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Title
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Cotonou
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list of editors
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Fleet, Kate
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Krämer, Gudrun
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Matringe, Denis
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Nawas, John
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Rowson, Everett
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Abstract
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en
The port city of Cotonou is the major urban centre and economic hub of the West African Republic of Benin (known as Dahomey until 1975), with 679,012 inhabitants in 2013 (14.2 percent were Muslim in 2002). Cotonou was a fishing settlement, tributary to the Danxome (the Fon etymon of Dahomey) kingdom (c. 1600–1894) before the gradual encroachment of the French; it was overshadowed by the older Porto-Novo, the colonial and now political capital, twenty-four kilometres to the east. From the 1850s throu…
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Book Title
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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edition
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3
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Place of Publication
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Leiden
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Publisher
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Brill
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Date
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2019
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isbn
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978-90-04-38663-1
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extracted text
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
The port city of Cotonou is the major urban centre and economic hub of the West African Republic of
Benin (known as Dahomey until 1975), with 679,012 inhabitants in 2013 (14.2 percent were Muslim in
2002). Cotonou was a fishing settlement, tributary to the Danxome (the Fon etymon of Dahomey)
kingdom (c. 1600–1894) before the gradual encroachment of the French; it was overshadowed by the
older Porto-Novo, the colonial and now political capital, twenty-four kilometres to the east. From the
1850s through the colonial period, Porto-Novo (25.1 percent Muslim in 2002) was the epicentre of
Muslim socio-political and intellectual life in this part of the Guinea Coast.
The number of Muslims in Cotonou, estimated at 300 in 1926, grew gradually by the immigration of
migrant traders of Hausa, Nago (Yoruba of Oyo ancestry), Dendi, and other origins; native Fon converts to Islam were scarce. Each community tended to conserve its own Muslim and ethnic traditions.
By mid-century, the Jonquet and Cadjèhoun mosques were the town’s principal Islamic edifices.
After independence in 1960, the rapidly modernising Cotonou became the base for new nationwide
Islamic associations, but these were still led mostly by the francophone Porto-Novian elite, bitterly
divided between young self-designated “reformists” and supposedly less “rigorist” creoles descended
from ex-slaves returned from Brazil. A series of coups d’état and the proclamation, in 1974, by Colonel
Mathieu Kérékou (d. 2015, president of Benin from 1972 to 1991 and from 1996 to 2006) of the
government’s adoption of Marxism-Leninism put on hold Muslim association life, which was resumed
timidly after the political opening of 1983. Under the leadership of Yaaya Salouf Alihou, inspector
general of the Commercial Bank of Benin, the Union Culturelle des Jeunes Musulmans du Dahomey
(created in 1961) became the Organisation pour la Culture Islamique du Bénin (OCIB), whose aim was
to educate Muslims, French-speakers in particular, through courses, conferences, and publications.
The umbrella organisation Union Islamique du Bénin (UIB), led by the imām of the Jonquet mosque,
followed suit in 1984 but was immediately hindered by internal divisions. With the support of the
OCIB and the Saudi-based World Association of Muslim Youth, a new UIB-related Union de la Jeunesse
Musulmane du Bénin was founded in 1989. Beyond supervising the pilgrimage to Mecca, however, the
UIB settled into lethargy.
From 1990, the democratic opening, facilitated by a National Conference led by Archbishop Isidore de
Souza (d. 1999), generated an increasingly visible religious renewal at the grassroots and national
levels. The Association pour la Promotion de l’Islam au Bénin, the Cercle d’Études et de Recherche
Islam et Développement, and the Union des Femmes Musulmanes du Bénin were amongst the many
new Islamic organisations formed in 1990–1. A Conférence Nationale des Associations Islamiques du
Bénin (CONAIB-Shoura) was convened in 1992 to bring these initiatives together but came to a sudden
end after the authority of its president, Dr Yacouba Fassassi, a former IMF executive and master of the
Niʿmatallāhiyya (a Persian �� ūfī order originating with Shāh Niʿmatallā�� Walī, d. 834/1431, a Syrian-
born mystical author), was contested. Meanwhile, many competing, foreign-based Islamic NGOs established themselves in Cotonou, notably the Saudi International Islamic Relief Organisation, the
Kuwaiti Africa Muslim Agency, and the Libyan World Islamic Call Society (the latter built a free clinic
and a huge mosque near the Dantokpa market).
Beginning in the 1980s, hundreds of Beninese graduates returned from Arab-Islamic universities, particularly the Islamic University in Medina. In contrast to northern towns such as Malanville, the
influence of Salafī-oriented Ahl al-Sunna groups in Cotonou was limited, despite the presence of their
main mosque in the Place de Bulgarie. Some Salafists drew closer to francophone Muslim students and
intellectuals, who set up the Association Culturelle des Élèves et Étudiants Musulmans du Bénin
(ACEEMUB) and the Amicale des Intellectuels Musulmans du Bénin (AIMB) in the early 2000s. Prominent in this Arabic- and French-speaking group was Kuwait-trained Mohamed Ibrahim al-Habib (b.
1958), who became imām of the central zongo mosque in 1999 (a zongo is an urban enclave of Hausas
and, by extension, foreigners in general). Al-Habib succeeded his father, Wowo Ibrahim (known also
as Malam Yaro, d. 2002), a leading shaykh of the Niass Tijāniyya (the branch that developed beginning
in the 1940s around Shaykh Ibrahim Niass, d. 1975; the original Tijāniyya was founded in Tlemcen in
Algeria in 1195/1781 by the shaykh and religious scholar A�� mad b. Mu�� ammad al-Tijānī, d. 1815, and
became influential in much of North and West Africa and, later and to a lesser extent, in Egypt, Sudan,
and Ethiopia). Although disciples of the (�� ūfī) father eschewed the supposed Salafī inclinations of the
son, coexistence prevailed between the disciples of the two. Soon thereafter, the zongo mosque was
enlarged; a local Islamic radio station, “La Voix de l’Islam,” and a French newspaper, Al-oumma alislamia, were launched; and a new Islamic federation, the Réseau des Associations et ONG (NGOs)
Islamiques du Bénin, was founded in 2000. In 2002, this Réseau coordinated the second Colloque
International des Musulmans de l’Espace Francophone (CIMEF), sponsored by the Swiss academic,
philosopher, and writer Tariq Ramadan (b. 1962). Divisions later severely weakened Imām al-Habib’s
group. Officially, the central imām of Cotonou remains the imām of the Jonquet mosque, who is also
president of the UIB.
Cotonou is home to other Muslim communities: the A�� madiyya mission (a branch of the religious
movement founded in Panjāb near the end of the nineteenth century, originating with the life and
teachings of Mīrzā Ghulām A�� mad, d. 1908); the Tablīghī Jamāʿat (a global Sunnī Islamic missionary
movement founded in 1927 in India by Mu�� ammad Ilyās Kandhlawī, d. 1944, and focused on urging
Muslims to return to primary Sunnī Islam); and Shaykh Bentounes’s (b. 1949) ʿAlawiyya �� ūfī order
(founded by Shaykh A�� mad ʿAlawī, d. 1934, in Algeria in 1914), amongst many others. Al-Hadja Naïma
Toukourou (b. c.1933), a wealthy businesswoman, disciple of Malam Yaro, and member from 2003 of
the Lagos-based Yoruba NASFAT association (also known as Nasr Allah al-Fathi Society of Nigeria, or
Nasrul-Lahi-l-Fatih Society of Nigeria, a Yoruba Muslim prayer-group founded in Lagos in 1995, now
one of Nigeria’s most influential and dynamic religious groups), has built several mosques, including a
huge one in her Fifadji neighbourhood in Akpakpa, Cotonou. Religious coexistence amongst Muslim,
Christian, and vodun (voodoo) groups is largely peaceful, and the state-sponsored legal principle
known as laïcité is not questioned.
Marie Miran-Guyon
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