Autobiographical Elements in the Book “Maʿānī al-Jawāhir wa Bulūgh al-Amānī fī Fayḍ Sīdī Abī al-ʿAbbās al-Tijānī” by ʿAlī Ḥarāzim

Abstract

The Sufi movement in Algeria was flourishing during the Ottoman era and spread widely, recording some of the most illustrious names among Sufi orders. Perhaps the most prominent figures as the scholar Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Tijānī (d. 1230 AH), the founding father of the Tijānīya order in the region. His book “Maʿānī al-Jawāhir wa Bulūgh al-Amānī” is considered the most important source for his Sufi order, and one of his most important scholarly works. It falls within the circle of Sufi biography, for the book was dictated by Shaykh al-Tijānī, which places it within the sphere of Sufi biography, while it was written down and compiled by his disciple, the eminent ʿAlī Ḥarāzim, which makes it intersect with the data of biography written by another. From here came our scholarly article, which traces the features of autobiography in this exceptional book by focusing on the fragrant life of the Shaykh and the most important stations of his journey in the world of Sufism and spiritual ecstasy.