El Hadji Malick Sy: Faith and Epidemic Prevention

During outbreaks of plague and the Spanish flu, El Hadji Malick Sy, also known as Maodo, advocated preventive measures and recourse to doctors. In particular, he recommended reporting sick people rather than hiding them, respecting quarantines, and avoiding unsanitary places and stagnant water.

These guidelines were reported during the plague crises of 1914 and 1916, followed by the Spanish flu between 1917 and 1919. The religious leader had then written a treatise devoted to preventive medicine, in a context of surveillance of marabouts and colonial repression under the administration of William Ponty.

Medical expertise brought to the fore

El Hadji Malick Sy stressed the need to apply the advice given by doctors. For historian and social anthropologist El Hadji Samba Diallo, this recognition of medical knowledge reflects the idea that specialised expertise should help protect populations during health crises.

The researcher describes an articulation between faith, scientific knowledge and collective responsibility. Under this interpretation, support for health measures did not mean adherence to the colonial project, but support for a cause considered useful to the population.

Openness to education and knowledge

According to the reported information, this approach to health was part of an open conception of modernity. Maodo did not consider education, medicine or technology to be incompatible with religious values, provided they served the public interest.

El Hadji Samba Diallo also says that he did not prohibit his disciples from attending French schools. Education was thus presented as a means of transmitting knowledge while preserving religious identity.

Remembering anti-plague policies

Mouhamadou Mounirou Sy, a professor of public law at the University of Thiès, states that Guet-Ndar was spared a Governor's plan to burn homes in order to curb plague on the island. He links this decision to residents' refusal to be vaccinated.

Cited works by Myron Echenberg, Joe Lunn and Liora Bigon mention El Hadji Malick Sy's support for colonial health policies intended to contain epidemics. After the 1914 plague outbreak, the Ponty-Ville district in Dakar, which became Médina, was created; the name Médina is said to have been proposed by Maodo.