MARCO DI BRANCO Some Observations on the Ḥizb al Baḥr (the “Litany of the Sea”)
A very interesting passage of the famous Rihla (a kind of medieval trave logue) by the great traveler and scholar Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 1368–1369), who is widely recognized as one of the greatest travelers of all times1, contains the re port of a meeting, which occurred in Alexandria in 1326, between the Moroc can traveler and the šayḫ Yāq ū t al Ḥabašī, who was a disciple of a disciple of a famous saint and friend of God ( wālī Allāh ) named Ab ū ’l Ḥasan ‘Alī b. ‘Abd Allāh b. al Ǧ abbār al Šādilī.2 During this episode, Yāq ū t al Ḥabašī in formed Ibn Baṭṭūṭa about the life and works of this great holy man. Al Šādilī (who died in 1258) is one of the great figures in the Sufism of the brother hoods: his teachings launched a ṭārīqa which gave birth to numerous, dynamic ramifications that have developed and have constituted a mystical tradition very widespread in North Africa and equally present in the rest of the Islamic world, as far as Indonesia.3 Al Šādilī’s life is known to us through the texts compiled by his disciples, often late and in a clearly hagiographical style. It is thus hard to distinguish the historic personage from what pious legend or the archetype of the Sufi has brought forward. Yet one can sketch out the course of life of one of the most famous saints of western Islam. The most important sources concerning al Šādilī are the Laṭā’if al minan by Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh (d. 1309) and the Durrat al aṣrār of Ibn al Ṣ abbāġ (d. 1323). There is also a later synthesis of Ibn ‘Iyād, the Mafāḫir al ‘aliyya fī ’l ma’ātir al šādiliyya .4 According to these sources, al Šādilī was born in northern Morocco, in the Ġ umāra country between Ceuta and Tangiers in ca 1187 or a decade later. He
1 On Ibn Baṭṭūṭa and his work see in particular Ross Edward DUNN , The Adventures of Ibn Bat tuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century , Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1986; Tim MACKINTOSH SMITH , Travels with a Tangerine , London 2001; IDEM , The Travels of Ibn Bat tutah , Basingstoke/Oxford 2002; Leonard Patrick HARVEY , Ibn Battuta , London 2008; David WAINES , The Odissey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer , London 2012. 2 On al Šādilī see in particular Robert BRUNSCHVIG , L a Berbérie orientale sous les Ḥafṣides des origines à la fin du XV siècle , vol. 2, Paris 1947, pp. 322f.; Elmer DOUGLAS , Al Shadhili, a North African Sufi, according to Ibn al Sabbagh, in: Muslim World 38 (1948), pp. 257 279; Mohamed MACKEEN , The Rise of Al Shadhili, in: Journal of American Oriental Society 91 (1971), pp. 477 486; Elmer DOUGLAS , The Mystical Teachings of al Shadhili , Albany 1993. 3 On the Šādiliyya see Paul NWYA , Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh et la naissance de la confrérie shadhilite , Beirut 1972. See also Pierre LORY , Šādiliyya, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , vol. 9, ed. Clifford Edmund BOSWORTH [et al.], 2nd ed., Leiden 1997, pp. 172 175. 4 On these sources see Pierre LORY , Šādilī, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , vol. 9, ed. Clifford Edmund BOSWORTH [et al.], 2nd ed., Leiden 1997, pp. 170 172, here p. 170.
266 MARCO DI BRANCO claimed descent from the Prophet via his nephew al Ḥasan. He studied the various religious sciences in Fes, was tempted for some time to follow alche my, but abandoned it for the mystical way in its proper sense. Seeking instruc tion from the great masters of his time, he left for Iraq, in 1218, where he con tinued his education. At a later stage, he returned to Morocco and stayed with a hermit for several years before again moving eastwards to a town near Tu nis. Numerous miraculous happenings were attributed to him. He finally de cided to leave Ifrīqiya when a pilgrimage caravan was departing. He settled in Egypt, at Alexandria in 1244 or perhaps only as late as 1252. The success of his teaching and his prestige grew unceasingly, and numerous pupils came to Alexandria from distant parts of the Islamic world to gain a spiritual and ascet ic training from him, as a fervent observer of the duties of Islām. Al Šādilī left no writings on doctrinal matters behind deliberately. The es sential core of his teachings was transmitted by his pupils in the form of col lections of “sayings”, words of wisdom and edifying and miraculous anec dotes. Another aspect of the spiritual teaching of al Šādilī is the number and the important function of prayers ( ad‘iya ) and litanies ( aḥzāb ) which he left to his disciples. These prayers often relate to specific situations, for example spiritu al or material distress. Certain of these litanies include formulae of a theurgi cal or talismanic nature, and numerous of the faithful attribute inherent virtues to these texts, independent of whatever understanding of it the one reciting it may have. The term ḥizb (plural aḥzāb ) means primarily “a group, faction, a group of supporters of a man who share his ideas and are ready to defend him”, and this is why the term has been adopted in modern Arabic to mean a political party (see for instance the name of the Shi‘ite Lebanese party Ḥizb Allāh ); but it means also “part, portion”, and it is from this meaning that it has come to indicate a portion of the Qur’ān as well as a group of liturgical formu lae. 5 The ḥizb most often recited is the very popular Ḥizb al baḥr , the “Litany of the Sea”, which is considered as inspired directly by the Prophet Muḥammad. In this context, it could be interesting to analyze some aspects of this very peculiar text, which is entirely reported in Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s Rihla and in Ibn al Ṣ abbāġ’s Durrat al aṣrār. 6 The following is the full Arabic text of the Ḥizb al baḥr in the version by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa and an English translation 7: ﷲ ا ا َ ﱡ َ ُ ، َ ُ َ ُ َأ َر ﱢ ، َو ِ ْ ُ َ َ ْ ِ ، َ ِ ْ َ ﱠا ُب َر ﱢ ، َو ِ ْ َ َا ْ ُ َ ْ ِ ،
5 David Bruce MCDONALD , Ḥizb , in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , vol. 3, ed. Clifford Edmund BOSWORTH [et al.], 2nd ed., Leiden 1986, pp. 513f. 6 Riḥlat Ibn Baṭṭūṭa. T uḥfat al na ẓār fī gharā ʾ ib al am ṣār wa ʿ a ǧ āʾ ib al asfār, ed. Muḥammad AL SA‘Ī D AL ZAYN Ī , Al Qāhira 1998, pp. 21 23. 7 Ibid., pp. 22f.