Day 60 : Book Excerpt : The Sahara- A Cultural History

The arrival in the Islamic Sahara of individuals preaching the Christian gospel was often seen as a threat not only to the quiet life of those living unremarkably in remote oases, but also to the authority, and possible stability, of the state. Where one foreign preacher was allowed to wander, others might follow, and men of the Good Book were sometimes the forerunners of men of the gun. Suspicion thus fell on Christian missionaries, who were viewed as theologically unsound and harbingers of conquest, perhaps reporting back on a town’s defences or the disposition of its inhabitants.

Few nineteenth-century missionaries were in the direct employ of their national governments but the majority of them unquestionably arrived with a strong belief that European imperial rule was in the best temporal and spiritual interests of the natives. Yet Islam was, and is, so dominant that any success on the part of European missionaries in finding converts among the denizens of the Sahara probably enjoyed no more than single figures.

The most famous foreign missionary to live in the Sahara was Charles Eugene de Foucauld (1858-1916). As a young man, the Strasbourg-born, aristocratic Foucauld was fond of those things most young men appreciate, including women and wine. General Laperinne, known in French history as the conqueror of the Sahara, and military cadet with Foucauld at the Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, used to say that when they trained together, “The only thing Foucauld liked about the mass was the wine.” Laperinne’s fame was such that during French rule Tamanrasset was called Fort Laperinne, becoming Tamanrasset only after Algerian independence. Although somewhat dissolute, Foucauld did well as an army officer, attracting some fame in France for his travels through southern Morocco, disguised as one Rabbi Joseph Aleman, gathering topographical and other intelligence for French military cartographers, for which exploits the Societe Geographique of Paris awarded him their Gold Medal.

Whatever else in his background or upbringing might have influenced his development, it was Foucauld’s travels in the Sahara that were the catalyst for his transformation in adulthood. Leaving the army, he toyed with the idea of converting to Islam before becoming a Trappist monk, to the surprise of everyone who knew him. Twelve years later, after living and studying in Palestine, whose deserts he found too heavily populated for his extreme ascetic tastes, he asked to be sent back to the Sahara. Foucauld moved to one of the Sahara’s most remote spots, Assekrem, which means “the end of the world” in Tamasheq, the Tuareg language. In the Ahaggar Mountains, thirty miles from the famed if hardly accessible Tamanrasset, the site provided Foucauld with the solitude for which he yearned.

Like St. Anthony 1600 years earlier, the desert’s loneliness was precisely what appealed to Foucauld. As one diary entry noted, “I find this desert life profoundly, deeply sweet. It is so pleasant and healthy to set oneself down in solitude, face to face with eternal things; one feels oneself penetrated by the truth.” Yet in spite of choosing the life of a hermit, Foucauld also frequently bemoaned his isolation and enjoyed the company of his compatriots on the rare occasions they visited.

Over time the Tuareg accepted Foucauld’s presence, allowing him to live among them for the next fifteen years. In terms of his mission to convert them, Foucauld must be considered a failure. As he wrote in a letter, those he converted consisted of “an old black woman at Beni Abbes. I also baptised a small baby who was in danger of dying, who had the joy of leaving this earth almost immediately for heaven. Lastly, I baptised a 13- year-old boy, but it was not I who converted him. He was brought to me by a French sergeant who had taught him his catechism and prepared him to receive the sacraments. You see, my dear brother, I am really a useless servant. Of more practical use, Foucauld produced the first dictionary of Tamasheq. One of the more intriguing discoveries he made while compiling this was that the language has no word for virgin.

~~The Sahara- A Cultural History -by- Eamonn Gearon