At certain times in its

history one might think of

France as a Christian power.
At no time would one think
of it as an Islamic power.
But by the early twentieth
century, French authorities
were actively discussing and
evaluating their policies as a
puissance musulmane, or
“Muslim power,” by which
they meant an imperial
power with Muslim subjects.
France as a Muslim Power in West Africa
David Robinson

France became a “Muslim power,” in the sense of an im-

perial nation with Muslim subjects, over the course of the
nineteenth century. This practice and policy first emerged
in Algeria, and from the mid-nineteenth century it was al-
so deployed in Senegal and Mauritania, the initial core of
French West Africa. The process of conquering the bidan, or
“whites,” of Mauritania, an Arabic-speaking nomadic peo-
ple with a strong sense of racial superiority over the sudan,
or “blacks,” of Senegal, and the competition with Morocco
over claims to the Sahara encouraged the development of
this policy, which was codified in the early twentieth cen-
tury through the concepts of Islam maure and Islam noir,
concepts which remain influential today.

At certain times in its history one might think of France as a Christian

power.1 At no time would one think of it as an Islamic power. But by the
early twentieth century, French authorities were actively discussing and
evaluating their policies as a puissance musulmane, or “Muslim power,”
by which they meant an imperial power with Muslim subjects. The French
controlled the Maghrib through the colony of Algeria, the protectorate of
Tunisia, and an emerging sphere of influence in Morocco. They dominated
many Muslim societies in West Africa and had established interests and
clients in the declining Ottoman Empire. They published the Revue du
Monde Musulman to deal with questions of knowledge and power and
compared themselves to Great Britain, the Netherlands (Snouck Hurgronje
1911), Germany, Italy, and other countries with “Islamic” dominions or
interests.
France first began to think of itself as a “Muslim power” in 1830
after the invasion of Algiers and the acquisition of Muslim subjects. Al-
geria became the example of the success—and sometimes the failure—of
France as a Muslim power (Ageron 1968; Julien 1964). Algerian precedents
were invoked in Senegal and Mauritania, especially during the “creation”
of Senegal by Governor Faidherbe in the 1850s and the “pacification” of
Mauritania in the early 1900s.2 By the Anglo-French Agreement of 1890
France fell heir to northwest Africa—the area that became French North
and West Africa. This meant becoming an Islamic power, since the over-
 whelming majority of the inhabitants were Muslim, or fast becoming
so. French officials feared Islam, recalling its long history of separation
from and opposition to Europe and its “incursions” into southwestern and
southeastern Europe (Etienne 1990). But they had no illusions about roll-
ing back the Muslim identity of most of their subjects (Burke 1972). Colo-
nial administrators worked to create institutions of control, to establish
hegemony as a “Muslim power.”
An important initiative came from Jules Cambon, the activist gov-
ernor-general of Algeria, who sought to link the North and West Afri-
africa TODAY

can holdings of the French. He embarked on the conquest and consolida-

tion of the Sahara and the establishment of links and boundaries with the
French Soudan. He sent a number of Algerians to serve as interpreters and
guides in the emerging French domains in West and Equatorial Africa. Un-
der Cambon’s watch, Xavier Coppolani and Octave Dupont produced a
106

large study of Muslim brotherhoods and recommended close relation-

ships between colonial government and Sufi leaders (Depont and Coppo-
lani 1897). Cambon supported Coppolani’s request for an assignment to
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

survey the nomadic societies of the Soudan, a project that led to the cam-
paigns of “pacification” of Mauritania. One of the governor-general’s most
significant achievements was to secure fatwa, or decrees, from the leading
authorities of Mecca stating that submission to European rule was accept-
able for Muslims (Ageron 1968:513). The Muslim tradition of the fatwa
could now be used as an instrument of legitimation for French rule.
Morocco presented the strongest ideological challenge for France in
North and West Africa. Unlike Algeria and Tunisia, it had never been a
province of the Ottoman Empire. There could be no rationale of “libera-
tion” from a foreign yoke; Morocco, in fact, rivaled Istanbul’s stature with-
in the Islamic world (Munson 1992; Rivet 1988). The court laid claim to
the south, as far as the Senegal and Niger Rivers. While these claims did
not evoke much local response, they were important in times of crisis.
When the French were conquering large amounts of territory, West Afri-
cans called upon the Moroccan sultan for assistance (Hanson and Robinson
1991:243–8). In all these ways this part of the dar al-Islam upped the ante
for any would-be “infidel” force. For reasons of stature and location, Mo-
rocco was the last part of Northwest Africa to fall to the French. The chal-
lenge that it presented would have a significant impact on Islamic practice
in West Africa.
The emergence of France as a Muslim power in what I call the Sene-
galo-Mauritanian zone occurred in the late nineteenth century, partly in
response to the North African experience, including the conquest of Mo-
rocco completed in 1912. The conscious effort to control Islamic societies,
establish Muslim leaders and allies, and put a secular and tolerant face on
imperialism was essential to whatever success colonial rule enjoyed.
In this article I look at the ethnic classification system that the
French employed in the nineteenth century, the establishment of the prac-
tice of relating to Muslim societies, and some of the individuals and fami-
lies upon whom the French relied in these relations. I then examine the
period in the early twentieth century when that practice was elaborated
into a full-blown policy, when France became fully a “Muslim power” in
the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone. That policy drew on the earlier system of
classification to establish the categories of Islam noir and Islam maure,
categories which endured as bodies of “knowledge” and means of control
throughout the colonial period.

africa TODAY
French “Ethnography” in the Nineteenth Century

After the Napoleonic Era the French resumed their commercial activities
in West Africa. They concentrated on the Senegal River region and devel-
oped relations with the Moorish, Fulbe, Tokolor, and Wolof people who

107
lived there. On the basis of their experience, French officials assumed that
all four groups, in varying ways and to varying degrees, were Muslim (Rob-
inson 1992). They extended that assumption to other groups who lived in

DAVID ROBINSON
the Sahelian zone as they expanded to the east over the course of the nine-
teenth century. The French also extended their dominion to the south,
into the wetter, forest zones. The inhabitants of this region they labeled
not as Muslim but as practitioners of “ethnically-based” religions: “pagan-
ism,” “animism,” or “fetishism.”
The French colonial government, a very modest operation based in
St. Louis, a town close to the mouth of the river, worked with versions of
this taxonomy throughout the nineteenth century. It became the basis for
deciding where Catholic missionaries would work and what areas they
should avoid. By and large the missionaries shared the same conceptual
framework, even when they protested what they often called the “pro-Is-
lamic” practices of the government. The missionaries concentrated their
efforts on the Serer and Diola people to the south; the profile of the Catho-
lic community in Senegal today reflects that deployment.
St. Louis was not unlike much of the rest of the Senegalo-Mauri-
tanian zone. It had significant Muslim communities but not a very strong
Islamic identity in the early part of the century. Over time it became more
Muslim, both in the number of followers and depth of understanding and
practice. With few exceptions the French regime made no effort to contest
the Muslim identities adopted by ethnic groups nor the process of Islam-
ization in which they were engaged. Rather, they classified Muslims into
“tolerant” and “fanatical” groups and tried to limit the influence of the
latter (Robinson 1988).
From the perspective of the French, the Moors were camel and cat-
tle herding nomads who lived in siba, or “dissidence,” in the desert. They
were also “natural” Muslims: they were Arabic-speaking, and some of
them claimed descent from the Prophet or at least the Quraysh. They
called themselves bidan, “white,” and considered themselves superior to
the sudan, “blacks.” The French tended to accept these constructions of
 racial and religious identity and to assume that the Moors were superior to
the Muslim and non-Muslim societies who lived to their south. It was the
conquest of these “natural” Muslims in the early twentieth century that
pushed the French to develop their capacity as a “Muslim power.”
The Fulbe posed a special problem for French classificatory schemes:
they often claimed to be “white” or “red” and had more of what the French
perceived as caucasian features, yet they spoke a language and practiced a
culture that were obviously indigenous to the region. The French specu-
lated about the possibility of external origin as a justification for attribut-
africa TODAY

ing superior intelligence and physical appearance to them. The Fulbe raised
cattle and practiced transhumance, like the Moors, and they were not at-
tached to particular states. They were Muslim, but perceived as not par-
ticularly devout and certainly not fanatic. In general they were lukewarm
about efforts to reform Islamic practice and establish Islamic states.
108

The Tokolor spoke the same language as the Fulbe, but in French
eyes they were “fanatic” Muslims attached to the jihad and Islamic state.
This stereotype grew out of French experiences in dealing with the Alma-
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

mate of Futa Toro in the early part of the century and Al-Hajj Umar and his
state-building efforts at mid-century. For the French, Umar, with his pro-
paganda, his siege of the French post of Medine, and his warning to St.
Louis Muslims not to associate with the French (Hanson and Robinson
1991:106–11, 328), came to epitomize Muslim fanaticism and led them to
equate the Futa, the Tokolor,3 the Tijaniyya order, and militant Islam.
The French view of the Wolof people was more nuanced. There was
obviously an Islamic presence at the main Wolof courts, in the form of
qadis, teachers and other advisors, but they shared center stage with the
ceddo, the crown slaves who consumed alcohol, used their mounts and
firearms to pillage the peasantry, and in other ways resisted the discipline
that Islam was reputed to impose. In many ways they behaved like the
warrior bidan—raiders, highway robbers, outlaws—except that they were
sudan, “black.” Ceddo and court often fought against the Muslim villages
and mini-republics in their midst.
These stereotypes proved remarkably resilient over the course of the
nineteenth century. The French usually found ways to associate resistance
with the Tokolor and Tijaniyya “branches” of Islam, until they encoun-
tered the threat of Ma El Ainin, the Qadiriyya and bidan leader of Mauri-
tania in the early twentieth century. The basic racial categories, “white”
and “black,” which emerged in the French categorizations of Islam in the
early twentieth century, still resonate today.

Muslim Institutions and Officials in Nineteenth-Century

St. Louis

Over the course of the nineteenth century the process of Islamization was
most marked among the Wolof, as for example in St. Louis, the Wolof-
speaking town at the edge of the old kingdoms of Walo and Cayor. By the
time of Faidherbe’s appointment as governor in 1854, the Muslims of St.
Louis had formulated a rudimentary plan for their community. They want-
ed a mosque, and had constructed one in the northern part of the island
with the acquiescence of the colonial government. This development dis-
turbed the Catholic priests and some parishioners, but the government’s
support was consistent with their ideas about the region’s religious and
ethnic groups and also reflected Enlightenment traditions of tolerance and
the secular orientation of French regimes since the time of Napoleon.

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The Muslims of St. Louis also pushed for a court where Islamic law
could be practiced on questions of family and property. The demand was
fulfilled when Faidherbe issued a decree for the establishment of a Mus-
lim Tribunal in 1857 (Robinson 1985:213–214; Carlès 1915:176–177). This
official sanction of the practice of Islamic law brought forth an even stron-

109
ger protest from the Catholic community, although again this move was
entirely consistent with French traditions and with their recognition of
the Muslim identity of the town and region. It would be hard to overesti-

DAVID ROBINSON
mate the importance of the tribunal for establishing St. Louis as a Muslim
center and the French relationship with Muslims as one of tolerance.
Governor Faidherbe also took the initiative on important educational
and military issues. He took over the Ecole des Otages, the “School for
Hostages,” where a lay Christian society provided rudimentary French
education to sons of the aristocracy, and transformed it into a more secular
institution for training chiefs and interpreters. Faidherbe refashioned local
military recruitment by establishing the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, which was
led by French officers. He changed military dress to more “Algerian” and
“Ottoman” styles, allowed families to accompany the soldiers in some
situations, and provided significant rewards for loyal service, creating a
valuable institution for conquest at much less expense than metropolitan
units. Faidherbe also inaugurated the practice of the “sponsored” pilgrim-
age to Mecca for selected friends of the colonial regime, demonstrating
French respect for the Islamic faith. He made sure that these achievements,
and the wide-scale exploration of West Africa conducted under his man-
date, were publicized in France and Senegal (Robinson 1975:28–33).4
Faidherbe put these institutions under the Direction of Political Af-
fairs, the colonial service next to his office and under his close control. He
included another innovation among the services of the Direction: transla-
tion of Arabic correspondence. In time this service became a diplomatic
operation and reception center for chiefs and marabouts in the Senegalo-
Mauritanian zone, largely because Faidherbe employed local Muslim no-
tables, persons who had clear credentials of piety, learning, and prestige in
the faith. The leaders of the translation service and the Muslim Tribunal
burnished the Islamic credentials of St. Louis. These men gave substance
to the French claim of tolerance; they worked for the government without
compromising their standing among Muslims in the Senegalo-Mauritanian
zone.
 Two men and their descendants served in this capacity for most of
the late nineteenth century. The older of the two was prominent in St.
Louis affairs for almost forty years. Hamat Ndiaye Anne (1813–79) had a
Tokolor heritage. His mother came from the family of Ndiak Moktar Ba, a
commercial and political broker in Podor. His father, Ndiaye Anne, hailed
from a prestigious clerical lineage of central Futa Toro. Ndiaye settled in
St. Louis in the early 1800s. He held a position of moral leadership within
the Muslim community and worked as a scribe for the administration in
its dealings with chiefs and clerics in the interior. In time his moral leader-
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ship role was institutionalized in the title of Tamsir, which in St. Louis
translated as “head of the Muslim religion.”5 Ndiaye and his son were the
first to sign the 1843 petition calling for the creation of a Muslim Tribunal,
and they may well have drafted it.
At about this time Hamat took over his father’s roles in the Muslim
110

community and the French administration. When the political affairs bu-
reau was created in 1845 to handle relations with the interior elites, he
became its principal interpreter, accompanying expeditions in the river
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

valley and handling correspondence and treaty formulation. In 1857, Faid-

herbe created the long-awaited Muslim Tribunal and named Hamat as its
head, or qadi, as well as third deputy mayor of the town. The Catholics
struck out at Faidherbe and the Tamsir; they called the governor a “mara-
bout,” the local name for a Muslim leader, and accused him of “trying to
attract the good opinion of the Tamsir for whom he has a particular predi-
lection. He proposed to create in St. Louis the famous Muslim Tribunal to
the tune of 3000 francs for his dear Hamat and 2000 for his agents” (Con-
grégation de St. Louis 1857). Many Muslims attracted to the preaching of
Al-Hajj Umar critized Hamat for his close association with the administra-
tion, and they forced him to explain his actions in discussions at the main
mosque (Faidherbe 1856). Hamat’s ability to defend himself legitimized
the idea that Islamic practice could be compatible with French rule.
Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, Hamat continued to function as
translator at the Direction of Political Affairs, interpreter for expeditions,
and mediator of disputes in the interior. To supplement his salary, he ac-
quired property in St. Louis and farms outside of town. He was engaged in
correspondence with chiefs and clerics in other parts of the Senegalo-Mau-
ritanian zone. During the famine of 1865–1866 and the cholera epidemic of
1868–1869, Hamat rendered great service to the administration through
public appeals for calm. For his service over several decades, the adminis-
tration reciprocated by sending him on the pilgrimage, making him a
Knight and Officer of the Legion of Honor, and giving him prestigious gifts.
Hamat’s funeral in 1879 was nearly a state occasion.
The Seck family played an even more critical role in supporting the
French as a “Muslim power.” Dudu Seck, better known as Ibnu-l-moqdad
or Bu El Mogdad (1826–1880), took over the main responsibilities in Arabic
correspondence when Tamsir Hamat became head of the tribunal (Ba 1976:
284–286; Samb 1972:73–84). His father Abdullay came from the Dagana
area, on the western edge of Futa. He had settled in St. Louis earlier in the
century acting as a trader and cleric. In keeping with his Mauritanian con-
nections, he sent his son to study in a Muslim school in the Trarza region
north of the Senegal valley.
Bu El Mogdad signed the 1843 petition, alongside Ndiaye and Ha-
mat Anne. He began to serve the administration in the early 1850s. After
1857 he helped train the corps of interpreters at the Ecole des Otages. He
handled the correspondence, treaties, and most of the diplomatic missions
to the interior, while the Tamsir stayed in the capital. Given his education
in southern Mauritania and fluency in Hassaniyya Arabic, Bu El Mogdad

africa TODAY
maintained close connections with the bidan, offering his home to visit-
ing marabouts, such as the Sidiyya of Boutilimit. He had an especially close
relationship with Lat Dior for twenty years. He also traveled to Futa Toro,
Salum, and wherever the French had need of his services. He journeyed to
Mecca twice at administration expense, was decorated as Knight and Offi-

111
cer of the Legion of Honor, and received a highly publicized award from
the Ottoman Government. When Hamat died, Bu El Mogdad took over his
functions as qadi and tamsir until his own death the following year.

DAVID ROBINSON
Bu El Mogdad took a broader and more aggressive approach to his
role than Tamsir Hamat, and he accomplished a great deal toward the ex-
tension of French hegemony during his three decades of service (Kane 1985;
Seck 1997; Wane 1997). He assisted Faidherbe with the development of
propaganda against “militant Islam,” particularly against Al-Hajj Umar
(Gerresch 1973). He and Faidherbe developed the strategy for his pilgrim-
age in 1860–1 in an effort to counter Umarian prestige. In making the case
to the Director of Political Affairs, Bu El Mogdad said:

I think it would be most advantageous that some of the

marabouts who are loyal to the French should achieve su-
premacy over those who still retain the old prejudices. As
you know, the strongest marabouts are already those who
serve French interests; but they would enjoy more influence
still if they were not merely enabled to visit Paris and Al-
giers, but allowed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, like Al-
Hajj [Umar]. Such a pilgrimage might have very important
results, because it would be known in the country that it
was made under French patronage and that this patronage
was as valuable as the best-established reputation as a good
Muslim.(Seck 1861:480–481)

In 1878 Bu El Mogdad took two of his sons to the Exposition Universelle in

Marseille and performed the pilgrimage a second time.
At Bu El Mogdad’s funeral in 1880, Governor Brière recognized his
invaluable service in support of the French as a Muslim power:

The Qadi and Tamsir can undoubtedly be replaced in the two

functions he exercised by two black clerics. But what cannot
be replaced is the influential Al-Hajj, the devoted and emi-
 nently intelligent servant who was of such powerful assis-
tance in our relations with the Moors, the Damel of Cayor,
the Sultan of Segu. This death occurring at the moment of
inaugurating free trade on the river, and as we begin large
undertakings on the Niger, can only be considered a calam-
ity for the Administration of the Colony. (Ba 1976:285)6

Brière was right. The vacuum caused by the deaths of Hamat and Bu
El Mogdad in the following years created problems of stability and cred-
africa TODAY

ibility in the 1880s. The administration sought to replace their services in

a variety of ways. Ndiaye Sarr, a merchant based in Podor with a strong
background in the Islamic sciences, became qadi at the tribunal. Mam-
baye Fara Biram Lo and Abdulaye Mar Diop filled in at the Interior and
Political Affairs bureaus, and merchants like Pèdre Alassane Mbengue
112

were pressed into service for particular tasks of negotiation. For the key
position of translator and ambassador at the Direction of Political Affairs,
the French returned to the Seck family and selected Abdullay, the oldest
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

son of Bu El Mogdad. He took over assignments similar to those of his

father until he was killed on a mission in Baol in 1887. Within a month the
French called on the next son, Dudu (1867–1943), or Bu El Mogdad II, to
perform similar missions and translations. Dudu soon became a specialist
in Mauritanian affairs and fulfilled the same role in French expansion in
the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone that his father had performed so well and
for so long (Seck 1903).
Dudu accompanied all of the key missions into the turbulent areas of
southern and central Mauritania in the late nineteenth century. In 1893 he
made the pilgrimage to Mecca, with stops in France, in the company of
Ibra Almamy Wane, a chief of Futa. The pilgrim credential was more im-
portant for Dudu than for Ibra in the eyes of the administration, and they
made substantial use of it in the decades to come (Mohameden 1994).7 His
most significant achievement, in terms of its impact on French policy and
practice as a “Muslim power,” was bringing Sidiyya Baba to St. Louis for
the first time in 1898. Baba would be the key ally in the conquest of Mauri-
tania in the first decade of the twentieth century.
For the administration the value of these Muslim leaders was incal-
culable. The Anne had their origins in the Futanke Islamic tradition, which
was linked to an Islamic state called the Almamate, while the Seck were
educated by the bidan teachers of Trarza. Between them they represented
the two most prestigious traditions of Islamic practice in the wider region.
Their knowledge of Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence, and theology was recog-
nized, and this protected them from the potentially negative implications
of their collaboration with the French. These two influential families also
had close ties with each other: Hamat’s sister Kumba married Bu El Mog-
dad and gave birth to Dudu and Aynina; Hamat’s granddaughter Indu mar-
ried Dudu. Several of the ruling lineages from the interior sought the hands
of women in the two families. A marriage tie to these established figures
guaranteed access to the administration. The Anne and Seck were com-
mitted to French presence and expansion in any form. Their commitment
and prestige were well-known and reflected on the administration which
they represented. Bu El Mogdad and his son Dudu, in particular, were the
precursors to collaborative roles played by Sidiyya Baba at the beginning of
the twentieth century and Seydu Nuru Tal a generation later.

Emerging as a Muslim Power: The Late Nineteenth Century

africa TODAY
As the French expanded militarily in the 1880s, they continued to try to
understand Muslim societies, secure allies, and isolate enemies. They be-
gan to think in terms of a West African empire and to draw upon their
North African precedents for dealing with Islamic communities. In time

113
this exploration would become a full-scale “Islamic policy” and would
yield the Muslim Affairs Service launched by Governors-General Roume
and Ponty in the twentieth century.

DAVID ROBINSON
The geographical expansion that produced the Federation of French
West Africa took three directions: north, south, and east. The northern ex-
tension, Mauritania, came only in the early twentieth century. The south-
ern extension was designed to consolidate control in the peanut basin. The
focus was the construction of a rail line from St. Louis to Dakar, which
was completed in 1885. It precipitated the final clash with Lat Dior, result-
ing in his death in 1886, and one of the most elaborate experiments in
Senegalese chieftaincy. Demba War Sall, former chief of the crown slaves
of Lat Dior, became the President of the Confederation of Cayor with a
number of subordinates under him. The French continued to employ their
basic classification of the Wolof as a collection of Muslim and not-so-
Muslim peoples. They did not anticipate the gathering strength of Islamic
practice among the royals, crown soldiers, and peasants, something that
became evident in their conflicts with Amadu Bamba and the Murids.
The eastern extension was led by the commandant supérieur. It re-
sulted in the colony of Soudan and produced the officers who often went
by the name of soudanais. While the command became increasingly inde-
pendent of St. Louis, it depended initially on the Direction of Political Af-
fairs for its knowledge of custom, history, and religious affiliation. The
most fundamental characteristic of the Senegal experience was the hostil-
ity of the Tijaniyya order to the French presence. The French equated Toko-
lor and Tijaniyya with fanatics well into the 1880s. Umar had evoked this
equation in the Senegal River valley in the 1850s, Ma Ba had strengthened
it in the lower peanut basin in the 1860s, and the Madiyanke movement
had sealed it in the minds of the French officials of St. Louis (Robinson
1988).8
The soudanais kept this image of hostility very much alive during
the 1880s, as they struggled against the Umarian dominions, or what re-
mained of them. Amadu Sheku, Umar’s eldest son, could do little to stem
 the advance from his capitals of Segu and Nioro, but he was a convenient
foil for ambitious officers in search of men, matériel, and promotion (Kan-
ya-Forstner 1969). It was largely this stereotype which precipitated a rather
curious episode in the mid–1880s.
A certain Abdel Kader, ostensibly from the ruling circles of Timbuk-
tu, behind the Umarian domain, arrived at the headquarters of the com-
mandant supérieur. He assured the soudanais that one of Amadu’s main
lieutenants was on the verge of revolt, while the Grand Council of Tim-
buktu was prepared to grant exclusive commercial rights to the French. By
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the end of 1884 Abdel Kader was swept off to France and received by the
Ministries of Colonies and Foreign Affairs. The next year he was sent back
to Senegal to wait for a French mission to take him to Timbuktu. The
mission finally materialized in 1887, when Lieutenant Caron journeyed
down the Niger to Timbuktu (Kanya-Forstner 1969; Oloruntimehin 1968).
114

Abdel Kader was not heard from again, but the whole episode showed that
the French, without much good information or ability to check their infor-
mants, were thinking broadly and imperialistically about rule over the
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

Muslim societies of a large portion of West Africa.

The sense of a larger domain and the need for “Islamic” expertise led
to the mission of Alfred Le Chatelier in 1887–1888. Le Chatelier (1855–
1929) was a well-educated military officer and Islamicist with consider-
able Algerian experience. He liked the challenges of crossing cultural and
religious frontiers. He joined the first Flatters expedition into the Sahara,
went up to the frontier of Mahdist control in the Nile Sudan, and then
spent some time in Cairo collecting information for a book on brother-
hoods in the Hejaz (Le Chatelier 1887; Messal 1931). Bored by garrison
duty in France, he persuaded the Ministries of War, Foreign Affairs, and the
Colonies to allow him to study Muslim brotherhoods in West Africa.
Le Chatelier’s study (Le Chatelier 1899) reconfirmed some and con-
tradicted other French perceptions. He came away convinced of the hostil-
ity of the Tijaniyya to the French presence. He confirmed the French ste-
reotype of “fanaticism.” He noted that St. Louis had become an important
Muslim center and thought that most of its inhabitants were Tijani. This
finding conflicted with his other main observation: he rejected the posi-
tion of the “Algerian school” of Islamicists that Sufi brotherhoods were
well organized in hierarchies and posed dangers for European control. Le
Chatelier found the Sufis to be diverse and autonomous, and he argued for
policies of modernization and French education to accommodate them to
colonial rule. In the absence of any other studies of West African Islamic
practice, Le Chatelier’s work became the authority until Paul Marty pub-
lished his more detailed volumes between 1914 and 1921.9
The stereotype of Tijaniyya fanaticism began to fade in the 1890s,
after the conquest of the last Umarian bastions and consolidation of French
control in the Soudan. Thousands of Futanke emigrants were forced back
to their original homelands in the middle valley (Robinson 1975:157–158;
Hanson 1996:153–155). While they disputed title to land and village lead-
ership with those who had stayed behind, the Umarian returnees posed no
significant problem for the colonial chiefs and French administrators in
Futa. Their main impact was to speed the transition to Tijaniyya affiliation
of most Futanke. At the beginning of the twentieth century Amadu Moktar
Sakho, member of a prestigious and learned Umarian family, took a posi-
tion as a colonial judge in Boghe on the north bank. He encouraged the
submission of the Futanke, and he reassured the colonial authorities of the
good faith of the Tokolor Tijaniyya (Sall 1997).
At the end of the nineteenth century, the French administration in
the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone had a well-established practice, if not al-

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ways a clear policy, toward Muslim societies. The core principles were
straightforward. The French opposed Islamic states or movements which
threatened to create them, especially when the leadership was Tijaniyya
and Tokolor, and in areas where they had key interests, such as the river
valley and peanut basin. They sought out, in contrast, Muslim teachers

115
and leaders who rejected jihad and state-building. These Muslims were
often Mauritanian and members of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, and this was
consistent with the French belief in the superiority of bidan over “blacks.”

DAVID ROBINSON
Finally, the French maintained the Muslim institutions of St. Louis, insti-
tutions which encouraged Muslims to accept the compatibility of foreign
rule and Islamic culture (Robinson 1988).
This practice was transmitted through the Direction of Political Af-
fairs, its oral traditions and archives, and its African translators and dip-
lomats, especially Dudu Seck. The Direction and its African employees
played host to visiting dignitaries, including marabouts and chiefs. They
capitalized on the growing reputation of St. Louis as a center of Muslim
learning and worship and on the idea of the compatibility of Islamic piety
and French rule. They also made use of “Islamic” resources from the Magh-
rib. One was a French translation of a compendium on the Malikite law
dominant in North and West Africa. The Mukhtasar of Khalil ibn Ishaq
was widely used by scholars in the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone. Coloni-
al officials could now use the French version to improve their relations
with Muslim societies (Bousquet 1956–1962; Perron 1848–1852). The sec-
ond resource was the vast catalogue of Sufi brotherhoods published by Oc-
tave Depont and Xavier Coppolani in 1897.
The French had two important marabout allies in the interior in the
late nineteenth century. Both were Qadiriyya and Moor. One was Saad
Buh, who settled in Trarza in the 1870s, developed a following in St. Louis,
and began a pattern of visits to the peanut basin and river valley. During
the last two decades, he gave invaluable service to the administration, ser-
vice that Dudu Seck, as a functionary, could hardly perform. He received
French missions, gave them his best advice, and sometimes helped them
escape destruction. Saad Buh performed diplomatic missions for the
French in Senegal—trying, for example, to persuade Lat Dior to accept the
rail line or to bring the successors of Ma Ba to make peace and submit to
French hegemony. In return, the French allowed him to travel freely in
areas under their control, nurture his clientele, and tap into the revenues
of the peanut farmers of Senegal (Marty 1915–1916).
 A less well known but equally important ally was Bu Kunta, a mara-
bout who had settled in Cayor. He had assisted Faidherbe in his campaigns
in 1860. He assisted again in the final conquest of Cayor in 1886. In the
words of Paul Marty, and despite his “maraboutic vocation,” Bu Kunta

marched with several columns, took part in several engage-

ments and used all of his influence to restore calm among
the natives who had revolted. When calm was restored, he
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gathered a great number of the former crown slaves and

placed them in villages where they could live in peace and
get accustomed to the new regime. (Marty 1917:357)

The villages and fields belonged to Bu Kunta himself. He accumulated a

massive fortune and pioneered the marabout-disciple pattern of peanut
116

farming in Cayor, the essential structure of the colonial political economy.

FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

Developing into a Muslim Power: The Early Mauritanian

Campaigns

Well-established practice became full blown policy after the turn of the
century. The causes were multiple. The competition among Western Euro-
pean nations for control of African space became more intense. French
officials felt an increasing urgency about occupying the northwestern Af-
rica of the 1890 Agreement, since Spanish, German, and British agents
were active in Morocco and down the coast. The Saharan trade was chang-
ing dramatically, and many merchants, transporters, and security forces
were moving south toward the river and into St. Louis, disturbing the rem-
nants of order in the French commercial sphere.
The western portion of the Sahara, the area that became Mauritania,
was a land dominated by siba, “dissidence” or controlled chaos. Despite
the absence of any central Islamic government, the ruling classes had no
doubt about their Arab or Islamic identity. They saw themselves as part of
the dar al-Islam, and many claimed genealogies stretching back to the
Hejaz. The French, in organizing the occupation of this area, relied on their
Maghribi experience. They turned to Xavier Coppolani, the brilliant young
Islamicist who had just completed a study of Sufi brotherhoods and a tour
of the nomadic societies of the Soudan.
Coppolani was more than willing to distinguish himself in a new
theater of operation. He was the most visible spokesman for the Algerian
emphasis on networks of brotherhoods and the importance of controlling
them. In the words of his close associate Arnaud, as stated in the journal
which they created together, the leaders of the Sufi orders

should become agents of the state, entrusted in certain cir-

cumstances to distribute assistance to the poor, manage
schools and administer the areas around their zawiya
 [lodges]. Official titles and monetary subsidies will satisfy
their egos . . . Once confidence is established between reli-
gious leaders and their European regents, one could begin,
with great delicacy, the work of improving Islam and moving
it in the direction of our civilization. (Arnaud 1902)

Coppolani formulated rough outlines of Mauritania and then pro-

posed French occupation not as conquest but “pacification.” He built his
campaign around the traditional vocational division in bidan society be-

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tween the political and military leaders (hassan) and the religious and com-
mercial entrepreneurs (zwaya). He would ally with the second group, the
“pacifists” responsible for trade and arbitration on the basis of their knowl-
edge of Islamic law and their Sufi stature.10 The plan was a hard sell for
metropolitan and local officials wary of the difficulties of establishing con-

117
trol of any part of the Sahara. It was Coppolani’s ability to argue his case,
as well as his obvious knowledge of Islam, Arabic, and the desert, that
enabled him to win approval from the Ministry of Colonies and Governor-

DAVID ROBINSON
General Roume.
Coppolani set quickly to work in 1902. The “pacification” would
have to occur from the southwest or Trarza. This meant that the conquest
would necessarily challenge Morocco and its claims to control of the same
area and that the conquest of Mauritania would be a prelude to the con-
quest of Morocco itself. He hoped “pacification” would be built around the
maraboutic allies of the St. Louis administration, Saad Buh and Sidiyya
Baba. Coppolani, with a relatively small deployment of French and African
troops, including those of the “pacificist” marabouts, came close to achiev-
ing his plan in the southern tier of Mauritania before his assassination in
1905.
Coppolani’s old ally, Saad Buh, was reluctant to collaborate. His new
friend, Sidiyya Baba, however, became the co-architect of “pacification.”11
One of Baba’s most important initiatives, early in 1903, was to issue a
fatwa in favor of colonial rule. Drawing on the jurist Khalil, and noting
that the French controlled much of the Maghrib already, the marabout
stated unequivocally that the obligation to wage jihad disappeared when
Muslims were weak, had no treasury, and possessed inferior weapons. He
claimed that the French had been supportive of Islam in their attitudes and
actions (Michaux-Bellaire 1907). The French could not have asked for a
more timely and explicit endorsement, especially from inside the dar al-
Islam and in the words of the prestigious leader of a network that stretched
across the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone.
Sidiyya Baba also assisted the French with Amadu Bamba, the found-
er of the Murid movement in Senegal. Bamba had been sent to Gabon in
1895 because of the dangers which he supposedly represented for the chiefs
and fragile regime established by the French in the peanut basin of Senegal,
the center piece of the colonial economy for the larger region. Baba, Deputy
François Carpot, and others persuaded the French to bring Bamba back in
1902. Baba even assigned his son-in-law to travel with the Murid leader in
 Cayor and Baol. After six months, the colonial chiefs and their French su-
pervisors perceived Bamba once again as a threat to their authority, but
this time they assigned him to the care of their new bidan ally (Robinson
1999; Sarr 1985).
The key legacy of the Coppolani campaigns for the Senegalo-Mauri-
tanian zone was the creation of enduring alliances with Muslim leaders
—Bamba and the Murids as well as Baba and the Sidiyya. Until the end of
the nineteenth century, colonial authorities relied mainly on their Muslim
functionaries in St. Louis and on the system of colonial chiefs established
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in the 1890s. In the early 1900s, they began to realize more clearly the
limitations of the chiefs, who exploited, bribed, and coerced their subjects.
As the bottom of the hierarchy, in closest contact with the people, the
chiefs contributed to the unpopularity of colonial rule (Searing 1985).
On the other hand, marabouts were key allies. In Mauritania they
118

assisted in the conquest. In Senegal, Muslim leaders were already helping

to solve significant problems of agricultural production, labor supply, and
social control in the peanut basin. They transformed slaves and former
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

slaves, who supplied so much of the agricultural labor, into followers. As

disciples or clients of the marabouts, the former slaves were free but con-
tained within a structure—and they were much less likely to attract the
attention of anti-slavery activists (Klein 1998). In the case of the Murids,
the French still worked with the brothers and disciples even as they were
exiling Amadu Bamba to Gabon and Mauritania (Robinson 1999; Sarr
1985).
The French did not formalize this emerging alliance in any system
of “official clergy” as they did in Algeria (Ageron 1968). They allowed
the relationships with Malik Sy, who settled on the rail line in Tivaouane
in 1902, and with Bamba, who served his second and third exiles in near-
by Mauritania and Jolof, respectively (1903–1912), to develop over time.
They saw the wisdom of not including the marabouts in the colonial hier-
archy, just as the marabouts sought to retain their autonomy in relation to
the regime. French administrators strengthened the apparatus of surveil-
lance with census data, control of the pilgrimage, appointments, and other
measures. But after 1902, after campaigns of centralization by Governor
General Roume and “pacification” by Commissioner Coppolani, the ad-
ministration consolidated a policy of simultaneous accommodation and
surveillance, a policy that would remain in place in the Senegalo-Mauri-
tanian zone throughout the colonial era (Robinson 1999).

Developing into a Muslim Power: Morocco and the Later

Mauritanian Campaigns

When the French resumed the conquest of Mauritania in 1908–1909, they

concentrated on the Adrar, the commercial hub of the far western Sahara.
The Adrar region revealed more tangible Moroccan influence, and its occu-
pation by an “infidel” power was bound to implicate the Sharifian king-
dom. Morocco represented a great challenge (Munson 1992). It was ma-
khzen, “government,” compared to varieties of siba in the Atlas moun-
tains and Mauritania. Its sultans were saintly as well as powerful—descen-
dants of the Prophet, with their own place of pilgrimage in Mulay Idriss.
They were not to be trumped by Ottoman forces nor the infidels of the
West. The European nations which had agents in Morocco recognized that
heritage. If they were contemplating conquest they would have to use fic-
tions and formulas of indirect rule to protect it. If they did conquer the
“Sharifian kingdom” and provided legitimation for it, they might enhance

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their status as a Muslim power.12
The prestige of Morocco did not prevent it from falling victim to
European influence (Burke 1976). The army suffered defeats at the hands of
the French and Spanish in the northeast, lost territory, and agreed to re-
parations. The court, in an effort to modernize its army, transport infra-

119
structure, and economy, sought European advisors. It borrowed money and
used customs revenues to pay the debt. Mulay Hassan I (1873–1894), re-
membered as the last “great” sultan of pre-colonial times, sought to mod-

DAVID ROBINSON
ernize without losing control. He also made some effort to revive Moroc-
can claims to hegemony in the Sahara. Hassan’s efforts at best slowed the
pace of European encroachment. His vizir, Ba Ahmed, succeeded him as
the de facto ruler until his own death in 1900, whereupon two of Hassan’s
sons, Abdul Aziz and Hafidh, sought unsuccessfully to maintain the ma-
khzen’s prestige and independence. They were young and inexperienced.
Moroccan and European advisors pulled them in many directions, and the
inhabitants of the country were alarmed by a declining economy and the
increasing presence of European agents. The French penetrated progres-
sively into Morocco and finally declared a protectorate in 1912, over the
signature of Hafidh and then Yusuf, yet another son of Hassan. The delay
in establishing the protectorate was more the result of European competi-
tion for control of Morocco and the need to find excuses for conquest than
of the strength of the Moroccan government or the unity of its people
(Rivet 1988).
Morocco, despite its weakness, loomed large in the minds of French-
men anxious to enlarge and consolidate their holdings in West Africa. At
times they brandished the image of the Moroccan menace in order to en-
courage the metropole to provide the men and matériel necessary for the
task of conquering Mauritania. At other times they were motivated by the
“fear of Islam,” by the possibility that someone would marshal modern
firearms, the historical hostility to a European presence, and the still sub-
stantial prestige of the Moroccan court to produce a massive jihad in the
dangerous unknown of the Sahara desert. After the assassination of Cop-
polani, that fear became incarnated in the person of Ma El Ainin, an older
brother of Saad Buh (Martin 1976; McLaughlin 1997). Ma El Ainin (1838–
1910) left his native Hodh in the 1850s to make his way to Morocco and
then on to the pilgrimage. He impressed his Muslim contemporaries—
among them were members of the Moroccan court, where the desert cleric
enjoyed direct access for the rest of his life—with his learning, miracle
 working, and wise counsel. Among his confidantes were Hassan I, his sons,
and his vizir, for whom Ma El Ainin was not only a way of asserting Mo-
roccan influence in the Sahara, but also a spiritual and social resource in
the turbulent times of the late nineteenth century.
By 1870 Ma El Ainin had established his headquarters in Smara, in
the Saqiyat al-Hamra, an area which would become part of the Spanish
Sahara. Gifts from the Moroccan court and his own followers enabled him
to establish an elaborate zawiya for what some were calling a new branch
of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, the Aininiyya. Over the decades his influence,
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as well as his determination to resist European encroachment, grew. At

the turn of the century the French knew of his reputation for learning and
sanctity but relatively little about his views on European imperialism. It
was Coppolani’s assassination in 1905, the arrival of a Moroccan envoy in
the Adrar in 1906, and growing turbulence that turned the French defini-
120

tively against Ma El Ainin. They then demonized him as the incarnation

of resistance and fanaticism, who threatened the whole French mission in
northwestern Africa. To a significant degree Ma El Ainin conformed to
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

this image. He became increasingly determined to call the Muslims of

Mauritania and Morocco to wage the jihad of resistance, and he distin-
guished the threat of the French from the activities of the other European
powers in northwestern Africa. He criticized the sultans for their compro-
mises with the European powers and may even have considered becoming
sultan himself.
In the pause between Coppolani’s assassination and the Adrar cam-
paign, French officials linked the conquests of Mauritania and Morocco as
never before and made Ma El Ainin into the enemy of both. Their answer
to the propaganda of Ma El Ainin and the links with Morocco was twofold.
The first and irreplaceable response was force, in the form of Henri Gour-
aud’s conquest of the Adrar. A column went up through Trarza, and was
joined by a supporting unit marching up from the Soudan. They made short
work of the fragmented resistance.
The second response was the mobilization of French prestige in their
role as a Muslim power. This came in the person of Sidiyya Baba himself. If
the Moroccan sultan could host Ma El Ainin in his palace in Marrakech,
the French could host the learned, eloquent, and charismatic leader of the
Sidiyya coalition in its “palaces” in St. Louis and Dakar. Commissaire
Montané-Capdebosc put the case very effectively in a 1907 letter to Gover-
nor General Roume.

At his request I authorized Shaikh Sidiyya to come see me

in St. Louis. In giving this authorization to the most vener-
ated religious leader of Islam in French West Africa, whose
influence and prestige, which has been put entirely in our
cause, has counteracted effectively the efforts of opponents
of our Mauritanian penetration, I was working for two poli-
tical purposes. First, to annihilate as much as possible the
influence of Shaikh Ma El Ainin in Mauritania in giving
 him a serious rival across all of the country of the Moors.
Second, to accredit Shaikh Sidiyya to the Moorish groups
as the principal religious leader on whom we have based
our policy in Mauritania. If the Sultan of Morocco received
Shaikh Ma El Ainin with great esteem and gifts before all of
his subjects . . . we cannot, without making a grave mistake,
fail to take advantage of the opportunity to oppose the in-
fluence of Shaikh Sidiyya to that of the favorite of the Sul-

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tan. (Montané-Capdebosc 1907)

Baba did not hesitate at the comparison. In fact, Gouraud and Baba
jointly made the case for the campaign to the Minister of Colonies Milliès-
Lacroix at a meeting in Dakar in 1908. Baba argued persuasively, on the
basis of his own intelligence networks, that the people of the region were

121
disillusioned with Ma El Ainin and the Moroccan court. With a forceful
policy and proper direction they would support the new regime of colonial
Mauritania (Désire-Vuillemin 1962; Gouraud 1945). Gouraud took the key

DAVID ROBINSON
towns of the Adrar early in 1909, and Baba traveled to the region on two
occasions during the year to give his seal of approval.

The Results: Islam Noir and Islam Maure

The close and public bond between the French authorities and Sidiyya Baba
was unusual and enduring. It started after the first visit to St. Louis, be-
came intimate during the years of Coppolani, and lasted until the indepen-
dence of Mauritania in 1960. The relations with Saad Buh, Malik Sy, and
Amadu Bamba were marked by greater reserve on both sides. But the policy
of simultaneous accommodation and surveillance applied to all four rela-
tionships. The policy became full blown under the impetus of the con-
quest of Mauritania and Morocco. France could now portray itself, in inter-
nal relations with subjects and external relations with European rivals, as
a Muslim power in West Africa. Its North African experts could provide
guidance to the administration of the Federation.
Governor-General Roume gave institutional shape to the policy by
selecting Robert Arnaud as his Islamic specialist within the Political Bu-
reau in 1905 and commissioning his “Précis de la politique musulmane,” a
handbook for the administrator of “Muslim” West Africa (Harrison 1988).
Governor General Ponty brought in Paul Marty from Tunisia in 1912 and
created a separate Service of Muslim Affairs. The service had a vast reposi-
tory of files and fiches going back to the Direction of Political Affairs in St.
Louis as well as continuing information coming in from the field.13
Most of the elements of surveillance were already in place: the intel-
ligence reports, the forms on the various marabouts, the checks on the
Muslim courts, and the monitoring of the school systems. To this appara-
tus was added, especially during the tense conditions of World War I, a
control of pilgrims and monitoring of Arabic newspaper subscriptions. The
 final element was a series of declarations of loyalty made on the eve of the
war, in Arabic with French translation, by the “main marabouts” of French
West Africa. These were published in 1915 by the Revue du Monde Musul-
man, the journal founded and edited by Le Chatelier, to demonstrate loy-
alty to France over pan-Islamism and the Ottoman Empire.
The evidence of accommodation—encouragements to the marabouts
and their constituencies, correspondence, personal contacts—is spread
throughout the archival record and oral tradition. It was expressed in the
exchanges of visits, the French presence at important celebrations, and in
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a new confidence—expressed by marabouts and officials alike—about a

working relationship that left considerable autonomy to each side.
It was Marty, the “North African” in the tradition of Le Chatelier,
Coppolani, and Arnaud, who analyzed the vast information inherited
from the Direction of Political Affairs and the fiches de renseignement. He
122

was strongly influenced by Sidiyya Baba in his approach to the subject

(McLaughlin 1997). Based on the data, the tradition, and the influence,
Marty worked out the histories and constituencies of the Fadiliyya and
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

Saad Buh, the Sidiyya and Baba, the Tijaniyya of Umar and Malik Sy, and
the Murids of Bamba. His influence at the time, as the assistant of Gover-
nor General Ponty and his successors, was enormous; through his publica-
tions he had a profound impact on subsequent generations of practition-
ers and scholars in the Senegalo-Mauritanian zone.
Marty codified what was fast becoming operative practice in colonial
circles. This policy reflected the old religious and ethnic taxonomies of the
nineteenth century but included more rigidly defined categories (Harrison
1988; Monteil 1964). The main category, Islam noir, was epitomized by
the Murid innovations in Muslim practice but was also applied to Toko-
lor and other ethnic groups. It was employed in the sudan, or “black,”
societies of West Africa. At its “worst,” or in its least “Muslim” variants,
it faded into the “paganism” of societies to the south. A minor variant was
Islam maure, as incarnated in Sidiyya Baba, Saad Buh, and the other Sa-
haran interpreters, which was found among the bidan and corresponded
more or less to Islamic orthodoxy. 14
This compartmentalization reflected contemporary French racial
thinking. It provided a convenient set of stereotypes for the actions of colo-
nial administrators. It enabled the West African Federation to take its place
alongside the indirect rule established in Tunisia and Morocco as one of
the “success” stories of French imperialism. European administrators of
other nationalities would now know that France was a Muslim power in
West Africa with a coherent Islamic policy based on carefully collected
facts, systematic analysis, and solid publication.
It is ironic that a practice and policy, constructed with considerable
arrogance and under the direct control of an authoritarian administration,
would yield enduring relations of collaboration without compromising ei-
ther side in any significant way. The might of the administration, and its
increasing ability to control the flow of arms and slow the pace of raiding,
certainly opened the way to the new pattern. But alongside force was a
sensitivity to the need to accommodate Muslim societies. This made it
possible for distinguished local functionaries to adjudicate, translate, and
conduct missions for over sixty years, for St. Louis to develop a strong
Muslim identity, and for the French to establish themselves as an Islamic
power. The challenge of conquering Mauritania forced the development of
an intense collaboration with the marabout class of bidan society, and this
in turn transformed an established practice into a full-blown policy.
It is not surprising that the French would look to its North African

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experience and experts in the elaboration of this policy. Xavier Coppolani,
Robert Arnaud, and Paul Marty played key roles in that elaboration, under
a much stronger and more hierarchical administration. At the same time,
local interests ensured that the new policy was not a copy of a Maghribi
model but responded, in some measure, to West African traditions. This

123
partial accommodation of local realities was the key to its endurance.

DAVID ROBINSON
NOTES

1 This article is a revised version of a chapter which will appear in Paths of Accommodation:
Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880 to 1920. I
appreciate the comments of John Hanson and an anonymous reader on this version.
2 Faidherbe spent six years in Algeria during the 1840s; Xavier Coppolani, the architect of
the conquest of Mauritania, lived most of his life there before coming to the Soudan and
Mauritania.
3 The term Tokolor (“toucouleur” in French) was not used until the nineteenth century, and
then specifically as a way to distinguish the sedentary, state-building Muslims from the
rest of the Fulbe.
4 In Senegal in the Moniteur du Sénégal et Dépendances. In France, typically in the Revue
Coloniale and then its successor, the Revue Coloniale et Maritime, and in bulletins of the
geographical societies of France.
5 Tamsir is a Pulaar variant of tafsir, “exegesis,” but refers to the exegete (in Arabic mufassir).
6 Lat Dior was equally moved: “we are in mourning, to the point where we can no longer
distinguish night from day, or the elephant from the ant” (quoted in Monteil 1966:107).
7 Confirmation comes from Governor Henri de Lamothe, who along with Merlin, Director of
Political Affairs, saw the utility of sending Dudu on the pilgrimage and capitalizing on the
resulting prestige (de Lamothe 1895). In particular, de Lamothe wrote: “Despite being a
pilgrim to Mecca, where we sent him last year, or perhaps because he is a pilgrim, he is not
inclined to fanaticism. His devotion to the French cause is complete, absolute. . . . He in-
spires confidence among the Moors, makes them forget their assumption that we are try-
ing to spread our beliefs in place of theirs, and dissipates their fear of seeing ‘infidels’ come
into their land.”
8 All three of these movements were Tijaniyya, and all were of Tokolor or haal-pulaar origin.
But Ma Ba was a Wolof speaker who grew up in the Rip, south of Salum, while the
 Madiyanke were Tokolor on their father’s side and Wolof on their mother’s. Such nuances
were inconsequential, of course, in terms of the ethnic and religious stereotypes of the
French.
9 In the twentieth century, Le Chatelier played a significant role in the “Muslim” parts of the
French African empire, and he had a great deal to do with the Marty publications. After
travels in Morocco and other areas of Africa during the 1890s, he was appointed to a chair
of “Muslim sociology” at the Collège de France, founded the Scientific Mission of Morocco
and its publication, Archives Marocaines, and founded and became the first editor of the
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Revue du Monde Musulman in 1906 (Messal 1931:289–290; Burke 1976:98, 289–290). Virtu-
ally all of Marty’s volumes were published in the Revue.
10 Coppolani published his projects, almost as soon as he presented them to the ministries
and Interministerielle Commission in Paris, in his journal La Revue Franco-Musulmane et
Saharienne, nos. 5–8, October 1902 to January 1903. The purpose of the journal was ex-
pressed in the first number of the first volume, 5 May 1902: “to study the Muslim world
124

in its political and religious organization . . . and seek the means to make our Muslim sub-
jects evolve in the direction of progress . . . , and to demonstrate our deep interest in mak-
FRANCE AS A MUSLIM POWER IN WEST AFRICA

ing use of religious leaders who have been won over to our cause” (Coppolani 1902). The
patronage committee was filled by prominent exponents of French expansion, includ-
ing Eugene Etienne, Rene Basset, Louis-Gustave Binger, Joseph Chailley-Bert, André Chau-
temps, François Deloncle, Charles Dupuy, Gabriel Hanotaux, and Henri Poincare. The jour-
nal apparently discontinued publication at the end of 1903.
11 In his report to Governor General Roume on 1 July 1904, Coppolani had this to say about
Baba: “Shaikh Sidiyya, whose devotion to the French cause cannot be overestimated, and
who is considered by everyone to be the Imam of the country, launched a veritable cam-
paign in favor of the pacification of Saharan Mauritania by the French, the only power
able to achieve this goal, and developed his arguments from religious precepts and Mus-
lim law against the propaganda in favor of the jihad”(Coppolani 1904).
12 In the same sense that British prestige was enhanced by possession of India, and Queen
Victoria’s prestige by her title “Empress of India” in the late nineteenth century (Cannadine
1983).
13 At this time a special series of the G archives, 19G for “Affaires Musulmanes,” was created.
Most of the files begin with the date 1906. Information on most of the apparatus of sur-
veillance outlined in this paragraph can be found in the 19G files.
14 The distinction was emphasized by Coppolani. In 1901, before his campaigns, he
wrote: “We must never forget that the Moors have no common origin with the races of
Soudan and Senegal, that their customs and social organization are completely differ-
ent from those of the West African population now under our domination. It would be
an irreparable mistake to apply the same administrative system [to them]” (Coppolani
1901).

REFERENCES CITED

Ageron, Charles Robert. 1968. Les Algeriens Musulmans et la France (1871–1919). 2 vols. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.
Algeria. 1892–1899. Exploration et voyages, dossier 21:Indigènes faisant partie des mission 1892–
1899. Centre Archives d’Outre-Mer. GG ALG 4H. Aix-en-Provence, France.
Arnaud, Robert. 1902. Le Panislamisme et la France. Revue Franco-Musulmane et Saharienne 1(4):
30–38.
Ba, Oumar. 1976. La Pénétration Française au Cayor. Vol. 1 (1854–1861). Dakar, Senegal and Abbe-
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