THE MURIDS: SURVEILLANCE AND COLLABORATION

At the beginning of the twentieth century Muslim societies of northern
Senegal and southern Mauritania moved slowly but surely into relations of
accommodation with the French colonial regime. The process was led by
marabouts, persons who combined various forms of Islamic learning and
saintliness. It took the form of Sufi orders, often called ‘brotherhoods’, that
became anchored in the emerging economy of the peanut basin in central
Senegal. The accommodation permitted the marabouts and brotherhoods to
develop considerable autonomy in the religious, economic and social spheres
while surrendering the political and administrative domain to the French.

Of all these ‘paths to accommodation’ between Muslim societies and
French colonial authorities, the one followed by Amadu Bamba Mbacke and
the Murid movement is ostensibly the longest, the hardest, the most
complete, and the most enduring. For these reasons the Murid movement has
been much more fully studied – by Paul Marty of the colonial Muslim
Affairs Bureau in the early twentieth century and by social scientists in recent
decades.

For helpful criticisms of the drafts of this article, I would like to thank
Cheikh Anta Mbacke Babou, Louis Brenner, Tim Carmichael, Ghislaine Lydon, Allen Roberts and an
anonymous reader of the journal.

Footnotes

For helpful criticisms of the drafts of this article, I would like to thank
Cheikh Anta Mbacke Babou, Louis Brenner, Tim Carmichael, Ghislaine Lydon, Allen Roberts and an
anonymous reader of the journal.