Islam and the Prayer Economy: History and authority in a Malian town, by Benjamin F. Soares. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 2005. xii + 306 pp. £50 (hardback), £16.99 (paperback). ISBN 0-7486-2285-3 (hardback), ISBN 0-7486-2358-2 (paperback).

Abstract

To undertake an insightful study of religion and social change of this calibre on a Muslim society requires (i) to invest time in language acquisition, (ii) to acquire a strong background in Islamic studies, (iii) to know the history of Mali well, (iv) to be conversant with the sociology of knowledge, and above all, (v) to build a friendship and trust with the studied subjects that enables one to gain deep insight. It will be obvious to any reader of Islam and the Prayer Economy that Benjamin Soares has largely fulfilled all those requirements. It took him more than a decade to complete this work, including long periods of field research in Mali and to a lesser extent other parts of West Africa and among Muslim communities in the West. Through the exploration of the development of different Islamic discourses, practices, and institutions, Dr Soares attempts to trace the transformations in ideas about religion and authority from the so-called pre-colonial period through French colonial rule to the post-colonial period in the town of Nioro, Mali (p. 9). Unlike scholars such as Jeffrey Herbst who believe that the impact of the colonial interlude has been largely exaggerated (States and Power in Africa, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000), Soares argues that ‘the changes in ideas about and practices of Islam [ . . . ] as well as shifts in authority, can only be understood in relation to the specific colonial encounter in French West Africa and French colonial authority there’ (p. 10).