In the first decades of the twentieth century, Mauritanian jurists debated three primary responses to French colonization: armed resistance (jihad), emigration (hijra), or peaceful submission to French rule. Arguments regarding taqiyya, or precautionary dissemblance, are surprisingly prevalent in this debate. Scholars who justified submission to French rule did so in part by citing Qur’an 3:28, which prohibits alliances with unbelievers except as a precaution, to protect oneself; this verse is the primary proof-text for the doctrine of taqiyya. Advocates of hijra rejected this argument in part by distinguishing the Mauritanian context from those circumstances that, to their minds, would allow for legitimate recourse to taqiyya. The role of taqiyya in this debate is surprising for two reasons. First, this doctrine remains overwhelmingly associated with Shi’i populations. Scholars have been keenly interested in the practice of taqiyya among Moriscos, Iberian Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity beginning in 1501-1502, in part precisely because of their Sunn? Muslim identity. Moriscos adhered to Islam in secret but performed normally prohibited actions in public in order to appear Christian and to protect themselves from harm. The Mauritanian debate regarding colonialism provides us with a second clear case of Sunn? taqiyya in the Islamic West, but one that has received almost no scholarly attention. This neglect may be explained in part by the relatively recent publication of the relevant legal texts. Dozens of legal opinions (fatwas), letters, treatises, and poems composed by Mauritanian scholars debating the proper response to French colonialism were made available only with the 2009 publication of al-Majm??a al-kubr?. This modern 12-volume compilation contains approximately 6800 legal texts composed by West African and Saharan M?lik? jurists between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. This rich compilation provides the primary source material for this study. The second cause for surprise, and interest, is that scholar and Sufi leader Sidiyya Baba uses taqiyya as a justification for submission in a prominent 1903 fatw? solicited and distributed by the French. I argue that the French sponsorship of this text challenges contemporary Islamophobic rhetoric that casts taqiyya as a doctrine used by Muslims to facilitate their deceptive, malicious infiltration of Western societies. In this case, France encouraged the embrace of this concept in order to further their own conquest and exploitation of West African societies.