Regarding This Selection
This work by Shaykh Abd’l-Qaadir ibn Mustafa is small treatise which discuss the twenty-one personal pledges that the author took after reaching the age of fifty-two around 1272 A.H.. These pledges consists of vows of personal behavior and attitudes towards others; vows of doctrines of belief and intellectual perspectives; vows of methods of epistemology and views on cosmology. What is significant is that this work is that it demonstrates a profound tolerance and compassion towards the whole of existence and indicates that the author had attained the station of Qutb (spiritual pole) where he viewed creation with the same compassion and perspective of the Absolute Being.
Some of the oaths and covenants expressly admit of an exclusive esoteric knowledge which he later listed in his Shukr’l-Waahib. He also admits of concealing certain sciences which he had learned from the elemental sciences, the sciences of haqaa’q and the sciences of secrets. It is no wonder that, in answer to his wishes, Allah allowed the French imperialist forces to invade the region of Salame over which the author was the ruler; and to abscond with most of his precious library.
Today, many of these works remain hermetically sealed in the rare manuscript archives of the Sorbonne, in Paris.
Shaykh Muhammad Shareef bin Farid
Thursday 12th of Sha`baan 1437 A.H. (May 19th, 2016)
Zawiyya of Shehu Uthman ibn Fuduye`
Yirimadio, Bamako, the Republic of Mali