Medina Gounass is an isolated religious community situated in a remote area of Senegal. Until the 1980s, the leader of this branch of the Tijan tariqa refused all contact with the state authorities... Show moreMedina Gounass is an isolated religious community situated in a remote area of Senegal. Until the 1980s, the leader of this branch of the Tijan tariqa refused all contact with the state authorities. The imperatives of shari'a were rigorously applied in nearly all aspects of social and religious life. But after the death of the founder of the community, things changed dramatically. Disputes between the heirs of the founder's legacy, struggles over agricultural resources, and fierce competition between supporters of political parties, made the intervention of the worldly authorities inevitable. Today, the community of Medina Gounass is, like so many Sufi orders in Senegal, courted by the state elite. Show less
Transformation Processes and Islam in Africa was the theme of a conference held on 15 October 1999 at the African Studies Centre (ASC) in Leiden, the Netherlands. The conference was co-sponsored ISIM.