Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:05:53.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conclusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Extract

West African Islam is evolving politically and fast: This much these four rich case studies on Niger, Gambia, Nigeria, and Senegal assure us. How quaint now seems the early postcolonial notion that meaningful separation of mosque and state would remain a bedrock of the independent nation-state in a region of Africa marked by such a strong Muslim presence. Significant inroads into the superimposed European ideal of governance through secular institutions alone had already been made before the events of 9/11 recalibrated our focus on Islam in West Africa. As Mahmud and Villalón show us, partisan democratizing pressures in Nigeria and Senegal had put Shari'a and anti-Mouride Reformism on the the political table well before Osmana bin Laden became a household name. Similarly, the emergence of civil society associations in Niger and Wahhabi proselytizing in Gambia, according to Charlick and Darboe, elevated Islamist movements there prior to the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon. After 9/11, the significance of Islamism in West Africa is of course inescapable: Mahmud's mere reference to a “Nigerian Taliban” inevitably whets curiosity. This response, however, is disproportionate to the group's real impact. It is crucial, in other words, that scholars of West African Islam not fall into the reductio ad al-Qaedum trap of neophyte Africanist students and intelligence analysts.

Type
ASR Focus: Islamism in West Africa
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ACSS (Africa Center for Strategic Studies). 2003. “North and West Africa Counter-Terrorism Topical Seminar: Program Highlights.” Bamako, Mali: National Defense University.Google Scholar
Butterworth, Charles E., and Zartman, I. William. 1992. “Preface.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 524 (special issue on “Political Islam”).Google Scholar
Lyman, Princeton N., and Morrison, J. Stephen. 2004. “The Terrorist Threat in Africa.” Foreign Affairs 83: 7586.Google Scholar
Miles, William F. S. 2003. “Shari'a as De-Africanization: Evidence from Hausaland.” Africa Today 50 (1): 5075.Google Scholar
Nyang, Sulayman S. 1984. “Islam and Politics in West Africa.” Issue: A Journal of Africanist Opinion 13: 2025.Google Scholar
Ryan, Patrick. 1987. “Islam and Politics in West Africa: Minority and Majority Models.” The Muslim World 11: 115.Google Scholar