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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The Mosque as Living Room: New Modes of Sociality among Tablighi Youth in The Gambia
| Panel |
14. New Modes of Sociality in Muslim Africa
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| Paper ID | 128 |
| Author(s) |
Janson, Marloes
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Over the years, the Tabligh Jama‘at has expanded into what is probably the largest Islamic movement of contemporary times. Despite its worldwide influence on the lives of millions of Muslims, scholars have paid almost no attention to its spreading in sub-Saharan Africa. My proposed paper will focus on The Gambia, which during the last decade has become a booming centre of Tablighi activities in West Africa.
Unlike in South Asia, where the Tabligh Jama‘at originated, a striking feature of the movement in The Gambia is its popularity among youth who had a modern, secular education. A growing number of Gambian youth seem to invest in Islamic missionary work (tabligh) as a way of standing up to the malaise in which they find themselves. By taking their future in their own hands, they seem to resist to the authority of the old and the way they profess their faith. Their rebellion against established norms of Islam, and their efforts to redefine these norms according to their own concepts of ‘true Islam’, is expressed in (re)constructions of ritual orthopraxy.
Gambian youth’s ‘conversion’ to Tablighi ideology often leads to a migration to the city of Serrekunda, where the Jama‘at’s mosque is located. This migration usually involves an alienation from the family who stays behind. Despite the Tablighis’ withdrawal from traditional family life, the strict rules imposed by the Jama‘at for every conceivable action, from worshipping to dressing, sleeping and eating, reinforce the movement’s cohesiveness to such an extent that it is sometimes compared to an alternative family. The proposed paper will explore the new modes of sociality among Gambian Tablighi youth – both male and female – that have developed outside traditional family structures, and that are centred around the Jama‘at’s mosque.
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