Imām al-Nabhānī and the Tijānīyya II

Al-Nabhānī’s Mistake about Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [RA] and Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA]

While it is true that Imām al-Nabhānī [RA] praised Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [RA] very highly, he made a
major mistake by stating in his work Jamīʿ karamātu ʾl-awliyāʾa that Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] was
among “the most important successor of the venerable saint Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] of Morocco.”
This man [RA] was, in fact, junior to Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS].

Al-Nabhānī did not mention where he got this information from. Quoting al-Nabhānī, the
contemporary Somalī Idrīsī shaykh, ʿUthmān ʿUmar Dawūd, also mentions Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS]
among Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs’ [RA] successors. Some followers of the Ṭarīqa Idrīsiyya also repeat this
claim although there is absolutely no proof to substantiate it, neither in their own mother books nor
in Tijānī works.

Imām al-Nabhānī [RA]

It is not a secret that Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] benefited from many Sufi shuyūkh in his journey to the
stations of maʿrifatu ʾl-ilāhiyyatu ʾl-kubrā and quṭbaniyya. He himself stated: “We took (the Ṭarīqa)
from many shuyūkh, however ALLĀH ‫ ﷻ‬did not decree that we achieve our goal from them. Indeed,
our sanad and teacher in this Path is the Master of Existence ‫ﷺ‬.”

However, none of the past and present biographers of Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] mention Sīdī Aḥmad
bin Idrīs [RA] among his teachers, although they mention all other great Sufi shuyūkh he met and
benefited from (before his relinquishment of all ṭurūq by the command of the Best of Creation ‫ﷺ‬,
who then made himself ‫ ﷺ‬his Shaykh.

For example, they document Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī’s [QS] meeting with the following saints:

1) The Sharīfī Quṭb Mawlay al-Ṭayyib bin ʿAbd-Allāh [RA], from whom he took the Ṭarīqa
Wazzaniyya, which was a famous North African offshoot of the Shādhiliyya.

2) Shaykh Muḥammad bin al-Ḥasan al-Wanjilī al-Shādhilī [RA], who told him even before they
started to converse, “You will reach the maqām of Abū ʾl-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī [RA].“
3) al-Quṭb Sīdī Aḥmad al-Saqālī [RA], whom he did not even speak to but simply sat in his presence.

4) Sīdī ʿAbd-Allāh bin al-ʿAlawī al-Maʿānī al-Andalūsī [RA], whom he met during his first visit to Fās.

5) Sīdī Abū ʿAbd-Allāh al-Tazzanī [RA], from whom he took the Ṭarīqa Nāṣiriyya, which was also a
famous North African branch of the Shādhilīyya.

6) Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ḥabīb bin Muḥammad al-Ghumārī al-Sijilmāsī al-Ṣiddīqī [RA].

7) Sīdī Abī ʾl-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Tawwāsh al-Tāzī [RA], who also predicted that he would reach a great
maqām.

8) One [RA] of the famous shuyūkh of the Ṭarīqa Qādiriyya in Fās, from whom he took the Qādiri
Way.

9) al-Quṭb Sīdī ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Rahawī [RA], whom he met in Tunis.

10) Sīdī Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Azharī, from whom Shaykh al-Tijānī [QS] took the Ṭarīqa
Khalwatiyya in Algeria.

11) Sīdī Maḥmūd al-Kurdī [RA] of Egypt, who gave him the complete ijāza in the Khalwatī Way, and
asked him, “What is your aspiration?” Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] replied, “Al-Quṭbaniyyatu ʾl-ʿUẓma.”

Sīdī Maḥmūd then stated, “You will achieve more than that” (i.e. referring to Shaykh al-Tijānī’s [QS]
holding of the position of Khatmu ʾl-Wilāyatu ʾl-Muḥammadiyya).

Sīdī Maḥmūd al-Kurdī [RA] is considered Shaykh al-Tijānī’s [QS] primary shaykh before his meeting
with the Messenger of ALLĀH ‫ ﷺ‬in a state of wakefulness. Sīdī Maḥmūd al-Kurdī was the khalīfa of al-
Quṭb Sīdī Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī [RA] who had been a disciple of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī [RA].

12) al-Quṭb Sīdī Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Sammān [RA] of Madina, another prominent
khalīfa of Shaykh Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī [RA], and the founder of the Ṭarīqa Sammāniyya, which is
widespread in Sudan with its head being from the Fatiḥ Qarīb-Allāh family.

Shaykh al-Sammān [RA] told Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] that he (al-Tijānī) is al-Quṭbu ʾl-Jamīʿ, and
predicted that he will achieve all that he is aspiring for.

13) Shaykh ʿAbd-Allāh al-Hindī [RA], an Indian ʿārif who had been living in Makkah for 30 years. He
passed all his secrets to Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] when he first met him in Makkah, and then passed
away.

It is inconceivable that the biographers of Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] would mention all of the
above personalities and omit a renowned shaykh like Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA].

Note that Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] is connected to the above-mentioned Sīdī Maḥmūd al-Kurdī [RA]
via Shaykh Ḥusayn al-Qinawī, while Shaykhunā Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] had taken from him directly. This
also proves that Shaykh al-Tijānī was a level higher than Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs in his chain of
authorisation.

It is crucial to note that, according to the biographers of Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs (1750/60?-1837), it is
established that he was either 13 or 23 years younger than Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] (1737-
1815).

By the time Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] would become a matured young man to travel and seek
knowledge, Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] would have already become a respected shaykh and
master of the sciences [ʿulūm] of the bāṭin and the ẓāhir (he knew the Ṣāḥīḥyān, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ and
other texts by heart and had briefly taught at the universities of Zaytuna and al-Azhar). Therefore,
their meeting would definitely have been one where Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] would be a student
and Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS], the teacher.

By the time Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] concluded his journeys for knowledge and founded a ṭarīqa,
Shaykh Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] had already established the Ṭarīqa Tijānīyya by the command of the
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬and, as per his own admission, had entered the stations of Quṭbaniyya, Ghawthiyya and
Khatmiyya, which are the highest stations in Muḥammadī sainthood.

Even if the two shuyūkh did meet during this period, it would be inconceivable that the Shaykh al-
Tijānī [QS] would take Sīdī Aḥmad Ibn Idrīs’ ṭarīqa at this stage, let alone be considered a khalīfa of it,
because it did not exist.

In any case, while there are no records of the two meeting during the latter parts of their lives, there
is however a possibility of their meeting during Ibn Idrīs’ [RA] years of study. For when Sīdī Aḥmad al-
Tijānī [QS] visited Fās after his only Ḥājj, Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] was there and was 15 years of age.
When Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] was granted Prophetic ijāza in spiritual training, Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs
[RA] was only 23. When Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] made his final move to Fās in 1213 ‫ھ‬, Sīdī Aḥmad
bin Idrīs [RA] was till a young man and had not yet established his ṭarīqa. It would most probable that
they met during this period.

American Tijānī scholar Sīdī Zachary Wright states in his work on the Tijānīyya, entitled On The Path
of the Prophet: Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī and the Ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyyah, that: “It is tempting to
suppose some sort of contact between Shaykh Aḥmad Tijānī and Ibn Idrīs since the former, although
not installing himself permanently in Fās until after the departure of the latter, would have visited
Fās when Ibn Idrīs was studying in the city”.

The great Egyptian scholar Shaykh Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Tijānī [RA] mentioned in a footnote to al-
Ifādatu ʾl-Aḥmadiyya (p.10) that: “In fact, Shaykh Aḥmad Farrāj, the khalīfa of the Idrīsiyya in Egypt,
told me that Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] was brought as a child to Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī, who held his
head and said, ‘Amazing! What will come out of this head!’”

In fact, this contact between the two has clearly been affirmed by Sīdī Shaykh Aḥmad bin al-ʿIyyāshī
Sukayrij al-Fāsī [RA], the Judge [qāḍī] of the Maghreb and historian par excellence of the Tijānīyya.
Shaykh Sukayrij, was a contemporary of Shaykh al-Nabhānī and much more knowledgeable than him
on the history of North African Sufism.

Amazingly, Shaykh Sukayrij [RA] lists Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] among the disciples of Mawlay Aḥmad
al-Tijānī [RA] in his famous work Raf‘u ʾl-niqāb, a follow-up of his biographical encyclopedia Kashfu ʾl-
ḥijāb ʿamman talāqa maʿā ʾl-Shaykh al-Tijānī mina ʾl-aṣḥāb.

Shaykh Sukayrij [RA] mentions in the Raf‘ that while Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] met and benefitted from
many famous Sufi masters such as Sīdī ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Tāzī [RA] and Mawlay al-ʿArabī al-Darqāwī
[RA], it is only after he met al-Quṭbu ʾl-Maktūm Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] in Fās during his student
days that: “His desire was fulfilled, his eyes were cooled by achieving the secret that he sought, and
his chest was contented.“

Sīdī Sukayrij [RA] also mentions that Sīdī Ibn Idrīs [RA] also took the Ṭarīqa from al-Quṭb al-Tijānī [QS]
and received his duʿā and blessing.
In his book Enigmatic Saint: Aḥmad bin Idrīs and the Idrīsī Tradition, Rex O’Fahey, a western expert
on the history of Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA], also considers the claim that Shaykh Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS]
was a khalīfa of Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs “to be of doubtful authenticity.”

In fact, he mentions that al-Ḥasan al-Kuhīn’s work Ṭabaqātu ʾl-Shādhilīyyatu ʾl-Kubrā seems to
support Shaykh Sukayrij’s [RA] contention that the opposite is true, that Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs was
indeed a student of Mawlay Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS].

In light of the above, one can safely state that Shaykh al-Nabhānī’s [RA] claim is clearly mistaken. If
there was indeed any relationship between Shaykh Sīdī Aḥmad al-Tijānī [QS] and Sīdī Aḥmad ibn Idrīs
[RA], it was surely one where Mawlay al-Tijānī (the senior person) was the Shaykh, and Sīdī Ibn Idrīs
(the junior) the seeker.

It should also be noted here that Shaykh Sīdī al-Nabhānī [RA] was more of a collector of information
[jammāʿa] than a researcher and verifier, as stated by al-Zarakli:

http://www.dralsherif.net/Fatwa.aspx?SectionID=4&RefID=552

It is also worth mention that the renowned Ṣalātu ʾl-ʿĀẓimiyya of Sīdī Aḥmad bin Idrīs [RA] in
mentioned nowhere in our Tijānī litanies [awrād], nor do we actually recite it. As far as we are
concerned, there is no ṣalāt greater than Ṣalātu ʾl-Fātihī.

WaʾLlāhu Aʿlam.

- Imām Fakhruddīn bin Aḥmad Owaisī al-Madanī al-Tijānī [©2010; Cape Town, RSA]