Saint-Louis: Religious Pluralism in the Heart of Senegal

by David Robinson with assistance from Ghislaine Lydon, Kalala Ngalamulume and others

Introduction

Saint-Louis is a town that goes back to the early modern history of the West African coast, more than 400 years ago. On one side it lies along the Atlantic Ocean, on the other along the Senegal River, about 20 kilometers north of the mouth of the river. The center of the town is an island about 2 miles from north to south and less than half a mile across. Its main political and commercial institutions lie close to the center of the island.

In the 19th century Saint-Louis became the headquarters of French operations in the Senegambian and Mauritanian areas. These were largely commercial in the first half of the century, oriented mainly around the harvesting of gum along the river and its exportation to pharmaceutical and other industrial firms in France. In the mid-nineteenth century, under an assertive Governor named Louis Leon Cesar Faidherbe, the French added a much stronger political presence, just as they were encouraging the development of peanut production in the central zones of Senegal.

Accompanying these investments French Catholic societies began engaging with the town, both to service European and mixed-raced Catholics and to conduct some missionary work. The heads of the societies, priests of the church near the center of town, and other personnel sought to influence the administration's policies, particularly in relation to two forces: a small group of Freemasons, critical of all religious practice, and the growing Muslim population of the town.

In fact, Saint-Louis probably had a Muslim majority all along. But it was only in the middle of the 19th century that leaders of this group mobilized for the establishment of a place of worship and for a court for the practice of Islamic law. By the end of the century this community was much larger and more assertive. It established centers of Islamic education and Sufi practice that attracted Muslims from the wider region.

A secular and Republican administration

The French Revolution of 1789, the Second Revolution of 1848, and the Third Republic that began in 1871 articulated an ideal of participatory democracy and equality which most of the world had never witnessed. Building on the Enlightenment heritage, the French "Republican" leaders of the 19th century envisioned a nation-state in which religious institutions, and most notably the powerful Catholic Church, would be confined to the private sphere. The Catholic leaders, in France and Rome, were not about to accept such restriction and struggled bitterly with administrators in Paris over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Catholics had a strong presence in the educational order.

The revolutionary and democratic heritage did not translate easily into the imperial settings. Indeed, most of the colonial administrators were military men and took their cues from the authoritarian Napoleon. In certain areas, however, they had to deal with republican institutions and citizens - in Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, and on the coast of Senegal. Saint-Louis and 3 other coastal enclaves obtained the rights to elect mayors and city councils, a General Council, and a deputy to the French parliament. These rights were given in 1848, then taken away and given back with the Third Republic in the 1870s. Most of the active citizens were French and metis, and they kept the channels of communication open to the metropole - the National Assembly, friends in high places, newspapers and the like. They could embarrass the administration and on occasion force a recall.

The administrators also kept their distance, by and large, from the Catholic Church. In this they were influenced by the republican heritage.

They celebrated the secular holidays of France. At times they would accept missionary activity, but only if it would not disrupt life in their dominions or produce hostility on the part of the Muslim majorities.

A few of the administrators were Freemasons, belonging to lodges in Senegal and the metropole. They had a stronger dose of the republican heritage, and kept a greater distance from the church. Their secular ideals also affected their attitudes towards Islam, which they considered to be another religious system that interfered with human fulfillment.

Authoritarian, secular and a little bit republican - these attitudes of governors and other administrators in French Senegal created the foundations of the tolerance and pluralism that characterized Saint-Louis in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Christian community

Most of the Christians in Saint-Louis were French or metis. They tended to live in the southern half of the island, which was called kretien, close to the church or "Cathedral" and the residences of the priests. Some worked in the colonial government offices nearby, while others were engaged in trade along the river or in the peanut zone. Their children went to the French schools, most of which were run by missionary societies: the Holy Ghost Fathers, and the Ploermel Brothers. Active parishioners often wrote and pressured the governor and administration about particular issues, such as those raised by the "Mothers of Senegal" in 1887.

The Muslim community.

The Muslim community was much larger, and almost entirely African: Wolof, Futanke, Moorish, and other groups with origins in the interior of Senegambia, Mauritania and Mali. Their numbers and sophistication grew over the course of the 19th century, as they worked out terms of incorporation into the colonial structures. In 1850 most of the Muslim leaders were born in the interior and settled in Saint-Louis; they were unsure of their relations to the small but growing French administration. By 1900 most of the leaders were born in Saint-Louis and knew the possibilities and limitations of their influence, within an imperial administration and in relation to the republican institutions. Along the way they passed by a series of steps and controversies. The first was the construction of the town mosque in 1848, in the northern part of the island which became the "Muslim quarter," just as the south was called kretien. It is unclear from the archival sources whether the administration helped with the costs of construction.

The Muslim Tribunal

The next goal of the Muslim community was to establish a court where a modified form of Sharia law would be applied to inheritance and marital questions. They began to circulate petitions to this effect in the 1840s, and succeeded in gaining the attention of the dominant governor of the time, Louis Leon Faidherbe.

Faidherbe was fresh from an experience in colonial Algeria, where the French made some effort to incorporate Islamic law within their system, and he issued a decree in 1857 that established the Tribunal Musulman and named its first qadi, a certain Hamat Ndiaye Anne from Futa Toro who had been resident in Saint-Louis for some time.

Hamat Ndiaye Anne served as the qadi of the tribunal until his death in 1879. He had several short-term successors until 1887, when the French colonial administration appointed a merchant and judge named Ndiaye Sarr to take over the reins of the tribunal. Sarr was actually working in Podor, one of the river posts at the time, in the pattern common to many of the Muslim and mixed-race citizens of Saint-Louis whereby they spend some portion of each year in the interior. Sarr then made Saint-Louis his year-round residence as he assumed the responsibilities of the court. The qadi at the time was the unofficial "head" of the Muslim community of Saint-Louis, and a prestigious notable indeed.

Ndiaye's son Omar knows the history of his father and the Muslims of Saint-Louis quite well, and some of us have been fortunate enough to interview him before his death in 1995. David Robinson asked him questions in 1985 about the Muslim community, and we have linked here a copy of the audio and the French transcription of his text. Kalala Ngalamulume interviewed him in 1994 on health issues, and we have linked here a copy of the French transcription of his session.