Postcards from Dakar: Being Muslim

Islam in Senegal is a lot different from the Islam in the Middle East and places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, so a lot of the things that Americans “know” about Islam don’t even apply here. Sometimes I’ll learn something that clarifies things that have confused me, but nearly as often, I will learn something that contradicts what I thought I already knew and which just leaves me more confused. So take this with a grain of salt. The chances that I don’t always know what I’m talking about are pretty good.

The Islam practiced in Senegal is a very particular brand. Most Americans now know the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims (or at least know that there is a difference). Technically, Senegalese Muslims are Sunnis, but they are much more accurately described as Sufis. Sufism is a form of Islam that emphasizes mystical aspects and allows for the charismatic style of leadership exercised by the marabouts. African animism found common ground with Muslim mysticism, and as a result, Senegalese Islam is deeply infused and entwined with ancient practices and beliefs. My literature professor likes to say that Senegal is 95% Muslim, 5% Christian, and 100% animist. By way of illustration, he told us a story about an old man that he picked up on his way back Dakar after visiting his parent’s village. To show his gratitude for the ride, the old hitchhiker gave my professor the words to an incantation that would protect him from car accidents. Senegalese wrestling matches are also a good place to observe traditional practices in action. I watched some on TV once. Some of the wrestlers doused themselves in oil that had been blessed by their marabouts to ensure their victory.

Muslims here belong to brotherhoods. There are four major brotherhoods in Senegal, but the overwhelming majority of people belong to either the Mouridiya and the Tijaniya. The Tijaniya was founded by Moroccans a long time ago, but the Mouridiya was founded by a Senegalese, Cheikh Amadou Bamba, during the height of French colonialism in the 19th century. Its early history is closely tied in with the popular resistance against colonial rule. Today, the Mouridiya is the most important brotherhood in Senegal.

Cheikh Amadou Bamba and a devoted student of his, Cheikh Ibra “Lamp” Fall, are highly revered figures for Mourides. During his lifetime, there was only ever one photograph taken of Amadou Bamba, and it’s probably the most recognized image in Senegal. Towards the end of the 19th century, France was feeling threatened by how popular Bamba was getting, so they exiled him from Senegal. In 1907, they let him come back, and this event is celebrated every year by the Mourides by a huge pilgrimage to Touba, the seat of Mouride power.

This year, the pilgrimage, called the Magal, was on Valentine’s Day, and I already know that my biggest regret about my semester in Senegal will be that I didn’t go to Touba for the Magal. I had a few friends who went and who invited me to come with them, but I was overwhelmed at the idea of all the crowds and traffic jams. I then spent a monumentally boring weekend in an empty city, wishing I was in Touba with the rest of the world.

There are a lot of little things that let you know that you’re in a Muslim country. There’s a big mosque on just about every major road, and you’ll see the smaller minarets of neighborhood mosques poking up between the houses in the more residential areas. I am woken up before dawn when the muezzin starts calling everyone to the first prayer of the day. I think the prayer times are figured according to where the sun is in the sky, so they might change slightly every day. The first prayer, for instance, is a several minuets earlier now that it was when I first got here.

Sometimes people will go into the mosques for the prayers, but if there isn’t one handy or the person can’t stray too far from their job or their companions, they’ll pray wherever they are. You’ll see brightly colored teakettles next to every shop or market stall, which people use for ablutions before they pray. The demarcation of a sacred space is very important. Tening, our old maid, was Muslim, and I don’t think she had a prayer mat but would pray on her shawl, and once I even saw her use an empty rice sack.

Islam gets into everything here. Even the language is infused with it. The future tense in Wolof is pretty much just present tense with an “inshallah” (or “God willing”) attached to it, and people even toss it in when they’re speaking French. If you pay attention to a Wolof conversation, especially if it’s just getting started and there are lots of salutations to get through (salutations are very important in Senegal), you’ll hear “Alhamdoulilai” (or “Thanks be to God”) as the response to lots of questions. The car rapides have blessings written all over them. People walk around with chapelets, or rosary-like prayer beads, either wrapped around their hands or dangling loosely so they can flick through the beads as they whisper the prayers to themselves or say them in their heads.

Women wearing burkhas and Muslim headscarfs is rare. Wearing the scarf is definitely a personal choice and not a cultural norm in Senegal. Also, the women who do wear the scarf tend to choose scarves that are neon pink and/or covered in sequins.

Marabouts of any brotherhood are very powerful, and the head marabouts of each brotherhood, or caliphs, are enormously powerful and wealthy. The brotherhoods have control over the vast fields of peanuts, which is Senegal’s cash crop. People also pay their marabouts to pray for them. The marabouts are widely criticized (at least, among my Catholic family and my professors) for amassing such staggering individual wealth while huge numbers of their followers are experiencing economic hardships if not downright poverty.

When a caliph dies, his son becomes the next caliph. Because of this, certain surnames in Senegal carry a lot of weight. For the Tijanes, the caliph’s family is Sy, for the Mourides, it’s Mbacké. You see these names everywhere: on signs, shops, car rapides, t-shirts. If people can claim a connection to these families, they will. I’ve heard that there’s a lot of intermarriage in these families, and powerful marabouts can sometimes have dozens of wives (though technically you’re only allowed four, according to the Coran and Senegalese law).

Even though the Senegalese people are all very devoted to their religion of choice, Senegal is a religiously tolerant country. According to the Senegalese constitution, Senegal is a secular state. There’s no sharia law here, although some things have a Muslim flavor, such as the allowance for men to marry up to four wives and the option of unequal inheritances based on the sexes of one’s children. No political parties can be founded along religious lines (or ethnic ones, for that matter), and religious discrimination is also illegal. There is little friction between Catholics and Muslims and between the brotherhoods. The different religious groups like to make public signs of their solidarity. The different brotherhoods will send delegations on each other’s pilgrimages, and the Catholics will too. Muslims and Catholics are friends with each other, and intermarriage is not unheard of. Senegal’s discrimination problems fall more along the lines of gender, class, and sexuality (being gay is actually illegal here).

All that said, Islam is pretty bound up in Senegalese politics. It is impossible for anyone to get elected in Senegal without the support of the marabouts. The caliphs have the power to issue what’s called an ndigël, which is essentially a command. When people join the brotherhoods here, especially the Mourides, they take an oath of allegiance to their caliphs and swear to follow the commands. The leadership of the brotherhoods has been instrumental in some of Senegalese policy-making. For instance, the government of Senegal passed a law banning excision, or female genital mutilation, which is an important traditional practice among several ethnicities within Senegal. One of the caliphs objected to the law and it was suspended.