"Imam of the forerunners and pole of the benefits of the Muslims." This was the title of the founder, Shaykh Muhammadu wuld Anahwi al-Alawi (1909-2003).
Who we are
Ahl Ennahoui is a Mauritanian branch of the Tijaniyya Sufi order. It belongs to the Fayda of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (1900-1975) of Medina Baye, Kaolack, Senegal. Its spiritual seat is al-Ribat, also known as Ribat al-Fath or Bab al-Fath, in the R'Kiz department of Trarza in south-western Mauritania. In Nouakchott its centre is the Nour Mosque in Sebkha, known as the Shaykh Ennahoui Mosque and built in 1987.
The founder came from the Idaw Ali, the tribe through which the Tijaniyya first reached Mauritania. In May 1930 he became the first Mauritanian to pledge allegiance to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, who said of him: "Muhammadu was the first to pledge to me. Without him they would not have known me and I would not have known them."
His son, Shaykh Mohamed El Hafedh Ennahoui, leads the sheikhdom today. He is president of the Islamic Cultural Assembly in Mauritania and West Africa and the elected spokesman of Ibrahim Niasse's shaykhs and muqaddams in Mauritania.
Key dates
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1909 (1327 AH) | Founder born in Legg, R'Kiz |
| c. 1927 (1345 AH) | First meeting with Ibrahim Niasse in Senegal |
| May 1930 | Takes the Tijani wird as Niasse's first Mauritanian disciple |
| 25 Aug 1932 | Spiritual opening (fath) |
| 1930-1975 | 45 years in Niasse's company; 23 pilgrimages |
| 1977 | Mohamed El Hafedh Ennahoui appointed Minister of Information |
| 1982 | Islamic Cultural Assembly founded |
| 1987 | Nour Mosque built in Sebkha, Nouakchott |
| 1989 | First International Conference on the Prophet's Biography; the 39th met in September 2026 |
| 30 Mar 2003 | Founder dies and is buried at al-Ribat |
Scholarship
Rüdiger Seesemann documents the founder's role in The Divine Flood: Ibrahim Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth-Century Sufi Revival (Oxford University Press, 2011). The Arabic biography Shaykh Muhammadu al-Nahwi: Imam of the Forerunners and Pole of the Benefits of the Muslims (2016) preserves in its appendix twelve letters Niasse wrote to him.