Muridiyya: Piety Is Service

Amadu Bamba was most impressed by Ibrahima Faal's instinctive understanding that true piety is enacted through service to others. It is for this reason that he tolerated Faal's neglect of his daily canonical prayers. Indeed, he didn't simply tolerate Faal, but regarded him as a shaykh tarbiyya. What does this mean?

Muridiyya pedagogy is modeled on Ghazalian epistemology and, therefore, provides for a division of labor among the members of the scholar class. There are scholars of book learning (the shaykh taalim) and scholars of character building (the shaykh tarbiyya). A subset of the latter is the shaykh tarqiyya, whose personal character is acknowledged by his community to have "ascended" beyond the usual excellences of the shaykh tarbiyya. I am uncertain as to whether Bamba considered Faal to have achieved this third level.

The shaykh taalim teaches his students the classical curriculum in order to instill within them (1) knowledge of the curriculum and (2) knowledge of the limitations of such knowledge. Some students find this level of education sufficient for their needs and eventually move on. Others, however, are made anxious by this level of education; they grow restless and want to learn something that will help them to discover meaning in their lives. The latter type of student is then introduced to the shaykh tarbiyya. This mode of learning is practical and residential. It is acquired through living in close quarters with the shaykh tarbiyya and observing his conduct in ordinary life situations. Conversation and emulation are the methods of tarbiyya. The student receiving this type of education is learning a way of being-in-the-world by following the example of someone whose way of being-in-the-world is worth emulating--someone like Ibra Faal who was humble, generous, and always thinking about the welfare of others.