Traveling Ode of the Faqir: Song Transmission & Spiritual Genealogies in a Sufi Community

Abstract

Traveling Ode of the Faqir: Song Transmission & Spiritual Genealogies in a Sufi Community Youssef Carter “Bismi ilayy may jog di kañ, In the name of Allah, I stand to praise, Sangue bi Cheikh Arouna Faye, the noble Sheikh Arona Faye Seutou Mame Samba, am na ndam, The grandson of grandpa Samba, He has [victory], Yalla buur sagali gnonam.” May Allah brighten his family and entourage Am Na Ndam(“He has victory”) is a Wolof tribute song that primarily honors the work of Shaykh Arona Faye Al‐Faqir , a modern‐day Senegalese marabout considered by his students to be a penultimate religious scholar and spiritual teacher/ guide. According to his followers, he has inherited his knowledge of attaining righteousness from his late uncle and founder of the Mustafawiyy Sufi Order, Shaykh Mustafa Gueye Haydar (1926–1989). The song was composed in Thiés, Senegal by men loosely affiliated with the Order and honors the Shaykh's ancestral line while weaving together multiple network locations in the Mustafawiyy Order such as Senegal, Gambia, Spain, and the USA. While the singers do not travel abroad to praise the mission of Shaykh Arona Faye, the song itself was recorded and shared digitally across the Atlantic where it was copied onto compact discs that would be distributed from the zawiyah of Moncks Corner, South Carolina to other locations throughout the network such as Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and to various families located along the eastern seaboard who are affiliated with the Mustafawiyy Order. Shaykh Arona Faye lectures his students and family members about Islam in Thiès, Senegal, 2015. Photo by Youssef Carter Embedded within the lyrics of Am Na Ndamis a prayer for Shaykh Arona Faye's continued success and long life. There is a way in which the song has traveled across water, along roads, and from house to house as its listeners, many who do not speak Wolof, hum its catchy melody and simultaneously allow for the embedded supplication to be uttered through audio speakers—both stationary and mobile. Throughout the song's journeys, its lyrics tell the story of a Senegalese Muslim man who has crossed the Atlantic in order to guide those who follow on the journey toward God. Here, I emphasize the manner in which Wolof cultural performance informs a Sufic interpretation of religious practice in order to shed light upon the varying ways that uses of language, ideas about lineage in relation to self, and West African Muslim tradition become expressed through song and shared throughout a diasporic Muslim network. I suggest that through looking in depth at the exchange and transmission of this tribute song, we can better identify the precise manner by which religious observances, particularly those of (African‐ and Anglo‐) American Muslims, are rerouted and indigenized into Senegambian traditions. Thus, I use lyrics as primary source, informed by ethnographic observation, to analyze the manner in which place, religion, and lineage emerge through a song composed in the Wolof language and meanwhile radiates outward to the entirety of a diasporic spiritual community. The intent here is to open up questions about travel, memory, and diaspora as they pertain to African and American Muslims in the context of a Senegalese Islamic tradition. Some questions that drive this analysis are: how does the CD itself operate as a medium for religious and cultural continuities? What is significant about this song's journey in particular? What can this song's journey tell us about diaspora—namely African and American Muslim mobilities? What can it tell us about transnational religious networks? What can it offer regarding intersections between the two? I first heard this song while sitting in the living room of an elder South Carolinian woman whom I would come to affectionately know as “Umm Aisha (Mother Aisha),” an African American Muslimah and wife of Shaykh Arona Faye [a somewhat petite Senegalese man whose voice projects far beyond his physical frame and has a penchant for snazzy dress and the color red]. Umm Aisha's quaint house is situated in a quiet suburban neighborhood in the sleepy, blue‐collar town of Moncks Corner—about a 45‐minute drive northwest of Charleston. There I sat with other students as...