The Baye Faal of Senegambia: Muslim Rastas in the Promised Land?

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Periodical article

Title:	The Baye Faal of Senegambia: Muslim Rastas in the Promised Land?
Author:	Savishinsky, Neil J.
Year:	1994
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	64
Issue:	2
Pages:	211-219
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Senegal Gambia
Subjects:	Muslim brotherhoods pan-Africanism Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Architecture and the Arts Religion and Witchcraft Mourides Sufism
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1160980
Abstract:	Spurred on in large part by the emergence of Jamaican and Anglo-Jamaican reggae music on the global pop music scene in the mid-1970s, the Jamaican Rastafarian movement has within the past two decades managed to expand beyond its island home and attract a diverse and multiethnic international following. Apart from the various manifestations of 'orthodox' Jamaican Rastafarianism found in Africa today, one finds a number of religious and social formations which share similar features with and have been influenced to some extent by Rastafarian religion, music and culture. This article examines the various links that exist between one such group - the Muslim Baye Faal of Senegal and Gambia - and the beliefs and practices of the Jamaican Rastafari. The Baye Faal represent one specific branch of the larger Mouride 'tariqa', founded by Sheikh Ibra Faal (c.1858-1930), one of the first disciples of Ahmadu Bamba, founder of the Mouride brotherhood. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.