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Paper long abstract:

This presentation examines the transformative practices of the Islamic association Ihyaous Sunnah in Niger. It shows the importance of the Sunnah in the design and implementation of their activities, and the way they mobilise Sunnah as epistemic and ethical frame of reference that informs activities which aim at the trans-/re-formation of the moral and social order in Niger.

The central moral voice of the association – the Council of Ulemas – has made it its mission to promote Tarbiyya as an educational tool rooted in the Sunnah and as the foundation of a new moral and social order. With the concept of Tarbiyya, the Council denounces and challenges forms of (moral) education, which are promoted by practices and discourses of international development actors (through NGOs, development projects and programmes). I understand their mobilisation of religious epistemologies and ethics as a way to contest foreign interventions and the moral and social order they try to implement directly or indirectly. With Tarbiyya the association suggests an alternative to what is usually discussed as “development”, the “relevant learning outcomes” (SDG 4) and the necessary knowledges and skills.

The paper analyses what the president of the association calls "Tabarbarewar Tarbiyya Matasa" (in Hausa “degradation of youth education”) and explains how his diagnosis leads him to certain measures regarding youth education and the implementation of a (new) moral and social order.