Mohammad al-Tijani al-Samawi was a Tunisian student who, upon making Hajj, was influenced by orthodox Saudi teachings, against saint veneration and tomb visitation, which were central to the North African Sufi tradition.
A few years later, al-Samawi was in Egypt on an Islamic tour of the Middle East and ran into an Iraqi student, Mun'im, who invited him to Iraq to see shia Islam with his own eyes, and forget what he had heard of them through reputations. Al-Samawi spent several weeks with Mun'im and visited Baghdad, and Najaf, and met with several leading Shi'a scholars, including Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qassim Khoei (al-Khu'i), Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (Grand Ayatollah to-be) and Allameh Tabatabaei, who spent hours teaching him about Shia Islam. [1]. Eventually, he considered himself converted to the Shi'i school of thought.
The middle name al-Tijani in his full name comes from his grand parents who were tijani sufis but he himself is not associated with it. But he likes to keep it with his name. He is never or never was the follower the Tariqa Tijania but his grand parents who were sunniis in there aqidah were the followers of the Tariqa Tijania Sufi Order.
Works
He wrote five books:
Then I was Guided
Ask those who know
To be with the truthful
The Shi'ah are (the real) Ahl al-Sunnah
Fa siru fi al-Ard
Three of his books are also available in Urdu titled as
1. 'Aur Mein Hidayat Pa Gia'
2. 'Hukm-may-Azan'
3. 'Ho Jao Sachchon Ke Saath'
Shi'a view
Muhammad al-Tijani became a respected Shi'a scholar.
