Ahmad Ibn Idris

• Name — Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi أحمد بن إدريس الفاسي • Born — 1760 • Birthplace — Fes, Morocco • Died — 1837 • Place of death — Sabya, Yemen (Present-day Saudi Arabia) • Education — University of al-Qarawiyyin • Known for — Idrisiyya

Ahmad ibn Idris was born in 1760 near the city of Fez, Morocco. He studied at the University of al-Qarawiyyin. In 1799 he arrived in Mecca, where he would "exercise his greatest influence, attracting students from all corners of the Islamic world". In 1828 he moved to Zabid in the Yemen, which historically had been a great center of Muslim scholarship. He died in 1837 in Sabya, which was then in Yemen, and later was the capital of his grandson's country, but is today part of Saudi Arabia. He was the founder of the Idrisiyya order. It is also called the Tariqa Muhammadiyya, and it rejected following any of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Taqlid), adopting the same methodology as Ismail Dehlavi, who remarked that the agenda of the new order known as Tariqa Muhammadiyya was to purify Islam and reject what they deemed to be Bid'ah or Shirk. The Idrisiyya is not a Tariqa in the sense of an organized Sufi order, but rather a methodology, consisting of a set of beliefs and practices, which according to the order's members, aimed at nurturing the spiritual link between the disciple and Muhammad directly.

Ibn Idris' teachings were spread by a group of highly influential followers, among whom were: • Mohammed Uthman al-Mirghani al-Khatim, founder of the Khatmiyya path in Sudan and Eritrea. • Mowlana Abd al-Rahman Nurow. A Somali disciple of ibn Idris who spread the Tariqa Muhammadiyya in Somalia. • Abu'l 'Abbas Al Dandarawi, Egyptian Sufi and founder of the Dandarawiyya path in Saudi Arabia. • Salih al-Ja'fari. He edited and published the works of Ibn Idris and revived his order. He founded the Ja'fariyya path. • Muhammad Abdullah Hasan, follower of the Salihiyya path which rejects seeking intercession from Saints in one's invocation of God, which it labels as Shirk. • Shaikh Muhammad Said al-Linggi, who introduced a path of this order into Singapore by the followers of al-Linggi. • Shaikh Hafiz Muhammad Amin bin Abdul Rehman from Multan. Idrisiyya was introduced in Pakistan by him.

Ibn Idris's grandson, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi, established a short-lived state, the Idrisid Emirate of Asir.