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Expanded from the author's doctoral dissertation on the history of the Murid settlement of Darou Mousty and its founder, shaykh Ibrahima Faty M'Backé (1865-1943), John Glover's book ties a local history of the Senegalese Muridiyya Sufi order as exemplified in the oral history and written traditions of one major Murid centre into the longer, pre-colonial history of Islamic reform and Sufism in West Africa. In doing so, Glover proposes a thesis about the historical rootedness of the Murid way in patterns of state-society relations and the construction of socio-religious authority that developed in Senegambia before the onset of French colonialism, suggesting that the development of the order represents a specific, independent form of modernity in the historical experience of Murid taalibé (disciples) and their shaykhs, one that "came not with the European conquest but [...] with the rise of Islamic reform movements and Sufi orders that sought to break with the past and to revolutionize West African society, culture, politics and economics". (p. 14) Central to the argument are the local historical narratives collected by Glover in Darou Mousty, especially those revolving around the settlement's founder, Maam Cerno ("Grandfather Teacher"), the younger brother and "lieutenant" (jawriñ) of Amadu Bamba M'Backé, the revered founder of the Muridiyya and leading figure of Islam in twentieth-century Senegal.
The argument proceeds across six chapters. Glover first lays out the long-term historical background to the emergence of a "Murid modernity", locating this in the long history of Islam in the...