Black Muslimness Mobilized

Abstract

West African and American-born Muslims in the Mustafawi Tariqahave been impacted by a Senegalese Islamic pedagogical tradition,which places emphasis on the role of the body as a medium for religiousand spiritual training. My research examines the tremendouslabor required to produce Muslimness as an embodied reality andcritical resource initially in two key sites of pilgrimage—MoncksCorner, South Carolina and Thiès, Senegal—by demonstrating theimportant role these sister cities play in a transatlantic Sufi network.I suggest that there exists a continuity seen in the interactionsof West African Muslims and African-American Muslims—asolidarity emboldened through the sufi practices out of which abroader politics of “Black Muslimness” endure. African-Americanand Senegalese members of the Mustafawi Tariqa identify withina broader category of ‘Black Muslim’ in the mobilization of bodiesoriented toward these two sites of pilgrimage. As my extensiveresearch reveals, Moncks Corner is the central site in which accessto the Sufi order’s most charismatic living shaykh, Shaykh AronaFaye, has worked for the past two decades teaching and mentoringhis students on their spiritual journeys. On the other hand, Thiès isthe location where the order’s founder is buried and travelers visitthe town in order to pay homage to his memory. The processes of diasporic identification seen in both sites, I argue, are groundedin both physical mobility and the particular spiritual pedagogy ofthe Mustafawi. In order to further elaborate how local and internationalsolidarities are framed from within the concept of diaspora,I unpack the manner in which religious genealogies, discourses ofancestry, and the transmission of esoteric knowledge reinforce suchaffinities.O Allah, send blessings upon our master Muhammad, the one who precedesall others, the one whose brilliant lights radiate and fill the heavens.May Allah bless him and his family and companions in the amount ofevery grain of sand and every star in the sky. (al-ṣalāt al-samawiyya).