Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the religious discourse of Lebanese Shaykh al-Zayn's Friday sermons from the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq, focusing on his translation of Middle Eastern politics for a diasporic community in West Africa.

Paper long abstract:

While there has been much emphasis on new types of media for the dissemination of Islamic ideas, this paper focuses on the traditional Friday khutba (Islamic sermon). Lebanese Shaykh 'Abdul Mun'am al-Zayn was trained in Najaf, Iraq, studied under Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr and Ayatollah al-Khu'i, and serves as a wakil (Shi'i representative) to Ayatollah al-Sistani. Sent by Musa al-Sadr, he first arrived in Dakar in 1969, where he worked to build the Islamic Social Institute, which opened in 1978. As the first Shi'i institution in Senegal - and all of West Africa - and the only mosque where sermons are preached entirely in Arabic, Shaykh al-Zayn quickly gained a following - enhanced by his charisma - of both Sunni and Shi'i Muslims, Arabs as well as Africans. This paper focuses on the shaykh's discursive strategies for addressing his unique diasporic following. At times he stresses the particularities of Shi'i Islamic practice, but more often he highlights a universal Islam. In analyzing khutbas given in 2003 during the beginning of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, this paper pays particular attention to his engagement with global politics and how his messages are translated for a community in West Africa detached from the Middle East. Many second, third, and now fourth generation Lebanese in Senegal (whose families first arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) have never visited Lebanon.