Since the late 2000s, the number of attacks carried out by militant Islamist groups has been increasing considerably in sub-Saharan Africa. While jihadism has turned into a major regional security threat, some countries have been more affected than others. In his new book Salafism and Political Order in Africa, Sebastian Elischer seeks to explain this divergence. Following a historical-institutionalist approach, he provides an ambitious comparative analysis of Salafi Islamist contention in ten African countries.
The book's key proposition is that the presence/absence and differing set-ups of national Islamic councils have decisively shaped national dynamics of Salafi activism. According to Elischer, in countries where authoritarian incumbents initiated the creation of ‘state-led’ Islamic associations during the first two post-colonial decades, governments have effectively thwarted domestic Islamist mobilisation and radicalisation. The purpose of these associations, Elischer argues, goes beyond official matters such as the organisation of religious festivities. Instead, they have been used ‘to undermine challengers to state authority emanating from within the Islamic sphere by acting as informal guardians of state authority and as gatekeepers’ (8). In particular, Elischer credits state-led Islamic councils with making possible the identification and co-optation (or banning) of what he labels ‘political and security challengers’ (12) as well as the empowerment of Islamic groups ‘accommodative of state authority’ (12).
Presenting as evidence the histories of state-Salafi interactions in Niger, Chad and Uganda, Elischer contends that state-led Islamic councils have functioned as cornerstones of effective projects of informal institutional regulation irrespective of the religious composition – clear Muslim majority (Niger and Chad) vs. Muslim minority (Uganda) – of individual African societies. On the other hand, according to Elischer, in countries such as Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali or Kenya, where national Islamic associations have been absent or established by Islamic clerics rather than by authoritarian incumbents, state elites tend to be ‘unable to create steering capacity in the Islamic sphere’ (193). Under these conditions, Elischer argues, governments are inclined to either tolerate Islamist contention or respond to it with large-scale repression, thereby fostering homegrown Salafi-jihadist activity.
Importantly, in addition to studying the politico-religious role state-led Islamic councils have historically played in Africa, Elischer also presents the – to my knowledge – first analytical framework trying to systematically explain why these councils were established in the first place. Drawing on the literature on ‘critical junctures’, he links the (non-)intervention of ruling elites in the Islamic sphere in the 1970s to their perception of Salafism as either a political threat or a resource for the consolidation of power.
While Salafism and Political Order is pioneering in many regards, Elischer's reasoning contains several non-trivial contradictions. Most crucially, the book's case studies of East Africa's religiously heterogeneous societies suffer from inconsistencies. For example, concerning his classification of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) as a non-state-led Islamic council, Elischer wrongly states that ‘the Kenyan state did not become involved in SUPKEM's internal dealings’ (94) and that it ‘was not represented among SUPKEM's national leadership’ (94). It is a well-established fact (see e.g. Oded, Islam and politics in Kenya, 2000: 22–26; Ndzovu, Muslims in Kenyan politics, 2014: 81–82) that during the presidency of Daniel arap Moi, high-level Muslim government and state representatives such as Kassim Mwamzandi, Ahmed Khalif, Ahmad Abdallah, Mohammed Salim Balala and Mohammed Shaikh Aden occupied key SUPKEM leadership positions. Considering the rise of local jihadism in Kenya, this suggests that the Kenyan case might challenge Elischer's theory rather than support it.
Elischer's assessment of developments in Uganda is also somewhat confusing. Regarding the history of the state-led Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC), Elischer argues that ‘[r]egular consultation between the state, quietist Salafis, and the UMSC enabled the Ugandan government to successfully distinguish between Islam, Salafism, and the small jihadi faction within the Salafi movement’ (120). While this might be the case, Elischer's own analysis suggests that Muslim youth dissatisfaction with the functioning of the UMSC decisively contributed to the politicisation of Salafism and the genesis of a domestic Islamist insurgency in the first place. Elischer's depiction of the UMSC as an effective tool of state management of the Islamic sphere therefore appears rather problematic.
Finally, the utility of Elischer's country case selection when it comes to testing his state management theory is questionable. Rather than investigating the relationship between Salafism and the state in Tanzania and Ethiopia, two countries with state-led Islamic councils, Elischer selects Ghana and Senegal, two countries where such councils have been absent. He justifies this choice by pointing out that post-colonial Ghanaian and Senegalese governments have successfully established ‘functional equivalents’ to state-led associations (166). Yet, considering Elischer's actual explanatory framework one would nevertheless have expected a different theory-testing approach.
These shortcomings notwithstanding, Salafism and Political Order is a highly valuable resource for anyone interested in sub-Saharan Africa's politico-religious landscapes.
