Travel Guide Touba

With nearly 900,000 inhabitants, the town of Touba is one of the most populated in Senegal. It was founded in 1888 by Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the founder of Mouridism. It is unique in Senegal, not only because of its impressive mosque, which seems on a different scale from the surrounding city, but also for its Grand Magal celebrated four months and twenty days after the end of Ramadan and which attracts thousands of pilgrims every year. The territory of Touba is thus the property of the brotherhood of mourides on which the government has only a small right of control. Here, no police, but a militia. The laws are those of the mourides, and alcohol and tobacco are strictly forbidden. Touba is therefore a kind of state within the state, with its mechanisms and rules. The extraordinary thing about the market is that you can find duty-free, tax-free, unrestricted products. And contrary to appearances, some also come from far away to sell or buy contraband products. The power of the mourides seems to be limitless. Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba's disciples were the only ones to have invested in the training of young people in the best foreign universities. A fruitful investment in the long term, since young Senegalese elites who have graduated from Harvard are now put to work for the mouride economic or legal system.