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CONVERSION TO ISLAM: MILITARY RECRUITMENT AND GENERATIONAL CONFLICT IN A SEREER-SAFÈN VILLAGE (BANDIA), 1920–38

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2003

JAMES F. SEARING
JAMES F. SEARING
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
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Abstract

The Sereer-Safèn are a minority population in a predominantly Wolof and Muslim region. During the colonial period the Safèn were ruled by Wolof chiefs, who treated them as a conquered population. Until the First World War, Safèn resistance was based on preserving a separate religious and ethnic identity, symbolized by the village shrine and matrilineal descent. Conversion to Islam had its roots in the crisis created by military recruitment. When the Safèn were forced to give soldiers to the French, ‘maternal uncles’ used their authority over their ‘nephews’ to recruit soldiers. Today this act is remembered as a ‘betrayal’ that called into question the legitimacy of the matrilineal system of labor and inheritance. Conversion to Islam has been studied by focusing on long-term Islamization rather than the moment of conversion. Oral testimony from converts emphasizes changes in behavior, funeral rites, inheritance and patterns of labor and power in the village community.

Keywords

SenegalconversionIslamFirst World Warmilitary recruitment
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 73 - 94
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I owe a debt of gratitude to M. Seck, the village chief in 1995, and to the imam of Bandia, Babacar Ndione, who was very helpful both as an informant and as an advocate for recording the history of the village. I also thank all the elders who participated in interviews. I also thank the Social Science Research Council for a grant that supported my research in 1995.