Origins

Volume Two of the School of the Shadhdhuliyyiah is an essential book for all lovers and students of Tasawwuf. It thoroughly details the life and teaching of the first four masters of the Shadhdhuli School (tariqah): Abu-l-Hasan ash-Shadhdhuli, Abu-l-Abbas al Mursi, Yakut al Arsh, and Ibn ‘Ata’Illah as-Sakandari. The book incorporates translations of two works by the late Shaykh of Azhar, Dr. ‘Abdu-l-Halim Mahmud (ra), on Sidi Abu-l- Hasan and Sidi Abu-l-Abbas; a compilation of articles on Sidi Yakut, by Dr Ibrahim Hakim; and the doctoral thesis on Ibn ‘Ata’Illah by the late Shayku-l-Mashaqykh of the Sufi Turuq in Egypt, Dr. Abu-l-Wafa Taftazani (ra). Also included are The Ship of Safety, by Shaykh Ahmad Zurruq, and the beautiful Remembrances and Supplications of Shaykh Abu-l-Hasan. This book contains many treasures, among them extensive proofs and explanations of the meanings of Tasawwuf or Sufism, and a convincing argument comparing the Sufic approach to reality to the rationalistic approach of many Western scholars.
The work was translated by Dr Ma’adawi as-Zirr (ra) and Shaykh Abdullah Noorudden Durkee and laid out in a way to make the ideas highly accessible (see translator’s introduction, below).
The earlier edition has been greatly enlarged and corrected, now including 130 new pages of thorough analysis of the life, work and thought of Ibn ‘Ata’Illah and a list of all his works with sources.
There is no other volume in English comparable to this, bringing together the life, work and practice of the early Shadhdhuli masters in one place, analyzed and presented by the greatest scholars of Egypt and edited and organized by a wonderfully articulate English speaking contemporary Shaykh.