ABSTRACT
As formally appointed representatives (muqaddams)1 of the Fayd· a Tija¯niyya Sufi movement, Adja Moussoukoro Mbaye and Aïda Thiam are both authorized to provide men and women with the mystical education (tarbiya) taught by the movement’s founder, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (1900-1975), better known to his followers as “Baay” (“father” in Wolof). Both also act as spiritual leaders of large religious associations (daayiras) in the Dakar metropolitan area numbering well over a hundred people, through which they organize religious, educational, and other projects. Despite not having pursued an extended Islamic education, both effectively address their disciples in meetings, having learned from more formally trained leaders to quote Arabic texts alongside a Wolof gloss and then explain the quote’s relevance to current situations. They are thus preachers and spiritual guides even though, like male muqaddams who are not also textual specialists, they do not perform all the functions of well-known Islamic scholar-shaykhs and do not rival the prestige of more conventional male leaders who studied in traditional Islamic schools before studying at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Both women approach discipleship not as a matter of waiting for orders from above but rather of conceiving and realizing unique projects through a combination of initiative, innovation, and a sense of unique calling. In this way, they exemplify an increasingly prevalent phenomenon that I call “entrepreneurial discipleship”, although they do so in contrasting ways due to their contrasting diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds.
