Mam Diarra Bousso – the Mourid Mother of Porokhane, Senegal

The aim of this article is to spread knowledge about Mam Diarra Bousso, the mother of Shaykh Amadou Bamba, the founder of Mouridism in Senegal. El Mouridiyya is a tariqa (Arabic:"path", Sufi order) growing in size and importance in Senegal and in the Senegalese Diaspora around the world. I will write about the Mam Diarra cult and rituals developing in Porokhane, a Mourid pilgrimage place in Senegal, where the mother of the founder is buried. The purpose is to contribute to an increased gender balance in the literature, which has concentrated largely on the greatest male personality, Shaykh Amadou Bamba, or Serigne Touba as he is called. My objective is to make visible Mam Diarra Bousso, a female religious ideal in contemporary Mouridism. She is gaining in popularity among Mourid believers globally. I am adding citations from some of the legends and songs that are found in the oral tradition about this exemplary mother. Parts of the legend are presented in the very form that they have been told by Mourid women in Touba and Diourbel.

Religion and Gender

Earlier studies of the Mourids by male political scientists made statements about the women's invisibility or passivity in religious life (Cruise O'Brien 1971, Copans 1988). The ideas about women's absence in religious life are further elaborated but also nuanced in recent studies by female social and political scientists in terms of women's marginality (Callaway and Creevey 1994, Beck 1996). Only Christian Coulon (1988) and C. Coulon and Odile Reverand (1990) have made a more detailed study of one Mourid woman marabout in a very interesting but very special case study of a sokhna, daughter of a famous marabout or shaykh (religious leader) in Thies, Senegal. Otherwise the vast field of Mourid women's religious ideas and practice constitutes, as far as I know, a virgin research area or has been so until lately.¹

A Western male view of Mouridism as an economic-political organization or movement, expressed in a religious idiom (Cruise O'Brien 1971, Copans1988, Coulon 1988, Villalón 1995) has dominated research on Mourdism. The majority seems to have ignored the fact that fifty percent or more of the Mourids are women, whose active participation in the Mourid associations and pilgrimages, and whose contributions in terms of work and gifts of money to the Mourid marabouts, influences and strengthens the position of contemporary Mouridism considerably. A closer study of Mourid women's perceptions of religion is needed, as a counter weight to (male) gendered, normative views, presented to the male political and social scientists by Mourid male informants and accepted as objective knowledge by the former.

As far back as 1984, Louis Brenner remarked on the lack of interest among political scientists in Sufism and its various "paths" or brotherhoods (Arabic: turuq ( sing. tariqa) in West Africa, as a religious, mystical movement. His own work in Mali constitutes an important contribution to the increased knowledge about Sufism and religious education in West Africa. Still, little has been written on Sufi Islam with women as subjects or with an ambition to understand the underlying beliefs and "sacred strategies" which motivate Mourid women.

Another theme that suffers from a conspicuous absence in the research on Mourdism in Senegal is religious faith, expressed in religious acts or rituals, and their tight connections with economic resources and the generation and accumulation of such resources. Studying Mourid traders abroad have unfortunately resulted in more of the same kind of studies, such as the works by Victoria Ebin (1990, 1996) and Donald Martin Carter (1997). The latter in particular deals with trade and commerce among Mourids in Italy in terms similar to what is described by Bloch and Parry as "a relationship between a cycle of short term exchange which is the legitimate domain of the individual - often acquisitive - activity, and a cycle of long term exchanges, concerned with the production of the social and cosmic order" (Bloch and Parry 1989:2). Again, I should point out, neither Ebin nor Carter pays any special attention to women traders in the Diaspora and their religious practice.

In this paper, the cult of Mam Diarra Bousso and the pilgrimage to her tomb in Porokhane constitute the framework of such an effort. I will present my interpretation of the empirical data and interviews that I have undertaken with Mourid women traders in Senegal. There are two annual pilgrimages of particularly great importance within Mouridism. The first is the magal to Touba, the holy centre of Mouridism, in order to remember the expulsion of the founder of Mouridism, Shaykh Amadou Bamba, to Gabon by the French colonizers. He was exiled in 1895. The second pilgrimage or magal is celebrated in memory of Mam Diarra Bousso, the mother of Shaykh Amadou Bamba. It takes place in Porokhane, where her tomb is to be found, and is consequently called the magal of Porokhane. In this paper, I will restrict myself to the Magal in Porokhane.

The basic idea of the Mourid women seems to be that Mam Diarra Bousso as a sacred mother is a generous and loving person who gives away unconditionally and rapidly what the pilgrim asks for by using her mystical power. The plea is particularly successful when enacted in her khabru (tomb) in Porokhane. Her son, Shaykh Amadou Bamba who is buried in Touba, also gives what the pilgrim asks for, but there are, some women insist, limitations in his gifts. According to Mourid tradition, the Mourid founder once said: "If you give me a sum, you will get back ten times as much". But Mam Diarra does not put any limit! There are women who think that Shaykh Amadou Bamba is slower in fulfilling one's wishes and pleas. Others underline that mother and son are one; both will assist a person in need. Still Mam Diarra is especially loved for her generosity, kindness and patience.

In Senegal, women go to Porokhane to ask Mam Diarra for help in cases of infertility, matrimonial difficulties, economic problems and so on. It is the visit to the khabru, the tomb of Mam Diarra, which is by far the most important. Other places that form part of the ziara, (the visit to the holy places of a pilgrimage center) are the well, where Mam Diarra used to fetch water, the place where she pounded her mill, where she collected her wood for cooking and where Shaykh Amadou Bamba used to crawl around in the sand as a small child. Besides the tomb of Mam Diarra the mosque will be visited for prayers at least once during the stay.

For the women living in Senegal, the travel expenses for the trip to Porokhane and the gift of money to the marabout can be a rather heavy economic burden or obstacle, which they do all they can to overcome. The physical act or effort of going to Porokhane and of performing the ziyara among thousands and thousands of pilgrims in the overcrowded and hot place, offers the women access to Mam Diarra's mystical powers of healing and helping. The women have shown their capacity to make an physical effort (jëf in Wolof) because of their strong will to go to Porokhane. They also get barke (Wolof; blessing) from the marabout they go to see in Porokhane and tiyaba (Wolof; religious merit) from God directly, without the intermediation of the marabout, because of their sacred efforts or jëf. Tiyaba is something that God offers both men and women as compensation or a "payment" for the good deeds that they carry out for him. On the Day of the Last Judgment, the women say, God will tell how much tiyaba that each person has accumulated during his/her life time. It can be collected by both women and men; there is no gender difference. However, tiyaba may be more important for women, as their access to barke is more limited compared to the men (cf. M. Buitelaar 1993). Barke is mainly inherited patrilineally and women, daughters and wives of marabouts transfer less barke than their male family members.

In the myths, Mam Diarra Bousso is depicted as a saintly woman, an ideal wife and mother, submissive and patient, generously giving out her care and love without any conditions or limitations for the receiver. The metaphor used by the women legend tellers is "the sea" – Mam Diarra's generosity is like "the sea" – she gives what you ask for, endlessly. Just like what could be found in other legends and stories about mothers and about motherhood in West Africa, Mam Diarra is said to have lived a morally stainless life. She is the good mother, who by her patience, generosity and submission is creating her child's success. The reward for her sufferings has been giving life to a saint and a prophet such as Shaykh Amadou Bamba. Thus, the mother's moral quality has a close relation to the child's behaviour and possibilities in life. This is a motive, which is stressed, in contemporary Mouridism as well as in the Senegalese society as a whole.

With the growing Mam Diarra Bousso sect and the annual pilgrimage celebrations in Porokhane, Mourids nowadays are not only going to Touba to celebrate the memory of Shaykh Amadou Bamba (the magal de Touba) but have included also the magal de Porokhane in their sacred geography. For many Mourid women, Porokhane symbolizes Mam Diarra, the mother, and Touba symbolizes Shaykh Amadou Bamba, the son. Actually, one often talks about the town of Touba and Serigne Touba (or Shaykh Amadou Bamba) as if they were identical. At the same time, women especially have a tendency to perceive and talk of Mam Diarra and her son as if they were one, because he, the son, was born by her, the mother. Mourid educated or elite men often have a more formal view of the Bamba-Bousso family relations, perceiving Mam Diarra as the mother of the great religious leader in a biological sense only. By that is meant that they derive her religious status from the fact that she gave birth to the founder of Mouridism, but they do not necessarily see her as a an outstanding sacred religious personality in her own right, apart from her family relation to the founder. Male and female Mourids, non-members of the Mourid establishment and close family members maintain that Mam Diarra is a saint in her own right. The devout Mourids who go to the magal in Porokhane see her as a sacred personality of the same dignity as her son.

Over time, the importance of Porokhane as a pilgrimage site has grown considerably. The work-related migration of Mourids to Europe and the United States has made for a certain measure of income which many of the migrants have directed into sending of gifts of money to their marabouts or religious leaders. They, in their turn, have invested a lot of funds in mosques and other buildings in the pilgrimage sites, which are increasingly visited by Senegalese Mourids and returning Diasporic Mourid disciples.

In the eyes of Mourid women, Porokhane is just as important a pilgrimage place as Touba. Women and men create their own cosmology, in which sacred space and body cross over. In a similar way one could say that both genders – male and female – mix or melt into a divine union in women's imaginary. The fact that they see Mam Diarra and Serigne Touba as one sacred person could be interpreted as an authentic Sufi version of the divine love, in which the female element achieves a transcendental significance through the image of motherhood.

Mourid Morality

When Shayhk Amadou Bamba (1850-1927) founded Mouridism at the end of the nineteenth century it was politically directed against French colonialism. He wanted to create a Muslim, Wolof-based alternative to the cultural and linguistic indoctrination of the Senegalese population by the French. He wanted 'purity' and high morals. Qualities such as goodness, generosity, obedience and piety were emphasized. The spiritual and moral message was combined with a strict work ethic, which gave the Mourid leaders great financial advantages. The disciples cultivated groundnuts for the marabouts, a very profitable activity which prompted the French to cooperate with the Mourid leaders. Morality and money came to characterise the growth of Mouridism in Senegal. Even in the time of Shaykh Amadou Bamba agricultural work could replace prayer and religious instruction. Tradition tells that he used to greet his disciples with the words: "Dem len ligéey! " (Wolof: Go and work!) (Cruise O'Brien 1971). Mouridism has always been, and continues to be, most deeply rooted in the countryside, among people who are illiterate and often from the lowest levels of society. The majority belongs to the largest ethnic group in Senegal - the Wolof.

As the profit of groundnut production has decreased during recent decades the Mourid marabouts have extended their activities to national and international trade. Worldwide networks have been built up with the relationship of leader-disciple as one of their basic social elements. The religious associations (daira in Wolof) function as moral, religious and social space for Mourids in Senegal as well as abroad. The daira's economic activities comprise the very basis of its existence. A previously determined contribution is regularly collected towards the annual gift the daira's marabout receives (each association dedicates its activities to a special Mourid marabut or to the highest leader, le khalifa general, who is the eldest surviving son of Shaykh Amadou Bamba). The gift of money is handed over at the annual magal in the marabout's house. All the disciples of that specific marabout assemble there. To a certain extent the money is re- distributed to his disciples through the food they are offered by the marabut during the days they spend in his house. Furthermore supplies are handed out to the poor and needy in the mosque, money is donated to new investments in Touba, where le khalifa general and many Mourid marabouts live. An unspecified sum goes to the marabout's own support. The wealth of the marabouts has almost divine dimensions for their disciples. A shaykh who shows great wealth through the size of his house, his cars and his wives adorned with jewellery also has much barke. Such a marabout has great resources to share with his disciples where money, spiritual power and blessing are concerned (cf. Ebin 1996). It is the duty of the religious leader to return something of his barke and his state well being to the individual disciple.

Mourid marabouts and disciples are supposed to be male. Only if a marabout has no sons can his daughter under very special conditions take over her father's role as religious leader. Even if there are no sons, it is not self-evident that the daughter is considered suitable for the task. For both the sons and daughters of marabouts it is a case of showing that they have barke and charisma. Daughters of the founder or other marabouts and women who are married to marabouts are called sokhna. There are examples of women /sokhna who have their own disciples and who have become famous because of their piety or high position - as daughter of the founder for example (cf. earlier mentioned work by Coulon and Reverand 1990). These women are, however, comparatively few. They are rather the exception that proves the rule that Mouridism, like most of the other Sufi orders, is thoroughly male-dominated in its public, religious manifestations. Mourid wives are expected to have the same kind of relationship to their men folk that their men folk have to their religious leaders, i.e. they should be obedient and subservient. Only exceptionally do women have direct connections to and contacts with the marabouts. Most often they do not make pledges of obedience to the marabuts but should ideally do it to their husbands.

Mouridism and Money

The importance, which is attached to the collecting of money within the daira, may need some further explanation. Money in Senegal is to a very high degree considered to be a part of oneself. The relationship established by monetary transactions is loaded with significance. In the other social associations and savings societies that I have come upon in Senegal the aim is always to get back what has been contributed in more exact amounts - money or wares. In the daira contributions are made to the marabout in exchange for prayers and it is not certain what exactly will be received in return. Money spent on the marabout is really money with a spiritual dimension. At the same time it gives a kind of identity both as a daira member and a Mourid who behaves in a morally correct manner. Participation in the religious association, in the collecting of money, creates a sense of belonging to the group and is experienced in itself as a religiously and morally praiseworthy action. At the same time there is a social aspect of the action in relation to the individual's realisation of self through participation in the collecting of money from all the members of the religious association. The money can be characterized as being equipped with a vitalising power and an ability to convince the individual and the group in which he/she is active that this is indeed a capable person. Being a member of a religious association and regularly paying the stipulated amount to the cashier gives a feeling of moral strength. Especially for women, who are extra-exposed to society's control and criticism, this can be a possibility to establish and maintain their social image. The women see the giving of addiya (gift of money to the marabouts and the khalif) as a religious act.

Mam Diarra Bousso and Porokhane

Some female Mourids in Senegal and Tenerife expressed their feelings for Mam Diarra Bousso, the mother of Shaykh Amadou Bamba, in the following way:

Mam Diarra is a representative of popular Mouridism, a beloved mythical personality, venerated by both men and women. Rejected by the Mourid male elite as an insignificant woman from a poor family ² she is most of all known to "ordinary" Mourid women and men as a generous provider of material and spiritual help for the afflicted persons in need of support. According to Salimata Thiam, Mam Diarra is for female Mourids above all the pious woman and the saintly mother. At a mystical level, she is the symbol of regeneration (Thiam 1998:15).

Very little is known about Mam Diarra Bousso as a historical person. Her father was called Mame Abdou Bousso; her mother's name was Sokhna Walo Mbacké. They belonged to the Toucouleurs ethnic group. Originally from Guéde (Fouta), they left because of political unease in the region and went to Kayor to live by teaching the Koran. Both Mam Diarra's mother and father were deeply religious and the mother saw to it that her daughter became quite learned in Islam. Later Mam Diarra became the second wife of Mame Mor Anta Sali. After some years in Mbacké Baol, where she got three children, one of whom was Shaykh Amadou Bamba (1850), the family left for Saloum (Porokhane). During the long and tiresome walk to Porokhane, she fell ill and was never completely cured from her illness. Around 1855-60 the family was supposed to start their journey back again to Mbacké-Touba. But Mam Diarra never joined her husband back because of her illness. She died just thirty-three or thirty five years old in Porokhane (cf. Thiam 1998).

The sons of Shaykh Amadou Bamba have all contributed to making Mouridism a successful and expanding tariqa in Senegal. One of the sons, called Serigne Bassirou, introduced Porokhane as a pilgrim center for the veneration of Mam Diarra in the 1950s. Today visiting Porokhane has an impact in the political arena: Senegalese government representatives and ministers cannot afford to be absent from the magal, an annual big event which is shown in the TV news and in a special TV programme. Each year more people are going on pilgrimage to Porokhane. They visit the holy places, especially the tomb of Mam Diarra, and leave their gifts of money to the marabout Mustapha Bassirou, the grandson of Shaykh Amadou Bamba. The usual progression is that the pilgrim arrives in Porokhane on a Thursday at lunch time; and then visit the mosque and the tomb to pray and express one's wishes to Mam Diarra Bousso, who is supposed to listen benevolently to the pilgrim's needs and pleas for help in her tomb.

The following is a description of a pilgrimage to Porokhane and what is can mean for a woman, who is Mourid to go there. The woman is called Seynabou and presents herself in the following manner:

When I asked Seynabu whether Mam Diarra listens to the prayers and fulfills her wishes, she said, "I can just say that she gives me all I ask for. I have asked her many things that I have never had to ask her twice. I ask her and she gives me, that is all I know."

Another question concerned the qualities in the personality of Mam Diarra Bousso that she was most impressed by. She answered:

Seynabu is expressing what all Mourid women seem to feel, that is a limitless confidence in Mam Diarra Bousso's supernatural powers and her willingness to help all those who pray to her for support. They keep repeating that she answers their prayers and give what they have asked for, when they visit her tomb in Porokhane. They add to their stories that she helps them efficiently and quickly – quicker than Shaykh Amadou Bamba himself does, when the pilgrims visit his tomb in the town of Touba, to ask for help with their problems.

Rituals in Porokhane

The rituals in Porokhane are characterized by a relaxed and playful spirit. The pilgrims seem to see each other as "children of Mam Diarra" who turn to her with a trust and a confidence similar to trust they have in their own mother. Gender differences and hierarchies are more or less absent during the magal. The trip to the holy places at Porokhane (ziyara) generally starts with a visit to the tomb of Mam Diarra Bousso. This is the moment to ask Mam Diarra for help and support with all those individual matters and preoccupations, which brought the pious believers to Porokhane. Most pilgrims then visit the mosque to pray, and the well to fetch water in bottles to take home. While the pilgrims wash themselves with the water from the well, they get in bodily contact with the sacred powers and the blessing, which they believe is transferred to them in Porokhane.

The walk to the outskirts of the pilgrim site, where the different places are said to be charged with blessing, make the pilgrims remember Mam Diarra's daily tasks as a wife and a mother. The trees where she used to hang her laundry are inspected and strips of cloth are tied to the branches in an act of remembrance and physical contact or touch with the trees. People crawl around in the sand on the spot Mam Diarra is said to have placed her son, Shaykh Amadou Bamba, as a small child, while pounding the millet. The pilgrims are asked to pound millet in another act of remembrance of Mam Diarra's daily work. They are offered the utensils for the purpose by attending Mourid disciples, belonging to a subgroup called Bai Fall. The visiting of the well and the forest as well as the unisex imitations of the daily household tasks of Mam Diarra to get access to her sacred power add to the playful and relaxed atmosphere of the pilgrimage site. Where else in Senegal could one find a man pounding millet, just like a woman? In Porokhane men do it in veneration of the mother of Shaykh Amadou Bamba. Women's happiness to be "with Mam Diarra", as they say, is contagious and the men seem to feel pleased as well. The rituals as "women's lived experience" and the happy recognition and identification with the mother "saint" of Mam Diarra are important aspects in the pilgrimage. Moreover, one notices a strong feeling of "community" or family membership, and a sharing of the significance of the rituals, which the pilgrims express with great emotions. The female pilgrims want everybody around them to share their feeling of happiness. This kind of "female" religiosity is similar to what Susan Starr Sered has called "the domestication of religion". She defines this in the following terms:

Porokhane is a symbol of Mam Diarra and vice versa in the cosmology of the female Mourids. In a similar way they often talk about Touba and Shaykh Amadou Bamba as identical or overlapping. Mourid women have a tendency to see Mam Diarra and her son as one and the same – as he is born by her, they say; the two are one. However, the male-dominated official Mourid discourse presents a more formal view of the Bousso- Bamba family relations and tends to have a less appreciative attitude towards the mother of Shaykh Amadou Bamba. They think of her as the biological mother of the great founder of Mouridism. According to the male Mourid leaders to give her the same status as her son is impossible or rather, heretical. This is how one of the Mourid women in Diourbel expresses the mother-son relations:

In the eyes of the Mourid women, Porokhane is just as important a pilgrimage place as Touba. In reality, Touba is by far the most visited Mourid pilgrimage site and the magal in Touba is the greatest annual Mourid event. Each year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims go to the capital of the Mourids, that is Touba, where the greatest mosque in West Africa is found.

Nowadays, Porokhane has gained an importance as a pilgrim site. Mass media and better transport have contributed to the development. Migration has meant a boom for Mouridism and the pilgrimage to the tombs of the founder and his mother have become well established as sacred Mourid events. The majority of the Senegalese migrants to the US and Europe are Mourids. They give considerable sums of money in their Diaspora to religious purposes, which has been used for the expansion of the Mourid pilgrim sites. A new pilgrimage has recently been institutionalized (2002), namely the magal de sokhna Mai, the sister of Shaykh Amadou Bamba, who died some years ago.

Women feel strengthened in their female and religious identity by participating in the Mam Diarra Bousso cult in Porokhane. They insist in creating their own cosmology, in which sacred space and body cross over. From a Sufi tradition perspective one could say that both genders mix or melt into a divine union in women's imaginary. The fact that some mourids see Mam Diarra and Serigne Touba as one sacred person could be interpreted as an authentic Sufi version of the divine love, in which the female element achieves a transcendental significance through the image of motherhood.

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Carter, D.M. 1997. States of Grace. Senegalese in Italy and the New European Immigration. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Coulon, Christian 1988. "Women, Islam and Baraka". In Donal Cruise O'Brien and Christian Coulon (eds). Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

————-. and Odile Reveyrand. 1990. L'Islam au féminin: Sokhna Magat Diop, Cheikh de la confrérie mouride. Bordeaux: CEAN.

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————-. 1996. "Making room versus creating space. The construction of spatial categories by itinerant Mourid traders." In Barbara Daly Metcalf (ed.) Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Thiam, Salimata. 1997-98. Mame Diarra Bousso. Un ideal de vie. Memoire de maîtrise. 4è Année Lettres Modernes. Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines. Departement des Letters Modernes. Université Cheikh Anta Diop. Dakar. Sénégal.

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	An important contribution to the research on Mourid "sokhnas", i e the daughters and wives of marabouts, based on empirical field studies, is Christine Jean's doctoral thesis of Ethnology called "Les sokhnas Mbacké-Mbacké: des femmes marabouts" from 1997.


	Oral communication with Khadim Mbacké Mbacké, professor of History at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar in 1995.

Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2003)