Moulay Idris I – Imam Idris Ibn Abdullah (D.174-175AH)
Imam Idrīs ibn ʿAbdullāh
Peace Be Upon Him — The Founder of the Idrīsid Dynasty of the Maghrib
Imam Idrīs ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan al-Sibt (peace be upon them) rose in the region of the Maghrib after he had despaired of the call of his brother Imam Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbdullāh1 — on account of al-Rashīd’s deception of him, as was mentioned earlier. He is the fifth of the Imams among the sons of ʿAbdullāh al-Kāmil (peace be upon them).
He said in his call — having presented a lengthy discourse in which he set forth the proof from the Book of God and the Sunnah of his grandfather — to proceed:
“I call you to the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Prophet ﷺ, to justice among the subjects, equitable division of wealth, the lifting of injustices, taking the hand of the wronged, the revival of the Sunnah, the killing-off of innovation, and the carrying-out of the ruling of the Book upon the near and the far.
And I remind you of God concerning kings who have tyrannized, betrayed the trusts, broken the covenants and pledges of God, and killed the offspring of His Prophet; and I remind you of God concerning widows who have been violated, orphans who have been neglected, legal bounds that have been suspended, and blood that has been shed without right. For they have cast aside the Book and Islam, so that there remains of Islam nothing but its name, and of the Qurʾān nothing but its written trace.
So this is the covenant of God with you and His pledge upon you: to cooperate in piety and God-fearing, and not to cooperate in sin and transgression — an obligation made binding by God and a binding ruling. So whither away from God do you go? And whither are you turned away?
For the tyrants have roamed across the horizons, east and west, made corruption manifest, and the earth has been filled with oppression and injustice; so the people have no refuge, nor have they any good hope with their enemies. So perhaps you — O assembly of our brethren among the Berbers — may be the hand that reaps away injustice and oppression, and the helpers of the Book and the Sunnah, the ones who rise up for the right of the wronged from the offspring of the Seal of the Prophets. So be, in the sight of God, of the standing of one who struggled alongside the messengers and helped God’s cause alongside the prophets.
And I am the wronged one, the distressed, the driven-out, the fugitive, the fearful, the one robbed of his kin by killing2, whose avengers-due have multiplied while his helpers have grown few, whose brothers, father, grandfather, and family were killed. So answer the summoner of God, for he has called you to God; for God (Exalted is He) says:
“And whoever does not answer the summoner of God cannot escape Him in the earth, and he has no protectors besides Him; those are in manifest error.” [al-Aḥqāf: 32]
May God protect us and you from error, and guide us and you to the path of right guidance.
He then declared his lineage before the assembly:
“And I am Idrīs ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. The Messenger of God ﷺ and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (peace be upon them) are my two grandfathers; Ḥamzah, the master of the martyrs, and Jaʿfar al-Ṭayyār — the one who flies in Paradise — are my two paternal uncles; Khadījah the Veracious and Fāṭimah bint Asad the compassionate are my two grandmothers; Fāṭimah daughter of the Messenger of God ﷺ, the mistress of the women of the worlds, and Fāṭimah bint al-Ḥusayn, the mistress of the offspring of the prophets, are my two mothers; al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, the two sons of the Messenger of God ﷺ, are my two forefathers; and Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyyah and Ibrāhīm — al-Mahdī and al-Zakī — are my two brothers.
So this is my call, just and not unjust. Whoever answers me, his is what is mine and upon him is what is upon me; and whoever refuses that, he has erred as to his portion, and the Knower of the unseen and the witnessed shall see that I have shed no blood for the sake of attaining it, nor deemed lawful any forbidden thing for it.
And I call You to witness, O greatest of witnesses, and I call Gabriel and Michael to witness, that I am the first to answer and turn to God in obedience. So here I am at Your service, O God, at Your service — O Sender of the clouds, O Vanquisher of the confederate parties, O Turner of the mountains into a mirage after they had been hard and solid. I ask You for victory for the offspring of Your Prophet ﷺ; indeed You are Powerful over that. And peace.
This call, and others — of the calls of Imam Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh, Imam Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbdullāh, and Imam Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbdullāh, and their epistles — have been given in full by Imam al-Manṣūr Billāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah (peace be upon him) in Al-Shāfī, and by the erudite scholar Ḥumayd the Martyr (al-Shahīd) in Al-Ḥadāʾiq al-Wardiyya (peace be upon them).
Hārūn al-Rashīd the ʿAbbāsid slipped poison to him, so his death came at Ṭulayṭula (Toledo) in the lands of al-Andalus, in the year one hundred and seventy-odd of the Hijra. His shrine is there according to the primary source.3
Scholarly References & Annotations
That is, his despair of the call of his brother Imam Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbdullāh (peace be upon him), on account of what was mentioned earlier of al-Rashīd’s deception of him — noted by the Author (peace be upon him).
Al-Mawṭūr: the one diminished and robbed of kin, left solitary and bereft — noted by the Author (peace be upon him).
Note from the article compiler: The burial place of Moulay Idrīs is a matter of dispute among scholars. The primary source places his shrine at Ṭulayṭula (Toledo) in al-Andalus. However, Sunni historians tend to be adamant that his burial place is in Fez (Fās) in present-day Morocco — at the city he founded, where the famous shrine of Moulay Idrīs I stands to this day and remains a major site of visitation. The divergence likely reflects the difference between the place of his death and the place to which his remains were subsequently transferred, or alternatively reflects differing accounts in the historical sources due to political reasons.