ABSTRACT
The regions which make up Senegal today were the scene, in the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, of an extraordinary outburst of Islamic revival movements around leaders like El Hadj Omar in Futa-Toro and in (formerly French) Sudan, Fode Kaba in Casamance, Ma Ba Diakho in Sine-Saloum, Amadou Bamba and El Hadj Malik Sy in the Wolof lands, and Laminou Laye on the peninsula of Cap Vert. During that period a new brand of Islam took the place of an Islam that had all too often become immersed in the political power system and that seemed to have given up the idea of militant action to propagate the message of God. More aggressive and more firmly entrenched in its ideas, this new Islam was ever ready to set off on a crusade by sword and missionary action to enlarge the territory of dar-al-Islam (the land of Islam).
