Project conducted at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in the “Contested Religion and Intellectual Culture” research unit (2025)
Building on my previous work with the Islam West Africa Collection (IWAC), this research project uses computational tools and digital humanities (DH) methods to analyse Islamic print culture and networks in francophone West Africa. Focusing on Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, I will use “distant reading” techniques to uncover patterns in Islamic intellectual discourse and the translocal dynamics of the region.
The study analyses 1,500 Islamic publications from the IWAC to trace the development of Muslim elites and their influence on public discourse. Using computational techniques, I aim to provide insights into the intellectual history of Francophone Muslims in West Africa, exploring how religiosity interacts with morality and intellectual culture. I will identify shifts in religious and political rhetoric over time, examining attitudes towards secularism, democracy and gender roles. The analysis will focus on the evolution of key religious and social concepts such as ummah, bid’ah, jihad, Salafism and laïcité, tracing their usage, context and semantic shifts across publications and years. I will use natural language processing (NLP) techniques, including topic modelling, word embedding, and sentiment analysis, to identify dominant themes, analyse semantic relationships between concepts, and characterise emotions expressed on prominent issues.
I will also use network analysis to map Islamic networks and their translocal entanglements in Francophone West Africa, focusing on understudied local NGOs and “Islamic Francophonie” networks. This approach is consistent with the focus on French-language Islamic publications and reflects the emerging role of French as a vehicle for Islamic discourse among urban and educated elites in the region. Using the IWAC data, I will construct and analyse networks of individuals, organisations and places, with an emphasis on regional connections within West Africa. This departure from the typical emphasis on global Arab-Islamic world connections will complement the textual analysis and provide new insights into the intellectual Islamic history of the region. Key aspects of the network analysis include identifying influential individuals and organisations, mapping institutional links between mosques, organisations and educational institutions, and examining the temporal dynamics of networks and their evolution in response to local and global events.
By combining these computational approaches with ethnographic fieldwork, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding that neither method could achieve alone. This innovative synthesis promises new insights into the intellectual history and translocal dynamics of Muslims in Francophone West Africa, and contributes significantly to our understanding of how religiosity interacts with morality, intellectual culture and socio-political issues in this context.