Leo Schaya’s Journey to Morocco (1950)

From Leo Schaya’s Diary, Translated by Fatima Jane Casewit. Part 1 of the travelogue can be read here.

Meknes

11 November 1950

Before noon on 11 November, we left Fez for good and headed to Meknes where we had our midday meal with Sidi Mohamed Faroul. From there, under pouring rain, we went to Salé, arriving in the evening. We penetrated the beautiful grand Arab house of Sidi El-Hadj Abderrahman Buret.[[1]] This elderly scholarly Frenchman, completely resembling a native, received us with the utmost kindness and total Islamic hospitality. A black servant brought one dish after another and we had to once again “attack” a mountain of couscous. If it were only a matter of a mountain of couscous, that would have been fine, but before that we were served a thick rice soup, followed by the usual mutton, and then the couscous, then the salad, then honey cakes dripping with oil and finally the “liberating” green tea. After the evening meal we spoke about the events of recent months. Hadj Abderrahman considered them with the discernment of a man who had a long and loyal existence behind him. Whilst Sidi Ahmed and his wife returned to their hotel in Rabat, I retreated to my room which had been set aside for me in the home of the Hajj. On the Arab bed, I had a very bad night because I could hardly breathe due to swollen tonsils; I couldn’t call for anyone in the house either because I didn’t know who was behind each door. Finally I grabbed my large wooden rosary, put it around my neck and asked God to cure me.

Mazagan

12 November

The next day – 12 November – I felt a bit better. Thank God. After breakfast, Sidi Ahmed came to fetch us with his car to drive us to Mazagan (Al-Jadida) to Sheikh Muhammed ben Ali at-Tadili.[[2]] To my great surprise, Sidi Mohammed Faroul had already told me that the old Sheikh was expecting me. I was surprised at this, because during my journey I had never thought of visiting him. The words of the Sheikh could, however, be attributed to my Moroccan friends, who, when they learnt of my arrival, spoke about me to the Sheikh and asked him if he would receive me. However it was, I was extremely happy to be thus received without any more formalities by one of the greatest sages of Morocco.

In addition, Hajj Abderrahman had himself suggested that he accompany me to the Sheikh and serve as interpreter. In this way, I felt as though I was transported to Mazagan as if by the wind, without any personal effort. We went through Casablanca, penetrating more deeply and deeply into Morocco. A vast reddish plain; here and there a camel and a young donkey pulling a plough.

Finally Mazagan emerged: a bouquet of luminous white houses on a peninsula extending almost into the wild, blue, foamy sea. Since Fez, this was the most beautiful scenery that I had seen in Morocco. My heart pounding, I stood in front of the Sheikh’s house, who by this time was so ill that his family feared he would die any day. We were invited to go in. Hajj Abderrahman preceded me and greeted the venerable Sheikh who was sitting between two cushions. Today he seemed better, thank God! Blind, paralyzed and leaning forward, he was sitting there like Job. Overwhelmed, we knelt down in front of him and kissed his hand.

With some difficulty speaking, he said that it was the Prophets and the Saints and those who resemble them whom God tested the most.

With some difficulty speaking, he said that it was the Prophets and the Saints and those who resemble them whom God tested the most. This first statement was for me an answer to all the questions I could answer in my state of deep sadness. Did I not come here with a completely broken soul that was blind and paralyzed? At that moment, it was as if my soul had taken on a physical form, as if I were face to face with my own inner state. In fact, at that moment the extraordinary experience that had invaded me the first time I had met Sheikh ‘Isa[[3]] returned to me. At that time, an inner voice had said to me: “This man is your own inner face!” And today, seeing the Sheikh Tadili, my soul cried out to me once again: “I am you! You are me!” It was as if there were not the slightest inner barrier between the elderly Sheikh and myself. My soul was, so to speak, overflowing into him, whereas his spiritual radiance irresistibly invaded me. His spirit was like an immeasurable crystal in which a luminous flow ceaselessly rises.

No sooner had the Sheikh pronounced the first sentence, than the second one followed. The Sheikh repeated the tradition according to which the Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him – said one day to his companions:

“Oh, how I would love to see you all, my brothers!” His companions then answered:

“But we are in front of you!” the Prophet added:

“I’m not thinking of you, but of my brothers at the end of time who will convert to Islam through what they see in black and white (meaning the simple reading of books). For them, I have more affection for them than for you, and each of their actions weighs seventy times more than your good deeds; because they have accepted the Tradition without having seen me. They are those whom I do not see and whom I would love to see. Thrones made of pearls on which they will sit the day of the great gathering are prepared for them and their faces will be radiant with light, and they are neither prophets nor martyrs.

As for the prophets and martyrs, they will jealously ask:

“Who are those sitting peacefully, full of peace and light, and amongst them those who rejoice with great fear as they must account for their actions?”

Then the divine response will be heard: “Those are the lovers of God at the end of time.”

And the Sheikh Tadili answered: “It is you who have accepted Islam and love one another in love for God; the Prophet would so much have loved to see you; and he has a special affection for you.”

Overwhelmed, we listened to the great striking words of the elderly blind man, who also meant that he himself would have liked to have seen us.

Then, despite his difficulties in speaking, he continued and said that human kind constitute a quarter of the quantity of jinn, the jinn a quarter of the quantity of devils, and the number of human beings of jinn and devils together, a quarter of the quantity of the angels in the lowest heaven – of those who descend to earth, and of those a tenth of the quantity of the angels in the second heaven, and thus so up to the angels in the seventh heaven; and all the angels and the rest of living beings take place in one of the 70,000 parts of the divine throne.

It was thus that, in a few instants, the Sheikh made all of creation disappear before our eyes.

Then he spoke of the end of time, when the Messiah would descend from heaven and reign forty years according to the law of Mohamed.

“…then the trumpets will sound and the world will be submerged for 40 years, burying everything that is earthly. After these 40 years the bodies of the deceased will grow out of the water like mushrooms without yet having life. These bodies will resemble what the deceased possessed during their past lifetimes, and then their souls will return like bees into their bodies and an angel will come and say to them: “Gather unto the meeting place!” All the human beings will then go to the meeting place to account for their actions. But the prophets, martyrs, saints and lovers of God in the last days will gather without having to account for their actions.”

The Sheikh himself gave me the following rosary, remarking that if I recite it I would receive three million graces:

Glory be to Thee Oh God, by thy Glorification! I bear witness that there is no divinity but Thee! I have committed evil and my soul is at risk; forgive me because no one except Thou can forgive sins! Oh Thou Who forgives all sins! Oh Thou Who forgives all sins! Oh Thou Who forgives all sins!

Oh God! Bless our Lord Mohammed, Thy slave, Thy Prophet and Thy Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, and his family and his companions, greet them by the power of the Lordship of Thy Nature, now and evermore.

There is no god but God, His Unity. He has no associates; His is the Kingdom and the praise, He gives life and death and He is the Living. He who never dies. His High Hand is over all becoming and He is Powerful over everything.

(Each formula is to be recited 100 times.)

The Sheikh added that he had the idhan, the permission, to transmit this rosary. Later Hadj Abderrahman told me that the Sheikh had received this rosary from Al-Khidr, the mysterious master of all the masters.

Since I already had a prescribed rosary to recite, and thus could only occasionally recite the one I had just received, I asked the Sheikh to give me another spiritual means, something I could use all the time, a means of combatting the ego. At this, the Sheikh called his grandson again who had just transcribed the rosary for me, and gave him a new text. It is the following prayer coming from the Prophet which I could recite after every prescribed prayer with good intention so that it could put me into a corresponding psychological state:

O Allah, I ask You for a mercy through which You guide my heart, bring together my affairs, remove my trials, protect me in my absence, elevate me in my vision, purify my deeds, brighten my face, and protect me from every evil.

O Allah, I ask You for sincere faith, a heart full of reverence, and mercy through which I may attain the honor of Your generosity in this world and the Hereafter.

O Allah, I turn to You in my need, even if my opinion is weak, my actions are lacking, my lifetime is limited, and my means are little, I am in need of You.

O Most Generous Beloved.

Then the Sheikh Tadili raised his hands and implored blessings from Heaven upon us. For me, he asked for the state of Arif billah and for Sidi Ahmad he also asked for knowledge and for his wife, opening of the heart and for grace. Then he asked for news of Sheikh ‘Isa and wished him a blessed marriage.[[4]] He also asked for news of Sidi Ibrahim[[5]], and said that he loved him dearly because he was a very zealous disciple with whom at that time he had debated the 360 barazikh[[6]] of creation. Then we performed the afternoon prayer with the Sheikh, who was sitting and without movement, following Hadj Abderrahman. Later, we drank green tea and had a meal of eggs in the company of his son and grandson. As for the Sheikh, he neither ate nor drank anything.

“When the friend comes, we cry for joy and when he leaves, we cry with sadness.”

After the meal, we told him that unfortunately we had to leave. Then the Sheikh started to cry and said: “When the friend comes, we cry for joy and when he leaves, we cry with sadness.” We knelt before him and kissed his hand once more. I couldn’t resist pressing my mouth to his hand several more times and it was terribly difficult for me to separate myself from this great and marvelous man, who in an instant had bound me to him forever. It was as if in leaving I had left myself and I couldn’t believe that the door was already behind me. It was as if the Sheikh had detained me from within. In fact, I suddenly heard a voice call out, “Sidi Abdel Quddus!”[[7]] Joyfully surprised, I hastily returned to the room with Hajj Abderrahman and knelt once again before the Sheikh and kissed his hand again. But the Sheikh took my right hand into his and said: “May you reach your goal!” It was with these words that I took leave of him for good.

After the visit to the Sheikh Tadili I felt full of his own spiritual nature. During the return trip back to Salé, I was still humbled by the meeting with this spiritual giant, resembling a prophet of the Old Testament. It seemed as if he lived in another world, a better world, a world which radiated with wisdom, strength and goodness. For a long time I could feel the old man’s warm, gentle hand resting in mine and en route I could still hear his broken voice which, like a miracle, poured blessings upon me. Already when I had thanked him for the rosary and the prayer emanating from the Prophet, he said to me: “I would like to give you all that you desire from me, and if I had a mountain of gold I would give it to you.” And he blessed me with a blessing that incommensurably surpassed a mountain of gold, and was the most magnificent of gifts that I could be given, that is, the wish of a saint that I reach my spiritual objective. That evening in Salé, I asked God to make me worthy of this great blessing and that I would be able to do everything necessary to reach the supreme Goal – He Himself.

Salé

13 November

I put into writing everything that Sheikh Tadili had said and Hajj Abderrahman verified the accuracy. He spoke to me of Sheikh Tadili’s youth. He had been a merchant in the souk of Fez, without being interested in tasawwuf. One day he saw some fuqara walk by his shop and was so taken aback by their radiant expression that he abandoned everything, turned his shop over to his neighbor, and without worrying about his wife and family, he followed “the poor in spirit.” He went with them to the Rif where they finally took him to their master. The latter lived in the mountains surrounded by 400 disciples. The master received Sidi Tadili into his order and directed him to retreat into a cave in the Rif.

The Sheikh Tadili gave himself up with extreme zeal and fervor to the spiritual exercises that had been prescribed for him. When this time had passed, his master told him that he could be released and that he could return to his home again. In fact, during this short period, Sheikh Tadili had attained Ma’arifa,[[8]] in the sense that, after reading the most arduous Sufi texts, he knew them by heart as it were, and if one recited to him a doctrinal sentence of Muhiddin ibn al-Arabi, he could recite the entire page containing this sentence.

But this faculty of knowledge did not rest solely on a phenomenal memory, but signified a real vision into the purely spiritual world. That is why Moroccans say that the Sheikh Tadili became blind from having looked too much at the Light. After these two years of study, he returned to his family. By this time he was so transformed that he couldn’t remember how many children he had. His shop in the meantime had been taken over by his neighbor, and the Sheikh Tadili had to survive with his own feeble resources. His spiritual mission was to teach tassawuf and he carried this out daily from sunrise until late into the night. Some fuqara told me that when they visited him, he would begin right after the morning prayer and the rosary explaining the texts of Muhiddin (Ibn Arabi) and discussed them until late in the night. He was not only a spiritual giant, but also a physical giant of approximately two meters in height with a powerful and large stature. The spiritual exercises that he imposed upon his disciples were consequently almost impracticable for a Westerner. As mentioned above, Al-Khidr had appeared to him and had instructed him. The Sheikh Tadili wrote three Sufi works and a collection of poems which are at present being prepared for publication. In every way he seemed to me to be what the Indians call a jnanin.[[9]] His manner of speaking was dry and of crystalline rigor and extreme precision. The first impression one had of him was that of a sage, then one of a spiritual man of will, for whom the entire world is but a breath, that is, that he was completely detached from it. But apart from this, one instantly and insensibly felt in his proximity, wrapped into great, unlimited goodness and the heart was seized with a burning love for him. His goodness was that of the Spirit; that is why it lights up like lightning in the inner depths of the soul. Every time I think of the Sheikh Tadili, it is as if he were really standing in front of me, as if he really lived within me, as if our encounter were permanent.

[[1]]: A French Muslim, disciple of Schuon and Valsan long settled in Rabat where he taught French. He became the disciple of Sidi Muhammad at-Tadili whose collection he intended to publish in the collection “Sufism” which he directed with Jean Herbert. A friend of T. Burckhardt he collaborated with the latter to translate the Hikam of Ibn Atallah al-Iskandari (Paris 1989)

[[2]]: On this master of the Derqawi way, see J. Herbert, “Le Sheikh at-Taddili” – in Le Soufism: voie d’unite, Paris, 1997

[[3]]: Frithjof Schuon

[[4]]: F. Schuon who had recently married in May 1949

[[5]]: Titus Burckhardt

[[6]]: Burckhardt provides a teaching on this subject in the name of the Sheikh in his article “Concerning the Barzakh” Etudes Traditionelles (1935)

[[7]]: Leo Schaya’s initiatic name

[[8]]: Spiritual knowledge

[[9]]: A Sanskrit word designating an individual who seeks to reach God by jnana, or spiritual science