogate more deeply the impact of colonial rule on Muslims’ doctrinal debates and the intellectual resources that were drawn into the debate. I devote this final chapter to a further inquiry of the historical, intellectual, and social origins of these elites, in order to explain why I think they provide a rare window for understanding the relationship between modernity and Islamic religious reform during this period in the history of West African Islam. Before discussing the intellectual origins of these elites, it may be useful to offer a brief history of how historians have engaged with the discourse of modernity, which is value-loaded and difficult to historicize, but crucial for understanding contemporary Islamic revivalism. The relationship between modernity and Islamic reforms has remained a controversial but irresistible subject since the early 1990s. Indeed, in recent times, academia has been inundated by discussions of modernities—European modernity, African modernity, Islamic modernity, universal modernity, alternative modernity, etc.2 In a review of the various arguments about modernity, Frederick Cooper concludes that considering the varied definitions of modernity offered by scholars of different inclinations, modernity comes to stand for everything or nothing.3 The multiplicity of academic definitions and contests over the specific meaning and cultural implications of the concept and its cognates has the tendency to reduce the discussion into an ideological struggle that reinforces the essentializing binary between the West and the rest of the world. As Amyn Sajoo comments in the introduction to Muslim Modernities, Expressions of the Civil Imagination, “. . . modernity has come to be distinguished by its plurality, that is, the multiple sites where it is produced, the diversity of 2 See for example, Robert Hefner’s often cited article, “Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age,” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 83–104. Volume 129 (1) of the Daedalus is dedicated to the discourse of multiple modernities. For Islam, see among others, Dale F. Eickelman, “Islam and the Languages of Modernity,” Daedalus 129 (2000): 119–33 and Nilüfer Göle, “Snapshots of Islamic Modernities,” Daedalus 129 (2000): 91–127. See also the edited volume by Amyn Sajoo, Muslim Modernities: Expressions of the Civil Imagination (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008). 3 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 114.



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those who produced it and the variant processes that are involved, all contest the idea of a unitary modernity.”4 In other words, modernity is multiple and culturally contingent. We should, however, not overlook a common thread that demonstrates its universal appeal and how each culture adapts it to its own specific context and needs. Responding to critics of multiple modernities, Sajoo remarks further, Plural modernities are not marked out solely on the basis of culture, geography, religion, or ideology. To speak of African, Chinese, Indian or Muslim modernities is to accept also the vernaculars within these settings, local inflections of what it means to be traditional or progressive. Plural modernities are distinctive but also overlapping. While they relativise the claims of Eurocentric modernity, they do not deny the universality of certain truthclaims or values. Their pluralism does not perforce amount to relativism.5

With specific reference to Africa, however, the discourse of modernity continues to be stalled by a guarded concern to not deny Africans their own agency as we resort to foreign vocabularies to explain local initiatives. In an attempt to “provincialize” European discourses within the broader indigenous knowledge production, early postcolonial theorists elaborated on ways Africans resisted colonial ideas by reinventing the very traditions colonialists had dismissed as outmoded, barbaric, or superstitious. In doing so, postcolonial studies heralded the resilience of African indigenous knowledge, and provided convincing arguments that this resilience exposed the fallacy of the colonialists’ self-acclaimed racial superiority. However, in seeking to accentuate African agencies by recognizing African’s independent creativity, postcolonial theorists inadvertently swung the pendulum to the other extreme, leaving us with the assumption that in rebelling against colonial rule and reasserting indigenous knowledge and re-inventing African traditions in new historical space, Africans rejected the totality, or at least the central tenets of European ideas. Such assumption leads to the unintended recasting of the Eurocentric belief that the African psyche was impervious to change and that African societies remained static as the world around them was changing. If Africans embraced ideas associated with French assimilation policies, for example, scholars should also acknowledge that such an action constituted agency in the ways diverse groups of Africans identified their place in the colonial space and developed their strategies according to their specific locations

4 Sajoo (ed.), Muslim Modernities, 9. 5 Ibid., 11.

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within the constantly shifting boundaries of that space. Failure to recognize the multiplicities of Africans’ agencies undermines the intellectual foundation of our claims to identify and recognize African agency. In other words, when we reject the choices historical actors made for themselves and their followers because we are intellectually uncomfortable with those choices, we may be unwittingly engaging in a selective allocation of agency that is based on what appeals to our intellectual or ideological sensibilities. Moreover, by refusing to recognize the validity of the choices some Africans made in their efforts to assert themselves within the colonial framework, we may be downplaying the enduring impact of the European presence and in the process overlook the different strategies Africans pursued to negotiate this impact, especially the ways they adapted external ideas to the repertoire of indigenous knowledge. The tendency to borrow and appropriate is not unique to Africans, although when Africans indulge in this universal human practice, they are often dismissed as “imitators” or beneficiaries of diffusionism. Fortunately, the subtle, albeit unintended recasting of African societies as “docile,” which was evident in early postcolonial theories, started to recede in postcolonial studies in the early 1990s when scholars began to pay close attention to the ways Africans appropriated, refashioned, and localized external ideas, including those that accompanied European colonialism.6 Nowhere was this articulated more strongly than in the studies of African Christianity, where the encounter and contests between African knowledge and colonial ideas were relatively more intense. Due to the obvious affinity between Christian liturgy and European languages, and the association of colonialism with Christianity, the encounter between Africa and Christianity was the ideal terrain for social scientists to explore more deeply the role of Africans in the diffusion of the Christian doctrine. In addition, it helped scholars to assess Africans’ strategies of 6 David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity and the Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004); Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. E. J. Hobsbawm and T. O. Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983): 211–62; Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Africa,” in Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa, ed. Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan (London: Palgrave, 1993); Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin, “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious,” Journal of American Folklore 97 (1984): 273–90; Jonathon Glassman, “Sorting Out the Tribes: The Creation of Racial Identities in Colonial Zanzibar’s Newspapers’ Wars,” JAH 4, no. 1 (2000): 426–27; Corinne A. Kratz, “ ‘We’ve always done it like this . . . except for a few details’: ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’ ” in Okiek ceremonies,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (1993): 30–65.



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cultural and intellectual appropriation.7 Here, we see clearly how Africans not only embraced Christian doctrines, but also localized these doctrines to respond to the European missionaries’ presumptuous racial superiority and claim to ecclesiastical hegemony. Rather than assuming that Africans rejected or uncritically internalized European ideas of modernity, a number of social scientists insisted that we pay close attention to how Africans selected, appropriated, and utilized these ideas to reinforce the potency of local knowledge.8 Thomas Spear notes, . . . agency must be seen as a function of discourse as people debate issues of the present in terms of ideas and beliefs drawn from the past, reformulating them and revising them in the context of the present. . . . Those that resonate with current concerns, themselves also deriving from elements of the past in the present, are adapted, while those that do not become irrelevant.9

While some historians and other social scientists engaged in these lively debates, many rightfully remained skeptical in indulging debates that tend to evoke memories of European colonialism and the evils associated with colonial domination. Equally important, the modernity discourse and the process associated with it are difficult to historicize without falling prey to Eurocentric ideology or losing sight of Africans’ agency. Yet, the responsibility of historians is not to reject the process of appropriation, but rather to interrogate it in order to more accurately allocate agency based on the agents’ skillful localization of external ideas such that these ideas are rendered sensible and applicable for a specific locality. To participate in the “modernity talk,” historians needed to develop methodologies that would allow them to historicize local articulations of European ideas, and to interrogate the resilience and malleability of these ideas, while remaining committed to highlighting African agency. It is for this reason that Frederick Cooper suggests that we pay attention to how specific groups engage in the modernity discourse. If modernity is what we hear, he cautions us, we “should ask how it is being used and why; otherwise, shoehorning a political discourse into modern, antimodern, or postmodern discourses, or into ‘their’ modernity or ‘ours,’ is more distorting

7 See for example Gerrie Ter Haar, How God Became African: African Spirituality and Western Secular Thought (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). 8 Thomas Spear’s introduction to East African Expressions of Christianity, Thomas Spear and Isaria N. Kimambo (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999); Karen E. Fields, Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). 9 Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism,” 26.

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than revealing.”10 Yet any scholar who has conducted research in Africa or spent some time in the continent cannot escape the “modernity talk” that Africans of all social and intellectual positions use to describe past and present conditions; the modernity discourse haunts the historian and pleads to be historicized! In recent years, specialists of West African Islam joined the discussion by questioning the ways postcolonial West African Muslim reformers embraced or rejected the ideas of modernity derived from their colonial past. Responding to the critical issue of whether these Muslims embraced or rejected Western modernity, Ousmane Kane, for example concludes that leaders of the Yan Izala movement in Northern Nigeria engaged in a strategic appropriation and selection of a range of ideas from local and external sources in order to offer their followers an alternative modernity.11 Similar conclusions have been reached by others including David Westerlund and Eva Rosander, Housseina Alidou, Marie Miran, and Madeline Masquelier.12 Roman Loimeier and others even ventured into an ambiguous but tempting terrain by suggesting some parallels between twentieth-century Islamic revivalism and the Protestant Reformation.13 Yet even in these studies, a specific focus on Muslims educated in Westernstyled schools to carefully interrogate how ideas of modernity prevalent in the pedagogical infrastructure of these schools permeated the Muslim intellectual and popular discourses, is missing. This book locates itself within this critical shift and vibrant debate. I argue that much of the success of the early phase of Wahhabi-inclined reform in Ghana and Burkina Faso resulted from the pivotal contributions of emerging Muslim elites equipped with European languages and bureaucratic skills. The following discussion explores further the historical space within which these elites emerged and how they sought to marry the ideas of modernity they had acquired through colonial education, with the ideas of reform being propagated by Arabophone elites. My main objective is to tease out and historicize the discourse of modernity in ways that allow us to revisit how, at the end of colonial rule, West African Muslims educated in colonial schools struggled to demarcate the boundaries of their

10 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 115. 11  Kane, Muslim Modernity. 12 Westerlund and Rosander (eds.), African Islam and Islam in Africa; Alidou, Engaging Modernity; Miran, Islam, histoire et modernité; Masquelier, Women and Islamic Revival. 13 Loimeier, “Protestant Islam”; see also Pouwels, “Sh. al-Amin B. Ali Mazrui”; Kobo, “The Development of Wahhabi Reforms”; Eickelman, “Inside the Islamic Reformation.”



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ambiguous Islamic and quasi-European identities. I explore further the philosophical and pedagogical traditions that shaped their intellectual and cultural perceptions of what constituted “authentic” religious tradition, and how this perception led some of them to embrace Wahhabism. The discourse of modernity was central, although ambiguous, to the colonial project, as the colonialists wondered if too much modernity would radicalize a segment of the indigenous elites. Those who were most affected by the colonialists’ own struggles to demarcate the boundaries of benign and risky modernities were those who had acquired colonial education. They too aspired for some form of modernity without the trappings of Europeanization. The adoption of some form of modernity in the religious space was thus central to satisfying the expectations of these emerging elites. They therefore, consciously or otherwise, advocated for the inclusion of some aspects of modernity in religious practices, cultural attitudes and identities, and the organizational structures of religious institutions. I describe these modernity-conscious Muslim professionals as “conscripts of modernity.”14 Many of these secularly-educated Muslims sought to locate themselves in the postcolonial moment without returning to either indigenous customs, which colonial education had trained them to frown upon, or to the Islam of the Sufi brotherhoods, which they considered folk religion that was, in their view, incompatible with the new influence and identity they had acquired from the colonial presence. The Arabophone scholars’ rejection of local beliefs in supernatural forces (which they declared “superstition,” “magic,” and heretical innovation), and their encouragement of financial discipline and the avoidance of extravagant lifestyles, therefore appealed to them because it conformed to their expectations. Ambivalent about indigenous traditions and eager for a new form of Islamic religiosity that seemed to them to conform to authentic Islamic practices and cultural expressions, these elites supported the Arabophone scholars in creating national religious movements and then accommodated themselves to the new secular environment that had emerged from colonial rule. They particularly helped the religious scholars to select and refashion ideas derived from the European presence, ideas that seemed useful for the reform project, and discarded those that seemed contradictory to their mission. To understand the philosophical and pedagogical traditions

14 I borrow this phrase from the title of David Scott’s book, Conscripts of Modernity and the Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment.

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that shaped their intellectual perceptions of what constituted “authentic” religious tradition, and how this perception led some of them to embrace Wahhabism, we should pay close attention to the enduring impact of colonial education and the ways it initiated the reconfiguration of Muslim leadership. Two issues framed the position of these elites: first, the desire to maintain their social and intellectual identity and the privileges associated with that identity without sacrificing their faith, and second, the perception that although they had no religious training, their knowledge of English or French had imposed on them the responsibility to lead and to transform their societies for the better. Mediating these varied interests posed some difficulties for these elites, since their lack of Arabic and religious training obstructed their attempts to insert themselves into the leadership of Muslim religious institutions, at least prior to the advent of Wahhabism. Interestingly, as discussed throughout this book, in Ghana and Burkina Faso, the advent of Wahhabism made it possible for non-religious scholars to assume the formal leadership of some religious organizations. Their claim to the formal leadership of these organizations derived from their knowledge of European languages and their possession of bureaucratic skills crucial for formalizing such organizations during the early decades of independence. The Arabophones who initiated the organizations lacked these skills and therefore allowed their secularly-educated coreligionists to assume formal leadership in order to promote efficiency. Conversely, the Wahhabi/Sunna dogma preached by the Arabophone scholars helped the emerging secularly-educated Muslim elites to overcome the cultural and religious contradictions wrought by their training in colonial secular institutions or mission schools. Moreover, the Arabophones’ message allowed some of the emerging secularized Muslims who had earlier lost interest in Islam to return to the religion with a renewed vigor in an environment they considered acceptable. Wahhabism thus mediated these elites’ “re-conversion,” and inspired them to move from the margin of Muslim societies to the center. In the opening page of Colonial Ambivalence, James Genova quotes the colonial functionary, Alioune Diop, who succinctly summarized the ambivalent positions of these semi-assimilated African functionaries in relation to the colonial order on the one hand, and to their African Muslim community on the other: [I]ncapable of entirely returning to our original traditions or of assimilating to Europe, we had the feeling we were forming a new race, mentally mixed, but which was not aware of its originality and had not become



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self-conscious. Uprooted? We were precisely to the degree that we had not yet defined our position in the world and [that] we were stranded between two societies, without recognized meaning in either one, foreigners to both.15

Genova accurately comments that these elites “straddled and blurred the boundaries between colonizers and colonized.” “Diop’s language,” he adds, “was one of alienation, dislocation, and an attempt to define this community and its tasks in the imperial framework.”16 Defining their “tasks in the imperial framework” was a long process that was further complicated by the advent of the independent state. At the end of the colonial period, these elites remained conscious of their power, which now had to be negotiated outside the imperial framework. The contradiction embedded in the possession of this power contrasted with their alienation quite profoundly, especially their marginalization in Muslim religious leadership. The imperial language and bureaucratic skills they had acquired remained their greatest claim to power. Yet, this power was not easily transferrable to the religious domain where knowledge of Arabic as a source of legitimate leadership remained unquestionable. Dislocated intellectually and socially from their Muslim communities, many Muslims educated in colonial institutions confronted the challenge of fatalistically rejecting their religion or positioning themselves between Islamic and quasi-European identities. The historical reality of such fatalistic dislocation experienced by some Muslims is expressed more forcefully in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s popular book, Ambiguous Adventure.17 Ambiguous Adventure illustrates Muslims’ search for a strategic balance between their cultural values and the contradictions of European cultures; this effort to find a balance reflects the realities of the semi-assimilated Muslims of the 1960s. The story begins with a Muslim community debating whether to allow their children to attend a newly established French school. As the community debates the issue, the Most Royal Lady, the powerful and visionary aunt of Samba Diallo, the book’s protagonist, insists that the children be allowed to attend the French school, beginning with the children of the aristocratic class, including her own nephew, Samba Diallo, who was being groomed as a future community leader.

15 James Genova, Colonial Ambivalence, Cultural Authenticity, and the Limitations of Mimicry in French-Ruled West Africa, 1914–1956 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004), 2, quoting from Alioune Diop, Presence Africaine (1947). 16 Genova, Colonial Ambivalence, 2. 17 Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure, trans. Katherine Woods (New York: Heinemann, 1962).

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Her reason was simple: the children must learn from the French themselves how they subdued African societies. Her argument is worth quoting at length: Our grandfather, and the elites of the country with him, was defeated. Why? How? Only the newcomers [that is the French] know. We must ask them: we must go to learn from them the art of conquering without being in the right. Furthermore, the conflict has not yet ceased. The foreign school is the new form of the war which those who have come here are waging, and we must send our elite there . . . [p. 37] . . .  The school in which I would place our children will kill in them what today we love and rightly conserve with care. Perhaps the very memory of us will die in them. When they return from the school, there may be those who will not recognize us. What I am proposing is that we should agree to die in our children’s hearts and that the foreigners who have defeated us should fill the place, wholly, which we shall have left free . . . [p. 46].

She continues with a remarkable analogy and a profound irony: Remember our fields when the raining season is approaching. We love our fields very much, but what do we do? We plough them up and burn them: we kill them. In the same way, recall this: what do we do with our reserves of seed when the rain has fallen? We would like to eat them, but we bury them in the earth . . . with the arrival of the foreigners has come the tornado which announces the great hibernation of our people. My opinion—I, the Most Royal Lady—is that our best seeds and our dearest fields—those are our children . . . [p. 47]

With this eloquent speech, the Most Royal Lady wins the day, and the children are enrolled in the French school. Samba Diallo excels in the school and proceeds to study philosophy in France. He returns after completing his studies neither fully French nor a devout Muslim, if a Muslim at all. The knowledge that is expected to empower him dislocates him instead. As his aunt predicted in a tragic irony, the community “died” in him; Samba Diallo abandons his responsibility to lead the community, a role he was being groomed for in the Qur’anic school he was attending prior to the establishment of the French school. But the Most Royal Lady is probably right in arguing that the community must sacrifice what it loves most in order to acquire the knowledge that would ultimately help to end colonial domination. That knowledge was the European knowledge that facilitated the European conquests of Africa in the first place. The Most Royal Lady is ambivalent about the possibility that indigenous knowledge would be the source ending the hibernation of her people. And she is right! The end of colonial rule became the harvest of the century she



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had predicted; that “harvest” was achieved with the colonialist knowledge; Samba Diallo is emblematic of those the community sacrificed in order to acquire the knowledge and power of liberation. There were many historical Samba Diallos, victims of a relentless colonial culture war, which the Most Royal Lady rightly recognizes were being waged in colonial schools. In the opening pages of his book, Malidoma Patrice comments on colonial education: School, to us, was a place where we learned to reject whatever native culture we had acquired as children and to fill its place with Western ideas and practices. This foreign culture was presented as high culture par excellence, the acquisition of which constituted a blessing. Going to school was thus a radical act involving the sacrifice of one’s indigenous self. For white Catholic missionaries who were building a Christian empire, such a project was necessary for survival, a consequence of the decline of Christian faith in Europe.18

The most powerful instrument of cultural colonialism—education—thus helped to foster these ideas so profoundly that at the end of colonial rule and immediately thereafter the colonial denigration of African customs remained the framework within which Africans themselves assessed their social, religious, and cultural values. Many colonial administrators expected this ultimate impact of guided colonial schooling and secularism. Lamin Sanneh notes that Sir Hugh Clifford, the governor of Northern Nigeria, who commissioned the establishment of Katsina College in 1922 to educate young Muslims, expected that the college would “lead the northern Nigerian Muslim elite without undue distraction, into the modern age with their religious values protected, but with a little cricket thrown in it.”19 The governor noted cynically and paternalistically that the graduates of the college would “propagate not only the lessons they had learned from books which they will here acquire, but the way that good Muhammadans should live, the good manners, good behavior, and the courteous deportment without which mere booklearning [sic] is of little worth.”20 In other words, colonial officials saw secular education as the means of transforming the social and intellectual attitudes of Northern Nigerian Muslim elites in ways that the British would consider gentlemanly. Secular education was thus not intended to Christianize Muslim elites or to assimilate them 18 Malidoma Patrice, The Healing Wisdom of Africa (New York: Tarcher, 1999), 4. 19 Sanneh, The Crown, 149. 20 Ibid.

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into British culture. Rather secular education was to endow these elites with the social, intellectual and political capital associated with the acceptance of colonial modernity. By embracing colonial modernity, these elites not only became loyal subjects enjoying some of the social and political dividends of colonial rule, but were also expected to portray the benefits of colonial modernity and to become its advocates. Colonial education therefore provided the crucial physical and mental space for undermining indigenous traditions. Subtle or overt, colonial education nurtured African elites who became conscripts of modernity as a means of overcoming their own social and cultural alienation at the end of colonial rule. These conscripts of modernity understood the implications of the pursuit of modernity quite well because, like their colonial mentors, they too contrasted tradition with modernity, derided the former and highlighted the latter as the path to ultimate human achievement. Influenced by ideas of modernity rooted in Enlightenment philosophy that had created a false divide between forces of scientific rationality and those of tradition, colonial education saturated the African psyche with the belief that tradition (that is, the old and the familiar) was a symbol of cultural retardation. The very logic of colonial education and its pedagogical instrument thus sought to break down Africans’ attachment to their ancestral customs, religions, and knowledge, and required Africans to learn afresh new ways of “seeing, doing, and being.” As Francis Nyamnjoh notes, instead of “cultural interpretation,” colonialism and subsequent Western-driven globalization sought the “wholesale cultural conversion”21 of Africans with the educated elites as the primary targets. Nyamnjoh observes: Africans and their customs have been depicted and related to as inferior, as belonging to the margins of humanity and creativity, and as deserving to be despised and outgrown. Modernity or development, since contact with Europe, has traditionally been conceived, presented and pursued as something induced from without, a process that favors imitation over originality and appropriation. Such a concept of modernity to Africans has entailed self-denial, self-abandonment, or self-humiliation, and the adoration of most things Western.22

21 Francis B. Nyamnjoh, “Cultures, Conflicts and Globalization: Africa,” in Cultures and Globalization Series (1): Conflicts and Tensions, ed. Helmut Anheiier and Yudhisthir Raj Isar (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2007), 124. See also D. F. Bryceson, “Review Article: Of Criminals and Clients: African Culture and Afro-Pessimism in a Globalized World,” CJAS 34, no. 2 (2000): 417–42. 22 Nyamnjoh, “Cultures,” 124.



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But after their cultural conversion, the educated elites became advocates of the colonialists’ knowledge. Alan Charles Kors notes succinctly that the Enlightenment discourse included “an increasingly critical attitude toward inherited authority in a large variety of human spheres, a sense that, armed with new methods and new powers, the human mind could reexamine claims made upon it in a growing set of the domains of human life, including religion.”23 The advocates of Enlightenment, explained Margaret Jacob, “saw prejudice and superstition everywhere around them, and armed with their own biases, particularly against the clergy, they entered into a war of words with the upholders of tradition, authority and the status quo . . .”24 These ideas reached Africa through colonial education and fostered particular intellectual and social attitudes among some African educated elites who became lynchpins in promoting these ideas. While rejecting Europeans’ selfproclaimed cultural superiority, these elites did not shy away from depicting their societies in tropes commonly found in the Enlightenment discourse: “ignorance,” “tradition,” “superstition,” etc. Evidently, the Enlightenment pedagogical paradigm that formed the foundation of colonial education was both instructive and ideological, and provided the framework within which postcolonial elites operated. The binary tension between “tradition” and “modernity” that defined the Enlightenment ideals reverberated in the colonial discourse of African Islam, as discussed in chapter 2. While many Muslims educated in mission or secular schools during the colonial period resisted conversion to Christianity, they did not succeed in resisting the colonialists’ subtle discourse that reduced African Islam to a superstitious belief system. This discourse helped to shape some Muslims’ assessments of their religion, and helped prepare them to become advocates or conscripts of modernity at the end of colonial rule. Although experiencing cultural contradictions wrought by colonial education, some of these conscripts of modernity maintained their Muslim identity but adopted French cultural attitudes as well. That contradictory identity is reflected in the ways they struggled to maintain both their Muslim identity and their French intellectual and semi-cultural identity. Others married their new identity and skills to emerging non-doctrinal religious communities, such as the Communauté 23 Kors (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, xvii; quoted in Attar, The Vital Roots, 3. 24 Jacob, The Enlightenment, Preface, vii. It is worth noting, however, that colonial rule itself had to confront the ambivalence of tradition, struggling to make and unmake African traditions in ways that ensured colonial control. Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism,” 5.

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Musulmane in Burkina Faso or the Ghana Muslim Representative Council. And some maintained their faith without being directly involved in community affairs. Regardless of where they located themselves in the postcolonial social and religious spectrum, these cultural hybrids and conscripts of modernity remained committed to applying their skills and ideas of modernity to transform local Islamic cultures and institutions because this commitment was essential in their quest to resolve their own cultural contradictions. For those who remained outside the existing Muslim institutions dominated by Sufi leaders, Wahhabism provided them with an opportunity to negotiate their entry into the Muslim community on their own terms. With the advent of locally constructed Wahhabi ideas, which some of them believed were compatible with their expectations of a modern Islam, they did not have to operate under the shadows of the established elites and indigenous institutions, nor did they have to avoid Islam. A leader in Burkina Faso noted: Sunna, or what used to be called Wahhabiyya, attracted some young Frenchtrained individuals who had become neither fully assimilated French, nor had they completely abandoned Islam. They had learned from their French educators that Islam encouraged superstitions and retarded human progress. They blamed Islam for the miserable conditions of Muslims. However, these half-French half-African Muslims later realized that their White teachers did not tell them the whole truth. Yet they had already been deeply influenced by those negative ideas about Islam so most of them, except the courageous ones, isolated themselves from the community in order to protect their image as French Africans. When they heard the Wahhabi scholars preaching, they came out of their hiding and embraced them. The Wahhabi preachers offered them the type of Islam that seemed attractive to people who had no respect for our tradition and encouraged individuals to care only for themselves and not to pay allegiance to spiritual leaders or respect their elders. The Meccan scholars declared that their doctrine was the only authentic Islamic doctrine. The Meccan scholars also brought Arab culture, which appealed to these public functionaries who were anxious for something different from our traditional ways [rogonmiki]. These Frencheducated professionals believed that Arab culture would transform them into better and more civilized Muslims than we are. If they could not be black French, it was still better to become black Arabs, after all the Arabs were becoming very wealthy. These fonctionnaires did not want to return to the old ways because the French had told them the old ways were “uncivilized ways.”25

25 El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, February 24, 2002.



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The locally refashioned Wahhabism thus helped to bridge the contradictions experienced by many secularly-educated elites. However, while colonial education expected them to reach for modernity within the colonialists’ pedagogical infrastructure or material culture, Wahhabism allowed them to reach out to the discourse of Islamic purity and modernity coming from the Arab world, through the Egyptian renaissance of the nineteenth century as well as the Salafi movements of the twentieth century.26 By doing so, they claimed to retrieve the authentic Islamic legacy that they believed had been submerged in a deluge of ignorance and superstition before and during the colonial period. It did not matter that this modernity contained significant elements of the colonialists’ discourse and technology, such as we discussed with reference to madrasa schooling; what seemed crucial was that this modernity was sanctified with reference to the Prophet Muhammad’s recommendation that Muslims acquire knowledge from any source, provided that knowledge would reinforce their spiritual purity and social standing. Words such as jahiliya (Arabic and Hausa: ignorance), ta’ada (Hausa: tradition or customs), and rogonmiki (Mossi: tradition) formed the discursive framework of the reformers’ polemics, which also reflected the colonialists’ perceptions of African Islam. Both the colonial and precolonial periods were declared the eras of jahiliya; and all the religious practices not approved of by the reformers were dismissed as superstitious customs. These vocabularies were familiar to the secularly-educated elites who had been trained to reject tradition in favor of modernity. They frowned upon indigenous knowledge, which they declared superstition, while upholding external knowledge as scientific and “progressive,” without making efforts to understand the efficacy of indigenous knowledge within the local context. In their overall agenda, they ignored the role of indigenous traditions and knowledge in negotiating power and social relations and in shaping religious beliefs prior to the coming of Europeans because such acknowledgment undermines their agenda. For many of these conscripts of modernity, authentic religious expressions had to reflect ideas similar to European modernity, as they had learned from colonial schools—including the aggressive pursuit of material progress, belief in individualism, conservative economic behavior, and

26 Egypt’s shortwave radio broadcast, the Arabic by Radio program, was an important exporter of a Middle Eastern version of modernity to Africa prior to the return of Arabophone intellectuals.

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the rejection of indigenous mores. Modernity became a synonym for personal and societal transformation; it meant adopting lifestyles and beliefs that they believed would enhance personal economic progress and the development of society as a whole. Local customs and beliefs associated with occultism, especially the reliance on charms for success or spiritual and homeopathic remedies instead of Western healing practices, were seen as the causes of Muslims’ spiritual backsliding, socioeconomic retardation, and poor health. They seemed too quick to dismiss the belief in witchcraft as irrational and thus unrealistic, since such beliefs could not be corroborated by empirical evidence or science, and because colonial education rejected these beliefs as indications of cultural retardation. The rejections by Wahhabi preachers of extravagant life cycle rituals as wasteful and contrary to the Prophet Muhammad’s message also appealed to these modernity-conscious elites, who saw an opportunity to economize resources without fear of being declared miserly. I was surprised to note that even though this conception of modernity was really not new, as identical ideas such as the aspiration for individual advancement and communal progress have always existed in some form in these societies, it was the colonialists’ explanation that survived local collective memory and became the reference point. Comparable to the Enlightenment philosophers in Europe, modernityconscious African elites became the vanguard in suppressing indigenous customs and heralding the inclusion of those from the Middle East and Europe (chapter 7). A limited knowledge of indigenous history and direct experience with Western racial discourse led them to credit Europeans with knowledge that has local variants but was overlooked by many colonial writers seeking to privilege European achievements over those of Africans. We must remember that these secularly-educated elites were not scholars with advanced degrees in the humanities (most of them only completed high school, polytechnic, and other vocational schools, which admittedly were comparable to today’s college education in terms of quality). Moreover, it is worth reiterating that these elites were not operating in a social vacuum. Such seemingly simplistic notions of modernity were understood within the framework of the modernizing agenda of the secular state pursued by postcolonial political leaders. Evidently, these conscripts of modernity believed, ambivalently enough, that Enlightenment philosophy represented a liberating discourse that allowed them to free themselves from colonial rule and indigenous tradition, in the same way Wahhabism helped to liberate them from onerous indigenous customs. Historians have not explored fully the extent



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to which the nationalist struggles utilized Enlightenment philosophy to seek liberation not only from European rule, but also from the infrastructure of indigenous power. Writing about African intellectuals’ attempts to legitimize the validity of oral history in reconstructing the African past, Jewsiewicki and Mudimbe note that the intellectual processes pursued by these nationalist intellectuals were “somehow comparable to the Enlightenment, although not its repetition. The African intellectuals believed they were re-inventing a new literature and a new social science.”27 But when confronted with the realities of the resilience of indigenous traditions, these nationalists directly or indirectly sought to undermine traditional institutions and the beliefs that reinforced the legitimacy of these institutions at the same time that they sought to end colonial rule. Inasmuch as nationalist leaders framed their political identities and discourses in European languages and the liberation paradigm that can be traced to Enlightenment discourse, they had no intention of recreating indigenous institutions, but rather sought to use its ethos to dismiss the colonialists’ claim that Africa had no history; indigenous systems, however, must surrender to a new political system that had been shaped by the European presence. To allow indigenous traditions to invade the new political, religious, and social space inherited from colonial rule would have meant undermining their own legitimacy, which was rooted in their knowledge of European languages and skills, and not in indigenous institutions of power. Rather, they sought, consciously or otherwise, to weaken these very institutions in order to perpetuate and preserve their newly acquired power and influence, or to transform these institutions to serve a new purpose in a new environment.28 Jewsiewicki and Mudimbe note quite succinctly, “The theme of starting over, of a new beginning, is as prominent in the thoughts of intellectuals of this period as is a dual vision of time, of the world, and of society: tradition and modernity, past and present . . .”29 Furthermore, it would have been contradictory and counterproductive, if not impossible, for postcolonial leaders to eschew the everpresent colonial legacy and return their societies to precolonial political,

27 B. Jewsiewicki and V. Y. Mudimbe, “Africans’ Memories and Contemporary History of Africa,” History and Theory 32, no. 4 (Dec. 1993), 7. 28 Richard Rathbone offers a good example of this struggle between Kwame Nkrumah and Ghana’s indigenous rulers. Nkrumah and the Chiefs: The Politics of Chieftaincy in Ghana, 1951–60 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 29 Jewsiewicki and Mudimbe, “Africans’ Memories,” 7.

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economic, and social arrangements. However pristine and glorious that past had been, it was a past that could not be reproduced unadulterated. Postcolonial elites, who for the most part became advocates of modernity whether they acknowledged it or not, self-servingly sought a way forward rather than backward; the foundation for this “forward ever backward never” slogan propagated by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana meant returning to neither the colonial nor the precolonial eras. Even when the past was recreated, it was framed in the European paradigm the elites had acquired during their Western education. Kwame Nkrumah’s idea of forward movement reverberated in the Islamic realm, where Wahhabi-inclined ideas of spiritual reform were reframed to provide the impetus for undermining the local Muslim status quo, in a march toward modernity. It would have been naïve for Muslims in West Africa to reject constructive aspects of modernity for no other reason than that they were Western in origin. Thus for this segment of the Muslim population, Wahhabi dogma provided an escape from a past era, an era that had been discredited by colonial educators, and subsequently, Wahhabi preachers, who compared that past with the era of jahiliya that preceded the advent of Islam in Arabia. Wahhabism seemed, in spiritual terms, to be the way forward. Thus, these Muslim advocates of modernity saw the advent of Wahhabism as part of the broader project of nationalism, one that allowed the cultural and spiritual transformation to reflect the nationalist agenda of creating a new society. From this perspective, it is not far-fetched to argue that many Ghanaian and Burkinabé Muslims educated in colonial institutions did not seek to return to the precolonial past but to create a new beginning that conformed to their perceptions of progress as understood by most postcolonial elites educated in Western-styled schools. It is thus not surprising, for example, that in many parts of West Africa the early phase of Wahhabism was marked by a forceful attempt by its adherents to reject local traditions in favor of something new and foreign. Newness and the external provenance of ideas were presented as modern and sanctified by the “authentic” Islam of the Prophet’s era. An examination of the discourse and practice of modernity pursued by twentieth-century West African reformers inclined toward Wahhabi ideas thus helps to unravel different expressions of modernity within religious space. The evidence particularly points to various discursive contours pursued directly or implicitly by these reformers; contours that reflect Muslims’ search for a critical balance between orthodoxy and material progress within the broader repertoire of ideas of modernity inherited



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from colonial rule. This position leads to the conclusion that Wahhabism in West Africa did not emerge in hostility to Western secular institutions or the material aspects of modernity. Rather, various Wahhabi leaders, especially those educated in secular institutions, sought to refashion the Wahhabi dogma to accommodate the secular ideas they had acquired from secular institutions, in order to advance the interests of Muslims. As illustrated with ample examples from Wahhabi-inclined organizations in Ghana and Burkina Faso, the reformers’ radical polemics were not directed at secular institutions or Western geopolitical interests, but rather against the dominant elites whom they considered the obstacles to Muslims’ political, social, and economic advancement. They characterized their mission as a struggle against the established elites’ inertia, which they insisted impeded the modernization of Muslim institutions, religiosity, culture, and economic behavior. These claims are all questionable, given their own social and intellectual locations and the doctrinal framework within which they sought these transformations. Yet, this acknowledgment should not lead us to deny their aspirations and the pedagogical paradigm within which their ideas evolved and were articulated. In the preceding chapters I have provided several examples to demonstrate the ways adherents of Wahhabism in West Africa accepted modernity and advocated for the retention of secular institutions. Their recognition of the secular state and their rejection of the project of an “Islamic state,” which most of the leaders considered unrealistic and untenable, is worth reiterating here. Looking at their overall activities and strategies, it is fair to point out that they pursued their agenda within the legal framework of the secular state. This point helps to distinguish their agendas from those of some Islamist groups in the Arab world who sought to dismantle the secular state. In general, West African Islamists appeared to have accepted a relationship of coexistence between the Islamic religious space and the secular state.30 Leonardo Villalón’s study of the relationship between the Senegalese secular state and various powerful Sufi leaders clearly demonstrates how the religious community and the secular state coexisted in ways that reinforced their mutual influences within the Senegalese polity.31 Due to the political influence of the various Sufi leaders, Senegal presents a peculiar situation. However, we may compare 30 For an interesting discussion of how various religions sought to accommodate or reject secularism, see Terrance G. Carrol, “Secularization and States of Modernity,” World Politics 36 no. 3 (April 1984): 362–82. 31 Villalón, Islamic Society.

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the coexistence of the secular state and religious institutions in Senegal with those of Ghana and Burkina Faso and arrive at the conclusion that Muslims in all three countries were not antagonistic toward the secular state nor did they seek to undermine its institutions. Similarly, the secular states of Ghana and Burkina Faso have been sensitive to Muslims’ culture and institutions, and have accommodated various Muslim institutions in the secular space. For example, in both countries, as in many parts of Muslim West Africa, madrasas have been integrated into the infrastructure of national education. The Franco-Arabic and Anglo-Arabic educational schemes allow Muslims to offer a religious and secular curriculum within an Islamic environment. Similarly, in both Ghana and Burkina Faso, the institution of National Chief Imam has been integrated into the polity and he, along with other religious leaders, participates in state functions and travels abroad with diplomatic privileges. Nigeria, where local politics often assumes a religious character, frequently offers a noted departure from the prevailing norm in West Africa. Yet, even here, the Wahhabi-inclined leaders, especially in the 1980s, recognized the secular nature of Nigerian politics. We recall Abubakar Gumi’s remark that siyasa tafi sala (politics takes precedence over the daily prayers) when he tried to convince Nigerian men to allow their wives and daughters to vote. This was a profoundly controversial statement from one of the most powerful Wahhabi preachers in West Africa. But the statement demonstrates the uniqueness and dynamism of the West African Wahhabi reforms. Having emerged within the secular state, its adherents remained committed to democratic principles and ideas of modernity that did not violate the sacred law. Talal Asad is therefore accurate in concluding that both Islam and Christianity have ways of creating secular institutions within the framework of their religious environment.32 This tendency, from the 1990s on, toward coexistence with the secular state reflected similar patterns of coexistence between Wahhabi adherents and their erstwhile rivals, the members of the Sufi brotherhoods. The inter-doctrinal coexistence and dialogue promoted by younger generation Wahhabi scholars starting from the 1990s accentuates the oftenoverlooked opportunities for dialogue among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims. We see this shift throughout West Africa.

32 See for example, Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam and Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).



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Marie Miran has found this tendency among Muslims in Côte d’Ivoire in spite of the constant threats of inter-ethnic violence during the civil war.33 But the development of this new dialogue was also partly influenced by a new shift toward compromise to foster Muslim solidarity developing in the Arab world during this period as well. The arguments put forth in this book are not meant to reaffirm Eurocentric ideas that Africans are mere imitators. Clearly, as mentioned earlier, Europe is also “greatly indebted for its civilizations to cultural borrowing”34 from other societies, including the Islamic civilization it replaced at the turn of the thirteenth century. George Sarton reminds us: . . . the search for the truth is not restricted to any single group or class or nation or men. If one takes the whole of the past into account, not simply one period, and all the chains. . . one finds that men of all kinds [and women as well] have shared in the work. No one can predict where and when the missing links of any change will be discovered.35

Samar Attar agrees when he notes that, “All civilizations exercise a reciprocal influence on each other over a long period of time. . . [and] all civilizations are hybrid. There is nothing absolutely pure.”36 Focusing on the writing of the Arab/Muslim philosopher, Ibn Tufayl, Attar convincingly demonstrates Islam’s contribution to Western science and philosophy; contributions that laid the foundation for the Enlightenment ideas of eighteenth-century Europe. He notes: The willingness of some Western scholars to admit the influence of Arabic on European languages in the Middle Ages is juxtaposed by the total rejection of many to consider the feasibility of other borrowed features of culture . . . To concede that there is some influence of Arabic on European languages, but at the same time to deny the same influence of ideas does not seem to be logical. Words such as algorithm, algebra, alchemy, cipher, almanac, nadir, almagest, zenith, astrolabe, amalgam, azimuth, borax, alkali, and many other scientific terms have become part of the European language . . . But concepts such as toleration, empirical thought, experimental methods, doubt, skepticism, and rationalism are all claimed to be the

33 Miran, Islam, histoire et modernité, 375. 34 Bassam Tibi, Islam’s Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 242. 35 George Sarton, “The History of Science and the New Humanism,” in The History of Science with Recollections and Reflections by Robert K. Merton (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988), 31–32. Quoted in Attar, The Vital Roots, 4. 36 Attar, The Vital Roots, 131.

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Rather, by identifying West African Wahhabism with modernity, I seek to encourage an honest appraisal of the effects of the colonial legacy on the colonized, and understand the ways the colonized transformed this legacy into something concrete and productive at a specific historical moment. The enduring presence of the colonial moment cannot be underestimated. As Ashis Nandy, the famed Indian psychologist, has observed, the West has permeated “the structures and minds” of the colonized.38 The colonial pedagogical model served as the main conduit for attempting to saturate the minds of the colonized with European ideals, at least those ideals that would not threaten colonial order. Yet this same pedagogical model served as the channel through which colonized people neutralized the European claim to cultural superiority. Consequently, in seeking a reappraisal of the colonial moment and the subsequent Western-led globalization in order to unveil the relationship between twentieth-century Islamic reform and modernity, I caution against underestimating indigenous creativity. I focused my critical lens on the ways colonial ideas permeated Muslims’ intellectual and spiritual spaces in order to accentuate Africans’ agency in appropriating vocabularies and ideas they inherited from their colonial past to create their own version of modernity. Thus, rather than antagonism as culture war theorists would have us believe, the cohorts of secularly-educated Muslims who joined Wahhabism found modernity to be a powerful instrument to enhance religious appeal. But rather than advocating for a wholesale adoption of modernity, they refashioned it to serve local Islam. Modernity and its derivatives came to represent the symbolic and discursive dividing line between elements of the precolonial era that they considered outmoded, and ideas inherited from colonial rule that seemed useful but also fraught with risks, contradictions, and indeed unpleasant memories. Their notion of religious purity and doctrinal authenticity thus transcended the struggles against religious innovations (bid’a) and syncretism, to encompass a broader societal transformation that they believed would bring Muslims to the “modern era,” but within the fold of Islamic orthodoxy. It was therefore no accident that 37 Ibid., 128–29. See also Ira M. Lapidus, “Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical Paradigms,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 4 (1997): 444–60. 38 Ashis Nandy, Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), xi.



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when the secularly-educated elites embraced Wahhabi-inclined preachers, they immediately located themselves as natural leaders and saw the opportunity to create new Muslim communities that reflected the bureaucratic arrangements of secular institutions. The struggle to mediate the ambiguities of Islamic orthodoxy and modernity pursued by these elites should be understood against the premise that colonialism neither completely transformed West African Muslims nor left their customs and traditions unscathed by European political, cultural, and material discourses and practices. However, the discourses and strategies of the nationalist struggles also shaped Muslims’ expectations for a new religious space distinct from the past. Wahhabi reformers’ criticisms of what they considered pervasive local superstitions and religious innovations, their denunciations of the established elites who were accused of fostering irreligious practices, and their emphases on imitating the Prophet Muhammad’s lifestyle were not new in West African Muslims’ struggles for spiritual renewal and reform. Identical arguments had been presented by Sufi-oriented reformers in the region from the eighteenth century or earlier. The radical ideas put forth by these scholars, as well as their uncompromising strategies of proselytism, were also not new in the West African tradition of reform. What seemed unique in the twentieth-century reform championed by scholars who became sympathetic to Wahhabi dogma were the colonial and postcolonial contexts that allowed these ideas to be interpreted in ways that appealed to Muslim aspirants of modernity at the end of colonial rule. Furthermore, the reformers’ arguments about social justice, their encouragement of political realignments in ways that favored Muslims, their insistence on “rational” economic behavior that sought to avoid wastefulness, and their encouragement of the pursuit of secular knowledge to enhance Muslims’ positions in a postcolonial environment, where economic success depended largely on secular knowledge, all fit within the broader discourse of the nationalist struggles and the postcolonial states’ agenda. The main contribution of our “conscripts of modernity” can be located in the ways they helped the Arabophone elites to combine spiritual message with mundane concerns in order to adjust Muslims’ attitudes toward the postcolonial era, where a new vision of religious identity seemed crucial for Muslims’ advancement. They saw the colonial period as an era in which Islam’s development was stagnant and they considered the postcolonial state as an opportunity to address this stagnation. The process of reversing this stagnation included modernizing Muslim institutions and cultural norms, while safeguarding the purity of Islam.

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My findings in this comparative study also lead me to caution against homogenizing Islamic revivalism and seeing it as static and timeless. David Brown’s conclusion in his studies of the struggles over Prophetic traditions in Pakistan and a number of Arab countries is worth quoting at length: Westerners often perceive Muslim revivalist movements as prone to violence, hostile to western geopolitical interests, and committed to a reactionary social agenda—and so they sometimes are. But even if these images are not entirely false, they miss the point. What gives revivalist movements their strength is simply the fact that they promise to bring Islam back to life. They claim to represent a vision of renewed Islam which is not only authentic to the ideal Islamic past but also adapted to the modern situation of Muslims. Reality belies the common stereotype of Islamic revivalism as a defensive and reactionary movement, born of frustration, anger, and fear at the encroachment of western cultural values.39

The evidence presented in this study supports the position that, in their efforts to promote spiritual purity, twentieth-century West African Muslim revivalists refashioned and Islamized aspects of modernity in order to engage with a world dominated by Western economic, political, cultural, and intellectual influences. In doing so, they did not reject or position themselves against Western geopolitical interests. Rather, they sought ways to coexist with it including the utilization of some Western material and pedagogical tools to reinvigorate Islam in a new time and space. The history of the twentieth-century West African Islamic resurgence associated with Wahhabism therefore provides a rare window for exploring the complexity and dynamics of religious resurgences; there is nothing homogenous or timeless about Islamic reforms, or any other faith for that matter. * * * The final decade of colonial rule and the first decade of independence represented crucial historical flashpoints for understanding twentiethcentury Islamic reform in West Africa and the ways new reformers negotiated their entry into what was widely seen as the modern era. Interestingly, the search for Islamic purity served as one of the conduits for this entry into modernity, or, I should emphasize, a refined modernity stripped of colonial cultural pretenses. In seeking to unveil some aspects of modernity in this genre of West African reform, I was guided by a broader 39 Brown, Rethinking Tradition, 141.



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question: Are religion and modernity oppositional? In other words, does a shift toward modernity lead to the demise of religion? Enlightenment philosophers anticipated that secularism would displace religious institutions in the public domain and in regulating social and political interactions when societies become modern. In this formulation, religion is considered an obstacle or an anathema to modernity not only because of its powerful appeal in mobilizing and channeling human behavior in the direction of a putative divine expectation, but also because religion is considered an archaic, irrational, and dangerous instrument of power that undermines equality and accountability. Many scholars have argued that the recent resurgence of religion and its encroachment in the public domain throughout the world, including the West, suggests that we reassess the putative incongruity between religion and modernity.40 The evidence from Ghana and Burkina Faso analyzed in this book suggests that religion (in this case Islam), has neither disappeared from human interaction, nor has it obstructed Muslims’ constructive engagement with modernity. Instead of an adversarial relationship, modernity and religion seem to be cohabitating in ways that reinforce their mutual capacities to shape human material and spiritual existence. The history of Wahhabism in Ghana and Burkina Faso also reminds us that there is no reason religious institutions could not utilize secular ideas to reinforce their influence on followers or to create a new religious environment that their followers could relate to. Although emphasizing a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet’s era, locally constructed Wahhabi dogma proved to be sufficiently porous to accommodate this modernity without violating its spiritual purity. The relationship between twentieth-century West African reform and Muslims’ quest for modernity within Islamic orthodoxy is thus not readily visible in the reformers adoption of cultural identities traceable to the Hijaz or Europe; it is more profoundly discernible in their overall arguments and the strategies by which they localized and utilized powerful ideas, including those of their colonial past, to serve Islam and to assert a new religious identity. Their mission was not to engage in academic 40 The literature in this debate is extensive but the reader may find some useful insights in the following sources; though not necessarily the best materials on the subject, they are nonetheless informative and accessible in the ways they engage with the debate. Asad, Formations of the Secular; Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Post-Modernization (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univesity Press, 1997), 5; Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), especially chapters 4, 6, and 7.

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debate about modernity. Rather, they were concerned about modeling their Islam in ways that corresponded to the demands of their place and time. Ignoring this aspect of their history because we are uncomfortable discussing modernity in religious space is to overlook a fundamental aspect of that history. In response to Cooper’s query referred to above, I argue that modernity was what I heard from those who invoked its powerful discourse in Muslims’ religious space. Whether we call the outcome of the process of appropriation and refashioning described above as an “alternative African modernity,” “African Islamic modernity,” or something else, one thing remains certain: European modernity would not have been possible without the colonized world, and African modernity would not have been possible without the European presence.41 While some academics insist that modernity was a European concept, many African elites considered modernity a universal concept, albeit historically and culturally contingent; it is the modernity, as Tariq Ramadan suggests, that admits the pluralism of civilizations, religions, and cultures.42 Contrary to Samuel Huntington’s rhyming sound bites “West versus Rest,” the modernity I analyze here unveils the West in the Rest and the Rest in the West without significant tension or contradiction. And contrary to Daniel Lerner’s alliterative “Mecca or mechanization,” to use Eickelman’s phrasing, the analyses of West African Muslims’ engagement with modernity demonstrate that Muslims pursued both Mecca and mechanization simultaneously, as instructed by their Prophet. In fact, they pursued this dual project centuries before modern Europe. In simultaneously pursuing Mecca and mechanization, Muslim scientists who laid the foundation for the development of modern science centuries before the rise of Europe did not see religion and science as antagonistic forces, but rather as partners in fostering human material advancement and spiritual elevation.

41 Nina Berman, personal communication, Columbus, Ohio, February 27, 2010. See also chapter 1, “The Modernizing Mission: Max Eyth in Egypt,” of her book, Impossible Mission: German Economic, Military and Humanitarian Efforts in Africa (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). 42 Tariq Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

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Appendix

Table of Interviews

Name

Place

Abdallah Gambo

Bronx (NY), USA

Abdoul Salaam Sana Abdoulaye Doukouré

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Abdul Aziz Maiga Aboubakar Sana

Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Ahmad Nizaam Alhaji Abdul Qadir Alhaji Osman Norga

Kumasi, Ghana Accra (New Town), Ghana Aladjo (Accra), Ghana

Alhaji Sarki Alhaji Tanko Alhaji Usman Amadi Ouedraogo El Hadji Abdul Qadir El Hadji Ahmadou Ouédraogo

Kumasi-Tafo, Ghana Kumasi, Ghana Kumasi-Tafo, Ghana Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

El Hadji Guira Umar El Hadji Hamidou Ouédraogo

Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso

El Hadji Ibrahim Ouédraogo El Hadji Mahmoudou Ouédraogo

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

El Hadji Mouctar Ouédraogo El Hadji Youssif Kouanda El Hadji Youssouf Ouédraogo El Hadji Yussifou Sana

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Accra (Aladjo), Ghana

El Hajj Adam Zergha Ouédraogo

Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso

Date Aug. 29, 2002 May 2, 2003 Feb. 16, 2002 Feb. 12, 2002 Feb. 15, 2002 Feb. 10, 2002 Apr. 2, 2002 May 1, 2002 Aug. 12, 2006 July 2, 2002 Jan. 12, 2002 Aug. 19, 1998 Jan. 8, 2002 Aug. 30, 2006 June 13, 2002 June 30, 2002 June 13, 2002 Aug. 14, 2006 Mar. 28, 2002 Apr. 22, 2002 Mar. 10, 2002 Feb. 6, 2002 July 28, 2008 May 2, 2002 Feb. 24, 2002 Apr. 5, 2002 May 2, 2002 Aug. 12, 2006 Mar. 2, 2002 Feb. 12, 2002 Apr. 10, 2002 July 21, 2003 Aug. 12, 2006 Feb. 28, 2002 Mar. 3, 2002 Apr. 5, 2002

358

appendix

Table (cont.) Name

Place

El Hajj Alhassan Sana

Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso

El Hajj Ibrahim Toure El Hajj Mahmoudou Maiga El Hajj Salifou Sawadogo

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Hajia Kande Hajj Halawaihi Yussif Ajura

Nsawam Tamale, Ghana

Hajj Ibrahim Hajj Issah Musah More

Tamale, Ghana Tamale, Ghana

Hajj Mubarak Abdallah (Zuu Tutugri) Hajj Rashid Shaaban Hajj Shuab Hajj Umar Abdallah Hajj Umar Ibrahim

Tamale, Ghana

Hajj Yussif Ali Ibrahim Abdullahi Barro

Accra, Ghana Nima (Accra), Ghana

Imam Sayouba Ouédraogo

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Issaka Salih Mahmadi Sawadogo

Nsawam, Ghana Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso

Kumasi, Ghana Nima (Accra), Ghana Kumasi, Ghana Abeka and Nima (Accra), Ghana

Date Feb. 17, 2002 Aug. 2, 2006 Feb. 13, 2002 May 2, 2002 Feb. 7, 2002 Feb. 16, 2002 Feb. 23, 2002 Feb. 24, 2002 Apr. 11, 2002 May 2, 2002 Oct. 12, 2001 May 16, 2002 May 17, 2002 May 25, 2002 June 2, 2006 Aug. 16, 2008 May 24, 2002 Mar. 17, 2002 June 1, 2002 May 23, 2002 June 13, 2002 June 2, 2002 June 2, 2002 June 13, 1998 July 2, 1998 Dec. 14, 2001 Apr. 19, 2002 June 23, 2002 June 29,* 2002 June 28, 2006 Aug. 5, 2006 Sept. 20, 2009 (tel.) July 3, 2006 Dec. 2, 2001 June 15, 2002 June 22,* 2002 Feb. 24, 2002 Apr. 19, 2002 Apr. 21, 2002 June 30, 2002 Feb. 4, 2002



appendix

359

Table (cont.) Name

Place

Date

Mahmoudou Bandé

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Mallam Abdul Samad Mallam Basha

Nsawam, Ghana Tamale, Ghana

Mallam Dauda

Abofu (Accra), Ghana

Feb. 21, 2002 Feb. 23, 2002 Feb. 24, 2002 Aug. 12, 2006 Aug. 13, 2006 May 23, 2002 May 25, 2002 June 30,* 2006 Aug. 19, 2006 Jan. 17, 2002

Mallam Dawda Mallam Hussein Zakhariah Mallam Huseini Zakhariah Umar Mallam Issah Mallam Muhammad Issah Mallam Musah Abdul Qadir

Nima (Accra), Ghana Accra (Ghana) Accra, Ghana

June 27, 2002 July 3, 2002 July 3, 2002

Kumasi-Tafo, Ghana Kumasi-Zongo, Ghana Nima (Accra), Ghana

Mallam Nuru Saamundin Mallam Osman Mallam Sani Murtala

Nsawam, Ghana Kumasi-Tafo, Ghana Nima (Accra), Ghana

Mallam Zakharia

Nima (Accra), Ghana

Mallam Zakariah Musah Muhammad S. Baba Mumuni Sulemana Moctar Maiga Mouctar Cissé Nana Issaka Agyiman Nuru Bello

Accra (New Town), Ghana Washington DC (Telephone) Telephone Accra Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Kumasi, Ghana Bronx (NY) USA

Opayin Kwame Appiah Saidou Ouédraogo Sheikh Aboubakar Maiga II

Suame-Kumasi, Ghana Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso Rahmatoulaye, Burkina Faso

June 6, 2002 Sept. 13, 2001 Jan. 10, 2002 June 4, 2002 June 30, 2002 Sept. 22, 2002 July 5, 2002 Aug. 4, 1998 Mar. 31, 2001 May 10, 2002 Aug. 2, 2006 July 2, 2008 June 19, 2002 Aug. 1, 2006 Dec. 12, 2001 Sept. 2, 2002 Nov. 12, 2002 June 30, 2002 Mar. 2, 2002 Apr. 2, 2002 June 16, 2002 Aug. 29, 2002 Aug. 13, 2008 June 10, 2002 Mar. 3, 2002 May 2, 2002 Apr. 4, 2008

360

appendix

Table (cont.) Name

Place

Sheikh Daud Nuhu

Kumasi-Tafo, Ghana

Sheikh Harunah Appau Sheikh Said Umar Sidi Madi Maiga

Kumasi, Ghana Tamale, Ghana Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Sidi Mouhammad Tounkara

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Date June 14, 2002 Aug. 25, 2006 (tel.) June 13, 2002 May 22, 2002 May 2, 2002 July 31, 2008 May 15, 2002

Index of people (African names are alphabetized by first name, then last name; titles (i.e., Alhaji, El Hadji, El Hajj, Hajj, Mallam, Sheikh, and Sidi) appear at the end of the name.) Abdallah Dauda, 218 Abdoulaye Doukouré, 103, 112 Abdoulkader Tayob, 306 Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, Sheikh, 213n2, 225, 270n61, 289n16, 300 Abdul Aziz Sy, 125 Abdul Rahman bin Yussif, 225 Abdul Samad, Mallam, 225–226, 230, 232, 298 Aboubacar Doukouré, 294 Aboubacar Kanozoe (of Paghtenga), El Hajj, 131–132, 145, 148 Aboubacar Maiga II, Sheikh, 293, 294 Aboubacar Sana, 287, 305 Aboubacar Sangoulé Lamizana (1916–2005), 149, 192–193, 196–197, 201, 202, 204 Abu Bakr (Companion of Prophet Muhammad), 138, 242 Abubakar Gumi, 307, 332 Abu-Rabi’, Ibrahim, 31 Adam Appiedu, Sheikh, 63, 120, 152, 154, 171, 173, 175–181, 184, 211, 220, 230, 231–232, 238, 260, 282, 292, 298, 301, 303 Adam Baba, 230–233, 282, 292 Adamu Samundini, Mallam, xx, xxiii, 258–259 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din (1839–97), 29–31 Ahmad Gulam, 115 Ahmad, Leila, 276 Ahmad Nizaam, 261 Ahmad Nizar, 93 Ahmad Salmoy, Sheikh, 99 Ahmad Tijani (1735–1815), Sheikh, xix, xx, 10, 47, 48, 165–166, 226 Ahmadou Bamba, 61 Ahmadou Bandé, 129, 143, 148, 150–151, 198, 207 Ahmadou Demé, 75 Ahmadou Lobbo, 59, 111n116 Ahmadou Touré, 99 Alassane Moumini, 76 Ali (cousin of Prophet Muhammad), 138, 242

Alidou, Housseina, 5, 318 Alioune Diop, 320 Amadi Ouédraogo, 242 André, Captain, 194 Armstrong, Karen, xxiv–xxv Asad, Talal, 332 Askia Muhammad Touré, 37–40, 57, 70 Attar, Samar, 333 Attwell, David, 24 Audouin, Jean, 60 Awudu (of Kpalume), Mallam, 156 Baba Innoussa, 256 Ba Lobbo, 59, 111n116 Bamoin Tounkara, 256 Bello (of Kejebi), Mallam, 156 Blyden, Edward, 86 Boubacar Bellem, 103, 112 Boubacar Sawadogo, Sheikh, 74, 94, 97–110, 112, 117, 121, 124, 126, 128–129, 131–132, 135, 142, 172, 180, 187, 208 Boyle, Helen, 271 Braimah, B. A. R., 257 Brenner, Louis, 4, 48–49, 88 Brown, David, 336 Brown, William, xxv, xxvi Bunyaminu, Mallam, 212 Callow, Captain, 82 Cheikh Fass Touré, 123–124, 239 Cheikh Hamidou Kane, 321 Chief Alhaji Mumuni Salif, xxiii Clark, Peter, 116 Clifford, Sir Hugh, 87, 323 Clozel, François, 80, 89–90, 117, 195 Condé (or Kondé) Mory, 124 Cooper, Barbara, 5 Cooper, Frederick, 26, 314, 317, 338 Dan Tano, Mallam, 216n17, 225, 258–259 Dao, Maïmouna, 6, 285–286 Delafosse, Maurice, 60, 89n54 Deniel, Raymond, 60 Duc, Juliette Van, 127

362

index of people

Eickelman, Dale, xxxi–xxxii, 244n11, 338 Elijah Muhammad, xxvii

Issa Cissé, 6, 254–255 Issaka Wangara, Mallam, 211–212

Faisal b. Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, 179, 185, 201 Fanon, Frantz, 23 Fife, Wayne, 18 Fisher, Humphrey, 87, 92 Foucault, Michel, 22 Fournier, Albéric, 90 Fouset, Louis, 90

Jacob, Margaret, 325 Jamil Abun Nasr, xxv Jewsiewicki, B., 329 Jezequel, Jean-Harvé, 25 Joseph, Henri Marie, 90

Genova, James, 320–321 Gesink, Indira, 271 al-Ghazali, Muhammad Abu Hamid (d. 1111), xxvi, 300 Governor Doharty, 86 Governor Findlay, 86 Gregoire, Emmanuel, 5 Grindal, B., 114 Hajia Kande, 273 Halidu, Mallam, 156 Hallawaihi, Hajj, 155 Hamaullah, Sheikh (Sherif), 47, 102–103, 106, 107, 110–111 Hamed Tao, 256 Hames, C., 4 Hamid Bukur, Sheikh, 212 Hamza, Mallam, xxiii, 168, 211, 225n19, 226, 227n26, 259 Harrison, Christopher, 80, 88 Hart, Keith, 114 Hasan al-Turabi, 306–307 Hessling, Édouard, 60, 90, 194 Hiskett, Mervyn, 6, 39, 40, 45, 155, 227n26 Hodgkin, Elizabeth, 237, 268 Hume, David, 249 Huntington, Samuel, xxviii, xxxi, 338 Ibn Hanbal (780–855), 130 Ibn Taymiyya, Ahmad b. Abd al-Halim (1263–1328), xxvi, 3, 33n46, 34, 36–37, 39, 41, 130, 285, 299–300 Ibn Tufayl, 333 Ibrahim Basha, Mallam, 261–262, 264, 298 Ibrahim Dienopo, 255 Ibrahim Foulata (Fulani), 128 Ibrahim Niasse of Kaolack (Senegal), Sheikh, xix, xx, xxi, 10–11, 48, 112, 120, 125, 154, 155, 163–169, 226 Iddrissa Semdé, 129, 143, 150, 285 Iddrisu, Abdulai, 257 Iqbal, Muhammed, 268

Kaba, Lansiné, xxv, 4, 7–8, 30, 48, 121–122, 235, 239, 254 Kamal Din, Mallam, 168, 225n19, 227n26 Kane, Ousmane, 5, 181, 318 Karamogo Ba (Almamy of Lanfiéra), 75–76 Kepel, Gilles, 283 Kors, Alan Charles, 325 Kouanda, Assimi, 58, 127, 190–191 Kouanda, Ibrahim, 194 Laghle-naba, 55 Laoust, Henri, 34, 37 Launay, Robert, 72, 74 Lerner, Daniel, xxxi, 338 Levtzion, Nehemia, 61–62, 66 Locke, John, 249–250 Loimeier, Roman, 5, 123, 318 Lugard, Lord 82 al-Maghili, Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim (d. 1508), 33n46, 37–41, 43–44, 45, 47, 285 Mahama Baguian, El Hadji, 191 Mahama Kwame Ayi, Alhaji, 172 Mahmood Mamdani, xxviii Mahmoudou Bandé, 130, 207–208, 294–297 Maikano, Mallam, 167 Malick Sy, Sheikh, 61, 125 Martin, B. G., xxv Marty, Paul, 81, 89n54 Masquelier, Madeline, 5, 318 Massing, Andreas, 56, 58, 61 Maulay Hassan, 125 Mazrui, Ali, 237 M’Backé, Sheikh, 125 Mbembe, Achille, 251 McDonald, Kevin, 29 Miran, Marie, 5, 267, 318, 333 Moctar Sy, 256 Mogho Naba, 126, 190–193, 197, 198, 200 conversion of, 195–196 Mogho Naba Dulugu, 59, 62 Mogho Naba Kougouri, 194, 196 Mogho Naba Koutou (c. 1850–71), 59



index of people

Mogho Naba Saaga, 196 Morabia, Alfred, 34 Morry Diakité, 124 Mouragues, Albert, 194–196 M. S. Salley, Alhaji, 224–226 Mudimbe, V. Y., 329 Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), 30–31 Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, 76 Muhammad Bello, 45, 84 Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92), xxi, 2–3, 36–37, 41, 48, 122, 130, 133, 151, 163, 213, 234, 283, 299–300, 311 Muhammad Maiga (d. 1986), Sheikh Sidi, 97n74, 124–127, 129, 131, 133, 189, 255, 257, 296 Muhammad Malick Sana (d. 1998), El Hajj, 11, 128,129–130, 131, 132, 133, 134–135, 137, 139–143, 148–149, 151 Muhammad (Prophet), xx, xxiii, 45, 49, 93, 103, 115, 121, 122, 144, 161, 177, 188, 219, 248, 288, 296, 304, 309 birthday (mawlid), 10, 106, 122 community of, at Medina, 100, 141–142, 187, 242 consultative institution (shura), 242–243 era of, 2–3, 277 love for, xxi–xxii, 100n84, 132, 165–166 methods of, 36, 298–299 Sunna, 100, 136, 148, 181, 283. See also Sunna traditions/practices of, xxviii, 26, 31, 34, 99, 134–135, 138, 147, 152, 168, 187, 244, 268–269, 308, 310, 311, 327, 328, 335 Muhammad Sani Umar, 5 Muhammad S. Baba, 217, 226 Mumuni, Sulemana, 6, 257 Muntaka, Mallam, 167 Musah Abdul Qadir, Mallam, 297 Musah, Mallam, 77 Naba Saga, 59 Nandy, Ashis, 334 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 185, 234, 240 Ndiaye Diawara, 256 Nkrumah, Kwame, 154, 169, 172, 173n36, 178n48, 179, 214, 222–224, 329n28, 330 Nuru, Mallam, 265 Nyamnjoh, Francis, 324 Nyang, Suleyman, 48 Orwell, George, 247 Otayek, René, 6, 91

363

Ousmane Sibiri Ouédraogo, El Hadji, 130, 138, 140, 190–191 Owusu-Ansah, David, 65, 174, 257 Patrice, Malidoma, 323 Ponty, William, 79–80, 82, 84, 195 Qutb, Sayyid (1906–66), 31 Rahman, Fazlur, xxix Ramadan, Tariq, 338 Rappenne, Jean, 91 Reynolds, Jonathan, 81–83, 88 Robinson, David, xxv, 72, 96–97 Rosander, Eva, 318 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 249 Ryan, Patrick, 78 Sajoo, Amyn, 314–315 Salifou Sawadogo (aka El Hajj Salifou Bouse), El Hajj, 20, 131 Salim Suwari, Hajj, 33n46, 42, 43, 65, 285 Sam, Benjamin, 92–93, 114–115 Sani Murtala, Mallam, 19, 216n7, 259 Sankara, Thomas, 142n63, 288 Sanneh, Lamin, 42–43, 88, 323 Sanogo Mahmoud, 255 Sarton, George, 333 Sayouba Ouédraogo, Imam, 11, 130–133, 135, 137, 139–145, 148–151, 198 Seesemann, Rüdiger, xxin3, 165, 167 Seydou Nourou Tall, 105 Sheikaru, Mallam, 172 Shuab, Hajj, 227n26, 261, 299 Sinare Djebrè, 131 Skinner, Elliott, 197 Soares, Benjamin, 72, 74 Somé Youré Gabriel, 200 Sonni Ali Ber, 38, 40, 56 Souleymane Ouédraogo, 129, 143, 150, 282, 285–287, 292 Soumaila Bagaya, 194 Spear, Thomas, xxiv, 19, 317 Thévenoud, Monseigneur Joanny, 90 Tiemtoré (El Hadji Abdoul Salaam), Imam, 192–193, 196 Tilley, Helen, 7 Triaud, Jean-Louis Triaud, 4, 49 Umar al-Fullati, Sheikh, 212 Umar Ibrahim, Hajj, xxiii, 11–12, 209, 211–221, 223–228, 231–233, 235, 248, 268–269, 289–292, 298, 301

364

index of people

Umar Muhammad Nyohini (aka Afa Nyohini, of Tamale), Hajj, 259 Umar Tall al-Futi (1797–1864), Hajj, 33n46, 46–48, 61, 102, 105, 285 Umar (Companion of Prophet Muhammad), 138, 242 Usman Alfa Lardan, Mallam, 172 Uthman (Companion of Prophet Muhammad), 138, 242 Uthman dan Fodio, 33n46, 39, 41, 44–46, 48, 67, 83–84, 240, 285 Villalón, Leonardo, 331 Weiss, Holger, 6, 74, 77 Westerlund, David, 318 Wilks, Ivor, 42, 63, 66, 257

Yahya (Hadith scholar), Sheikh, 130 Yaméogo, Maurice, 140, 149–150, 201–202 Yussif Afa Ajura, Hajj, 10–11, 120, 152, 154–155, 160–162, 167–170, 175, 180–181, 184, 211, 214, 225, 232, 238, 260, 265, 292, 298, 301 Ambariyya, 230, 231. See also Madrasat Ambariyya Yussif Halawai, 301 Yussif Sana, El Hadji, 199 Zakariyya, Hajj, 133 Zakariyya, Mallam, 227 Zoungrana, Paul (1917–2000), 140

Index of Subjects Abbasid empire, 35 accommodation, 72, 96, 284, 292, 304, 309–310 accountability, 221n16, 242–243, 337 accretions, 168, 176, 181, 185, 313 adhan (call for prayer), 147 Africa as “backward”, 23, 26 Christianity and, 316 African agency, 22, 312n1, 315–317, 334 Arabs, 20 Christianity, 316 civilization, 89n54 cosmology, 249 customs, 323 educational initiatives, 272 historians/historiography, 21, 27 Islamic modernity, 338 Islam/Muslims, 15, 31, 325. See also West African: Islam; Muslims knowledge, 21, 315 modernity, 237, 251, 314 Afro-Arab Cooperation (AAC), 203 Ahl al-Sunna (“People of the Prophet’s Traditions”), 3, 11, 141n57, 188, 285, 287n10 Ahl al-Sunna wa Jama’a, 292 Ahmadiyya Mission, 93, 114–115, 172, 178–179 movement, 32, 115n128, 180, 302, 309 School, 259 Akan groups/peoples, 16, 43, 63–64, 67, 114, 172, 179, 232 areas/territories, 70, 230 goldmines, 58 languages, 53 alienation, 321, 324 aliwanka (Hausa: bathing ritual specialist), 158–159 almaajirain sheihu (Hausa: the Sheikh’s students), 263 almaajirin Mallam Nuru (student of Mallam Nuru), 265 Almohads, 35, 39, 48 Almoravids, 35, 39, 48 alms, 136, 156n9, 161 sadaqa, 303

Ambariyya. See Madrasat Ambariyya amulets, 135, 174, 176n43 ancestral customs/religion/knowledge, 15, 24, 79, 98, 108, 142, 160, 196, 324 intercession, 156n9, 161, 216 spirits (tenkougouri), 57n9, 98 Anglo-Arabic (schools/education), 87, 170, 175, 178–180, 260, 270, 332 Anglo-Asante wars, 113 Anglophone (areas), 4, 8 animists, 60 anthropomorphism, xxvi, 2, 11, 40, 167, 241 “anti-clerics”, 118 anti-colonial ideas/discourse, 26, 77, 79, 283 struggle, 23, 73, 85, 221, 277 anti-colonialism, 95 anti-modern, 1, 22 anti-Sufi (polemics/ideas), 123, 173, 239, 278 anti-Western (sentiment/radicalism), xxix, 272 apostasy/apostates, xiv, xviii, 11, 49, 108, 109, 161, 224, 300, 311 appropriation, process of, 22, 277, 317 Arab cultural nationalism (of Nasser), 185 culture, 26, 326 financial and educational resources, 187 Islam, 15, 79 and Muslim philanthropists, 179, 181, 201, 204, 205, 207, 209 states, 4, 185 wealth, 120, 202. See also oil wealth Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (ABEDA), 203 Arab Fund for Technical Assistance to Arab and African Countries (AFTAAAC), 203 Arabic, 61, 80–81, 84, 85–86, 88, 92, 107, 116, 123–124, 130, 134, 150, 173, 213, 234, 237, 255, 258, 266–267, 271, 275, 297, 320–321, 333 grammar/grammarians, 173, 212, 215, 216n7, 225, 253, 259, 261, 264 Islamic naming and, 54, 245 knowledge, 13

366

index of subjects

Arabophone(s), 293, 294, 301, 320 elites, 152, 237, 244–247, 262, 266, 270n61, 275–276, 278, 290–291, 318, 335 new/young generation of, 282, 284, 288, 293, 297–300, 302–306, 310 scholars/intellectuals, 1, 4, 14, 22, 151, 198, 227–228, 234, 267, 303, 314, 319, 327n26 Arab world, 4, 21, 22, 78, 132, 134, 147, 179n50, 201, 202n34, 267, 269, 276, 279, 287, 293, 308, 333 economic assistance from, 149n84, 209, 230, 232. See also oil wealth (in Arab world) ideas/influences from, 50, 80, 121, 240, 246, 254, 260, 265, 278, 309, 327 relations with, 202–203, 305, 312 scholars trained in, 11, 32, 297, 311 study in, 181, 200, 207–208, 227, 234, 238 Sufism in, 293, 295 archives/archival sources, 18, 90, 95, 97, 108–109 Arrêté sur l’Indigénat, 78 Asante, 16, 43, 62, 63–65, 67, 114, 155–156, 179, 232 Islam and, 172, 174 kingdom/state of, 68, 75, 171 Asantehene (king of Asante), 68 “authentic” Islam, 22, 32, 226–227, 240, 244, 279, 284, 287, 319–320, 326, 330 authority, 28, 220, 224, 241, 247, 257, 289, 325 of elders, 223, 233 intellectual, 311 of schools of jurisprudence (madhahib, s. madhhab), 246 scriptural, 246 of Sufi leaders/sheikhs, 2, 139, 263 Ayawaso (constituency), 214 al-Azhar University, 30, 122, 153, 167, 212, 235, 239, 294–297 Azhariah (Madrasat al-), 231, 265, 282, 292 Bamana-Bobosé, 16 Bambara, 47 baraka (spiritual blessings), 129, 137, 163, 166, 220n13, 295 Barbary states, 62 begging (by Qur’anic pupils/Allah garibu), 100, 200 bid’a (innovation), 2–3, 14, 36, 41, 49, 109, 148–149, 177, 241, 283, 301, 334. See also innovation(s)

black Arabs, 326 black French, 326 blasphemy, xv, xvi, 169 Bobosé, 55 bride/bridal rituals, 157–159, 181 British. See English/British bureaucratic skills, 227, 318, 320–321 structure/model, 189, 242–243, 246, 277–278, 335 Burkinabé Islamic culture, 185–186, 308 Muslims, 18, 24, 28, 201, 202–204, 330 pilgrims, 131, 153 reformers, 17 students/scholars, 14 Busanse, 113 Catholic(s)/Catholic Church, 90, 91, 101, 140, 199, 244 missionaries, 323 schools, 123 celebration, of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. See mawlid Central Mosque, 130, 139–140, 144, 151, 192 imam of, 188, 194–195 of Accra, 221 of Kumasi, 289 of Nima, 215 of Ouagadougou, 133, 147, 191, 204 ceremonies, 2, 136, 156, 190 funeral, 12, 176. See also funeral-related activities/ceremonies marriage, 160 naming, xx, 54, 144, 156 charisma, 11, 46, 79, 106, 112, 134n39, 169, 211, 220 charismatic (Muslim leaders), 94, 95, 97, 101, 154, 180 charity, 135, 156 childbearing, 157–158 Christianity, 118, 219, 285, 316, 325, 332 Christian Mission Society (CMS), 86 Christian(s), 9, 36, 60, 62, 70, 92, 172, 199, 218, 288 Armenian, 35 doctrines, 28, 317 dominance, 137, 238 holidays, 302 missionaries, 7, 90, 116, 240, 309 mission schools, 12, 86, 92–93, 175, 178, 219, 233, 245, 254, 256, 320 Reformation, 227, 244



index of subjects

civilization, 22, 255, 333 African, 89n54 French, 80–81, 85, 255 Islamic, xxvi, 29, 35, 333 pluralism of, 338 cocoa (farming/plantations), xix, 113 coexistence, 97–98, 176, 202, 284, 292, 304, 308–309, 312 with colonial rulers/administrators, 95, 106–107 intra-doctrinal, 50 peaceful, xxviii, 36, 40, 43, 65, 70, 97, 286 with secular state, 331–332 cohabitation, 65, 69–70, 97, 108, 337 collaboration/resistance theory, 95–96 collective punishment, 251 colonial administration, 86–87, 91, 93, 106, 109, 116, 194, 195 administrators, 72, 74, 77, 80, 83, 88, 90–91, 97, 117, 118, 323 attitude/policies toward Islam/Muslims, 52, 60, 73, 75, 80–81, 86, 88, 92, 94–95, 240 authorities, 95, 103, 105–107, 109, 112, 115, 124, 127, 251, 252 “civilizing mission”, 12 culture war, 323 discourse(s), 7, 14, 23, 25, 27, 325 domination, 317, 322 economy, 113–114, 117, 259 education, 12–14, 26, 219, 241, 246–247, 250, 279, 318–320, 323–325, 327–328 era, 24, 53, 61, 68, 71, 111, 116, 252 institutions/establishments, 4, 74, 88, 117, 250, 275, 278, 321, 330 knowledge, 25 labor migration, 113 modernity, 324 order/stability, 74–75, 79, 80, 95–97, 101, 104, 107, 117–118, 195, 196, 320, 334 period/rule, xiv, 6–8, 15, 23, 25–26, 30, 39, 47, 71, 79, 83–84, 89–90, 94, 237, 239, 245, 250, 266, 271, 277, 314–315, 327, 329, 334, 336 period/rule, end of, 6–8, 10, 12, 16, 21, 72, 92–93, 108, 111–112, 121, 125, 151, 171, 184, 252, 256, 275–276, 278, 313, 318, 321–323, 325, 335 practices, 73, 103, 194 schools, 318, 323, 327 service, 252 state, 90, 197 vocabularies, 245

367

colonialism, 10, 31, 76, 87, 97, 139, 154, 197, 233, 241, 245, 271, 274–275, 316, 324, 335 end of, 185, 196, 222–223 colonialists, 223, 272, 319, 323 critique of African customs, 24, 315, 325, 327–329 culture of, 240 colonized, 23, 251, 321, 334, 338 commandant de cercle (district administrator), 102, 108 commercial (activities/networks), 30, 57, 64, 122–123, 137, 205–206, 274 Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), 288 Communauté Musulmane du Burkina Faso, 125, 126, 130, 133, 135–136, 137n44, 138–139, 144, 147, 149, 187, 190–192, 197, 199–200, 223, 242, 256, 286, 305, 325 conflict with Mouvement Sunnite, 200 internal conflicts of, 184 leaders/leadership of, 140–141, 150, 193, 196, 198, 208 Muslim solidarity and, 189 progressives and, 196 as representative of Burkinabé Muslims, 201, 294 ties to Arab world, 204, 207, 209 Wahhabis and, 188–189 communism, 234 Companions (of Prophet Muhammad), 34, 36n60, 122, 142 “conscripts of modernity”, 14, 324–327, 335 consensus (of the learned), 38, 246 “conservative” older elites/elders, 190, 192, 257 Qadiriyya, religious order, 82 scholars/preachers, 5, 298, 306 constitutions, of national organizations, 126, 199, 226, 228, 242–243, 290 Convention People’s Party (CPP), 154, 173n36, 222 conversion, xxii, 42, 172 of Akans to Islam, 180 of Asantes to Islam, 172 to Christianity, 325 cultural, 325 Hamawiyya to Umarian, 105–106 to Islam, 17, 36, 55, 57, 59–61, 65, 68–69, 71, 98, 114, 152, 180, 187 of Mossi to Islam, 94, 107, 187, 195 of ruling elites, 71–72, 197 to the Tijaniyya, 296–297 corruption, 38, 209, 214 Crusades, 35

368

index of subjects

Cultural Committee of Muslim Youth of Burkina Faso, 200 cultural superiority (of Europeans), 14, 22, 325, 334 “culture talk”, xxviii “culture war”, xxviii, 323, 334 Dagati, 16, 53, 114 Dagbani, 92 Daghani (ceremonies), 156 danmakarantan Nuriyya (Hausa: a student of Nuriyya), 265 Dar al-Hadith, 212 Darul Iftaa, 213, 296 da’wa (proselytization), 144, 148n78, 213, 227, 268, 270n61, 285, 287–288, 296, 303, 308 Day of Judgment, 109, 217 democracy/democratic principles, 10, 205, 241, 243, 250, 278, 332 deputies (sing. muqaddam, pl. muqaddameen), 99, 112, 164 discrimination, 207, 226 divination/diviners, 68, 80, 100, 108, 134–136, 162, 211, 216–217, 238, 295 duuba (Hausa), 173 maalamai tibbo, 215 divine grace/illumination, 164–167 knowledge, 165 relationship between humankind and, xxiv rights of kings, 28 vision (ru’ya), 165 Djula, 58, 67, 194 Djula/Mande, 64 merchants, 43, 98, 196 trading networks, 122, 151, 255 doctrinal affiliation, 204, 296, 309, 312 coexistence, 42, 312 contests/debates, xiv, xxv, xxx, 4, 7–8, 12, 54, 120, 178, 198–199, 288, 309–310, 311, 313–314 differences, 125, 142, 190, 311 disputes, local, 153, 163, 170, 181, 238, 311 foundation, 169 framework, 331 hegemony, xxii inclinations, 181, 193, 266, 286 interpretation, 220 polemics, xxix, 3, 126 positions, 304

space, 15 validity/basis, 121, 217, 311, 334 dress codes, 50, 54, 143, 147, 305 economy/economic, 61, 206n46, 238, 330 advancement, 8–9, 25, 185, 328, 331 assistance, 203, 209 behavior, 23, 50, 206, 327, 331, 335 conditions, xiv, 2, 13, 16, 23, 215, 232–233 global political, xxix, 4, 336 monetary, 266 resources, 238, 313, 328 education. See also madrasa(s); schools as cultural colonialism, 323 French/secular and Arabic/theological, 198 national, 332 religious, 14, 88, 92, 153, 171, 181, 190, 270, 274, 301, 309 secular, 7, 11–13, 22, 92, 93, 115, 150, 171, 175, 179, 190, 228, 232, 240, 241, 246, 267–270, 291, 309, 323–324 self-sponsored, 153, 233 Eid (festivals), 54, 302 election(s), 154, 222–224, 241–243, 291, 307 of imam, 191 of officials, 205 process of, 251 elites. See also Muslim(s): elites; secularlyeducated: elites conversion of, 57, 59, 65, 67–68, 72 older (generation), 189, 191, 224, 276, 286 ruling, 37, 39, 44, 54, 55, 64–65, 69–70, 77, 102, 108 younger (generation), 192–193, 196–197, 245, 282, 284, 293, 299–300, 305–306 embezzlement, 221, 290 emigration, 44, 149 to Ghana, 16, 114 to Medina, 141 to urban areas, 206 English/British, xxix, 70, 84, 87, 117, 218 attitudes toward Islam/Muslims, 73, 75, 88 colonialism, 115, 153 English (language), 30, 85, 228, 237, 260, 268, 275, 320 Enlightenment, 12, 28–29, 245, 247–249, 276, 325, 333–334 philosophy/philosophers, 28, 249–250, 324, 328–329, 337 equality, 25, 205, 220, 247, 306, 337



index of subjects

esoteric knowledge/sciences, 146n71, 176, 211, 218, 248 texts, 174 ethnic diversity, of Burkinabé Muslims, 192 equilibrium, 195–196, 333 identities/groups, xxvii, 12, 16–17, 46, 53–54, 55, 61, 64n30, 66, 103, 113–115, 116, 121, 152, 153, 161, 170, 172, 193, 195, 211 ethnographic “presence”, xiv research, xiii, xxx, 25 techniques/approach, 17, 19 ethno-names, 58 Eurocentric (ideas/assumptions), 22–23, 26, 271, 276, 315, 317, 333 Euro-Christian (ideas), 13 European administrators, 72, 82 attitudes toward Islam, 73–75 colonialism/colonialists, xxxi, 1, 23, 27, 29–30, 49, 52, 53, 73–75, 116, 241, 279, 313, 316–317, 329 cultural heritage/hegemony, 30, 87, 237, 245, 250, 277, 317, 321, 325, 330, 334–335 discourse, 23–25, 27n37, 315 domination, 24, 26, 30, 122 education, 13, 20, 223, 241, 278 Enlightenment, 27, 31, 247, 249n16 ideas, 21, 27, 73, 88, 249–251, 276, 315, 317 knowledge, 88, 248, 276, 322, 328 languages, 13, 85, 275, 316, 318, 320, 329, 333 modernity, 1, 21–22, 31, 314, 317, 327, 338 patronage, 72, 94, 96 pedagogical models, 274, 334 presence, 86, 102, 110, 214, 316, 319, 329, 338 skills, 31, 275 vocabularies, 23–25 Europeanization, 319 European Union, 179, 272 evil, protection from, 142, 157–158 Ewe, 16, 63 Executive Council and the Council of ulama, 198 exoteric (knowledge), xxv, 262, 264 family planning, 238 fana (annihilating oneself in the divine), xxvi

369

“fanaticism”, 80–82, 85, 101, 106–107, 271–272 Fante, 92n67, 114, 172, 179 fasting, 54, 302 fayla (or fayda, “flood”), xix–xx, xxin3 165–166, 186 movement, 169, 216 zikr, 166 Federation of Islamic Associations of Senegal (FAIS), 286 fetishism, 79, 81, 89, 105 fetish priests, 108, 176 atigari, 162 fiddau (“special supplication”), 176–177, 303 fieldwork, xxvii, 18, 27, 129 financial difficulties/hardship, 131, 161, 176 discipline, 319 support, 4, 87, 93, 175, 179, 181, 187, 201, 204, 209, 213, 229, 232, 234, 260, 272, 278, 312 fiqh (theology), 294 fitna (conflict and divisiveness), xxi foreign elements, xiii–xiv, 312 governments, 199, 229 grants, 149 ideas, 82 influences, 40, 218, 305–306, 322–323 merchants, 67, 71 Muslims, 65–66 scholars (Djula, Fulbé, and Hausa), 134 universities, 270 vocabularies, 22, 315 Fourah Bay College, 86 Frafra, 16, 114 Franco-Arabic (schools), 171, 190, 204, 270, 332 Francophone Africa, 171 Burkina Faso, 8 Muslims, 239 territories, 114, 123, 195, 240, 271 West Africa, 4, 7, 121, 257 freedom, 25, 242, 250–251 French administrators/authorities, 81, 84, 95–96, 101, 194, 271, 322 attitude/policies toward Islam and Muslims, 60, 73, 75, 79, 88, 94–95, 122–123, 253n22, 255 “civilizing mission”, 80, 91 colonialism, xxix, 94–95, 103

370

index of subjects

culture and civilization, 80–81, 85, 91, 255 education/training, 20, 129–130, 148 federation, 88–91, 96, 103, 106, 124 forced labor recruitment (corvée), 113 language, 16, 30, 80–81, 237, 268, 275, 320 madrasas, 252 patronage, 96, 103 Friday noon prayer(s), xiv, 139–140, 148n78, 150, 198, 272–273, 290 Friday sermon (khutba), 150 Fulani, 39, 212 Fulbé, 16, 41, 46, 55, 58, 61, 104, 111–113, 123 of Dori and Jelgooji, 77n14, 103 jihads, 41, 43, 46, 59 “fundamentalism”/“fundamentalist”, xxxi, 249, 268 funeral-related (ceremonies), 12, 54, 108, 136, 156, 161, 176–177, 181, 199n24, 287, 303–304 Ga-Adangbe, 16, 53, 63 Ga (Muslims), 114, 179n49 Gbanya, 66 gender, 164, 242–243, 274 generational conflicts/shifts, 219, 256, 285 Ghana Education Services, 179 Ghanaian, 170, 172, 297 Islamic culture, 63, 116, 157, 185–186, 308 Muslims, xvii, 18, 24, 28, 115, 160, 164– 166, 173, 178, 301–302, 330 reformers, 17 students/scholars, 11, 14, 173, 298 Ghana Islamic Education Unit, 261 Ghana Islamic Research and Reformation Center (GIRRC), 11, 217n9, 226–230, 231–232, 242–243, 249, 282, 289, 291–292, 298 “Research” and “Reformation”, 244 Ghana Muslim Mission (GMM), 178–180, 232, 282, 292 Ghana Muslim Representative Council, 178, 326 global Islamic reform, 185 political economy, xxix, 4, 200 Wahhabi or Salafi resurgence, 181, 312 globalization, 27, 324, 334 God (nature of), xv–xvi, xxiii. See also zikr “seeing” God, xiv–xv, xvii–xxiv, xxvi, 11, 164, 167 gold, 16, 62, 64, 67, 113 Gonja, 15, 16, 66, 69, 92, 114

Gourma, 55 grammar, 260 nahw, 216, 258 grants. See economy/economic; financial support Gulf states, 4, 185, 208, 237–238, 240, 252 Islamic culture of, 26, 282, 293 Gurunse, 55 Gurunshi, 16, 53 Gurunsi, 114 hadith (sayings and deeds attributed to the Prophet), xxii, xxiii, xxix, xxx, 29, 33, 48n97, 146, 161, 213, 294, 306 scholars, 48, 216, 235 hagiographies, 40, 41 hajj, 102n91, 127, 132, 185, 204, 212 Hajj Committee, 303 Hamawiyya (order), 47, 102–107, 110, 111, 121, 124, 126–127, 131, 137, 140, 142–143, 145n68, 163, 189, 206, 208n50, 255, 286, 294 criticism of, 136, 148 as Eleven-Bead, 112 as “fanatic”, 91 Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya, 123–124, 135 of Rahmatoulaye, 20, 94, 120, 121, 126, 129, 132–133, 207 Hanbali (jurisprudence/scholars), 3, 133, 308 haramayn (Kaaba and Prophet’s mosque in Medina), 235 haram (forbidden), 136, 142, 176–178, 216–217, 248, 264, 294–295 Hausa, xvii, 66, 83, 111, 113, 115, 134, 159, 180, 194 dominance of, 67, 115, 169–170, 178–179 language, 115–116 merchants, 43, 66–67, 98, 196 rulers, 44–45 Hausa/Djula (coalition), 194 Hausa/Fulani (soldiers), 113 hegemony, 46, 115, 220, 277 cultural, 30, 277 doctrinal, xxii ecclesiastical, 247, 317 political, 37 heresy/heretics, 36, 40, 295 heretical, 284 innovations, 49, 122, 167, 241, 319 preachers, xv, 138 teachings, 178 hierarchical (authority/structure), 166, 220, 223, 264



index of subjects

hijra (migration to avoid religious persecution), 100, 142, 187 Hilal Committee, 302–303 historiography, 6, 28n38, 72, 95 holidays and festivities, 54, 71, 301–302 holy texts, 15, 30, 253 identity of community/organization, xxiii, 170, 204, 291 cultural/social, xxx, 15, 25, 184, 189, 250, 274, 277, 305, 319, 320 Hamawi, 110 Islamic/Muslim, xxvii, 5, 15, 54, 56, 58, 222, 267, 273–274, 325 national, 193 religious, 49, 125, 223, 229, 335, 337 Wahhabi, 50, 145, 169–170, 184, 297 idol worship/idolatry, 135, 217, 219, 289 shirk, 241 ijma (consensus of scholars), 246 illiteracy, 218, 268 ilm al-ma’rifa (knowledge of the Supreme Being), 264 ilm al-tib, 262, 266 ilm school/system, 146, 265 imam(s) (community spiritual leader), xiv, xv, 115, 141, 145, 148, 150, 155, 169, 198, 218, 227, 304, 306 appointment/selection of, 190–195, 298 of the Central Mosque, 191, 194–195 national, 191–192, 196, 303 opposition to, 196–197 position of, 149, 150n87, 151, 188 spiritual authority of, 139–140, 289n16, 308–309 independence, 1, 6, 26, 53, 125, 152, 154, 169, 173n36, 197, 222, 233, 239, 250, 272 early decades of, 8–9, 75, 121, 171, 224, 252, 320, 336 independent (states), 49, 313, 321 indigenizing process of, 25, 292 Wahhabi/Sunna reform, 297, 299 indigenous African customs, 89, 237, 240 creativity, 334 cultural identities, 14 customs/practices, 5, 12, 14, 38, 54, 67, 195, 282, 284, 303, 319, 328 elites, 319 Islamic customs, 301, 304 Islamic pedagogy, 279 knowledge, 12, 21, 315–316, 322, 327

371

Muslims/converts, 16, 77, 98, 115, 284 nationalist leaders, 279 population, 58, 64n30, 180 power, 329 religion/belief, 69–70, 117, 249 religious authorities, 117, 297, 313 rogonmiki, 55 rulers, 37, 39, 70, 86, 329n28 scholars/intellectuals, 238, 275 traditions, 13, 31, 68, 279, 324, 327–329 individualism, 247, 251, 327 “infidel(s)”, 35, 38, 56–57, 87, 95 declaring other Muslims, 188, 284–285, 289, 299–300 institutions, 13, 256 kaafurai (Hausa), xv informants, 18, 20, 22–24, 26–27, 32 infrastructure, 72, 122, 125, 141, 265, 272, 318, 327, 329, 332 innovation(s) (bid’a), xxii, 1–2, 34, 36, 37, 40–41, 122, 135, 168, 185, 234, 241, 299, 300, 312–313, 319, 334–335 intelligence (networks), 76, 78 inter-doctrinal coexistence, 32, 332 conflicts, 209 intergenerational (conflicts/shifts), 222–223, 233 International Institute for the Study of Islam in Modern Times (ISIM), 306 intra-Muslim (conflicts), 69, 96, 124, 189, 199n23, 300 Iranian revolution (of 1979), xiv, 4, 185, 293, 312 Iran-Iraq war, 293 irrational/“irrationality”, 12, 22–23, 328, 337 irreligious (practices), 215, 265, 335 Islam, xxvi–xxviii, 12, 42, 44, 53, 81, 174, 200, 271, 273, 326, 333 colonialism and, 71, 73, 115–117, 335 development of, xxvi, 184, 201, 216, 297 discourse about, 77–78 expansion of, 16–17, 43, 68–70, 70, 72, 82, 90, 94–97, 118, 172, 195, 270n61 in Ghana and Burkina Faso, 8, 63, 67, 116, 159 image of, xxviii, 65, 193, 218, 229 as impure and syncretic/backward, 14, 138, 187 modernity and, xxvii–xxviii, 27, 180, 192, 233, 267, 335 Mossi and, 59, 98n76, 117, 172, 195 pristine, of the Prophet’s era, 12, 14, 29, 181, 279, 330, 337

372

index of subjects

“pure”, 229 radical, 78, 90, 94 secularism and, 269, 277, 332 “Islam arabe” (Arab Islam), 79 Islamic activism, 33 civilization, xxvi, 29, 35, 255, 333 culture(s), 16, 31, 50, 71, 81, 85, 116, 237, 250, 293, 308, 326 customs/practices, 55, 138, 139, 145, 153, 156, 299 discourse, xxx doctrines, xxviii, 307–308 education, 2, 83–84, 91, 92–93, 115, 122, 124, 171, 253n22, 255, 271, 304 “fanaticism”, 73–74, 94 identity, xxx, 54, 56, 58, 222, 267, 319, 321 institutions, 30, 88, 91, 92, 96, 117–118, 195–196, 220, 234, 242–243 knowledge, 38, 73–74, 78, 81, 84, 85, 88, 94, 194, 244, 266 law/jurisprudence, xxii, 45, 49, 274, 297 leadership, 115, 220 literature, 30, 78–79, 81, 83, 99, 266, 301 modernity, 237, 314 movements, xxxiv, 284 orthodoxy, 1, 78, 121, 133, 138, 272, 278, 334–335, 337 prohibitions, xv, 54, 100, 167, 189 propagation, 43, 179, 310. See also proselytism purity, 7, 18, 34–35, 133, 277, 327, 336 reform(s), xiii, 30–32, 34, 39, 42, 126, 139, 153, 185, 187, 190, 209, 213, 227, 237, 278–279, 283–284, 307, 309, 314, 334, 336 religious space, 246, 331, 338 revival/resurgence, xiii, 1, 29, 133, 201, 209, 250, 268, 314, 318, 336 sacred texts, 15, 33, 44, 134, 258–259, 306 schools/schooling, 81, 84, 86, 91, 92, 94, 171, 173–175, 181, 252, 253n22, 266–267, 278 sciences, 98, 100, 121, 146, 234, 238, 275 state, 36, 46, 242, 331 studies, xx, 130, 258, 271 texts (injilah, asmaawi, akhdari, and tafsir), 156 Islamic Affairs Bureau in Dakar, 78 Islamic Research and Reformation Center, 209 Islamic Solidarity Fund, 203 Islamic University of Medina, 203, 211, 213, 225–226, 227n26, 230, 234, 270n61, 287, 289n16, 294, 296, 304–305

Islamism, xxx, 3n1, 268, 283, 311 Islamist(s), 1, 3n1, 237, 306, 331 Islamization, 43, 53–54, 55, 59n16, 62, 63, 66, 68, 70, 71, 90, 111, 161 Islamized aspects of modernity, 30, 336 colonies/territories, 52, 72, 74, 77, 84, 88, 92, 94, 95, 116–117, 195, 254 ideas, 241, 276 society, 68 “Islam noir” (Black Islam or African Islam), 79 Israel, 201–202 jahiliya (Arabic and Hausa: ignorance), 327, 330 jama’at al-fayda, 166. See also fayla Jam’iyyat Habaabul Rasul (Association for the Love of the Prophet), 168–170, 211, 214, 215n6, 225n19 Jews, 36, 40 jihadi rulers, 59 jihad(s), xvii, 34–36, 38, 40, 42–43, 45, 69–70, 138 fi sabil li-Llah (“struggle in the way of God”), 34, 40 global, against the Western world, 283 internal, against Muslims, 36, 41, 44, 283 peaceful, 94, 99 violent, 47, 65 jinn, 134 juma’a (Friday congregational prayer), 140, 273, 289 Kaaba, 128, 130, 212 karambani (Hausa: behaving like an adult), 273 karanbilim (Morrè: studentship), 263 Katsina College, 87, 323 Khomeini, 293 King Bin Saud University in Riyadh, 231 knowledge, 79, 81–82, 164, 229, 268, 308, 320, 327. See also Islamic: knowledge localizing, 27 secret (asrar), 264 of the Supreme Being (ilm al-ma’rifa), 264 kola (nut) trade, xix, 16, 67, 155 Konkomba, 16 kufr, 49. See also bid’a; “infidel(s)” Kusasi, 16 la-ilaha illa-Llah (there is no god but God), xvii, xviii, xx, xxii, 10, 100n84, 163, 166 laylat al-qadr (the Glorious Night), 295



index of subjects

leaders/leadership, 190, 228, 251, 278, 291, 320 accountability of, 222 of the Communauté Musulmane, 151, 303. See also Communauté Musulmane du Burkina Faso: leaders/ leadership of criteria for, 151, 190, 243, 244 structure of, 10, 227, 245 of the Tijaniyya community, 303. See also Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood: leaders/leadership Lebanese, 206, 225, 229, 258, 259 legitimacy, 26, 39, 45, 108, 226, 244, 251, 300, 329 legitimization, 246, 307 liberation, 274, 323, 329 liberty, 28, 185, 250, 251, 278 lifestyle(s), extravagant, 2, 142, 147, 241, 319, 328 literacy, 9, 171, 185, 228 Lobi, 16, 53, 55 local agency, 22, 27 customs, 26, 80, 136, 138, 159, 180, 246, 304, 305 doctrinal debates/disputes, 153, 163, 170, 181, 238, 311 Islam, 14, 133, 153–154, 194, 249, 267, 334 Islamic practices/customs, 2, 10, 13, 50, 74, 151, 156, 233, 285, 313, 326 languages, 237 mallams, 178, 304 scholars, 135, 180, 184, 234, 252 traditions, 26, 29, 30, 274, 297, 304, 330. See also indigenous: traditions loyalty, 76, 78–79, 81–82, 110, 220, 224 Madrasa Centrale at Ouagadougou, 204, 256 madrasa(s), 84, 85–88, 122–123, 129, 147, 178, 225, 229, 233, 251–253, 258, 261–262, 264–265, 269–270, 271–272, 332 construction/establishment of, 86, 126, 203, 207, 215, 231, 255–257, 260 pedagogy of, 239, 255, 266, 267, 272 Qur’anic schooling and, 257–258 secular education and, 267, 309 students, 149 system and modernity, 253–254, 262 women and, 273 Madrasat Afa Ajura, 265 Madrasat Ambariyya, 155n4, 170, 175, 231, 260, 265, 292, 301 Madrasat al-Azhariah. See Azhariah

373

Madrasat al-Markaz (Lagos), 173–174, 178, 260 Madrasat al-Nahdah (Tamale), 259 Madrasat Nuriyya, 262 magic, 79, 174, 187, 248, 296, 319 sihr, 14, 136 mahdi (redeemer of the epoch), 75, 76–77 mahdism/mahdiyya, 39, 73, 77n14 movement in the Anglo-Sudan, 76 Majlis A’ala li Da’awatil Islamiyya (Supreme Council for the Dissemination of Islam), 292, 297–298, 304 majlis (system), 146, 147n73, 234. See also schools; See also madrasa(s) makaranta (madrasa/Qur’anic school), 215, 273 Makka moimba (Meccan scholars), 131 Maliki, school of jurisprudence (madhhab), 246, 308, 313 mallamai (Hausa: teachers), 44 mallams, 70n47, 174, 176–178, 214–215, 216–221, 225–227, 264, 303 traditional, 229, 303 venal, 240 Mande linguistic group, 16, 66 scholars and traders, 111 trading diaspora, 153 Mande/Djula, 16, 55 merchants and scholars, 43, 66–67 trading networks/diaspora, 16, 62 marabouts, 78n18, 85, 104, 107–108 marginalization, 15, 321 ma’rifa (esoteric knowledge of the divine), xx, xxvi Marka, 16, 55 marriage (ceremonies), 144–145, 157–160, 273 Masallakyin Sarkin Kado (Sarkin Kado’s Mosque), 215 mawlid (celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), xxi, 11, 106, 122, 129, 133, 168, 199, 207, 287, 296, 304 Meccan returnees/scholars, 12, 15, 113, 121, 130, 131, 133–136, 137–139, 140, 142, 144, 152, 153, 184, 187–188, 189–190, 199, 211, 234, 326 Makka moimba (Morrè), 12 mechanization, 338 merchant(s), 2, 12, 64–65, 122, 134, 137, 142, 174, 205–206 metaphysical (beliefs/powers), 14, 217–218, 264 migrants/migration, xiv, 16, 64n30, 113–114, 141, 163, 185

374

index of subjects

militancy, 34, 39, 47 miracles, 135, 171, 215, 219, 224 mission Catholic, in French West Africa, 90 -educated elites, 240, 272. See also Muslim(s): elites schools/schooling, 13n24, 86, 91, 92–93, 256, 325 missionaries, 7, 83, 86, 90–91, 92, 116, 133, 240, 317, 323 Mission at Koupèla, 90 moderation, 138, 284, 305 modern claims to be, 242, 244, 250 knowledge, 244 leadership, 229 secular state, 284 as a term, 22–23, 25–26, 272–273 version of Islam, 19 world, 15, 269 modernity, xxvii–xxviii, xxxi, xxxii, 1, 4, 7, 8, 18, 21–26, 27, 29, 32, 87, 197, 205, 223, 240, 249, 266, 272, 274–277, 279, 309, 311, 315, 319, 326–328, 330, 338 alternative, 314, 318, 338 discourse of, 20, 21n30, 27n37, 28n38, 250, 314–315, 317–319 ideas and practices of, 32, 241, 272, 313, 318, 330, 332 “modernity talk”, 27, 317–318 plurality of, 314–315 modernization/modernizing, 23, 25, 32, 239 Islamic education and, 85, 115, 239, 268 of local customs, 190, 267 of Muslim institutions, 229, 234, 331, 335 Mogho (rulers/kings), 59, 62 moimba (religious leaders), 141 moimbollé (convocation of scholars), 109 Mongols/Mongol invasion, 35, 37 Morrè-Dagbani group, 16 of languages, 15, 53 Morrè (language), 16, 134, 150 Moses, and Pharaoh, 299, 301, 305 mosques, xxvii, 54, 86, 129, 140, 172, 176, 218, 227, 273 access to, 308–309 central, 171, 232 construction of, 77–78, 126, 149, 200, 204, 207, 221, 229 leadership of, 193, 221n16 as ritual space, 145–146 at Tanghin, 139 at Zongoetin, 146, 147, 188, 204

Mossi, 12, 15–17, 53, 55, 63, 66, 103–106, 113, 114n122, 121, 123, 127, 128, 152, 163, 195–197 ancestral spirits (tenkougouri), 57 aristocrats, 108 aristocrats/ruling elites (nakomsé), 55, 196 Islam and, 56–57, 60–61, 63, 69, 98n76, 195 kingdom(s), 68, 90, 171 kings, 189, 192–194, 197, 223 language (Morrè), 58, 134 Muslims, 61, 108, 192, 196–197, 223 oral traditions, 55, 58 society, 101, 110 Mouvement Sunnite de Haute Volta (later Mouvement Sunnite de Burkina Faso), 12, 198–201, 204, 205–209, 211, 227–229, 243, 245, 282, 287 in Burkina Faso, 230, 232, 242 criticism of, 296 decline of, 285, 297, 305 leaders, 296 preachers, 286 mujaddid (renewer of the century), 45, 218, 283 mujahid, 34 multidisciplinary, 19 multiethnic (nation-state), 192 munkirai, pl.munkirun (those who reject Tijaniyya and Sheikh Niasse), xxi, 166 mushrik, pl. mushrikun (polytheist), 40, 49, 151, 227, 286, 289 Muslim Association of Accra, 222 Muslim Association Party (MAP), 154n1, 172, 173n36, 222 Muslim Brotherhood, 122, 239 Muslim Community of Ouagadougou (later Muslim Community of Upper Volta), 125 Muslim Cultural Union (MCU), 113, 124, 137n44, 144, 151–152, 171, 235, 239, 254–256 Muslim(s), xxvi, 58, 69–70 calling other Muslims infidels, 188, 284–285, 299–300 clerics, 78, 88, 126, 161 colonial administration and, 87, 254 communities, 103, 145, 192–193, 200, 218, 222–223, 246, 321, 335 elites, 10, 20, 30, 72–73, 85, 94, 95–96, 171, 240, 250, 252, 275, 279, 314, 318, 320, 323 holy men, 2, 70n47, 122



index of subjects

identity, xxvii, 5, 15, 57, 273–274, 325 “independent” (i.e., unaffiliated), 111 institutions, 74, 115–117, 136, 196, 229, 232, 245, 275, 277, 326, 331–332, 335 leaders/leadership, 13, 50, 61, 72, 74–75, 76, 78, 83, 87, 89, 94, 95–97, 115, 117, 121, 126, 169, 171, 187, 208, 219, 223–224, 232, 246, 256, 268, 275, 288, 296, 301, 303, 320 merchants, 16, 53, 58, 63, 66, 68 mobility, 81, 83, 91, 185 non-Muslims and, 69, 332 organizations, 8, 17, 125, 178, 184, 190, 196, 198–199, 205, 209, 230, 242, 286 population, 6, 9, 52, 55, 60–61, 65, 71–73, 92, 95, 98–99, 104, 113, 116–117, 126, 143, 163, 168, 172, 193, 195n16, 200, 214, 222 reformers, 1, 5, 27, 63, 73, 95, 117, 180, 249, 267, 269, 312n1, 318 scholars, xix, 3, 41, 43, 54, 71, 89, 109, 138, 160, 171, 174, 179, 194, 220, 233, 240, 258, 262, 311. See also secularlyeducated: Muslims schooling, 13n24, 61, 87–88, 252 unity/solidarity, 124–125, 126, 151, 189– 190, 221, 238, 286–287, 291–292, 304, 307, 333 world, xiii, xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, xxxii, 4, 8, 39, 41, 80, 85, 94, 99, 165, 185, 187, 213, 229, 234, 237–238, 265, 271, 282, 286–287, 293, 300, 306, 311 Muslim World League, 203, 230 Muslim Youth Association (MYA), 222 mystical/mysticism, 29, 169, 247 knowledge (ma’rifa), 165 rational (exoteric) knowledge and, xxv myth of origin, 15–16 national holidays, 302 movements, 7, 11, 189 Muslim affairs, 193 Muslim leadership, 301 organizations, 125, 178, 190–191, 196, 205, 232 National Chief Imam, 302, 332 National Chief Imam, of Ahl al-Sunna, 232, 298 nationalism, 95, 293, 330 nationalist attitudes, 26 discourse, 6–7, 14, 278

375

leaders, 329 movements, 197, 277 struggles, 14, 49, 154, 222–223, 241, 251, 329, 335 Nation of Islam, xxvii Niassiyya branch, 48, 111 Niassiyya-Tijaniyya, xx, 186 niqab (face covering worn by women), 50, 143, 145, 305 non-Arabophone elites, 8, 314 “non-Islamic”, 88 non-Mossi (Muslims), 193, 194 non-Muslim(s), 16, 34–35, 43, 55–56, 61, 63, 64, 67, 69–70, 71, 92, 114, 116, 176, 203n38 migrants, 114 Mossi, 100, 102, 103 rulers, 43 Northern People’s Party, 222 Northern Provinces Law School at Kano, 87 Nuriyya School (Madrasat Nuriyya) at Kumasi, 262, 265 objectivity, xiii–xiv occult practices/powers, 30, 38, 162, 174, 215, 248, 328 oil wealth (in Arab world), 4, 49, 185, 232, 269, 270 OPEC oil embargo, 185 oral sources/data, 17–18, 47, 60, 71, 95, 97, 108–111, 171 tradition(s), 55, 59, 98 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), 203 orthodoxy, xxv, 5, 10, 15, 54, 79, 115, 122, 125, 156, 167, 170, 276, 330. See also Islamic: orthodoxy of Ahmadiyya, 180 Palestinian (cause), 201 pan-Islamism/pan-Islamic, 110, 209 agenda, 240 propaganda, 107 rebellion, 76 religious movement, 201 patronage, 72, 94, 96, 103, 117, 224 pedagogy/pedagogical, 219, 239, 257, 279, 319 infrastructure, 318, 327 model/paradigm, 331, 334 permit (récépissé), 199 petrodollars, 181, 201. See also oil wealth

376

index of subjects

philanthropists, 4, 133, 149, 153, 179, 181, 201, 204, 205, 207, 209, 213, 231, 262, 312n1 piety, 49, 54, 94, 147, 166, 219, 233, 276, 308 pilgrimage, 83, 99, 121, 127, 128, 131–132, 153, 201, 204, 239 pilgrims, repatriation of, 127, 128, 131 plurality, 315 of Islamic doctrines/theology, 32, 313 of the Prophet’s traditions, 280 of religious behavior, 309 politics/political, xiii, xxvii, xxviii, xxx, 9, 19, 24, 27, 31, 34, 37, 38, 42, 45–46, 209, 272, 277, 283, 288, 291, 306, 309–310, 324, 337 activism, xxix, xxx, 1, 6, 40, 155n4, 238 arrangement/system, 223, 243, 275, 329 authority, 3 discourse, 317, 335 economy, xxix, 4, 23, 185–186, 200 identities, 25, 329 influences, 313, 331, 336 institutions/organizations, 239, 242, 246 leadership, 32, 250, 328 method, 19 power, 14, 245, 263 precedence of, over religion (siyasa tafi sala), 307, 332 reforms, 2, 41 representation, 25, 241, 251 theorists, 21, 250 poll taxes (l’impôt de capitation), 101 polytheists, 40, 49, 151, 227, 247, 285, 289 postcolonial Africa, 24 dispensation, 192 elites, 233, 325, 330 framework, 14, 232, 326 history, 23 institutions, 197 leaders, 25, 329 Muslim community, 190 period/era, xiii, 8, 24, 63, 139 state, 2, 14, 48, 115, 126, 151, 181, 185, 196–197, 222–223, 241, 245–246, 250, 275, 279, 288, 313, 335 theories/theorists, xxxi, 315–316 Wahhabi movement, 152 postcolonialism, 31 postcoloniality, 250 postmodernism, 22–23 poverty, 16, 49, 214, 230, 268–269, 285 poor (massakin), 136 power forms of, 263 structures, 243–244, 275

prayers (salat), 146, 148, 156n9, 163–164, 167 dawn (fajr) prayers, 163 evening (maghrib) prayers, 100, 146, 164 night (‘isha) prayers, 146 preachers, xiii, xvi, xviii, xxi–xxiv, 7 preaching, 130, 136, 139, 156, 168, 226, 237, 305 methods of, 22, 190, 284, 291, 298–299, 300–301 precolonial (period), 6, 16, 24, 33, 66, 68, 334 pre-Islamic (practices/customs), 40, 136, 156, 161, 178, 191 print (media), xxxi, 28, 30, 260, 266 progress, 22, 25, 218, 224, 247, 279, 326, 330 economic, 61, 175 material, 25–26, 240, 249, 251, 263, 267, 269, 276, 327–328, 330 socioeconomic, 190, 218 progressive(s), xxxi, 26, 32, 189, 190–192, 194, 198, 250, 315, 327 prohibitions, xv, 91, 100, 134, 142–143, 158, 174, 288 haram, 12 Prophetic traditions, 298, 302, 336. See also hadith proselytism, 65, 67–68, 70, 77–78, 104, 112, 117, 127, 144, 151, 178n48, 213, 268, 299, 335 approaches to, 162, 307 of Christian evangelists, 285 radical/aggressive, 72, 310 strategies of, 7, 50, 304, 312n1, 313, 335 Protestant(s), 199 missionary schools, 92, 227 Reformation, xxxi, 30, 244, 318 public debates, 179 employment, 12–13, 175, 269 functionaries, 12, 20, 137, 141–142, 208, 326 karaakai(Hausa: clerks), 19 library, 229 secular schools, 262 spaces, 22, 28, 50, 142–143, 305 purification, of Islam/faith, 69, 172, 218 Qadiris/Qadiriyya (Sufi order), xxvi, 2, 10, 41, 44–45, 46–47, 61, 73n4, 78, 82–83, 111–112, 240 Qur’an/Qur’anic, xv, 36, 38, 43, 59, 104, 138, 146–147, 150, 176, 188, 212, 262, 267, 288, 309, 310 adapted to local customs, 79 commentary on (tafsir), 258



index of subjects hadith and, xxii, xxiii, 33, 146, 153, 161, 176, 247–248, 284, 301, 306 injunction (promoting good and fighting evil), 2, 34, 40, 133 interpretation of, xxviii, 29, 122, 152, 298, 308 knowledge and, xxv, 244 schools, 59, 61, 77, 78, 88–89, 91, 99, 115, 123, 156, 175, 200, 201n32, 219, 253, 255, 260, 264, 267, 322 schools, method/pedagogy of, 251, 253–254, 263–266 and Sunna, 49–50, 134, 211, 221, 279, 285, 299, 300 teaching/study of, 85, 87, 92, 98, 100, 128, 130, 136, 155, 172, 200, 211–213, 225, 253, 258, 261 therapeutic uses of, 11, 135, 173, 174–175, 176n43, 178n47, 216–217, 248 traditional education, 156n8, 173, 258 verses, xxx, 248, 298, 307n57

racial (inferiority/superiority), 309, 315, 317 racism, 80, 276 radicalism, xxix, 42, 305 Radio Cairo, 240, 260–261 Ramadan, 54, 302 rationalism, 333 rationality/rational, 245, 247–248, 250, 324 economic behavior, 251, 335 knowledge, 264, 278 religious expressions, 240 récépissé, 200 reconciliation (communal), 106, 150, 188, 286, 289–292 recruitment, 112, 143 reform. See also Islamic: reform(s) discourse of, 247 educational, 179 moderate, peaceful, or quietist, 33 radical/militant approach to, 33, 39, 282 reformation, xxix, xxxi–xxxii, 226, 271 Reformation, xxxi, 28, 30, 227, 244–245, 249, 318 religion/religious authority, 192, 219, 221, 241 backsliding/laxity, 31, 38, 40, 43, 77, 84, 108 coexistence, xxviii, 32, 72, 284, 286, 298, 301 demography, 9 discourses, xxix, 1, 275, 313 elites, 39, 54, 228, 278 heterodoxy, 264–265 hierarchy, 271, 278

377

identity, 49, 125–126, 223, 229, 313, 335, 337 innovation. See innovation(s) intolerance, 22, 38, 272 knowledge, 28, 78, 244, 253, 268 learning, 83 and modernity, 337 movements, xiv, xxvi, 6, 18–19, 184, 201, 245, 277, 319 orthodoxy, 1, 7, 143. See also Islamic: orthodoxy plurality/pluralism, 70, 250 purity, xxvi, 3, 8, 14–15, 26, 36, 37, 43, 121, 123, 133, 153, 181, 209, 229, 241, 279, 284, 289, 310, 311, 334 radical dogma/ideas, 84, 102, 127, 214 reform, 31, 37, 44, 46, 94, 152, 175, 179, 186, 198, 278, 288, 310, 314 resurgence, 181, 336 and science, 338 space, 273, 305, 330–331, 335, 338 studies, xx, 30, 85, 174 texts, 116, 174, 264 tolerance, xxviii, 42, 70, 221, 250 training, 30, 97, 171, 233, 245, 255, 290, 320 revolution, 9, 43, 283, 288, 293. See also Iranian revolution (of 1979) rightly-guided caliphs, 168 rituals, xv, 13, 35, 49, 50, 109, 191, 198, 218–219, 265 bridal/marriage, 157–160, 181 daily Islamic/prayer, xv, 122, 134, 145, 163, 166, 219 funeral, 156, 161, 181 life cycle, 54, 328 Sufi, 2–3, 120, 122, 154, 164–165, 294, 300 rogonmiki (Mossi: tradition), 327 rosaries, 99, 105, 110, 163, 166, 287, 295, 308 ru’ya (vision of the divine), xxi Saada Madrasa at Ségu, 255 sacred law, 165, 332 space, 69 texts, 28, 50, 124, 174, 220n13, 306, 310 sadaqa (alms), 146, 161, 176–178, 220–221, 303–304 salaf (generation immediate after the Prophet), 3 Salafi ideas, 7, 76, 252 leaders, 31 movements, 3n1, 21, 29, 30, 117, 181, 237, 239, 327

378

index of subjects

Salafi/Wahhabi ideas, 30, 239n6, 253–254, 274, 299 reform, 237 Salafiyya, 3n1, 29, 30, 73 salat (daily prayer), 146, 167. See also prayers salt, 56, 62, 64 salvation, 26, 177, 217, 244 Samogo (Samoy), 16 Samori Empire, 75 Savannah culture/society, 113–114 scholarships, 200, 203–204, 207–209, 227, 230, 233–234, 269, 270n61, 294 School for Arabic Studies, 87 schools, 13, 84, 87, 92–93, 141, 212–213, 217, 222, 227, 231–232, 252, 256, 257–259, 262, 265, 271, 304. See also Anglo-Arabic (schools/education); colonial: schools; Franco-Arabic (schools); Islamic: schools/schooling; madrasa(s); mission: schools/schooling Qur’an/Qur’anic: schools construction of, 176, 204, 207 ilm, 146 secular, 19, 173, 218, 233, 261, 264–267, 269–270, 272–273, 278, 325. See also education: secular vocational, 328 science(s), 28–29, 175, 249, 267, 270, 328, 333, 338 secular courses, 84, 178, 180, 231, 260, 268, 270, 309 curriculum, 32, 175, 332 ideas, 7, 25, 244, 277, 331, 337 institutions, 2, 12, 181, 211, 218, 233, 246, 320, 331–332, 335 knowledge, 14, 85, 181, 218, 243–244, 246, 276, 278, 335 state, 250, 269, 284, 328, 331–332 secularism, 323, 331n30, 337 secularly-educated elites, 150, 152, 198, 211, 226–227, 233, 237, 243, 245, 247, 249, 279, 282, 291, 293, 327, 335 leaders/leadership, 246, 290–292 Muslims, 1–2, 4, 7, 15, 18–20, 30, 137, 171, 218, 232, 268, 275–276, 319–320, 334 professionals, 216, 217, 224, 225, 251 September 11, 2001, xxvii–xxviii, 1, 271 sermons, xxiii, 17, 19, 32, 50, 102, 104, 116, 129, 134, 135–137, 139, 145–146, 178n48, 188, 204, 217–218, 224, 231, 287, 296, 299. See also preaching

provocative/radical, 131, 301 shahada (la-ilaha illa-Llah), 100, 109, 148, 176n44, 300 Sharia, 37, 39, 44n85, 84, 101, 138, 146, 164, 168, 187, 191, 213, 223, 304, 310 sheikha-jama’a (Morrè: sheikh’s followers), 263 sheikha karambigha (sheikh’s student), 263 sheikhou-karambisi, 206 Shi’ism/Shi’i Islam, 32, 293, 309 shirk (apostasy, associating others with God), 2, 3, 49, 148, 161, 241, 283 sihr (magic), 14, 136, 262, 265 Sijilmasa (in Algeria), 235 Silmimosse (Mossi of Fulbé origins), 58, 98 silsila (chain of transmission), 47, 146n71 sira (life history of the Prophet), 146 Sisala, conversion to Islam of, 114 slavery, 250 social behavior, 101, 241 and cultural reform, 121 documents, 230 equality, 214, 219–220, 243, 278 identity, 25, 320 issues, 238 justice, 39, 335 mobility, 12–13, 175, 269, 276 movement, 11, 166, 245 order, 78, 223 sociocultural ideas, 184 institutions, 220 issues, 159, 177, 181 norms, 142 revolutionary, 218 socioeconomic context, 184 issues, 135 progress/development, 171, 190, 205, 224 retardation, 328 Sokoto Caliphate, 41, 44–45, 46, 67, 75 Sokoto jihad, 44n84, 47, 67, 111n116 solidarity, 22, 32, 124, 126–127, 189, 201, 209, 238, 284, 286, 289, 292–293, 304, 313, 333. See also Muslim(s): unity/solidarity sorcery, 162, 296 Special Arab Aid Fund for Africa (SAAFA), 203 spiritual backsliding, 2, 328 blessings (baraka), 30, 99, 219 equality, 220 litanies, 10



index of subjects

powers, 11, 65, 158, 174, 179, 217, 263 purity, xiii, xxxii, 1–2, 22, 84, 156, 190, 218, 221, 232–233, 244–245, 265, 275, 327, 336, 337 seclusion (khalwa), 123, 165 services, 65, 228 St. Louis (in Senegal), 85 studentship/student-teacher (relationships), 146, 263–265 Subbanu Association, 8, 113, 121–125, 144, 151–152, 153, 206, 235, 239 subjectivity, xiii Sufi beliefs, 3, 20 brotherhoods, 2–3, 10, 14–15, 46, 49, 73, 78, 111, 122–123, 125, 185, 253, 255, 263, 285, 287, 300, 309, 311–312, 319, 332 doctrines, 135, 154, 168 hierarchy, 242 institutions, 147n73, 265 leaders, 2, 30, 33, 48, 125, 255, 311, 326, 331 literature, 165 -oriented/inclined reformers, 50, 274, 312–313, 335 practices, 165, 170, 224, 246, 284, 300, 313 reforms, 48 rituals, 2, 3, 120, 154, 294, 300 sheikhs, 30, 122, 263, 295 zikr, xxii, 122, 287, 295 Sufism, xxiv, xxvi, 2, 293, 296–297 condemnation of, 152, 246 rejection/accommodation of practices, 284 Sunna, 38, 49–50, 100, 122, 132, 134, 136, 141, 146, 148, 161, 179n50, 181, 204–206, 211, 221, 279, 283–285, 298–299, 300, 305, 308, 312n1, 326. See also Wahhabi/Sunna community, 145, 150, 208n50 dogma, 146, 151 mosques, 147, 207n47, 287, 290 movement, 262 preachers/preaching, 130, 133, 137n44, 138, 144–145, 149, 215 scholars, 143–144 Sunni community, 309 Islam/Muslims, 93, 115, 179–180, 298 supernatural (forces/powers), 28–29, 233, 238, 247, 249, 319 superstition, 14, 28–29, 31, 74, 79, 82, 109, 134, 137, 142–143, 175, 190–191, 216–219, 233, 240, 247–248, 251, 268, 278, 319, 325–327, 335

379

surveillance, 74, 103, 110 “Suwarian tradition”, 42 syncretism/syncretic, 2, 14, 37–38, 41, 54, 74, 78–79, 135, 187, 334 “Islam noir”, 80 religious practices, 37, 175, 219 Syrian(s), 35, 206, 225, 229, 258, 259, 273 ta’ada (Hausa: tradition or customs), 327 Tabligh Jama’at, 285–288 takfir (declaring other Muslims infidels), 40–41, 45, 285, 299–301 talismans, 79–80, 171, 176, 179, 180n51, 216–217 talqin (memorization of the Qur’an), 264 taqlid (blind acceptance of religious dogma), 216 tarbiya (Sufi esoteric initiation), xix, xxin3, 10–11, 120, 154, 162–165, 167–169, 211, 215n6, 231 tariqas, 47, 111, 131, 146, 147n73, 189, 220– 221, 226, 227n26, 257, 259, 263–264 tawakkul (belief in God’s omnipotence), 162 taxation, 38, 44, 58, 62, 76 jizya, 101 poll taxes, 101 technology, 24, 28, 30, 31, 249, 266–269, 327 teleology, 18 terrorism/terrorists, xxvii, xxix theology/theological (issues/debates), xxx, 32, 45, 142, 176, 227, 279, 280, 294, 304, 309, 313 tibbo (secret sciences), 215, 264 Tijanis. See Tijaniyya Tijaniyya-Hamawiyya, 139, 263 Tijaniyya (Sufi brotherhood), xix, xxi, xxiv, xxx, 2, 13, 17, 20, 46–48, 78, 83, 99–100, 101, 120, 133, 149, 169, 175, 231, 257, 294, 304, 309, 311–313 Association of, 209 Eleven-Bead, 47, 103–104, 112 expansion/popularity of, 73, 111–112, 163–166, 187, 232 leaders/leadership, 10–11, 18–19, 105, 154, 289, 293–294, 301, 303 litanies, 10, 102–103, 129, 162, 164–165 opposition to, 186, 225–226, 311 polemics against/denunciations of, xxiii, 13, 82, 121, 124, 135, 162, 167–170, 214, 220, 240, 282 practices/rituals, xxii, 11, 100, 164, 248 role of education for, 259, 262, 266

380

index of subjects

scholars, xix, xxiii, 50, 171, 211, 225–226, 248, 254, 296–297 structure of, 220, 242 texts, 226 Twelve-Bead, 47, 105 vs. Wahhabi movement, xxv, 15, 282, 289, 297 trade networks, 16, 43, 57, 62, 63, 65–67, 69, 137 traders, xiv, 59, 64, 66, 68, 111, 123, 137, 141, 144, 171, 205–206, 225 traditional hierarchies, 24 rulers, 220, 223, 245 social structures/society, 22, 224 vs. progressive, 315 tradition(s), 14, 22, 25, 49, 196–197, 237, 245, 275, 288, 304, 315, 325, 335. See also indigenous: traditions; local: traditions African, 13, 315 of Prophet Muhammad, 26, 31, 100, 135, 145, 147, 181, 187, 244, 277, 280, 298, 302, 308, 310, 311, 313, 336 rogonmiki, 55, 192, 326, 327 Sufi, 242, 246 vs. modern/modernity, 26, 190, 192, 197, 223, 269, 275, 278, 324–325, 327, 329 transnational comparison, 1, 9, 311 transportation, 185, 266 road networks, 239 travel documents (laissez-passer), 106 Tuaregs, 16, 46, 61, 113, 123 Twelve-Bead (Tijaniyya), 47, 105, 112 ulama (Muslim scholars), 3, 36–37, 39–40, 57, 279, 311 venal, 38 Umarian (branch), 102, 105–106, 112 Umarian-Tijaniyya, 47 umma, 80, 125, 144, 189, 221, 224, 227, 243, 269, 293, 299, 307n57, 308, 313 unemployment, 9, 141, 175, 185, 214, 230, 269–270 Union Culturelle Musulmane (Muslim Cultural Union, MCU), 123 unity, 288, 298, 308 communal, xv, 154 of the umma, 32, 137, 221, 293 urban, 9 centers, xx, 186, 278 elites, 12, 192, 193 masses, 2, 25 merchants, 149

Muslims, 15, 74, 211, 222–223, 269 professionals, 12, 184, 211, 277 public functionaries, 4, 11, 216 youth, 224 urbanization, 160, 181, 266 Vatican, 202 veiling, xxvii, 100, 160, 272–274, 288, 305 violence, xxvii, xxx virginity, 158–160 visitation (ziyaara), 106 visiting (tombs of sheikhs), 30, 129, 135, 295 vocabularies, xxix, 24, 26–27, 49, 197, 223, 247, 250, 327, 334 vocational (skills), 156, 185 voting, 190 Wa, 115 Wahhabi(s), 74, 126, 139, 145, 150, 178, 264, 285, 332 community, 145, 192, 198 doctrines, 117, 181, 199, 201, 211, 213, 224, 232, 234, 252 dogma, 19, 171, 225, 262, 282, 294, 297– 298, 308, 330–331, 337 elites, 237, 276 ideas, 4, 7–8, 32, 75, 123, 128, 132, 142, 190, 260, 326, 330 institutions, 4, 113, 231n32, 242 leaders, 4, 32, 199, 241, 244, 291, 302, 331 message, 219, 293, 295 movements, xxv, xxvii, xxx, 11, 18–20, 29–30, 50, 113, 137, 147n73, 152, 184, 187, 187–189, 200, 206, 208–209, 224, 232, 233, 246, 251, 256, 283, 308 organizations, 12, 130, 136, 149, 184, 201, 209, 221n16, 230, 232, 237, 241, 243– 244, 274, 289, 293, 297, 314, 331 preachers, xxiii, 14, 17, 21, 74, 178n47, 198, 204, 225, 233, 238, 244, 247, 272, 278, 309, 326, 328, 330, 332, 335 proto-, movement/community of, 151– 152, 153, 162, 170 reform, xiii, 1, 8, 10–11, 34, 115, 120, 153, 169–171, 172, 180, 184, 186, 216, 230, 231, 237, 241, 244n11, 251, 274, 277–278, 285, 311, 318 reformers, 50, 146, 238, 254, 260, 262, 265, 310, 312n1 reformism, xiii, 124, 154 as term, 3, 303 Wahhabism/Wahhabiyya, xiii, xxvii, 3, 7, 11–12, 15, 18–19, 28, 32–33, 48, 74, 111–112, 113, 120, 122–123, 124n10, 125, 127, 130,



index of subjects

132–133, 144–145, 147, 151, 163, 173, 181, 186, 187, 206, 209, 221, 223–224, 226, 232–233, 237, 238, 240, 241, 247, 249, 260, 272, 274–275, 289, 313, 319–320, 326–327, 331 appeal of, 4, 142n63, 152, 184, 232, 257, 275, 279, 282, 285 in Burkina Faso, 121 decline of, 282, 285, 310 development of, 29, 153, 214, 268, 277 elites and, 245 in Ghana, 154, 155, 162, 168, 170 moderation and, 284 among the Mossi, 20, 153 Tijaniyya and, 297 variants of, 50, 284, 334 in West Africa, 49, 312 Wahhabi/Sunna, 143 adherents, 50 communities, 170–171, 188, 289, 302 doctrine, 192, 279 dogma, 168, 170, 296, 304, 320 ideas, 131, 230 movement, 307 organizations, collapse of, 292–293 reform, 232, 235, 253 reformers, 41, 49 scholars, 291 spiritual leader or imam, 151 Wahhabiyyawa (Hausa: followers of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab), xxi Wangara, 67 wazifa, 164 wedding (ceremonies), xx, 54, 136, 144, 156 West, 309 and the Muslim world, xxviii, 271 West African history/tradition of reform, xiii, 32, 48, 181, 187, 240, 251, 283 Islam, 6, 47, 80, 314, 318 Islamic revival/reform movements, 1, 4, 33, 201, 237, 274, 312, 335 Muslims, xiv, xxix, xxxii, 3, 7, 27, 37, 42, 73, 79–80, 94, 159, 185, 238, 240, 252, 258, 267, 269, 276, 318, 335–336, 338

381

Western academic training, 22–24 bureaucratic structures, 246 culture, 285 -educated elites, 189, 199, 245 -educated Muslims, 150, 151, 245 geopolitical interests, 336 ideas, 274, 277, 323 literacy, 185, 228 modernity, 237, 251, 279, 318 racial discourse, 328 -styled secular schools, 240, 244, 246, 251, 254, 314, 318, 330 Western/Christian domination, 267 White Fathers mission, 90–91, 92, 117 witchcraft, 162, 181, 248, 328 women, xxvii, 5, 22, 50, 100, 135, 142–143, 145, 157–160, 243, 272–274, 288, 296, 305–307 World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), 203 World War I, 78–79, 81, 85, 114n122, 235 World War II, 80, 109, 124, 185 xenophobic (propaganda), 77, 102, 107 nonxenophobic, 106 Yan Izala (movement), 5, 173, 181, 307, 318 Yarsè, 60, 98 and Maransè (Mossi of Djula-Mande or Soninke origins), 58, 193 Yatenga, 55, 59–61, 107 kingdom of, 56, 98, 104 king/ruler, 117, 196 ruling elites, 108 zakat (compulsory alms), 137 zawiya (Sufi lodge), 100, 103, 113, 147n73 zikirin fayla, xx, xxiii. See also fayla zikr (remembrance of God), xxii, 106, 122–123, 146, 163–164, 166–167, 287 wazifa, 100, 163 Zongo community, 176, 178 Muslim culture, 224 Muslims, 230

Index of Places Accra, xx, xxiii, 11, 12, 17, 18, 114, 157, 163, 168, 225, 259, 289, 290 Adoagyiri-Zongo, xx, xxi Algeria, 203, 252 Andalusia (Iberian Peninsula), xxvi, 35, 39 Anglo-Sudan, 76, 99, 128, 131, 132 Asamankese, xiv, xvi, xviii, xix, xxv, xxvi, 162 Baghdad, xxvi, 35 Benin, xiv, 5 Boadua, xiv, xvi, xix, xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, 162 Bobo-Dioulasso, 12, 17, 91n62, 110, 122, 123, 124, 129, 140, 144, 148, 149, 153, 184, 188, 207, 254, 255 Brong Ahafo Region, 64, 155, 172, 179 Burkina Faso, 5, 8–10 groups in, 16, 53, 55 Cairo, 35, 259 Cameroon, 76 Cape Coast, 18 Coast of Guinea, 16 Côte d’Ivoire, 5, 43, 53, 64, 103, 106, 110n111, 111n115, 113, 122, 197n20, 333 Dagbon, 15, 67, 69, 156, 162 customs of, 160 Dagomba, 15, 53, 59, 66, 69, 114, 170, 301 Damascus, 35 Dogomba, 66 Egypt/Egyptian, xxvi, 30, 305 nahda (cultural renaissance of nineteenth century), 239, 277, 327 relations with/influence of, 202–203, 234–235, 238, 252, 260, 261, 327n26 scholarships from, 207–208 study in, 234, 294, 297, 298 Europe, 337 Fanteland, 92, 93 al-Fasher (in the Anglo-Sudan), 99, 128 Fez (Morocco), 99, 235, 238 French Niger, 76 French Sudan (Mali), 47, 103, 107

French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Francaise, AOF), 97, 105, 123, 255 French West Africa (FWA), 30, 47, 76, 79, 85, 90 Gambia, 75, 87 Ghana, 5, 8–9, 64n30, 103, 257n32 Eastern Region of, xiv, 157 economic situation of, 230 groups in, 53, 63 Northern, xiv, 59, 62, 64, 66n35, 68, 69, 90, 113, 115, 120, 154, 163n16, 170, 214, 259, 260 states of, 15 Gobir, 44 Gold Coast, 10, 73, 77, 92, 93, 114n122, 120 Guinea, 5, 95, 116, 122 Gulf states, 4, 185, 208, 238, 240, 252 Gurma, 16, 113 Hamle, 149 Hausaland, 44, 45 Hijaz, 7, 48, 49, 187, 235, 238, 239, 337 Iraq, 305 Israel, 201, 202 Ivory Coast, 122 Kamsoghin, 141, 142 Kano (Nigeria), 45, 84, 172 Koforidua, 18 Koudougou, 58, 61 Kumasi, xx, 17, 18, 120, 157, 163, 171, 172, 173, 175, 179n49, 180, 225, 289, 290, 291 Kumasi Sarbon-Zongo, 225 Kuwait, 305 Libya, 203, 204 Maghreb, 153, 235, 238, 239 Mali, xiv, 5, 16, 47, 55, 56, 89, 95, 98, 103, 110, 113, 116, 121, 153, 197n20, 252, 254, 255 Mamprusi, 15, 59, 62, 66, 69, 114 Masina, 59 Mauritania, 89, 95, 167, 252 Mecca, 46, 83, 98, 99, 121, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 141, 153, 212, 239, 259, 294, 295, 296, 299, 338



index of places

Medina, 153, 212, 239, 295, 296 Middle East, xxvii, 30, 73, 94, 185, 208, 235, 239, 240, 252, 309 governments, 209 institutions, 270 Mogho, 57, 58, 61 Mogho Central, 55 Morocco, 203, 252 Namissguima, 98, 99, 100, 104 Nandom, 18 Navrongo and Lawra (Northern Territories of the Gold Coast), 92 Niger, xiv, 5, 58, 103, 104, 106, 110n111, 113, 197n20 Niger bend, 46, 112 Nigeria, xiv, 5, 116, 173–174, 178, 212, 302, 307, 332 Northern, 5, 44, 75, 76, 78, 81–82, 87, 92, 113, 115, 173, 254, 318, 323 Niger Valley, 46 Nima (suburb of Accra), 212, 213, 214, 215, 225 Nioro (Mali), 102, 105, 110 North Africa, xxvi, 97 Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, 10, 93 Nouna, 255, 256 Nsawam, xx, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, 18, 162, 259 Ouagadougou, 12, 17, 18, 55, 57, 58, 59, 61, 89, 90, 102, 111, 112, 120, 124, 126, 129, 132, 133, 139, 140, 142n63, 144, 147, 148, 150, 151, 184, 193, 194, 195, 204, 205, 206, 207, 285, 286, 296 Central Mosque, 204 Ouahigouya, 18, 55, 58, 60, 61, 89, 91, 98, 102, 103, 104, 107, 110, 117, 124, 128, 129, 131, 255, 256 Protectorate of the Northern Territories, 75 Rahmatoulaye, 18, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 108, 113, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 135, 293 branch, 94, 163 branch of the Hamawiyya-Tijaniyya, 20 Sahara Desert, 16 Sahel region, 43, 185 Saltpond, 114

383

Saudi Arabia, xxiii, 2, 3n1, 4, 11, 14, 113, 120, 125, 127, 128, 133, 151, 181, 187, 203, 204, 207, 211, 212, 216, 229, 230, 231, 234, 238, 240, 247, 256, 270, 292, 302, 305, 308, 311–312 allegiance to, 302 and Faisal b. Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, 185, 234 government support of, 260 influence of, 230, 291 as intellectual center, 252 Islamic foreign policy of, 213 Islamic orthodoxy of, 121 -trained scholars, 171 universities in, 298 Savannah belt, 63 Savannah (in Ghana), 16 Ségu, 112 Senegal, 5, 18, 46, 47, 73n4, 89, 95, 113, 116, 125, 167, 169, 252, 256, 331, 332 Senegal-Mauritania, region of, 96 Senegal Valley, 46 Senegambia, 42 Sierra Leone, 75, 85 Songhay, 37–38, 44, 55–58 Sudan, 10, 39, 43, 58, 69, 72, 98, 122, 187, 212, 234, 295, 305 Syria, xxvi, 35, 305 Takoradi, 18 Tamale, 10, 17, 18, 120, 156, 157, 160, 162, 163, 168, 169, 170, 171 Tanghin, 140, 141, 142, 148 Techiman, 172 Timbuktu (Mali), 56, 57, 85, 110 Togo, xiv, 5 Tougan, 188, 255 Tunisia, 252 United Arab Republic, 202 Upper Volta, 122 Volta Basin, 15, 16, 42, 53, 63, 65–66, 68, 70, 71, 73, 111, 156, 161 Wala, 15, 66, 69, 92, 114 Yendi, 171 Zaytuna (Tunisia), 235, 239 Zongoetin, 148, 149, 204