1. Sanneh 1979 argues for an earlier, thirteenth-century date for al-Hajj Salim Suware.

2. The phrase is that of Ivor Wilks (1984), to whom I am heavily indebted for his discussion of al-Hajj Salim and the Suwarian tradition.

3. For the career of al-Hajj Mahmud Karantaw, see Levtzion 1968: 147-51, Hiskett 1984: 168-70, and Wilks 1989: 100-103.

4. For a history of the "Wahhabi" movement in West Africa, see Kaba 1974 and Amselle 1988; see also Niezen 1990 for a description of a rural "Wahhabi" community in Mali.

5. See, e.g., Kaba 1974. Mervyn Hiskett (1984: 290) goes so far as to label them "the religious wing of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in West Africa."

6. On the role of rote memorization in other traditions of Islamic learning, see Eickelman 1985 and Santerre 1973.

7. Reichmuth 1989 describes comparable trends in Islamic education in Nigeria.