Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili

Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili (c. 593/1196–656/1258) was a North African Sufi (Islamic mystic) and the figure from whom the Shadhiliyya, one of the most widespread Sufi orders (tariqas), takes its name. Tradition places his birth in the Ghumara region of the Rif, in what is now northern Morocco, within a Maliki legal milieu; his biographers describe him as a sharif, a claimed descendant of the Prophet Muhammad through al-Hasan, though such genealogies are honorific claims rather than independently documented fact.

The fullest accounts of his life come from later devotional biographies (manaqib), chiefly Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari's Lata'if al-minan and Ibn al-Sabbagh's Durrat al-asrar, so much of the itinerary is traditional rather than strictly attested. These report that he traveled east in search of spiritual guidance, met the master al-Wasiti in Iraq, and was directed back to the Maghreb to the teacher Abd al-Salam ibn Mashish, near Tetouan. He later settled near the Tunisian village of Shadhila, from which his name derives, gathering disciples and drawing opposition from some jurists. Following a reported dream-vision, he moved to Alexandria, where he taught until his death.

He is credited with the Hizb al-Bahr ("Litany of the Sea"), a still-recited prayer, and with sayings and litanies rather than formal treatises; his teachings were largely transmitted by disciples such as his successor Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi. He died at Humaythira, in Egypt's eastern desert, while traveling toward Mecca for the pilgrimage.