The Sufi
Brotherhoods
of Senegal

In Senegal, the Sufi brotherhoods and their religious leaders portray themselves as guardians of peace, tolerance and social cohesion. The country is seen as an anchor of stability in a troubled region of the world where Islamists spread their intolerant and violent beliefs. But the peace and stability that the Sufi brotherhoods offer to the Senegalese nation come at a price.

photographs by Christian Bobst
text by Angela Koeckritz

assigned by

Above the grotto in the shade of the cypresses, Abdullay Laye, 62, sits in the circle of the faithful . Laye is the Marabout, an Islamic priest, guardian of the holy grotto. Like almost all Senegalese, he adheres to Sufism, a variety of Sunni teachings.

There are four Sufi brotherhoods in Senegal, four religious communities, Laye belongs to the smallest, the Layene. The Sufis are less concerned with an exact interpretation of the Qur'an, but rather strive to merge with God. "It is a mythical pilgrimage in search of the Creator," says Abdullay Laye. The Layene are the poets of Sufism, sometimes Laye's words remind one of those of a Taoist in China. "We love nature. We preach tranquility, serenity and community," says the marabout, looking out to the sea. "All life comes from the water. All life comes from the light. And the light still lives in this cave." When Abdullay Laye talks about his faith, it has little to do with the image of Islam that radical Islamists propagate; narrow-minded, violent and intolerant. "They have not understood Islam," says Laye. "They have abused it."

Is it because of this attitude, which most Senegalese share, that the country has never experienced a terrorist attack in the age of international terror?

Around 16 million people live in Senegal, 95 percent of whom are Muslims. The country is situated in a troubled area of the world: Islamists are active in the Sahara and in 2012 they overran the north of neighboring Mali. Nigeria, Cameroon and Burkina Faso are terrorized by Boko Haram, Somalia by al Shabab.

In Senegal, too, many young men live without jobs or prospects; nevertheless, the country is considered an anchor of stability. There has never been a coup d'état or civil war; people of different ethnicities and religions live together peacefully. Christians and Muslims celebrate Christmas and the Feast of Sacrifice together, and sometimes they marry among themselves.

This stability has much to do with the role of the Sufi Brotherhoods, which fight against extremist currents and preach peace and tolerance.

Already in the 11th century Sufi missionaries brought Islam to Senegal. Over the centuries, the faith became interwoven with Senegalese traditions. Sufism proved to be permeable, leaving much room for the inexplicable, mystical, fantastic. For a long time, Islam remained a religion of princes, only in resistance to French colonization did the masses  turn to it. The year 1843 fell into turbulent times; France tried to bring all of Senegal under its rule. Clergymen called for a holy war against the occupiers, and many died in the process.

In 1843, what Sufi prophets had long predicted occurred, Abdullay Laye recounts: "The Prophet returned. "In the form of Seydina Limamou Laye, a fisherman, farmer and illiterate man who had never attended a Koranic school. The Prophet did not reveal himself until he was 40 years old. "After his proclamation, he wandered through the alleys for nine days," Laye recounts. "One half of his face was black, the other half white. It was a miracle! But one that the Arabs could never accept: a black prophet." He shrugs his shoulders. "If someone thinks that his skin color makes him smarter, let him. But God is not a racist!

The prophet Limamou Laye called for peaceful coexistence with the occupiers. His followers celebrate their founder as Mahdi, the rebirth of Mohammed, and his son as Messiah, the reincarnation of Jesus. In the shadow on his forehead they want to make out a cross. Islam, Christianity, Senegalese traditions, they are all united in the Layene.

Where in the West there would be an "either-or", in Senegal you often find an "and". A person can believe in science and progress, Islam and magic at the same time without feeling contradictory. The things do not have to be mutually exclusive, they may interweave.

Like Cheikh Seye Baye, 71. In the herb garden of the healer In the middle of Rufisque, not far from the capital Dakar , there is a small paradise, the garden of Cheikh Seye Baye. Huge baobab trees provide shade, it smells like grapefruits and lemons. Baye presents his plants as if they were relatives, most of them he has planted himself.

In his flowing white robe, his dreadlocks graying, his face soft and open, he looks like the epitome of a herbal doctor. He is also a clergyman, Marabout of the Baye Fall, who belong to the Brotherhood of the Mourides. "The Koran has many applicabilities," says Cheikh Seye Baye, "you can also heal with it." says Cheikh Seye Baye, "you can also heal with it.“ To find the great love, to escape from misfortune.“

Baye's arts are holistic, parents and grandparents introduced him to it, he comes from a family of traditional healers. He learned the Koran, read the books of secret knowledge, studied black and white magic. "You must be able to do both. I know how to heal a snake bite, but I also know how to send a snake on a person. Not to do it. But to stop the black magic.
Cheikh Seye Baye learned French, English and German, traveled the world, taught himself IT and computer programming. The bookshelves in his house bend under medical textbooks, herbal fibulae, religious writings, dictionaries.

"The thought of ever being finished slows you down. We are like the trees, every day the roots get deeper and the branches get higher." He now has patients all over the world, in the USA, Sweden and Mexico. "Once one of my patients asked me to travel with the djins, the spirits. I asked him, What for? That's what airplanes are for today."

In each Brotherhood you will find your own surprises. For example a Tijidianidin like Zeyda Moussoukoro Mbaye, 60. During the Friday prayer Zeyda Moussoukoro Mbaye sits in the very back. A woman in a white headscarf among the other women. Hidden behind a paravant. But then the prayer is over and the men push towards her. Powerful wealthy men kneel before her. One after the other. They soflty take her hand, whisper in her ear. And she listens, giving comfort, advice, and blessing. She is like a mother to him, one of them says later, the company director Ibrahim, 38. 

The relationship between spiritual teacher and student is essential in Sufism, guiding the student on his spiritual journey. Ibrahim was 20 when he chose Zeyda Moussoukoro Mbaye as his muhadam, his spiritual guide - to the astonishment of his family. Although the Brotherhood of Tijianiyya has always been popular with women because it allows the initiation of women. And because the Senegalese Grand Leader Ibrahim Niasse had often demanded the emancipation of women. But women had always taught other women.

That changed in Senegal in the 1990s and 2000s, when male high school graduates and students like Ibrahim suddenly chose women as their muhadam. "It was fate. Her spiritual depth attracted me, and because she is a woman, I feel more connected to her. More protected. I can tell her things that I would never say to a man.Meanwhile, Zeyda Moussoukoro Mbaye is the patron of Dahira, the religious association of students of her denomination with more than 600 members.

And because many of the students of yesteryear have become chief physicians, politicians and managers, wherever she goes, Mbaye meets "a familiar face.

Most women in Senegal lead very different lives than Zeyda Moussoukoro Mbaye. Religion, tradition and family law assign them a subordinate status.

And yet they move more freely, sensually and confidently than in many other Muslim societies.

One meets ardent feminists with hijab, working mothers of six children, but also girls who dream of becoming the second wife of a rich businessman. One meets the intellectual in tight dress, strutting into the café in high heels to assure one with a profound knowledge of Islam that the Prophet was in truth a promoter of women. But Mbaye‘s case is extraordinary

She has become a powerful woman. Yet she was once far from that. Zeyda was 14 when her family married her to a distant relative, a stone-rich diamond merchant. He was 26 years older than her, and she was very afraid of him. „He didn‘t want you to love him, but to fear him.“ In total, her husband father fathered 26 children with six wives. More than a third of the married Senegalese live in polygamy. Both Mbaye and her husband are Muslims, but their understanding of Islam could hardly be more different.

He is a Wahabit of Saudi school, of which there are very few in Senegal. Mbaye bore him seven children and raised six more of his ex-wives. She did what he demanded of her. When her mystical dreams became more and more urgent, she decided to let herself be initiated secretly - knowing that her husband was strictly against it.

„When I finally confessed it to him, he went into a rage. He took the furniture out of the house, turned off the water and electricity. For nine years he didn‘t speak a word to me. But the more he stood up to me, the more determined I became.“

Mbaye borrowed a sewing machine, sewed clothes until she had the money to open a studio with six machines. Later she founded six beauty salons, employing 58 people. She practices agriculture and livestock farming, is a member of the chamber of commerce in her hometown of Kaolack, and has founded a transnational network for business women. She got divorced and found a new husband, one she calls a friend.

Mbaye explains her rise with her role as a multiple mother. „I have raised so many children in my life. Even today, friends and relatives still bring me the offspring that they can‘t cope with. All mothers know something about housekeeping. About money. All mothers are educators. That is why we are ideal religious leaders. We are the source.“

The Sandaga market in Dakar: the center of the enterprising Mourides A quarter of breathtaking business activity. Market stalls, shopping malls, flying merchants;  religion and business go together smoothly here. In every parlor hangs the picture of a caliph. At prayer times, the merchants spread out their carpets in the business. Prayer between wrecked cars, textile mountains, on the sidewalk between hurrying passers-by.

Sandaga is the economic center of the Mourides and the hub of a worldwide empire based on the mixture of economy and religion. If you see an African selling sunglasses on the streets of New York or Rome, he is probably Mouride. Mouriden buy container loads of clothes or electronics in China or Dubai and send them to Senegal. Carriage of used European cars to West Africa. Organize the import-export business.

The Mourides prefer to do business with brothers in faith, without a contract and with a handshake. Whenever Mourides find themselves in a new city, they establish a Dahira, a learning and betting circle, which also serves as a social security. When a newcomer arrives in Paris or Bremen, the old-established provide him or her with information, sometimes with accommodation, start-up financing or a job. If someone becomes ill, a wedding or funeral is imminent, his brothers in faith join forces.

"Never become employees, but entrepreneurs," their founder Amadou Bamba had taught his disciples. "That will give you freedom." And it was always about freedom. Like Limamou Laye, Amadou Bamba was born at the time of colonial expansion, in 1853; he too saw no point in fighting the French occupiers. But to submit to them? Not at all. Let the French rule as long as they gave him and his disciples religious freedom! At first the French occupiers had fought Bamba, banished him into exile. Then they learned that he and the other priests could be useful to them. The French were striving for indirect rule and had initially placed their faith in princes and chiefs.

But soon they sought the cooperation of the much better organized clergy. It was an arrangement that benefited both sides. The marabouts translated the orders of the occupiers and in return received extensive autonomy - as well as a share of the profits of the colonial economy. The French administration cultivated in their West African colonies mainly peanuts, which were processed into soap, wax and animal feed in France. The Mourides, who knew how to organize the faithful into work brigades, soon supplied two-thirds of the harvest.

A very specific social contract between the colonial administration and Sufi brotherhoods was created, parts of which still exist today - although the colonial rulers were replaced after independence in 1960 by a government that strictly separated religion and state. It also allows the brotherhoods great freedom, knowing their enormous influence on the electorate. Before the elections, all candidates, regardless of denomination, make a pilgrimage to the religious leaders to secure their goodwill. 

In the 70ies however the peanut harvest could no longer feed most Mourid farmers. When world market prices collapsed in 1978, many of them moved to Dakar, mostly to work as small entrepreneurs. And from there they swarmed out into the world. But regardless of whether one of them becomes stinking rich or remains a poor wretch, he will always donate a large part of his income to Touba.

Visible from afar, the great mosque rises above the buildings of the second largest city in Senegal with a population of three-quarters of a million, to which the state granted autonomy. The magnificent mosque is the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, financed by a massive redistribution from the bottom to the top, from the periphery to the center. Because every Mouride will send a donation to Touba week after week. To increase the glory of the holy city.

Only a few kilometers away from the mosque lives one of whom his followers tell fantastic stories: Serigne Abdou Karim, 54, Marabout. Big landowner. Son of the second caliph, grandson of the founder of the religion Amadou Bamba. By pointing a finger, his disciples say, he can make it rain or lightning. And doesn't divine grace show itself in his fabulous wealth?

The villa, a dream in white marble. In front of the entrance area four luxury cars are waiting, including a Rolls Royce. Peacocks, wild geese and crown cranes stride through the courtyards, a young antilope leaps past, and in between the royal household wanders. Visitors and followers populate Corridors and waiting rooms. After hours of waiting, Serigne Abdou Karim receives an audience. In the shade of a canopy he is enthroned on an armchair while hundreds of disciples sit at his feet. A scene reminiscent of the ancient kingdoms of West Africa.

Behind him stands one who fans air at him, in front of him stands one who chases away the flies, next to him crouches one who balances silver cans on his knees. Finally a griot, a herald, approaches, who starts to announce the greatness of the marabout. Disciples approach the serigne Abdou Karim on his knees, slipping him money while he praises the value of the work. "It is the greatest treasure. It was she who first made Touba, that nothing in the forest, the second largest city in Senegal!" That concludes our audience.

In a suite worthy of a Saudi prince, a feast of lobster, mussels, quails, chicken, sheep and beef is served. In the hours of waiting, one talks with disciples of the marabout. For example the young chauffeur, who was a criminal and drug addict until he found faith. "The marabout has given me a second life."

Education, driver's license, health care. Should he not find a wife to marry, the marabout will introduce him to one, and then he will find them a house. An all-round carefree package in a country where there is virtually no state social security.

The night is almost dawning when the marabout receives a second audience, in a noble salon, bathed in white and gold. Once again two heralds praise his kindness and generosity. "One cannot count what he spends every day to help the people! God has chosen him to help the poor."He himself, says Serigne Abdou Karim, does not even have a bank account. Everything he gets, he distributes. "God", he says, "has arranged it that way. Some get rich, others get poor. That is the divine order. It's good that there are the rich. That creates stability." 

Pah, a clergyman ejects a few hundred kilometers to the west. "They squeeze people out like lemons! Sliding around on their knees before another: That's not true Islam." He had collected enough material to write a book, he says. About how the government grants business licenses to powerful clergymen and the goods they or their middlemen trade with just wave through customs. "They act like a mafia, they have the government in their pockets."

He prefers not to read his real name in the press, as does everyone else who has critical things to say about the coexistence of government and enterprising clergymen. There is the former politician who explains how Mourides enriched himself with illegal logging and laundering of the cocaine money while the law enforcement agencies looked the other way.

There are diplomats who claim that the brotherhoods struck a secret deal with extremist forces in the region: You leave us in peace while we help you to launder your money. There is the scientist who suggests that they encouraged illegal migration.

Strong accusations, but they remain completely unproven, since in a country that is often celebrated as a model student of African democracy, there is almost no research on these issues, which many people rumor about. With such work, one scholar concedes, one would "make two powerful enemies at once: the brotherhoods and the government.

Light and shadow, they are sometimes close together. The great freedoms, the unregulated spaces that the state grants to the Sufi brotherhoods, thwart important reforms that hinder the country's progress. In a state where people rely on family and brotherhoods for their social security, only a few taxes are collected. Consequently, the state has no money to build a social system. This allows the brotherhoods and their marabouts even more to secure their influence, wealth and power by portraying themselves as the guardians of social cohesion, peace and tolerance in the country.

The Korité. The last day of Lent. The only day of the year when cab drivers in Dakar magically do not charge fantasy prices, but the actual price. The streets are like deserted, the sky is overcast, the rain the raining season will bring is already in the air, for which everyone here has been waiting and thirsting for so long.

The Layene in the district of Yoff make their way to the mausoleum on the beach where Limamou Laye, the founder of the religion, is buried. It is a fantastic sight.  A whole quarter, dressed in white. ll come in their most beautiful robes, in full elegance, the women smell of perfume, powder, mint, wearing golden sun glasses, Dubai style.

It s Selfie Time. The women sit down in the yellow sand that surrounds the mausoleum. For hours the Imams have been singing their Laylaylay, which calls for prayer, a meditative state.Watchmen watch to make sure that every headscarf is in place. Women carry babies on their backs, have children beside them. Beggars pass by. The prayer begins. After it is finished the children rush to the water front, playing with the sea, jumping between the waves, cheering and laughing.

The sea washes up garbage and yet it arrived in all its glory, whitecap after whitecap. And one thinks of the sentence that the marabout at the grotto said: From here Islam will be renewed.