Photo credit: AP
The Magal Touba marks one of the most relevant festivals in the culturally wealthy country of Senegal, held in celebration of noble spiritual leader Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké honouring when he was exiled to Gabon by French colonialists out of fear that his growing popularity and the Sufi community will cause a rebellion.
There exist other minor celebrations such as the Magal of Saint Louis which commemorates the miraculous prayer performed by the saint on the sea in 1895, and the Magal held in Porokhane to celebrate the saint's mother Mame Diarra Busso Mbacké. Additionally, in the late 1970s, because a significant number of Mourides were journeying outside Senegal Seringe Cheikh Mbacke introduced the concept of Dahiras (a Wolof term derived from the Arabic word circle) where a gathering of people singing sacred Mouride poetry takes place in celebration of Bamba. Nevertheless, the grand magal of Touba remains to be the most prominent and widely attended of all the Mouride events, held on the 18th of Safar (the second month of the Islamic Hijri calendar).
The concept of Magal came to life as a result of a request Bamba Mbacké made while he was pulsing with life, where he asked his followers to celebrate the anniversary of his exile to Gabon. However, after he died in 1927, his eldest son and successor (shared with wife Sokhna Aminta Lo) Serigne Mouhamadou Moustapha Mbacké organized the first Mouride gathering on the anniversary of his death rather than his exile.
The initial celebration took place in 1928 with an estimated attendance and participation of 70,000 people and continued to take place every year in honor of his death until the passing of Moustapha Mbacké on July 13, 1945. In 1946 when Serigne Mouhamadou Fallilou Mbacké (a son Bamba Mbacké shared with Sokhna Awa Busso) came in succession of the throne as the second caliph to lead the brotherhood, he changed the date of the magal to the anniversary of Bamba’s exile to tally with the mystic’s original wishes and continued to be that way under the succeeding caliphs that followed right down to the current caliph sitting on the throne, Serigne Mountakha Mbacké, who assumed office in January 2018 after the death of the seventh Caliph Serigne Sidi Moukhtar Mbacké.
It is quite important to state that the grand magal has glazed an exponential growth over the years, from hundreds of thousands of pilgrims attending in the late 90s to nearly 2 million in the 2000s and over 3 million recorded in these past years. The date of the celebration is determined by the Islamic calendar which is based on the lunar year thus each year the pilgrimage takes place on the 18th of Safar and lasts for two days. Every single house in Touba opens itself up to the pilgrims, lodging is free with local families offering their homes as cocoons for friends, relatives, and worshipers under the guise of ‘Teranga’ (hospitality and generosity). No individual comes to the great mosque until it is time to visit and pay respects.
The celebration itself is centered around two events doused in religious and entertainment rituals. The religious aspect of it had its original purpose simply to worship and includes ‘Dhikrullah’ (remembrance of Allah), Salat Alan Nabi (sending prayers upon the prophet S.A.W.), reciting the Quran, and ‘Berneh’ (feeding someone hungry) for Tuyabah (blessings).
The festive aspects of the celebration involve enjoying banquets of Touffé (a special dish of chicken or beef with an onion garlic sauce and potatoes, Méchoui (roasted meat), sharing fruits, and diverse beverages with the most common being Café Touba, a unique coffee flavored with grains of Selim and sometimes cloves introduced to Mourides by Bamba Mbacké himself when he returned from his exile in 1902. They also informally visit Touba’s renowned marketplace place where goods are twice as cheap as anywhere else because of the absence of state regulation as the government has little to no involvement with the city due to how religiously soaked it is.
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