It’s a warm evening in the small Senegalese village of Medina Baye. Night prayers have just been completed, and the courtyard and prayer hall of the mosque are filled with thousands of people reciting the Qurʾān or poetry of the village’s founder, Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niāsse, in praise of his eternal beloved, Sayyidinā Muḥammad ﷺ.
Others are pacing around the courtyard or sitting down peacefully in the Rawḍah – where the founder and his family and closest companions are buried – holding their prayer beads and reciting dhikr of Allāh or ṣalawāt on the Prophet ﷺ, and the air is filled with an intangible and electrical energy.
Every year during Rabīʿ al-Awwal, the Great Mosque of Medina Baye is filled to the rafters as people gather to celebrate the Beloved of God. The entire village comes alive as the lovers of the Messenger ﷺ arrive from all over the world to mark his blessed birth, and to be among them is always a blessing. Then, in a sudden rush, the atmosphere is interrupted as a large white SUV arrives, and a majestically dressed man is escorted out from the passenger seat. Immediately, the crowds of people in the courtyard of the mosque are drawn to him, and as the hundreds clamour to catch a glimpse, he beams a radiant smile towards them, the lovers and admirers of the Prophet ﷺ, who love him due to their love for the Prophet ﷺ. He smiles, with his pearly white teeth beaming radiantly and contrasting beautifully with his richly melanated skin, and then proceeds to enter the mosque surrounded by a group of people melodically reciting the Kalimah al-Tawḥīd, “Lā ʾilāha illā-Allāh.”
This man is Shaykh Muḥammad al-Amīn Ibrāhīm Niāsse, affectionately known as Bābā – the Arabic term for father – to the millions of followers of his father, Shaykh al-Islām Ibrāhīm Niāsse, who was called ‘Baye’, which also means father in his native language of Wolof. This somewhat shared nickname does not only reflect the status that the son has inherited from his father, but also the fact that during the thirty-five years he spent with his father as a son and student, he has also inherited his characteristics, his knowledge, his spiritual prowess, and, specifically, his love for the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ. This is what his father, Shaykh Ibrāhīm, had prayed for his son to have, when, after granting him one of the highest ijāzāt (scholarly or spiritual permission or license) possible, he wrote: “I entrust it to you as a commitment to serve this religion and this path until we meet before Allāh and His Messenger, peace be upon him“, and then expressed his love for the Beloved ﷺ and his hope that his son would inherit this from him:
And I am, as the poet said:
أَهِيْمُ بِدَعْدٍ مَا حَيَّيْتُ وَ إنْ أَمُتْ
أُوَكِلْ بِدَعْدٍ مَنْ يَهِيْمُ بِهَا بَعْدِيْ
I am infatuated with a beloved as long as I live, and even if I die,
I entrust my beloved to one who is infatuated with them after me.
This was a hope that was clearly actualised. This inheritance of prophetic love is more evident every year during Rabīʿ al-Awwal, the month of the Prophet’s ﷺ birth, during which Shaykh Muḥammad al-Amīn, like his father before him, will lead thousands of people in recitation of poetic praise for the Prophet ﷺ , a collection put together by his father. The gatherings take place in the mosque during the first 11 nights of the month, and followed by the annual Mawlid, or Gamou as it is known in the local Wolof language, on the 12th, which will be attended by thousands from all over the world.
Shaykh Ibrahim’s collection of poetry begins with a poem composed and recited in praise of the beloved Prophet ﷺ by his uncle ʿAbbās (may God be pleased with him). When the Prophet returned from the Battle of Tabuk, his uncle sought his permission to recite some verses of poetry in his honour, to which he ﷺ responded, “Recite, may your mouth remain fresh.” ʿAbbās proceeded to recite his poetry in the mosque, before the beloved Messenger and a gathering of his Companions. His verses depicted the spiritual journey of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, tracing his lineage through the loins of previous Prophets. He recited until he reached the verses which said:
َوأَنْتَ لَمَّا وُ لِدْتَ أَشْـرَقَتِ الْـأَرْ
ضُ وَ ضَـــاءَتْ بِـنُوْرِكَ الأُفُـقُ
Wa anta lammā wulidta ashraqati il-ar ḍu wa ḍāʾat bi-nūrika al-ufuqu
And when you were born, the earth brightened,
And the horizon lit up with your light.1
فنَحْـنُ فِي ذَاكَ الضِّیَآءِ وَ فِي النُّوْ
رِ وَسُـبُلَ الـرَّشَادِ نَخْـتَرِقُ
Fa naḥnu fī dhāka aḍ-ḍiyāʾi wa fī nū
-ri wa subula ar-rashādi nakhtariqu
And so now we are in that illumination and radiance,
Journeying along the path of guidance.
This was the first ever gathering commemorating the birth of the Prophet ﷺ reported in the history of Islam. This poem is then followed by the others written by the luminaries of this Ummah such as Ḥassān Ibn Thābit, whose poetry was so appreciated by the Prophet, that he ﷺ had another minbar built in his mosque in Madina just for Ḥassān to recite his poems from.
The poetry collection recited in Medina Baye also contains extracts from other contemporaries of the Prophet ﷺ such as Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr, ʿAbdullāh ibn Rawāḥa, ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbdul Muṭṭalib and even Abū Ṭālib.
It then proceeds to an extract from the poetry of Imām al-Buṣayrī, whose famous poem in praise of the Prophet ﷺ, the Qaṣīdah al-Burdah, is the most recited poem in the history of mankind and whose verses once decorated the Prophet’s ﷺ mosque and the inner and outer chambers of his tomb/resting place.
The collection culminates in the beautifully composed poem of the Mauritanian scholar Muḥammadi ‘Baddī’ Ibn Sīdinā, celebrating the month of Rabīʿ al-Awwal and detailing the special qualities and attributes of the month and the one who was sent to us during it, as a mercy, guide, and intercessor ﷺ. This compilation is significant as, by beginning with the praise reported by the Salaf (the pious predecessors and earliest generations of the Ummah), and then moving to the later scholars of the Ummah, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse aims to demonstrate that holding gatherings in praise and commemoration of the Prophet is a Sunnah, rather than a reprehensible innovation (as some claim), and he chose the blessed nights of Rabi al-Awwal in which Allah blessed us with the Prophet ﷺ to revive this Sunnah.
This compilation is well known to the community of Shaykh Ibrāhim, which is comprised of millions, from his home in the westernmost point of Africa in Senegal, through the Sahel, crossing Gambia, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, up to the easternmost point of Darfur and Dongola in Sudan. These poems are also recited as far afield as America, India, Malaysia, and the UK, where I first became familiar with them. I memorised the poems at the feet of Shaykh Muḥammad al-Amīn’s younger brother, Shaykh Muḥammad al-Makkī, who served as a teacher and father figure in my formative years, and continues to do so today. He would travel annually across various countries hosting these gatherings -as his father and brothers before him had done- where he would recite poetry in praise of the Prophet ﷺ and elaborate on the details of his life and Sīrah and characteristics to be able to further strengthen our connection with him ﷺ.
I have been traveling to attend these gatherings in Medina Baye for over a decade now, and over the years, have been joined by more and more friends from the West. As they were unable to read or understand the poetry in Arabic, I began to compile, translate and transliterate this collection of Medina Baye’s poetic praise of the Prophet ﷺ – and it is finally complete.
This is a project very close to my heart, and I hope it can aid in spreading the love of the Prophet ﷺ and continue the legacy of my teachers, who have exhausted their lives in inspiring people to know and love the Final Messenger of God ﷺ. I hope this project can grant those people access who have a love for these poems without the mastery of the Arabic language; I hope it can allow them to grasp some of the deep and beautiful meanings contained within them. I have also included footnotes to further explain aspects of the poetry that may be unclear without commentary.
Often when we think of Qasaid (poetry) recitation and Mawlid, our minds go immediately to Syria, Morocco or Egypt; I hope my humble effort at translating this West African collection, can allow it to reach audiences in the Western world, from which it has thus far remained hidden.
Download the Collection
The Rabi’ Readings Of Shaykh al-Islam al-Hajj Ibrahim Niasse is free to download from therabiireadings.com.
Listen to the Collection
Footnotes
1 On the night he was born, it was reported that an immense light immersed from the Prophet’s
mother, Āminah and this light emanated from her so intensely that it lit up the entire house. [Ibn Ḥajar in Fatḥ Al-Bārī] It is also mentioned she could see the castles and palaces of Busra in Syria due to this light [Ibn Isḥāq].
