Tim Judah

AS ANY recent visitor to Rome can report, Italy's urban landscape has a new feature, as common as cafés selling delicious cappuccino. Take the Via della Conciliazione, the avenue leading to the Vatican: much of the pavement is dotted with traders from Africa, hawking “ethnic” carvings or bags, belts and sunglasses with fake brand names. Watch for a while and you see the cat-and-mouse games the traders play: every so often, they get warning of a police raid, and they bundle their wares into a sack and flee. If they fail to escape, it will instead be the police who bundle up and remove their goods.

In some Italian cities, like Venice, signs tell visitors not to buy from street traders on pain of a stiff fine. Clearly the owners of pricey local boutiques hate the competition. But most locals shrug their shoulders as they step past the traders, or else they make fun of the peddlers' habit of speaking Italian laced with French.

If they think about it at all, tourists and locals alike probably assume these traders are just a disorganised, random sample of Europe's vast army of human flotsam and jetsam, desperate migrants from poor places who arrive in leaky boats. In reality, the traders on the streets leading to the Vatican are anything but disorganised. They are members of a highly disciplined international community, at once religious and economic, with headquarters in another holy city—Touba, in the heart of Senegal, three hours' drive from Dakar, the capital.

Like so many Senegalese migrants (some of whom drive taxis in New York or pick lemons in Spain), those Roman peddlers belong to a dynamic Sufi Muslim movement called the Mourides. They are followers of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, a religious leader who died in 1927. Inspired by his teaching, they have made an ingenious response to the advent of global markets in goods and labour.

Most of Senegal's 11m people are Muslims, and they usually belong to one or other of two big movements, the Mourides or the older Tidjanes. Bamba described the teaching now known as Mouridism as a return to Islam's roots. But his Islam has little in common with the more austere variety propagated from Saudi Arabia. For one thing, Mouridism has a cult of saints and shrines—including the tomb of its founder—which devout Saudis would reject. But the self-sufficient Mourides don't care; they raise money for their favourite causes and build their own mosques with no need of Saudi cash.

At his home in Touba, a pious but cosmopolitan place where local businesses boast of branches in every corner of the earth, one of Bamba's grandsons, Cheikh Ka, explains the doctrine of self-reliance. “If you depend on others,” he says, “you are not free—it is our philosophy of life.” Before he died Bamba expressed several wishes: in particular he hoped Touba, which he founded, would be a holy city. His extended family, the Mbacke, includes many marabouts, or religious teachers. What they teach includes hard work, self-reliance and solidarity. These ideas have propelled his followers out of their country in search of work, to send money back to their families, to support their marabouts (many of whom tour the world to visit disciples) and to develop Touba.

All these factors have helped make the Mourides one of the more successful African communities, at home and abroad. Wherever they are, they club together to acquire a mosque and community centre. Their networks help migrants leave Senegal, find work and procure documents. Far from being helpless victims of fate, many Mourides are shrewd operators in a complex, cross-border network. Take Alioune Ka, the owner of a wholesale shop close to Rome's Termini station: he is a brother of Cheikh Ka in Touba, who takes care of the Senegal-based members of the family. Alioune sells “ethnic” items to Senegalese (and others) who hawk them on streets or beaches. Some stock is from Senegal; a lot from Indonesia, Thailand or India.

Alioune Ka admits that other migrants may be even more resourceful than the Mourides. Many of his competitors are from Bangladesh. He admires them: “They watch the weather forecast and if it is going to rain the next day they are all out selling umbrellas.” On the street, Mr Ka greets fellow Mourides, who form cheerful, close-knit sub-groups. Sellers of bags and belts, mostly made in China, gather to hone their techniques for dodging the police. At lunch-time Mr Ka is joined by a compatriot, Nav Gueye, who sits outside the shop selling hot Senegalese food to all comers for €5 ($6.50) a meal.

Once a week most Mourides in Rome gather to pray, socialise and see who needs help. Small groups may co-operate to hire a container and send home their purchases of consumer goods, which may then be resold in Dakar's Sandaga market, run by the Mourides. Through many different channels, money trickles back home. Firms that move money round the world have outlets all over Senegal. And there are simpler ways for migrants in Italy to help the family: call a Sandaga trader and he will advance cash to a needy relative.

Mourides are believed to make up around 40% of Senegal's population. But they form a majority among Senegal's diaspora, which is estimated to number at least 700,000. Mourides probably account for at least 80% of the Senegalese peddlers who throng Italy's open spaces. (France, the colonial power, has ceased to be the land of choice for Senegalese. For a decade it has been Italy. Now Spain is taking over; about 80 Senegalese drowned this month in a shipwreck en route to the Canaries.)

Many Mourides say they prefer peddling to more settled jobs. In part this reflects Bamba's call for self-reliance. In any case few seem to fall into serious crime. Once he has his papers and visas, a Mouride peddler is free to go home for months at a time. At the end of this year, thousands will return for a Muslim festival known in Africa as Tabaski. Many will stay for another festival, the Grand Magal, before heading back to Europe in spring.

Tim Judah

One of the Mourides' strengths is the pyramid structure of their organisation. At the top is the caliph, a rank now held by the last surviving son of Bamba. Once he has pronounced on any big issue, all will fall into line. Under his leadership, Touba is growing at a phenomenal rate. Its population, a mere 2,000 or so in 1958, may now have reached 700,000. Alcohol and tobacco are banned in Touba, which enjoys autonomy within Senegal. A university is being built. Compared with some Muslim lands, the cultural climate is liberal. Women eschew trousers but none wears a face-veil and many do not cover their hair. Girls and boys go to school together. Appeals to the faithful to fund a new hospital or water system can bring in millions of euros; many Mourides are wealthy and generous. In Britain, El Hadji Diouf, a Senegalese footballer, is a donor to Mouride causes.

The current caliph is 91. Part of his role as prince-cum-religious leader is to mediate between marabouts, including Bamba's many grandsons. In theory, he will be succeeded on his death by Bamba's oldest grandson. But there are rumblings in Touba: some say the brotherhood need not be dominated by the Mbacke clan for ever. In any case the matter should be resolved peacefully, given the Mouride emphasis on non-violence. “Blood must not be spilled,” says Atou Diagne, a Mouride scholar. Little known as they are, the Mourides might have a lot to teach the rest of the world—not only about how to respond to globalisation, but how to practise religion in a peaceful way.