Ṣalāt al-Fātiḥ and the issue of Kitmān (Concealment)

The issue of ṣalāt al-fātih, also known as al-yāqūta al-farīda (the unique sapphire)”⁵⁸⁵ has been a continues focus of criticism directed at the Tijāniyya brotherhood—becoming the bone of contention between its protagonists and antagonists. It is not uncommon for anti-Tijānī writers to

583 See for example: pp. 1, 2, 17, 20, 36.

584 For further details, see: ʿUmar Masʿūd, al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī, p. 46.

585 ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, Jawāhir al-maʿānī, vol. I, p. 140. Both terms appear interchangeably here.

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open their criticism with this issue,⁵⁸⁶ and al-Anwār is no exception in this regard. According to al-Ifrīqī, Tijānī sources maintain that both the Tijānī litany (wird),⁵⁸⁷ meaning ṣalāt al-fātiḥ, and the tremendous reward that they hold to be attached to were kept aside for their master by the Prophet, who did not even reveal it to his own companions. Jawāhir al-maʿānī,⁵⁸⁸ and Jaysh al-kafīl are the two sources to which the Malian Salafī here refers, stating that the former claims, on the authority of none other than the founding figure of the brotherhood himself, that the Tijānī wird was put aside for him (al-Tijānī), while the latter claims that the reward of al-yāqūta al-farīda was disclosed by the Prophet to the supreme master of the Tijāniyya alone. Both sources, he claims, contain the statement “He (the Prophet) did not teach it to any of his companions” (wa lam yuʿallimhu li-aḥadin min asḥābihi).⁵⁸⁹ (I myself was unable to find such a statement in the above-mentioned sources; nor, as we shall see later, do defenders of the Tijāniyya brotherhood admit the existence of such a phrase in their sources). From al-Ifrīqī’s perspective, these claims contain at least two major problematic points: Firstly, they mean that the Prophet had in fact failed to entirely fulfil his mission, a dangerous implication, which, he says, all other Muslim scholars would unanimously consider to be disbelief, not to mention the fact that this also appears to contradict a Qurʾānic verse in which the Prophet is ordered to convey divine instructions with honesty.⁵⁹⁰ Any such concealment of the divine mission (kitmān), argues the Malian, is impossible for prophets.

Furthermore, he asserts, the Tijānī master’s claim to such a lofty rank would entail his superiority to Abū Bakr, the confidant of the Prophet and the first caliph of Islam, since Abū Bakr is implied to have lacked the necessary credentials to receive the Tijānī litany and the reward of al-yāqūta

586 Many anti-Tijānīs tend to give their comments on ṣalāt al-fātiḥ at the very beginning of their criticism. See, for example, Ibn Mayābā’s Mushtahā al-khārif al-jānī, which starts with the issue of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ and kitmān.

587 In the Tijānī lexicon, the term wird refers to certain litanies of paramount importance in one’s initiation into the brotherhood. For further details on wird and the conditions attached to it, see: ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, Jawāhir al-maʿānī, vol.

I, pp. 122-124; Al-ʿArabī b. al-Sāʾiḥ, Bughyat al-mustafīd, pp. 328-355.

588 Jawāhir al-maʿānī, written by ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, a close companion of the Tijānī master, is the most authoritative of the brotherhood’s sources. It contains the life story and sayings of the order’s supreme master; its special

significance comes from the fact that when ʿAlī Ḥarāzim presented it to Aḥmad al-Tijānī after its compilation, the latter approved it. Tijānīs even believe that Prophet appeared to al-Tijānī in one of their daylight encounters, and affirmed that it was his own book and had been he who had composed it. See: Jamil Abun-Nasr, The Tijaniyya: a Sufi Order in the Modern World, p. 24.

589 Al-Ifrīqī, al-Anwār al-raḥmāniyya, p. 20.

590 Al-anʿām 6:25.

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al-farīda. The Tijānī master’s statements are therefore said to be not only devoid of relevance, but also to be of the utmost effrontery.⁵⁹¹

The Tijānīs rejected and continue to reject the accusation of kitmān in the strongest possible terms.

The supposed concealment of the Tijānī wird, claimed by the Malian Salafī on the authority of a purported quotation of Tijānī sources,⁵⁹² is dismissed by Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, who claims that no statement of this kind is to be found in any Tijānī source, let alone in Jawāhir or al-Jaysh. “I have checked Jawāhir line by line and word by word”, argues the Egyptian, “but did not find any trace of this statement. Then I checked other books of the ṭarīqa and I could not find it there either. I then realized that these people [the antagonists of the Tijāniyya] are liars; they invent lies without having any fear of God”.⁵⁹³ He goes on to state that the founding figure of the brotherhood had never uttered such a statement, claiming that the opponents of the Tijāniyya to have betrayed the scholarly principle of reliability (amāna) and “slaughtered themselves with the weapon of lying”.⁵⁹⁴ As for the Tijānī wird, he states, it consists of istighfār (asking for divine forgiveness), ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy (sending blessings on the Prophet) and haylala (admitting the oneness and uniqueness of God), none of which was kept undisclosed by the Prophet, No single Tijānī, the Egyptian asserts, believed that the Prophet had ever concealed even a small component of his Prophetic mission. In his own words:

I have found the wird, of which the antagonists assume the master to have claimed its concealment for himself on the authority of the Prophet, consisting of istighfār, ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy … and haylala. So, what is it exactly, that the Prophet concealed of these things [?]”⁵⁹⁵

The source of the Malian Salafī’s unforgivable mistake is Ibn Māyābā, who had raised the same issue in the same fashion a decade earlier. This provided al-Ḥāfiẓ with a perfect opportunity to persuasively argue that the allegation of kitmān in realtion to the wording of the Tijānī wird was baseless, and he was right to do so. Neither the Malian, nor Ibrāhīm b. Yāsīn al-Qaṭṭān, one of Ibn

591 He states: “Wa-hādhā kalāmun fī ghāyat al-fasād, bal fī ghāyat al-waqāḥa” meaning “This is an extremely corrupt statement, as a matter of fact, an extremely rude statement”. See: al-Ifrīqī, al-Anwār al-raḥmāniyya, p. 21.

592 The allegation of kitmān, from the perspective of the antagonists of the brotherhood, was informed by an alleged quotation from Jawāhir and al-Jaysh, reading: “The Prophet kept this litany a side for me and did not teach it to any of his companions”. See Al-Ifrīqī, al-Anwār al-raḥmāniyya, p. 20; Ibn Mayābā, Mushtahā al-khārif al-jānī, p. 19.

593 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 8.

594 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 10.

595 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 9.

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Māyābā’s Jordanian disciples who would repeat the same mistake years later after the death of his mentor, had any solid point of reference for this claim.⁵⁹⁶ But if the allegation of kitmān were to be directed at the reward of the Tijānī wird then the story would take a different direction. It is true that istighfār, ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy and haylala, were not concealed by the Prophet; nevertheless, the reward attached to the Tijānī wird is claimed to have been disclosed to Aḥmad al-Tijānī alone.

This is something that no Tijānī would deny. The question is, then, is the Prophet supposed to have concealed this reward from his companions? If yes, would this constitute a basis for the allegation of kitmān or not? Unfortunately, neither the Egyptian al-Ḥāfiẓ nor the Sudanese ʿUmar Masʿūd addressed this question, and for good reasons.

As for the accusation of kitmān in relation to the reward of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ, the Tijānīs’ response is as follows. For them, the issue stems from the dishonesty of Ibn Māyābā, who had claimed, on the authority of al-Jaysh, that the supreme master of the brotherhood had denied that the Prophet had disclosed any information regarding the reward of al-yāqūta al-farīda to any of his companions (wa-lam yadhkurhu li-aḥadin min aṣḥābih). The phrase “to any of” (li-aḥadin min), is held by al-Ḥāfiẓ, to be a fabrication and infiltration (tadlīs) of al-Jaysh by Ibn Māyābā, the liar.⁵⁹⁷ Why would he do such a thing? Because without this addition, argues the Egyptian, the statement in question would not have provided the desired meaning. Claiming that it was not disclosed to the companions is not the same as claiming that it was not disclosed to any of them. For al-Ḥāfiẓ, while the statement of the order’s founder does indeed imply the former, this does not negate the possibility of its disclosure to some of the companions, if not all. Thus, he argues: “When Ibn Māyābā saw that the statement did not support his argument, he came up with this addition, a clear proof of his indifferent behaviour and unreliable personality. He was followed in this tadlīs by the self-proclaimed scholar (al-shuwaykh) ʿAbd al-Raḥmān”.⁵⁹⁸ Furthermore, he argues, the Prophet was divinely granted the freedom of the disclosure or concealment of certain matters, such as the paper (ṣaḥīfa) he had wanted to write before his death but which, due to disagreement among his companions, he had denied so-doing. If it was necessary for that information to be disclosed, continues the Egyptian, the Prophet would not have changed his mind, and if it was necessary to

596 See Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān, Makhāzī al-walī al-shayṭānī al-mulaqqab bi-l-Tijānī al-jānī, (printed as an appendix to Mushtahā al-khārif al-jānī), Amman: Dār al-Bashīr, 1405/1985, p. 603.

597 One should note that after calling him “the master”, “the great ʿālim”, now al-Ḥāfiẓ is now calling him “a liar”.

598 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 13.

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keep it undisclosed, he would not have asked for a paper in the first place.⁵⁹⁹ So too, he argues, with the reward of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ: the Prophet was given the right of disclosure or concealment. As far as the formula itself is concerned, it was known prior to the Tijānī master, having been narrated by the fourth caliph of Islam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.⁶⁰⁰

The same line of argumentation is maintained by ʿUmar Masʿūd. He states that to claim, on the authority of Tijānī sources, that the wird was concealed by the Prophet is nothing but slander and fabrication by opponents of the brotherhood. “This is a great slander (buhtān ʿaẓīm)”, says he. “It is naught but a fabrication of the diseased imagination and a result of manifest lies”.⁶⁰¹ Neither istighfār, ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy nor lā ilāha illā Allāh were concealed by the Prophet, and nor do Tijānīs believe so. He goes on to state that the divinely elected saints (al-ṣāliḥīn) could indeed receive formulas for prayers and divine remembrance from the Prophet, which neither poses any contradiction to the religion nor means that there has been any concealment on the part of the Prophet. For textual support, the Sudanese turns to al-Iʿtiṣām by al-Shāṭibī and al-Madkhal (The Entryway) by Ibn al-Hājj,⁶⁰² two sources widely used among the supporters of Anṣār Sunna al-Muḥammadiyya,⁶⁰³ the organization responsible for the reprinting and distribution of al-Anwār in Egypt, as well as in Sudan, in the last decade of the twentieth century. Al-Shāṭibī confirms the validity of the dream visions of saints in which they may receive certain litanies from the Prophet.

These visions, he says, should not be underestimated unless they interrupt an established rule of sharīʿa. Al-Shāṭibī therefore also approves the dream visions experienced by Sufis such as Kattānī and Bisṭāmī. In addition to this fact, he says, it must also be mentioned that Ibn al-Qayyim, the celebrated Salafī theologian, also approves certain spiritual experiences of the Sufis (tajribāt al-sālikīn) in his Madārij al-sālikīn (The Runways of the Wayfarer). On the authority of his master Ibn Taymiyya, he even declares a certain tiny litany to be the greatest divine name

599 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 14.

600 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 9.

601 ʿUmar Masʿūd, al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī, p. 11. It should be noted that ʿUmar Masʿūd does not consider the whole quotation to be a fabrication, as we may also understand from other Tijānī sources: the part which is referred to as a concoction is the phrase “to any of” (li-ahadin min).

602 On Ibn al-Hājj see: al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. VII, p. 264; ʿUmar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. III, pp.

682-683.

603 It is interesting to note that instead of referring to Sufi manuals, the Sudanese prefers to quote from two sources which are widely respected among Salafīs. This point constitutes a peculiarity of al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī and could be perceived as another effective to attempt to convince the Tijānī constituency of al-Ifrīqī’s contradiction of his own sources.

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ism al-aʿẓam), the regular recitation of which has been claimed to grant the heart eternal life.⁶⁰⁴ Quoting from Ibn al-Hājj’s al-Madkhal, ʿUmar Masʿūd narrates an anecdote regarding a group of people who encountered great difficulties, forcing them to complain of their situation to the famous thirteenth-century Mālikī scholar Ibn Abī Jamra (d. 699/1296).⁶⁰⁵ Thereupon, Ibn Abī Jamra instructed them to recite certain litanies he had received from the Prophet in a dream vision. The problematic situation was indeed relieved upon the recitation of the litanies in the manner he had described.⁶⁰⁶

Elsewhere, the Sudanese states that it would be the utmost illogicality to contemplate the idea that the Prophet had been instructed by God to convey any of the Tijānī litanies, including the ṣalāt al-fātiḥ, and that he had not done so, since such a conviction would lead to the domain of disbelief.

The Prophet was protected by God through angels: therefore, it was impossible for him to forget any part of his mission that was to be delivered, let alone to conceal it.⁶⁰⁷ Nevertheless, he asserts that not only ṣalāt fātiḥ but also its reward were already known to Sufis prior to Ahmad al-Tijānī, who himself had come accross it in a book entitled Wirdat al-juyūb (The Rose of the Pockets). The Tijānī master had stuck with the litany’s recitation during his return journey from pilgrimage, until he arrived in the city of Tlemcen However, when he left for Boussemghoun he decided to replace it with another litany of higher reward; whereupon, in a daylight encounter with the Prophet, he was instructed to overturn the decision.⁶⁰⁸ Now, this statement pertaining to the knowability of the reward of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ is worthy of discussion, since one will not come across it in other Tijānī polemical writings; not to mention that it goes against the traditional perspective of the brotherhood, which assumes certain rewards attached to ṣalāt al-fātiḥ to be an exclusively Tijānī prerogative. Tijānīs believe that it was their master to whom the Prophet revealed a very special dimension of reward for the al-yāqūta al-farīda. He was told, among other things, that one recitation of it was equal to six thousand recitations of the Qurʾān. ʿUmar Masʿūd’s discourse,

604 For further details on the litanies received in dream visions by al-Kattānī and al-Bisṭāmī, as well as the dhikr formula of Ibn Taymiyya, see: ʿUmar Masʿūd, al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī, pp. 12-13.

605 His full name is ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿd b. Aḥmad b. Abī Jamra al-Andalūsī. He was born in al-Andalus and died in Egypt. He was known for his expertise in history, Quranic exegesis and the sciences of Prophetic traditions, with a number of books to his name. See ʿUmar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. II, p. 243.

606 For a full account of the anecdote, see: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Mālikī, al-Madkhal ilā tanmiyat al-aʿmāl bi-taḥsīn al-niyāt wa-l-tanbīh ʿalā baʿḍ al-bidaʿ wa-l-ʿawāid allati intaḥalat wa-bayān shanāʿatihā wa-qubḥihā, vol. IV, Cairo: Maktaba Dār al-Turāth, n.d, p. 129.

607 ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, Jawāhir al-maʿānī, vol. I, p. 207.

608 ʿUmar Masʿūd, al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī, pp. 48-49.

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however, gives the impression that this reward was known by others before to the founding figure of the brotherhood. In so claiming, he refers to a specific part of the daylight communications between the Tijānī master and the Prophet, in which the former was instructed to return to the recitation of the ṣalāt al-fātiḥ. According to ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, when the supreme master of the brotherhood was ordered to overturn his decision, he asked for a reason to do so, upon which the Prophet revealed the above-mentioned reward of al-yāqūta al-farīda.⁶⁰⁹ This part of the communication is missing in ʿUmar Masʿūd’s quotation, in which, instead of providing the full picture, he mentions only the result. Such an unorthodox stance may only be understood when the context in which his refutation was written is taken into account; doubtless, it was the undeniable pressure of the proponents of the Salafī doctrine that pushed him to do so. Anṣār al-Sunna were quite successful in their campaign against Sufis in Sudan at that time, during which the treatise of al-Ifrīqī was reprinted and distributed there and in Egypt. The allegation of kitmān pertaining to the reward of al-yāqūta al-farīda could only be avoided if the merits attached to this problematic formula were said to have been known prior to Aḥmad al-Tijānī, as was the case with the formula itself. This is one point among others, that separates ʿUmar Masʿūd’s treatise from that of his Egyptian master and bestows it with a unique slant. This line of argument is maintained by him in a later pamphlet, written upon the persistent requests of his fellow Tijānīs, in which he explicitly argues that the reward was known even prior to the establishment of the Tijāniyya.⁶¹⁰