Ahmadi Muslims have combined local contributions and financial support from overseas to support various development projects since the 1920s when they started their mission activities in West Africa. The chapter outlines contemporary social welfare activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Humanitarian aid provided by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and its NGO Humanity First is one of the issues favouring public recognition as well as interreligious dialogue to which the Ahmadis are equally strongly committed. Most of the donations for Humanity First come from members of the Ahmadiyya community, as zakat or sadaqa donations. Public recognition is particularly important with regard to the idiosyncratic situation of the Ahmadiyya movement in the Islamic world. The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim, but they are not recognized as such by the majority of Muslims. While cooperation with other Muslim Groups or Islamic NGOs in Burkina is difficult for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, it clearly expresses its willingness to cooperate with the state.
Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted in the cities of Bouaké and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire between 2011 and 2017, this chapter examines the recent growth and institutionalization of Islamic voluntary, humanitarian and charity actions. The past two decades have been marked by the multiplication of formal and legally recognized Islamic NGOs in the country. The chapter focuses on the transformation of Islamic charity work and the emergent ethics of volunteerism that stems out of the institutionalization of Islamic charity. Contemporary Ivorian Islamic NGOs adhere to an ethic of volunteerism that builds on older-standing Islamic charitable principles based on personal zakât and sadaqqa donations. The emergent ethics of volunteerism emphasizes values of self-responsibilization, individual accountability and long-term development that converge with neoliberal development logics and prioritize private entrepreneurship while transferring responsibilities for humanitarian assistance to communities and individuals.
This chapter presents an overview of Islam and the Islamic landscape in the contemporary Sahel and points to broad patterns and major trends as they relate to the practice of Islam in the region. After discussing the conventional wisdom about Islam in Africa, in which Islam is frequently equated with Sufism and “reform,” this chapter addresses several interrelated themes: Islam and its broad appeal in the region; intra-Muslim debate; global interconnections and the media revolution; and Salafism and Islamism trends, as well as jihadism. As it suggests, the Islamic landscape in the Sahel is much more diverse and complex than most commentary usually suggests. It also underscores the importance of understanding how the practice of Islam in the region has been changing in recent years in an increasingly globalized world. Finally, the chapter emphasizes how much more there is to know about Islam and Muslim societies in this region in flux.
French-style secularism or laïcité is part of the constitutional order and the elite political culture in most of the Sahel. Yet in this region, laïcité—sometimes defined as the effort to protect the state from religion, as opposed to the American style of protecting religion from the state—does not entail complete aloofness on the part of the state. Rather, Sahelian laïcité has tended to involve: (i) state regulation of religion; (ii) strategic partnerships between politicians and religious leaders; and (iii) recurring renegotiation of the role that religious ideas and actors will play in political culture, elections, and policymaking. The foremost explicit and implicit defenders of Sahelian laïcité include French-educated politicians and intellectuals, while various clerics, activists, and politicians have questioned the meaning of laïcité or even the need for it. Conversations surrounding laïcité involve and affect a number of actors, including ordinary Muslims, Sufis, Islamists, jihadists, and Christians.
This chapter analyses the ethics of wealth and concepts of consumption within the pluralistic religious landscape of Burkina Faso. It demonstrates how Prosperity Gospel regulates religious differences or supports similarities across religious lines. After a brief look at the religious composition of contemporary Burkina Faso, particular attention is given to a comparative approach to three exemplary representations of Burkinabe Catholicism, Elam, and the Pentecostal movement. The empirical examples refer to Catholic convents, the Ahmadiyya movement and offshoots of the Assemblies of God in Burkina Faso. All three religious bodies have minority status, but they have an explicitly transnational character. The chapter outlines different dimensions of the ethics of wealth involved. Specific mention E made of the tension between asceticism and ostentation, the source and use of wealth, and its links to the use of mass media. The argument presented here E that the analysE of economic practices related to Prosperity Gospel provides an explanation for the recent Pentecostal dynamics. Yet, this perspective also promises a new theoretical approach regarding the link between religious pluralism, transnational religious movements and economic action in contemporary' African societies.
Islam first appeared in the western Sudan some time in the 8th century and reached its climax there in the 14th and 15th centuries. During that period many of the rulers and peoples of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay became Muslims, and tried to spread their religion by peaceful means as well as by the sword. Nevertheless, a new Sudanese societies resisted the spread of Islam. Delafosse tells (1912) that the mossi were still resisting Islam. But subsequently many of them did become Muslims. Today Islam is a growing religion among the Mossi. After having given a sketch of the history and of the social structure of the Mossi the author analyses the diffusion of Islam and Islamic practices in the Kombissiru region of Ouagadougou, especially in Nobéré district, where he conducted fieldwork from November 1956 to January 1957.
