Muhammad al-Tijani
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| Tunisian scholar Medieval era |
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| Name: | Mohammad al-Tijani |
| Birth: | |
| School/tradition: | Shi'a Twelver |
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| Influenced: | |
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For al-Tidjani, the North African Sufi saint see Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani.
Mohammad al-Tijani al-Samawi (Arabic: محمد التيجاني السموي), who claims to have been brought up as orthodox Sunni Sufi Muslim, dabbling in Salafism before finally adopting the Twelver Shi'a school of thought after an extended visit to Iraq. He became noted for his works defending the beliefs of Shiites and attacking the doctrines of Sunni Islam, which some allege is mere propaganda.[citation needed]
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[edit] Biography
Mohammad al-Tijani al-Samawi was a Tunisian student who was raised in a family that followed the rites of the Sufi Tijaniyyah order, based on the teachings of Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani. Upon making Hajj, al-Samawi was influenced by orthodox Saudi teachings, against saint veneration and tomb visitation, which were central to the North African Sufi tradition.
A few years later, al-Samawi was in Egypt on an Islamic tour of the Middle East and ran into an Iraqi student, Mun'im, who invited him to Iraq to learn about the doctrines of the twelver Shi'a. Al-Samawi spent several weeks with Mun'im and visited Baghdad, and Najaf, and met with several leading Shi'a scholars, including Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qassim Khoei (al-Khu'i), Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Allameh Tabatabaei, who spent hours teaching him about shia Islam. They provided him many books. He went home and while studying, he decided "to never depending on any reference unless it is considered authentic by the two parties, and to discarding those references that are solely referred to by only one of the parties." [1]. Eventually, he considered himself converted to the Shi'i school of thought.
Tijani’s works have been sent to American prisons by various organizations, where they had an enormous impact resulting in increasingly more Sunnis converting to Shi'a Islam [2].
[edit] Legacy
[edit] Works
He authored four books who became very popular in many countries, and even banned in some. The books allegedly caused a large number of Sunnis to adopt the twelver Shi'a school.[citation needed]
- Then I was Guided - (Arabic Thumma Ihtadaytu)
- Ask those who know
- To be with the truthful
- The Shi'ah are (the real) Ahl al-Sunnah
[edit] Sunni view
Sunni criticism of al-Samawi, some examples of which are linked below, centers on his being uneducated, and not an example of a Sunni scholar who became a Shi'i, but rather a relatively uneducated man who was in name a Sunni, who learned about Shi'ism and adopted it.
[edit] Shi'a view
Muhammad al-Tijani became a respected Shi'a scholar.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Most of this biography is from al-Samawi's own work available in the English translation of Then I was Guided
- ^ http://www.du.edu/~ltakim/article_ShismAmerica.htm
[edit] External links
- Striving for Right Guidance — A Speech Delivered by Dr. Muhammad al-Tijani al-Samawi
Ansar.org links:
- The four books of Al-Tijani ( Presentation & Criticism )
- Exposing Al-Tijani’s Lies in His Book:“Then I was Guided”
- Answering Al-Tijani's Libels against Abu Hurayrah
- Answering Al-Tijani in his claim that the four Sunni Imams learned knowledge from Imam Jaffar Al-Saddiq
- Answering Al-Tijani's allegations against Mu'awiyah bin Abi Sufyan
- Al-Tijani's Allegations against the Mother of Believers Aisha ( may Allah be pleased at her )
- Answering Al-Tijani's Libels against Uthman Ibn Affan
Answering-ansar.org links:
