Fez: Exploring a Sufi legacy

I have read a lot about Fez in Sufi literature and was delighted that the meeting of African Islamic Scholars ulama which held in Morocco provided an opportunity to visit Fez from July 8-13 2015. Our schedule in fez was light and we had time for Ramadan devotion and our tour of the city. On […]

I have read a lot about Fez in Sufi literature and was delighted that the meeting of African Islamic Scholars ulama which held in Morocco provided an opportunity to visit Fez from July 8-13 2015. Our schedule in fez was light and we had time for Ramadan devotion and our tour of the city. On one of these free days my husband Malam Mustapha Bintube and his friend Dr Hamid Bobboyi, engaged a tourist guide who took us to  various parts of town, the royal palaces, the old city, ceramic cottage industries for which Fez is well known, and a fortress on the hill which provided a panoramic view of the spiralling  city.
On another occasion, I went with the female delegates from Nigeria Hafsat Ibrahim Saleh, and Zainab Omar Hussein, lecturers in Islamic studies to the old part of Fez known as the Madina to visit historic mosques and the market where traditional goods are sold.
A market guide introduced us to a saloon where local cosmetics and therapeutic herbs were prescribed for clients to test try and also packaged for sale. I saw clients applying facial masks, buying cosmetic herbs to exfoliate dead skin cells and herbal therapy for healing digestive ailments.
 After our market visit, we proceeded through the winding streets to the mosque and zawiya built by Sheikh Ahmadu Tijani in 1215, (1800) which still serves as a place of congregation for the Tijjaniya tariqa to this day. We said our zuhur and asr prayers at the women section which was full of worshippers from African countries. I asked for more information on the life of the founder of the Tijjaniya.Not satisfied with the little that was offered, I conducted a research and found adequate information from Zachary Wright’s book about the ‘Tariqa Muhammadiyya.’
Sidi Abu Abbas Ahmad al-Tijani was born in the Southwest Algerian oasis town of Ain Madi in the year 1150 (1737 C.E.). He was a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad SAW through Fatima Zahra’s first son Hassan and later through Mawlay Idris, the celebrated founder of Morocco. His father was Sidi Muhammad b. al-Mukhtar b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b Salam, a prominent scholar whose family hailed from the Moroccan Abda tribe. Sheikh Tijjani’s mother, Aisha, was noted for her piety and generosity.
Sheikh Tijjani in the scholarly tradition of his family memorised the Qur’an by the age of seven. He then studied Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh and usulal-fiqh), Prophetic traditions (Hadith), explanation of the Qur’an (tafsir), Qur’anic recitation (tajwid), grammar (nahwu) and literature (adab), among other branches of the traditional Islamic sciences. According to the Jawahir the Sheikh mastered all of these subjects at a very young age. He then moved to Fez, the centre for Islamic knowledge in the Maghreb and a long-established political, intellectual, cultural and religious capital of the area. The young Sheikh Tijani spent his time in Fez studying Hadith and generally seeking out the people of piety and religion. His motivation was the attainment of a spiritual opening (fath).  Several scholars predicted for Sheikh Tijjani an exalted spiritual attainment. Sheikh Tijjani took the Qadariyya Sufi order, from Abu Abdullah Sidi Muhammad al-Tizani, he took the Nasiriyya order and also took the order of Abu Abbas Ahmad al-Habib al-Sijilmasy (d. 1165). These influenced later development of the Tijaniyya, and their emphasis on “orthodox” Sufism, firmly rooted within the bounds of the Qur’an and Sunna. This was an essential component of Sheikh Tijjani’s new order.
The Jawahir reports that he spent some time in the desert Zawiya of the famous Qutb Sidi Abd al-Qadir b. Muhammad al-Abyad (known as Sidi al-Sheikh).
His activities in Fez and in whatever town he happened to be staying consisted of teaching Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir) and Hadith and rigorous practice of asceticism, including frequent fasting and superogatory worship. Shaykh Ahmad Tijjani travelled to perform hajj in Ramadan 1186/1773 and visited the Prophet’s mosque in Madina. He also visited Tunis, home of the famous Zaytuna mosque and university, which predates both the Azhar in Cairo and the Qarawin in Fez.
The beginning of a distinctive “Tijjani” order can be attributed with the appearance of the Prophet Muhammad SAW to Sheikh Ahmad Tijjani in a waking vision. This occurred in 1784, in the desert oasis of Abi Samghun. Sheikh Ahmad Tijjani and a group of his closest companions later took up residence in Fez beginning in 1213/1798. By the time of his arrival in Fez, Sheikh Tijjani’s fame as a scholar possessing religious charisma or blessing (baraka) had spread throughout the Maghreb. The Sheikh’s time in Fez was largely occupied with the consolidating the tariqa, training and sending out muqaddams (propagators). Before the end of his life, he had attracted thousands of followers and sent out muqaddams as far away as the Hijaz and Mauritania.
Sheikh Ahmad Tijani died in 1230 (1815) at the age of eighty leaving behind a firmly established order the Tariqa. His legacy inspired many followers to commit to renew and spread Islam in diverse communities worldwide. The Sheikh was buried in his zawiya in Fez, which today remains a centre of congregation for Tijjaniya members around the world and a large number from Nigeria. We visited his house with the larger delegation of participants. His followers used to meet there before the zawiya was built. It has among other rooms, the Sheikh’s library, and a room for khalwa (spiritual retreat) for which the Sufi adepts are known.  The launch of the King Mohammed Foundation for African Scholars which later held in Casablanca on July 13 2014 was very interesting and a topic of my previous writing.