Description:

Join the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) for a talk in our Spiritual Luminaries of Islamic Africa series. 

This is an online talk. Please register here:
https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/YOpuPBF8SwGmtmKuzqQbcQ

Description: While the political, military, and exoteric scholarly achievements of Shehu Uthman dan Fodio are well-documented, his role within a profound and sustained esoteric intellectual tradition remains largely unexplored. This paper argues that the Shehu was not a solitary mystical figure but the most prominent manifestation of an intergenerational "Illuminated Esoteric School" known as the Fodiyawa. 

The talk draws primarily upon three understudied texts: [1] the ad-Dawā’ir 'al-Thalātha wa al-`Ishruun (the Twenty-Three Orbits of Knowledge) of Shaykh Abdullahi ibn Muhammad al-Kanāwi, a chief spiritual disciple of the Shehu; [2] the Kitāb Majmūʿat al-Sharīʿa wa-l-Ḥaqīqa wa-l-Asrār (the Book of the Compendium of the Divine Law, Divine Reality, and Divine Secrets) of Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu ibn Shehu Uthman ibn Fudi, one of the Shehu’s sons and the most advanced inheritor of his esoteric teachings; and [3] the Shukr al-Wāhib al-Mufīḍ li-l-Mawāhib (Thanking the Bountiful Giver for His Bestowed Blessings) by the Shehu's grandson, Shaykh Abdalqaadir ibn Mustafa. These three books evidence that the Fodiyawa indeed possessed an intentional unique inter-generational approach/school to the esoteric and unmediated sciences in Islam.

This presentation will trace the lineage of this school generations before the Shehu. It will then highlight key transmitters of its secrets, particularly the Shehu's son, Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu, and his daughter, Khadija al-Kubra, to demonstrate a deliberate strategy of knowledge preservation. Finally, the paper will examine how this culminated in the comprehensive esoteric synthesis of Shaykh Abdalqaadir, who claimed possession of "Sciences of the Greatest Unveiling" reserved for the Fodiyawa and destined for disclosure by the Awaited Mahdi. This research will recontextualize the Sokoto Caliphate as a social transformative project grounded in a sophisticated and uninterrupted cosmological philosophy with messianic/eschatological predispositions. 

Shaykh Muhammad Shareef bin Farid is the founding Director of the Sankore Institute of Islamic - African Studies International (SIIASI), founded originally in the Republic of Sudan and now located in the Republic of Mali.  He is a historian, translator, teacher, and master calligrapher who has done extensive scholarly ressearch on those regions of African located south of the Sahara desert, traditionally referred to as "Al-Bilad As-Sudan." For over three decades, Shaykh Shareef traversed Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, collecting rare Arabic manuscripts and absorbing sacred knowledge from some of Africa's most learned Muslims scholars.

Shaykh Shareef received the bulk of his traditional Islamic education while living in the town of Maiurno on the banks of the Blue Nile (Sudan). While there, he became inspired to create an instituiton that would preserve and make known to the entire world the rich cultural legacy of Islamic Africa. 

Since its inception, SIIASI has collected and digitally archived over 2000 Arabic manuscripts, some of which have been translated and made available to the general public and inmate popultions throughout the United States.