Nasiriyya (Sufi Order)
The Nasiriyah (also Nasiriya , French Zaouïa Naciria ) is an Islamic Sufi -Orden ( Tariqa ), the ibn Muhammad Nasir (1603-1674) in the village of Tamegroute at the south end of the Draa River in Morocco was founded and there to the life of the most influential religious rise.
Order founder
In the village of Tamegroute (Tamgrut) since 1575 was the Abu Hafs after 'Umar ibn Ahmad al-Ansari, who from the Zawiya , appointed by Sayyid al-Nas came: (Sufi Order Order Center, in general here) Ansārī- Zawiya. Muhammad ibn Nasir came from an unknown family and, as a scholar of Islam, became sheikh (Šaiḫ) of this Ansārī-Zawiya in 1646 . To this day he is one of the best-known missionaries of the Marabout , a community of religious fighters who spread a Sufi Islam among the Berbers in the remote southern Moroccan and Algerian mountain regions. Sidi Muhammad saw himself in the tradition of the Schadhiliyya order founded in the 13th century , from whose namesake Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili he derived his Silsila (spiritual chain of descent). In contrast to other religious leaders, he never claimed direct descent from the Prophet , but declared that all Awliyā (plural of Wali , holy men) were equally close to the Prophet Mohammed. This would explain its excessive veneration by the followers of the Nasiriyya. Many believers have been drawn to the simplicity of the teaching and the baraka (religious power) that can be obtained.
The order center in Tamegroute is still locally influential; as in other Zawiyas, there are regular evening dhikr recitations in the surrounding villages . Precious manuscripts are kept in the library, and Sidi Muhammad himself left numerous poems and religious treatises.
Spread
The Nasiriyya order spread and with it Sufism among the Berbers to the north of the High Atlas and as far as the Black African south. The ancestral seat of the order was strategically located on the trade route from Tindouf in the south, via Tafilet to the Algerian Mediterranean coast (for trade with Europe), gained control of arable land and water resources and thus became a political and economic power in the 17th century. Traders and business people were offered a market place and sheltered accommodation within the Zawiya. For the population, the order offered religious leadership, military defense and exchange of goods. The order got rich through gifts from patrons. The founder's son and successor, Ahmed ibn Nasir (Ahmed al-Khalifa, 1647–1717), bought more land from the gold and silver he had captured and had new schools, hostels and warehouses built.
The increasing politicization of the Sufi orders and influence on worldly events began even before the Nasiriyya movement and can be traced back to the teachings of the Sufi leader Muhammad al-Jazuli († 1465) from the Jazula Berber tribe in southern Morocco. The Nasiriyya also partly took over the organizational structure from there.
Together with the marabout orders of other Berber tribes, under the leadership of Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad, the last sheikh of the Dila-Zawiya , they succeeded in conquering the center of Morocco as far as the Atlantic in the middle of the 17th century in the fight against the Saadian dynasty . The combined Berber was in 1646 that gradually penetrating against the Saadian in a battle Alawites beat. After the victory of the Alawids against Abu Bakr in 1668, the Berber rule in Morocco was finally broken. The political power of the orders was broken, the Nasiriyya remained economically influential. Some later leaders of the order were of importance as popular saints and were remembered. In times of civil war, the zawiyas were havens and the marabout represented the only authority and power structure.
The sixth sheikh of the Nasiriyya, Yusuf ibn Nasir († 1783) was present at the opening of the port of Essaouira for foreign trade in 1767 and initiated the construction of the city's largest mosque under his name. Towards the end of the 18th century, the good relations with European traders were partially lost to the Tashelhiyt Berbers from Tazerwalt (southern Morocco). After the death of Yusuf who achieved Alawites -Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah (1710-1790) greater influence over the Nasiriyah. The relationship between the Nasiriyya leadership and the Alawids was split between rejection and collaboration. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Nasiriyya grew into a new opponent with the politically influential Tijani order . The Nasiriyya retained their dominant position over the port of Essaouira and the trade route through the Wadi Draa, but in the 1820s there was an open confrontation with the Tijaniya. After the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the Nasiriyya religious offered themselves to the Moroccan sultans as intermediaries in cross-cultural trade. According to French sources, relations with the colonial power were close and were rewarded with gifts.
Furthermore Sīdī Ali ibn Yussef, the seventh Sheikh, who lived in Tamegroute revered. In the 1980s over 10,000 pilgrims came for his anniversary ( mausim ). An annual pilgrimage is also organized for the eleventh sheikh, Ahmed ibn Abi Bakr, who headed the order in Tamegroute from 1907 to 1919.
literature
- David Gutelius: The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa. In: Scott Reese (Ed.): The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa. Brill Academic Press, Leiden 2004, ISBN 9004137793
- David PV Gutelius: The path is easy and the benefits large: The Nasiriyya, social networks and economic change in Morocco, 1640-1830. In: The Journal of African History , 43, 2002, pp. 27-49
- Uwe Topper : Sufis and saints in the Maghreb. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Cologne 1991, pp. 181-184
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Photo of the Zawiya
- ↑ Biographical Note on al-Jazuli
- ^ Hubert Lang : The cult of saints in Morocco. Forms and functions of pilgrimages. (Passau Mediterranean Studies, special series 3) Passavia Universitätsverlag, Passau 1992, p. 123f
