Performing Realization: The Sufi Music Videos of the Taalibe Baye of Dakar

How do you communicate an experience to someone who has never had it? Or relatedly, how do you translate one form of personal experience (a sight, a smell, a feeling, a taste) into another form (speech, writing, music, images, etc.) that others can appreciate? Poets and painters, composers and critics, philosophers, actors, and really all of us creatively struggle with these basic questions each and every time we attempt to communicate even the most everyday experiences and feelings. If this is true of the frustration of standing in line or the taste of chocolate, how much more so of that which is ineffable, impossible to define or share? Sufi artists such as Aida Faye have the added creative challenge of attempting to communicate the experience of that which has no likeness. The famous Andalusian Sufi theorist, Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240), whose writings are often cited by and had a strong influence upon the Tijani tradition, explains the seeming impossibility of this task:

So what is a Sufi artist to do? How can one communicate the experience of the Real which has no like and is never experienced in the same way twice? Like the false-color images of infrared cameras or deep-space telescopes, various traditions of Islamic (especially Sufi) art have found ways to present various concepts and intangible spiritual realities to the senses, but what can one do when it comes to The Real Itself, or even one's necessarily unique experience of that which has no likeness? Even the Qur'an is remarkably laconic about the Prophet's experience of the Divine Reality at the apex of his heavenly ascent (mi'rāj): He revealed unto his servant what He revealed. The heart was not untrue in what it saw …. When enshrouded the lote tree that which enshrouded it, the eye swerved not nor went astray (53:11–12, 16–17).

The answer to this paradox lies in the second half of the verse, There is nothing like unto Him (42:11), which reads, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing. Like many Sufis before and after him, Ibn ‘Arabi “resolves” this seemingly paradoxical verse (how can something without likeness also be “seeing” and “hearing”—since these are likenesses, being attributes that we and many animals share?) by explaining that God's transcendent incomparability (tanzīh) actually necessitates His immanent comparability (tashbīh). The argument basically goes: If you declare God to only be completely transcendent, that actually limits Him, since you are saying that He cannot be immanent. But if God is truly transcendent, then He cannot be limited, even by transcendence, and so He must also be immanent. In short, God transcends His transcendence and is thus Immanent; His incomparable incomparability incomparably encompasses similarity. This is the foundation of the special Sufi science of allusion (ishārah), sign (ayah), and symbol (ramz).

As with many Sufi artists before her, Aïda Faye (along with the video's director, Noël Gueye) relies on this special, evocative form of symbolism in order to communicate, or more precisely, evoke a particular experience of the encounter with the Real, fanā' (Fig. 1). It is important to note that in these Sufi discourses, such symbols, whether verbal, visual, or both, operate in a manner that is very different from that of stop signs, mascots, logos, or other signs that we commonly call “symbols.” Within such Sufi discourses, the symbol (ishārah, ayah, or ramz) is not an arbitrary signifier linked to its signified through convention, but is rather ontologically continuous with that which it symbolizes. Like the tip of an iceberg, the symbol is the symbolized as it appears in a particular domain. Because of these ontological connections, such symbols are understood to convey the presence (ḥaḍrah) of that which they symbolize, and thus evoke or provoke an encounter with it. As in the above quotation, Sufi authors often use the term “tasting” (dhawq) to refer to direct experience, and so the symbol or sign can be likened to aroma, perfume, or scent (rīḥ, shamm), as it often is in Sufi poetry. Just as an aroma has an actual physical continuity and identity with its source and provokes a reaction in those with a functional sense of smell (salivation, hunger, etc.), so too do symbolic Sufi allusions have an ontological continuity with the experiences or realities they embody, and they also evoke responses in sufficiently sensitive audiences.

Having succinctly outlined this approach to symbolism, we will now examine how it is employed in Aïda Faye's music video as a means of communicating the experience of fanā'. (The video can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj-jZTqCgUI)

We will begin by commenting upon the lyrics of the song before turning to the visual symbols of the music video. The song is sung in Wolof with numerous Arabic quotations and phrases (in bold below) and its lyrics can be translated as:

Shahādah. The invocation of the shahādah (“there is no god but God”) is part of daily Tijani practice, and the repetition of this phrase is an integral part of the process of tarbiyah. In these contexts, the recitation of the shahādah is understood to erase the awareness or consciousness of anything other than God, leading to the state of fanā' that is the goal of tarbiyah. Aïda Faye is famous for her powerful recitations (zikr in Wolof, dhikr in Arabic) of the shahādah at Tijani gatherings, which frequently send listeners into ecstatic states (aḥwāl), and seldom leave dry eyes in the audience. (One such performance can be heard at https://wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=dPjdxRloLr8). As in this song, public recitations of poetry at Sufi gatherings (gammu in Wolof) often emerge in the midst of, and are interspersed with, zikr/dhikr of the shahādah. Thus the repeated motif of the shahādah connects the song with the daily invocation of the shahādah during the performance of litanies (which can be public or private), its private invocation during the process of tarbiyah, as well as its public invocation in zikrs at gatherings.

This close connection between the repeated refrains of the song and the repetition of Qur'anic phrases and prayers (such as the shahādah) in private and public spiritual practice is important, as it reveals a shared aesthetic and methodology of repeated invocation (dhikr/zikr). The prolonged repetition of a phrase, whether in a song, poem, or litany, invites the performer and listener to consider its different meanings. Each new invocation or repetition represents an invitation to a new and fresh approach to—a new revelation of—the same reality in a new context.

According to the celebrated Sufi doctrine of tajdīd al-khalq fī kulli anāntin or “the renewal of creation at each instant,”⁶ everything in the cosmos participates in this perpetual and instantaneous revelation from and return to God. Like the images from a projector or on a TV screen, everything in the world is created anew at every instant, producing the appearance of continuity. Thus, in this cosmology, although you may seem to be repeating the same thing over and over again, the reality is that each recitation is new and distinct because you yourself are new and distinct at every instant. This perpetual creation in the domain of the cosmos is mirrored in the persistent repetition of invocation in the domain of language, and is one of the reasons why repetition features so prominently in zikrs and songs such as this one.

Chorus: Return to God, before you are returned to Him. The motif of return runs through the music video's title, verses, images and is repeated over and over again in its chorus. The theme of “returning to God” is also major motif in the Qur'an, which is studded with verses such as Verily from God we come and to Him we are Returning (2:156) and To Him the whole affair is returned (11:23). Now, a “return” implies an original “coming from,” and this cycle of descent from and return to God is often described and depicted as two “arcs”⁷ (Diagram 2).

This process of descent from and return to God is understood to occur cosmically, with the creation of the universe; individually, with the birth and death of each person; spiritually through spiritual practices that lead to fanā'; and instantaneously through the perpetual renewal of creation described above. Thus the chorus of the song can be understood as calling the audience to undertake the voluntary, spiritual return to God, before the involuntary eschatological return takes them back to God. While the song's lyrics focus on these spiritual and posthumous returns to God, as we will explore later, the images of the music video allude to the cosmic and instantaneous returns, which form the metaphysical background of the other two returns to God.

Combined with the chorus, this verse equates knowledge of God with the voluntary, spiritual return to Him, and underscores the fact that it must take place before the involuntary return of physical death.⁸ The next verse equates this return of knowledge with death:

Clearly the Prophetic injunction to “die before you die,” indicates that this first “death” is different from the second. Within Sufism these two deaths are commonly known as voluntary (spiritual) death (al-mawt al-ikhtiyārī), and involuntary (physical) death (al-mawt al-ijbārī). While the second death is commonly known, this first death, which is equated with fanā' is less commonly experienced and understood. So what is fanā'? Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse describes it as the state in which the disciple

This state is the culmination of the process of tarbiyah, in which disciples experience everything, including their own consciousness, as God. Thus they often make ecstatic utterances such as “I am God,” or “everything is God,” as all traces of multiplicity are erased. However, this is not the end of the process. In coming to fanā', the disciple is taken from multiplicity to unity, but the next step is to unite this unity with multiplicity in a station which is known as subsistence (baqā') or the annihilation of annihilation (fanā’ al-fanā').⁹ In this station, the disciple is neither veiled from God nor from things, but rather sees things in God and God in things. The next verse continues the argument begun above by declaring, He is the One and Only. This verse not only describes the unity experienced in fanā', but on a more practical level extends the argument begun in the previous verses. In the most basic Islamic understanding, God being “One and Only” means that everything comes from Him and must eventually return to Him. As the One and Only, nothing and no one can escape Him, so here the artist can be read as exhorting the audience not to postpone the inevitable return to God, but rather to embrace it. When combined with the previous verses, the message seems to be: you can go either kicking and screaming or with open arms, so get to work and return to God. With this argument complete, the lyrics now turn to a description of the ineffable state experienced at the end of the return, fanā'.

This is a verbatim quotation of one of the most famous verses of Sufi poetry, from the celebrated wine-ode (al-khamriyyah) by the Egyptian Sufi poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1235). This verse (and the poem as a whole) is variously interpreted as a description of the Divine Essence, the remembrance/invocation of God (dhikruLlāh), and the pre-eternal light or reality of the Prophet Muhammad (nūr Muḥammadī or ḥaqīqah Muḥammadiyah)—the logos-like reality that is described as the first creation of God through which all of creation came into being. In this verse, the qualities of the four elements (water, air, fire, and earth [body]) are invoked and then negated, leaving an apophatic unity of quality or meaning (ma'anā) beyond separate elements or forms (ṣuwwar). This apophatic turn is reiterated in the next verse, a direct quotation from the Qur'an:

This verse describes the beginning of the battle of Badr, in which the Prophet hurled a handful of stones at the larger army of Quraysh, symbolically destroying them. Ibn ‘Arabi and other Sufi authors, including Shaykh Ibrahim, often quote this verse to illustrate the fact that God is the only real “agent” behind all actions (see Niasse 2010: 2:367) and to illustrate the special state of annihilation that is identified with the Prophet and described in a ḥadīth in which God is said to become the “hearing, sight, hand, and foot” of his beloved servant (see Chittick 1989: 325–31). In the paradoxical meeting of human and Divine which is fanā', God is identical with His servant from one perspective, and yet is not, from another. As one scholar notes, quoting Ibn ‘Arabi:

This unveiling or realization occurs during fanā', which is the culmination of the process of return and the means through which it is achieved—the disciple realizes that it was never him or her, but rather God all along. As Rumi famously wrote, “For years I knocked at the door, but when it finally opened, I found I had been knocking from the inside!” This theme is reinforced in the final verse of the song which states, “God is God”—the final realization of fanā'.

Having explored some of the allusions in the lyrics of the song, we will now analyze some of the visual symbols of the music video. As with the lyrics, most of these revolve around the theme of emanation from and return to God, and the related process and experience of spiritual realization.

Opening Sequence. The evocative opening sequence of the music video is an illustration of several popular Sufi cosmogonic accounts. A small dot expands to form a white circle, which is then replaced by the Arabic letter bā' (ب), which then vanishes in a brilliant explosion of light from which the earth emerges. Then the screen cuts to an image of a sunrise and the letter bā' flies into place in front of the sun. This sequence makes reference to a number of Sufi doctrines regarding the origin of the cosmos, such as this one from a twentieth-century, South Asian Sufi author:

The primary written source of Tijani doctrine, the Jawāhir al-Ma'ānī, records a similar cosmogonic account attributed to Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī (d. 1815), the founder of the Tijaniyyah:

In both accounts, and in the video, the Muḥammadan Reality is described as the first creative act of God, a piece of His Light through which the rest of creation is brought into being, just as the earth is brought into visibility from invisibility by the rising sun. In the video, the sun is juxtaposed with the Arabic letter bā' (or the point beneath this letter) which, as the first letter of the Qur'an, is frequently used to symbolize this aspect of the Muḥammadan Reality in accordance with the traditions, “All that is in the revealed books is in the Qur'an, and all that is in the Qur'an is in the Fātiḥah, and all that is in the Fātiḥah is in the basmalah“ and “All that is in the basmalah is in the letter Bā', which itself is contained in the point that is beneath it” (Lings 1993: 148).¹¹ More prosaically, the idea is that just as all of the letters of a book are but a series of dots, or more precisely, just as the ink of this dot flows through all letters (which themselves emerge from the dot of ink of the pen's nib),¹² so too does the light of the Prophetic reality flow through and constitute the reality of all existent things. Thus the opening sequence of Aïda Faye's video combines the symbolism of light and letters to illustrate the emanation of the Muḥammadan Reality from the inscrutable Divine Essence, and the emergence of the cosmos from this Muḥammadan Reality.

Clouds. The very next image to appear is that of clouds passing in front of the sun. This image continues the theme of manifestation or creation begun in the opening sequence, and is probably a reference to the Qur'anic verse “and you see the mountains which you deem fixed, but they are passing away like clouds” (27:88), which Shaykh Ibrahim quotes as an illustration of the perpetual transformation of God's manifestations, “Allah may manifest in a tree, but the next moment, this manifestation may move to another tree, or something else. The manifestation of Allah are constantly evolving and never at a standstill … Allah says in the Qur'an, You see the mountains you deem to be solid, but they are moving like clouds (27:88)” (Niasse 2006: 97).¹³ Thus clouds symbolize the evanescence of creation, and the image of clouds in front of the sun illustrates the veiling nature of these Divine self-manifestations, which must eventually vanish, revealing the face of the Sun. As the Qur'anic verse that is probably the origin of the Sufi terms fanā' and baqā' says, Everything upon it is passing away, and there remains the face of your Lord (55:26).

Ocean and Beach/Reverse Waves. The next image to appear in the music video is of the artist walking towards the beach, prayer beads in hand. Many of the disciples of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse in Dakar perform their long litanies of tarbiyah on the beach—not only because of its beauty and solitude, but also because of its symbolism. The beach is significant because it is a liminal zone, or barzakh, between land and sea, earth and water, and is thus natural symbol for the transition between the outward/sensory (al-Ẓāhir) and the inward/spiritual (al-Bāṭin) that tarbiyah represents.

Furthermore, the ebb and flow of the waves and tides of the ocean is an oft-cited symbol in Sufi poetry and prose of the perpetual emanation from and return to God.¹⁴ The video highlights this through the arresting image of waves running in reverse, and the repeated motif of the artist wading into the ocean.

Moreover, as in the previous sequences of images, this ocean scene extends the narrative of creation and return by alluding to Islamic cosmogonic accounts in which the ocean symbolizes the “primordial waters” that predate the creation of the world. As one of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse's sons explained:

Thus, the previous images of exploding light and letters represent the emergence of Muḥammadan Reality, while these images of the ocean represent the next phase in the process of creation and their reversal, as the artist—an earth-made daughter of Adam and Eve—returns into the sea and the Divine Reality.

Integration of Multiple Selves. On the beach, we are then shown seven ghostly images of the artist that disappear into the artist herself (Fig. 3). These seven images seem to represent the seven ascending levels of the soul described in written and oral Sufi doctrines—the soul that commands to evil (nafs al-'ammarah), the blaming soul (nafs al-lawwamah), the inspired soul (nafs al-mulhamah), the tranquil soul (nafs al muṭma'innah) the content soul (nafs al rāḍiyah) the pleasing soul (nafs al-marḍiyah) and the perfect soul (nafs al-kāmilah)—all being integrated into the artist as she advances through these stages in her spiritual journey.

Trees Coming Together. Next we see two baobab trees merge into a larger tree (Fig. 4), much like the images that are produced when you push your eyes together and then release them. One disciple told me that this image reminded him of the experience in tarbiyah “when you realize The Outward/Apparent (al-Ẓāhir) and Inward/Hidden (al-Bāṭin) that seemed different, are just one reality.”¹⁵ This image underscores the theme of the unity emerging from duality or multiplicity simultaneously developed in the lyrics.¹⁶

“Allah” Appearing on a Rock. Another image that evokes a common set of experiences reported during tarbiyah is depicted in Figure 5, in which the word “Allah” appears on a rock atop which the artist is singing the shahādah.¹⁷ Disciples commonly described “seeing God everywhere” or “in everything” during tarbiyah, which led them to reevaluate the meaning of verses of the Qur'an such as there is nothing that does not hymn His praises, but you understand not their praise (17:44)—“their praise” being their very existence in/as God, which is only understood as the disciple begins to enter fanā'.

Eyes Closed/Eyes Open. As Aïda Faye continues to passionately sing the shahādah on the beach, we are shown close-up shots of her tearful eyes closing and then opening, representing the artist turning away from the world of appearances and opening her eyes to the world of reality (Fig. 6). Consistent with broader Islamic embodied responses to the sacred, disciples who have undergone tarbiyah often report that they cried during and/or after their experience, and several teared up even recounting their experiences to me or while watching the video, explaining that “it takes me back there, to when I did my tarbiyah.“¹⁸

Disappearing into the Ocean. As the singing and music begin to fade, the artist is now no longer on the shore, but waist-deep in the ocean and sinking out of sight (Fig. 7). This is a clear and powerful symbol of the self vanishing in the Divine, of the completion of the process of fanā'. Thus the artist completes the cycle of creation by vanishing into the dark depths of the sea, returning to the original blackness in which the music video began.

Performance and Reminder. Through these symbols and lyrics, the artist takes the audience from pre-eternity (azal) when according to the ḥādith, “God was and there was nothing with Him” (see Chittick 1998: 435 and Ṣaḥīḥ Bukharī Book 54, ḥadīth 414) to the creation of the cosmos through the emanation of and from the Muḥammadan Reality, to the process of spiritual return through tarbiyah and fanā' in which the artist comes to existentially realize the commentary upon this ḥādith: “it is now even as it was” (see Chittick 1998: 435 and Ṣaḥīḥ Bukharī Book 54, ḥadīth 414). The artist actually performs this process of spiritual realization and fanā' by singing lyrics used in tarbiyah, by shooting the music video in a location commonly used for tarbiyah, and by actually adopting many of the postures and expressions disciples commonly adopt in tarbiyah, all while carrying the prayer beads used during this process (Fig. 8). Furthermore, the lyrics creatively draw on Qur'anic verses, ḥadīth, and Sufi traditions and literature used to explain fanā' and tarbiyah, while the visual sequences allude to the various states disciples report experiencing, as well as symbols the Sufi tradition commonly employed to describe these experiences.

The music video's performance of tarbiyah and fanā' is something quite different from a discursive description of it, as the performance elicits an almost reflexive sympathetic/mimetic response. It's one thing to hear about someone yawning or getting shot, it's quite another thing to see it. The latter almost always provokes a reflexive response—and this seems to be the function of this performance of spiritual realization: to serve as a reminder to those who have undergone this process, and as an encouragement or provocation to those who have yet to do so.

The song “Baye Your Side” by Maxi Krezy, Fadda Freddy, and Ndongo D (Fig. 9) is primarily a song praising Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, the founder of their branch of the Tijani order, and praying for his protection and assistance on the spiritual path. Before delving into the remarkable lyrics and fascinating visual imagery employed in their video, it is important to understand a bit about the wider genres of praise-poetry that influence it. The song and music video of “Baye Your Side” are a remix not only of a Bob Marley song and certain musical and visual hip-hop tropes, but also of the more traditional madīḥ genres of Arabic Sufi poetry and Wolofal praise poetry that extol the virtues and attributes of great shuyukh and awliyā' (saints), exhibit their esoteric doctrines (and the performer's knowledge of them), and implore their succor and protection (The video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VpnPXJcWk).

As Islam and Arabic literary genres entered West Africa, they entered a region with a plethora of robust and rich traditions of praise poetry, many of which continue to thrive to the present day.¹⁹ These genres of praise poetry usually invoke the memories, feats, and attributes of ancestors and/or mythical heroes. Moreover, and possibly relatedly, the most popularly performed (and produced) genre of Arabic-language literature is praise poetry (madīḥ). These poems in praise of the Prophet, Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī, and various Senegelase shuyukh such as Shaykh Aḥmadu Bamba, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, and al-Ḥājj Mālik Sy frequently invoke esoteric doctrines to describe and praise the spiritual attributes and realities (ḥaqā'iq) of these figures, as well as their manifestations in their temporal features and actions. This dimension is not absent from traditional West African oral genres, which are more than mere flattery or historical epics, but also describe mythical and metaphysical realities. For example, Karin Barber describes the Yoruba tradition of oriki as “collections or strings of name-like attributive epithets, ‘praises' which are neither narrative nor descriptive, but vocative. They are addressed to their subject or ‘owner,’ and are felt to encapsulate, and evoke in some way that subject's essential powers and qualities” (Barber 1991: 1). The name of this unique Yoruba genre of orature is derived from the combination of ori (source, head, destiny/inner self) and the verb ki (to greet, salute, or even provoke/evoke), and thus it means to salute and evoke one's origin or inner self. Thus both forms of praise-poetry, the madīḥ and the traditional praise genres, despite their many differences, both invoke and evoke their audience's inner potentialities and realities, which are identified with spiritual, biological, or cultural ancestors. Relatedly, in both types of genres, the recitation or performance of these works is thought to invoke the presence (ḥaḍrah) of those named and described in them. Despite these similarities, these two traditions have remained largely separate, despite existing side by side for centuries; however, they appear to converge in contemporary popular music such as Fatou Guewel's (herself from a gewel family) songs in praise of Shaykh Aḥmadu Bamba and his mother Mame Diarra Busso. This union of praise genres extends even to more pop-oriented songs, such as “Baye Your Side.”²⁰

In the music video, the disciples of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse employ the invocatory/evocatory dimensions of these traditions to recall, perform, and perhaps even induce the state of annihilation in the shaykh (fanā’ fī shaykh), who, like the Prophet, is understood as being a profoundly inner spiritual reality of his disciples. In the cosmology and anthropology of Shaykh Ibrahim's branch of Tijani Sufism, everything and everyone in the cosmos comes from God through the logos-like spiritual reality of the Prophet, through the spiritual reality of Shaykh Aḥmad Tijani, and then through Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and his representatives. Since everything in the cosmos comes from these realities, they must also return to these realities, and in a sense essentially are these realities.²¹ As already mentioned, the return to God through these realities is of two types: voluntary and involuntary. The involuntary return is through physical death, and the voluntary return is spiritual and is described as a kind of death or annihilation (fanā'). Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse described his own experience of annihilation in these realities in the following way:

The disciples' experience of annihilation in Shaykh Ibrāhīm, which is performed in the music video of “Baye Your Side,” is understood to be possible because of Shaykh Ibrahim's status as the “father of all humanity and the spiritual support for the entirety of existent beings.” It is because Shaykh Ibrahim is understood to be already identical with the inner realities of these disciples that their fanā’ fī'l-shaykh, their existential recognition of this identity, is possible. In Tijani sources,²² these relationships are often illustrated in diagrams depict two complementary perspectives of the Real, such as the Innermost/Hidden (al-Bāṭin) and the Outermost/All-Encompassing (al-Ẓāhir/al-Wāsi'). The emanation (fayḍ) from one level of being/consciousness (wujūd) to the next is complemented by the fanā' of one level in the next (Diagram 2).

With this background, we will now turn to an analysis of the lyrics of the song “Baye Your Side,” before turning to its visual symbolism, and conclude with a comparison of these two videos and suggestions for future research.

Title. First of all, like the song's sample, the title of “Baye Your Side” invokes and puns on the chorus of Bob Marley's “High Tide or Low Tide.” This kind of bilingual punning is a common feature of contemporary Sufi hip-hop in Senegal. For example, another Senegalese hip-hop group calls itself Pinal Gang, an obvious pun on the criminal-sounding English “penal gang.” However, pinal, in the local language of Pulaar, means “to wake up,” and the group glosses “gang” as an punning abbreviation of the Wolof word gangoor, meaning, “group or crowd.” The invocation of Marley in the title and song sample is also significant, since he, reggae music, and Rasta style and culture have become important markers of a kind of black Atlantic, musico-spiritual counter-culture (often with Pan-Africanist overtones) that has become popular in coastal Senegal, Ghana, and Morocco, among other countries (for example, see McNee 2002; Morris 2014).

Chorus and Verse 2. For the sake of brevity, we will only examine the chorus, second verse, and outro of the song before moving on to discuss the images employed in the music video. The chorus of the song goes:

The term for “crazy” in Wolof, duff, is often used by Taalibe Baye (disciples of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse) to refer to describe themselves during and after the process of tarbiyah, in which they experience annihilation in God, the Prophet, Shaykh Tijānī, and sometimes Shaykh Ibrahim. This term is affectionately used to describe the radical transformation of consciousness this process entails—thus the chorus can be glossed as a request for the “Divine Madness” of annihilation in Shaykh Ibrahim (fanā’ fī'l-shaykh) which results in him (“Baye”) always being “by your side,” just as annihilation in God and the Prophet imply perpetual nearness and identity with them (see Hoffman 1999).

In the second verse, Maxi Krezy raps:

These verses summarize the Tijani (and general Sufi) prophetology in which God first creates the Light of the Prophet (nūr Muḥammadī),²⁸ which is then passed on through the line of Qur'anic prophets until it comes to the Prophet Muḥammad; the lyrics then identify this light as being manifest in the person of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. This particular doctrine is also alluded to in the passage by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, where he identifies it with the Qur'anic “trust” (amānah) and vicegerency (khilāfah). The “lightning in the heaven” is an allusion to the description of the pre-existent reality of the Prophet found in the Tijani prayer the Jawharat al-Kamāl (recited several times daily as a part of the Tijani litany), whose first sentences describe the Muḥammadan Reality as:

Outro. The song then builds to the outro, in which Fadda Freddy sings:

The first verse is an expression of the Tijani conception of sainthood, derived from Ibn ‘Arabi's theories in which all saints receive their sanctity from the seal of Muhammadan Sanctity (khatm al-wilāyah al-Muḥammadiyah), who in the Tijani tradition is identified with Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī. In Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse's branch of the order, Shaykh Ibrahim was called the “seal of the seal” and was believed to be the intermediary between Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī and all other saints, who are thus his “sons.” The second verse is an allusion to the Qur'anic verse Then We inspired Moses, saying: Smite the sea with thy staff. And it parted, and each part was as a mountain vast … (26:63) and the common mystical interpretation of the story of the Exodus as symbolizing the soul's passage from darkness and oppression (ẓulmah) into light (nūr). Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse is here likened to the prophet Musa, as being the one who has the God-given means of blazing and leading souls along the path from the “slavery” of sin and ignorance into the “promised land” of sanctity and knowledge. The next verses employ the same symbol of the letter bā' and the bismillah discussed above, except that here, Shaykh Ibrahim is described as being a word spoken by the dot underneath this bā', underscoring the doctrine of the emanation of his spiritual reality from that of the Muḥammadan Reality which is identified with the dot.

The following verses poetically describe the process of tarbiyah and identify the artist's own shaykh murabbi (initiating shaykh), Shaykh Mamour Insa, with Shaykh Ibrahim. Then begins a series of identifications with Shaykh Ibrahim which echo the famous ḥadīth nawāfil, which reads, “My servant does not cease drawing near to me through supererogatory acts of worship until I love him. Then when I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks ….” (see Chittick 1989: 325–31 and Ṣaḥīḥ Bukharī Book 81, ḥadīth 91). This ḥadīth is commonly cited by Sufi authors as a description of annihilation in God (fanā’ fī Llāh), and thus the similar language found in this verse can be understood as a description and declaration of the artists' annihilation in Shaykh Ibrahim (fanā fī'l-shaykh).

Right after this description of the artists' eyes, hands, and ears being Shaykh Ibrahim, the video cuts to an evocative image depicting the artist's head enshrouded or completely annihilated in light (Fig. 11). This serves as a powerful visual illustration of and commentary on the verses of the song describing annihilation. Moreover, this theme of annihilation in the shaykh is underscored by the repeated and almost subliminal flashes of images of Shaykh Ibrahim (such as at 3:34 of the music video) and the artists own shaykh, Shaykh Mamour Insa Diop (3:31 of the music video). These repeated and unexpected appearances of the images of the shuyukh parallel disciples experiences during tarbiyah of “intermittent flashes of light” that eventually become more stable and permanent as they fully experience annihilation.²⁹ Moreover, they give the viewer the impression of getting brief glimpses of the omnipresent realities of the shaykh(s), and the fading in and out between the images of the artists and those of these shaykhs illustrates the relationships of identity and annihilation between them.

Even more subtly, in several scenes (often during the chorus), what appears to be a magnified version of a popular picture of Shaykh Ibrahim (Fig. 11) is overlayed with footage of the artists performing, giving the appearance that they are actually inside of or surrounded by Shaykh Ibrahim (Fig. 12). This is another subtle but powerful and evocative symbol of the artists' relationship with Shaykh Ibrahim, as depicted in Figure 10.

When disciples played this video for me, they often teared up or explained that it took them back to their experiences of tarbiyah, “made them feel close to Shaykh Ibrahim,” or reminded them “who they really were, and the mystery/secret (sirr) of who Shaykh Ibrahim really is.”³⁰ Thus we can see how this video represents a performance of a particular mystical experience or state (the ḥāl of fanā’ fī'l-shaykh) that simultaneously serves as a reminder (dhikr), an invocation/evocation, and even a provocation of this state for those who have experienced it, and an invitation to those who have yet to do so. The performance both comes from and leads back to the state of annihilation in Baye Niasse, just as Aïda Faye's music video is a performance of annihilation in God (fanā’ fī'l Allāh) that is understood to spring from and lead back to this state.

These two videos illustrate how such “Sufi music videos” draw upon well-established traditions of zikrs and praise-poetry, creatively extending the characteristic features, symbols, and theories of these genres into a new medium. Both videos employ performances and richly layered visual symbolism instead of direct lyrics (especially in the case of Faye's video) in part because the states of fanā' (annihilation in God in “Delül Ci Allah” and annihilation in Shaykh Ibrahim in “Baye Your Side”) are understood to be ineffable, so the artists avail themselves of symbols and images common to Sufi discourse and perform the experience of tarbiyah and annihilation in Shaykh Ibrahim (respectively) common to many in their audience. This serves as a reminder (dhikr) to the initiated and an encouragement to the uninitiated, much as the various local genres of Sufi poetry are used.

This kind of intertextuality is characteristic of music videos more generally, as Darley notes:

This postmodern proliferation of free-floating signifiers characterizes situationist analysis of new media in general. As Lawrence Law writes (building on Guy Debord's theory of “the spectacle”):

However, these music videos, which come from a very different theoretical and social context than that from which situationist theory emerged, function in a very different way. These Sufi music videos point their audiences not only beyond the domain of media spectacles, but also beyond the spectacle of everyday life towards the direct experience of the Real itself.

These music videos are often used to serve similar functions as zikrs and praise poetry: to invoke and evoke spiritual realities (ḥaqā'iq) and provoke spiritual states (aḥwāl) as a part of a conscious program of ethical and spiritual self-cultivation. Some disciples reported semi-regularly watching these videos on their phones, complementing their daily practice of prayers, litanies, and recitation of poetry. This new genre of music video coexists with and complements the Wolof, Pulaar, and Arabic poetry of Senegalese Sufism in some senses, extending these genres onto the smartphones and screens of twenty-first-century urban youth. I hope these Sufi music videos attract more scholarly attention and commentary, although the academy is only now beginning to pay serious attention to the older art forms upon which these music videos are based. Nevertheless, future studies should also focus on the musical elements of these music videos, which for reasons of brevity, I was unable to seriously address in this paper.³¹ Although this genre and medium are new, its intended function is the same as all Sufi art, to imitate the Divine creative act by reaching out into the world of form and metaphor to return it to the world of spirit and meaning.