The president of Burkina Faso threatens to revoke the citizenship of students studying Sharia law in Saudi Arabia.
Report - Ahmed Salem:
While the world criticizes the European minority that deliberately misrepresents the debate on compatibility between Islamic law and democratic systems in Africa, the President of Burkina Faso and military leader, Ibrahim Traoré, despite being a Muslim, has come out with a statement in which he admitted that Islamic law will not be the law of their country.
Traore publicly criticized the religious education that Burkinabe students receive in some Arab countries, thus opening a new front in his government’s conflict with religious institutions operating outside the control of the state.
According to the Senegalese newspaper Dakaracto, Traore said that about 1,000 Burkinabe students are currently enrolled in Saudi Arabia to study Islamic law, instead of acquiring the technical and professional skills that he believes the country needs to develop.
Threat to revoke citizenship
Traore's remarks, made during a nationwide television broadcast, went beyond mere criticism of policies.
He said his government intends to bring the students home, and warned that those who refuse to return could effectively lose their Burkinabe citizenship.
One widely circulated account of his remarks indicated that the number of students not listed in the envoys' register is even higher, claiming that Burkinabe diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia have no records for about 800 of the 1,000 students believed to be there, all of whom are reportedly enrolled in Islamic law programs and not in technical professions.
The Burkinabe president, who describes himself as a devout Muslim, insisted that he was not targeting Islam, saying that every Burkinabe has the constitutional right to practice his religious rites, but he stressed that Islamic law would not be applied in Burkina Faso, and that the country’s constitution superseded any religious law.
A security and development issue
Traoré directly linked the religious training students receive abroad to his government's broader security discourse. He had previously claimed that Burkinabe soldiers had recovered copies of the Quran from rebel hideouts during counter-terrorism operations, using this to suggest that extremist groups exploit religious education and discourse for violent ends.
In a separate speech delivered to community representatives in the Bada'a region earlier this month, he criticized extremist preaching in general, stressing that religion should attract followers through behavior, not intimidation.
He questioned why some Muslim leaders opposed the country's new religious freedoms law.
He linked his government’s position and the controversy surrounding Sharia students to a developmental argument as well: that Burkina Faso, mired in a jihadist insurgency that has been ongoing for years, needs a technically skilled workforce and cannot afford to train large numbers of its young people abroad in religious jurisprudence instead of engineering, health sciences, or agriculture.
A new legal structure behind the speech
Traore’s comments come weeks after Burkina Faso’s Transitional Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted on June 20 a comprehensive new law on religious freedoms, a framework of 112 articles and six chapters that regulates clinic practice while formally affirming freedom of conscience and religion.
The law requires religious associations to join a university body recognized by the state, and restricts the religious activity of public officials while performing their duties.
It imposes new financial controls on the accounts of religious organizations, and stipulates prison sentences ranging from one to seven years for hate speech or incitement to religious hatred.
The authorities describe the law as religiously neutral, aiming to preserve the social cohesion and secular character of the state rather than targeting any particular religion, although it faced opposition for weeks from Islamic religious circles before being passed without amendment.
