All information in this sketch, unless otherwise noted, comes from conversations with Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri, the oldest son and current khalīfah of Muḥammad al-Mishri (hereafter called Mishri). Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri (more commonly called simply “Ḥājj”) is currently the head of the village of Maᶜṭamulāna, the village that Mishri founded.
Mishri first met Baay Ñas as a child when he was travelling with his father and visited Maam Allaaji Abdulaay Ñas in Lewna Ñaseen, Kawlax. His father, ᶜAbd Allāh wuld al-Ḥājj, was known as a great a visionary, and when he saw Baay Ñas, he exclaimed: “There is no God but Allah [term of astonishment]! What great things God has in store for this black youth!” (“Lāᵓilāha ᵓillāLlāh, hādhā shābb al-kūriyy mā ᵓakthara mā ddakharahū Llāh!”). Mishri heard this and was deeply marked by it.
Mishri studied with several ᵓIdawᶜali scholars in Mauritania, including ᵓAḥmaddu wuld Dahah, as well as with teachers from the ᵓIdabliḥsan tribe, such as Muḥammadan wuld Ḥuwayballāh), and from the ᵓAwlād Daymān tribe, such as Babbāh wuld ᶜAbd ar-Raḥmān and Lamīn wuld Sayyidi. He studied like this until about the age of 18 or 20, then decided he wanted to take the ṭarīqah. In Mauritania, Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri tells me, students usually study the textual sciences (ᶜulūm) before getting into Sufism (taṣawwuf). He took the wird from Muḥammad Lamīn wuld Baddi and stayed with him 2 years “to be initiated into the experience of taṣawwuf (“Li-yumārisa tajribat at-taṣawwuf”), then he saw a vision in which the Prophet and Baay Ñas appeared. This vision led him to understand that he would get more out of going to Baay Ñas, so he went to him in Medina Baay in 1355 h., (c. 1937), shortly before Baay Ñas went on his pilgrimage to Makkah. He renewed his wird with Baay Ñas at this time. Later the same year, he returned to MEdina and received his tarbiyyah from Baay Ñas
He was not the only Mauritanian shaykh to follow Baay Ñas. The first Mauritanian shaykhs who received ᵓijāzahs from Baay Ñas are the following, in order of their appointment:
- Muḥammad wuld an-Naḥwi (of Barayna, now in Ribāṭ al-Fatḥ, which he founded c. 2001)
- Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ wuld Muḥammad ᶜAliyy
- Al-Hādī wuld Sayyid wuld Sayyid Mawlūd Vāl of Tumbuyᶜali (Mawlūd Vāl was the Shaykh of Allaaji Omar Taal [ᶜUmar al-Fūtiyy])
- Muḥammad ᶜAbd Allāh wuld Lamrābuṭ
- Muḥammad Vāl wuld ash-Shaykh
- Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ wuld Maḥḥam
He does not note where Mishri fits in this chronology, but it is well known that he was one of the relatively late disciples.
Eleven years after his tarbiyyah, aounrd 1947 (1366 h.), Mishri returned to Medina Baay and received his ᵓijāzah. The next year (1367 h., c. 1948) he began to receive his first disciples, and because of his charisma he attracted a large number of disciples. He was one of the first shaykhs in the area to have a large number of disciples from outside his own tribe and region. He travelled to ᵓĀdrār in the north and several people there became his disciples and moved into his nomadic camp. From then until 1958 disciples continued to gather in his camp. Among his first disciples were the following:
- Baddi wuld Maddāh (ᵓIdawᶜali, a trader)
- Bba wuld Sayyid (ᵓIdawᶜali, a scholar)
- Daahil wuld Daah (Shurafāᵓ—ᵓAwlād Maḥmūd Sharīf, a young man from ᵓĀdrār)
- ᶜAbd Allāh wuld Jiddu, a.k.a. Muḥammad Fāḍil (ᵓAwlād aḅḅayri, a youth, became a scholar)
The ᵓĀḅḅayri, who are originally a branch of ᵓIdawᶜali, started becoming disciples particularly in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1958, Mishri decided that he wanted his disciples to be settled (mutaḥaḍḍir: civilized) so they could establish a more permanent environment for Islamic education.
In 1958, a confluence of events made this settlement possible. His ᵓIdawᶜali tribe had long lived in the same general area as members of the ᵓIdabliḥsan tribe, with whom they had sometimes had hostilities. Some of the ᵓIdabliḥsan petitioned the French government for a well, and the French agreed to dig them a well about 30 kilometers to the south of present-day Maᶜṭa Mulāna at a place called nyark, but their ᵓIdabliḥsan guide led them to the wrong place and they ended up digging the well in what is now Maᶜṭa Mulāna’s medicinal garden. The ᵓIdawᶜali pointed out that the well was on land that they and not the ᵓIdabliḥsan controlled, and some conflict ensued as the ᵓIdawᶜali fought to prevent their land and this well from being grabbed by the ᵓIdabliḥsan. In 1957, to make good on their promise and to prevent further conflict, the French ceded the well to the ᵓIdawᶜali and agreed to dig another for the ᵓIdabliḥsan. They told the ᵓIdawᶜali that this unexpected boon was a gift from God, so the well was named Maᶜṭa Mulāna, or “Gift from God.”
Two years after the village was founded (late 1960), they opened a public bilingual French and Arabic elementary school. In 1965 they built the mosque and held Friday prayer there. At that point, there were still only around 200 people, not much more than when they founded the village, although the village was gradually taking shape during this period. In 1967, Baay Ñas visited Maᶜṭa Mulāna for the first time and gave a speech (not a Friday speech) at the mosque.
In 1971, Mishri hosted a landmark meeting in Maᶜṭa Mulāna between the ᵓIdawᶜali and the ᵓIdabliḥsan in which they officially ended hostilities. Before that time there had been occasional violent outbreaks between members of the two tribes, and since then they have had uninterrupted peace.
In 1975, Mishri died in a car accident on the road to Róoso, Senegal, on his way back from Medina to Mauritania, shortly before (I believe around 3 weeks before) Baay Ñas died. At the time, his oldest son Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri was studying economics at the University of Dakar, and although he was the first in his class he was called back after his first year to succeed his father. Ḥājj later founded a village called al-Quds (“Holy,” the Arabic name of Jerusalem) on the site where his father died. (Although he is often credited with founding the village, he tells me that many of the village’s inhabitants were already in the area and they only became formalized as a village after he had a mosque built there. He speaks of al-Quds as Maᶜṭa Mulāna’s sister village, and people from Maᶜṭa Mulāna have participated in development projects involving al-Quds.) After Mishri’s death (as is the case with many charismatic leaders, especially the ones with close followers from outside the family) there were disputes between his disciples concerning who should succeed him. Some supported his close disciple and muqaddam, Shaykh wuld al-Khayriyy , saying he had inherited Mishri’s spiritual abilities, while others supported Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri.
After three years of contentious coexistence, in 1978 Shaykh wuld al-Khayriyy and his disciples left Maᶜṭa Mulāna and founded the village of Bubakkar, which, like Maᶜṭa Mulāna, is named after the well that was on the grounds before the village was founded. Bubakkar is only a few kilometers away from Maᶜṭa Mulāna. Al-Ḥājj wuld al-Mishri says that there have never been problems between himself and Shaykh wuld al-Khayriyy , only between jealous disciples who want to glorify their own leader.
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