About The Book

This is the first exhaustive work of one of Islam's most influential figures. He is the leader and founder of the most populace Sufi Tariqas in the Islamic world Shaykh Ahmad Tijani (1737-1815).

He was one of the central figures of eighteenth-century Islamic reform and Sufism (Islamic mysticism). The Sufi order that bears his name, the Tijaniyya, today claims millions of adherents all over the Muslim world, especially in West Africa.

Known by his followers as the Qutb al-Maktum (the Hidden Pole), Shaykh Ahmad Tijani has remained for many an enigmatic and sometimes controversial figure. Here for the first time in the English language is an exposition of his life and doctrine based on primary sources and interviews with prominent Tijani leaders in Senegal, Morocco and Egypt.