Ahmad Al-AAWI-Wikipédia

Ahmed Ibrahim Mustapha Al Alaoui (in Arabic : Sidi Ahmed bin Mustafa Al -Alawi ), born in 1869 in Mostaganem, in French Algeria, and died in Mostaganem in 1934 was a Sufi master ( Cheikh Tarîqa ) ^{[ first ] , [ 2 ] , [ 3 ]} . He founded one of the most important Sufi brotherhoods of XX ^{It is} century, the TAREH’S ‘MANAGE , a branch of the Chadhiliyya order.

According to his birth certificate, Ahmed Ibn Mustapha al Alaoui was born on October 13, 1869 in Mostaganem and deceased the July 14, 1934 In Mostaganem, city in western French Algeria ^{[ 4 ]} .

Coming from a noble family, one of the ancestors of which was a cadi from Algiers, he was mainly educated by his father. The young Ahmad was very badly mastering the writing and had time to learn by heart only a few suras of the Koran. This type of family transmission, especially based on the acquisition of “noble characters” ( Makârim al -Khlâq ), however, should not be underestimated, because it is this fundamental basic education that will allow it later to access knowledge both exoteric and eastic ^{[Ref. necessary]} .

The financial situation of his family being worrying, he began to work quite young in the shoe crafts. His father died when he was only 16 years old.

It is from this time that both its attachment to Sufism date, in a branch of Chadhiliyya, the Aïssawas, and its beginnings in learning religious science: Ahmad al-Alawî used all the time that its professional activity And his family responsibilities left him to indulge in reading, often spending whole nights plunged into books.

After the death of Master Aissawî, he gradually moved away from the group to which he was affiliated, reproaching him for his activity more oriented on supernatural phenomena than on the search for true spirituality.

It was then that he met a master of the Tarîqa Derkaouiyya, another branch of Chadhiliyya, Muhammad ibn al-Habîb al-Buzîdî, whose teaching immediately appealed to him. Ahmad al-‘lawî then abandons, temporarily as his master recommended, the exoteric science courses to which he likes to assist and engages in the practice of invocation, which leads him to collect the fruits fairly quickly, to Knowing access to spiritual knowledge as envisaged by Sufism, that is to say a mode of knowledge that goes beyond reason and individual consciousness.

Quickly became one of the closest disciples of the sheikh bûzîdî that he served for sixteen years, he inherits, when he died in 1909, his function of spiritual master, without meeting almost no opposition, which is rather rare in Sufi brotherhoods.

Five years later, in 1914, he founded a new order, independent of the Darqâwâ, the Date ‘Alawiyya ^{[ 5 ]} , this last word, based on its family name, being an allusion both to the “height” of this new path (sense of the Arab root concerned) and to the patronage of ʿAlī, son -in -law and cousin of the prophet Mohammed but also Sufi pole for all shâdhilîs. This independence is actually a way of reforming the spiritual method inherited from Sufism Shâdhilî And darqâwî , in order to adapt it to the new environment, both hostile and full of new opportunities, which is that of French Algeria at the start of XX ^{It is} century.

Many Muslim authorities then testify in writing of the orthodoxy and the high spirituality of the sheikh: the letter from the former cadi and mufti of Mecca and Medina, Muhammad ibn al-Makkî, published in Cheikh Al-‘Alawî: Documents et témoignages (cf. bibliography) is in this regard a particularly striking testimony but which is not isolated since there is a whole collection of letters and certificates published on this subject: Al-SHHAHâ’Id WA L-FATâWâ .

The general characteristics of his spiritual method, of his way ( Date ), are those of classical Sufism, which insists on respect for the general obligations of Islam, a variable degree of renunciation, the excellence of character, good behavior towards all, attendance and visit of the master spiritual and brothers, regular recitation of litanies and participation in periodic meetings, and finally concentration within the framework of the invocation of Koranic formulas or divine names.

All oriented on interiority, which is the message that al-Arabî al-Darqâwî, Moroccan Soufi of the end of the end of XVIII ^{It is} century which is one of the main masters of the spiritual chain ( slip ) which uninterrupted Ahmad al-‘Alawî to the prophet, this teaching leads to a refocusing on itself of the aspirant and a return to God ( Tawba ), which moderates any external activism.

The awareness of his own nothingness ( faqr ), the polishing of the character, in a sense which is a priori moral order, and the love of the Condediples are three particularly salient themes of the way chadhili .

Finally, one of the specifics of his method is to make his disciples practice a complete retirement during which they should only indulge in the invocation of the “singular” name of God ( ISM Al-MUFRAD ) in total solitude. This method was not in itself fundamentally new – it is even a constant of Chadhiliyya -, but it is true that the rather systematic way of implementing it, very significant on a certain “contemporary” side of Ahmad Al-‘Alawî, strongly marked the spirits of his time.

Whether it was the circles that received it, as in Fez where the highest religious authorities welcomed it, or people who visited it, among which many Sufis and Savants already “initiated”, it It seems that it is this radical method and its effectiveness which has earned it such notoriety in the Maghreb Sufi circles.

It is impossible to summarize in a few words what Sufism is.

In one of his works, where he defends Sufism and responds to one of his opponents, Ahmad al-‘Alawî explains the need for the master, while presenting the objective of the Soufie way:

“The teacher himself would tell you that this spiritual master of whom we speak in Sufism is the one who guides towards the elective knowledge of God; The one whose attendance benefits the disciple, who educates him with his qualities and illuminates his interior with his own lights; The one, finally, who brings the disciple to God by a simple look. This master takes out the disciple of the darkness of associationism to bring him to the light of faith; From there, he leads him towards the secret of certainty, then to direct contemplation; And from there, he then brings him to the stage where any limiting reality has disappeared. At that moment, God is his hearing, his sight, his hand and his foot, in accordance with the terms of the Boukhârî Sahîh. It is an extreme proximity, a station in which the servant disappears from proximity in the immense proximity: the Sufis call this “wrap”, “extinction”, “annihilation” or “disappearance”, among other words their lexicon. This is the fruit of Sufism, a fruit you know nothing about. When asked about it, Imam Junayd defined Sufism: “Sufism is that God makes you die and live by him. »»

Doctor Marcel Carret, the French doctor who followed him in the last years of his life until his death, was agnostic. He left a very interesting testimony of his relations with Ahmad al-‘lawî, which constitutes a sure source and perfectly neutral, to know on the one hand the attitude of the sheikh and his speech towards the non-Muslims and , on the other hand, the daily functioning of the zaouïa of Mostaganem (this testimony was taken up by Martin Lings in his biography of Sheikh, cf. Bibliography Infra).

However, concerning this question of the nature of Sufism, Doctor Carret reports the conversation he had on this subject with Ahmad al-‘Alawî. The doctor having exposed his vision of beliefs to him, believing that “all are equal”, the sheikh replied this: “No, not all of them are equal. »» – I kill myself, waiting for an explanation , continues the doctor. She came : “All are worth,” he said, if we only consider appeasement. But there are degrees. Some subside with little, others are satisfied with religion, some demand more. They need not only appeasement, but great peace, that which gives the fullness of the mind. ” – So, religions? “For these, religions are just a starting point. ” – So there is something above religions? “Above religion, there is doctrine. ” – I had already heard this word: doctrine. But when I asked him what he heard there, he refused to answer. Timidly, I was going to once again: what doctrine? “The means to reach God,” was his answer.

Ahmad al-‘lawî demonstrated interest in all types of science and all kinds of cultures a priori foreign to his own perspective: in this regard, the article by Augustin Berque (father of the great Islamologist Jacques Berque) cited in Bibliography , which had well known sheikh and followed its literary production, is particularly convincing even if it contains many inaccuracies.

If he was an uncompromising defender of the Muslim tradition in the face of an increasingly pervasive and assimilationist colonialism, he was also capable of an open -mindedness with his foreign interlocutors, not only Christian but even agnostics: testimony What did Doctor Marcel Carret left on this subject, just as several passages of his own writings are. Doctor Carret reports this:

“He declared that God had inspired three great prophets (according to Martin Lings, this figure is not limiting): the first had been Moses, the second Jesus and the third Mohammed. He logically concluded that the Muslim religion was the best since it was based on the last message of God, but that the Jewish religion and the Christian religion were nonetheless revealed religions. His conception of the Muslim religion was also very wide. He only held the essentials. […] What I particularly appreciated in him was the complete absence of all proselytism. He emitted his ideas when I questioned him, but seemed very little to worry about whether I made my profit or not. Not only does he never attempted the slightest essay on conversion, but for a very long time he seemed completely indifferent to what I could think in matters of religion. »»

It is certainly this quality (that curiously certain environments from his brotherhood refuse today to see), in addition to a “magnetism” difficult to define, but which many Westerners have testified, who has made his spiritual way The first installed in the West and largely present today. Among the best known names of “attached” from the first hour, we can cite those of Frithjof Schuon (which will however move away shortly after the death of the spiritual method properly alî ), Eugène Taillard, the bookseller tapped in Oran or the painter Henri Gustave Jossot.

Another proof of opening: René Guénon was in contact with the sheikh al-‘Alawî, to which he addressed some of his correspondents interested in Sufism. However, the Guénonian perspective was obviously emerging from the usual framework of thought of brotherly Sufism, and that, Ahmad al-‘Alawî, through his French disciples, some of which like Eugène Taillard were assiduous readers of Guénon, could not ignore him.

From the 1920s, its notoriety went increasing and the various activities of the brotherhood developed. This diversity is sometimes difficult to understand, if we do not take into account the fundamentally pragmatic character of Sufism Shâdhilî , one of whose principles is that the highest contemplation, for a master truly rooted in spiritual knowledge and which is specially called to play an external role which he has not sought, is in no way incompatible with The most concrete action at all levels, which Ahmad al-Alawî sums up in one of his maxims: “The one who is losing interest in the veil loses (divine)”, the veil being creation, as that manifestation of divine names and attributes.

Ahmad al-‘Alawî installed zaouïas throughout Algeria as well as in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, France (from the 1920s), England and well D ‘Other Western countries, writes many books dealing with both soufism, at different levels, as well as Muslim law, poetry, philosophy, science and astronomy. He corresponded with all kinds of scholars, intellectuals or even politicians (for example the Emir Abdelkrim al-Khattâbî, who was one of his disciples), promoted all kinds of actions to defense the interests of the interests of Muslims in his country or elsewhere (he is notably one of the inspirers of the project of the Franco-Muslim hospital and the Paris mosque, which he himself inaugurated in 1926). He defends Sufism not only against modernists but also against religious circles from the reformist movement, or at the other end of the spectrum, against “marabout” tendencies of certain sectors of popular Sufism. It also fights to preserve Islam, its practices and its mores in the face of colonialism ^{[ 6 ]} .

For all this polemical and critical aspect of his work, he is often the vector of journalism he uses, since he is the founder, the inspiration and sometimes even directly one of the editors of two journals distributed in several countries :: Al-Balagh Al-Jazâ’irî And Lisan Al-Din .

We must not forget the charitable and social action which generally goes hand in hand with the life of the digitally important brotherhoods.

If his most striking works are those which highlight both his knowledge of the theory of Sufism and all his flagship authors (in particular his commentary on the aphorisms of Abû Madyan), and the depth of his esoteric comments (such as his spiritual commentary on the hidden meanings of a classic work of fiqh : The Mrshid al-Mu’In From Ibn ‘âshîr), Ahmad al-‘Alawî has also written abundantly on subjects relating to dogma or Muslim worship, for the purpose of instruction from disciples (especially in his Risâlla L-Friday and in his Mab and al-ta’yîd ).

He made a partial comment of the Surah The cow , from four superimposed views. Two relatively detailed works have enabled him to defend Sufism against reformists, and in particular Qawl L-Ma’rûf ( Open letter to those who criticize Sufism ). Son Miftâh Al-Shuhûd ^{[ 7 ]} is a kind of cosmology treaty and astronomy mixing modern knowledge and traditional point of view.

Finally, his Diwân , set of spiritual poems to which the disciples use for the sessions of sky’ , represents, with his Munâjâ (“Apartees”) and his aphorisms (“his wisdom”), the most intimate aspect of his literary production.

In addition, he is the author of many articles published in his magazines, and several small treaties relating to the most diverse subjects. Some of his writings have never been edited (especially his Responses to the West ^{[ 8 ]} ).

The extension and evolution of the brotherhood [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

It’s the July 14, 1934 that Ahmad al-‘alawî goes ^{[ 9 ]} . The succession is relatively difficult, first due to the extension that the brotherhood has taken which then has, according to a Western disciple, ProSS-Biraben, nearly 200,000 disciples. It goes without saying that in these circumstances the modes of affiliation are necessarily very variable, and this is another possible explanation of the schisms that occurred just after his death, especially since he authorized several moqaddems to transmit its path, some of which are also scholars or notables with recognized religious authority. Some come from reformism and only knew sheikh late, at the time when it became externally an essential religious.

In Mostaganem, the most important council of disciples designates Adda Bentounes as a new master. But his youth – he was only 36 years old – represents his main handicap to be accepted as a successor, in a traditional society where seniority is often considered a guarantee of spiritual realization. The latter was however educated and taken care of practically from the cradle by Ahmad al-Alawî, as he himself says in several poems, until he quickly becomes the trusted man of the sheikh, who “likes him In particular ”, according to the testimony of Doctor Marcel Carret. From his youth, he made him his driver, his secretary (which the correspondence of the sheikh shows abundantly) and one of his best Used (Specialist in spiritual song). Then he married him to his niece (which the sheikh raised like his daughter, having never had a child) and appointed him shortly before his death moqaddem From the Zaouïa of Mostaganem as evidenced by Doctor Carret (who saw the Sheikh Al-‘Alawî at the end of his life, taking into account his state of health) : In the meantime, Sidi Mohammed, his nephew, who worked on Moqaddem, had died, and had been replaced by another of his nephews (by alliance) which he particularly liked, Sidi Adda Ibn Tounès. It was Sidi Adda who accompanied him to Mecca and it was he who currently heads the Zaouïa . Cf. M. Lings, A saint soufi of XX ^{It is} century , Seuil, 1990, p. 33 . Finally, he institutes him, as his will, “to the rank of the founder’s sons” and, which will end up pointing on the theoretical heirs of the Sheikh, confides by Testament after his death, the management of all the property acquired Over the years for the functioning of Zaouïa and the charitable and educational institutions attached to it, goods which are transformed into habous, pious foundation ^{[ ten ]} .

Other moqaddems, including Muhammad al-Madanî in Tunisia and Muhammad Ibn al-Hâshimî (from Tlemcen) in Syria will play a major role in the broadcast of the Shâdhiliyyâ in these two countries. We can also note, with regard to these last two personalities, that if their way has become de facto independent of the Zaouïa of Mostaganem after the death of Ahmad al-‘lawî, these two masters did not call into question the Designation as successor to the Sheikh Adda Bentounès, unlike others. This is what Salah Khelifa’s thesis asserts (see the bibliography below) for the Cheikh Madanî. Muhammad ibn al-hâshimî wrote the July 15, 1936 in afterword of the second edition of the best known work of Ahmad al-‘lawî, Al-Minah Al-Qudusiya , that this reissue had been made “with the authorization of the author’s successor, his heir in secrets and knowledge, our master, the seigneurial pole […] Sidi Hajj Adda Bentounès”.

From 1934, the ‘Alawiyya branched up and stretched, sometimes changing even names in some countries, and its followers are still relatively numerous today. The diversity of groups and people who have been influenced in one way or another by man and his work is the consequence of the multiple facets of this character and the different types of affiliation, more or less intimate, than He aroused.

Bibliography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Ahmad Al-Alrewi, Open letter to the one who criticizes Sufism , La Caravane Éditions, St-Gaudens, 2001, (ISBN  978-2-9516476-0-2 ) .
• Ahmad Al-Alrewi, Celestial wisdom – Treatise on Sufism , La Caravane Éditions, Cugnaux, 2007, (ISBN  978-2-9516476-2-6 ) .
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, Diwan extracts , Éditions Les Amis de l’Islam, 1984.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, His wisdom , Éditions Les Amis de la Islam.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, Philosophical research , Éditions Les Amis de l’Islam, 1984.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, The tree with secrets , Albouraq, Paris, 2004.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, Open letter to those who criticize Sufism , Entrelacs, Paris, 2011.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, Revelation , Entrelacs, Paris, 2011.
• Ahmad Al-AAWI, Most Holy Inspirations or the Awakening of Consciousness (al-Minah al-Quddûsiyya) , Albouraq, Paris, 2015.
• Adda bentounès, Invocation in Sufism , Paris, Ilv-Édition, 2011 (exhausted. The same text is available on Lacaravane.weebly.com).
• Augustin Berque, A modernist mystic: Sheikh ben Aliwa , African Review, Algiers, 1936, pp. 691-777.
• Ghezala Boughanem, Al-Jarin al-Jawâly Al-Jaqâriyah’ir Soman Manki L-Dîniyyya Wanda L-Ijtim 18 , Magistère memory, University of Constantine, 2008.
• Johan Cartigny , Sheikh al-Alawi: Documents and testimonies , Drancy, France, Éditions Les Amis de l’Islam, 1984 (OCLC  22709995 ) .
• Marcel Cart, Sheikh el-Alaoui: Souvenirs Imprimerie Alawiya, Mostaganeem, 1987.
• Manuel Chabry, The contours of holiness in the figure of Algerian Ahmad Alawî , Diploma of EHESS, Paris, 2012.
• Manuel Chabry, The pole: History of the Sufi Brotherhood Alawiyya (1894-1952), Lulu.com, 2022.
• Éric Geoffroy, Sheikh Ahmad al-‘alâwî, vivifier of the Soufie route , Albouraq, Paris, 2021.
• Abd al-karim jossot, Allah trails , Tunis, 1927.
• Salah Khelifa, Alawism and madanism, from immediate origins to the 1950s , Doctoral thesis, Jean Moulin Lyon III University, 1987.
• Martin Lings, A saint soufi from the XX ^{It is} Century: Sheikh Ahmad al-‘lawî, Spiritual inheritance and will , Éditions du Seuil, coll. Wisdom points, Paris, 1990 (ISBN  978-2-7578-6632-0 ) .
• Michel Vâlsan, “on the sheikh al-Alawi” in Islam and the function of René Guénon , Les Éditions de l’Erais, Paris, 1984, pp. 48-51.

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