Personal Life
Al-Tijani is a Muslim born in Tunisia. As a student, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, at which time he was influenced by orthodox Saudi teachings—which hold against saint veneration and tomb visitation (central beliefs to the North African Sufi tradition).
Later, Al-Tijani was influenced by an Iraqi student, Mun'im, who invited him to Iraq. Al-Samawi spent several weeks with Mun'im; visited Baghdad and Najaf, and met with several leading Shi'a scholars. These included: Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qassim Khoei (al-Khu'i), Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (Grand Ayatollah to-be) and Allameh Tabatabaei, who taught him about Islam. Eventually, he considered himself a Shi'i.
Read more about this topic: Then I Was Guided (book)
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“I was not at all apprehensive about ... disease ... [it] had no terrors for me. The thing I most feared in the world was hunger. That was something of which I had personal knowledge.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 4 (1919)
“The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practise it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies.”
—Terry Waite (b. 1939)