PROFILE OF FOUNDER

—Sheik Salis Shaban is one of the revered Islamic scholars of Ghana. He is a powerful Sufi cleric in the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood in Ghana and beyond. He was born on 10th January,1934 at Asamankese. He started his Islamic studies in Ghana primarily at the hands of his father Sheik Abdurrahman Shaban, also a renowned Islamic leader, where he mastered at an early age recitation of Quran, Hadith and Fighu, Islamic Jurisprudence. The news of the charisma and karamat, of the kutbul Zaman, Sheik Al-islam  Alhaj Ibrahim Niass, West Africa’s most renowed scholar of the 20th century and the khalifa of Tijaniya  Sufi Order reached Ghana by 1950 .Sheik Abdulrahaman Shaban was among early Tijaniya scholars from Ghana to visit the sheik at his base in Senegal- Koalack for his blessing and prayers.  

         

—Upon returning to Ghana , Sheik Salis Shaban was quickly  sent to Senegal  to learn under the hands and guidance of Sheik Ibrahim Niaas. Although, it was the practice that students of Sheik Ibrahim Niaas were received in the house of Sayyidi Aliyu Cissee; Sheik Salis Shaban ,loved and admired by Sheik Ibrahim Niass for his zeal and enthusiasm for learning and Sufism, he had the privileged to  grow in the house of Sheik Ibrahim Niaas , thus exposed to the direct guidance and nurturing of the kutb-Zamani himself. Sheik Ibrahim Niaas declared Salis Shaban a son, and that has earned him the title Niass, widely recognized among the family of the Baye Niass.

                                                                                  

Sheik Salis Shaban  learnt a range of Islamic sciences; Quran,Tafsir , Fighu, Hadith , Arabic,  Sufism among others from the direct hands of Sheik Ibrahim Niaas.  He was an ardent and staunch Hadimm, servant, of Sheik Ibrahim Niaas; he fanned Sheik Ibrahim Niass at night, massaging Baye Niass was his routine cherished activity, he tirelessly held the lamb that provided the light at nights when Baye Niass wrote many pages of the Ad- Dawawwin As Sit (a countless anthologies of poems), Salis Shaban traveled with Baye Niass on many occasions to Ghana and other countries

—In Ghana, he was the interpreter, the translator and the intermediary between Dr.kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president and Sheik Ibrahim Niass when the latter was invited in the 1950’s to deliver a special prayers at the construction site of Akosombo Dam , to generate and supply electricity to Ghana and neighbouring West African Countries.     (Hussein Rashid Salawatiya OUR AFRICAN IDENTITY: 2005 page 13 6-138)

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—Dr. Nkrumah admired the language abilities and oratory skills of the young man, Salis Shaban and got him enrolled at the institute of languages and subsequently gave him a scholarship to study at Azhar University, in Cairo – Egypt.

—Upon retuning to Ghana, he actively joined his fellow contemporaries such as Sheik Dr.Usman Nuhu Sharubutu, Sheik Abdulai Maikano Jalloo, Sheik Jamal Baba, Sheik Sani Murtada, Sheikh Harun Rashid, Chief Alhaj Abdulkadir, amongst others to spread Islam and Tijaniya across the length and breadth of Ghana and beyond. His mission of spreading Islam, Tijaniya and Faydatu Ibrahimiya was not limited to Ghana but spread to neighbouring countries such as Togo and Benin. As such he has students cutting through all theses countries.

—Sheik Salis Shaban spoke at many national and international conferences of Sufism in morocco, America, Germany, among others., Sheik Salis Shaban joined hands with world muslim leaders in performing a special prayers for Brother Farakhan of The Nation of Islam during his hospitalization in 2007 . In August 2001 he delivered an inspiring speech at an international conference in Chicago on the topic” The Seerah of Prophet Muhammed in The Light of The New Millennium” www.ahmedtijani.org

         

—Sheik Salis Shaban was the first in the whole world to organize Mauled Celebration in commemoration of kutb Zaman, Sheik Ibrahim Niass; an act that was endorsed by Baye Niass himself and Sayyidi Aliyu Cissee. On numerous occasions, Sheik Salis Shaban declares to be remembered as Haadimu Sheihu Ibrahima Niaiss    (The servant of Sheikh Ibrahim Niass)

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