Amadu Bamba Mbàkke (c. 1850–1927) founded the Muridiyya Sufi order in what is now Senegal. From a learned lineage, he was deeply influenced by the classical Sufi tradition. Bamba in the 1890s withdrew to a more isolated site, where he taught, grew his following throughout the Wolof areas, penned Sufi poetry in praise of the Prophet, and, after a vision of the angel Gabriel, founded the new settlement of Touba. As the French established direct control over more territory, Bamba tried to move away from them to still-autonomous Jolof, but in 1895 the French asserted themselves there, as well. He appears to have come out publicly against them rather than keeping quiet. The French arrested him, subjected him to a one-sided and summary trial, and exiled him to Gabon in 1895–1902, on vague and unsubstantiated charges of “agitation.” He wrote a poem replying to the French charges, addressing it to the Christians: “You assemblage who, having gone astray, made three / the One who had no son or father: / You exiled me, saying that I am a servant of God and a struggler (mujahid) for the faith . . . / Your assertion that I struggle is true/ I struggle for the sake of the countenance of God/ I struggle by means of branches of learning [bi al-`ulum] and piety/” The word mujahid in quranic Arabic means “striver,” though it came to have connotations of holy warrior later in history, and the French used it with that meaning. Bamba insisted that he struggled peacefully, with knowledge and learning and righteousness. Despite his devotion to peaceful methods of resistance, Bamba at some points expressed a severe critique of French imperialism. He wrote, “As for the atheists and the Christians / they have become captives of the passions of Satan . . . / Satan has enticed them into rebellion, / impudence and loss / and dazzled them with his ruse until they became tyrants / in all the countries, and rebelled.” He condemned Senegalese for being enthralled by the French empire and forgetting the Prophet, neglecting their religious observances. This paper examines the ways in which Bamba mounted a nonviolent movement that nevertheless critiqued the French imperial project. It is based on Arabic poetry and letters of Ahmadu Bamba that I have mined for his peace thought in a systematic way.