Benben: The Pathway of Touba: Deity of Western Meritah
I admired Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop during my teen years as I was growing up in the streets of Dakar, Senegal. In Dakar, we knew that he was a genius because we could hear how our parents talked about him whenever he came to visit his siblings who lived on my street. In my youth, I was tormented by the unanswered question of why black people were so miserable around the world. It was Dr. Diop who began to open my mind with his books, teachings and presence.
In the late 1970s, as I began to learn more about Dr. Diop, I heard about a holy city called TOUBA (near Tieytou in the region of Diourbel). Touba is the birthplace of the spiritual system Mouridhya. Dr. Diop was named after Cheikh Anta M'Backe, the richest person in Senegal in his time. Cheikh Anta was the younger brother of Cheikh Amadou Bamba M'Backe, the founder of Touba and of the Mouridhya brotherhood, an Islamic Sufi order based in Touba in the late 1800s.
As a youth, I was deeply inspired by Cheikh Amadou Bamba, Dr. Diop, and the holy city of Touba; and it is through them that I discovered the Mouridhya spiritual system (those aspiring towards God(s) with no distinction because of race or colour). The principles of this spiritual system were "research" and "protection of knowledge". It was work sublimated in religious tasks and the permanent fear of God, or more appropriately Gods.
The holy city of Touba is the second city in Senegal to have its own laws and regulations. Touba was founded by Cheikh Bamba, not by Europeans. The community of Touba controls the economy of the country. Currently, according to the Mourides and Baye Fall, the original meaning of the concept of Touba was a location in heaven that all spiritual masters wanted to reach but could not. More specifically, Touba represented a holy tree in paradise. One had to pass a very rigorous spiritual test in order to get into Touba. It is said that Cheikh Bamba went through all of these tests and earned his place in Touba.
This information is taken from the culture of a kind of Islam that exists only in Western Meritah. It has little or nothing to do with the culture of the home of Arabic Islam. So let us differentiate because today the line between the traditional, cultural values of our ancestors and the values of the invader's Islam are becoming blurrier and blurrier. As one result, an Islam foreign to our ancestors is now claiming credit for much of the unexplained power that exists only in the traditions of our ancestors.
Islam came to Western Meritah at a time when the people were looking for some relief from the oppression of the Roman invaders and from the Christian values they were looking for. They were looking for a revolution that would return them to their traditional values and practices without exposing them to threats of being executed. When Islam came, it assumed the guise of that movement; and in Western Meritah, it absorbed many of the traditional practices of the region to gain ground. The spread of Islam very strategically allowed many of the traditional power to exist as long as its existence gave credit to the new God that Islam was bringing.
It's very important to note here that while spreading the Mouridiyah movement, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba left people with their Ancestral Gods and shrines. The initiates of Master Bamba and others would come to Bamba in hopes of learning the Quran, which was quickly gaining more and more ground at that time. He informed them that if they had come to learn the Quran, he was no longer teaching it. They could go back to their families if they chose; but he had a new mission: he was starting a new way based on the ancestral traditions of initiation which emphasize work, challenges, and giving the best of yourself while maintaining your purity and focus on the Divine World.
Some people decided to go back home; others stayed to enter his mystical initiation. When the first followers finished their initiations, they were given a name and the title of Cheikh (leader). Those initial disciples later formed a group and were sent far from Touba to create the same system in other places, thus bringing more people back to their ancestral, spiritual and economic values. This mission went around the world; but today many people mistakenly associate the movement with Islamic values rather than Kemetic ancestral values.
After my initiation into the Schools of Kebtah and exposure to the pure education of the original temples of our mother continent, I now understand the true origin of the concept of Touba and where the Mouridya movement fits in Kemetic history. To our ancestors, TOUBA was a Kemetic Deity, a Solar Deity. The popularity of Touba in Western Meritah increased after missionaries were sent there from the Temple of Touba in Thebes. The missionary delegation comprised ethnic Arabs and Jews from the Middle East who were given the task by the Pharaoh. They came to Western Meritah, reaching as far as modern day Senegal, to spread these temples. This occurred after the well-known Pharaoh Akhenaton had established the tradition of aggressively proselytizing for one's chosen God.
To this day, most African scholars are unaware that the Pharaoh Akhenaton has been written out of the history of the traditional initiatic priests. The Pharaoh made a lot of decisions that adversely affected the strength and purity of the Kemetic culture and its descendants. Today, he is well-known for introducing the concept of monotheism. However this is a misrepresentation because Akhenaton's ambition of uniting the lands led to his assertion that by centralizing making the various temples worship one Unified Deity, they could reach the entire World of the Gods. In some places around the Nile Valley this Deity was the Solar God Aton, but in Western Meritah and most other parts of the world the chosen Deity was the Solar God Touba. The Pharaoh Akhenaton even sent a delegation to the continent of Maanu (the Americas) to spread the word about Touba.
Even today where I grew up in Senegal, we still unknowingly refer to our light-skin visitors as Toubabu or Toubab, just as we called those original light-skin priests who brought Touba to the West. Today, even the term used for converting a person to Islam is Touba or Toubi. This is also why many of the oldest Mosques in Northern and Western Meritah face directly East towards the Sun in honour of Touba instead of North-East towards Mecca, as true Islamic temples are supposed to. These Kemetic mosques were originally temples dedicated to Touba, but as I have stated, they have been absorbed by the conquering foreign religion. This fact also explains why the architecture carries many of the Kemetic symbols found in the Nile Valley. For example the top of the mouride hood is a pyramid, and inside is decorated with geographical shapes and colours specific to the mouride (See Rising Firefly Vol.63 Pilgrimage Article for further information).
It is clear now that much of the value of Islam I was exposed to growing up in Senegal, had much more to do with our ancestors' culture than with the colonial religions coming out of the Middle East and Europe. In addition, in the Meritah teachings of "Islam" I was exposed to, women are respected. There is no such place in the world except in other places in among the mouride in Meritah that women in Islam have been devoted as saints. In Touba, the mother of Cheikh Amadou Bamba was Mariama (A Kemetic name meaning Beloved of the God Imen) Diarra. Diarra has her own celebration day because in Meritah there is a balanced original spiritual system: where there are Gods, there are also Goddesses; where there is a King, there is also a Queen.
Around the world, in societies colonised by Arabs, we see very masochistic values. These societies deem circumcision as a holy act but resist excision. In Soninke, which is a Dogon society, excision is called salinde, meaning ablution or purification. In Pular or Fulani, excision is called salinge which carries the same meaning. Throughout Kemetic history, both circumcision and excision have been acts of purification. Kemioo have used both equally to purify themselves in front of Gods. Somehow today, only the procedure for women is singled out as negative. If excision is mutilation of a woman, shouldn't circumcision also be mutilation of a man? After all, it removes even more skin from a man!
To resume, I hope I have exposed the true cultural sources of the Mouridhya, Touba and the confusion about the mystical value of Western Meritah. Some people still threaten the existence of humanity so that they can maintain the illusion that they are better than other people. This attitude is well illustrated in a fable from the lands of Misra (Modern day Egypt).
The fable goes like this: A God gave two friends an opportunity to have one wish granted. A condition was that whatever wish the first friend got would be doubled for second friend. One of these men was described as covetous and the other as envious; so it took very long for them to decide who should make a wish first. When the decision was finally made, the one to make the wish asked the God to make him blind in one eye. He got his wish; and his friend blind in both eyes. Both were now worse off than before; but the who lost one eye was satisfied to lead the suffering group home. Such is the situation of today's imbalanced, ambitious and suffering human being.
Because our societies in Western Meritah are based on spiritual values -- honesty in particular -- revolutions have been repeatedly attempted to throw off the contradictions of our invader's religion. In spite of these religions, we remain a spiritual people because we are Tracking the path of Touba Influence of Touba on Black History descendants and preservers of a culture exposed to us by the World of the Gods: the Kemetic culture. Our next revolution cannot be about material values but must be a return to our pure roots. For a tree without roots cannot be considered a tree because it will die.
The sun never sets, it is man who moves away from the light.
Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig
Founder of The Schools of Kebtah
Box 1 Text: Cheikh Amadou Bamba was a very important figure in the culture of Western Meritah. He was a philosopher and spiritual technician who resisted colonisers using knowledge of the Kemetic mystery schools. Because of his knowledge, feats, and accomplishments, he was a mystery in his time. At a time when the colonial religions and politicians were gaining ground around the world, he was an example to all Kem of the power of our ancestral traditions. He was an important figure around the world for his resistance to the invading, French colonial system. As leader of the fast growing Mouridhya brotherhood, he was recognised as a major threat by the French colonial government and deported out of the Sahel, his native land in 1885, and sent to the jungles of Gabon for seven years, seven months and seven days. Why Gabon? It was at the time infamous for the merciless untamed energies that existed within them. In fact, his predecessor Almamy Samory Toure who had fought the French from 1882 to 1900 died during his own exile in Gabon. Before Bamba, no human being had ever come back alive after exposure to the energies on the island of Mayombe in Gabon.
Because of his knowledge and feats, Bamba was a mystery in his time. So outstanding were his abilities that some of his followers called him a part of the Divine World and a pathway to the only God. After being brought back to his Western Meritah, he still survived French attempts to eliminate him. It is said that he survived being put in a furnace and being put in a cage with hungry lions.
Their hopes that devout Muslims or spirits would destroy him in the "haunted" forests of Gabon failed.. Even in Arab lands, he was recognized as more advanced than anyone they had ever known; and the most educated among them humbled themselves to become his disciple. The French classified numerous reports like these in their archives of the colonies of Africa. By the end of his life, he had been exiled for 7 years in Gabon, 4 years in Arabic country, Mauritania and spent the end of his life under house arrest in the jolof at Thieyene Senegal. He implemented non-violence long before Gandhi.
Box 2 Text: Blaise Diagne (A), former mayor of Dakar is a well known figure in Senegalese history. He became the first black deputy to become a full French citizen in Senegal. He was the son of a woman from Goree Island who admired Cheikh Amadou Bamba. She saw him on his way to being deported to the jungles of Gabon. She trusted his mission and asked her son Blaise, who was then head of the customs office, to visit and help Bamba while he was in the hands of white men. One day Blaise went to visit the Cheikh and brought him writing paper. The Cheikh asked him to make a wish. Blaise replied that he wished to do something great for Black people around the world. Bamba performed a spiritual work for Blaise and prayed for him. It's said that the same prayer went through Blaise Diagne to W.E.B. DuBoise (B). Diagne was a huge influence on Dubois and on Marcus Garvey (C) and he on the Pan African Movement.
Garvey (C) was a visionary who asked Blacks to look to Meritah where a King will come to the throne and be a manifestation of God. The mission of Bamba and Garvey's vision preceded the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie in Eastern Meritah.
The majority of young Rastafarians (D) today only see what colonial propaganda made visible. The colonial religions have brought much confusion to the true nature of both Rastafarianism (Christianity) and of Mouridhya (Islam). The true origins of Rastafarianism were influenced by the traditional Kemetic culture and Cheikh Amadou Bamba in Touba.
The Baye Fall (E) initiatic way is led by Cheikh Ibrahima Fall (F), a Kemetic prince, high priest, and one of the first and most prominent disciples of Cheikh Bamba. Even to this today, his followers do not pray or fast like other Muslims; they also wear dreadlocks, the hairstyle of traditional Kemetic priests later adopted in the Rastafarian movement.
