A contribution to the biography of Shaikh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd-al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad (ʿUmar-aʿMar) al-Maghīlī, al-Tilimsānī

Abstract

Few African scholars have had such an impact on both North and West Africa as al-Maghīlī (d. 1503/4 or 1505/6). This biographical sketch begins by assessing his part in the theological debate preceding the persecution of the Jewish community at Touat (conventionally dated to 1492), which was largely instigated by him, and relates it to his unsuccessful campaign against the Banū-Waṭṭāş whom he opposed because of their incapacity to check the growth of Christian power and Jewish influence in Morocco. After his failure against the Banū-Waṭṭāş, al-Maghīlī went to the western Sudan, where in Air, Takidda, Kano, Katsina and Gao he exerted a more peaceful and scholastic influence as a great renovator of Islam. The death of his son at Touat led him to return there C. 1503, and to resume his active campaigning against the Jews and their influence until his death a year or two later.