Universal Blackness among the Muridiyya and Its Artists
Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey
The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions.
Francesco Piraino, Tenure-track Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Director of the Center for Comparative Studies of Civilizations and Spiritualties at Fondazione Giorgio Cini
The Sufi Islamic spiritual geography of the Muridiyya, a Senegalese Sufi order, reimagines Africa, Africanness, and Blackness as a profound horizon through which to imagine an inclusive and authentic humanism greater than any African geographic region or specific race. Two contemporary Senegalese-Italian artists—glassblower Moulaye Niang and photographer Maïmouna Guerresi—exhibit the intersection and harmonization of complex identities. Following this perspective, Blackness is not limited to race or region but is the cradle of humankind, and a Universal Blackness emerges.
The Muridiyya’s founding figure Shaykh Amadou Bamba (1853–1927) is globally revered as the first Black Saint. He is the insān al-kāmil, the Perfect Human Being or the Saint of Saints, and his message of universal mercy and compassion extends to all mankind. His vision is actively disseminated worldwide across a spectrum of the arts, from street pop culture to the fine arts. For Murid artists, the arts are not merely a way to represent Islam but are a way to live and embody Islam.
Glassblower Moulaye Niang was born in a Murid Senegalese family. Upon coming to Italy to master tightly guarded Venetian glass art, Niang’s path was steep, marred by the systemic racism faced by African immigrants. In 2006, he opened an independent shop in Venice, and he aptly named it Muranero, blending the words Murano (the famous island where glass is made) and nero (Black).
For Niang, glassblowing is an act of deep Sufi devotion that physically anchors divine blessing (baraka) in material culture. Niang does not passively reproduce traditional Venetian glass arts but reshapes them by integrating Africanness and Blackness through incorporating non-traditional colors and styles, and he prominently displays Shaykh Bamba’s in his shop as a source of inspiration. His artistic production is inseparable from his Islamic humanist vision.
Because it operates as an energetic medium intended to protect and bless a universal audience, Niang’s art transcends subjective definitions of aesthetic beauty. According to Niang, people are attracted not just to the appearance of his art but to his artworks’ inner mystical qualities. He explains, “People feel this energy. It is not that the object is beautiful in itself. It might be beautiful, but if you touch it, it transmits something to you.”
Moulaye Niang in his studio, 2023 © Francesco Piraino
Moulaye Niang’s studio, 2023 © Francesco Piraino
Moulaye Niang’s studio, 2023 © Francesco Piraino
Born in Italy and globally recognized as an African artist despite not being Black, Maïmouna Guerresi embodies the reverse cultural trajectory as Niang. Guerresi established herself in the 1970s in the fields of body art and photography. She converted to Islam in the 1990s and was initiated into the Muridiyya order, taking the name Maïmouna (the same name of Shaykh Bamba’s mother); she embarked on a lifelong engagement with African Islam. Guerresi considers Africa and Blackness the primordial cradle of humankind. She notes, “The giants are the big [and Black] African spirits. The Black is important, because [Shaykh] Bamba is Black.”
Her artistic and spiritual practices are intertwined with the traditional Murid work ethic: “Praying is working. Muridism is [pray and
work], exactly as for the monks.” Guerresi’s art acts as a visual jihad struggling against Islamophobia, migration crises, and global ecological destruction. Central to her aesthetic is the depiction of the Islamic veil, which she imbues with an exoteric meaning of modesty and an esoteric Sufi meaning in which the physical veil represents the continuous veiling and unveiling of divine truth.
Her photographic depictions play with religious ambiguity by seamlessly weaving sacred symbols and avant-garde playfulness, such as depicting figures that might simultaneously evoke a Sufi mystic figure and a Catholic nun; she avoids heavy-handed Islamic proselytism that can invite doubt and suspicion. Her artistic reclamation of Blackness and Sufi spirituality has been warmly accepted by African communities, but it has inspired skepticism by some American audiences who only consider Africanness or Blackness through racial dimensions and who are very cautious about, if not obsessed with, cultural appropriation.
Maïmouna Guerresi in her studio, 2023 © Francesco Piraino
These two Murid artists’ distinct trajectories reveal ways that Africanness and Blackness function as symbolic capital. For Niang, as a migrant to Italy, this symbolic capital is part of his lived background in a historically exclusive European craft. For Maïmouna Guerresi, an Italian-born convert, this symbolic capital is expressed in her total immersion in African aesthetics.
These artists and their art are inseparable from the Muridiyya’s Islamic spiritual geography that reimagines Africa as something far greater than geography, limited notions of race, and pervasive Western media tropes of African crisis, passivity, and suffering. Through the Muridiyya theological vision, Blackness and Africanness transcend racial, regional, or cultural boundaries and become expansive symbols of humanity itself.
For the Murids and their Black Saint founder’s vision of Universal Blackness, Africa emerges as a profound horizon for imagining what may be a more inclusive and authentic humanism, a vibrant spiritual blueprint for interconnected, multiracial global communities.
This reflection is part of the project Experiencing Transcendence through the Arts (EXTRA) funded by Templeton Religion Trust through the Program in the Study of Mysticism at Tampere University.