In contemporary post-colonial Africa, youths are increasingly articulating new social identities around religious practice, and especially through the emergence of new forms of Christianity and Islam. In many cases the emergence of these new religious movements is marked by the construction of notions of modernity and tradition. On this basis, the goal of this article is to examine the role of youths in the construction of notions of modernity, as well as to understand their religious experience. Based on the case studies of young Muslims and members of New Independent churches in Côte-d'Ivoire, I will, first, examine how religion defines practices and stakes of modernity. I will explore, then, how religion allows youths to negotiate spaces of social legitimacy, in the face of gerontocratic relations of power. The juxtaposition of these cases allows to highlight the specificity of each religious dynamics, the context in which they unfold, as well as the different experiences of modernity that are renewed by these youths.
This article explores the hunting aesthetics of initiated Jula hunters of Côte d'Ivoire who call themselves 'dozos'. It explains how their hunting aesthetic structures their relationship to Islam and the Ivoirian State. Although many Africans approach Islam in the context of tensions between local ritual traditions and modernizing Muslim reform, 'dozos' approach Islam the way they approach the forests where they hunt, assimilating to both in order to tame them. They organize their hunting activities around an aesthetic centred on notions of sweetness and fullness; their contraries, difficulty and emptiness; and the process of mimetic transformation (shape-shifting) that mediates between these extremes. With these categories 'dozos' assimilate themselves to and appropriate power from the forest to kill game. They also link themselves to pre-Qur'anic Muslim figures to legitimize themselves as Muslims. More recently, they tried to assimilate to the Ivoirian State to become a parallel police force. Stories of their tutelary spirit, Manimory, and the texts of their hunting songs, incantations, and epics encode diverse ways for 'dozos' to relate to Islam, leaving room for 'dozos' to eschew it as well. Their texts reveal a dynamic sense of history that defies classification in terms of tradition, modernity or postmodernity. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
En prenant l'exemple de Korhogo, capitale du nord de la Côte d'Ivoire et quatrième ville du pays, et de Maradi, capitale commerciale et seconde ville du Niger, les auteurs décrivent des mouvements de population liés à des courants d'échanges et montrent leur impact sur l'urbanisation de ces deux agglomérations qui sont en de nombreux points comparables. Dans une optique comparative, ils retracent leur développement en faisant ressortir le rôle du commerce, mais aussi d'autres facteurs qui lui sont liés (l'islam) ou qui ont également contribué à leur croissance démographique comme les migrations rurales. Quelques traits des réseaux marchands musulmans dioulas et haoussas, dont ces deux cités sont le berceau, sont ensuite décrits notamment quant à leur organisation, leur implantation spatiale et leur adaptation à la crise économique que traversent la Côte d'Ivoire et le Niger depuis déjà plusieurs années. Ainsi, la situation économique actuelle pousse ces réseaux à diversifier leur implantation géographique, à se désengager des segments d'activité les moins rentables, et à investir dans d'autres secteurs.
When it is question of Moussa Bakayoko from Koro in Côte d’Ivoire, especially in the northwest, history and legend come together, as the character is known for his works of islamization. Paradoxically to this reputation that inscribes Koro, locality founded by Moussa Bakayoko, among the most visited areas of Mahou, considering the grave of the ‘’man of God’’, which is the subject of regular zyara (visit), any scientific study, among the 85 works enumerated on ivorian islam in 2018 by the African Studies Center, really shows the impact that karamôgô Moussa had in the consolidation of islam in the second half of the eighteenth century. Only a few works marginally describe the life of the character, and specially the traditionalists whom we met between march and september 2019 in several localities of this region, and from whom we got some manuscripts, have disclosed one part of the life of Koro’s wise man. Accordingly, this study shows Moussa Bakayoko’s itinerary and participation in the dynamic of islam in the northwest of Côte d’Ivoire, through the collected sources.
This article analyzes the career path of Aminata Kane Koné, a highly educated Ivorian Muslim woman, who has emerged as a female figure of success. A prominent activist of the Association des Élèves et Étudiants Musulmans de Côte d'Ivoire in the 2000s, she has become a self-made religious entrepreneur through media and social initiatives. She has overcome social constraints to establish herself as a highly mediatized Muslim public intellectual, influential not only in Islamic circles, but within the broader society. Her case illustrates ways in which relationships between gender and Islamic authority are changing in West Africa. She embodies a uniquely hybrid feminism, influenced by her secular education and her Muslim faith.
It can be observed that jihadist groups in West Africa are increasingly expanding their areas of activity from the Sahel to the coastal countries along the Gulf of Guinea for some time now. Especially from Burkina Faso, where entire regions are already outside state control, these actors are advancing further and further south.
This current development is the focus of the new study "La nouvelle frontière des groupes djihadistes", which the KAS Regional Programme Political Dialogue West Africa (PDWA) has implemented together with partner Promédiation. One of the study's key topics is the importance of national parks in border regions, which are increasingly used by jihadist groups as strategic retreat and activity areas and whose local resources are used for financing.
This article explores the Islamic dynamics of the Yoruba community in Ivory Coast drawing on the activities of two associations operating on Ivoirian soil, NASFAT and NAMFAT. The first is the counterpart of the eponymous organization created in Nigeria in 1995. The second was born in 2005, in Ivorian territory. Both are linked to the personal work of Adeniran Ramon who imported Lagos-based NASFAT to Abidjan where he was living. Despite internal dissension which led to the creation NAMFAT, a distinct religious-based organization, both associations have operated rather similarly and by promoting cosmopolitan values, both have played the role of creating a space for the socialization of Nigerian Muslims. This has involved the organization of religious activities and actions promoting common goods. In a context of increased visibility in the public space of the Muslim religion in Ivory Coast, in recent decades, this article explores the patterns of these two transnational organizations, through their organization model, their use of the religious terrain, and their involvement in common goods services.
This article analyzes the initiatives of a Muslim convert in northern Côte d'Ivoire, an area where Islam continues to encounter difficulties, despite predating the colonial period. These initiatives are viewed in the context of the military and political crisis that contributed to the country's divi- sion between warring parties (government forces and rebel groups), as well as the local population's growing use of magical-religious practices, verging on paganism. This essay takes an anthropological and historical approach, examining Ousmane Doumbia's background and the context of Islam in Senufo, his region of origin. It thus shows how this religious figure tried to take advantage of the social context created by the crisis to secure a place in the national Muslim community.
The existing literature has pointed out some of the ways in which Muslim women claim legitimacy and, in some cases, even authority within their communities, ranging from militancy within Islamic organizations to the mastery of religious knowledge. While militancy is at the core of the contemporary feminization of Islam in a number of sub-Saharan African societies, in some places authority over religious knowledge is also in a process of being feminized. This article examines how, in the context of Islamic revivalism in Côte d'Ivoire, the feminization of Islam has evolved in the settings of voluntary associations. In particular, this article addresses the articulation between Islamic concepts of womanhood, including practices of veiling and ideological formations around them, and the construction of alternative modes of sociability in the context of the transformation of local religious organizations. In the 1990s, women's roles in the Ivorian Islamic revivalism were marked by instances of intensified activism, while the 2002 military conflict has encouraged the emergence of women-led NGOs. For some women, these NGOs have come to be the site of assertion of new forms of religious authority. Based on ethnographic data collected between 1992 to 2011 in the cities of Bouaké and Abidjan, the analysis focuses on the material and historical conditions of women's religious mobilization and authority.
Cette nouvelle étude menée par l’équipe du Timbuktu Institute en Côte d’Ivoire, coordonnée par le chercheur Lassina Diarra s’est intéressée à la région de Bounkani dans le cadre d’une recherche-pilote pour mettre en évidence les signaux faibles et les multiples facteurs d’une radicalisation rampante. Cette dernière devient de plus en plus préoccupante dans un contexte d’avancée des groupes terroristes vers les pays côtiers. Ces éléments que met en lumière cette étude de terrain basée sur des données issues d’enquêtes et d’entretiens qualitatifs indiquent que l’extrême-Nord de la Côte d’Ivoire vit déjà pleinement les effets de la régionalisation de la menace qui s’était manifestée avec les attentats de Grand-Bassam dès 2016.
During his travel to Timbuktu in 1827–1828, René Caillié was interested in the lifestyle of the Muslims traders, his fellow travellers, and of the animist villagers along the caravans’ path. This was an exceptional experience in many ways, although this testimony must be approached critically. In particular, René Caillé described the eating practices of the traders and the animists, and of the former with the latter, according to their religious affiliations. These behaviours provide a contrasting picture of the relations between animists and Muslims, which can consist of prohibitions, tolerances, or compromises on the part of the ‘Mandingo’ traders. These practices also show different ways of being a Muslim in Sudano-Sahelian Africa at the beginning of the 19th century, depending on the pacific or expansionist tendencies of Islam, on the needs of long-distance trade, and on the prevalence of some local habits.
This article questions the notion of spirituality through the prism of contemporary practices of spiritual healing in urban Ivory Coast. More specifically, the article draws on stories of therapeutic trajectories undertaken by various categories of urban actors in the context of large-scale therapeutic spaces such as Christian prayer camps and Ruqyah clinics. The analysis focuses on the ways in which these institutions, which are popular with youth and women, are helping to define new ways of looking at spirituality, healing, spiritual afflictions and religiosity.