Heirs of the Sheikh Izala and its appropriation of Usman Dan Fodio in Niger

Abstract

The academic accounts of Islamic reform in Niger have focused on the Izala movement, reducing it to an anti-Sufism. When these representations stress the wahhabisalafi tendency of this movement, not only Izala appears as the Sufi foe, it is also viewed as a brand of Islamic discourse of foreign origin. This article shows that these accounts have told only part of the genealogy of Izala. References to Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio's 19th century jihad are pervasive in Izala discourse despite the fact that he was affiliated with the Qadiriyya Sufi order. Dan Fodi's acts, deeds and ideas are consistently read as Izala moments. The evidence presented is based on the pronouncements made by two Izala organizations. Both illustrate how the Izala reform has continuously appropriated and reinvented the legacy of Usman Dan Fodio, recasting this historical figure as the "true" Sunni and the Sheikh of the Sunna. Theoretically, what is at stake here is not so much how Izala operates, but how accounts of this movement have relied on a dichotomy Sufi/Anti-Sufi which contributes to rigidify our categories and therefore handicap our conceptual apparatus. In this sense, while highlighting how Usman Dan Fodio has become a "lieu de memoire", this article seeks to shed some light on the genealogy of this Islamic reform discourse, and interrogate the categories used to characterize it. What the Izala appropriation of Usman Dan Fodio achieves is not so much a call to redefine Izala, as a readjustment of our conceptual map, which seeks to make sense of this movement.