This article compares the strategies devised by two Salafi-oriented Islamic associations, the Senegal's Jamaatou Ibadou Rahmane (JIR) and the Burkina Faso's Mouvement Sunnite (MS). Drawing on extensive field research conducted between 2002 and 2013, it shows that both organizations have been engaged since the 1970s in a similar legitimacy-building process, using contrasting strategies. The JIR intends to build a more constructive relationship with the State and the brotherhoods, while still continuing to cast a critical eye on these two groups. In Burkina Faso, recurring leadership crises and violent incidents has sapped a great deal of the MS's energy. It therefore has to regain visibility and legitimacy by maintaining a certain distance from political debates. The comparison shows that political Islam has entered in both countries a transitional phase that took into account the emergence and perhaps even the consolidation of a cultural and religious form of citizenship.
From a series of ethnographical grounds led to Dakar and to Ouagadougou, the logics of spiritual ascent of women's various generation's preachers and the social uses that they make as means of communication are examined. This article demonstrates that their ascent results from the link in the community. Although the logic of individuation is highlighted, signs of emphasis of their individuality, without abandoning the community, allow reporting a subtle process of hybridization between individualization and individuation. This prospect is also analyzed through certain speeches of preachers, which reveal how the latter navigate between various registers of agency (compliant agency, pious agency and pious critical agency) according to their distance, resistance or acceptance in front of logics of social reproduction, in front of the standards of religious order and in front of the reports of authority.
Interest in the question of youth and Islam in West Africa stems from the overwhelming demographic weight of youth and their relatively recent incursion into the public domain, as well a wave of Islamic revivalism that has swept across Africa from the late 1970s on. In this paper, we propose to examine the sociopolitical role of young men in Islamic revivalist movements that occurred in urban centers in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal in the 1980-1990s. Such movements were particularly popular among secularly educated young men who attended French-speaking schools. While the role of young men in revivalist movements suggests new configurations of authority and charisma, their religious agency remains closely embedded within relationships that extend across generations. Here, we examine instances of conflicts between generations and pay attention to sites of negotiation, such as mosques and voluntary associations.
This paper describes the role marabouts played in the rites of implementation and protection of winye animistic communities and institutions. It shows the different meanings these interventions had throughout history, from an older period where Islam was conciliatory and animistic societies dominant (the example of the village of Kwena, end of the xviith century) and a more recent period where Islam was characterized by proselytism and the will to dominate (the village of Boromo, mid-xixth century). It describes the ritual practices and representations that constitute the basis of the encounter between animistic and muslim communities and gives a detailed description of some of the more important winye institutions (earth shrine and earth priest).
The coming of the Internet causes evolutions in the relation to media of religious communities. There is an external will of visibility thanks to the use of Internet as a means of communication and as a mode of presence. On the basis of the example of the Fraternal Union of Believers of Dori in Burkina Faso, our contribution analyses the appropriation of Internet by interreligious actors to come out of their isolation and to play the role of religious peacemaker in the world. The case of UFC shows that if religious people appropriate the Web, the interreligious movement can be mobilized to promote social and political objectives in African public spheres.
L'Église catholique occupe une position privilégiée dans l'espace religieux burkinabé. Ayant très tôt investi l'espace public du pays, elle constitue un acteur incontournable dans le paysage socio-politique du pays comme l'attestent son implication dans les domaines de l'éducation et de la santé et son positionnement comme médiateur lors de périodes de crise. Reposant sur une enquête de terrain menée auprès de membres de la communauté catholique (membres du clergé, religieux et laïcs), cet article étudie la façon dont les catholiques burkinabé se représentent en tant que communauté religieuse dans l'espace politique du pays. Il révèle qu'au Burkina Faso, les catholiques se représentent comme une minorité religieuse dominante sur le plan politique en raison de leur implication sans commune mesure dans l'appareil d'État. L'article montre aussi que les catholiques burkinabé voient leur position dominante être menacée, d'une part, par la concurrence des protestants et, d'autre part, par la montée de l'islamisme.
This essay examines the relationship between Western notions of modernity and Wahhabi-inclined Islamic reform in Ghana and Burkina Faso (Upper Volta until 1984) during the early decades of independence. I will highlight ways in which Western/secular education facilitated the early diffusion of this genre of reform. Over the past decade or so, historians have explored the extent to which the appeal of the Wahhabi movement in urban West Africa, toward the end of French and British colonialism, can be traced to Muslim attempts to find a middle ground between Western "modernity" and authentic spiritual purity. In what follows, I employ comparative, ethnographic, and historical analyses to draw attention to the pivotal roles Western-educated urban Muslim professionals played in the development of this reform. Despite the active participation of these professionals in transforming the Wahhabi message into urban mass movements, scholars have paid scant attention to the factors that drew them to the Wahhabi doctrine in the first instance.
This paper examines the spread of Islam in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) during French colonialism. Focusing on the Tijaniyya Shaykh, Boubacar Sawadogo, and the strategies he pursued to avoid confrontations with the French, the paper interrogates the ways French colonialism inadvertently created a new public religious space that facilitated the unprecedented spread of Islam. Pursuing peaceful strategies of conversion and religious reform, Sawadogo converted an unprecedented number of Mossi, the colony's largest ethnic group, to Islam and laid the foundation for the subsequent growth of Islam in that territory. The Mossi had resisted Islam for several centuries prior to French conquests and the French had reinforced this resistance as part of a broader policy of preventing the spread of Islam in the French federation. An examination of the strategies pursued by Sawadogo to implement his religious visions in spite of the restrictions on Islamic proselytism allows us to re-interrogate the nature of colonial hegemony.
Le dialogue interreligieux est un phénomène transnational lié aux transformations du religieux dans un contexte de globalisation. L'article met l'accent sur une forme particulière des échanges interreligieux : la collaboration pluri-religieuse impulsée par l'État dans le domaine sanitaire au Burkina Faso. Elites religieuses engagées dans un mouvement pluri religieux et pouvoir politique s'unissent pour mettre en scène l'entente religieuse pourvoyeuse de subventions et de reconnaissance. Vis-à-vis des bailleurs de fonds internationaux l'attractivité du dialogue interreligieux, ou de l'image des relations pacifiées entre religions semble offrir des légitimations et une garantie pour la réussite des actions de développement. Des exemples concrets dans le domaine de la santé montrent que lorsque le dialogue interreligieux entre dans l'arène du développement, il devient une stratégie d'autopromotion pour les différents partenaires de ce dialogue. L'article propose d'explorer pourquoi la capacité de collaboration entre différentes communautés religieuses a pu devenir une stratégie de reconnaissance sociale prometteuse.
La question des jeunes est un élément essentiel pour comprendre les dynamiques de l'espace public et les pratiques citoyennes qui émergent dans l'Afrique d'aujourd'hui. Leur importance tient non seulement à leur poids démographique imposant, mais aussi à leur transformation, souvent dramatique, en tant qu'acteurs sociaux dans l'espace public africain au cours des années 1990. Cette transformation encourage la création de nouvelles formes de légitimité et de nouveaux espaces d'expression individuelle ou collective, et correspond à une mutation radicale de l'idée de citoyenneté, qui fait appel à de nouvelles ressources et qui remodèle les dynamiques nationales d'inclusion et d'exclusion. Ainsi, la constitution de nouveaux espaces d'expression encourage une conception moins restrictive de la participation citoyenne dans la mesure où les jeunes veulent faire entendre leur opinion et participer ouvertement aux divers débats de société. En lien avec les concepts de « citoyenneté culturelle » et de « contre-nation », nous nous proposons dans cet article d'examiner le rôle des jeunes dans le contexte de réaffirmation de l'identité islamique qui a marqué l'Afrique de l'Ouest francophone à partir des années 1980 et plus encore dans les années 1990, particulièrement dans les grands centres urbains du Sénégal, du Mali, du Burkina Faso et de la Côte d'Ivoire. Nous nous penchons plus spécifiquement sur la question du rapport entre jeunes (comme catégorie sociale), religion et espace public.
Under what conditions does religion become a salient social identity? By measuring religious attachment among the people living astride the Burkina Faso–Côte d'Ivoire border in West Africa, an arbitrary boundary that exposes otherwise similar individuals to different political contexts, this article makes a case for the importance of the political environment in affecting the weight that people attach to their religious identities. After ruling out explanations rooted in the proportion of different religious denominations, the degree of secularization and the supply of religious institutions on either side of the border, as well as differences in the degree of religious pluralism at the national level, it highlights the greater exposure of Ivorian respondents to the politicization of religion during Côte d'Ivoire's recent civil conflict. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the power – and challenges – of exploiting Africa's arbitrary borders as a source of causal leverage.
In Burkina Faso, for many populations, the birth of twins obligate their mother to a ritual of presentation of the children, in which people give them some offerings. The aim of this paper is to discuss the way the practice has evolved in a begging of mothers of twins around mosques in urban contexts. Ouagadougou was the fieldwork for our observations of begging places. The results show how women give priority to mosques as a destination of their mobility, linked with a begging that doesn't depend on religious practices but that reshapes the moral economy of the gift at a local level.
Since last year, jihadi attacks in northern Burkina Faso have been steadily on the rise. These have largely been attributable to a newly established but understudied jihadi group, Ansaroul Islam, which has its roots in the ongoing insurgency in Mali and is linked to al-Qa`ida's network in the Sahel. Its budding insurgency greatly threatens the security of Burkina Faso and neighboring countries. State responses to the violence have been heavy-handed, which only furthers the cause of Ansaroul Islam.
The situation of Islam in Upper Volta is ambiguous: while dominant in numbers it remains in a subordinate position in the polity. Within the contemporary context of Moslem political awakening, peaceful Voltaic Islam looks like an oddity, whose origins lie in the history of Islamization. In the Mosi kingdoms Moslems occupied a marginal position and the vectors of Islamization were extraneous. Despite their role in the royal courts, Moslems were accepted only on tolerance and the political System was free of Islamic influence. While the colonial System did not bring any deep change in this status, the disruption of traditional structures accelerated the rate of conversions. Nevertheless, due to its divisions and to its inability to cope with modernization, Voltaic Islam has been unable to produce a political elite which could have claimed leadership in the post-colonial State or put forth a social design of its own. Islam remained thus exposed to the most various ideological, religious and secular influences, which perpetuated its subordinate position. This led to the 1983 crisis in the Communaute musulmane de Haute-Volta, the most serious since the creation of this important Islamic association.
In the early 1980s Burkina Faso experienced an Islamic resurgence which coincided with the advent of a "democratic and popular revolution", heralding a programme of authoritarian modernization, transforming civil society and incorporating it into the state sphere. In this context came profound and sometimes brutal changes; for Muslims, Islam was an instrument to rebuild their identity and preserve their autonomy as a community, in the face of heavier and heavier-handed state domination. However, this awakening has not necessarily expressed a rejection of the state; on the contrary, in certain cases it articulates the desire for inclusion in the centre of the revolutionary process.
The mosque, a place of worship for Muslims, started in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Then it became widespread around the world : Asia, Africa, Europe and America…..Its architecture was influenced by the different cultures, organization and religions of the people who adopted it. In Burkina Faso as well as in other countries, the mosque came with Islam. As far as Moogo is concerned Islam was introduced by the Yarce, Silmi – Moose (Fulani- Moose) and Fulani. The building of a mosque was thus related to several aspects : landowner and traditional chief's authorization as well as colonial and / or national administration permission. In Ouagadougou, several types of mosque exist, the architectural style is determined by the means the Muslims have when they decide to build. The mosque is managed by several persons : The Imam, the Muezzin, the caretakers and the treasurer, etc. Initially, the mosque was made for religious practice, but now it plays an educational, social and economic role in society.
Arab and Islamic culture is made available to students in several venues. In the Soaw district, there are, on the one hand, the Coranic school which was introduced back in the 16th century by Yarse Muslims, and, on the other hand, the medersa which was founded as late as 2001. Both systems teach Arab and Islamic culture. The difference between the two, however, is that the objective of the former is not to teach Arabic, but to transmit religious knowledge; it does not help learners to find jobs after the completion of their studies. The medersa, on the other hand, teaches how to read and write Arabic with a view to engage in a professional activity. In other words, the Coranic school teaches only religion, and Arabic is translated into and explained in the vernacular teaching language. The medersa teaches religion, Arabic, French and a number of scientific disciplines, which are explained either in Arabic or in French.
Burkina Faso is ranked among "low human development" countries (UNPD) whereas it comes first for cotton production in Africa. For ten centuries until the colonial period, cotton growing and cotton transformation were closely linked, contributing to the regional and continental development. In fact, cotton was in the heart of a political, economic and religious system brought by muslim worshipers and muslim traders coming from North of Africa. This muslim history appeared by focusing on the most productive cotton area of the country, the area of Bwamu, proving that it was involved in a continental historical process. Historical ties were revealed by building the monographs of five villages. They proved that bwa people was connected to muslim political entities and muslim historical figures.
