Healing practices among the Senegalese community in Paris’

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Dafne Accoroni

1. Magic, witchcraft and religion.

The concept of magic, witchcraft and religion can be used to give sense to differentexperiences and provide explanatory models for human behaviours and beliefs in different contextsand with varying meanings. One line of interpretation has viewed them as the response to theuncertainty of life, a way to contain it, through apotropaic means of defence and ward off thenegative in life (de Martino, 1959). Anthropological studies (Ciekawy, 1998) have interpretedkinship as a system able to preserve the community from the outer world, whose intrusion andthreat has been explained in terms of witchcraft and magic. Similarly, the relationship between localrealities and the global world, between tradition and modernity have been looked at in the attemptto analyse the role of magic and culture in a fast developing world, in terms of the question ofaccess or rather, exclusion to resources (Appadurai, 1996). Mythology, symbols and cosmogoniesalso endow a way of being in the world, of determining power, be it political, religious oreconomic. Religion, embodying the sacred into moral values and habitus (Bourdieu, 1977),exhibits, by and large, a sophisticated formalization of beliefs and complex rituals which can beconstrued as the opposite end of popular faith and practices dealing with the unknown.

An anthropological exam of African societies cannot avoid such categories, since their rolein every day life, both in the past and at present, forged the hermeneutical framework to deal withthe existential issue of how securing the survival of the community and more broadly guaranteeingits cohesiveness in the face of the threats life presented. These ranged from war, invasion, illnessand famine to the most subtle degrees of what can not be controlled by the human action: changeand uncertainty. In the West, where technological progress and scientific knowledge seem to havegained control and established their rationale, religion has not disappeared from the public arena asexpected (Habermas, 1991). The undercurrent phenomena of occultism in Europe, the proliferationof fortune tellers and clairvoyances testimony of a more universal search for answers andreassurances which cannot be restricted to the African continent alone.

The African cultural landscape is dotted with the figures of healers, sorcerers, traditional andreligious healers dominating the forces of nature, linking the human sphere with the supernatural,and with the intra-human realm of the spirits (jinns). Thus, they become the necessary ingredientsof the reflection on the ways in which health and healing were managed, addressed and deliveredwithin the specificity of the cultural context of these society. The diagnosis and prognostication ofillnesses in terms of magical occurrence entailed a series of explanations and actors whichencompassed the body and the mind, the material and the immaterial. The healer had to workthrough a chain of signs and signifiers to disclose the cause of the illness and tackle its effect (Sow,1980). Health and illness do not describe per se any specific disease or anticipate any understandingof it. Culture bound syndromes (Kleinman, 1980; Littlewood, 1989, 1993) reflect experiences ofpain and suffering which take on the nomenclature and lexicon of the cultural agency whichdesignates them. Transculturally, healing conveys the appropriation of meanings and treatmentsarticulated by its bearers and within a shared system of values.

Ginzburg (1989), in his study of the Shabbat in Europe, outlines the intersection of thehistorical and anthropological analysis, in what he describes as the morphology of events. Thediachronic developing of history can miss out individuals’ experiences, underlying concepts andtensions, why and how phenomena have been adhered to, what were the consumption and/or theresistance to a determined knowledge, to what extent it meant power, exclusion or a niche.

Thus, this paper will attempt to frame the concept of baraqa (blessing) as the key link tounderstand the use of magic in Senegal during the XIX-XX centuries as a means both to guarantee

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the survival of the community in the face of the French colonial rule and to heal through themedium of the Sufi mysticism. Cheick Amadou Bamba (1853 ?-1927), founder of the Senegalesebrotherhood of Mouridyya, will be taken as a case study in relation to his charismatic power(baraqa) and its healing potential.

2. Cheick Amadou Bamba and his Exile.

Cheick Hamad was born in the small village of Mbacké Baol region in Senegal (around1850-1853) and known by his African name of Cheick Amadou Bamba (CAB). CAB’s father was aleading Muslim authority and jurist of his time, whose influential friend Anata-Sali was responsiblefor CAB’s Quaranic education. CAB affiliated to the different Sufi orders of Shadhiliyya, Tijaniyyaand Qadiriyya. He established his position as a pedagogue until 1882 (when his father died),becoming a great spiritual leader and founder of his own brotherhood (tariqa, pl. turuq), the “Wayto Allah”, called Mouridism. CAB left the Mbacké Kayor region in Senegal, resided briefly inMbacké Baol and headed to Daroum Saloum to erect Touba as the sacred town of the Mouridiyya.The 1894, year of CAB’s revelation from the archangel Gabriel, marked his allegiance and serviceto khadim (God). He then initiated his mission and proselytism for which he moved to the Jolofregion (Dumont, 1975). This was the fertile basin of both the peanut crop and the anti-colonialresistance, hence both the local leaders and the colonial authority started to suspect that CAB was adangerous leader fomenting the masses under the placard of religious reform. Therefore, a convoyof French soldiers was sent to stop and imprison him in St Louis.

CAB’s seven-years exile (1895-1902) appear to have been punctuated with episodes ofbrutality imposed on him by the French officers (toubabes, white men). During the CAB’s exile,his brothers Ibra Fati and Cheick Anta continued to give impulse and strengthen the Mouridecommunity, and Ibra Fall, the closest of Bamba’s disciples, created his own following, the BayeFall, and a series of contacts both in the Jolof region and the coastal cities. At the turn of thecentury, the colonial political shift in favor of the Mouride movement and the mediation of SidiyyaBaba - who had been in close relations with the administration of St Louis and the colonial regime -were crucial to Bamba’s return to Dakar from his first exile (Robinson, 1999). “The populistunderpinning” (Cruise O’Brian et al., 1988) of CAB’s following, his increasing popularity and thetime of social crisis requiring the emergence of an alternative leadership, created the persona ofCAB, embodying the religious-charismatic qualities of the Sufi leader. The question we ask here is:why did people discredited both by the old and new regime – warriors (ceddo) and ex slaves -follow a religious leader, rather than a movement of armed resistance? What else did CAB’smessage offer? This paper suggests that CAB’s baraqa, understood as a set of magic and ritualpractices, endorsed both the sophistication and rationale of the Islamic religion (din) and thepopular need for leadership and protection. CAB’s message promised to renew that sick society andto heal its wounds by virtue of moral integrity and divine grace, of which his baraqa was atestimony.

3. The Exile as Mystical Ascendance.

According to Monteil (1966, p. 163) CAB’s exile, in the context of Islam, as well as formany of the religious leaders (marabout) of the Maghreb and black Africa, represented a time ofmystic meditation and trial sent by God to the faithful in his mystic ascendance towards Him.Mouride mysticism entailed four stages of mystical ascendance, determined by the differentdegrees of knowledge and communion with God: 1) the nâsût, or the ordinary Islamic Low,sufficient to the simple servant of God; 2) the malakût, or status of the Angel, acquired by theascetic in his effort to detach himself from the corruption of the world; 3) the jabarût, or intuitiveknowledge of the wise man (ârif) – ‘ilm being instead the intellectual wisdom acquired through

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reasoning – and 4) the lahût, or divine state reached by the muhibb, the “lover” of God, leading tothe Absolute Truth (Dumont, 1975).

The aspirant’s (mouride) mystical voyage through fana (ascendant voyage towards God)and baqa (descendant voyage to the world) was a movement of detachment from the material worldin search of a reality which could only start from within, from the human feeling, his pathos. Onehad to render himself capable of God, receive his message, understand His call. Islamic Sufismenvisions the idea of a divine anthropopathy (Corbin, 1969), of God turned towards men by meansof His revelation: His transcendence does not conflict with the myth of the origin which positscreation as the effect of the divine natural compassion towards His creatures. These cosmogony andcosmology engender the mystical unity of God and mankind as sympathy, that is, the theophanicexperience in which One reveals Himself to the other. Pathos and sympathy are the essentialelements of the ascetic and mystical elevation, through which the pristine unity is graduallyachieved and sighed and distance dismantled.

Whilst revelation in Islam is the materialization of the divine message into the Qur’an, inChristianity it is in God turned man: that is Christ, whose divinity made him attain the miraclesreported in the New Testament. Even though Islam rejects the mystery of incarnation, it allows forthe sacredness and deity of the saint man (wali). His state of grace enables him to perform awesomehealing prodigies and inherit the divine baraqa through the prophetic lineage which linkes him tothe Prophet Mohammed.

Allegorically, CAB’s episodes during the exile reproduced the stages of the mystical life,made of initiation and conversion to the spiritual life, detachment from the mundane reality,repentance, elevation and fulfillment in the grace of God. His exile functions as a preparatory trialto his sainthood and as a symbolic departure from the world. At present, Mouride migrantsconceive of CAB as the centre of their spiritual and migratory life, so much as to define their townsof immigration with the second name of Touba (personal field data, summer 2004; Bava, 2000;Diop, 2002). CAB and his divine blessing are still providing the Mouride follower with a source ofidentity and comfort, in what is argued here to be both an ideology of exile and as a source ofhealing.

4. The Divine Blessing (baraqa) and Its Power to Heal.

CAB was imprisoned the 10th of August 1895, in St Louis; the 5th of September he was triedbefore a private jury - of which Merlin, as acting governor, was in charge - and condemned to exile.The accusation rested on the suspicion that the cheick intended to rule the Baol and Jolof regions,since he was Cheick Sydia’s disciple, who belonged to the brotherhood of Qadiryya. In fact, theQadiryya was suspected, in turn, of professing the doctrines of the brotherhood of Tijanyya,supposedly inciting to religious war (jihad). Therefore, no real evidence ever demonstrated CAB’sculpability and yet, on the 20th of September he was taken to Dakar and from there deported toGabon.

CAB rendered testimony in his work and odes of the comfort and support his faith, prayersand the reading of the Qur’an provided him with during the troubled time of his exile. InL’attirance des cœurs vers le Prophéte (in Dumont, ibid : 56), one reads about the sacred book:

7/46 « Il est pour moi le compagnon, l’amiEt il remplace aussi le médicin1».

1 “It is to me a companion, a friend, which substitutes even the doctor”. The fragment could be rendered as follows: theSacred Book has the power to heal, comparable to that of a doctor.

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In Recueil de trois poéme (ibid) allusions are made to an episode which CAB describes as amiracle:

7/10 « J’en ai fini avec les ennemis, Dieu a illuminé8/10 Mon cœur et m’a delivré du mal et du malheur.5/15 J’ai perdonné, et j’ai gagné la Complaisance,6/15 Heureux, obéissant à Dieu, vainqueur par Lui ».9/25 « Et un miracle surgit, aprés

Ceux de l’Elu, durant mon exil2 ».

Analysis of these texts clearly shows the importance CAB attributes to the comforting effectof the Qur’an.The state of emotional peace and support, which God’s word offered CAB, providedan escape from the contingency of the historical moment, a soothing way to transform his sufferinginto a symbolic experience of spiritual achievement and communion with God (complaisance).This produced the healing effect which CAB compared to the one a doctor might bring about. Thus,we would argue here, the exceptional therapeutic and healing power of the mystical Sufi is attainedthrough ritual prayer and asceticism. The miracle to which CAB refers to has been interpreted byDumont (ibid: 57) as the incredible support and increasing following CAB obtained during andespecially at his return from the exile. More broadly, the miracle can be seen as the proof of divinegrace - baraqa - granted by God to the cheick throughout his trials.

The baraqa is described by Monteil (1964, p. 123; p. 125) as a magic power, as a blessingand magnetic fluid. The men of God, the marabout, encompassed qualities of reputation (bayré)and of magic powers (barké). The saint man (borom) was than a borom bayré and a borom barké.Gardet (1958 : 48) says:

« … Il s’agit de la mystique surnaturelle des profonduers de Dieu, nous conaissons de restemaints témoignages de grâces illuminatives reçues ... Il s’agira de charismes qui ne sontpoints liés à l’espérience comme telle3 ».

In a passage of Māssalik al-Jinān (CAB, verse 9) the rectitude of the good Mouride is described as follows:

« Tant que l’être qui purifie son cœur de tous vices et défauts acquiert la lumièr et l’agrementde Dieu4 ».

How could the baraqa, understood as divine blessing, source of comfort and as a “substituteto the doctor”, be source of healing? The Western concept of illness corresponds to the WestAfrican idea of “injury” (Last, 2005). This carries, overall, the meaning of an attack to one’sintegrity that comes from an external source, be it a spirit (jiin), sorcery, witchcraft or invasion.Orthodox Islam rejected magic, possession and any form of folkloric faith, though in the context ofWest African Islam it co-existed with pre-Islamic local understandings of religious practice andrituals. This was absorbed in the folds of the brotherhoods and reinterpreted by the Sufi knowledge.Magic, herbal remedies, apotropaic means of protection and defence, were part of a cultureasserting a holistic idea of health of a functioning whole, where all the components cooperated tothe wellbeing of the totality. Faith was not just the private realm of the soul in search of salvation –

2 “It is over with the enemy, God has illuminated my heart and has raised me from the evil and misfortune. I forgaveand gained His complaisance. I am blessed, obeying to God and winning because of Him. A miracle occurred duringmy exile, as those carried out by the Elected (the Prophet)”.3 “It concerns the supernatural mysticism, God’s deepest secret; we know plenty testimonies of the illuminative graces(received from God)… They deal with charisma, which is not linked to experience as such”.4 “The human being who purifies his/her heart from the vices and faults will acquire God’s light and complaisance”.

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Western and catholic concept – but a social field interconnecting religious, ancestral and therapeuticaspects. Faith meant survival rather than salvation; it enhanced kinship, clan and community valuesrather than a morality constructed for the individual. Local maraboutic healing and knowledgebloomed, providing teaching and psalms but also charms, potions and magic rituals such as thendepp. This is a ritual of possession which aims at individuating the ancestral ascendancy of thevictim of possession. It ritual deals with incorporation and embodiment. West African and pre-Islamic thought was all-inclusive, all-encompassing and conservative. Like many of the agriculturalsocieties and of the monastic medieval orders of Europe, it was rooted in a culture where preventionwas more affordable than cure (Last, 2005), and healing was the all-pervasive means of curing. It isnot surprising that CAB’s survival to the most adverse conditions and vexation during his exilespawned such a huge following and response from the Mouride community, which explained it interms of miracle and divine intervention, ultimately to be ascribed to CAB’s baraqa and its powerto heal.

The trials CAB underwent during his imprisonment in S.Louis and then during the exile inGabon are, to the faithful, proofs of his sanctity, as the following excerpt from the author’sinterview with Mouride informants (Paris, 2004) demonstrates:

“CAB was locked up in a jail where a lion taken from the Zoo was made enter to massacre him. Yet,the lion, sat docilely at the side of the cheick, sparing him his life. The same jury which condemned CABpronounced the same sentence for Almamy Samory Toure, king of Guinea, but he died in Gabon of endemicdisease (whereas CAB survived). CAB was constrained in a cubicle where daggers had been set to piercehim. As the historian Serigne Moussa Ka narrates: “on that day the chieck had a dream of his mother,exhorting him to persevere in his mission in the name of God. The archangel Gabriel came to rescue him andprotect him. (…)”. A bull was also made to enter his cell, but it could nothing against the cheick. On thejourney to Gabon by boat, CAB was forbidden to carry out his afternoon prayer (zuhr), so that the angelscame to his aid. The cheick prayed on the surface of the ocean, undisturbed and in peace, under the amazedlook of the French officers”.

Accounts are also given of CAB being thrown unsuccessfully to the flames, surviving thewild forest of Mayombè and resisting a monster in the isle of Wire.

In the collection Le tribute (rendu a Dieu) par le très reconnaissant et affecitonné, CABrecounts another episode, again occurred at the moment of a ritual prayer (Asr al-salat), in which aFrench officer changed his attitude towards him, after he recited the basmala -standard formula ofinvocation to God:

« Le commandant français vint vers moi, désireux d’engager la conversation. Je détournai latête, et récitais la basmala cinquante fois. Alors le commandant s’adoucit, et son animositédisparut, après un mouvement de fureur5 ».

CAB’s successive exile to Mauritania (1903-1907) and his surveillance in Chéyen (1907-1912) and in Diourbel until his death (1912-1927) do not provide testimonies reaching a similardegree of tension running between the power in force and CAB. It is surely no coincidence that theestablishment of the colonial rule normalized and formalized their reciprocal relationship.

5 “The French commander came towards me, wishing to talk. I turned my head and recited fifty times the basmala.After that he became more approachable and his animosity, after a gesture of fury, disappeared”.

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5. Baraqa and the Social World.

In a letter dated 22nd of October 1915, the Administrator of Diourbel, A. Lasselves, doctorin medicine, describing his contacts with CAB before leaving the post in Baol, seems to showprofound respect for the religious leader, his rich knowledge and conduct:

“We cannot state, even though he always denied it, that CAB never aspired to create his ownkingdom in the Baol and Cayor, but we are now certain that he is looking for his own peace and freedom todedicate himself to the study of theology, law and literature” (…) “The little barracks (where he and hisfollowing resided) mostly host books; about forty indigenous houses in the village of Touba are full of Arabbooks, which Moorish copyists are constantly busy translating for the cheick” (…) “The cheick uses his timereading, teaching (…) and meditating” (…) “He spends all the money he has in alms, gifts to his cheicks andto entertain his family and community members” (…) “His Influence on the natives his remarkable, goingbeyond his circle of faithful, who consider him as the incarnation of God, to include the wider Muslimcommunity. They declare him to be a saint marabout, the most pious and the best servant of God, who hasreceived from God special graces”. (Author’s translation from the French text).

The last years of CAB’ surveillance in Diourbel marked both the completion of the colonialoccupation and the recognition of the Mouride brotherhood as a social, religious and culturalmovement. Lesselves talks about the cheick’s influence on the natives as considerable. Hisreputation as a saint man, whose special graces demonstrated his status of saint man (wali), wentbeyond the Mouride community, to expand to the wider Muslim community of West Africa. Oneremembers here, that CAB’s second exile in Mauritania (1903-1907) reinforced the cheick’scontacts with the exponents of the Arab and Islamic culture, of which the Quadiryya is the mostimportant element. This brotherhood had great influence on CAB’s religious formation. Its doctrine,the basis of most the brotherhoods, substantiate the principles of popular Muslim mysticism. Inparticular, the idea of the cheick’s infallibility, to whom the faithful completely devoted his life,was embedded in his mastery to handle both the Islamic law (Shar’ia) and the human soul. TheDhikr ritual – the repetition of the names of God – recommended by CAB to his disciples refers toformulas which resemble in content to those employed by the Qadiryya. They envisionedobedience to the cheick, to the prophet and to God. The Mouride mystical ascription to the thoughtof the Al-Ghazali and its mysticism, stands as yet another common feature of most of the WestAfrican and particularly Senegalse brotherhoods. Al-Ghazali’s Sufism stressed the importance ofknowledge - of the divine law - and practice - as detachment from the world and closeness to God(Munqidh: 34, 35). His Sufism was not just speculative but meant to be attained through quotidianacts and a vibrant faith as part of one’s life, revolving around the fervent love for God.

What is attempted here, is to show in what sense the Mouride mysticism provided thecommunity with cohesiveness and possible healing from the instability and precariousness whichthe colonial rule introduced. Suffering and amok are not just social categories, but a diffuse humanperception of existential unbalance which required a message of restitution, equilibrium andcompensation. CAB’s spiritual way and baraqa, offered a political message, since it entailedstructural organization and practical rules within the brotherhood. It offered social means ofresistance, since it was capable of affirming its own legacy and niche beyond that of the localaristocracy and within the colonial regime. Nevertheless, CAB’s message was neither political norsocial. Ultimately, its symbolism conveyed a sense of protection and defence in the eschatologicalpromise of divine reward and blessing to the individual who devoted him/herself to God. One hadto be capable of his grace, to become His friend. The detachment from the world, achieved byfollowing the moral precepts of the Mouride mysticism, meant proximity to God. Closeness toGod and extra-mundane horizons, preconceived a way out from the contingency, a meta-historicalplane in which the evils of the time could eventually be absorbed (de Martino, 1958). The religioustransaction, with its appropriation of sacred symbols and shared values (Cruise O’Brien, 2003)

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promoted a sense of identity and belonging, which consolidated the Mouride community andsealed it with an ideology of exile and of divine blessing. The baraqa was at the centre of such adiscourse.

Sufism can be regarded as an attempt to transcend the dichotomy between the spiritual andmaterial order, not dissimilarly from what medical anthropology tries to bridge (Littlewood andDein, 1995). Werbner et al. (1998) see the challenge in the study of Sufi saints and their cults,precisely in the negation of the Cartesian dualism between body and mind/soul, since theyincorporate such dichotomy and that between emotional and ethical premises into a higher order.The social space is a metonymic and metaphoric place of symbolic transformation (p. 13), gainedby the detachment from the impurity of the world (Douglas, 1966), self-abnegation and discipline,but also through the love for God, his law and knowledge. Ritual practices and baraqa embody thesacred into world. Their meaning lies in a process of 1) inclusion of the divine transcendence intothe bounded realm of the human experience, of 2) purification as a transformative experience andof 3) closeness to God as one of liminality, ecstasy and intoxicated love. Sanctity in Sufism dealswith a charismatic knowledge which entails a connection of the body with the cosmos, the humanwith the divine, whit, at its centre, the charismatic religious leader.

6. A View to the Brotherhoods and the Charismatic Leadership.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw an increasingly rise of the religious and socialphenomenon of the brotherhoods (tariqa, the way, pl. turuq), gathering around the figure of thereligious leader (marabout) and his followers (talibe). Conversions of non-Arab people to Islam inNorthern and West Africa were achieved through the Sufi Orders, especially when the Frenchcolonial power shook the existing relations of power and production. In fact, the Jolof region,predominantly of Wolof ethnicity, provided the basin for the peanut and millet crops, which thecolonial establishment transformed into lucrative large scale cash crops for exportation to thecapital, which, since then, restricted the farming possibility of the whole region (Cruise O’Brian,1971). The brotherhoods granted an option to people as the warriors (ceddo) and ex slavesdisempowered by both the ancien régime and the colonial authority. In this arena, the Sufibrotherhoods led by the charismatic marabouts channelled conversions en masse of people (exslaves and peasants) primarily attracted by the possibility of renewing their social identity.

Initially, the European attitude towards Islam and the marabouts was one of mistrust, whichrather availed itself of the collaboration of the old Wolof and Serer elite, constituted by the notablesand the aristocracy. It was only after the creation of the Muslim Affairs Office and the experience of“pacification” in Mauritania (Robinson, 1999), that the French acknowledged the importance of theMuslim leadership. Moreover, the growing unpopularity of the representatives of the ancien régimehad its counterpart in the increasing recruits of the brotherhoods, in particular that of the Mouridyya,founded by CAB. French suspicion gave way to opposition and eventually to an interestedcollaboration.

The tenet of prayer and work – “pray as if you should die tomorrow and work as if youshould never die” - was strictly observed by the Mouride community. It became congenial both tothe fortification of the tariqa and to the works of the colonial enterprise, which exploited itsmembers’ labour for the peanut cultivation and their entrenched obedience to the marabout, morecontrollable and containable then an organised political movement of resistance such as that ofDamel Lat Dior (defeated in 1886). Towards the end of CAB’s life, that is, at the time of hissurveillance in Jourbel, the Mouride brotherhood could count on its considerable following andinfluence, which allowed the tariqa to affirm its own legacy.

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The brotherhoods represent a spiritual Way to God. Through their leaders they couldrespond to the needs of the masses and the historical changes of the society against the ossificationof the intellectual elite of the ulema. Popular Sufism is the counterpart of intellectual and orthodoxIslam and exalts a mystic religion of the senses and intoxication, miracles and rituals; it provides agreat source of appeal for the weakest strata of the population which is empowered and representedby figures such as those of the Saints. The latter embody their pains and aspirations, promisingachievement and consolation in God. Thus, earthly concerns are spiritualised and transformed. TheSaints, by spousing action and spiritual closeness to God, oppose the rigid and elitist formulationsof the doctors of religion. The success and structural function of the saints reside in their power toconvert: they could attract to Islam those layers of society which the scholarly, formalized messageof the ulema did not penetrate. In most cases saints themselves had an humble background whichthey escaped by seeking religious status.

The Saintly conduct is regarded as adamant and exemplary; the wali bestows qualities ofdiscipline, purity and high moral standards; the saint’s humility makes him equal to the otherbrothers and a servant (khadim) of God. The notions of baraqa and charisma are inextricable fromthe qualities of the saints. Adherents’ imaginary was moulded by stories telling the wondrous deedsof their Saints; their prodigies were regarded as an expression of closeness to the secret knowledgeof God. Saints’ miracles testified to their sainthood. The vexation that CAB underwent during hisexile and the fact that he survived different dangerous situations – e.g. the pandemic disease in thetropical forest of Mayombè etc. – made his persona a living legend, whose acts and experiencesproved his greatness as a wali. The saint’s charisma and blessing still hold in the imagination of thefaithful, leading one to hypothesize how the religious and healing elements of Mouridism played acrucial role in the survival of the community. To date, the magal, the Mouride commemoration ofCAB’s exile to Gabon, is an important religious venue, which mobilises the entire society. In fact, itcan also occasion political propaganda through the presence of political representatives and a hugecover in the papers and the media. The magal is commemorated both in Senegal and in the differenttowns of the Senegalese migratory trajectories (Schmidt, 1994).

The whole apparatus of meaning entails a world of rituals and practices, whose commonfeatures can be found throughout the Sufi world. They delve into popular tradition and Islam,combining belief with highly doctrinal acquisitions. This combination pleased and madecompromises with both the ulema’s hierarchies and the masses, and put the saints at the centre oftheir dialectic. Similarly, the problem of accommodating change and tradition, the common with theendorsed, replicates in the sphere of traditional and conventional medicine, particularly in WestAfrica. Traditional healing and spiritual leaders conveyed a sense of being in the world.

Nabi is the prophet, whose revelations are conferred by the angels and therefore from God;Rasul is the messenger or apostle sent by God (tanzyl) to bring a new message or social order to theworld. They both have the faculty to transform society, abide by and reinforce God’s commands,but the quality of their religious experience, and the means by which they pursue it, draw fromdifferent degrees of legitimacy. The Shar’ia and its prophetic revelation is the foundation, the ruleand the aim of Islam, from which both the Prophet and the Saint derive their revelations. Thus, thedualistic relation they respectively entertain with God and its Law determine the followingoppositions:

(see following page)

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Rasul/Saint Nabi/Prophet

Revelation Walī (mystic experience); Symbolic experience Wahy (disclosed by the angelsent by God); Haqiqa (reality,

truth)Reference Kashf (experience of unity with God) Dīn (faith regulated by

religion)State of grace Baraqa – divine blessing descending from the

ProphetElective; descending from God

Deeds Prodigies Miracles (Karamat)

Religiouslove

Passionate and intoxicated Moderate and sober

Practice Removal of human attributes; self-abnegation Removal of evil objects;restraint

Both the Saint and the Nabi serve God. Nevertheless, prophetic revelations are deemed to besuperior to those of the Walī because of their adherence to the Shar’ia; furthermore, thecommitment to renovate society in the spirit of God is a prophetic message, whose implementationcan be enacted by the Walī.

In this light, CAB was the apostle of God to bring a new message to the community,troubled by the oppressor and in search of new meanings. In a time of social insecurity andimbalance, when destitution was brought about by invasion, economic exploitation and subversionof the pre-existing order, the material gave way to the spiritual, the external to the internal. CAB’ssaintly leadership and divine aura reinforced the community towards a meaningful process of self-identification and stability.

Synoptically, the Mouride brotherhood was organized as a tariqa, whose leader combinedscriptural knowledge and savoir faire, charisma and saintly powers, Quranic teachings and blessing,Islamic orthodoxy and Sufi mysticism which maintained a pre-Islamic content of healing practicesand traditional rituals. Thus, it mediated the formal and the substantial, the exoteric and esoteric,pleasing on the one hand the Islamic authority of the ulema and, on the other, through its order andobedience, the colonial authority. Mouridism, more than preserving the status quo, was able tocollude with the new order and establish its own.

Conclusion.

This paper has attempted to frame the concept of baraqa (blessing) as a source of magicalpower used by CAB as a means to heal and consolidate the Mouride community in the face of theFrench colonial rule. CAB’s miraculous events during the exile were explained by the faithful as asign of his sanctity and by CAB himself as divine blessing, which rescued him from the perils andvexation he was made undergo. Mouride mysticism provided the context through which CAB’sconversion and exile could be understood as reproducing the stages of the mystical life – made ofinitiation, conversion to spiritual life, detachment from the world and fulfillment in the grace ofGod. The comfort CAB received through the reading of the Qur’an and the ritual prayers (salat)were explained by him as the soothing, healing effect which a doctor can bring about. CAB’smessage, conveyed through a charismatic knowledge of rituals, prayers and ecstasies, contributed

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both to an ideology of exile and healing. Social and individual suffering found remission in thepromise which the Mouride mysticism disclosed.

References.

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Unique existing representation of Cheick Amadou Bamba (1855-1927)