DOROTHEA E.

SCHULZ
Indiana University

Promises of (im)mediate salvation:

Islam, broadcast media, and the remaking of religious
experience in Mali

A B S T R A C T ver the past 20 years, Muslims in Africa, similar to their brethren

O
In this article, I take the highly successful Muslim throughout the Muslim world, have witnessed the rise to promi-
preacher Cherif Haidara in Mali as a starting point to nence of new types of religious leaders who promote Islam as
explore the conditions that, throughout the a mission geared toward social and individual moral reform.
contemporary Muslim world, facilitate the rise to In Mali, Islam’s invigorated and unprecedented public visibility
prominence of new types of religious leaders, who, manifests itself in a multitude of symbols of Islamic piety and in an in-
by virtue of their media performances and in their frastructure of Islamic proselytizing (da‘wa) ranging from mosques and re-
roles as preachers, personal counselors, or legal formed schools (medersas, from the Arabic madrasa) to oversized billboards
advisers, attract broad constituencies of believers. I declaring the presence of numerous, often foreign, Islamic welfare associ-
assess recent shifts in the normative, institutional, ations in Malian society. Most notable, however, is the pervasive presence
and economic conditions of religious debate in urban of Islam in broadcast media. Facilitated by the mushrooming of local radio
Mali that have changed the parameters of common stations since the establishment of multiparty democracy in 1991, various
understandings of the relevance of religion to daily Muslim leaders and activists presently disseminate their teachings on local
life and politics. I examine how the adoption of new and national radio stations and via audiotapes. These leaders are particu-
media technologies affects the contents and forms of larly successful in Malian towns where established religious lineages, such
religious reasoning, the subjective understandings as those affiliated with Sufi orders, were never as influential as, for example,
and articulations of Islamic normativity, and thereby in Djenné, Timbuktu, and Nioro.
contributes to changes in the sources and forms of From this range of Muslim leaders, positions, and preaching styles,
leadership. Finally, I investigate in what ways one figure stands out: the charismatic preacher Cheick Cherif Ousmane
processes of commodification and commercialization Madani Haidara, whose mesmerizing voice pervades streets, market life,
are conducive to these changes in religious and domestic settings in the capital, Bamako, in San, and in Segu, the three
experience, community, and authority. [Islam, West sites of field research on which this article is based, and whose call for
Africa, media, public, consumption, religious moral renewal and denouncement of the exploits of traditional religious
commodities, religious authority] authorities have won him wide acclaim.1
Wherever one goes in Bamako, one finds it almost impossible to escape
the at-once piercing and comforting sound of his voice, disseminated by in-
numerable audiotape recorders and radios that are mounted on house walls
and market stands and that blast from various vehicles of transportation,
including city taxis, bicycles, and motorbikes. Although many of his Muslim
opponents dismiss Cherif Haidara as an upstart with little religious eru-
dition, urban and rural listeners welcome his “spiritual guidance” in daily
matters and assiduously follow his interventions on broadcast media.

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 210–229, ISSN 0094-0496, electronic
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 Promises of (im)mediate salvation  American Ethnologist

Cherif Haidara does not present a unique success story. 1994; Morgan 1999), of Hindu revivalist trends (e.g., Little
In fact, striking resemblances can be seen between this 1995; Lutgendorf 1995; Mankekar 1999; Rajagopal 2001), and
charismatic preacher and the various media figures who, of reassertions of Jewish orthodoxy (e.g., Stolow 2006) point
in recent years, have risen to fame throughout the Mus- to the crucial role of material objects and of consumption
lim world and who, in their roles as preachers, personal practices in inspiring and redefining particular forms of de-
counselors, or legal advisers, attract broad constituencies of votional practice and understandings of proper religiosity. In
believers. Whereas the level of instruction and of doctrinal contrast, the effects of a mass-mediated consumer culture
argument of these media stars varies widely, they all have in on reconfigurations of Islamic practice and understandings
common that they draw and unite astounding numbers of of religiosity and of Muslim authority have received rela-
fans and acolytes concerned with knowing more about the tively little attention. Certainly, several innovative studies
central tenets of Islam and how to integrate them into their provide invaluable insights into Muslims’ consumption pat-
daily affairs and dealings. The most outstanding attribute of terns and practices by examining objects of everyday con-
these preachers, one that uncannily establishes their resem- sumption (e.g., Armbrust 2000, 2006; Starrett 1995; Stauth
blance to U.S. televangelist preachers, is their highly skilled and Zubaida 1987) and the stylistics of Muslim fashion and
and very self-conscious style of media presentation. religious dress (e.g., Göle 1996; Moors 2005; Navaro-Yashin
Given the conspicuous presence of these media figures 2002).2 The production and consumption of material goods
in their admirers’ daily lives and moral imaginations, they and of symbolic emblems of a superior ethical attitude, these
have received surprisingly little attention from scholars of authors argue, is increasingly mediated through styles, fash-
Islam. Only a few of these media stars, especially those who ions, and expressive registers that are circulated via transna-
operate as “global muftis” (Skovgaard-Petersen 2004) across tional media and link Muslim believers around the globe.
and beyond the Arab-speaking world, have been studied by What these studies remain relatively silent about is the role
scholars, who explain the success of these leaders in terms of of religious consumption in the making of religious subjects,
their media savvy and their capacity to capitalize on new op- experience, and community.3 Neither do the authors address
portunities for transnational finance and enterprise. Excep- how practices of consumption and media engagement sus-
tional are studies that focus on the realm of mass-mediated tain, expand, and potentially transform conventional under-
“religious” debate (Öncü 2006; Salvatore 1999) and explic- standings of religiosity and religious orthopraxy.
itly ask how the adoption of new media technologies affects Underlying this omission seems to be an implicit con-
the contents and forms of religious debate and the subjec- trast between the commodified nature and the authentic
tive understandings and articulations of Islamic normativ- meanings of religion. Practices of consumption are con-
ity (Hirschkind 2001a, 2001b) and, thereby, contribute to ceived of as being separate from, and even inimical to, “true”
changes in the sources and forms of leadership. religious convictions and spiritual experience. This line of
These insights as well as the great import of new com- reasoning is by no means limited to the study of Islam (see
munications media for an ever-growing constituency of McDannell 1995:4–5; Miller 1995a:145). The view also re-
believers should motivate us, as scholars, to account for sonates deeply with the ways in which at least some be-
the success of these new types of “religious entrepreneurs” lievers rhetorically construct commodities as emblems par
(Haenni 2002:4–5) by systematically considering the mate- excellence of moral corruption. At the same time, a growing
rial, ideological, and technological conditions that allow for number of believers around the globe feel compelled to pur-
their rise to stardom (see Eickelman and Anderson 1999; sue and express their religious convictions by partly relating
Skovgaard-Petersen 2004; also see Messick 1996). What we to a globalizing market of media images and religious goods.4
need to understand, if possible, from a comparative angle, is Therefore, rather than take for granted an antinomy between
the extent to which new media technologies, in their inter- people’s engagement with religious commodities and the
locking with a mass-mediated consumer culture, are instru- essence of religion, scholars should investigate the complex-
mental in the success of these new religious leaders, who lack ities and possible contradictions that result from believers’
conventional credentials of authority and legitimacy. What search for spiritual atonement in a world permeated with
role do specific media technologies play in the making and commodified representations of religious orientation.
remaking of religious experience, community, and author- This article has three objectives. The first one is to move
ity? How do the material qualities of specific media technolo- beyond the contrast between “superficial” mass culture and
gies enhance the appeal and effectiveness of these preachers’ “authentic” religion by exploring the mutually constitutive
interventions? In what ways are processes of commodifica- relationship between individual religiosity, enterprise, and
tion and commercialization conducive to these changes? consumption in the contemporary moment. The second
A growing body of literature explores the interconnec- objective is to analyze the particular forms of religious ex-
tions of material culture, consumption, and changing forms perience and sociability that individual media technolo-
and understandings of religious practices. Scholars of U.S. gies afford, complementing recent investigations of the re-
Protestant Christianity (e.g., McDannell 1986, 1995; Moore lationship between broadcast media and conventions and

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understandings of religiosity. The third objective is to con- Initially, the Islamic civilizing traditions formulated by
sider how current reformulations of the significance of reli- a Muslim intellectual elite in response to the new colonial
gion to everyday life draw on “discursive traditions” of Islam order were of concern only to limited segments of the pop-
(Asad 1986) that are being continually reassessed and re- ulation. Until the 1940s, Muslims remained a minority in
constituted at the interface of local and transnational in- much of the colonial French Sudan, except for some—mostly
tellectual influences and that inspire specific notions and urban—centers of religious erudition and practices associ-
practices of religious virtue. ated with Sufi orders (e.g., Hanson 1996; Soares 2005). Partic-
The article takes the Malian preacher Cherif Haidara ularly in the southern areas of Mali that, after independence,
and his astounding success as a leitmotif to navigate the became the centers of state administration and control,
reader through the intricate historical process by which many people converted to Islam only in the colonial era, that
Islam, as a normative discourse and a community-building is, after the 1880s.6 To the majority of these converts, being a
idiom, has gained prominence in Malian politics and pub- Muslim was a matter of group identity expressed in regular
lic debate.5 Particular attention is devoted to the expanding worship (zeli in Bamanakan; from the Arabic salat), a partic-
culture of mass-mediated entertainment and to the ways ular dress code, and food restrictions (e.g., Launay 1992).7
consumer objects and new technologies for mediating re- The tendency among those who participate in current
ligion (Meyer and Moors 2006) define and reconfigure the Muslim controversy is to appeal to a past “consensus” (ijma)
terms on which Islam “goes public” (see Lee 1993), that is, among the community of learned people as the blueprint
comes to (pre)occupy public debate and imagination. for present Muslim interventions. Yet this portrayal con-
Some of the questions that guide my inquiry pertain stitutes a rather nostalgic and partial remembering of past
to the historical and institutional specificity of the area on Muslim discourse in the area. In fact, starting in the 1910s
which the analysis focuses. The particular historicity of the and throughout the remainder of the colonial period, de-
encounter between Muslim religious conventions and so- bates over the significance of Islam to the public order were
cial structures and the institutions of the colonial and post- shaped by the interventions of actors with very diverging reli-
colonial state in francophone West Africa, and the unsettling gious credentials.8 Some of these actors lacked genealogical
of traditional interpretive authority to which this encounter pedigree yet asserted themselves as religious self-made men
gave rise, forms the backdrop of current attempts by Malian by combining their various political, moral, and economic
Muslim leaders to articulate Islam as a “public norm” ambitions.9 Others were labeled “ambulant preachers” by
(Salvatore 1998). Some results of these attempts are locally colonial authorities, who closely monitored their travels and
specific, whereas others characterize the peculiar dilemmas proselytizing activities across West Africa because of their
of postcolonial Muslim Africa. Yet the processes through fear of an “Islamism” associated with the emerging pan-
which these current articulations and contestations emerge Arabic movement in the Middle East (ANM n.d.b; Harrison
apply to other areas of the Muslim world as well. The material 1988; also see Soares 2004). Those who preached under the
I present, thus, serves a broader argument about how mass- tutelage of the French colonial administration were key in
mediated religion, commercialization, and conditions that popularizing specific, and partly novel, understandings of
unsettle established religious interpretive authority come Islamic normativity by placing special emphasis on the field
together and create circumstances that facilitate the promi- of Islamic adab (Arabic: cultivation, manners). In doing so,
nence of religious idioms in current postcolonial politics. they not only made this term central to their definitions of
Islam as public norm but, most likely, also were instrumen-
tal in reformulating the meaning of “adab,” a development
Ambulant preachers and other religious actors:
that occurred roughly in the same period in other areas of
Historical antecedents of contemporary Muslim
the Muslim world (Salvatore 1998).10
activism
Other actors who also shaped the intra-Muslim debate
Current formulations of Islamic virtue as the norm of public over notions of Islamic civility after the 1910s were religious
conduct in Mali draw on the long-standing civilizing im- specialists (labeled marabouts by the colonial authorities)
petus of local Islamic traditions (Salvatore 1998; also see who were associated with Sufi practice and leadership. Their
Elias 1976). These understandings of Islam as a norm of pervasive influence on the controversial construction of Is-
civility and public conduct constituted a highly contested lam as norm of public order was attributable to the support
semantic field before and throughout the colonial period they received from the French colonial authorities (Brenner
(see Loimeier 2003). In their diversity, they reflected divi- 2001; Launay and Soares 1999; Stewart 1997; Triaud 1997).
sions among Muslims that were reinforced by the challenges The latter considered them representatives of “traditional,”
to established religious interpretive authority introduced by “African” Islam (Harrison 1988) capable of limiting the influ-
the regime of colonial governance and by new technologies ence of individuals with intellectual and business ties to the
of transport and media that facilitated exchange with the Arab-speaking world.11 This new generation of Muslims, la-
Arab-speaking world. beled Wahhabi by colonial administrators and many people

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today, understood themselves as “Sunnis” (or Ahl al-Sunna; as a powerful moral idiom and an alternative to official con-
Arabic: the people of the Sunna), that is, those who fol- structions of political community and common good. This
low the regulations and doings of the prophet Mohammad. development was the paradoxical outcome of Traoré’s at-
From the early days of their presence in the Soudan Français tempts to control established and newly emerging, powerful
in the 1930s, these critics were instrumental in rearticu- Muslim interest groups by granting them special privileges,
lating transnational influences with local discursive tradi- despite Mali’s secular constitution.15 The foundation of the
tions. Their reformist activities were explicitly geared toward national association of Muslims, the Association Malienne
the articulation of an Islamic normativity, formulated in re- pour l’Unité et le Progrès de l’Islam (AMUPI), in the early
sponse to the institutions and rationale of the colonial state 1980s consolidated state control over the religious establish-
(Brenner 2001:chs. 1–4; Loimeier 2003). They provided a crit- ment and its new opponents, the arabisants, that is, gradu-
ical cornerstone to the discursive traditions formulated by ates from institutions of higher learning in the Arab-speaking
influential religious lineages, many of whose practices and world.16 The organization allowed the government to moni-
beliefs they denounced as distortions (i.e., as bid‘a, unlawful tor the funds that, starting in the late 1970s, flooded the coun-
innovation) of the original teachings of Qur’an and Hadith.12 try under the orchestrated efforts of the Saudi government to
By reforming institutions of Islamic learning, they prepared extend the da‘wa movement of proselytizing to Muslim sub-
the ground for a broader access to religious instruction and Saharan Africa (e.g., Mattes 1989; Schulze 1993:26ff.; also see
introduced new challenges to traditional religious interpre- Brenner 1993c). Transnational intellectual influences and fi-
tive authority. nancial support were, thus, significant but not decisive for
Similar to earlier controversies, views of proper reli- the new public presence of Islam that materialized in an in-
gious practice and of the relevance of individual ethics frastructure of Islamic welfare, and for its expanding discur-
to politics remained a highly contested semantic terrain. sive representation in the national arena (Brenner 2001:ch.
Even if none of the reformist conceptions completely dis- 5; Triaud 1988). Other developments, in particular, the loss in
placed earlier ones (Brenner 2001:chs. 3, 4), they left an credibility of Traoré’s regime under the effects of neoliberal
imprint on local ethical understandings and colonial pol- economic reform after the mid-1980s, contributed impor-
itics in a period in which broad segments of the popula- tantly to the normative vacuum that heightened the appeal
tion gradually converted to Islam. Both parties to the debate of Islam as a credible, alternative normative reference point
lost political terrain shortly before independence in 1960, for public order.
when Modibo Keita and his Union Soudainaise du Rassem- This precarious normative arrangement is proof of the
blement Démocratique Africain (US–RDA) party reached persistent disjuncture between the state’s controlling capac-
power. President Keita’s secularist policy sought to neutral- ities and its capability to formulate a compelling view of the
ize the influence of Muslim leaders on local politics and, fol- common good and, hence, of the normative foundations of
lowing the French tradition of laicité, treated Islam as private political community. The tenuous normative grounding of
conviction.13 the liberal state model persisted after Traoré’s fall from power
The radical changes in the sociopolitical, institutional, in 1991. President Alpha Oumar Konaré and his Alliance pour
and normative parameters of colonial rule had very equiv- la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA) party, elected in the coun-
ocal effects on the discursive efficiency of the representa- try’s first democratic elections in 1992, favored a stringent
tives of “traditional” Islam and of their “Sunni” opponents. interpretation of Mali’s secular constitution and ostracized
Their articulation of an Islamic normativity had certain po- the so-called intégristes, that is, Muslims who called for the
litical repercussions, yet their attempts to make this nor- introduction of “the shari‘a.” Yet neither President Konaré
mativity relevant to broader segments of the population nor President Toumani Touré, who followed Konaré in office
remained limited. This situation continued in postcolonial in 2002, could risk antagonizing prominent Muslim leaders,
times, when the discursive and normative endeavor of these whose political influence and discursive appeal they at once
Muslims was submerged periodically, but they never fully feared and depended on. This ambivalent attitude of state
vanished from the political landscape.14 Colonial Muslim and party officials manifests itself today in their frequent
controversy and activities, thus, laid the ground for a broader borrowing from the iconography of a publicly enacted piety
acceptance of Islam as a normative frame of reference for generated by the supporters of the current Islamic moral
community constructions in subsequent phases of post- reform movement.
colonial politics, particularly after the coup d’état of 1968 An important effect of the civil liberties introduced with
that brought Colonel Moussa Traoré and his military regime the multiparty democratic system in 1991 is that previous di-
to power. visions among Muslim leaders have been complicated.17 At
Underneath the apparent continuity of Traoré’s 23 years present, a range of Muslim actors enter into open competi-
of military and (after 1979) single-party rule, changes oc- tion with representatives of “traditional” Islam and draw on
curred in the normative and institutional foundations of pol- new means and media to do so. These Muslim “activists” lack
itics that created the conditions for Islam gradually to emerge traditional credentials of religious authority yet capitalize on

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their European or U.S. school background or their education tions and of publicly enacted Muslim identities after 1991
in the Arab-speaking world to mobilize a large following.18 In as a sign of the empowerment of “civil society” and of the
their educational background and personal spiritual quest, weakening of state control. The situation, however, is more
these Muslims constitute a new generation of “debating complicated. Rather than indicate weakening state control
Muslims” (Fischer and Abedi 1990) that, for the past 25 years, over key social and political domains, the invigoration of
has been on the rise in West Africa and throughout the Mus- Muslim networks and of an Islamic moral idiom reveals a
lim world (e.g., Anderson 1999; Eickelman 1992; Eickelman rearticulation of the relationship between civil society and
and Piscatori 1996; Larkin and Meyer in press; Roy 1994). the state (see Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). State and party
In Mali, they respond to a general politicomoral malaise by officials seek to keep control over central domains of social
publicly declaring the greater integrity of “Islam” as a norma- and political life, but to do so, they need to accommodate
tive reference point.19 They emphasize the at-once personal and co-opt Muslim leaders whose mobilizing potential they
and collective impetus of their endeavor by identifying indi- regard with apprehension.
vidual self-improvement as the key to communal reform.20 In what follows, I substantiate my argument by focus-
Their mostly urban-based associations, which have been ing on the recently liberalized media landscape as a key do-
mushrooming since 1991, operate under the guidance of main of struggle among Muslims and between them and
men and women who often occupied leading posts under opponents who understand themselves as defenders of a
President Traoré. Many of these leaders denounce the cur- besieged secularism. My purpose is to illustrate the longer-
rent government’s “irreligious” orientation yet occasionally standing history of shifting alliances that associates state
enter into strategic alliances with the current political elites, representatives with various Muslim interest groups and cre-
from whom they receive substantial financial support.21 ates paradoxical conditions for the political claims of each of
Whereas some Muslim activists claim to be close to an them. I also examine what strategies Muslim leaders pursue
“Arab-inspired” Islam, the majority keep a critical distance to convince a broader constituency of believers of the Islamic
from the (numerically weak) intégristes who contest the in- normativity they formulate.
stitutional and ideological foundations of the secular state. Muslims of various orientations and pedigrees advance
Instead, they seek to carve out a separate normative space by competing claims to religious leadership and interpreta-
defining their own role as that of moral watchdog removed tional authority. They cannot afford to bypass state insti-
from the interested stratagems of politicians. tutions if they want to establish their position as a dominant
The movement of the Muslim preacher Cherif Haidara, one. Muslim leaders’ struggle over privileged access to state
whose charismatic media performances I discuss in due resources and institutions secures for state officials and in-
course, is paradigmatic of the “third space” that Muslim ac- stitutions a key role in arbitrating intra-Muslim debate. This
tivists occupy. Haidara’s skyrocketing, if controversial, fame means that, contrary to the claims of Muslims who present
illustrates that far from evading or eluding the state, many themselves as defending a “civil society against the state,”
Muslim activists tie themselves institutionally and pragmat- recent democratization has not fundamentally reset the pa-
ically to it because they seek to invoke and address a national rameters of Muslim rivalry, even though the recent liberal-
public for their claims. In this process, mass-media institu- ization of the media market and the mushrooming of com-
tions play a key role in articulating (in the double sense of mercial radio stations complicate its effects.
the term) convergent state and societal interests. President Traoré coupled his privileged treatment of
Muslim positions on national media with a widely success-
ful effort at political and financial control. Until 1991, the
Islam goes public: Actors and political locations
Bureau des Ulema of the national radio and television, Of-
of contemporary Islamic moral reform
fice de Radiodiffusion et Télévision du Mali (ORTM), held
In the preceding pages, I agued that shifts in the institutional an absolute monopoly on the national production and dif-
and normative foundations of the colonial regime carried on fusion of religious radio and television broadcasts.22 Because
into the postcolonial era and prepared the ground for the re- of the close association of the Bureau des Ulema and AMUPI,
cent appeal of the “symbolic language of Islam” (Eickelman religious programs reflected the viewpoints of the AMUPI
1992) in Mali’s national political arena. Underlying the fun- steering committee.23 The latter has continued to influence
damental rupture of a transition from single-party rule to national programming since Traoré’s fall from power, for in-
multiparty democracy has been the continuously precari- stance, by exerting close control over the authorization of
ous character of official constructions of community and preachers to perform on national media.24 At the same time,
public order. I suggested that the growing appeal of those and mainly as a result of the competition introduced by the
who promulgate Islam as norm of public order should be in- rapidly proliferating local radio stations, the radio ulemas’
terpreted in light of the state’s inability to impose its vision of views of Muslim religiosity have gradually turned into a con-
moral order and community. Following this line of argument, tested domain.25 Regardless of their formal status as com-
one could view the efflorescence of Islamic welfare institu- mercial or community media outlets, these radio stations

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 Promises of (im)mediate salvation  American Ethnologist

broadcast audio “cassette sermons” (caseti wajuli) for a fee “upgrade” in official status not only illustrates his success-
that most preachers, at least in the initial stages of their ca- ful “reinvestment” of the symbolic capital he earned by his
reers, are eager to pay.26 In this way, the media landscape earlier criticism of institutional power but also demonstrates
has been transformed into an arena punctuated by the of- that religious and state authorities prefer to domesticate him
ten controversial interventions of Muslim intellectuals and through partial co-optation into the state apparatus, rather
“freelance” preachers with varying levels of religious erudi- than letting him “go loose” via audiocassettes and commer-
tion and oratorical skills. cial radio stations.
Whether the sermon audiotapes are broadcast on lo- Haidara’s mass-mediated mise-en-scène of an ethically
cal radio or circulate among supporters of Islamic moral re- superior, Islamic integrity illustrates the continued key im-
form, they have the potential to challenge or subvert official portance of the national broadcast station as a center of
representations of Islam because they circulate along chan- symbolic mediation. To those who articulate an Islamic nor-
nels that largely evade governmental control. Accordingly, mativity, access to state institutions remains pivotal in es-
the sermon audiotapes could be interpreted as constitu- tablishing their particular interpretation as the dominant
tive of an oppositional or “counter” public (e.g., Hirschkind one. State officials, by contrast, need to carefully straddle
2001a; Manuel 1993; Sreberny-Mohammadi and Moham- ideological commitments and the necessities of realpolitik
madi 1994; Yavuz 2001). Yet this interpretation does not cap- vis-à-vis Muslim activists whose mobilizing potential they at
ture the paradoxical ways in which Muslim leaders and state once fear and capitalize on. In a situation in which officials’
officials in Mali are caught in a web of mutual attempts at co- invocation of commonality suffers a lack in credibility, a plu-
optation. Also, Muslims who seek to promulgate their views ralized and partly commercialized media landscape consti-
of Islam as public norm to a broader constituency are reluc- tutes a new condition they need to consider. “Small media,”
tant to content themselves with using “small” media. They such as audiocassettes, complicate the dynamics of Muslim
are eager to access national media because this gives them controversy because they can be used to lend force to dis-
considerable advantage over their competitors. Access to, agreeing views that emerge along with long-standing trends
and the selective co-optation of, state institutions remains a toward the unsettling of religious interpretative authority.
crucial battleground of intra-Muslim controversy. Furthermore, contrary to the assumption that the prolifera-
This is illustrated by the confrontation between repre- tion of media institutions sustains processes of “critical opin-
sentatives of the religious establishment and the preacher ion” making (e.g., Eickelman and Anderson 1999; also see
Cherif Haidara, the “spiritual leader” of the Ansar Dine.27 Panos Institute 1993), the diversification of viewpoints that a
Since the 1980s, when he embarked on a successful preach- plural media landscape facilitates does not necessarily con-
ing career in Ivory Coast and, especially, after his return to tribute to a more qualified debate of “religious” matters. The
Mali in 1986, when he established himself in Bankoni, a political import of decentralized media is not related in any
lower-class neighborhood in the capital, Bamako, he has en- straightforward way to their instrumental qualities in reach-
countered the vehement opposition of representatives of the ing a wider constituency or in establishing a moral commu-
AMUPI, who have dismissed him as a rabble-rousing upstart nity beyond the reach of the state. The question, then, is
and blocked his access to national media.28 Nevertheless, his why—and how—Islam exerts such an enormous appeal as
use of audiotapes that disseminate his teachings throughout an idiom of community construction.
southern Mali, Ivory Coast, and Guinea and his reliance on
local radio stations have given him a notoriety beyond na-
Personal piety and the common good: The
tional borders that eclipses that of Muslim leaders whose
Muslim debate
support of “Arab-inspired” readings of Islam and reliance on
print media draw only small audiences.29 During the years The preceding discussion established the normative and
of his exclusion from national media, Haidara, soon to be structural transformations in the public arena since the colo-
nicknamed Wulibali Haidara (Haidara who speaks the unde- nial period as constitutive of the contemporary discursive
niable truth), established himself as a critic of governmental space in which Muslim activists seek to articulate “Islam”
policy and of “hypocritical” religious leaders who worked as the normative foundation of political community. What
in the shadow of governmental support.He thereby capital- is needed is an understanding of how contemporary con-
ized on the enormous support that a critical stance toward structions of Islam as public norm pose a challenge to offi-
state institutions and officials could generate. Very recently, cial constructions of community and order. I demonstrate
however, after years-long attempts by the government to si- that a tension exists between the tendency among Muslim
lence him, Haidara has been admitted into a governmental activists to contrast their “Islamic” vision of ethical politics
committee on religious affairs. In his highly acclaimed ap- to a secularist one and their very divergent understandings
pearances on national media, he continues to play the enfant of proper religious practice and of the relevance of individ-
terrible of intra-Muslim controversy by challenging eminent ual ethics to public order. This tension is highly significant
religious leaders, albeit in mitigated ways. Haidara’s recent because it crystallizes the central claims and dilemmas of

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those who seek to buttress their call for an Islamic moral simultaneously as “part of and other of the dominant bloc”
renewal in a national political arena. (Norval 1996:65). Rather than specify “proper conduct” in
The debate among protagonists of Islamic moral re- essential terms, Haidara defines it by negative contrast, that
form over the normative foundations of the political com- is, by contrast to falsehood and hypocrisy.34 What makes a
munity is characterized by a high diversity with respect to person a “true supporter of Islam,” he argues, is not so much
Muslims’ references to Islamic doctrines and foundational knowledge of the central tenets of Islam but “deeds,” that
texts.30 Preachers who speak on national media and on Is- is, an ethical disposition manifested in everyday situations.
lamic radio stations frequently buttress their reasoning with Haidara thereby posits a close connection between Islam as
references to certain suras and hadiths. More “freelance- a moral orientation and an embodied practice and its pub-
minded” preachers, in contrast, who circulate their opinions lic proclamation. Moreover, by stressing the direct relation-
on audiocassettes and local radio stations, draw on com- ship between the individual believer and God, he calls into
monsensical understandings of propriety that have only ten- question the mediating role conventionally held by religious
uous links to the Islamic scriptural traditions. Regardless of specialists in local traditions of Islam.35
these differences in forms of argumentation, most speak- To be sure, Haidara’s inclination to establish his au-
ers construct an Islamic normativity through references to thority by dismissing other interpretations as “un-Islamic”
ibadat, in other words, by stressing the importance of the is a discursive strategy that characterizes much of Mus-
correct performance of the obligations of worship. Religious lim debate.36 Yet his reasoning differs from prevalent West
virtue is defined by proper conduct in various domains, not African Muslim argumentative conventions in that he re-
simply the demarcated space of ritual practice.31 The affec- frains from advancing a substantive doctrinal argument.
tive and behavioral qualities of a “true believer” should be Instead, he focuses on what he perceives as an incongru-
bodily enacted; they often reflect gender-specific norms of ence between a religious leader’s immoral conduct and the
propriety.32 Neither these norms nor the emphasis on proper Islamic norms to which that leader claims to subscribe.37
conduct are new to local discursive traditions of Islam. Dis- The ethical code of conduct Haidara preaches, thus, lacks
tinctive, however, is the new emphasis on introspection, self- in Islamic specificity. Herein consist striking similarities be-
control, and the collective relevance of ethical conduct, in tween Haidara and some “media muftis” (Messick 1996) and
other words, on the significance of individual piety to the preachers who are currently gaining critical terrain in Egypt,
realization of the common good. Indonesia, and other countries of the Muslim world and who
Intégristes claim that “Islam” should constitute the nor- derive their appeal less from doctrinal argument than from
mative basis of the political community. They exact a form of their stylistics of (self-)presentation (e.g., Bayat 2002; Mari-
conduct that makes an individual’s search for piety at once a ani 2003; Roald 2001; Skovgaard-Petersen 2004; Wise 2003).
precondition for and the path toward the collective achieve- Moreover, as several authors surmise, the success of these
ment of religious virtue. They, thus, propose a political sub- media preachers seems to revolve around the intricate and
jectivity at variance with the liberal division between private very particular connection between their styles of reason-
faith and collective interest. By collapsing the “community of ing and the technology of mediation they employ (e.g., Gräf
the faithful” (silame dina kanubagaw, lit. the true supporters 2002; Haenni 2002). I return to this point later. For the mo-
of Islam) into the nation, these activists bracket the partic- ment, it suffices to say that, whereas most of Haidara’s adver-
ularistic nature of their claims and of their construction of saries denounce his refusal to engage in doctrinal debate as
Islam as public norm. Although they posit the existence of a proof of his lack of erudition, responses by his followers and
distinct Islamic political and moral order, their invocation of fans illustrate that it is precisely the indeterminacy of his eth-
a pristine Islamic normative order contrasts with the prag- ical framework that provides the key to his success (Schulz
matics of their political interventions, that is, their engage- 2004:ch. 8). It earns him a wide following and makes his
ment with, and compromise on, party and partisan politics. “community of the faithful,” constructed in relational, not
Their claims to represent ijma, the consensus of the commu- essential, terms, compete with the moral community that
nity of learned Muslims, are countered by Muslim leaders politicians evoke. His “subversive” posture and his empha-
who appear on national media to formulate positions that, sis on introspection and personal salvation offer a blueprint
similar to the official, “secularist” line of argument, treat re- of moral and emotional identification to people with differ-
ligion as a matter of private belief.33 ing educational backgrounds and ethical sensibilities.
The most popular protagonists of the Islamic moral re- What emerges from the preceding analysis, then, is that
form movement are figures like Cherif Haidara, who, char- those who call for Islamic moral reform do not promote
acteristically, are equivocal on questions of the collectively “Islam” as public norm in any simple confrontation with
binding character of Islam. Similar to Alletta Norval’s con- a secularist viewpoint. Neither are they able to construct
ceptualization of ethnicity as a relational identity, Haidara a distinct, alternative model of moral belonging and com-
invokes the figure of the “true believer” through a series of munity (Göle 2002) because considerable disagreements
strategies of distinction in which the same referent appears exist among Muslim activists about how to conceive of

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the relationship between individual piety and public order. cially shaped by, an expanding market of religious con-
Moreover, the Islamic ethics to which different Muslim actors sumption. This market derives its dynamics from its loca-
appeal are strongly inflected by conventional, not specif- tion in a transnational field of competing styles, fashion
ically Islamic, standards of conduct and by the rationali- trends, and commercial enterprise that is closely tied to the
ties and liberal posture of current party and state politics. Arab-speaking world, particularly Morocco, Libya, Egypt,
In their stress on believers’ individual responsibility for the and Saudi Arabia. Some of these transnational circuits of
collective well-being, Muslim activists challenge prevalent commercialization have intensified since the implementa-
notions of civic virtue. In this, they draw inspiration from tion of neoliberal economic reform in the mid-1980s, along
a moral impetus currently connecting different areas in the with widening opportunities for cheap transport and travel
contemporary Muslim world (e.g., Beinin and Stork 1997; to the sites of the Hejaz and other areas of the Muslim world.
Esposito 1984; Hirschkind 1999; Mahmood 2005; Roy 1994; The temporary boost in the Malian cotton-production sector
also see Masud 2000). As the preceding analysis suggests, following its privatization in the early 1990s created favor-
however, the historical specificities of the encounter be- able conditions for the spread of a culture of Islamic piety
tween Islamic normative discourses and the institutions and and of religious consumerism to relatively prosperous rural
technologies of modern state power in this area of West Africa areas. At present, a growing number of farmers in the inten-
establish distinctive conditions of existence for the political sive cotton-production areas of the south, having benefited
and moral project of Muslim activists in Mali. As a result of from the temporary rise in the world cotton prices, convert
the continuously precarious character of official construc- economic prosperity into more promising and lasting forms
tions of community, Muslims who invoke Islam as the basis of personal achievement. They finance the hajj of elderly
of the common good wield considerable influence. Their family members, embark on the pilgrimage themselves, or
appeal derives less from a distinctively Islamic ethics than set up a trade in religious commodities that enables their
from the situation of normative insecurity within which they unemployed juniors to travel regularly between Mali and
operate. North Africa or Saudi Arabia to purchase and resell various
Another far-reaching insight gained from the Malian kinds of religious paraphernalia. In this fashion, people from
case is that the liberalization of the media market signifi- both urban and rural areas capitalize on recently booming
cantly shapes the terms and—often equivocal—outcome of sectors of the economy to make their spiritual quest an in-
intra-Muslim debate in contemporary nation-state politics. tegral part of their daily activities, economic and otherwise.
Any analysis of Muslims’ challenge to secular state politics, In other words, the recent neoliberal structural transforma-
therefore, needs to put the dynamics of a mass-mediated tions in the national economy allow people to practice, expe-
public at the core of its investigation. What scholars need to rience, and display their conviction that economic success
understand is how the spread of a mass-mediated commer- at once reflects and increases divine blessing. Muslims, in
cial culture and an intensifying circulation of religious media their role as traders in and consumers of religious salvation,
affect the means, capacities, and opportunities of Muslims articulate both the spiritual and economic meanings of pros-
to evoke “Islam” as the central reference point of moral com- perity that are deeply entrenched not only in West African
munity and public order. Islamic discursive traditions (Amselle 1985; Cruise O’Brien
1971; Launay 1992) but also in the “prosperity gospel” advo-
cated by recent Christian Pentecostalist movements around
Cassette communities: Circuits of religious
the globe (Larkin and Meyer in press; Marshall-Fratani 1998;
consumption
Martin 2001; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 2004; also see Comaroff
What role do religious commodities play in the spread and Comaroff 2002).
of Islam as a public norm and in the making of religious The new opportunities for religious enterprise and for
community?38 To respond to this question, one needs the pursuit and expression of personal piety are coter-
to investigate the material dimensions and practices of minous with a diversification and a novel, partly gender-
“community making” in which leading representatives and specific, segmentation of local markets of religious goods
supporters of Islamic moral reform engage and that are and services. Muslim traders with long-standing experi-
centered on media-related practices. Also needed is a closer ence and connections, as well as new actors, among them
analysis of whether and, if so, how mass-mediated religious many younger women (Sanankoua 1991b), launch activi-
products operate as commodities, that is, what regime of ties in the expanding sector of religious consumerism and
circulation and signification they establish (see Appadurai thereby respond to people’s eagerness to enhance their spir-
1986). The following discussion focuses on audio recordings itual disposition by engaging with religious paraphernalia
of sermons, which are among the most widely consumed (Schulz 2004:ch. 8). The partial privatization of the orga-
mass-mediated religious objects in Mali. nization of the hajj, formerly under tight control by the
Sermon audio recordings are constitutive of a form of state, triggered a mushrooming of hajj travel agencies run
Muslim public reasoning that is embedded in, and cru- by men with connections to Saudi Arabia. Their current

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fierce competition over reputation and customers materi- ous, older and new, Muslim identities, such as a “cosmopoli-
alizes in a range of marketing strategies, such as advertise- tan” (i.e., Arab-inspired) orientation and an ethically sophis-
ments broadcast on national and local radio and television ticated yet “authentically African” Muslim identity (Schulz
and painted on the four-wheel-drive cars in which these re- 2004:ch. 7), and furthers the experience of religious distinc-
ligious entrepreneurs, as well as their patrons, usually em- tion through consumption practices.40 In this, the current
inent Muslim leaders, circulate through the Malian urban mushrooming enterprise of religious salvation at once con-
landscape. tinues and departs from earlier forms combining an ethical
The general atmosphere of religious entrepreneurship, quest with economic activities (Amselle 1977; Launay 1992).
and the concomitant understanding of spiritual salvation as To a greater extent than before, it centers on consumption
the starting point, path, and objective of enterprise, draws as a quotidian practice that shapes, and is molded by, reli-
into its realm not only merchants but also all kinds of reli- gious experience and that allows for articulation of ties to a
gious entrepreneurs, some of whom become “entrepreneurs global Muslim community (umma) through the selection of
tout court” (Haenni 2002:4). The sermons that some preach- specific items.
ers deliver in public and that they broadcast for a fee on Some of the most valued religious objects, such as cer-
local radio stations can be viewed as an advertising of par- tain articles of dress and particular forms of wall decoration,
ticular religious interpretations and claims to authority that appeal by virtue of their (clearly recognizable) “Arab” ori-
is inspired by a marketing logic.39 This is not to posit any gin. They are affordable by a relatively privileged segment of
teleological trend toward the “contamination” of people’s the population and often indicate their owner’s “cosmopoli-
religious quest with the rationale of profit maximization. tan” Muslim orientation and business connections. Other
Such an interpretation would reiterate an older and crude religious goods, in contrast, are associated with forms and
opposition between material interest and symbolic prac- norms of religious practice that many deem to be more “au-
tice. My argument here is simply that, for their “enterprise thentically local” because they are accessible to everyone.41
of salvation” to be successful, these Muslim leaders need Sermons recorded in the different national languages belong
to articulate aspirations and inspirations that extend be- to the latter category. They are among the most widely con-
yond merely spiritual matters. Only if one considers the sumed media products, partly because they are relatively
intertwining of their (and their listeners’) very heteroge- affordable and do not demand any literacy skills. People lis-
neous dispositions and concerns can one account for the ten to them during their daily activities, in the market, while
complex conditions for, and implications of, Islam’s public traveling, and at home. They attribute to sermon audiotapes
prominence. the capacity to build religious character and to mold a partic-
Haidara, for instance, often stretches a sermon over a se- ular affective disposition and devotional attitude. Followers
ries of audio recordings that need to be consumed by believ- and fans of particular preachers treat the audio recordings of
ers in their entirety for the sermon to be understood (Schulz their sermons not only as a source of moral enlightenment
2004:ch. 8). As a consequence, he devotes a considerable but also as a means to endow and enrich the material infras-
amount of time on each audiotape to summarizing his pre- tructure of daily matters with a particular spiritual quality
ceding argument and to anticipating elements of his future (Schulz 2003a). Their ways of talking about, and engaging
interventions. At the same time that his “to-be-continued” with, these objects show that they do not relate to them as
style clearly helps listeners to follow the details of his argu- ordinary commodities but as objects with the capacity to cre-
ment, it also motivates them to engage with his teachings ate and sustain sociability.42 All of this seems to support the
over a longer period of time and, thus, gradually to become argument that sermon audiotapes do not operate as com-
acquainted with his view of Islam as an ethically compelling modities in the proper sense of the term (e.g., Hirschkind
way of life. Interpreting Haidara’s and other preachers’ ser- 2001a, 2001b; Launay 1997).
mons as mere products of the logic of market competition Nevertheless, even if listeners treat sermon audiotapes
would be extremely reductive. Nevertheless, their sermons as “very special” objects, certain features of sermon audio-
do help to promote the public standing of these preachers tape production and consumption, I venture, also clearly
and the sale of their audiotapes. Thus, media figures such establish the audiotapes as commodities. Similar to other
as Haidara do not preach “only for financial gain,” as their goods, their production and consumption is informed by
fiercest critics assert, and, thus, turn preaching into a busi- a market logic. Moreover, clear disjuncture marks the rela-
ness. Rather, similar to some of the most successful media tionship between those who produce and those who con-
muftis and preachers in the Arab-speaking world, there ex- sume sermon audiotapes, even if the distribution of these
ists almost “no preaching without business” (Haenni 2002:5, tapes continues to be informed by the protocols of patron-
emphasis added, my translation). age and personal obligation. Finally, the circulation of these
The recent privatization of economic and religious en- mass-mediated forms of sermonizing is crucially mediated
terprise not only allows for the emergence of new forms of through money. Therefore, rather than posit that sermon
“publicizing” Islam but it also facilitates the adoption of vari- tapes do not operate as proper commodities, one should

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explore the exact modus operandi and significance they de- diotapes occurs among supporters of Islamic moral reform,
velop in their capacities as commodities. acolytes express a strong sense of moral obligation not to
Shops specializing in the sale and dubbing of audiotapes multiply sermons themselves but to leave the distribution
are found in any town’s central marketplace and—wherever of tapes to specialized vendors. In other words, those most
they exist—near local radio stations. In the immediate sur- strongly convinced of the educational and spiritual import
roundings of towns, sermon audiotapes increasingly form of sermon audiotapes simultaneously emphasize that these
part of the regular merchandise offered in the little village recordings should also serve the purpose of financially sup-
stores that specialize in the retail sale of kitchen supplies and porting fellow members of the movement. Hence, the com-
cooking ingredients. The making and selling of sermon au- mercial character of sermon tapes is not only recognized but
diotapes is a relatively risk-free business and therefore par- highlighted as a morally acceptable and even desirable qual-
ticularly attractive for people with little or no starting capital. ity of these objects. It is in their capacities as commodities
It does not entail the danger of unprofitable overproduction that they allow their users to provide moral and financial sup-
because, once a master copy exists, the scale of reproduc- port. Their circulation through the structures of commerce is
tion is easily adjusted to the degree of customer demand.43 both a motivating force for their consumption and an end in
Those who specialize in the production of sermon tapes are itself. The selling, buying, and consuming of religious record-
mostly young men without a regular income who seek to ings are physical evidence of a believer’s search for the “path
make ends meet by selling various religious media prod- to God” (alasira, translated into French as religion). In this
ucts and by providing the technical equipment, advice, and sense, sermon tapes represent a specific type of commodity
repair skills needed to ensure a normal and disturbance- in present-day Mali insofar as they are constitutive of a sys-
free consumption of audio- and videotapes. Some of these tem of exchange dictated by the logic of commodification.
men maintain clientelist relations with the preachers whose This system links the “economic and technological condi-
sermons they sell; they relate to the preachers as personal tions of production with the social and cultural conditions
spiritual guides whose reputation they seek to increase by that help create and maintain the need for such production”
circulating their audiotapes as widely as possible. Their eco- (Morgan 1999:17). But what are these social and cultural con-
nomic undertakings are inspired by a strong conviction that ditions that inform the consumption and demand of sermon
promoting their guide’s moral call will afford them consid- recordings?
erable spiritual merit (baraji). Their attitude resonates with To many supporters of the Islamic moral reform move-
a more broadly shared view of sermon-tape production as ment, listening to the recorded sermons of their leaders and
an activity that combines one’s spiritual quest with an eth- teachers is intricately linked to their collective endeavor and
ically acceptable form of enterprise. This opens up an in- orientation. This link is evident in the social organization
teresting contrast to the position that sermon audiotapes of consumption as well as in the kinds of experience that
occupy in the moral economy of Islamic homiletics in Cairo, audiotapes facilitate. These kinds of recordings are individ-
where, according to Charles Hirschkind (1999, 2001a, 2001b), ually purchased and owned, but their circulation and con-
sermon tapes are expressly located outside the structures sumption is a genuinely social affair. For instance, the shops
of commercial exchange and preachers exhort listeners to at which Cherif Haidara’s audio- and videotaped sermons
make their sermons available to other Muslims for the sake are reproduced and sold constitute a nexus for the transna-
of da‘wa alone. In Mali, in contrast, producing caseti wajuli tional commercial networks in which his followers partici-
is considered a perfectly acceptable response to a situation pate. These shops (sing. butiki) are meeting places where im-
of shrinking economic resources. portant insider information is passed on and where Haidara’s
To be sure, some Muslim leaders regard commercial ser- most recent public interventions are debated. They are also
mon tapes, especially those by Cherif Haidara, with a critical the sites where articles of dress and religious paraphernalia
eye and deplore that the entertaining effects of a preacher’s fabricated by his followers are passed on to vendors, who sell
“forceful speech” will displace the “edifying” uses of these them to fellow members of the movement and other clients.
audiotapes. Their observation picks up on a crucial trans- That they are marketed through ties of kin, religious affili-
formation in the social uses of sermon audiotapes. It also ation, and personal obligation does not undercut the logic
reflects the heightened concern of these leaders with the of commodification. Rather, these personal bonds often en-
ways in which certain media technologies undermine tra- force the vectors of commerce.
ditional religious authority by opening the field of religious Believers emphasize that their regular, joint consump-
debate to participants who lack scholarly erudition. tion of sermon recordings enables them to experience them-
In contrast, preachers who deploy audio-recording selves as “united as true supporters of religion.” Their sense
technologies, as well as their followers, do not feel that a of commonality is also established through the sharing of au-
believer’s vested interest in selling sermons invalidates his diotapes whose materiality conveys the identity of previous
or her true devotion to the cause of proselytizing. More im- places of and actors in consumption. These material quali-
portantly, although a great deal of informal sharing of au- ties allow a few particularly popular audiotapes to acquire a

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personality and a “social life” of their own, in ways that are in nature and that allows preachers to create a sense of moral
reminiscent of the “spirit” of, and sense of obligation toward, community with important political ramifications. Haidara’s
previous owners, identified by Marcel Mauss (1960) and invocation of a “community of rightful believers” illustrates
Bronislaw Malinowski (1922) as a constitutive feature of this point. His sermons are full of references to the mass-
gift exchange. Moral community, then, emerges not only mediated setting and intertextual character of his teachings
through empathy and moral identification with a religious and resemble the “to-be-continued” pattern of television se-
leader but also through the physical and sensory experiences ries whenever he carries over to the next recording a topic he
related to the circulation and consumption of media prod- has raised in another locality or outside a recorded preach-
ucts (Schulz n.d.). Cassette sermons simultaneously index ing session. Invoking sentiments of commonality and empa-
and create the community of believers to which they appeal. thy, he establishes the at-once virtual and immediate nature
Although they circulate as commodities, they are imbued of his community, whose existence continues through time
with a relevance that transcends conventional understand- but is refracted across space (Schulz 2003a). Haidara’s com-
ings of their use value. munity shares features with the audience of conventional
Particular technologies of mediation, once embedded Islamic sermonizing insofar as people’s feelings of belong-
in structures of commercialization, do not simply serve ing continue to crystallize in a sense of shared moral stan-
to disseminate or broadcast a moral message to a wider dards. At the same time, his use of media changes the ways
constituency. Rather, they transform conventional forms of in which a morally evaluating public is constituted. Media
religious sociality, and, as I argue in the following section, technologies allow religious instruction to move beyond the
allow for new kinds of religious engagement and spiritual delimited setting of ritual performance conventionally as-
experience. These new forms of religious experience and sociated with mosques and educational institutions. Also,
community are made possible partly through the particular audiotapes, similar to other “small media” whose circula-
quality of the interface that mediates and translates religious tion is not centrally controlled or directed (see Manuel 1993;
discourse. Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi 1994), stretch the
boundaries of the audience and introduce a new sense of
community insofar as locality is crucially defined by the vec-
Mass mediation and the reconfiguration of
tors of circulation (see Appadurai 1991).
religious discourse
The specific capacities of particular media technologies
Cherif Haidara’s biography illustrates that an emergent com- to translate religious experience come out clearly in the ways
mercial culture makes possible forms of religious experience many listeners comment on their listening experiences. For
that enhance religious leaders’ media appeal and commu- instance, they often liken the swiftness and immediacy of the
nity constructions. One implication of these media figures’ sound of the spoken word to the sense of being bound tightly
enormous success is that one cannot analyze the workings together and to the intimate atmosphere they experience
of specific media technologies, and the forms of religious during collective worship. Sermon audition allows them to
experience they allow for, without taking into consideration transpose this spiritual experience to the domains in which
the broader structures of commercial entertainment culture they live and work and, thus, to facilitate for themselves
within which religious discourse is embedded. their attempt to realize religiously significant acts (ibadat)
The proliferation of media products beyond the reach in a broad array of everyday settings. Others, in particu-
of state control furthers a market in which representatives lar, followers and fans of Cherif Haidara, emphasize that the
of various ethical positions compete for listener support. In sound qualities of audiotapes and radio broadcasts are par-
this situation of heightened competition, a preacher’s style ticularly conducive to transmitting their leader’s charismatic
of delivery and argumentation plays importantly into his gifts (baraka) because these media help focus attention on
success. This process is facilitated by the spread of new me- the voice, which, according to local understandings, is a priv-
dia technologies that allow for very specific forms of delivery ileged means to convey a person’s extraordinary gifts (Schulz
and mass-mediated religious debate while foreclosing oth- 2003a; also see Kendall 1982). Media technologies that priv-
ers. How do particular media technologies, in their capaci- ilege the experience of sound, then, address and simultane-
ties to mediate and translate religious discourse, affect spir- ously create communities of joint spiritual experience. These
itual experience and the conditions for the establishment notions and experiences of spirituality draw on conventional
of religious authority? In what ways do media technologies understandings of religious practice without replacing them
simultaneously transform the contents of debate? fully.
Different media technologies shape the nature of re- The popularity of Haidara’s broadcast sermons is
ligious debate by impregnating it with different shades of paradigmatic of yet another result of the interlocking of
publicness and by creating particular types of audience. specific media technologies with the structures of a commer-
Audio recordings and broadcasts, for instance, enable a spe- cial entertainment culture. A cross-fertilization of conven-
cific hearing experience that is at once public and intimate tional sermonizing and speech genres popularized on local

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radio stations has occurred since the early 1990s. The stylistic different educational backgrounds and political orientations
convergence of broadcast genres and conventional Islamic suggests that, along with the popularization of religious de-
homiletics forms part of a broader process by which diverse bate, Islam has become an element of commercial, mass-
speech genres, whether aimed primarily at “entertaining” mediated culture. At first sight, this development seems to
listeners or at “edifying” them, occupy the same position in support the argument that current invocations of the “sym-
the field of symbolic forms that structure consumers’ every- bolic language of Islam,” sometimes under the guise of a
day experience (see Öncü 2006). There is, thus, no simple, return to authentic Islam, reveal the meaning of Islam itself
unidirectional dissemination of successful preaching styles to be changing (e.g., Brenner 1993a, 1993b; Eickelman 1992;
from broadcast lectures to “live” sermonizing. Most sermons but see Mahmood 2005:ch. 1). Islam is currently propagated
incorporate various influences and reflect different occa- as a body of doctrines that are open to scrutiny and debate.
sions for and styles of presentation. Many preachers use their This argument, however, needs further specification in the
incipient careers as broadcast orators to extend their fame light of preachers such as Cherif Haidara and other “me-
to the surrounding rural areas and develop a preaching style dia figures” who currently dominate the airwaves in many
adapted to the requirements of nonmediated performance Muslim-majority countries.
settings (Schulz 2004:ch. 8). In this sense, the culture of re- A mass-mediated, commercial context is intrinsic to the
ligious moralizing is constituted at the interface of various changing significance of Islam, as this informs the ways in
technologies and settings. which Islam is publicly propagated and perceived by audi-
Haidara, for instance, skillfully combines conventional ences. This is not to argue that this view of Islam and peo-
aesthetics of oral performance with the format of talk-radio ple’s awareness of the relativity of particular readings of the
programs that are highly popular among urban adolescents Islamic foundational texts are entirely new. Neither is the
and married women.44 His media appearances resemble emphasis on individual responsibility the exclusive result of
those of pop stars: Speakers introduce Haidara as “today’s recent transformations.46 What has taken place over the past
studio guest,” dwell on his recent travels and successes, and 30 years, however, is that engagement in controversies over
ask him questions raised by listeners in letters or phone religious content and orthopraxy has become both a com-
calls. The inspiration Haidara draws from the stylistics and monsensical and a relevant practice to broader segments
ideological posture of broadcast entertainment is also evi- of the population. This development is the result of educa-
dent in his stress on a consumer-oriented selection of top- tional reform, religious conversion, and, more recently, the
ics and the “participatory” and “transparent” character of increasing permeation of everyday life by mass-mediated
his teachings.45 This means that the commercial, mass- commercial culture, as a consequence of economic and po-
mediated setting, rather than depriving Haidara’s sermons litical liberalization. Along with the proliferation of religious
of their ethical import, renders plausible his portrayal of an media and debate, “knowledge of the proper teachings of
“Islamic way of life” as a matter of individual choice. As re- Islam” has gained a new relevance for many urbanites in
ligious and commercial entertainment cultures become in- Mali. As people grow aware of their personal responsibility
creasingly intertwined, it would be misleading to try to distill for salvation, listening to a preacher’s “moral advice” forms
a “pure” religious message untainted by the logic of com- part of a quotidian endeavor simultaneously to transform
merce and consumption. the self and society. Concomitantly, Islam no longer plays
the same role in indicating a group or ethnic identity (often
linked to professional specialization or regional origin; see
A new relevance of Islam?
Launay 1992) and, instead, comes to designate a faith to be
So far, I have argued that the heightened prominence of an professed publicly as an individual conviction.
Islamic symbolism in public arenas should not be read as an Some specificities of this modernist conception of Mus-
increasing permeation of secular politics by Islamic morals. lim practice and of the practicing individual (see Bowen
Instead, ethical conduct, although allegedly defined in Is- 1997) come out in many women’s endeavor to “learn about
lamic terms, becomes a polyvalent source of identity that the teachings of Islam.” As these women often stress, their
appeals to a broader constituency of urbanites. Muslim lead- search for individual ethical improvement and their public
ers thereby partly respond to a cultural market established enactment of their faith is not inspired by a respect for family
through broadcast media and religious commodities. Mus- tradition but by their individual conviction that they should
lim authorities who seek a following in a plural arena tend to make Islam’s guidance central to their daily concerns. Their
frame their moral quest in terms that resonate with people’s listening and response to religious radio broadcasts during
daily concerns and that draw inspiration from local concep- group sessions and the questions they send to the radio
tions of Muslim knowledge and piety rather than displace preachers reflect a preoccupation with issues of proper ritual
them (see Cruise O’Brien 1988). and personal conduct and reveal a heightened sense of per-
That Haidara’s teachings draw such interest and acclaim sonal accountability. Their engagement with religious radio
not only among his followers but also among people of very programs also reflects their concern with defending “Islam,”

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as a body of rules that guide everyday practice, against alter- interpretation need to be understood by reference to recent
native viewpoints (Schulz 2004:ch. 7). changes in the relationship between state, media, and mar-
At first sight, Haidara’s stress on the consistent and “all- ket. In other words, current debates over the common good
encompassing nature of Islam” seems to support the emer- and over the significance of religion to personal life and pub-
gent view of Islam as a systematic body of rules. His sermons, lic order are shaped not only by the ways in which the “civ-
however, demonstrate that what has been described as a ilizing traditions of Islam” (Salvatore 1998) are reconfigured
shift toward a greater “objectification” of Islam (Eickelman by the rationalities and institutions of modern state power.
1992) does not entail an unequivocal shift toward a rational- They are also genuinely constituted through commercializa-
argumentative paradigm of Islamic debate.47 In fact, as I tion structures and through processes of mass mediation. In
have shown elsewhere, Haidara establishes his interpreta- this process, the conditions, forms, and contents of intra-
tional authority to no minor degree by drawing on conven- Muslim debate are changing without, however, losing their
tional credentials, rather than on rational argument (Schulz connection to, and inspiration from, local discursive tradi-
2003a, 2004:ch. 8). Haidara’s “citations” from the Qur’an, for tions and notions of piety.
instance, rarely substantiate his argument; yet his followers This process is not limited to contemporary Mali, nor is
(most of whom are not literate in Arabic) do not feel that this it a specific feature of Muslim Africa. Rather, it resonates with
contradicts his claim to “scientific” argument. They take his a process animating politics and personal life in much of the
proficiency in Arabic as sufficient proof of his erudition and contemporary Muslim world (and beyond; e.g., Stolow 2006)
legitimate leadership. Haidara’s and his followers’ stress on and in which media technologies, in their intermingling with
the “rational” character of his teachings should therefore be commodity exchange and consumption, play a decisive role
understood against the backdrop of a context of multiple in reorganizing the discursive and semantic conditions of
normative positions in which references to one’s “arguable” possibility for religious experience, argument, and authority.
opinion play an important role in winning support. Rather than unsettle or displace conventional foundations
The astounding success of media preachers and muftis of religious authority and legitimacy, the new economic and
in Mali and in other areas of the Muslim world points to what, technological terms of mediating religion transform the ma-
I have argued, has been a widely neglected dimension in re- terial and moral conditions for creating and circulating au-
cent trends toward the “objectification” of Islam. One cannot thoritative interpretation.
understand the current diversification of Islamic positions, The results of these transformations are deeply paradox-
and the new conditions of existence of religious authority, ical. The close link between religion and commerce, between
without considering the commercial consumer culture in spiritual salvation and mass-mediated everyday experience,
which these developments are embedded. In the process enables greater public prominence of those who seek to ar-
of recording and selling “live” preaching events, an Islamic ticulate Islam as a norm of public conduct and of individual
moral codex is objectified partly by turning it into a pur- civility (Salvatore 1999) yet who often lack the conventional
chasable good. Yet, it is precisely its commercial character credentials of interpretive authority. Despite their different
that many believers downplay. This development and its in- positions, styles of argumentation, and audiences, personal-
herent tensions are characteristic of a broader trend toward ities such as “Gym” Abdullah Gymnastiar, Indonesia’s most
the commercialization of broadcast entertainment genres popular television preacher; Amr Khalid, who makes tele-
that many consumers in Mali tend to present as moral en- vised appearances in Egypt; and Al-Qaradawi, broadcasting
lightenment (Schulz 2001a, 2001b). from Qatar, all bear witness to the instrumental role of me-
dia technologies in facilitating particular modes of authority,
assertiveness, and appeal. They all personify the capacity of
Conclusion
commercial media to respond to and resonate with the aes-
Recent developments in the material, institutional, and eco- thetic and moral sensibilities of consumers at various levels
nomic conditions of religious debate in urban Mali have of sensual and cognitive experience. The crucial implica-
changed the parameters of common understandings of the tions of the mediation of religion via new technologies does
relevance of religion to daily life and politics. To a growing not so much reside in the dilution of religious argument but
number of Muslims, religious orientation and ethics appear in the transformation of its appeal, contents, and styles and
as vital elements in their definitions of their own place in of consumers’ devotional attitude (see Meyer 2004).
the political community. What is apparent at this particu- At the same time, paradoxically, the close intertwin-
lar historical moment are broader changes in Muslims’ re- ing of mass-mediated argument, commercialization, and
ligious practice and imaginations, in the course of which a consumption undermines these debating Muslims’ claim to
growing importance is attributed to individual understand- ijma, scholarly consensus, and their capacity to provide a
ing and responsibility. These changing notions of religiosity unitary norm of public interaction and a unitary definition
and of orthopraxy as well as the recent normative and insti- of collective interest and the common good. It seriously lim-
tutional reconfigurations of public debate and authoritative its their chances of mounting a coherent challenge to the

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civilizing and nationalist project of current political elites new technologies for translating religious discourse into
and chips away at their exercise of moral authority. This spiritual experience and perception broaden the spectrum
particular process of objectifying Islam by way of its of forms of religious engagement and sociability. These
commercialization has important implications for its new forms coexist with and draw on established notions
community-building potential. As Islam is being integrated of religious practice, rather than replace them in any
as a moral idiom into mainstream mass-mediated and com- simple, unidirectional teleological development toward
mercial culture, it becomes a privileged reference point “more modern” attitudes. Clearly, believers’ consumption
within competing community constructions. Whoever man- practices, commercial activities, and moral concerns do
ages to mobilize the symbolic repertoire of Islam in a broadly not belong to separate realms of everyday experience.
understandable way commands an influence that politi- The intricate connection between believers’ longing for
cians need to take account of and steer carefully through. At spiritual salvation and for entrepreneurial achievement
the same time, Islam’s potential to appear as a viable alter- should motivate scholars of Islam to pay closer attention to
native to the existing political and normative order is partly the ways in which material objects, consumption practices,
neutralized. and certain forms of media engagements are constitutive
Are some of the current changes in Muslim religious of religious experience, authority, and legitimacy.
practice and self-understandings and in the conditions for
the establishment of authority characteristic of a particu-
Notes
lar historical juncture? I would argue that, despite the con-
siderable variation in the features and particular idioms of Acknowledgments. The research on which this article is based
moral renewal throughout the contemporary Muslim world, would not have been possible without the assistance and patience of
these movements share some features that identify them as numerous Ansar Dine devotees. I owe a special gratitude to Madame
Diaby Adam Dembele and her husband for their hospitality and
different versions of the same regime of religious practice. readiness to engage in dialogue and to Cherif Haidara for the gener-
They all emerge in response to a combination of historical ous reception and unfailingly open-minded and frank discussions
conditions, such as the challenges to established religious he granted me throughout the years of my field research. Earlier ver-
authorities since the colonial period, the weakening of al- sions of the article were presented to the African Studies Workshop,
liances between state and religious establishment, and, very the University of Chicago; the International Institute for the Study
of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden University; the working group
recently, political opening, combined with the liberalization “Religion and Media,” University of Amsterdam; and the Society
of the media landscape and of the economy. These changes for the Humanities, Cornell University. The article has benefited
allow for a greater intermingling of religious experience, eco- especially from comments by Birgit Meyer, Jeremy Stolow, Jean
nomic enterprise, and everyday consumption practices. Comaroff, Moishe Postone, Mikael Karlström, Yves Quijano-
Current religious ideals and readings can by no means Gonzalez, and Abdulkader Tayob. I also want to thank Virginia
Dominguez and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful
be reduced to, or explained by, these new conditions for re- suggestions.
ligious practice. Still, there seems to be a clear development 1. This article is based on data collected in the southern towns
toward a novel form of asserting religious authority. Thanks of San, Segu, and Bamako between July 1998 and March 2004
to an increasingly commercialized mass-media culture, new (altogether 19 months). I conducted the research in Bamanakan,
types of religious leaders tap into a general trend toward a ne- the lingua franca of southern Mali, and in French. In addition to
participant-observation among, and more than 60 semistructured
oliberal ideology of choice by presenting different religious interviews with, supporters of the Islamic moral-reform movement,
positions and practices as a matter of personal conviction I regularly attended the learning sessions organized two to three
and style. They are influenced by a general tendency, char- times a week by followers of Haidara in San and Bamako. I com-
acteristic of the contemporary moment of global capital, to bined the audio and video recording of the teaching and discus-
frame religious conviction as a matter of cultural values and sion sessions and of the consumption of audio- and videotapes
of Haidara’s performances by his followers with detailed accounts
of individual consumer choice (see Comaroff and Comaroff of participants’ spontaneous (verbal and nonverbal) responses to
2002). At the risk of overstating the case, I propose that many the lessons and of their interactions with teachers and group lead-
believers come to understand themselves as “consuming be- ers. I also participated in a range of religious ceremonies and social
lievers,” that is, as believers who choose a religious viewpoint events.
and opt for particular forms of expressing, enacting, and pro- 2. Yet other studies address explicitly the contemporary moment
of neoliberal economic policy (e.g., Gökariksel 2005; Göle 2000,
fessing it against contending positions. 2002; Jones 2005; Saktanber 1994) and illustrate how Muslims situate
One can, therefore, conclude—and this finding, themselves in an expanding market of religious consumption that
too, seems to hold true for contemporary developments emerges at the convergence of national developments and transna-
throughout the Muslim world—that the increasing en- tionally circulating images of the enlightened consumer.
gagement with emblems and products of a commercial, 3. In a strict sense, the term consumption refers not only to peo-
ple’s use of commodities but also to their engagement with non-
mass-mediated Islam does not dilute believers’ religious commodified goods (Hugh-Jones 1995; see Appadurai 1986; Miller
conviction. Neither does it undermine the sincerity of their 1995a, 1995b). In this article, however, I use the term consumption
claims and search for moral self-improvement. Rather, in relation to commodities.

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4. Whereas some authors explicitly address these new conditions to announce the immediate end of the world and mount attacks
of religious practice and expression in other social, historical, and against the occupying powers (e.g., ANM n.d.c).
religious settings (Moore 1994; Stolow 2006), their investigations fo- 10. This interpretation is based primarily on the oral testimony
cus on the commercialization and consumption of print media (also of interviewees. Archival evidence that substantiates this argument
see Quijano-Gonzalez 1998). Studies with an explicit focus on au- is limited because administrators, preoccupied with the positions
ral and visual media technologies (e.g., Launay 1997; Manuel 1993) of individual preachers vis-à-vis the colonial powers, provided little
often downplay the extent to which the interlocking of processes of information about sermons that focused on everyday conduct.
mass-mediation and of commodification transform how religion is 11. Today, many Muslims still view these religious clans as rep-
presented as an issue of public controversy. resentatives of “traditional” Islamic practices. The notion of “tradi-
5. My exploration of Islam’s move to public prominence bene- tional” Islam does not cover a fixed set of practices but is constructed
fits from an engagement with Jürgen Habermas’s (1990) seminal by people in contrast to what they call “Wahhabi” or “Arab” Islam
exploration of the structural transformation of the public sphere (Brenner 1993b, 1993c; see the following discussion in the text).
in 17th- and 18th-century western Europe. I find Habermas’s focus 12. Intra-Muslim controversy intensified in this period because
on the interrelated shifts in the institutional arrangements of pub- new means of communication and travel reinforced centuries-old
lic communication and in their normative foundations particularly networks of intellectual and economic exchange with Egypt and the
useful in accounting for recent transformations in the structure of Hejaz (Kaba 1974).
public debate in Mali. By stressing the central relevance of Islam 13. The containment of Islamic influence was manifest in the field
to public controversy in contemporary Mali, however, I break with of education. Traditional and reformed institutions of Islamic learn-
Habermas’s assumption that modern politics are characterized by ing were not granted the same status as French-language schools.
a secular public sphere and, thus, by the withdrawal of religion to Some of the reformed schools were integrated into the national ed-
the private realm. The kind of inspiration I draw from Habermas’s ucational system schools (Brenner 2001:169–173).
perspective is perhaps best illustrated by contrasting my approach 14. An alliance between representatives of “traditional” Islam and
to Benjamin Soares’s use of the notion of “public” in his account of Sunni businessmen was important in organizing resistance to Keita’s
Muslim public disourse in Mali. Soares dismisses the relevance of socialist policies, thereby effectively destabilizing his regime (Am-
Habermas’s concept for his own material by observing that Haber- selle 1985).
mas underestimated the role of religious associations and values in 15. For example, a greater share of broadcasting time was reserved
the emergence of the 18th-century public sphere in western Europe for Muslim religious programs than for those of Christians.
(2004:207, 2005:222–223). To do away with Habermas’s analytical 16. The arabisants soon occupied leading posts in the state
perspective by observing that his notion of a critical–rational pub- bureaucracy, thereby entering into open competition with repre-
lic does not map onto the normative, institutional, and procedu- sentatives of the Sufi orders and the older generation of “Sunni”
ral specificities of the public in postcolonial Mali somehow misses merchants.
the core of Habermas’s argument. Central to my argument is that 17. The national organization of Muslim women, Union Nationale
Habermas’s insistence on the interrelation of changes in the econ- des Femmes Musulmanes (UNAFEM), illustrates the diversification
omy and in the nature of “publicness” affords important insights of Muslim groups. Created in 1997 as an adjunct of the AMUPI, the
into recent reconfigurations of public debate in Mali, and into the organization claims to represent the interests of “Malian Muslim
place of religion in these debates. women” yet usually supports the positions of leading (male) repre-
6. Prior to the 19th century, the spread of Islam in the northern sentatives of the AMUPI (Schulz 2003b).
regions of contemporary Mali was significantly interrelated with the 18. Activists have in common that they base their influence on
expansion of the trans-Saharan trade in salt and the rise to politi- credentials that break with conventional notions of Muslim author-
cal and economic power of families who were affiliated with the ity. Also, contrary to their references to a pristine Islamic political
Qadiriyya order. The social organization of Islam changed; centers order, their practices reveal an engagement with the institutions and
of Islamic learning spread to the countryside and were integrated rationalities of the nation-state.
into a pastoral way of life. As the redistribution of wealth was no 19. Despite Konaré’s repeated attempts to prove the democratic
longer closely tied to schools and mosques, religious affiliation ac- character of his regime, many people feel that his government, as
quired new economic and political functions (e.g., McDougall 1986; well as that of President Touré, did not live up to the promises of de-
Stewart 1973). mocratization. Also, official claims that electoral politics are a guar-
7. Views of proper Muslimhood were far from uniform at that antor of a legitimate political order still collide with conventional
time (e.g., Launay and Soares 1999; Soares 2004). Archival documen- notions of just and autocratic leadership (Schulz 2001b:ch 3).
tation suggests that debates over competing definitions of proper 20. Their emphasis on the collective as both a means and an
Muslim practice took place in localities under the influence of a objective of their moral endeavor suggests parallels to the contem-
longer-standing tradition of religious erudition. In many towns of porary da‘wa movement in Egypt and in other countries of the Arab-
southern Mali, such controversies did not emerge until the 1950s speaking world (e.g., Hirschkind 1999; Mahmood 2005). These in-
(e.g., Archives Nationales du Mali [ANM] n.d.a). fluences of (what is locally considered an) “Arab Islam” translate into
8. According to Jean-Louis Triaud (1986), the assumption of various conceptions of religious virtue. Rather than constituting a
French colonial administrators that Sufi orders were the predom- corruption of “true” Islamic practices, these readings are the result
inant mode of organizing Muslim religious practice in Africa led of historically specific conditions, sensibilities, and constraints that
generations of scholars to focus on Sufi movements and leaders. inform Malian Muslims’ endeavor to lead an ethically exemplary
This observation applies to the study of female Muslim religiosity in life.
West Africa (e.g., Boyd and Last 1985; Evers Rosander 1997, 2003). 21. Among the associations are women’s groups, which thrive
Because of the virtual absence of written historical documentation among the lower classes of urban society that suffered most from
on female religious practice, ascertaining to what extent Muslim the implementation of economic liberalization policy. Their mem-
women were actually affiliated with Sufi orders is difficult. bers meet regularly to “learn to read and write” Arabic, to engage
9. Among them were those who could be called “political in joint religious practice, and to support each other morally and
prophets,” that is, men who used their political entrepreneurial skills financially. Although perpetuating long-standing conventions of

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combining professional, moral, and spiritual objectives (Amselle 31. For similarities to notions of individual piety promoted by
1977; Launay 1992), women’s activities pinpoint a distinctively new contemporary Salafi reformist trends in Cairo, see Mahmood 2005.
development because they attribute a new and key importance to Until recently, in Mali the emphasis on a pious disposition was
women’s practice and public enactment of piety. Their—seemingly promoted only by a small group of (male) disciples of Sufi orders,
paradoxical—public assertion that a woman’s proper place is in the whereas most believers limited themselves to the regular perfor-
family reveals a particular and relatively novel view of the relevance mance of ritual obligations. For variations in individual preachers’
of personal ethics to the common good (Schulz 2004:ch. 7). views about proper conduct, see Schulz 2004:ch. 7.
22. The Bureau des Ulema was created in 1975 to supervise the re- 32. Women should show a capacity for endurance and submission
ligious programming on national radio and, after September 1983, vis-à-vis in-laws and seniors and an ability to “feel shame.” Submis-
on television. During that period, the state’s monopoly in defin- siveness is not seen as a passive quality but a carefully cultivated
ing a “presentable” Islam was slightly mitigated by a few weekly capacity (see Mahmood 2005:chs. 3, 4). Men should have a similar
broadcasts from Radio Caire (Egypt) and Radio Libye. Current ra- capacity for patience and endurance and express these qualities in
dio and television programs feature debates among Muslim intel- placid manners and firm speech.
lectuals, lectures, and special radio broadcasts for Islamic holidays 33. They also differ in the extent to which they refer to con-
(Sanankoua 1991a:132–140). ventional (not necessarily Islamic) standards of gender-specific
23. Members of the heterogeneous AMUPI steering committee behavior.
share an interest in maintaining the association’s privileged position 34. Haidara’s criticism of Muslims who “merely pretend” seems to
vis-à-vis the government. The members of the Bureau des Ulema are be influenced by a Christian tradition that contrasts outward behav-
designated by the Ministry of Information, but influential represen- ior to genuine religious attitude and feelings. He associates instances
tatives of the AMUPI have a say in the selection process. of immoral behavior with “hypocritical” Muslims, never with
24. To end the conflicts between the AMUPI steering committee Christians.
and Muslim activists who denounced the committee’s close affil- 35. Implicit in his moral quest is an endeavor to purify religious
iation with Traoré’s regime, a new structure, the Haut Conseil Is- practice from the excesses associated with established families of
lamique, was created in 2000. It includes the (still highly influen- religious specialists who, he argues, take advantage of people’s re-
tial) representatives of the AMUPI and their principal competitors, ligiosity by turning religion into a fee-for-service business (Schulz
among them, Cherif Haidara 2004:ch. 4; Soares 1996).
25. This criticism is not limited to actors outside the national 36. In this debate, Muslims define themselves as proper believers
radio station but emerged from within the Bureau des Ulemas after in a concentric movement, proceeding from the center (constituted
the employment of younger arabisants who are critical of AMUPI by the relationship among Muslims) to the periphery, where they
politics and of some older members of the bureau. classify themselves in opposition to non-Muslims (e.g., Last 1974;
26. The fees range from 500 to 1,000 FCFA (1,000 FCFA = $1.50). also see Brenner 1993a, 1993b, 2001).
About 50 percent of the local radio stations are commercial in the 37. For instance, Haidara, when asked by his interlocutor to
proper sense of the term. In practice, however, no clear distinc- specify his position vis-à-vis the Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya orders,
tion exists between commercial radio and other types of local ra- consistently refused to position himself with regard to ritual dif-
dio stations, such as the relay stations of national radio, those fi- ferences. Instead, he directed his criticism at those who “pretend”
nanced by international donor organizations, and the two Islamic to adhere to a certain doctrine without fulfilling the related ritual
radio stations. They all finance themselves to a major extent by obligations.
broadcasting governmental announcements and advertisements 38. My use of the term religious commodities is strongly indebted
(Schulz 1999, 2000). The two private Islamic radio stations in Ba- to Gregory Starrett (1995), who defines them according to their con-
mako are run by individuals with close ties to the state admin- fection (such as the inscribing of sacred verses on objects) and their
istration. Radio Islamique (founded in 1994), the radio station of use in religious practice (in the widest sense). Yet, in contrast to
the AMUPI, is financed primarily through governmental funds and Starrett’s discussion of a variety of mass-produced goods that serve
the commercialization of audiotaped sermons (Davis 2002:54ff.; a religious purpose, I am interested in the peculiarities of consump-
Sanankoua 1991a). Similarly, Radio Dambe, created in 2001 by a tion to which media products, as a very specific type of religious
dissenting member of the AMUPI’s steering committee to publi- commodity, give rise (see Spitulnik 2002).
cize a moderate version of an Arab-inspired Islam, complements 39. The directors of the radio stations are often instrumental in
its private funding through the commercial broadcasting of sermon the “advertising” of particular religious standpoints and personal-
tapes. ities. They are eager to broadcast the sermons of preachers who
27. The name is the Bamanized version of Ansar-ud-Deen (lit. draw large numbers of listeners and, therefore, help augment the
supporters of religion; see Reichmuth 1996). symbolic capital of a radio station.
28. Haidara quit the prestigious reformed Qur’an school (med- 40. The polyvalent religious significance of these objects resides
ersa) of Saad Oumar Touré in Segu after a few years of enrollment. in the use to which they are put or in their physical qualities. Some of
Elsewhere, I argue that Haidara’s family background allows him to them qualify as “religious” because consumers associate them with
draw on traditional credentials of religious authority, many of which practices of worship and the enactment of piety. Others are religious
are associated with notions of Sufi leadership (Schulz 2003a). in nature because their fabrication involves the inscription of sacred
29. Since 1993, Haidara has broadcast his recorded and “live” verses (e.g., Hames 1987; also see Starrett 1995).
sermons (against the payment of a fee) on commercial radio stations 41. Among such items and accessories are bumper stickers,
in Bamako and in other towns of (mostly southern) Mali. posters, prayer beads, and framed Qur’anic verses.
30. During Friday worship and special holidays, preachers lecture 42. Audiotapes thus seem to move in and out of their commodity
on a variety of social, moral, and (less frequently) political issues, status (Starrett 1995; also see Appadurai 1986).
often without referring to specific passages of the foundational texts. 43. In 2003, prices for sermon audiotapes ranged from 750 to 1,250
In contrast, the teachers of Muslim groups (e.g., Muslim women’s FCFA ($1.00–$1.30), depending on the renown of the preacher, the
associations) spend more time on the exegesis (tafsir) of particular locale, and the season. Prices usually go up immediately before and
suras. during the fasting month and religious holidays, the time when most

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sermons are sold. Those who hold the master copies are men who Beinin, Joel, and Joe Stork, eds.
have privileged access to the preacher’s teaching sessions because 1997 Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report. London: I.
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44. Conventional stylistics include techniques of circumlocution Bowen, John
and the framing of the sermon as a dialogue (see Schulz 2001b:ch. 1997 Modern Intentions: Reshaping Subjectivities in an In-
4). Haidara is not the only preacher to use these framing devices, but donesian Muslim Society. In Politics and Religious Renewal
his sermons are among the most elaborate examples of this “hybrid” in Muslim Southeast Asia. Robert W. Hefner and Patricia
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episteme” (Brenner 2001:131ff.; see Hofheinz 2002). tity and Social Change in Subsaharan Africa. Louis Brenner, ed.
47. According to Eickelman, objectification refers to a process by Pp. 59–78. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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