INTRODUCTION

My objective in this chapter is to discuss some of the culture and history of the broader region of West Africa where the town and religious centre Nioro du Sahel is located. Although my larger objective in this study is to trace the transformations in ideas about Islam and authority and conventions of religious practice from the pre-colonial period, through French colonial rule, and in the postcolonial period, I begin in this chapter with an overview of such ideas and conventions in the period before the colonial period. I intend this discussion to serve as the backdrop for understanding the onset of colonial rule and its implications (discussed in the following three chapters), particularly shifts in power and authority and transformations in religious practice in Nioro during the colonial and postcolonial periods (see Part II).

I begin by considering the history of Islam in the region in general terms before discussing the variable relationship between Islam and political rule prior to the French conquest. As I will argue, one must look through the lens of regionally salient notions of hierarchy and charisma in order to understand the configurations of power, authority and religious practice here. Such a perspective will be useful for trying to understand the rise of important charismatic figures such as Shaykh Hamallah, shifts in the organisation of religious practice, including the spread of Islam and the standardisation of religious practice, as well as the development of the prayer economy in the postcolonial period.

ISLAM IN HISTORY

In order to understand Nioro du Sahel as a social landscape in the twentieth century, it is crucial to look to the past, particularly the history of Islam, its relationship to political rule, and the organisation of religious practice in the broader region. Although Islam has been present in West Africa for more than a millennium, it was only in the twentieth century that the population of what is present-day Mali became overwhelmingly Muslim. In pre-colonial Muslim West Africa, religious practices generally corresponded with membership of hereditary social and economic categories. That is, whether people called themselves Muslims, whether they practised Islam, and the way in which they did so usually related to their hereditary social status and economic activities as merchants, clerics, warriors or slaves.