Muhammad al-Jazuli

Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli al-Simlali (died 1465) was a Marinid Sufi leader of the Berber tribe of the Jazulah who lived in the Sus area of nowadays is Morocco between the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas Mountains.¹ He is especially famous for compiling the Dala'il al-Khayrat , an extremely popular Muslim prayer book and he is known by many Moroccans as one the seven saints of Marrakesh .² He studied locally and then went to the Madrasat As-Saffarîn in Fez where his room is still pointed out to visitors today. In Fes he memorized works of usul al-fiqh and Maliki law, such as Ibn al-Hajib’s Mukhtasr al-Far’i and Sahnun’s Al-Mudawwana al-Kubra. He also met the famous jurist and mystic Sheikh Ahmad Zarruq . After settling a tribal feud he left the area and spent the next forty years in Makkah, Medina and Jerusalem. After his long journey, he returned to Fez where he completed the prayer book Dala'il al-Khayrat . He was initiated into the Shadhili Tariqa, a Sufi order, by a descendant of moulay Abu Abdallah Mohammed Amghar , the sheikh of the Banu Amghar. He spent fourteen years in Khalwa (seclusion) and then went to Safi where he gathered around him many followers. The governor of Safi felt obliged to expel him and later poisoned him which caused his death in 869 A.H. He is said to have died during prayer. His tomb in Afoughal became the center of the Saadian resistance against the Portuguese . His deep respect for al-Jazouli was the reason that Abu Abdallah al-Qaim chose Afoughal as his residence. Seventy-seven years after his death (in 1541) his body was exhumed to be transferred to Marrakesh and found to be uncorrupted. In the northern part of the medina of Marrakesh the Saadian sultan Ahmad al-Araj (1517-1544) had a mausoleum built for al-Jazouli. The mausoleum was enlarged and partly rebuilt during the reign of the sultans Moulay Ismael and Mohammed Ben Abdallah .³