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Muslim Politics and Development in Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Lucy Greevey Behrman
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The Objective of this article is to reassess the influence of the Muslim brotherhoods on politics in Senegal. In 1965–6 I undertook a study of the subject, but the resultant publication was not the first, nor indeed the most in-depth, research on the topic which has attracted the attention of scholars for many years.1 Beginning with the colonial administrator Paul Marty, and including the noted scholar Vincent Monteil, French observers have documented the peculiar organisation, power, and influence of the Muslim confrérie2 – the tariqa or sufi order introduced from North Africa to Senegal during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.3 Since independence in 1960, interest in the brotherhoods has intensified as the pattern of relationships became clear between modern African politicians and traditional Muslim leaders. Most notable were the marabouts heading the Murddiyya or Mouride order, 4 centred among the Wolof in the productive agricultural zone of central Senegal where most of the major crop, groundnuts, is produced.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 261 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

Page 261 note 1 Behrman, Lucy Creevey, Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal (Cambridge, Mass., 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 261 note 2 A few citations include: Marty, Paul, Les Mourides d'Amadou Bamba (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar, and Etudes sur l'Islam au Sénégal (Paris, 1917)Google Scholar; Gouilly, Alphonse, L'Islam dane l'Afrique occidentale française (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar; Chailley, M. et al. , Notes et études sur l'Islam en Afrique noire (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar; Nekkach, L., ‘Le Mouridisme depuis 1912’, St Louis, Senegal, unpublished manuscript, 1952Google Scholar; Monteil, Vincent, ‘Une Confrérie musulmane: les Mourides du Sénégal’, in Archives de sociologie des religions (Paris), VII, 16, 1962, pp. 88–102Google Scholar, L'Islam noir (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar, and Esquisses sénégalaises (Dakar, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 261 note 3 An explanation of the organisation and spread of the brotherhoods in Senegal may be found in Behrman, op. cit. pp. 23–33. See also Klein, Martin, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, Sine-Saloum 1847–1914 (Edinburgh, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 261 note 4 Cf. Sy, Cheikh Tidjane, La Confrérie séégalaise des Mourides (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar, and Wade, Abdoulaye, ‘La Doctrine économique du Mouridisme’, Dakar, 1966, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar Several other publications by non-Senegalese have treated the subject in even greater depth; in particular, see O'Brien, Donal B. Cruise, The Mourides of Senegal: the political and economic organization of an Islamic brotherhood (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, and Saints and Politicians: essays in the organization of a Senegalese peasant society (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar References appear even in books dealing with other aspects of Senegalese politics or social life; for example, Schumacher, Edward J., Politics, Bureaucracy and Rural Development in Senegal (Berkeley, 1975)Google Scholar, and Zuccarelli, François, Un Parti politique africai: l'Union progressiste sénégalaise (Paris, 1970).Google Scholar

Page 262 note 1 For further details, see Behrman, L. Creevey, ‘The French Muslim Policy in Senegal’, in McCall, Daniel F. (ed.), Aspects of West African Islam (Boston, 1971).Google Scholar

Page 262 note 2 See Behrman, op. cit. pp. 85–105, Schumacher, op. cit. pp. 5–24, and Morgenthau, Ruth Schachter, Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa (Oxford, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 262 note 3 Ba Baidy, Cheik, Compte rendu de la cérémonie inaugurate de la Grande Mosquée de Touba … le 7 juin, 1963 Thiés, 1963).Google Scholar

Page 263 note 1 See Schumacher, op. cit. pp. 227–8.

Page 263 note 2 Ibid. p. 176, fn. 10.

Page 263 note 3 The 1963 figures are from Verriére, Louis, ‘La Population du Sénégal (Aspects quanI titatifs)’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Dakar, 1965Google Scholar, cited in Behrman, op. cit. p. 150. Recent data are available in Ministére des Finances et des Affaires Economiques, Situation économique du Sénégal, 1974 (Dakar, 1975), p. 30.Google Scholar

Page 263 note 4 For standard discussions of development, see Holt, Robert and Turner, John E., The Political Basis of Economic Development (Princeton, 1966)Google Scholar; Kahl, Joseph A., The Measurement of Modernization: a study of values in Brazil and Mexico (Austin, 1968)Google Scholar; and Inkeles, Alex, ‘Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries’, in The American Political Science Review (Menasha), LXIII, 12 1969, pp. 1122–3.Google Scholar Also see Berger, Peter L., The Sacred Canopy: elements of a sociological theory of religion (Garden City, 1969), pp. 109–71Google Scholar; and Godfrey, and Wilson, Monica, The Analysis of Social Change (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 83–95.Google Scholar

Page 264 note 1 See Schnaiberg, Allan, ‘Measuring Modernism: theoretical and empirical explorations’, in American Journal of Sociology (Chicago), LXXVIII, 11 1970, pp. 399–425Google Scholar; Block, Charles Y. and Stark, Rodney (eds.), Religion and Society in Tension (Chicago, 1965)Google Scholar; Enloc, Cynthia, Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar; and Behrman, Lucy Creevey, ‘Patterns of Religious and Political Attitudes and Activities During Modernization: Santiago, Chile’, in Social Science Quarterly (Austin), LIII, 35, 12 1972, pp. 520–33.Google Scholar

Page 264 note 2 Behnnan, op. cit. p. 174.

Page 265 note 1 Verriére, op. cit. p. 51, and Situation économique du Sénégal, 1974, p. 4.

Page 265 note 2 Ibid. p. 5.

Page 265 note 3 Excluding Nigeria with its traditional urban centres.

Page 265 note 4 Sources: Situation économique du Sénégal, 1964, pp. 589, and 1974, p. 425.Google Scholar

Page 265 note 5 Ibid. 1976, p. 110.

Page 266 note 1 See Situation économique du Sénégal, 1964, and 1974, p. 109.Google Scholar

Page 266 note 2 Behrman, op. cit. pp. 144–52.

Page 267 note 1 Sources: Verriére, op. cit. p. 84, and Situation éonomique áu Sénegal, 1964, p. 22, and 1974, pp. 30 and 56.Google Scholar The educational comparison between 1964 and 1974 is not exact-for example, Verriére excluded non-Africans, mainly found in Dakar.

Page 268 note 1 Situation économique du Sénégal, 1974, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 2 Ibid. p. 8.

Page 269 note 1 Those interviewed in May and' June 1976 included government officials, students and professors, brotherhood members and marabouts, leaders of reformist Muslim organisations, and foreign observers. Since my informants cannot be identified in this article, the only guarantee of validity is the assurance that each statement here which is based on interviews was cross-checked with sources having opposing interests, affiliations, or backgrounds.

Page 269 note 2 Schumacher, op. cit. p. 225.

Page 269 note 3 Ibid. pp. 84–105.

Page 269 note 4 Ibid. pp. 59–83.

Page 270 note 1 Ibid. p. 218.

Page 270 note 2 Interviews in 1976. Officially it was acknowledged that 6,000 attended the Karolack congress.

Page 271 note 1 Schumacher, op. cit. pp. 23–43; and Zuccarelli, op. cit. pp. 188–9.

Page 272 note 1 In 1966, 5,060 Senegalese listed themselves as marabouts or priests in a population study. See Verrière, op. cit. p. 100 and Behrman, op. cit. p. 64.

Page 272 note 2 For example, Behrman, op. cit. Pp. 107–55.

Page 273 note 1 See reports in Le Soleill (Dakar), 03 1976.Google Scholar

Page 273 note 2 Ibid. 18 December 1975.

Page 273 note 3 Ibid.

Page 273 note 4 Ibid. 22 January 1976.

Page 275 note 1 Interview with Abdul Aziz Sy, 1976.

Page 275 note 2 Le Soleil, March 1976.

Page 275 note 3 Ibid. 14 June 1976.

Page 276 note 1 Le Monde (Paris), 2 03 1976.Google Scholar

Page 277 note 1 See Parenti, Michael, ‘Assimilation and Counter-Assimilation’, in Green, Philip and Levinson, Sanford (eds.), Power and Community: dissenting essays in political science (New York, 1970).Google Scholar