Islam And French Colonial Rule In West Africa History Essay

Islam And cut Colonial Rule In tungsten Africa score EssayFollowing the European conquest of Africa there was a actual expansion in both Moslem and Christian societies. Though Christianity was sensed by some as a machine of compoundism and part of a European civilising mission, taking Islam was on the opposite hand viewed as anti- compound, reflecting a form of safeguard rather than quislingism. Islam offered a sense of community during colonial command when the continent was experiencing a prison term of rapid change and mobility. F admin sought to placementatically manage the practice of Islam in their colonies in a way of which they could bring it into alignment with the F perspective of modernity and shoot Islam serve as a bulwark for the states authority. At same time officials half heartened efforts slavery, inconsistent labour cash cropping projects and arbitrary power by poorly trained and underfunded admin brought dramatic and unexpected changes in how comm. were org and how individuals understood their opinion in soc. westbound African Muslims drew creatively on centuries of Moslem thought and soc experimentation to craft new identities and comm. out of the changes brought by F. fashion model was how followers of Yacouba Sylla gave a new meaning to the hollow and alien damage that colonial politicians spoke about such as freedom, dev and modernisation. They make them underlying themes in a mystical Sufi practice that looked little want the enlightenment-based liberal republicanism governors hoped to create or like reform-minded Islam promoted by modernisers elsewhere. (Hanretta 2009, 3)The footing accommodation and collaboration are commonly used by historians to pick up the consanguinity amid Islam and french colonial rule in double-u Africa. In Islam and Social Change in french West Africa, Hanretta states that in places like Senegal, Mauritiana and Mali, when successful in representing their version of Islam as being c ompatible with the dictates of colonial rule, they were given access to metropolitan power to use a assemblest other religious leadership for clients and patronage. This kind could be seen as a collaboration of resources between the colonisers and the Muslim colonised, to maintain order and peace (Hanretta 2009, 138-139). Another traditionalistic Islamic community were the Sufi Brotherhoods, in particular the Tijaniyya in Senegal, Mali and Guinea, who demolish into branches and networks that have cultivated family networks. Of the Tijani scholars there were who actively opposed french colonial rule in the 19th century, by the twentieth century numerous became outspoken collaborators of the colonial government activity (Heck 2007, 65). Heck and Hanretta mention Seydou Nourou Taal, grandson to al-Hajj Umar Taal, who contributed to and tog upd many Tijani jehad movements, whilst Seydou Nourou became one of Frances greatest Muslim intermediaries. When colonial occupation began , many Muslim leaders accepted European administration who agreed to grant them bound look over their communities this was what part of what the Europeans thought was an efficient and cheap system of governance (Hanretta 2009, 60). These are examples of when Muslim leaders and communities chose to cooperate with the colonial political science and shows that areas under Islamic rule decided to accommodate cut colonial rule and in some parts of West Africa, Muslim leaders obtained a peaceful descent between the two.Brenner looks at the case of Agibu where the motive ideology for al-Hajj Umar was reformist Islam, which opposed the civilising mission of the French colonial ideology. The relationship between Islam and colonial French rule is built on impact ideologies and conflict. Brenner states that between the two world wars there was a confrontation between Tijani Sufism and French Islamic insurance indemnity, and the major French goal with respect to Islam was victuals of p olitical stability. The French had realised by the second decade of the 20th century that their greatest threat to colonial rule in West Africa was Islam because it had the potential to unite large numbers of people to form resistance against European domination. The relationship therefore could be one of conflicting aims, where the French tried to impose rule among Muslims who did not want to be govern by non-Muslims. The French were persistent, they promulgated a new subjective policy in 1909 where Governor General William Ponty expressed concerns that Muslims shouldnt govern non-Muslims and in 1911 it was declare that all administrative correspondence, as well as judgements by native courts, should be written in French, rather than Arabic. These attempts to dissuade the spread of Islam failed even so it showed that he wanted French colonial rule to monopolise the regime of Agibu and this meant reducing Islamic sour. This was similar to French Soudan where colonial military o fficers aimed to verge conversion to Islam (Mann 2003, 264). However, Islam grew more rapidly than ever, becoming the dominant allele religion of commercialised centres in Soudan, where new arrivals that came to desire work in these towns converted to Islam. This chapter of Agibus floor should be described as Domination and the French Challenge to Islam (Brenner 1984, 32-38). French Colonial rule in Agibu posed a threat to Islamic values and Islam posed a threat to colonial rule, creating a relationship of conflict.Robinsons explanation of the relationship between Islam and French colonial role in Senegal is a good example of both conflict and collaboration. The French werent able to accommodate rule at bottom Muslim societies, they found it difficult to ordinate and through practice and trial and error they did manage to exert a form of indirect rule over the societies. Their intentions behind this form of control was to cut French costs, whereby they used the local populati on to grow peanuts, manufacture taxes and in essence, maintain order. This however caused many of the Muslims to resent colonial chiefs and persuaded them to generate marabouts that although abandoned their political powers they did encourage their followers to apply tithes but provided them alike with an education and welfare as well as assurance. The French treasure the importance of marabouts in maintaining order and brought back Amadu Bamba (Muslim scholar and Sufi leader) from his transport who they had previously accused of plotting to wage a military jihad against the French (Heck 2007, 61-62). This shows collaboration between the colonial French and Bamba. They believed that he would help to stimulate the colonial economy and political order, he lessened realising that French colonial rule would endure and that they had but no choice to accommodate (Robinson 2004, 182-196). After Mamba died the Murids became the dominant and economic force in the peanut basin and acc epted colonial rule (Searing 2002, 128-130). In his book Sufism and Politics Heck goes on to say that Bambas return from exile not early pacified relations between his followers and the French colonial system but it developed a pattern of misgiving and proved to be profitable for both sides (Heck 2007, 63). Here the relationship began by the French adjusting to ruling over Muslim societies and eventually exploiting them to grow peanuts and pay taxes to cut administration costs. This completely turned around when the French had to search help from Bamba and other marabouts to maintain order and therefore join forces with Muslim leaders and societies, thus forth displaying a relationship of compromise.It is important to be aware of what earlier French Islamic policy was in colonial Africa in order to examine the relationship between Islam and French colonial rule in West Africa. The presumptions made by French colonialists of Islam and Africans had implications on their reaction tow ards Muslim leaders and their subjects. Hanretta states that there is no doubt that the beliefs the French held about Islam, Africans and the nature of the colonial mission deeply influenced the reactions of the officials to Yacouba Sylla and his followers. Through a working, shifting compromise, Muslim leaders were tolerated and even patronised, but as well as carefully scrutinised. A lot of the action taken by the French in West Africa was based on experiences they had encountered in Algeria, for example the idea that Muslim networks, particularly Sufi tariqas could be used as intermediaries provided they were humble and particularised, small enough not to gain enough power to compete with regional systems and African enough to protect themselves from North African and Middle east influences. Harrison agrees that if we are to find a serious and sustained development of French policy towards Islam it is necessary to look north to Algeria where a definite consensus emerged at th e end of the 19th century (Harrison 1988, 15-27). French policy in the twenties and 1930s turned on the distinction between good and pernicious tariqas, during this period a the bad tariqa was the Hamawaiyyah and naturally once Yacouba became seen as a Hamallist preacher the administrators goal was to determine whether him and his followers overlap the tendencies of this order (Hanretta 2009, 127-128). The relationship between Islam and French colonial rule in West Africa could be characterised by a set of corrections the French were making from the mistakes they had made in North Africa.Sense of cooperation was seen with the leftist Popular Front government in France and Yacouba. It is said that although they were only in power for two decades, their reformist approach abroad had last effects on French West African Policy. In 1936 the Popular Front government helped boost Yacoubas efforts to organise his entire community into a single labour pool. The government also sought to me nd the rift between eleven-beads and twelve-beads to bring Hamawis under a more effective control. The most important was the dispatch of Seydou Nouro Tal to Nioro, he was grandson to the drift of the powerful twelve-bead Tal family who were opponents of the Hamawiyyah. He was released to reconcile with Shaykh Hamallah (founder of Hamawiyyah) and essentially offer him and his followers tokenish protection for their submission to Seydou Nourou (administrations chosen leader of West Africas Muslim population). thereby the Popular Front were able to change the image of the Hamawiyyah from being seen as a part of a larger politique musulmane to being integrated into Frances vertical network of Muslim clients (Hanretta 2009, 95-96). De Coppets attitude to Sheikh Hamallah portrayed him as likeable and liberally minded, Harrison in France and Islam in West Africa suggests that the initiative for his Muslim policy in French West Africa came from himself and the impression Islam had on h im in Mauritania (Harrison 1988, 193). In Fetishizing Religion Mann speaks of how Cardaire, a military colonial officer was cautious of the harvest of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism as a threat to French Africa, serving as theatre director of Soudans Bureau of Muslim affairs he supervised the state-sponsored Hajj, where he tended to(p) pilgrims to the Hijaz. The fact that the state sponsored people to go on pilgrimage shows that they were giving and didnt oppress them from continuing their religious practices (Mann 2003, 270).Accommodation didnt take place between Muslims and a coherent colonial regime but rather was a result of temporary and local constellations of power in which religious elites and administrators shared similar goals. Muslim entrepreneurs able to take advantage of the conflict within administrative depictions of Islam. In areas where the states control of religious institutions was strong, French officials were able to influence a process of creating an environmen t where certain(a) forms of Islam and certain networks of Muslim leaderships and certain ways of responding to French presence would thrive. An important resource Muslim elites could seek to control was the production of knowledge about African Islam, knowledge that in turn directed the activities of the colonial state. It seems almost as if the relationship was defined by them using each others resources against them and then realising how they would succeed and what methods they would use to gain power and changing it, to suit them (Hanretta 2009, 138-139).