Chieckh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke Khadīmu ‘l-Rasūl or Serigne touba (which means“ Sheikh of Touba ”) in Wolof, which means“ The servant of the messenger ”in Arabic, was born in the village Mbacké founded by his great-grandfather Muhammad al-Khayr. Relative of the powerful leader of the Wolof tribe Lat Dior and a member of the wealthy Mbacké clan, he soon gave up his noble lineage and chose a path of religious devotion. At the Koranic school, he learned the teaching of the Koran and other theological subjects. Only after his father’s death in 1883, Ahmadou Bamba was able to reveal his entire mystical personality by devoting himself entirely to a holy life oriented towards the imitation of the prophet.
In 1883 he created the muride brotherhood (street of imitation of the prophet). In 1887 he founded the city of Touba where crowds of disciples came to venerate him, thus arousing the jealousy of some traditional religious leaders and provoking the anxiety of the French authorities who were trying to impose Western cultural values on the colony. The French absolutely wanted his death trying in every way to kill him but he always came out alive and even more convinced of what he was doing. Like him, the French exiled many others who seemed to go against European values, but, to his exception, nobody managed to come back alive. To take away his life, in fact, they took him to Libreville (Gabon), Mayombe (Congo) and also to other places considered wilder in Africa at that time without any success.
In 1895 he was arrested in Djéwal and after a month he was exiled to Gabon. In 1902 he was able to return to his homeland and the number of disciples increased, again giving cause for concern, sometimes transformed into real persecution by the colonizers.
In 1903 he was accused of detention of war material and was exiled again, to Saout-Elma in Mauritania. In 1907 he was authorized to return to Senegal, following an official request made by the governor of Mauritania. In 1911, he settled in Diourbel where, in 1925 he obtained the authorization for the construction of the Touba mosque, which was inaugurated after many years, in 1963. He died in Diourbel on 19 July 1927 and his body was buried in the same mosque of Touba where every year 3-4 million faithful come from all over the world to celebrate the Magal (a celebration that is second, in number of faithful, only to the pilgrimage to the Hajj mecca, otherwise prescribed).
Perle Nere 