As soon as Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba discovered the holy site of Touba, in 1887, he settled there with his family and closest disciples. He was however unable to enjoy its felicity for long. The charismatic sheikh was overwhelmed by a throng of his own followers. Moreover, the French colonial administration became suspicious. In 1895 Ahmadou Bamba was arrested and exiled, finishing his life under house arrest in the town of Diourbel . Only after his death, in 1927, did Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba return to Touba, for burial. And only then did construction of the city really get under way.
At the heart of Touba lies a unique spiritual sanctuary. This sanctuary consists of two distinct spaces: the solid and very formal space of the Great Mosque and attendant mausolea, and the open and rather etheral space of the cemetery. This configuration was created by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba himself, in the early days following the sanctuary's foundation, and it is here that the physical and metaphysical dimensions of the city are most closely related.
The Great Mosque rises from a plinth at the center of the square. It is purported to be one of the largest in Africa . Construction began in the 1930s but was interrupted during WWII. The Mosque was completed in 1963. Since that time it has been continually enlarged and embellished, most notably by the construction of a string of prayer halls along the plinth's perimeter in the late 1980s and by being completely resurfaced in marble in the late 1990s. The Mosque has five minarets and three large green domes. The larger central dome rises over the main prayer hall in front of the mihrâb. Beneath the north-east dome, to the left of the mihrâb, lies the richly adorned and sweetly scented tomb of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké. There is a continuous flow of pious visitors to this part of the building.
By far the most important architectural attribute of the Great Mosque is its central minaret, known popularly as “Lamp Fall” (after Cheikh Ibra Fall, Ahmadou Bamba's most fiercely devoted disciple). Lamp Fall rises 87 meters above the sanctuary. It dominates both the mosque and the surrounding cityscape. By day it can be seen clearly from fifteen km away while by night the bright blue beacon at its summit shines out even further. Derived from the French word “lampe”, Lamp Fall's illuminative associations are clear. It marks the site of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba's mystic vision of light, his transcendent experience. Lamp Fall is one of the tallest structures in Senegal and its main function is representational. It marks Touba as a qutb, an axis mundi linking life in the material world to eternal recompense in the Hereafter, represented by ûbâ, the Tree of Paradise. This unique minaret both symbolizes and actualizes Touba. Its ubiquitous form is immediately recognizable and figures prominently in Mouride iconography.
The immediate vicinity of the Great Mosque houses a number of important mausolea, namely those of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba's sons and successors. To the right of the mihrâb, built against the exterior of the Mosque's qibla wall, is the mausoleum of Sëriñ Mamadou Moustafa Mbacké, first Caliph of the Mourides (1927-1945). The Mausolea of Sëriñ Falilou, the second Caliph-General (1945-1968) and of Sëriñ Abdou Khadre, fourth Caliph-General (1989-1990), stand freely in the square along the qibla axis of the Mosque. This space also serves as the city's musallâ, or prayer-ground, where the faithful assemble for morning prayer on feast days. The tomb of the third Caliph-General, Sëriñ Abdoul Ahad (1968-1989), lies in the inner court of the library, which he built across the musallâ from the Mosque. Anther mausoleum on the square, not pictured here as it is still under construction, is that of Sëriñ Murtada Mbacké (d. 2004).
Directly on the qibla axis of the Great Mosque is Touba's cemetery. The cemetery is an essential element of the holy city's spiritual topography. It is crowded with a great number of tombs and mausolea as Mourides, wherever they may live, desire above all else to be buried there, in proximity to their great sheikh, so that they may be resurrected with him at the end of days. Until it died in 2003, the cemetery used to harbor a material representation of the Tree of Paradise in the form of a baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) called “Guy Texe”, the “Baobab of Bliss”, or “Tree of Beatitude.” Mouride disciples desired burial beneath this earthly tree so that they might accede to eternal bliss beneath the great paradisiacal tree called Tûbâ.