Limitation of Sufi Books 

On the Living Saints (al-Awliya al-A'hya') and Masters of the Age (As'hab al-Waqt) and Saints of Disposal and Special Authority (Ahl Diwan wa al-Idhn al-Khass) and Trainers of Disciples by Aspiration and Magnet (al-Murabbun bi al-Himma wal-'Hal)..[More]

Succession in Sufism

The spiritual succession is often represented as a tree: as it grows from a sapling to fully matured tree, it throws out branches, and these in turn sometimes develop still other, lesser branches. The same hold true for Sufi orders, but as time goes by the main...[More] 

Ideal Saints

To consider wilaya (sainthood) from the perspective of human experience, and not from some doctrinal ideal, one must first of all acknowledge that wilaya is a social phenomenon. In fact, the extraordinary is recognised in practice before it is defined in theory...[More]

Murabit Saints

A particularity of early Moroccan Sufism is a phenomenon called Maraboutism. Within two generations after the death of Sidna al-Imam, Mawlana Idriss al-Azhar (d. 213/798), Maliki Sufi jurists began systematically to introduce Malikism in the Moroccan countryside, first instituted in Fez by the Maliki ideologist Sidi Darras ibn Ismail (d. 357/942)...[More]

Mohammedian Saints

Sufi doctrine emphasises that the reality (haqiqa) that constitutes Islam issued from the inner meaning of the Quran and the inner nature of the Prophet Sidna Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him), who is at the origin of the silsila, or the chain of spiritual descent of every Sufi order....[More]

Sharifian Saints

There are within Moroccan style of Islam three major types of legitimation: the Quran (including its extension by Hadith), the consensus of the community, and the line of succession. The Holy Book is repository of the divine word, publicly available, not incarnated in any one person, group, institution, or policy, and hence capable of...[More]

Mujahid Saints

There are some of the zawiyas where the shaykhs resisted the invaders and did jihad with weapons or the pen or the tongue.  It is not our aim to examine all the mujahidun Awliya here. We simply want to provide some evidence for those who say that not all the Sufi orders submitted to colonialists. These are but a few of the Sufi Shaykhs among those who liberated the Moroccan coasts...[More]

Scholarly Saints

The Moroccan Sufi zawaya (lodges or headquarters) provided numerous services for neighbouring communities. In times of political turmoil, for instance, they served as communal granaries; peasants often left their crops in nearby zawaya for safekeeping, to prevent their seizure by marauding nomads or looters...[More]

Charitable Saints

The Moroccan Sufi zawaya (lodges or headquarters) provided numerous services for neighbouring communities. In times of political turmoil, for instance, they served as communal granaries; peasants often left their crops in nearby zawaya for safekeeping, to prevent their seizure by marauding nomads or looters...[More]

Sultans and Sufis

The fate of Moroccan Sufism has since the Almoravid era, been closely connected to remarkable individuals whose achievements were praised in hagiographical literature. The Sufi Master Sidi Waggag ibn Zallu al-Lamti (d. 445/1030), disciple of Sidi Abu Imran al-Fasi (d. 430/1015)...[More]

Pan ties of Moroccan Qadiri-Shadhili orders

The Qadiriya Sufi Order, so named after Shaykh Moulay Abdellqadir Jilani (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...[More]