Background to Tijani.org
Tijani.org serves as the platform for the research initiative, “Tijani Literature Online.” This is primarily an academic endeavor, initially funded with a research grant from Northwestern University in Qatar to parallel the publication of Realizing Islam: the Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World (UNC Press, fall 2020). More broadly, this website hopes to speak to a larger conversation, both within academia and beyond, concerning the intellectual contributions of scholars associated with the Tijaniyya, mostly within North and West Africa from the eighteenth century to the present. Most particularly has been the ongoing attempt to collect a database of writings of Tijani authors, first initiated by Northwestern’s Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa.
Tijani.org was first established in 2006 with the permission of Shaykh Hassan Cisse (d. 2008, Senegal). At that time, reliable online resources concerning the Tijaniyya in English were difficult to find. After a brief hiatus due to technical difficulties (2017-2020), the website has been repurposed for more explicit research purposes. But the website’s original focus on providing basic background on the history and doctrine of the Tijaniyya has been integrated within the more academic function of the current version. “Tijani Literature Online” is supported by the associated research collective, and has received the blessing of a number of Muslim community leaders, such as the current Imam of Medina-Baye, Senegal, Shaykh Tijani Cisse.