Mbakke Kajoor, in central Senegal's arid regions, is a historical site for the Murīdiyya, one of Senegal's most populous and influential Sufi orders. It was the home of the order's founder, Shaykh Amadu Bamba Mbakke, and the start of his educational and spiritual life's journey in the late nineteenth century. It is today the site of a new educational centre and daara, a spiritual community that echoes the Murīdiyya's origins. A focus on education and economic development motivates the leaders of this project. They designed their educational model using Bamba's teachings and religious traditions dating to earlier West African Islamic scholars, with the intent of addressing the local population's need for agricultural, professional, and spiritual training. The shaykh entrusted by the Murid khalife général to develop this space sees this combination of knowledges – Qur’ānic, agricultural, and trade – as a way to bring economic development to the area.

This essay argues that the new daara and educational centre has been successful thus far because it draws on a religious and cultural history that the region's population values. Using those religious and cultural teachings, it is creating an educational model that meets the current needs of that population. The new daara's educational model promises to promote religious education, and also to bring professional and agricultural training to a region in need of it. By using cultural and religious traditions to address local needs, the project has the potential to attract regional participation as well as involvement from the larger national and global Murid network.

The challenges the new daara face are steep: while local, they are tied to global issues. The 2007–11 global economic recession deepened the region's unemployment problems, increased food prices and reduced funding from international financial partners. Environmental shifts linked to global climate changes add to the effects of over a century of repeated droughts. Similar economic and environmental conditions have been historical backdrops for previous daaras, including Bamba's daaras. Difficult circumstances, specifically economic recessions and environmental catastrophes in the late 1800s and the 1970s, were motivations for developing new models of religious education. The Mbakke Kajoor project draws on these histories to address present-day educational, employment, and spiritual needs. It is creating a community-based educational centre to bring secular and religious education together, with the hope that it will serve the population's needs and revitalize the region.