S¯uf¯i mystics of the Niger desert: S¯id¯i Mahm¯ud and the hermits of Aïr

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Title:	S¯uf¯i mystics of the Niger desert: S¯id¯i Mahm¯ud and the hermits of Aïr
Author:	Norris, H.T.
Year:	1990
Pages:	180
Language:	English
City of publisher:	Oxford
Publisher:	Clarendon Press
ISBN:	0198265387
Geographic term:	Niger
Subjects:	Muslim brotherhoods Sufism biographies (form)
About person:	Mahmu¯d al- Baghd¯ad¯i
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 S¯id¯i Mahm¯ud al-Baghd¯ad¯i, who, it is believed, introduced new doctrines of oriental Sufism into the Aïr massif during the 16th century. He was slain by the then Sultan of the city of Agades, though the Sufi order that he had founded - the Mahm¯udiyya - survived amongst his Tuareg and non-Tuareg followers. By far the most comprehensive account of his teachings is to be found in the part-seventeenth-century composition, 'Qudwat al-Mutaqid f¯i siyar al-ajw¯ad', which was allegedly written by Shaykh Ahmad b. Uw¯ayis, a Lamt¯una Tuareg, who although a Suhrawardi Sufi, nevertheless became a spokesman for the Mahm¯udiyya in his age. This book contains the biographical, historical, doctrinal, administrative and catechizing parts of the 'Qudwa'. Around it the author has built 'chapters' which furnish the maximum amount of background material to enable the reader to understand the incomplete text. This includes a history of early Sufism in the Aïr massif.