When Sufism Confronts Extremism

Randa Jebai, an award-winning journalist with over two decades of experience, joined Alhurra TV’s investigative team in 2020. Her work has earned international recognition, including AIB and New York Festivals awards.

From a small village near Bouaké, in northern Côte d’Ivoire, Sheikh Luqman Konaté appears on his phone screen, adjusting the weak signal and the small lamp in front of him before beginning his conversation with me.

Dressed in a simple white robe, he sits by a modest wooden table, his prayer beads dangling from his hand. He apologizes with a gentle smile for being a few minutes late – he had just finished his weekly lesson for the village youth on “the purity of the heart.”

“Some of these young men lost their fathers in the armed conflicts in the north,” Sheikh Konaté tells me. “Others were on the verge of joining extremist groups operating along the border with Mali.” But in his calm voice, he adds: “Here, in our small Sufi corner, they found what they had been missing: peace, belonging, and purpose.”

In the impoverished villages of northern Côte d’Ivoire, where the weakness of the state has allowed armed groups to spread, Sufi lodges and Quranic recitation circles are emerging as modest sanctuaries of moderation – offering an alternative path for young people at risk of radicalization.

“When we speak of Sufism,” says Sheikh Konaté, “we’re talking about cleansing the heart from arrogance, hypocrisy, and envy. These are the values we try to pass on to our youth – to win them over with compassion instead of seeing them drift toward violence and extremism.”

In a region fraught with insecurity and economic hardship, the growing presence of Sufi lodges in Côte d’Ivoire raises a larger question: Can Sufism, with its spiritual depth and social roots,  help strengthen local communities against the pull of extremist ideologies?

While Côte d’Ivoire faces security threats along its northern borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, it has largely been spared the major attacks that have struck its Sahelian neighbors in recent years.

Researchers and policy centers attribute this relative stability to the country’s cohesive state institutions, community prevention programs, and the quiet influence of local religious networks, including Sufi orders that offer spiritual and cultural spaces for young people, helping build a message of moderation that counters extremist recruitment.

Across West Africa, Sufism holds an even deeper and more established role.

In Senegal, for instance, it forms the backbone of religious life.

Field studies, official data, and even U.S. State Department reports confirm that the vast majority of Senegal’s Muslims – around 95% – belong to Sufi brotherhoods such as the Tijani, Mouride, and Qadiri.

This success, observers say, can be partly explained by the powerful role Sufi lodges and their leaders play in shaping the social fabric – extending their influence beyond religion into politics, economics, and conflict mediation.

For Sarah Jouini, an expert on political Islam and a researcher with the Tunisian Association for Sufi Studies, the spread and effectiveness of Sufism in Senegal comes as no surprise.

“The religious dimension in Africa, particularly within Sufism and its lodges, has taken on a broad educational and cultural character,” Jouini tells me. “These orders are not limited to worship. They have created spaces for dialogue between followers of different faiths, drawn young people through study circles and social activities, and actively engaged in public and political life.”

She notes that some of the criticism directed at African Sufism doesn’t stem from its essence, but from individual practices within certain lodges that have deviated from their original purpose.

“Sufism, by nature, reflects the environment of each country,” she explains. “It absorbs the questions, history, and intellectual trends of its society, which is why Sufi experiences vary so widely across the African continent.”

Sufi brotherhoods first reached West Africa in the 14th century, carried by traders, pilgrims, and scholars traveling from North Africa. Over centuries, their presence became deeply woven into the region’s cultural and social identity.

Sheikh Konaté notes that Sufism arrived in West Africa alongside Islam itself, carried “by trade caravans and pilgrims, especially from North Africa.”

Researcher Sarah Jouini agrees, emphasizing North Africa’s enduring influence on the region:

“Islam entered from the north before spreading westward,” she says. “That’s why Sufi orders like the Shadhili and Tijjani, which have roots in the Maghreb, are so deeply established in Senegal and the Sahel countries.”

To understand the reach of Sufism in West Africa, one must also look to Morocco, which has long served as a spiritual and cultural bridge between North and West Africa. For centuries, it has been home to major Sufi lodges and is now a promoter of what it calls ‘moderate Islam.’

Sheikh Konaté tells us that he studied under Senegalese scholars who graduated from the Mohammed VI Institute for the Training of Imams and Religious Guides in Rabat – the same institute that has trained hundreds of clerics from Mali, Senegal, Niger, and Chad.

This effort reflects Morocco’s official vision of Sufism as a form of “soft power” – a spiritual tool to strengthen social stability and counter extremist ideology across the continent.

Jouini adds that many African students studying in North Africa arrive with a deep interest in understanding the spiritual hierarchy and ethics of Sufism – seeing it as a path to counter extremism in their home countries. This form of religious diplomacy, she notes, has helped strengthen the influence of moderate and Sufi Islamic movements across the region.

Yet despite their spiritual nature, Sufi lodges also manage significant financial resources.

In Senegal, for instance, the annual pilgrimage to the city of Touba, the stronghold of the Mouride order, attracts more than three million visitors each year, generating millions of dollars in revenue that are funneled into educational and charitable projects.

Funding also comes from donations, endowments, and contributions from African diasporas in Europe and the Gulf, along with government support in some countries.

In Morocco, state institutions provide direct backing through the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and the Institute for Imam Training.

Collectively, these resources help fortify local communities against extremist groups, which themselves are financed through ransoms, extortion in vulnerable villages, and illicit foreign transfers – worth tens of millions of dollars annually, according to U.N. reports. This financial muscle allows extremists to compete with Sufi institutions for the hearts and minds of disillusioned youth.

Jouini explains that Sufism can mitigate extremism but cannot eliminate it entirely, as many Sufi lodges have gradually absorbed political or geopolitical motives. “Some Sufi orders in Africa are influenced by politics or subject to politically motivated appointments,” she notes.

She also points to what is often called ‘activist Sufism’ – a form that occasionally participates in public life. The strength of Sufism, she argues, lies in its intellectual and cultural flexibility: it adapts to its surroundings, draws from local traditions, and reflects the diversity of the societies it inhabits.

“The religious expression in Africa takes the color of its environment, its history, and its questions,” she says. “Sufism is part of this living intellectual movement.”

Research and policy papers from institutions such as the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), and several African research centers confirm that Sufism often serves as a form of soft power against extremist ideologies – providing social networks, material support, and moral guidance to at-risk youth.

In northern Nigeria, Sufi orders have helped curb the spread of groups like Boko Haram through a moderate message focused on ethics and peaceful religious education. A study by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) found that poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy remain the main drivers of youth radicalization – and that when Sufi lodges provide education and assistance, recruitment rates drop significantly.

Sheikh Konaté says that his local Sufi lodge in Côte d’Ivoire receives only modest community donations, yet dozens of young men have joined. “People are drawn to Sufism because it offers what other movements don’t,” he says. “If a society seeks social cohesion, Sufism plays a role in that. It nurtures love, peace, and brotherhood, combats extremism and delusion, and helps create a spiritually balanced community.”

Across the Sahel, where state authority is weak and Al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates – such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin and Islamic State in West Africa Province – operate freely, Sufi networks continue their outreach to the youth. But Konaté and others stress that they urgently need institutional and international support to compete with these well-funded and tightly organized militant groups.

Jouini tells Alhurra that Sufism is not the only religious current shaping West Africa’s landscape. “There are groups that oppose it – even accuse Sufis of heresy – on the grounds of doctrinal deviation,” she says, “especially since some orders, like the Tijjani order, embrace deep philosophical ideas such as ‘the unity of being’ and ‘the unity of witnessing’’ delving into profound spiritual symbols and meanings.”

She adds that cultural differences across the continent make acceptance of Sufism vary from one country to another: “Some understand and value this spiritual dimension, while others see it as a deviation. Yet what unites everyone is admiration for the educational, cultural, and peaceful nature that defines Africa’s Sufi tradition.”

Despite the spread of extremist movements, research centers estimate that around 60 million Muslims in West Africa belong to one of the major Sufi orders, a number that far exceeds the followers of Salafi or extremist groups in the region.

Today, West African nations stand at a crossroads in their fight against extremism – between surrendering to the sound of gunfire or listening to the gentle rhythm of dhikr echoing from clay-built lodges, as Sheikh Luqman Konaté softly recites to us:

“When the heart is at peace, there is no room for hatred. Sufism, he says, is the path of the heart.”