The Malé’s Night of Power and Purpose:

Laylat al-Qadr and the Divine Insurrection of Mercy

In 1835, in the Brazilian city of Bahia, a young Muslim—enslaved in body but unwavering in faith—joined a revolt led by the elderly scholar and spiritual guide Ahuna. Though the uprising was crushed and the young man killed, his body was found bearing a folio hung around his neck. Written on it was a verse from the Qur’an, a final prayer and declaration:

“Our Lord, make us Muslims in submission to You, and from our descendants a nation in submission to You.” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:128)

Across oceans and generations, the cry for freedom was never just political—it was ancestral, devotional, and divine.

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The Quranic verses of Surah al-Qadr thunder with divine promise: "The Night of Power is better than a thousand months" (97:3). On this night, the heavens rupture, and mercy cascades into a world parched by oppression. Laylat al-Qadr is not merely a moment of celestial grace - it is a cosmic insurrection. Here, the Divine invites humanity to rewrite destinies, shatter shackles, and reclaim the fitrah: the innate dignity etched into every soul. For the enslaved African Muslims of Bahia, known as the Malé, this sacred night became both a spiritual compass and a revolutionary manifesto. Their 1835 revolt - timed to coincide with Laylat al-Qadr - was no mere uprising; it was a declaration that the soul’s surrender to God necessitates rebellion against tyranny.

The Malé: Archetypes of Ramadan Resistance

The Malé were not anonymous rebels. They were Yoruba, Hausa, and Nupe Muslims - blacksmiths, tailors, and scribes - whose hands forged iron and inked Quranic verses in secret. By day, they labored under the lash of Brazilian enslavers; by night, they gathered in clandestine zawiyas, teaching Arabic, reciting Surah ar-Rahman, and plotting liberation. Literacy was their weapon: they drafted proclamations in classical Arabic, invoking the Prophet’s ﷺ triumph at Badr. Among them stood Dandara, a midwife who smuggled messages in herbal pouches, and Malam Bello, a scholar whose tattered Quran doubled as a map of insurgent routes.  

Their Ramadan fasts were acts of defiance. While their bodies starved, their souls feasted on the certainty that, as Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse later taught, “The soul which fasts for Allah refuses to be enslaved by anything else.” For the Malé, hunger was not deprivation - it was purification, a stripping away of colonial lies to reveal the luminous truth: They were Allah’s servants, never man’s property.  

Shaykh Niasse and the Faydah of Liberation  

Decades later, across the Atlantic in Senegal, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975) ignited a spiritual revolution. His Faydah Tijaniyya (“Divine Flood”) movement of the Tijani Tariqah declared ma’rifa - direct knowledge of God - a universal right, a Divine endowment, not a privilege for protected classes of elites.

To a Malé survivor’s descendant, his words would have resonated like an ancestral drum: “When the light of ma’rifa enters the heart, the entire world of illusion is shattered.”  

Niasse’s teachings bridged the Malé’s struggle and the Quranic ethos of Laylat al-Qadr. He framed fasting as “spiritual warfare” against internalized oppression, urging disciples to “fast from complicity” in injustice. His insistence that “submission to Allah necessitates refusal to submit to any other master” echoed the Malé’s theological revolt. Both movements shared a creed: To know God is to revolt against all other claims to submission.

Ramadan: The Soul’s Training Ground and Refuge 

Ramadan’s rituals are a curriculum for liberation. Fasting dissolves the ego’s chains; Taraweeh prayers synchronize hearts across continents; Laylat al-Qadr reignites the covenant of human dignity. For the Malé, Ramadan was a rehearsal for revolution. Their pre-dawn suhoor meals were whispered strategy sessions; their iftars became communal vows to reclaim agency.  

This ethos pulses through marginalized communities today. In Ferguson and Gaza, protesters break fasts with tear gas lingering in the air, embodying Shaykh Niasse’s axiom: “If you fear the tyrant more than Allah, you have not yet begun to know Him.” The Night of Power reminds us that divine mercy flows most fiercely to those who dare to demand justice.  

Rejecting the “Madhab of the White Jesus”: A Call to Prophetic Courage  

The essay’s critique of the “madhab of the white Jesus” is not a theological slight but a rejection of spiritual colonialism. Just as European empires weaponized a pale, pacified Christ to sanctify slavery, modern tyrants distort Islam into a tool of submission. The Malé’s Islam - like Niasse’s - was radical, rooted in Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ legacy: “Allah does not look at your outward forms, but at your hearts and deeds” (Hadith).  

Laylat al-Qadr condemns quietism. It is the night when Bilal’s ﷺ cry of “Ahad!” (The One!) drowns out Pharaoh’s arrogance.

To honor it, we must align with Shaykh Niasse’s vision: “True knowledge of Allah dismantles every form of false power.”  

Conclusion: The Unfinished Revolt  

The Malé’s outward uprising was crushed. Yet their spiritual and cultural legacy, like Laylat al-Qadr, returns annually, demanding we answer: Will we fast from complacency? Feast on courage? Fast from complicity? Break our fast with truth?

Shaykh Niasse’s light floods onward. In Dakar, Bahia, and Minneapolis, the Night of Power still whispers: Mercy and liberation are twins. To kneel only to Allah is to stand against every empire.  

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Postscript:

On the Legacy of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and the Unyielding Light of the Malé  

This essay draws deeply from the legacy of Shaykh al-Islām Ibrahim Niasse (رضي الله عنه، حفظه الله أسراره), one of the most influential Muslim thinkers, mystics, and political voices of the 20th century. Born in Kaolack, Senegal, and affectionately known as Bāy Niasse, he was a luminary of the Tijaniyya Sufi order and the architect of the Faydah Tijaniyya (“Divine Flood”) - a spiritual renewal movement that democratized access to divine knowledge (ma‘rifa) and affirmed the inherent equality of all souls before Allah.  

Shaykh Ibrahim’s teachings were uncompromising in their fusion of mysticism and a principled and purposeful militancy:

“True knowledge of Allah dismantles every form of false power.”

He stood at the crossroads of uncompromising scholarship, spiritual mastery, and unrelenting advocacy for the oppressed, declaring that ma‘rifa was not an abstract concept but a political reality. For him, the heart illuminated by divine truth could not bow to tyranny:  

“When the light of ma‘rifa enters the heart, the entire world of illusion is shattered.” 

“The servant who has realized the truth of tawḥīd cannot be humiliated by creation.”  

“If you fear the tyrant more than you fear Allah, you have not yet begun to know Him.”  

To Shaykh Ibrahim, rituals like fasting and prayer were acts of belief, submission and resistance.

“Submission to Allah necessitates a refusal to submit to any other master,” he taught, framing spiritual discipline as the forge where inner clarity and outward courage are shaped. His solidarity spanned continents: he championed Palestinian liberation, embraced African American Muslims as kin, and reportedly met Malcolm X during the latter’s 1964 pilgrimage. To a delegation of Black Muslims, he is reported to have proclaimed:  

“You are my people. Your Islam is not new - it is your inheritance.” 

His legacy defied borders and sectarianism, rooted in the Quran’s justice and the Prophet’s ﷺ revolutionary mercy. For Shaykh Ibrahim, spirituality and resistance were inseparable - “the same light.”  

The Malé’s Quranic scrolls, once hidden in Bahia’s sugarcane fields, now rest in Salvador’s museums. Yet their truest testament lives in the undying promise of Surah al-Isra: “Truth has come, and falsehood has vanished.” Laylat al-Qadr returns each year, not as a relic, but as a call: Will we fast from complacency? Feast on courage? The Night of Power, like Shaykh Niasse’s Faydah, still floods the world - mercy and liberation intertwined, whispering to every soul in struggle: To kneel only to Allah is to stand against every empire.  

Final Note: For those unfamiliar with Shaykh Niasse’s work, this essay humbly gestures toward his living legacy - a beacon for all who seek to embody the truth that spiritual knowledge and resistance to oppression are one.