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Saint-Louis is a town that goes back to the early modern history of the West African coast, more than 400 years ago. On one side it lies along the Atlantic Ocean, on the other along the Senegal River, about 20 kilometers north of the mouth of the river. The heart of the town is an island in the middle of the river, about 2 miles from north to south and less than half a mile across. Its main political and commercial institutions lie close to the center of the island. The main port facilities lie on the eastern side of the island, along the main branch of the river.

Several neighborhoods or quarters lie beyond the island. On the spit of land between the ocean and the small branch of the river are Ndar Toute and Guet Ndar. On the mainland on the eastern side of the main branch of the river lie Sor and several other areas. Wolof is the dominant language of the city, just as it is in most of the country of Senegal. The Wolof name for the town is Ndar.

Saint-Louis has played a strategic role in the history of Senegal and Mauritania, the predominantly desert region that begins just to the north. Its location and layout are essential to understanding this role.

In the 19th century, after the fall of Napoleon, Saint-Louis became the headquarters of French operations in the Senegambian and Mauritanian arenas. These were largely commercial in the first half of the century, oriented mainly around the harvesting of gum along the river and its exportation to pharmaceutical and other industrial firms in France. In the mid-nineteenth century, under an assertive Governor named Louis Leon Cesar Faidherbe, the French added a much stronger political presence, just as they were encouraging the development of peanut production in the central zones of Senegal. In the late 19th century peanuts supplanted gum as the big export of the region.

Alongside these investments French Catholic societies began engaging with the town, both to service European and mixed-race Catholics and to conduct some missionary work. The heads of the societies, priests of the church near the center of town, sought to influence the administration's policies, particularly in relation to two forces: a small group of Freemasons, critical of all religious practice, and the growing Muslim population of the town.

In fact, Saint-Louis probably had a Muslim majority throughout the 19th century. But it was only in the middle of the century that leaders of this group mobilized for the establishment of a place of worship and for a court for the practice of Islamic law. By the end of the century this community was much larger and more assertive. It had established centers of Islamic education and Sufi practice that attracted Muslims from the wider region. Over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries a number of other mosques have been built in the various neighborhoods of Saint-Louis.