The Institutionalization of Islam in Southern Senegal: Intermarriage, Qur'anic Education, and Jihad

by Aly Dramé

Overview

Weaving together oral and written sources, The Institutionalization of Islam in Southern Senegal investigates previously overlooked dimensions of Islamization in Senegambia through the processes of intermarriage, Qur’anic education, and jihãd. Due to its geographic location at the point where Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau meet, the Middle Casamance has historically been a melting pot where centralized and decentralized societies have coexisted for generations. In the past, historians have failed to consider the contributions of the Middle Casamance region and Mandinka Muslim settlements to the development of Islam, despite centers for Islamic education having existed in the region centuries before the emergence of the Sufi and jihãd movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Aly Dramé seeks to close this gap by conceptualizing the leading role played by these Mandinka settlements and how religious spaces are negotiated, acquired, and transformed through intermarriage, Qur’anic education, and jihãd when peoples from distinct backgrounds encounter one another. 

Drawing on archival documents, oral history and traditions, travelers’ accounts, the Arabic text Pakao al-Qurano (Holy Book of Pakao), and original ethnography, The Institutionalization of Islam in Southern Senegal demonstrates how these communities reframe the debates about the institutionalization of Islam in Senegambia geographically, chronologically, and thematically.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472077502
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	07/21/2025
Series:	African Perspectives
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Aly Dramé is Associate Professor of History at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, where he teaches on sub-Saharan Africa, Islam, and immigration. Dramé was a Mellon Sawyer Foundation Fellow at the University of Michigan 2010-11. His current research regards transnational practices by African Muslims in the Global North. 

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Note on Orthography
General Introduction
Chapter 1:  The Middle Casamance before the Development of Islam: Society, Religion, and the Regional Economy
Chapter 2: The Landlord Paradigm of Islamization: Interfaith Marriage and the Founding of Karantaba (Seventeenth Century)
Chapter 3: The Landlord Paradigm of Islamization: Muslim Intermarriage, Sanoyya and Dispersal
Chapter 4: Choosing Between Death and Islam: The 1840s Pakao Jihãd
General Conclusion
Bibliography
Glossary of Foreign Terms
 

What People are Saying About This

Robert Launay

“This is a detailed and compelling account of the Islamization of the Middle Casamance region of Senegal. The narrative makes extensive use of a wealth of oral histories meticulously collected by Dramé, not only among Mandinka Muslims but also among other ethnicities, notably Bainounk and Balante, who were either converted or resisted conversion to Islam by the Mandinka.”

Assan Sarr

“The Institutionalization of Islam in Southern Senegal is original and creative in its approach. It fills an important void in Senegambian historiography as it brings a host of new evidence to bear from both oral and archival sources. The book also makes a substantial, original contribution to the history of Islam in a region generally excluded in the current scholarship.”

Mamadou Diouf

“In a compelling reimagining of West African Islamic history, Aly Dramé offers a timely revision, to document how marriage, kinship, and movement shaped Muslim communities in Southern Senegambia. Departing from jihãd-focused narratives, his work traces the intimate, relational paths through which Islam rooted itself across generations and geographies.”