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In Harlem, a Link to Senegal
July 28, 2003
By SUSAN SACHS
For the last week, Senegalese pilgrims have trekked to a
normally quiet corner on the western edge of Harlem to
await blessings from a holy man. Resplendent in robes of
shimmering cotton, colorful turbans perched on the women's
heads like exotic birds, they clustered outside a red-brick
building named, grandly, the House of Islam.
The object of their devotion is Sheik Mourtada Mbaké, the
aging spiritual leader of the Mourides, a Sufi Muslim
brotherhood that preaches the twin virtues of hard work and
prayer. Once a year, the sheik, now 83, travels to each of
the far-flung Mouride outposts to reinforce those
principles that have propelled his flock out of Senegal and
across the world. His travels take him to Italy, France and
the United States, where Mouride colonies have grown up in
New York, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Washington,
D.C. He is now midway through his American visit.
From early morning until late at night, the parade of
supplicants in Harlem - cabdrivers and computer
technicians, street vendors and accountants - never stops.
Someone has just opened a restaurant or a shop? The sheik
muttered a prayer over a bottle of water so the owner could
sprinkle the liquid over the premises, assuring success.
Others, in asking for a blessing, said they had in mind its
powers to bring prosperity, health, maybe a green card that
would allow them to settle legally in the United States.
And always in the immigrants' prayers was work.
``You come to him today, maybe you're working 75 percent,''
said a livery car driver named Dame, who was reluctant to
give his last name. ``Then maybe tomorrow, you're working
80 percent, because you are blessed.''
In the universe of New York's widely divergent immigrant
groups, the Senegalese have been an especially bright
constellation, conspicuous for creating their own economic
niche as sidewalk salesmen who peddled umbrellas, incense
and purses.
Now, after nearly 20 years in the city, their profile is
changing, evident in the professionals who drove pricey new
cars in from the suburbs to pay homage to the sheik, and in
the bright presence of toddlers thrust toward him for
blessing.
As in many immigrant cultures, the pioneers among the
Senegalese Mourides were single men, or men who had left
their families behind. Living mostly in cheap shared rooms
when they started arriving 15 years ago, they were known
for always looking homeward and sending much of what they
earned to Senegal, especially to the city of Touba, the
capital of Mouride life.
Touba is still their touchstone, the burial place of the
Mourides' founder, Amadou Bamba, a poem-writing mystic who
led a campaign of nonviolent resistance to French
colonialism in West Africa. He died in 1927. Sheik Mbaké is
the youngest of his two surviving sons; the other son, who
is close to 90, is called the general caliph of the
Mourides and runs Touba.
Along 116th Street in central Harlem, in the few blocks
that have become known as Little Senegal, the Mourides'
bond with home is spelled out on shops and businesses named
for Touba. Sheik Bamba, the founder, is evident everywhere,
his 1913 photograph displayed like a talisman on posters,
calendars, wall murals, fans, clocks and T-shirts.
Among the entrepreneurs are a slowly increasing number of
women, a sign of an immigrant community putting down roots.
``When I came here there were maybe 10 or 15 women from
Senegal,'' said Diobe Diop, a Mouride woman who came to New
York in 1985 to join her husband, who was working in the
Senegalese tourism office here. us98 ``Now we have women
with their own businesses,'' added Mrs. Diop, who is the
owner of her own restaurant. ``They maybe started out doing
hair braiding at someone else's salon, but now they're
starting their own.'' us100
In the past few years, other subtle changes have come over
the community. There is, most prominently, the House of
Islam at 137th Street and Edgecombe Avenue. It opened three
years ago, bought and renovated with contributions from
Mouride immigrants to serve as their own mosque and
community center.
Their work is also changing. The terror attacks of Sept. 11
brought stricter enforcement of immigration laws. At the
same time, the city's economic downturn brought
difficulties for the underground economy.
Some Mourides who gathered at their center last week said
they have licenses as street vendors. But many others do
not, leaving them open to being arrested for illegal
peddling and reported to federal immigration agents.
Even for those men who took other jobs, often as livery
drivers, business has turned sour. Many talked glumly of
having to work double shifts to make ends meet or having to
live in city shelters.
The next generation of Senegalese immigrants may be better
equipped to avoid these difficulties .increasingly, Mouride
immigrants are students and professionals who can move into
white-collar jobs, according to community leaders.
``The mentality before was that America is not home to us,
that we are just going to look for money, go home and set
up a business,'' said Fallou GuÁeye, the president of the
Association of Senegalese in America, an organization set
up in the back of a Mouride-owned car service office on St.
Nicholas Avenue in Harlem.
Many immigrants, he added, soon realized it would take
years to accomplish their goal. Some went back home, then
made their way back to New York. ``They saw that `back
home' isn't what it should be, economically or
politically,'' said Mr. GuÁeye. ``So they got a little
trapped in between.''
The most visible change in Mouride life, though, may be the
children. Instead of being sent back to Touba until
adulthood, to be raised in the intimate embrace of their
religion and culture, more and more American-born children
are being kept close at hand.
``I like to think that I am multidimensional,'' said Mr.
GuÁeye, who has his 2-year-old child and his wife with him
in New York. ``Look, even in Senegal there are bad
influences and kids are affected there by the media and rap
music. But if my kid can be African and American together,
it's good. People can pursue this idea of being pure, being
one thing. But it's not doable.''
Although they are still small in numbers, a few hundred or
thousand in each place, the Mourides from Senegal have also
begun to disperse across the country. And they are being
recognized by local governments. Today in Harlem, for
example, the Mourides will hold their annual parade on what
the city has declared Amadou Bamba Day.
``Most people think that to become a Mouride you've got to
sell incense on the street,'' said Balozi Harvey Muhammad,
a New Jersey leader of the group who said he is one of many
African-American Muslims who have embraced the Mouride
teachings.
The Harlem parade and others during Sheik MbakŔe's annual
visit to the United States, he said, are part of that
effort. ``We wanted to let people know that everybody is
not a street vendor and not a cabdriver, so that Mouride
would not be a word for being a street vendor.''
Several Mouride colonies in the United States have raised
or are raising money to buy their own community centers and
mosques. At the Mouride center in Harlem last week,
evenings brought celebratory singing in honor of the
sheik's visit, which will last for another 10 days. In the
basement mosque, under the harsh fluorescent light, 12 men
hunched over a microphone, robustly chanting the melodic
devotional poetry written by Sheik Bamba, the Mouride
founder.
Upstairs, Sheik MbakŔe held court, greeting visitors from
the depths of a black leather armchair covered with white
towels. A gauzy white scarf was draped over his head,
matching his wispy white beard and long white gown. A Koran
lay open on his chest as his acolytes humbly brought him
their offerings and their dreams.
``My message this time has been the same as always - that
they should follow strictly the teachings of Islam and my
father,'' the elderly sheik said one night last week,
speaking softly in his native Wolof language. ``It's a
matter of repeating them, to refresh the mind.''
Mustapha Mbaké, a great-grandson of Sheik Bamba and an
American-based historian of the Mourides, translated his
words.
``His visit focuses on telling us, don't sell drugs, don't
commit crimes, work hard and hold on to your faith,'' said
the younger Mr. MbakŔe, who is 42. ``He repeats the same
thing: work hard, work honestly and participate in
society.''
Around the sheik's chair, a dozen men and a small boy sat
cross-legged on the floor. They asked for a blessing. The
old man stretched out his right hand in benediction a verse
from the Koran. His followers cupped their hands and held
them out in turn.
``Every time you meet him,'' said Babacar Lo, another
community leader who has set down roots in New York, ``it's
a new blessing.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/28/nyregion/28HARL.html?ex=1060403805&ei=1&en=3b08ce96d4ddca54
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