Malik Sy

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Al-Hādj Mālik ibn ʿUthmān Sy , known as Malik Sy or Malick Sy (in Wolof : Alaaji Maalik Si ; born 1855 near Dagana in northern Senegal ; died July 27, 1922 in Tivaouane ) was a Muslim scholar and marabout who was decisive the spread and consolidation of Tijaniyyah -Ordens in Wolof contributed and established a separate branch order, which is known as Tijaniyyah Malikiyah and still represents the largest Islamic community in Senegal. Unlike ʿUmar Tall and other Senegalese Tijānī leaders of the early 19th century, Malik Sy did not wage war against the French colonial power, but worked peacefully with it and even called on other Muslims to support it.

In today's Senegal, when Malik Sy is mentioned, often only the title Maodo is used, which is borrowed from the Pulaar and has the meaning of "highest authority".

Life

Early years

Geographical location of Dagana, near which Malik Sy grew up.

Malik Sy was born in 1855 in the village of Gâya east of Dagana in Dimar, the westernmost province of the Futa Toro . His father, Ousmane Sy, a Tukulor or Fulbe from the village of Sine in the Louga region , died before he was born while chasing bandits who attacked his village. Malik Sy therefore grew up with the relatives of his mother Fâtimata Wade Wélé. At that time, Dimar was the scene of propaganda and recruitment activities for the ʿUmar Talls jihad .

Although Malik Sy did not belong to the Wolof people, he was brought up and socialized in their culture. He received his first training from his maternal uncle Alfa Mayoro Wele, who introduced him to the Tijaniya. He then studied with his father's brothers and other teachers in the field of Jolof . Malik Sy completed his training in the Koran in the early 1870s in the central Futa area, after which he traveled extensively to study Islamic law and theology with various teachers .

Teaching in Saint-Louis and traveling

Malik Sy began teaching himself in the late 1870s. Thanks to several patrons from the Muslim community, he was able to move into quarters in Saint-Louis , the seat of the French colonial power at the time. In 1879 he married his first wife, Rokhaya Ndiaye, who came from a respected Wolof family in Saint-Louis and gave birth to four children in the years that followed. In Gandiole, a cluster of villages south of Saint-Louis at the mouth of the Senegal River , Malik Sy acquired some fields that he had followers cultivate.

In the following years he traveled frequently as a teacher through the regions of Cayor , Jolof and Waalo and taught the special prayer formula ( becomes ) of the Tijānīya to various people there . In Jolof, he married Safiatu Niang, a relative of Alburi, the ruler of this province, who was also his cousin, in 1887.

In 1888 Malik Sy stayed for a month with the Idaw-ʿAlī of Trarza and had one of their members, Sheikh Muhammad ʿAlī, reassigned the will of Ahmad at-Tijānī . A year later he traveled by ship via Dakar , Marseille , Alexandria , Suez and Jeddah to Mecca to perform the Hajj . The trip contributed significantly to his prestige: he was now able to adorn himself with the honorary title of hādj . On the way back home he visited the mother Zāwiya of his order in Fez , where he received the Itlāq, the highest Tijānite authorization, from the Qādī Ahmad Sukairij al-ʿAiyāschī.

After his return to Senegal, Malik Sy opened a school and a Zāwiya in Saint-Louis, in which he passed on the teaching tradition of the Tijānīya. He also acquired some land on the island of Saint-Louis. In 1903, his followers built a private stone mosque on rue Saint-Jean in the northern part of the city, with a wooden floor and roof tiles.

Agricultural activities and consolidation of the student network

In 1895, at a time when the French colonial administration began to take stronger action against Muslim brotherhoods and banished Amadou Bamba to Gabon , Malik Sy moved his center of life to Ndiarndé in Cayor, where peanut cultivation was flourishing. The place was close to the Kelle loading station and the community of Bu Kunta, which at the time was a model of Marabout entrepreneurship in the French colony.

The Tivaouane train station around 1905

A brother of Malik Sy, Momar Benta, was already in Tivaouane , an up-and-coming trading post in the Wolof area, in 1892 , and there passed the Will at-Tijānīs on to people from Sine . In 1902 Malik Sy himself moved to Tivaouane, which at that time gained further importance because the French had moved their capital to Dakar that year and the place was on the busy railway line between the old and new capital. In Tivaouane Malik Sy founded a Zāwiya and various Islamic schools and gained a great reputation as a teacher.

In addition, he continued his activity as a traveling teacher, mostly driving the various stations of the railway. Former students of his who had also joined his Tarīqa soon made up the majority of teachers in Koran schools in the Cayor region. In the parts of Senegal further south, in Thiès and Baol , many Koran school teachers and village chiefs were associated with him as former students. In Thiès, Malik Sy even had his own official representative, Tamsir Momar Diour, who had been the head of the city school since 1902. In Dakar , too , a large colony of students ( talibés ) Malik Sys soon developed . It was under the direction of a certain Lebbou Mbour Ndoye.

Cooperation with the French colonial power

In contrast to the Tijānīs from the Tukulor people , who were in the tradition of ʿUmar Tall , Malik Sy was on friendly terms with the French from the beginning and worked together with the colonial power. Conversely, the French colonial administration had great confidence in him. Léon Edmond Destaing, the French director of the Médersa in Saint-Louis, described him in 1908 after attending the most important Koran schools in Senegal as “the most educated marabout” ( le marabout le plus instruit ) in the country.

In 1910, in a Friday sermon , he dealt in detail with a letter from the Mauritanian scholar Saʿd Būh to his brother Mā 'al-ʿAinain al-Qalqamī, which was then spread by the French in West Africa. Saʿd Bū had rejected the jihad of the sword as inappropriately in response to the European conquest. In 1912, at a time when France feared militant Muslim reactions to the establishment of its protectorate over Morocco and pan-Islamic propaganda from Istanbul, Malik Sy wrote an open letter calling on Muslims inside and outside the Tijaniya to give the French their full support give. During the First World War , he appealed to his supporters to join the French army. His eldest son Amadu himself took part in the World War as a French soldier and fell in Thessaloniki in 1916 .

Contacts with other Tijans

Since his first visit in 1890, Malik Sy remained in constant correspondence with the mother Zāwiya of his order in Fez. When the head of the Zāwiya asked him in December 1913 for aid for the expansion of the building and necessary repairs, he donated a contribution from his private fortune. In 1914 he received an official envoy of the highest sheikh of the Tijaniya for the first time.

Malik Sy tried throughout his life to connect with the founder of the order Ahmad at-Tijanī through as many and short chains of initiation as possible . In September 1913, the Alawidic chief ( muqaddam ) Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ʿAbd al-Jalīl gave him a new absolute Ijāza for the Tijānītic teaching tradition. In November 1918 he received another absolute ijāza in the name of two grandchildren of Ahmad at-Tijānīs from ʿAin Mādī. And on December 12, 1920, a Moorish muqaddam from Chinguetti , Muhammad ibn al-Sheikh al-ʿAlawī, finally renewed his authorization to transmit the Tijanite will.

Death and succession

When Malik Sy died in 1922, he was succeeded by Babacar Sy, the eldest surviving son of his first wife Rokhaya, who had lived in Saint-Louis for most of the time. Endowed with the title of Khalife général des Tidianes , he was at the head of the branch until 1957.

Works

Ousmane O'Kane and John Hunwick list 23 Arabic works by Malik Sy in their bibliography. So far, the following have received particular attention:

  • Ḫilāṣ aḏ-ḏahab fī sīrat ḫair al-ʿArab ("The pure gold about the sīra of the best of the Arabs"), poem about the biography of Mohammed , which was first printed in Tunis in 1914/15 with the recommendation of the French colonial government and later by Malik Sy was provided with its own comment.
  • Fākihat aṭ-ṭullāb nahǧ at-Tiǧānī al-ḫāliṣ al-aṣlāb , Treatise on the Doctrine and Practices of the Tijānīya. The text was edited by Ravane Mbaye in 2002 and translated into French.
  • Kifāyat ar-rāġibīn fīmā yahdī ilā ḥaḍrat rabb al-ʿālamīn wa-iqmāʿ al-muḥdiṯīn fī š-šarīʿa mā laisa la-hū aṣl fī dīn (“The satisfaction of the Lords and the Worlds concerning that which leads to the which produce something in the Sharia that has no basis in religion ”), treatise dealing with various reprehensible acts of Muslims, especially the class of marabouts . The work was edited by Rawane Mbaye in the second volume of his dissertation and translated into French. It has two parts. The first part, which deals with the "corruption of time" ( fasād az-zamān ), comprises twelve chapters, which deal with the following topics: 1.) the sources of fanaticism ( maṣādir at-taʿaṣṣub ), 2.) the fadā ' il of the Koran, 3.) the type of Koran recitation , 4.) the sheik and the one who claims sheikdom for himself ( aš-šaiḫ wa-l-mutašaiyiḫ ), 5.) basics of preaching and spiritual guidance ( usus al -waʿẓ wa-l-iršād ), 6.) Number of (permitted) wives, 7.) the pitfalls of Sufism ( ḥabā'il at-taṣauwuf ), 8.) the loud dhikr in women, 9.) the prosternation before the sheikhs, 10.) permitted and forbidden gifts, 11.) preservation of the faith, 12.) which remedies are permitted. In the second part, which is devoted to ritual prayer , zakāt and fasting , the following topics are dealt with: 1.) general instructions, 2.) the wearing of things during prayer, 3.) the manner of prayer, 4. the Basmala during compulsory prayer, 5. laying hands down during prayer ( waḍʿ al-yadain fī ṣ-ṣalāt ), 6. prayer in community ( aṣ-ṣalāt fī l-ǧamāʿa ), 7. pronunciation of Dād and Jīm , 8 the Friday prayer , 9. the Zakāt on grain, 10. the announcement of Ramadan ( ṯubūt aṣ-ṣaum ) by the telegraph , 11. Rules of Development ( aḥkām at-taṭauwur ). In the latter chapter, Malik Sy explains why it is permissible to work with the colonial power.
  • Ifḥām al-munkir al-ǧānī ʿalā ṭarīqat saiyidi-nā wa-wasīlati-nā ilā rabbi-nā Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad at-Tiǧānī ("The silencing of the one who rejects the order ... of Ahmad ibn at-Tijānī wants to harm ”), defense of the Tijaniya and some of its rules. The work was translated into French by Rawane Mbaye in the third volume of his dissertation.

literature

  • Said Bousbina: “Al-Hajj Malik Sy: sa chaîne spirituelle dans la Tijaniyya et sa position à l'égard de la présence française au Sénégal” in David Robinson (ed.): Le temps des marabouts: itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française, v. 1880 - 1960. Ed. Karthala, Paris, 1996. pp. 181-198.
  • Mouhamadou Mansour Slide: La pensée socioreligieuse de El Hadji Malick Sy: Kifaayatu ar-Raa'hibiin ; [essai]. Abis Éd., Dakar, 2013.
  • Ravane Mbaye: La pensée et l'action d'El Hadji Malick Sy: un pole d'attraction entre la Shari'a et la Tariqa . 3 vols. Albouraq, Beirut, 2003 (originally thèse de doctorat, Paris, 1993)
  • Ousmane O'Kane and John Hunwick: “Senegambia II: other Tijānī writers” in John O. Hunwick, R. Rex S. O'Fahey (ed.): Arabic Literature of Africa, Volume 4: The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa. Brill, Leiden, 2003. pp. 308-312.
  • Paul Marty: “Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik (Tidianïa Ouolofs)” in Revue du Monde Musulman 31 (1915-16) 367-410. Digital copy - reprint in Paul Marty: Études sur l'Islam from Sénégal. Tome I: Les personnes. Ernest Leroux, Paris, 1917. pp. 175-218.
  • Saliou Mbaye (ed.): Un homme, une nuit, un message: actes du colloque international sur la vie et l'oeuvre de El Hadj Malick Sy, 1902 - 2002; Dakar, 18 au 22 May 2002. La Sénégalaise de l'Impr., Dakar, 2003.
  • David Robinson: "Malik Sy. Teacher in the New Colonial Order" in Jean-Louis Triaud, David Robinson (ed.): La Tijâniyya. Une confrérie musulmane à la conquète de l'Afrique . Éditions Karthala, Paris, 2000. pp. 201-218.
  • Alassane Thiam: Contribution a l'etude des rapports entre El Hadji Malick Sy et l'administration coloniale. Impr. Tandian, [Dakar], 1999.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ See slide: La pensée socioreligieuse de El Hadji Malick Sy . 2013, p. 5.
  2. ↑ Cf. Geneviève N'Diaye-Correard: Les mots du patrimoine: le Sénégal . Éditions des archives contemporaines, Paris, 2006. pp. 343f.
  3. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 202.
  4. ↑ Cf. Mbaye: La pensée et l'action d'El Hadji Malick Sy . 2003, Vol. I, pp. 56-61.
  5. ↑ Cf. Bousbina: "Al-Hajj Malik Sy". 1996, p. 182.
  6. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 202.
  7. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, pp. 203f.
  8. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 205.
  9. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 205.
  10. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, pp. 206f.
  11. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 391.
  12. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 206.
  13. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, pp. 369f, 397.
  14. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 369.
  15. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 205.
  16. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, pp. 391f.
  17. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy". 2000, pp. 208f.
  18. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 369.
  19. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 391.
  20. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, pp. 210f.
  21. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 213.
  22. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 381.
  23. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, pp. 386f.
  24. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 393.
  25. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 372.
  26. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 214.
  27. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 400 and Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 215.
  28. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, pp. 205, 216.
  29. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 399.
  30. ↑ Cf. Bousbina: "Al-Hajj Malik Sy". 1996, p. 187.
  31. ↑ Cf. Bousbina: "Al-Hajj Malik Sy". 1996, pp. 189f.
  32. ↑ Cf. Bousbina: "Al-Hajj Malik Sy". 1996, pp. 188, 190.
  33. ↑ See Robinson: "Malik Sy." 2000, p. 212.
  34. ↑ See Marty: "Le groupement tidiani d'Al-Hadj Malik". 1915-16, p. 373.
  35. ↑ See slide: La pensée socioreligieuse de El Hadji Malick Sy . 2013, p. 120.
personal data
SURNAME Sy, Malik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hādj Mālik ibn ʿUthmān Sy, al-
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Muslim scholar and marabout
DATE OF BIRTH 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH near Dagana in northern Senegal
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1922
Place of death Tivaouane