Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jennifer Woodhull
October 25, 2013
In 2011, Rdiger Seesemann published The Divine Flood: Ibrahim Niasse and the
Roots of a Twentieth-Century Sufi Revival. Seesemanns quest in presenting this work
was largely to repudiate the widespread perception (Rosander 1997; Robinson 2004;
Seesemann 2006) that Sufism in West Africa is a typical expression of African
Islam (Seesemann 2011, 230)that is, a debased melange of Islamic rituals and
indigenous African customs. Seesemann (11) cautions that [t]he risk of drawing a
distorted picture of Islam, Sufism, and Muslims increases considerably in the African
context (11).
The subject of The Divine Flood, Ibrahim Niasse (19001975), at the age of just
twenty-nine declared himself the spiritual heir of Shaykh Ahmad Tijani, founder of
the Sufi Tijaniyya tariqa (way or path; typically, a Sufi order).i The community
Niasse established in Kaolack, Senegal has since expanded to include millions of
followers worldwide (Seesemann 2011, 4). Seesemann (230) argues that his case
study of Niasses fayda, or divine flood, underscores the need to change the script
of African Islam.
At the time The Divine Flood came to light, a span of twenty-seven years had ensued
since the publication of West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual
Search of Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal, by Louis Brenner. Cerno Bokar (c.18831940)
did not gain the prominence enjoyed by Ibrahim Niasse; his relatively small following
notwithstanding, Brenner (1984, 2) argues that Bokars humble yet persistent sense
of search illuminates a little-appreciated active spiritual discipline largely ignored
by scholars of West African Islam. Brenner (45) reports his own intuitive rejection
of characterisations of West African Sufism as devoid of any real or profound
spiritual dimension. This intuition, Brenner relates, was confirmed by his discovery
of a real Sufi in West Africa in the person of Cerno Bokar (ibid.).
Brenners (1984, 12) explicit aim in writing his book is to study the interaction
between Cerno Bokars personal spiritual quest and his social and religious
environment. His study goes much further, however. The respectful manner in which
Brenner presents his subjects spiritual sincerity and virtual martyrdom makes it
apparent that this authors agenda is as heartfelt as it is scholarly: like Seesemann,
Brenner perceives the West African Sufi tradition as a genuine religious movement
and clearly contests the same pejorative African Islam depiction decried by his
fellow author.
It is worthy of note that in his brief introduction to the 2005 edition of West African
Sufi, Brenner (13) observes that nothing of substance concerning the central themes
explored in this book had changed in the intervening years. That said, the author
submits that in exemplifying Muslim humility and tolerance, the story of Cerno Bokar
has acquired a new relevance against the backdrop of twenty-first century religious
conflict (ibid.).
Thus, both Seesemann and Brenner strive to expose the spiritual inspiration at the
heart of West African Sufism; and both do so with the express purpose of dispelling
the various misconstructions, both popular and scholarly, that on their view obscure
the purity and potency of Islamic practice in this region of the Muslim world. The
angles from which they approach their subject matter differ, however. In this, I submit
that their narratives have been shaped, at least in part, by the very personalities whose
lives and deeds they chronicle. Cerno Bokar was, as Brenner (1984, 98) describes
him, a reluctant teacher, devoted to his mother (70), who was not inclined to trumpet
his own spiritual attainment (77). Where the unapologetically self-promoting Ibrahim
Niasse actively sought leadership within the Tijaniyya (Seesemann 2011, 39), Bokar
was thrust into both religious and political prominence by virtue of his family
connections (Brenner 1984, 69) and spiritual conviction (1067).
Niasse, on the other hand, came from humble caste origins (Seesemann & Soares
2009, 101). His inferior social status was much documented in French colonial
reports, ostensibly to discredit the young shaykh as a parvenu in religious matters
(ibid.). But his astounding self-confidence (Seesemann 2011, 39) allowed Niasse to
establish himself as the supreme leader of the Tijaniyya in West Africaand even to
claim to have been possessed by al-Tijani himself (60). Such was his power to
convince others of his spiritual rank that by the time Niasse died his following
embraced millions throughout sub-Saharan Africa (4).
The lives of both subjects, as scions of their respective clans, were significantly
influenced by their familial relationships. In Cerno Bokars case, however, his family
connections seemed particularly powerful in determining the course of his life.
Seesemann depicts Ibrahim Niasse as less influenced by familial ties than by
responses and reactions to him within the larger Tijani collective.
In this paper, I will seek to expand on these distinctions. My argument is that in
developing both style and content, Brenner and Seesemann have taken their respective
leads from their subjects; and that the resulting renditions complement each other to
produce a more rich and nuanced overview of Sufi history in early twentieth-century
West Africa than either accomplishes alone.
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context in which Ibrahim Niasse came of age. Here, Seesemann systematically
dismantles the approach of those acclaimed Sufism specialists (8), Orientalist
scholars and anthropologists (9), and reform-oriented Muslims, often referred to as
Salafiyya (10) who, he charges, tend to concur in the identification of Sufism in its
popular expression as superstitious, debased, backward, and incompatible with
modern life (ibid.).
Seesemann (2011, 11) goes on to apply his argument specifically to supposed
African Islam, which he conflates with the French notion of Islam noir (ibid.) and
maraboutic Islam (12). Again, his style is distinctly polemical as he takes down a
string of commentators starting with colonialist scholar-administrators (ibid.) and
moving through the decades of the twentieth century to include anglophone authors
all the way into the 1990s (1415). This list is by no means complete, Seesemann
cautions, leaving us in little doubt regarding either the breadth of his research or,
again, his position vis--vis West African Sufism.
His view, crystallised in Seesemanns (2011, 1213) scorn for the concept of
maraboutism, vigorously rejects the characterisation of African Sufis as ignorant
and credulous masses prone to superstition and exploitation at the hands of fraudulent,
self-interested leaders as an utter misrepresentation of what Islam and Sufism mean
to many West African Muslims.ii
These themesimpressive scholarship and passionate polemicscontinue through
Seesemanns introduction, and indeed the entire book. It is to the credit of his
scholarship that his passion invigorates, rather than taints, his argument.
Brenner (1984, 114), by contrast, offers a somewhat differently pitched Personal
Introduction to his West African Sufi. Like Seesemann, the author guides us through
the structure of the narrative to come; and like Seesemann, he explains his
methodology. But here we find very little in the way of a literature review, much less
analysis of other scholars covering similar ground. Those authors Brenner mentions
Lansin Kaba (7), Thodor Monod and Alphonse Gouilly (8) among themare those
who have written specifically about Cerno Bokar, rather than about the larger
questions of Sufism in Africa.
This should not be perceived as a deficit, however. Rather, it demonstrates where
Brenners interests lie. For him, while Bokar was certainly affected by the same
dynamics Seesemann details, the heart of his story lies elsewhere. Brenners (1984,
13) specific agenda is to tell the world that the history and dynamics of the African
religious and intellectual heritage are under threat. And like Seesemann, Brenner is
aghast. Cerno Bokars fate represents more than the tragedy of one man, he tells us;
writ large, it is a tragedy for the whole of Africa where the forces of recent and
contemporary change tend to run roughshod over the more vulnerable elements of the
continents ancient culture (ibid.).
Thus, Brenner and Seesemann are basically united in their desire to dispel erroneous
and unflattering views of West African Sufism. That they approach this project from
different angles and emphasise different themes should be understood, not as a
weakness in either account, but as an indication of the rich possibilities for further
investigation. Brenner (1984, 13), in fact, frames his study as encouragement for
other students to undertake similar studies which will aid in our general
appreciation of the history and dynamics of the African religious and intellectual
heritage.
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Brenners Personal Introduction gives us a thorough overview of his process in
conceiving and writing West African Sufi, as well as a careful evaluation of his
sources. In contrast to The Divine Flood, however, these are rendered in the first
person. This invites us into the book in a very distinct register. While both authors are
eminently readable and academically rigorous, Brenner comes across as more
accessible than formidable, while Seesemann manifests as more scholarly than
congenial.
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that these expectations weighed heavily on the young Bokar. Cerno was not an
ambitious man Brenner (139) reports; had he not been the great-nephew of al-Hajj
Umar, he would undoubtedly have been even less well known than he was.
In Brenners narrative, the engagement of Cernos great-uncle serves to underline the
familys interaction with the colonial invaders. Although Umar was first and
foremost a scholar of great intelligence and spiritual charisma (Wright 2005, 167),
his military engagement with the colonialist invaders must have greatly enhanced his
legend. Within the triangular configuration of Cerno, his family and the colonial
discourse, Umars defeat at the hands of the French (Brenner 1984, 23) is arguably
less important than the fact that he engaged them militarily at all. For it is his fierce
proselytising mission, rather than his military success or failure, that made of Umar
the legend under whose shadow Cerno Bokar was born.
Umar, as it turns out, also figured prominently in the events leading to Bokars sad
end. After a lengthy search for religious guidance regarding his subsequent
submission to Shaykh Hamallah of Nioro, Bokar received a vision in his sleep. In this
vision his great-uncle was leading a horse carrying the veiled figure of the shaykh. As
Brenner (1984, 130) interprets the dream, Hamallahs role [as a religious authority]
is legitimized through the agency of al-Hajj Umar himself, who is leading the
shaykhs horse no less.
Seesemann also identifies al-Hajj Umar as the famous jihad leader; but for him,
Umars significance lay more in his role as a link in Ibrahim Niasses silsila, or chain
of initiation (Seesemann 2011, 39). Seesemann further notes Umars part in
facilitating a later connection to Moroccan authorities (ibid.), another important
Tijani stronghold. His later travels in Morocco, Seesemann (173) proposes,
demonstrate how he gradually bolstered his claim to leadership of the Tijaniyya
(173). Thus, Umars role in the story of the fayda is primarily that of an influential
supporter in Niasses engagement with the deniers (54) who opposed his authority
to lead the tariqa.
Seesemanns further mentions of al-Hajj Umar follow a similar pattern. Umars
religious authority is established in identifying him as the author of Rimah hizb al-
Rahim, which Seesemann (2011, 45) calls one of the most important pieces of Tijani
literature. It is through this work that Umar is invoked as a source of validation for
Niasses interpretation of al-Tijanis prediction of the fayda (46). Umar appears again
as himself a putative candidate for the title of sahib al-fayda (1334), or bringer of
the flood (49), thereby validating the notion that such a Tijani leader was destined to
arise and preparing the ground for Niasses claim to that role; and as an example,
along with the Prophet himself, of the tradition of hijra (281n50)again, lending
spiritual gravitas to Niasses own hijra to his compound in Kosi (601).
Thus, the lens Seesemann holds to this pivotal figure is decidedly calculated to
magnify his significance in the internal Tijani dynamics that shaped Ibrahim Niasses
career as a West African Sufi leader.
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fortunes as both murshids (spiritual guides) and leaders of their respective Tijani
followings.
Brenner (2000, 152) has elsewhere detailed the nineteenth-century notions of social
evolution and French convictions about the superiority of their own culture, attendant
racialist attitudes, and deep-seated, centuries-old animosities toward Islam that
informed the regional colonialist discourse. Thus, although Brenner (1984, 2) gently
chides his fellow academics for emphasising the socio-political influences on West
African Sufism at the expense of what he considers its genuine spiritual inspiration,
he devotes significant efforts to detailing the colonialist influence on Bokars
religious activities.
By the time Bokar and Niasse came of age, French rule had already been in force for
at least half a century (Brenner 1984, 17). Colonialist authority was firmly ensconced
in both French Soudan and Senegal, where citizens of those countries were considered
subjects of France (Wooten 2010). Nonetheless, the colonialists were abidingly
insecure regarding their hold on their vassals (Brenner 1984, 33). They had faced
violent opposition to their conquest in the form of al-Hajj Umars jihad in 1858 (19);
now, in the early decades of the twentieth century, French authorities in West Africa
resorted to various covert strategies designed to uncover and eliminate potential
threats to their hegemony (35).
Brenner goes to some lengths to describe the political environment into which Cerno
Bokar was born. For although Bokar was categorically and determinedly apolitical
(Brenner 1984, 43), his destiny was moulded in a political context and his demise was
wrought by means of distinctly political manoeuvres. It was precisely the clash
between the demands of the ruling French colonialists in French Soudan and Cerno
Bokars religious inclination that fomented [t]he tragic crisis which marked the final
years of [his] life (126). Granted, Bokars family censured his submission to the
exiled Shaykh Hamallah (132), and he was ultimately betrayed by his own purported
followers (135); but all of these pressures were, if not originating with French
colonialist paranoia, then definitely manipulated by the authorities to intensify Cerno
Bokars ostracisation from both family and tariqa.
As Seesemann (2011, 11) has noted, French Islamic policy routinely justified its
mission civilisatrice (civilising mission) in West Africa by denigrating the culture
of the other.iv Bokars submission to a spiritual guide whom the French considered
defiant designated him as not only other, but manifestly threatening (Brenner 1984,
38). Brenner (63) is careful to dispel any notion of Bokar as insensible to or insulated
from these political pressures. Rather, Cernos response to the contemporary malaise
was religious rather than political, for in his view, personal salvation should be
humanitys highest priority. His strategy for dealing with the French conquest of his
country, therefore, was to ignore it (17). He believed that human problems were
fundamentally spiritual in nature, as opposed to political (63).
At least one of Ibrahim Niasses disciples took a similar line. In his poem Jug of the
fayda, Balarabe Jega heralded his teachers fayda as offering solutions for every
problem (Seesemann 2011, 645). Niasse himself, however, was somewhat more
pragmatic in his approach to political realities. According to Seesemann (24), the self-
proclaimed sahib al-fayda brought to his mission a sophisticated grasp of the social
and political shifts impacting on West African Muslims. In building his movement,
Seesemann (24) submits, Niasse applied that understanding perhaps more successfully
than any other contemporary religious leader. Not only did he, for the most part, show
no special concern regarding colonialist rule; Seesemann (234) goes so far as to
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credit colonialist modernity in Senegal for providing many of the opportunities Niasse
so astutely exploited in growing his religious movement.
Brenner frames the colonial context of Bokars religious activities as the primary
external influence on the course of his life. The fact that he devotes an entire chapterv
to the conflict between the Tijaniyya and French policy toward Muslims reflects, not
any Eurocentric bias, but rather Brenners thorough scholarship in teasing out the
political dynamics that so profoundlyand fatallyshaped his subjects destiny.
Here, as elsewhere, the authors commitment to foregrounding the ephemeral and
vulnerable nature of mans intellectual and cultural heritage (Brenner 1984, 12) is
evident throughout his narrative.
Seesemann is more attuned to the internal Muslimand specifically, Tijaniyya
politics shaping Niasses endeavours. Certainly, Tijani politics also play a part in West
African Sufi; but it is almost as though Seesemann feels more at home within the
extended family of the tariqa than in the world of colonialist intrigue. That said, his
emphasis is probably also reflective of the relatively minor role that colonialist
interference plays in the Niasse narrative. For it seems that as the self-proclaimed
khalifa (successor) of al-Tijani himself, Niasse faced greater threats to his religious
aspirations from the deniers (54) in his own tariqa than from the French colonial
authorities.vi
Seesemanns primary interest lies in twentieth-century Sufism per se. His study of
Ibrahim Niasse has its place in a larger academic project that includes a significant
body of research on Sufism in Africa (Seesemann 2012).vii Accordingly, although the
map included in the front matter of The Divine Flood clearly identifies Senegal as a
French colony (at least, in the late 1940s), Seesemann invokes both French and
British colonialism as the settings for Niasses activities. This can be explained by the
expansion of Niasses Jamaat al-fayda, or Community of the Divine Flood
(Seesemann 2011, 6) into the British-controlled territories of Nigeria and Gambia.
During World War II, in fact, the mutual French and British mistrust centred on the
notorious Vichy government was projected on Niasse, obstructing his plans to travel
between the two powers respective colonies (188).
Most of our information about French Islamic policy during the early decades of the
twentieth century, then, comes from Brenner. Seesemann largely invokes the colonial
presence as a background to the dynamics at work within the Tijaniyya tariqa. In
explaining Niasses relatively smooth relationship with his colonialist overlords, for
example, Seesemann (2011, 23) emphasises the three previous Tijani leaders who
paved the way. Ibrahims own father, Abdallah Niasse, along with Malik b. Uthman
Sy viii and Ahmbdu Bamba, were instrumental in developing paths of
accommodationix to colonial rule (ibid).
TARBIYA
Central to the characters and destinies of both Niasse and Bokar was their religious
practice. It was each mans unique tarbiya that drew to him the defining
circumstances of his life.
Seesemann (2011, 712) defines tarbiya as spiritual training, dispensed by a
qualified spiritual master, based on a set of rules, meant to guide the aspirant
during the journey on the Sufi path, with the aim of purifying ones self and
achieving mystical union with and experiential knowledge of God.
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Both authors give considerable attention to their subjects respective tarbiyas.
Seesemann describes Niasses bold defence of his spiritual method in his Kashif al-
ilbas, the work he completed within a year of declaring himself the sahib al-fayda (4).
In rejecting conventional spiritual training (78), Niasse clearly anticipated that his
claims for his distinctive tarbiya would meet resistance from his fellow Tijanis. Most
of Seesemanns discussion of Niasses tarbiya speculates on its content and treats the
polemics it provoked within the Tijaniyya.
Brenner (1984, 73) shows more interest in how Bokar himself developed [h]is
personal version of an Islamic catechism, the mad-din (Arabic for What is
religion?). I submit that here, again, we witness the authors close attunement to his
subjects personal concerns; for Bokar, [w]hat was of primary importance was
how one lived ones life so as to prepare for religious salvation (17).
Like Niasse, Bokar faced strong opposition to his spiritual orientation. His mad-din
failed to trigger the kind of debate that Niasses tarbiya inspired; but his personal
spiritual choices became the focal point of a hornets nest of French-Tijaniyya
intrigue, which ultimately led to his demise (Brenner 1984, 138). At the heart of the
confrontation was Bokars submission to a shaykh who had declined to kowtow to the
colonial authorities, combined with his stalwart refusal to abandon the disputed
eleven beads practice associated with his shaykh. His quiet defiance (133) set the
stage for a deadly mix of colonialist paranoia and Tijani political machinations.
Brenner (12638) paints Bokar as a martyr to his spiritual convictions, defiant toward
authority only in his insistence on his right to practise his religion as he saw fit.
CONCLUSION
Both West African Sufi and The Divine Flood can be placed in what Seesemann
(2010, 607) glosses as a third wave of writings about Sufism in West Africa. Unlike
the first (largely colonialist) and second (essentially Orientalist) waves, authors in this
category try to understand Sufism not only as a political force, but also as a religious
phenomenon; and they do not simply view Sufism in West Africa as some kind of
local Islam, but rather highlight its past and present connections with Sufis and
Muslims elsewhere in the world (ibid.).
Neither Brenner nor Seesemann argues that Islam has not been changed by its
encounter with African adherents, for to do so would be to accept an erroneous
construction: namely, that the only legitimate form of Islam is an ostensive pure
(i.e., Arabic) form, to which African sensibilities either are or are not constitutionally
corrosive. Rather, both authors (Seesemann in particular) trace the evolution of a
genuinely Islamic disposition as it is shaped in its engagement by African
practitioners. Thus, on my reading of both books, Islam and African culture are
continuously engaged in a mutually transformative process that can more accurately
be said to enrich both than to impoverish either.
That said, a thoroughgoing exploration of this process requires careful and
sympathetic examination of the African context for the evolution of Islam. This both
Brenner and Seesemann accomplish handsomely, albeit from somewhat different
perspectives.
Seesemanns treatment of Ibrahim Niasse is, apart from occasional protests against
characterisations he perceives as biased, essentially impersonal. Other than his
reference to Ibrahim Niasses death in a hospital in London in 1975, Seesemann
(2011, 218) gives us little information about his subjects life after 1951. At that
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point, he tells us, Niasse had accomplished his mission, and the prophecy was
fulfilled (216). Unlike Bokars death, Niasses was not emblematic of a larger
dynamic central to his life and mission.
That said, Seesemanns omission of the more personal details of Niasses life is also a
stylistic choice, arguably appropriate to his subject. For while Brenner (1984, 68)
gives us no information about Bokars married life except to tell us, in the context of
his community interactions, that he married the sister of a close friend of lower caste,
the authors evocative illustrations of Cerno Bokars characteristic behaviour (12)
make his subject a decidedly more empathetic character than is Seesemanns Niasse.
It is tempting to speculate how these two biographies might have fared had the
authors swapped subjects: Brenner writing on Niasse and Seesemann on Bokar. Is it
simply lack of data that makes it so difficult to imagine an intimate portrait of Ibrahim
Niasse, the personor, conversely, Cerno Bokar described from a scholarly distance?
Would Seesemann have appended, as did Brenner (1984, 14286), Bokars moving
Spiritual Discourses? Would Brenner, given Niasse as subject, have included as
thorough a critique of the literature on African Sufism as did Seesemann?
We will likely never know the answers to these questions. But meanwhile the two
books we have in hand provide a satisfying contrast in style and emphasiswhich, as
I have suggested, prove complementary. After reading both this reader, at any rate, is
left with a richly layered picture of West African Sufism during a seminal period in its
development. Despite Cerno Bokars tragic end, even the ill-informed and often
nefarious machinations of the French colonialists can be seen to have helped shape
the specifically West African expression of Sufism, and thustheir own best efforts
to the contrary notwithstandingof Islams continuing evolution as a global
phenomenon.
It is arguably this latter dynamic that both authors hoped, in his own way, to amplify.
Perhaps it is their success in attaining their shared objective that has led scholar
Andrea Brigaglia to call The Divine Flood and West African Sufi the most influential
biographical works on West African Sufis that have been written so far.x
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REFERENCES
Brenner, Louis. 1984. West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search
of Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal. London: C. Hurst & Company.
. 2000. Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power and Schooling in a West African
Muslim Society. London: Hurst & Company.
Robinson, David. 2004. The Islamization of Africa. In Muslim Societies in African History,
2741. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosander, Eva Evers. 1997. The Islamization of Tradition and Modernity.
Introduction to African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and
Islamists, edited by E.E. Rosander and D. Westerlund, 127. Athens, OH: Ohio
University Press.
Seesemann, Rdiger. 2006. African Islam or Islam in Africa? Evidence from
Kenya. In The Global Worlds of the Swahili: Interfaces of Islam, Identity and
Space in 19th and 20th-Century East Africa, edited by Roman Loimeier & Rdiger
Seesemann, 229-250. Berlin: LIT.
. 2010. Sufism in West Africa. Religion Compass 4(10): 606614.
. 2011. The Divine Flood: Ibrahim Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth-Century
Sufi Revival. New York: Oxford University Press.
. 2012. Curriculum vitae. Accessed October 23, 2013.
http://www.religion.northwestern.edu/documents/faculty/seesemann-cv.pdf.
and Benjamin F. Soares. 2009. Being as Good Muslims as Frenchmen: On
Islam and Colonial Modernity in West Africa. Journal of Religion in Africa 39:
91120.
Wooten, Stephen. 2010. The French in West Africa: Early Contact to
Independence. University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center. Accessed
October 18. 2013. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/French_16178.html.
Wright, Zachary Valentine. 2005. On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Tijani
and the Tariqa Muhammadiyya. Atlanta: African American Islamic Institute.
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NOTES
i Except where otherwise noted, all translations are drawn from the Glossary-Index of Arabic,
Fulfulde and Other African Terms in Brenners West African Sufi, pp.208210. (See
bibliography.)
ii Brenner offers a somewhat more balanced evaluation of maraboutisme in his book Controlling
Knowledge (see bibliography), suggesting that the subject is vast and complex, and deserves a
special study in its own right. Nonetheless, Brenner concedes that the word marabout has
always carried ambivalent, often pejorative, connotations (1501).
iii This spelling reflects Brenners usage; Seesemann spells the family name Tall. My choice of
the former is based merely on the fact that it is in the context of Brenners narrative that I find my
first occasion to invoke the name.
iv Brenner offers an extensive and sensitive treatment of this topic in a section of Controlling
Knowledge called The French, the Africans and the Muslims: a discourse about the Other (pp.
152165).
v Chapter 2: French Domination and the Challenge to Islam, pp.3262.
vi Interestingly, given Seesemanns emphasis on internal Tijani politics, French documents
extensively invoked a Mauritanian proverb to besmirch Niasses caste origins, but attributed its
use in this context to Mauritian opponents of the Jama at al-fayda (Seesemann 2011, 157). The
French strategy of outsourcing their oppressive tactics to Tijanis is also evident in West African
Sufi, as in the calculated annihilation of Cerno Bokar described above.
vii In providing information about their teaching faculty, Brenners employerthe University of
Londonis sadly not as diligent as is Seesemanns Northwestern University. I was unable to find
a comprehensive listing of Brenners publications.
viii Malik Syone of the most prominent religious leader[s] in Senegal of the early twentieth
century (Seesemann 2011, 33)also surfaces in West African Sufi (Brenner 1984, 54).
Consistent with my observations regarding the two authors respective emphases, here Sy is
featured in his intermediary role between French authorities and Bokars shaykh, Hamallah b.
Muhammad al-Tishiti.
ix Quoting David Robinson, Paths of accommodation: Muslim societies and French colonial
authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 18801920 (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and
James Currey, 2000).
x Email message to author, October 13, 2013.
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