islam

A fascinating account of the life of a prolific, yet little known, Moroccan Sufi that casts special light on the socio-cultural and religious milieu of eighteenth-century northwest Africa. By tracing the events of his life between the extremes of the mundane and the spiritual, Ibn 'Ajiba paints a detailed and engaging picture of what a person eager for spiritual fulfillment had to learn, practice, and endure along the path of Sufism. In addition to the details of his genealogy, marriages, travels, contact, the geographical and tribal "maps" of his world (of interest to anthropologists and social historians), Ibn 'Ajiba provides some insightful commentaries on the Islamic exoteric and esoteric sciences and alludes to the canonical texts in circulation. His preoccupation with the intricacies of daily life foregrounds his reflections and experiences gracefully against the rich, and often disharmonious mosaic of the social, intellectual, pedagogical, and moral values of the time. Michon's rendering of the original text into French is masterful and elegant, and Streight's competent translation into English has the subtlety and transparency necessary to reveal Michon's erudite scholarship. The book will be of interest to scholars of Sufism and the socio-cultural history of Morocco and North Africa.

This is a beautiful book. The translation from the French/Arabic flows well. It is carefully edited and produced. I am delighted to have an autobiography by one of the great mystics of Islam, including even a touching chapter on his family life. The footnotes are scholarly; where there is a hadith used for teaching moral lessons, it is traditional to allow less than perfect isnads. I am waiting now for someone to translate Ibn 'Ajiba's commentary on Ibn 'Atallah. What a treasure North African Sufism is!

...you see, I am so excited that Sidi Ibn Ajiba's life is in a book! Arent you? But, while reading it, I am not sure if the author -King of the Orientalists puts his own words into it. I will have to check but there are some accounts of the Messenger Peace be upon him that I have never heard before. Rather, the sayings striked me as VERY ODD.

I am refering to his teaching his murid's, Ibn Ajiba is the Master of the Shadhili tariq that still holds it's silsala. But...I am actually more intrigued about his Ijaza's that he recieved and they are documented in the book as well as discourses to his Murid's. It is a nice texts, if I could just shovel out some of the "hadith" accounts that I am not sure are correct. In any case, if you would like to know about the Auliya, and a Master of dicipline, love for the Divine, Sharia' and the history of his tariq, this book is as close as you are going to get. NOT "The Mystical Teachings of AlShadhili"!