o:id 12772 url https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/12772 o:resource_template Journal article o:resource_class bibo:AcademicArticle dcterms:title Secular Power and Religious Authority in Muslim Society: The Case of Songhay dcterms:subject secularism authority Askia Songhai people Timbuktu dcterms:publisher https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/25145 dcterms:date 1996 dcterms:type https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/8475 dcterms:identifier https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117312306 Q117312306 iwac-reference-0000272 dcterms:language https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/8322 dcterms:abstract The relationship between political power and religious authority has been a delicate one in Muslim societies. On the one hand, governments may attempt to silence religious authorities; on the other, they may themselves succumb to revolutions in the name of religion. More often governments have attempted to co-opt religious authorities as allies in exercising control or have worked directly in a power-sharing arrangement with them. In Songhay, as in several other states of pre-colonial Sudanic Africa, a more subtle balance was achieved between the ruling estate and the diverse body of scholars, mystics and holymen who made up the religious estate. The askiyas of sixteenth-century Songhay, while exercising full political power, saw it in their interest to maintain harmonious relations with these men of religion. Gifts in cash and kind, including slaves, grants of land and privilege, especially exemption from taxation, as well as recognition of rights of intercession and sanctuary, ensured their moral support and spiritual services and, importantly, protected rulers from their curse. Such a symbiosis was important for the stability of a large and ethnically diverse empire like Songhay, especially as regards its conquered western reaches, which were ethnically non-Songhay and had a strong Islamic cultural tradition. This delicate balance was upset by the Sacdian conquest of Songhay in 1591. Despite Moroccan assertions of Islamic legitimacy, religious authorities in Timbuktu were unsupportive, and harsh measures against them dealt a lasting blow to the equilibrium which had prevailed under the askiyas. dcterms:spatial https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/540 bibo:authorList https://islam.zmo.de/s/westafrica/item/1694 bibo:doi https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700035180 10.1017/S0021853700035180 bibo:issue 2 bibo:pageEnd 194 bibo:pageStart 175 bibo:volume 37 --