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If before 11 September 2001, many praised Mali as a model of democracy, secularism & toleration, many have now begun to express concern about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Mali. I consider a number of recent public debates in Mali over morality, so-called women's issues, & the proposed changes in the Family Code & show how the perspectives of many Malians on these issues are not new but rather relate to longstanding & ongoing debates about Islam, secularism, politics, morality & law. What is new is the way in which some Muslim religious leaders have been articulating their complaints & criticisms. Since the guarantee of the freedom of expression & association in the early 1990s, there has been a proliferation of independent newspapers & private radio stations & new Islamic associations with a coterie of increasingly media-savvy activists. I explore how some Muslim activists have used such outlets to articulate the concerns of some ordinary Malians, who face the contradictions of living as modern Muslim citizens in a modernizing & secularizing state where, in this age of neoliberal governmentality, the allegedly un-Islamic seems to be always just around the corner. References. Adapted from the source document.

In this paper, we consider anthropology's long and, at times, problematic engagement with the study of Islam and Muslim societies. Specifically, we reflect critically on ongoing anthropological debates about the relationship between Islam and politics and suggest new terms of analysis. Although we pay attention to the state and formal politics, involving various social actors and organizations, we are also interested in everyday politics and micropolitics, arenas where anthropology proves especially adept. It is at the intersection of these multiple levels and where the field of politics is constituted in practice that we situate the analytical focus of the anthropology of Islam and politics in this Special Issue of theJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.RésuméLes auteurs s'intéressent ici à la longue, et parfois problématique histoire, de l'étude de l'islam et des sociétés musulmanes par l'anthropologie. L'accent est mis plus précisément sur une réflexion critique relative aux débats anthropologiques actuels sur les liens entre islam et politique, et sur l'exploration de nouveaux termes d'analyse. Tout en prêtant de l'attention à l'État et aux institutions politiques, impliquant différents acteurs sociaux et organisations, nous nous intéressons également à la politique au quotidien et à la micropolitique, domaines dans lesquels l'anthropologie s'avère particulièrement compétente. C'est à l'intersection de ces multiples niveaux, et là où le champ du politique est constitué dans la pratique, que nous situons le point focal de l'analyse anthropologique de l'islam et du politique dans ce numéro spécial duJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

In Nigeria, numerous journalists and scientists associate renewed religious, ethnic or economic conflicts with the return to the civil administration of 1999. The veiled war in the Niger delta, recurrence of the urban riots, the politico-religious confrontations in the northern states and on the plateau, as well as electoral violence, seem to indicate a decline of territorial control by the federal state, of increasing competition between competing juridical systems (federal law vs. Islamic law), of non-legal privatization of national police forces, and the rise of vigilant militia in the Niger delta, regularly defying federal armed forces. A comparison between the elections of 1999 and those of 2007 will be indicative, the first ones considered largely transparent, while the last elections were marked by innumerous irregularities, conflicts and several hundreds of deaths. An introduction on this issues theme of Nigeria under the reign of Obasanjo, who brought back democracy to the country, but did not change the nature of the existing conflicts. In certain cases (the delta area, and the plateau state), those were exacerbated because of the part played by newly elected officials, who are the governors and council presidents of local governments. Adapted from the source document.