Grand Magal

By GIN, *Millions in pilgrimage to holy Senegalese tomb* - Frost Illustrated - Fort Wayne, IN, USA; Wednesday, February 2, 2011

More than three million members of the Mourides, a Sufi Muslim sect, were expected to fill Senegal’s holy city of Touba last week in an annual ceremony that honors the movement’s founder, Cheikh Amadou Bamba.

The “Grand Magal” or “great pilgrimage” recalls Bamba’s exile in 1895 by French colonial authorities, who feared his growing influence.

“After the Prophet, Cheikh Mamadou Bamba has been the person who has most influenced Islam,” said Mamadou Sarr, a guardian at the tomb of Bamba’s best-known disciple, Ibra Fall, the founder of the Baye Fall movement.

In Senegal, the annual “Grand Magal” is given maximum attention and support by the government because Mourides are among the richest and most influential in local politics.

In an unrelated development, a U.S. civil rights group is demanding justice for Cheikh Diop, a Senegalese father of four, detained in a Pennsylvania jail for nearly three years while appealing his deportation.

“It makes no sense to lock up immigrants with legitimate challenges to deportation, who pose no threat to public safety and who are not flight risks,” said Michael Tan, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We spend millions of taxpayer dollars every year incarcerating people for no good reason.”

[Picture: Interior of a mosque in Touba.Photo: Wiki.]