On Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse, his Political Alliances and Leading Friday Prayer at the Prestigious Al-Azhar Mosque

Introduction

Coming from a home that prides itself with being Tijani,—particularly Fayda—Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse’s personality is one that has taken centre stage in my life. I have been obsessed with his life before. Over a decade ago when I gained unrestricted access to the internet, I’d spend most of my time reading about him, his Fayda and the Tijani Tariqa. As I continued to read and hear more about him, my admiration for him skyrocketed. I remember vividly how my father queried me as a proud disciple while teaching me the Shaykh’s magnum opus Ruhul Adab. He asked pitifully:
"The Shaykh wrote all this while he was only twenty. Can you accomplish something like this at twenty?"

Till date, a picture of his hangs on the walls of my room, as tradition demands. Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse, like many prominent figures in history, has had his share of misrepresentations from lovers and foes alike. For the most part, he’s a skewed character misrepresented by different parties for their parochial interests. Interests make the world go round and there’s no disputing that. Being an admirer myself, I’ve come to gather stories about him that, over the time, have been rendered baseless and lacking of veracity through research. Some of these falsehoods are regularly peddled by our favourite preachers, but as far as the truth is concerned, we assume no party except that of the truth.

In recent times, claims revolving around the Shaykh’s visit to al-Azhar and leading Friday prayer in its mosque have resurfaced, and as usual, the narratives are heavily embellished.
In order to tackle these claims, I would love to present a political background to the Shaykh’s relation to Egypt and its President Gamal Abdel Naser.

A sign of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse’s political maturity lies in his formation of pacts with key nationalist leaders and Pan-African intellectuals in Sub-saharan Africa during the days of imperialism and colonialism. Most notable of these is what he had with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president. He was one of his closest friends. It is asserted that during his 1952 visit to Mauritania and later Ghana, he got introduced to Nkrumah by Alhaji Noga. In the following passage Zachary Wright intimates to that:

"Ibrāhīm Niasse maintained cordial relations with many of Africa’s prominent nationalist leaders. His most significant contact in the network of panAfrican intellectuals was Kwame Nkrumah. The two were likely introduced through the mediation of the shaykh’s Ghanaian disciple, Alhaji Noga. The shaykh visited Nkrumah in a British-Ghanaian prison in the early 1950s, where, according to oral sources, he promised him on the basis of “spiritual unveiling” (kashf ) that he would soon become president of an independent Ghana."

After his relation with Nkrumah had been heavily cemented, Nkrumah then introduced him to Gamal Abdel Nasser, the then Egyptian president, on the basis of their shared ideology in pushing for the betterment of African societies. Knowing the extent of the Shaykh’s influence, Gamal Abdel Nasser tried recruiting him in pushing his Pan-Arabic agenda which was aimed at gaining dominance in the Arab world and most especially, the Muslim world.
In pursuit of this, the Egyptian president, in 1961, gave the Shaykh an official state reception. What linked them was Islam and their anti-colonial vision and tendencies. As tactful as he was, Gamal tried to leverage on these common grounds to influence the Shaykh in pushing his Pan-Arabic agenda across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Thanks to reportage from the Egyptian press, each meeting with Gamal brought its share of popularity for the Shaykh amongst the Egyptians. This earned him the title "The leader of all Muslims in West Africa" amongst them and truthfully, he was. He had amassed a followership of more than 8 million faithfuls then and it was something unheard of. Interestingly, most of these reportage, photos and interviews he had in Egypt are well preserved and scattered over the internet. The Shaykh endorsed aspects of Gamal’s Pan-Arabism that he identified with and called to them. He called to anti-colonialism and love for Arabic, its people and culture.

As the march towards global Islamic solidarity thickened, Saudi Arabia set out to compete Egypt for dominance in the Muslim world and so, King Faysal oversaw the formation of the World Muslim League (Mu'tamar al-ālam al-islāmī). This endeavor was purportedly to rival the already existing influence of Gamal Abdel Nasser's Pan-Arabism in the Arab world.
In an attempt to stifle impending competition, Gamal created the Academy of Islamic Research (Majma' al-buhuth al-islāmiyya) and Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse, due to the immense influence he wielded, was inducted as a member. This happened after he was already a member of that of Saudi Arabia and was serving as its vice president.

Though close to Gamal Abdel Nasser, caution must be given that the Shaykh had reservations regarding his politics and warned him in certain instances. One of such instances is narrated as follows:

"According to oral accounts, in 1965 the shaykh sent a letter to Abdel Nasser asking him not to execute the Muslim Brotherhood intellectual Sayyid Qutb, stating that whatever their doctrinal differences, Qutb was a religious figure that should not be executed by the state. The Egyptian president nonetheless “did what he wanted,” a perceived misdeed for which the shaykh, upon visiting the president’s grave, pronounced his anxiety concerning Abdel Nasser’s salvation in the afterlife."

During his 1961 visit to Egypt under the auspices of the Egyptian president, the Shaykh was asked to lead Friday prayer at al-Azhar mosque. Judging by the time and place, this is a highly impressive achievement that deserves recognition and applause. For an African Scholar, four years after Ghana’s independence, to lead a congregation comprised of world renowned scholars in the most reputable university in the Islamic world. This was unprecedented and is important because it’s representative of the greatness of the scholarship that abounds in West Africa. Due to the nature of this incident, a leeway has been created for people to fabricate a buildup for the story and even involve characters who had no hand in its culmination.

Characters like the then Shaykh al-Azhar Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut and Shaykh Jādalhaq Ali Jādalhaq have been invoked as active participants, but a key primary source suggests otherwise. Some of these claims, with their variations, hold that Shaykh Shaltut saw the Prophet صلى الله عليه وعلى آله وسلم in a dream the night prior and he was commanded to let the Shaykh lead the Friday prayer.
The little that is documented from a key participant, the Imam of the mosque then, Shaykh Muhammad Al-Ghazālī suggests that the gesture was rather a spontaneous one aimed at fostering a diplomatic relationship. In Hiwārāt ash-Shaykh Al-Ghazālī, the following is captured in Arabic regarding the incident:

"أذكر وأنا أخطب في الجامع الأزهر جاءنا الشيخ إبراهيم ناس وهو شيخ الطريقة التيجانية في السنغال وأنا أمثل جامع الأزهر فرأيت أن أربط بين السنغال وبين القاهرة، قدمت الرجل ليخطب الجمعة وخطب الجمعة وقدمته للناس بعد الصلاة وجاء المسلمون وقبلوا يده..."

To wit:

"I remember when I used to give the sermon in al-Azhar mosque, Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse, the Senegalese Tijani Shaykh, paid us a visit. As the representative of al-Azhar in the mosque, I saw the need to establish a relationship between Senegal and Cairo. Thus, I gave him the nod to lead the Friday prayer and he did. After prayer, I presented him to the people and the Muslims came and kissed his hand [out of veneration]."

What the above narration from the Imam stipulates is that the invitation was aimed at fostering a diplomatic relationship between Cairo [Egypt] and Senegal. It also proves that it was a sole decision of his and this decision was neither birthed by any spiritual visions nor an order by Shaykh Shaltut as claimed. Other inferences can be made but I will stick to these two and leave room for the reader to glean what he can from the information provided.

Considering the repute of the Shaykh in question, it is only right, Tijani or not, that we try to maintain a sane ambience around his name and legacy.

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REFERENCES

Wright, Zachary. "Living Knowledge in West African Islam: The Sufi Community of Ibrahim Niasse." Leiden: Brill, 2015.

Seesemann, Rüdiger. "The Divine Flood: Ibrāhīm Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth Century Sufi Revival." New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Seesemann, Rüdiger. "Three Ibrāhīms: Literary Production and the Remaking of the Tijaniyya Sufi Order in Twentieth-century Sudanic Africa." Welt des Islam 49 (2009): 299-333

Al-Ghazālī, Muhammad. "Hiwārāt ash-Shaykh Al-Ghazālī: as-Sīrah wal Masīrah." Dar al Salām li'Tibā'a wal Nashr wal Tawzī' wal Tarjumah.

Ousmane, Kane. "Muslim Modernity in Post Colonial Nigeria: A Study of the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition." Leiden: Brill, 2003.