The Sufis of Sa Pobla. "A discreet presence"

At dawn, the first shadows fall on the train station plaza. They are cold and sleepy, their faces show it, their steps are slow. They look for a pebble to sit on or, standing straight ahead, they wait. To the left, the Amazigh of the Rift Valley; to the right, the people from Senegal. They all hope to find work in Marjal or in a garden by the bay. To work for a few coins they will shake with hands weathered by the desert.What time?The sound of a voice can be heard from further away. To avoid fights over a crust of bread, they divided up the space. Those who come to the plaza are almost always the newest arrivals. They don't speak, they don't understand; they say yes to almost everything, they don't complain. They have a gleam in their eyes, their hearts beat with anticipation of their uncertain future, while silently they think of their families, those they left behind at their parents' house.

"For olive harvesting, I prefer the Senegalese," says the man searching. They don't smoke, they don't drink, and they don't chatter. "Not everyone is the same," says another voice. "Those from Dakar smoke and drink, the others don't." Who are the 'others'?

Saliou arrived in Sa Pobla in early 2011. He was a tall, thin, single Senegalese young man, but above all, he was a Sufi. This fact surprised me greatly. I was unaware that the mysticism of Islam, "those who seek the best path back," had descended and taken root in the heart of Sub-Saharan Africa. How could the dry, harsh African land coexist with those who know we are in the world only to be tested? I met Saliou on cold mornings in the train station square, when he came to distribute hot tea and biscuits to his people, to make the wait more bearable and warm them up. With him I learned about Sufism. He had arrived in Sa Pobla. Over the years, a small Sufi community, those from the holy city of Touba, had established itself in an exemplary manner and coexisted with the other Muslims and followers of the Prophet Muhammad—those who quietly accused the Sufis of straying from the truth of Islam and following paths too ascetic for the Quran. Suddenly, Sa Pobla had two mosques and two imams, each with distinct sensibilities and nuances. With Saliou's arrival, bringing Sufism to Sa Pobla, Sunday evening prayers began in the attic on Lledoner Street. From then on, no Senegalese person went without a hot meal or a blanket to sleep on for a fee. Alcohol and marijuana no longer flowed through the streets at night. Work became a spiritual practice. The practice of non-violence gave them undeniable moral authority.

We were standing before the followers of the master and sheikh Ahmadou Bamba (1853-1927), the founder of the Muridiyya tradition, the father of the city of Touba. Bamba reinterpreted Sufism, African spirituality, within a Wolof context and the context of colonial struggle. He succeeded in connecting agricultural societies with nonviolent resistance and helped them find the strength of their spirit through Khidma and familial bonds. With simple and straightforward language, Bamba spoke directly to their bodies, their memories, their rhythms. He did not separate the sacred from daily life and emphasized experience, not abstraction. However, the Wolof already understood the community as an extension of the self and that lived wisdom was more valued than discourse. These people, like our own today, do not experience Sufism as something foreign, but as a new language to express things already intuited.

The Muridi Sufis of Touba came to Mallorca, and to Sa Pobla in particular, when the European Union—"those in Brussels," the faceless gray men—decided to stop buying tomatoes and peanuts from Senegal, which were precisely the star products of their exports. From the year 2000 onwards, the black-tie bureaucrats gave preferential treatment to tomatoes and peanuts from Morocco. This trade shift pushed thousands of young people to embark on the journey in small boats. and seek the shores of the Canary Islands. Many would not reach the shore and lost their lives at sea. The farmers don't understand agricultural policies; they only know that they must feed their children and their families. They overcame, and still do, the immense waves of the ocean to avoid dying of hunger in their homeland.

Saliou says that the inner path to Allah, to God, is not easy, and that to find Him we need much love, affection, and perseverance. Talking about these things makes me reflect on the similarities between the Sufis and our Ramon Llull and his teachings on how to reach Amat (the Divine). Llull was probably familiar with the written works of the Sufi master Ibn al-Arabi, born in Murcia, and other contemporary Sufis. In his time, Sufism was alive and well, spreading by word of mouth. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I think that in both Sufism and Llull's thought, God is not reached through fear or by taking shortcuts, but by traversing a long path, with discipline and perseverance. What is learned doesn't just stay in the mind: it is seen in how one lives, how one works, how one endures. Ramon Llull spoke of a Friend who sought Amat without ever quite reaching it; the Sufis have expressed it in other ways.

Over time, Saliou married and had three children; he also found a job at a hotel in the bay. Meetings of the small Sufi community of Sa Pobla are more difficult these days. However, every year they invite us to the Magdal festival, which commemorates Master Bamba. We've also stopped talking about God; Saliou says that now it's about doing our work well and being discreet. After all, "there are as many paths that lead to God as there are children of Adam."