John Glover, Sufism and Jihad in Modern Senegal: the Murid order. Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press (hb £40 – 978 1 58046 268 6). 2007, 236 pp.

John Glover has produced a fascinating study of the innovative ability of the Muridiyya tariqa to address the challenges and competition from other Muslim leaders, the non-Muslim Wolof political hierarchy and the French colonial administration. Although he provides a sound introduction to the historical forces at work in the pre-colonial and early colonial periods his analysis focuses on the important role of Shaykh Ibrahima Faty M'Backe, known as Maam Cerno, who was a younger half-brother of Shaykh Amadu Bamba and the founder of the vibrant Murid centre of Darou Mousty.Footnote ¹ The principal thrust of his study is that Muridiyya doctrines and rituals, developed by Shaykh Amadu Bamba and refined by Maam Cerno, created a Sufi order with a ‘modernizing’ ideology: ‘the Muridiyya was a new synthesis of reformist and Sufi Islam and Wolof culture’ (p. 55). This synthesis allowed the Muridiyya shaykhs and disciples to forge a dynamic and innovative society during the twentieth century.

The synthesis contained several key elements: first, the formation of a clear, hierarchical structure based on both Qur'anic and Sufi education; second, reliance on self-sufficient and cooperative economic pursuits; third, withdrawal from direct political conflict with Wolof or French administration, but accompanied by an emphasis on diplomacy and cooperation in projects that strengthened the Murid community. Religious principles could not be compromised, but armed jihad was explicitly rejected as counterproductive. Instead, Shaykh Amadu Bamba and Maam Cerno focused on building a dynamic, regenerative religious community comprised of many missionary centres with satellite villages. Throughout the last one hundred pages of his study Professor Glover illustrates Murid dynamism and modernism by the successful incorporation of many projects which enhanced the economic growth and social stability of the tariqa. The Muridiyya did not passively accept economic change but sought ways to enhance the order's status within the colonial environment through innovation and cooperation with projects that facilitated improved transportation and water supplies, increased agricultural production, the development of markets, and military recruitment and labour during the Great War. Constantly negotiated political accommodation and technological innovation within a religious framework was the basis for Murid success during the colonial era.

Professor Glover's analysis is set within the context of the foundation of Darou Mousty in 1912 and its development into a dynamic centre of Murid spiritual, economic and political life, and his focus is on the creation of a Murid identity there, especially through the charisma and role of Maam Cerno. As one of Glover's informants said, ‘Maam Cerno was the general of Serin Touba [Shaykh Amadu Bamba]. All who came to the home of Serin Touba passed by Maam Cerno. There was no one between Maam Cerno and Serin Touba’ (p. 103). The translation of Maam Cerno is ‘grandfather scholar or teacher’ (p. 104) and Professor Glover argues, and carefully documents through Murid written sources and oral testimonies, the creation of a powerful religious and social Murid identity built around Maam Cerno (the ‘general’ and brother of the founder of the Muridiyya) and his disciples who created several satellite villages with their farms and schools within Darou Mousty's sphere of influence. In Chapter 6, ‘Murid Taalibe: historical narratives and identity’, the author uses his interviews with disciples of Maam Cerno, two of whom were founders of Darou Mousty and the others children of the founders, to provide an intimate portrait of the social backgrounds, education, roles and accomplishments of the taalibe and of the construction of Murid identity through the marabut-taalibe bond and the ethic of work for the community. It is an interesting and useful examination of the lives of these men, but one would have liked the analysis to be expanded by a closer look at the data about class, caste and gender issues within the tariqa and a more comprehensive application of Benedict Anderson's concepts in Imagined Communities.

In his conclusion Professor Glover returns to the themes of the strengths of Murid modernizing ideology and the construction of the Murid identity which assisted its members in building a viable community in the twentieth century, a community that has transcended ethnic and national boundaries. The expansion of Muridiyya as a global movement validates his use of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities as an analytical tool and his emphasis on the adaptive and innovative ideas of Amadu Bamba and Maam Cerno, for, as the author points out, ‘There is a discernible process of Murid historical identification that incorporates and situates historical changes and events into their sense of modernity … . For the Murids, the eternal was not a static notion from a reactionary fundamentalist point of view; rather it was the Sufi mystical path that had a link to the past, local and global relevance for the present, and a way to the future’ (p. 192). For those who are interested in contemporary global Islam this study by John Glover and the other fine, recent examination of Muridiyya by Cheikh Anta Babou provide stimulating data and analysis.