But he does not seem to have been wholeheartedly in favour of their teachings.

But he does not seem to have been wholeheartedly in favour of their teachings.[^5] His purpose in joining them appears, as we shall see later, to be to make himself acquainted with their rites and teachings and to choose the best from every order so as to be able later to combine them in a new Order which would, thus, be “the crown of Sufi thought and practice.”[^6] In pursuing his studies in Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt, Sayyid Muhammad had ample opportunity to examine the state of affairs into which the Muslims had drifted, particularly the state of decadence prevailing in North Africa at the time.

Comparison between the glorious past of the Muslims and their condition in his time seems to have occupied his mind greatly, and the thought that the Muslims were in a state of material and spiritual degeneracy haunted him constantly.[^7] In trying to discover the cause of this backwardness and find the remedy for it, he came to the conclusion that only by the restoration of the original purity of…