Shittola

ANNOTATED TRANSLATION OF HIS POEM ON BISMILLAH 1. By the secret of Bismillah illuminate our hearts, and give us a legitimate and purified sustenance. 2. The all-Hearing, the all-Seeing, O the Originator! Bestow on us knowledge by the secret of the exalted names. 3. The King, the Glorious, O the one who makes things clear, make clear for us all knowledge together with their meaning. 4. He is Allah, the Omnipotent, the Opener and He is our Lord. Open for us the gate of knowledge wherever we are. 5. The Kind, the Grateful, (Appreciative) the Independent enrich us, the Opener, the Provider, the Generous, be charitable to us. 6. The Kind, the all-Aware, the Guide, guide us, be kind to us by facilitating all difficulties and give us all our needs. 7. Your guidance is a right path and take us from Divine presence of annihilation to Divine presence of abiding. 8. You are Allah, O the Beneficent, the Provider for the whole world, quickly provide for us a provision from unexpected side.

HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE TIJANIYYAH ORDER. One may align with Oladotun, the author of History of Islam in Offa, who opined that the Tijaniyyah brotherhood was introduced to Offa through the strenuous effort of Alhaji Popo in 1926. The functionality of the order in the town could no longer be sustained after the demise of the pathfinder owing to the non enthusiastic nature of his successor towards its proselytization. Thus, protégés resorted to doing the Tijaniyyah rites individually. It was consequent upon the return of Shaykh Jami'u to Offa around 1945 that the order resuscitated. It is noteworthy to say here that throughout the course of my research about Shaykh, no one admitted being initiated by him, instead they only pledged their allegiance to him owing to the spiritual prowess they envisaged in his personality. The more reason I prefer to refer to them as his loyalists. It was thus generally held that Shaykh did not initiate anyone into the Tijaniyyah order, instead, he dir

HIS SUFI TENDENCY II An interesting fact worthy of admission is Shaykh's approach to Sufism. One wonders where one can conveniently fix him to. Going by Paden's categorization of the Tijaniyyah order, he succinctly categorised the order into two viz: the Traditional Tijaniyyah and the Reformed Tijaniyyah. One is apt to say that Shaykh did not fully fit into both though he claimed allegiance to the later than the former, the more reason why Solagberu regarded his tendency and approach to the order as distinct. As stated ab initio that Shaykh had been developing himself spiritually at a tender's age while he was studying he Qur'an at Offa, he later felt dissatisfied with this and decided to travel to Ilorin where he is optimistic to meet great Sufi Masters of his time in tandem with Ibn Khaldun's position where he said, "a scholar's education is greatly improved by travelling in quest of knowledge and meeting authoritative teachers of his time". Sufism