Patterns and Peculiarities of Islamic Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa

Processes of reform do not come out of the blue, but look back on a long history of traditions of reform. Equally, processes of reform are not uniform, but are characterised by their fragmented nature and internal ambiguities, expressed in competing centres and traditions of learning. Muslim reform movements thus represent a broad spectrum of groups that have attempted to translate specific interpretations of a ‘great tradition’ (Redfield 1956: 41) into multiple local contexts. This process implies a constant process of translation, negotiation, contestation and re-interpretation of the canon in different geographic, social, political and religious contexts. Reform movements thus develop distinct positions with respect to their environment and with respect to other contemporary reform movements, as well as earlier traditions of reform. They have synchronic and diachronic dimensions that require careful examination: each tradition of reform has a distinctive context, distinctive markers of reform and distinctive positions with respect to other traditions of reform.

Salafi-oriented movements of reform in Africa are equally not a recent phenomenon, as we have seen in the preceding chapters. Rather, they can look back on several generations of reformist endeavours that were based on even older Sufi-oriented traditions of reform. The countries discussed here have developed two chains of reform, namely, Sufi- and Salafi-oriented movements of reform, each of which over time came to adopt features of the respective other tradition. It is important to stress that Sufi-oriented movements of reform preceded Salafi-oriented movements of reform in each of the countries discussed here: in Senegal, Mali and northern Nigeria, we have Sufi movements of reform since the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth, in Sudan since the early nineteenth century, in Ethiopia, Somalia and East Africa since the mid-nineteenth century and in Chad since the late nineteenth century. These Sufi-oriented movements of reform were not uniform and have not remained frozen in a particular mode of Sufi reform, but have developed their own dynamics in the course of several generations of reform.