The port city of Cotonou is the major urban centre and economic hub of the West African Republic of Benin (known as Dahomey until 1975), with 679,012 inhabitants in 2013 (14.2 percent were Muslim in 2002). Cotonou was a fishing settlement, tributary to the Danxome (the Fon etymon of Dahomey) kingdom (c. 1600–1894) before the gradual encroachment of the French; it was overshadowed by the older Porto-Novo, the colonial and now political capital, twenty-four kilometres to the east. From the 1850s throu…
The spiral of violence in the Sahel is threatening to engulf the biosphere reserve in the cross-border territory shared by Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger. The rising violence is causing massive displacement and all three countries should respond jointly by mobilising and coordinating state armed forces to protect affected populations. But a joint military response is not enough. The three states should also collaborate to address the root causes of the insecurity: the land and pastoralism crisis; inconsistency in the distribution of forest resources; and a poorly integrated approach to managing the biosphere reserve.
Cette étude retrace à grands traits les trajectoires locales des mouvements réformistes ivoiriens, ghanéens et béninois, leurs ouvertures à l’international et leurs éventuelles convergences, dans le contexte des grandes villes côtières que sont Abidjan, Accra, Cotonou et Porto Novo. Il s’agit de poser quelques jalons pour une histoire des mouvements islamiques sur la côte de Guinée en s’attachant de manière privilégiée à la mouvance islamique dite « réformiste », appellation générique faisant ici référence aux individus, associations, écoles, activités ou médias musulmans non identifiés par une allégeance soufie. Ce terme, que les intéressés n’utilisent jamais, permet néanmoins d’identifier une « communauté de savoir » dont l’importance relative et la visibilité surtout urbaine, n’ont cessé de s’accentuer sur la scène islamique depuis les années 1970 et plus encore 1990. Mais les mouvements réformistes sur la côte de Guinée restent foncièrement pluriels et singulièrement autonomes.
Le Dahomey, couloir de 670 kilomètres de long sur 200 de large, coïncé entre le Togo et l’immense Nigeria, est un des pays du golfe de Guinée les plus anciennement connus.
La côte est basse, bordée de lagunes, tandis que la zone centrale est formée de plateaux et de monts isolés; la partie septentrionale, enfin, est plus élevée, prise en écharpe par les monts de l’Atacora, culminant jusqu’aux environs de 800 mètres. Dans le Sud particulièrement, l’hygrométrie est forte et la température à peu près constante, bien qu’il y ait double saison des pluies et double saison sèche.
La population du D…
This article deals with the life story of a reformist Islamic scholar, el Hadj Ibrahim Habib, who was appointed imam of the Zongo Mosque in Cotonou by his father, the sheikh of the Tijaniyyah Sufi order. This young imam has developed new tools of communication and has built a very dynamic organization around him. His mosque has become the center of reformist Islam in the southern part of the Republic of Benin, and members of the da’wa have been strongly involved in Islamic associations. El Hadj Habib, who had lived outside the country for a long time, came to be “reconnected” over the last fifteen years before becoming an important local notable. The complexity of the Islamic landscape in Cotonou cannot be reduced to a dichotomy between Sufi tradition and reformist Islam. As such, El Hadj Habib is a good example of possible links between Sufism and reformism, which have been found in other parts of the continent.
This article is based on the results of a qualitative doctoral research study conducted with 124 Muslims living in Djougou at the time of the survey, ranging in age from 15 to 60 years. The commune of Djougou in Benin is composed of a large majority of Muslims whose identity and social behaviors are determined by Islamic norms. Conducted between 2017 and 2020, and based on ethnographic observation data and individual semi-directed interviews, this research aims to understand the dynamics of Islamic plurality in the commune of Djougou. Thus, a "logbook" and an interview guide are used for data collection. The different data collected allowed us to determine that the Tijaniyya and Sunni branch of Islam are the most visible and practiced branches of Islam in the commune of Djougou. The actors of anti-innovation in Islam are called "people of the Sunna" and claim to be practitioners of "true" Islam, unlike the practitioners of confreres (Tijaniyya, Ahmadiyya) and Shi'ism.
The democratic renewal that Benin knows since the quick strengths conference of the nation of February 1990 opened the way to the democratization of the education with in the center of proceedings, the question of the input and output of some formations. From then on, to the sides of the public structures of teaching, emerge the private establishments as well profane that confessionals competing one another on the quality of the formations dispensed. Do the Islamic establishments of teaching participate in this dynamics of adjustment and restructuring of the education system? While trying to answer this fundamental question, the present article appears in the depths of one of proceedings that takes place in the West-African countries to Muslim majority: the question of the education in Muslim environment. The main objective is to show the social role of traditional koranic school facing the Arabics schools contemporaneous in a socioeconomic context marked by unemployment and fundamentalism. Of the collected data and treated by the slant of the double approaches historic and socio - anthropological and of the techniques/tool appropriated on a representative sample of 21 people, of the decipher of the works in Arabic and in French, permitted to tempt to answer the question. it takes out again of it that the Koranic schools constituted important centennial crucibles of education and reproduction of the versatile agents of development in Muslim surroundings under the banner of the espartos soufis. Without support and victims of a disloyal competition on behalf of the Arabian schools carried by an Arabian elite of wahhabite obedience, they disappear progressively like a skin of grief. The Arabian schools on the other hand, of recent emergence, appear as establishments of formation of a new category of relegated intellectuals and promoters of a fundamentalist Islam. They know a spectacular radiance thanks to the Arabian financial petrodollar support.
Cette étude s'inscrit dans la continuité des travaux dirigés depuis 1997 par madame DorierApprill (Laboratoire Population Environnement et Développement), dans le cadre du projet de recherche VILLENDEV, portant sur les dynamiques territoriales dans la région de PortoNovo Cotonou. Ce travail a été construit dans le cadre d'une réflexion et d'enquêtes collectives, menées par des enseignant chercheurs (Dorier Apprill, Barbier, Bridier) ainsi que d'une vingtaine d'étudiants. Notre travail s'appuie sur les données collectées depuis 1997 (données statistiques, enquêtes, cartes...). Dans le cadre de ce travail, mon apport à été de mettre à jour l'inventaire effectué en 2003 sur les lieux de cultes de l'Islam à Porto-Novo, ainsi qu'apporter une analyse à différentes échelles sur les espaces de l'Islam dans la capitale.
The jihadist groups that have laid waste to the Sahel over the past decade are creeping along the southern borders of Mali and Burkina Faso. How far south will they go? Without making a moral equivalence between the past and the present, this short essay discusses how historical, cultural and political factors could shape the new geography of armed conflict in the region. It suggests that the southern expansion of jihadist groups will ultimately depend on the timely and appropriate set of initiatives taken by coastal countries.
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt adapted from a forthcoming report by USIP’s Senior Study Group on Coastal West Africa. The report presents the recommendations of that study group, which consisted of current and former policymakers, prominent political scientists and economists, representatives of international organizations, and business leaders.
Depuis 2021, les forces béninoises ont enregistré une vingtaine d’incursions djihadistes, venant de la partie partie frontalière du Burkina Faso, pays très touché par les attaques. Cela montre l’urgence face à la menace persistante du djihadisme dans la sous-région.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the money market is one of the most important components of the banking institution. This article proposes viable Islamic money market instruments from the experience of Malaysia and Nigeria for the nascent Islamic banking institution in the Republic of Benin. The money market is the mechanism for the management of the required liquid asset and statutory reserves in the banking system. It serves the purpose of the maintenance of minimum liquidity ratio and statutory reserve that represents the daily requirement of the banking institution. It is how the Central Bank passes monetary policies to the subordinate banks. The role of the money market in the banking system as a keeper of liquid assets rate it above other branches of the financial market. The proposal is derived from the experience of Malaysia, which is a leading Islamic banking jurisdiction, and Nigeria, which is a relatively new African Islamic finance regime. The study adopts a qualitative method.
Benin has a distinctive Islamic school system, constantly evolving since the colonial period: Besides the Coranic schools, which are still the basic instance of religious socialization, écoles arabes were established since independence, and furthermore there is an increase in écoles franco-arabes since the past ten years. This type of school combines religious and secular education. In the process of change in the educational system teachers are considered to be the key actors and initiators. This paper traces the development of the Islamic educational system by using the example of the city of Djougou in northern Benin. It aims to analyze the motivations of teachers in this arena and explores to what extent their self-image and their understanding of ′good education′ has changed. Particular attention will be paid to those teachers who are graduates from Islamic universities abroad. These so-called arabisants have access to strong social networks and use the existing educational structures to gain and maintain social and political influence,
This report by guest contributor Dr. Leif Brottem uses ACLED data and primary information collected by Dr. Brottem and his team during research in northern Benin.
On January 8, voters in Benin went to the polls to select the new Parliament. The overall turnout was not particularly high at 38.66 percent, but it was still higher than the last parliamentary election held in 2019, where only 23 percent of the country voted. This number was low in part due to opposition parties boycotting the election. Four out of the seven parties that ran for this most recent election failed to clear the national 10 percent threshold. The two parties linked to President Patrice Talon, the Progressive Union for Renewal (Union Progressiste pour le Renouveau, or UPR) and the Republican Bloc (Bloc Républicain, or BR) obtained 37 percent and 29 percent of the vote, respectively. The main opposition party, the Democrats (Les Démocrates), whose current honorary president is Thomas Boni Yayi—Benin’s president from 2006 to 2016—entered the parliament with 24 percent of the vote. Out of 109 seats, the movement behind the incumbent president obtained 81 seats, in contrast with the opposition’s 28 (ORTB, January 12).
In recent years, jihadist groups have gradually shifted from northern Mali toward the centre of the country and then Burkina Faso. An acceleration occurred in 2018, with an increase in incidents in the south-west and flares of violence east of Burkina Faso, raising fears of spreading to Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. Contrary to the discourse on an external threat and the resilience of the brotherhoods, while dozens of nationals of the Gulf Guinea countries have joined jihadist groups in recent years, West Africa’s coastal States have their backs against the wall in the attempt to develop and implement responses to stem the spread of jihadism, starting by learning from the experiences of their Sahelian neighbours.
