This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajectory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to—albeit unsatisfyingly—as ‘native' Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transformative impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group's development, from colonial to postcolonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d'Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group's distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.
Media reports of the rebellion tearing apart C?te d'Ivoire portray the conflict as a rift between a Muslim North and a Christian South. They repeatedly refer to the armed conflict in religious terms by describing the country as split between a government-held area in the Christian and animist South and a rebel-held area in the Muslim North." This cultural/geographical description of the conflict inhibits our understanding of the situation. These newspaper reports echo the divisive statements of politicians and thus serve to widen rifts. In sum, the religious and geographical simplifications by the media do not contribute to our understanding of the conflict. Rather, they insidiously exacerbate it by reinforcing stereotypes and deepening social and political divisions.
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.
