THE ,POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WOLOF ADHERENCE TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOODS IN THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

Lucy Behrman

The major ethnic groups in Senegal had been exposed to Islam long before they joined the Muslim brotherhoods, or tariqas, in the nineteenth century. Indeed, the Tukulor had converted to Islam en masse by the end of the eighteenth century, while the Wolof had been in contact with Muslim Marabouts long before the first Europeans appeared in the fifteenth century. 1 Numerous Wolof converted during this early period, although the group as a whole did not accept the religion until the end of the nineteenth century.2 But the advent of the brotherhoods, which caused the mass conversion of the Wolof in that century, was more than a continuation of the long process of Islamization. The brotherhoods appeared as dynamic movements, symbolizing the social and political protest of the followers which they attracted. This essay seeks to answer three major questions about this attraction of the brotherhoods for the Wolof: first, what attributes of the brotherhoods made them particularly suit- able for stimulating and channeling political protest and reform movements? Second, what specific factors in the Senegalese situation during this period gave the brotherhoods their dynamic appeal? And finally, what was the political significance of the Wolof conversion at this time?

1. Louis Verribre. "La Population du Sen6gal (Aspects Quantitatifs)," (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Faculty of Law and Economics, Uni- versity of Dakar, 1965), 51.

2. See Martin Klein, "The Muslim Revolution in Nineteenth Century Sene - gambia, " and Lucy Behrman, "The Islamization of the Wolof by the End of the Nineteenth Century, " in African History Papers, ed. D. McCall, published for Boston University, Praeger, 1967 (not yet appeared). See also V. Monteil, "Lat-Dior, Damel du Kayor (1842-1886) et l'Islamisation des Wolofs," Archives de Sociologie des Religions, XV-XVI (1963), 77-104.

African Historical Studies, I, 1 (1968) 60

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The Brotherhoods as Political Organizations

The simplest answer to the first question appears to be that the brother- hoods were appropriate vehicles for reform, because they came from outside the Senegalese social and political system; although members of brotherhoods had proselytized in the West African area prior to the eighteenth century, in- tensive efforts at conversion in the Senegal area did not begin until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.3 However, a brief sketch of the de- velopment of the Muslim orders shows that this answer is not sufficient to ex- plain the attraction and force of the tariqas.

The communities which foreran the brotherhoods grew up in the early years of Islam and were based in Islamic mysticism, or Sufism. The members of the small Sufi communities in the early period lived an ordered life in which individual moral and physical discipline, as well as mystical theology and ritual, were emphasized.4 These orders had only limited appeal to the few men willing to give up their worldly possessions and live an ascetic life to achieve a state of union with God. Later, however, the organizational basis of these communi- ties changed, the stress on individual moral and physical discipline declined, and the Muslim orders took on the form which attracted followers throughout the Far and Near East and North Africa.5 By the end of the eleventh century the informal communities of ascetics were being converted into organized brother- hoods whose members, living together in regulated communities, adhered to a body of spiritual rites .6 The change in emphasis from individual self-discipline to mystical theology, which is of particular importance to this study, came in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries and is often associated with Ibn al-Arabi of Murcia (d. 1240 A.D.), whose esoteric mystical interpretation of Islam pointed the way for the development of the later brotherhoods in which the mass of brothers could satisfy their religious duties by devotion and obedience to a handful of mystically adept leaders. In addition the brotherhoods in the later period softened the strict rules of orthodox Islam, stressing the state of a man's heart rather than his actual behavior, and popularizing Muslim tradi- tions to make them understandable at the lowest level. Local practices and

3. J. Spencer Trimingham, A History of Islam in West Africa (Glasgow, 1962), 156-160.

4. Octave Depont and Xavier Coppolani, Les Confr6ries Religieuses Musul- manes (Alger, 1897), x.

5. See Louis Massignon, Essai sur les Origines du Lexique Technique de la

Mystique Musulmane (Paris, 1914-1922), 5, 285-286; John Alden Williams, Islam (New York, 1961), 149-150, 196-198; H. A. R. Gibb, Mohammed- anism, An Historical Survey (London, 1954), 143.

6. Louis Massignon, "Tarika, " Encyclopedia of Islam, M. Th. Houtsma et.al., eds., XLII (1929), 667-672.

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LUCY BEHRMAN

beliefs alien to Islam were tolerated as long as they did not contradict the desired union with Allah which all true brothers wished to achieve.7

Although these factors vulgarized and distorted Islamic teachings, they also made Islam appealing to simple men. The mass of members of the orders apparently often forgot the teachings of the Qu'ran and of Muhammad; ignorant of the major doctrintes of Islam, they concentrated on obedience to their leaders. This attitude was made possible largely because of the emphasis of later Sufism, which stressed the ability of the brotherhood leader to act as

intermediary between Allah and man. Whereas early Sufism had emphasized individual effort, it was later believed that most men could not achieve union with the Divine by themselves.8 Concurrent with the shift in emphasis pre- Islamic beliefs in magic were mingled with Islam. Belief grew in legends about the miracles performed by early mystics9 and the magical ability of current leaders who had received divine grace or baraka from Allah. The leaders were revered as saints, and their tombs became the centers of pilgrimages because of the miracles which might occur there. Montet, a French writer, reports that in Morocco in the nineteenth century such leaders were believed to have innumerable powers: they could, for example, lift large loads alone, repel bullets, or go for long periods without food and water; they could be ubiquitous, become invisible, or be instantly transported to far-off places; or they could walk on water or dry up an ocean; and they were capable of keeping away evil

spirits, healing the sick, and resurrecting the dead. Montet concludes from his observations in Morocco that Sufism had degenerated into anthropolatry: "Living or dead, the saints, however illiterate they may be . . . are adored."10

The leaders of the brotherhoods were called shaykhs, or in North and West Africa, Marabouts. Marabout is a French term coming from the Arabic word for fortified camp or monastery and is used for a Muslim holy man, whether or not he is connected with the brotherhoods. 1 According to the

7. Gibb, Mohammedanism, 115, 142; Wilfred Cantrell Smith, Islam in Modern

History (New York, 1957), 44-45. 8. Gibb, Mohammedanism, 143; Williams, Islam, 169; P. J. Andre, L'Islam

et les Races. Vol. II: Les Rameaux (Mouvements R6gionaux et Sectes) (Paris, 1922), 27.

9. A. J. Arberry, Sufism, An Account of the Mystics of Islam (London, 1950), 119.

10. Edouard Montet, Le Culte des Saints Musulmans dans l'Afrique du Nord et

plus specialement au Maroc (Geneva, 1909), 26-32. 11. Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Arabic, ed. J. Milton Cowen (Ithaca,

1961), 323. The word has come to mean generally a holy man but in some instances has been extended also to the tombs of Muslim saints and to any- thing of sacred character including animals, tress, and stones. There is even an exotic bird which the French call a "marabout." Montet, Le Culte, 16.

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nineteenth-century French authorities on Islam in North Africa, Octave Depont and Xavier Coppolani, the Marabouts prepared the way for the Berbers to receive the brotherhoods, which then undercut the power of the Marabouts, thereby forc- ing them to join the tariqas. 12 This explains why in West Africa today Mara- bouts are almost always affiliated with Muslim brotherhoods. In fact, the leaders of the order come from these Marabouts.

A Marabout possessed baraka, which he could transmit to his sons or perhaps to selected followers .13 At the outset a Marabout, like any early Sufi, had to live a virtuous life, be versed in the Qu'ranic sciences, and achieve grace at least partially through his own efforts. However, by the time the brother- hoods reached West Africa, the leadership of the orders had become the right of certain families, whose members needed no special virtues to benefit from their family's position.14 Certainly there were many Marabouts who were

highly trained and educated men and lived exemplary lives, but popular opinion identified as a Marabout any man who was either descended from a Marabout, had Qu'ranic education, or was reputed to possess magical powers, whether or not he lived a virtuous life, resided with other members of his order, or had

many followers.

The Marabouts' power and authority, however, depended on their per- sonal dynamism as well as on their family connections and their position in the hierarchy of leaders of the brotherhood. The most powerful Marabouts could rely on the unquestioning obedience of thousands of followers whose fealty was repaid by the Marabout's prayers for them. It was characteristic of a tariqa for the members blindly to obe