A man apart

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A Man Apart

[Editors note: The following article is taken from the September 1985 AFRICA EVENTS
magazine, and is concerning Al Hajj Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse.

Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse:
A Man Apart

The late Al Hajj Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse of Senegal, Renowned Sufi Shaykh, was a
most extra-ordinary man, He commands a large following in the whole of West Africa
and beyond, including France and the U.S. Sayyid Omar Abdalla describes his
encounters with the man.

La ilaha illa-llah, Mashaa Allah, La Quwwata illa Billah. I first knew of Al Hajj al-
Allama Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse through a magazine, Al Arab, which used to be published in
Karachi under the able editorship of an Egyptian.
I had read in the magazine that a highly spiritual man in Kaolack, Senegal was the cause for
a padre (father) from Eastern Nigeria to embrace Islam. Eastern Nigeria was purely Christian
and mainly Catholic. Islam was not allowed to enter there. British administrators co-operating
very closely with the missionaries put up barriers against Islam entering Eastern Nigeria. Then
it transpired that a well-educated padre had a dream that was to change the fortunes of Islam in
Eastern Nigeria.
This is what happened, and I heard this from the padre’s own tongue. I had met him in
Makkah. He was a very impressive man, very huge and wearing a Turban. His English was
fluent and good. I was so much impressed with him that I had to ask him, “Where are you
from?” “I’m from Eastern Nigeria”, he said. And immediately I asked, “Are you Ibrahim
Niasse, the priest who was converted by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse of Senegal and then took his
name?” “Yes, indeed, I am”, came the reply. I met him again in 1965, at a conference of
Muslim scholars from all over the Muslim World.
The former padre related to me his dream. In his dream, he saw very impressive people high
up in the sky. With the padre there were two people, one white and the other one black. But he
was surprised because the white person, whom he thought might be a European, was not in
European attire but was in Islamic dress. He had never met any Arab before. The white
gentleman told him, “If you want to join those people up there in the sky, the only person who
can take you, who can lead you and guide you to get there is this black person”.But the black
person was in Islamic dress. So the padre said to the white man, whom he later realized was the

Prophet himself, “How can this man take me there? I’m a Christian, he is a Muslim”.And he
was told, “That’s your business. If you want to get there, there’s no other way”. He woke up.
As he was an artist he sketched the faces of the two gentlemen who were with him, and then he
ignored the dream. But the dream kept on recurring until he thought it was necessary for him to
go out of Eastern Nigeria to seek out the black man.
In Western Nigeria someone told him that his sketch of the black man resembled Shaykh
Ibrahim Niasse of Senegal who lived in Kaolack. Having heard that, he decided there and then
to go to Kaolack. He arrived at Shaykh Ibrahim’s house at 3 o’clock in the morning. He
knocked at the door. The Shaykh’s children came out alarmed, thinking that he was a thief or
an intruder. “I just want to see your father”, said the padre, “that’s all there is. I’m quite a
peaceful person”. Incidentally, all of Shaykh Ibrahim’s children are illustrious. They all have
memorized the Quràn, they are very learned, and they combine both secular and religious
education, of course in the Western sense of the dichotomy.
In Islam we don’t have the distinction between the religious and the secular. They are all
one thing, all knowledge. And whatever helps you to approach God, to serve God, to develop
your personality, is Islamic. Any knowledge which makes you do wrong, even if it is Fiqh
(Islamic jurisprudence) or Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism), is un-Islamic. And that is why you
find in the Traditions of the Prophet, a prayer which says: “Allahumma aùdhubika min ìlmin
la fanyaa”, O Lord, I take refuge in you against knowledge which is not useful.
There is no particular branch of knowledge that is not useful except knowledge that does not
improve a person, or that does not make a person develop his personality and realize the
existence of God and the unity of God and how to serve God, through serving fellow human
beings. That is Ìlmin la Fanyaa (useless knowledge). No wonder Muslims in earlier times
studied all sorts of knowledge, all branches of science, mathematics, they improved on them
and put them on the right path, on the right way to become really scientific. But this is all
digression.
Back to Kaolack. Shaykh Ibrahim came out of his house and the first thing he said to the
padre was: “Join Islam, embrace Islam”.“That’s exactly what I’m here for”, responded the
padre.
He then embraced Islam, stayed with Shaykh Ibrahim for sometime, learned the main
principals of Islam, and the ritual practices required. After that he returned to Nigeria as a
Muslim and with a new nam, Ibrahim Niasse, the name of his Shaykh, the man who helped him
convert to Islam.
There were two churches in Eastern Nigeria that the padre was the responsible for looking
after. But now he was a Muslim. He burned them down to make things easy. When he was
taken to court for such a sacrilegious act, burning down places of worship, he told the English
judge, “Mind you, I did not do that as a contempt of religion, of Christianity. I did that because
I used to worship in those two churches, and I was in charge of those churches, which were
built as a result of my efforts. Now I am a Muslim. I can’t pray in there. I have demolished the
churches to build mosques instead so that I can go in and pray. If I were to go back to
Christianity I shall burn down the mosques and build churches again”. The case was dismissed.
From what I read in Al Arab and what the man himself told me, within six months 6,000
people in Eastern Nigeria had embraced Islam. Shaykh Niasse of Eastern Nigeria was a
tremendous person who made gigantic efforts with enormous enthusiasm to serve Islam, to
spread Islam, and to explain Islam. And he did that very successfully.
When I read about this in Al Arab, I decided that whenever I was anywhere in Europe I

would go to Senegal to see Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse of Kaolack, the man who possessed such
spiritual powers. In 1961 or 1962 when I was up at Oxford, I received an invitation to go to
Ghana to attend the conference on The World Without the Bomb organized by a committee in
Yugoslavia and sponsored by Kwame Nkrumah.
I decided immediately, that it was an opportunity for me to go and see Ghana. It was not
very easy because the Commonwealth scholarship I had did not allow people to be away from
England for more than two weeks, during the teaching period and even during vacations.
Anyway, I managed to get to Accra. The driver who was to take me around Accra decided that
he would show me some of the buildings that the senior British administrators used to live in.
He took me to one very imposing building, and outside the house I found people performing
the zikr saying La ilaha illa-llah, La ilaha illa-llah, La ilaha illa-llah (There is no God but
Allah).
I recalled that at one time, during the same period of Nkrumah, one of Zanzibar’s pre-
independence politicians who was going to Ghana went to say good-bye to al-Imam al Habib
Ùmar bin Sumeyt, our Grand Shaykh. He was as Grand in East Africa as Shaykh Ibrahim
Niasse was in West Africa, or probably more as Shaykh Ibrahim himself said. Sayyid Ùmar
said to the politician: “You’re going to Ghana. You’ll find people of our party there. When you
have taken what you want to take for your party, then take for our party because you’ll find our
people there”. When I saw the zikr I said to myself, “this is the party of Al Habib Ùmar, the
party of La ilaha illa-llah”.
The car stopped there. Someone approached and I asked him what was happening. He told
me that there was a very great Shaykh inside the building. “A great Shaykh? Could I meet
him?” “Let us go and inform him about it”, the man replied. Then he went inside and came out
with a positive answer.
I went in and found a very impressive, highly dignified gentleman with a copy of the Quràn
in his hand. I was surprised because I thought he was a Ghanaian and I had not met any
Ghanaian Muslim back in England. When I was there earlier between 1951 and 1953, I hardly
met any Muslim Ghanaians, and I though that there were very few Muslims in Ghana. But of
course this time I discovered that there were a lot of them. The reason why I did not see any of
the educated Ghanaians who were Muslims in England was that education was left in the hands
of Christian missionaries. One or two people whom risked sending their children there had
them converted. Education was made a means of converting people to Christianity.
I was surprised to see that Shaykh. And I said, “Are you a Ghanaian?” He said he was not.
“I am from Senegal”. I asked him if he knew Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. He said that he knew him
well because he was he. He was one of those invited to join the conference. Nkrumah used to
get on very well with him. He used to take his advice because Shaykh Ibrahim knew a lot about
the world and its ways. He was well versed both in diplomacy and politics and was deeply
mystical. Very well read in Islamic subjects - fiqh (jurisprudence), tawhid (unity of God) and
tasawwuf (mysticism). In him all sorts of learning merged in one whole. He was an
internationally respected figure.
He went to China as the Shaykh of Islam of West Africa. It was during the time of Mao-
Tse-Tung and he was well received. He used to get on very well indeed with King Faisal and
President Gamal Abd al-Nasir. He reconciled the two of them when they fell apart. I remember
to have seen him in Makkah sitting besides King Faisal at the grand Party that the King throws
for all the pilgrims. I can now call to mind a picture that was taken at al-Azhar which has
Gamal Abd al-Nasir sitting next to Shaykh Ibrahim. They were attending Friday prayers.

Shaykh Ibrahim was a man whose prayers have been answered. His favorite prayer was “O
our Lord give us of this world the good things of this world and give us the good things of the
next world and protect us from the punishment of hell-fire”.
Immediately we became very close. If I can let my audacity run away with me, I will say
that we became very good friends from that particular day. We used to meet while I was in
Ghana and I used to cantilate to his some religious qasidas, especially those from the anthology
of al-Imam al-Mujaddid Al-Habib Abdalla ibn Alawi al-Haddad and al-Imam al-Kabir al-
Habib Ali ibn Muhammad al-Habshy. I remember that he was absolutely spiritually intoxicated
and he lost his balance when I recited this, “Lidh li fil ìlmi inni bil fanaa atlaqtu qaidee.” “If
you know the knowledge of the knower, with knowledge of annihilation your chains are
unlocked.”
This is taken from the Diwan of al-Habib al-Murshid, al-Imam al-Kabir Ali ibn Muhammad
al-Habshy. I also used to recite this from the anthology of al-Imam al-Mujaddid al Habib
Abdalla ibn Alawi al-Haddad, “Anaa mashghoolun bilaylaa, àn jameeàl kauni jumlahu
fa’idhaa qulta min dhaa, qul huwas sabbul maulahu.”
When I recited the first he was overwhelmed, and he said he did not know in which world
he was. He absolutely was out of the material world - his essence. Shaykh Ibrahim expected to
keep on repeating these qasidas from the anthologies of as-Sadat al-Alawiyyah.
I asked him all about the conversion of his namesake who was in Eastern Nigeria, and who
in turn converted thousands of Muslims. Shaykh Ibrahim confirmed the truth of the whole
story.
I was in Senegal again to attend a conference on the teaching of economics. I was then the
Principal of Muslim Academy in Zanzibar. On arrival the very first thing I did was to go to
Kaolack to see the Shaykh. I was told he had gone to a neighboring country to open a mosque
but would be returning to lead Friday prayers. When the time for prayers came his Khalifa took
me to the mosque and put me right in front of al-mihrab (the pulpit). I found the Shaykh
delivering the Friday sermon. What a pleasure it was, when while coming down from the pulpit
to lead prayers, he turned and faced me. He said, “Ahlan Wassahlan, how is Shaykh Ùmar”,
that was the first thing he asked me. By that he meant Sayyidina al-Imam al-Habib Ùmar ibn
Ahmad ibn Sumeyt.
In these countries, when someone is called a Shaykh, he is really a Shaykh in knowledge, in
upbringing, in training people, in guiding people on the path to God.
We went home in the afternoon, and from a rather ornate cupboard he brought out the photo
of al-Habib Ùmar, the very one I gave him. Then he gave it to his Khalifa, who was equally
bawled over. And then Shaykh Ibrahim took the picture reverently and put it back where it was.
I mentioned the incident to al-Habib Ùmar, and he said “Aha! We have known him now and
we shall pour into his heart spiritual endowments”.
That is the testimony to al-Habib Ùmar’s great stature. For after all, Shaykh Ibrahim was a
great personality in many spheres, political, diplomatic, spiritual, widely respected by people in
all walks of life, and highly regarded throughout the world including China, and yet there he
was paying homage to al-Habib Ùmar.
Once he was passing through Rome, when someone approached him and asked him to go
and see the Pope. Shaykh Ibrahim said it was a wonderful idea, but “the Pope must come to
me”, he said, “I represent Muhammad, upon whom be peace and blessings of Allah, and he
represents Christ, upon whom be the peace and blessings of God, and Muhammad is greater
than Christ. If he won’t come to me, then I won’t go to him.” *** Copyright Sayyid Omar

Abdalla Africa Events September 1985.
This article, The Eternal Islam, and The 17 th Anniversary of the Disappearance of
Shaykh Ibrahim were published in Newsletters of The African American Islamic
Institute, in 1998, but the newsletters were not distributed. You may contact us by e:mail
for copies. Insha-llah.

Al Hamdu li-llah.

A man apart

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