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Sudanic Africa, 11, 2000, 125-130

FRITZ MEIERS UNPUBLISHED PAPERSAND THE TIJNIYYA

BERND RADTKE*

Academic research on the more recent centuries of Sufism, inparticular on the Tijniyya, has, so it would seem, proceeded

under an unlucky starindeed, the same can unfortunately besaid about the study of classical Sufism, for some time now,as I have maintained in the Introduction to my Tirmidh textedition.1 With regard to the Tijniyya, we have at our dispo-sal the works of Abun-Nasr2 and Willis3 which areinadequate in several respects. We have Reinhard Schulzesattempts at interpreting more recent Sufism which suffer fromthe defects of gross dilettantism.4 And for the veneration of

Muammad we have Annemarie Schimmels book.5

As forthe shortcomings of the scholarly literature on so important apersonality as Amad b. Idrs, one may read the critical intro-duction of Sen OFaheys Enigmatic Saint.6

* This paper was read at the 1st International Colloquium on Libra-ries and the Transmission of Islamic Thought in Africa, Evanston,25-27 May 2001.I wish to express my warmest thanks to JohnOKane (Amsterdam) for having translated this paper from German.

1 See Bernd Radtke, Drei Schriften des Theosophen von Tirmi,Erster Teil, Beirut-Stuttgart 1992, Einleitung, ix.2 Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, The Tijaniyya. A Sufi Order in the Modern

World, London 1965.3 John Ralph Willis, In the Path of Allah. The Passion of al-Hajj

fiUmar, London 1989.4 See in detail my book Autochthone islamische Aufklrung im

achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Theoretische und filologische berleg-ungen. Fortsetzung einer Debatte, Utrecht 2000.

5 And Muhammed is His Messenger, Chapel Hill 1987.

6 R.S. OFahey, Enigmatic Saint. Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi

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This situation started to become clear to me twelve yearsago in Bergen. As far as Amad b. Idrs is concerned, someprogress has now been made, but I do not wish to enterfurther into this subject. In the introduction to my book Autochthone islamische Aufklrung im 18. Jahrhundert[Indigenous Islamic enlightenment in the eighteenthcentury],7 which came out last year, I state:

In view of the unreliable generalizations and misinterpretations ofrecent Sufism which are found not only in Schulzes writings, Ihave seen it as my primary task to survey relevant sources by means

of traditional philological methods and in some cases to make thesematerials available in a critical edition. Of my work in this area, Iwish to single out in particular my article Sufism in the 18th Centu-ry and the recently published book The Exoteric Amad Ibn Idrs.In both these works one will find the first indications of an interpre-tation of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century developments which iscapable of standing up to philological criticism.8

In addition to these works, I would also like to mention,

without going into details, the following articles which speci-fically deal with the Tijniyya:(1) Von Iran nach Westafrika [From Iran to West

Africa], published 1995 inDie Welt des Islams.9

(2) Studies on the sources of the Kitb Rim izb al-ram ofal-jj fiUmar, which was published in SAJHS, 6,1995.10

The latter article may be known, whereas the first isprobably not known as it is in German. In From Iran to WestAfrica, on the basis of analyzing the sources he refers to, Ipoint out that al-jj fiUmar drew on two fifteenth-centuryworks from Egypt which were influenced by ideas associated

Tradition, London & Evanston 1990, 1-9.7 See note 4.8 Vorwort, vii f.9 Von Iran nach Westafrika. Zwei Quellen fr al- fiUmars Kitb

Rim izb ar-ram,Die Welt des Islams, xxxv, 1995, 37-69.10 SAJHS, 6, 1995, 73-113.

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with the Kubrawiyya. More on this subject will shortly beappearing in the Festschriftfor Hermann Landolt under thetitle: The Eight Rules of Junayd: A General Overview of theGenesis and Development of Islamic Dervish Orders.

But now let us turn to our main topic. Fritz Meier died in1998.11 He left his unpublished academic papers to theUniversity of Basel. This unpublished material consists ofthousands of pages in A4 format. In fact it comes to a stagge-ring total of almost 23,000 pages, much of which is made upof source material he collected on the most diverse subjects inIslamic studies. A table of contents will be published on the

Internet as part of a project undertaken by the University ofBasel under the direction of Gudrun Schubert. The greatmajority of the papers consists of translations from primarysources. Meier has left us his collected materials in a highlyordered state. Certain broad subjects dominate, but there arealso almost 200 smaller subjects, often arranged in furtherthematic subdivisions. On the Internet all this will appearunder subject headings which present brief descriptions of the

contents of individual pages, often with mention of the origi-nal source. The Internet address is:

Besides this collected material, Fritz Meier left behindfour manuscripts of which the posthumous publication is nowbeing planned or is already underway. The largest of theseworks bears the title, in Meiers own formulation, Bemerk-ungen zum Mohammedverehrung [Observations on the

veneration of Muammad]: a typical title for Meier, and onewhich might easily mislead many readers concerning theactual exhaustiveness of his treatment of the subject. Theseobservations were intended by Meier to be a comprehensivepresentation of all forms of veneration of the ProphetMuammad, broadly speaking a reworking and extension ofthe subject Tor Andr dealt with in his book Die person

11 See my obituaries in Persica, xix, 2000, 1-7, and in Oriens, xxxvi,2001, 359-65.

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Muhammeds in lehre und glauben seiner gemeinde whichappeared in 1918. The material which Meier left behind, aswell as the personal remarks he made, bear witness to thisintention.

Unfortunately, Meier was unable to complete this under-taking. Two subjects only were brought to completion.Firstly, the use of the taliya, invoking blessings on theProphet. This is dealt with in the first part of thismanuscriptaround 130 A3 pagesin 53 chapters. Meieralready published one of these chapters in an expanded ver-sion in 1986 under the title Die segenssprechung ber

Mohammed im bittgebet und in der bitte.12 This article hasbeen made available in English translation in Fritz Meier:Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism13 under the titleInvoking Blessings on Muammad in Prayers of Supplica-tion and When Making Requests.14

It goes without saying that in the unpublished portions ofthe manuscript one also encounters Meiers characteristicmethod of work and presentation: the thoroughness of his

treatment, the stupendous breadth of his reading and know-ledge of sources, and his analytical acumen. It must be saidthat even the first part of this work will be an authoritativestudy of Islamic piety and folklore. This first part of the workwill be published by Brill before the end of 2001.

The second part of the manuscript, somewhat smaller insize, describes the role of the taliya in Sufi contexts. Meieraddresses himself especially to North African Sufism of

recent centuries and in particular to the Tijniyya, whosedoctrine and practices are in fact here treated comprehen-sively for the first time. Among other things, the forms oftaliya as employed by the Tijniyya are studied as to their

12 Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft, cxxxvi,1986, 364-401.

13 Trans. John OKane with editorial assistance of Bernd Radtke,Leiden 1999.

14 Ibid., 549-88.

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genesis, role, content and specific usage, especially the altal-fti, the Jawharat al-kaml, and so on. A separatechapter is devoted to clarifying the concept of arqa

muammadiyya; I will not go further into the meaning of thisterm here. In this connection Meier introduces the concepts ofa mysticism of God and a mysticism of Muammad. Hedates the beginning of the latter to around 1100thus by nomeans to the time when the so-called Neo-Sufism shall haveappeared. Generally, this publication, if scholarly consensustakes note of it, will deliver a coup de grce to the fantasy ofNeo-Sufism.

One of the last of the eighteen chapters deals withseeing the Prophet in a dream and when awake, the ruyatal-nab, which has been of extremely great significance inmore recent Sufism. Around 200 pages of collected sourcematerial exist which deal with this subject. These, togetherwith other material, will be published along with Meiersmanuscript in a second volume in 2002.

The two parts of the manuscript were written between

the second half of the 1970s and the middle or end of the1980s. Chapter 17, the last to be produced, bears the titleBerhrungen und zrtlichkeiten [Physical touching andcaresses], referring to such contacts with the Prophet. And itis certainly the case that this subject attracted Meier to anotherundertaking. He followed his kashish and the final result washis monograph on Bah-i Walad, the father of Mawln.15 Itis difficult to say whether one should regret that Meier follo-

wed this attraction and thereby had to give up working onthe Muammad book, as he himself called it. In any case, hehad checked over the whole manuscript and added numerouscorrections and additions, and he often remarked that it wouldbe desirable for the work to be published.

Furthermore, there is the prospect that other materialsfrom Meiers bequeathed papers will in turn be published by

15 Fritz Meier, Bah-i Walad. Grundzge seines lebens und seinermystik, Leiden [Acta Iranica 27] 1989.

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Brill; works to do with Sufism, for example on allj, andworks to do with folklore and demonology.

One further bit of information in closing. There has longbeen an initiative to translate Hellmut RittersMeer der Seeleinto English. I can now announce that financing for the pro-ject has been arranged and an appropriate translator has beenfoundJohn OKane, who has already translated FritzMeiers essays. The translation will hopefully appear sometime early in 2003.