Introduction

The Tariqa Tijaniyya, sometimes referred to as the Tariqa Ahmadiyya, Muhammadiyya or Ibrahimiyya Hanifiyya, was founded in Algeria in 1784 by order of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, in a waking vision to Sidi Abu Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tijani al-Hassani, may God be pleased with him.

This Sufi way has since spread all over the world, with large Tijani communities today found in Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Egypt, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan, South Africa, Indonesia, America and elsewhere. Estimating the numbers of Tijanis around the world is difficult, but some estimates place the number around 100 million. Since the nineteenth century, the Tijaniyya has been the most prominent Sufi order on the African continent. Like most traditional Sufi confraternities, the Tijaniyya is inseparable from Islam and Tijanis have been important scholars within the larger Muslim world.

By way of illustration, we include here two seminal short treatises by renowned Tijani scholars that speak to the Tijaniyya’s inseparability from Islamic orthodoxy. As the contemporary Tijani Imam Shaykh Tijani Cisse said, “What we want from the Tijaniyya is just to be better Muslims.”