3.3.3 - Shaykh Abdul-Aziz Ibn Abu Bakr al-Mahdawi

Shaykh Abdul-Aziz Ibn Abu Bakr al-Mahdawi (c. 545/1150-621/1224) was also one of the prominent disciples of Shaykh Abu Madyan, and was loved by Shaykh Muhyiddin, who had credited him with writing many of his important books that he dedicated to him, such as the Holy Spirit, and also the initial form of the Meccan Revelations, as we shall see in section

ef(futuhat1i in Chapter IV.

Al-Mahdawi had a noticeable influence on Ibn al-Arabi during this stage in the Maghrib. He also had a great influence on the development of Sufism in Tunis, especially after the death of his Shaykh Ibn al-Kinani. According to the some hagiographers, such as Ibn Qunfudh, he is depicted as one of the most important and influential disciples of Abu Madyan. His tomb is still an important place of pilgrimage to this day. He was the “leader of people of excellence” and the “sea of lights and a treasure-trove of mysteries”.

In his introduction to the Holy Spirit, addressing Shaykh Abdul-Aziz al-Mahdawi, the Greatest Shaykh says:

And I can foretell you, O my guardian, may Allah be pleased with you, that I have tried food with my brothers from Maghrib to Mecca, but nothing entered in my belly more heartfelt than your food. I find its taste beyond description, and it was so due to honesty of the souls and that your thoughts were not attached to it except at the time, as you and Ibn al-Murabit know the cause for that.

[Quds: p. 45].

He was born some years before Ibn al-Arabi, perhaps around 545/1150, and he came originally from the Tunisian town of al-Mahdia, which used to be one of the most formidable fortresses on the Mediterranean. Early in his life he is reported to have undertaken a 40-day retreat in Monastir, some miles down the coast from Tunis. This kind of rigorous spiritual practice apparently led the imam of the al-Mahdia mosque to remark: “If Abdul-Aziz dies, no-one should pray for him, as he will have killed himself.” On hearing of that, al-Mahdawi retorted: “It is he who will die [first] and Abdul-Aziz will pray for him”, and this was what happened. After this retreat, he appears to have been unable to eat, and when asked if he was alright, he replied: “I am alive, with a life after which there is no death evermore.” [Ibn Qunfudh’s Uns al-Faqîr, edited by M. al-Fasiy and A. Fauré (Rabat, 1965), pp. 97–100, and al-Farisiya (Tunis, 1968), p. 146.].

Maybe due to this austerity that he accomplished early in his life, Shaykh Muhyiddin states that he was known as Ibn al-Karrah: “the son of return”, which may mean returning to life after which there is no death, or his being resurrected alive, or to the real life that took place as a consequence of the 40-day retreat:

I heard one of the shaykhs saying: “As long as he has his mortal nature (basharîyyah), speech belongs to him from behind a veil, but when he departs from his mortal nature, the veil will be lifted.” This Shaykh was Abdul-Aziz Ibn Abu Bakr al-Mahdawi, known as Ibn al-Karrah. I heard this from him in his house in Tunis. He was correct that speech is from behind a veil and that he did not connect it with witnessing, but he erred when he said “the veil is lifted”, and he did not restrict. It should said that the veil of mortal nature is lifted, because there is no doubt that one is behind the veil of his humanity.

[Futuhat: II.602].

It seems that al-Mahdawi met Shaykh Abu Madyan in Tunis in 570/1175 when he was heading to Mecca for Hajj. He subsequently spent some time with his group of disciples in Bugia, undergoing a thorough training. Abu Madyan later referred to him as a “lion of souls”.

In al-Kawkab al-Durriy fî Manâqib Dh?l-N?n al-Mi?rîy, Shaykh Muhyiddin also described him as a model of remarkable self-discipline and that he remained long time not eating bread:

One of our companions told us regarding our Shaykh, the master of the spiritual community, Abu Madyan Ibn Shuayb Ibn Husayn, who resided at Bugia, that he had said: “When I am hungry, I recite the Quran and then I am satisfied, and when I am thirsty, I pray blessings upon Muhammad, may God bless him and give him peace,, and my thirst is quenched.” Now another of our companions told me that the gnostic shaykh, Abdul-Aziz al-Mahdawi, acted in the same manner, but I have forgotten the details. What I do know, however, is that he had given up eating bread for more than ten years. I myself stayed with him for eight months (which is his second visit as we shall describe in section

ef(tunis2), night and day, and I never saw him touch bread at all. When he ate: he took little, and yet he was large and in the best of health. I never saw anyone more tough and hardy than him, and with regard to God he showed a soul of steel.

Manaqib ???.

The only major work that is attributed to him is this remarkable prayer on the Prophet, al-Salat al-Mubarakah, which shows him to have been a true spiritual master.

Shaykh Abdul-Aziz al-Mahdawi, may Allah be pleased with him, died in the year 621/1224. His body was washed by Shaykh Abu Said Khalaf Ibn Abu Yahya al-Tamimi al-Baji (551/1156 to 628/1230), who also recited the funeral-prayer over him and laid him in his grave, where he was buried next to his shaykh, Abu Abdullah al-Kinani, in what was to become a very well-known cemetery of shaykhs and place of pilgrimage. It lies in the middle of the bay of Marsa, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.