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null Governing the Faithful: State Management of Salafi Activity in the Sahel and East Africa

Date: April 25, 2017 to April 25, 2017
Time: 1200-1330
Location: Glasgow Hall, Room 322

As part of the Global Connections Speaker Series, NSA will host Dr. Sebastian Elischer of the University of Florida on 25 April 2017. The literature on radical Islam stresses the significance of the Salafi creed for the radicalization of Muslims worldwide. This presentation examines how four states in the francophone Sahel – Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Mali – and two states in East Africa – Kenya and Uganda  –  have engaged with their Salafi communities since independence and what the long-term consequences of these strategies are. It finds that states that established institutional oversight mechanisms in the Islamic sphere effectively counteracted the spread of political and jihadi Salafism. This presentation examines the origins and the modus operandi of institutional regulation in areas of weak statehood. States that chose inaction, concessions, or repression enabled and contributed the rise of political and jihadi Salafism. These findings challenge conventional assumptions about the inability of weak states to establish state authority and shed new light on the complex relationship between African states and Islam.

For more information about Dr. Elischer, click here.