Please join Columbia’s University Seminar on Contemporary Africa for:

Politics and Affiliation of Enchantment among the Ahel Guennar of Southern Mauritania

In this presentation, Dr. Pettigrew will discuss the history of the Ahel Guennar, a confederation of roughly 350 families known for their mastery of Islamic esoteric sciences, whose members live settled between several villages just north of the Senegal River in contemporary Mauritania. The Ahel Guennar’s ambiguous racial identity, shifting religious and occupational affiliations, enigmatic reputation and secrecy, and long history in the region make them a compelling case study for the role of Islamic esoteric knowledge in the mercurial political and cultural environment in which they situated themselves. Claiming descent from a well-known religious figure and a miraculous beginning to their principle village, the Ahel Guennar established themselves by learning and teaching the Qur’an and its sciences, fabricating amulets for their clients, and carving out an exclusive space for themselves in the political dynamics of the southwestern region of Mauritania. The family traversed linguistic, cultural, and geographic boundaries between Senegal and Mauritania, Wolof and Arabic-speaking communities, and reputations as either impressive Muslim scholars of the Qu’ran and its related protective sciences or as “magicians” of illicit witchcraft depending on the interlocutor. The ties binding the Ahel Guennar to communities and centers of religious learning in Senegal are deep and enduring while they have also provided their protective and miraculous services to prominent bidhan, or “white” Arabophone, emirs and politicians. This history of straddling racial and political categories speaks to the fluid nature of racial, religious, and occupational identities in the region as well as the strategies employed by this specific community to navigate and explain their flexibility.

Speaker’s bio:

Erin Pettigrew is an Assistant Professor of History and Arab Crossroads studies at NYU Abu-Dhabi. She is an historian of modern Africa, with a research focus on nineteenth and twentieth century West Africa and histories of Islam, race, and healing in colonial and postcolonial contexts. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled To Invoke the Invisible: Muslim Healing, Magic, and Amulets in the Twentieth-Century History of the Southern Sahara which examines the social history of Muslim spiritual mediators in twentieth-century Mauritania. This project addresses Pettigrew’s broader research interests in local intellectual and religious history in the Sahara and Sahel and how racial discourse in the region, ideas about health and healing, and debates over the orthodoxy of religious practice are constituted over time.

Columbia University Faculty House (directions available here)

April 26th

6pm-8pm

Seminar Chairs: Abosede George and Rhiannon Stephens

Please RSVP to ths2122@columbia.edu if you would like to join the group for dinner at a nearby restaurant.