A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal

Abstract

A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal. By Alien F. Roberts and Mary Nooter Roberts; with Gassia Armenian and Ousmane Gueye. Los Angeles: University of California Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2003. Pp. 284; 274 illustrations. $45.00 paper. The exhibition catalog A Saint in the City focuses on the visual culture of the Mouridiyya, one of the four main Sufi traditions in contemporary Senegal. Founded upon the teachings of Sheikh Amadou Bamba (1853-1927), the Mouridiyya came to the fore in part through its resistance to French colonial rule. It continues to grow in the postcolonial period as a source of local identity, spiritual renewal, and hope in difficult economic circumstances. The catalog is divided into chapters on arts surrounding the sole photograph of the movement's founder, sacred portraits, glass painting, the Baye Fall movement, public wall murals in urban environments, Mouride women, calligraphy, the international art scene, architecture, and the translocation of people and places. This scholarly text is copiously illustrated with beautifully reproduced images, and is augmented by the frequent inclusion of side boxes recording the musings of Mouride artists, sheikhs, healers, and others. Scholarship in the subfields of both African and Islamic art are equally drawn upon in this work, still a rare occurrence despite the widespread adherence to Islam in sub-Saharan Africa and clear continuities with North Africa. This text admirably addresses the divide between the two subfields while simultaneously pointing out the specificities of Mouride art. This is particularly commendable considering the notoriously vague scholarly treatment of Sufi traditions and their impact upon the arts. As with other aspects of human experience, Sufism needs to be analyzed as a historically, geographically, and culturally specific phenomenon. The authors are correct in bemoaning the dearth of scholarly insight into the philosophical and emotional aspects of aniconic arts in Islamic cultures. An excellent indication of more contemporary forays in this direction, and quite in contrast to the treatment by such authors as Titus Burckhardt, is the analysis of geometric arts by Giilru Necipoglu in her work, The Topkapi Saray Scroll.1 The authors are to be applauded in recognizing the complexity of the relationship between visual imagery and calligraphy. A chance to make this point even more forcefully was overlooked in the discussion of Serigne Faye's transformation of profane into sacred space by erecting a tent in the street before his home on Islamic holidays. One side of the tent is lined with sacred portraits while the opposite side is lined with calligraphic texts. The authors suggest that the texts address the approaching viewer from the exterior. …