Migrations Programme - [07/02/2007]

Is it possible to speak of a “black African Islam”?

The CIDOB Foundation has participated in a course run by Ferran Iniesta, permanent lecturer in the History of Africa at the University of Barcelona, in which participants discussed the importance of Islam in the different sub-Saharan societies.

Organised by the CUIMPB (Consorci Universitat Internacional Menéndez Pelayo de Barcelona), the two-day course Islam south of the Sahara brought together several leading European and African experts, including Yolanda Aixelà from the University of Alicante, Christian Coulon from the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) of the University of Bordeaux, Eduardo Costa Dias and Albert Farré, from the Centre of African Studies at the ISCTE (Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa) of Lisbon, Cheikh Guèye from the ENDA organisation in Dakar, Alberto López Bargados (University of Barcelona), Jean Claude Penrad from the CEA-EHESS (l'Ecole de Haute Études en Sciences Sociales) of Paris and Albert Roca (University of Lleida).

The main issues covered in the debate included the role of Islam in the different sub-Saharan societies,theircapacity to adapt and the similarities and differences that this problem presents in the different African states.

Islam has been present in sub-Saharan Africa for more than 1,000 years, and even today the debate continues over whether a black Islam exists that is different from the Arab Islam, or whether the specific characteristics of black African areas distance them − and to what extent − from the Islam that is manifested in other regions of the world. The main areas of discussion during the conference were Islam's relationship with political power (before and since the processes of colonisation), the rivalry between popular Sufism and strict reformism, the role of Islam in everyday life and black African woman in Islam.

Finally, the speakers stressed the fact that if Islam is a key player in the globalised world, then Africa has recently gained an important role in the orientation of a great deal of its peoples.

>> See programme (pdf 196kB)

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