Sub-Saharan Africa

• Benin
• Burkina Faso
• Chad
• Ethiopia
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Ivory Coast
• Mali
• Mauritania
• Namibia
• Niger
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• South Africa
• Togo

Middle East and North Africa

• Algeria
• Egypt
• Libya
• Morocco
• Palestine
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Tunisia
• Turkey

Asia

• India
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• Pakistan

Europe

• Albania
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Russia
• Spain
• United Kingdom

Americas

• Brazil
• Canada
• Columbia
• Guyana
• Puerto Rico
• Trinidad
• United States

Europe

The Tijaniyya in Albania

The Tijaniyya was first established in Albania through Shaykh Muhammad Sha’ban Efendi Domnori (1868-1934) in the northern city of Shkodra. Shaykh Sha’ban took the Tijani wird in Mecca in 1918 from Sayyid Abd al-Qadir Minhaji. Tijanis soon made a name for themselves as some of the most renowned scholars in Albania, as several muftis, imams and professors became affiliated with the order. Of particular note has been al-Hajj Hafiz Sabri Koci (d. 2003), who served for a time as Albania’s head mufti. One of the most charismatic current shaykhs of the order is Sheh Faik Hoja, who served as mufti of Shkodra until 2003. Shaykh Faik attended the 2007 conference of the Tijaniyya in Algeria, where he presented a detailed history of the Tijaniyya in Albania. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alb-muslimnews/message/8380)

Americas

The Tijaniyya in Brazil

There is a small but growing group of Tijanis in Brazil. Many are West African immigrants, but several are Brazilian Muslims who have recently become affiliated with the order through the initiatory chain (silsilah) of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. Influential shaykhs in the country have been Shaykh Hassan Cisse (Senegal) and Shaykh al-Hajj Mishry (Mauritania), both of whom have visited Brazil. Another important muqaddam for the Brazilian community has been Allie Arend, a South African student of Shaykh Hassan Cisse who is fluent in Portuguese and has only recently moved from Brazil to Turkey. Resident in Brazil is Abdul Karim Taha, a Brazilian convert to Islam who has also been appointed muqaddam by Hajja Ashaki Taha-Cisse, one of Shaykh Hassan’s muqaddams in New York.

The Tijaniyya in Guyana

The Tijaniyya is not yet widely known in Guyana, but a few important figures have emerged. Shaykh Zakir Khan of the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana took the Tariqa directly from Shaykh Hassan Cisse during one of the Shaykh’s visits to Cairo. Shaykh Zakir received his B.A. from Azhar University in Shari’a Law and was in close contact with several Senegalese, Nigerian and American Tijani students in Cairo. Some Guyanese Muslims in New York have also become affiliated to the Tijaniyya. Of note is Bahir Wrights, who maintains close relations with Imam Sayyid Abdussalam, a prominent muqaddam of Shaykh Hassan Cisse in Brooklyn.

The Tijaniyya in Trinidad

The Tijaniyya has witnessed recent growth in Trinidad through the establishment of the “Zawiya Muhammadiyya” in Tabaquite and an NGO called “the African Caribbean Institute of Nasrul Ilm.” Muqaddam Muhammad Abdullahi James (the founder of both), who has studied in Senegal under Shaykh Hassan Cisse, has arranged several high profile visits of Tijani scholars, such as Shaykh Mahi b. Ali Cisse, Imam Sayyid Abdussalam and Hajja Ashaki Taha-Cisse. A report of one such trip can be found here (http://home.earthlink.net/~halimcisse/mar-07.html). The Tijaniyya has spread mostly among Muslims of African descent, but there are a few exceptions. Another prominent Tijani scholar in Trinidad is Dr. Musa Mohamed, originally from Sudan but who has made his home in Trinidad and who works closely with Muqaddam James.

Cheikh Tidiane Cisse (or Shaykh Tijani Cisse) made his international debut as Imam of the Grand Mosque in Medina-Baye Kaolack with a three day whirl-wind tour of the Gambia. Cheikh Tidiane met with high government officials, sat with the respected Muslim scholars of the country, and visited mosques, homes and entire villages thronging with followers of his grandfather, Shaykh al-Islam Ibrahim Niasse (RA). Cheikh Tidiane was accompanied by a large delegation from Senegal which included sons of Shaykh Ibrahim, Muhammad al-‘Arabi Niasse and Abd al-Malik Niasse, a Moroccan Sharif descendent of al-Shaykh al-Khatim Ahmad al-Tijani, a daughter (Ruqiyyah) of Shaykh Hassan Cisse, and representatives from Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania, South Africa and America.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh received Cheikh Tidiane for an official visit on Friday morning (January 16), and spoke of reviving the good relations he had maintained with the followers of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse under the leadership of the late Shaykh Hassan Cisse (RA). The President expressed his gratitude that the same respect he maintained for Shaykh Hassan as his friend and advisor would be continued with Cheikh Tidiane. Prayers were offered for peace and good relations between Senegal and the Gambia. See President Jammeh’s official website for more information on the visit.

Cheikh Tidiane also visited the former speaker of the Gambian parliament, Sir Aliou Jack, who had studied directly with Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and been appointed a muqaddam (licensed instructor) of the Tijaniyya in the Gambia. Later he visited another government official, the prodigy Minister Fatima Baje Janneh, a 21-year-old woman wise beyond her years also with a marked commitment to the mission and teachings of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse.

The Senegalese Imam led the Friday prayer in the historic Independence Avenue mosque (the first Juma’ mosque in the Gambian capital, Banjul). Later he was joined by over two thousand worshippers at the new King Fahd Mosque for the congregational remembrance. This was followed a series of speeches by the scholars present.

On Saturday, Chiekh Tidiane visited the Imam al-Ratib (chief Imam) of the King Fahd mosque, Thierno Ali Mass Kah. There he was met by the Gambian Muslim Elders Association, also headed by Thierno Kah. Thierno Kah, who like his father before him is a fervent disciple of Shaykh Ibrahim, is a descendent of Mass Kah, an Islamic scholar of great renown who was among the first to propagate the Tijaniyya in the Gambia in the nineteenth century.

Cheikh Tidiane paid a special visit to the first zawiya of the “Talibe Baye” in the Gambia, that of Shaykh Umar Faye (d. 1957) currently led by Imam Muntaqa Faye. Serin Muntaqa is the Imam of the Independence Avenue mosque in Banjul and vice president of the influential Federation of Ansaroudine of the Gambia. It was this organization, representing the collective will of all the associations (da’ira) of Shaykh Ibrahim’s followers in the Gambia, which was primarily responsible for hosting Cheikh Tidiane and his delegation.

The weekend also witnessed several other high-profile visits to villages outside of Banjul. Of special note was a visit to the villages of Naima al-Kalo and Naima al-Nazir, primarily Fulani villages south of Banjul. Naima al-Nazir boasts an impressive mosque, a smaller replica of the Grand Mosque in Medina Baye, and is led by Imam Abdoulaye Ba. Imam Ba was trained by Shaykh Muhammad Nazir Ibrahim Niasse, who himself inaugurated the mosque in 1986. The village has witnessed impressive growth and was clearly teeming with enthusiastic disciples of Shaykh Ibrahim. Other noteworthy visits included the homes of Ibrahim Thiam and Serin Aliou Thiam, the latter who studied with Shaykh Ali Cisse (the father of Cheikh Tidiane) and is currently an Imam in Serekunda.

The delegation from Medina Baye returned to Senegal on Monday, January 19, exhausted, but well pleased with the gracious hospitality of its Gambian hosts and the unity and mobilization of the disciples of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. On the whole, the visit gave witness to the ascendency of the Talibe-Baye in the Gambia. The Shaykh’s picture is seen nearly everywhere throughout the country. It was clear that the country’s most prominent scholars, many villages outside Banjul and some government officials besides were ardent supporters of Shaykh Ibrahim. And everywhere Cheikh Tidiane went, he was lauded and hailed as the true inheritor and Imam of the community of Shaykh Ibrahim. As Imam Muntaqa Faye reminded the large assembly in the King Fahd Mosque, “whoever Allah wills to be the Imam of mosque in Medina Baye is the Imam not only of the mosque, but of the entire community.”

Our master, the shaykh, the gnostic of God, the Sayyid, Muhammad al-Hafiz al-Misri al-Tijani, was one of the greatest scholars of Prophetic traditions (hadith) of Egypt in the twentieth century, as well as a renowned Friend of Allah.

Al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Hafiz bin `Abdul Latif bin Salim was born in the district of Munufiyya in Egypt in the year 1315 (c. 1897) to a family connected to the noble Ahlul Bayt (household of the Prophet). After studying the religious sciences in Cairo, Shaykh al-Hafiz traveled abroad to Syria, Tunisia, Sudan, Algeria and Morocco in the pursuit of sacred knowledge. During these blessed journeys, he gained precious diplomas (ijazahs) from some of the greatest scholars of the time from the East and the West of the Islamic world, such as Shaykh Badruddin al-Hasani of Syria, Sharif `Abdul Hayy al-Kattani and Sidi Ahmad Sukayrij of Morocco, Shaykh Alfa Hashim of Medina and Shaykh `Abdul Baqi al-Ansari of Mecca.

After his period of learning, Sayyidina Muhammad al-Hafiz totally dedicated himself to the teaching of Hadith. He taught the entire multi-volume Sahih al-Bukhari more than 40 times in Egypt, and many other books of Hadith as well. It is said that he used to know them by heart. It is narrated that when he went to Fez, Morocco, to visit the blessed tomb of Shaykh Ahmad Tijani, he was asked by the shaykhs in Fez to teach them Imam al-Nawawi’s famous “Forty Hadith” collection, which he did from memory.

He authored many great works on Hadith, Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), history and Sufism (tasawwuf), and made tahqiq (verification) of many original gems in the field of Hadith, which were part of his private library which also has one of the best collections of manuscripts in Egypt. For this he had copied and collected manuscripts from the most ancient libraries in Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Fez, Tunis, Sudan and other centers of Islamic learning that he had visited. Shaykh Dr.`Abdul Halim Mahmud, the Rector of al-Azhar, wrote in Sidi al-Hafiz’s obituary, “the Imam al-muhaddithin (leading hadith scholar) has died.”

Shaykh al-Hafiz also took part in the Jihad against the English in Egypt in the early 1900′s, and even Imam Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, used to seek his advice. In 1951, he began editing a magazine dedicated to promulgating traditional Islam, called Tariq al-Haqq (“The Path of Truth”), which was widely read throughout Egypt. He also debated and defeated the Orientalists in Cairo during his time. His renown as a scholar even reached Western literary circles, and his important biography of al-Hajj Umar Futi Tal was translated into French by the Canadian scholar Fernand Dumond in 1983.

Exceeding all of this by way of distinction, however, was the fact Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz used to meet Sayyidina Muhammad Rasulullah in a state of wakefulness. This was clear indication of his high spiritual station (maqam) in sainthood (wilaya).

He was originally involved in the honorable Khalwati, Naqshbandi, and Shadhili tariqahs, then left all of them to take the Way of Shaykh Ahmad Tijani at the hand of the Mauritanian Shaykh, Sidi Ahmad al-`Alawi al-Shinqiti.

Numerous people from all walks of life took the Tijani Spiritual Path from Shaykh al-Hafiz and attained great spiritual heights. He was as famous as a Spiritual Master par excellence as he was a hadith scholar of the age, a combination extremely rare in modern times. His Tijani Zawiyah in Cairo was and remains a great center of spiritual refreshment for those who live in or visit Cairo. His books on tasawwuf and tariqa are considered gems of spiritual knowledge.

Our late teacher, Sayyid Muhammad bin `Alawi al-Maliki of Mecca, was a very keen student of Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz in Hadith and tasawwuf when he was studying at the Azhar. He would fondly remember the “blessed gatherings” of Shaykh al-Hafiz, and always referring to him as “a great Wali of Allah”, and would often mention some of his miracles (karamat). In fact, the Sayyid always mentioned him in the forefront of the list of his teachers in all his ijazahs.

Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz was in close correspondence with most of the leading Tijani authorities of his time, including Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. Shaykh Ibrahim had the occasion to visit the zawiya of Shaykh al-Hafiz during an official state visit to Egypt in 1961. In the presence of the Tijani notables of Egypt, Shaykh Ibrahim referred to Shaykh al-Hafiz as “a man who is without doubt an inheritor (khalifa) of the Shaykh Sidi Ahmad Tijani, whose description matches that of the Shaykh as I myself know him to be.” In other words, whoever has seen the face of Shaykh al-Hafiz has seen the face of Sidi Ahmad al-Tijani; a rare compliment since the Prophet himself assured Shaykh Ahmad Tijani that whoever saw the Shaykh’s face would die in a state of good faith.

Shaykh al-Hafiz al-Tijani passed away in 1398 (1978) in Cairo. He was succeeded by his learned son Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad al-Hafiz, who authored a detailed biography of his father. Among those who were blessed to achieve spiritual education at the hands of Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz was the Italian Shaykh Abd al-Samad Paolo, who has translated and commented several important Sufi works (amongst them the Kitab al-ta‘arruf of Kalabadhi and the Mahasin al-majalis of Ibn al-‘Arif) into Italian.

Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz was indeed a giant of the twentieth century. May Allah be pleased with him, and may we benefit from his example, steeped as he was in both the Sacred Law (Shari’a) and the Divine realities (Haqiqa), as a paradigm of true Muslim scholarship continuing into modern times.

Tijani.org is a collaborative effort, and suggestions and reliable content updates are most welcome. The main contributors of content so far have been the following:

Zakariya Wright is a graduate student in African History based in Chicago. He has spent several years studying with Tijani scholars in Senegal, Morocco and Egypt; most notably Shaykh Hassan Cisse in Medina-Baye, Senegal. He is the author of On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Tijani and the Tariqa Muhammadiyya (2005) and co-editor of Pearls from the Divine Flood: Selected Discourses from Shaykh al-Islam Ibrahim Niasse (2006).

Dr. Muhammad Nasruddin Andrea has his PhD in African History/Islamic Studies from Italy’s University of Naples. His work concerns Sufi Qur’an exegesis (tafsir) in Northern Nigeria, where he has studied with Shaykh Dahiru Bauchi and Malam Bachir Bukhari Rumi, among others. His initiation into the Tijaniyya is through the Italian student of Shaykh Muhammad al-Hafiz al-Misri, Shaykh Abd al-Samad Paolo.

Shaykh Fakhruddin Owaisi al-Madani, of the people of Sayyidina Owais al-Qarni, is a muqaddam of the Tijaniyya in Cape Town, South Africa. He was born in the USA but grew up and studied in Medina al-Munawwara for 18 years. He has an MA in Islamic Studies from the University of Cape Town and is the Imam of the Hout Bay Mosque in Capetown. He is also the Head of the Sunni `Ulema Council of Cape Town. Shaykh Fakhruddin studied with Sayyid Muhammad `Alawi al-Maliki of Mecca and also has ijazah in Hadith from Sayyid Muhammad al-Yaqubi. He took the Tariqa from the great Sufi master Shaykh Hassan Cisse of Senegal.