About The Book

One of the purest lineages of the People of the House is that of the Ba-'Alawi sayyids of Hadramawt. Their tradition and chains of transmission remain unbroken to this day. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of 'Alawi's all over the world, a good number of whom are authoritative scholars, and many of whom achieve sanctity, whether or not they reveal to the external observer anything of their inner states.

Their influence in the Islamic world is bound to remain substantial in the foreseeable future, if not, as once stated by Imam al-Haddad, until the appearance of the Mahdi. It is in order to illustrate the continuity of their pattern of knowledge and sanctity and connect it to their current influence that this book has been written.