A Geopolitical Intervention in African Religious Studies Global Salafi and Shia Identities in the Neighbourhoods of Jos, Nigeria
Main Article Content
Keywords
Geopolitical intervention, Middle East , Nigeria, transnationalism , soft power , neighbourhood , Salafism , Shia
Abstract
The study of Islam in Africa is undergoing significant transformation as global geopolitical dynamics influence local religious landscapes. The geopolitics of religion between Saudi Arabia and Iran has led to a flow of international students and ideas from the Middle East to Africa, including northern Nigeria. The extension of the Middle Eastern religious soft power on the African religious landscape has generated new trends in the study of Salafism, political Islam, religious extremism, Salafi transnational media, digital Salafism, religious conflicts, and the rise of Shiism in the region. This article reviews relevant scholarship on this subject and explores the impact of these interventions on religious identities in the Anguwan Rogo neighbourhood of Jos. By examining how these transnational Islamic ideologies shape local communities, the article highlights the complexities of religious identity formation in a context marked by both global influences and local realities. The article indicates how these global movements are appropriated, adapted, and contested within the socio-political landscape of Jos. These findings underscore the importance of understanding religious identity in Africa as a dynamic interplay between global trends and local contexts, offering new insights into new trends and developments in the academic study of religion in Africa.
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Al-Rasheed, Madawi. 2007. Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation. Cambridge University Press.
Banikamal, Abdolmoghset and Wahabuddin Ra’ees. 2018. “Iran’s Educational Diplomacy in the Muslim World: Activities of Al-Mustafa International University in Malaysia and Afghanistan.” Insight Turkey 20 (1): 165–88.
Bano, Masooda, and Keiko Sakurai, eds. 2015. Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of al-Azhar, al-Madinah and al-Mustafa. Edinburgh University Press.
Bere, Gyang. 2016. “Jos: Community clash with Shi’ite group ends with burnt structure.” The Sun. Accessed April 12, 2025. https://thesun.ng/jos-community-clash-with-shiite-group-ends-with-burnt-structure/.
Birt, Jonathan. 2004. “Wahhabism in the United Kingdom: Manifestations and Reactions.” In Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf, edited by Madawi Al-Rasheed. Routledge.
Commins, David. 2006. The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 50. I. B. Tauris.
Dai, Hassan. 2018. “Middle Eastern Interventions in Africa: Tehran’s Extensive Soft Power.” Middle East Quarterly 25 (4): September 1, 2018. https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/middle-eastern-interventions-in-africa-tehran.
Dijkink, Gertian. 2006. “When Geopolitics and Religion Fuse: A Historical Perspective.” Geopolitics 11 (2): 192–208.
Farquhar, Michael. 2015. “Saudi Petrodollars, Spiritual Capital, and the Islamic University of Medina: A Wahhabi Missionary Project in Transnational Perspective.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47 (4): 701–21.
Harnischfeger, Johannes. 2008. Democratization and Islamic Law: The Sharia Conflict in Nigeria. Campus Verlag.
Haykel, Bernard. 2013. Saudi Arabia and Salafism: Religious Movements in Global Context. Oxford University Press.
Ibrahim, Murtala. 2020. “Spatial Piety: Shia Religious Processions and the Politics of Contestation of Public Space in Northern Nigeria”. In The Secular Sacred: Emotions of Belonging and the Perils of Nation and Religion, edited by Markus Balkenhol, Ernst van den Hemel, and Irene Stengs. Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2024. “Islam in the Digital Infrastructure: The Rise of Islamic Cyber Practices in Northern Nigeria.” Religion, State & Society 52 (2/3): 114–32.
Kepel, Gilles. 2002. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Harvard University Press.
Krause, J. 2011. A Deadly Cycle: Ethno-religious Conflict in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Geneva declaration.
Lacroix, Stéphane. 2011. Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. Translated by George Holoch. Harvard University Press.
Layachi, Azzedine. 2023. “Salafism, Islamism and Sufism.” In Routledge Handbook on the Modern Maghrib, edited by George Joffé. Routledge.
Leichtman, Mara. 2009. “Revolution, Modernity and (Trans)ational Shi’i Islam: Rethinking Religious Conversion in Senegal.” Journal of Religion in Africa 39 (3): 319–51.
Loimeier, Roman. 2011. Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria. Northwestern University Press.
Meservey, Joshua. 2021. “Salafis, Sufis, and the Contest for the Future of African Islam.” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 29: 63–86.
Mirza, Shireen. 2014. “Travelling Leaders and Connecting Print Cultures: Two Conceptions of Twelver Shi’i Reformism in the Indian Ocean.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (3): 455–75.
Nye, Joseph. 2002. “The Information Revolution and American Soft Power.” Asia Pacific Review 9 (1): 60–76.
Østebø, Terje. 2015. “African Salafism: Religious Purity and the Politicization of Purity.” Islamic Africa 6 (1–2): 1–29.
Oxford Analytica. 2024. “West African Shiism may grow but remain marginal.” Emerald Expert Briefings. https://dailybrief.oxan.com/Analysis/DB285582/West-African-Shiism-may-grow-but-remain-marginal.
Rabi, Uzi, and Chelsi Mueller. 2018. “The Geopolitics of Sectarianism in the Persian Gulf.” Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 12 (1): 46–65.
Sanni, Mukhtar. 2022. Cyberspace as the Battleground for the Future of Yoruba Islam–Between Salafism and Sufism. MA thesis, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar.
Schulz, Dorothea. E. 2006. “Promises of (Im)mediate Salvation: Islam, Broadcast Media, and the Remaking of Religious Experience in Mali.” American Ethnologist 33 (2): 210–29.
———. 2011. Muslims and New Media in West Africa: Pathways to God. Indiana University Press.
———. 2012. “Female ‘Preachers’ and the Ambiguities of Radio-Mediated Sermonizing in Mali.” In Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century, edited by Lucas Bessire and Daniel Fisher, edited by Lucas Bessire and Daniel Fisher. With an Afterword by Faye Ginsburg. New York University Press.
Segell, Glen. 2019. “Neo-colonialism in Africa and the Cases of Turkey and Iran.” Insight on Africa 11 (2): 184–99.
Shahvar, Soli. 2020. “Iran’s Global Reach: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Policy, Involvement, and Activity in Africa.” Digest of Middle East Studies 29 (1): 53–75.
Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2014. “Mobile Sunna: Islam, small media and community in Niger.” Social Compass 61 (1): 21–29.
———. 2020. “Cross-Border Preaching between Northern Nigeria and Niger: Practices, Actors, and Implications of Wa’azi.” In Transnational Islam, edited by Élodie Apard, 73–94. IFRA-Nigeria. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ifra.2040.
Thurston, Alexander. 2016. Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching and Politics. Cambridge University Press.
Umar, M. Sani., and Mark Woodward. 2020. “The Izala Effect: Unintended Consequences of Salafi Radicalism in Indonesia and Nigeria.” Contemporary Islam 14 (1): 49–73.
Vahed, Goolam. 2022. “Between the local and the global: The Iranian revolution and Sunni-Shia relations in South Africa.” Islamic Africa 13 (1): 87–114.
Ware III, Rudolph. 2014. The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks. University of North Carolina Press.
Zayani, Mohamed. 2012. “Transnational Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (3): 307–27.
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Published
Apr 28, 2025
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A Geopolitical Intervention in African Religious Studies: Global Salafi and Shia Identities in the Neighbourhoods of Jos, Nigeria. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 47-59. https://doi.org/10.36615/r6smnh57
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How to Cite
A Geopolitical Intervention in African Religious Studies: Global Salafi and Shia Identities in the Neighbourhoods of Jos, Nigeria. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 47-59. https://doi.org/10.36615/r6smnh57