Njàngaan: The daily regime of Qur'ânic students in twentieth-century Senegal

International Journal of African Historical Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 515-537

  Ware III, Rudolph T ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60950209475     PISSN: 03617882     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4129043     Document Type: Review

References (61)

1. Abdou Rahmane Diop, "Une école coranique que vous avezfrequentée et que vous connaissez bien, " Cahier William Ponty VII-Se-7 (undated), 15. The Cahiers are held at the Institut Françaisd'Afrique Noire, Dakar [hereafter IFAN].
2. eannée, around twenty years of age and originating from Senegal, Guinée, Mauritania and Mali.... In 1941-1942 and, it seems, in 1943-1944, the compositions were required to be on the theme of 'a qur'ânic schoolthat you attended and that you know well, '" 157. He did not give precisereasons for this conclusion, however. Absolute chronological precision isimpossible for the undated texts; however, overwhelming internal evidence fromthe Cahiers demonstrate that the authors of the dated and undated texts werevery close contemporaries. The one exception is Cheikh Fall, "L'École coranique, " Cahier William Ponty XV-Se-6, 1946-1948, whose account comes a few years later, a document that is actually a response toan essay question on "education traditionelle." Santerre's suggestionthat the question on qur'ânic schooling was given in the academic years1941-1942 and 1942-1943 is very probably correct.
3. Phillipe Couty, "Entretiens avec des marabouts et des paysans du Baol, " Vol. I, ORSTOM (Dakar), February 1968;
4. J. Roch, "Les Mourides du vieux bassin arachidier Sénégalais: entretiens recueillis dans la region du Baol."ORSTOM (Dakar), March 1971.
5. Amar Samb, Matraqué par le destin: ou la vie d'untâ libé (Dakar, 1973).
6. For a more favorable view of the film see M'Bissine Diop, "Njangaande Mahama Johnson Traoré, " Africultures 47 (2002).
7. th Century Senegal" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2004), Chaps. 5-7, for analysis of the externalcritiques of the daara.
8. Also see Roman Loimeier, "'Je veux étudier sans mendier': The Campaign Against the Qur'ânic Schools in Senegal, " in Holger Weiss, ed., Social Welfare in Muslim Societies in Africa (Stockholm, 2002), 118-37.
9. The best introduction to the development of Islam Noir as administrativeand intellectual orthodoxy in French West Africa is Christopher Harrison, Franceand Islam in West Africa, 1860-1960 (Cambridge, 1988).
10. th Century Senegal. "Journal of African History [JAH] 29 (1988), 415-35.
11. Robinson wrote in response to an earlier article by Donal Cruise O'Brien, "Towards an 'Islamic Policy' in French West Africa, " JAH 8 (1967), 303-316.
12. Finally, for primary documents demonstrating the thinking of Frenchadministrator/scholars on the subject of West African Islam see Alfred LeChatelier, l'Islam dans l'Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1899).
13. Études sur l'Islam et les tribus du Soudan Français (Paris, 1920-1921);
14. Études sur l'Islam et les tribus Maures (Paris, 1921);
15. Études sur l'Islam en Cote d'Ivoire (Paris, 1922);
16. L'Islam en Guinée: Fouta Djallon (Paris, 1921);
17. Études sur l'Islam au Dahomey (Paris, 1926).
18. A decade later Jean-Claude Froelich published Les Musulmans d'Afrique Noire (Paris, 1962). Froelich was the director of the Centres des Hautes Études d'Administration Musulmane (CHEAM).
19. Letter from Lieutenant-Gouverneur Henri Cor to Gouverneur- Général William Ponty, June 1911, pp. 3-4, Dossier 186, Document106, ANS.
20. For the best discussion of this question see Adriana Piga, Dakar et lesordres Soufis: Processus socioculturels et developpement urbain au Sénégal contemporain (Paris, 2002), Chap. 4, esp. 413-26.
21. Comité National pour l'Action Sociale, "Rapport desynthèse du groupe de travail pour la participation des associationsreligieuses à l'action sociale: l'école coranique, " Dakar, 11June 1969, p. 1.
22. For standard perspectives on "le problème dutalibé, " see "Hope for the Taalibes: The DAARA Association of Malika, Senegal, " in Working with Street Children: Selected Case Studiesfrom Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Paris, 1995.)
23. See also René Collignon, "La lutte des pouvoirs publicscontre les 'encombrements humains' à Dakar, " Canadian Journal of African Studies 18 (1984), 573-82.
24. For a discussion of the central role of educational critique in thearabisant movement and the creation of écoles arabes, see Ware, "Knowledge, Faith, and Power, " Chap. 7. The overall history of thearabisant movement in Senegal has not yet been written, though the last decadehas seen an explosion of academic interest in the subject. Roman Loimeierpublished the most useful overview of the political economy of Islamic reform, "L'Islam ne se vend plus: The Islamic Reform Movement and the State in Senegal, " Journal of Religion in Africa 30, 2 (2000), 168-90.
25. This followed a biographical sketch of one of the movement's earliest andmost important figures, "Cheikh Touré: du reformisme àl'islamisme, un musulman sénégalais dans le siècle, "in Ousmane Kane and Jean-Louis Triaud, eds., Islam et islamismes au Sud du Sahara (Paris, 1998), 55-66.
26. Researcher in the department of Islamologie and noted Senegalesearabisant Khadim Mbacké published an essay, "Le rôle dumouvement réformiste dans le developpement du Sénégal au XXème siècle, " in Africa [Rome] 57 (2002), 87-101.
27. See also Muriel Gomez-Perez, "Un mouvement culturel versl'indépendance: Le réformisme musulman au Séné gal(1956-1960), " in David Robinson and Jean-Louis Triaud, with Ghislaine Lydon, eds., Le temps des marabouts: itinéraires et strategies Islamiquesen Afrique occidentale française (Paris, 1997).
28. Also see Mar Fall, "Les arabisants au Sénégal:contre- élite ou courtiers?" in Le radicalisme islamique au sud du Sahara (Paris, 1993), 197-212.
29. And finally, see Piga, Dakar et les ordres Soufis, 444-56.
30. For a masterful examination of the social history of Arabic schools inneighboring Mali (where they are usually called médersas, notécoles arabes) see Louis Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Powerand Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Bloomington, 2001).
31. Francisco de Lemos Coelho, Descripção da costa de Guinée, as cited in Ravane Mbaye, " L'Islam au Séné gal" (Thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle, University of Dakar, 1975-1976), 238. The identification of sëriñ with bexerin, bischarÿns, or bushreen is almost universally accepted in the literature on Islam in Senegal. Lamin Sanneh, in The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics: A Religious and Historical Study of Islam in Senegambia. (Lanham, 1989), 159, equated Mungo Park's use of bushreen with the Arabic term bashirun (professional clerics). Ipropose that the Wolof sëriñ is derived from bashirin, a grammaticalvariant of the same term.
32. Cham, "Islam in Senegalese Literature, " 177.
33. Mbaye, "L'Islam au Sénégal, " 260.
34. Roch, "Les Mourides du vieux bassin arachidier Séné galais, " 45. Interview with Adama Jóob (Adama Diop).
35. Roch, "Les Mourides du vieux bassin arachidier Séné galais, " 93. Interview with Shaikh Nang (Cheikh Niang), Kaossara, 02/20/1969. Several of the older interlocutors in my study, especially Aliu Gay, Ngaabu, 05/2002; Bara Mbakke, Tuubaa, 03/2002; and Maam Faal, Ngaabu, 05/2002, corroborate these testimonies in their outlines. All were men who attendeddaaras in the 1930s and 1940s, and this section is partially based on theirtestimonies as well. Others, such as Ibrahiima Bàjjan, Tiwaawan, 07/17/2001, 08/2001; Shaikhuna Lo, Ngaabu, 3/8/2002, 5/28/2002; Masamba Buso, Mbakke, 05/30/2002; and Mansuur Caam, Tiwaawan, 08/2001, had valuable insightson the agricultural practices of previous generations, they too inform thisdiscussion, although their comments were not based on first-hand experience.
36. For a detailed account of Wolof farming practices based on fieldwork inthe early 1970s see L. B. Venema, The Wolof of Saloum: Social Structure and Rural Development in Senegal (Wageningen, 1978).
37. See also Jean Copans, Les marabouts de l'arachide: La confrériemouride et les paysans du Sénégal (Paris, 1989),
38. and Martin Klein, Islam and Imperialism: Sine Saloum, 1847-1914(Stanford, 1968).
39. Couty, "Entretiens, " 43. Interview with Maam Mbay (Marne M'Baye), Golly, 06/06/1967. The parenthetical lexical notes included in the textwere numbered endnotes in the original and are translated as given by Couty. Ihave standardized the spellings of the Wolof words.
40. Fal, Santos, and Doneux, Dictionnaire wolof-français, 273, giveonly (matinée).
41. Diop, "Une école coranique, " 9, reports that in hisdaara "diangue dieul" took place only between December and February, and thus not during the rainy season. "Elle commence aux premiers champs[teacher's correction: chants] du coq pour finir àla tombée dujour. Les é lèves qui doivent prendre part à ce cours, internes ou externes doivent passer la nuit àl'école."
42. See James F. Searing, "God Alone Is King": Islam and Emancipation in Senegal: The Wolof Kingdoms of Kajoor and Bawol, 1859-1914(Portsmouth, N.H., 2002), 206-210.
43. See Amadou Wane, "Trois ans d'école coranique." Cahier William Ponty VII-Se-2, 1943-1944, 784. [Here, all page numbers referring to Amadou Wane's Cahier Ponty are as they appear in an annex to Roland Colin's, Systèmes d'éducation et mutations sociales: continuité etdiscontinuité dans les dynamiques socio-éducatives: le cas du Sénégal (Lille, 1980). Wane writes that they were "workedlike beasts of burden (bêtes de somme) and had to eat only the meageryields of their brief collection of charity." Other sources contradict Wane, indicating that this was the only time the taalibe-njàngaan atewell, because the sërin̄s were interested in getting a good day's workout of them.
44. Thiemo Ka, "L'Enseignement Arabe au Sénégal: l'école de Pir-Saniokhor, son histoire et son role dans la culturearabo-islamique au Sénégal du XVIIe au XXe siècle"(thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle, UniversitéParis-Sorbonne, 1982), 72.
45. M. Campistron, a colonial official who wrote a short ethnographic pieceon family relations in Kajoor in 1939 mentions the then-current custom forpayment at the end of study: "parents of children who have come out of a Koranic school at the end of their religious instruction are expected to paycompensation to the marabout according to their means." M. Campistron, "Oulof Custom in Cayor, " in Publications du Comitéd'Études Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française Série A., No. 3, p. 10, as appearing in Human Relations Area Files (New Haven, Conn., 1999), computer file.
46. Sanneh, The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics, 151.
47. Médoune Fall, "L'École coranique, " Cahier Ponty VII-Se-8, 26. His account was the only one that suggested that younger taalibescultivated their own fields or had this kind of liberty. This was likely theresult of a forward-thinking sëriñ, although the taalibes may havehad affective or blood claims to land that were not discussed in the Cahier.
48. See Wane, "Trois ans."
49. Sega Gueye, "L'École coranique, " 16-17.
50. Abdou Rahmane Diop, "Une école coranique, " 17.
51. Médoune Fall, "L'École coranique, " 15-16.
52. Cham, "Islam in Senegalese Literature, " 176.
53. For a critical view of the standard associations of child mendicancy withqur'ânic schools see Khadim Mbacké's, Daara et droits de l'enfant(Dakar, 1994).
54. Abdel Kader Fall, "Une école coranique, " 13.
55. Abdou Rahmane Diop, "Une école coranique, " 15-16.
56. Médoune Fall, "L'École coranique, " 5.
57. Wane, "Trois ans, " 775. Shaikh Gey, Tiwaawan, 07/2001, saidthey indiscriminately mix "li xonx, li weex, li n̄uul" in thealms pot. Literally this means "red, white, and black" food. Butbecause these are the three color categories described without foreign loanwords in Wolof, it is a way of saying "all colors." Mansuur Caam, Tiwaawan, 08/2001, expressed a distinct minority viewpoint when he said thatbegged food was the best because you got a little of everything. A substantialmanuscript could be written about the problems and delights of food in thedaara. Also on p. 775, Amadou Wane described his "baptism of rice preparedà la Sénégalaise as it is called by the people of the Southand à la Ouoloff as it is called by the people of my race. Sincerely, atfirst taste, I find it strange. I do not prefer it to our more simple, butpoorer, aliments. I recognize my error soon enough. I am convinced of theincontestable superiority of Ouoloff [Wolof] cuisine over that of the Toucouleurs." He is referring to céebujen, a version of which isknown in anglophone West Africa as Joloff rice.
58. Wane, "Trois ans, " 770.
59. Abdel Kader Fall, "Une école coranique, " 14.
60. Amadou Wane, "Trois ans, "Cahier Ponty VII-Se-2, gives us aninteresting folk etymology, informing us that Haïdara (Aydara) means"without fault" in Pulaar. The name is a synonym for sharif, descendant of the Prophet. In certain Islamic discourses, the descendants of the Prophet are portrayed as faultless.
61. Olivier Meunier, in Dynamique de l'enseignement islamique au Niger(Paris, 1997) 39, notes that the average age of the city's marabout-teachers whowork with younger children (between 4 and 14) is 39 years old, whereas theoverall average age of the marabout-teachers in town is much higher.