It may be that his disciples, who by the
end of his life were to be numbered by thousands, bought up between
them each edition almost as soon as it came out, thus acting, despite
themselves, as a barrier between their Master and the general public.
Nor would he himself have minded this, for he knew that most of what he
wrote was not for everybody. His fame has none the less reached
Dermenghem, who refers to him in passing as 'one of the most celebrated
mystic Shaikhs of our time' ( Vies des Saints Musulmans, p. 30); and
Massignon also very occasionally mentions him, though here again it is
never more than a passing reference.
The translations from Arabic and most
else of what this volume contains formed the main part of a thesis which
was approved by the University of London for a Ph.D. degree. But the
interest of this material goes far beyond academic orientalism, and I
have now revised it and rearranged it, with some omissions and many
additions, so as to make it into a selfsufficient book which can be read
without any special knowledge of the subject, and even without any
general knowledge of Islam. It only presupposes one quality in the
reader, and that is for want of a better expression a sincere interest
in 'the things of the Spirit'.
Before I conclude this preface I wish to
thank Dr Marcel Carret for giving me full liberty of quoting from his
wonderfully vivid account of the Shaikh. I have taken him at his word
and give here a translation of almost the whole of that precious
document, fearing lest it should be forgotten.
The Shaykh was born at Mostaganem in
1869. His name, as given on the title-pages of most of his books, was
Abu 'l-' Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa 'l-' Alawi, and he was an only son,
with two sisters. A little less than a year before his birth his mother
Fatimah 'saw in her sleep the Prophet with a jonquil in his hand. He
looked her full in the face and smiled at her and threw the flower to
her, whereupon she took it up with humble modesty. When she woke, she
told her husband of the vision, and he interpreted it as meaning that
they would be blessed with a pious son, and he had in fact been
importuning GOD not to leave him without an heir ... and after a few
weeks GOD confirmed her dream, and she conceived her son.
After the Shaykh's death in 1934, the
following autobiographical extract was found among his papers. He had
evidently dictated it some years previously to one of his disciples: 'As
to learning how to write, I never made much effort in that direction,
and I never went to school, not even for a single day. My only schooling
was what I learned from my father at home during the Quran lessons
which he used to give me, and my handwriting is still quite
un-proficient. My learning by heart the Book of GOD went as far as the
Surat ar-Rahman, and there I came to a standstill owing to the various
occupations which I was forced to turn to through sheer necessity.
The family had not enough to live
on-although you would never have thought it, for my father was proud and
reserved to the point of never showing on his face what was in his
mind, so that nobody could have concluded from outward signs that he was
in need of anything. I hesitated between several different crafts, and
finally took to cobbling and became quite good at it, and our situation
improved in consequence. I remained a cobbler for a few years, and then
went into trade, and I lost my father when I w as just sixteen. Although
I was so young I had been doing all sorts of things for him and I was
bent on nothing so much as giving him pleasure. He was exceedingly fond
of me, and I do not remember him ever blaming me for any- thing or
beating me, except when he was giving me lessons, and then it was
because I was lazy in learning the Quran.
As to my mother, she was even more
lavish in her affection, and she worried more about me than he had done.
In fact after his death she did all she could in the way of harsh words
and blows and locking the door and so on to prevent me from going out
at night. I wanted very much to humour her, but I could not bring myself
to give up attending lessons at night and gatherings for dhikr. What
made her so anxious was that our house was outside the town on a road
which one might well fear to go along alone at night; and she continued
in her attempts to stop me, and I for my part continued to attend those
gatherings, until by the Grace of GOD she gave her full consent, and
there was nothing to mar our love for each other, which remained
unclouded until the day of her death in 1332, when I was 46. ‘ As to my
attendance at lessons, it did not amount to much, as it was only
possible now and then, in between work, and if I had not had a certain
natural aptitude and understanding I should not have gained anything
worth speaking of. But I was very much addicted to learning, and would
sometimes steep myself in books the whole night long; and I was helped
in these nocturnal studies by a Shaykh whom I used to bring back to our
house. After this had been going on for several months, my wife took
offence and claimed divorce from me on the grounds of my not giving her
rights, and she had in fact some cause to complain.
My attendance at lessons, such as it
was, did not go on for as much as two years; it none the less enabled me
to grasp some points of doctrine in addition to what I gained in the
way of mental discipline. But it was not until I had busied myself with
the doctrine of the Folk, I and had come to know its Masters, that my
mind opened and I began to have a certain breadth of knowledge and
understanding.' (At this point the scribe to whom this was dictated
asked him about how he first came into contact with those who follow the
path of the mystics.) 'My first leaning in that direction was marked by
my attachment to one of the Masters of the 'Isawi Tariqah who in
pressed me by his un-worldliness and evident piety. I made ever effort
to comply with the requisites of that order, and this came quite easily
to me on account of my youth and the instinctive attraction for wonders
and marvels which is part of human nature. I became proficient in these
practices, and was well thought of by the men of the order, and I
believed in my ignorance that what we did was purely and simply a means
of drawing near to GOD.
On the day when GOD willed that I should
be inspired with the truth we were at one of our gatherings and I
looked up and saw a paper that was on one of the walls of the house we
were in, and my eye lit on a saying that was traced back to the Prophet.
What I learned from it caused me to give up what I had been doing in
the way of working wonders, and I determined to limit myself in that
order to the litanies and invocations and recitations of the Quran. From
that time I began to extricate myself and to make excuses to my
brethren until I finally gave up those other practices altogether. I
wanted to drag the entire brotherhood away from them also, but that was
not easy. As for myself, I broke away as I had intended, and only
retained from that contact the practice of snake-charming.
I continued to charm snakes by myself or with some of my friends until I met Shaykh Sidi Muhammad al-Bûzîdî.
‘ As to my meeting with this Shaykh, whichever way I look at it, it
seems to me to have been a pure Grace from GOD; for although we-that is,
I and my friend Sidi al-Hajj Bin-Awdah who shared my business with
me-were longing to find someone who could take us by the hand and guide
us, we did not go to the Shaykh AI-Biiuzidi and seek him out where he
was, but it was he who came to us, quite unexpectedly. My friend had
already told me about him. He said: "I used to know a Shaykh called Sidi
Hamu of the family of the Prophet. He left his home and went for
several years to Morocco, and when he returned many people attached
themselves to him. He used to speak with authority about the path of the
mystics, but to try him GOD sent against him a man who did him much
harm so that he found himself faced with all sorts of opposition, and
now he is as subdued as any disciple, without a trace of his former
spiritual activity. However, I think that he is one who could be relied
on for guidance e upon the path. No true spiritual guide has ever
appeared whom GOD did not try with someone who wronged him either openly
or behind his back." 'This was the gist of what he said, and
immediately I determined to go to this Shaykh on my friend's
recommendation.
I myself knew nothing about him except
that once, when a boy, I had heard his name in connection with an
illness which I had. They brought me an amulet and said: "This is from
Sidi Hamu Shaykh al-Bûzîdî", and I used
it and was cured. 'My friend and I were at work together some days after
this conversation, when suddenly he said: "Look, there is that Shaykh
going down the road." Then he went up to him and asked him to come in,
which he did. They talked for a while, but I was too busy with my work
to be able to notice what they were talking about. When the Shaykh got
up to go, my friend begged him not to stop visiting us. He said good-bye
and went, and I asked my friend what impression he had had, and he
said: "His talk is far above what one finds in books." He came to see us
from time to time, and it was my friend who talked to him and plied him
copiously with questions, whereas I was more or less tongue-tied,
partly out of reverence for him and partly because my work left me no
time to talk. 'One day, when he was with us in our shop, the Shaykh said
to me: "I have heard that you can charm snakes, and that you are not
afraid of being bitten." I admitted this. Then he said: "Can you bring
me one now and charm it here in front of us?" I said that I could, and
going outside the town, I searched for half the day, but only found a
small one, about half an arm's length. This I brought back with me and
putting it in front of him, I began to handle it according to my custom,
while he sat and watched me. "Could you charm a bigger snake than
this?" he asked. I replied that the size made no difference to me. Then
he said: "1 will show you one that is bigger than this and far more
venomous, and if you can take hold of it you are a real sage." I asked
him to show me where it was, and he said: "1 mean your soul which is
between the two sides of your body. Its poison is more deadly than a
snake's, and if you can take hold of it and do what you please with it,
you are, as I have said, a sage indeed." Then he said: "Go and do with
that little snake whatever you usually do with them, and never go back
to such practices again", and I went out, wondering about the soul and
how its poison could be more deadly than a snake's.
Another day, during this period when the
Shaykh used to call on us, he fixed his eyes on me and then said to my
friend. "The lad is qualified to receive instruction" or "He would be
receptive to instruction", or some such remark; and on another Occasion
he found a paper in my hand on which was written something in praise of
Shaykh Sidi Muhammad ibn Isa, and after looking at it he said to me: “if
you live long enough you will be, GOD willing, like Shaykh Sidi
Muhammad ibn Isa”, or “you will attain to his spiritual rank”. I forget
his exact words. This seemed to me a very remote possibility but I said:
“GOD willing”; and it was not long before I was attached to his order
and took him as a guiding light in the path of GOD. My friend had
already been received in the order about two months previously, though
he had kept this from me, and only told me after I myself had been
received. I did not understand at that time the reason for this secrecy.
After the Shaykh had transmitted to me the litanies for morning and
evening recitation he told me not to speak about them to anyone-“until I
tell you”, he said. Then in less then a week he called me to him and
began to talk to me about the Supreme Name (Allah) and the method of
invoking it. He told me to devote myself to dhikr Allah in the way
generally practiced in our order at that time; and since he had no
special cell of retreat for dhikr, I was unable to find a place where I
could be alone undisturbed. When I complained of this to him, he said:
“There is no place better for being alone than the cemetery”. So I went
there alone at nights, but it was not easy for me. I was so overcome
with fear that I could not concentrate on the dhikr, although for many
nights I tried to do so. I complained again to the Shaykh, and he said:
“I did not give you a binding order. I merely said there was no place
better for being alone than the cemetery”. Then he told me to limit my
dhikr to the last third of the night, and so I invoked at night and made
contact with him during the day. Either he would come to me, or else I
would go to him, although his house was not always a good place for
meeting on account of the children and for other reasons. In addition to
this, at midday, I went on attending the lessons in theology which I
had attended previously.
One day he asked me: “What lessons are
those that I see you attending?” I said: “They are on the Doctrine of
Unity (at-tawhid) and I am now at the ‘realization of proofs’.” He said:
“Sidi so-and-so used to call it ‘the doctrine of turbidity’
(at-tawhil)”. Then he added: “You had better busy yourself now with
purifying your innermost soul until the Light of your Lord dawn in it
and you come to know the real meaning of Un Unity. But as for scholastic
theology, it will only serve to increase your doubts and pile up
illusion upon illusion”. Finally he said: "You had better leave the rest
of those lessons until you are through with your present task, for it
is an obligation to put what is more important before what is of lesser
importance." 'No order that he ever gave me was so hard to obey as this.
I had grown very fond of those lessons and had come to rely on them so
much for my understanding of the doctrine that I was on the point of
disobeying him. But GOD put into my Heart this question: How do you know
that what you are receiving from the Shaykh al-Bûzîdî
is not the kind of knowledge that you are really seeking, or something
even higher than it? Secondly, I comforted myself with the thought that
the prohibition was not a permanent one; thirdly, I remembered that I
had taken an oath of allegiance to obey him; and fourthly I told my-
self that perhaps he wanted to put me to trial, as is the way of
Shaykhs. But all these arguments did not stop the ache of sorrow that I
felt within me. What sent that away was my spending in solitary
invocation the hours which I had previously devoted to reading,
especially after I had begun to feel the results of this invocation. ‘
As to his way of guiding his disciples, stage by stage, it varied. He
would talk to some about the form in which Adam was created and to
others about the cardinal virtues and to others about the Divine
Actions, each instruction being especially suited to the disciple in
question. But the course which he most often followed, and which I also
followed after him, was to enjoin upon the disciple the invocation of
the single Name with distinct visualization of its letters until they
were written in his imagination. Then he would tell him to spread them
out and enlarge them until they filled all the horizon. The dhikr would
continue in this form until the letters became like light. Then the
Shaykh would show the way out of this standpoint- it is impossible to
express in words how he did so-and by means of this indication the
Spirit of the disciple would quickly reach beyond the created universe
provided that he had sufficient preparation and aptitude-otherwise there
would be need for purification and other spiritual training.
At the above- mentioned indication the
disciple would find himself able to distinguish between the Absolute and
the relative, and he would see the universe as a ball or a lamp
suspended in a beginning less, endless void. Then it would grow dimmer
in his sight as he persevered in the invocation to the accompaniment of
meditation, until it seemed no longer a definite object but a mere
trace. Then it would become not even a trace, until at length the
disciple was submerged in the World of the Absolute and his certainty
was strengthened by Its Pure Light. In all this the Shaykh would watch
over him and ask him about his states and strengthen him in the dhikr
degree by degree until he finally reached a point of being conscious of
what he perceived through his own power. The Shaykh would not be
satisfied until this point was reached, and he used to quote the words
of GOD which refer to: One whom his Lord hath made certain, and whose
certainty He hath then followed up with direct evidence.1 ‘When the
disciple had reached this degree of independent perception, which was
strong or weak according to his capability, the Shaykh would bring him
back again to the world of outward forms after he had left it, and it
would seem to him the inverse of what it had been before, simply because
the light of his inward eye had dawned. He would see it as Light upon
Light, and so it had been before in reality. ‘In this degree the
disciple may mistake the bowstring for the arrow as has happened to many
of those who are journeying to GOD, and he may say as more than one has
said: "I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I", and the
like-enough to make anyone who has no knowledge of the attainments of
the mystics and is unfamiliar with their ejaculations throw at him the
first thing that he can lay hands on. But the master of this degree
comes before long to distinguish between the spiritual points of view,
and to give to each of the different degrees of existence its due and to
each of the spiritual stations what rightly belongs to it.
This station took hold of me, and it has
been my home for many years, and I have become as it were expert in it,
and made known its obligations, and my followers have had what I wrote
about it when I was first in its grip, and some of them now have
knowledge of its obligations, and some of them fall short of this
knowledge. The acuteness of this state still comes back to me sometimes,
but it does not compel me to write about it. True, it prompts me to
speak about it, but it is easier to live with than it was, something
that I feel rather than something that I am submerged in. 'This path
which I have just described as being that of my Master is the one that I
have followed in my own spiritual guidance, leading my own followers
along it, for I have found it the nearest of the paths which lead to
GOD.' The Shaykh is speaking here with the voice of unmitigated 'slave
hood', and it is consistent with the general tone of this passage that
even with regard to the very Summit of all spiritual attainment he
should single out for mention its aspect of 'obligation', to which the
Quran refers in the words: We offered the trust (of being Our
representative) unto the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but
they shrank from bearing it, and were afraid of it. And man took it upon
himself. Verily he hath proved an ignorant tyrant.1 Reaching the end of
the spiritual path, which is none other than the state in which man was
originally created, means, amongst other things, reassuming the
tremendous responsibilities from which mankind in general has fallen
away.
This ultimate station, that is, the
state of Supreme Sainthood, which he referred to in speaking to Dr
Carret as the 'Great Peace', is defined elsewhere in his writings as
being one of inward intoxication and outward soberness, in virtue of
which the mind fulfils its analytical function with perfect clarity,
although, as he has just indicated, there is nothing in the nature of an
absolute barrier between it and the Heart's rapture. But in the case of
the mystic who, though far advanced upon the path, has not yet reached
the end, other-worldly drunkenness is liable to invade the mind and make
it supernaturally and unbearably active, or produce some other
abnormality in it, thus throwing the soul off its balance. It is even
possible, as is shown by the reference to al-ilallaj and as we shall see
more clearly in a later chapter, for a mystic to reach in a sense the
end of the path and to attain to a plenitude of drunkenness which is as
yet un- stabilized by the complementary perfection of sobriety. For
although the Divine Nature of the Saint is Eternal and does not develop,
his human nature is subject to time and may not be able to adapt itself
in one day to the Supreme Presence, especially in cases where the
spiritual journey has been completed with phenomenal speed as it almost
certainly was in the case of the Shaykh Al-Alawi. More than once in his
writings he quotes Abu 'l-Hasan ash- Shadili as having said: 'Vision of
the Truth came upon me and would not leave me, and it was stronger than I
could bear, so I asked GOD to set a screen between me and It. Then a
voice called out to me, saying: "If thou besoughtest Him as only His
Prophets and Saints and Muhammad His beloved know how to beseech Him,
yet would He not screen thee from It. But ask Him to strengthen thee for
It." So I asked for strength and He strengthened me-praise be to GOD!'
The dictation continues: 'When I had reaped the fruit of the dhikr-and
its fruit is no less than knowledge of GOD by way of contemplation-I saw
clearly the meagreness of all that I had learned about the doctrine of
Divine Unity, and I sensed the meaning of what my Master had said about
it. Then he told me to attend once more those lessons which I had
attended previously, and when I did so I found myself quite different
from what I had been before as regards understanding.
I now understood things in advance
before the Shaykh who was teaching us had finished expounding them.
Another result of the invocation was that I understood more than the
literal sense of the text. In a word, there was no comparison between
the understanding which I now had and that which I had before, and its
scope went on increasing, until when anyone recited a passage from the
Book of GOD, my wits would jump to solve the riddle of its meaning with
amazing speed at the very moment of recitation. But when this took hold
of me and became almost second nature, I was afraid that I should come
altogether under the sway of its imperious and persistent impulsion, so I
took to writing down what my inward thoughts dictated to me by way of
interpretation of the Book of GOD, and I was so much under its sway that
I brought them out in a strange and abstruse form. This is what led me
to begin my commentary on AI-Murshid al-Mu'in, in an attempt to stop
myself from falling into a still more abstruse manner of expression. GOD
be praised that this did in fact help to stem the onslaughts of that
surge of thoughts which I had tried by every means to stop and could
not, and my mind came near to being at rest.
It was much the same kind of predicament
which had previously led to my putting together my book on astronomy
called Miftah ash-Shuhud (The Key of Perception). I was absorbedly
pre-occupied for certain reasons with the movements of the heavenly
bodies, and the arrow of my thoughts had gone awry. To make a long story
short-and I have already referred to this question in the book itself
1-when I found that I was unable to resist this surge of thoughts, I
complained to my Master about it, and he said: "Take them out of your
brain and put them in a book, and then they will let you rest", and it
was as he had said. But I have still not been able to bring myself to
allow the book to be published, and GOD alone knows whether it ever will
be. 'To revert to what I was saying, when after many long days I was
freed from the obligation of devoting myself exclusively to the Divine
Name, my Master said to me: "Now you must speak and guide men to this
path inasmuch as you are now certain where you stand." I said: "Do you
think they will listen to me?", and he said: "You will be like a lion:
whatever you put your hand on you will take hold of it." It was as he
had said: whenever I spoke with anyone in the intention of leading him
to the path he was guided by my words, and went the way I pointed out to
him; and so, praise GOD, this brotherhood increased.' Elsewhere he
says: 'Our Master, Sidi Muhammad al-Bûzîdî, was always urging us to visit the tomb of Shaykh Shu' aib Abu Madyan at Tlemcen.
He spoke of him with great reverence and
said that prayers made at his tomb were answered; and he used to tell
us: "It was through his blessing and with his permission that I went to
Morocco. I spent a night at his shrine, and after I had recited some of
the Quran I went to sleep, and he came to me with one of my ancestors.
They greeted me, and then he said: "Go to Morocco. I have smoothed out
the way for thee." I said: "But Morocco is full of poisonous snakes. I
cannot live there." Then he passed his blessed hand over my body and
said: "Go and fear not. I will protect thee from any mishap that might
befall thee." I woke trembling with awe, and immediately on leaving his
shrine I turned my face westwards, and it was in Morocco that I met
Shaykh Sidi Muhammad ibn Qaddur." The Shaykh Al-' Alawi's own narrative
continues: 'I asked my Master why he had ordered me to speak after first
having imposed silence on me. He said: "When I returned from Morocco I
taught our doctrine as I had taught it there. Then when I found myself
faced with opposition I saw the Prophet of GOD in my sleep and he
ordered me to remain silent. From that time I kept such a hold of
silence upon myself that sometimes I felt I would burst into flames.
Then, just before my meeting you, I had another vision in which I saw a
gathering of fuqara, and every single one of them had my rosary round
his neck. When I woke I took what I had seen as a good sign of activity
in the future.
That is why I am willing that you should
propagate the doctrines of our order. Otherwise I should not have dared
to allow you to make them known. Moreover, I saw very lately one who
said to me: "Speak to people; there is no harm in it." By "one who said"
he no doubt meant the Prophet, though GOD knows best . 'Such was my
beginning; and I remained at his side for fifteen years, doing all that I
could for our order. Many others helped me in this, though of the old
ones there are now only about ten left-may GOD lengthen their lives and
show increasing solicitude for them! ‘ As for myself, I was so taken up
during all that time with the service of the Shaykh and with furthering
the increase of our order, that I neglected the demands of my own
livelihood, and but for the friendship of Sidi al-Hajj Bin-' Awdah who
took care of my finances and kept my affairs in order, my business would
have been altogether ruined. I was so busy in the service of the order
that our shop was more like a zawiya than anything else, what with
teaching there at night and dhikr during the day-all this, GOD be
praised, without any loss of money or lessening of trade. 'Then, not
long before the death of my Master, GOD put into my heart the desire to
emigrate. I was so struck with the moral corruption in my own country
that I began to make all possible arrangements for moving further East,
and some of my friends had the same intention; and although I knew very
well that my Master would not allow me to leave the country unless he
came with us, I was driven on by all sorts of plausible motives.
However, after I had actually started on
the removal-this was some days before his death-freed myself from all
trade obligations, sold my possessions and mortgaged what was difficult
to sell in the way of immovable with the intention of having them sold
by someone else when I had gone, and after my cousins had already
started off ahead of me, and just when I myself was on the point of
leaving, my Master who was already ill suddenly grew much worse, and one
could see on him the signs of approach- ing death. I could not bring
myself to leave him in that state, nor would my friends have allowed me
to do so. His tongue was paralysed so that he could not speak, but he
understood everything. What was especially painful to me myself was that
I felt pulled in different directions to do things which were scarcely
reconcilable one with another: on the one hand there was my Master's
illness which obliged me to stay with him, and on the other hand I had a
permit to travel for myself and my family which was due to expire on a
certain date, after which it was no longer valid, and what made matters
worse was that at that time it was difficult to obtain a permit. In
addition I was also burdened with winding up my business and selling my
furniture; and I had sent my wife to her family in Tlemcen so that she
could say good-bye to them. In fact it was as if I were no longer in my
own country. None the less I decided that I could not possibly leave my
Master just as he was dying, and go off after I had spent fifteen years
with him, doing all I could to serve him and never having once crossed
him even about the smallest point. 'It was not many days before he was
taken to the Mercy of GOD. He only left one son, Sidi Mustafa, who had
something of the holy simpleton about him; he also left a wife and two
brothers, of whom one, Sidi al-Hajj Ahmad is now dead, where- as the
other, Sidi ' Abd al -Qadir, is still in the bonds of life.
The Shaykh was exceedingly fond of his
family and especially of his son, Sidi Mustafa. Just before his death I
saw him give a long look at him, and it was clear that he was thinking
of his simpleness, and that he was afraid he would be neglected after
his death, and when I realized this I said to him: "Sidi, act on our
behalf and take care of our interests in the next world before GOD, and I
will act on your behalf in this world and take care of Sidi Mustafa."
His face shone with joy, and I kept my promise and did everything I
could for his son until the day of his death, and was never in the least
troubled by his state of mind which others found so irksome. I took
care of t he Shaykh's daughter also-he only had one-until she married.
‘After we had said a last farewell to our Master, some of us prepared
him for burial, and he was buried in his zawiya after I had prayed over
him the funeral prayers-may GOD shower Mercy and Blessings upon him! A
few days later news came to me from my parents-in-law in Tlemcen: "Your
wife is very seriously ill." So I went to Tlemcen, and when I arrived I
found that my wife, who was so deeply religious and so full of kindness
and so pleasant to live with, was almost at her last breath. I stayed
with her for three days, and then she died and went full of grace to the
Mercy of GOD; and I returned to Most- aganem, having lost my Master and
my wife, homeless, without means of livelihood, and even without my
permit to travel, which had expired.
I went to the Ministry to have it
renewed, and they put me off for several days. Then they promised to
give me a permit for myself alone. 'Meantime, while I was waiting for it
to be issued, the men of our order were conferring together about who
should take charge of the fuqara. I myself was not present at their
discussion, being prepared to accept their choice. Moreover I was quite
un-reconciled to the idea of remaining in the country, so I said: "It is
for you to appoint whom you wish for this function and I will support
you." for I knew that there was one amongst them who would be capable of
it (apart from myself, and I assumed that they would appoint him). But
since this meeting of the fuqara proved somewhat argumentative, because
(although they would all have agreed to choose me) they knew that I was
determined to go away, so that each one proposed the solution that
seemed best to him and there was much difference of opinion, the
Muqaddam Sidi al-Hajj Bin-' Awdah said: "We had better leave this
question for the moment, and meet again next week, Meantime if any of
the fuqara has a vision, let him tell us about it," They all approved of
this suggestion, and before the appointed day many visions had been
seen-they were all written down at the time-and everyone of them was a
clear indication that the matter in question devolved upon me. So the
fuqara were strengthened in their determination to make me stay with
them and act as their remembrance. While trying to find some details of
the visions, I came upon the following passage by Sidi 'Uddah: 'The
Shaykh al-Bûzîdî died without ever having told anyone who was to succeed him.
The question had in fact been broached
to him by one of his more prominent disciples who thought well of
himself and fancied that he was qualified to fulfil in our order the
functions of upbringing and remembrance; but the Shaykh al-Bûzîdî
answered him as follows: 'I am like a man who has been living in a
house by permission of the Landlord, and who when he wishes to leave
that house gives the keys back to the Landlord. He it is, the Landlord,
that sees who best deserves to have the house placed at his disposition;
I have no say in the matter. GOD createth what He will, according to
His Choice' ... and after his death his followers were left in a state
of great upheaval, although most of them showed quite plainly their
leanings towards Sidi Ahmad Bin-' Aliwah on account of his having, as
was known, already exercised the function of his Shaykh, even to the
point of guiding disciples to the end of their journey, although his
Shaykh was still alive. This was the strongest indication of how well he
was thought of by him, and how qualified he was to succeed him. 'Now
since visions are to be relied on for ascertaining the truth about
things which lie hidden from our normal perceptions, I just as they are
to be counted as glad tidings for him who sees them, or for him on
behalf of whom they are seen, I wish to set down here some of those
visions that were seen on behalf of our Master, Shaykh Sidi Ahmad Bin-'
Aliwah.
He then gives an account of some of the
many visions which were seen after the Shaykh al-Bûzîdî's death, and of
which here are a few: 'In my sleep I saw Shaykh Sidi Muhammad al-Bûzîdî,
and not forgetting that he was dead I asked him of his state, and he
said: "I am in the Mercy of GOD". Then I said to him: “Sidi, to whom
have you left the fuqara?”, and he answered: "It was I who planted the
shoot, but it is Sidi Ahmad Bin-' Aliwah who will tend it, and it will
come, GOD willing, to all fullness of fruition at his hands.”, ('Abd
al-Qadir ibn 'Abd ar-Rahnman of Mostaganem). 'In my sleep I saw myself
go to visit Shaykh Sidi Munammad al-Bûzîdî, and Shaykh Sidi Ahmad Bin-'
Aliwah was sitting beside the tomb which was open. I saw the body of the
dead rise up until it was on a level with the surface of the earth.
Then Shaykh Sidi Ahmad went and took the shroud from off his face, and
there, unsurpassable beautiful, was the Shaykh. He asked Shaykh Sidi
Ahmad to bring him some water, and when he had drunk he gave what was
left to me, whereupon I started saying to the fuqara: "In this water
which is left over from the Shaykh there is a cure for all sickness".
Then he began to talk to Shaykh Sidi Ahmad, and the first thing he said
to him was: "I shall be with you wherever you may be, so have no fear,
and I give you tidings that you have attained to the best of this world
and the next. Be very sure that in whatever place you are, there shall I
be also." Then Shaykh Sidi Ahmad turned to us and said: "The Shaykh is
not dead. He is as you see him to be now an d the death that we
witnessed was just a rite which he had to perform." , (Al-Munawwar
Bin-Tunis of Mosta-ganem). 'I saw Shaykh Sidi Muhammad al-Bûzîdî stop
and knock at the door of my house, and when I rose to let him in I found
that the door was already open. He came in, and with him was a
companion, tall and very thin, and I said to myself: "This is Sidi Ahmad
Bin-' Aliwah." After they had sat with us for a while, Shaykh Sidi
Muhammad al-Bûzîdî rose to his feet, and said he wanted to go. Then
someone said to him: "If you go, who will you leave to look after us?",
and he said: "I have left you this man-this man", and he pointed to
Shaykh Sidi Ahmad Bin- , Aliwah'. (A member of the family of Al-Hajj
Muhammad as- Susi of Ghalizan). 'I saw the Imam' Ali-and he said to me:
"Know that I am' Ali and your Tariqah is' Alawiyyah." , (Al-Hajj Salih
ibn Murad of Tlemcen).
After the death of Shaykh Sidi Muhammad I
had a vision that I was on the shore of the sea, and near at hand was a
huge boat in the center of which was a minaret, and there, on the top-
most turret, was Shaykh Sidi Ahmad Bin-' Aliwah. Then a crier called
out: "0 you people, come on board the boat", and they came on board from
all sides until it was full, and each one of them was well aware that
this was Shaykh Sidi Ahmad's boat; and when it teemed with passengers, I
went to the Shaykh and said: "The boat is full. Are you able to take
charge of it?", and he said: "Yes, I shall take charge of it by GOD's
Leave." , (Al-Kilani ibn al-' Arabi). Sidi 'Uddah also quotes the
following from the Shaykh Al-' Alawi himself: 'In my sleep, a few days
before the death of our Master, Sidi Muhammad al-Bûzîdî, I saw someone
come in to where I was sitting, and I rose out of reverence for him,
overcome with awe at his presence. Then, when I had begged him to be
seated and had sat down facing him, it became clear to me that he was
the Prophet. I turned on myself reproachfully for not having honoured
him as I should have, for it had not occurred to me who he was, and I
sat there huddled up, with my head bowed, until he spoke to me, saying:
"knowest thou not why I have come to thee?", and I said: "1 cannot see
why, O Messenger of GOD". He said: "The Sultan of the East is dead, and
thou, GOD willing, shalt be Sultan in his stead. What sayest thou?" I
said: "If I were invested with this high dignity, who would help me, and
who would follow me?" He answered: "I shall be with thee, and I will
help thee." Then he was silent, and after a moment he left me, and I
woke up on the heels of his departure, and it was as if I saw the last
of him, as he went, with my eyes open and awake The dictation continues:
'Since the fuqara knew well that there was no turning me away from my
intention to go, they compelled me to take charge of them if only while I
was waiting for the permit to travel, although their aim was to make me
give up my journey by every possible means. One of those who were most
bent on my staying was my dear friend Sidi Ahmad Bin- Thuraiya, and he
spared no possible effort to that end, all for purely spiritual motives.
One of his devices was to marry me to his daughter without imposing any
conditions on me, despite his knowledge that I was determined to go
away. I accepted his offer very gladly, and gave her what little I could
in the way of marriage portion. 'Unfortunately she did not succeed in
living on good terms with my mother.
As time went on my dilemma grew worse
and worse. I felt bound to do all I could for my mother, and I had
already taken her part in more than one situation of this kind; but a
separation which had been relatively easy for me in the case of other
wives seemed very hard in the case of this last one. As for any
possibility of reconciliation between the two, it was clearly very
remote indeed; and when my father-in-law saw the dilemma I was in, he
suggested divorce and even demanded it with some insistence, saying: "It
is your duty to look after the rights of your mother. As to the rights
of your wife, they are guaranteed by the words: If the two separate, GOD
will enrich both out of His Abundance; and all that, GOD willing, shall
not affect our friendship in the least." He went on and on repeating
this suggestion, and I knew that he was sincere, although my own
feelings were all against it; and when GOD brought it to pass, against
the will of both parties, I was full of regrets, and so, no less, was my
father-in-law. But there was nothing for it but to resign ourselves to
what seemed clearly GOD's will. Our friend- ship however remained
undiminished and that saintly man continued to be as devoted to me as
ever until the very end of his life, thanks to the fineness of his
feeling which was so well integrated into the spiritual path. 'Much the
same took place between me and Sidi Hammadi Bin-Qari' Mustafa: I had to
divorce a wife who was a member of his family and whose guardian he was;
but GOD is Witness that both to my face and behind my back-to judge by
what I heard of him-his attitude was very like that of Sidi Ahmad Bin-
Thurayya, and we are still the best of friends. As to the cause of this
divorce, it was my being pre-occupied.
At that time, almost to the point of
intoxication, first of all with learning and then with the dhikr.
Meanwhile the rights of my wife were neglected, as were, very nearly,
the rights of my whole family. So, in one way or another, it has been my
fate to divorce four wives. But this was not because of any ill
treatment on my part, and therefore my fathers-in-law did not take it
badly. In fact they are still fathers-in-law to me; and what is more
surprising, some of my wives forewent the remainder of their marriage
portion after we parted. In a word, any short-comings that there were on
my side, but they were not deliberate. 'When the fuqara. had made up
their minds, with the circumstances all in their favour, not to let me
go away, they decided to have a general meeting in our Master's zawiya,
... and they took the oath of allegiance to me by word of mouth, and it
continued to be taken in this way by the older fuqara., whereas all
subsequent newcomers took it through the clasping of hands . As to those
members of the order who were outside Mostaganem, I did not write to
any of them, nor did I put them under any obligation to come to me. But
it was not long before groups of fuqara. started coming to me of their
own free will to acknowledge me, testifying as to their own convictions
and telling what they had heard about me from our Master or what had
come to them by way of intuition or inspiration. So it went on, until
all the members of the order were united except two or three. This union
of the fuqara. was counted by us as a miraculous Grace from GOD, for I
had no outward means of bringing within my scope individuals from so
many different places. It was their unalloyed certainty, nothing else,
as to how I had stood with our Master in this respect.
Moreover the training that they had had
from him was firmly engrafted in them as regards recognizing the truth
and acknowledging it whatever it might be, for he had gone on giving
them the means of doing this until, thank GOD, it had become second
nature to them. 'I received their oaths of allegiance and gave them
advice, and I spent on those who visited me at that time part of what I
had in hand for my journey, and I took nothing from them, for I never
felt easy about taking money from people- , As a result of all this I
was left in a quandary, not knowing what to do or where the Will of GOD
lay. Ought I to go away, according to what I felt to be an imperative
need, or ought I to give up all idea of going and devote myself to
acting as remembrance to the fuqara., according to what seemed to be
already my fate? I was still hesitating when the time came at which GOD
had ordained that I should visit the seat of the Caliphate. One day He
put into my soul a feeling of constriction which was so persistent that I
began to look about for a means of relief and it occurred to me to
visit some of the fuqara outside the town. So I took with me one of the
disciples who was staying with us, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Qasim al-Badisi,
and off we went with GOD's Blessing. Then when we had reached our
destination it occurred to us that we might as well visit some of the
fuqara in Ghalizan, which we did; and after we had stayed with them for
about two days, my companion said to me: "If o only we could go as far
as Algiers! I have a friend there, and what is more, we could go to some
of the publishers, and this contact might bring Al-Minah al-Quddusiyyah
nearer to being printed." We had the manuscript of this book with us at
the time, so I let him have his way.
We had none of our fuqara in Algiers,
and when we arrived, my companion set about trying to find his friend,
although he was not particularly anxious to do so. In this connection he
said to me: "Places in which there are no fuqara are empty"-such was
his experience of their kindness and cordiality. ‘ After we had made
contact with a publisher, we had the impression that for various reasons
no Algerian firm would be likely to accept my book, so my companion
said: "If only we could go as far as Tunis, the whole thing would be
quite simple." I myself was busy revising my book (which I could do
equally well elsewhere) in between visits to the publisher and other
outings, so I let him have his way once more, and we travelled from town
to town until we reached Tunis. The only practise of remembrance
(dhikr) that I knew there was a blind man who knew by heart the Book of
GOD. He used to call on us at Mostaganem on his way to visit his Master
in Morocco. But as to my numerous fellow countrymen who had settled in
Tunis, there was none of them that I wanted to meet, so we entered the
town at an hour of siesta, and found lodgings, and I constrained myself
not to go out until there should come to us some dhikr whom we could go
out with. This was on account of a vision I had had in n which men who
were members of Sufi brotherhoods came and entered the house where I was
and took me out with them to their place of gathering. When I told my
companion this, my idea was too much for him, and he said: "I did not
come here to stay shut in by these four walls." So he would go out on
various errands and walk round parts of the town and then come back; and
after we had spent four days in that house, there came to us the
company of people I had seen in my vision.
They were from among the followers of
Shaykh Sidi As-Sadiq as-Salirawi who had died only a few months
previously. This holy man traced back his spiritual ancestry in the path
of GOD through Sidi Muhammad Zafir and his father Sidi Muhammad
al-Madani to Shaykh Sidi Mawlay Al-' Arabi ad-Darqawi.' Some twenty-five
years previously As-Sadiq as-Salirawi's Master, Muhammad Zafir
al-Madani, had written: 'My honoured guide and father, Shaykh Muhammad
Hasan Zafir al-Madani, left Medina about AH 1222 (AD 1807) and went as
far as Morocco in search of a way by which he might attain to GOD, and
he took guidance from many Shaykhs ... Then GOD brought him together
with his Master, the Standard- Bearer of the Shadhili Tariqah in his
day, Sidi Mawtay Al- Arabi ibn Alimad ad-Darqawi. His meeting with him
was on Safar 23rd, A.H. 1224, in the Darqawi Zawiyah at Bu-Barih in Bani
Zarwal, two days' journey from Fez. He took the path from him, and his
heart was opened under his guidance, and if it be asked who was my
father's Shaykh, it was Mawlay Al- Ara.bi ad-Darqawi. ‘For about nine
years he was his companion. ...Then Mawlay Al-' Arabi said to him one
day, in great earnestness: "Go to thy home, Madani. Thou hast no longer
any need of me"; and on another occasion he indicated that he had
reached the end of all perfection, and said to him: "Thou hast attained
unto that which is attained to by the perfect among men," 'and he told
him to go to his native town, the House of the Perfumed Shrine, and when
he bade farewell to him, he wept and said: "I have made thee the
instrument of my credit with GOD and a link between me and His Prophet".
'He went to Medina, and stayed there with his family for three years,
and every year he joined the Pilgrims on Mt Arafat and then returned to
Medina where he visited continually the Shrine of the Prophet, spending
his time turned towards GOD, steeped in contemplation, in utter
detachment. ...And he said: "During that time I met with the perfect
Shaykh, the Gnostic, Sidi Ahmad ibn Idris. I found him on a most exalted
footing as regards following the Wont of the Prophet, and I so
marvelled at his state that I took initiation from him for the blessing
of it." 'During his stay in Medina he was asked for spiritual guidance
by some who were seeking a Master but he made no response to them out of
pious courtesy to his Shaykh until he heard a voice from the Pure
Shrine which said to him: " Be a remembrance, for verity remembrance
profiteth the believers. He said: " I quivered and shook at the
sweetness of that utterance, and I understood it to be an authorization
from the Apostle of the All- Bountiful King". So he obeyed GOD's command
and transmitted initiation to various persons in the city of the
Prophet ...and returned to his Master Mawlay Al-' Arabi ad-Darqawi
...and remained in his presence for some months.
Then Mawlay Al-' Arabi died, and my
father set out once more for Medina ... and when he reached Tripoli the
eyes of some of its people were opened to the excellence of his virtues
and the fullness of his spiritual realization, so they took initiation
from him. Then the number of his disciples increased and the brotherhood
be came famous and men associated it with him, and on this account it
was named Ai-Tariqat at-Madaniyyah and it is a branch of the Shadhili
Tariqah.' This last passage calls for some general remarks about
initiation. The practice of grafting a new scion on to an old stock is
alien to the modern world except on a material plane. But throughout the
ancient world this was practiced also and above all on higher planes;
and since estrangement from the Mysteries had become 'second nature' to
man, it was considered indispensable, before he could enter upon the
path which leads to them, that a scion of primordial human nature should
be grafted on to his 'fallen' stock, which by definition is dominated
by the purely mental and therefore un-mystical 'knowledge of good and
evil'. At the outset of a religion the question of initiation is not so
urgent, for the first believers are in the grip of a Divine
Intervention, at a cyclic moment which is better than a thousand months
and in which the Angels and the Spirit descend. Since they stand at one
of the mainsprings of spirituality, the dormant seeds within them (to
use a different simile) can become impregnated as easily as those who
stand near a fountain or a cascade can be splashed with water. But as
the caravan moves away from this oasis across the desert of the
centuries, men soon realize that the precious water is no longer in the
air, and that it is only to be found stored in certain vessels.
Strictly speaking, the rite of
transmission from one vessel to another cannot be confined to any
particular set of forms. Its form may depend, in exceptional cases, on
the inspiration of the moment. For example, in addition to the Shadhili
initiation which the Shaykh ad-Darqawi received from his Master Shaykh
.Ali al-Jamal, he also received one from an aged Saint at the point of
death who made him his spiritual heir by the ritually unprecedented yet
highly significant act of placing his tongue in the Shaykh ad-Darqawis
mouth, and telling him to suck. But normally transmission takes a form
consecrated by apostolic precedent. We have seen that the initiation
into the Shadhili -Darqawi Tariqah is an oath of fealty, and this rite
is patterned on the Beatific Allegiance, an outstanding occasion of
spiritual overflow at the fountain-head of Islam, when the Prophet
seated himself under a tree and called on all those of his Companions
who were present to renew their oaths to him. Apart from this occasion
there was a continual spiritual over- flow in the form of Divine Names
for invocation or litanies for recitation which the Prophet transmitted
to his Companions either singly or collectively, and initiation into
some brotherhoods takes the form of some such transmission. Moreover
such invocational transmissions are in any case indispensable, in all
brotherhoods, as secondary or confirmatory initiations, for anyone who
seeks to benefit from the full spiritual resources of Sufism. On the
title pages of most of the Shaykh Al-' Alawi's books he is described as
'renowned for the transmission of the Supreme Name'.
No Sufi would consider himself qualified
to practice methodically an invocation unless he had been formally
initiated into it. A transmission can be passed on by anyone who has
received it, even if he has not brought it to fruition himself, though
no one can give expert guidance who is not an adept. This does not
exclude the possibility that by strictly conforming to the traditional
methods of the order a gifted initiate, even without a real Master,
might avoid remaining stationary upon the path in virtue of the great
weight of the spiritual heredity behind him. But the presence of a
Master means direct contact with the Divine Source itself, while at the
same time that presence transmits, as no other can, the full force of
the spiritual heredity. In addition, most of the great Masters of Sufism
could claim, like the Shaykh Al-' Alawi and the Shaykh Al-Madani, to
have received a special investiture directly from the Prophet. The tree
at the end of this book gives the main lines of the Alawis' spiritual
heredity, the unbroken chains of transmission, whatever form it may have
taken, through which they trace their descent back to the Prophet.
Apart from the normal initiation which marks the entry upon the
spiritual path, it is possible to become attached to a chain 'for the
blessing of it', as the Shaykh Al-Madani did after his return to Medina;
and though this particular case is an exceptional one, the 'initiation
of blessing' is very frequently sought by those who are not capable of
following a spiritual path or even of conceiving what a spiritual path
is, -but who have an indefinable urge to benefit from a sacred presence.
By the end of his life the Shaykh Al-' Alawi had great numbers of such
followers attached to him. With regard to his meeting the Madani fuqara
at Tunis he continues: 'The whole gathering sat down and we talked
together for a long time, and I saw the lights of their love of GOD
shining on their foreheads. They asked me to go out with them to a place
they had in mind, and they did not stop insisting until they had taken
me out and lodged me at the house of one of their friends.
Then one after another the fuqara came
to visit us, full of ardour. Such was their hospitality to me, and the
honour they showed me - may GOD reward them! 'During my stay in Tunis I
was continually visited by theologians and canonists and other eminent
men… and with them came a number of their students. Some of them were
already initiates and others were not, and of these last several entered
upon the path. One of the students had suggested that I should give
them a lesson in Al-Murshid al-Mu'in. What I said found favour with my
hearers, and this was the cause of some of the students becoming
initiated into the order. That is how we spent our time, both as
rememberers and remembrancers, and some derived benefit. GOD be praised
for that visit! , As to the question of printing Al-Minah
al-Quddusiyyah, we made a contract with the owner of a press through the
mediation of a fellow traveller. We liked them both very much indeed,
and this was what prompted us to make the contract, although we knew
that this particular press was not well equipped. As a result the book
did not come out at the promised time, and I had to go and leave it
behind me for somebody else to look after. 'I had decided to go on to
Tripoli to visit my cousins, who had left Mostaganem, as I have already
mentioned, to settle there. Since I had a permit to travel, I thought
that I had better take this opportunity. I was also prompted by thoughts
of visiting the Holy House of GOD and the tomb of the Prophet, but
unfortunately a letter came to me from Mostaganem telling me that the
Pilgrimage was forbidden that year, and cautioning me against standing
on Arafat for fear of incurring the penalty.
At all events I embarked for Tripoli-by
myself-and suffered some hardship through travelling at that season, for
it was cold winter weather. In fact I only had one day of relief: I was
meditating on the crowd of people-men of ]erba and others- who thronged
the boat and I was wondering whether there was a dhikr amongst them,
when one of the travellers stopped beside me and looked hard at me as if
he were trying to read my face. Then he said: "Are you not Shaykh Ahmad
Bin-' Aliwah?" "Who told you?”, I said. "I have always been hearing
about you", he said, "and just now while I was looking at you, as I have
been for some time, I suddenly realized that you must be that very
man"; so I said that I was. Then I went with him to another part of the
boat and having asked his name, was told that he was Al-Hajj Ma'tuq;
when we began to talk together I realized that he was a Gnostic. I asked
him if he found any spiritual support among his fellow countrymen, and
he said: "I am the only y man of this art in all ]erba." From my meeting
with him the time passed as happily as I could have wished until he and
those who were travelling with him landed at ]erba, and I was once more
in the grip of loneliness and the inevitable hardships of travelling in
winter until I myself landed at Tripoli. 'My cousins were waiting for
me at the harbour. We were longing to catch sight of each other, all the
more impatiently on account of our enforced separation. No sooner had
we reached their house and sat down than we discussed the question of
emigration and all that was connected with it, and they told me that
materially speaking they were well off, thanks to GOD's safe care.
As to the country, it seemed to me as
far as I could tell a good place to emigrate to, since its people were'
as like as possible to those of our country both in speech and in ways.
'Towards sunset I asked my cousins if they knew any dhikr there, or any
Shaykhs who were Gnostics, and they said that they only knew a Turkish
Shaykh, who was the head of some government department, a man of the
most evident piety. I asked if it would be possible for us to meet him
the next day, and just as we were considering this there was a knock at
the door and one of them went out and came back saying: "Here is the
Shaykh him- self at the door, asking if he can come in." He had never
visited them at their home. I told them to bring him in, and in he came,
a tall man with a long beard dressed from head to foot in Turkish
fashion. 'We greeted each other, and when he had sat down he said: " A
man from the West-he meant Shustari - says of the Divine Manifestation:
'My Beloved embraced all existence, and appeared in both black and
white.' I said: 'Leave Western talk to Western folk and let us hear
something from the East." He said: 'The poet said "embraced all
existence", and did not specify either West or East', whereupon I knew
that he was well versed in the lore of the mystics. He sat with us for
an hour or two that night, all eagerness, listening with all his
faculties rapt in attention, as I noticed. Then he took leave of us, but
not before he had made us promise to visit him at his office the next
day. We went the next morning to where he worked- the department of
maritime revenues, of which he was the director. He received us most
joyfully and gave orders for work to be stopped and gave his staff a
holiday, although there was much work to be done. Then we went off with
him alone, and it would take too long to tell of all that we spoke of in
the way of mystic doctrine, but I may mention that he said to me: "If
you wish to stay in our country, this zawiya here is yours, and all the
outbuildings that go with it, and I will be your servant." I knew that
all he said was spoken in perfect sincerity, and I told him that I would
leave my home and settle there.
I went for a short walk round the
district and found myself very attracted by that neighbourhood as if it
corresponded to something in my nature. 'On my third day in Tripoli I
heard a town crier calling out: "Whoever wants to go to Istanbul can
have a ticket for very little", and he added that the boat was due to
leave at once. Immediately I had an urge to visit the capital of the
Caliphate, and I thought that very likely I might find there the
learning I felt the need for. So I asked one of my cousins to go with
me, and he said he would, but the sight of the fury of the sea and the
crash of the waves stopped him. It was certainly no weather for a
crossing. Suffice it that we reached the other side! 'Don't ask me for
any details about our embarkation! Once I had found a place on the deck I
began to wonder where I should turn for help and refuge upon the
journey, and I found no comfort in anything but reliance upon GOD. 'By
the time we reached Istanbul I had almost died of sea- sickness, and
what made my plight worse was that at that time I had not a single
friend in Istanbul to take me by the hand, and I was so ignorant of
Turkish that I was hard put to it to say the simplest thing. 'One day
after my arrival I was walking at the outskirts of the town, and
suddenly a man took my hand and greeted me in clear Arabic, and asked me
my name and where I came from. I told him who I was; and who should he
be but an authority on Islamic law from Algiers, a man of the family of
the Prophet.
By that time I was very eager to see the
sights of the capital, so I put myself in his hands, and he was a great
help in showing me what I wanted to see. But I was unable to satisfy my
thirst to the full owing to the upheavals in which the Caliphate l was
involved and the troubles which were soon to break out between the
Turkish people and their so-called "Renaissance Youth' or "Reformist
Youth". This movement was headed by numerous individuals whom the
Government had banished and who had consequently become scattered
throughout various countries of Europe where they had started newspapers
and periodicals in the sole purpose of criticizing the Government and
exposing its weaknesses in the eyes of foreign states; and self-seekers
found in this subversive movement loopholes and doors through which they
pushed their way and gained their ends. Thus was the Caliphate doomed
to have its ruler arrested and thrown into prison, while the
"Renaissance Youth" went about its work with utterly unbounded
ruthlessness until in the end they succeeded in achieving their aim, and
the meaning of their "Renaissance" and "Patriotism" and "Reform" became
as clear as day to anyone who had eyes to see. But I will say no more:
what the Kemalists have done makes it unnecessary for me to trace this
degradation step by step. 'I was convinced that the stay which I had
hoped to make in those parts was not feasible for various reasons, of
which the chief was that I sensed the impending change from kingdom to
republic, and from republic to unprincipled tyranny.
So I went back to Algeria, feeling that
my return was sufficient as fruit of my travels, even if I had gained
nothing else; and truly I had no peace of soul until the day when I set
foot on Algerian soil, and I praised GOD for the ways of my people and
their remaining in the faith of their fathers and grandfathers and
following in the footsteps of the pious.'
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