Background
Amadou Bamba was born in 1853 in M'Backe, Senegal, into a Wolof family of Toucouleur origins, the son of a minor Islamic holy man and teacher.
Amadou Bamba was born in 1853 in M'Backe, Senegal, into a Wolof family of Toucouleur origins, the son of a minor Islamic holy man and teacher.
Bamba aided in the mass conversion of the Wolof peoples from tribal paganism to Islam at the end of the 19th century, becoming the founder and marabout of the Mouride sect of Islam. Many Senegalese looked to the Mouride brotherhood for leadership and organization in the fight against the colonial invaders. Fearing a holy war against the Europeans under Bamba's inspired leadership, the French exiled him to Gabon from 1895 until November 1902, and again to Mauritania from June 1903 to 1907.
Bamba was a legend in his own time because of his reputed mystical powers and saintly behavior. Two aspects of his credo powerfully affected the strength and devotion of his following. One was the belief that every Mouride who had worked for his marabout and had given him his tithe would go to heaven because of the marabout's personal intervention; there would be no need for the person to do anything more for his own salvation, even if he had sinned. The other aspect was the doctrine that work was like prayer and sanctified the individual. This belief resulted in a Calvinistic zeal for hard labor that made the Mouride brotherhood into a tremendous ally of the most powerful economic forces in West Africa.
After 1911, however, fear of a popular uprising in Senegal declined, and the French began to regard Bamba in a new light. Upon his urging, thousands of his followers volunteered for the French army and worked to increase agricultural production during World War I. Until he died in 1927, however, he was never again allowed to return permanently to the holy village where he had become convinced of his calling, and he remained always under a cloud of suspicion. In Senegal, nationalists reassessed his historical role and now praise Bamba for his early resistance to the colonial regime.
As the founder of Mouridism, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba is considered one of the greatest spiritual leaders in Senegalese history and of the biggest influences on contemporary Senegalese life and culture. Mouridism is today one of Senegal’s four Sufi movements, with four million devotees in Senegal alone and thousands more abroad, the majority of whom are emigrants from Senegal. Followers of the Mouride movement, an offshoot of traditional Sufi philosophy, aspire to live closer to God, in emulation of the Prophet Muhammad's example. Today, Ahmadou Bamba has an estimated following of more than 3 million people and parades occur around the world in his honor, including in various cities in the USA. One such city is New York, where Muslims of West African descent have ordanized an "annual Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Day parade" for over twenty years. Celebrations like these create platforms to "redefine the boundaries of their African identities, cope with the stigma of blackness, and counteract an anti-Muslim backlash".
Every year, millions of Muslims from all over the world make a pilgrimage to Touba (known as the Magal), worshipping at the mosque and honoring the memory of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba. On one occasion during the pilgrimage, Mouride believers honor Ahmadou Bamba by facing the Atlantic Ocean, to commemorate Bamba's legendary prayer on the water.
Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba has only one surviving photograph, in which he wears a flowing white robe and his face is mostly covered by a scarf. This picture is venerated and reproduced in paintings on walls, buses, taxis, etc. all over Senegal. This photo was originally taken in 1913 by "French colonial authorities". As an art form and spiritual object, Bamba's photograph functions as more than a mere image, rather it is also "a living presence" through which his baraka flows.
In 1919 Bamba was named a chevalier in the Legion of Honor.
Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba's teachings emphasized the virtues of pacifism, hard work and good manners through what is commonly known as Jihādu nafs which emphasizes a personal struggle over "negative instincts. " As an ascetic marabout who wrote tracts on meditation, rituals, work, and Quranic study, he is perhaps best known for his emphasis on work and industriousness.
He had a charismatic personality.
Currently, Khalifa-General, Ahmadou Bamba's oldest living son, holds the brotherhood's highest office.
