Imām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī: The Reformer of the Sahara and the Sudan

In the ninth century after the Hijrah, as the Muslim world faced internal laxity and external pressures, Allāh raised a scholar whose life combined rigorous learning, uncompromising enforcement of the Sharī‘ah, and active engagement with the rulers of his age. Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī al-Tilimsānī (d. 909 AH / 1503–1505 CE) stands as one of the most consequential figures in the history of Islam in North and West Africa. Born in Tlemcen among the Maghīla Berber tribe, he grew up in a household noted for piety, learning, and Sufi inclination. He studied in Tlemcen, then under the great ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Thaʿālibī in Algiers, and continued his pursuit of knowledge in Bijāya and other centres before settling for a time in the oases of Tuwāt (Touat) in the Algerian Sahara.

Al-Maghīlī’s scholarship was broad and deep. He wrote in Mālikī jurisprudence (including works on Mukhtaṣar Khalīl and others), ḥadīth, kalām, tafsīr, Arabic grammar, rhetoric, and political theory. Among his notable works are Miṣbāḥ al-Arwāḥ fī Uṣūl al-Falāḥ, treatises on the obligations of rulers such as Tāj al-Dīn fīmā yajibu ʿalā al-mulūk, and the famous Ajwibat al-Maghīlī — his replies to the questions of Askiya Muḥammad of Songhai. He regarded himself as a mujaddid, a renewer of the faith at the turn of the century, and his actions matched that claim.

His most dramatic and significant confrontation — the central jihād of his life — occurred in Tuwāt. Observing that the Jewish communities there had, in his judgment, violated the terms of the dhimma by failing to pay the jizya in a state of abasement and humiliation (al-dhill wa al-ṣaghār), by building and maintaining synagogues in a manner he considered unlawful under the Sharī‘ah, and by gaining undue influence over Muslim rulers and affairs, he issued strong fatwas and mobilised the Muslims of the oases. In his treatise Miṣbāḥ al-Arwāḥ and related writings, he argued that the pact of protection was conditional; its breach rendered the dhimmīs liable to the consequences faced by those who break their covenant. He called for the destruction of the synagogues, the reimposition of the classical rules of the dhimma, and decisive action against those who defended the status quo. He is reported to have set a bounty for the killing of Jews who resisted and to have stirred the local population with verses urging the believers to rise, kill, and enslave those who rejected the authority of the Sharī‘ah, recalling the precedent of Khaybar. Supported by leading scholars of Tlemcen such as al-Sanūsī and al-Tanasī, he led or directed the destruction of the synagogue of Tamentit. Many Jews fled the oases, some converted, and the remaining community was subjected to severe measures. The events generated controversy among contemporary ʿulamāʾ; some opposed the extremity of his position, while others endorsed the principle that the dhimma cannot be maintained when its conditions are openly violated. When later one of his sons was killed in the region by Jews, al-Maghīlī’s resolve hardened further, and he sought support from the rulers of the south to avenge the death and complete the enforcement of the Sharī‘ah in Tuwāt. This campaign was, in his own conception, a form of jihād: not against a distant external enemy, but against the internal erosion of Islamic public order and the elevation of those who rejected the finality of the Prophet’s message.

From Tuwāt, al-Maghīlī turned south across the Sahara. Between approximately 1492 and 1503 he travelled through Agadez, Takedda, Kano, Katsina, and finally Gao, the capital of the Songhai Empire. In Kano, during the reign of Muḥammad Rumfa, he composed treatises on the duties of kings, advising on justice, the selection of officials, the administration of the Sharī‘ah, and the moral conduct required of a Muslim ruler. Local tradition credits him with influencing court protocol, the elevation of the ruler’s dignity, and the strengthening of Islamic judicial practice. In Katsina he taught and left students who continued the work of consolidating Islam. His greatest political impact came in Songhai. After Askiya Muḥammad overthrew the Sonni dynasty, he sought religious legitimisation. Al-Maghīlī’s Ajwiba answered the Askiya’s questions on the status of the previous ruler (whom he declared an unbeliever on account of his oppression and neglect of the Sharī‘ah), the lawfulness of seizing the property of unjust predecessors, the conditions for jihād, the treatment of those who mixed Islam with pagan practices, and the obligations of a just Muslim sovereign. These replies provided a sharʿī foundation for the Askiya’s rule and for a more rigorous application of Islamic norms across the empire.

Al-Maghīlī’s conception of jihād was not limited to warfare against external unbelievers. He held that jihād against corrupt scholars and ignorant pietists who devour people’s wealth and bar the path of Allāh could be more obligatory than other forms of struggle, citing the ḥadīth warning that the ruin of the Ummah would come from the wicked scholar and the ignorant worshipper. In his replies to the Askiya he outlined the circumstances under which Muslims who outwardly professed Islam but abandoned its essential rulings could be fought. His was a reformist jihād aimed at purifying the practice of the faith and establishing political authority upon clear sharʿī foundations. The events of Tuwāt remain the most concrete embodiment of that commitment in his own lifetime.

The lessons of his life are several. First, knowledge must be joined to action; al-Maghīlī did not remain in the madrasa but carried the Sharī‘ah into the courts of kings and the marketplaces of the desert. Second, the dignity of Islam and the conditions of the dhimma are not matters of private preference but of public law; when they are eroded, the scholar is obliged to speak and, where possible, to act. Third, the reform of society requires the reform of its rulers; hence his sustained engagement with the sultans of the Hausa states and the Askiya of Songhai. Fourth, the work of tajdīd is continuous; each age requires those who will renew the application of the faith against the accretions of custom and the temptations of power. Finally, his career demonstrates the organic link between North and West Africa in the medieval Islamic world: a scholar of Tlemcen could shape the religious and political life of Kano, Katsina, and Gao, binding the Ummah across the Sahara through knowledge and the Sharī‘ah.

Al-Maghīlī died in Tuwāt around 909 AH and was buried near his zāwiya. His writings continued to circulate; later reformers, including those of the Sokoto tradition, drew upon the intellectual currents he helped strengthen. In an age when the boundaries of the faith were tested by syncretism, foreign influence, and internal weakness, he stood for clarity, enforcement, and the comprehensive claim of the Sharī‘ah over public life. May Allāh have mercy upon him and raise his rank among the renewers of the Dīn.

Bārakallāhu fīkum.