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The life of Shadhili from Ibn al-Sabbagh's Durrat al-Asrar
The Mystical Teachings of al-Shadhili
from Ibn al-Sabbagh's Durrat al-Asrar wa Tufat al-Abarar
translation by Elmer H. Douglas
Ibn al-Sabbagh gives
the following biographical data about al-Shadhili He was born in the region
of Ghumara, in today's Morocco, around A.H. 583 or A.D. 1187 .He embarked
on a spiritual journey in search of a genuine Sufi shaykh or the qutb
[pole]. As a result, he travelled to Baghdad which was still famous as a
theological and intellectual center. There, he was told by an lraqi Sufi
shaykh to go back to the West, to his homeland, because the qutb was there.
.Abd al- Salam Ibn Mashish (d. 622/1225) was this qutb.
Ibn al-Sabbagh says
that Ibn Mashish was a strict follower of the Qur'an and the Sunna. He
applied them in his Iife and encouraged his disciples to do so. Douglas
postulates on the meeting between al-Shadhili and Ibn Mashish by saying
that, "Early in Iife al-Shadhili went to [Ibn] Mashish to take him as
his spiritual guide. The venerable teacher recognized the 'saintly'
qualities of the young man and gave him his final injunction to refrain
from men and to depart to Tunisia:' Ibn Mashish "was by far the most
important of al-Shadhili's teachers, one to whom he owed his instruction in
the Sufi way:' Ibn Mashish also laid the foundations of "the future
life of Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili:'
Al-Shadhili's stay in
Tunisia marks the beginning of his career as a saint and theologian. It is
on the basis of lbn al-Sabbagh's biography that we can determine with some
accuracy al-Shadhili's life in Tunisia and his struggle to form an
independent Sufi movement. The account given by lbn .Ata' Allah in his
biography does not shed as much light on the Tunisian phase of al-Shadhili
as does Ibn al-Sabbagh's writings. Later authors of Shadhiliyya's Tabaqat
base their narratives on Ibn al-Sabbagh's biography. Al-Shadhili's
departure to Egypt, as already mentioned, marks the second phase in his
career, which had a Iasting effect on the future development of the
Shadhiliyya order.
Ibn al-Sabbagh devotes
a major section of his biography to a discussion of al-Shadhili's various
travels in search of the qutb. He also assumes that the qutb plays a
crucial role in sufism because he transmits the baraka (blessing) of the
Prophet. One may argue that "Sufi realization" depends upon this
baraka which, in turn, is transmitted through a shaykh, who is part of a
silsila Leading back to the Prophet of Islam. In that sense, tasawwuf, as
spiritual training and method, cannot be learned from books and
sophisticated theories about God and the universe. Spiritual initiation is
attained only with the help of a Sufi shaykh.
'Abd aI-Halim Mahmud
[d. 1977], a leading modem Shadhili disciple and former rector of the Azhar
University, enumerates three essential conditions for attaining spiritual
inititiation. The first is a natural readiness on the part of the would-be
disciple. The second condition is the necessity of belonging to a genuine
silsila (chain) that traces its origin back to the Prophet, and the third,
after being blessed by a shaykh, is the need to engage in the greater jihad
which is self- discipline, spiritual contemplation, and asceticism. AI-Shadhili
was part of this genuine silsila into which he was initiated by Ibn
Mashish.
The meeting with Ibn
Mashish played a pivotal role in the al-Shadhili's intellectual and
spiritual formation. Feeling comfortable with his spiritual achievements
after this encounter, al-Shadhili decided to move to the nearest urban
center-the city of Tunisia-where he settled for several years before his
permanent departure to Egypt. During his stay in Tunisia, he attracted many
followers, who perceived in him great human and spiritual qualities, and
who considered him to be on the side of the poor and downtrodden in
society. This popularity, however, won him the envy and the hatred of Ibn
aI-Bara' the chief qadi of Tunisia, who, according to Mackeen, charged
al-Shadhili "with Fatimid Ieanings:' However, a modern biographer of
al-Shadhili, Abd aI-Halim Mahmud does not portray the Shadhiliyya order as
a dissident movement, but as a movement that was favoured by the sultan,
Abu Zakariyya aI-Hafsi (625/1228-64 7 /1249). In spite of the political
support of the sultan, however, al-Shadhili decided to move to Egypt where
his tariqa grew quickly. He died in 656/1258 in Egypt on the way back from
one of his pilgrimages to Mecca.
During his lifetime,
al-Shadhili had disciples who were dispersed in North Africa, especially in
Tunisia and Egypt. The real strength of his movement was derived from the
disciples whom he attracted in Egypt. Ibn 'Ata' Allah, for example,
highlights the emphasis which al-Shadhili laid on the disciples' training and
intellectual growth. AI-Shadhili is reported to have said, '.My disciples
are my books [that leave behind]:'
Ibn al-Sabbagh recounts
the life of a number of important Shadhiliyya disciples who became leaders
in their own rights. One of them is the Spanish disciple of al-Shadhili,
Abu al-' Abbas aI-Mursi, who became the first shaykh of the Tariqa after
death of al-Shadhili in 656/1258. Ibn"' Ata' Allah (d. 709/1309-1310),
the famous author of The Book of Wísdom and Lata'if al-mínan, became the second
shaykh of the order after the death of aI-Mursi in 686/1287. Therefore, in
its gestation phase, the Shadhiliyya order was formed against the
background of 'an urban surrounding not necessarily in revolt against it
but as an outcome of the existing patterns of politic-religious and
economic Iife:' The Shadhiliyya, as well as other renowned orders in Islam
such as Badawiyya and Dasuqiyya, continued to expand and flourish after the
thirteenth century. The Shadhiliyya, in particular, assumed new
organizational structures and won new adepts in both Egypt and North
Africa.
Chapter One His Noble
Lineage, Travels and Rank
With reference to his
noble lineage, it is: ' Ali ibn ' Abd Allah ibn ' Abd al- Jabbar ibn Tamim
ibn Hurmuz ibn Hatim ibn Qusay ibn Yusuf ibn Yusha ' ibn Ward ibn Battal
ibn Idris ibn Muhammad ibn 'lsa ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn ' Ali ibn Abi
Talib.
His birthplace was in
Ghumara} He entered the city of Tunis when a young lad, turned toward the
East, performed many pilgrimages, !' and went into lraq.
He related,
When I came to lraq, I
met the Shaykh Abu al-Fath al-Wasiti, the like of whom I have not seen in
Iraq. My quest was for the qutb. One of the saints said to me, "Are
you searching for the qutb in lraq while he is in your country? Return to
your land and you will find him.
So, he returned to the
Maghrib where he met his teacher, who is my master the shaykh, the saint,
the gnostic, the trustworthy, the qutb, the ghawth, Abu Muhammad ' Abd
al-Salam ibn Mashish al-Sharif al-Hasani.
He related,
When I drew near him,
while he was living in Ghumara in a lodge on the top of a mountain, I
bathed at a spring by the base of that mountain, forsook all dependence on
my own knowledge and works, and went up toward him as one in need. Just
then he was coming down toward me, wearing a patched cloak, and on his head
a cap of palm leaves. "Welcome to ' Ali ibn ' Abd Allah ibn ' Abd
al-Jabbar:' he said to me, and repeated my lineage down to the Apostle of
God. Then he said to me, "O , Ali, you have come up to us destitute of
your knowledge and works, so you will receive from us the riches of this
world and the next:'
He (al-Shadhili)
continued,
Awe of him seized me.
so I remained with him for some days until God awakened my perception, and
I saw that he possessed many supernatural powers (kharq al-'adat). For
example, one day as I sat before him while a young son of his played with
him on his lap, it came into my mind to question him concerning the
greatest name of God. The child came to me, threw his arms about my neck,
and shook me, saying, "O Abu al-Hasan, you desired to question the
master concerning the greatest name of God. It is not a matter of
importance that you should ask about the greatest name of God. The
important thing is that you should be the greatest name of God, that is to
say, that the secret (sirr) of God should be lodged in your heart:' When he
had finished speaking, the shaykh (Ibn Mashish) smiled and said to me,
'Such a one has answered you for me:
He was, then, the Qutb
of that time.
Then he said to me,
"O 'Ali, depart to the Province Ifriqiya and dwell there in a place
called Shadhila, for God will name you al-Shadhili. After that you will
move to the city of Tunis where charges will be brought against you before
the authorities. Then you will move to the East where you will inherit the
rank of qutb:'
I said to him, "O
my master, give me your spiritual bequest:' So he replied, "0 ' Ali,
God is God and men are men. Keep your tongue from the mention of them, and
your heart from inclining before them, and be careful to guard the members
(jawarih) and to fulfill the divine ordinances; thus the friendship
(wilaya) of God is perfected in you. Have no remembrance of them except
under obligation that duty to God imposes on you; thus your scrupulousness
is perfected. Then say: 0 God, relieve me from remembrance of them and
spare me disturbances from them. Save me from their evils, enable me to
dispense with their good through Thy good, and as a special favour assume
Thou care of me among them. Verily, Thou art mighty over all things:'
He related,
When I entered the city
of Tunis as a young man, I found there a great famine, and I came upon men
dying in the market places. I said to myself, "Had I wherewith to buy
bread for these hungry people, I would surely do it:' Then I was instructed
inwardly: "Take what is in your pocket:' So I shook my pocket and, lo,
there was silver money in it. So I went to a baker at Bab al-Manara and
said to him, "Count up your loaves of bread:' He counted them for me.
Then I offered them to the people who took them greedily. I drew out the
pieces of money and handed them to the baker. He found them to be spurious
and said, "These are Moroccan, and you Moroccans practice alchemy:' So
I gave him my burus and small bag as a pawn on the price of the bread, and
turned toward the gate. Right there by the gate stood a man who said to me,
"O ' Ali, where are the pieces of money?" So I gave them to him,
and he shook them in his hand, then returned them to me, saying, "Pay
them to the baker, for they are genuine:' So I paid them to the baker who
accepted them from me, saying, "These are good:' I took my burus and
bag and then looked for the man, but did not find him.
Consequently, I
remained for some days inwardly perplexed until, on Friday, I went into the
Zaytuna mosque, near the reserved section on the east side of the mosque,
and performed two cycles of the greeting of the mosque and pronounced the
salutation. Suddenly, I saw a man on my right. I greeted him and he smiled
at me, saying, "O ' Ali, you say, 'Had I wherewith to feed these
hungry people, I should surely do it: You would presume to be more generous
than God toward His creatures. Had He willed it, He would surely have fed
them, for He is more cognizant of their welfare than you:'
Then I said to him,
"O my master, by God, who are you?" He replied, "I am Ahmad
al-Khidr. I was in China and I was told, 'Go and look for my saint ' Ali in
Tunis: So I came hurriedly to you:' When 1 had performed the Friday
worship, I looked about for him, but did not find him.
The book can be bought
from either and UK and US here is one link to the book
The Mystical Teachings
of al-Shadhili from Ibn al-Sabbagh's Durrat al-Asrar wa Tufat al-Abarar
translation by Elmer H.
Douglas
Pasred From : http://sajadaliuk.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-life-of-shadhili-from-ibn-al.html
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