https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4070-9482
Abstract
The dynamics of Salafi activism in African settings have gained attention in recent years. In the light of the regional spread of jihadist militancy, Salafi-jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have made international headlines. At the same time, Salafi groups and activists across the region have not shied away from ‘playing politics’ and engaging with secular elites and political parties. What explains this Salafi involvement in secular party politics? This article addresses this question based on a case study of the Ghanaian Anbariya movement, an influential Islamic group that was created by the eminent cleric Afa Ajura in Dagbon in the 1950s and gradually evolved into a major pillar of homegrown Ghanaian Salafism. Identifying the Anbariya as a reformist group in the sphere of political Salafism, we contend that the movement’s sustained involvement in the political process has been inextricably linked with a protracted chieftaincy rivalry pitting against each other the Abudu and Andani royal gates of Dagbon. As we explore the Anbariya’s involvement in this conflict and in Ghanaian party politics, we highlight the potential of communal cleavages for shaping the political preferences of religious actors.
the dynamics of salafi activism in African settings have gained increasing scholarly interest in recent years. Representing a tradition of Sunni Islamic reform, Salafism is based on the notion of an exemplary community of pious ancestors made up of the first three generations of Muslims. While Salafism generally entails the quest for a purification of the Islamic creed, local Salafi identities have been found to be decisively shaped by the socio-political environments within which they emerge.1
In the light of the regional spread of jihadist militancy, violent Salafi groups such as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have hit international headlines. Yet a ‘blanket equation between Salafism and militancy is highly inaccurate’.2 Indeed, Salafi groups and activists across the region have not shied away from ‘playing politics’ and engaging with secular elites and political parties.3 While this type of political engagement is well documented in the existing literature, the specific drivers of Salafi participation in secular party politics are rarely explicitly examined.4 To help address this gap, in this paper, we provide a case study of the Ghanaian Anbariya movement, an influential Islamic group that emerged in the West African country’s Northern Region in the 1950s and gradually evolved into a major pillar of homegrown Ghanaian Salafism.5
Founded by the eminent cleric Afa Ajura and based in the Kingdom of Dagbon, the Anbariya movement rapidly became known for its fierce opposition to the local presence of the Tijaniyya Sufi order which Anbariya leaders have accused of promoting ‘un-Islamic’ ritual innovations.6 While Ajura’s movement became integrated into Saudi-sponsored Salafi networks and persistently quarrelled with the Ghanaian state over educational matters, it also cultivated resilient links to the Ghanaian political process. Evolving into an influential power broker, Afa Ajura openly sided with non-Muslim political leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings.7 Furthermore, Ajura’s death in 2004 notwithstanding, the Anbariya movement has maintained ties to the National Democratic Congress (NDC)—one of Ghana’s two major political parties—providing a ‘party Imam’ for the Northern Region.8 What explains this political involvement? Identifying the Anbariya as a ‘reformist’9 group in the sphere of political Salafism, in this article we contend that the group’s participation in the political process is inextricably linked with pre-existing intra-communal cleavages in Dagbon.
In the 1950s, the Dagbon Kingdom witnessed the outbreak of a protracted chieftaincy conflict playing out in several succession disputes over the selection of the Ya Na, the King of Dagbon. In line with several comparable conflicts in northern Ghana, the dynastic rivalry became entangled with national party politics and repeatedly took on violent dimensions as it pitted against each other the Abudu and Andani royal gates of Dagbon.10 Crucially, this intra-communal antagonism would also shape the orientation of the nascent Anbariya movement.
Exploring Afa Ajura’s political manoeuvring and the lasting imprint it has left on the Anbariya, we demonstrate that as he sought to enlarge the base of his religious group, Ajura quickly ventured into chieftaincy politics, openly supporting the Andani gate. Furthermore, we provide evidence that based on this alignment, Anbariya activists have continuously supported political parties perceived to be receptive to the Andani cause. Overall, we therefore demonstrate that electoral mobilization around pre-existing communal antagonisms such as the Andani–Abudu rivalry can push Salafi actors involved in these antagonisms towards participation in the political process. By tracing these dynamics, we make two relevant contributions. First, our case study allows for a better understanding of a specific pattern of politico-religious activism, i.e. Salafi participation in secular party politics. Second, at a broader level, we underline the potential of communal antagonisms for shaping the political preferences of religious actors.
The analysis in this paper draws on a variety of sources including 24 semi-structured interviews with local politicians, Muslim clerics, and other civil society representatives. The interviews were jointly carried out by the authors in Tamale in September 2022 and March 2023. Guided by the technique of purposive sampling, the selection process focused on ‘critical cases’ estimated to possess crucial knowledge concerning the Anbariya’s historical involvement in local politics. Among these cases are former clerical members of Afa Ajura’s inner circle and political leaders who have been close to the Anbariya movement.
The article’s first section reviews the existing literature on the relationship between Salafi activism, secular politics, and communal cleavages. Subsequently, we provide basic background information on the Dagbon chieftaincy conflict as well as on the Anbariya movement and its participation in party politics. Finally, we link this participation to the movement’s involvement in the chieftaincy dispute.
Salafi activism, secular politics, and communal cleavages
Salafi thought is rooted in different streams of Islamic revivalism including the Wahhabi movement founded by Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in present-day Saudi Arabia and late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Islamic modernism.11 Revolving around a devotion to ritual and doctrinal purification, Salafism is based on a strict literalist treatment of foundational texts, i.e. the Qur’an and the hadith, which Salafis consider the only legitimate sources of Islam.12 Claiming to defend the principle of monotheism (tawhid), Salafis denounce as unlawful innovations (bida) Sufi-related practices such as the veneration of saints or the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday.13
As a theological current, Salafism is compatible with varying political preferences vis-à-vis the state. When it comes to identifying these preferences, existing research often draws on Quintan Wiktorowicz’s14 pioneering work to distinguish between ‘quietist’, ‘political’, and ‘jihadist’ Salafis.15 Unlike quietists, who are defined as actors focusing on religious proselytization and avoiding any open involvement in politics, politico-activist Salafis are considered to be ‘more directly engaged with the political process, lobbying and campaigning for organic change in accordance with Islamic precepts’.16 Jihadist Salafis, on the other hand, violently challenge existing political orders.17
While this tripartite conceptualization has represented a helpful starting point for making sense of Salafi political preferences, it fails to capture several important dividing lines structuring the Salafi field. For instance, (non-violent) Salafi political activism can be ‘reformist’18 or ‘rejectionist’19 in nature. Rejectionist groups such as the Saudi group al-Jama’a al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba or Kenya’s Ansar Sunnah movement are fundamentally opposed to electoral politics and vocally reject the conventional nation state.20 By contrast, reformist groups push for limited change rather than challenging the legitimacy of the nation state as such. In Egypt and Tunisia, for example, reformist Salafi activists embraced the ‘Arab Spring’ and established religious political parties to participate in the electoral arena.21 In the absence of religious parties, reformist Salafi activism in East and West Africa has been primarily carried out by activist civil society groups.22
When it comes to dealing with non-Islamist political actors, reformist Salafi groups have exhibited varying preferences. For example, the Senegalese group Jamaatou Ibadou Rahmane, which was founded in the late 1970s, eventually started making recommendations to its members as to which presidential candidates and political parties to vote for after having initially being highly critical of Senegal’s secular political class.23 In other African countries, Salafi lobby groups have equally been willing to support secular political actors. In Kenya, Salafi-dominated civil society associations actively campaigned for non-Muslim elite politicians like Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta.24 In nearby Zanzibar, the Salafi organization Jumuiya ya Uamsho na Mihadhara ya Kiislam more or less openly backed the secular nationalist Civic United Front starting in the early 2000s.25 Similarly, in Mali, the Sabati association, an Islamic lobby group cofounded by the prominent Salafi cleric Mahmoud Dicko, allied with the Rassemblement pour le Mali in the context of the 2013 Malian presidential elections.26
What explains this reformist Salafi involvement in secular party politics? The scarce existing research that touches on this question draws attention to the relevance of pre-existing societal cleavages manifesting ethnic or regional identities. Studying developments in Ethiopia’s Bale region, Terje Østebø finds that the local Salafi movement came to support the ethno-nationalist Oromo Liberation Front in an environment traditionally characterized by politicized ethnicity.27 According to Østebø, this support suggests ‘a largely secularist thinking among the Salafis, detaching religion from public and political life’.28 A similar observation is made by Pishtiwan Jalal and Ariel Ahram who, studying the case of Iraqi Kurdistan, point out that ‘with Kurdish nationalism as the primary focal point of identification in the region, Salafis have found ways to reconcile their sectarian creed with ethno-nationalism’.29 Building on these findings, we propose a framework wherein case-specific strategic or ideational considerations can lead reformist Salafi actors to identify with grievances linked to pre-existing communal cleavages. Crucially, as Figure 1 shows, we contend that based on this identification, electoral mobilization along these communal cleavages then incentivizes reformist Salafi actors to participate in the political process and support secular parties.
Analytical framework: Communal cleavages and reformist Salafi participation in the political process.
We do not claim, though, that Salafi groups only become involved in party politics based on an alignment with communal cleavages. Rather, we merely seek to demonstrate that such cleavages can create a distinct impetus for Salafi political participation. To examine the validity of our analytical framework, we carry out a case study of the Anbariya movement, a Salafi group based in Ghana’s Northern Region. Exploring the Anbariya’s involvement in the Dagbon chieftaincy conflict and in Ghanaian party politics allows us to show that just as the salience of sub-nationalist sentiment, collective grievances linked to chieftaincy rivalries can equally shape Salafi political preferences.
Contentious chieftaincy politics: The Abudu–Andani rivalry in Dagbon
Chieftaincy politics revolves around the access to and exercise of traditional authority. In many African countries, chiefly authorities act as powerful politico-economic brokers. Among other things, they often manage the allocation of customary land to individuals and companies.30 In countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Namibia, traditional authority has been at the centre of protracted power struggles in some subnational localities.31 As Kaderi Noagah Bukari, Patrick Osei-Kufuor, and Shaibu Bukari note, such power struggles are ‘complex and often shaped by constellations of different actors, national and local level politics and elite maneuvering’.32 Political parties, for example, may be tempted to take sides in chieftaincy disputes for electoral purposes.33 Thus, while chieftaincy struggles and party competition represent two distinct political domains, they can easily become intertwined.34
In Ghana, whose constitution recognizes the chieftaincy institution as part of the country’s governance system, chieftaincy disputes have also emerged in areas witnessing Salafi revivals.35 One of these localities is the Dagbon Kingdom in the country’s Northern Region. The kingdom emerged in the fifteenth century when groups of migrant horse raiders established several states in the Voltaic Basin, imposing their rule on local indigenous populations.36 While the town of Yendi, close to the Togo border, is the kingdom’s capital, its political centre is Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region.
Since the late nineteenth century, the Dagomba paramount chieftaincy has been dominated by descendants of the former paramount chiefs Abudulai I and Andani II.37 Historically, there has been a pattern of alteration between members of the Abudu and Andani ‘gates’. Yet the degree to which this rotation constitutes a rule to govern the Ya Na chieftaincy succession represents a key bone of contention between the two sides.38 The origins of the modern Dagbon chieftaincy conflict can be traced back to the 1953 death of Ya Na Mahama III, a member of the Abudu family. According to the principle of rotation, a member of the Andani gate should have succeeded Mahama III as paramount chief. However, a selection committee created in 1948 chose Mahama III’s son Abudulai.39 In doing so, the committee ushered in an era of recurring disputes accompanied by several violent crises over the course of 50 years.40
As the Abudu–Andani rivalry intensified in the 1950s, Tamale also witnessed the birth of the Anbariya movement, an Islamic group that would develop into a major driving force behind the expansion of Salafism in northern Ghana.41 We contend that a study of the Anbariya’s political activities offers valuable insights into the relationship between reformist Salafi mobilization and secular party politics. To reveal these dynamics, a brief sketch of the Anbariya movement’s profile will be necessary.
The Anbariya movement
Islam is the predominant religion among the Dagomba. As in other parts of Ghana, the local history of Islam in Dagbon has been profoundly marked by the Tijaniyya42 Sufi order. Up to the mid-twentieth century, the Tijaniyya’s membership in Ghana had initially remained relatively limited as access was restricted to literate and pious adults. However, starting in the early 1950s, the Fayda Tijaniyya movement of the famous Senegalese cleric Ibrahim Niasse provided a major impetus to the expansion of Sufi Islam throughout Ghana as Niasse proclaimed, inter alia, that tarbiya, an esoteric practice geared towards the individual experience of God, should be made accessible to the illiterate masses.43
In 1952, Niasse visited Tamale. While this trip spurred the local growth of the Tijaniyya, it also drew sharp criticism from the aspiring young cleric Afa Ajura.44 In the late 1940s, Ajura had embarked on preaching in Sufi circles at Tamale’s Central Mosque. Yet after eventually breaking away from the Central Mosque, Ajura started to openly accuse Niasse and his followers of promoting ‘un-Islamic’ ritual innovations.45 Following his departure from Tamale’s Central Mosque, Afa Ajura shifted his preaching and teaching activities to his home in the nearby Sakasaka neighbourhood. As he became known for ‘his firebrand style of preaching and demands that Muslims adhere strictly to the sunnah’,46 Ajura turned into one of the protagonists of a homegrown sphere of Ghanaian Salafism. As he highlighted the need for his students to comprehend rather than merely memorize Islamic scriptures, Ajura also worked towards the modernization of local Islamic education.47
With the help of several wealthy traders, Ajura’s nascent Salafi movement eventually managed to expand beyond Tamale as Ajura and his students engaged in preaching tours in nearby villages and towns.48 Furthermore, Ajura gradually transformed his home-based Qur’anic school into a modern educational complex, the Anbariya Islamic Institute.49 Since the early 1970s, the Anbariya group’s efforts to purify Islamic practice in Dagbon have been actively supported by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has provided numerous scholarships to disciples of Afa Ajura to pursue higher Islamic education at the University of Madinah, the institutional flagship of global Salafism.50 However, the rise of Salafism in Dagbon has not remained unchallenged. Facing the fierce opposition of the Fayda Tijaniyya, the Anbariya group has been repeatedly involved in violent clashes with its Sufi rivals resulting in injuries and temporary arrests of leaders from both sides.51
Within the Ghanaian sphere of Salafism, the Anbariya group has operated as an independent and regional force. Rather than representing a national movement, the group’s presence has largely remained confined to its Dagomba base in the Northern Region. In contrast to other northern Salafi groups, the Anbariya movement has never been part of Ghana’s major national Salafi organization, the Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama’ah.52 As regards its relationship with the Ghanaian state, the Anbariya movement can be characterized as a reformist Salafi group. While the Anbariya leadership has been vocal in calling for a stronger public role of Islam in Dagbon, it has never questioned the legitimacy of the Ghanaian nation state as such. This does not mean, though, that the group’s relationship with the state has been free from controversy. For example, starting in the early 1970s, the authorities encouraged the creation of integrated Islamic schools teaching both religious and secular subjects. Even though Afa Ajura ultimately endorsed this approach, he persistently insisted that schools should be closed on Thursdays and Fridays rather than on Saturdays and Sundays, arguing that the latter are resting days for Muslims.53 As the Ghanaian state has refused to recognize this reasoning, the formal integration of the Anbariya’s schools into Ghana’s education system is still far from what education officials anticipated.54 While the Anbariya Senior High School follows the Monday–Friday schedule, the community’s basic and junior high schools remain closed on Thursday and Friday.55 The Anbariya’s recalcitrant stance on the school week issue may create the impression of a clear-cut cleavage pitting a group of religious purists against Ghana’s politico-administrative elite. Yet rather than generally positioning itself in opposition to the Ghanaian political establishment, the Anbariya leadership has been actively involved in secular party politics.
The Anbariya in Ghanaian party politics
The Anbariya movement has cultivated links to selected political parties and elite representatives ever since the rise of party politics in the late colonial Gold Coast. Like Salafi activists in other African countries, Afa Ajura and several of his fellow Anbariya clerics have not hesitated to openly campaign for non-Muslim political leaders. Moreover, individual Anbariya preachers have also been willing to accept official positions as party-affiliated activists.
In the 1950s, party politics in Dagbon revolved around fierce electoral competition between the Northern People’s Party (NPP), the United Party (UP), and Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP).56 While Nkrumah courted Tijaniyya leaders, he also managed to turn Afa Ajura into one of his northern allies. Thus, in 1957 Ajura would become the chairman of the northern branch of the Ghana Muslim Council, a body established by the CPP in 1953 to garner Muslim support.57 As head of the council, Ajura would, among other things, be invited by the Ghanaian government to attend Nigeria’s independence festivities in October 1960.58 Following Nkrumah’s downfall and the ban of the CPP, the expanding Anbariya movement then became close to the National Alliance of Liberals and its secretary general Ibrahim Mahama.59 While Afa Ajura backed Mahama’s electoral bids, Mahama worked as the Anbariya group’s lawyer.60
After Mahama had unsuccessfully run for President as the candidate of the newly created Social Democratic Front in 1979, the second Rawlings coup in 1981 eventually paved the way for another reconfiguration of Anbariya political loyalties. Starting in the late 1980s, Jerry Rawlings was seeking northern allies to broaden his base in the face of growing demands for political liberalization. Against this background, Afa Ajura forged a new alliance despite having briefly been detained at the initiative of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) in 1987.61 Presenting himself as a vocal supporter of Rawlings, Ajura held several public rallies with the head of state, referring to the latter as his ‘son’.62
As Rawlings created the NDC, Ajura did not hesitate to intervene in the new party’s internal affairs. For example, Ajura and Rawlings agreed on the appointment of a regional NDC Imam to be recruited from the Anbariya. According to Samie Issa Iddrisu, the current deputy NDC Imam for the Northern Region, the party Imam is supposed ‘to give the party a spiritual guide, spiritual direction and spiritual support’.63 The first cleric to be entrusted with this new position was Issah Moro—Iddrisu’s father and an early disciple of Ajura—whose role the former NDC member of parliament Mohammed Haroon describes as follows: ‘He was one of us. He was our Imam. … Every time we were going for rallies, we were with him before with start the rally, we say prayers. … He would start the prayers before we start.’64
Importantly, Afa Ajura’s successor Saeed Abubakr Zakaria, who took over the Anbariya leadership in 2004 following Ajura’s death, has adopted a significantly less partisan posture. For instance, in a sermon delivered in November 2021, Zakaria, who is locally known as Afa Seidu, vehemently denied claims of having made openly pro-NDC statements in the past.65 However, Afa Seidu’s restraint notwithstanding, the Anbariya movement clearly remains linked to the NDC. Following the death of Issah Moro, whose funeral was attended by former President John Dramani Mahama, Mohammed Machele became the new NDC regional Imam in 2022. Like Moro, Machele belonged to the inner circle of Afa Ajura.66 Machele’s deputy, Samie Issah Iddrisu, on the other hand, also acts as secretary to Afa Seidu.67 It therefore appears that the latter has merely delegated the Anbariya’s partisan politicking rather than fundamentally shifting the group’s overall alignment.
What explains the Anbariya movement’s continuous involvement in Ghanaian party politics? To answer this question, it is necessary to shed light on the socio-political environment the movement has historically operated in. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century, this environment was decisively marked by the Dagbon chieftaincy conflict.
The Anbariya and the Dagbon chieftaincy conflict
In a recent piece on the powerful Malian Salafi cleric Mahmoud Dicko, Alexander Thurston finds that while ‘many see Salafism as rigid and unbending, … in the Sahel, political conditions force its proponents to be smart and savvy’.68 Echoing this assessment, Morten Bøås and Abdoul Wakhab Cissé highlight that Dicko’s influence stems from learning ‘to play politics without tarnishing his image as a pious man of God’.69 In post-colonial northern Ghana, the presence of the Tijaniyya Sufi order and the Dagbon chieftaincy conflict between the Abudu and Andani families presented Anbariya leader Afa Ajura with a comparable challenge. As outlined in Figure 2, by shaping Ajura’s political preferences, the outbreak of the chieftaincy conflict paved the way for the emergence of the Anbariya’s links to the electoral arena.
Chieftaincy struggles, party competition, and the Anbariya movement.
In the early 1950s, the death of the Abudu Ya Na Mahama III and the subsequent selection of Mahama III’s son Abdulai as his father’s successor prompted the young Afa Ajura to openly take sides in the Andani–Abudu rivalry. Positioning himself in line with the Andanis’ reasoning, Ajura defended the principle of rotation according to which Ya Na Mahama III should have been succeeded by an Andani.70 Consequently, in 1958, Ajura was among a group of 52 local notables that filed a petition to the Dagomba State Council demanding the dethronement of Ya Na Abdulai whom the petitioners accused of having been improperly selected.71
When it comes to explaining Afa Ajura’s position vis-à-vis the chieftaincy dispute, the Anbariya leader’s former disciples usually stress Ajura’s alleged moral qualities. For example, Mohammed Mukthar Ahmed, a close Ajura disciple and an early Madinah graduate, has attributed his mentor’s support for the Andani cause to Afa Ajura’s sense of fairness and truth, stating that:
Sunnis support Andanyilli because Sunna is already in the quest for the truth … Afa Ajura once said that he had nothing to do with Andanyilli [because] he is an Abudu by lineage. He was fighting on the side of the Andanyilli because they are right and he says that if the Andanyilli peoples’ wrongs are righted and they behave in the same way, he will switch sides again.72
The same explanation is offered by Idris Abdel Hamid, another Madinah-educated Anbariya graduate highlighting the importance of Afa Ajura’s ‘search for the truth’.73 What this partisan narrative omits is the fact that siding with the Andani gate had probably been Afa Ajura’s best option to build a tangible social base for his movement. This is because in the wake of Ibrahim Niasse’s visit to northern Ghana in 1952, which included the holding of prayers with Abudu leaders in Yendi, the Abudu family had become close to the Fayda Tijaniyya movement.74
Irrespective of the nature of its underlying motives—strategic or ideational—Afa Ajura’s venture into chieftaincy matters created a strong incentive for the Anbariya leader to become involved in party politics and support Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP. As it sought to fight the NPP, which was backed by the Abudu family and its sympathizers, the CPP eagerly accommodated local activists articulating Andani grievances.75 While Nkrumah did not go as far as calling for the dethronement of Ya Na Abdulai, in 1960 his government imposed a settlement stipulating that future selections of the Ya Na should be guided by the principle of rotation between the Abudu and Andani families.76 In 1969, the electoral triumph of the Progress Party, whose leader Kofi Busia had entered a covert alliance with the Abudu family, ushered in a swift restoration of Abudu hegemony and an intensification of Andani grievances.77
Based on Afa Ajura’s attachment to the Andani cause, the persistence of the chieftaincy rivalry helped to keep the Anbariya leadership involved in the political process. To begin with, the Anbariya movement’s cooperation with Ibrahim Mahama can only be understood in the light of the fact that the latter is a maternal grandson of a former Andani Ya Na and has historically been one of the most outspoken voices in terms of the articulation of Andani perceptions of injustice.78 Even though Mahama also cultivated a cordial relationship with the Anbariya’s Tijaniyya rivals, he turned into a close ally of Aja Ajura given their shared view on the chieftaincy issue.79
In early 1987, Ajura and Mahama were among a group of 12 people arrested following violent skirmishes between Andani and Abudu followers that had erupted in Yendi in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling confirming the legitimacy of the Andani Ya Na Yakubu II, who had taken over the chieftaincy under controversial circumstances in 1972.80 The clashes prompted Jerry Rawlings’s PNDC to temporarily detain the leading activists of both camps.81 Despite this heavy-handed state intervention, Afa Ajura eventually turned towards Rawlings and the NDC. Within the Anbariya movement, this strategic move was not greeted with enthusiasm. Considering Ibrahim Mahama’s long-standing relationship with the Anbariya community and his prestige as an Andani activist, several Salafi clerics were initially reluctant to endorse Rawlings.82 Yet rather than signalling a Salafi detachment from the Andani–Abudu dispute, Afa Ajura’s political abandonment of Mahama stemmed from the former’s failure to acquire political clout beyond Tamale.83 According to Mahama himself, the rise of the NDC in Dagbon represented a continuation of established socio-political configurations: ‘When I moved out of politics, NDC came. And they just took over what I was doing. … Those who came in from the NDC, most of them too were members of my extended family.’84 Indeed, Ajura’s participation in the establishment of the NDC’s organizational infrastructure in the Northern Region is among the factors that explain why the Andani–Abudu conflict has substantially affected local patterns of support for Ghana’s two major political parties since the 1990s.85
For example, prior to the 1992 parliamentary elections, Ajura submitted the nomination of the NDC candidate for Tamale’s Choggu Tshigu constituency, Mohammed Haroon, a relative of the then-incumbent Andani king, Ya Na Yakubu II.86 Furthermore, Issah Moro, whom Ajura and Rawlings made NDC ‘party Imam’ for the Northern Region, was known as a staunch advocate of Andani grievances.87
While the NDC secured the backing of the Anbariya leadership, the NPP has drawn significant support from the Abudu–Fayda Tijaniyya side. Starting in the 1960s, the Fayda movement was taken over by the fiery cleric Mallam Abdulai Maikano who would later turn into ‘an open NPP man’.88 As he sympathized with the Abudu cause, Maikano was repeatedly invited to Tamale where his presence sparked several violent clashes between his followers and the Anbariya movement.89 According to Samie Issa Iddrisu, the current deputy NDC party Imam for the Northern Region, ‘while most of the people over there in the Central Mosque support the Abudu gate, … those at Anbariya go to the Andani side’.90 During the interviews carried out by the authors, this assessment was shared, among others, by Mohammed Haroon who nevertheless cautions against overgeneralizing local antagonisms:
You can see that even at the moment, Andanyili people, [a] majority of them are NDC. And Abudu people, [a] majority of them are NPP. … So it is with the religion. The Tijaniyya people, most of them are Abudus and they belong to NPP. The Anbariya, most of them are Andanis and they belong to NDC. So in Tamale this is the kind of divisions. But it is not right to say every[one] is like that, [that it] is wholly.91
For example, individual Andani intelligentsia figures such as Alhassan Wayo Seini have been politically active for the NPP.92 In a similar vein, the Anbariya movement does not represent a monolithic partisan block. As already pointed out, Afa Ajura’s successor, Afa Seidu, has been careful not to openly take sides in chieftaincy and party politics.93 Among other things, this eagerness to appear politically impartial has to be interpreted in the light of the recent de-escalation of the chieftaincy dispute. Following a major outbreak of violence between the followers of the two families in 2002, which saw the murder of at least 30 people including Ya Na Yakubu II, the Ghanaian government eventually established a Committee of Eminent Chiefs (CEC) tasked with finding a solution to the conflict. Chaired by the Asantehene, the CEC’s mediation efforts made possible the nomination and inauguration of a new Ya Na in 2019.94 In the wake of this successful external mediation of the local chieftaincy conflict and the inauguration of a new Ya Na in 2019, the political climate in Dagbon has cooled down to a certain degree. Nevertheless, the Anbariya’s resilient links to the NDC clearly demonstrate that Afa Ajura’s legacy, which is inextricably linked with the Andani–Abudu conflict, continues to shape Salafi political loyalties in Dagbon.
Conclusion
This paper has shed light on a specific pattern of politico-religious activism, that is, Salafi participation in secular party politics. While Salafism is often associated with militancy and religious exclusivism, Salafi groups in various African countries have not shied away from backing secular—and even non-Muslim—elites and political parties. To contribute to a better understanding of the under-researched drivers of this political engagement, the paper traced the political history of the Anbariya movement, a major pillar of homegrown Ghanaian Salafism. Studying the Anbariya movement allowed us to provide evidence that case-specific historical factors can prompt reformist Salafi actors to identify with grievances linked to pre-existing communal cleavages. Furthermore, we demonstrate that based on this identification, electoral mobilization along these communal cleavages incentivizes reformist Salafi actors to participate in party politics. Crucially, the relevance of these findings goes beyond the study of Salafi political participation. For instance, at a broader level, our case study also contributes to a growing body of research on the involvement of religious actors in communal conflicts. While this research often studies how religious groups and activists influence these conflicts, for example as mediators or rebels,95 we highlight that communal tensions can equally mould the political preferences of religious actors.
In Dagbon, the founder of the Anbariya movement, Afa Ajura, historically operated in a highly polarized socio-political environment dominated by the local chieftaincy dispute. Eager to enlarge the base of his religious group, Ajura openly took sides in the conflict. As a result, following the onset of fierce local party competition around the chieftaincy divide, Ajura also actively participated in Ghanaian electoral politics, allying with leading national figures like Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings. Thus, despite its conflictive relationship with the Ghanaian state regarding educational matters, the Anbariya group developed resilient links to the political process.
Importantly, we do not claim that Salafi groups only support secular political actors based on an alignment with communal cleavages. Instead, we have merely sought to demonstrate that such cleavages can create distinct incentives for Salafis to become involved in party politics. Taking as a point of departure the findings of this article, future research could undertake broader theory-oriented investigations of the relationship between Salafism and electoral politics in African countries. Among other things, the relevance of intra-Islamic competition merits further scholarly attention. In Dagbon, the Anbariya’s rivalry with the Tijaniyya Sufi order seems to have played a crucial role in pushing the Salafi group towards taking sides in the chieftaincy dispute and participating in electoral politics. Given the prevalence of fierce Sufi–Salafi competition in many African countries, future studies could systematically examine the imprint this intra-Islamic antagonism has left on competitive party politics across the region. As part of this agenda, future research could comparatively study the manoeuvring of politico-religious power brokers. For example, within the wider region, Ajura figures as one of several renowned Salafi ‘patrons’ in African electoral politics. Just as Ajura, charismatic Salafi leaders like Mahmoud Dicko (Mali) or Abubacar Ismael Mangira (Mozambique) did not shy away from engaging with secular elites.96 The comparative exploration of the causes, dynamics, and legacies of these clerics’ political activism promises to further illuminate the multifaceted dynamics of political Salafism and to provide relevant insights into the role of religion in contemporary African party competition.
Footnotes
See, for example, Alexander Thurston, ‘Wahhabi compromises and “soft Salafization” in the Sahel’, in Peter Mandaville (ed.), Wahhabism and the world: Understanding Saudi Arabia’s global influence on Islam (Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2022), pp. 238–255; Sebastian Elischer, ‘“Partisan politics was making people angry”: The rise and fall of political Salafism in Kenya’, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 10, 2 (2019), pp. 121–136; Terje Østebø, Localising Salafism religious change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia (Leiden, Brill, 2011); Terje Østebø, ‘African Salafism: Religious purity and the politicization of purity’, Islamic Africa 6, 1–2 (2015), pp. 1–29; Abdulai Iddrisu, Contesting Islam in Africa: Homegrown Wahhabism and Muslim identity in northern Ghana, 1920–2010 (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, 2013).
Østebø, ‘African Salafism’, Ibid., 2.
See, for example, Thurston, ‘Wahhabi compromises’; Elischer, ‘“Partisan politics”’; Raul B. Pires, ‘A Formação do Partido Independente de Moçambique (PIMO)’, Africana Studia 12 (2009), pp. 91–112.
For a noteworthy exception, see Østebø, Localising Salafism, pp. 287–297; Terje Østebø, Islamism in the Horn of Africa: Assessing ideology, actors, and objectives (Report No. 2, International Law and Policy Institute, Oslo, 2010), pp. 31–33.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam; Yunus Dumbe, ‘Islamic polarisation and the politics of exclusion in Ghana: Tijaniyya and Salafist struggles over Muslim orthodoxy’, Islamic Africa 10, 1–2 (2019), pp. 153–180, p. 153; Ousman Murzik Kobo, ‘Shifting trajectories of Salafi/Ahl-Sunna reformism in Ghana’, Islamic Africa 6, 1–2 (2015), pp. 60–81. The name Anbariya derives from a perfume, Am Bar, whose name stems from the Hindi word Ambar which translates as sky.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam.
Alhaj Yusuf Salih Ajura and Zakyi Ibrahim, Islamic thought in Africa: The collected works of Afa Ajura (1910–2004) and the impact of Ajuraism on northern Ghana (Yale University Press, London, 2021), pp. 2–3.
Interview with Mohammed Machele, NDC party Imam, Tamale, 16 March 2023; Interview with Mohammed Haroon, former NDC Member of Parliament and Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service, Tamale, 16 September 2022.
Stefano Torelli, Fabio Merone, and Francesco Cavatorta, ‘Salafism in Tunisia: Challenges and opportunities for democratization’, Middle East Policy 19, 4 (2012), pp. 140–154, p. 146.
Steve Tonah, ‘The politicisation of a chieftaincy conflict: The case of Dagbon, northern Ghana’, Nordic Journal of African Studies 21, 1 (2020), pp. 1–20; Kaderi Noagah Bukari, Patrick Osei-Kufuor, and Shaibu Bukari, ‘Chieftaincy conflicts in northern Ghana: A constellation of actors and politics’, African Security 14, 2 (2021), pp. 156–185.
Alexander Thurston, Salafism in Nigeria (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016), pp. 1–27.
Roel Meijer, ‘Introduction’, in Roel Meijer (ed.), Global Salafism: Islam’s new religious movement (Hurst Publishers, London, 2009), pp. 1–32.
Østebø, ‘African Salafism’, pp. 2–3.
Quintan Wiktorowicz, ‘Anatomy of the Salafi movement’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29, 3 (2006), pp. 207–239.
See, for example, Sebastian Elischer, Salafism and political order in Africa (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2021); Shiraz Maher, Salafi-Jihadism: The history of an idea (Hurst Publishers, London, 2016).
Maher, Ibid., p. 10. See also Elischer, Ibid., pp. 26–28.
Maher, Ibid., p. 10; Elischer, Ibid., pp. 27–28; Wiktorowicz, ‘Anatomy of the Salafi Movement’, pp. 225–228.
Torelli, Merone, and Cavatorta, ‘Salafism in Tunisia’, p. 146.
Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix, ‘Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The story of Juhayman Al-ʿutaybi revisited’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 39, 1 (2007), pp. 103–122.
Shpend Kursani, ‘Salafi pluralism in national contexts: The secular state, nation and militant Islamism in Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18, 2 (2018), pp. 301–317; Jannis Saalfeld and Hassan A. Mwakimako, ‘Integrationism vs. rejectionism: Revisiting the history of Islamist activism in coastal Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 17, 1–2 (2023), pp. 40–56. Given their vocal rejection of the state, such groups can hardly be qualified as ‘quietist’ in contrast to currents such as Saudi Arabia’s loyalist religious mainstream.
Emmanuel Karagiannis, ‘The rise of electoral Salafism in Egypt and Tunisia: The use of democracy as a master frame’, The Journal of North African Studies 24, 2 (2019), pp. 207–225.
Elischer, ‘“Partisan politics”’, pp. 123–124.
Muriel Gomez-Perez, ‘“Political” Islam in Senegal and Burkina Faso: Contrasting approaches to mobilization since the 1990s’, Mediterranean Politics 22, 1 (2017), pp. 176–195.
Elischer, ‘“Partisan politics”’.
Jannis Saalfeld, ‘Inter-secular party competition and the (non-)formation of Salafi-Jihadist milieus: Evidence from Tanzania and Kenya’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 47, 2 (2021), pp. 181–198.
Thurston, ‘Wahhabi compromises’, pp. 244–245.
Østebø, Localising Salafism, pp. 287–297.
Terje Østebø, Islamism in the Horn of Africa, pp. 31–33.
Pishtiwan Jalal and Ariel I. Ahram, ‘Salafism, sectarianism, and national identity in Iraqi Kurdistan’, Middle East Journal 75, 3 (2021), pp. 386–406, p. 387.
See, for example, Shuichi Oyama, ‘Renewed patronage and strengthened authority of chiefs under the scarcity of customary land in Zambia’, in Shinichi Takeuchi (ed.), African land reform under economic liberalisation: States, chiefs, and rural communities (Singapore, Springer, 2022), pp. 65–86; Joey Power, ‘Chieftaincy in Malawi: Reinvention, re-emergence or resilience? A Kasungu case study’, Journal of Southern Africa Studies 47, 2 (2020), pp. 263–281.
See, for example, Bukari, Osei-Kufuor, and Shaibu Bukari, ‘Chieftaincy conflicts in northern Ghana’; Insa Nolte, ‘Chieftaincy and the state in Abacha’s Nigeria: Kingship, political rivalry and competing histories in Abeokuta during the 1990s’, Africa 72, 3 (2002), pp. 368–390.
Bukair, Osei-Kufuor, and Bukari, ‘Chieftaincy conflicts in northern Ghana’, p. 156.
Ibid.
See also George M. Bob-Milliar and Jeffrey W. Paller, ‘The social embeddedness of elections: Ghana’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 61, 3 (2023), pp. 293–314.
See, for example, Dumbe’s account of historical developments in Wenchi and Techiman. Dumbe, ‘Islamic polarisation’, pp. 170–177.
Ivor Wilks, ‘The Mossi and the Akan states, 1400–1800’, in Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds), History of West Africa (Vol. 1) (Longman, Burnt Mill, 1985, Third Edition), pp. 465–502.
Only the sons of the former paramount chiefs are eligible when it comes to the selection of a new Ya Na. The same rule applies to the divisional chieftaincy positions subordinate to the Ya Na. Thus, individual members of the Dagomba royal families cannot rise above the ranks of their fathers.
Paul Ladouceur, ‘The Yendi chieftaincy dispute and Ghanaian politics’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 6, 1 (1972), pp. 97–115; Interview with Gukpegu Tali Naa Issa Salifu, Tamale, 11 September 2022.
Martin Staniland, The lions of Dagbon: Political change in northern Ghana (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975), pp. 133–137.
Tonah, ‘The politicisation of a chieftaincy conflict’.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam. The Anbariya movement is not the only Salafi group that has historically operated in Dagbon. Its major intra-Salafi rival is the Nuriya group, an Anbariya offshoot established by Mallam Ibrahim Basha in the late 1960s.
The Tijaniyya was founded in today’s Algeria in the 1780s. From the 1830s, it spread throughout West Africa where its entrenchment is inextricably linked with the figure of Umar Tall and his Sufi-inspired jihad campaigns. See Rüdiger Seesemann, ‘Sufism in West Africa’, Religion Compass 4, 10 (2010), pp. 606–614.
Mervyn Hiskett, ‘The “community of grace” and its opponents, the “rejectors”: A debate about theology and mysticism in Muslim West Africa with special reference to its Hausa expression’, African Language Studies 17 (1980), pp. 99–140; Dumbe, ‘Islamic polarisation’, pp. 160–161. Traditionally, the meditative practice of ‘tarbiya’ was reserved for educated Islamic scholars who exercised it through fasting and seclusion. By stripping away this ascetic aspect, Niasse’s teachings attracted a broader audience.
Hiskett, ‘The ‘community of grace’, p. 107.
For Ajura, the most objectionable aspect of the Tijaniyya lay in the practice of ‘tarbiya’. Specifically, he lamented that the meditative exercise was intended to make the individual devotee ‘see’ God, an impossibility according to Ajura. He therefore labelled Niasse and his local disciples as impostors eager to amass wealth by misguiding the poor. See Ousman Murzik Kobo, ‘Afa Ajura, Yussif’, Oxford Islamic Studies Online, <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780197669419.001.0001/acref-9780197669419-e-8> (10 March 2024); Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 118–120.
Kobo, Ibid.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 139–178.
Ibid., pp. 104–105.
Ibid., pp. 129–137; Ajura and Ibrahim, Islamic thought in Africa, pp. 16–21.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 152–162.
In April 1975, for example, more than 300 people were injured, when the leading Tijaniyya cleric Mallam Maikano and his entourage were ambushed by Anbariya followers during a visit to Tamale. In 1997, there was another major violent confrontation as a group of Anbariya adherents attacked Tijaniyya followers celebrating the birthday of the Prophet. See Abdulai Iddrisu, ‘Alhaji Yusuf Soalihu Ajura (Afa Ajura): Reflections on continued Islamic renewal in Ghana, 1890–2010’, Ghana Studies 24 (2021), pp. 42–68, at pp. 65–66; Ibrahim Alidu Ayuba, Intra-religious conflicts among Muslim Ummah (community) in Tamale from the 1960s to 2011 (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, 2011), pp. 64–66.
Yunus Dumbe, ‘Intra-Salafi power struggles: Politicization of purity and fragmentation of authority in Ghana’, Africa Today 68, 4 (2022), pp. 115–133.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 170–177; Ajura and Ibrahim, Islamic thought in Africa, pp. 22–23.
Abdulai Iddrisu, ‘Two letters from Medina and Egypt to Muslims in Ghana: Only infidels attend school on Thursday and Friday’, an unpublished manuscript, pp. 1–25.
A visit to the Anbariya Senior High School, Tamale, 14 March 2023, Interview with Illiasu Adam, local journalist, Tamale, 2 March 2023; Interview with Mohammed Haroon Tamale, 14 March 2023.
Ladouceur, ‘The Yendi chieftaincy dispute’.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 90–91.
Ajura and Ibrahim, Islamic thought in Africa, p. 80.
Ladouceur, ‘The Yendi chieftaincy dispute’, pp. 111–112.
Interview with Ibrahim Mahama, Tamale, 25 September 2022; Interview with Mohammed Mukthar Ahmed, Tamale, 12 September 2022; Illiasu Adam, Tamale, 2 March 2023.
Ibrahim Mahama, The destiny of a horse boy: An autobiography of Ibrahim Mahama (Gilbert Press, Tamale, 2012), p. 250.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, p. 127; Interview with Mohammed Machele, Tamale, 16 March 2023; Interview with Mukthar Ahmed, Madinah graduate and disciple of Afa Ajura, Tamale, 12 September 2022; Idris Abdel Hamid, Madinah graduate and disciple of Afa Ajura, Tamale, 8 September 2022.
Interview with Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023.
Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 14 March 2023.
Anbariya Online TV/Radio, ‘Afa Saeed debunk claims that he said Afa Ajura left Sunnah, NDC and Andani yili for us (Anbariya)’, 21 November 2021, <https://m.facebook.com/100069533593243/videos/afa-seidu/880714272591263/> (2 March 2024).
Interview with Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023; Interview with Mohammed Machele, Tamale, 16 March 2023.
Interview with Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023.
Alexander Thurston, ‘Soft Salafization in the Sahel’, Africa is a Country, <https://africasacountry.com/2022/10/soft-salafization-in-the-sahel> (10 June 2022).
Morten Bøås and Abdoul Wakhab Cissé, ‘The Sheikh versus the president: The making of Imam Dicko as a political big man in Mali’, Third World Thematics 5, 3–6 (2020), pp. 260–275, p. 260.
Interview with Mohammed Mukthar Ahmed, Tamale, 12 September 2022; Interview with Idris Abdel Hamid, Tamale, 8 September 2022.
Staniland, The lions of Dagbon, p. 14.
Interview with Mohammed Mukthar Ahmed, Tamale, by one of the authors, 3 June 2008.
Interview with Idris Abdel Hamid, Tamale, 8 September 2022.
It appears that following his arrival, Niasse did not stop at Mion to greet and pray for the most important Andani chief Naa Andani. Instead, he directly travelled to Yendi to hold prayers with Abudu leaders, thereby boosting the popularity of Sufi Islam among the Abudus and their sympathizers while at the same time alienating many Andani followers. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 114–115, Interview with former Tamale mayor, Tamale, 15 September 2022.
Ladouceur, ‘The Yendi chieftaincy dispute’.
Ibid., p. 105.
Staniland, The lions of Dagbon, pp. 162–168.
See, for example, Mahama’s book on the 2002 murder of Ya Na Yakubu II. Ibrahim Mahama, Murder of an African king: Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II (Vantage Press, New York, NY, 2009).
Interview with Ibrahim Mahama, Tamale, 25 September 2022; Interview with Mohammed Mukthar Ahmed, Tamale, 12 September 2022.
Mahama, The destiny of a horse boy, pp. 248–250.
Mohammed S. Ibrahim, The decline of Sufism in West Africa: Some factors contributing to the political and social ascendancy of Wahhabist Islam in northern Ghana (McGill University, Montreal, PhD thesis, 2011), p. 97.
Interview with Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023; Interview with Illiasu Adam, Tamale, 2 March 2023; Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 14 March 2023; Interview with Abdul Rabi Nabi, cleric of the Nahdha Islamic group, Tamale, 3 March 2023.
Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 14 March 2023; Interview with Illiasu Adam, Tamale, 2 March 2023.
Interview with Ibrahim Mahama, Tamale, 25 September 2022.
Tonah, ‘The politicisation of a chieftaincy conflict’; Mac Gaffey, ‘Death of a king’.
Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 16 September 2022; Public Elections (Parliament) Regulations, 1992, Form of Nomination Paper, personal archive of Mohammed Haroon; Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 16 September 2022.
Interview with Mohammed Machele, Tamale, 16 March 2023; Interview with Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023; Interview with Illiasu Adam, Tamale, 18 September 2022; Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 14 March 2023.
Interview with Mumuni Mussa, Chairman of the Northern Region Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party, Tamale, 27 September 2022; Dumbe, ‘Islamic polarisation’, pp. 161–162.
Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, pp. 166–170; Auba, Intra-religious conflicts, pp. 56–67.
Samie Issah Iddrisu, Tamale, 15 March 2023.
Interview with Mohammed Haroon, Tamale, 16 September 2022.
Daily Graphic, ‘National Vice-Chairman of NPP quits politics’, 12 September 2000, <https://www.modernghana.com/news/10100/national-vice-chairman-of-npp-quits-politics.html> (4 March 2024).
Interview with Illiasu Adam, Tamale, 18, September, 2022.
Abdul Karim Issu and Kaderi Noagah Bukari, ‘(Re)thinking homegrown peace mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts in northern Ghana’, Conflict, Security & Development 22, 2 (2022), pp. 221–242.
See, for example, Alexander De Juan, Jan H. Pierskalla, and Johannes Vüllers, ‘The pacifying effects of local religious institutions: An analysis of communal violence in Indonesia’, Political Research Quarterly 68, 2 (2015), pp. 211–224; Tor A. Benjaminsen and Boubacar Ba, ‘Fulani-Dogon killings in Mali: Farmer-herder conflicts as insurgency and counterinsurgency’, African Security 14, 1 (2021), pp. 4–26.
Bøås and Cissé, ‘The Sheikh versus the president’; Pires, ‘A Formação do Partido Independente de Moçambique’.
Author notes
Jannis Saalfeld ([email protected]) is a senior researcher at the Institute of Development and Peace, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany. Abdulai Iddrisu ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the History Department of St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, USA. The authors would like to thank the editors of African Affairs and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on this manuscript. This work is part of the research project ‘Party competition and collective Jihadist radicalization in Sub-Saharan Africa’, which was funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF) 2020–2022.
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