Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I will analyse some relational projects with the dead, which include a continuity with the ante-mortem relationship, are constituted by my informants through specific uses of prayers and their sometimes ambiguous consideration of Islamic elites' theories of the dead's ontology.

Paper long abstract:

Senegal can be called an Islamic nation, since most declare themselves Muslim, and religious elites have enough power to counter some state institutions and policies. Through recurrent speeches held in various occasions, including in the mass media, the Islamic intelligentsia promulgate a particular conception of the dead, and the bonds the living should have with them. The core concepts of the ontologically dependent dead, who need the prayers of the living to have a peaceful afterlife, and the duty this entails for the living, a continuation of the everyday ethos of mutual aid, belong to common sense for my informants. Yet, more elaborated (and diverging) theories of the religious elites about the dead's ontology and the use which prayers have for them are often more critically examined.

In this presentation, I will analyse how the various prayer formulae available to help the dead, as well as the temporality of praying, allow for some choices in the réalisation of the ritual act which become meaningful in the interpretive framework of a "relational project" implying some continuities with past relationships with the dead, which goes beyond the notion of duty towards the dead. These relational projects are only possible because of the widely accepted notion that the dead have kept their personality and know what the livings do for them. Nevertheless, I will show that the doubts some actors have towards certain erudite theories about the usefulness of prayers and ontologies of the dead also generate some ambiguities in these relational projects.