Falkeiana IV : the shaykh as the locus of divine self-disclosure : a poem in praise of shaykh .Ham_ahu 'll_ah

Among the manuscripts in the 'Umar Falke Collection at Northwestern University is a poem about .Ham_ahu 'll_ah, the 20-th century Tij_an_i shaykh and reputed 'wal_i,' born c. 1883. He was exiled by the French colonial government in the 1920s, and later in 1941, and he died in France in 1943. He attracted considerable attention since his emergence as a Sufi religious leader in West Africa, particularly in Nioro du Sahel (Mali). Although a number of scholars have written about .Ham_ahu 'll_ah and his disciples within the socioeconomic and political contexts of French colonialism, the religious aspects of the .Hamawiyya branch of the Tij_aniyya (in European writing often called .Ham_aliyya) have received inadequate attention. The poem in praise of .Ham_ahu 'll_ah, which is included in this paper in Arabic with an English translation, provides an entry into the discourse of sainthood which surrounded .Ham_ahu 'll_ah. Notes, ref.