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RR RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHGI RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHMA RUEHPA
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DE RUEHNM #1193/01 2991354
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 261354Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY NIAMEY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3037
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE
RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA 1485
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0472
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUFGNOA/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 NIAMEY 001193 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT: FOR INR AND AF/W; PASS TO USAID FOR AMARTIN; PARIS 
FOR AFRICA WATCHER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PTER EAID SOCI KDEM NG
SUBJECT: ISLAM IN NIGER: SLOW MOTION CULTURAL CHANGE 
 
REF: A. 05 NIAMEY 1434 
     ¶B. NIAMEY 574 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  (U) This is the first in a series of cables examining the 
changing nature of Islam in Niger and its implications for 
the world's least developed Muslim democracy. Emboffs' recent 
travel to Maradi - a key trading center on the Niger/Nigeria 
border in the heart of "Hausaland" - and our examination of a 
Democracy and Human Rights Fund (DHRF) financed study on 
Democracy and Islam in Niger serve as a base for some 
preliminary inquiries into this subject. As the most heavily 
(98%) Muslim country in sub-Saharan Africa, and a young 
democracy characterized by weak institutions and pressure 
group politics, Niger makes an interesting place to pose some 
fundamental questions: to what extent can a modern, global 
movement like fundamentalist (or self-styled "reform") Islam 
gain ground in a pre-modern, isolated, and strongly 
provincial country? Are Nigeriens, by virtue of their strong 
attachments to local traditions and mores, Sufi chiefs and 
marabouts, immune to a pan-Islamic identity that takes its 
cues from the Persian Gulf and Nigeria? Does a sense of 
national identity and loyalty to the secular nation-state 
trump the cross border ethnic ties that bind Nigerien Hausas, 
Arabs, and Tuaregs to the cultures of Nigeria and the 
Mahgreb? Finally, to what degree is reactionary, 
fundamentalist Islam linked to some of the forces that 
otherwise seem poised to modernize Nigerien life - 
international trade and travel, a free-market economy, and 
access to mass media? 
 
¶2.  (U) This cable is a scene-setter for these and other 
inquiries. Septels will explore the above, and related issues 
including: the development of fundamentalist "Izalay" Islam 
in Niger; its relationship with older, more organic and 
moderate forms of Sufi Islam; the implications of this "slow 
motion cultural change" on issues ranging from local politics 
to women's rights, democracy, and perceptions of the US; and, 
the development of a "pan-Islamic" identity in a country 
known for its provincialism and isolation. Post elicits 
readers' views of other profitable avenues of inquiry. END 
SUMMARY 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
ISLAM ON THE BORDER: NIGERIA AND THE CULTURE SHIFT 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Recent travel by Emboffs' to the southern city of 
Maradi, Niger's most vibrant trade center, yielded a snapshot 
of religious divisions and change along the Niger / Nigeria 
border. Maradi is the door through which much of Niger / 
Nigeria trade flows. At least 40% of Niger's foreign trade is 
conducted with Nigeria (a figure including informal trade 
flows would likely be much higher) and it is the Hausa 
speaking areas on both sides of the border that account for 
this. That cultural commonality also ensures that much of the 
local seasonal labor flow ("exode") from Niger is directed 
toward Nigeria. People and ideas cross this border with 
frequency and ease. Local contacts in the Islamic community 
report an interesting recent phenomenon: the annual movement 
of thousands of young Nigerien men toward the old Islamic 
teaching centers of Kano and Zaria, Nigeria. This is exode 
with a religious rather than economic inspiration - the young 
men seek out Koranic teachers in Northern Nigeria with the 
hope of returning home as successful and popular marabouts. 
 
¶4.  (U) The fundamentalist Islam of Northern Nigeria is being 
imported by trade and teaching, economic migration and 
cultural emulation. It lends more diversity to an already 
vibrant local religious scene characterized by three other 
schools: Tidjaniya, Shefu Dan Fodio / Qadiriyya, and Shi'a. 
Layered over each other, these older sects illustrate Islam's 
evolution and its relationship to local history, class, and 
ethnic loyalty. The sects' competition for adherents has led 
to rapid growth in the number of madrassas in Maradi - the 
number currently stands at 150 - but this has not had as 
profound an effect on public educational standards as one 
might expect. Far from teaching a hidebound curriculum of 
Koranic memorization and recitation, local contacts report 
that Maradi's madrassas conform to the Government of Niger's 
 
NIAMEY 00001193  002 OF 005 
 
 
(GON) educational standards. Content and pedagogy are 
conceived, taught, and evaluated by the Ministry of 
Education. The only real difference is language - the 
madrassas are Arabic medium schools, while the GON's public 
schools are French medium. In this way, Niger's adherence to 
the "French model" of strong central government control sets 
the country apart from neighbors where madrassas are left to 
their own devices, with predictable pedagogical consequences. 
 
¶5.  (U) The turn toward madrassa education in Maradi can be 
partly explained by the collapse of the secular public school 
system, which lost funding and teachers to bankruptcy and 
retirement in the turbulent 1990s. It can also be explained 
by Nigeriens' traditional reluctance to embrace the secular 
public schools imposed on them, first by the French, and then 
by the authorities of the country's own secular governments. 
The first independent Islamic Association formed after 
democratization in the early 1990's, the Association 
Nigerienne pour l'Appel et la Solidarite Islamique (ANASI), 
made Islamic education its goal. Through support for 
madrassas, radio stations, and public education sessions for 
adults raised in the country's secular school system, the 
ANASI attempted to reintroduce Islam into education. In so 
doing they presented Nigeriens with a vision of education 
that conformed to their values. A similar promise seems to 
draw Maradi parents toward the madrassas. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
TIDJANIYA ISLAM: SUFISM, TRADITION, AND HIERARCHY 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶6.  (U) Tidjaniya is the oldest and most popular sect in 
Maradi. Its local leader is Shefu Dan Jiratawa. The name 
derives from the sect's 18th century Algerian-born founder, 
Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Tijani. In Niger, 
Tidjanis follow the Sheikh of Kiota, who was both the student 
and son-in-law of Tidjaniya's 20th century spiritual leader, 
the Senegalese Sheikh Ibrahim Niass. Tijaniya is classically 
Sufi, with an emphasis on saints, relics, and the authority 
of traditional chiefs and Marabouts. Many of the latter are 
thought to possess magical powers, a belief deemed heretical 
by fundamentalists, but one that suggests the means by which 
Tidjaniya co-opted the traditional faith healers or "witch 
doctors" of the animist past. Nigeriens are recent (18th and 
19th century) converts to Islam, and it was Tidjaniya, with 
its mysticism and magic, to which most of them were first 
converted. Tidjaniya Islam makes some claims reminiscent of 
the pre-reformation Roman Catholic Church: that the Koran can 
only be read in Arabic, and must be interpreted for laymen by 
trained and literate Imams; that authority derives from these 
Imams and the traditional chieftaincy; that elaborate and 
costly rituals such as weddings, funerals, and naming 
ceremonies are essential to the faith; and, that relics and 
saints' tombs have healing powers. When one thinks of 
syncretistic African Islam, one is thinking of Tijaniya. 
 
¶7.  (U) Women enjoy a much more public role in Tidjania than 
in more fundamentalist sects. The present Sheikh of Kiota's 
mother, Oumoulkheir Niass (wife of the former Sheikh, and the 
daughter of Tijaniya spiritual leader Sheikh Ibrahim Niass) 
runs an Islamic Women's association know as Jamiyat 
Asaru-Addine. This active association affords Tidjaniya women 
a public role and a level of parity with men that is not 
often replicated in Nigerien Muslim society. While the 
Jamiyat concentrates on women's empowerment and women's role 
in maintaining the faith, Oumoulkheir also runs an Islamic 
women's school - the Al Islami Kiota. 
 
¶8.  (U) Tidjaniya is the religion of mainstream political 
power in Niger. The vast majority of traditional chiefs and 
established Marabouts adhere to it. Niger's first military 
leader, Gen. Seyni Kountche (1974-1987) was a devout Tidjani, 
who was closely advised by a Mr. Bonkano - simultaneously a 
Tidjani Marabout and head of the secret police. Col. Ibrahim 
Mainassara Bare (1996-1999) was another Tidjani. A devotee of 
the Sheikh of Kiota, he had a paved road constructed to link 
the Sheikh's isolated small village to the main national 
highway. Each year, that small village welcomes 
tens-of-thousands of pilgrims from across the country who 
gather there to celebrate Mouloud, the Prophet's birthday, in 
a display of the vernacular Islam so typical of Niger and the 
Tijaniya order. 
 
 
NIAMEY 00001193  003 OF 005 
 
 
----------------------------- 
IZALAT'BID'A: BACK TO BASICS: 
----------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (U) The global fundamentalist movement Wahabiyya finds 
its West African expression in something known as 
Izalat'bid'a - "the exclusion of all that is superfluous" - a 
fair summation of the group's literalist, textual approach to 
the faith. "Izala" Islam originated in Nigeria in the 
mid-1970's, when Aboubacar Gumi, the Grand Kadi of that 
country's Sharia Court of Appeals, began to advocate "reform" 
in Sufi dominated Northern Nigeria. The creation of the 
Jama'a Izalatil Bid'a wa Iqamatus Sunnah (Movement against 
Negative Innovations and for Orthodoxy) in 1978 marks the 
formal starting point of the Izala movement in Nigeria. It 
made its initial inroads into Niger as early as 1982, and has 
expanded its reach since. Its primary objective is similar to 
that of the 19th century Quadiriyya crusader Ousmane Dan 
Fodio - to convert Muslims and the society in which they live 
to a purer and more textually accurate version of the faith. 
NOTE: Post anticipates providing a more extensive examination 
of Izala Islam's history and tenets septel END NOTE. 
 
¶10.  (U) Izala's appeal to the young, the Nigeria returned, 
and certain major businessmen and professionals has made it 
the fastest growing sect in Maradi over the last decade. Its 
local leader and spokesman, Rabe Dan Tchadouwa, is a 
prominent businessman with commercial ties to the Middle East 
and Nigeria. Dan Tchadouwa and other smaller players finance 
the construction of mosques, madrassas, and, increasingly, 
the provisioning of social welfare activities. Local contacts 
report that the Izala community has formed groups of young 
men, given them distinctive green uniforms, and put them in 
charge of security and crowd control at the sect's mosques 
during Friday prayers. Speaking to the diversity of their 
engagements as well as the depth of their pockets, local 
contacts noted that, had the USG not financed the popular 
CARE Maradi Youth Center, the Izalas probably would have done 
something similar in our stead. NOTE: The CARE Maradi Youth 
Center is partly funded by the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism 
Partnership (TSCTP). It trains unemployed young people for 
jobs realistically available in the Maradi economy, and gives 
them the microcredit financing necessary to start their own 
businesses. It also organizes them into mutually supportive 
groups that teach others about HIV/AIDS, democracy, and 
political participation. END NOTE 
 
¶11.  (SBU) USAID officer, drawing on 30 years of periodic 
experience in Niger, noted that the number of bearded men and 
veiled women in Maradi has increased. Traditionally, 
Nigeriens did not sport beards and hijabs in the Izalay 
fashion. Local contacts familiar with the Izalay indicate 
that the sect is divided over fine points of dress and 
doctrine, including ideal beard length, pant leg-length (the 
idea being that long pants touch the dirt and therefore 
render the wearer unclean for mosque services), and other 
seemingly minor matters. COMMENT: One wonders how many 
Nigeriens have the time or the resources to maintain the 
exact sartorial standards demanded by some adherents of 
Izalay. The movement's origins in the urban, middle-class 
trader community are reflected in such preoccupations. No one 
else has the resources necessary to support the sequestration 
of women - whose labor is essential to rural Niger's 
subsistence economy - or the obsessive attention to personal 
attire and grooming that some Izalay Imams demand. END 
COMMENT. 
 
-------------------------------- 
SHEFU OUSMANE DAN FODIO AND THE 
NIGER/NIGERIA "JIHAD." 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (U) There is nothing new about Islamic reform movements 
designed to purge West African Islam of its organic 
"superfluities." Izalat'bid'a's textualism and emphasis on a 
return to Koranic fundamentals brings to mind the "Jihad" of 
Shefu Ousmane Dan Fodio, who brought a measure of both 
political and spiritual stability to northern Nigeria and 
southern Niger in the aftermath of the Songhai Empire's 
collapse. The Songhai Empire's successor chieftaincies were 
politically incoherent, and the brand of Islam practiced in 
their palaces, while broadly within the Sufi tradition, 
included many unorthodox practices. Islamic laws limiting 
 
NIAMEY 00001193  004 OF 005 
 
 
polygamy and addressing prayer, inheritance, and governance 
were ignored. An accretion of organic practices led to an 
"impure" version of the faith. From 1804-1812, Dan Fodio and 
his followers led a successful "jihad" to purify the Muslim 
faith and establish a political system that would enable 
"true belief and right practice." The end result was the 
establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in Northern Nigeria and 
the imposition of a more rigorous, though still Sufi, version 
of the faith. 
 
¶13.  (U) This Qadiriyya jihad set the tone for Islamic 
practice for the better part of a century. Ousmane Dan Fodio 
is still revered by many Nigeriens, who name mosques and 
streets after him. Interestingly, Maradi was one of the small 
kingdoms that held out against the Qadiriyya Sokoto Caliphate 
in the early 19th century. But what force of arms did not 
accomplish, trade and cultural exchange among the Hausa 
populations of the sub-region did. The Qadiriyya Islam that 
Dan Fodio encouraged played a major role in other parts of 
Niger throughout the 19th century, before declining to a more 
marginal status in the 20th. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
QADIRIYYA AND SHI'A: ISLAM AT THE MARGINS 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶14.  (U) Qadiriyya is Sufi sect similar in most of its 
outward forms to Tidjaniya. It is the oldest order in West 
Africa, but of less consequence in Maradi than Tidjania or 
Izalay. Qadiriyya derives its name from its 13th century 
founder, the Iraq-born cleric Abdu-l-qadir al-jilani. While 
Qadiriyya enjoyed some early inroads in Niger via Dan Fodio's 
jihad and subsequent assimilation, it declined throughout the 
20th century as Tidjaniya sects took more and more of its 
members. Among the Sufi sects Qadiriyya boasts the largest 
number of holy ascetics. This detachment from material 
possessions and earthy concerns distinguishes Qadiriyya from 
both Tidjaniya - with its emphasis on lavish ceremony - and 
Izalat'bid'a, with its emphasis on effecting change and 
reform among believers and within the society they inhabit. 
 
¶15.  (U) Shi'a Islam is minor force in Maradi, as it is 
elsewhere in Niger. Abdoulmalik and Rabiou Miko are the Shi'a 
leaders, both in Maradi and for the country as a whole. Shi'a 
boast a single mosque in Niamey and one in Maradi, and 
generally maintain cordial relations with other Muslims. 
 
---------------------- 
BASTIONS OF SECULARISM 
---------------------- 
 
¶16.  (SBU) To all accounts, Niger's Army remains a bastion of 
secularism and a bulwark against Islamist politics. DAO 
reports that there is no discernible move toward more rigid 
Islamic practice within its ranks. This may reflect Izala's 
status as a predominantly Hausa movement. While at least 56% 
of Nigeriens are Hausas, the group has always been 
underrepresented in the traditionally Djerma military. Given 
the military's role in national life (Niger was governed by 
military rulers from 1974-1993 and again from 1996-1999, and 
the current President is a retired Lt. Col.) its continued 
cultural distinction is significant. However, there are 
civilian bastions of secularism as well. The country has a 
small but influential middle class composed of French 
speaking urbanites employed in the formal sector (usually as 
government employees, NGO staff, or educators). Its members 
range from secular to conventionally religious; sacrificing 
some accuracy for simplicity, we refer to it as the "secular 
middle class." 
 
¶17.  (U) The secular middle class's ability to advance its 
cultural vision through politics is limited - as failed 
efforts to establish a modern family code or bring Niger into 
compliance with international agreements on women's rights 
prove (reftels A, B). However, its ability to fend off 
Islamist assaults on existing secular gains is stronger. It 
was the secular middle class that supported President 
Tandja's government in its successful efforts to shut down 
radical Imams who preached against polio vaccinations and the 
International Festival of African Fashion show. This class 
likewise opposed Islamist efforts to make Niger a theocracy 
in the 1990s. NOTE: the country settled for status as a 
"non-confessional," though not "secular" state after an 
 
NIAMEY 00001193  005 OF 005 
 
 
intense debate over this aspect of its new constitution. END 
NOTE 
 
¶18.  (U) Though small in number, the secular middle class has 
long enjoyed great latitude in expressing its views. Public 
media and most of the country's numerous private weeklies 
cater to it and reflect its views. Public sector employees 
constitute the single largest constituency for the principal 
opposition party, and members of this class, or of the 
military class, run all of the country's major parties and 
trade unions. The ruling MNSD party is led by a former 
military officer (President Tandja) and a former customs 
officer and government administrator (Prime Minister Amadou); 
other ruling coalition parties are led, respectively, by a 
retired international aviation administrator; an economist; 
an army officer and ex-minister; and, a mathematician. While 
many of these men are conventionally religious, none are 
Izalas. While the MNSD counts on traditional chiefs and 
Islamic clergy for much of its support, the key players are 
all Islamic traditionalists and adherents of one of the Sufi 
schools so opposed to Izala. For the moment, Izala is limited 
to just a few major patrons, located outside of government. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
COMMENT: FUNCTIONNAIRES AND COMMERCANTS: 
SLOW MOTION CULTURAL CHANGE 
AND THE REDEFINITION OF "SUCCESS" 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶19.  (U) The bastions of secularism seem strongly rooted, and 
thus far have proven largely impermeable to Izalist 
influence. In the event that Izala doctrine begins to win 
converts in the military or secular middle class it would be 
a sure sign of fundamental cultural and political change in 
Niger. Likewise, the marginalization of either class within 
the Nigerien polity would say much about Izalay's rise. These 
two small but influential classes are yardsticks for gauging 
the process of slow motion cultural change that is bringing 
the global phenomenon of fundamentalist Islam to Niger. 
 
¶20.  (U) Another, much larger measure is Nigerien youth, and 
an examination of youth in Maradi suggests that slow motion 
cultural change may be kicking into higher gear. An estimated 
75% of Nigeriens are under 30 years of age. Young people in 
Maradi seem to be embracing a new vision of success, 
substituting the Islamist model of the illiterate trader 
("commercant") for the secular middle class model of the 
civil servant ("functionnaire"). Formal studies and countless 
informal conversations with mission contacts give the same 
impression: that the well-educated, francophone, modern, 
public sector employee is no longer the ideal role model for 
many Nigerien young people. Success increasingly seems to be 
defined by the illiterate, Islamist, wealthy but very 
traditional (as evidenced by multiple wives or the practice 
of purdah) trader. 
 
¶21. (U) To some extent, this aspirational shift derives from 
recent Nigerien history. The 1990's witnessed the imposition 
of budgetary strictures and the concomitant collapse of 
Niger's public education and public employment systems. This 
made the old "functionnaire" ideal seem unattainable to many 
young people. At the same time, Izala style Islamic 
literalism seems to have became "cool" - a sign of one's 
transcendence of the Sufi oddities of village life and one's 
embrace of a more rational, modern, and pure version of the 
faith. 
 
¶22.  (U) For many nouveau riche urban commercants, Izalay 
provides a connection to a global Islamic culture associated 
with the glamour and wealth of Nigeria and the Middle East. 
For young Nigeriens seeking absolute answers in a confusing 
environment of rapid urbanization, population growth, and 
political change, Izala's certainties are satisfying. At the 
same time, the sect offers them a role model in the 
successful Izala commercant. Therefore, the sort of Izala 
Islam we see in Maradi is not simply a regression toward 
anti-scientific, one-size-fits-all textual literalism - it is 
a way for some Nigeriens to feel modern and "connected" in a 
globalizing world. END COMMENT 
 
ALLEN