Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes

An Anthropology of Everyday Religion

Samuli Schielke, Liza Debevec, Samuli Schielke, Liza Debevec

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857455079
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Everyday practice of religion is complex in its nature, ambivalent and at times contradictory. The task of an anthropology of religious practice is therefore precisely to see how people navigate and make sense of that complexity, and what the significance of religious beliefs and practices in a given setting can be. Rather than putting everyday practice and normative doctrine on different analytical planes, the authors argue that the articulation of religious doctrine is also an everyday practice and must be understood as such.

1

Divination and Islam

Existential Perspectives in the Study of Ritual and Religious Praxis in Senegal and Gambia

Knut Graw

The part played by divination cannot be overestimated.

—J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in West Africa

Introduction

In Senegal and Gambia, as well as in most other African societies, divination forms an important element of religious praxis. Despite of the often private character of divinatory consultation in Senegalese and Gambian society, in most accounts of West African Islamic religious life, the importance of divination and other forms of ritual consultation is acknowledged as a social fact both by the members of these societies as well as by outside observers.¹ In this regard, J. Spencer Trimingham’s statement that ‘the part played by divination cannot be overestimated’ is not exceptional (Trimingham 1959: 119). Similar statements emphasizing the importance of ritual and consultational practices ranging from divination to therapeutic practices can be found in many of the classic studies of the field.² Despite of this general acknowledgement of their relevance, however, very few studies have approached these practices as a key to the understanding of the significance of Islamic religious practice in these contexts as such. Instead, most studies tend to focus on issues such as the history of certain religious movements, their organisation and economy, as well as their relation to the colonial and postcolonial state.³ In most cases, the importance of divination and related ritual or aesthetic practices is, thus, generally acknowledged but does not move to the foreground of the analysis. Attempts to approach religious life through consultational, ritual or aesthetic practices have remained rare. The most remarkable exception in this regard is the extensive study of religious aesthetic practices in the context of the Mouride brotherhood by Allen F. Roberts and Mary Nooter Roberts (2003). This monumental study not only documents the creativity and cultural dynamic of religious visual arts in urban Senegal in an impressive way but represents at the same time an important methodological shift in its attempt to come to an understanding of Islamic religious life in Senegal through the study of artistic and ritual expressions rather than exclusively through the study of historical process, religious doctrine or religious organisation. In this regard, their study represents an important shift away from the institutionalized spheres of religious life towards the everyday of religious life in terms of how religious life is experienced and practiced on a more daily and personal basis.

The present text will follow a similar line. By focusing on the individual and sociocultural significance of divination in the Senegalese and Gambian context, the text sets out to develop an understanding of West African Islamic religious life through the study of a set of practices which despite (or perhaps precisely because of) their seemingly esoteric and private character, may convey a much more direct sense of the individual and sociocultural significance of contemporary religious praxis in Senegal, Gambia, and, possibly, elsewhere, than accounts limiting itself to the sociological or politico-historical dimensions of religious life. Such a more person-centred approach seems all the more important as it allows for a kind of understanding that does not depend upon specialist knowledge, external or internal, of the religious traditions and their historical development as such but which is, instead, reflective of and sensitive towards how specific religious practices are experienced and lived through in practice.

However, in so far as the approach followed in this text entails a certain shift away from the study of the institutional and sociological dimensions of religious praxis towards questions of experience and more implicit fields of meaning, this shift should not be understood as a break. Rather, it will be argued that the understanding of the significance of religious praxis that can be gained through an existential study of seemingly ‘popular’ dimensions of religious life may actually be crucial to the understanding of the sociological and historical aspects of a specific religious setting by highlighting shared patterns of meaning which are important for the motivations and understandings not just of specific ritual and consultational practices but also for engagements within the religious field more generally. In this regard, the attempt to come to an understanding of (Islamic) religious life through the study of divinatory and related practices rather than religious organization or congregation is meant to be de-delimiting and integrative rather than imposing new delimitations as to which areas should be understood as forming the proper objects of the study of religious praxis. This analytical move is complemented by a similar shift in relation to the topic of divination moving from the study of divination in terms of tradition, intellectual content or cognition towards its study as a hermeneutic and consultational practice. In the last part of the text, the attempt to de-delimit the study of divination by paying particular attention to its more existential dimension is complemented by a more general reflection on the possibility of an existential approach to divination and religious praxis and its relation to phenomenological and existential thought.

Divination and Islam: Integrating Ritual Traditions

In many Islamic societies, especially in the Middle East, the activities of healers and diviners are looked upon with suspicion by the official representatives of religious groups and organizations. Due to this, healers and diviners often have to operate at what appears to be the fringes or outside of what is considered ‘orthodox’ religious praxis in the respective context. Sometimes healing and divination practices are even banned by the state. In Senegal and Gambia, however, divinatory and therapeutic ritual unfolds in the centre rather than at the margins of Islamic practice. A number of reasons account for this situation. Historically, in most West African societies Islam first spread through scholars who were schooled in the Islamic esoteric sciences and who offered their services to the leading members of local, non-Islamic aristocracies. Due to this early identification of Islamic ritual specialists with esoteric knowledge and services, practices such as divination and the making of protective amulets have been associated with and seen as a proof of the power of Islamic religion for centuries. This strong link between West African Islam and the arts of divination and healing is also reflected in the fact that even diviners and healers without specific knowledge of the Islamic literary corpus and Arabic writing are, as long as they are perceived to operate within an Islamic cultural framework, generally referred to with the same titles that are used to refer to a person renowned for his Islamic education and expertise in the Islamic literary tradition. These titles of respect are, for instance, mooro in Mandinka, serigne in Wolof, and thierno in Pulaar. Reflecting this, the Arabic derived term ‘marabout’ that is often used by Western scholars as well as by French speaking Senegalese, can equally refer to religious specialists in the scriptural sense as well as to divination and healing specialists. In other words, in Senegal and Gambia being a specialist in divination or healing is practically synonymous to being a religiously learned person and vice versa.⁴

This view of diviners, healers and religious community leaders as being part of the same religious field is not only the result of established modes of perception but also of the active effort of diviners, healers and religious leaders to inscribe themselves into the religious field of which they are perceived to be part of. One of the most important markers in this regard is dress. At least when receiving clients, but also during the rest of the day, all diviners I worked with would usually wear the long-sleeved and ankle-long shirt typical for the male Islamic dress code in Senegal and the Gambia (Mandinka dendikoo). No one would wear European-style trousers or shirts. Another important marker of this belonging to the field of Islamic praxis is Arabic literacy. The large majority of the diviners and healers I met had at least some basic notions of the Arabic script and would make use of the Arabic script for writing or at least copying the words and phrases necessary for the drawing of esoteric seals (Mandinka sing. katimoo, from the Arabic khatim) used in protective and propitiatory amulets referred to as safee in Mandinka and téere in Wolof.⁵ Interestingly, both terms, safee and téere, make reference to the field of literacy and writing and thus, indirectly, to the Islamic sphere, safee meaning something written (from ka safee, to write) and téere not only meaning amulet but also being the general Wolof term for book. Although not all amulets necessarily contain writing (there are also those made from different vegetal and animal substances), the generalized reference to writing and script in the designation of these objects provides further evidence for the intimate link between what is considered to be part of scriptural Islamic praxis and the divinatory and therapeutical arts that prescribe and make use of these objects. A third, perhaps more general but nevertheless important element adding to the synonymy between diviners and Islamic specialists or leaders is what I would call a kind of shared moral habitus or ethical posture of respectfulness towards others, characterized by the approachability, calmness and impartiality which is often also associated with the figure of the elder (keeba) and also required in other offices.

These different elements, together with the fact that historically, in the Senegambia, Islam has been associated with divination and other esoteric practices means that as mooro, serigne, thierno or marabout the figures of diviners, healers, and religious leaders not only overlap but are actually largely interchangeable. As a matter of fact, it is rare that religious leaders or people assuming a certain status due to their religious education, descent or function do not practice divination or the writing of safee at least occasionally. In the same vein, diviners usually perceive of themselves as operating within, not outside the realm of Islam. This is particularly relevant in relation to the study and understanding of divination techniques that are historically not associated with the Islamic esoteric sciences, such as the widespread practice of cowrie shell divination for instance. Also these forms of divination refer systematically to the Islamic charitable practice of sadaqa as their most important ritual remedy (Mandinka sadaa). Although pre-Islamic in origin, also cowrie shell divination and other forms of divination and therapy not normally associated with Islamic praxis thus work through and within an explicitly Islamic ritual idiom.⁶ In this regard, divination is in fact one of the most widespread and resilient institutions of Islamic ritual life in Senegal and Gambia, embedded in and integrating other forms of Islamic ritual such as sadaa (donations) and duwa (supplicatory prayer), and, thus, resisting categorizations of Islamic religious and ritual practices as pertaining to the realms of either ‘popular’ or ‘official’ varieties of Islam.

A Setting

Several people were waiting in the courtyard of the house of the khalifa, the religious head and also de facto political head of the village, to be received for consultation. The visitors were seated on the edge of a large and solid earthen platform made from sun-dried clay bricks covered by a layer of cement and equipped with a light roof made from wooden poles and palm leaves, offering protection against the sun and making the waiting more bearable. The shadow of a large Mango tree in the courtyard of the house provided additional shade. The surface of the platform had been smoothened by the continuous use of people resting, meeting or, as on this day, waiting to be received by the khalifa Ibrahima Souane, the oldest living representative of a large and long lineage of Islamic religious specialists, based in the province of Yacine in the southern Senegalese region of the Casamance but with roots and links reaching as far as Mali and Mauritania. Some of the visitors had come from nearby villages, others from more far away, following Cheikh Ibrahima Souane’s reputation as a diviner and ritual specialist which extended far beyond the region. Many of the visitors had already arrived the day before and stayed overnight. Those not living further away than half-a-day’s walk had also paid their first visit to Cheikh Ibrahima the day before, then returned home and come back in the morning. Now they were waiting to be received a second time in order to obtain the results of a divination procedure referred to in Mandinka as listikaaroo, a form of dream divination involving the interpretation of what a diviner sees during his sleep following specific prayers, soliciting information on the nature of and the right ritual remedies to his clients’ predicaments, reaching from illness and marital conflicts to unemployment and migration.⁷ Amadou, for instance, a young and athletically built football player wearing sneakers, tracksuit trousers and a shirt of his favourite European club, had come from Dakar. A journey of at least 10 hours by Sept Places, the famous mostly Peugeot station wagons, the fastest over-land transport option in Senegal, providing, as the name indicates, space for seven passengers at a time. Travelling by the cheaper Car Rapide, the same journey often takes more than a day, involving overnight stays at the border with the Gambia which has to be passed through in order to reach this southernmost region of Senegal. He had come to see the marabout because of certain difficulties he had with his trainer in Dakar, and for acquiring ritual protection against a series of sport injuries he had been suffering from and which, if continuing, could bring his aspirations to a sudden end.

Listikaaroo was often favoured by the more prestigious marabouts who, besides their divination and healing activities, also had a more public religious role to play. They gave preference to this practice over cowrie divination, divination by the use of roots, or other forms of divination that form part of the panoply of forms of divination practiced in this part of West Africa because of the distinctive Islamic credits of listikaaroo. The preference for listikaaroo, or istikhara as it is referred to in Arabic, reflects the general awareness of many practitioners of the fact that this technique, at least as a private practice of praying for guidance and advice, has remained largely exempted from the criticism towards divination practices that has been expressed in many texts and teachings that circulate in many contexts as parts of the curriculum of scriptural Islamic knowledge. By virtue of its legitimacy in the traditions of the Islamic textual scholarship, listikaaroo is theologically lifted out of the wider realm of divination of which, at least in the Senegalese context, it has always been part of.

Another form of divination often favoured by practitioners who could draw upon formal religious learning and literacy in Arabic was khatt ar-raml, literally, sand writing, that is, the art of Islamic geomancy. Referred to as ramalu in Mandinka, it represents a highly complex and more formalized divinatory practice involving both writing and arithmetic procedure. Again, the relative proximity towards and direct association with an explicitly Islamic realm of religious praxis may play an important role in the wide distribution of this particular form of divination in the Senegalese and Gambian context. At the same time, however, regardless of the techniques they preferred themselves, the practitioners usually refused to assume any kind of hierarchy between the different forms of divination and considered them to be different but equally valuable paths of knowledge (londoo). Furthermore, the mutual appreciation of different forms of divination among practitioners was not limited to the discursive level but expressed itself also in the fact that, when consulting other diviners, they often preferred to consult with practitioners using a different technique than their own.

Despite its wide distribution and obvious sociocultural importance, for the outside observer, the significance of divination as part of the larger realm of religious praxis is not easy to grasp. Both the panoply of different techniques as well as their esoteric character may play an important role here, making it an area that cannot be overlooked but which is difficult to observe and to study in any real depth. In this regard, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the classic studies dealing with Islamic life in Senegal have paid little attention to divination or healing, focusing instead largely on questions concerning the social, political and economic organization of Islamic practice, especially in relation to the large Sufi orders which shape religious life in Senegal in important ways (see Cruise O’Brien 1971; Copans 1980; Coulon 1981; Villalón 1995; Seesemann 2011). In comparison, esoteric and private practices such a...