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Enslaved Muslim Sufi Saints in the Nineteenth-Century Sahara: The Life of Bilal Ould Mahmoud

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Khaled Esseissah Open the ORCID record for Khaled Esseissah [Opens in a new window]
Khaled Esseissah*
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Georgetown University
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*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article centers on the life of Bilal Ould Mahmoud, an enslaved man who became a spiritual authority in the nineteenth-century Sahara. It examines how Bilal's piety allowed him to rise to prominence in a hierarchical context that subjugated him to an inferior position. Yet what makes him so fascinating to study is his ability to achieve the highest station as a Sufi saint without being attached to a Sufi order. Using Bilal's case, this article makes two important contributions to the historiographies of Sufism and slavery. First, it brings fresh perspectives to the studies of Sufism outside of ṭarīqa (Sufi orders). Second, it contributes to the studies of Saharan slavery by exploring enslaved Muslims’ experiences beyond the practice of illicit magic, and also as part of how they exercised their saintly authority as empowered agents. In the process, it analyzes the interplay among Islam, race, and slavery in the nineteenth-century Sahara.

Keywords

Mauritanianorthwestern AfricaSaharaIslamslaveryrace
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 342 - 357
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Arabic and Ḥassāniyya terms are transliterated according to the International Journal of Middle East Studies’ guidelines. Because Ḥassāniyya is an oral language, complications in spelling often arise. For example, words are not often consistent across texts (e.g., Beni may also be spelled Banu). I have also opted not to use diacritics for personal names and places. Additionally, the expressions ‘Ould’ and ‘Ibn’ refer to ‘the son of’ and are used interchangeably in the Arabophone communities in Mauritania. Although the expression ‘Ould’ is more popular, some individuals still prefer to use ‘Ibn’. When identifying scholars from this region in this essay, I use both ‘Ould’ and ‘Ibn’. I do so because I wanted to respect individuals’ choices, both living and deceased.

2 Here, I use the term wālī to refer to someone who becomes a close ‘friend’ of the Almighty Allah due to his or her high level of iḥsān (excellence in faith) and taqwā (piety). I use the concept of karamāt to denote the special divine protection and miraculous powers that the Almighty God bestows on the awliyāʾ based on their closeness to Him. In this sense, they perform karamāt by God's permission. The concept of karamāt has been studied as a central theme in Sufi traditions and needs no further discussion here. See J. S. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, 1998), 26–8; Brown, J., ‘Faithful dissenters: Sunni skepticism about the miracles of saints’, Journal of Sufi Studies, 1:2 (2012), 123–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and S. A. Nabi, ‘The concept of the Sufi saintly miracle: a literary approach’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2020), 59–68.

3 B. B. Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli min sii-ratii Bilal al-wali (Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2017), 19.

4 Mauritanian society is made up of two main social groups: the Arabophone and non-Arabophone groups. The non-Arabophone groups include Halpulaar'en, Soninke, and Wolof speakers. The Arabophone communities, also called the Moors and bīẓān (those who define themselves as ‘white’), refer to all native Hassaniyya speakers and are divided into various ranked hereditary strata. The bīẓān include Banū Hassān political elites claiming descent from the Beni Hilal warriors of Arabia, who reportedly migrated to the southwestern Sahara in the early fifteenth century. These Banū Ḥassān confederations came to terms with zawāyā groups, Amazigh (or ‘Berber’) confederations that had long inhabited the southwestern Sahara. Banū Ḥassān groups sought to monopolize political power and represented themselves as ‘warrior’ groups, in contrast to zawāyā groups, who claimed status as Muslim scholars and acknowledged Banū Ḥassān political dominance. Other social groups were incorporated into southwestern Saharan society below the bīẓān social hierarchy and others who provided services for elites. These groups include the laḥmā or znāga (tributary groups), mu‘alīmin (craftspeople), īggāwen (singers and musicians, often referred to as ‘griots’), and ʿabīd (enslaved peoples, m. sing.ʿabd, f. sing. khadem). The bīẓān include the ḥarāṭīn communities (sing. f. Ḥarṭānīyya, sing. m. Ḥarṭānī): often defined as freed persons, but the ḥarāṭīn also encompasses other Saharan inhabitants and Black African populations whose ancestors came to speak Ḥassāniyya Arabic as their native language and adopted aspects of the bīẓān culture, but never experienced slavery.

5 Interview with Oubeid Ould Imijine, Nouakchott, 9 Aug. 2017.

6 Other celebrated nineteenth century ḥarāṭīn Sufi saints include Mohamed Ehel Imwah and Muhammad Khairat, respectively from the Tagant and Trarza regions in contemporary Mauritania. For further details on Muhammad Khairat's story, see M. Brhane, ‘Narratives of the past, politics of the present: identity, subordination and the Haraṭines of Mauritania’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1997), 127–31.

7 H. C. Kim, ‘The nature and role of Sufism in contemporary Islam: a case study of the life, thought and teachings of Fethullah Gülen’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Temple University, 2008), 174.

8 L. Brenner, ‘The esoteric sciences in Islam’, in B. M. Du Toit and I. H. Abdalla (eds.), African Healing Strategies (Buffalo, NY, 1985), 25; P. F. de Moraes Farias, Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles and Songhay–Tuāreg History (Oxford, 2003), 364–73; R. T. Ware, The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa (Chapel Hill, NC, 2014), 179; Z. V. Wright, Living Knowledge in West African Islam: The Sufi Community of Ibrahim Niasse (Boston, 2015), 51.

9 Wright, Living Knowledge, 56.

10 As Benjamin F. Soares reminds us in his studies of Sufi leaders in contemporary Mali, ‘Sufism and its influence cannot, and should not, be reduced to its presumed institutional forms such as the handful of Sufi orders whose history we already know something about.’ See B. Soares, ‘Saint and Sufi in contemporary Mali’, in M. V. Bruinessen and J. D. Howell (eds.), Sufism and the ‘Modern’ Islam (London, 2007), 77.

11 R. Launay, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town (Berkeley, 1992), 180–9.

12 Ibid. 180–1.

13 Soares, ‘Saint and Sufi’, 76.

14 Ibid. 79.

15 Holder, G., ‘Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara et l'Association Islamique Ançar Dine: un réformisme Malien populaire en quête d'autonomie’, Cahiers d’Études africaines, 206–7:2 (2012), 389–425CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 S. Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, 2011), 15.

17 This trend of using Islam as a means to gain a certain level of influence is one that other marginalized Africans have utilized in other historical contexts. See Hall, B. S., ‘How slaves used Islam: the letters of enslaved Muslim commercial agents in the nineteenth-century Niger Bend and central Sahara’, The Journal of African History, 52:3 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Z. Ould Ahmed Salem, Precher dans le desert: Islam politique et changement social en Mauritania (Paris, 2013); and K. Wiley, Work, Social Status, and Gender in Post-Slavery Mauritania (Bloomington, IN, 2018).

18 V. J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin, TX, 2010), xvii–xxi.

19 For more discussion of the complex and multilayered forms of authority in precolonial West Africa, see Nobili, M., ‘Reinterpreting the role of Muslims in the West African Middle Ages’, The Journal of African History, 61:3 (2021), 1–14Google Scholar.

20 See C. C. Stewart and E. K. Stewart, Islam and Social Order in Mauritania: A Case Study from the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1973); D. Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (New York, 1985). Notable exceptions include the following scholarly works: Hanretta, S., ‘Gender and agency in the history of a West African Sufi community: the followers of Yacouba Sylla’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50:2 (2008), 478–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frede, B., ‘Following in the steps of ʿĀʾisha: Ḥassāniyya-speaking Tijānī women as spiritual guides (Muqaddamāt) and teaching Islamic scholars (Limrābuṭāt) in Mauritania’, Islamic Africa, 5:2 (2014), 225–73Google Scholar; and J. Hill, Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal (Toronto, 2018).

21 See Brhane, ‘Narratives of the past’, 127–31; and R. C. Jankowsky, Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (Chicago, 2010), 79–88.

22 A. Ibn al-Amin ash-Shinqiti, Al-wasit fi tarajim Shinqit ̣wa kalam hla tilk al-bilad (Cairo, 1911), 541.

23 See A. E. McDougall, ‘Slavery, sorcery and colonial “reality” in Mauritania, c. 1910–1960’, in C. Youé and T. Stapleton (eds.), Agency and Action in Colonial Africa: Essays for John E. Flint (New York, 2001), 69–82; B. Acloque, ‘Accusations of remote vampirism: the colonial administration in Mauritania investigates the execution of three slaves: 1928–1929’, in A. Bellagamba, S. Greene, and M. Klein (eds.), African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade (Cambridge, 2013), 282–304; Pettigrew, E., ‘The heart of the matter: interpreting bloodsucking accusations in Mauritania’, The Journal of African History, 57:3 (2016), 417–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and E. Pettigrew, ‘Politics and affiliations of enchantment among the Ahel Guennar of southern Mauritania’, in S. Boulay and F. Freire (eds.), Culture et politique dans l'Ouest saharien: Arts, activisme et État dans un espace de conflits (Paris, 2017), 293–356.

24 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 46.

25 Ibid. 18.

26 See E. E. Curtis IV, The Call of Bilal: Islam in the African Diaspora (Chapel Hill, NC, 2014).

27 M. Ould Khattar, personal communication, 10 Jan. 2021. See also E. Brahim, ‘Moritanya'da görsel kültür: etnografik bir çalışma’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Istanbul University, 2020), 112–13.

28 Interview with Sidi Ahmed Ould Mouloud, 20 Aug. 2020.

29 See T. Cleaveland, Becoming Walāta: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation (Portsmouth, NH, 2002).

30 Brhane, ‘Narratives of the past’, 127–31.

31 Ibid. 130. It is noteworthy that several prominent African groups have claimed Bilal b. Rabah as their ancestor or associate themselves with his story. In Mali, the Keita family claims him as an ancestor, and so does the gnāwa community in Morocco. See Conrad, D. C., ‘Islam in the oral traditions of Mali: Bilali and Surakata’, The Journal of African History, 26:1 (1985), 33–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hamel, C. El, ‘Constructing a diasporic identity: tracing the origins of the Gnawa spiritual group in Morocco’, The Journal of African History, 49:2 (2008), 241–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Written sources do not say much about her life story, perhaps because she was an enslaved Black woman who did not deserve much attention.

33 This is one of the largest qabīla in Mauritania. The term qabīla is often loosely translated as tribe in English (or la tribu in French). In Mauritania, the term is not pejorative and the French word ‘la tribu’ is often used to refer to qabīla. This use does not partake of Westerners’ negative connotations for the word. In this article, however, I use the term qabīla rather than the ambiguous word ‘tribe’ or ‘la tribu’, which does not capture the complexity needed to understand the historical experiences of different ethnic groups in Saharan societies.

34 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 13–19.

35 For more information on the life of Shaykh Sidiyya, see Stewart, Islam and Social Order.

36 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 4–26.

37 Interview with Oubeid Ould Imijine.

38 U. P. Ruf, Ending Slavery: Hierarchy, Dependency and Gender in Central Mauritania (New Brunswick, NJ, 1999), 153–7.

39 Freire, F., ‘Saharan migrant camel herders: Znāga social status and the global age’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 52:3 (2014), 425–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Ruf, Ending Slavery, 153.

41 Ibid. 154; and S. Caratini, Les Rgaybât (1610–1934), tome II, territoire et société (Paris, 1989), 120.

42 For more detailed treatment of this topic, see G. Lydon, On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western Africa (Cambridge, 2009).

43 Hall, ‘How slaves used Islam’, 289.

44 See J. Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888 (Portsmouth, NH, 1995); and S. J. Rockel, Carriers of Culture: Labor on the Road in Nineteenth-Century East Africa (Portsmouth, NH, 2006).

45 Interview with Sidi Ahmed Ould Mouloud.

46 Interview with Deddoud Ould Abdallahi, Nouakchott, 11 Aug. 2017.

47 Interview with Sidi Ahmed Ould Mouloud.

48 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 48.

49 Interview with Deddoud Ould Abdallahi.

50 Pettigrew, ‘Heart of the matter’, 421.

51 Acloque, ‘Accusations of remote vampirism’, 282–304.

52 See McDougall, ‘Slavery, sorcery and colonial “reality”’; Acloque, ‘Accusations of remote vampirism’; and Pettigrew, ‘Heart of the matter’.

53 Ibn al-Amin ash-Shinqiti, Al-wasit, 541. Even during the colonial period, accusations of bloodsucking and bewitching were very common. As noted by several scholars, colonial writings are replete with court cases and events involving enslaved men and women who were accused of magical practices, and sometimes they were brutally punished and even killed by their masters because of those accusations. See McDougall, ‘Slavery, sorcery and colonial “reality”’, 283–4; Acloque, ‘Accusations of remote vampirism’, 282–304; and Pettigrew, ‘Heart of the matter’, 417–18.

54 M. A. Ibn al-Bukhari, Ḥayat al-mranyt al-tarykhiyat. The author has a copy of this unpublished manuscript.

55 According to a fatwā issued by the prominent Mauritanian qāḍī. Muḥummadun b. Muḥammad Val b. Muḥummaḏun al-Abhami (d. 1966) in the early twentieth century regarding the Islamic stand on slavery, enslaved men in bīẓān societies were generally not allowed to assume important leadership roles in mosques. See Y. Ould al-Barra, Al-Majmu at al-kubra al-shamila li-fatawa wa-nawazil wa-aḥkam ahl gharb wa-janub gharb al-Ṣaḥra, Volume XII (Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2009), 6208–11.

56 Ibn al-Bukhari, Ḥayat.

57 Ibn al-Amin ash-Shinqiti, Al-wasit, 357–8.

58 For more details on Ould Ahmed Jorah's poetry, see M. S. Ould Muhhamadu, Al-riqq fi Muritanya wa abaduhu al-shar iyya wa al-siyyasiyya (Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2012), 76–82.

59 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 53.

60 Interview with Deddoud Ould Abdallahi.

61 McDougall, ‘Who are the Haratin? Asking the right questions…’, in Ann E. McDougall and M. L. Nouhi (eds.), Devenir visible dans le sillage de l'esclavage: La question Haratin en Mauritanie et au Maroc (Paris, 2020),15. See also B. S. Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960 (Cambridge, 2011).

62 Pettigrew, ‘Politics and affiliations’, 293–7.

63 E. K. Rowe, Black Saints in Early Modern Global Catholicism (Cambridge, 2019), 176.

64 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 45–6.

65 Brenner, ‘Esoteric sciences’, 23.

66 Wright, Living Knowledge, 45.

67 Pettigrew, ‘Heart of the matter’, 420. See also A. W. Ould Cheikh, ‘Nomadisme, islam et pouvoir politique dans la société maure précoloniale (XIème siècle–XIXème siècle): essai sur quelques aspects du tribalisme’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Université de Paris V, 1985), 904–24; and Hamel, E., ‘The transmission of Islamic knowledge in Moorish society from the rise of the Almoravids to the 19th century’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 29:1 (1999), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Interview with Oubeid Ould Imijine.

69 This poem was composed by Muḥummadun Ould Baba Ould Mahmud Muhammad al-Daymani, a famed nineteenth-century writer and litterateur, when he visited Bilal's tomb in Lemsiha in search for his blessings and protection. Interview with Sidi Ahmed Ould Mouloud. See also Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 46.

70 For works that explore the rich tradition of knowledge production and transmission in Africa, see L. Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power, and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Bloomington, IN, 2001); Ware, Walking Qur'an; and O. Kane, Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa (Cambridge, 2016).

71 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 4–26.

72 Ibid. 46.

73 See K. S. Vikør, ‘Sufi brotherhoods in Africa’, in N. Levtzion and R. Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens, OH, 2000), 441–76; Seesemann, R., ‘Sufism in West Africa’, Religion Compass, 4:10 (2010), 606–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Triaud, J-L., ‘Giving a name to Islam south of the Sahara: an adventure in taxonomy’, The Journal of African History, 55:1 (2014), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Ould Ghaddour, A-srd al-jli, 46.

75 Ibid. 27.

76 For in-depth discussion of Imam Hasan al-Basri and al-Sayeda Rabia's Sufi thoughts and ideas, see M. M. Khan, The Muslim 100: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of the Most Influential Muslims in History (Leicester, UK, 2009), 252–5; S. Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History: Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110H/728CE) and the Formation of His Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship (Leiden, 2006); and R. E. Cornell, Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya (London, 2019).

77 See Kim, ‘Sufism in contemporary Islam’.