Re-Creating Touba: Pilgrimage Videos in the American Muridiyya

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between new media objects and novel religious practices through a consideration of pilgrimage videos available in American Murid communities. Building upon earlier studies of Murid visual culture, it suggests a preliminary typology of videos centered on the Grand Magal in Touba and the Magal of Two Rakkas in Saint-Louis. I argue that such videos, while not a substitute for pilgrimage itself, approximate the pilgrimage experience via their internal organization and formal characteristics. In addition to mediating religious practices within dispersed Murid communities, pilgrimage videos are also acts of historicization, rewriting narratives of Murid expansion within Senegal and without.