Grande Mosquée de Touba Sham

The Great Mosque of Touba in central Senegal is the principal religious building of the Mouride Sufi brotherhood — one of the largest and most influential Islamic religious movements in West Africa — and one of the largest mosques on the African continent. The city of Touba was founded in 1888 by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké, a Senegalese Sufi scholar and the founder of the Mouride brotherhood, who chose this remote site in the interior of Senegal as a religious community deliberately separated from the French colonial administrative centres on the coast. Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba is buried within the mosque complex, and his tomb is the principal pilgrimage site for the millions of Mouride disciples worldwide who travel to Touba each year for the Grand Magal — the annual pilgrimage commemorating his return from exile, which draws approximately three to five million pilgrims to the city making it one of the largest religious gatherings on the African continent. The mosque was largely constructed between 1928 and 1963 and has been progressively expanded since, with five large minarets — the central Lamp Fall minaret rising approximately eighty-seven metres — surrounding a vast central dome and a series of smaller surrounding domes. The complex also includes substantial Quranic schools, libraries and accommodation for visitors. The mosque is the centre of the Mouride city of Touba, which is administered by the Khalif-General of the Mouride brotherhood as a special religious municipality.