Pan Ties of Qadiri-Shadhili Branches

“The Mohammedian Sciences (al-‘ulum al-Mohammediya) are 111 in number. Each science contains 111.000 units and each unit contains into 111.000 sub-sciences. Whoever obtains a single Mohammedian Science will obtain the sciences from the first generation to the last generation. The most complete of the Saints the likes of Mawlana Abdessalam ibn Mashish, [Moulay Abdellqadir al-Jilani and Sidi Ibn Arabi al-Hatimi], have obtained 72 Mohammedian Sciences. As for Sidi Abul Hassan Shadhili, he has obtained 71." -  Khatm al-Awliya Mawlana Abul Abbas Tijani

“All the paths will be incorporated into the Path of Shadhili (may Allah be pleased with him), except this Mohammedi Ibrahimi Hanifi Spiritual Path of ours, for it is self sufficient." -  Khatm al-Awliya Mawlana Abul Abbas Tijani

The Qadiriya Sufi Order, so named after the Great Qutb, Mawlana Shaykh Abdellqadir Jilani al-Hassani (d. 561/1166), occupies a pre-eminent place in Moroccan Sufism. Although its organisational structure came into prominence several decades after the death of the Shaykh, who came to be looked upon as an ideal of spiritual excellence and achievement. Later generations however developed all sorts of legends surrounding his personality, and the real nature of his spiritual activity became shrouded in innumerable miracle stories woven around him by his followers and circulated by his biographers. Shaykh Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani combined in his person the twin roles of a esoteric mentor and a exoteric teacher, but after him the two functions became separated. His son Sidi Abdelwahhab (d. 593/1196) succeeded him in the madrasa and his other son Moulay Abderrazaq (d. 603/1206) turned to spiritual discipline and looked after the zawiya. It was he who built near the grave of his father a mosque with seven guilt domes. The Mongolian Halagu's sack of Baghdad in 658/1258 brought to an end both the madrasa and the zawiya, and the Shaykh's descendents became scattered and dispersed. Thereafter those associated with his family turned their attention to organising the order in different regions. Those of his family members who remained in Baghdad constituted what has been called "the moral centre of the order"; others settled in Aleppo, Cairo and Fez.

The Qadiriya was first introduced in Morocco by Sidi Mohammed ibn Abdellqadir Jilani who dwelled Fez after a short stay in Amsun near Taza. His offspring worked together with the progeny of Sidi Ibrahim ibn Abdellqadir Jilani (d. 593/1196) and his brother Sidi Abdellaziz who pierced the Idrissid capital in the early seventh/thirteenth century to establish Qadiri zawiyas in the Sharifian State. The fall of Granada in 897/1492 aided more Qadiri sharifs to join their cousins in Fez and reinforced the already established Qadiri network. The conventional work of Shaykh Sidi Mohammed ibn Mohammed al-Qadiri Andalusi (d. 950/1535) in particular regenerated the Qadiri institutional structure in Fez and was fundamental in the production of mystic figures in cooperation with Moroccan Shadhilis such as Sidi Mohammed Zaytouni (d. after 900/1449).

Most certainly it was during the lifetime of Shaykh Moulay Abdellqadir that the influence of Qadiriya was felt in Morocco. Although non-Moroccan Tariqa affiliations are seldom mentioned in sources from this period, Sufis whom one would today identify as 'Qadiris' can be recognised by their devotion to the Almohad-era saints Sidi Abu Ya'aza Yalnour (d. 572/1177) and his disciple Sidi Abu Madyan al-Ghawt (d. 594/1198),  who were assimilated into the Qadiriya. Perhaps because of Abu Ya'aza's close identification with the Mohammedian paradigm, the folkloric tradition of Morocco has long associated him with Moulay Abdellqadir, who enjoyed descent from the Prophet (peace and blessing upon him) on both his mother's and his father's side. By the nineteenth century, the legend linking Abu Ya'aza to Moulay Abdellqadir was so-established that the Sufi biographer Sidi Mohammed ben Jaafar Kattani (d. 1345/1930) reported in his Salwat al-anfas a tradition in which the Shaykh of Baghdad tells his followers: "There is an Abyssinian (habashi) in the Maghrib, whose name is an-Nur and whose kunya is Abu Ya'aza. He occupies a great station, which only few of the First and the Last has attained".

Similar spiritual linkages have also linked Sidi Abu Madyan with Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani prior to their physical meeting on Mount Arafa in the pilgrimage. Sidi Abu Madyan's student, Sidi Abu Mohammed Salih al-Majiri (d. 631/1234), the Patron Saint of Asfi, reports that Abu Madyan said to his disciple: "I saw al-Khadir and asked him about the Shaykhs of the east and the west in our time. Then I asked him about Shaykh Abdellqadir Jilani and he said: 'He is the Imam of the truthful and the proof of the gnostics. He is the inspiration behind gnosis, but his destiny is not to be physically among the Awliya. I arrange the ranks of Awliya according to his direction.'" Moulay Abderrazaq ibn Abdellqadir Jilani's (d. 603/1206-7) student, Sidi Abul Abbas Tajuddin Ahmed Sharishi Slawi (d. 641/1243 in  El-Fayyoum, Egypt), the noted Moroccan mystic and author of the famous Sharishiya poem, had also addressed this sanctity and supremacy in his writings.

As early as the ninth/fifteenth century, it is likely that a connection between the Shadhili and Qadiri brotherhoods in Morocco was established by the Imam Sidi Mohammed ibn Sulayman Jazouli (d. 869/1465) himself, for much of Jazoulite ritual borrows from Sidi Abu Mohammed Salih al-Majiri. The Jazulite Sufi Sidi Abdellaziz Tabba'a (d. 914/1508) believed that the Shaykh who could claim lineal descent from the Prophet Sidna Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him) exercised spiritual authority over his followers by virtue of divine right. This sharifian interpretation of authority was an important hallmark of the Jazouliya. It was also important among the Moroccan Qadiriya, whose hagiographers stressed that Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani's status as the Pole of the Time (Qutb az-Zaman) was a matter of birthright as well. Apart from the rule of formal appointment by one's predecessor and the transmission of the Prophetic Inheritance through the bloodline, there is a little to distinguish the Qadirite saints from the Shadhilite ones.  

Throughout the tenth/sixteenth century, the ranks of the Jazouliya included both Shadhili and Qadiri Sufis. It would have been highly unusual for Qadiris to have been initiated into this order if there have not been a connection between the Jazouliya and the Qadiriya in the first place. Sidi Abdellaziz Tabba'a provides evidence of such a connection in a poem which traces his spiritual genealogy. This poem entitled Salail al-anwar wa tuhfat manaqib al-akhyar (Offsprings of light and fruits of the exploits of the virtuous), includes the following verse:

Shaykh Tabba'a's attempts to link himself doctrinally to Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani is significant, since it comes from a strong partisan of the Shadhiliya. Further evidence of a doctrinal connection between the Jazouliya and the Qadiriya can be found in the invocations of Imam Mohammed al-Jazouli. In his Wednesday litany of Dalail al-Khayrat, Imam Sidi Mohammed Jazouli reproduces verbatim Moulay Abdellqadir's "Minor Prayer" (As-Salat as-Sughra) on behalf of the Prophet Sidna Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him):  "Oh God, bless our Chieftain Sidna Mohammed, whose light precedes creation and whose appearance is a mercy to the worlds, to the number of Your creatures who have gone before and who remain and [to the number of] those among them who are saved and damned; a blessing beyond number that exceeds all bounds; a blessing without limitation, end, or conclusion; an eternal blessing through Your eternal nature; and protect his Family and Companions for all time."

Qadiri-Shadhili ties is also represented in the disciplehood of the great Shadhilite mystic Sidi Ahmed Zarruq al-Fasi (d. 899/1493) to the most influential Qadiri zawiya in late fifteenth-century Fez called Zawiyat Bu Laqtut (Zawiya of the Owner of Cats). This zawiya had long been linked to the way of Sidi Abu Madyan al-Ghawt. It was originally built by Sidi Ali Boughaleb (d. 568/1172-3), a student of Sidi Ahmed ibn al-Arif Tanji (d. 536/1141), who taught the Sunan of at-Tirmidi to Sidi Abu Madyan al-Ghawt in the Qarawiyyine mosque. During his advanced studies in Fez Sidi Ahmed Zarruq took the hand Sidi Mohammed Jazouli as well as Zawiyat Bu Laqtut's teacher Sidi Mohammed Zaytouni (d. after 900/1449) before he travelled to Egypt and met with the Shadhili master Sidi Mohammed al-Hadrami (d. 787/1385). It is very worth to mention as well that the faqih Sidi Abdellhaqq Ibn Atiyya (d. 542/1147) cited in his Fahrasa an initiatory chain that links Sidi Mohammed Hadrami to Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani through Sidi Ahmed ibn Achir (d. 764/1362), the Patron Saint of Salé and disciple of Sidi Abu Zakariyya al-Hahi (d. end of seventh/thirteenth century), himself a student of Asfi city's patron saint, Sidi Abu Mohammed Salih Majiri (d. 631/1216), himself the teacher of Sidi Mohammed ibn Harazem ("Grandson of Sidi Ali ibn Harzihim"; d. 633/1218) - Sidi Abul Hassan Shadhili's (d. 656/1241) first Sufi teacher.

Nicknamed the "Blind Viper" because of the powerful "bite" of his curses, Shaykh Zaytouni was first the principal exponent of the way of Abu Madyan in Morocco before he took the hands of Sidi Ali Salih al-Andalusi (d. 903/1488), himself the pupil of Sidi Abdellaziz Tabba'a (d. 914/1499). The Shaykh used also his ties with the incoming Qadiri sharifs to establish a reputation as the saintly protector of the Moroccan Hajj caravan. In this way he was able to link his zawiya to other Qadiri orders in the central and eastern Maghrib. Much like Sidi Abu Mohammed Salih and his successors Sidi Ahmed ibn Salih (d. 660/1262) and Sidi Ibrahim ibn Salih (ca. 696/1297) in the thirteenth century (who were also linked to the Qadiriya through their connections in Egypt), Shaykh Zaytouni concluded safe-conduct agreements with Arab tribes in the countryside between Morocco and Tunisia. 

In Marinid Morocco, while Sidi Abdellah Ghazwani (d. 935/1528-9), Sidi al-Hadi Ben Aissa (d. 933/1526), Sidi Abdelwarit al-Yasluti (d. After 960/1554), Sidi Mohammed Mesbahi (d. 964/1557) and other members of the Jazouliya were establishing zawiyas in Marrakech, Fez, and Meknes disseminating their doctrine among the Arabs of northern Morocco, a greater political role for Sufis was being advocated by the Qadiris who had also been influenced by the doctrines of Sidi Mohammed al-Jazouli, who was himself a close friend of a Qadiri Sufi from Meknes named Sidi Mohammed al-Amine Attar Zerhouni (d. 860/1456). Their political engagement was a reaction to the Marinid's failure to hinder the Christian invasion of Tetouan in 803/1401 and Ceuta in 818/1415. In 869/1465, the Qadiri sharifs of Fez supported the Idrissid Sidi Abdellaziz Waryaghli (d. 880/1475) in his coup d'etat against Sultan Abdellhaqq II putting the Marinid's two centuries reign into a shameful end. The Qadiris also gave allegiance to the new appointed Idrissid sultan Moulay Mohammed Amrani al-Juti in al-Qarawiyyine mosque.   

The venerated Qutb Sidi Ahmed Qadiri al-Yamani (d. 1113/1698) is certainly the most important Qadiri figure in the twelfth/seventeenth century Morocco. The Shaykh was born and educated in the Sudan. He was initiated into the Qadiriya at the hands of a Shaykh from Borno (currently located in Nigeria) called Sidi Abdellah ibn Abdelljalil al-Barnawi (d. 1129/1714). In 1127/1712, the latter had been sent by God to guide al-Qutb Moulay Abdellaziz ibn Masoud Dabbagh al-Hassani al-Fasi (d. 1132/1719). Seven months afterward he had his first waking vision of the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) in Fez. At this, al-Barnawi rejoiced saying, "Oh Abdellaziz, before today I worried about you, but today, since God has united you with His mercy, the lord of existence, peace and blessing be upon him, my heart is secure and my mind is at ease.” He prayed for him and returned to hi own country. Sidi Ahmed Qadiri al- Yamani had another main Shaykh, i.e. Sidi Abul Mohammed al-Barmadi, who  is linked to Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani through Sidi Ali ibn Haddad: the first founder of the Qadiriya in Yemen.