Touba (2013)

• 77%
• 2013
• Documentary
• History
• Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

'Touba' reveals a different face of Islam by chronicling Sufi Muslims' annual pilgrimage to the Senegalese city of Touba. With unprecedented access and dynamic 16mm cinematography, this poetic documentary takes us inside the Mouride Brotherhood--one of West Africa's most elusive organizations and one of the world's largest Sufi communities. Annually more than one million Mourides travel from all over the world to the holy city of Touba to pay homage to the life and teachings of Cheikh Amadou Bamba in the pilgrimage known as the 'Grand Magaal.' Bamba's non-violent resistance to the French colonial persecution of Muslims in the late 19th century inspired a national movement and doctrine, freedom of religious expression through pacifism, still practiced by millions of his followers.