This article examines the origins and development of colonial Franco-Muslim education, with specific reference to the Médersa of Saint-Louis in Senegal. Often described as a failed experiment on the part of the French administration, the médersa nevertheless marked the first effort to “modernize” Islamic education in West Africa. This article argues that the médersa evolved, and eventually closed, in tandem with local engagement and the establishment of the racist idea of islam noir. It also highlights the role of Algerians and the Algerian médersa system in West Africa to argue for the importance of a trans-Saharan approach to Islamic education in the colonial period.

The so-called “Saharan Divide” separating sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa into distinct fields has a long and complicated history. Paradoxically, given its dense historiography, this divide is particularly pronounced in scholarship on the colonial period. This article proposes an approach to researching across this division, centered on research in multiple African archives, to build a “multi-local” understanding of colonial-era trans-Saharan Africa. This approach is illustrated by the story of Algerians who taught in colonial schools in Mauritania and French Soudan, and by the author’s discovery of this story in sites across northwest Africa. This approach can help scholars reconceptualize multi-sited research and reevaluate the Area Studies divisions that continue to structure knowledge of African history.