More than 90% of the population of Senegal, an officially secular country, profess the Islamic faith. Besides being Sunnis (like the majority of Muslims), the dominant form of Islam is Sufi: this means it belongs to the mystical trend whose adherents (talibé) of the brotherhoods (tariqa) follow the directives of the spiritual guides (sheikhs, better known as ‘marabouts’) to follow correctly the ‘Path that will lead them to God’.

This path, apart from some small differences in the practice of the cult, is based on the Koran and the Sunnah (traditions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) and the central rite of Zikir (or Dhikr), repetition of the principle of the unicity of God, “ʾilāha ʾillā -llāhu.Senegalese Sufism has, however, its differences in understanding the meaning of ‘adherent’ who was traditionally a hermit who renounced material life but is now a disciple in search of God, immersed in ordinary daily life.

The specific element of Senegalese Islam, both of the brotherhoods and the Marabouts, lies in the importance acquired by the religious leaders who are spiritual guides but also masters of life, who introduced Islam to the area but adapted it to cultural context. The result: a sort of Islam which is living and variegated, moderate and open, based upon peace, tolerance and traditional African values and on relationships of co-existence with Christian and animist minorities.

There are four Senegalese brotherhoods: Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah, Muridiyya and Lahiniyyia. The first two, which are more ancient and exogenous, are schools of Islam that helped to Islamise Senegal between the XVIII and XIX centuries; the others are more recent and autochthonous, having been founded at the end of the XIX century. While the Qadiriyya may boast of being the oldest brotherhood, the Tijaniyya is the one with the largest number of faithful; the Muridiyya is the better known while the Layene is the only one to tie itself to a single ethnic identity, Wolof. Some are internally fragmented but each tariqa (brotherhood) has its General Caliph, its wird (a collection of prayers and invocations said using beads), places of worship and pilgrimages, as well as its own means of diffusion and iconography: the images of their holy founders and Caliphs are to be seen everywhere, painted on walls and in shops and hanging
in buses and taxis.

The Qadiriyya Brotherhood. One way, two souls.
In the XIV century, the Qadiriyya spread to other countries besides Arabia, North Africa, Mauritania, Mali, and Senegal. It was founded by Abdul Qādir al-Jilani (1077-1166), a learned Sufi ascetic who preached at the then renowned Islamic centre of Bagdad. In Senegal, the propagation of the first and oldest brotherhood came about through two personalities who gave rise to two groups of Qadiri.

Abdul Qādir al-Jilani, founder of the Qadiriyya Brotherhood.

The largest group of Qadiri faithful in Senegal has its centre of worship in Mauritania, at Nimzatt. The faithful refer to the Fâdil dynasty whose initiator was a direct descendant of the Prophet, Sheikh Muhammed Fâdil; the existence of so many groups of Qadiri scattered throughout Western Africa is explained by the fact that he had sons. The spread of different ethnic groups in Senegalese territory came about through his son Sheikh Saad-Bouh, whose descendants became not only the Caliph of Nimzatt but also the Qadiri families in various parts of Senegal. Even though the Senegalese locality of Guéoul (North) may consider itself the national reference point, the capital of worship and the residence of the Caliphate nevertheless remain at Nimzatt.
Another branch of the Qadiri disciples, whose adherents describe themselves as ‘Qadiri of Senegal’ or ‘of Ndiassane’, traces its origin to the Kounta family. The initiator of the dynasty was Sheikh Sidy Moctar Al Kountiyou (1724-1811), a sapient who was stationed on the present border between Mali and Mauritania, but it was Sheikh Bou Kounta who settled in Senegal and founded Ndiassane, in the north of the country a few kilometres from Tivaouane, built a mosque there together with schools for the formation of disciples and set up the Caliphate.

Worship and Pilgrimages
After each of the five daily prayers, the Qadiri order requires the recitation of a series of formulas asking God’s forgiveness and prayers of the Prophet that are repeated 200 times, ending with the Zikir.
The Senegalese Qadiri are also noted for the traditional musical accompaniment of five different drums that are used during the various ceremonies. Even though the two groups of Qadiri in Senegal are united by the wird (a collection of prayers), they are distinguished by their different ascetic styles and daily life. In fact, the Qadiri of Ndiassane respect the autochthonous dress and customs; the members of the Fâdil family bring together the Senegalese and Mauritanian cultures of dress, furnishings and their way of making tea.

Places of pilgrimage indicate certain differences. Each year the Qadiri Fâdil go to Nimzatt to receive the blessing of the Caliph on the day of the korité (the feast of the end of Ramadan). At the same place, the faithful gather on 22 July each year to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Sheikh Saad-Bouh.
In Senegal, the Qadiri Fâdil celebrate the Gamou (the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet) at Guéoul, on the same day that it is celebrated by the Tijane at Tivaouane. The Qadiri of Ndiassane, instead, celebrate the baptism of the Prophet a week after the Gamou in their own villages, which become, on that day, the goal of their pilgrimage. At the present time, 8% of Senegalese belong to the Qadiriyya Brotherhood. (L.d.M.)

On one of the Atlantic beaches of Yoff, rises the Great Layene Mosque-Mausoleum. The low cube-shaped, white building surrounded by golden sands and crowned with a green cupola, contains the tomb of the founder of the Brotherhood, Seydina Limamou Laye and his two sons, Seydina Issa Laye, the first Khalif of the Brotherhood (1909-1949) and Seydina Madione Laye II, a brother and successor to the latter (1949-1971).

The small Layene community is made up of the Lebou, of the Wolof ethnic group.  For the Layene, nothing is the result of chaos but everything derives from destiny seen as the divine plan. This includes names. While Limamou means ‘the guide’ (Al Imam), the name of his son Issa is the Wolof version of Jesus.

Seydina Limamou Laye, founder of the Layeniyya Brotherhood.

Born in Yoff about the middle of the XIX century, Seydina Limamou Laye, aged forty, called by God, declared himself Mahdi, ‘the awaited’ in the Islamic tradition. His community rejected him and then, after being exiled to Gorée by the French, he moved to a place a few kilometres away on the shore where he founded the Layene community at Cambérène. Limamou Laye died in 1909 and the work was continued by his son Issa, aged thirty-three: the age Jesus was when he died.In accordance with Muslim belief, which assigns a fundamental role to Jesus among the five chosen prophets sent by God (after Noah, Abraham and Moses but before Mohammed), Jesus would have been called by God to be concealed in Heaven while waiting to return to earth. According to the Layene, Jesus did so in 1909, in the person of Issa, to complete the mission and have descendants and a tomb like all human beings and more besides.“In the New Testament and in the Koran, explains Macalou Cissé, a Muslim researcher who became a Layene, Jesus affirms that he is the ‘star of the morning’ announcing a new day and would return at the end of time. Therefore, just as in the first mission, Jesus came to announce the future coming of the ‘Sun’, the universal prophet Mohammed, at the beginning of the last century he returned to confirm the reward of Mohammed in the person of the Mahdi, and definitively conclude the prophetic cycle. And just as the morning star and the sun rose in the west, they must also set in the east. The place where we are at present corresponds to the most western point of Africa and, in our view, of the world”.

The cave of Ngor, near the sea and next to Yoff, is the goal of a pilgrimage that celebrates yearly the Call of Limamou Laye. In the cave, a place of recollection, Limamou Laye said he waited more than a thousand years before coming into the world. And Cissé: “In the Koran it is written that Mohammed said that, after his death, he would have stayed in the tomb for three days and would then have taken a ‘step’, even though it is not specified in what direction: our belief is that it is right here in the most western part of Africa and of the earth, in this cave on the Atlantic seaboard, that we can find the spot referred to by Limamou Laye”. Calculations show that, from the death of Mohammed to the birth of Limamou Laye, 1211 years passed. The Layene community is presently represented by the fifth Caliph, Abdoulaye Thiaw Laye.
The principles that form the structure of Layene thinking and practices are clearly defined: solidarity, equality, tolerance and purity of spirit. There are no differences of class or social status: those with economic resources bestow their donations anonymously on the Brotherhood to help brothers in difficulty. Equality is a well-founded and radical value. White clothes prevent dress from becoming a symbol of riches.

Yoff, Ndigala, and Cambérène are the three main holy cities for the Layen. Though they are located just a few kilometres from Dakar, the capital, they are real independent districts where religious principles determine the norms to be observed.  Today, it is estimated that around 6% of all Senegalese belong to the Layeniyya Brotherhood.
What does the future hold for the Brotherhoods? According to various analysts, the power of the Marabouts is slowly diminishing due to secularisation, urbanisation and migration. The globalisation and social media processes are playing an increasingly important role among the youth who are starting to reject rules and submission dictated by the various Brotherhoods.
On the other hand, there is also the birth of more integralist groups which, though minorities, may one day grow and begin to question the Senegalese model.

Luciana De Michele

Touba, the holy city of the Muridiyya Brotherhood, situated in the centre of the country, though a religious city, stands out for its commercial character which comes from the popular motto of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, founder of the city and of the Mourides: “Pray as if you were to die tomorrow and work as if you were to live forever”. Prayer as a means of coming close to God and gaining Paradise and work as a means to satisfying material needs: this is the life in which Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba educated his disciples.

Touba, founded in 1888, rises at the intersection of the three historical Wolof kingdoms of Cayor, Baol and Yolof, about 200 kilometres to the east of Dakar. It is said that Ahmadou Bamba wanted to create his brotherhood on that spot, just seven kilometres from his native village of Mbacké Baol, following a vision.
It was in 1883 that thirty-year-old Sheikh Amadou Bamba made a pact of fidelity with the Prophet who appeared to him and ordered him to guide his disciples on the right Way to God. It was at that point that this great man of culture and strict orthodoxy claimed independence from the Qadiri Brotherhood, whose wird he practised, to create his own: this is how the Muridiyya (from the Arabic mourid, ‘disciple’) at Mbacke Cayor, in the Senegalese hinterland north-east of Dakar came about.

Senegal. Mural on a wall in Dakar showing leaders of the Mouride, including Ahmadu Bamba (right, in white) and Ibrahima Fall (right, blue), and El Hadj Malick Sy (left), or Mouhamadou Fadilou Mbacké.

Sheikh Amadou Bamba created a number of villages in the heart of the same region before founding Touba, where the largest mosque in Sub-Saharan Africa was built with the contributions of all the talibés, especially those of the United States and Europe. Each year, millions of the faithful throng the city for the great mourid pilgrimage, the Great Magal.Well versed in the Koran, Amadou Bamba, known as Serigne Touba (Sheikh of Touba), composed more than seven and a half tons of writings in theology, Sufism, grammar, law and good etiquette: some of these he buried or threw into the sea so as not to reveal to others all the secrets gained from God, while another part is kept in the library of Touba located close to the mausoleum. Reading verses of these texts (khasidas) and part of the Koran is the foundation of the Mourid wird.

Consistent with the values of non-violence and forgiveness, Sheikh Amadou Bamba was known for his peaceful opposition to colonisation and to have survived, unlike all his religious predecessors, being abused and exiled by the French authorities. Both legendary anecdotes and factual evidence show what Sheikh Amadou Bamba had to endure during thirty years of persecution, combatting the colonialists by means of his faith alone. He never denied his faith even under threat of death when, in 1895, the French governor in Saint-Louis, the colonial capital in those days, convoked him and another 83 religious leaders, demanding that they abandon their faith. The only response Serigne Touba gave was to recite two series of Islamic prayers. To this day, in Saint-Louis, each year on 5 September a pilgrimage is held (the Magal of the two rakkas) to commemorate the event.
After several years’ exile in Gabon to which he had been condemned by the French governor, other exiles to the Congo and Mauritania and the guarded stays in Thieyene and Djourbel, the French gave in, recognised his qualities and raised Sheikh Amadou Bamba to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honour.

In this aerial photo, pilgrims from the Mouride Brotherhood arrive at the Grand Mosque of Touba during the celebrations of the Grand Magal of Touba, in Senegal, Oct. 6, 2020.

The preaching based on the values of peace in total submission to God and on ethics of work gave the Mourid faithful, who had rapidly grown in number through many conversions from the Tijani faith, the distinction of being the most active emigrants in the world and an economic power in the country. Apart from being the best known and most mediated brotherhood, it is also the most influential, politically speaking, because of the popularity of its many religious leaders who became so out of merit or because they are descendants of Sheikh Amadou Bamba. Being Marabouts, they, in their turn, obey the General Caliph of Touba. Since 2010, that post has been filled by Sheikh Sidy al Moukhtar Mbackè.
Recently, the General Caliph Al Moukhtar Mbackè invited the Moslem faithful to pray and recite the Sacred Koran for an end to the Coronavirus pandemic. In the edict, those Koranic schools with a large number of students are asked to complete the recitation of the entire Koran three times throughout the day while medium-sized schools were asked to recite the Sacred Book twice in one day. Small Koranic schools with just a few students were asked to do so once only.

The Baye Fall, Sufis, ‘The Heretics’
Ibrahima Fall was still young when a voice in a dream suggested he seek out Sheikh Amadou Bamba and dedicate himself entirely to him. Having left everything and travelled much, in 1884 this brilliant student of Islamic studies found his master. From then on, Ibrahima Fall would serve his guide devotedly through reverential submission, until Serigne Touba himself ordered him to withdraw and found his own community.
It was then that Bayefallism (in Wolof baay means, ‘father’) came into being, whose disciples, called Baye Fall, often gather around their Marabouts in genuine communities.
They do not know the meaning of intolerance and have no time for any form of fundamentalism. They make no distinctions based on race, religion, or colour. They are distinguished most for their respect for every human being and their outright pacifism.

They esteem women as much as men: they do not demand they wear the veil and believe education must be equally available to all. They see themselves as totally Islamic. Sometimes criticised within the Senegalese Islamic community for their non-observance of two of the pillars of Islam (the Ramadan fast and praying five times a day); the Baye Fall have nevertheless accentuated the importance of the Zikr. Its repetition has given rise to nocturnal songs in which the talibé, marching in a circle around the drums, try to reach a state of trance. The Mecca Pilgrimage is substituted with that to the great mosque of Touba where the tomb of their founder Ahmadu Bamba is located.
The Baye Fall are proud of their culture and detest all external influence. They have a very strong sense of community.  Individual Baye Falls do not own material goods but place all they have at the disposal of the Marabout, the spiritual guide.

The Baye Fall have also instituted the Caliphate among the descendants of Sheikh Ibrahima Fall, based in Mbackè, at the gates of Touba, even though their Caliphs still submit to the General Caliph the Mourides.
Bayefallism presents itself as a real sub-culture, rich in symbolic elements: one can recognise a Baye Fall from their Rasta hairstyle, their ndiakhass (coloured patchwork) tunics, their thiaya (baggy trousers), large belts and black or brown woollen caps with pompoms.
Besides the Great Magal of Touba and the Magal of Saint-Louis, often during the year, there are smaller pilgrimages corresponding to the anniversaries of the deaths of the Caliphs who succeeded Sheikh Amadou Bamba (his children and nephews) and of his mother, Mariama Bousso, whose mausoleum is to be seen in Prokhane (close to Kaolack). In Djourbel it is possible to visit the homes of Sheikh Amadou Bamba and Sheikh Ibrahima Fall. (L.d.M.)