The Origin of Ṣalāt al-Fātiḥ

Another important criticism that the author of al-Anwār directs against al-yāqūta al-farīda concerns the issue of its origin. On the authority of al-Ifāda al-aḥmadiyya,⁶³⁶ al-Ifrīqī accuses

631 As will be seen, this strategy was first adopted by Sharif Ibrāhīm Ṣāliḥ of Nigeria, and gained strong recognition among his followers in Sudan.

632 Ghassān told me that had he been present at the lecture he would have challenged ʿUmar Masʿūd on the issue, this despite the great respect he has for the Sudanese. Online conversation with Ghassān b. Sālim al-Tūnisī, August 7, 2017.

633 Online conversation with Haytham b. ʿUmar al-Tijānī, 05.08.2017.

634 Ghassān asks how, if the reward occurs as such in the unprinted manuscripts of the Jawāhir, could ʿUmar Masʿūd claim that it was not uttered by the shaykh, and was added later due to a printing mistake? Online conversation with Ghassān b. Sālim al-Tūnisī, August 7, 2017.

635 The correspondence started as an exchange of thoughts on Facebook: however, when differences were to be discussed on the issue of the reward, Ghassan suggested that they use email instead of Facebook, and thus, we do not know quite how it evolved. I have preserved the part of the correspondecce that occurred through Facebook and can make it available if needed.

636 Its full title is: al-Ifāda al-aḥmadiyya li-murid al-saʿāda al-abadiyya. Written by a disciple of al-Tijānī named Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib al-Sufyānī (d. 1259/1843-1844), it contains the sayings of al-Tijānī. Despite of the fact that it remained unpublished, it has spread widely among Tijānī circles, mainly due to its brevity and clarity. See: Jamil Abun-Nasr, The Tijāniyya: a Sufi Order in the Modern World, p. 25.

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Tijānīs of perceiving the litany as a component of the holy Qurʾān, a conviction required for obtaining its reward. This, from his view point, not only entails the continuation of divine revelation after the Prophet, an obviously heretical belief, but also its descension to an ordinary person—in this case, the supreme master of the Tijāniyya—well below the status of a divine messenger. The Malian proceeds to argues that “He who believes that al-yāqūta al-farīda is a part of the holy Qurʾān, he has committed a clear act of infidelity (faqad kafar kufran ẓāhiran)”.⁶³⁷ Divine revelation does not descend but to prophets, whereas the Tijānī litany is not to be found in an apocryphal ḥadīth (fī ḥadīth mawḍūʿ), let alone in the Qurʾān itself. Al-Ifrīqī argues that Tijānīs may therefore have mistaken their master for a divine messenger. Was the founding figure of the brotherhood a saint or a divine messenger? He seems very keen to know. In order to demonstrate the inextricable situation into which he believes the Tijānīs have fallen, the author of al-Anwār thus applies a simple analogy: Tijānīs must either accept the litany as a component of the divine eternal speech, or deny holding any such conviction. In the first case, they would lose their membership in the community of Islam, while in the second case they would risk their affiliation to the brotherhood, and may no longer be considered to be Tijānīs, for rejecting a doctrine so clearly stated by one of their highly respected sources. In either case, he says, they are doomed to lose.⁶³⁸

Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ forcefully rejects the accusation of his opponent. The litany concerned was neither considered to be a component of the Qurʾān, nor of a ḥadīth qudsī,⁶³⁹ nor even a part of divine revelation descending to prophets (min waḥy al-nubūwwa). Al-Ifāda itself, he argues, rejects such an accusation. Page eighty of this book, upon which antagonists of the brotherhood base their criticism, does not even contains the word “Qurʾān”, let alone declare ṣalāt al-fātiḥ to be a component of it, a conviction only apostates would entertain.⁶⁴⁰ The Egyptian proceeds to give a hypothetical scenario in which such a statement had in fact been made by the supreme master of the brotherhood. Since, he says, the sayings of a spiritual authority of the calibre of Aḥmad al-Tijānī deserve to have a true interpretation (which is an established rule as well), one would need

637 Al-Ifrīqī, al-Anwār al-raḥmaniyya, pp. 23-24.

638 Al-Ifrīqī, al-Anwār al-raḥmāniyya, p. 24.

639 Ḥadīth qudsī is a sacred tradition in which the chain of transmission is traced back directly to God instead of ending with the Prophet. The meaning is revealed by God while the phrasing is formulated by the Prophet; therefore, it is also called ḥadīth rabbānī and ḥadīth ilāhī (divine ḥadīth). For details, see: Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUthaymin, Muṣṭalaḥ al-Ḥadīth, Cairo: Maktaba al-ʿIlmiyya, 1415/1994, pp. 5-6.

640 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, pp. 22-23.

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to interpret them in a way compliant with the rules of sharīʿa. This would mean that ṣalāt al-fātiḥ is extracted from the Qurʾān (maʾkhudh min l-Qurʾān bi-ṭarīq al-iqtibās). The argument of iqtibās is a typical Tijānī strategy, one developed by earlier protagonists of the brotherhood. As far as we know, Muhannad Bāba⁶⁴¹ was the first polemicist to come up with it.⁶⁴² As for Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, he is the first to have troubled himself to specify certain passages in the Qurʾān as possible sources from which the litany could have been extracted. Once it is affirmed that ṣalāt al-fātiḥ could have been extracted from the Qurʾān, it would be easy to argue that it was a part of the divine eternal speech.⁶⁴³ This strategy has been used by certain Tijānī authorities in West Africa against their opponents. In a debate that took place in Tamale, Ghana in 1968 CE, Mallam Abdulai Maikano of Ghana, a Tijānī muqaddam affiliated to the Niyāsiyya branch of the brotherhood, had recourse to the argument that the ṣalāt al-fātiḥ was derived from various Qurʾānic passages.

However, when he failed to extract all of the components of the litany from Qurʾān, the gathering was not convinced, and his opponent al-Haji Yūsuf Soalihu Ajura thus accused him of fabrication.⁶⁴⁴ It should be noted that Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, in his own attempt at claiming derivation, likewise fails to find a source of reference for each and every component of the litany, and thus could face the same accusation.

While it is true that al-Ifāda did not refer to ṣalāt al-fātiḥ as a part of the Qurʾān, a fact which many opponents of the Tijānīs, including al-Ifrīqī, have failed to notice, the source does indeed state that ṣalāt al-fātiḥ is a part of the divine speech (kalām Allāh), regardless of whether one disregards Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Naẓīfī’s description of the litany as part of the divine eternal speech (“kalām Allāh al-qadīm”, a term used exclusively to define the Qurʾān).

641 Muhannad Bāba was a contemporary of al-Kumlaylī’s, and best known for his polemical altercation with him.

See: Ahmad b. al-Amīn, al-Wasīt fī tarājim ‘ulamāʾ Shinqīṭ, pp. 236-238.

642 See Muhannad Bāba al-Shinqīṭī’s argument, quoted in: Muḥammad Fāl Abbā, Rashq al-sihām, p. 109.

643 According to the description provided by the Egyptian, allāhuma is taken from Yunus/10 “subhānaka allāhuma”;

Salli ʿalā from al-Aḥzāb/56 “innallāha wa-malāʾikatahū yuṣallūn ʿalā al-nabiyy yā ayyuhallazīn āmanū ṣallū ʿalayhi wa-sallimū taslīmā”; Sayyidinā from al-Baqara/196 “sayyidan wa-ḥaṣuran”; Muḥammad from al-Fatḥ/29

“Muḥamamdun Rasūl Allāh”; fātiḥ limā ughliqa from Fatḥ/1 “innā fatahnā laka fathan mubinā” and al-Māʾida/19 “qad jāʾakum rusulunā yabayyinu lakumʿala fatratin min al-rusul”; al-khātim limā sabaq al-Aḥzāb/40

“wa-lākin rasūl Allāhi wa-khātem al-nabiyyīn”; nāṣir al-ḥaqqi bi-l-ḥaqq is taken from Muḥammad/7 “in tanṣurullāha yanṣurkum”; and Hūd/88 “wa-mā tawfīqī illā bi-Allāh”; hādī ilā ṣirātik mustaqīm from al-Shūrā/52 “wa-innaka latahdī ilā ṣirātin mustaqīm”; wa-ʿalā ālihi from al-Aḥzāb/33 “yurīdullāhu li-yudhhiba ʿankum al-rijsa ahl al-bayti wa-yuṭahhirakum taṭhīrā”; ḥaqqa qadrihi from al-Anʿām/91 “wa-ma qadarullāha ḥaqqa qadrihi” and from al-Ḥijr/72 “laʿamruka innahum lafī sakratihim yaʿmahūn”; wa-miqdārihi from al-Rʿad/8

“wa-kullu shaʾin ʿindahū bimiqdār”; and al-ʿaẓīm from al-Qalam/4 “wa-innaka laʿalā khuluqin ʿaẓīm”. See: Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, pp. 19-21.

644 Abdulai Iddrisu, Contesting Islam in Africa, pp. 125-126.

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Furthermore, al-Naẓīfī, one of the most well-known Tijānī authorities of the Maghrib, who had the privilege of mentoring Aḥmad Sukayrij, places the litany on the same footing as the Qurʾān, stating that as a component of the divine eternal speech, ṣalāt al-fātiḥ should be regarded as equal to the Qurʾān.⁶⁴⁵ Al-Ḥāfiẓ, for his part, goes so far as to argue that “the divine speech” is a general term whose use is neither confined to the Qurʾān nor the rest of the divine books. Thus, he says, ṣalāt al-fātiḥ could have been extracted from the divine speech, of which the Qurʾān is only one component. The Prophetic traditions, he continues, approve the fact that there were people in earlier nations who were spoken to by angels, without their having reached the status of prophethood. One Prophetic statement describes ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb to be among them.⁶⁴⁶ In subsequent writings, however, the Egyptian Tijānī would develop a rather more flexible strategy of response. In 1966 CE, during a random meeting with a young Salafī, he would try to give the impression that the lofty merit of al-yāqūta al-farīda, as reported on the authority of the founding figure of the brotherhood, might have been affected by distortion.⁶⁴⁷ In a later treatise, he would even deny that ṣalāt al-fātiḥ was a component of the divine speech. Drawing on the authority of Muḥammad al-ʿArabī b. al-Sāʾih, he refers to al-Mishrī’s usage of the term kalām Allāh in relation to ṣalāt al-fātiḥ as the result of his (al-Mishrī’s) own personal understanding of the actual statement made by the supreme master (rivāyet bi-l-maʿnā),⁶⁴⁸ claiming: “He who described ṣalāt al-fātiḥ as a component of the divine speech reported the statement of the shaykh according to his own understanding”.⁶⁴⁹ while he approves the term “kalām Allāh”, Maḥmūd b. Bensālim,⁶⁵⁰ a great-grandson of the supreme master, nevertheless suggests a metaphorical interpretation of the term.

It is divine speech in the outward meaning of that term, he argues, in the sense that one may recite

645 Al-Naẓīfī, al-Ṭib al-fāʾiḥ, p. 14.

646 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 21.

647 This young Salafī, in point of fact, was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd al-Khāliq, who was studying at the Islamic University of Medina at the time. He was reportedly labelled as Wahhābī by al-Ḥāfiẓ, who wanted to test him on some questions of theology. To the amazement of the Egyptian, the young Salafī was able to provide solid responses, enabling him to turn the tables and bring up the issue of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ’s reward and whether or not it could be considered as superior to the Qurʾān. Al-Ḥāfiẓ, allegedly then distracted him from the topic, telling his interlocutor: “It is possible to report and spread something on behalf of a certain human being which he did not really say”. For the full conversation, see: http://www.dd-sunnah.net/forum/showthread.php?t=16320

648 The treatise in question is ‘Ulamaʾ tazkiyat al-nafs, written in response to a letter he received from a certain (Sudanese) Ibrāhīm Maḥmūd Fatḥ al-ʿAlīm, who complained about the ruthless attacks made by the brotherhood’s opponents (probably the Anṣār Al-Sunna al-Muḥammadiyya of Sudan) on certain Tijānī topics including al-yāqūta al-farīda and its merits. It is in this context that al-Ḥāfiẓ refers to al-Mishrī’s definition of the litany as his own understanding of the issue.

649 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, ‘Ulamaʾ tazkiyat al-nafs, p. 8.

650 For more on him, see: Al-Fātiḥ al-Nūr, al-Tijānīyya wa-l-mustaqbal, pp. 194-96 and Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Ṭaʿmī, Ṭabaqāʾt al-Tijānīyya, pp. 210-212.

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it in obligatory ritual prayers. Likewise, he holds up the existence of the word “sayyidinā” in the litany as another hint that favours such a metaphorical understanding. Even ordinary Tijānīs, he argues, are aware of this issue.⁶⁵¹ The argument in favour of a metaphorical understanding has been brought to the fore by other Tijānī authors as well. Muḥammad Fāl Abbā interprets the term

“kalām Allāh” via the term “ilhām” (divine inspiration). From his perspective, in the parlance of Sufis, the term “divine speech” (kalām Allāh) refers only to divine inspiration inserted into the hearts of saintly figures.⁶⁵² The contemporary Tijānī, Muḥammad b. Saʿīd, depicts Abbā’s interpretation as the only acceptable understanding of the issue, with extensive quotations from earlier Sufi authorities.⁶⁵³

As far the issue of its revelation to al-Bakrī on a sheet of light⁶⁵⁴ is concerned, this does not bother al-Ḥāfiẓ at all. It was, he argues, a divine instruction, in the form of inspiration for saints, which the supreme master declared had descended as a formula from the unseen (waradat min l-ghayb).⁶⁵⁵ He also argues that the Qurʾān speaks of a certain kind of revelation to the mother of Moses, even though she was not a prophet,⁶⁵⁶ and that, according to a principle established among Muslim scholars, Allah may indeed bestow saints with a supplication (duʿāʾ) or a formula in praise of the Prophet (ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy) received in the form of divine overflow (fayḍ Allāh) and divine grace (faḍlihi).⁶⁵⁷ His disciple ʿUmar Masʿūd reflects very briefly on the issue, stating that neither al-Ifāda nor any other Tijānī source ever claimed the litany to be part of the Qurʾān. This was a lie of al-Ifrīqī’s himself, he says, of which he states: “How ugly a lie becomes when [it is] invented by a Salafī missionary and a teacher at the Dār al-Ḥadīth”.⁶⁵⁸ Nevertheless, he remains silent on the fact that al-Ifāda had used the term “kalām Allāh” in relation to the litany in question, and elsewhere, besides denying the litany to be a component of the divine eternal speech, following

651 Maḥmūd b. Bensālim, however, fails to provide a sufficient metaphorical interpretation of “kalām Allah”, a term used in al-Ifāda al-aḥmadiyya for ṣalāt al-fātih, instead attempting to deflect the attention of the reader with some vague statements. For further information, see: Maḥmūd b. Bensālim, al-Tijānīyya bayn l-intiqād wa-l-iʿtiqād, Rabat: Maṭbaʿat wa-Warrāqa al-Karāma, 1433/2012, pp. 158-59.

652 Muḥammad Fāl Abbā, Rashq al-sihām, pp. 90-91.

653 For details, see: Muḥammad b. Saʿid, Ḥusn al-taqāḍī, pp. 298-309

654 See, for example: ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, Jawāhir al-maʿānī, vol. I, p. 138.

655 ʿAlī Ḥarāzim reports that he had asked the supreme master about the fact of ṣalāt al-fātiḥ being devoid of salām ʿalā l-nabiyy while it mentions only ṣalāt ʿalā l-nabiyy. Aḥmad al-Tijānī replied that it had descended from the unseen so (waradat min l-ghayb ʿalā hādhi al-kayfiyya), and thus the absence of the salām did not devalue it. See ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, Jawāhir al-maʿānī, vol. I, p. 139.

656 Al-Qaṣaṣ 25:7 reads “We inspired the mother of Moses” (wa-awḥaynā ilā ummi Mūsā).

657 Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ, Radd akādhīb al-muftarīn, p. 23.

658 Umar Masʿūd, al-Radd ʿalā l-Ifrīqī, p. 14.

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his Egyptian master, he declares the owner of such a conviction to be a liar (kādhib), and a disbeliever (kāfir) who has departed from the community of Islam.⁶⁵⁹