Sources on Toriqa Tijaniya

Book: Realizing Islam, The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World! 

NB: Literature and Sources on the Tijāniyya

By: Sayyid Zachary Valentine Wright 

Via: Anatomy of sufism TV 📺 

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Generalist studies of Sufism or of eighteenth-century intellectual history have undoubtedly been limited by incomplete or problematic prior research on the Tijāniyya. 

The primary English monograph on the Tijāniyya, Jamil Abun-Nasr’s The Tijaniyya: A Sufi Order in the Modern World (1965), framed an otherwise notable exposition of primary source material with an uncritical belief in the inevitable “demystification” of the modern world. 

For Abun-Nasr, the Tijāniyya was an example of Sufism’s incompatibility with modern, postcolonial Muslim rationalized sensibilities. “Their story is,” Abun-Nasr noted in accusing the Sufi orders and the Tijāniyya in particular with colonial collaboration, “that of adjustment and reconciliation, which would have enabled them to survive politically 

had it not been that the doctrines which they preached and the functions which they performed were no longer suited to modern times.

”Themes of colonial collaboration, political posturing, and intellectual irrelevance 

remained consistent refrains for subsequent mentions of the Tijāniyya, as they did for African Sufi communities more broadly. 

A later introduction to a series of conference papers on the Tijāniyya remarks on the order’s “theological arrogance” and its “long ‘concubinage’ with French colonial power” permitting it to become “one of the greatest beneficiaries of the colonial period.” And unlike other orders, the Tijāniyya “remains exclsively African this is another one of its characteristics.

”Generations of later scholarship thus appear to have remained beholden to Abun-Nasr’s reading of the Tijāniyya.

My 2003 master’s thesis, “On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Tijani and the Ṭariqa Muhammadiyya,” was later published (2005) without peer review. It hoped to recontextualize Tijānī primary source material within the intellectual history of the eighteenth century. 

The work stands, I believe, as a useful introduction to the Tijāniyya, but is limited by a surface-level reading of primary source material and an exaggeration of the Ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyya as an intellectually coherent scholarly network. 

In any case, the book has received some academic attention, with two reprints 

and a French translation reflecting its apparent usefulness to non-academic 

audiences and the undergraduate classroom The only other published academic monograph to narrate the history of the Tijāniyya (in a European language35) is Jilali El Adnani’s La Tijāniyya, 1781–1881.

While Adnani recognizes the significance of the Tijāniyya in the modern history of Morocco, his utilitarian focus on shaykh- disciple relationships at the foundation of the order reduces Sufi affiliation to a 

form of false consciousness. Like Abun- Nasr, Adnani’s citation of primary source material focuses on provocative statements to substantiate an apparent narrative of Tijānī heterodoxy, failing to balance such citations with others that might allow him to read these statements differently. Adnani thus concludes, “the rehabilitation of Ahmad al- Tijānī resided in the reinforcement of his superior rank over his disciples, something impossible without recourse to miracles and magic . . . testimony to a strategy destined 

for the masses, which was much more receptive to invisible actors than 

to Sufi erudition.

”Alexander Knysh has usefully bracketed such understandings of Sufi communities based on crude power dynamics: “ ‘Power’ 

is too general a concept to account for construction, justification, and performance by Sufi masters of their claims to knowledge and guidance across centuries. 

Commanding respect and awe, being listened to in silence by a captive and respectful audience without necessarily ‘dominating’ or ‘exploiting’ it, is a motivation that does not fit neatly into the narrowly 

conceived grid of power relations envisioned by neo- Marxian sociologists of various stripes.

” Knysh concludes that such an understanding “fails to do justice to the complexity of human aspirations.” Abun- Nasr’s and Adnani’s apparent reduction of the religious identities of millions of Tijānī 

adherents may fit various instrumentalist understandings of the Tijāniyya’s social and political role in Africa from the nineteenth century, but their dismissal of the intellectual contributions of al- Tijānī and his early disciples has left a void in more general overviews of Sufi thought and history. This tendency to selectively ignore formative teachings from primary sources, in preference for decontextualized controversial statements, necessitates 

a more balanced narration of one of the Islamic world’s most important Sufi orders. 

It must be admitted, however, that the works of Abun- Nasr and Adnani provide a window into intriguing polemical debates surround-

ing Sufi doctrine and practice in modern contexts. 

Some of these debates such as the implications of seeing the Prophet appear 

specific to the Tijāniyya, but most are more general to Sufism (the hierarchy of saints or the power of Sufi prayers, for example) and perhaps to “traditional Islam” broadly defined (the authority of scholars, the enduring 

spirit of the Prophet beyond the grave, or the present- essence of God, for example). 

Full exploration of such polemics, and the voluminous literature they have produced, deserve a separate and more focused inquiry that is beyond the scope of this work. However, I hope that the disciplined situation of the Tijāniyya’s emergence in eighteenth- century Islamic intellectual 

history can provide a more stable foundation for such further explorations.

In addition to the problematic decontextualization of primary sources in 

earlier academic accounts, a new history of the Tijāniyya is also warranted from the perspective of newly available or edited Arabic source material. 

While Aḥmad al- Tijānī, like many Sufi shaykhs, left few writings himself, there are a number of central primary sources written or collected by his disciples. 

Foremost among them is the “Pearls of Meanings and Obtainment of Hopes in the Spiritual Floods of Sayyidī Abū l- ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Tijānī” (hereafter referenced as Jawāhir al-maʿānī) written by al- Tijānī’s closest disciple, ʿAlī Ḥarāzim al- Barrāda (or al- Barāda, d. 1804), and completed in 

1798.39 The work contains al- Tijānī’s biography, his interpretations of various Qurʾān verses and sayings of the Prophet, and responses to a variety of questions from disciples. 

In writing the book, Ḥarāzim recycled short, formulaic sections from an earlier Moroccan Sufi text, ʿAbd al- Salām b. al-Ṭayyib al- Qādirī’s (d. 1699), Kitāb al-maqṣad al-Aḥmad, concerning the seventeenth-century Shādhilī saint Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh Maʿn al-Andalūsī 

(d. 1708).40 While Abun- Nasr concludes that the fact that Ḥarāzim “drew heavily” on this earlier text constitutes an “act of plagiarism, ”close comparison between published versions of the Jawāhir al-maʿānī and the 1932 publication of Kitāb al-maqṣad reveal that Ḥarāzim borrowed roughly 2.5 pages of al-Maqṣad’s formulaic introduction: a few of the introductory paragraphs, and a few of the poems probably themselves recycled from past writings.

Considering the roughly 680 pages of the 2011 publication of the Jawāhir, this borrowing (0.3 percent) hardly qualified as plagiarism by the standards of the classical Arabic textual tradition, but it nonetheless became part of a Salafi- inspired attack against the Tijāniyya in early twentieth-century Morocco.

 In any case, the Jawāhir al-maʿānī has en-

joyed unrivaled authority in the Tijāniyya, due to Ḥarāzim’s designation as al-Tijānī’s “greatest deputy” (al-khalīfa al-aʿẓam) and on account of the Prophet’s appearance to al- Tijānī to order the book’s compilation: “Preserve it,” Ḥarāzim records the Prophet’s words to al- Tijānī, “in order to benefit the saints after you.

”Elsewhere, al-Tijānī was reported as saying, “The Prophet ordered me to collect the Jawāhir al-maʿānī, and he told me, ‘This is my book,and it is I who authored it.’ ”

There are significant divergences among published copies of the Jawāhiral-maʿānī, and some Tijānī scholars claimed that earlier publications dating to the beginning of the twentieth century departed from the original manuscript. 

But the claim of interpolation is difficult to substantiate: divergent publications appear to be primarily the result of various manuscript versions penned by ʿAlī Ḥarāzim himself, or prominent early Tijānī scholars from Ḥarāzim’s work. 

The Moroccan Tijānī scholar Rāḍī 

Kanūn’s 2012 republication of the Jawāhir al-maʿānī identified no fewer than four original manuscripts of the text in Ḥarāzim’s handwriting: one held in ʿAyn Māḍī, two located in Tlemcen (Algeria), and one found in Kaolack, Senegal.

This latter version had already been published in 2011 by the Senegalese shaykh Tijānī b. ʿAlī Cissé, based on the manuscript his grandfather Ibrāhīm Niasse had obtained from his father ʿAbdallāh Niasse, who was gifted the copy in Fez in 1911 by al- Tijānī’s descendant Bashīr b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al- Tijānī.49 While Kanūn privileges the ʿAyn Māḍī manuscript as the “mother” text, the “Kaolack” manuscript arguably deserves precedent recognition: this was the copy kept in al-Tijānī’s possession, from which he read, for the last sixteen years of his life.

The initial page contains al- Tijānī’s handwritten testimony: “Everything written in this manuscript (al-kunnāsh), each letter appearing from the beginning to 

the end, I have authorized.”

While Kanūn’s recent publication presents a useful comparison between various versions of the Jawāhir, the amalgamated text he published does not reproduce any one version of a manuscript original.

For these reasons, I primarily rely on Cissé’s 2011 edition from the original Jawāhir al-maʿānī kept in al- Tijānī’s possession during his life for all citations.

Another disciple, Muḥammad b. al-Mashrī (or Mishrī) al- Sāʾiḥī (d. 1809), left two separate collections of al- Tijānī’s teachings that remained unpublished until 2012. The first is “The Garden of the Annihilated Lover in what has been transmitted from our Shaykh Abū l- ʿAbbās al-Tijānī” (hereafter Rawḍ al-muḥibb), written around 1792.

The second is “The Collection of the Pearls of Knowledge overflowing from the Seas of the Hidden Pole” (hereafter al-Jamiʿ), completed in 1804.

It is clear Ḥarāzim and Ibn al-Mashrī shared notes between them, for much of the three books contain similar passages and sometimes share organizational features. 

However, Ibn al-Mashrī’s texts add much to our understanding of al- Tijānī’s intellectual contributions beyond the Ḥarāzim’s Jawāhir al-maʿānī, particularly in regard to theology and jurisprudence. 

To prove the point that Ibn al-Mashrī’s writing contained value in its own right, a later Tijānī scholar published a separate book collecting everything from the Jāmiʿ not contained in the Jawāhir.

Primary sources written by direct disciples of al- Tijānī also include a collection of the shaykh’s sayings, collected by the scholarly disciple al-Ṭayyib al- Sufyānī (d. 1843, Fez), “The Aḥmadan Blessing for the Aspirant of Eternal Happiness” (hereafter al-Ifāda al-Aḥmadiyya), and gathered shortly after the shaykh’s passing in 1815.

There is also the “Book of Divine Guidance” (Kitāb al-irshādāt al- rabbāniyya), al-Tijānī’s commentary on al- Buṣayrī’s (d. 1294, Alexandria) poem in praise of the Prophet (al-Hamziyya) dictated to ʿAlī Ḥarāzim.57 The significant collections of the Moroccan Tijānī scholar Aḥmad Sukayrij (d. 1944) detailing the biographies of al- Tijānī’s students should also be considered as foundational primary sources. 

Sukayrij’s “Removal of the Shroud” (Kashf al-ḥijāb)and his expanded “Raising the Veil” (Rafʿ al-niqāb)include rare source 

material, such as letters between al- Tijānī and various disciples, treatises, poetry, and prayers composed by the shaykh’s students, and meticulously researched oral narrations concerning al-Tijānī’s relationship with his community of students. 

A later descendant of al- Tijānī collected all of his ancestor’s letters found in various other collections and published a separate volume, the “Selected Letters” (Mukhtārāt min rasāʾil al-shaykh), that also serves as a useful primary source.

Other later Tijānī scholars published Arabic source materials that played important roles in the explanation and spread of the Tijāniyya. 

Some of these sources that inform this book include the “Lances of the Party of 

the Merciful” (Rimāḥ) of the nineteenth- century West African ʿUmar Fūtī 

(Tal), the “Fulfillment of Beneficience” (Bughyat al-Mustafīd) of the 

nineteenth- century Moroccan scholar al- ʿArabī b. al- Sāʾiḥ, and the “Re-

moval of Confusion” (Kāshif al-ilbās) of Ibrāhīm Niasse.

While these varied published sources were certainly written with different audiences and historical contexts in mind, they nonetheless form an impressive trove of information from which to reconstruct the intellectual history of the early Tijāniyya. 

Many years of field research have afforded access to other manuscript sources still unpublished and unknown to previous academic research. 

The most notable is a forty-nine-page untitled “travel notebook” (hereafter) 

referred to as Kunnāsh al-riḥla) written in al- Tijānī’s own handwriting.

The work collects various prayers al- Tijānī received from scholars he visited while traveling in North Africa and Arabia. 

The date of this compilation is unknown, but it appears from most of the scholars mentioned that it was written during his pilgrimage east in the years 1773 and 1774, or shortly thereafter upon his return to the Maghreb. A second important manuscript is the Mashāhid (“spiritual encounters”) of ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, a 212- page account detailing Ḥarāzim’s own spiritual training and experiences at the direction of al- Tijānī, written in 1799 or 1800, soon after the completion of the Jawāhir al-maʿānī.

Other various “notebooks of secrets” (sing. Kunnāsh) attributed to al-Tijānī, to which the contemporary Senegalese shaykh Tijānī Cissé granted me access in his personal archive, also inform my 

understanding of al-Tijānī’s scholarly influences and breadth of knowledge, 

especially in the field of esotericism.

There are a few Arabic sources, external to the Tijāniyya, that tangentially reference al- Tijānī and the early Tijāniyya, most notably Abū l-Qāsim al- Zayānī’s (d. 1833) al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā, Aḥmad al- Nāṣirī’s (d. 

1897) al-Istiqṣā li-akhbār duwal al-Maghrib al-aqṣā (completed 1894), and Muḥammad Jaʿfar al-Kattānī’s (d. 1927) Salwat al- anfās (completed 1887).

I make reference to these external perspectives, but the fact is that external 

sources on the Tijāniyya are simply too sparse to rely on to the same de-

gree as internal sources.

The false equivalence between the secondhand, often contradictory reports in external sources, and firsthand internal nar-

ratives—the historical value of which can be too easily dismissed as imag-ined hagiography is an oversight, I believe, that has limited prior research on the Tijāniyya. 

This question of historiography is sometimes addressed by Sufi communities themselves, notably by Ibrāhīm Niasse in his first encounter with a French historian. 

Niasse said, “I heard you mentioned me in 

your book. I have also written many books, but I never mentioned you. 

Do you know why? Because I do not know you.”Of course, external narratives are indispensable; the point is simply that internal accounts cannot be immediately dismissed as providing unreliable historical data. 

Just as Ibn Khaldūn’s observations of Muslim societies cannot be discounted simply because he was a practicing Muslim, so too must historians take seriously 

the internal narratives of Sufi communities despite the fact their authors were practicing Sufis. 

Alternately, clearly defined genres of Sufi writing such as hagiography, advice on etiquette or spiritual training, and prayer 

manuals—certainly have audiences other than critical historians in mind.Nonetheless, several internal sources clearly cross disciplinary boundaries: the multivolume biographical dictionaries of Aḥmad Sukayrij, for example, contain critically researched oral traditions cross- referenced with 

alternative narrations and textual references. 

This book situates internal sources within the context of externally established historical narratives but focuses more on exploring the process of religious realization captured in internal sources, than it does on reconciling or disproving every external 

fragment. 

This is a story of religious identity in historical context; I make no claim to writing the definitive history of the Tijāniyya. 

The spread of the Tijāniyya, particularly in vibrant scholarly contexts of nineteenth-and twentieth-century Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and Nigeria, produced a veritable explosion of Arabic literature.

Full analysis of this literature, which includes treatises, letters, and poetry both for and 

against the Tijāniyya, is not attempted in this book. 

Nonetheless, this literary production, including the controversies it preserves, should be more systemically considered in accounting for the later spread of the Tijāniyya. 

Charismatic Sufi authority, as Rüdiger Seesemann observes in the later 

Tijānī community of Ibrāhīm Niasse, sometimes consciously risked pub-

lic censure to provide spiritual realization to greater numbers of people. 

“His most important task consisted of finding a balance between attracting 

followers and controlling their experiences. The internal sources leave no doubt that he [Niasse] was up to the task, but apparently not all of the deputies were. 

Yet if some of the latter were less successful in walking the tightrope between captivating the followers and curbing their enthusiasm 

and talkativeness, the resulting attacks of the deniers helped to reinforce the cohesion of the community. 

This very mechanism eventually drove the 

large-scale expansion.” 

Such controversies arguably played a role in the expansion of the Tijāniyya from its foundation. 

But as I argued in relation to the community of Ibrāhīm Niasse, I believe that polemics surrounding the teachings of al-Tijānī are the later reflection of an underlying appeal, not 

the generative mechanism for spread of the Tijāniyya by themselves. 

Liabilities of the polemical frame include an ahistorical reading of later polemics into the foundational sources, or an overemphasis of polemical sources, most often marginal to lived experiences of most disciples, to the exclusion of more central preoccupations. 

This book thus concerns the ideal of reli-

gious actualization that attracted disciples to al-Tijānī in a late eighteenth-century North African context and leaves the (mostly) later controversies that this ideal produced, or failed to produce, to other researchers.