University of Toronto
Institute of Islamic Studies invites you to a Lecture:
The Ascetic and the “Mother of the Knowers”:
Reversing Gender Roles in Islamic Leadership in Senegal
by
Professor Joseph Hill
University of Alberta
Among adherents of the Fayḍa Tijāniyya Sufi movement in Dakar, Senegal, Baay Moxtaar Ka is renowned as a
formidable Sufi master, Islamic teacher, healer, and diviner. Yet among the community of disciples directly
associated with him, the primary organizer and decision maker is unarguably his wife Yaay Ayisatu Sow, known to
disciples as “Mother of the Knowers” (Umm al-ᶜĀrifīn). This paper describes this couple’s public performance of
Islamic authority and recounts Baay Moxtaar’s metamorphosis from the ideal type of the lone and liminal Sufi
ascetic to what his disciples consider “the complete shaykh”—in this case composed of two people—in command
of spiritual and worldly matters.
Professor Joseph Hill has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University and is assistant professor of anthropology
at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on Sufi Islam as it relates to gender, forms of knowledge,
authority, and performance. Since 2001, Hill has conducted ethnographic research on the global Fayḍa Tijāniyya
Sufi movement, especially in Senegal and Mauritania. His current publications examine the gendered performance
of Islamic knowledge and authority among Fayḍa adherents, particularly among its female leaders, and on the use
of mystical discourses and practices to negotiate and resolve potential conflicts.
Date: Thursday Oct. 16, 2014
Place: 4 Bancroft Avenue (NMC Dept.) room 200 B
Time: 4-6 p.m.