The Islam in Africa Working Group – along with the Center for Global Islamic Studies & the Department of Religion – at the University of Florida present:

A Symposium on Muslim Africa and Changing Global Interconnections

April 1-2, 2021 | University of Florida

In the context of the rapidly changing global geopolitics of the last few decades, new actors alongside European and North American actors have emerged that have helped to reshape existing orientations, alliances, and configurations on the African continent. Such external actors as China, Russia, Turkey, and the Gulf states are new or have become more important in Africa’s connections with the world. This symposium will explore such changing global interconnections with a particular focus on Muslim Africa. Global interconnections are of course not new for Africa’s Muslims, but such connections and orientations have shifted in an increasingly globalized world. The arrival of new state- and non-state actors is another important development, and the papers will provide new insights on how they are affecting Muslim Africa with cases from across the continent.

Participants:

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Mara Leichtman, Michigan State University
Jason Mosley, Oxford University
Issouf Binaté, University of Florida
Ibrahim Yahya Ibrahim, Internatonal Crisis Group

Program:

Friday April 1

3:30-5:00 (Baraza) – Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (virtual) “Africa, Islam, and the Changing Global Architecture”

Saturday April 2

8:45-9:00 – Welcome, Terje Ostebo

9:00-9:45 – Mara Leichtman, Michigan State University
“Da‘wa as Development: Kuwaiti Islamic Charity in East Africa”

9:45-10:30 – Jason Mosley, Oxford University
“Beyond Ikhwan: Turkish and Qatari agendas in the Horn of Africa”

10:30-10:45 – Coffee & Tea

10:45-11:30 – Issouf Binate, University of Florida
“Turkey and Côte d’Ivoire Contemporary Relationship : Between Social Mobility and Transfer of Religious Practices”

11:30-12:15 – Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, International Crisis Group “Islamic NGOs in Niger in the context of Jihadist violence”

12:15-1:00 – Plenary discussion, with UF moderator

1:00-2:00 – Lunch

Abstracts:

Issouf Binate: “Turkey and Côte d’Ivoire Contemporary Relationship : Between Social Mobility and Transfer of Religious Practices”

Mara Leichtman: “Da‘wa as Development: Kuwaiti Islamic Charity in East Africa”

Direct Aid (formerly Africa Muslims Agency), Kuwait’s largest charity focused on Africa, carefully mediates between Gulf donor wishes, aid recipient needs, Kuwaiti and African government regulations, and various development priorities. Since the 1980s, Direct Aid has been centralizing religious and development work in complexes that comprise orphanages, schools, clinics, and mosques. The Islamic NGO therefore cannot be confined to narrow Western categorizations of Gulf Salafi da‘wa (proselytizing) institutions. Direct Aid’s approach is strategically grounded in comprehensiveness/“holism,” which serves to blur established categories of “charity,” “relief,” and “development” to become da‘wa-as-development. What is the cultural and religious impact of Gulf funding in Africa? How do Kuwait headquarters interact with African beneficiaries? Based on multi-sited fieldwork from 2016-2018, this talk examines Kuwaiti-funded projects in Tanzania.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou: Africa, Islam, and the Changing Global Architecture

Jason Mosley: “Beyond Ikhwan: Turkish and Qatari agendas in the Horn of Africa”

The interests and agendas of Turkey and Qatar have overlapped to some degree (resulting in some instances of cooperation, if not always coordination). Moreover, they have sought to pursue more overtly political agendas in the Horn of Africa than the other Gulf states. From 2011 onward, both countries have found their interests increasingly aligned as the changes initiated by the Arab Uprising have swept through the region. The 2017 rift between Doha and the other regional Arab powers (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) have served to reinforce Turkey-Qatar connections. The degree to which support for political Islam underpins the foreign policy of either country is overstated, however, even if this is the core accusation that drove the split in 2017. Turkey has pursued a broader project focused on cultivating its own economic and political influence since a turn away from Europe in the late 1990s. The Qatari agenda is more pragmatic and opportunistic than ideological, focused in part on maintaining independence from larger Gulf neighbours, especially Saudi Arabia. The states of the Horn of Africa, especially Sudan and Somalia, have been affected by the competition between Qatar and other Gulf states. In particular, the 2019 revolution in Sudan exposed the fragility of the Qatari position (and to some extent the Turkish position) in the competition for influence in the Red Sea.

Bios:

Issouf Binaté is a postdoctoral researcher for the Islam in Africa in Global Context project at the Center for Global Islamic Studies, University of Florida, which is funded through a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Initiative on Religion in International Affairs. His research interests include Islamic education, the revival of Sufism, and Islamic NGOs, including organizations from Turkey and the Arab world, in Côte d’Ivoire. Currently, he is a lecturer in the history department at Université Alassane Ouattara in Côte d’Ivoire and a fellow of the Pilot African Postgraduate Academy (PAPA) at Point Sud (Mali) and Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany).

Mara Leichtman is an associate professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University and was a 2020-2021 Luce/ACLS Fellow in Religion, Journalism and International Affairs. As a 2016-2017 Fulbright Scholar at American University of Kuwait, she launched a project on Gulf Islamic humanitarianism in Africa. She is author of Shi‘i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal (Indiana University Press). She co-edited New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity (Palgrave Macmillan); The Shiʿa of Lebanon: New Approaches to Modern History, Contemporary Politics, and Religion (Die Welt des Islams); and Muslim Cosmopolitanism: Movement, Identity, and Contemporary Reconfigurations (City and Society).

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, of which he is the Deputy Director. Professor Mohamedou. Previously the Associate Director of the Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University, he also teaches at the Doctoral School at Sciences Po Paris. He is the author of a trilogy on the post-September 11 era: Contre- Croisade (2004), Understanding Al Qaeda (2011) and A Theory of ISIS (2018), editor of State- Building in the Middle East and North Africa (2021) and co-editor of Democratisation in the 21st Century (2016). He is the recipient of the 2021 Global South Distinguished Scholar Award of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Jason Mosley has been a Research Associate at Oxford University’s African Studies Centre since 2012. He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Eastern African Studies. Jason is also an Associate Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Conflict, Peace and Security area, working on the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region. Building on more than 20 years of field experience in the Horn of Africa, Jason has since 2012 undertaken a range of policy and academic research consultancies, focused on political economy issues across the region. He was an Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House from 2012-18. Prior to this, Jason was the Senior Analyst for Africa at Oxford Analytica from 2005-12. Jason’s current research is focused on the wider Red Sea region, in terms of peace and security issues, cultural and economic linkages, and shifts in regional multilateralism. He has a continuing interest in local reactions to state visions for the development of marginalized regions, especially in frontier areas. Jason is also active in efforts to mentor researchers in Northeast Africa, and in finding ways to amplify research agendas initiated and driven by his colleagues from the region.