Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Islamic reconciliation spaces in Burkina Faso take a significant place within the plurality of informal agencies of conflict resolution. Yet this place remains barely visible. This article studies the forms of Islamic justice in the country: it shows how the Islamic authorities dealing with the resolution of family conflicts tend to integrate the Islamic norms with local practices and the demands of justiciable persons. In the Sufi rural environment, the concept of sulufu expresses the need for a friendly conciliation that diverges from literalistic reading of the Quran. In town, the role of the ‘settlement’ plays against the proliferation of divorce: while the Islamic elites agree that the divorce is authorized within the Muslim law, in practice they refuse to endorse it. This shows the force of social injunctions in relation to marriage and to the indissolubility of the couple.