For most of its modern history, Burkina Faso avoided intervening in the religious sphere. According to its constitution, Burkina Faso is a secular state that protects religious freedom, and individuals can choose and change their religion freely. While its Christian minority dominated the state system and government, nonintervention by a largely Christian administration helped preserve a delicate sociopolitical balance and avoid Muslim-Christian antagonism. As a result, the state has largely avoided imposing institutional restrictions, such as registration requirements for places of worship, state licensing of preachers, or imposing state control of religious schools or curricula. This gave religious institutions and movements widespread freedoms to operate. Part of the state's relaxed attitude toward religious regulation stemmed from the fact that until fairly recently, secular actors were the most potent threat to governmental authority. In the cities, civil society organizations and trade unions often defied state authority and overthrew governments. In rural areas, chiefs and local authorities positioned themselves as alternative power centers to the central government. The prevalence of secular opposition meant that the state paid less attention to challengers from the religious sphere.
In 2001, the government of Burkinabè launched a major urban renewal project, known as ZACA (Zone d'aménagement commerciale et administrative), in the capital city of Ouagadougou. This decision, which would entail the destruction of several populated neighbourhoods in the downtown core, was vigorously opposed by residents, the vast majority of whom were Musulmans, who were organized into a residents association led by the district imams. Although this religious-oriented protest movement proved to be short-lived and did not lead to a redefinition of the relations between the Islamic community and the state, the events surrounding Project ZACA reveal important changes within the Musulman community, relating to intergenerational tension and the erosion of a certain form of religious authority.
This article evaluates the importance of inter-religious dialogue within young people's religious associations in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is frequently extolled for its harmonious relations in terms of religion. However, inter-confessional dialogue, demanded by the country's elites, is appropriated in a different way by the core religious actors, notably the young. If some of them adhere to the objectives of dialogue and argue in favour of this, a large portion of the young are more ambivalent, whilst the dynamics of the ruptures and withdrawals are reinforced by social, family and school dynamics.
The returning graduates from the Arabic modernised education system, trained in the universities of the Arab-Islamic world struggle to find a place in Burkina Faso. Interviews of students returning to Ouagadougou after several years spent studying in Islamic universities (in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia or Libya) will allow us to look at how the academic profiles of these students, shaped by the historical and political context as well as by their existential motivations have affected their professional careers. Parental injunctions and grants have mostly determined the place of study and the subjects, taking part in shaping the professional trajectory. For most, studies turned out to be lengthy and chaotic, and professional opportunities after their return seldom matched the training they had received. Reintegrating these students into the Burkinabè society is problematic. They do not always master French, the official language, and are often excluded from the labour market. They have failed to put pressure on their government for recognition of their diplomas. And they suffer from a denial of recognition that does not lead to open protest.
Le wahhabisme, un courant islamique réformiste, a pénétré le Burkina Faso pendant la colonisation. Ses adeptes, les wahhabiyya, minoritaires au début de l'indépendance, ont participé à l'animation de la Communauté musulmane du Burkina Faso depuis sa création en 1962. Mais, à la suite d'un conflit en 1973 au sein de la Communauté musulmane, le cadre organisationnel unique islamique burkinabé au départ, les wahhabiyya ont créé leur association dénommée Mouvement sunnite. Animée par un engouement remarquable pour la diffusion de l'islam réformiste, cette association des wahhabiyya a été confrontée, de l'intérieur à de multiples difficultés liées en grande partie à un problème de leadership et à une crise de croissance du Mouvement. L'évolution de ces difficultés internes qui a abouti à une fusillade dans une mosquée de Ouagadougou a été marquée par plusieurs facteurs; il s'agit d'une opposition entre élite arabisante et celle des francophones, des considérations de tribalisme, le contexte des années 90 marqué par l'apparition de nouvelles générations d'élites aussi bien arabophone que francophone et le processus démocratique en cours au Burkina Faso. À l'intérieur du Mouvement sunnite, une nouvelle génération des arabisants constitués par ceux qui ont fait leurs études dans les universités arabo-islamiques a réussi pour l'instant à s'affirmer à la direction de l'Association.
A partir du milieu des années 1980, nous avons assisté à une émergence de multiples associations islamiques au Burkina Faso. Parmi celles-ci figure l'« Association islamique ahmadiyya du Burkina Faso ». La référence à la Ahmadiyya renvoie à la doctrine religieuse de Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, apparue à la fin du XIXe siècle en Inde. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad et ses héritiers sont considérés comme des hérétiques en général par les musulmans à l'échelle mondiale, mais nous constatons que, depuis sa création, l'association islamique ahmadiyya prend de plus en plus de l'ampleur au Burkina Faso. Nous avons alors jugé utile de faire une étude pour mettre en relief la genèse, l'évolution et la situation actuelle de la Ahmadiyya dans ce pays.
Aborder une telle question n'est pas chose aisée, car la documentation écrite fait largement défaut. Nous nous sommes appuyés, pour mener une telle étude, sur notre expérience des archives privées des musulmans. Nous avons consulté la presse écrite ainsi que les travaux des chercheurs sur l'islam au Burkina Faso. Plusieurs mémoires de maîtrise de l'université de Ouagadougou nous ont ainsi aidés à cette fin. Les enquêtes orales ont été déterminantes, surtout à propos du milieu des affaires. Cependant, ces enquêtes orales ne nous ont pas permis de collecter des données chiffrées très précises compte tenu du caractère sensible de ce genre d 'informations. Nous manquons donc de statistiques. En dépit de ces contraintes, il est possible de décrire, avec une certaine précision, le rôle et la place des acteurs musulmans dans l'économie burkinabé. Nous allons considérer successivement la position particulière de certains groupes ethniques dans l'histoire du pays, puis la place de l'islam et des musulmans dans l'économie burkinabé contemporaine, pour, enfin, prendre l'exemple d'une grande figure de l'entreprise et des associations islamiques au Burkina, El Hadj Oumarou Kanazoé.
In response to the significant urbanisation and the demographic expansion of Ouagadougou, the Catholic Church and Islamic associations are diversifying their operations, which were already significant in terms of health and education at the end of the 1980s. This social engagement is at the heart of humanitarian, proselytising, socio-economic and political challenges and influences the position of these actors in the public space. This article intends to contribute to consideration of the relations between these religious actors and the State in Burkina Faso with the aim of analysing the sectors of secondary teaching and health in Ouagadougou. It will be demonstrated that the operations of these actors (Muslim and Catholic) made their legitimacy evolve differently in the public space from 1987 to 2010. The Catholic actors have had a greater influence than the Muslims on the decisions of the State. Subsequent to the challenges and the political context, the capacity of agency (capacity to act) of the actors of the two denominations has modified.
A study of Ramatoullaye, the holy city of the Tidjaniyya confraternity in Burkina Faso, allows for analysis of the way its leaders have met with such challenges as : confrontation with the State, links to globalized Islam, cultural change affecting the new generation of adepts. An approach in terms of action theory and opportunism is privileged in the analysis of the confraternity's management of local/global relations.
Jusqu'à la fin du XIXe début XXe siècle, les Moose (Mossi) du Yatenga (région du cercle de Ouahigouya) restent fermement attachés à la religion traditionnelle; l'Islam ne réussit pas à pénétrer dans la cour royale; cependant sur le territoire du Yatenga vivent depuis les XVIe-XVIIe siècles de groupes ethniques musulmans minoritaires et 'étrangers' (Fulbe, Yarse, Marase). Ces groupes jouent dans la société mossi un rôle économique non négligeable (élevage, commerce). L'Islam ne déborde pas ces groupes et reste leur monopole jusqu'au début du XXe siècle. En 1896 le Yatenga est intégré dans le domaine colonial français et pendant la période coloniale la position de l'Islam s'améliore nettement. Involontairement et indirectement le colonisateur français stimule le progres de l'Islam. L'auteur explique cette progression de l'Islam et étudie les rapports entre Musulmans et pouvoir colonial au Yatenga.
Recent studies have described the active participation of women in local associations as well as in public and national debates about secularism, the Family code, and women's rights within Islam. In this article, I explore how female preachers have claimed a new role for women within Islam through a better knowledge and understanding of Islamic texts. In doing so, these women drew on modernist speeches made by men, used the media and aligned themselves with international movements with the aim of claiming a new social identity for their sisters in Islam, establishing greater equality between men and women in the religion, and finding a way of being a good mother and woman while maintaining an independent social position. In fact, these female preachers sought to spark a quiet yet real social revolution in religion by casting a critical and modernist eye on local cultural traditions and Islamic identity.
