Marabout
A marabout (also marabou or marabout ) is an Islamic saint in Morocco and West Africa , mostly from the tradition of Sufism (Islamic mysticism ).
The word is from the Arabic term Murābit ( Arabic مرابط, DMG murābiṭ ), which forms the active participle of the noun ribāṭ . This, in turn, is a short form of the expression ribāṭ al-chail used in the Koran ( Sura 8 : 60), which means “drawing the horses together” for the fight against the unbelievers. The term Murābit is also based on the name of the Almoravid dynasty.
Through the mediation of the Portuguese marabuto and the Spanish morabito , the term appears in travelogues from the 17th century. The grave site of a marabout itself is sometimes called that too. Some of these graves are considered holy places.
Marabouts in Morocco
Sufi centers arose around the graves of famous, nationally revered personalities, especially in Morocco ; they are called zâwija , in the Islamic East they are called chânkah , in Turkish Tekke . You can recognize the complex by the lime-whitewashed domed buildings ( qubba ). Some Zawiyas in Morocco also house a library near the grave, in which the manuscripts collected by the local saint and his successors from all areas of Islamic science are kept. The most famous Zawiya in south-east Morocco is the Zawiya of the Nasiriyya order founded in 1575 in Tamagrūt , south of Zagora (Morocco) . In the Atlas Mountains , az-Zawiya al-ʿAyyāschīya in Sīdī Ḥamza is known for its rich library, which the founder Abū Sālim al-ʿAyyāschī had already established in the 17th century. The entire inventory of the library was published for the first time in 2009 in a carefully compiled catalog in four volumes, sorted by subject areas of Islamic sciences. Entire clans can also have a Maraboutian character, such as the Moorish Kunta in Mauritania and Mali , whose head from the famous al-Baqqai family resided in Timbuktu between around 1830 and 1894 and had great spiritual and political influence over the Moors and the Tuareg practiced.
At the head of a zawiya is a direct descendant of the marabout who manages the income and distributes it among the other members of the marabout family. Marabouts can be both men and women; The former are generally called sidi (from: saiyidi = my lord) or mulai (from: maulaya = my lord), holy women have the Berber title lalla (mistress).
In addition to the saints, whose historical existence has been handed down, there are marabouts whose origins cannot be proven; they are often nameless or have imaginative names: Sidi al-Muchfi: (= the hidden one), Sidi Qadi al-Hadscha: (= who fulfills the needs of the seeker), Bou Shta '(from: Abu Shita'): the Rain donor, derived from Schita ': Winter, d. H. the rainy season. Their sanctuaries are simple, stone-fenced structures without a dome. The tomb of the Prophet's Companion (sidi sahbi) in Kairouan and the tomb of Abu Lubaba in Gabès, who is also venerated as a Prophet's Companion, are shrouded in legend and certainly unhistorical .
The cult of the Seven Saints of Marrakech is based on historical figures.
In principle, one can assume that North African place names that begin with Sidi (like Sidi bel Abbès ) can be traced back to male marabouts, whose cult is still alive today or has already faded. Female saints are addressed as Lalla (place name Lalla Takerkoust ).
Marabouts in West Africa
In the traditional hierarchical social structure in Mauritania ( see ethnic groups in Mauritania ), marabouts form one of the two upper classes of the Bidhan alongside the warriors (Hassan) .
During the French colonial period there were a number of marabouts in the Senegalese-Mauritanian zone who cooperated with the colonial power: Saad Buh (died 1917) from the Fādilīya , Malik Sy (died 1922) from the Tijānīya , Sidiyya Baba (died 1924 ) and Amadu Bamba (died 1927), the founder of the Murīdīya . They were known as the grands marabouts . However, since there were repeated rumors of imminent Muslim uprisings and the colonial authorities feared subversive activities on the part of the Muslims, they kept the marabouts under strict surveillance and restricted their contacts with Muslims from other countries.
In Senegal , a new class of marabouts emerged in the 20th century, which, in addition to their religious activity, were also intensively active on the political level. Examples of these "political marabouts" Besides Amadou Bamba Babakar Sy, who in 1927 within of the system description Tidschaniyya the Dahiratoul Moustarchidina whale Moustarchidaty founded, Ibrahim Niass and Serigne Saliou Mbacké , the fifth caliph of the Mouride. The emergence of hereditary caliphates in Murīdīya and Tijānīya has marginalized other marabouts. They are mostly only active in secondary functions within these brotherhoods.
literature
- Christian Coulon: Pouvoir maraboutique et pouvoir politique au Sénégal. 2 volumes. Université de Paris, Paris 1976 (Mémoire ou Thèse d'Etat), revised book edition: Le marabout et le prince. Islam et pouvoir au Senegal. Editions A. Pedone, Paris 1981, ISBN 2-233-00100-1 ( Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux. Center d'étude d'Afrique poire. Série Afrique noire. Bibliotheque 11).
- Edmond Doutté : Notes sur l'Islâm maghribin. Les marabouts. Leroux, Paris 1900.
- R. Dozy : Supplement aux Dictionnaires Arabes. Volume 1. 3rd edition. Brill [u. a.], Leiden 1967, p. 502.
- Amber B. Gemmeke: Marabout women in Dakar. Creating trust in a rural urban space. ( Mande worlds Vol. 3 ) Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8258-1349-9 (also: Leiden, Diss., 2008).
- Liliane Kuczynski: Les marabouts africains à Paris. CNRS Éditions, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-271-06087-7 .
- Miklos Muranyi : The comrades of the prophets in early Islamic history. Self-published by the Oriental Seminars of the University of Bonn, Bonn 1973, pp. 155–164 ( Bonner orientalistische Studien. NS 28), (At the same time: Bonn, Diss., 1973), (Chapter. The comrades of the prophets in Islamic popular belief).
- Fabienne Samson: Les marabouts de l'islam politique. Le Dahiratoul Moustarchidina wal Moustarchidaty, un mouvement néo-confrérique sénégalais. Karthala, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-8458-6663-1 ( Hommes et sociétés ).
- Edvard Westermarck : Ritual and Belief in Morocco. 2 volumes. Macmillan, London 1926.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Brill, suffering. Vol. 7, p. 1009
- ^ The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Brill, suffering. Vol. 10, p. 170
- ^ The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Brill, suffering. Vol. 1, p. 795
- ↑ Ḥamīd Laḥmar: al-Fihris al-waṣfī li-maḫṭūṭāt Ḫizāna az-Zāwīya al-Ḥamzawīya al-ʿAyyāšīya bi-iqlīm ar-Rašīdīya. Rabat 2009
- ↑ See David Robinson: Paths of accommodation: Muslim societies and French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–1920 . Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 2000. pp. 3, 241.
- ↑ Cf. El Hadji Samba A. Diallo: Les Métamorphoses des Modèles de Succession dans la Tijāniyya Sénégalaise. Publisud, Paris, 2010. p. 52.
- ↑ See also El Hadji Samba A. Diallo: Les Métamorphoses des Modèles de Succession dans la Tijāniyya Sénégalaise. Paris 2010. p. 468.