“Channeling” the powers of God’s Word
Audio-Recordings as Scriptures in Mali
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v4i2.135Keywords:
Islam, Muslim piety, media technologies, religion as mediationAbstract
Starting with the controversial esoteric employment of audio recordings by followers of the charismatic Muslim preacher Sharif Haidara in Mali, the article explores the dynamics emerging at the interface of different technologies and techniques employed by those engaging the realm of the Divine. I focus attention on the “border zone” between, on the one hand, techniques for appropriating scriptures based on long-standing religious conventions, and, on the other, audio recording technologies, whose adoption not yet established authoritative and standardized forms of practice, thereby generating insecurities and becoming the subject of heated debate. I argue that “recyclage” aptly describes the dynamics of this “border zone” because it captures the ways conventional techniques of accessing the Divine are reassessed and reemployed, by integrating new materials and rituals. Historically, appropriations of the Qur’an for esoteric purposes have been widespread in Muslim West Africa. These esoteric appropriations are at the basis of the considerable continuities, overlaps and crossovers, between scripture-related esoteric practices on one side, and the treatment by Sharif Haidara’s followers of audio taped sermons as vessels of his spiritual power, on the other.
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———. 2007. “Ambiguous Interventions: On the Professionalization of Divination Practices in Urban Mali.” Mande Studies 7: 49–68.
———. 2010. “Remaking Society from Within: Extraversion and the Social Forms of Muslim Activism in Urban Mali.” In Development and Politics from Below: Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, edited by Barbara Bompani and M. Frahm-Arp, 74–96. London: Palgrave-MacMillan.
———. forthcoming. “Equivocal Resonances: Islamic Revival and Female Radio ‘Preachers’ in Urban Mali.” In Radio in Africa: Cultures, Publics, Communities, edited by Liz Gunner, Dumisani Moyo and Dina Ligaga. Johannisburg, South Africa: University of Witswatersrand Press.
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Stoller, Paul. 1984. “Sound in Songhay Cultural Experience.” American Ethnologist 11: 559–570. doi:10.1525/ae.1984.11.3.02a00090
Triaud, Jean Louis. 1986. “Abd al-Rahman l’Africain (1908–1957), pionneur et precurseur du wahhabisme au Mali.” In Radicalismes islamiques, vol. 2, edited by O. Carré and Paul Dumont, 132–147. Paris: Harmattan.
Wright, Bonnie. 1989.“The Power of Articulation.” In Creativity of Power: Cosmology and Action in African Societies, edited by W. Arens and Ivan Karp, 39–58. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Zahan, Dominique. 1963. La dialectique du verbe chez les Bambara. Paris: Mouton.
Asad, Talal. 1986. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Georgetown University, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Occasional Papers Series.
Bolter, Jay David; Richard Grusin. 1999. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bowen, John. 1993. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Brenner, Louis. 1984. “The ‘Esoteric Sciences’ in West African Islam.” In African Healing Strategies, edited by H. Abdalla and B.M. du Toit, 20–28. Buffalo, NY: Trado-Medic Books.
———. 2001. Controlling Knowledge. Religion, Power and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Camara, Sory. 1976. Gens de la Parole: Essai sur la condition et le rôle dans la société Malinké. Paris, La Haye.
Connor, Steven. 2004. “Edison’s Teeth: Touching Hearing.” In Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity, edited by Veit Erlmann, 153–172. New York: Berg.
Csordas, Thomas. 1999. “Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology.” In Perspectives of Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and Culture, edited by Gail Weiss and Honi Fern Haber, 143–164. New York, London: Routledge.
Diawara, Mamadou. 2003. L’empire du verbe et l’éloquence du silence. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Gitelman, Lisa. 2006. Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hamès, Constant. 1987. “Taktub ou la Magie de l’Écriture Islamique. Textes Soninké à Usage Magique.” Arabica 34: 305–325. doi:10.1163/157005887X00036
Harrison, Christopher. 1988. France and Islam in West Africa, 1860–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511523854
Hirschkind, Charles. 2006.The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hoffman, Barbara. 1995. “Power, Structure, and Mande Jeliw.” In Status and Identity in West Africa. Nyamakalaw of Mande, edited by D. Conrad and B. Frank, 36–45. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Irvine, Judith. 1989. “When Talk isn’t Cheap: Language and Political Economy.” American Ethnologist 16: 248–267. doi:10.1525/ae.1989.16.2.02a00040
Lambek, Michael. 1993. Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Last, Murray. 1988. “Charisma and Medicine in Northern Nigeria.” In Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam, edited by Christian Coulon and Donal Cruise O’Brien, 183–213. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
McNaughton, Patrick. 1982. “Language, Art, Secrecy and Power: The Semantics of Dalilu.” Anthropological Linguistics 24: 487–505.
Meyer, Birgit . 2005. “Religious Remediations: Pentecostal Views in Ghanaian Video-movies.” Postscripts 1: 155–181.
Mommersteeg, Geert. 1991. “L’education coranique au Mali: le pouvoir des mots sacrés.” In L’enseignement islamique au Mali, edited by Louis Brenner and Bintou Sanankoua, 44–61. Bamako: Jamana.
Nelson, Kristina. 1985. The Art of Reciting the Qur’an. Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press.
Reichmuth, Stefan. 1996. “Education and the Growth of Religious Associations among Yoruba Muslims: The Ansar-Ud- Deen Society of Nigeria.” Journal of Religion in Africa 26: 365–405.
Roberts, Allen; Mary Nooter Roberts. 2003. A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal. Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
Schmidt, Leigh Eric. 2000. Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schulz, Dorothea. 1999. “Pricey Publicity, Refutable Reputations. Jeliw and the Economics of Honour in Mali.” Paideuma 45: 275–292.
———. 2003. “‘Charisma and Brotherhood’ Revisited: Mass-mediated Forms of Spirituality in Urban Mali.” Journal of Religion in Africa 33(2): 146–171. doi:10.1163/15700660360703123
———. 2005. “Love Potions and Money Machines: Commercial Occultism and the Reworking of Social Relations in Urban Mali.” In Wari Matters: Ethnographic Explorations of Money in the Mande world, edited by Stephen Wooten, 93–115. Münster and Hamburg: Lit Verlag.
———. 2006. “Promises of (Im)mediate Salvation: Islam, Broadcast Media, and the Remaking of Religious Experience in Mali.” American Ethnologist 33(2): 210–229. doi:10.1525/ae.2006.33.2.210
———. 2007. “Ambiguous Interventions: On the Professionalization of Divination Practices in Urban Mali.” Mande Studies 7: 49–68.
———. 2010. “Remaking Society from Within: Extraversion and the Social Forms of Muslim Activism in Urban Mali.” In Development and Politics from Below: Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, edited by Barbara Bompani and M. Frahm-Arp, 74–96. London: Palgrave-MacMillan.
———. forthcoming. “Equivocal Resonances: Islamic Revival and Female Radio ‘Preachers’ in Urban Mali.” In Radio in Africa: Cultures, Publics, Communities, edited by Liz Gunner, Dumisani Moyo and Dina Ligaga. Johannisburg, South Africa: University of Witswatersrand Press.
Sterne, Jonathan. 2003. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Production. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Stoller, Paul. 1984. “Sound in Songhay Cultural Experience.” American Ethnologist 11: 559–570. doi:10.1525/ae.1984.11.3.02a00090
Triaud, Jean Louis. 1986. “Abd al-Rahman l’Africain (1908–1957), pionneur et precurseur du wahhabisme au Mali.” In Radicalismes islamiques, vol. 2, edited by O. Carré and Paul Dumont, 132–147. Paris: Harmattan.
Wright, Bonnie. 1989.“The Power of Articulation.” In Creativity of Power: Cosmology and Action in African Societies, edited by W. Arens and Ivan Karp, 39–58. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Zahan, Dominique. 1963. La dialectique du verbe chez les Bambara. Paris: Mouton.
Published
2010-11-12
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Schulz, D. E. (2010). “Channeling” the powers of God’s Word: Audio-Recordings as Scriptures in Mali. Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, 4(2), 135-156. https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v4i2.135
