Sīdī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b.

ʿAbd Allāh Maʿan

(d.1120)
Masters of the Shādhili Path Series

Translated by Sidi Idris Watts

He was born in Fez in 1042 IE and was resident in the Makhfiyyah

District. He was a man of great states and all acknowledged his
greatness both sūfī and scholar alike. They would come to him and sit
before him as a student does before his teacher.

Sīdī Aḥmad was not happy with what he saw of the people of the
path in his time. They sought only to increase the numbers of their
followers and granted everyone that came to them litany upon litany.
He saw that the path had become a mere shell of its former self in
many of the orders of the day. People only sought fame and status. As
for attaining realization in God, that had become near extinct.

(al-Ifrānī:) “He was not one to distribute litanies to the people and he
objected to others who did so. He refused to be called ‘sheikh’ and saw
that the carelessness of the people of his time in regard to this form of
distributing out and receiving litanies as far from the code of the Divine
Law. Their leaving from the practice of the Prophet  will not be of any
benefit or good. The only aim of those who follow him is to promote
their falsehood and increase their followers and number.

There was a long debate between him and Muḥammad b. Saʿīd

aṭ-Ṭarāblusī… If anyone came to him desiring to take him as a teacher
on the path, he would order him to adhere to the litanies in their
various forms with the brethren in the zāwiyah and he would not assign
to him anything else.”

One day a Berber man from the south came to visit him. He
found him sitting on the floor and began to address him in Berber. He
asked, “Are there any lamps still alight today in the world that one can
take light from?” When his companions translated what the man had
said he answered the man, “They still remain but everyone that comes
to them for light only brings along a damp wick.” The man enquired,
“What do you mean by ‘damp’?” Sīdī Aḥmad said, “No more than the
fact that he comes seeking or hoping to be a man of God.” The Berber
man placed his hand on his forehead for a moment and then walked
away.1

He did not like to live off the livelihood of others. If anyone gave
him a gift and he felt obliged to take it out of shame, he would return it
with something far greater and then immediately give away the gift to
someone else in need.

He was a vehement follower of the practice of the Prophet  and

did not tolerate from his family anything but following his  example.
He would not allow them to go to extravagance in their daily life, even
at family events.

He took from his father out of blessings and received instruction

as well. When his father passed away, he put his affair in the hands of
his father’s successor Sīdī al-Qāsim al-Khaṣāṣī. He accompanied him
from the year 1064 until he passed away in the year 1083. He served
him fervently in that period in such a way that was unheard of
amongst the people. He was his reliance on the path and it was to him
that he was affiliated.

Sīdī al-Qāsim al-Khaṣāṣī used to testify to his special station and

insinuate that he was to be the one to inherit the path from him. One
day his teacher said to him, “I am your slave.” One day he was
engrossed in a deep state and started to say, “Come here and take
your provision from me!” (Indicating that he was to be the inheritor of
his state and will take on what he possesses). On another occasion he
said to Sīdī Aḥmad, “Truly this one who resides in this zāwiyah has no
equal in the land.” He also said, “If it were not for Sīdī Aḥmad no one
would have found their way to me.”

After his teacher past away he took the company of Sīdī Aḥmad
al-Yamanī. They had an intensely close relationship. Sīdī Aḥmad b. ʿAbd
Allāh would honour him as much as he could. He hardly ever left his
side. Sīdī Aḥmad b. ʿAjībah mentions in his autobiography that he
actually took instruction from Sīdī Aḥmad al-Yamanī because his own
teacher passed away before completing his path, saying, “Someone
will come who will complete your path”.

Sīdī Aḥmad al-Yamanī said that Sīdī Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh’s station
was higher than his own teacher Sīdī al-Qāsim al-Khaṣṣāṣī and father,

1
‘Ṣafwah man Intashar min Akhbār Ṣuluḥāʾ al-Qarn al-Ḥādī ʿAshar’ (The Cream of Those
Whose News Spread from Amongst the Righteous of the Eleventh Century),
Muḥammad al-Ifrānī, p363. Markaz at-Turāth ath-Thaqāfī al-Maghribī, Casablanca,
Morocco, 2004.
Sīdī Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh and had exceeded them both. Whenever
Sīdī Aḥmad al-Yamanī mentioned Sīdī Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh he would
extol much praise on him and testify to his special station. He would
frequently label him ‘al-Majdhūb’ (the one pulled into the Divine) and
the ‘Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī’ of his time. One day he exclaimed, “His foot is
upon my nape!”

There was once a teacher of the path called ʿAbd Allāh al-Burnāwī
who was sitting with his student in the region of Burnū. All of a sudden
the student heard a sound. He asked his teacher what this sound was
and he replied, “There is a man here in the west called Aḥmad b. ʿAbd
Allāh of whom there is no other the like of his caliber on the whole
earth.”

He was described as the Spiritual Succor (Ghawth) of his age, the

Spiritual Pole (Quṭb) and the one who breathed new life into the
religion at the beginning of the century (Mujaddid).

He is buried at the feet of his father’s grave which is covered by a

dome, beside the shrine of Sīdī Yusūf al-Fāsī.