(5 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dakar, Senegal – 4-5 September 2025
1. Wide of faithful singing and waving to celebrate Mawlid
2. Various of faithful singing and waving
3. SOUNDBITE (Wolof) Malick Ndiaye, Mawlid participant:
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
++NIGHT SHOT++
“I’ve been here since 5 a.m. to celebrate the Gamou (local name for Mawlid), as Baye Laye (founder) recommended. When people sing, I get goosebumps.”
4. Religious leaders sitting in front of crowd
5. Various of men sitting amid singing crowd
6. SOUNDBITE (Wolof) Baye Modou Laye, Mawlid participant:
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
++NIGHT SHOT++
“We dress in white as recommended by our founder: this is so that no one can identify the poor from the rich, because this is a teaching that says we are all equal.”
7. Wide of faithful singing
8. Man singing and waving
9. Child mimicking movements
10. Women singing and waving
11. SOUNDBITE (Wolof) Mamy Niass, Mawlid participant:
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
++NIGHT SHOT++
“Tonight we celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. It is a blessed night and we intend to celebrate it and then pray until the early hours, and above all hope that we will find ourselves here for many more years in this holy and peaceful place.”
12. Man looking out over crowd
13. Woman singing into microphone
14. Various of men singing and waving
15. Woman singing
16. Various aerials of crowd ++NIGHT SHOT++
STORYLINE:
Dressed in all white, thousands of Muslims from Senegal’s Layene Sufi brotherhood gathered overnight Thursday to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.
They sang and moved their arms in unison, some of them snapping their fingers with every movement, and others resting their hands on their head in a trance-like focus.
As they do every year, they gathered at the seaside mausoleum of their founder, Seydina Limamou Laye, in Senegal’s Yoff neighborhood.
Melodic chants reverberated from mosques across Dakar until well after sunrise Friday.
Malick Ndiaye said he had been there since 5 a.m. “When people sing, I get goosebumps,” he said.
Mamy Niass said she planned to remain on the beach until the early morning.
Laye, widely referred to as Baye Laye, first appeared publicly in 1884. The Layene brotherhood that he founded is smaller than Senegal’s other Sufi orders such as the Mouride or Tijan.
His message emphasized that the Prophet Muhammad had returned in his form as a Black man to restore justice and correct societal wrongs, including those caused by slavery.
His teaching of equality and spiritual unity continues to resonate with followers today.
“We dress in white as recommended by our founder: this is so that no one can identify the poor from the rich, because this is a teaching that says we are all equal,” said participant Baye Modou Laye.
Mawlid is observed across Senegal, with many observers making a pilgrimage to the largest celebration in the country in the city of Tivaouane.
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