Ibrahim Niass
Ibrāhīm Niasse (1900–1975)—or French: Ibrahima Niasse, Wolof: Ibrayima Ñas, Arabic: شيخ الإسلام الحاج إبراهيم إبن الحاج عبد الله التجاني الكولخي Shaykh al-'Islām al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥājj ʿAbd Allāh at-Tijānī al-Kawlakhī —was a Senegalese major leader (wolof) of the Tijānī Sufi order of Islam in West Africa.Born in 1900 in the village of Tayba Ñaseen (spelled Taïba Niassène in French), between the Senegalese city of Kaolack and the border of Gambia, he was the son of Al-Hadj Abdullah Niass (1840–1922), the main representative of the Tijānī Sufi Order, often referred to asTareeqat al-Tijjaniyyaa, in the Saalum region at the beginning of the twentieth century.The 22-year-old Shaykh Ibrāhīm spent most of his time farming in the family's fields and teaching a growing number of disciples in the nearby village of Kóosi Mbittéyeen.In 1929, while on the farm in Kóosi Mbittéyeen, the youthful Shaykh Ibrāhīm announced that he had been given the Key to Secrets of Divine Knowledge, and thus became the Khalifa of Sheykh Tijani in the Tijaniyya Order, a position yet to be attained by anyone as of that time.That evening, he set out with a small group of his closest disciples to find a new place to live, and the next day they established a new zāwiya in Medina Baay, a village that was later incorporated into the growing city of Kaolack.