Abu Madyan

Abu Madyan Shuʿayb ibn al-Husayn al-Ansari al-Andalusi (Arabic: ابو مدين شعيب بن الحسين الأنصاري الأندلسي; c. 1126–1198 CE; AH 520–594), commonly known as Abū Madyan, was an influential Andalusian Sufi mystic, poet, teacher, and spiritual adept, and one of the major early masters of Sufism in the Maghreb. He has even been described as a national figure of Maghrebi mysticism because of his formative role in the development of Sufism in the region. His religious teaching emphasized fervent devotion to God, introspection, and the harmonization of inner spiritual states with external religious observances through asceticism. Born in Spain into a poor family, Abu Madyan travelled to Morocco to learn weaving as a trade. He subsequently travelled in search of spiritual teachers, among them ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, before settling in Bijayah (Bougie) in Algeria, where a circle of disciples gathered around him. Among his most famous students were Ibn 'Arabi (d. 637/1240) and the historian Ibn Hammad (d. 628/1230). Abu Madyan came to be recognized as the qutb al-Ghawth, "the axis on whom the mystical support of the world turns", and has continued to be regarded as the spiritual guardian of Algeria.