The Ramadan Discourses of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib

Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib 1288/1871 – 23 Dhu al-Qa‘da 1391/11 January 1972

The highly informative brief summary of the life of Shaykh Sidi Muhammad ibn al-Habib, may Allah purify his secret, by Bashir ibn Isma’il reveals, as Abdalhaqq Bewley insightfully says, that he was entirely grounded in the tradition and unaffected intellectually by the materialism of the so-called ‘enlightenment’ that so devastatingly worked its mischief on so many Muslims. Moreover, he was an exemplar of the almost uniquely Moroccan take on the deen, that is the unity of Islam, Iman and Ihsan derived from the Madinan tradition rather than later efforts at synthesis. Not only was the Shaykh thoroughly grounded in the sciences of the ‘ulama but, experiencing the imperial French attempt at colonisation, he engaged in jihad having to learn to ride a horse and use weapons for the purpose. In the last decades of his long life, he travelled constantly in Morocco and Algeria teaching people in the cities, the villages and the deserts, and going on Hajj three times, the third time passing away in Algeria at more than a hundred years of age, may Allah be merciful to him and pleased with him.