‘The holy opacity of the organization of the pilgrimage’: comparing the state’s management of the hajj in contemporary Senegal and Cameroon

The logistics needed to bring Muslims to Mecca is mediated by the modern state, which has become an unescapable political actor in making possible this sacred duty. The literature has not fully explored how states have performed their role in the organization of the hajj in the contemporary era. This article compares the political organization of the hajj in Senegal and Cameroon since the early 1990s. Whereas the former has followed a more democratic trajectory, the latter is an electoral autocracy. We argue that the two states differ along three dimensions: first, whereas the state of Senegal deepened the institutionalization of the organization of the hajj, the Cameroonian state has intervened largely through informal practices. Second, the Senegalese state increasingly desecuritized the organization of the hajj, treating non-state actors as legitimate partners. By contrast, its Cameroonian counterpart has securitized non-state actors, seeing them as suspicious entities. Finally, Senegal legitimizes its role in the organization of the hajj by defining itself a provider of a public service and a partner of large Sufi brotherhoods, in contrast to Cameroon where the state stages the personal favours generously provided by the President to the pilgrims, in exchange for their loyalty.