THE BATTLE FOR WEST AFRICAN ISLAM

In June 2015 Paul Raymond and I were sent to Mali by the International Reporting Project to explore changes in religious practice, and uncover the links between religious sects and foreign interests within Mali. Our reporting was conducted against the backdrop of Mali's civil war.

The Struggle for Mali

When fighters linked to al-Qaida swept into Timbuktu on 1 April 2012, Dr Ibrahim Maiga found himself living a nightmare. The new rulers of west Africa’s most famous centre of Islamic scholarship immediately set about destroying its history. Over the following months they set fire to thousands of ancient manuscripts, destroyed the mausoleums of local holy men and forced musicians into exile. For the invaders, many of whom were from Algeria and other parts of the region, “saint worship” and music were un-Islamic. The new sharia court wasted no time issuing death sentences to anyone who violated its creed.
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Don’t Call It a Jihadist Insurgency — Yet

BAMAKO, Mali — On Friday, November 20, two gunmen attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in the Malian capital of Bamako, taking 170 hostages and killing 19 before security forces stormed the building.Three years after Al Qaeda-linked fighters overran northern Mali, the country is ravaged by terrorism. In spite of a French counter-insurgency operation, U.N. peacekeepers, and a peace agreement signed this summer between the government and Tuareg separatists, attacks plague communities from north to south. The Radisson is the highest-profile target to date.
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How Was Your Day ... Sufi Law Student in Mali?

I got up at one o’clock this morning, like every morning, to pray with my fellow disciples. Our living space is upstairs, but our guide, Sheikh Bilal, leads prayers in the mosque room on the ground floor. We kneel together under the Quranic inscriptions and chant the names of Allah. The meditation is called a zikr, and it lasts until dawn. Sufism is about seeking inner purity and peace; it lets the individual move closer to the spiritual and away from the world. I’ve been living in this Sufi community for 16 years. When I was 5, my parents decided that I should become a Sufi, so my uncle brought me here to be adopted. READ MORE

Mali’s Voice of Reason

BAMAKO, MALI — This June, as Mali’s three-year civil war sputtered to an end, representatives of the government, loyalist militias, and the rebels gathered here in the capital to discuss their country’s future. Just days earlier they had signed a provisional peace agreement. Now, they came together for a public discussion of the deal: not in a grand hall, government palace, or hotel conference center, but in the shoebox-sized sound booth of a private radio studio. It could only have happened at Studio Tamani, named after a kind of drum traditionally used in West Africa for passing messages from village to village. READ MORE

The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali

BAMAKO, Mali — In a country where two-thirds of the adults are illiterate, it is a privileged few who have the chance to study at the Mustafa International School. Located in the western suburbs of Bamako, a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy, the college-level seminary has just 180 students — 150 men and 30 women. They engage in an intensive curriculum that encompasses theology, history, philosophy, Arabic, Farsi, and world religions. And they do it all under the watchful eyes of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, former supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. READ MORE

On Patrol With the Soldiers Battling Bandits, Islamist Militants, and Mistrust in Mali

There are 10 of us in the armored personnel carrier, sweating under body armor as we bounce along the road out of Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Mali. It's nearly 110 degrees.
We're on patrol with soldiers from Burkina Faso who are serving as United Nations peacekeepers. They hold old Kalashnikovs and wear UN-blue helmets whose paint jobs have seen better days. After three years of civil war in Mali, they are here trying to help put the country back together. It is the UN's deadliest peacekeeping mission to date. READ MORE...