Seydina Limamou Laye
Founder of the Layene brotherhood (1843 – 1909)
Family : Place of birth : Yoff (Cape Verde peninsula) ; Date of birth : 1843 ; Mother : Coumba Ndoye ; Father : Alassane Thiaw
Education : He did not attend school and remained illiterate all his life. He took up fishing and farming early: fields in the rainy season, other shores for fishing in the dry season. He began his preaching on 24 May 1883, at about the age of forty.
Action : On 24 May 1883 he announced at Yoff the Call he had received and his mission as Mahdi, the one awaited at the end of time. He founded the Layene brotherhood, which stands for a purified Islam, prayer and justice. He dictated to his disciples a six-part book in Wolof, the Sermon.
Spiritual legacy : He was called back to God in 1909. His eldest son, Seydina Issa Rohou Laye, became the first caliph of the brotherhood. The Layene brotherhood is firmly rooted among the Lebou of the Cape Verde peninsula. His mausoleum stands at Yoff, facing the Atlantic; a lycée in Guédiawaye and a motorway in Dakar bear his name.
Sources
- Persée — compte-rendu de Cécile Laborde, « La Confrérie layenne et les Lébou du Sénégal » (Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 1996)
- C. Laborde, La confrérie layenne et les Lébou du Sénégal : islam et culture traditionnelle en Afrique
- Cairn — La réapparition du patrimoine cultuel par les jeunes layennes de Cambérène
- Wikipédia — Seydina Limamou Laye
- Wikipedia — Seydina Mouhammadou Limamou Laye
- Le Soleil — « Seydina Limamou Laye, la saga d’un appel divin »