In this post I am going to provide a Freudian gender identity development and the kind of conversion to Islam that happened in indigenous communities in Africa at the first stage, when conversion happened via mostly preaching and persuasion and not by the sword (Jihad al-Qwal, Jihad bil’l sayf. According to Freud, the driving force in human development is the life or psychical energy, which he calls the libido. The libido is housed in different body parts at different stages of development. Libido, according to Freud, is basically the pleasure principle, whereas the child wants unbounded and unlimited pleasure and the central organ of pleasure is the phallus. The first body part of the oral stage, when the pleasure is obtained via the oral are and the action is sucking; also, there is a “other” to desire at this stage, the phallic mother, that is, the mother in fantasy, who is all powerful, caregiver and also has the phallus. The second stage is the anal stage where pleasure is obtained via passing of the feces. The third stage is the genital stage where pleasure is obtained via masturbation. During the oral and anal stages there are no gender differentiation, gender is fused and everyone is polymorphous. For both the boy and the girl the first object of desire is the phallic mother. During the genital stage, the little boy enters into the what Freud called the castration complex, where he realizes (under a threat) that his organ of pleasure, the phallus, will be cut off if he does not stop masturbating (or desiring the phallic mother). The little boy gives up his desire for infinite pleasure, masturbation, and the desire for the phantasy mother, and consolidates his male identity (keeps his phallus). His desire for the phallic mother and unlimited pleasure goes to the unconscious. The identity of the little girl is more complex. She realizes that she has already been castrated and a little of that organ of pleasure (the clitoris) is left. She also realizes that her mother does not have a phallus to give her (psychic castration complex). She goes to father to get the phallus who does not give it either, she goes to mother, who does not give her the organ of pleasure. Ultimately, she settles for her “biological destiny”. She represses her original desire for the phallus to a desire for baby from Father or Father substitute, which goes into the unconscious, she discovers a new erotic zone, the vagina, a bloody hole. This is “normal femininity” for Freud. If she does not convert her original desire for the phallus to a desire for baby, then she has two abnormal identities (a) frigidity (b) homosexuality. In frigidity she says to herself that since she cannot have as much pleasure as the boy she wont have any pleasure at all and in homosexuality she thinks that father has given her the phallus. According to Freud, the feminine gender identity remains ambivalent and bisexual, she does not have a consolidated identity like the male and never fully gives up her first object of desire, the mother, whom she both hates and desires. She goes back and forth between mother and father.
Now let us apply the above ambivalent identity to the first stages of conversion in Africa. According to Azumah, there was a lack of mass conversion of the indigenous people in Africa when Islam was first brought in by the African traders and holy men. In Africa within a tribe, everyone is bound by kinship relations and the chief is primarily a keeper of the ancestral values and a steward of the land, not an owner. The Muslims who came from else were not part of the kinship of the community. As a result, they were not allowed within the community, but was given a separate land or enclavement where they could live safely and practice their religion. They were strangers or zongas. Although living separately, but over time they did mix with the local population in several ways. First of all, the Pirs or Holy men acted as healers and gave amulets and charms to the local indigenous people; often when a child was sick or when a mother was pregnant, the child was given a Muslim name, so that the ancestors would not take them away after birth. There was huge child morality and this was the indigenous people’s way of dealing with this. Even before the Muslims arrived, they would give put marks on the child or give them a name that is bad so that the bad look of the ancestors would not fall on them. In addition, the Muslim holy men set up Jamaat in the villages, which are semi religious organizations where indigenous people went. Further, they brought in new dress, turbans, and way of life, which were adopted by the indigenous people. In the Court, the traders and holy men were often in high demand, as they knew the art of writing, which the indigenous people did not have.
What were the identities of the indigenous people? Were they converted? They used Muslim dresses, turbans, habits, and so on. Often, they took Muslim names, and used Muslim places of prayers to pray to “Muslim gods”. All these did were “mixing” of their indigenous customs and their open religiosity with the outsiders. None of them were “Muslims” per se. They were all part of their own indigenous culture. This identity is like that of the feminine ambivalent identity that happened during the the Jihad al-Qwal or Jihad via the tongue, which was not accepted by the Jihadists for several reasons. First, a Muslim cannot live as a minority among the indigenous people. The aim is to covert the ungoverned land or Dar Ul harb to governed land or Dar Ul Islam. They can live in the land of truce for a while, but the aim is to bring everyone under the Dar Ul Islam. This kind of ambivalent identities of the indigenous communities who went back and forth from their indigenous communities and customs to Islamic one, like the feminine identity, was unacceptable. So, the next step is to set the consolidated phallo-centric male identity, where the phallus is retained and the unbounded diffused identity, the desire for the phallic mother is repressed (or goes into the unconscious). This was the stage of Jihad bil’l sayf or Jihad of the sword. With this, the ambivalent identity was erased and strong Islamic identity was sought to established. Every identity has its “other”, and in case, the indigenous remained the “other” or in the unconscious of the new strong phallo centric Islamic identity.
Azumah, J. A. (2018). The Legacy of Arab-Islam In Africa. Oneworld.
Hill, M. (2009). The Spread of Islam in West Africa: Containment, Mixing, and Reform.
