Charismatic discipleship: a Sufi woman and the divine mission of development in Senegal

Abstract

AbstractMidwife Rokhaya Thiam joined the Fayḍa Tijāniyya Sufi Islamic movement in 2005 and soon became aware of her divine mission to found the Association Mame Astou Diankha. This organization provides free medical services to needy people and organizes economic development projects for women. Rokhaya Thiam exemplifies a broader trend of ‘hybrid’ religious subjects in the Fayḍa Tijāniyya movement who embed neoliberal notions such as ‘development’ and individual entrepreneurial initiative into mystical notions of selfhood, agency and moral order. Such charismatic disciples seem to approach discipleship in liberal fashion, pursuing an individualized mission in contrast to the classic Sufi disciple who passively follows instructions from the shaykh. However, these disciples defy reduction to individual, neoliberal subjectivity, subsuming their agency under a larger spiritual entity responsible for revealing and realizing their mission. This article asks whether such hybridities may be intrinsic to neoliberal subjecthood, which entails being shaped by neoliberal power and knowledge while domesticating them to other ends, rather than being exceptions that emerge on the still-enchanted edges of neoliberalism.