| Summary/Abstract |
For many, Islamic hip-hop is a contradiction. Yet many prominent rappers in Senegal have joined the Fayḍa Tijāniyya Sufi movement and communicate religious messages through their music. Rappers have contributed significantly to the Fayḍa’s rising popularity among Dakar’s youth, popularizing the Fayḍa’s esoteric teachings through their lyrics. Although many Muslims reject hip-hop as un-Islamic, the mainstream of Fayḍa adherents and its learned leaders have embraced rappers as legitimate spokespeople for the movement. Scholars discussing change and debate in Islam have often emphasized discursive argumentation that refers to foundational texts, or “sharī c a reasoning.” This article examines four other modes of religious reasoning and demonstration that Fayḍa rappers use in addition to sharī c a reasoning to present themselves as legitimate representatives of Islam: (1) truths that transcend texts and discursive reasoning; (2) the greater good, which may apparently contravene some prescription; (3) divine inspiration and sanction, for example through dreams and mystical experiences that reveal a rapper’s mission and message; (4) and “performative apologetics,” or a demonstration of exemplary piety and knowledge such that a potentially controversial practice can be reconciled with one’s religious persona. The article focuses particularly on the case of the rapper Tarek Barham. As productive as Talal Asad’s widely accepted conceptualization of Islam as a “discursive tradition” has been, this article proposes understanding Islamic truth, authority, and experience as founded not just in discourse—especially in reference to foundational texts—but in multiple complementary principles of knowing and demonstrating.
|