The struggle of traditional religious education in West Africa: The case of Mahdara in Mauritania

Abstract

Over the course of time, the desert-based mahdara seminaries have made fundamental contributions to the preservation of the religious, spiritual, and cultural identity in West African societies. As an age-old nomadic entity, it was able to maintain a leading role in the promotion of socio-cultural traditions, as well as provide an indigenous model for public religious education in Mauritania. Following the country’s independence and Mauritania’s emergence as a nation state, modernity and political reform threatened and weakened the mahdara’s prestige and glory. National educational reforms, globalization, weather crises and ensuing mass urbanization, in addition to ongoing political debates on the mahdara’s model of instruction and its role in citizenship building, all had a role to play in its fate. The intense debate around the mahdara’s reform continues to sharpen the divide between proponents of traditional religious learning, modernists, and proclaimed moderates. This paper explores the nature of the mahdara’s struggle and the challenges shaping its position in the current religious, educational and political landscape, and leading to the adaptation and accommodation required for its survival. This study concludes that similar to other traditional institutions of Muslim learning, the survival of the mahdara in the face of insurmountable internal and external challenges and in view of its ambitions for progressive reform, the mahdara continues to celebrate itself as a unique model of religious learning whilst demonstrating an established core identity and reputation. Further research should highlight the interaction between tradition and modernity as seen in the case of the mahdara’s survival and the necessity of the preservation of such endangered historical institutions of national and cultural identity. © 2019, Florida Gulf Coast University. All rights reserved.