مسجد الكبير Cité Eaux Forêt

Adeane, a small town along the Casamance river in southern Senegal's Ziguinchor region, shelters within its neighbourhood known as the Cite des Eaux et Forets, the housing estate of the waters and forests service, a congregational mosque whose unusual French name records the state agency whose employees founded it. Senegal's Casamance is a lush green region quite different from the arid Sahelian north, its forests thick with kapok, mahogany and palm trees, its rivers teeming with fish and its rice paddies stretching through the low lying plains. The region's Islamic heritage was shaped by the Jakhanke scholars and the traders of the Mandinka who carried the faith southwards from the Senegambian river valleys, and more recently by the teachers of the Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya traditions whose influence runs deep across Senegalese family life. Architecturally the Grande Mosquee at Adeane reflects a typical Senegalese provincial style, with whitewashed concrete walls, a single green dome raised over the prayer hall, a slender minaret finished in white and cream and arcades that shade the entrance during the heat of the day. Inside, ceiling fans turn above a green carpet, the mihrab is tiled in cobalt and the mimbar is carved from local timber. Daily prayers are called by a resident muezzin whose voice carries across mango trees and palm groves, Jumu'ah khutbah is delivered in Arabic with a Wolof or Diola summary reflecting the mixed ethnic composition of the town and Ramadan evenings bring generous iftar with ceebu jen, the Senegalese rice and fish dish, along with sweet sombi porridge and dates. Eid mornings fill the forecourt with families in their most elegant boubous, and children receive sweet gifts afterwards. Visitors should dress modestly, leave shoes on the low wooden shelves and greet worshippers with the warm Wolof salaam malekum. Nearby lie the Casamance river estuary, the sacred forests of the Diola people, the colonial town of Ziguinchor and the pristine beaches of Cap Skirring. The mosque offers a calm introduction to Senegal's devotional south. A striking collection of handwoven prayer mats, gifted by Muslim women of the Adeane market, lines the storage cupboard near the women's entrance, and the mats are brought out for particularly crowded Eid mornings when the mosque overflows into the forecourt and onto the surrounding reddish earth beneath the mango trees.