Religion in Contemporary Senegal

Abstract

Senegal is usually classified as 90% Muslim and 5% Christian. But Senegal’s dominant religious imagination is far different from anything suggested by classical labels like ‘Muslim’ or even ‘Sufi Brotherhoods’. The pervasive religious imagination sees spiritual forces at play everywhere and understands causality primarily in spiritual terms. These spiritual forces can be manipulated by individuals gifted with such powers (marabouts), positively for one’s advancement or negatively to counter or even bring down competitors or opponents. This enchanted religious imagination, often given an Islamic character, is obtrusive in Senegal’s major sports: lutte avec frappe and football. It is inescapable in politics, as politicians admit their recourse to marabouts and even more often accuse opponents of it. For women maraboutage is particularly employed for domestic realities: a husband, children, domestic security. The courts regularly feature cases arising from this imagination. The phenomenon merits research, not just to clarify the nature of Senegal’s religion itself, but also for its effects on the country’s socio-political development generally.

Keywords:

• Senegal
• enchanted religious imagination
• marabouts
• Islam

Notes

1. “Until quite recently, the average Senegalese citizen was incapable of conceiving Islam outside of a Sufi affiliation.” (Mbacké 119)

2. The xala, of Ousmane Sambène’s most famous film and novel.

3. For a delightful treatment of a marabout’s typical requirements, see Aminata Sow Fall.

4. He had paid 30 million fcfa for a previous bout against the then champion Yekini.

5. Sow also reports the discovery by a colleague of a dromedary sacrificed near the airport at the time of the elections (Maraboutage 357–60). Another researcher was told by a party activist that he had taken part in burying a camel alive, with various koranic verses tied to its limbs, for the success of his party; the camel or dromedary, because of its importance for survival in many desert societies, has special significance in Islam. (Ndiaye 177).

6. In the most famous case, in March 2005 during extensions to the town hall of Rufisque (now a suburb of Dakar), two skeletons were found, bound, seemingly sacrificial victims; the long-standing mayor of Rufisque was a prominent politician. The skeletons were sent for investigation, but nothing has been heard since from any authorities. (Quotidien, 18–19 February 2012: 8)

7. Thus a carpenter immediately accedes to the exorbitant demands of two people he meets for the first time in the street; the two charlatans, whom he didn’t know “ni d’Eve ni d’Adam … avaient certainement usé de leurs pouvoirs mystiques” (Populaire, 8 October 2014: 10).

8. One ‘koranotherapist’ claims to treat about 50 patients a day in his surgery with koranic verses (Quotidien, 27 March 2012: 3). Sow notes that ‘koranotherapy’ essentially reduces the Qur’an to something magical (Maraboutage 176).

9. In mid-2012, Senegal was exercised by the behaviour of Yaya Jammeh, President of the Gambia, who set about executing all on the Gambia’s death row, including some Senegalese. It was widely said that Jammeh was driven to this action because Selbe Ndom had predicted that Jammeh would die in an imminent coup—some of those executed were soldiers allegedly plotting against him (Observateur, 1 August 2012: 7). Others claim that he needed the body parts of the executed for rituals to preserve his power and indeed he did not return the bodies of the executed to their families (Populaire, 3 September 2012: 4).

10. This quotation from the introduction, however, may not do justice to the approach of all the chapters in that volume, e.g. Adam Ashforth’s “On living” and Isak Niehaus’s on “Witchcraft”.

11. I say ‘seems’ for qualifiers (like ‘we suggest’ and ‘in theory at least’ in the above quotation) and the wide range of examples considered at a high level of generality often make it difficult to ascertain exactly what is claimed. Admittedly, the authors’ concern is with the role of religion in politics rather than the religious imagination itself—the concern of this article.

12. For a very similar case, also in South Africa, see Ashforth (Madumo).

13. I do not wish to imply that the authors cited above as manifesting what I have called a ‘relativist’ approach to the enchanted imagination would accept all of its possible consequences, in particular abuses of the kind exposed by Niehaus.

14. The Joola, designed to carry a maximum of 580 passengers and crew, was carrying perhaps 2,000, of whom only 64 survived. The causes were overloading and poor maintenance. The government quickly short-circuited enquiry and no one has been found responsible.