Non-Europhone Intellectuals

6. Political/Intellectual Revolutions

6 Political/Intellectual Revolutions During the pre-colonial period, jihads had led to the creation of theocratic states in different parts of West Africa. These jihads had certain common denominators. For one thing, they were started by learned scholars. So profoundly were they influenced by this tradition that they were frustrated by the syncretism that affected Islamic practice. They wanted to establish a political system that corresponded with the prophetic ideal that they had read about in the Islamic manuals that circulated in the region. They saw their efforts as being in the tradition of the struggle for the purification of Islam that went back to the Almoravid movement of the eleventh century, the objectives of which were to apply Maliki Islam in all its rigour. In the writings of these intellectuals, as well as in their sermons and propaganda, one can detect a language of political contestation expressed in Islamic terms. Such language, when it echoes aspirations for emancipation, can mobilize large sectors of the population. Among the mobilizing concepts for political action is the obligation to command the good and forbid the evil (al-amr bi ‘l-mac ruf wa al-nahy an al-munkar). If the role of proselytization in the public sphere of Muslim countries is to be understood, it is crucial to grasp the powerful effect of the language of political contestation. It is not enough for the good Muslim just to practise the five pillars of Islam: belief in God and in the Prophet Muhammad, carrying out the five canonical prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. It is also necessary to uphold the good and avoid the evil. The notions of good and evil apply to all that Islam allows and all that it prohibits. How to do this varies according to the groups. Before the eighteenth century, there were two different views among the Muslim scholars. There were those who were inspired by the teachings of Al-Suyuti, and who were engaged in trade. They were pacifists, trying through their behaviour to provide a model of how Islam should be followed in order to lead the population towards more orthodox Islamic practice. Maraboutic tribes like the Kunta and communities like the Jakhanke held such views. Non-Europhone Intellectuals 32 Then there were scholars who were inspired by the thinking of Al-Maghili, who were quicker to take up arms against their opponents (Last 1985:1-2). Both groups developed especially in the urban centres and lived from trade, while trying to purify Islam within the limits of their means. During the eighteenth century, the crisis of the pastoral economy brought about the re-conversion of many Fulani to scholarship. Thus, the number of scholars increased considerably. The new class of scholars were essentially rural people. They tended to consider urban scholars as corrupt. Many scholars preferred to live in the countryside, far from those ‘urban places of perdition’, in order to organize their community in conformity with the laws of Islam. Others toured round the neighbouring regions to preach a purer Islam (Last 1985:4-5). Among the many intellectuals who, through their writings and their action, had a lasting impact on West Africa are the Fulani who led the jihads of the nineteenth century, like Karamokho Alpha in Fouta Djallon, Suleyman Baal in Fouta Toro, Uthman Dan Fodio in northern Nigeria, Ahmad Lobbo in Macina, and Al-Hajj Omar at Ségou. Belief in the imminence of the end of the world and the arrival of the mahdi (an eschatological figure in Islamic millenarianism) strengthened the ability of jihad leaders to mobilize the people around them. While not all of them proclaimed themselves mahdi, they utilized these beliefs in order to mobilize or stimulate their troops. The most celebrated of these movements took place in the Sudan. Led by Muhammad Ahmad, who proclaimed himself mahdi in the Nilotic Sudan, this mahdist movement challenged the British army, killed the British General Gordon and established an Islamic state that lasted for several years before being completely defeated in January 1900, when the last emir of the mahdist state was captured (Prunier 1998:41). In West Africa, the belief in the coming end of the world and the arrival of the mahdi helped jihad leaders to mobilize people for jihads. Among those carried out in the pre-colonial era and at the beginning of the colonial invasion, we shall cite five, before assessing their impact on the Islamic...