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Islam and Politics in West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2019

Extract

The role of Islam in West African politics goes back to the beginnings of the encounter between Islamic culture and traditional African political leadership in the medieval period. When Arabo-Berber culture arrived in the West Soudan, African rulers in Ghana, Soudan, and other smaller kingdoms of the time were very much influenced by their traditional African world view. According to this world view, rulers were thought to be a link between the living and the dead, on the one hand, and between the temporal and the spiritual on the other. Indeed, it is because of this fusion of politics and primordial religion in the old Africa that the well-known American student of African religions, James W. Fernandez, wrote in the early 1960s that the “African, it can be argued, inherited a traditional disposition to shift back and forth from a political to a religious mode of address.”

Type
Focus: Afro-Arab Relations
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1984 

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References

Notes

1 See Fernandez, James W., “African Religious Movements: Types and Dynamics,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1964), p. 532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In this interesting article he discusses the unity of African thought with regard to religion and politics (p. 532).

2 Quoted in Trimmingham, J. S., A History of Islam in West Africa (New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 62.Google Scholar

3 For some discussion on Islam and radical thought in Africa, see Batran, Aziz, Islam and Revolution in Africa (Brattleboro, Vermont: Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Mazrui, Ali A., “Islam, Political Leadership, and Economic Radicalism in Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 9 (April 1967), pp. 274-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For Mazrui's views on the correlation between proficiency in European languages and understanding Western political concepts, see Nyang, S. S., Ali A. Mazrui: The Man and His Works (Lawrenceville, Va.: Brunswick Publishing Co., 1981).Google Scholar

5 For some views on the Jihadist warriors and their campaigns, see Muhammad al-Hajji, “The Fulani Concept of Jihad: Shehu Uthmnan dan Fodio,” Odu, No. 1 (July 1964), pp. 45-58; Mervyn Hiskett, “As Islamic Tradition of Reform in the Western Sudan from the Sixteenth to the eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the School of African and Oriental Studies, Vol. 25, pt. 3, 1962, pp. 577-96; Waldman, Marylin R., “The Fulani Jihad: A Reassessment,” Journal of African History, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1965, pp. 333-35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doi, A. R. I., “Political Role of Islam in West Africa,” African Quarterly (New Delhi), Vol. 7 (Jan/March 1968), pp. 335-42Google Scholar; Hunwick, John O., “The Nineteenth Century Jihads,” in Anene, Joseph C. and Brown, Geofrey N., eds., Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Jihads (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Klein, Martin A., “The Moslem Revolution in Nineteenth Century Senegambia,” in McCall, Daniel F., ed., West African History (published by Praeger for Boston University's African Studies Center, 1964)Google Scholar; Quinn, Charlotte, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, chapters 5-9; John Ralph Willis, “Jihad Fi Sabil Allah: Its Doctrinal Basis in Islam and Some Aspects of Its Evolution in Nineteenth Century West Africa,” Journal of African History, VII, 3 (1967).

6 For discussion of conflict between Sunni Ali and the ulema, see Hunwick, J. O., “Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591,” in Lewis, I. M., ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

7 Terms such as perfect acculturates and imperfect acculturates were coined in the 1970s by Mazrui, Ali A., See his Political Values and the Educated Class (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar; “Soldiers as Traditionalizers: Military Rule and the Re-Africanization of Africa,” World Politics, 28, 2 (Jan. 1976), pp. 246-72.

8 For some discussion on Islam in Futa Jallo, see Joseph E. Harris, “The Foula of Fouta Diallon: Their Origin, Migration, and Religion.” A paper presented to the International Congress of Africanists, Second Session, December 11-20, 1967, Dakar.

9 See Hodgkin, Thomas, “Islam and the National Movement in West Africa,” Journal of African History, vol. 3, 1962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 For some discussion on the Prelude to Colonialism and the Nature of the Conflict between Islam and Colonialism, see Hargreaves, J., Prelude to the Partition of West Africa (London: Macmillan and co. Ltd., 1963)Google Scholar; and Peters, Rudolph, Islam and Colonialism (The Nague: Moulton Publishers, 1979).Google Scholar

12 For some discussion on the colonial impact on trade between the Muslim north and the Sub-Saharan Muslim states, see Curtin's, Philip D. Senegambian case study in Economic Change in Precolonial Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1975).Google Scholar

13 For some discussion on the shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, see Parry, J. H., The Establishment of European Hegemony: 1415-1715 (New York, USA: Harper and Row, 1961).Google Scholar

14 For discussion on British indirect rule arrangements in Northern Nigeria, see Crowder, Michael, A Short History of Nigeria (New York, USA: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966).Google Scholar

15 For discussion on Blaise Diagne's ties to the Marabouts, see G. Wesley Johnson, “The Ascendancy of Blaise Diagne and the Beginning of African Politics in Senegal,” Africa, vol. XXXVI, No. 3 (July 1966); idem., The Emergence of Black Politics in Senegal (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971).

16 These aspects of Bamba's relations with the French are discussed in Lucy Behrman-Creevy's chapter in Willis, John Ralph, ed., Studies in West African Islamic History (London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd., 1979).Google Scholar Donald Cruise O'Brien, The Mourides of Senegal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

17 For discussion on Alhaji Jahumpa's role in Gambian politics, see my “The Historical Development of Political Parties in The Gambia,” Africana Research Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 4, 1975, pp. 3-38.

18 Sir Ahmadu Bello was appointed to the prestigious High Council of the World Muslim League (Rabetah al-alam al-Islami) in Mecca.

19 Shaykh Ibrahim had a large following among Ghanaian Muslims. For some discussion on his charisma and influence, see M. Hiskett, “The ‘Committee of Grace’ and Its Opponents, ‘The Rejections’ A Debate on Theology and Mysticism in Muslim West African with Special Reference to Its Hausa Expression,” African Language Studies, Vol. XVII, 1980, pp. 99-140. See also John Paden, Religion and Political Culture in Kano (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).

20 For discussion on politics in Senegal under Senghor, see Schumacher, Edward J., Politics, Bureaucracy, and Rural Development in Senegal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Foltz, William, “Senegal,” in Coleman, J. and Rosberg, Carl G. Jr., eds., Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 1664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 For some accounts on Ahmed Niasse's activities, see Le Continent, January 6, 1981. See also scattered pieces in West Africa and Jeune Afrique for this same period.

22 Madiera Keita, in a statement on political organization in postcolonial Mali, argued against the involvement of religion in politics. See Sigmund, Paul E. Jr., The Ideologies of the Developing Countries (New York, USA: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963), pp. 173-74.Google Scholar

23 For some background on Toure's earlier political postures, see Lansine Kaba, “Guinean Politics: A Critical Historical Overview,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 15, 1 (March 1977), pp. 25-45.

24 President Jawara's propagandists have on many occasions used Islamic analogies to legitimize his rule. When he clashed with Mr. Sheriff Sisay in 1968, his supporters began to say that Sisay's behavior was reminiscent of Iblis’ (Satan's) rebellion against Allah.

25 During the abortive coup attempt in July 1981, the rebels brought to Radio Gambia AI-Haji Habib Sy of the Tivouane branch of the Tijaniyya brotherhood. The intention was to use this Marabout's powers to persuade President Abdou Diouf not to invade The Gambia.