DONAL CRUISE O'BRIEN:DONAL CRUISE O'Brien, who has died aged 71, was Emeritus Professor of Political Studies (Africa) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a leading authority on Islam in Africa.
His interest in Africa was sparked by holidays he spent as a student in Katanga, where his father Conor was the UN representative. When his father served as vice-chancellor of the University of Accra, he visited Ghana.
He chose for his PhD thesis the political situation of the Sufi Muslims in Senegal. He was attracted by the idea of dealing with religious communities, with believers, and reaching people whose organisation had little or nothing to do with European principles.
Also, since the leadership of Senegal’s Sufi communities, marabouts, had established their hierarchies in parallel with the structure of the colonial state, he saw the possibility of a comparison with the role of Christian monasteries in Ireland.
And, in terms of nationalist politics, he was intrigued by the question as to whether the marabouts were lackeys of colonialism or defenders of their own turf.
In Paris he outlined his ideas to the eminent anthropologist Georges Balandier, who suggested that he confine his study to the Muridiyya (Mouride brotherhood): “They are the most interesting ones.” O’Brien adopted Balandier’s suggestion; it made his career, he later said.
The thesis was published as The Mourides of Senegal: a descriptive and analytical study of a Muslim brotherhood (1971). It focuses on the origin and development of the order among the Wolof peoples, the largest and most powerful of Senegal’s “tribal groups”. It examines its structure as well as its economic and political significance.
He was born in Dublin in 1941, one of three children of Conor Cruise O’Brien’s marriage to Christine Foster.
He had fond memories of his father’s storytelling and the books he read to him as a child. He shared his mother’s interest in gardening and love of music. And he remembered her advice not to overdo the intellectual side of life, “as your father has done”.
He remained very close to both parents after their divorce.
His relationship with his father in later life was summed up by a friend: “[I remember] Donal telling me what a trial Conor was, how he’d upset all and sundry, how they would then hit back and hurt him and how he would then come round to your house, feeling hurt and in need of love and support, with the problem at source being that Donal did not really agree with what Conor had said in the first place.
“I asked Donal how he resolved that one. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what I thought was . . . he’s coming to me, wanting my love and support. So, by God, he’s gonna get it.’ It was lovely, and we both drank to it.”
He studied economics at Trinity College Dublin and later read history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and studied political science at Berkeley University. He pursued his doctoral studies at the London School of Economics, supervised by Ernest Gellner.
Saints and Politicians: essays in the organisation of a Senegalese peasant society was published in 1975. His Symbolic Confrontations: Muslims imagining the state in Africa (2003) is a collection of writings over the previous 30 years. He co-edited other books, and contributed articles to a range of academic journals. He also wrote an unpublished mémoire.
He was diagnosed with MS in 1969, and the condition worsened in recent years. Historian Roy Foster, a lifelong friend, said he bore a “terribly disabling illness” with great bravery, and added that with the help of his wife Rita he had enjoyed life to the end.
A former doctoral student, and later friend, of O’Brien’s, Fr Patrick Claffey, remembers him as essentially a listener whose relationship to his students was marked by benevolence and respect. As a scholar he was fascinated by “the idea of power as having its origins in the sacred and also in what he described as ‘the staging of politics’ or politics as theatre.” He is survived by his wife Rita, daughter Sarah and grandchildren Joe and Lily.
Donal Cruise O’Brien: born July 4th, 1941; died July 6th, 2012. A memorial service will be held at St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, at 3.00pm on October 12th.