Ahmed ibn Idriss al-Hassani al-Araichi al-Fasi (d. 1252/1837); most accounts of
him appear by way of a preface lo studies or his pupils. And yet through his teachings,
pupils, and family, he was undoubtedly one of the key religious figures of the
19th century Arab Muslim world. Three of his pupils from his immediate circle
established major brotherhoods, the Sanussiya, Khatmiya, and Rashidiya, from which
stemmed several other orders. Of his descendants one branch established a local dynasty
in southern Arabia that survived until 1933 when it was incorporated into the Saudi state.
Yet Ibn Idriss remains an enigma. That he was very influential is
beyond doubt; why, is less easy to explain. His doctrinal position
was not unique; others held the same or similar positions. He wrote
relatively little; his teachings are known largely through the
writings of his students and contemporaries, his few surviving
letters, and through his litanies and prayers. The explanation must
lie in his personality; not so much what he taught, but how he
taught it. That, rather than doctrinal originality, best explains
the enormous authority he exercised over his students and
contemporaries and why established scholars so eagerly sought ijazas
from him.
Ibn Idriss was born into a holy family at Maysur in the district of
al-`Araich (Larache) on Morocco's Atlantic coast; the date of his
birth is given as either Rajah 1173/February-March 1760 or
1163/1749-50, the latter date supported by Idrissi family tradition.
He was a descendant through the Imam Idriss b. 'Abdellah al-Mahd of
the Sharifian Idrissi dynasty, sometime rulers of Fez (788-974).
After the usual Quranic studies, Sidi Ahmed went at the age of about
20 to study at the Qarawiyyin mosque school in Fez. There he studied
a wide range of subjects under a number of teachers, who included
Sidi Mohammed at-Tawdi ibn Souda (d. 1209/1794), al-Majidri (or al-
Mijaydri) al-Shinqiti, Sidi Abul Mahawib Abdelwahhab Tazi (d.
1198/1783), and Abul Qacem al-Wazir. Other teachers referred to in
the sources include Abdelkarim Yazghi (d. 1784) and Mohammed Tayyeb ibn
Kiran (d. 1812). Ibn Kiran was later to teach al-Sanusi. Among the texts Ibn
Idriss studied were the works of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 1499) and the
Asanid of Ibn Suda from the latter's period of study in Egypt.
It was from among the same teachers that Ibn Idriss took his Sufi
affiliations; he was initiated into the Khadiriya by al-Tazi and
into the Nasiriya Shadhiliya by al-Wazir, while al-Shinqiti taught
him the famous prayer attributed to Sidna Ali ibn Abi Talib, al-Hizb
al-Sayfi. In other words, Ibn Idriss received an education that
combined the formal religious sciences, apparently with an emphasis
on tafsir and hadith, with the mysticism of the brotherhoods.
In the middle of 1212/1797-98, Sidi Ahmed set out
with an entourage from Fez on the pilgrimage; he was never to return
to Morocco. Travelling via Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, he stopped
at Benghazi, where he taught people from Jabal al-Akdar and Barqa.
He then took a boat from Benghazi directly to Alexandria, arriving
apparently in early 1798, some few months before Bonaparte's
invasion From Alexandria he travelled up to Cairo where he gave a
series of public lectures at al-Azhar which huge audiences attended,
a number of whom went with him when he continued on to Mecca at the
end of 1213/1798-99 or the beginning of 1214/1799-1800.
Sidi Ahmed was to stay in Mecca, except for the years spent on his
two, possibly three, extended visits to Upper Egypt, until his
enforced departure for the Yemen in 1243/1827-28.
From the outset, he appears to have encountered hostility from the Meccan
ulama, but to have enjoyed the support and patronage of the Sharif Ghalib ibn
Musa, emir of Mecca between 1788 and 1814. It was the latter who
granted Sidi Ahmed the palace (saray) of al-Jaafariya in Mecca for
the use of himself and his followers. Emir Ghalib was himself driven out of
Mecca by the Wahhabis under Sa'ud ibn Abdellaziz in 1803.
Sidi Ahmed left Mecca in 1813. Together with Sidi al-Uthman
Mirghani, he crossed the Red Sea to al-Zayniya, a village near Luxor
(al-Uqsur) approximately half way between Qina and Isna. Al-Zayniya
was apparently a religious centre of some importance as well as
being at the end of some short desert crossing from the Nile to the
Red Sea coast. Ibn Idriss may have visited al-Zayniya before; in his
Bulaq, Mohammed Hijrasi suggests that during his first stay m Egypt
he visited Upper Egypt where he was initiated into the Khalwatiya by
Sidi Hassan ibn Hassan Bey al-Qina'i, a student of the Qutb Mahmoud
al-Kurdi (d. 1186/1771). This latter is credited to have initiated
his master Sidi Abdelwahhab Tazi as well as Moulay Abul Abbas
Ahmed Tijani (d. 1230/1815).
Sidi Ahmed returned to Mecca in 1817. But conditions there were
beginning to turn against him; there was continuing tension between
the Sharifian Zayd clan, to which his patron Ghalib belonged, and
the occupying forces of Mohammed Ali. Ten years later, in 1243/1827,matters
finally came to a head. Mohammed Ali transferred the position of emir from the
Zayd to the 'Awn clan. In the same year, Sidi Ahmed was
forced to leave; he set out for the Yemen with all his pupils except
for al-Sanusi who stayed behind to act as his master's agent in
Mecca.
Ibn Idriss' reputation was already known in the Yemen and the
contrast between his reception by the networks of scholarly clans
there and hostility of the Meccans is striking. Indeed, one recent
study, describes Ibn Idriss coming as contributing to a Sufi revival
in the Yemen. But among the Yemeni scholars were ulama who had
attained the highest rank of ijtihad; in other words, whose
doctrinal position was very close to that of Ibn Idriss. He went
first to Mukha in the far south where he stayed for four months,
before moving to Zahn: where he was the guest for nearly a year of
the town's mufti Abderrahman ibn Sulayman al-Ahdal (d. 1835). From
Zabid he travelled north via Bayt al-Faqih and al-Hudayda to al-
Qutay and Bajil. His progress along the coastal region of the Yemen
seems to have been marked by extraordinary enthusiasm. His
position was undoubtedly enhanced by a warm recommendation from the great
Yemeni scholar, Mohammed Shawkani, whom he did not actually meet but with
whom he corresponded.
Among those he taught was, for example, the Qadi of Bait al-Faqih, AbderRahman
ibn Ahmed al-Bahkali (d. 1836). To the young al-Hassan b. Ahmed Akish
Damidi (d. 1872), he taught the Risala (Letters) of Abul Qacem al-Qushayri(d.467/1052)
and Ibn Ata'Allah Sakandari's (d. 709/1294) Hikam (Spiritual Aphorisms); to Abu Bakr ibn
Abdellah al-`Attas (d. 1866) his prayer, as-Salat al-A'adhamiya. But these were by no
means the only scholars he met; both Yemeni and Idrissi sources give manymore.
The doctrinal difference seems to have disappeared in the face of
Ibn Idriss' spiritual status. After nearly two years of travel, Ibn
Idriss came, in 1244/1828, to the town of Sabya in the district
of `Asir. 'Asir's ruler, Ali ibn Mujathlhil (d. 1834) welcomed him
and gave him a grant upon which to live. Now an old man, Ibn Idriss
seems to have decided to settle in Sabya. Once more, as before in
Fez and Mecca, his teaching begin to provoke opposition, this lime
from a group or Wahhabi-inspired ulama led by one Nasir al-Kubaybi.
Matters, came to a head just over a year later, when in Jumada 11
1245/November 1829, Ibn Mujathlhil ordered a public debate
(munazara) to be held between al- Kubaybi and Ibn Idriss, a debate
recorded verbatim by al-Hassan Akish. The debate is too long to be
analyzed here, but characteristic is Ibn ldriss' criticism to
Mohammed ibn Abdelwahhab,
Ibn Idriss died in Sabya on 21 Rajab 1253/21 October I837. Of his
descendents, one branch later emerged as the Idrissi dynasty
of `Asir, while another branch, founded by his sons Mohammed and Abd al-`Ali
propagated what became the Idrissiya Tariqa in Upper Egypt, based on al-Zayniya,
and around Dongola and Omdurman in the northern Sudan, where they settled and
still live.
Ibn ldriss' teachings; as regards Sufism, had an emphasis on the
Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) as the way to God. He expounded
his own distinctively mystical interpretation of the Quran and hadith.
Central to his mysticism was the concept of Tariqa Mohammediya,
namely that there was only one "way," that of the Prophet, who alone
could act as intermediary between the seeker and God. Sidi Ahmed
Akish Damidi reports,
He, the teacher (at-ustadh) said, "The leaders of this tariqa took
their way through intermediaries (bi-wasita), but I took my tariqa
from the Messenger (peace and blessing be upon him), without any
intermediary; thus my way is the Mohammediya Ahmediya; its
beginning and its end is the Mohammedian light."
His form of teaching was the majlis or open lecture. Sidi Ibrahim ar-
Rashid (d. 1874) records that on one occasion he held six majalis in
three days; two a day, one after the evening prayers, the other
after the morning prayers.
The forty or so surviving letters to and from Sidi Ibn Idriss
conform the impression of extraordinary spiritual status; the series
of letters to and from Sidi Uthman Mirghani are within the classical
tradition of the spiritual master guiding a novice who oscillates
between exaltation and self-doubt. To others he writes on more
prosaic matters. On the leaning of a writing tablet (law'h), upon which
Quranic verses have been written against the wall: The latter point
gives a good illustration of his style of argument.
There is no objection to this. Indeed, the tablet upon which is
written the Quran has, its origin from the earth. And the earth has
its origin from the water. And the earth has its origin from the
Light of our Lord Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him). And the origin of
everything is pure, and leaning the tablet against the
wall is likewise, and the Book likewise."
It is difficult to discuss all of Ibn Idriss' disciples and the
movements that stemmed from them. The first group; including Sidi Mohammed ibn
Ali Sanusi, Sidi Uthman Mirghani, Sidi Ibrahim al-Rashid (d. 1874), and his own
family, the
Adarisa.
Among those orders that stemmed directly or indirectly from the
generation following the Sidi Mohammed Sanusi and Sidi Uthman al-
Mirghani were the Ismailiya, the Majdhubiya, and the Rashidiya; from
the latter came the Salihiya and Dandarawiya. Sidi Ismail al-Wali
never met Shaykh Ibn Idriss, being initiated into the Khatmiya by al-
Mirghani when the latter visited al-Ubayyid in Kordofan in 1816. He
subsequently broke away on the basis of divine and prophetic
injunctions and formed his own order. Like Sidi Ismail al-Wali, Sidi Mohammed al-
Majdhub was first initiated by Shaykh al-Mirghani, but later went
and took from Ibn Idriss in Mecca. He also broke
away from the Khatmiya.
Sidi Ibrahim al-Rashid (d. 1874) joined Ibn Idriss' circle at a
later date than al-Mirghani or al-Sanusi. Most
accounts suggest that Ibrahim was closest, both personally and
spiritually, of all his students to Ibn Idriss. Sidi Ibrahim al-Rashid then moved across
the Red Sea to al-Zayniya; after a lengthy and successful propagation journey in
the northern Sudan, where he initiated followers into the Tariqa Mohammediya Ahmediya,
he returned to Mecca. It was his nephew, Sidi Ibn MohammedSalih al-Rashidi (d. 1919)
who was responsible for organizing the Rashidiya into an independent order, although
for reasons that are unclear, Ibn Mohammed Salih broke away in 1887 to form his own
order, the Salihiya. The Salihiya soon spread widely in Somalia; one of those initiated
by Ibn Mohammed Salih was the Somali leader, Sidi Mohammed Abdellah (Abdille) Hassan.
The eastern dimension of Ibn Idriss' influence has yet to be fully
explored. The Idrissi tradition was taken to Minagkbeau in central
Sumatra by Shaykh Padri who had encountered Ibn Idriss in Mecca
before his return to Sumatra in 1803.
A final category of Shaykh ibn Idriss' students are those who
founded not orders, but local schools propagating his teachings.
There are several examples; one from Egypt is Sidi Ali Abdelhaqq al-
Qusi (d. 1877) who studied with Ibn Idriss and then spent five years
with Sidi Mohammed ibn Ali Sanusi in Cyrenaica before to return and
settle and Asyut. Our first Sudanese example is Sidi al-Haj
Mohammed Ballol al-Sunni, a Bidayri from Kurti in the northern
Sudan, who stayed with Ibn Idriss for seven years. It was his master
who bestowed upon him the laqab, al-Sunni. On his return to the
Sudan, he undertook a series of propagation journeys before settling at Qarri, just
north of Khartoum. His school still (1982) flourishes under his grandson, Sidi al-Sadiq
al-Sunni, and still teaches the doctrines of Ibn Idriss. Another Sudanese example was
also a Bidayri, but a student of al-Rashid; Sidi Abdullahi ad-Dufari
studied with al-Rashid in the Hijaz before returning to Sudan.
It was al-Dufari who provided a link between Ibn Idriss and the Sudanese Mahdiya.
