The rise and fall of a wondrous village
The new blog post by Luca Bruls tells the story of Sheikh Mahamat Azaraq, a Fulani religious leader whose influence helped him establish a large religious institution despite all the hardships he faced. He brought people together, played a role as a brother, father, and teacher in connecting members of the Maare Fulani, and was an advisor and spiritual guide during the economically, politically and environmentally difficult circumstances for the community.
You can read the full blog here.
Date, time and location
25 September 2025
About the author(s) / editor(s)
Luca Bruls is a PhD candidate in the NWO-funded project Digital warfare in the Sahel: popular networks of war and Cultural Violence. Her PhD project is a study of religious networks in times of conflict in the Sahel.
In 2022 and 2023, Luca was a junior researcher at ASCL in the project Decoding Digital Media in African regions of Conflict. From 2021 until 2023, she was a junior lecturer at the department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Her interest in studying media and smartphone usage more general dates back to her research master, during which she studied TikTok usage among youth in Algeria.
She holds a BA in Arabic Language, a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a ResMA in Middle Eastern Studies. For her master thesis she conducted ethnographic fieldwork on TikTok usage among Algerian youth. Luca also teaches introductory courses in anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.
Posted on 30 September 2025, last modified on 30 September 2025