Under the Cover of the Way: A Feminist Reading of Hampate Ba's Kaidara

Abstract

In 1983, I published "A Sufi Interpretation of Le regard du roi," in Research in African Literatures, an article in which I challenged the hitherto Eurocentric interpretations of Laye's novel. The narrative had been treated as a Christian allegory, despite the fact that the author was Muslim, and the pattern of the narrative fit a Sufi Muslim mold. In general, Muslim approaches to African literature were rarely taken. My interpretation was based on the view that Regard was structured around the journey of an initiate, or pilgrim, under the tutelage of a guide, who would lead him to the ultimate goal, union with the divine. As I had little to orient me in this approach, I followed Martin Lings and other Sufi scholars, who described the beliefs associated with the Sufi Way, with its stages, the roles of knowledge, truth, and love, and the series of obstacles on the pilgrim's path. In short, I presented the keys to a hermeneutic that would explain the symbolism of the text, as a guide would reveal the meaning of the mysteries of the Way. When I was done, I felt I had unraveled the symbolism of the text, with all its various parts elucidated and joined in one comprehensible pattern.