Hamallayya

Hamallayya, also known as Hamallism, is a Sufi tariqah that originated in West Africa as an outgrowth of, and reaction against, the Tijaniyyah brotherhood. It was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by the mystic Muhammad ben Amadu, who died in 1909, as a reform movement of Tijaniyyah practice that stressed opposition to hierarchy and downplayed the importance of formal education. His disciple Shaykh Hamahullah bin Muhammad bin Umar, who lived from 1886 to 1943, spread the movement in the 1920s in what was then French Soudan, present day Mali, where it first took root among Wolof traders in Nioro before spreading to servile caste Muslims in Mauretania and Mali.