The Development of Wahhabi Reforms in Ghana and Burkina Faso, 1960-1990

Elective Affinities between Western-Educated Muslims and Islamic Scholars

Bibliographic Data

ID2108519
AuthorsOusman Kobo, Ousman Murzik Kobo (The Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume51
Issue3
Pages502-532
Publication date2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417509000218
OpenAlexW2130113507
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited28

This essay examines the relationship between Western notions of modernity and Wahhabi-inclined Islamic reform in Ghana and Burkina Faso (Upper Volta until 1984) during the early decades of independence. I will highlight ways in which Western/secular education facilitated the early diffusion of this genre of reform. Over the past decade or so, historians have explored the extent to which the appeal of the Wahhabi movement in urban West Africa, toward the end of French and British colonialism, can be traced to Muslim attempts to find a middle ground between Western 'modernity' and authentic spiritual purity. In what follows, I employ comparative, ethnographic, and historical analyses to draw attention to the pivotal roles Western-educated urban Muslim professionals played in the development of this reform. Despite the active participation of these professionals in transforming the Wahhabi message into urban mass movements, scholars have paid scant attention to the factors that drew them to the Wahhabi doctrine in the first instance

Appeal · Colonialism · Doctrine · Ethnography · Ethnology · Independence (probability theory) · Islam · Modernity · Political science · Sociology · Tourism · African Studies and Geopolitics · Anthropology · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Religion, Society, and Development

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