Amina El Mestari
The name of Moroccan cities was associated with the names of their men, whether righteous or jurists, scholars and Sufis, who played an important role in spreading intellectual, political and Sufi awareness.
In Marrakesh, the Red City or the city of “seven men”… it was considered the burial place of a group of jurists and righteous people, who were able to impose their presence among hundreds of righteous people, as it is said in Marrakesh that “every foot is a poly” evidence of hundreds of saints, and almost every neighborhood is associated with the name of a guardian righteous.
“If it were not for Judge Ayyad, Morocco would not have been known”…a saying that sums up the position of one of the seven men of Marrakesh. Those who were known for their integrity and prowess in assets and speech, all the noble qualities gathered in him, as he is the writer and orator skilled in the days of peace and war, humble and hate hypocrisy and flattery, proud of himself, generous and loves the people of knowledge, he worked as a judge in Granada and Ceuta before moving to Marrakech and pouring it one of her family.
Judge Ayyad ibn Musa al-Yahsibi was born in Ceuta in the year 476 AH. His ancestors had lived in the city of Basta, on the outskirts of Granada, before they moved to Fez, and from there to Ceuta. There, Judge Ayyad was born and had good education, sat with scholars, and became famous after To be considered one of the imams of his time, and his scientific status enabled him to ascend the platforms of fatwas and lead the debate councils at the young age of 28 years, before he assumed the position of the judiciary at the age of 35.
Ceuta was at that time under the rule of the Almoravids, who had the credit for spreading Islam in western and central Africa.
The Sheikh of Andalusia and Morocco, Judge Ayyad, traveled between the cities of Andalusia seeking to hear hadith and clung to its sheikhs such as Ibn al-Hajj, Ibn Atab and Ibn Rushd… before he left to the East and became one of the scholars of hadith, jurisprudence and Sunnah, then returned to Ceuta to study students of knowledge, before becoming a judge .
He bore the title of judge after he was known for his integrity, and they stood for him in the position of truth and justice, even if one of the litigants was an influential personality or a son of lineage and lineage. With the respect and trust of the inhabitants, whether in Granada and Ceuta or in Marrakesh, the man is a divine scholar who is familiar with the fundamentals of jurisprudence, language and the rest of the sciences.
Due to his firm positions, he was removed from the judiciary by Ali bin Yusuf in the year 532 AH, before Tashfin bin Ali appointed him to his position after he needed good men during the Almohad armies’ sweep of the states of Morocco.
Judge Ayyad described him as being well-collected, a lot of story-teller, sweet-speaking, well-spoken, sweet-humoured, soft-spoken, patient and forbearing, a lot of charity and consolation, a lot of reading, never leaving his books, a lot of searching for knowledge.
Although Judge Ayyad is not the son of Marrakech, along with five other men, he settled in it after the city received him and embraced him and considered him one of its sons.
The judge clung to his positions and refused to acknowledge that Ibn Tumart, the expected Mahdi, was the reason for his killing with spears, and cut his body and then buried him without a funeral, and a church was built next to him after the land was granted to Christians, and his grave was not found except during the era of the Marinid state, when the judge ordered Abu Ishaq bin al-Sabbagh to settle what was around his grave And his purification, and the people of Marrakesh prayed for him many times to have mercy on him.