On Thursday nights in Fatick, as in any city or town in Senegal today, groups of local disciples of a particular marabout gather in the compound of one of their number for an evening of religious chanting, planning, and socializing. Usually several such groups can be heard at once; the Qadirs are distinguished by the rhythmic beating of their large Moorish drums, the Mourides with their preference for electronic amplification are inevitably the loudest, and groups of Tijans tend to sing the devotional poetry of El Hajj Malik Sy. The proliferation of such local groups, known as daairas, has been noted by many observers of Senegalese society. Along with the creation of religious study groups, the founding of new Arabic-language schools, the growing frequency of religious ceremonies, and the seemingly ever-increasing numbers of pilgrims at the annual commemorations in the holy cities of Touba and Tivaouane, the phenomenon has usually been interpreted as an indicator of religious fervor, another incidence of the much discussed “Islamic revival.”

No doubt there is some truth to this perspective – although in fact much of the motivation behind this new attention appears to follow the increased scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) concern with “resurgent Islam” in the wake of the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran, rather than any demonstrated importance of such developments in Senegal.