¹ Abu-Rabi', Ibrahim, The Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 53–54Google Scholar.

² See especially, Rosander, Eva Evers, “Islamization of ‘Tradition’ and ‘Modernity,’” in Rosander, Eva Evers and Westerlund, David, eds., African Islam and Islam in Africa, Encounters between Sufis and Islamists (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Loimeier, Roman, Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Kane, Ousmane, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria: A Study of the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003)Google Scholar; Alidou, Ousseina, Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Umar, Muhammad Sani, Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005)Google Scholar; and Miran, Marie, Islam, histoire et modernité en Cote d'Ivoire (Paris: Karthala, 2006)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, there is no reliable data on the actual number of Wahhabi adherents in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Pobee's, JohnReligion and Politics in Ghana (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1993)Google Scholar gives estimates for Ghana during the 1970s, but I find it too flawed for my purposes. It is generally accepted that by the mid-1980s at least half of the urban Muslim population in both countries self-identified as “Wahhabi” or Ahl-as-Sunna. Visible evidence of their strength and influence even today is found in the number of mosques and schools built and operated by members of the organizations discussed below, and the many Ghanaian and Burkinabé students trained in universities across the Muslim world who claim at least doctrinal affiliation with Wahhabism.

³ Abu-Rabi', Intellectual Origins, 56.

⁴ Sivan, Emmanuel, Radical Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 22Google Scholar. Said Qutb was one of the most profound Islamist theorists.

⁵ Ghanaian and Burkinabé Muslims are separated not only by colonial languages and legacies, but also by cultural identity and intellectual connections. Burkina Faso often interacts with other francophone states in the region, while Ghanaian Muslims share a cultural identity and intellectual connections with Nigeria. In fact, Hausa, a northern Nigerian language, is the lingua franca of Ghanaian Muslims, especially in the southern parts of the country.

⁶ Sunna, meaning “tradition” in Arabic, is defined more specifically as the Prophet's tradition, which should guide a Muslim's behavior.

⁷ Since the publication of Jean Comaroff and Comaroff's, JohnOf Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the literature on colonial and postcolonial discourse of modernity in Africa has grown significantly. In addition to the short list provided in footnote 1, which deals more specifically with Islam, the reader might find some of the responses to the Comaroffs' thesis informative. For instance, Elbourne, Elizabeth, “Word Made Flesh: Christianity, Modernity and Cultural Colonialism in the Work of Jean and John Comaroff,” American Historical Review 108, 2 (Apr. 2003): 435–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Schoenbrun, David, “Conjuring the Modern in Africa: Durability and Rupture in Histories of Public Healing between the Great Lakes of East Africa,” American Historical Review 111, 5 (Dec. 2006): 1403–39CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Though these materials do not deal with Islam and modernity directly, they provided important background to intellectual discourse on the issue of modernity. For a broader survey of the historiography on modernity in Western discourse, see Saler, Michael, “Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review,” American Historical Review 111, 3 (June 2006): 692–716CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Elective Affinities: A Novel, Constantine, David, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. The novel is the story of an economically successful and amorous aristocratic couple, Edward and Charlotte. Their seemingly harmonious relationship is unwittingly disrupted when they invite Edward's friend, Otto, who had fallen into economic difficulties, to live with them. Realizing her “natural” attraction to Otto, Charlotte invites her niece, Ottolie to join the household in the hope that Edward will be attracted to her. Indeed, Ottolie and Edward become “naturally” attracted to each other, thus freeing Charlotte of guilt. Yet, in the end, none of the characters seems content with the ensuing coupling, and the new amorous configuration collapses from its own artificiality and unconventionality.

⁹ In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1930) Max Weber applied this concept to explain the mutual attraction between Puritan ethics and emerging capitalism, and concluded that there was an elective affinity between Puritan ethical norms and emerging capitalism in seventeenth-century England.

¹⁰ The most influential study of the origin of the Tijaniyya is still Nasr's, Jamil AbuThe Tijaniyya: A Sufi Order in the Muslim World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar. See Robinson, David and Triaud, Jean Louis, La Tijaniyya, une confrérie Musulmane a la conquête de l'Afrique (Paris: Karthal, 2000)Google Scholar; and El Adnani, Jillali, La Tijaniyya 1781–1881: Les origines d'une confrérie religiuse au Maghreb (Paris: Editions Marsam, 2007)Google Scholar.

¹¹ For the bibliography of Sheikh Hamaullah, see Traoré, Alioune, Islam et colonialisme en Afrique: Cheikh Hamahoulah, homme de foi et résistance (Paris: Larose, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹² Kouanda, Assimi and Sawadogo, Boubakary, “Un moqaddem hammaliste au Yatenga au debut du xx siècle,” in Chrétien, Jean-Pierre, ed., L'invention religieuse en Afrique: Histoire et religion en Afrique noire (Paris: Karthala, 1993)Google Scholar.

¹³ Archives Nationales du Sénégal, 2G36/18, Rapport Politique Annuelle, Sudan, Province de Ouahigouya, 1936; Archives Nationales du Sénégal, 2G40/10 Rapport Politique Annuelle, Sudan, Province de Ouahigouya, 1940.

¹⁴ Charles Stewart, “The Tijaniyya in Ghana, a Historical Study,” (M.A. thesis, University of Ghana, Legon, 1965).

¹⁵ Gray, Christopher, “The Rise of the Niassene Tijaniyya, 1857 to the Present,” Islam et societe au sud du Sahara 2 (1988): 34–60Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Hiskett, Mervyn, The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usman Dan Fodio (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ For a more general thesis on modern Islamic resurgence, see Voll, John, “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History: Tajdid and Islah,” in Esposito, John, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Kaba, Lansiné, Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in French West Africa (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974)Google Scholar. The Subbanu Association and Muslim Cultural Union, which Kaba analyzed, were part of a global Islamic reform that emerged in the Muslim world at the turn of the nineteenth century, inspired by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–1897) and later elaborated and diffused by Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) and others. Al-Afghani advocated a combination of modernizing Islamic institutions and reforming Muslim practices to meet the challenges of modern times, especially the struggle against Western imperialism. Muhammad Abduh, whose disciples founded the Salafiyya movement, called for a return to the original sources of Islam for spiritual guidance, but emphasized the use of modern resources to reach that goal. Both Al-Afghani and Abduh emphasized Islamic and Western education as solutions to spiritual regression. See for example, Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’'s influential book, Intellectual Origins, and his most recent book, Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History (London: Pluto Press, 2003). Many leaders of both the Subbanu Association and the Muslim Cultural Union studied in Egypt in the early 1900s, at the height of the Salafi movement. The Middle Eastern connection to the earlier Wahhabi and Salafi movements in Francophone West Africa is thus uncontested. Many in Senegal will not consider the Muslim cultural union a Wahhabi organization since its leader, Sheikh Toure, never explicitly claimed to have abandoned his Sufi affiliations. However, in Burkina Faso, it was associated with Wahhabism. The connection between Anglophone West African colonies and the Middle East is yet to be fully explored. It is important to note that, in terms of doctrine, most West African scholars and preachers who embraced puritanical Islam associated with Ibn Abdul Wahhab and later the Salafi movement made no clear distinction between the Wahhabi dogma and Salafi ideology. During my research in Ghana and Burkina Faso, Salafi ideology was hardly mentioned in conversations and when I asked specific questions about the relationship between Wahhabism (or Ahl-as-Sunna as they preferred to be called) and Salafiyya, the responses often tended to conflate the two. More nuanced scholars, though, were careful to add that their teachings had nothing to do with the Salafi movement except that, like the Salafis, they promote a return to the original sources of Islam.

¹⁹ Hiskett, Mervyn, “The Community of Grace and Its Opponents, the Rejecters: A Debate about Theology and Mysticism in Muslim West Africa with Special Reference to Its Hausa Expression,” African Language Studies, 17 (1980): 99–140Google Scholar.

²⁰ Dao, Maimouna, “Le wahhabisme à Ouagadougou de 1964 à 1988,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 7 (1993): 223–29Google Scholar.

²¹ Umar, Muhammad Sani, “Education and Islamic Trends in Northern Nigeria: 1970 to 1990s,” Africa Today 48, 2 (2001): 127–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loimeier, Roman, “Islamic Reform and Political Change: The Example of Abubakar Gumi and the Yan Izala Movement in Northern Nigeria,” in Rosander, Eva Evers and Westerlund, David, eds., African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Kane, Ousmane, “The Rise of Muslim Reformism in Northern Nigeria,” in Marty, Martin and Appleby, Scott, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

²² Kaba, Wahhabiyya; Nyang, Suleyman, “Islam in West Africa,” in Hunter, Shireen, ed., The Politics of Islamic Revivalism: Diversity and Unity (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988): 204–25Google Scholar.

²³ Kaba, Wahhabiyya; Le Dao, “Wahhabism”; Schulze, Reinhard, “La da'wa saoudienne en Afrique de l' ouest,” in Otayek, René, ed., Le radicalisme Islamique au sud du sahara: da'wa, arabisation et critique de l'Occident (Paris: Karthal, 1993): 27–36Google Scholar.

²⁴ Kane, Muslim Modernity; Loimeier, Islamic Reform; Umar, Islam and Colonialism.

²⁵ Kobo, “Promoting the Good,” ch. 2. Unlike francophone countries where early Wahhabi-inclined scholars spread their ideas from one colony to another, a direct link between Yan Izala's teaching and the rise of Wahhabism in Anglophone countries remains to be explored fully, especially for Ghana (then the Gold Coast) and Sierra Leone.

²⁶ Colonial regimes first applied the name madrasa to the Franco or Anglo-Arabic schools they had establisheḑ intending it as a pedagogical metaphor that would convince Muslims to send their children to these essentially secular schools. The literature is extensive, but the reader might find the following list particularly useful. Brenner, Louis, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 2001)Google Scholar; Harrison, Christopher, France and Islam in West Africa: 1860–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Diarra, Bintou, “Les écoles coraniques au Mali: problèmes actuels,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 19, 2 (1985): 359–67Google Scholar; Fortier, Corinne, “Mémorization et audition: L'einseigenment coranique chez les maures de Mauritanie,” Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 11 (1997): 85–108Google Scholar; and Kaba, Lansiné, “The Politics of Quranic Education among Muslim Traders in the Western Sudan: The Subbanu Experience,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 10, 3 (1976): 409–21Google Scholar. For Burkina Faso, see Issa Cissé, “Introduction à l'étude des médersas au Burkina Faso: des années 1960 à nos jours” (Mémoire de Maitrise, Université de Ouagadougou, 1989). For more recent works, see Ware, Rudolph T., “The Longue Duree of Qur'an Schooling, Society, and State in Senegambia, c. 1600–2000,” in Diouf, Mamadou and Leichtman, Mara A., eds., New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity (New York: Palgrave, 2009), 21–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Cook, Bradley J., “Islamic versus Western Conceptions of Education: Reflections on Egypt,” International Review of Education 45, 3–4 (1999): 339–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Reynolds, Jonathan, “Good and Bad Muslims: Islam and Indirect Rule in Northern Nigeria,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 34, 3 (2001): 601–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Muslims' resistance to colonial education cannot be overemphasized. Even when colonial governments assuaged the Muslim population by forcing missionaries to minimize the religious content of their curriculum, only a few parents defied the popular norm and allowed their children to attend mission schools. For instance, in colonies like Mali and Senegal where the French created madrasas that offered both Islamic and secular courses, or Sierra Leone and Nigeria where the English established similar institutions, only a few Muslim parents allowed their children to attend these schools. Resistance was stronger still in colonies with Muslim minorities, where the options were more limited (Kobo “Promoting the Good,” 264–67). J. H. Fisher's discussion of Muslims' attempt to develop a Western-style Qur'anic school in southern Ghana (then Gold Coast) is particularly interesting for demonstrating British colonialists' indifference to Muslim schooling; “Islamic Education and Religious Reform in West Africa,” in Jolly, Richard, ed., Islamic Education in Africa: Research and Action (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969)Google Scholar.

³⁰ For an analysis of this tension among Muslims of Northern Ghana, see Iddirisu, Abdullai, “Islamic and Western Secular Education in Ghana,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22, 2 (2002): n.p.Google Scholar

³¹ Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communications, 12 July 1998, 20 May 2002, and 13 Aug. 2008 (recorded in Hausa).

³² Muhammad S. Baba, personal communication, 22 Sept. 2002 (in English).

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Hajj Umar, personal communication, 2 May 2002. Also Mallam Sani, personal communications, Nima, Accra, 19 Aug. 1998, 2 June 2002 (in Hausa).

³⁵ This group developed more rapidly than the earlier movement founded by Sheikh Yussif Afajura in 1952. Kobo, “Promoting the Good,” ch. 5.

³⁶ Personal communications in Nima, Accra: Hajj Umar, 29 July 1998; Ibrahim Baro, 17 Sept. 2002. Most of my informants, including leaders of the Tijaniyya such as Mallam Sani Murtala, who engaged Hajj Umar in intense debate about the doctrinal validity of Tijaniyya rituals, suggested that by the mid-1970s, more than a third of the Muslim population of Accra and its surrounding areas had embraced Wahhabism. This observation is applicable to all the major cities of Ghana, especially Kumasi and Tamale.

³⁷ “If you do not have a job then you must not marry and have children,” one of his followers remembered Umar yelling in response to a question someone had posed regarding religion and family planning. Mallam Abdallah Yunus, personal communication, Abofu, Accra, 21 June 2001 (in Hausa).

³⁸ Personal communications: Hajj Umar, Nima, Accra, 29 July 1998; Ibrahim Baro, Nima, Accra, 17 Sept. 2002.

³⁹ Issaka Salih, personal communication, Nsawam, 30 June 1998 (in Hausa).

⁴⁰ Personal communications: Ibrahim Baro, Nima, Accra, 17 Sept. 2002; Muhammad S. Baba, 22 Sept. 2002 (in English).

⁴¹ “Constitution and By-laws of the Islamic Research and Reformation Center,” Nima, Accra. 1972.

⁴² The Members of the Executives were: Director Alhaji M. S. Salley (retired military officer); Assistant Director Ibrahim Abdullahi Baro (director of postal service, Nima); Secretary Muhammad S. Baba (secondary school teacher); Asst. Secretary Alhaji Labaran; Financial Secretary Husein Zakariah Umar (madrasa teacher and secondary school graduate); Assistant Financial Secretary Issaka Sulleyman.

⁴³ The Council of Ulema was made up of: Spiritual Head Hajj Umar Ibrahim; Deputy Spiritual Head Mallam Hamza; Imam Mallam Kamal Din Ibrahim (the imam). Kamal Din remained a Tijani until he resigned from Research when Umar declared the Tijaniyya a heretical innovation. His brother Hajj Shouab Ibrahim, whom Melvyn Hiskett incorrectly identified as the founder of Wahhabism in Ghana, also studied at the Islamic University in Medina but returned two years after Hajj Umar, and joined Research.

⁴⁴ Alhaji Youssif Sana (younger brother of Muhammad Malick Sana), personal communication, Hamle, 19 Apr. 2002.

⁴⁵ Personal communications: Salifou Sawadogo, Ouagadougou, 19 Feb. 2002; Moctar Cisse, Ouahigouya, 2 Mar. 2002 (in Morré).

⁴⁶ For this organization, see for example, Kouanda, Assim, “Les conflits au sein de la communauté musulmane du Burkina Faso: 1962–1986,” in Triaud, Jean-Louis and Kane, Ousmane, eds., Islam et sociétés au sud du Sahara 3 (Paris: Edition de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1989), 7–26Google Scholar; Otayek, René, “La crise de la Communauté musulmane de Haute Volta: l'Islam voltaïque entre réformisme et tradition, automie et subordination,” Cahiers d'Etudse Africaines 24, 3, no. 95 (1984): 299–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kobo, “Promoting the Good,” 136–39.

⁴⁷ Otayek, “La crise de la Communauté,” 301.

⁴⁸ Salifou Sawadogo, personal communication, Ouagadougou, 19 Feb. 2002.

⁴⁹ “L'Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite,” MS (no author and n.d.), Private Archive, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Imam Sayouba, copy in author's possession.

⁵⁰ It was renamed Mouvement Sunnite du Burkina Faso when the country's name changed in 1984. Imam Sayouba, personal communication, Ouagadougou, 24 Feb. 2002; “l'Histoire du Mouvement Sunnite.”

⁵¹ An unpublished document, “L'histoire de la mouvement Sunnite” lists the leaders as follows: Executive Council: President Souleymane Ouédraogo Souleymane (deputy commander of aviation stationed at the Ouagadougou Airport.); Vice-President Iddirissa Semde (secondary school teacher at Ziniare'); General Secretary Issaka Kabore (public functionary); Assistant Secretary Moumouni Sawadogo (retired army officer); General Treasurer Amadou Ilboudou (employee at Post Telegraph, and Telecommunication, PTT); and Deputy Treasurer Ousmane Zongo (public servant). The Council of Ulema was made up of Imam Sayouba as the imam, and other scholars. Private archive, Imam Sayouba, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

⁵² Alhaji Osman Norga, personal communication, Aladjo, Accra, 3 Aug. 2002 (in Hausa).

⁵³ Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana to independence and was the country's first president.

⁵⁴ For the history of the Muslim Association Party and activities during Ghana's pre-independence party politics, see particularly, Allman, Jean Marie, “Hewers of Wood Carriers of Water: Islam, Class and Politics on the Eve of Ghana's Independence,” African Studies Review 34, 2 (1991): 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Yankasa literally means “indigenous” in Hausa, but it implied the younger generation born in Ghana in contrast to their parents or grandparents who had emigrated from other parts of West Africa as colonial labor migrants.

⁵⁶ Alhaji Osman Norga, personal communication, Aladjo, Accra, 3 Aug. 2002 (in Hausa).

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ For example, Nkrumah appointed the late Alhaji Awudu Kookah as the president of the Ghana Muslim Council (1958–1966), but most of the other leaders had no Western education. Alhaji Awudu Kookah had completed only elementary school and took correspondence courses in business management and accounting. Nkrumah also recognized Imam Abbass, whom he appointed the first national chief imam and a leading member of the Ghana Muslim Council, though Imam Abbass had earlier supported the Muslim Association Party. Alhaji Awudu Kookah, personal communication, 19 June 1998 (in Hausa).

⁵⁹ Alhaji Osman Norga, personal communication, Aladjo, Accra, 3 Aug. 2002 (in Hausa).

⁶⁰ Mr. Issaka Salih, personal communication, Nsawam, 30 June 1998 (in Hausa).

⁶¹ Alhaji Osman Norga, personal communication, Aladjo, Accra, 3 Aug. 2002 (in Hausa).

⁶² Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 5, 209–10.

⁶³ Kaba's description of the structure of Qur'anic schooling in Mali holds true for madrasas in Ghana and Burkina Faso as well. Kaba, “Politics of Quranic Education,” op. cit.

⁶⁴ Mallam Ibrahim Basha, personal communication, Tamale (Ghana), 2 July 2002.

⁶⁵ Hajj Umar Ibrahim, personal communications, 30 June 1998, and 19 Apr. 2002.

⁶⁶ See Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 7.

⁶⁷ See, for example, Cook, “Islamic versus Western Conceptions of Education,” 340–41.

⁶⁸ The only exception is the Ahmadiyya Movement in Ghana, which was organized bureaucratically, but most Ghanaian Muslims do not consider the Ahmadis true Sunni Muslims. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Burkina Faso during this period.

⁶⁹ Roman Loimeier found similar comparisons between contemporary Islamism and “Protestantism” among Muslims from Nigeria to East Africa. See his, “Is there Something Like Protestant Islam?” Die Welt des Islams 45, 2 (2005): 216–54.

⁷⁰ M. S. Baba, personal communication, 22 Sept. 2002 (in English). For a comparison between this genre of Islamic reform and Protestantism, see Goldberg, Ellis, “Smashing Idols and the State: The Protestant Ethic and Egyptian Sunni Radicalism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, 1 (1991): 3–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷¹ According to one of the founders, the organization first adopted the name Wahhabi Movement (Mouvement Wahhabitte), but was advised to change it to Sunna Movement (Mouvement Sunnite) because the word “Wahhabi” was associated with Saudi Arabia. Mahmud Bandé, personal communication, Ouagadougou, 1 May 2002.

⁷² M. S. Baba, personal communication, 22 Sept. 2002 (in English).

⁷³ Ibrahim Baro, personal communication, Nima, Accra, 17 Sept. 2002.

⁷⁴ Jammat Islamiyya was by no means a Sufi group. Rather, it was a more liberal organization with significant membership among Western-educated professionals.

⁷⁵ Kaba, Wahhabiyya, 16.