Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines in historical perspective the hitherto little-studied relationship between Islam and caste among the Haalpulaaren of Senegal.
Table of ContentsPreface; Chapter One The Mosque and the Termite Mound; Islam and Caste; Islam in Senegal; 'Popular' Islam; The Concept of Caste; Conceptions of Islam; Islam in Stratified Societies; Islamic 'Magic'; The Territory; The People; The Islamic Community; Caste, Knowledge and Power; The Mosque and the Termite Mound; An Ambivalent Adventure; Chapter Two Ranks and Categories: The Emergence of a Haalpulaar Social Division of Labour; Social Divisions among Haalpulaaren - Social Ranks; Social Divisions among Haalpulaaren - Social Categories; Social Categories of the Men-of-Skill (Nyeenybe); Bondsmen and Women; Patronyms; Hierarchical Relations of Political Economy; The Case of Hamadi Ounare; The Case of Doumga Rindiao; Discussion; Chapter Three Historical Origins and Social Pedigrees of Craftsmen and Musicians: Genealogies of Power and Knowledge of the Wild; Historical Origins and Sources; A History of Men-of-Skill Categories; Local Histories; The Social Division of Knowledge: Men-of-Skill and the Wild; Characterisations of Social Ranks; Gandal and the Social Division of Knowledge and Power; History and Hierarchy - A Reprise; The Fetishisation of Production; Chapter Four The White and the Black: Ideology and the Rise to Dominance of the Islamic Clerics; A Brief History of Islam in the Senegal River Valley; Formation of the Toorobe Cleric Social Category; The Construction of Toorobe Islamic Ideology; The Muslim Reformism of El Hajj Umar Taal; Umar Taal, the 'Mystical Warrior'; Concluding Remarks - Cleric Islam and the Other; Chapter Five Accommodationist Sufi Islam: Tensions and Ambiguities; The Ideological Configuration of Accommodationist Islam; Ritual Specialists and Rites of Passage; Ambivalence in Religious Thought; Islam and the Reinterpretation of Myth; Discussion; Chapter Six The Witch-Hunter and the Marabout: Competing Domains of Knowledge and Power; The Black Arts and Fields of Knowledge; The Emergence of Gandal Maabube; The Witch-Hunter and the Marabout; The Witch-Hunter; The Art of Maraboutic Magic; The Education of a Marabout; Discusssion: A Social Division of Healing; Nyengo and Spiritual Tutelage; Summary; Chapter Seven The Power of the Word: The Oral and the Written; Proverbial Sayings and the Denial of Agency; The Vocabulary of Speech and Language; The Potency and Danger of Names; Praise-songs, Poetry and Prayer; The Patterns of Language; Magical Spells, Protective Verses and Incantations; Discussion of Spoken Magic; Writing and the Order of Things; The Prose of the World; Chapter Eight Islamic Reformers, Islamists and the Muslim Community; 'Book Magic'; Developments in the Field of Education; Islamic Reform Movements; The Renegotiation of Islam and Social Exclusion; The Changing Nature of Caste and Islam; Singers, Popular Song and Islam; The Islamic Brotherhood of the Nyasiyya; Discussion; Afterword.
