New Lights on Prophecy-Pretending and Mimetic Religions in Medieval Islamic North Africa

Contenu

Titre

New Lights on Prophecy-Pretending and Mimetic Religions in Medieval Islamic North Africa

Créateur

Mansouri, Mabrouk

Sujet

Croyances populaires

Résumé

This paper addresses the proliferation of prophetic movements and mimetic religions in medieval Islamic North Africa, focusing on the Barghwāṭa and Ghumāra tribes. It critiques medieval Arabic and Orientalist terminologies used to explain this complex issue, arguing that they fail to capture the dynamics of these movements. The paper introduces the concept of mimetic religion to interpret localized prophetic movements that emerged on the periphery of the established religion, namely Islam, retaining its structure while presenting parallel, rather than counteractive, religio-cultural projects. Drawing on primary sources, it highlights how misrule and exploitative practices by early conquerors fueled North African resistance, leading to revolutionary and prophetic movements. It challenges both medieval historiographical reductions of these movements to sectarianism and modern interpretations shaped by French colonial Orientalism, which often reduced them to ethnic or religious conflicts between Arab-Muslim conquerors and indigenous North Africans. By analyzing primary sources and questioning Orientalist biases, the paper emphasizes the interplay of political, economic, social, and cultural factors in shaping North African religious settings. Ultimately, it defines new boundaries for re-contextualizing and re-interpreting mimetic religion as expressive of a complex texture framing religious, cultural, and social nomenclature rooted in local North African indigenous heritage.

Est une partie de

Al-Jāmi‘ah: Journal of Islamic Studies

Date

2025

volume

63

numéro

1

pages

1-33

doi

10.14421/ajis.2025.631.1-33

issn

0126-012X

Langue

eng