How Islam intersects ethnicity and social status in the Sahel

ABSTRACT

Groups, movements and political parties that directly invoke Islam as their raison d’être constitute key players in the Sahel. Analysts rightfully take this Islamic dimension quite seriously as they try to understand the dynamics of security in the region. In doing so, however, it is important not to forget other forms of solidarity which intersect with Islam. Ethnicity and social status (‘caste’) are categories that impact in various ways the mobilisation efforts made on behalf of Islam. Drawing examples from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and Nigeria, this paper presents three configurations in which these identities intersect: representations of untrustworthy ‘ethnic others’; the ethnicization of Islam; and intra-ethnic debates.

KEYWORDS:

• Sahel
• Islamism
• Sufism
• ethnicity
• status
• caste

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Cédric Jourde is an Associate Professor at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa. His research specialises on Islam, politics and identities in the Sahel.

Notes

1. ‘All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement.

2. Interview in Nouakchott, September 2009.

3. Interview in Nouakchott, October 2009.

4. Interview in Nouakchott, October 2009.

5. I will discuss below the profile of those Fulani who have been coopted within this upper circle.

6. Sangaré made that interview in Serma, on August 1, 2013.

7. Sangaré made that interview in Serma, with a 51-year old man, on 10 August 2013.

8. An interview with Hisham Bilal with RFI can be heard here, http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20120804-mali-bilal-hicham. See also Radio France Internationale, 9 November 2012; http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20121109-mali-nord-mujao-deserteur-niger-bilal-hicham-cicr [accessed July 10, 2017].

9. The quote from Mohamed Yusuf (founder of Boko Haram) in Pieri and Zenn (2016, 77), makes no explicit reference to that Kanem-Borno Empire. The rest of their article, which is very informative, as I will discuss below, does not provide direct evidence that the aim of the movement is to recreate this Empire.

10. Also cited in Pantucci and Jesperson (2015, 25).

11. http://laviesenegalaise.com/ziara-omarienne-a-dakar-macky-sall-magnifie-la-grandeur-de-thierno-mountaga-ahmed-tall [accessed July 10, 2017].

12. The senior Fulani disciples I have interviewed in 2010, 2011 and 2012 all agree that before the 2000s, there were very few Fulani disciples of the Niassiyya.

13. Interview, Dakar, 14 April 2010.

14. Interview, Dakar, 26 May 2011.

15. Interview, Dakar, 5 June 2012. A famous Mauritanian Fulani scholar made the same point in an interview in Nouakchott, 3 November 2009.

16. Interview, Nouakchott, 2 November 2009.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under [grant number 410-2008-0371].