The Complete Summons and General Reminder

This book is unique in that Imam al-Haddad is the first scholar to have divided mankind into eight main categories according to the kind of summons to God or dacwa they need, and then detailed the rights and duties of each category, which scholars ought to enjoin upon them for the good pleasure of their Lord. The author introduces his book by saying, “As for the introduction, we have explained in it the summons to God, His religion, and His path. As for the eight sections, each concerns a certain category of people, the first category being the scholars; the second the ascetics and devotees; the third the kings, the rulers, and other people in authority; the fourth the merchants, the craftsmen, and other such people; the fifth the poor, the weak, and the destitute; the sixth the dependents such as the women, children, and slaves; the seventh the generality of believers, both the obedient among them and the transgressors; the eighth those who have not responded to the summons of God and His Messenger and do not believe in God and the Last Day. Finally, in conclusion, we give brief counsels of advice to all eight categories, in addition to general counsels and exhortations that soften the heart, the completion of which closes the book.”

Mostafa al-Badawi, a disciple in the Sufi order of Imam al-Haddad, is one of the world’s premier translators of Islamic spiritual texts. He is a Consultant Psychiatrist and member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He studied under many shaykhs, foremost among whom is the late Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad. His other translations include: Book of Assistance, The Lives of Man, Two Treatises, The Prophetic Invocations, and Degrees of the Soul. He is also the author of Man and the Universe: An Islamic Perspective, recently published. He resides in Madinah. The author Imam Abdallah Ibn-Alawi Al-Haddad (d. 1720), lived at Tarim in the Hadramaut valley between Yemen and Oman, and is widely held to have been the ‘renewer’ of the twelfth Islamic century. A direct descendant of the Prophet, his sanctity and direct experience of God are clearly reflected in his writings, which include several books, a collection of Sufi letters, and a volume of mystical poetry. He spent most of his life in Kenya and Saudi Arabia where he taught Islamic jurisprudence and classical Sufism according to the order (tariqa) of the Ba’Alawi sayids.