Paper short abstract:

Médersas in Bamako are educating an ever growing number of youth. As such, they participate in a new Islamic religiosity in Mali, activist yet not political per se, focused on rendering daily life morally pure and ultimately, in creating a class of pious, educated, and well-informed Malian citizens.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I discuss how Malians are critical of and disappointed with the leaders of their state; their activism is focused on moralizing the daily lives of Malian Muslims. Ultimately, the goal is to moralize the Malian state by creating a class of pious, educated, and well-informed Malian citizens. Islam mondain, as I saw it unfold in Bamako's classrooms and beyond, leads me to argue that Malian arabisants should not be assumed as having the potential to be Muslim extremists based on their shared characteristics with extremist groups (poverty, unemployment, etc.). The concept of citizenship into the modern secular state is not called into question and most young arabisants do support the democratic system and its values. However, this is not to say that Malians are not engaged in social activism, rather that their activism is specific to their needs and hopes as Malians.

The local and international influences vying for power within Bamako's médersas have worked to create a new approach to Islamic knowledge and in turn, participated in the development of a new Islamic religiosity in Mali, one that is this-worldly oriented, activist yet not political per se, focused on rendering daily life morally pure. This standardized version of Islam is referred to as mondain and is propagated by the arabisants - the teachers, students and former students of Bamako's médersas. Yet, this is not particular to Mali and clearly participates in the larger debate within the Muslim world about the relation between piety, modernity, globalization, democracy, etc.