Islam and Development in the Western Sahel: Engine or Brake?

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Periodical article

Title:	Islam and Development in the Western Sahel: Engine or Brake?
Author:	Miles, William F.S.
Year:	1986
Periodical:	Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs
Volume:	7
Issue:	2
Pages:	439-463
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Niger Nigeria West Africa
Subjects:	Islam development History and Exploration Religion and Witchcraft Development and Technology Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) education law
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/13602008608715996
Abstract:	Analysis of the links between Islam and development, highlighting both the differential effects that religion may have on the development process and that the development process may have on religion. It is based on a case study of two neighbouring Hausa-speaking Muslim villages in the western Sahel, namely Yardaji in Northern Nigeria and Yekuwa in Niger. Five areas of comparative interest which touch on both Islam and development are examined: education, secularization, law, marriage customs, and pilgrimage. The comparison shows that the claim of the secular State over the lives of its subjects is much greater in Niger than in Nigeria, and that there is an inherited, if slowly changing, institutional divorce between modernization and religion which exists north, but not south, of the border. Neither country seems to exploit Islam to its fullest extent for developmental purposes. Notes, ref.