28/01/2019 ″Touba″ – a film documentary: Pilgrimage to Sheikh Bamba - Qantara.

de

″Touba″ – a film documentary

Pilgrimage to Sheikh Bamba

Director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's documentary film "Touba" is a chronicle of the
largest Sufi pilgrimage in sub-Saharan Africa. A review by Marian Brehmer


  
"Let this be a holy place, one to which every believer who would like to journey to Mecca but has not
the means to do so, can experience the blessing of a pilgrimage." These words in praise of his spiritual
home are taken from a prayer by the 19th century Sufi saint Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke.

Touba, now the second largest city in Senegal and the destination for pilgrims on the largest Sufi
pilgrimage in sub-Saharan Africa, is the place he was referring to. "Touba" is also the title of a
documentary film by U.S. American director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi that follows the pilgrimage to the
city 170 kilometres east of the Senegalese capital of Dakar. The film brings to life a world of Islamic
ritual little known to the outside world, choosing as it does to focus on African Islam and particularly on
the Maghreb states.

A Senegalese Gandhi

Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba is the spiritual founder of the Mouride Brotherhood in Senegal, where the
majority of the some twelve million Muslims are followers of Sufism. The term "Mouride" is derived from
Arabic and means disciple of a spiritual guide. The Sheikh, who was born in 1853, has a remarkable
life story and one that is closely linked with the colonial destiny of sub-Saharan Africa. To his followers,
Bamba is the Senegalese equivalent of Gandhi.

A religious reformer from central Senegal, Ahmadou Bamba's literary skills brought him fame at an
We use cookies on this site to enhance your user
early age. His Arabic poems are still read at Sufi rituals to honour the Prophet in Senegal
OK, I today.
agree In Decline
experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving
1887, Bamba established the city of Touba, still a small village at the time, as the spiritual seat of his
your consent for us to set cookies. More info
https://en.qantara.de/content/touba-a-film-documentary-pilgrimage-to-sheikh-bamba 1/4
28/01/2019 ″Touba″ – a film documentary: Pilgrimage to Sheikh Bamba - Qantara.de

newly founded order. He preached non-violence and the precepts of the "greater jihad" of the Sufis, the
struggle against the inner enemies of greed, hate, lies and violence. The use of weapons to fight
against the ruling colonial power was something that Bamba, however, utterly rejected.

By the end of the 19th century, the Sheikh's ever increasing band of followers had become a source of
some unease to the country's French colonial rulers. They saw his movement as a political threat and
regarded Bamba himself as a potential revolutionary. In 1895, despite the fact that he put up no
resistance, the Sufi leader was arrested by the colonial regime and sent into exile in Gabon, the colony
favoured by the French for the incarceration in solitary confinement of African freedom fighters.

Seven years of solitary in Gabon were followed by nine years under house arrest in various locations,
including neighbouring Mauritania. A report by a French official assigned to oversee the Sheikh's
custody recorded the following impression: "this Sheik Bamba possesses an innate power, the source
of which it is beyond the ability of reason to grasp; its disarming effect upon others impossible to
explain."

Spiritual inspiration and national symbol

The annual "Magal" pilgrimage to Touba, participated in by hundreds of thousands of Sufis, is

celebrated in memory of Sheikh Bamba's exile and commemorates his resoluteness and faith in prayer
and worship during the years of exile that ultimately brought him closer to God. The story of Sheikh
Bamba's exile, a sort of Senegalese version of the 'Hijra' (Muhammad's migration to Medina), is today
what unites the masses of Senegalese believers. Sheikh Bamba has become both a spiritual source of
inspiration and a symbol of the nation, his life story embellished with numerous stories of the miracles
he performed.

This becomes evident through the many short interviews with both pilgrims and sheikhs from the
Mouride Brotherhood in "Touba". Director Chai Vasarhelyi's camera team stays close to the action,
capturing much of the atmosphere; a remarkable achievement considering the fact that the crew had to
get most of the film done on a meagre three-day shoot. The documentary does exhibit a few
Hollywoodesque touches, however. There is the title music for one thing and numerous slow-motion
and drone sequences that introduce a sense of drama to proceedings that arguably the subject matter
does not require.

The overall effect is often to make the documentary more exotic than informative. Whether in the shots
of sweating Rastafarian dervishes, in their whirling circles, singing at the top of their voices, or in the
images of the devoted faithful prostrating themselves in the sand at the feet of a rather self-assured
looking Sufi master – the tradition is often made to appear rather unsettling, thus raising the question of
whether the cameras are not perhaps too ready to seek out the bizarre and the strange.

Lack of information on Sufism

"Touba" moreover provides no information on the spiritual nature of Sufism. We remain ignorant of the
relationship between student and master, for instance, or of the significance of the often ecstatic rituals.
Without such context, much of what we see in the film at best, cannot be completely understood – and
at worst might be completely misunderstood. The end result is a film that fails to probe below the
surface.

On the other hand, the selected readings from the work of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba that are dotted
throughout the film are impressive. Compelling too are the scenes around the periphery of the
pilgrimage that reveal that there is much of the profane along with the sacred to be encountered here:
the sight of the inner courtyard of the main mosque converted to a sleeping area for the masses, for
instance; the efforts of the supervisors whose job it is to attempt to impose some control on the
seething throng of humanity, or the quacks and charlatans who purvey their cure-all powders and
potions inWe
theuse cookies
pilgrims on this site to enhance your user
bazaar.
OK, I agree Decline
experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving
your consent for us to set cookies. More info
https://en.qantara.de/content/touba-a-film-documentary-pilgrimage-to-sheikh-bamba 2/4
28/01/2019 ″Touba″ – a film documentary: Pilgrimage to Sheikh Bamba - Qantara.de

What the film does make evident is the fact that the pilgrimage plays an important role in the cohesion
of Senegalese society. Touba is a gathering place for families and friends, a place for the faithful from
all social strata and all parts of the country to come together – and thus a symbol of the life-affirming
religion of the ordinary people, with whose faith the radical religious views of the fanatics has very little
in common.

Marian Brehmer

© Qantara.de

Translated from the German by Ron Walker


  
Home
Print
Newsletter

More on this topic

Combating violent extremism: Could Sufi Islam be the cure-all?

Photo essay: The Sufis of Khartoum

Qantara dossier: "Islam in Africa"

Related Topics

Cinema, Islam in Africa, Mysticism | Sufism

All Topics »

Related Content

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user

OK, I agree Decline
experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving
your consent for us to set cookies. More info
https://en.qantara.de/content/touba-a-film-documentary-pilgrimage-to-sheikh-bamba 3/4
28/01/2019 ″Touba″ – a film documentary: Pilgrimage to Sheikh Bamba - Qantara.de

Album review: Diali Cissokho and Kaira Baʹs "Routes"

Marrying music and culture

13.08.2018

Diali Cissokho left his native Senegal for North Carolina years ago. Raised as a griot, one of the
traditional musical story tellers and historians of West Africa, he wanted to ... More »

Home Politics Society Culture Topics Dialogues Essays Photo Essays Letters to the Editors

About us Masthead Privacy Policy

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user

OK, I agree Decline
experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving
your consent for us to set cookies. More info
https://en.qantara.de/content/touba-a-film-documentary-pilgrimage-to-sheikh-bamba 4/4