Sheikh Ahmad Tijani (RA) Founder of Tariqa Tijania

Sidi Abu Abbas Ahmad Al-Tijani was born in the Southwest Algerian oasis town of Ain Madi on the twelfth of Safar in the year 1150 (1737 C.E.). He was a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad through Fatima Zahra’s first son Hasan and later through Mawlay Idris, the celebrated founder of Morocco. His father was Sidi Muhammad b. al-Mukhtar b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Salam, a prominent scholar whose family hailed from the Moroccan Abda tribe and whose grandfather had immigrated to Ain Madi fleeing a Portuguese invasion less than a century before Shaykh Tijani’s birth. This same ancestor was perhaps one of the more renowned of the Tijani line prior to Shaykh Ahmad Tijani, and it is reported that he used to engage so much in spiritual retreat (khalwa) that he would have to walk to the five prayers in the mosque with his face covered, otherwise onlookers would fall so heedlessly in love with him that they would thereafter never be able to separate from him. Sheikh Tijani’s mother, Aisha, was the daughter of Muhammad b. Sanusi (no known relation to Muhammad al-Sanusi, the founder of the Sanusiyya), and was noted for her piety and generosity.