In 1903, the French government in Senegal entrusted their worst nemesis to their best friend.  Both were Muslims and Sufis.  One was "black" while the other was "white."  One was the embodiment of "backward resistance" to what the colonial authorities claimed to be accomplishing in the peanut basin of Senegal.  The other was the symbol of modernity and enlightenment in the emerging fiefdom of the desert, the area that would become the colony of Mauritania.  One was Amadu Bamba Mbacke, the emerging leader of the Murid order, the survivor of a seven-year exile in Central Africa, and a holy man for hundreds of thousands of Senegalese Muslims. The other was Sidiyya Baba, the emerging leader of a coalition dedicated to the cause of “pacifying” the far western ranges of the Sahara.  This is the story of Baba, the second man, a distinguished jurist and partner with the French in creating the colony of Mauritania and modernizing - or trying to "modernize" - West Africa.

The man called Sidiyya Baba ( c 1862-1924) lived through a troubled period in the late 19th and early 20th century in the area of southwestern Mauritania.  In this essay we start with the setting before passing on to Baba’s antecedents, especially the grandfather who established the family’s reputation and provided an example to follow.  Then we give a section on the decline in fortunes of the family in the late 19th century and how this precipitated an emerging alliance with the French, just as they were beginning to create the colony they would call Mauritania.  Finally we turn to the cooperation with the French and the Western practices adopted by Sidiyya Baba and sustained by the sons after his death in 1924.  Included is the episode mentioned above, where Baba agrees to accept the custody of Amadu Bamba and “correct” the “radicalism” of the Murid leader.  

The white Moor, in his own mind, was a superior and modern Muslim prepared to live under the colonial rule of non-Muslims.  He reflected an old Mediterranean-based view of Africa, in which civilization diminished as one descended from north to south, from temperate to hot, and from "white" to "black" (see map).  The French agreed basically with this hierarchy.