Shadhili

TheShadhili Order(Arabic:الطريقة الشاذلية) is atariqahorSufiorder. The Shadhili order wasfounded byAbu al-Hasan al-Shadhiliin the 13th centuryand is followed by millions of people around the world. Many followers (Arabicmurids,"seekers" ) of the Shadhili Order are known as Shadhilis, and a single follower is known as Shadhili.

It has historically been of importance and influence in theMaghrebandEgyptwith many contributions to Islamic literature. Among the figures most known for their literary and intellectual contributions areibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari,author of theHikam,andAhmad Zarruq,author of numerous commentaries and works, andAhmad ibn Ajibawho also wrote numerous commentaries and works.

In poetry expressing love ofMuhammad,there have been the notable contributions ofMuhammad al-Jazuli,author of theDala'il al-Khayrat,andal-Busiri,author of the famous poem, theAl-Burdaor "The Celestial Lights in Praise of the Best of Creation". Many of the head lecturers ofal-Azhar UniversityinCairohave also been followers of this tariqa.

Of the various branches of the Shadhili are the Fassiyatush ofImam Fassi,found largely inIndia,Sri Lanka,andPakistan.TheDarqawiyyaofMuhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawiis found mostly in Morocco and the Alawi-Darqawiyya ofAhmad al-Alawioriginated inAlgeriais now found the world over, particularly in Syria, Jordan, France, and among many English-speaking communities. British scholarMartin Lingswrote an extensive biography of Ahmad al-Alawi entitledA Moslem Saint of the Twentieth Century.

The anniversary of al-Shadhili is held on 12th of Shawwal (the tenth month of lunar calendar) atHumaitharain Egypt.

Branches

Shadhiliyya has numerous across the globe. A few prominent branches are listed below.

Fassiyya

The Fassiyatush was established by Imam Fassi, a Moroccan by origin who was born inMecca.Fassiyatush Shadhiliyya is widely practised in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,Mauritiusand Indonesia. The descendants of al-Fassi who are sheikhs of the Fassiyatush and reside in Mecca andJeddahvisit these countries frequently. The international leader of the Fassiyatash is selected from the heirs of al-Fassi and Shaykh Mahdhi ibn Abdallah al-Fassi is the present leader.

Darqawiyya

The Holy Dargah of Imam Shadhili, Humaithara, Egypt

TheDarqawiyya,a Moroccan branch of the Shadhili order, was founded in the late 18th century by Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi. Selections from the letters of al-Darqawi were translated by the ShadhiliTitus Burckhardtand more recently by the scholarAisha Abdurrahman Bewley.One of the firsttariqasto be established in the West was the Alawiya branch of the Darqawiyya,which was named after Ahmad al-Alawi, popularly known as "Shaykh al-Alawi".

Attasiyah

The 'Attasiyah Order is a branch of the 'Alawi Order, founded by Umar bin Abdur Rahman bin Aqil al-Attas. It is centered inYemenbut also has centers in Pakistan, India, andMyanmar.The 'Alawiya order in Yemen has recently been studied by the anthropologist David Buchman. In his article "The Underground Friends of God and Their Adversaries: A Case Study and Survey of Sufism in Contemporary Yemen", Professor Buchman summarizes the results of his six-month period of fieldwork in Yemen. The article was originally published in the journalYemen Update

Darqawi Hashimiya

The Darqawi-Alawi branch of the Shadili Tariqa established itself in Damascus and the Levant through Sheikh Muhammad al-Hashimi al-Tilmisani, the son of an Algerian qadi, who migrated to Damascus along with his spiritual guide Ibn Yallis. After the death of Ibn Yallis, Hashimi was authorized by Sheikh Ahmad al-'Alawi in the early 1920s and was made his deputy in Damascus. The most well known living spiritual guide of this branch of the Shadhili tariqa is SheikhNuh Ha Mim Keller,an American scholar, author, and translator, who resides in Amman, Jordan, and Sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Khateeb from Damascus both were authorized by Sheikh Abd al Rahman Al Shaghouri, who was himself a student of Sheikh Muhammad al-Hashimi al-Tilmisani. SheikhMuhammad Said al-Jamal ar-Rifa'i,another student of Sheikh Muhammad al-Hashimi al-Tilmisani and who died in 2015, had worked from the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem and was a mufti of the Hanbali Madhab. He wrote many books on Sufism, tafsir, and healing and his students established the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism.

In her biography of her husband, the British explorer and diplomatRichard Francis Burton,Isabel Burton describes a heterodox branch of Shadhilis that resided in Damascus in the 1860s and 1870s known as the Ghayr-Sharai. She claims that they protected Christians during themassacre of 1860.

Badawiyya

Another branch of the Shadhilia which has groups in Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and America is the Batawiyya founded by Ibrahim al-Batawi, for many years professor at al-Azhar. He was a confrere of Sheikh Abdu-l-Halim Mahmud, Shaikh al-Azhar, who was very influential in the revival of Sufism in Egypt. Sheikh Ibrahim's student,Nooruddeen Durkee,has established the Battawi order in the United States. Nooruddeen Durkee has translated and transliterated the Qur'an and has compiled two definitive books on the Shadhali, includingThe School of the Shadhdhuliyyah, Volume One: Orisons.

Maryamiyya

TheMaryamiyya Orderwas founded by Swiss-German metaphysicianFrithjof Schuon,author ofThe Transcendent Unity of Religions,among other influential books, as an outgrowth of theAlawiyyaorder. In 1946, the disciples of a group he led in Switzerland declared him to be an "independent master", spurring him to create his own order. In 1965, he began having visions ofMaryam(as the Virgin Mary is known in Islam), who the Order is named after. The Maryamiyya Order was largely formed aroundPerennial philosophyandNeoplatonism,and heavily influenced byAdvaita Vedantaand Guénon'sTraditionalist School.

Influence

On Christianity

Further information:Miguel Asín Palacios § John of the Cross

Miguel Asín Palacioshas suggested that the Shadhili order drew detailed connections between the teachings ofibn Abbad al-RundiandJohn of the Cross,such as in the account of theDark Night of the Soul.

José Nieto, on the other hand, argues that these mystical doctrines are quite general, and that while similarities exist between the works of John, ibn Abbad and other Shadhilis, these reflect independent development, not influence.

The Spiritual Chain

Every tariqa must have a chain of transmission and authorization to be recognized as valid. Most of the chains start from Ali ibn Abi Talib and goes as 2 branches one through his son Hasan ibn Ali and another through Husayn ibn Ali.

• Muhammad
• Ali
• Hasan ibn Ali
• Jabir ibn Abd Allah
• Sa‘id al-Ghazawani
• Abu Muhammad Fath al-Su'ood
• Abu Muhammad Sa'eed
• Abul Qasim Ahmad ibn Marwani
• Sayyid Ishaq Ibrahim al-Basri
• Zayn al-Din al-Qazwini
• Shams al-Din
• Muhammad Taj al-Din
• Nur al-Din Abul Hasan ‘Ali
• Fakhr al-Din
• Tuqayy al-Din al-Fuqayr
• ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Madani al-‘Attar al-Zayyat
• Abd al-Salam ibn Mashish al-Alami
• al-Shadhili

See also

• Chishti
• Qadiriyya
• Wazifa Zarruqiyya

External links

Media related toShadhiliat Wikimedia Commons

• Shadhili Tariqa,Information on the tariqa of Sh. Nuh Keller.
• Fassiya branch
• Muhammad al-Jamal
• The Shadhili Darqawi 'Alawibranch
• The Shadhdhuli School for tranquility of being and illumination of heartsGreen Mountain branch, located in Charlottesville, Virginia
• A biography of Muhammad ibn al Habibof the Darqawi branch
• Tariqa Burhaniya as ShadhiliyaArchived2011-07-18 at theWayback Machine
• The Founders of the Shadhili Order
• Nasheed group based in Avignon, France.
• Ba`alawiBa'alawi | The Definitive Resource for Islam and the Alawiyyen Ancestry.
• Shahdili section of Dr. Godlas' Sufism website. Discusses various Shadhili branches.
• The Relevance and the Beauty of the Teaching of Shaykh Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah