Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Ja'far al-Khazraji al-Sabti () ( ''Sabta'' 1129 -

Marrakesh Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

1204), better known as Sidi Bel Abbas, was a Moroccan Muslim

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

. He is the patron saint of

in the

Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

tradition and also one of the "

Seven Saints 7 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 7 or seven may also refer to: * AD 7, the seventh year of the AD era * 7 BC, the seventh year before the AD era * The month of July Music Artists * Seven (Swiss singer) (born 1978), a Swiss recording artist ...

" (''Sabʿatou Rijal'') of the city. His festival was founded by al-Hasan al-Yusi at the instigation of

Moulay Ismael Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif ( ar, مولاي إسماعيل بن الشريف), born around 1645 in Sijilmassa and died on 22 March 1727 at Meknes, was a Sultan of Morocco from 1672–1727, as the second ruler of the Alaouite dynasty. He was the sev ...

. Abu Al-Abbas was born in ''Sabta'' (Ceuta). He studied under Abu Abd Allah al-Fakhkhar, himself a student of

Qadi Ayyad ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā (1083–1149) ( ar, القاضي عياض بن موسى, formally Abū al-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn ʿAmr ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ al-Yaḥṣubī ...

. In 1145-6, he moved to Marrakesh, during the final weeks of the

Almohad The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the Tawhid, unity of God) was a North African Berbers, Berber M ...

siege of the city. For a number of years he lived in a cave on the hill of Igilliz outside Marrakesh, only coming into town on Fridays for the communal prayer. The

sultan

Yaqub al-Mansur Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr (; c. 1160 – 23 January 1199 Marrakesh), commonly known as Yaqub al-Mansur () or Moulay Yacoub (), was the third Almohad Caliph. Succeeding his father, al-Mansur reigned from 118 ...

was a disciple of Abu al-Abbas. He asked him to come and live in the city and provided him a house, a hostel for his disciples as well as a

madrasa Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...

for study. Teaching was maintained by the sultan's own funds. Whenever

visited Abu al-Abbas he made a point of behaving in a humble manner and acting "as a servant". To Abu al-Abbas, every act of human mercy (''rahma'') evoked a merciful response from the all-merciful God (''ar-Rahim''). Abu al-Abbas summed up his theory of reciprocity with the maxim: " ivineBeing is actualised by generosity" (al-wujud yanfa ilu bi'l-jud). The Andalusian philosopher

Ibn Rushd Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, ...

visited Abu al-Abbas several times in

. When Abu al-Abbas died in 1204, he was buried at the graveyard of Sidi Marouk, near Bab Taghzout. In 1605, the

Saadian The Saadi Sultanate (also rendered in English as Sa'di, Sa'did, Sa'dian, or Saadian; ar, السعديون, translit=as-saʿdiyyūn) was a state which ruled present-day Morocco and parts of West Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was l ...

sultan Abu Faris erected a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

for Abu al-Abbas, hoping that the saint's power would help him recover from his epilepsy. In 1988, sultan

Hassan II Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to: People *Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name *Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scottis ...

improved the sanctuary. It is also the place of his zawiya. Abu al-Abbas's

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

, ''Akhbar Abi'l-Abbas as-Sabti'', written by Abu Ya’qub Yusuf ibn Yahya at-Tadili, was in part composed by Abu al-Abbas himself and contains many autobiographical passages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabti, Abu Al Abbas As 1129 births 1204 deaths 12th-century Moroccan people 13th-century Moroccan people Moroccan Sufi writers People from Ceuta Moroccan philosophers

See also

References