Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani

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Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani (1737-1815), in Arabic سيدي أحمد التجاني (Sīdī 'Aḥmad at-Tijānī), founded the Tijānī Sūfī order (tarīqah) in the late eighteenth century in Fes, Morocco. The order he founded is called in Arabic the Tijāniyya.

Born in `Ayn Mādī, Algeria, Ahmed al-Tijani felt the call of Sufi life when he was twenty-one years old. By this time he already had a firm foundation of Islamic learning. He travelled to Fes seeking to meet Sufi sheikhs, and applied himself to the study of the Prophetic traditions. Before he returned to Algeria, he had joined three Sufi brotherhoods including the Qadiriyya and the Nasiriyya.

In 1772 he began his pilgrimage to Mecca and in1782 he announced that the Prophet had appeared to him and conferred upon him the tariqa that would come to bear his name. In 1789 he moved back to Fez.

His movement flourished in Algiers, Tunissia, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal.

Promulgating his teachings amidst an environment in which the conservative, hierarchical Tasawwuf (Sufism) of the Qadiriyyah brotherhood was then dominant in West Africa, al-Tijani clarified and expounded upon contemporary issues, bringing a more insightful understanding of Sufi doctrines, based on social reform and grass-roots Islamic revival.

Al-Tidjani died in Fez (in present-day Morocco) in 1815. His teachings would later be spread through West Africa by Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall and Wolof leaders El Hadj Malick Sy, and most significantly, Shaykh Ibrahim Niass.