Tierno Bokar - Life

Life

Tierno Bokar was born in Segou in 1875 and moved to the village of Bandiagara in 1893. There he opened a zaouia and became a follower of Cherif Hammallah in Nioro du Sahel.

A disagreement over the proper number of repetitions for a Sufi prayer, (Hamallayya prescribed 11 times as opposed to 12), rose dramatically in scale. Intense infighting among rival clans and religious factions in French Soudan, as well as involvement of the French colonial authority eventually led to massacres and the exile of Hamallah. In Bandiagara, Bokar was ostracized by his clan and family and forbidden to teach or pray publicly. Tierno Bokar’s school was destroyed and he and his two wives and children were placed under house arrest.

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