Sidi Ali al-Jamal ash-Shadhili ق, the Murshid of Imam Darqawi ash-Shadhili ق

Ali ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Umrani “al-Jamal” (Arabic: سيدي علي الجمال) was a great Gnostic from Fes. Sidi Ali al-Jamal ash-Shadhili ق would often see the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in his sleep and in a wakeful state. About this, he said: “When a thought of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would come to my mind, I would find him and his ten noble and righteous companions present before me, in the sensory and not just in the conceptual, and we would speak with them and we would take knowledge and works from the source of all knowledge and works ﷺ.”

His kunya, “al-Jamal” (the camel) is from an anecdote wherein he was seen moving a camel from the middle of the road to the side. Those that saw him remarked: “He is indeed the camel!”

During his life, he served for the Moroccan administration, before he travelled to Tunisia to learn from the Sufis there. He later returned to Fes where he built his zawiya. His most significant teacher was Sidi al-Arabi ibn Ahmad ibn Abdullah.

Books that issue from the heart! – those are the ones you should spend your money on from the beginning of the world to its end, for they are the source.” - Sidi Ali al-Jamal ash-Shadhili ق

He was the teacher of Moulay Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi (d. 1823), from who the Shadhiliyyah–Darqawiyyah Tariqa takes its tradition, as well as the teacher of many other gnostics from the Shadhili order. Sidi Ali al-Jamal’s teachings are exhibited in the letters of Moulay Muhammad al-Arabi ad-Darqawi to his pupils, which have been translated into English and made into a book called The Darqawi Way.