http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/940.html
 
Remembering, Professor Lamin Mbye was a dedicated son
of Africa with Pan-Africanist scholarship and roots,
who passed away a year ago on July 30, 2005. This
obituary has been produced and sent by Professors
Sulayman S. Nyang (Howard University) and A.B.
Assensoh (Indiana University-Bloomington), as family
members, friends and his students are observing a year
of Dr. Mbye's death.
 
           Dr. Lamin Mbye, 70, was a Pan-Africanist
historian. He was a full professor of History and
Social Sciences (with an emphasis on African history)
until July 2004 on the beautiful campus of University
of Maryland at Eastern Shore (UMES). He died at 1.30
PM in the Peninsula Hospital, Salisbury, Maryland on
Friday, July 30, 2004. He has rested in the Lord for a
year now!
 
Gambian Family Background: Dr. Mbye came out of two
prominent Banjul families whose roots go back to
pre-colonial areas now called Senegal. The son of
Gambian trader and political figure Abdou Wally Mbye
and Fatou Jagne of Banjul, Dr. Lamin Mbye belonged to
the third generation of Wolof who settled in the
nation's capital since the end of the Sonnike-Marabout
Wars.  On his father's side, he could trace his
ancestry back to the Mbyeens of Cayor and Walo. Then,
on his mother's side, he was part of the large
descendants of the Saloum-Saloum Jagne family that is
linked by marriage to Sait Mati, the son of Maba Jahu
Bah, the celebrated Muslim warrior of 19th Century
Senegambia. Dr. Mbye was linked to the Nyang clan
because of the interlocking networks of families and
clans that become more and more intricate and complex
over time. The grandson, on his father's side, of Awa
Nyang, the sister of Sulayman Nyang, the grand
patriarch of the Nyang clan in Banjul and beyond, Dr.
Mbye is connected to the Tivaoune branch of the
Tijanniyya order by way of Safiatou Nyang. He named
his first son after his father, Abdou Wally Mbye and
his second son after Shaykh Habib Sy, a brother to
Shaykh Abdul Aziz Sy of the Tijanniyya order in
Senegal. His first child, Neneh (a Duke
University-educated Lawyer) is named after a favorite
wife of his father, who showered love and affection on
Dr. Mbye throughout his life. 
          Dr. Mbye was a product of the triple
heritage that Kwame Nkrumah identified in his book,
"Consciencism" and Professor Ali Mazrui has,
subsequently,popularized in his well-known
documentary, "The Africans." During his early years in
the Gambia he went to both Quranic and Western
missionary schools. From the former he acquired the
much needed knowledge to live as a Muslim and from the
latter he gained mastery of the English language and
British culture as exported into this part of the
empire. Throughout his life in and out of the Gambia
he demonstrated evidence of command of the knowledge
and subtleties of Wolof culture which he imbibed at
the feet of his father and other elders. He was
clearly one of the most knowledgeable masters of the
social geography of Wolof and Gambian society. His
vast knowledge about the ways and manners of
Senegambian society was always placed at the disposal
of fellow country men and women. In this respect, he
was very much like his late uncle, Honorable Alieu
Badara Njie, the peripathetic Gambian Foreign Minister
and onetime Vice-President to Sir Dawda Jawara. It was
Honorable Alieu Badara Njie, who informed former
President Jawara on the intricacies of family and clan
realities in the Gambia. So effective was the late
Honorable Njie that one Amirul Hajj told me during my
diplomatic stint in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that Njie was
in many ways a master of Wolof genealogies and served
the former Gambian leader as faithfully as Sayyidina
Abu Bakr did to the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
            Being very much a mirror image of his
father, who was one of the leaders of Banjul society
that enjoyed social standing and prestige in African
and European circles of colonial Gambia, Dr. Mbye
respected and valued Wolof culture and traditions.
Like his father who combined commercial trading in the
Gambian hinterland and public service through his
membership in the colonial legislative council, Dr.
Mbye obtained his first degree in the University of
Wales in Swansea and his doctoral degree from
Birmingham University. There was also another
significant thread in the life of Dr. Mbye that points
to his fidelity to his father's sense of family life
and culture. His dedication to family and friend is
proverbial. Those who know him well could testify to
the devotion his wife Hajja Isatou Mbye showed
throughout his life. It was his wife who stood by him
through thick and thin. During the last ten years of
his life he faced many health problems and what kept
him going were his unflagging faith in God and the
reassuring presence of his loving wife. 
             
              Colonial and Post-Colonial Services:
During his tenure in both the colonial and post
colonial civil service he held responsible positions.
After his graduation from high school in the late
fifties he worked for the government until he obtained
a scholarship to do college work in the United
Kingdom. Upon his return to the Gambia in 1969, the
Civil Service Commission appointed him as the head of
the Information Department where he supervised many of
the young Gambians working as journalists in the
Gambia News Bulletin and as broadcasters in the newly
created Radio Gambia. Dr. Mbye will later serve as
Administrative Officer in various capacities before he
was seconded to serve in 1976 as the Director of
Administration in the Organization of Islamic
Conference (OIC) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. During the
first two years of the Reagan Administration Dr. Mbye
joined the African diplomats posted to Washington. He
served as ambassador for several years before he
resigned in 1986 to take employment with the
University of Maryland at Eastern Shore, mostly
because of his passion for teaching African history.
               
                Dr. Mbye was a strong Muslim, who
believed that Islam has a positive and empowering role
in modern societies, including Africa. Always holding
firmly to the rope of God (or Allah) and determined to
make a difference in the lives of his family and
friends, he never strayed away from the Islam he
inherited from the Sufi masters of the Tijanniyya
order. He had family members, friends and dedicated
students all over the world, including his beloved
Africa, and those of us who knew him will always
remember him with love and affection.
 
* Many thanks to Professor Nyang, who provided most of
the information used in this appreciation!
 
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