Learn, Live, Love

Ahmadu Bamba’s Practical Epistemology and Pedagogy

Oludamini Ogunnaike

Dept. of African and African American Studies Harvard University

Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies Workshop “The Revival of the Islamic Tradition in Africa”

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My religion is the love of God -Ahmadu Bamba

Introduction Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba (d. 1927) has become one of the most iconic and

influential religious figures of the 20th and 21st centuries, with millions of disciples

from his native Senegal to San Francisco, Rome to Réunion, Cape Town to Paris,

and a visual presence that adorns the streets and shops of Dakar and New York

City. Nearly a third of Senegal’s current population count themselves in his

spiritual lineage. As the first Black African founder of a major Tarqiah or Sufi

order in recent history,1 and due his prominent role in the colonial history of

Senegal, Ahmadu Bamba has become an international symbol for an “African

Islam” and spiritual, non-violent resistance to colonial domination.

Although scholarship on the Shaykh has increased in recent years, and due

to its rapid spread, his order (the Muridiyyah) has garnered the attention of

journalists and academics alike, most of these works have focused on the socio-

political and economic dimensions of the order’s founding and activities.

Consequently, the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of the Muridiyyah, and

their sources in the writings of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba and the religious

programs and practices he instituted, have only been of secondary interest. One

notable exception to this trend has been the work of Cheik Anta Babou of the

Univeristy of Pennsylvania, 2 who has used the written and oral records of the

Muridiyyah to highlight these neglected aspects of Bamba’s life and that of his

followers. While this attention to the writing of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba and the

Muridiyyah complements existing scholarship about the socio-political context of

the order’s development, it also gives us a better understanding of the doctrines

that motivated Bamba and his followers and gave rise to their noteworthy political

and economic activities. Furthermore, such an emphasis is in keeping with the 1 This claim is rather complicated, as Sub-Saharan Africans have founded many different branches of Sufi orders such as the Qadiriyyah-Mukhtariyyah of Sidi Mukhtar al-Kunti, and most prominently the Faydah al-Tijaniyyah or the Tijaniyyah-Niassiyyah founded by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse also of Senegal, and many more Sub-Saharan Africans have been great spiritual masters of these and many other orders. 2 Cheik Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007.

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perspective of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba himself, who saw his movement primarily

as a vehicle of spiritual renewal (the social and political changes being derivative

of this transformation) effected through his writings and the spiritual perspective

and practices they describe. In fact, Bamba spent the greater part of his life in

meditation and writing, and despite the many miracles attributed to him, is

reported to have said, “My miracle is my writings.” 3

Unfortunately, this neglect of the writings and intellectual dimensions of

Sub-Saharan African Muslim figures and traditions is not limited to Bamba alone.

Islam in West Africa has often been studied anthropologically as a “Black Islam”

or an “African Islam,” which is conceived of as an entity separate from and

inferior to “white” or “orthodox” (i.e. Arab) Islam. This trend is partly due to

inherited colonial categories from the early French literature on the subject4, but is

also due to the fact that many scholars and journalists have worked and studied

within a circumscribed portion of the lived experience of African Muslims

without a deep consideration of the Islamic textual and oral traditions that (often

subtly and implicitly) inform the communities they study. For example, the

saying “Work as if you will never leave this world and, pray as if you were to die

tomorrow” is often attributed to Bamba in such literature,5 but it is actually a

saying from the traditions of the Prophet of Islam, which Bamba quotes

frequently as such in his poems. On the other hand, Islamicists who do have the

necessary training and background in the relevant textual and intellectual

traditions have often relegated Black Africa to the footnotes or margins of their

works, focusing instead on the central Arabic and Persian-speaking lands of

Islam. Zachary Wright argues that …serious textual consideration of West African Sufism has been stifled by lingering colonial prejudice of a supposedly distinct, [syncretist] Islam Noir

3 Cheikh Ahmadu Bamba, Qasidas du Cheikh Ahmadu Bamba,(Mauritius: Cercle Islamique des Mourides de l'Ocean Indien, 1995), 1. Murid publications widely report that the Shaykh left behind seven tones of literature in his own hand. 4 Louis Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion Power and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 44-5 and David Robinson, in Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania 1880-1920 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), p. 94-6. 5 Alistair Thomson, “Senegal's Powerful Mourides have Global Reach,” Reuters.com Dec 29, 2007, accessed January 3, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/ idUSL2919142320071229.

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(Negro Islam) and by thinly veiled disdain for black African scholars. Time and again, the received knowledge concerning African Muslims’ lack of scholarly qualifications substitutes for actual study of their teachings and writings. West African Arabic writings deserve a closer look.6

In this paper, I hope to continue the work of scholars such as Babou,7 who

seek to bridge the conceptual gap between the social and intellectual, the

“Islamic” and the “African” dimensions in the study of Islam in Africa. To this

end, I will endeavor to provide a brief introduction to the life and thought of

Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba for the non-specialist, through an overview of the system

of pedagogy he founded and the practical epistemology from which it sprang. I

will particularly focus on the articulation of this epistemology in Bamba’s

writings and its derivation from and adaptation of elements of the canonical

Islamic tradition in forming a unique and influential Afro-Islamic system of

education. I will demonstrate how both the content and structure of Bamba’s

epistemology are derived from the Qur’an and hadith, and the Arabic tradition of

their interpretation by Sufi authors such as ‘abd al-Qadir Jīlāni (d. 1166), Abu

‘Abdallāh Muḥammad al-Sanūsī of Tlemcen (d. 1490), and Shaykh Muḥammad

al-Yadālī al-Daymanī (d.1753), and especially Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-

Ghazzāli (d. 1111).

I will begin with a biography of the Shyakh in order to provide context for

the second half of the paper, which describes his epistemology and pedagogy. In

this second half, I will give a brief summary of the epistemological dimensions of

Sufism, and discuss their application first in Bamba’s writings, and then in his

pedagogy. Finally, I will conclude by summarizing the relationship between

Bamba’s pedagogy and epistemology, and their relationship to the wider Islamic

tradition.

6 Zachary Wright, “The Kāshif al-Ilbās of Shaykh Ibrahīm Niasse: Analysis of the Text,” Islamic Africa, 1 (2010): 109-23. 7 This paper can be seen as an expansion upon Babou’s groundbreaking article “Educating of the Murid: Theory and Practices of Education in Amadu Bamba’s Thought,” Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (2003): 310-27, attempting to elaborate on many of the concepts introduced in that work with a slightly different focus. Fernand Dumont’s La Pensée Religieuse de Ahmadu Bamba (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1975) and Ahmed Pirzada’s unpublished “The Epistemology of Ahmadou Bamba” (PhD diss., Univeristy of Birmingham, 2003) was also useful in directing my attention to relevant sections of Bamba’s extensive oeuvre.

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Biography

Early Life

Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba was born into a relatively prominent and

respected family of Muslim scholars in 1853 in the village of Khuru Mbakke in

the Wolof kingdom of Bawol in what is today central Senegal. His father was a

judge, scholar, teacher, leader of the local Muslim community and advisor to the

king of the neighboring kingdom of Kajoor (Cayor). His family was also

associated with the branch of the Qadiri Ṭarīqah founded by the famous scholar of

Timbuktu, Sidi Mukhtar al-Kunti. The young Ahmadu Bamba also showed an

early interest in mysticism, often spending long periods of time away from his

schoolmates to meditate alone in the bush.8 He received the standard education

for Muslim children of the region: he began his preliminary study of Arabic and

memorization of the Qur’an at age seven, and completed this at age twelve. Next

he studied the linguistic sciences of Arabic grammar, rhetoric, and prosody, and

Islamic sciences of tafsir (Qur’anic exegesis), hadith (the traditions of the

Prophet of Islam), sira (the history of the life of the Prophet), fiqh (Islamic

jurisprudence), and taṣawwuf (Islamic mysticism or Sufism). He quickly earned

a reputation as a patient and brilliant teacher, and showed a particular aptitude for

poetry, summarizing many of the texts that he studied in verse. His father

actually replaced one of these texts with the young scholar’s versification in his

curriculum.9 His early writings focused on tawḥīd (theology or the rational study

of the oneness of God), fiqh and Shari’ah (Islamic jurisprudence and law, in

Bamba’s case, particularly the correct performance of Muslim rites, rituals, and

behavior), and taṣawwuf (mysticism/Sufism). This three-tiered structure would

become characteristic of Bamba’s entire corpus, his epistemology, and his

educational system.

Although he was his father’s assistant and secretary, Ahmadu Bamba also

showed an strong independent streak, sometimes disagreeing with his father and

8 Cheik Anta Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007), p. 54. 9 Ibid, p. 55.

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even criticizing him for his close association with Lat Joor, the nominally Muslim

ruler of Kajoor.10 Bamba refused an invitation from the monarch to debate a

religious matter in court in a letter in which he quoted the following saying, “A

cleric who seeks the favors of a king is like a fly feeding on excrement.” 11

Needless to say, this did not endear him to the Wolof royal courts and their

Muslim scholars. Nevertheless, he was so admired for his piety and scholarship,

that when his father died in 1883, the other scholars at court offered to

recommend Ahmadu Bamba to take his father’s place among their company-a

great honor and source of income for the village schoolmaster. Bamba, however,

publicly turned the offer down at his father’s funeral, saying, “I thank you for

your condolences and for your advice. However, I do not have the habit of

visiting kings. I have no ambition with regard to their riches, and I only seek

honor from the Supreme Lord.”12 While this declaration led some to consider him

mentally unbalanced, others saw it as a demonstration of the unflinching moral

resolve that would characterize the rest of his life.

A New Conception of Education

Shortly after his father’s death, Bamba left his school and traveled to Mauritania

where he studied with the family of Shaykh Sidiyya Baba, a renowned Moorish

Shaykh of the Qadiri order.13 Here he was re-initiated into the Qadiri order and

made a muqaddam (representative of the Shaykh with the permission to initiate

and train his own disciples) of the order.14 Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba also

benefitted from the Shaykh Baba’s impressive family library, studying many

works on Sufism and refining his own epistemological and pedagogical theories. 10 Ibid, p. 56. 11 Ibid, p. 59. 12 Dider Hamoneau, Vie et Enseignment du Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba: Maître Fondateur de la voie soufie Mouride (Beyrouth: Dar al-Bouraq, 1998), p. 92. 13 The founder of the Sidiyya branch of the Qadiri order was the family patriarch, Shaykh Sidiyya al-Kabir of Butlimit (1780-1868) in Southern Mauritania. He was a student of Sidi Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811)of Timbuktu, who was the leader of a Qadiri revival in West Africa at the turn of the 18th century. His family, the Kunta, introduced the Qadiriyya order to West Africa in the 16th century. 14 Some accounts also indicate that he had also been initiated into the Shadhili and Tijani orders as well, cf. Pirzada, The Epistemology of Ahmadou Bamba, 13 ; Dumont, La Pensée Religeuse, and Hamoneau, Vie et Enseignment du Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba.

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It was here that Bamba most likely studied the works of the Shadhilī Sufi shaykh

Muhammad al-Yadālī al-Daymanī (d.1753), author of the Sufi commentary on

the Qur’ān, al-Dhahab al-ibrīz (Pure Gold) and the influential treatise on Sufism,

Khatima al-Taṣawwuf (The Seal of Sufism)15, which formed the basis of Ahmadu

Bamba’s most important work on Sufism Masālik al-Jinān. Despite his close

friendship with Shaykh Baba and his family, Bamba also encountered the

infamous racism of the Moors who regarded their black neighbors to the south as

uncivilized pagans, and did not have much more respect for the Black Muslims of

the Wolof kingdoms.16

After returning to Kajoor from Mauritania, Ahmadu Bamba announced his

new program of education based on tarbiyah, an Arabic term which literally

refers to the rearing of a child or young animal, and in the context of Sufism,

refers to the spiritual training of a disciple from a novice to a realized Sufi. Cheik

Anta Babou renders it as “education of the soul.”17 The Shaykh told his current

students that all those who studied with him would be required to submit to the

discipline of tarbiyah, which aimed to purify the soul and perfect moral conduct.

He would no longer teach students, but instead train spiritual seekers or murids. I have received from my Lord the order to guide people to God, Most High. Those who want to adopt this path can follow me. As for the others who only want to learn knowledge, the country is full of many appropriately able people.18 Bamba outlined his new philosophy of education in Masālik al-Jinān

(Paths to Paradise), a qasidah or long poem in Arabic, in which he argues that

although the acquisition of knowledge is the primary duty of every human being,

knowledge pursued for the wrong reasons or not put into practice is futile and

even harmful: Not all knowledge is beneficial, not all scholars are equal There is knowledge that hardens the heart, provokes the pride of the knower and

15 16 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 152. For a more complete discussion of tarbiya in Sufism in Western Africa, particularly with respect to Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse, a Senegalese Tijanī shaykh and contemporary of Ahmadu Bamba, see Seesemann, R. The Divine Flood: Ibrāhīm Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth-Century Revival Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 71-104 17 Ibid, 63. 18 Dieye, Abdoulaye, Touba Signes and Symboles (Mauritius: Mauritius Printing Specialists, 1997), p. 17.

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makes him forget his Lord…(v.155-6) The only useful knowledge is that which one learns and teaches only for the love of God, Most High… (v.106) No, beneficial knowledge is that which makes known to man his own faults clearly…(v.170) Everybody who learns for these [wordly] reasons …Will only gain harm, rebuke and punishment on the day of reckoning Because his knowledge will be a proof against him; so fear and avoid this proof (v.112-3) …Knowledge can either lead one to wisdom or else it will push him towards perdition It is said that whoever helps someone to seek knowledge for other than the love of God Shares with him the consequences, like someone who knowingly sells a sword to a thief (v.178-80) …He who does not fear God is not knowledgeable even if he has mastered all the sciences (v.183) Certain people are abused by their studies and their religious erudition, not acknowledging their weaknesses, very proud of the great number of their disciples and over-confident in their wisdom, While they have not purified their heart from serious illnesses such as pride, hatred, jealousy, etc. (v. 823-4)19

This critique of the character and pedagogy of his fellow teachers, many of whom

were far less mystically inclined, did not go unnoticed. Many harshly criticized

what they deemed to be the arrogance of this young scholar, and made life

increasingly difficult for him.20 Bamba paid characteristically little attention to

these criticisms, writing in the same poem The fact that the blind cannot see the sun does not mean that it is not shining The eminence of the wise cannot be hurt either by the jealousy of some scholars or the ignorance of fools 21

Due to the opposition he faced from other scholars and local authorities,

Bamba and his remaining disciples relocated to his ancestral home, Mbakke, in

the kingdom of Bawol, now firmly under French control. However, even here,

the novel nature of his schools or educational communities, called daaras, and his

increasing number of disciples and prestige caused considerable friction. This led 19 Cheikh Ahmdaou Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” (Rabat: Dar el-Kitab, 1984), verses 106, 112-3, 155-6, 170, 178-80, 183, and 823-4. Verses, instead of page numbers are cited to facilitate comparison amongst these rare editions. 20 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, p. 63-4. 21 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 104.

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Bamba to found a number of new villages in which his schools could operate. His

increasingly numerous students would work as a part of their regimen of tarbiyah

clearing the bush, building houses, schools, and mosques in addition to farming

millet, corn, and the new cash crops of rice and groundnuts. Those who were so

inclined would also be instructed in Arabic and the Islamic sciences, including

taṣawwuf (Sufism). Most significant of these new settlements was Touba, the

location and plan of which was revealed to Ahmadu Bamba in a vision. This

settlement of Bamba’s students, deputy teachers and their families grew into a

city as new murids flocked to Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba, drawn by his reputation

for sanctity and the stability of the spiritual/educational community which he led.

These new disciples were also driven by the social upheavals of the expansion of

French colonial power and the resulting dissolution of the old socio-political

order.22

However, even during this time of increased social responsibilities,

Bamba’s primary preoccupation was his spiritual quest for knowledge of God.

He continued to spend extended periods of time in spiritual retreat and meditation,

authorizing his brothers, sons, and closest disciples to organize, train, and teach

disciples and found new daaras throughout Senegal in his absence. The unique

feature of these new educational communities or daaras, and Bamba’s main

pedagogical innovation, was the mandatory coupling of tarbiyah, the education of

the soul through spiritual discipline and work, with ta‘līm , the education of the

mind. Through this system of tarbiyah, Bamba’s daaras also made the rigorous

spiritual training of Sufism available to anyone, from the illiterate peasant to the

illustrious scholar, provided they were willing to submit to the discipline.

Previously, the science and discipline of taṣawwuf (Sufism) was more or less seen

as being reserved for the elite of the scholarly class of West Africa who had

mastered the other Islamic sciences. Although Bamba continued to view Sufism

as the crown of the sciences and their perfection and fulfillment, he also regarded

the spiritual training of Sufism as the foundation of the correct practice and

understanding of these other branches of knowledge. Since, according to a hadith 22 see Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, p. 105.

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frequently cited by Bamba in his poetry, “Actions are only judged by their

intentions,”23 and taṣawwuf is the science of purifying one’s intentions, this

science was seen as being indispensible for any action, including the acquisition

of knowledge.24 In the poem Masālik al-Jinān he writes, Knowledge acquired for the sake of being admired or praised is of no use to the servant on the day of resurrection Nor that sought for the sake of competition, rivalry, or obfuscation Nor that sought for the pleasure of domination, to be the only one who knows and gives harmful judgments Nor that sought to oppress others Nor that sought as a pastime for play and diversion… Nor that which fills the heart with jealousy, rancor or arrogance, which distances the knower from guidance Nor that which leads to hatred, hidden or manifest, rivalry, or polemics and controversy Nor that which leads to arrogance and pride, or which creates quarrel and dissidence. Nor that which leads to anger, obstinacy in error and misguidance, in indifference and in argument Nor that which uses intrigue to cheat people of their goods… No, rather beneficial knowledge is that which clearly teaches a man his own faults25

The Shaykh and his cadre of close disciples, many of whom were teachers

and shaykhs in their own right, established schools based on this new curriculum

combining spiritual and intellectual education throughout the countryside. These

schools, and the shaykhs which led them, were largely autonomous, although they

all embraced Bamba’s pedagogy and regarded him as their spiritual leader. Many

of the students and shaykhs of these new schools did not come from the scholarly

families that had traditionally controlled education in the region, and the

combination of new methods and personnel was a source of some controversy and

consternation amongst the established educational elite. Nevertheless, these new

schools and their founding Shaykh gained many new adherents from amongst

both the non-scholarly and scholarly population. Cheik Anta Babou summarizes

these developments, 23 For example, in the poem “Education of the Murids” quoted in Dumont, La Pensée Religeuse, p. 321. 24 Shaykh Abu’l Hasan ash-Shadhili, to whose spiritual lineage Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba also belonged, is recorded to have said, “He who dies without having entered into this knowledge of ours dies insisting upon his grave sins (kaba'ir) without realizing it.” from Ibn ‘Ajiba, Iqaz al-himam fi sharh al-Hikam li Ibn ‘Ata Allah al-Iskandari. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyah, 1996, p. 8. 25 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 160-70.

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Drawing lessons from centuries of failed jihads, the inability of court clerics to bring about any substantial change in the fate of the people, and an increasingly assertive French power, he resolutely opted for a gradual transformation of the society through education. However, for Bamba, not every type of education was suitable to meet this goal of changing the society. Spiritual education was for him the most appropriate means to correct the wrongs in society and to provide people with a protective shield against the perils of the epoch.26

First Exile: Gabon (1895-1902)

It was not long before the envy of other Muslim scholars who were losing

students and therefore income to Bamba’s new schools, and fear of his radical

ideas and growing influence prompted them to bring him to the attention of the

French colonial government. The French military expansion into West Africa in

the 19th century coincided with a wave of military jihads waged by a generation of

African Muslim leaders seeking to establish a new Muslim social order in the

region. Although in some instances, these wars facilitated the French conquest of

West Africa by weakening and dividing the pre-existing socio-political order, the

mass mobilization of professional and semi-professional soldiers with modern

weaponry made the French Soudan a rather difficult area to govern, and the

French forces even suffered a few defeats and near-losses at the hands of el-Hajj

‘Umar Tall and Samory Toure. The Tijani Ṭarīqah of the former became

associated in the French colonial imagination with militant Islam, particularly in

the region of Senegal, which bore witness to two such militant uprisings in the

1860’s and 70’s; the leaders of both of which were Tijani. The mere association

with the Tijani order was enough to arouse the suspicion and surveillance of the

French authorities.27

This is precisely the means by which the enemies of Shaykh Ahmadu

Bamba brought him to the attention of the colonial government. Nervous colonial

officials quickly brought the following charges against him: Amadu Bamba, pupil of Sheikh Sidiyya, Moorish marabout of the Qadiriyya sect, has professed for several years the Tijani doctrine, which includes the preaching of holy war. [Consequently] anyone with experience of this country

26 Babou, “Educating of the Murid: Theory and Practices of Education in Amadu Bamba’s Thought,” Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (2003), 320. 27 David Robinson, “Beyond Resistance and Collaboration: Ahmadu Bamba and the Murids of Senegal” Journal of Religon in Africa, 21 (1991), 155.

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and the activities of preachers of holy war will come to the profound conviction that Amadu Bamba ... is preparing a surprise for the near future, undoubtedly for the next dry season.28

Bamba had never been involved in these Tijani jihads and even criticized them,

writing: Certain people among them are misled by their jihads, which are carried out against others They continuously raid with the sole goal of gaining honor and riches They claim to hear the voice of God, but their objective is only fame and riches They return heavy with sin and crimes, which cover their whole army29

and

“The warrior in the path of God is not one who takes his enemies’ life, but the one who combats his nafs [carnal soul] to achieve spiritual perfection”30

By his own account, Bamba’s non-violent orientation was not a political

strategy,31 but rather a religious duty imposed upon him by the Prophet in a vision

in which he was instructed to leave aside the lesser jihad (the physical holy war)

and exclusively take up the greater jihad (the spiritual holy war) against his own

evil and ignorance.32 Bamba believed that he was under God’s inviolable

protection as long as he continued in his mission. However, the French saw his

public lack of militancy as a clever ploy to disguise his true ambitions. Due to his

large following, and increasing popularity, the French decided they could not risk

the possibility of another uprising, and in 1895, an armed column was dispatched

to arrest the Shaykh and bring him to the colonial capital of St. Louis, where he

was imprisoned and sentenced to exile in Gabon for seven years. 28qtd. in ibid, 160. 29Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 795-98. 30qtd. in Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 5. 31 It would be inaccurate to label Bamba a pacifist, as he approved of military campaigns waged by the Prophet and other early Muslim leaders. Furthermore, Bamba himself wrote, “Whenever I recall my sojourn in such an [awful prison] in which they put me, and the [misbehavior] of that unfair governor, I feel like taking arms [to combat them]. But the prophet himself dissuades me therefrom.” (qtd. in Abdoul Aziz Mbacke. Jihad for Peace: Exploring Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba’s Philosophy (Majalis, 2009), 21). The French also recruited Murids, with the approval of the Shaykh, to fight in the First World War. They had this to say about their Seneglaese Sufi soldiers: “Several hundred Murids ... assemble in the evening, pray or chant hymns to the accompaniment of the tam-tam, say their prayers and explode in frenetic dances. Despite the insistence on the ‘fanaticism’ and strange religious behavior, these activities did not worry the officers in charge of the black units preparing for the Dardanelles campaign because these tirailleurs had demonstrated ‘their discipline, intelligence, zeal, level-headedness and resistance to fatigue.’" (qtd. in Robinson, “Beyond Resistance and Collaboration,” 166). 32 Cheikh Abdulaye Dieye. Le Centenaire du Jihad al-Akbar, (Mauritius, 1995), 80.

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Bamba did not resist his arrest, imprisonment, or exile, and in many

accounts from Murid sources, was defiant in the face of intimidation and

persecution. Shortly before his arrest, Bamba had a vision of the Prophet and his

companions in which he saw them through a veil. He asked the Prophet for the

mist to be lifted so that he could approach him. The Prophet replied that this was

reserved for those who had attained a very high spiritual state and that Bamba

would have to endure great suffering if he wanted to attain this station. Bamba

affirmed that he was willing to undergo any trial, and interpreted his

imprisonment and exile in light of this vision.33

Instead of cowing Bamba’s followers and diminishing his reputation, the

exile to Gabon only increased the Shaykh’s following as legends about his

miraculous defiance in the face of colonial oppression began to circulate

throughout Senegal. For example, when the French governor of Senegal placed

him in front of a cannon, Bamba asked what it was. The governor replied that if

something was placed inside it, it would cause him to fall down dead. The Shaykh

pulled out his pen and showed it to the governor, saying that he had a weapon

which could do exactly the same. When prevented from praying on board the

ship carrying him to Gabon, Bamba took off his chains, leapt onto the surface of

the ocean on which a prayer mat had miraculously appeared, said his prayers and

then jumped back onto the ship and put his chains back on. His jailers in Gabon

refused to give him food for a week, but he miraculously survived without

suffering from any apparent illness. He was thrown into a dungeon with a hungry

lion, which lay down at his feet and purred like a kitten. Historian David

Robinson writes, He never lashed out at his captors. His responses, reminiscent of Jesus in his final days or of Gandhi with his satyagraha, made the apparatus of repression helpless. The fact that Bamba returned to Senegal after seven years with his charisma intact confirmed his sainthood, and the sainthood became, in the eyes of his followers, successful resistance to French conquest and rule.34

While these fantastical accounts of his miracles spread amongst his

followers in Senegal, Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba devoted himself with even greater

33 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 112. 34 Robinson, “Beyond Resistance and Collaboration,” 161.

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intensity to his spiritual exercises and writing. By his own account, it was while

imprisoned in Gabon that Bamba realized the goal of his spiritual quest, “It was

while in the Island [Mayumba in Gabon] that I was shown and cured of all my

imperfections.”35 “I became like the sun,”36 he wrote, describing his spiritual

development during this time of trial. He also produced a voluminous body of

poetry during this period, based on his new understanding and experience of the

Qur’an and his visions of the Prophet. Bamba also corresponded with his family

and disciples at home, giving them encouragement and instruction, and asking

about the affairs of his disciples and schools. When Bamba returned to Senegal in

1902 after seven years in exile, he received a hero’s welcome at the docks and

found that his pedagogical experiment had become something of a mass

movement.

Second Exile: Mauritania (1903-1907) and Rapprochement with the French

However, it wasn’t long before the Shaykh’s wildly increasing popularity

and influence again gave the colonial administration cause for concern. Worried

about rumors of preparation for jihad in the Sahara, the French decided to exile

Bamba again. This time, however, he was to stay with his old teacher and mentor

Shaykh Sidiyya Baba in Mauritania, in hopes that the latter, an ally of the colonial

government, would have a moderating influence on the Senegalese shaykh.

Bamba again clarified his position to his disciples in a poem written on the

eve of his second exile. [O ye my persecutors] ye banned me on the pretence that I am waging a war (Jihad) against you. Indeed ye are right because I am really combating for the Countenance of the Lord. But I am waging my jihad through Knowledge (‘ulum) and Fearing the Lord (taqwa), as [an humble] subject of God and the servant of His Prophet… While others hold material weapons to be feared, my two weapons are [knowledge] and [worship]; and this is surely my way of fighting37

While in exile in Mauritania he condemned armed revolt against the

French in even stronger terms, writing: 35 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 135. 36 qtd. in Pirzada, “The Epistemology of Ahmadou Bamba,” p. 24 37 Abdul Aziz Mbacke. Jihad for Peace: Exploring Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba’s Philosophy (Majalis, 2009), p. 17.

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After realizing the situation of the French Government and what it comports of justice, benevolence and power, in all the lands, and knowing how happy are its friends and how miserable are its enemies, and convinced that no people, however powerful, can rival the French Government or oppose it, unless they be blinded by their ignorance ... [and unable] to distinguish between the smallest ant and the elephant, between night and day, I have decided to give ... some advice to my Muslim brothers in order that they not be drawn into wars, that they reflect on the consequences of things and that Satan, always the friend of disorder, not be able to deceive them38

Then, comparing their situation to that of the Prophet and his earliest followers in

Mecca who faced their persecution in peace, he urged his followers to have

patience and do the same. Moreover, he reminded them that the Prophet had

made pacts and lived in peace with Christians and other non-Muslims, and gave

this appraisal of the colonial government: The French Government, thanks to God, has not opposed the profession of faith but on the contrary has been friendly towards Muslims and encouraged them to practice [their religion]. We have noted that in many of the lands of the blacks that, thanks to French occupation, the inhabitants who, far from being Muslim were pillagers, living at the expense of travelers and the weak, have changed to become calm and peaceful and that now, among them, the sheep and the jackals march together.39

Robinson comments on this remarkable missive, He mentioned the improved communications which had allowed Islam to spread, declared-perhaps tongue in cheek-that he could not complain of French conduct toward him, and concluded with a special exhortation to his Saharan brothers to reject the violence that had characterized their land and submit to the French.40

While it is possible that Shaykh Baba, who enjoyed very good relations

with the colonial regime, influenced Bamba’s new policy of support for the

French regime, this letter also shows the same stance on war and violence that

Bamba had articulated elsewhere. However, his vocal support of the colonial

government stands in stark contrast to his typical antipathy towards political

power. Nonetheless, given Bamba’s priorities, this tone is understandable, even if

surprising. Ahmdadu Bamba was first and foremost concerned with the spiritual

well-being of his community, and as long as the French regime allowed Muslims

to practice in peace, and did not interfere with his program of spiritual education,

38 qtd. in Robinson, “Beyond Resistance and Collaboration,“ 162. It should be noted that some Murid leaders have questioned the authenticity of this document. 39 ibid. 40 Ibid, p. 163.

Ogunnaike 16

their rule could be tolerated. As usual, he wanted to have nothing to do with

political leaders, and wanted them to have nothing to do with him. Bamba also

noted a trend that was true throughout much of West Africa: the rapid spread of

Islam amongst the masses during the colonial period.41 Before the French arrived

in Senegal, around 10% of the population was Muslim, and by the time the French

flag came down in 1960, approximately 80% of the newly-independent

Senegalese were Muslim.42

It was during this period of exile that Bamba had a vision in which the

Prophet authorized him to found his own Sufi order, the Muridiyyah, and he

received from the Prophet the special litanies and prayers of the new order.

Although Bamba had been functioning as an independent shaykh of the

Qadiriyyah order for some time, this vision gave him and his disciples a unique

status, and increased his spiritual influence. Thousands of disciples flocked to see

him in Mauritania, and their requests to have him brought back to Senegal may

have influenced the colonial government’s decision to allow him to return in

1907.43

Bamba spent five more years under house arrest, and the rest of his life

under surveillance. However, impressed by the positive economic and social

contributions of the Muridiyyah, whose daaras tarbiyah provided the colony with

a significant portion of its groundnut exports and commercial food supply, the

colonial administrators had become confident that Bamba and his order did not

pose a direct threat to their rule. After this rapprochement, the colonial

administration began to treat the Murid shaykhs like colonial chiefs, exchanging

services with them and relying on them to fill quotas for cash crops and soldiers

to support their efforts in World War I. In recognition of this service, Bamba was

awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1918, and although he declined the

award, it showed a dramatic change the relationship between him and many of the

41 see Vincent Monteil, L’islam Noir: une religion à la conquête de l’Afrique, (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964) and J Spencer Trimingham, A History of Islam in West Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 224-231 42 Trimingham, A History of Islam in West Africa, 227-8 43 Robinson, “Beyond Resistance and Collaboration,” 164.

Ogunnaike 17

men who had exiled him to Gabon some twenty-three years earlier. In this time,

the Muridiyyah had grown from its humble, rural beginnings to become an order

of close to 100,000 disciples.44 Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba spent his last days in

retreat and prayer, teaching and writing. He died and was buried in 1927 in his

city of Touba, where every year, nearly two million people visit his grave during

the magal, a pilgrimage which celebrates his victorious return from exile.45

Conclusion

Spiritual leader, educational pioneer, sometime resistor and sometime

collaborator, the picture that emerges from accounts of Ahmadu Bamba’s life is

that of a man whose primary concern was his own spiritual condition, and then

that of his disciples and surrounding community. Although he frequently

displayed a defiant attitude to the French colonial authorities, local chiefs, and

other Muslim leaders, this must be understood as stemming from his conception

of himself as the khādim al-Rasūl, or servant of the Prophet, and his

consciousness of being subject to no authority but God’s. When he deemed that

the interests of the colonial regime or other powers was in line with his mission of

service to the Prophet, he collaborated; when he saw a conflict, he resisted.

Bamba’s movement was first and foremost a spiritual one, and its socio-political

consequences were always looked upon as secondary, at least by its founder. The

associated social, economic, and political transformations emerged from this

spiritual project like leaves from the branches of a tree. While many scholars

have emphasized these remarkable fruits, this paper will concern itself with the

trunk and the roots of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba’s mission.

Bamba’s example is considered to be particularly relevant today as an

example of spiritual and cultural resistance to colonial hegemony. His life and

times were marked by the rule of a corrupt aristocracy and local colonial puppets,

failed military jihads (whose main victims, like today, were local residents),

political assassinations, social upheaval, and religious and ideological confusion.

44 Babou, “Educating the Murid,” 312. 45 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 193.

Ogunnaike 18

The similarities to our own time are far too striking to pass over in silence. His

sincere, spiritual response to colonial military and political domination, as

articulated in his writings and demonstrated in his life, continues to serve as an

example and inspiration to people of all faiths today.

For Bamba, the social and political chaos of his time was merely the

symptom of a deeper spiritual crisis.46 He therefore shifted the focus of resistance

from the sphere of politics to that of the heart, adopting a program of spiritual

education to address the problems of his time at their root.

Epistemology and Pedagogy

“Knowledge is not knowing a lot of things, but it is a light of understanding” 47

-Ahmadu Bamba Having sketched the life and history of Ahmadu Bamba, we now turn to

the epistemology that was at the heart not only of his writings, but his entire life.

Bamba spent his life in pursuit of knowledge of and proximity to God through the

discipline of Sufism. His writings show no real innovation in or deviation from

the classical principles of taṣawwuf,48 only a unique adaptation of them to his

historical situation. Thus, a brief introductory note about the epistemology of

Sufism in general is in order before discussing its particular manifestation in

Bamba’s writings.

Sufi Epistemology

46 Bamba wrote “[Many of the Western] are devoting themselves to what displeases the Lord. Satan has deluded them towards disobedience, audacity, and spiritual ruin. They are so lost that now they are wandering all around the world and they have set themselves to oppress [peoples]…[As for Black natives], they have set themselves to imitate them through dissoluteness, disloyalty, and other immoral vices” (qtd. in Mbacke, Jihad for Peace, 23). Also “For Amadu Bamba, to achieve enduring impact, the seeds of change must be sown in people’s hearts and souls. In face of the imposition of French authority over the people of Senegal, he shifted the battle to the control of the soul, which, for the Sufi, remains the centre that regulates people's feelings and actions.” (Babou, “Educating the Murid,” 322) 47 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v.181. 48 I concur with the assessment of Fernand Dumont and Rudiger Seesman (Ahmadou Bamba und die Enstehungder Muridiya (Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1993)) that Ahmadu Bamba’s doctrine is not something new, but is derived from classical Sufism.

Ogunnaike 19

Unlike most theories of knowledge in the modern West, knowledge in the

Islamic tradition, particularly in Sufism, was organized according to a hierarchy

in which merely rational human knowledge (the scientia of the Medieval

Christian Scholastics) is subordinate to supra-rational Divine wisdom, known as

ma‘rifah or gnosis (the sapientia of the Scholastics). Gnosis within Sufism is

defined as the direct perception of metaphysical or spiritual realities, and is often

compared to or called “taste” (dhawq) because of its immediacy. While

discursive reason is the domain of doubt and speculation, gnosis is defined by its

clarity and certainty. Eminent authority on Islamic Science and Sufism, Seyyed

Hossien Nasr, explains the relation between these two types of knowledge,

“The instrument of gnosis is always, however, the intellect; reason is its passive aspect and its reflection in the human domain. The link between intellect and reason is never broken, except in the individual ventures of a handful of thinkers... The intellect remains the principle of reason; and the exercise of reason, if it is healthy and normal should naturally lead to the intellect. That is why Muslim metaphysicians say that rational knowledge leads naturally to the affirmation of the Divine Unity. Although the spiritual realities are not merely rational, neither are they irrational. Reason, considered in its ultimate rather than its immediate aspect, can bring man to the gateway of the intelligible world, rational knowledge can in the same fashion be integrated into gnosis, even though it is discursive and partial while gnosis is total and intuitive.49”

Knowledge in classical Sufism is often divided into the sub-rational (the

sensory), which is direct but fallible, the rational (reason and rational discourse)

which is indirect and only as fallible as its premises, and the supra-rational

(gnosis), which is both direct and infallible.50 The instruments of the first kind of

knowledge are the sensory faculties, the instrument of the second is the mind or

rational faculty, and the instrument of the third is the intellect or heart.51 The

knowledge gained through this third faculty is often compared to the knowledge

derived from the revelation of the Qur’an and hadith due to the fact that both are

of Divine origin. However, whereas the Qur’an and hadith are objective and

meant for everyone, gnosis is the deeply personal, subjective revelation of 49 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam (New York: New American Library, 1968), 26. 50 see Richard McCarthy, trans., Ghazali’s Path to Sufism: His Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Dalal), (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2006). 51 Nasr here uses the term “intellect” in a precise sense, which differs from its everyday meaning to meaning of “intelligence” or “rational faculty.” Nasr uses the term “intellect” to designate that aspect of intelligence that is situated above discursive reason and is capable of directly perceiving metaphysical truths.

Ogunnaike 20

objective truths, and is therefore regarded as individual, private, and even

idiosyncratic. It is a special relationship between the Sufi’s heart and his Lord.

Needless to say, this esoteric form of knowledge is rather foreign to

modern epistemological conceptions. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault,

Louis Brenner contrasts the conception of knowledge in pre-colonial traditional

African societies, both Muslim and traditionalist, as being organized according to

an esoteric episteme, in contrast to the conception of knowledge in most modern

societies, which is organized by a rationalist episteme. Brenner writes, Within the context of an esoteric episteme, Islamic knowledge is perceived as hierarchical. For example religious knowledge is seen to be superior to ‘secular’ knowledge, but the hierarchical distinctions are also made among kinds of Islamic knowledge, for example between ‘legal’ knowledge that can be acquired simply through the intellect [i.e. mind or rational faculty], and ‘spiritual’ knowledge that is acquired directly and without mediation of the intellect [i.e. mind or rational faculty]. Distinctions are also made between ‘public’ and ‘secret’ knowledge; all knowledge is not meant to be available to all persons…The acquisition of Islamic knowledge is also intimately related to devotional praxis; the very process of acquiring knowledge is intended to transform its possessor. Conversely, personal ‘spiritual’ transformation prepares one for access to the higher levels of ‘spiritual’ knowledge…. 52

Whereas, in a rationalist episteme, such as that which governs modern

education, knowledge is far less hierarchical, being derived only from the senses

and reason, and is therefore disassociated from religious or other non-discursive

practice. Therefore, since anyone of sound mind could potentially know

anything, no knowledge is secret in and of itself. In a rationalist episteme,

knowledge may have prerequisites (such as learning classical physics before

learning quantum mechanics) but it does not have conditions. That is, you do not

have to change who you are in order to acquire knowledge, and the acquisition of

knowledge does not necessarily transform who you are.

However, in an esoteric episteme, such as that which governs Sufism,

knowledge is not merely information, justified true belief, or the result of the

correct application of reason, but rather a mode of being. The close relationship,

and even identity, between knowledge and being has been a rather celebrated

52 Brenner, Controlling Knowledge, 7

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subject among Sufi thinkers throughout the ages.53 One common analogy for this

relationship likens the soul or heart to a rusty mirror, which through the polishing

of spiritual practice, comes to contain and reflect Divine realities.54 Another

image is that of the soul as an opaque veil or substance that is refined and clarified

through spiritual practice until the light of knowledge shines through. The

Algerian Shaykh Ahmad al-‘Alawi, a contemporary of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba,

is credited with one of the most poetic descriptions of this relationship between

knowledge, spiritual practice, and being: “Unless man melts like snow in the

hands of God, truth will melt in his hands.” 55

Sources of Sufi Epistemology

In this way, knowledge in Sufism is inseparable from practice, and for this

reason, study and reasoning alone are not sufficient to acquire the highest forms

of knowledge. But to better understand the different categories of knowledge and

their relationship in Sufism we must to look to their sources in the Qur’an and

hadith (canonical sayings of the Prophet of Islam). Given the structuring role it

plays in Bamba’s didactic works, we will first turn to the famous hadith Gabriel.

In the this hadith, the Prophet explains religion as comprising three dimensions or

stages: Islām or “surrender” which is to perform the five pillars of Islam (testify to

the Oneness of God and the Apostleship of Muhammad, pray the five prayers,

give Zakat (alms), fast during the month of Ramadan, and perform the Hajj

(pilgrimage to Mecca)); Imān or “faith” which is to believe in God, His angels,

His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and accept His decree, whether pleasant

or unpleasant; and Iḥsān or “beautiful character” which is to worship God as if

you see Him, for if you do not see Him, then He sees you.56

Later commentators have compared this hadith to another (probably

spurious) narration in which the Prophet is said to have explained the three

dimensions of the Islamic revelation as the Shari‘ah (the Sacred Law), the 53 see Medhi Ha’iri Yazdi, The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence, New York: SUNY Press, 1992 54 Lings, Martin, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-Alawi (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993), p.187 55 Ibid, ii 56 Sahih Bukhari 1.2: 47

Ogunnaike 22

Ṭarīqah (the Path) and the Ḥaqīqah (the Truth): “Shari‘ah is my speech, Ṭarīqah

is my acts and Ḥaqīqah is my State.”57 These two schemas can be related to one

another in various different ways,58 but what is important here is that each

dimension of these schemas of religion has its particular type of knowledge and

methods of acquiring this knowledge. Islām is learned by practice, imān by study

and reflection, and iḥsān by spiritual purification. Similarly, knowledge of the

shari‘ah is learned by study (and/or practice), knowledge of the ṭarīqah is

acquired by practice (often coupled with study), and knowledge of the ḥaqīqah is

acquired through spiritual transformation and illumination. Thus one could say

that imān is the conformation of the mind and its beliefs to the Truth, islām is the

conformation of the soul and its actions to the Truth, and iḥsān is the total

conformation of one’s being to or realization of the Truth. Similarly, one could

say that the shari‘ah consists of speech to be learned and obeyed, the ṭarīqah

consists of actions to be emulated, and the ḥaqīqah is a state to be realized.

This tripartite distinction can also be found in the Qur’an where the

Prophet is instructed, “Say if you love God, then follow me and God will love

you” (3:31). Here see the same structure of speech (“Say if you love God”),

action (“follow me”), and inward state (being beloved by God). The first part of

the verse implies the acceptance of an orientation or attitude (I love God), the

second, the practical implications of that orientation (the imitation of the Prophet,

known as the “beloved of God”), and the third, the realization of a relationship of

mutual love with God. As the Qur’an says of such people in 5:54, “He [God]

loves them and they shall love Him.” This concept of love is explicitly connected

to the hadith of Gabriel by verse 93 of the same chapter, which says, “God loves

the people of iḥsān.” Moreover, this reciprocal relationship of love is similar to

the reciprocal relationship of vision mentioned in the section of the hadith about

iḥsān. Indeed, many Sufi authors have posited a close relationship, if not identity,

57 see Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1975), p. 99 58 For example, Islam=Shari’ah, Imān=Ṭarīqah, Iḥsān=Haqiqah; or Imān & Iḥsān = Ṭarīqah; or Imān=Shari‘ah, Islam=Ṭarīqah, Iḥsān=Haqiah

Ogunnaike 23

between iḥsān, love, and the highest form of vision or knowledge of the Divine.59

The following hadith qudsi60 unites all of these themes of shari’ah, ṭarīqah,

ḥaqīqah, iḥsān, knowledge and love in two remarkably profound and mysterious

sentences: My servant approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory for him, and My servant continues to approach Me with supererogatory works until I love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks.61

The first stage of “approach” consists of the obligatory duties of the shari‘ah, the

second stage refers to the supererogatory acts of the ṭarīqah, and the final stage is

that of love, in which the servant’s perception and actions become divine. This

divine knowledge is gnosis, or the realization of the ḥaqīqah, and this divine

action is the essence of iḥsān. Al-Ghazzāli, who had a tremendous influence on

Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba, writes, “Love of God is the ultimate station, the most

perfect of all, the most elevated summit of all degrees…. Every station which

precedes Love is a but a prelude to Love.”62

In summary, knowledge in the Sufi tradition is hierarchical,

transformative, multi-faceted, and at its summit, is inseparable from spiritual

realization and love. To love God, you must know Him, and to know God you

must love Him, and iḥsān, beautiful character, is the perfection of both Divine

knowledge and love.

Bamba’s Epistemology in Poetry: Theory, Practice, Realization As mentioned above, the epistemology professed by Ahmadu Bamba in

his vast corpus of didactic poetry is not particularly novel. Many of his works are

actually versifications of prose texts on the Islamic sciences or quote heavily from

these works. For example, Bamba’s influential Masālik al-Jinān largely consists

59 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization, (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 82 60 A special category of hadith in which God speaks in the first person through the mouth of the Prophet. 61 Sahih Bukhari, 8.76: 509, Hadith Qudsi #25 62 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, La Revivification des Sciences de la Religion (Le Livre de l’Amour). Trans. A. Moussali, (Lyon: Alif, 1993), 145

Ogunnaike 24

of versifications of the Mauritanian Shaykh Muḥammad al-Yadālī al-Daymanī’s

khatimat al-Taṣawwuf (Seal of Sufism), his Sufi commentary on the Qur’an, al-

Dhahabu al-Ibrīz (Pure Gold), and al-Ghazzāli’s Ihya al-‘ulūm ad-dīn. However,

what is novel is the way in which Bamba used this material in his poetry and

pedagogy to shape individual disciples and eventually, his society.

Most apparently, the style in which Bamba wrote was quite unique.

Although he used the standard meters and forms of classical Arabic poetry,

perhaps due to his relative geographic isolation, and undoubtedly due to his

singular character, his poetry has an easily recognizable style. Deceptively simple

and straightforward, often taking the form of rhymed couplets, Bamba’s didactic

poetry is sweet even when it is stern, and he writes in an easy, aphoristic style

reminiscent of the prose works of the early Sufi writers he studied. His poems of

praise and supplication are marked by the same simplicity and straightforward

elegance, however, without the creative allusive imagery of wine and romance

that one finds in so many other great Sufi poets such as Ḥallāj and ibn al-Fāriḍ.63

Instead, virtually all of the imagery, analogies, and metaphors in Ahmadu

Bamba’s poetry are drawn directly from the Qur’an and hadith. Other images and

formulations can usually be traced back to medieval Sufi authors such as Ibn ‘atā

Allah al-Iskandarī or al-Ghazzāli. Fernand Dumont, author of the most complete

survey of Bamba’s writings in any language, has this to say about his poetry: That which strikes one on first reading the odes of Ahmadu Bamba, is the impression of the absence of discursive thought coming from the author, and directly expressed by him. It seems, in effect, that Ahmadu Bamba is not a “thinker” in the sense that Ghazzāliis a thinker or dialectician. But this first impression proves to be unfounded. One discovers, little by little, that the thought of the Master does exist, be it sparse here and there, in very a fine and beautiful form. One must search for it within the musical monotone of the litanies.64

63 However, Bamba may have employed such imagery in his private writings. However, this is not to say that the imagery of these great poets is not derived from the Qur’an and hadith, it clearly is, but the derivation is less obvious and literal than that found in Bamba’s poetry. 64 Dumont, La Pensée Religeuse, 2

Ogunnaike 25

It is important to remember that these poems represent only the public part

of Bamba’s writings,65 and that his audience was not the sophisticated

intelligentsia of a Fes or Cairo or Damascus, but in most cases, the (newly)

Muslim Wolof farmer, merchant, warrior, and their children. The marriage of

accessibility of style and profundity of content that Bamba achieves in his poetry

is remarkable, and remarkably fitting. Through his unique style, Bamba

condensed many of the most profound symbols and images from the Qur’an and

hadith and the collected meditations of over a millennium of Muslim scholars and

saints on these passages and themes into easily accessible verse. The rhyme,

meter, and vivid imagery of the poems settle them in the memory and make their

recollection and recitation easy and enjoyable. These poems and the lessons

contained therein, were not meant to be read once, digested, and discarded, but

were clearly meant to be read repeatedly and reflected upon, as his disciples all

over the world continue to do to this very day.66 The very structure and style of

Shaykh Amadu Bamba’s poetry alludes to his epistemological orientation towards

the internalization of knowledge through memorization, repetition, and reflection.

In fact, the slow, measured cadence in which Murid disciples recite these poems

seems to invite one to contemplate their profound meanings.67 Like many great

works, the poetry of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba requires very little training to

appreciate, and a lifetime to understand.

The structure of Bamba’s didactic poems also tells us much about his

epistemology and his pedagogy. Several of his most important didactic poems68

are divided into three sections: ‘ilm at-tawḥīd (the science of Divine unity or

theology), fiqh (Islamic law and its practical application in everyday life), and

65 The library of Touba and the private collections of Murid shuyukh contain many of the unpublished, private works of Ahmadu Bamba concerning secret knowledge which requires spiritual qualification and authorization to study (see the previous section). 66 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 136 67 For example, see “Chants Mourides-Nuits Soufi Paris,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uUvqUgwAdg&feature=related and “Khassida- Alayka Ya” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVGKOCehy-8. 68 For example, Tazawwudu aṣ-Ṣighār (the Provisions of the Young) and Tazawwudu ash-Shubbān (the Provisions of the Youth) in Recueil de Poemes en Sciences Religieuses de Cheikh A. Bamba, Vol. 1, trans. Serigne Sam Mbaye et al., (Casablanca: Dar El Kitab, 1988)

Ogunnaike 26

taṣawwuf (Sufism or spiritual perfection), and the triad “tawḥīd-fiqh-tasawwuf”

appears so often in his other poems as to make it a central theme of his work.

Indeed, at the end of the poem Mafātih al-Jinān wa Maghāliq al-Nirān (Keys of

the Gardens and Locks of the Flames) Bamba writes, “May I always affirm

tawḥīd, fiqh, and glorious tasawwuf!”69

The order of this arrangement, although not uncommon, is telling. Bamba

begins with theology, which, in his poetry, consists of doctrines, dogmas, and

rational proofs about what is necessary, possible, and impossible for God and his

prophets, and the logical conclusions derived from these premises70. Next he

discusses essential ritual obligations, such as the ritual purification before prayer,

the ritual prayer, the fast, etc., describing what is necessary, recommended and

forbidden in these acts as well as the benefits incurred by performing them

correctly and the harm in neglecting them71. He concludes with Sufism, listing

the maladies of the soul such as pride, sloth, seeking fame, etc., their remedies

through behavior and meditation, the futility of other knowledge apart from this

purification of the soul, and the spiritual knowledge and benefits of this process of

purification.

Through this structure, Bamba reaffirms the classical Sufi hierarchy of

knowledge, with merely rational knowledge subordinate to mystical or spiritual

knowledge. The choice to present theoretical knowledge before practice is also

telling. In Masālik al-Jinān, Bamba writes, “Know, brother that knowledge is the better than action, being its foundation. Happy is he who acquires it! But knowledge only bears fruit with its application through practice, So strive to join the two [knowledge and action] A few good acts grounded in knowledge are more rewarding, without doubt Than many actions done in ignorance72

69 Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, “Mafātih al-Jinān wa Maghāliq al-Niran” in Recueil de Poemes en Sciences Religieuses de Cheikh A. Bamba, Vol. 1, trans. Serigne Sam Mbaye et al., (Casablanca: Dar El Kitab, 1988), v. 183. 70 Most of Bamba’s writings on tawḥīd appear to be derived from Abu ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad Al-Sanūsī ‘s Umm al-barāhīn (Mother of the Proofs) 71 Similarly, Bamba’s writings on fiqh seem to take Imam Abdur-Rahman Al-Akhdari’s Kitāb Al-‘ibādah (Book of Worship) as a starting point. 72 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 103-5.

Ogunnaike 27

By his own account, Bamba begins his didactic poems and his pedagogy

with theoretical knowledge before proceeding to the rites and practices, because

the correct performance of these practices requires this knowledge. Conversely,

this initial knowledge cannot come to fruition without practice. In another poem,

Bamba paraphrases a hadith, Everyone who acts without knowledge is like a speck of dust in the wind And he who acquires knowledge without practicing it is a loaded donkey73

In another poem, Bamba makes a similar point about the relationship between

theory and practice in a dazzling and dizzying array of analogies: Is it useful for the hungry to hold a sickle without ever farming in the fields? Is it useful for the thirsty to have a rope without ever using it to draw water? What is the use of sharpening a weapon that you will never use in life Knowing many remedies does not profit the sick man As long as he does not use any medicine to treat his own illness, even if he himself heals thousands of sick people If your progress in knowledge does not lead to spiritual growth and detachment from worldly things You are regressing and harming yourself because you are distancing yourself from God Most High. Consider the saying of the Messenger of God The peace and blessings of God be on him, his family, and his noble companions ‘Certainly going hunting without a weapon is the action of ignorant fools.’… So you should never go hunting without carrying weapons, well-sharpened, nor take up these weapons without going hunting It is necessary to both take up weapons and go hunting, and do your best to attain your goal Which is what? To be saved form the danger of these fatal illusions—I swear by the life of my Lord—is among the most difficult of things74

However, neither knowledge nor practice nor even their union suffices to obtain

true knowledge and be free of illusion, in same poem, Bamba writes, Know that learning accompanied by action constitutes an illusion when it is attached to vices, but abandoning these two Out of fear of vices or with a lack of remembrance are among the most dangerous of illusions75

Sufism, or the science of purifying the soul of these defects, is thus

essential to escape illusion and realize true knowledge. These flaws of character

or behavior can be understood as forms of ignorance or illusion that are

particularly resistant to ordinary reasoning and even religious practice. For

73 Bamba, “Mafātih al-Jinān wa Maghāliq al-Nirān,” v. 26-7. 74 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 831-2, 835-41, 844-6. 75 ibid, v. 100-1.

Ogunnaike 28

example, the desire to appear pious can be easily rationalized as helping to

promote high moral standards in the community, and acts of devotion and piety

would only feed this particular flaw. However, from the perspective of a Sufi

such as Bamba, this character defect stems from the illusion that the approval of

other people is as or more important than the approval of God —it is due to a lack

of remembrance of God and the way things are.76 Amongst other things, Sufism

is the art of curing the soul of these defects through the remembrance of God.

Later in the same poem Bamba writes, As for the practice of the remembrance of God (dhikr), it is the best action that the aspirant (murīd) can strive to do77

So in Bamba’s mystical epistemology, didactic poetry, and the system of

pedagogy in which they were both employed, theoretical knowledge, devotional

practice, and spiritual purification are all required to acquire knowledge, be free

from illusion, and “see things as they really are.”78

This mystical emphasis on remembrance can also be found in the didactic

poem Tazawwudu aṣ- Ṣighār (Provision of the Young), which, by its own

declaration, is an introduction to the religious sciences. The poem is essentially a

commentary on the hadith Gabriel discussed above, with the twist that the section

on imān (belief/faith) precedes the section on islām (surrender/practice), whereas

in many narrations of the hadith, islām precedes imān. The preceding paragraphs

on Bamba’s theory of knowledge give ample reason for this ordering, but what is

perhaps even more interesting is that Bamba begins the section on islām with a

brief discussion of dhikr, a word that means both remembrance and invocation.

He interprets the first act of islām described in the hadith, to testify to the oneness

of God and apostleship of Muhammad, to be a command to frequently invoke this

testimony as a form of dhikr. This typically Sufi interpretation reveals the strong

mystical emphasis that runs through all of Bamba’s work and pedagogy. He

situated even in the most basic texts about the most basic and practical acts of the

76 see ibid, v. 808-15 and v. 939-967. 77 ibid v. 299. 78 Famous prayer attributed to the Prophet of Islam, “Rabb َī Arānī al-ashyā’ kamā hiya”

Ogunnaike 29

religion in the context of Sufism; Bamba’s students were being prepared for

mystical knowledge from the outset of their education.

Bamba’s orientation towards this higher form of knowledge is also evident

in his discussion of sin or moral defects. Later in the same poem, Bamba uses the

classic Sufi imagery of veils that obscure the light of knowledge to describe vices

such as sloth, gluttony, and forgetfulness.79 In Masālik al-Jinān, the term

“illusion” is used almost interchangeably with sin or flaw, indicating that, for

Bamba, these defects not only prevent the realization of knowledge, they

ultimately come from this lack of realization. He writes, Your ignorance, your stupidity, your distraction is the source of all evil80

Since ignorance is the root of the problem, knowledge is clearly the solution.

But how is this knowledge acquired? Bamba’s writings on knowledge fall

into three broad categories. The first is that of doctrinal or theoretical knowledge

such as the conjugation of Arabic verbs or the list of the necessary attributes of

God, which can be learned through memorization and study; the second is

practical knowledge, which includes everything from how to make the ritual

ablutions before prayer, to advice on how to study (remind yourself frequently of

the why you are studying and stay hungry like a lion, perseverant as a vulture, and

eager as a dog81), and ways to combat various vices through fasting, meditation,

and prayer; the third category is that of mystical or direct knowledge, and

although Bamba dedicated thousands of verses to explaining how to purify the

soul to gain access to this knowledge, he says little about the content of this

knowledge, choosing instead to focus on describing the superiority of this

knowledge to all else, its necessity, and the necessity of submitting to the

discipline of a qualified teacher to acquire it. However, the content of this

knowledge is described as being the perfection, realization, and confirmation of

the doctrines and practices that the disciple has learned.

For example, in the poem Munawwir aṣ-Ṣudūr (Illumination of the

Hearts), Bamba (again elaborating on imagery drawn from hadith) writes:

79 ibid v. 152. 80 ibid v. 1023. 81 Bamba, “Mafātih al-Jinān wa Maghaliq al-Nirān” v.54-6.

Ogunnaike 30

Anyone who looks at the world without contemplation will be trapped by it It is like a hideous old woman disguised in beautiful clothes When a fool considers her, he only sees her dazzling clothes A beauty, the love for whom leads to a marriage that will destroy her love Until when she takes off the clothes she had worn, and he finds disgusting what was covered One-eyed, graying, smelly, her saliva like repugnant moss Though having no eyelashes and a shriveled body, her external appearance attracts every sinner Who bites his hand in regret for all that he had done before But as for the person of insight, when he meets her, he examines her, and if he sees danger, he rejects her She is like the dream of a sleeper, whoever sells her, gains a great profit The world turned towards me, I sold it and my chains left me After that it turned its back on me, and I did not place my hope in it, for it is the abode of shadows Again it turned to me and I turned to God, and He sustained me Everything in this world that is of use to me Is a provision for paradise, and after the selling and struggle, a cause for appreciation I inform you of all the hardships I endured, before I reached eternal contentment So struggle against the ego and do not follow your base desires, but follow the path of contentment O seeker of the world, remember my advice, because it is sincere and of sound intent Flee form the world if you are not in control of your soul/ego and you will gain spiritual power For it will make you laugh today and cry tomorrow, as long as you do not abstain from it, so abstain from it and your life will be pleasant It only gives disappointment and disgrace, but he who abstains from it is saved from this disgrace Happy is he whose master has enabled him to abstain from the world, he will achieve a high rank82

Here the student who has not yet achieved control over his soul or

mastered the art of contemplation is told that the world is a deceptive source of

disappointment (doctrine/theory) and advised to abstain from it (practice). At this

stage, the student can accept this doctrine on the authority of his teacher, and/or

by reflecting upon his own experience. Through its lurid imagery, the poem

provokes an attitude of aversion towards the world within the student, promising

that if he follows the example of the poet (practice), he will come to see the world

in the same way (realization), and be happy that he abstained from it.

82 Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, “Munawwir Aṣ-Ṣudur” in Recueil de poèmes en sciences religeuses du serviteur du Prophete, le fondateur du Mouridisme Vol .2, trans. Serigne Sam Mbaye et al. (Casablanca: Dar El-Kitab, 1989), v. 35-49, 52-8.

Ogunnaike 31

It is as if the poet is calling out to the student, who is still trapped in the

“abode of shadows,” telling him how to escape this dark cavern. Having already

climbed out of the darkness, the teacher can look back and see the cave for what it

really is, and guide the student out of its depths. At first, the student has to rely

on the authority of the teacher, but as he starts to put his advice into practice, his

own experience should come to confirm the teacher’s words, until he himself

climbs out of the darkness and is able see the world for what it truly is and

understand the reasoning behind the words and actions that led him into the light.

Thus, the poet’s words are meant to evoke beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that

are not only conducive to realization, but congruent with those which the student

will posses having achieved realization.

The end goal of this process is for the student to become a “person of

insight” who no longer has anything to fear from the world because he can see it

for what it is. However, the process of reaching this degree of clarity does not

merely consist of blind obedience. The student/disciple who studies and practices

should also contemplate and meditate upon himself and the world around him in

order to achieve realized knowledge (gnosis). In his chapter on meditation of

Masālik, Bamba (paraphrasing al-Ghazali) writes,

He [al-Ghazali] says in his Ihya83—pay attention to what he says: “Certainly the best fruit that religion can offer in this world is the acquisition of esoteric knowledge and closeness with God through remembrance/invocation (dhikr) Intimacy with god is achieved by constant invocation, while gnosis is realized by meditation (fikr) It has been reported that an hour of meditation is better than a year of worship; try to realize this advantage Know that meditation serves as a mirror for those who believe in the Clement, the Most High

For our complete understanding was only acquired after deep reflection by a clear spirit Just as unshakable conviction is only realized on the basis of deep reflection The certainty born of meditation is not like belief that is hastily adopted, the first is much more solid It is reported that a moment of meditation is more useful than the worship of all time, in any other form, without a doubt The faith of the person who engages in meditation increases in strength and

83 Ihya ‘Ulum ad-Din. Ghazali’s magnum opus which reinterprets the religious sciences from a Sufi perspective. The breadth of its subject matter is only matched by its incredible influence throughout the Sunni world.

Ogunnaike 32

stability, as has been reported from a good source It was after this meditation that truth appeared to him clearly, and convinced, he acquired purity and stability in faith The intensity of your faith increases with the depth of your thoughts Continue your discoveries and discovery in the mirror of meditation, in solitude, all the time The truth will thus appear to you, for it is through meditation that Abraham the intimate friend of God, acquired his conviction It is through meditation that man can acquire, in an hour, a strength of conviction that he could not achieve By spending his entire life in worship without meditation So reflect constantly, my friend, on the earth, the sky, the stars The sun, the moon, the trees, the water, the fire, the rocks and other things such as the night and the day; you will acquire certainty of the heart and the lights [of knowledge]84

Here again, Bamba emphasizes the superiority of the esoteric

knowledge (gnosis) gained by meditation, and the futility of trying to

achieve certainty without it. Belief and faith (imān) are only perfected

through meditation, which requires a “pure spirit,” and the actions of

worship (islām) alone are not enough to acquire the perfect certainty of

esoteric knowledge which meditation brings. Bamba employs the classic

Sufi imagery of the mirror of the heart and the light of knowledge to

describe the relationship between the purification of the soul and the

realization of this knowledge, which is the summit and perfection of both

faith and worship (iḥsān).

Later in the same poem, Bamba elaborates on this relationship between

spiritual purification and esoteric knowledge Spiritual insight is like the vision of the eye; even the most miniscule particle can prevent it from seeing clearly Each of these blameworthy things (no matter how small), down here, in the heart, prevent the lights of God from entering in85

This dynamic is the focus of Bamba’s poem AstaghfiruLlah (I Seek God’s

Forgiveness). He writes: I seek the forgiveness of Almighty God and I repent unto Him from all manifest and hidden sins I ask by the right of God's face for forgiveness from all forbidden things I repent unto Him from all sins, great and small and from all sinful thoughts Forgive me, O Forgiving One, for all that I have done, and all that I have

84 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 410-7, 426-34, 436-7, 458-9. 85 Ibid, v. 781-2.

Ogunnaike 33

failed to do, and all that is between Make me understand knowledge, and increase me in knowledge and action And good behaviour and understanding Unveil beneficial knowledge unto me and free me from sadness Unveil unto me secrets and hidden matters, O You who are the best of those who unveil hidden secrets Gather unto me all that has escaped me of good knowledge and grant me the eternal rank Lead me unto contemplation of the Mighty One, O my Lord, with ‘Be,86' and make my pen free from sin Generous One, grant me in my recitation goodness and sweetness from You God bless me in my life, and make my heart the abode of Your signs Grant me the happy existence granted to all who repent, and free me from manifest and hidden sins, Acceptance that will make me pure from sins and disobedience and defects until I enter the garden which the righteous are promised by Your mercy and beneficence87.

The order of the supplications is very revealing. Bamba begins with

repentance and asking forgiveness, and then proceeds to ask for understanding.

This alludes to relationship between the soul of the knower and his capacity for

knowledge: purity of soul is a precondition for clarity of knowledge. Bamba then

asks for an increase in knowledge, action, good behaviour, and finally,

understanding. The same list appears in the poem Munawwir aṣ-Ṣudūr

(Illumination of the Hearts), where Bamba writes, “know that knowledge, good

actions, as well as good behavior bring about spiritual perfection.”88 These verses

reiterate the same hierarchy of theory, practice, and their realization. This

realization is described as an “unveiling” that leads to the blissful contemplation

of the Divine. As in most Sufi texts, the locus of this unveiling is the heart,

purified from all sin, so as to clearly reflect the signs of God. The implication of

this chain of supplications is that repentance and forgiveness lead to esoteric

knowledge, happiness, and a clear vision of God in the heart of the supplicant.

This final state of blissful enlightenment is none other than iḥsān, the union and

perfection theory and practice, the beautiful character that permits one to see and

be seen, love and be loved by God.

86 A reference to the Qur’anic phrase, “God says to a thing “Be!” and it is.” (see Qur’an 2:117; 3: 47; 3:59; 6:73; 16:40; 19:35; 36:82; and 40:68) 87 qtd. in Pirzada, The Epistemology of Ahmadou Bamba, 107-8. 88 Bamba, “Munawwir Aṣ-Ṣudur,” v. 152.

Ogunnaike 34

The epistemological quest outlined by Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba in his

poetry begins with theoretical knowledge, which, when coupled with religious

practice, spiritual purification, and meditation, leads to a clear and certain

understanding of reality (ḥaqīqah). The end of this quest for knowledge is also

characterized by happiness, love, and the perfection of conduct and character

(iḥsān). Given this epistemology, Bamba designed his pedagogy to impart

knowledge, in all of its dimensions, to his students. He describes his ideal

student, one who has mastered theoretical, practical, and esoteric knowledge, in

the following verses: The real "Sufi" is a gnostic, actually putting his knowledge into practice without any transgression So he thus becomes free from all defects, his heart full of righteous thoughts Detached from the wide world to devote himself to the service and love of God, considering a gold coin and clod of earth on the same footing [He is] like the face of the earth, on which people dump all sorts of garbage, and subject to the harshest treatment, but which never gives back anything but good The wicked, the good, and the multitudes in between all trample it underfoot, but it remains motionless and impassive [He is] like the cloud which pours its waters everywhere, without discrimination89

89 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 654-9.

Ogunnaike 35

Bamba’s Pedagogy: ta‘līm , tarbiyah, tarqiyah

Having given an introduction to the epistemology of Shaykh Ahmadu

Bamba as expressed in his writings, we now turn to its application in his

pedagogy. Unsurprisingly, the tripartite division of knowledge in Bamba’s

writings was reflected in the system of pedagogy that he and his closest disciples

developed. This system also consisted of three stages or modes:

1) ta‘līm (teaching)-the theoretical study of exoteric subjects such as Arabic,

reading and memorizing the Qur’an and hadith, ‘ilm at-tawḥīd (theology), fiqh

(Islamic law), and other sciences, such as logic and medicine;

2) tarbiyah (training)-the practical education or rearing of the soul through the

proper performance of religious rites and regulations (observance the shari‘ah),

noble behavior and comportment (adab), and the purification of the soul from

defects and vices through work and Sufism (tasawwuf)90;

and 3) tarqiyah (ascension)-the perfection of spiritual training, the elevation of the

soul to the level of iḥsān, and initiation into the secrets of gnosis91.

Only a select few students/disciples ever went through this final stage of

instruction, but those that did became highly regarded spiritual guides and

teachers in their own right. However, all of Bamba’s disciples were required to

undergo ta‘līm and tarbiyah to varying degrees, depending on their situation,

capacity, and intentions. Many of the people who came to study with Shaykh

Ahmadu Bamba were adults with no knowledge of Arabic, and had neither the

time nor the inclination to spend years learning the language (which was

necessary for formal textual study) alongside children. Many notable Muslim

scholars and shaykhs also came to study with Bamba, seek his blessing, and

become affiliated with his Sufi order.92

90 Rüdiger Seesemann explains tarbiya, “It describes the spiritual ‘breeding’ or ‘rearing’ of the aspirant (murīd) at the hands of his shaykh. The imagery used to describe this relationship sometimes likens it to the rearing of young animals by their parents, thus underscoring the utter dependency of the former on the fostering and nurturing care as well as the disciplining force of the latter” (The Divine Flood p. 72) 91 Babou, “Educating the Murid,” p. 321. 92 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, p. 99-100. This tripartite division of education into ta‘līm, tarbiyah, and tarqiyah seems to come from the Andalusian scholar and Shādhilī Sufi shaykh, Ibn

Ogunnaike 36

During this time, most members of Wolof society were members of castes,

lineages attached to a certain trade, such as the aristocracy, the ceddo warrior

caste, the blacksmiths, the leatherworkers, and the Muslim clerics. Bamba sought

to erase these social divisions in his daaras, assigning manual labor and

leatherworking (regarded as menial and degrading tasks) to students from noble

backgrounds, and appointing students from low-caste backgrounds to teach the

religious sciences. As he wrote, “whatever nobility one might claim for one’s

ancestors, the truth is that these ancestors originated from water and clay.”93 He

sought to replace the traditional hierarchy of Wolof society which was based on

birth and wealth with the hierarchy of his Sufi order, which was based on piety

and learning.

Nevertheless, the murids who flocked to Bamba and his daaras came from

very diverse backgrounds and for diverse reasons. Most were attracted by

Bamba’s reputation as a saint and his defiance in the face of colonial authority,

others were impressed by the discipline and economic prowess of the Murids,

who controlled much of the new, lucrative enterprise of groundnut farming, and

still others came to seek Bamba because of his reputation as a sage of unsurpassed

learning in both the exoteric and esoteric sciences. Much of the success of the

Muridiyyah was due to its flexibility in adapting its pedagogical model to the

diverse needs and settings of its disciples. But what did this structure look like?

On his way to exile in Mauritania, Bamba wrote to senior Murid shaykhs

instructing them regarding the organization of their disciples: To those who want to study [Qur’an religious sciences, and the Arabic language] I recommend that they join my brother Ibra Fati. Those who are only interested in tarbiyah I ask to follow my brother Shaykh Anta. Those who would like to combine tarbiyah and learning must join Ibra Fati. I have nothing to do with people who are not interested in learning or tarbiyah and they should stay away from me. To the senior disciples, Irbahima Fall, Ibra Sar, etc., I order you to dismiss those among your followers who misbehave or cause troubles and to keep only the good ones.94

‘Abbād al-Rundī (d. 1390) whose works were known in the Senegambian region at this time (see The Divine Flood, p. 73) 93 qtd. in Ibid, 99. 94 qtd. in Ibid p. 102.

Ogunnaike 37

It is significant that disciples seeking to study and those seeking study and

tarbiyah were directed to the same person, Bamba’s half-brother and close

confidant, Shaykh Ibra Fati, who, like Bamba himself was considered a master of

both the exoteric and esoteric sciences. This underscores Bamba’s commitment

to uniting learning and spiritual training. It is also significant that Bamba wrote

these instructions on his way to exile. Having spent eleven years in exile (seven

in Gabon, four in Mauritania) and five years under house arrest, it was necessary

for the senior Murid shaykhs to take up the task of applying Bamba’s pedagogical

ideas in his absence. In practice, this took the form of three kinds of institutions

and student-teacher relationships.

Institutions

The first institution was the Muridiyyah itself, the Sufi order which served

as the umbrella under which all of these educational activities took place. Shaykh

Ahmadu Bamba was the founder and head of the order, and his authority was

derived from his Divine sanction, received by the Prophet in a vision, to be a

spiritual guide, and his widely recognized learning and sanctity, which made him

a source of knowledge and blessing (barakah) for his disciples. Bamba himself

appointed other shaykhs from among his senior and most accomplished disciples

to recruit, organize, teach and spiritually train other murids. They were appointed

based on their spiritual, intellectual, and personal qualifications as judged by

Bamba, and their authority was derived from this appointment, as well as their

public reputation. As envisioned by its founder, the Muridiyyah was first and

foremost a Sufi order or ṭarīqah whose primary aim was the spiritual

development of its members. However, for Bamba, this involved different types

of education, and as the number of disciples increased, new institutions or forms

of organization to achieve this spiritual/pedagogical objective on a large scale.

The second, basic institution of the Muridiyyah was the daara, which is

the Wolof term given to a Quranic or Islamic school. Although these daaras,

which ranged from a rural teacher and a group of children sitting under a tree to

large classes held in mosques or school buildings, were prevalent in Senegal

Ogunnaike 38

during Ahmadu Bamba’s time, he and other Sufi shaykhs in the region95 had long

criticized these institutions for failing to train good students and stand up to the

immoral and un-Islamic practices of the aristocracy in their regions.

Murid daaras took many forms, but all were led by a teacher or Shaykh,

authorized and appointed by Ahmadu Bamba or one of his deputies, who would

train students in the exoteric Islamic sciences. The basic curriculum of Murid

daaras was very similar to those of other Islamic schools in the region, except

that some of Ahmadu Bamba’s works were studied in place of other texts.

Students would memorize the Qur’an and study hadith, the Arabic language,

theology, Islamic law, etc. However, students of Murid daaras were almost

always disciples initiated into the Muridiyyah order, and thus also received

tarbiyah, the training of the soul, either from the shaykh of their daara, or another

teacher. The texts of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba that the students studied also gave

the curriculum a mystical orientation, and the most advanced students in these

daaras would also study Sufi texts. It is important to remember that these daaras

were primarily conceived of as group of students studying texts with a shaykh,

and were not necessarily tied to a particular location or building-although

mosques, madrasas, and homes frequently hosted these educational institutions.

The third and most unique institution to emerge from the Murid

educational program was the daara tarbiyah. These new types of schools were

established in response to the large number of adult disciples who did not fit into

the standard student profile. Many were illiterate adults seeking work and

spiritual training, and others had an advanced education in Islamic sciences,

seeking to complement their education with the spiritual discipline of tarbiyah.

Babou writes, The daara tarbiyah is a Murid innovation. This school is exclusively reserved for male disciples who voluntarily engage in tarbiyah, or education of the soul. Disciples join the daara tarbiyah at their sheik’s request…. During the colonial era some people entered the working schools to escape military conscription or French control. Daara tarbiyah also welcomed young men who submitted to Murid sheiks as a way of contesting household authority or traditional land-management practices. Theoretically, the time that a disciple spent in a daara was dependent on the sheikh’s will. Since the training was not based on pre-

95 Ibid, 80.

Ogunnaike 39

established requirements but on mystical considerations, the sheikh was the only one qualified to know if the objectives were reached.96

The daaras were usually established in the wilderness, where the murids could go

about their physical and spiritual work without the distractions and interference of

town life and its politics. The murids of a daara tarbiyah would work during the

day clearing bush, farming, and doing other manual labor, often accompanied by

dhikr (various spoken or silent invocations) and spend their evenings studying the

Qur’an, reciting Bamba’s poetry, and in collective or individual invocation and

meditation (dhikr). Every daara tarbiyah was under supervision of a shaykh who

was responsible for guiding the spiritual development of the murids and would

closely monitor their behavior and spiritual states. As the Muridiyyah grew, a

single shaykh could have multiple daaras. The daara accommodated single male disciples in teams of ten to fifteen headed by a jawrigne (representative)…. The jawrigne represented the shaykh; he was a married adult who lived with his wife in the daara and tended to disciples. He was required to provide Quranic education to school-age disciples and initiate older disciples into Amadu Bamba’s religious poems, but his main task was to enforce discipline, distribute work, and watch after the disciples.97

Over time, villages developed around these daaras tarbiyah. It was through these

unique institutions of spiritual training that the Muridiyyah developed their

distinct culture and economic power.

Teacher-Student relationships

The three different types of learning (ta‘līm , tarbiyah, tarqiyah) in

Bamba’s pedagogy required three different kinds of teachers, and therefore

student-teacher relationships. Bamba required his shaykhs of ta‘līm to be

masters of the exoteric sciences, also be accomplished in Sufism and be free of

the vices of pride and hypocrisy, so as to be able to admit the limits of their own

knowledge, and to embody the knowledge they taught. Bamba was particularly

concerned that these teachers avoided compromising themselves by seeking

wealth and prestige, especially by mingling with rulers, since he attributed the

decline in Islamic education in Senegal to these very factors. The teachers of

ta‘līm also needed to be patient and able to communicate clearly with their

96 Ibid, 105. 97 Ibid, 107.

Ogunnaike 40

students. The students in turn were expected to treat their shaykh with the utmost

respect, devotion, and gratitude. Bamba even argued that a student should respect

his teacher more than his father, because while the father nourishes the body, the

teacher nourishes the spirit with knowledge.98

The shaykh of tarbiyah, responsible for the purification of the soul, must

have completed this process himself. Furthermore, Bamba required this teacher

to have a profound knowledge of the soul and its states, and be able to recognize,

diagnose, and treat its illnesses. The shaykh of tarbiyah did not teach from a

standard curriculum or transmit theoretical knowledge, instead he trained

disciples in the practical skill of mastering their own nafs (carnal soul or ego) so

that they would be able to put into practice the theoretical knowledge they had

acquired and be prepared for the mystical knowledge of gnosis. Through his

knowledge of the Islamic esoteric sciences, and the wisdom of his own

experience, the shaykh of tarbiyah was expected to solve the various problems

that his disciples brought him. These shaykhs also often provided food, shelter,

and work for their disciples. These disciples in turn, were expected to submit to

the shaykh in complete obedience and trust. According to a common Sufi adage

quoted by Ahmadu Bamba the disciple should be “in the hands of the shaykh, like

a corpse in the hands of the washer.”99 Disciples were also expected to be

completely open and honest with the shaykh, so that he could effectively

complete their spiritual training. Needless to say, the disciples were also expected

to show the shaykh of tarbiyah utmost respect and devotion. Since tarbiyah was

the backbone of Bamba’s system of spiritual pedagogy, the shaykhs of tarbiyah

formed the heart of the Murid order. Some shaykhs of tarbiyah were also

shaykhs of ta‘līm , like Bamba’s brother Ibra Fati. Bamba himself was a shaykh

of ta‘līm , tarbiyah, and tarqiyah.

98 Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, “Tazawwudu Shubān /'Viatique des jeunes.'” [Viaticum for the Youth] in Recueil de Poemes en Sciences Religieuses de Cheikh A . Bamba, Vol. 1. (Rabat: Dar El Kitab, 1988), v. 421. 99 Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, “Nahju,” [Path to fulfillment of the disciple], in Recueil de Poemes en Sciences Religieuses de Cheikh A. Bamba, Vol. 2. (Rabat: Dar El Kitab, 1989), v. 206

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The shaykh of tarqiyah is a shaykh of tarbiyah who has transcended the

human perfection of tarbiyah and elevated his soul to the level of the spirit.

Babou writes, At this spiritual juncture, his demeanour and appearance, and just the fact of interacting with him, become a source of inspiration and an incitement to persevere on the right path. The shaykh of ascension teaches by example and leads the disciples to spiritual perfection through imitation100

Taking the night journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem (the

isra’) and from Jerusalem through the seven heavens to the Divine Presence (the

mi‘raj), as a model of the Sufi path, as has been done in numerous Sufi works,101

tarbiyah represents the isra’ or horizontal journey to Jerusalem, and tarqiyah

represents the vertical ascent from that point to God.102 The rare disciple who

advanced to this stage would live with the shaykh of tarqiyah, observing his every

action, and serving as a kind of apprentice spiritual master. In this relationship,

the student (himself a shaykh in his own right) would take a much more active

role in his own education and development towards spiritual perfection.

Through these human institutions and relationships, Shaykh Ahmadu

Bamba and his closest disciples sought to apply his pedagogy of teaching,

spiritual training, and perfection to the diverse array of students who came to

them for instruction. Based on his epistemology, Bamba viewed the root cause of

the problems afflicting his society as a lack of knowledge in all of its dimensions.

The decay and collapse of the old Wolof social order and the encroachment of the

new colonial order made this pedagogical crisis particularly acute. He saw his

people perishing for lack of the right kinds of knowledge, and established his

pedagogy and system of education as a way to provide the theoretical, practical,

and esoteric knowledge he believed all people needed to lead truly happy and

fulfilled lives.

Conclusion

100 Babou, “Educating the Murid,” p. 321 101 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 219-21 102 Or in the language of the Western Classical tradition, the difference between the two is analogous to that between the Lesser and Greater Eleusian Mysteries.

Ogunnaike 42

French scholar of Sufism, Henri Corbin once said that “ordinary men are

shaped by their times, but spiritual men shape their times.” Few people in modern

times seem more deserving of this appraisal than Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba. His

influence on religion, education, identity, economics, politics and many other

dimensions of life in Senegal and the diaspora is inestimable. To date, scholars

estimate that his Sufi order, the Muridiyyah, can claim around four million

disciples.103 Bamba summarized the importance, influence, and even the structure

of his pedagogy in the following two verses of poetry, The best of actions is that whose benefits are multiple, reaching as many people as possible, such as the knowledge that removes ignorance [ta‘līm ] and eliminates evil [tarbiyah] and imperfection [tarqiyah]…104

The quest for this transformative knowledge was the organizing theme of his life

and work, and it was his order’s unique methods of transmitting this knowledge

that seems to have wrought such dramatic changes in Senegalese history.

Bamba’s practical epistemology, as outlined in his poetry, was at the heart

of his own spiritual quest and the influential system of education he initiated.

However, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand his conception of

knowledge without situating it within the context of Sufism and the Islamic

tradition from which it is derived. This intimate relationship between the Islamic

revelation, its interpretation by the tradition of Sufism, and Bamba’s adaptation of

this tradition in his epistemology and pedagogy is perhaps most clearly seen in a

passage from the pen of al-Ghazali, whom Bamba himself considered to be the

single greatest influence on his life and work after the Prophet Muhammad.105 At

the end of his Mizān al-‘Amal (The Scale of Action), Ghazzāli writes that term

“madhhab,” or way of proceeding towards God, has three different levels of

meaning, each associated with its own type of knowledge: The first is that which is dogmatically clung to in ostentation and contentiousness; the second is that which is useful in instruction and guidance; the third is that which a person believes in himself from what has been revealed to him…106

103 Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 1. 104 Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 123-4. 105 See Dumont, La Pensee Religieuse, and Bamba, “Masālik al-Jinān,” v. 19 and v. 42. 106 Abū-Hāmid al-Ghazāli. Mizān al-‘Amāl (Beirut: Dar al-Kitāb al-‘Arabi, 1983), 135.

Ogunnaike 43

The first level of madhhab is based on dogma and doctrine that is

presumed to be universal, and the knowledge associated with it does not rise

above the level of speculative belief. Whereas, The second is what is appropriate, in guidance and instruction, for whomever comes seeking to learn or to be guided. Now this cannot be specified in only one way, rather it differs according to the student, so that each student must be presented with what his understanding can handle...107

and The third is what a person holds to in his innermost self, between himself and God, such that no one other than God is aware of it. One does not mention it except to someone who is like oneself in his awareness of what one has realized, or else to a person who has reached a stage where they are capable of becoming aware of and understanding it.108

Ghazzāli concludes this discussion of these three levels of madhhab and

knowledge by invoking the Qura’nic imagery of the way of the “blind,” the way

of those who see by the scattered and reflected light of “the stars and the moon”

and those who see by the full light of the “Sun.” 109 Concluding, Ghazzāli quotes

the aphorism, “take what you see, and leave what you’ve heard; with the rising of

the sun, what need have you of Saturn?”110

Ghazali’s analysis of these three ways is clearly reflected in the three tiers

of Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba’s pedagogy. The first way corresponds to ta‘līm ,

which both Ghazzāli and Bamba note can lead to useless disputation and

arrogance if not coupled with the more individualized tarbiyah, which

corresponds to the second way. Since this way deals with the purification and

guidance of the soul, it is necessarily different for everyone who embarks upon it.

Tarbiyah is the way of spiritual purification, in which the lights of true knowledge

begin to shine, but only incompletely. However, this second way opens up onto

the full realization of the third. This uniquely intimate and personal form of

knowledge (gnosis) can only be understood by those who have already attained it,

or received by those who have been sufficiently prepared by the second way.

This third way corresponds to tarqiyah, the elevation of the soul to complete

realization. Bamba described his own experience of realization in strikingly

107 Loc cit. 108 Ibid, 136. 109 I am indebted to Prof. James Morris for bringing this passage to my attention. 110 Ibid, 137.

Ogunnaike 44

similar language, “The vision of the sun rising prevents me from following the

stars and the moon in the sky.”111

Thus we can see how the three types of instruction in Shaykh Ahmadu

Bamba’s pedagogy (ta‘līm , tarbiyah, and tarqiyah) come from the three modes

of knowledge in his epistemology (theoretical, practical/spiritual, and mystical),

which in turn is derived from the tradition of Sufi epistemology, rooted in the

Islamic revelation. Through his own imān (faith), islām (practice) and iḥsān

(perfected character/knowledge), and understanding of the Shari’ah (Divine

Law), the Ṭarīqah (the spiritual path), and the Ḥaqīqah (Divine Reality), Shaykh

Ahmadu Bamba was able to leave behind a system of education that allowed his

disciples to follow in his footsteps. His poetry and pedagogy were meant to train

his students in these three essential aspects of the art of being human: to learn, to

live, and to love.

111 Dieye, Touba Signes et Symboles, 20.

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