Ṣūfī Mystics of the Niger Desert: Sidi Mahmud and the Hermits of Aïr
H. T. Norris
Abstract
This book is a study of the evidence that exists to this day in the Niger Republic, and in the adjacent regions of Saharan and non-Saharan Africa, about the life of Sīdī Mahmūd al-Baghdādī, who, it is believed, introduced new doctrines of Oriental Sufism into the Aïr Massif during the sixteenth century. The teachings of Sīdī Mahmūd were to reappear recently in the Khalwatiyya Sūfī order (tariqa) in Niger. They are still important for contemporary Islam in that republic, which is a bridge between the Arab world and the Muslim states of the African Sahel. There is also evidence to suggest that i ... More
This book is a study of the evidence that exists to this day in the Niger Republic, and in the adjacent regions of Saharan and non-Saharan Africa, about the life of Sīdī Mahmūd al-Baghdādī, who, it is believed, introduced new doctrines of Oriental Sufism into the Aïr Massif during the sixteenth century. The teachings of Sīdī Mahmūd were to reappear recently in the Khalwatiyya Sūfī order (tariqa) in Niger. They are still important for contemporary Islam in that republic, which is a bridge between the Arab world and the Muslim states of the African Sahel. There is also evidence to suggest that initiated members of the Mahmūdiyya Sūfī order were once to be found throughout the entire Southern Sahara, from Timbuktu to Borneo and Lake Chad. This Sūfī order was one of the earliest to be founded in the area of Aïr which was a crossroads of African trade and of rival empires, and of conflicting tribes and peoples.
Keywords:
Niger Republic,
Sīdī Mahmūd al-Baghdādī,
Oriental Sufism,
Aïr Massif,
sixteenth century,
Khalwatiyya Sūfī,
Islam
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 1990 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198265382 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198265382.001.0001 |
