Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal

Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jscket, 224 pages. The influence of traditional and religious groups on modern politics. The author investigates the political role of religious organizations in the West African country of Senegal. Upon independence in 1960. Senegalese politicians adopted the pattern of cooperation established by the French. Behrman, examining the present role of the brotherhoods, analyzes their inter-relationships as well as their relations with political parties, government officials, the government reform program, and modern Muslim reform groups. She reveals that Senegalese officials often defer to the opinion of the strongest marabus and that, in times of crisis or uncertainty with in the government party, the Union Progressiste Senegalaise, they turn to the marabus for support. She also shows that, although the Muslim leaders occupy such a privileged position in Senegalese society, they do not actually control the government, which issecularand modern in form and is led by Western-educated men devoted to a program of industrialization and agricultural and social reform. Name on half-title page otherwise clean. Record # 381174