The influence of traditional and religious groups on modern politics is a significant factor in the development of many countries. In this volume Lucy C. Behrman investigates the political role of religious organizations in the West African country of Senegal. She introduces her study with analyses of the historical conditions under which the Muslim brotherhoods emerged as a political force and of the ways in which the pattern of relations was established. The Senegalese brotherhoods are tightly-knit organizations, each led by a marabu. whose disciples depend on him in secular as well as religious matters. The political authority of the marabus grew out of the disintegration of the tribal system in the late nineteenth century, when the marabus replaced the nobles as political leaders. The French then reinforced the marabus' power by using them as intermediaries and by helping those who cooperated with the colonial regime to defeat those who did not. Upon independence in 1960. Senegalese politicians adopted the pattern of cooperation established by the French. Behrman, examining the present role of the brotherhoods, analyzes their inter-relationships as well as their relations with political parties, government officials, the government reform program, and modern Muslim reform groups. She reveals that Senegalese officials often defer to the opinion of the strongest marabus and that, in times of crisis or uncertainty with in the government party, the Union Progressiste Senegalaise, they turn to the marabus for support. She also shows that, although the Muslim leaders occupy such a privileged position in Senegalese society, they do not actually control the government, which issecularand modern in form and is led by Western-educated men devoted to a program of industrialization and agricultural and social reform.x

This collection critically examines "tolerance," "secularism," and respect for religious "diversity" within a social and political system dominated by Sufi brotherhoods. Through a detailed analysis of Senegal's political economy, essays trace the genealogy and dynamic exchange among these concepts while investigating public spaces and political processes and their reciprocal engagement with the state, Sunni reformist and radical groups, and non-religious organizations. The anthology provides a rich and nuanced historical ethnography of the formation of Senegalese democracy, illuminating the complex trajectory of the Senegalese state and reflecting on similar postcolonial societies. Offering rare perspectives on the country's "successes" since liberation, the volume identifies the role of religion, gender, culture, ethnicity, globalization, politics, and migration in the reconfiguration of the state and society, and it makes an important contribution to democratization theory, Islamic studies, and African studies.

This book is an objective study of the state of Islam in Senegal and of the religious factors that influence it. Islam in Senegal is characterized by the strong intrenchment of a certain number of Sufi brotherhoods. In effect, the majority of Senegal's 7,600,000 Muslims consider adherence to a brotherhood, a tariqa, to be a religious obligation, in keeping with the well-known Sufi maxim ""He who does not have a shaykh will have Satan for a guide."" Mbacke traces the genesis and evolution of Sufism in order to explain the circumstances that permitted the emergence of Sufi brotherhoods. He describes the brotherhoods that are currently active in Senegal and depicts the means and manner of their diffusion, the lives of their founding figures, their basic teachings, their internal organization, the links they maintain with each other, and the role they play in the country's cultural, economic, social and political life. The book uses its study of the present condition of Senegal's Sufi brotherhoods to speculate on their future evolution.

Professor Martin considers the social and political aspects of the revival of the Muslim brotherhoods, or sufi in the nineteenth century. This revival had as its main goal the defence of Islam, and though it the sufi orders acquired great, and indeed unprecedented, political and social influence.

The Sufi Muslim orders to which the vast majority of Senegalese belong are the most significant institutions of social organization in the country. While studies of Islam and politics have tended to focus on the destabilizing force of religiously based groups, Leonardo Villalon argues that in Senegal the orders have been a central component of a political system that has been among the most stable in Africa. Focusing on a regional administrative center, he combines a detailed account of grassroots politics with an analysis of national and international forces to examine the ways in which the internal dynamics of the orders shape the exercise of power by the Senegalese state. This is a major study that should be read by every student of Islam and politics as well as of Africa.

As North African, Middle Eastern, and Sahelian societies adapt to the post-Arab Spring era and the rise of violence across the area, various groups find in Islam an answer to the challenges of the era. This book explores how Islamist social movements, Sufi brotherhoods, and Jihadi armed groups, in their great diversity, elaborate their social networks, and recruit sympathizers and militants in complicated times. The book innovates by transcending regional boundaries, bringing together specialists of the three aforementioned regions. First, it highlights how geographically dispersed religious groups define themselves as members of a larger, universal Umma, while evolving in deeply embedded local contexts. Second, its contributors prioritize in-depth fieldwork research, offering fine-grained, original insights into the manifold mobilization of Islamist-inspired social movements in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Western Europe. The book sheds light on the tense debates and competition taking place amongst the different trends composing the Islamist galaxy and between other groups that also claim an Islamic legitimacy, including Sufi brotherhoods and ethnic and/or tribal groups as well. This book was originally published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

Muridism is a Sufi order which originated in Senegal, West Africa, at the end of the 19th century and is now in rapid expansion with the Senegalese emigrants around the world. Among the Murids the belief is strong that the founder Shaykh Amadou Bamba and his mother Mame Diarra Bousso can help them gain a better life on earth and entry into Paradise. The book gives an account of some Murid women the author has met in Senegal and on Tenerife. Their various paths of life are described with a focus on trade, religion and gender relations. In what ways do women's conditions of life differ from those of their own country? What do the women strive for? And how does Muridism influence their daily life in Senegal and in the diaspora? Eva Evers Rosander has been Associate Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, until 2014. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, and has done extensive anthropological fieldwork in Spain, Senegal and Morocco.

This book brings together scholars for their fresh perspectives on religious conversion, transnational migration, economic globalization, and the politics of education, power, and femininity in African Islam in Senegal.

Examines through the use of Murid oral and written sources the creation of an "alternative modernity" as an understanding of historical change by Sufi notables and disciples. The Murid order, founded in Senegal in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, grew into a major Sufi order during the colonial period and is now among the most recognizable of the Sufi orders in Africa. Murids have spread the voice of Islam and Africa in concert halls and on the airwaves through pop singers -- especially Youssou N'Dour -- and the image of Shaykh Amadu Bamba M'Backé, the founding saint of the order, often used to grace the covers ofworks concerning Islam, African culture, abolition, and European colonization. In this insightful and revealing study, John Glover explores the manner in which a Muslim society in West Africa actively created a conception ofmodernity that reflects its own historical awareness and identity. Drawing from Murid written and oral historical sources, Glover carefully considers how the Murid order at the collective and individual levels has navigated the intersection of two major historical forces -- Islam, specifically in the contexts of reform and mysticism, and European colonization -- and achieved in the process an understanding of modernity not as an unwilling witness but as anactive participant. Ultimately, Sufism and Jihad in Modern Senegal presents the reader with a new portrait of a society that has used its notion of modernity to adapt and incorporate further historical changes into its identity as an African Sufi order. John Glover is Associate Professor of History at the University of Redlands in southern California.