Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880-1920(Western African Studies)

Charts the responses of the Sufi orders to the French colonial regime and their negotiations over power and autonomy. Between 1880 and 1920, Muslim Sufi orders became pillars of the colonial regimes and economies of Senegal and Mauritania. In Paths of Accommodation David Robinson examines the ways in which the leaders of the orders negotiated relations with the Federation of French West Africa in order to preserve autonomy within the religious, social and economic realms while abandoning the political sphere of their non-Muslim rulers. This was a striking development because the local inhabitants had a strong sense of belonging to the Dar al-Islam, the world of Islam, in which Muslims ruled themselves. By charting the similarities and differences of the trajectories followed by leading groups within the region as they responded to the colonial regimes, Robinson provides an understanding of the concepts of the relationship between knowledge and power, the concepts of civil society and hegemony, and the transferability of symbolic, economic and social capital. North America: Ohio U Press

Table of Contents:
Introduction - THE FRAMEWORK Space, time & structure - BASES OF ACCOMMODATION Sources, discourses & mediators of knowledge - Conquest & colonial rule - France as a 'Muslim Power' - Civil society: St. Louis in the French imperial sphere - The Sons of Ndar: the Muslim merchants of St. Louis - PATTERNS OF ACCOMMODATION The obstacles to accommodation for the Umarians - The Umarian predicament - PATHS TO ACCOMMODATION Saad Buh & the Fadiliyya way - Sidiyya Baba: co-architect of colonial Mauritania - Malik Sy: teacher in the new colonial order - Amadu Bamba: a complex path to accommodation - Conclusion

About the Author :
For four decades David Robinson taught African history at Yale and Michigan State University, devoting special attention to francophone West Africa and Muslim societies in the 18ththrough the 20th centuries. His main research has been on Senegal and Mali, resulting in a study of resistance and some collaboration with French expansion along the Senegal River (Chiefs and Clerics. Abdul Bokar Kan and the History of Futa Toro, Oxford 1975), a study of a jihad of the sword waged by largely Fulbe Muslims from Senegal against the Bamana societies of Mali (The Holy War of Umar Tal, Oxford, 1985), and a study of the relationships developed between leading Sufi authorities and the French in turn of the century Senegal and Mauritania (Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, Ohio UP/James Currey, 2000). More recently he published a general study of Islam in Africa, Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge, 2004). Three of these volumes have also been published in French editions.

Review :
It is a meticulously researched and stylishly written essay that succeeds in providing a wealth of historical details while maintaining a consistently readable narrative ... it should be read by all those who seek today to understand the vagaries of Islamic politics, both in West/North Africa and in the Middle East. Indeed, there is more to learn from this book, limited though it is to a circumscribed colonial region and period, than from much of what has been written in the last couple of years about so-called Muslim fundamentalism. This volume demonstrates that Islam is also a subtle and eminently adaptable political ideology, which can sustain pragmatic and enlightened visions of the common good in difficult circumstances. Paths of Accommodation is a study of a series of historical cases in which there was not so much a clash of civilizations as a sensible and mutually beneficial arrangement between the seemingly irreconcilable ambitions of aggressive imperialism and the aims of those concerned with the protection of the sacred autonomy of the Muslim umma, or community. The present-day stridency of extremism should not obscure the long history of such accommodation between the West and Islam. - ...an attractive and excellent study that expands and enriches the historiography on the western savanna ... The book is not only well researched, clearly illustrated and well written, but it also gives a good example of the interdisciplinary approach to the reconstruction of African history. It represents a significant addition to our knowledge of Islamic West Africa and French colonialism, and deserves the widest possible circulation. -