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:
“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all—no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself—a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“The civilizing process has increased the distance between behavior and the impulse life of the animal body.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)