The socialisation of begging talibés in Senegalese Koranic schools

Roos Keja

Course: Language, Culture and Cognition

Lecturer: Dr. F.K. Ameka

Leiden, 28 January 2008

Introduction

I am mother of all children. When I got my first child, every child became my own child. I take
pity on the talibés, because they are also my children. Sometimes I do not sleep at night because
their life is so difficult, they are very tired. It hurts me when I see them walking through the
streets, bare feet, dirty, exposed to all the dangers of the city. (Khady Diarra, 11 April 2005)

The begging Koranic pupils, named talibés, who roam the streets of Senegalese cities looking
for money and food, are a great source of discussion in the media as well as in the streets. It
is difficult to find a Senegalese without a clear opinion about the life of the talibés who are
sent out to beg for their food and for money for their teachers, named marabouts. When they
are not begging, they are learning to recite and memorise the Koran. The issue of these
begging talibés is a very sensitive one, touching on the fields of politics, socio-cultural life
and religion. An Islamic discourse is taken on by different people to express their ideas about
the lives of begging talibés and their marabouts.
In this paper, I will discuss child rearing practices and (language) socialisation in Senegal. I
will present the story of Koranic pupils in Senegal that are ‘given’ to their teachers in order to
become a good Muslim. The findings presented are based upon anthropological fieldwork
carried out from April to July 2005 in the city of Thiès, Senegal.1 Firstly, I will introduce the
subject of Koranic education in Senegal and then I will move on to discussing some ideas
about researching child rearing practices and language socialisation. This will be the
background against which the harsh socialisation of this specific category of Senegalese
children is depicted. As will be shown, the Islamic discourse in Senegal forms a powerful
framework in which the difficult life of these children is explained away. However, doubts
are increasingly being raised about the adequacy of the socialisation of these children.

The practice of Koranic education in Senegal

In the Koranic school, pupils learn to recite and memorise the Koran for a certain period. In
this paper, only the primary level of education is of concern, partly because most of the
pupils will not attend the secondary level of education. The majority of the Senegalese
children attend the Koranic school for only a few years, just enough to learn to recite the
verses that are needed for praying. They live in the parental home and go to a Koranic school
nearby. It is very rare to see a girl being send away to a Koranic school far from home.

1 Without my research assistant Pap Mbaye I could not have carried out this fieldwork. I thank him and his family

for their dedication and love. In this paper I sometimes refer to ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ to express his involvement.

2
Children who follow formal education in French, usually attend a Koranic school one year
before going to the French school or during school holidays. These children often do not
learn to recite the entire Koran. In general, marabouts receive their pupils in the court of their
house, their number varying from about five to fifty (Wiegelmann 1994: 808-809).
A small part of the children receiving Koranic education is ‘given’ to a marabout. During
the period that they stay with their marabout, the marabout has responsibility for the
children. These schools vary from well-organised boarding schools at the countryside where
pupils learn the Koran and toil the land, to a small-scale school of a young marabout who
teaches his eight cousins in a run-down house on the outskirts of a town.
The talibés who have accompanied their teachers to the city, usually stay there for years
without seeing their parents. They beg for their own food and usually for money for their
teachers. This seems to be the same as in Mali, where the pupils go around the houses with
calabashes or tins and collect food of citizens who can miss something. They sometimes do a
little chore with which they earn some money (Mommersteeg 1996: 56-57). Some talibés have
a ndeye-daara (mother-Koranic school), a woman who acts as a ‘surrogate mother’, taking a
talibé under her surveillance. These women usually give them meals, some wash their
clothes and let them wash themselves. Others also give new clothes or shoes or save up the
money that a talibé has begged for himself. The underlying idea of this practice, is that a
mother is not only a mother to her own children, but for all children on earth, just like Khady
Diarra said (Ndiaye 1985: 34-35).

Curriculum of the Koranic school and the power of literacy

Education in the Senegalese Koranic schools follows a schedule that has not changed
radically the last centuries. The curriculum and pedagogy in Senegalese Koranic schools are
largely similar to that in Mali and other West-African countries. Koranic education has two
levels; primary and secondary education. Basic skills of the primary level are the deciphering
of the letters of the Arabic alphabet and writing, reading and praying (Loimeier 2002: 1999).
When a talibé enters the Koranic school, he starts by learning the Arabic alphabet, by
learning the letters of the first sura of the Koran. Then he learns the pronunciation and the
writing of the letters including the vowel signs. When this phase has been completed, the
talibé can begin with the recitation of the Koran, that usually starts with the shorter suras at
the end of the Koran, shifting towards the longer ones (Ndiaye 1985: 38; Loimeier 2002: 198).
At the secondary level, pupils are taught Arabic language and grammar, and subsequently
they devote themselves to the interpretation of the Koran or the study of other Islamic books

3
(Sanankoua 1985: 360). Education is highly individual and is aimed at the personal progress
of the pupil. Subjects that have nothing to do with the Koran or the other Islamic sciences,
like geography, history and French, are not being taught. There is no standard exam; when a
talibé is finished, the marabout is supposed to give him a testimony (Cissé 1992: 74).
Throughout the centuries, several techniques are developed to facilitate the memorisation
of the Koranic verses. Among these techniques are certain recitation methods, writing the
verse on a tablet, regular oral tests and the constant repeating of learned text to which new
texts are added, called incremental memorisation (Eickelman 1978: 493, cited in Loimeier
2002: 197). Still, learning to recite the Koran is very labour-intensive; it takes approximately
four to seven years to work through the entire book (Sanankoua 1985: 360).
The pupils learn to recite and memorise the Koran without knowing the meaning of the
words that they are reading out. The basic assumption of this form of Islamic education is
that the Koran forms the core of all sciences. A foremost necessity therefore is, to learn the
Koran by heart. For a talibé on the primary level, being just a child, it is not yet a requisite to
understand the meaning of the Koranic verses (Loimeier 2002: 1999). Older talibés, from
twelve years onwards, write the verses on the tablets of the younger ones, still without
understanding the meaning of the words. It is not until the secondary level, which an
estimated one percent of the Senegalese talibés achieve, that they learn Arabic (Wiegelmann
1994: 809). The study of Islamic sciences involves discussion and questions on the texts,
unlike the primary education where a pupil is only assigned to recite and memorise
(Loimeier 2002: 199).
Bledsoe and Robey (1986), who have studied the Mende in Sierra Leone, argue that the
ones in power are not prone on having every child learning Arabic, because knowledge of
the written word means power. The Mende attribute a secret meaning to the Koranic verses,
not everyone can access this secret knowledge. In this system, the literate few use their
knowledge as a resource to control to the labour and loyalty of the less literate (Ibid. 217). Of
course for the ones in power it is better if this does not change; they can make the rules and
nobody will contest them because they do not have the knowledge. At present, this is also
the case in the highly hierarchical society of Senegal; marabouts have a lot of power.2 In
general, marabouts are seen as example figures; they show how a pious Muslim in this
society should behave. The process of learning the rules of society and how to behave in it, is
called socialisation (Foley 1999: 21-22).

2
The marabouts that are discussed in this paper are not the most powerful ones; even though they have disciples
themselves, they are all disciples of ‘bigger’ marabouts.

4
Child rearing practices and language socialisation

As Foley (1999: 357) has indicated, socialisation of the child is different in every cultural
context. An important part of the socialisation of the child is language socialisation. It is of
course through communication that socialisation takes place. Words are given to objects and
thoughts, and appropriate behaviour is taught to the child. Appropriate linguistic behaviour
is as well taught to the child, which plays a central role in the socialisation of the child into
being a competent member of culture.
Linguistic socialisation also plays a primary role in inculcating in the child various norms
for linguistic interactions as they enact proper behaviour for a competent person in a certain
society (Ibid. 358). For instance, in the highly hierarchical society of Senegal, it is very
important to show respect to anyone who is older than you are. Cohering with this, the word
réw, meaning ‘insolent’ or ‘cheeky’ is very present in child rearing. Adults and older children
say it often to younger ones: “denga réw” (you are insolent). This is usually in the context of a
child openly showing disagreement or disobedience towards seniors.
Generally, it is perceived of as very disrespectful for anyone to openly contradict a senior.
Saying “I disagree with you” or “that is not true” is strongly discouraged, in extreme cases
supported with physical threat or punishment. These words are simply considered to be too
‘strong’ and to be avoided. Even I, being a white woman in her twenties, was being
reprimanded by her fifty-year old Senegalese ‘aunt’ when she openly showed disagreement.
Young children and foreign people are commonly reprimanded with a wink and laughter,
but when the first stages of socialisation have passed they are supposed to know better.
Around marabouts one should show even more respect than to other persons older than
him. In an interview with a marabout in Thiès, I was surprised and said “is it true?!”
Afterwards, the research assistant insisted that I should never say this again; following him,
instead of showing excitement, I had actually questioned the authority of the marabout. It is
remarkable that in the tone of one’s voice, apparently a small detail, so much cultural
information is concealed.
This touches upon the field of linguistic discourse analysis. Many researchers in the field
of child rearing practices use models for their research, like discourse analysis. Amorim and
Rossetti-Ferreira (2004) analyse several ways in which child rearing practices can be
researched. Following them, discourse analysis should go far beyond verbal communication,
analysing other kinds of social languages (Ibid. 337). They argue: ‘Utterances are not only
verbal […] they encompass actions, emotions, postures, environmental organisation, all of

5
which can tell us a great deal’ (Ibid. 349). In his article on cultural models, Campos (2004)
highlights a relating issue. He comments on the article of Wierzbicka (2004), and questions
the use of the Natural Semantic Meta-language as methodology to explore changes and
continuities in a specific cultural model.
Describing a certain cultural model, like D’Andrade and Strauss (1992) and Holland and
Quinn (1987) do, seems to be a complicated process (cited in Campos 2004: 280-281). In this
vision, it seems as if the researchers consider the world as a patchwork of overlapping
‘cultural models’ of which the bits and pieces can be discovered and put together. One of the
problems with fitting people’s lives in models is that one can never be sure whether he has
indeed discovered the right bits and pieces, and if he has collected all of the pieces. The
puzzle will never be completed because one can never be sure about the pieces. To me, it
seems to be far more important to tell the stories of people, to give them a voice and to
recount daily life as it is lived. A more pregnant problem with working with ‘cultural
models’ as a basic assumption is the definition of culture. The danger is that culture is
perceived as a reified entity, while instead culture is dynamic and ever changing.

Giving your child away

As in other countries in Sub Sahara Africa, in Senegal it is fairly well accepted to ‘give’ or
‘lend’ someone else your child. A child is not so much ‘property’ of one pair of parents, the
father and the mother, but it is usually raised by ‘the family’, including grandparents and
siblings of the biological parents. In most Western countries, the sharing of responsibility for
educating children by all family members is rarely seen (Boyden 1997: 205). Drawn from my
own experience, it is possible that a major argument breaks out during a family meeting
when an aunt wants to correct the behaviour of her niece. Educating a child is a private
business, in which only the parents are involved, and, when the children are in school, the
teachers (Ibid. 196). A child is only educated by others than (one of) the biological parents if
there are serious problems, like abuse or severe negligence.
In West Africa, fostering children is a common practice, sometimes perceived as being
negative for the child, sometimes as being positive. Verhoef and Moreli (2007) contradict the
idea that fostered children are generally in an unfavourable position with regard to their
peers. Following them, the most important feature for the wellbeing of a child is that he has a
sense of belonging and feels cherished, whether he is fostered or not (ibid: 58). Bledsoe (1990:
72) describes the same for Sierra Leone: “… the treatment a foster child receives, and its
cultural definition, stem from the relationship from real to foster parents”. She notes that

6
relationships in Sierra Leone are highly hierarchical, as is the case in Senegal. Most of the
talibés come from families at the countryside, of which some live a semi-nomadic life.
Following Mommersteeg (1996: 59), parents talk about ‘handing over’ a child to a marabout.
They fully put their trust in the educational qualities of the marabout. In each Koranic school
there are talibés who have not seen their parents since they have moved to the house of the
marabout. Many inhabitants of the city disapprove of the parents who give their child to a
marabout in the city who sends him out begging, and not keep in touch. The city dwellers
and marabouts alike give two reasons why parents would send their children away: because
of poverty and because of ‘tradition’. Families have one mouth less to feed, which is a way to
deal with food insecurity. Also, many parents have spent a few years with a marabout when
they were young and want the same education for their children.
The marabouts and others in Thiès regard the attitude of the parents as being indifferent,
or at worst not caring. Following them, the parents should contribute materially to the
education of their children, and if not possible they should at least give some attention. One
woman told that parents send their children away out of ignorance; would they know the
difficulties their children are enduring, would they know about all the suffering, they would
keep their children close to them.3
This corresponds to the literature on this subject; parents who give their child to someone
else are usually regarded as parents with an indifferent or aberrant attitude towards the
child (Verhoef & Moreli 2007; Bledsoe 1990: 72). As Bledsoe (1990) has shown, this is usually
not the case. Following her, parents carefully assess which children should go where and for
what kinds of training. Sometimes, the child that is considered the most promising is sent to
a cousin in a city to receive training (Ibid. 74). In Dagana, an area in the north of Senegal
where quite a few Koranic pupils come from, a father told me that people should not think
the parents are careless, on the contrary. He expected a lot from his oldest son, whom he had
sent away with his cousin, a marabout. He had carefully chosen the marabout, whom he
trusted and respected a lot. Following this father, there are a lot more possibilities to earn a
living in the city than at the countryside. He hoped that his son would find a good job and
have a better life than he had.4
Whatever reasons parents might have to hand over their child to a marabout, after this has
happened the responsibility of educating the child lies fully on his shoulders. The marabouts
I spoke with in Thiès experience this as a difficult task: each child brings along his own

3 Interview with Khardiata Diawara, Thiès, 3 June 2005.

4 Interview with a father of a talibé of Seriñ Diallo, Dagana, 18 July 2005.

7
character, that has to be modelled into a good human being. As Foley (1999: 344) notes, the
ideas of what it entails to be a good human being is depending on the cultural setting. In
Senegalese society, more than 95 percent of the population adheres to Islam. Islam is pre-
eminently very present in the public space, and it has strict rules of conduct. When a child
has turned into a pious Muslim, his socialisation is considered successful by the standards of
his society.

‘Moulding’ a child into a good Muslim

In the Koranic school, a talibé does not only learn how to recite the Koran in a proper way,
but also the underlying values and the behaviour of a good Muslim are inculcated into his
mind. Eickelman (1987: 494, cited in Loimeier 2002: 200) describes the Koranic school as a
‘school of life’ in which the socialisation of future Muslims takes place. The students of the
marabout are trained in respect, obedience, humbleness and austerity. All marabouts of my
research enumerate three qualities that a talibé needs to become a good human being: 1)
complete obedience, 2) discipline and 3) humbleness. A good talibé fully submits himself to
his marabout, by which he learns how a Muslim submits himself to God. In this way, they
implicitly learn the values and the social structure of Islamic society (Mommersteeg 1996:
59). One of the marabouts in Thiès is of opinion that talibés will become very valuable
Muslims. He told us: “A talibé can become almost perfect. I have been a talibé myself, so I
know what I am talking about.”5
Following Cissé (1992: 61), children in Islamic societies are generally seen as a kind of
‘mouldable paste’. To become almost perfect, a child’s personality should be moulded in the
form of a good Muslim. Hitting a talibé to mould him to a good Muslim, is seen by some as
inevitable. Following (Mommersteeg 1996: 58), physical punishment of Koranic pupils is a
widespread practice and goes back to the origins of Islamic education. For the Gambia,
Sanneh (1975: 169) describes that some parents even ask the marabout explicitly to hit their
children when they are disobedient. In exchange, following a Malian proverb, all the places
on the body where talibés are hit will be ‘like jewels’ in paradise (Mommersteeg 1996: 58).
In West Africa, physical punishment of children is more accepted by most members of
society than in many Western countries, though West Africans of course also set limits to the
weight of the punishment. It is accepted and sometimes seen as necessary to hit children
when they do something wrong. Threatening with or giving a talibé physical punishment is

5 Interview with Seriñ Sène, Thiès, 23 June 2005.

8
an accepted method to prompt him to do a better effort in learning the Koran, as long as
there is no permanent physical injury. The following anecdote of a marabout underlines this:

‘When I was a talibé myself, every time when a visitor had come, the marabout asked us what
was the colour of his clothes. Each talibé who knew this, was beaten. You see, a talibé is
supposed to concentrate fully on learning the Koran.’6

All the marabouts we spoke with put a great emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge. It is
one of their main aims to inculcate the holy words of the Koran in their talibés. It is an
acceptable way to ‘make a child understand’ certain things with the support of physical
punishment. In the last section before the conclusions, a deeper insight will be given in the
way the Senegalo-Islamic discourse explains the hardship of these children.

The value of suffering

In several West African societies, it is common good that severe hardship will train children
for adult life (Perry 2004: 58; Bledsoe 1990: 75-79). The Wolof saying xale xamul Yallah waay
xamna yar, meaning ‘a child cannot understand God, but he can understand the whip’ is
telling in this regard (Perry 2004: 58). As a young tailor explained ‘one can draw good
lessons from suffering’. It is good if a young child learns that life is not easy, but following
him, talibés suffer too much.7 There is indeed a grey area in which the fine line between
accepted suffering and unaccepted hardship is often blurred.

“Do you like it to be a talibé?” I ask two talibés. The first one answers yes. The second says no,
after which the face of the other darkens. When I ask the second talibé why he does not like it, he
quickly answers that he does like it. (Diary fragment, 15 June 2005)

Early in his life, a talibé learns that his life is in the service of God and of his marabout.
Talibés are also taught not to complain about their way of life. These children are supposed
to make certain sacrifices when they live and learn the Koran in the house of their marabout.
None of the talibés of my research answered that their life was too difficult, in fact, most of
them even said they liked being a talibé. A thirteen year old talibé explained us: ‘God gives
the human being that which is necessary’. He does not consider his life a hard one, because
he knows that God will reward him. To him, as a matter of course begging forms part of

6 Interview with Seriñ Sy, Thiès, 7 June 2005.

7 Interview with the tailor Ibrahima Niang, Thiès, 11 May 2005.

9
obtaining Islamic knowledge. This boy has learned to provide everything in his life of a
religious meaning.
In general, marabouts and talibés alike explain the begging as a valuable contribution to
Islamic education, which matches the results of Cissé (1992: 102-103). When begging, talibés
learn to understand the virtues of submissiveness and humbleness. Another important
aspect of this system is the ‘giving’; everyone who gives something to a talibé will be
rewarded for this in heaven (Ibid.). The ambivalence of the people in the city towards the
talibés manifests itself most obviously in this matter. They condemn the marabouts who
send their talibés out begging, but at the same time they sustain the begging of the children
by giving them alms to receive blessings. It is remarkable that not only the citizens of Thiès
have an ambiguous standpoint on this, but also the marabouts. When talking about begging
in theory, marabouts elaborate on the underlying values of the concept. However, when
talking about the practice of begging, most of the marabouts argue that they would rather
not send their talibés roaming the streets unsupervised. When it comes to the reality of daily
life, they do not explain the begging of their pupils from an Islamic perspective, but from an
economical one: the parents do not contribute anything, neither does the state, so there is no
other option.
It is unclear whether the marabouts are really as poor as they have told us. It is common
good that marabouts ask the talibés to bring back a fixed amount of money. A marabout with
20 talibés, who asks each of them to bring 150 FCFA a day, will earn 90 000 CFA (137 Euro) a
month. The salary for an office job is around 120 000, people I know, who are lucky to work
in the formal sector, earn around 100 000 CFA per month. Thus, the amount of money that a
marabout can make is fairly high. Leaving aside this more dubious side and assuming that
most of the marabouts do have a difficult life as they emphasized over and over again, the
question remains: why do they do this?
Once again, the Islamic discourse provides for an answer: people who dedicate themselves
to the teaching of the Koran, will be rewarded for this in the hereafter. Following marabout
Sène, the Prophet has made clear that it is very pious to teach the Koran whenever one has
the possibility to do so.8 More marabouts talk of their religious mission or plight they have
towards God and the Muslim community. Marabout Bâ explains that when the judgement
day comes, people’s good and bad deeds will be weighted. He argues:

8 Interview with Seriñ Sène, Thiès, 23 June 2005.

10
 God has created human being from the sand, and human being will return to the sand if God
takes away his life. People who think there is nothing after death, do not have any knowledge.9

Not only the marabouts are remunerated for their deeds, the Islamic discourse also provides
benefit for the talibés. Following many, a talibé is assured of success because God is with him
and will protect him. The life of a talibé is very difficult when he is a small child, but the time
in the Koranic school pays itself back in the rest of their life. If a talibé wants to learn French
for example, or a car mechanic, fork-lift driver or furniture maker, he will learn this double
as quick as his peers who have not learned all the Koranic verses. I have heard many more
examples of talibés who managed to get a high position in Senegalese society, to sustain the
idea that talibés are truly blessed. However, for many it remains uncertain whether they will
reap the harvest in this life or have to wait until the hereafter.

Conclusions

As Foley (1999: 357) has demonstrated, the socialisation of children is different in every
cultural context. Because there are different practices and values in different cultural
contexts, linguistic socialisation practices also vary widely throughout the world. As has
been shown, child rearing practices in Senegal and West Africa in general, are quite different
from practices that are common in the Netherlands and Western Europe. These cultural
settings are almost incomparable and in this paper I have tried to avoid judging the
Senegalese way of dealing with a specific group of children in this society: begging talibés.
It was only during the last weeks of my fieldwork that I started to realise that in fact I was
one of the few persons whom I knew in this city who did not speak about the life of talibés as
being problematic. The citizens who were confronted with these children, NGO personnel,
and even the marabouts themselves expressed their concern about the talibés. The
socialisation of children is one of the reasons for some Senegalese parents to give their child
to a marabout; they see it as a social, educational and religious plight. The children are given
to their teachers in order to become a good Muslim, but more and more objections are voiced
to the difficult life of these children.
The Islamic discourse forms a powerful framework in which the suffering of these children
is explained, but it is countered by other discourses. Many Senegalese object to the begging
of young children, roaming the streets unsupervised and unprotected. Also, they argue that
Koranic education is not eligible to give the children enough intellectual substance to find

9 Interview with Seriñ Bâ, 11 June 2005.

11
their way in Senegalese society. The curriculum of the Koranic school does not provide them
with the right knowledge for working in other sectors than the religious sector. The question
is whether these children are being prepared for adult life in a society that has changed
considerably since the introduction of Koranic education. This leaves us with the disturbing
image that essential elements are lacking in the socialisation of these children. It remains to
be seen if these Senegalese boys will be able to find their way in society, and if they have
learned more than the basics of mere survival.

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