Shaykh Ahmed Boukar Omar Niang was born in Medina Baye, Kaolack, Senegal, to a family of Islamic scholars. He simultaneously received Qur’anic and higher Islamic studies at home, and primary and secondary education in public schools in French. After graduating from High School, he attended the University of Reims, Champagne Ardennes, where he received a bachelor’s degree in law. He subsequently received a master’s degree in international law at the University of Paris in Cergy Pontoise, and a Postgraduate degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the School of Law at Nanterre University. He has devoted the last twenty years of his life documenting the biography of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and translating his poetry. Among his publications are Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse: Homme du monde ou homme monde (volumes 1 and 2),Triomphe des Véridiques: Récit de la Vie d’El Hadji Abdoulaye Niass, and a translation of Sayr al-Qalb entitled La Marche du Coeur.

Shaykh Niang will be teaching from foundational poetical texts on Islamic and Sufi etiquette.

COMPORTMENT ON THE PATH TO GOD

Serigne Alioune (Sayyidī ʿAlī) Cissé, the son of Imam Shaykh al-Tijānī Cissé, received his university degree in uṣūl al-dīn (Islamic religious principles) from Azhar University. He has studied widely in the majālis (learning circles) of Medina-Baye and is considered an expert in the literature of the Tijāniyya. He travels frequently in the United States and elsewhere teaching and giving lectures in Arabic and English.

Sayyidī ʿAlī will be teaching from the Jawāhir al-rasāʾil

Ustādh ʿĀdil al-Qamar underwent classical training in the Islamic sciences, concentrating on jurisprudence (fiqh) and theology (ʿaqīda) with the Mauritania Maḥḍaratradition associated with Shaykh Murābiṭ al-Ḥājj, ʿAbdallāh bin Bayyah, and Hamza Yusuf. He later studied Sufism (taṣawwuf) with Shaykh Tijānī Cissé, and has served as a co-translator for some of the Shaykh’s lectures. Qamar received his MA from the Harvard Kennedy School and works as a leadership advisor and consultant.

Ustādh ʿĀdil will be teaching from Ibn ʿĀshir’s Murshid al-muʿīn.

Dr. Farah El-Sharif is a scholar of Islamic intellectual history. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2022, where her dissertation was on the most widely disseminated Islamic text in 19th century West Africa by Umar Futi Tal. Her academic interests lie in Islam in West and North Africa, the nation state and the intersection of Islamic law and Sufism. Dr. El-Sharif served as Stanford’s Abbasi Program’s Associate Director from 2021-2023.

She received her Master’s degrees in Islamic Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley where she worked on representations of Sufism in American religion and the public sphere. She earned another Master’s in Islamic Studies from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She completed her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a focus on Islam and colonialism and has done research in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Senegal.

Dr. El-Sharif is working on her first book and taught a class at Stanford in the Fall Quarter that is cross-listed between Stanford Global Studies, the Religious Studies Department, and African and African American Studies, entitled: “Beyond Decolonization: Islam in West Africa.”

Sayyida Sukina Noor is an internationally renowned poet, spoken-word artist, playwright, workshop facilitator, educator and public speaker who has toured extensively across UK, Europe, America and Africa performing, delivering poetry workshops, partaking in panel discussions and delivering lectures. She holds a BA (Hons) Degree in English Literature and Caribbean Studies and is currently pursuing an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes with a focus on the healing potential in the poetry of the Sufi mystics of West Africa.

Noor is the author of a poetry collection, Love and Longing: Yearning for the Face of God (2022), from which she will be teaching for the Medina-Baye Riḥla program.

Dr. Zakariya Wright received his PhD in African History from Northwestern University, his MA from the American University in Cairo in Arabic Studies and his BA in History from Stanford University. He has studied closely with Shaykh Ḥasan Cissé and Shaykh al-Tijānī Cissé through the course of his research on the Islamic intellectual history of West and North Africa. He has authored several works, including Living Knowledge in West African Islam: the Sufi Community of Ibrāhīm Niasse (Brill, 2015); Jihad of the Pen: the Sufi Literature of West Africa (with R. Ware and A. Syed, AUC press, 2018); and Realizing Islam: the Tijāniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World (UNC press, 2020). He has also completed several Arabic to English translations, such as the Removal of Confusion of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (Fons Vitae, 2010, 2^nd ed. 2019), Pearls from the Flood: Select Insight of Shaykh al-Islam Ibrahim Niasse (Fayda Books, 2015), and Moderation, Comportment and Knowledge on the Path to God: Lectures of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Tijānī ʿAlī Cissé (Fayda Books, 2022).

Wright will be teaching from the Kāshif al-ilbās of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse.

Ustādh Muḥammad ʿAlī, originally from New York, has been studying the classical Islamic sciences in Medina-Baye under the direction of Shaykh Māḥī Cissé for ten years, with developing specializations in Arabic grammar and the West African Islamic poetical tradition.

Muhammad ʿAlī will be teaching from the Sayr al-qalb of Ibrāhīm Niasse.

Sidi Mohammed Yahya is a Mozambican born Afro-fusion artist, award winning Interfaith creative producer, workshop facilitator & public speaker. Recently he received the 21 for 21 awards, recognising him as one of the most inspiring faith based leaders who is increasing dialogue and breaking down barriers in the 21st century. This was a joint project between the Church Times, Jewish News, British Muslim TV, and Coexist House, which is linked to the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme. In 2021 He was made the Hip Hop Ambassador of May Project Gardens, an award-winning, London-based grassroots organisation that empowers under-represented and marginalised groups to address poverty, disempowerment and access to resources and influence. Mohammed Yahya music has been featured on BBC one, RTP & RTP Africa as well as international channels across Mozambique, Spain, Mexico and Senegal. In 2023 he was picked by Portuguese National television channel RTP as a contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest.

M. Yahya, who has traveled and studied with Imam Shaykh al-Tijānī Cissé for many years, will serve as the main conference facilitator and host.