Ahmad Zarruq (Arabic: أحمد زروق) also known as Imam az-Zarrūq ash Shadhili (Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Īsa) (1442–1493 CE) was a 15th-century Moroccan Shadhili Sufi, jurist and saint from Fes.^[1][2] He is considered one of the most prominent and accomplished legal, theoretical, and spiritual scholars in Islamic history, and is thought by some to have been the renewer of his time (mujaddid). He was also the first to be given the honorific title "Regulator of the Scholars and Saints" (muhtasib al-‘ulama’ wa al-awliya’).^[3] His shrine is located in Misrata, Libya, however unknown militants exhumed the grave and burnt half the mosque.

Life

Zarruq was born on 7 June 1442 (22nd Muharram, 846 of the Islamic 'Hijra' calendar) - according to Sheikh Abd Allah Gannun - in a village in the region of Tiliwan, a mountain area of Morocco.^[4] He was of the Berber tribe of the Barnusi^[5] who lived in an area between Fes and Taza, and was orphaned of both his mother and father within the first seven days of his birth. His grandmother, an accomplished jurist, raised him and was his first teacher. Zarruq is one of the most prominent scholars in the late Maliki school but is perhaps better known as a Shadhili Sufi Sheikh and founder of the Zarruqiyye branch of the Shadhili Sufi order (Tariqa). He was a contemporary of Muhammad al-Jazuli.

He took the name 'Zarruq' (meaning 'blue') and he studied the traditional Islamic sciences such as jurisprudence, Arabic, traditions of Prophet Muhammed and wrote extensively on a number of subjects. His most famous works are first of all his Qawa’id al-Tasawwuf (The Principles of Sufism), his commentaries on Maliki jurisprudence and his commentary upon the Hikam of ibn 'Ata Allah. He travelled East to Mecca in Tihamah and to Egypt before taking up residence in Misrata, Libya where he died in 899 (1493). He was buried in Misrata, Libya.

Part of a series on Islam Sufism
Tomb of Abdul Qadir Gilani, Baghdad, Iraq
Ideas Abdal Al-Insān al-Kāmil Baqaa Dervish Dhawq Fakir Fana Hal Haqiqa Ihsan Irfan Ishq Karamat Kashf Lataif Manzil Ma'rifa Maqam Murid Murshid Nafs Nūr Qalandar Qutb Silsila Sufi cosmology Sufi metaphysics Sufi philosophy Sufi poetry Sufi psychology Salik Tazkiah Wali Yaqeen
Practices Anasheed Dhikr Haḍra Muraqabah Qawwali Sama Whirling Ziyarat
Sufi orders Sunni Qadiri Chishti Naqshbandi Mujaddadiya Shadhili Suhrawardi Rifa`i Khalwati Rahmani Badawi Desuqi Ba 'Alawi Tijani Darqawi Idrisi Senusi Bayrami Jelveti Maizbhandari Malamati Mouridi Sülaymaniyya Salihiyya Azeemia Kubrawi Mevlevi Shattari Uwaisi Firdausiyya Shi'a Alians Bektashi Hurufi Ni'matullāhī Nuqtavi Qalandari Safavi Zahabiya Non-denominational Akbari Galibi Haqqani Anjuman Inayati Issawiyya Jerrahi Madari Mahdavi Noorbakshi Zahedi Zikri
List of sufis Notable early Notable modern Singers
Topics in Sufism Tawhid Sharia Tariqa Haqiqa Ma'rifa Art History Sufi music Persecution Ziyarat
Islam portal
v t e

Anecdotes of Zarruq's childhood, travels and education appear in an untitled fahrasa and Fawa'id min Kunnash, the second being edited in its Arabic version.^[6] Selected passages appear in translation in: Zarruq the Sufi: a Guide in the Way and a Leader to the Truth by Ali Fahmi Khushaim (Tripoli, Libya:General Company for Publication, 1976)

Quotes

• This world is like the river of Goliath from which no one who drinks is saved except the one who scoops up a handful, not the one who slakes his thirst.^[7]