Seydina Limamou Laye — founder of the Layène

24 mai 1883 · Yoff

On 24 May 1883, a Lébou fisherman from Yoff — Seydina Limamou Laye — proclaimed at the age of 40 that he was the envoy of God and the awaited Mahdi. He took the name Laye, drawn from the Wolof word for Allah. The brotherhood he founded, the Layène, rests on a strict, purified Islam: rejection of castes, moral and physical purity, and a place for women in religious practice. Deeply rooted in the Lébou people of Dakar, the Layène remains one of Senegal's Muslim brotherhoods to this day. His mausoleum in Yoff, facing the Atlantic, is the spiritual heart of the brotherhood.

Sources

• Persée — compte-rendu de Cécile Laborde, « La Confrérie layenne et les Lébou du Sénégal » (Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 1996)
• Anadolu Agency — Les Layènes, confrérie de l'amour

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