This essay examines the dangers and possibilities, in times of transformation, for the practice of Islamic blessing powers called albaraka by women and men ritual specialists and other leaders among the Tuareg of Niger and Mali, West Africa. Sociopolitical dynamics challenge some arrangements that have underwritten traditional albaraka power. In this scenario, prominent men and women who protect and mediate the Tuareg world from threatening outsiders draw on this force in diverse ways.
The Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey (UAM), marked at the beginning of its creation in the 1970s by Marxist-Leninist ideologies, has experienced since the end of the 1980s a rise in student religious practices organised by Christian and Muslim student religious associations. Based on a qualitative approach combining semi-structured interviews and direct and indirect observations, this article focuses, on the one hand, on the establishment of religious associations of Salafi, evangelical and Pentecostal students in this university. On the other hand, it analyses the affirmation of religious identity by these students. Through the dissemination of religious education initiated by these associations through Koranic schools and Bible studies, religiosity has acquired great importance among the students who take part.
À la suite de l’avènement de la démocratie et de la liberté d’association au Niger au début des années 1990, les étudiants de l’Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey mirent en place des associations confessionnelles afin d’organiser leurs activités religieuses. L’impact significatif du prosélytisme qui s’en est suivi fut la conversion et l’affirmation de l’identité religieuse des étudiants, tant musulmans que chrétiens, dans un espace marqué jadis par les idéologies marxistes-léninistes. Ce chapitre traite de la construction de l’identité religieuse des étudiants salafis et pentecôtistes en se focalisant sur le concept local de la tuba. En partant de l’exemple de deux étudiants, l’un salafi et l’autre pentecôtiste, le texte analyse les trajectoires des étudiants salafis et pentecôtistes et leurs discours respectifs. Ces deux cas constituent des figures de conversion les plus observées parmi les étudiants. Les résultats font ressortir deux figures de convertis : le radical, un converti interne, et le sabon tuba, un converti externe.
In the early 1990s, the newly built women's cooperative in Zinder, Niger, was destroyed by a group of men who accused women of failing to adhere to 'Islamic principles'. During the same period, a number of bars were damaged and subsequently closed. These events were generally viewed as marking the rise of 'Islamic fundamentalism'. However, no one could identify this group that had been labelled 'fundamentalists'. The present article takes a discourse-centred approach to an understanding of how Zinderois define what it means to be a Muslim. To do this, it analyses 'forms of knowledge' that represent different ways of defining Islamic practice and Muslim identity, namely, those of Koranic scholars ('malamai'), leaders of an Islamic reform movement, and traditional healers ('bokaye'). The 'malamai', reformers and 'bokaye' define Islamic practice and Muslim identity in different ways. Historically, it was the 'malamai' who used the label 'non-Muslim' to refer to 'bokaye'. But today, the 'malamai' find themselves being labelled 'non-Muslims' by the reformers. Majority Muslims draw upon these various forms of knowledge in different ways depending on the situation and in so doing display religious creativity and innovation.
This article is an attempt to come to grips with the Hausa people's use of the mosque as a political bargaining chip in contestations over the legitimacy of and use of power in Maradi. The reader should be aware that while the subject of this cursory foray into Hausa politics is the village of Jiratawa, there are many regional and national implications to the events examined in this article. The work itself deals with three consecutive Friday mosques in the village and the political machinations surrounding them.
À Maradi, troisième ville du Niger selon les recensements officiels mais capitale commerciale du pays, un groupe de riches marchands, les 'alhazai' (sing. 'alhaji') s'est constitué au fil des ans grâce en particulier au négoce avec le Nigeria voisin. Ces 'alhazai' sont imprégnés à la fois des valeurs du capitalisme marchand mais aussi de l'islam comme en témoigne leur titre d''alhadj'. À travers de multiples actions, ces marchands ont encouragé la diffusion de l'islam. C'est dans une perspective historique, en remontant à la fondation même de Maradi, que l'auteur retrace les différentes phases de l'accumulation des 'alhazai' et les étapes de l'islamisation de la ville en s'efforçant de montrer comment le premier processus influa sur le second. Il traite successivement de la fondation de Maradi au début du 19e siècle; de la paix coloniale, qui s'accompagna d'un essor du commerce local et permit également aux populations de se déplacer pour des motifs religieux; de l'ère de la traite arachidière, dès 1930; et du développement du grand commerce avec le Nigeria et de l'islamisation de la ville après 1970.
In Niger, the role of the media in the re-islamization process that began two decades ago has remained understudied. This article seeks to remedy this gap and discusses a particular example of media usage and appropriation in the urban context of Niamey. It draws on a series of fieldwork studies undertaken in Niamey during the last two years. It focuses on Alarama, a young preacher and one of the most prominent media figures in Niamey. In addition to a series of TV and FM radio programmes he hosts, he has also developed recording and distribution practices that have resulted in the Islamic discotheque, a space that helps him popularize his CD and DVD sermons. I analyse how he has gathered around himself an expanding group of followers, many of whom have developed with him a fan–star relationship. Alarama's case exemplifies the way audiovisual media are constitutive of a new urban Islamic culture, which in return redefines media appropriation and religious imagination.
In the early 1990s, democratization in Niger meant a political reform detached from the military rule, but also safe from religious influence. The adoption of the principle of a radical secularism (laïcité) sought, first, the autonomy of the political sphere from the religious one, and second, the submission of religious authority to the political one. The consecration of this principle led to the criticism of Muslim public actors who argued that such a principle was violating the religious identity of Niger’s society. This paper discusses the difficulty to separate the realm of politics from that of religion as Islamic organizations and Muslim actors have stepped into the political arena, articulating various religion-inspired discourses and seeking the conversion of Niger’s politics to Islam. Nowadays, this activism led to a rearrangement of the state’s position in relation to religiosity and its role in the public domain. This case of ambiguous secularism, I suggest, might be one of a reinterpretation not only of secularism, but of democratization itself.
L'auteur met à jour certaines caractéristiques essentielles d'un culte de possession, le bori hawsa (Niger), et montre comment les effets du pouvoir local en place influent sur les formes concrètes du culte bori, mais aussi comment les partis pris théoriques des chercheurs qui l'ont précédée sur ce terrain ont surdéterminé leurs modélisations du culte. Elle analyse les concepts de transe, de possession, d'Islam et recadre ensuite ces concepts dans le contexte historique des régions concernées. Un DVD "Les génies font la fête" accompagne le livre.
In contrast to similar organizations in its neighbouring countries, Niger's domestic Salafi associations have remained peaceful and apolitical. Drawing on historical institutionalist scholarship and on recent conceptualizations of the state as a religious actor, this article examines how the Nigerien state has tried to regulate religious practices since Seyni Kountché's military coup in 1974. It argues that the institutional regulation of religious practices is one important variable that accounts for Niger's deviant trajectory. During Niger's autocratic period (1974–91), the government established the Association islamique du Niger (AIN) as the sole legal authority regulating access to Niger's Friday prayer mosques. Committed to peaceful and apolitical interpretations of the Koran, the AIN confined access to Niger's religious sphere to local clerics and Sufi brotherhoods. After the breakdown of autocratic rule in 1991, the AIN served as a religious advisory body. Salafi associations could assemble freely but had to abide by certain criteria. Confronted with the prospect of Islamic violence in 2000, the Nigerien state intervened in Niger's religious sphere in several ways. Among other initiatives, the government began to resurrect a more rigorous system of religious supervision in order to monitor religious practices on an ongoing basis.
À l'instar de Boko Haram, le fondamentalisme s'appuie sur des supports variés, dont le ressort sociologique, qui lui assure un ancrage territorial. L'ancien empire de Kanem Bornou, (espace de vie des Kanouris), la forêt de Sambisa et les versants des Monts Mandara, érigés en proto-État, constituent le centre névralgique de Boko Haram. Tel est le défi qui interpelle les forces armées nationales du Nigéria, du Niger, du Cameroun, du Tchad et depuis peu la Force Multinationale Mixte.
To escape the images of Boko Haram portrayed in the media, it is necessary to retrace the outlines of this Islamic uprising, recall its social rooting in trade guilds and crowded mosques, and review the religious underpinnings which, despite the decline of its territorial gains, have preserved their mystical impetus, thus bolstering the “call” to martyrdom. In 2014, a few Boko Haram groups decided to retreat to the Lake Chad region prior to the creation of a coalition piloted by Nigeria and its neighbors to combat the organization. The occupation of the lake by Boko Haram has resulted in a veritable regional security problem, with it becoming an epicenter for armed violence. Niger and Chad have responded by seeking to depopulate their respective parts of the lake, while Nigeria has closed access to the lake and Cameroon has not taken any action. The security response by countries involved in combatting Boko Haram has seriously worsened the disastrous current economic climate.
Après la "balkanisation" de l'Afrique sud-saharienne la société musulmane locale s'est regroupée en fractions nationales. Elles se constituent en groupes de pression, contre-pouvoirs, forces politiques influentes. Les gouvernements composent avec elles ou cherchent à les utiliser en vue de renforcer une autorité parfois chancelante. Ce faisant, ils leur concèdent des créneaux d'autonomie qui les constituent parfois en "État dans l'État". De tels processus sont loin d'être uniformes, exclusifs ou immuables. Les phénomènes de politisation ou de repolitisation de l'Islam interfèrent avec d'autres processus, économiques, régionaux, ethniques, etc., et changent d'aspect selon les lieux, les groupes, les conjonctures, les stratégies des partenaires nationaux. La cohésion et la mobilisation des communautés islamiques en question sont également loin d'être assurées en toutes circonstances. L'auteur analyse le cas du Nigéria, du Niger er de la Haute-Volta.