Jazuli, Abu `Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Sulayman

(1465-1470)

   He was a member of the Jazula tribe of the Sanhaja confederation in the western portion of the Anti-Atlas Mountains. He was a highly reputed religious scholar and founder of a school of mystical thought that gave rise to a great number of widely branchedout religious brotherhoods. He was a follower of the teaching of the mystic al-Shadhili (1175-1250). After religious training in Fès, Azemmour, and Tit and pilgrimage to Mecca, he settled in Safi, where his fame as a scholar and holy man made him the center of a varied multitude of reverent disciples. Only a few of his works have been preserved. The most popular among them, the Dala'il al khayrat (The Guide to Good Works), is a collection of prayers for the Prophet. Al-Jazuli himself did not establish a specific community, but his prominent followers set up Jazuliya all over the Maghrib, known by their founders' names and more or less differing in their ritual practices and structure. A few of them are still in existence, as in the `Issawa, the Yusufiya, the Sharqawiya, the Shaykhiya, the Nasiriyya, and the Taybiyya.