Touba was founded by Amadou Bamba in 1887 on land he said was shown to him in a vision, and it has grown into one of the largest cities in Senegal while remaining, in effect, the property and the administration of the Mouride order rather than of the state.
The arrangement is unusual and largely informal. The Grand Magal, held on the anniversary of Bamba's departure into exile, brings several million people to the city over a few days, which makes it one of the largest annual religious gatherings in Africa. The great mosque, begun in the 1920s and completed after independence, holds Bamba's tomb. Within the city the caliph general's administration handles land allocation, and a set of prohibitions applies that the national law does not impose elsewhere: alcohol and tobacco are not sold, and certain kinds of entertainment are absent. The state provides infrastructure and largely does not police the city's internal affairs.
The order's economy is as distinctive as its geography. Mouride labour built the groundnut basin, Mouride traders dominate parts of Senegalese commerce, and the diaspora networks in Italy, France and New York remit substantially to Touba. Work performed for a marabout has an explicitly devotional character in Mouride teaching, which is what makes the economic and religious sides inseparable.
One aspect requires plain statement rather than admiration. Many boys are sent to residential Quranic schools, the daaras, and while a great many are properly run, the practice of some urban daaras of requiring children to beg on the streets for daily quotas has been documented at scale by Senegalese authorities and international monitors, and successive governments have attempted to regulate it.