Quest for Knowledge, Journeys and Controversies

Taking the order of the Prophet into consideration, he embarked on a search for such knowledge.

He went to a certain Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb Allāh al-Shinqīṭī (d. 1920 CE), a pious scholar from the tribe of Tandagh in Shinqīṭ, seeking his advice on where to travel to find better exoteric knowledge.

As he disclosed his vision, the shaykh suggested instead that he should stay with him for some time and pursue knowledge under his supervision. The young Moroccan accepted the suggestion and remained with the old shaykh for quite some time,²⁹³ during which he studied Mālikī jurisprudence as well as Arabic grammar. Approximately two years later, in 1920 CE al-Hilālī decided to return to Morocco. Soon after that, in Oujda, the famous Tijānī scholar and chief jurist (qāḍī al-quḍāt) of that city Aḥmad Sukayrij placed his son ʿAbd al-Karīm and his nephew ʿAbd al-Salām under al-Hilālī’s supervision for him to teach them Arabic literature. Although the young Moroccan was offered the chance to serve in the judiciary by the chief jurist, al-Hilālī preferred to leave for Fez in quest of further knowledge. There the Moroccan would visit the learning circles of some well-known scholars from al-Qarawiyyīn, such as Shaykh al-Fāṭimī al-Sharādī (d.

1344/1925)²⁹⁴ and Muḥammad b. al-ʿArabī al-ʿAlawī, a former Tijānī, who would free the young man from his Tijānī shackles.²⁹⁵ He was well received, held in high esteem and treated as a teacher.

292 Al-Hilālī, al-Hadiyya al-hādiya, pp. 11-12.

293 Al-Hilālī provides contradictory dates for his stay with the Shinqīṭī shaykh. Muahmmad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, p. 195. He composed a eulogy in the praise of the Shinqīṭī shaykh, which after his conversion to Salafiyya, he revised due to certain problematic terms. See: Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī, Minḥa al-kabīr al-mutaʿālī fī shir wa akhbār Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī, ed. Mashhūr b. Ḥasan Āl Salmān, Amman:

Dār al-Athariyya, 1432/2010, p. 25. For the poem, see: pp. 309-312, 701-702. For a short account of the shaykh’s life, see: pp. 567-570.

294 Al-Fāṭimī b. Muḥammad al-Sharādī belonged to the tribe of Sharārda in Fez. He studied under some well-known scholars of the time and later occupied judiciary posts in the city of Sus before working as vice-president of learning council (majlis ʿilmī). See: Muḥammad Ḥajjī, Mawsūʿa aʿlam maghrib, vol. VIII, p. 2947; Yūsuf al-Marʿaslī, Nathr al-jawāhir wa-l-durar fī ʿulamā al-qarn al-rābiʿ ʿashar, vol. I, Beirut, Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1427/2006, pp. 963-964.

295 A full account of his encounters with the two shaykhs will be provided below. Al-Hilālī gives two reasons for why he did not accept Aḥmad Sukayrij’s offer: 1) He had seen his excessive gratitude to the French authorities and his loyalty to them (yatamallaq li-lmurāqib al-faransī wa-yastashīruhu qabl al-bat fi qadāyā al-muhimma). 2) The hate he had for the colonial administration and his intention of resistance that he would try his best to do throughout his life. See: Muḥammad al-Madhjub, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, pp. 202-203.

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The certificate (shahāda) he received from al-Qarawiyyīn would later be accepted by the University of Bonn as qualifying him for the pursuit of further studies.²⁹⁶

As will later be discussed in great detail, the encounter between the young Moroccan and Muhammad b. al-ʿArabī al-ʿAlawī caused the former to denounce Sufism. Al-Hilālī relates that after the incident he returned to Oujda to visit Aḥmad Sukayrij, to find that the decision of his former disciple had shocked the chief jurist of the city. He gathered the important Tijānī figures of the area to persuade al-Hilālī to return to the Tijāniyya, one’s departure from which was seen by Tijānis as equivalent to one’s destruction, both here and in the hereafter. Nevertheless, his efforts to win over the young Moroccan were rendered useless. Al-Hilālī was determined, and by his own account, he succeeded in gaining the upper hand in debate against the Tijānī protagonists that had been summoned by the chief jurist.²⁹⁷ Thereafter, the Moroccan continued to hold the chief jurist in high esteem, even composing poems in his praise. Nevertheless, it seems that he did not avoid directing criticism towards him.²⁹⁸

Towards the end of 1340/1922, his quest for further knowledge forced him to leave for the East.

Egypt was a popular destination for the knowledge-seekers of North Africa at the time. Despite all, Aḥmad Sukayrij helped him to obtain a passport by writing a letter of recommendation to the French ambassador at Cairo.²⁹⁹ The religious landscape of Egypt at the time was marked by ʿAbduh’s (d. 1323/1905) modernist agenda, maintained by his faithful student Rashīd Riḍā, and his inner circle.³⁰⁰ Upon arrival in Alexandria, al-Hilālī was warmly received by a former student of Riḍā’s, ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir Abu l-Samḥ (d. 1370/1951),³⁰¹ who was then serving as imām and khaṭīb of a Salafī mosque known as the mosque of Abū Hāshim al-Muhandis. The Salafīs there were pejoratively labelled as Wahhābīs by their opponents. In a debate with some of the jurists of the

296 Muahmmad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, pp. 195-196; al-Hilālī, al-Daʿwa ilā Allāh fi aqṭār mukhtalifa, p. 4.

297 Al-Hilālī, Sabīl al-Rashād fī hudā khayr al-ʿibād, vol. II, al-Dār al-Athariyya, 1427/2006. pp. 118-119.

298 Al-Hilālī, Minḥa al-kabīr al-mutaʿālī, pp. 32, 60. For an example of his praise in the honour of Sukayrij and his indebtedness to the latter see: Al-Hilālī, Minḥa al-kabīr al-mutaʿālī, p. 504-509.

299 Muḥammad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, vol. I, p. 205-206.

300 On the religious atmosphere of the time in Egypt and the reformist agenda of ʿAbduh, and Riḍā, see: Albert Hourani, Arab Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939, London: Oxford University Press, 1962; Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

301 For information on ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir Abū l-Samḥ, see: ʿAbdallāh Saʿīd al-Zahrānī, Aʾimmat al-Masjid al-Ḥarām fī ʿAhd al-Saʿūdī, Riyadh, Dār al-Ṭarafayn, 1426/2005, p. 35; Henri Lauzière, The Making of Salafism, p. 73.

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region, Abu l-Samḥ was beaten and reported to the governor of Alexandria on charges of kindling the fire of fitna (sectarian strife) in the region and calling people to a fifth denomination (madhhab), rejecting all four established legal schools, and denigrating certain Sufi practices like istighātha (seeking one’s spiritual help) and tawassul (supplication and invocation of the divine help through human beings) by the means of the Prophet. When Abu l-Samḥ was banned from preaching, the newly arrived Moroccan Salafī was ready to take over the task on his behalf. This invoked bitter objections by the jurists, but since he had come as a citizen of French North Africa, all charges against him were dismissed by the local authorities, who issued a strict warning to the malevolent jurists that they would be held responsible if any kind of religious fitna was witnessed in the region. This relieved Abu l-Samḥ, who had at first secretly attended the congregational prayers for two months, but then started to show up without facing any threat thereafter. Once the threat from the jurists was eliminated, al-Hilālī was finally able to proceed to the capital of Egypt.³⁰²

In Cairo, he met Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā and other important reformist Salafīs, including Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Razāq b. Ḥamza (d. 1392/1972)³⁰³ who would later accompany him on his adventure to Hijaz.³⁰⁴ Besides attending some lectures in al-Azhar, he was very much interested in the sciences of ḥadīth. Shaykh al-Zankūlī, one of the senior professors at the al-Azhar therefore encouraged him to go to India in order to master the sciences of the Prophetic traditions.³⁰⁵ Indeed, the sciences of ḥadīth were flourishing in India, where a considerable amount of research already had been produced by the ʿulamāʾ of the subcontinent. By al-Hilālī’s own account, Riḍā once stated that Indian scholars, by their efforts, had played a pioneering role in preserving these beloved sciences.³⁰⁶ It was not the al-Azhar that would shape al-Hilālī’s intellectual career, but rather Riḍā’s private sessions (majālis) in which the Moroccan was a persistent participant. It was in these sessions, and via Riḍā’s sharp discussions that he would earn his serious intellectual

302 For further details on the events at the mosque of Abū Hāshim, see: al-Hilālī, al-Daʿwa ilā Allāh fi aqṭār mukhtalifa, pp. 13-15; Muḥammad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, vol. I, pp. 196, 206-08.

303 On Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Razāq b. Ḥamza see: al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. VI, p. 203; ʿAbdallāh Saʿīd al-Zahrānī, Aʾimmat al-Masjid al-Ḥarām fī ʿAhd al-Saʿūdī, pp. 36-37.

304 Al-Hilālī, al-Daʿwa ilā Allāh fi aqṭār mukhtalifa, p. 9.

305 Muḥammad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, vol. I, p. 196.

306 Chanfi Ahmed, West African ʿUlamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina, p. 161.

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maturity. His relationship with Riḍā strengthened over time; al-Hilālī came to be a regular visitor of his mentor, and wrote articles in the journal al-Manār.³⁰⁷

During his short stay in Egypt, al-Hilālī was active in daʿwa activities as well. When he decided to perform ḥajj, his financial resources at the time were not sufficient to facilitate the journey.

Thus, it was inevitable that he must go to Upper Egypt where he could earn enough money to go from his teaching and preaching activities in the mosques. Meanwhile, a certain Ismāʿīl al-Sayfī, head of a local Salafī community in the village of al-Rirmūn in the city of Mallawi had invited him to that village. The village was dominated by Sufis,³⁰⁸ with a few Salafīs residing there. In the brief period of only three months that he spent there, thanks to his superior argumentative skills, the Moroccan Salafī had succeeded in converting most of the population to Salafiyya. Except for a few Sufis, the entire population, including the head of the village, Shaykh Yūsuf, responded to his call in the affirmative and denounced Sufism.³⁰⁹ Shaykh Yūsuf then suggested that al-Hilālī undertake the duty of teaching and preaching in the central mosque of the area from which Salafīs were previously banned. This, however, did not meet with the approval of the mayor, who, under pressure from the local Sufis, invited a professor from al-Azhar to confront al-Hilālī. The Moroccan had no intentions of debating with the professor; this certainly would have caused more trouble. His hesitancy, however, boosted the arrogance of the mayor and the professor. This, along with popular pressure, seems to have convinced the Moroccan Salafī to confront his opponent.

Then, in any case, the mayor invited him for a cup of coffee, and to his amazement the professor was waiting for him in the house. The professor started asking him questions to which al-Hilālī provided solid responses, by his own account. He himself gives no further clues regarding the content of the debate, but the context of the whole controversy strongly suggests that the debate revolved around issues related to Sufism and the doctrine of tawḥīd. As soon as the people got the news that this debate was going on, they rushed into the house of the mayor. The Moroccan Salafī

307 Henri Lauzière, The Making of Salafism, p. 61.

308 Al-Hilālī does not provide any clue whatsoever regarding the Sufi affiliation of the village. He contents himself with saying that the Sufi population was dominant.

309 Muḥammad al-Majdhūb, ʿUlamāʾ wa-mafakkirūn ʿaraftuhum, vol. I, p. 197; al-Hilālī, al-Hadiyya al-hādiya, pp.

28-29.

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dominated the debate, resulting in the concession of his opponent, who reportedly admitted his defeat.³¹⁰

The Moroccan Salafī relates that four years later, when he revisited al-Rirmūn for a second time, he was informed by the inhabitants of their altercation with a Sufi shaykh, who, prior to the conversion of the inhabitants to Salafiyya, had used to visit them to collect annual gifts. The unprecedentedly abnormal attitude of the villagers towards him was a shock for the shaykh, and as soon as he learned that the village had turned its back on Sufism he was occupied with rage.

When a peasant among the inhabitants told him that they would never again worship him as in the past they had used to, the shaykh became insulting and told his interlocutor that he had killed a thief who was stealing a watermelon from his field on the edge of Nile, using his spiritual power of himma. The peasant reportedly spotted two errors in the shaykh’s speech: First, the watermelon field had already been struck by a natural disaster, resulting in the obliteration of the entire harvest.

Second, he would never consent to the murder of a soul, be it Muslim or not, for a single watermelon. The Sufi shaykh was thus, reportedly, defeated and had no choice but to leave the village.³¹¹