“Tawhid is a fire; it does not penetrate a thing without burning it and cleansing it of its impurities!”

Born in 1873 or 1874 in the city of Mostaganem, Algeria—which was under French mandate at the time—Ahmed Benalioua (who would later be known as Sheikh al-Alawi) was a self-taught genius who attained spiritual perfection at an early age. Within the Alawiyya order he founded, he quickly rose to the rank of a perfected master (murshid al-kamil); this order, born from the Shadhili-Darqawi tradition, began to spread rapidly. Sheikh al-Alawi won the hearts of the masses with his knowledge, culture, persuasive power, and oratorical skills. He is a Sufi who was influential not only in his native North Africa but also on the Sufi life and conversion movements in Europe and America. The members of the Alawiyya also rendered great services in the struggle for independence against the French in Algeria. Both through his works and studies and through his attitudes and behaviors, he breathed new life into Sufism with his deep devotion to the belief in Tawhid.

The author of this beautiful work on Sheikh Ahmed al-Alawi, Éric Geoffroy, who occasionally visits our country, is an academic in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Strasbourg and is known in our country for his works on Sufism and his articles published in the Encyclopedia of Islam.

The schools/traditions that constitute Islamic spirituality or Sufi thought have provided the most beautiful examples of the unity of work and life from ancient times to the present day. One such beautiful example is Sheikh Ahmed al-Alawi. This work by Éric Geoffroy, now added to the Turkish language, offers much more than just a biography.