This movement is a Sufi order (tanqa) of Muslims, concentrated in north-western Senegal but also with a trading diaspora now extending to the European Union and the United States of America. Followers of this movement, disciples or talibes, look to the leadership of their spiritual guides or mar-abouts, guides in worldly as well as religious matters. Mouride marabouts, and in particular the movement’s supreme leader or Khalifa-General, are seen in Senegal as important political brokers, men with the power to deliver the votes of their disciples in national elections, men who are therefore courted by the national political parties. In recent times however the Khalifa-General has withdrawn from giving electoral advice to the disciples: some of the talibes had grown restless at the marabouts’ apparent subservience to the then governing Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party), with serious rioting after the 1988 elections. After those riots, at the next national elections, Serigne Saliou Mbacke, the Khalifa-General in 1992, withdrew from giving his electoral advice, his ndiggel (Wolof for instruction or order). The Mourides present themselves as obedient to spiritual authority, but there is a concealed democracy also within the movement.
The origins of the movement take one back to the late nineteenth century, the time of French conquest of Senegal, a key date being the year 1886, when the Wolof armies were routed. The movement grew rapidly in the social turbulence following French conquest, the focus of devotion being a Wolof Muslim cleric, Ahmadu Bamba Mbacke. The new French government of Senegal twice sent Ahmadu Bamba into exile (1895-1902, 19027) and miraculous achievements in the face of French colonial persecution were credited to the saintly hero. These miracles remain at the core of Murid belief, remembered in songs and in paintings. The movement appealed notably to the lower orders of Wolof society, to casted persons and to ex-slaves, a charismatic clientele who saw their hero as one who could promise paradise to his followers. Ahmadu Bamba was also a guide in matters of this world, repudiating the idea of armed resistance to the French, of jihad. He suggested rather that Murids should adapt to French conquest by giving themselves over to hard agricultural work as well as to prayer.
The colonial government of Senegal kept Ahmadu Bamba in what amounted to house arrest until his death in 1927, but the government also welcomed the Murids’ commitment to farming, to growing the peanuts upon which the colonial economy depended. The Murid movement came to occupy a well-recognized position under colonial government. There Marabouts were recognized intermediary powers. When Senegal became independent in 1960 Murid leaders were to continue to be given important symbolic as well as substantial recognition by central government. The great mosque at Touba, the Murid capital, was completed in the year 1960, built by Murid devotion, labour and donations, also facilitated by the support of national politicians and bureaucrats. Touba since that time has grown from a large village to being Senegal’s second city in population size. The annual Murid pilgrim-age to Touba, the Great Magal (q.v.) is a national as well as a Murid event—the symbolic assertion of Murid power within the state of Senegal.
Murids have moved on from their early agrarian vocation as they increasingly take to trading in the cities of Senegal, then France, then Europe and the USA. The disciples organize themselves in groups for weekly singing of their founder’s holy verses, in the ‘circle’ or da ‘ira. They remain devoted to the movement’s leadership, in particular to the Khalifa-General, but now the urban disciples organize their own spiritual lives. They are also formidable in matters of business, of street trading: the principal market in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, is now seen to be largely a Murid preserve. Murids are powerful in trade and in national politics, their focus still on the leadership of the Mbacke family, Ahmadu Bamba’s descendants. They probably number more than two million, they count because of their number, their votes and their productivity, but they count politically above all because they are the best organized Muslims in Senegal.
