Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boutchich (1918-2017)
Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boutchich was born in 1918 in the small village of Madagh, in the Berkane plain of north-eastern Morocco. Guide of the Qadiriya Boutchichiya tariqa from 1972 until his death in 2017, he turned a rural brotherhood into one of the most thriving Sufi paths in the world.
Youth and education at Madagh
Sidi Hamza grew up in an atmosphere of devotion and piety within the spiritual centre, the zawiya, founded by his forebears. His father Sidi Abbas (1890-1972), a landowner, took his son out into the orchards every day to accustom him to the work of the land. From the age of seven, Sidi Hamza began his religious studies at the zawiya of Madagh, and by fourteen he had finished learning the Qur’an.
He went on to Oujda to study grammar, Islamic jurisprudence, Qur’anic exegesis and the oral traditions (hadith). Back at Madagh, he spent four more years deepening his book learning with two great scholars of Fez who had settled at the zawiya. Sidi Hamza’s wide learning could have carried him to the bench or into teaching, but worldly success meant nothing to the brilliant student, who chose to stay on the family farm. From his earliest years he had longed for that inward knowledge which is not to be had from books. His spiritual thirst was soon to be quenched by the encounter with the man who would become his guide: Sidi Abu Madyan (1873-1957), a distant cousin living humbly in the nearby Beni Snassen mountains.
The encounter with Sidi Abu Madyan
In the course of 1942, Sidi Hamza undertook, together with his father, to follow the direct teaching of Sidi Abu Madyan. Sidi Abbas was over fifty; his son, newly married, was barely twenty-four. In this respect Sidi Hamza’s case was exceptional: at that time, admission into the great Sunni brotherhoods presupposed that one had reached maturity after overcoming a number of preparatory trials. This singularity hinted at an uncommon destiny for the young man, and at transformations in the teaching of the path once he should become its guide himself.
Sidi Abu Madyan left the mountains where he lived in answer to the invitation of Sidi Abbas, who offered to settle him at Madagh. The conditions were thus met for a transmission of a subtle order to take place between the master and his two new disciples. For Sidi Abu Madyan was one of those great saints who hold the spiritual inheritance of the Prophet Muhammad, and whose teaching aims to hand on that precious secret to whoever proves worthy of receiving it.
Sidi Abu Madyan loved Sidi Hamza deeply, and confided to him: ‘This love I have for you is the love the Prophet Jacob felt for his son Joseph.’ Sidi Hamza remained fourteen years at his master’s side, sharing his meals and watching over his health. He put every one of his instructions into practice and spent whole nights in the invocation of the divine Names, the dhikr. In those years he tasted every stage of the spiritual ascent, up to the loftiest heights of the realisation of Unity.
After Sidi Abu Madyan’s death, Sidi Hamza became heir to the spiritual deposit, as did his father. A respectful son and an accomplished disciple, he would nonetheless not exercise the functions for which he was destined until the moment willed by God, according to his father’s instructions. Rooted in the path, in deep humility and the spirit of service, he awaited the authorisation to take the spiritual direction of the tariqa, which came with the death of Sidi Abbas in 1972, who bequeathed it to him in his spiritual testament.
The zawiya becomes an international centre
Where Sidi Abu Madyan’s way had been marked by trial and rigour, Sidi Hamza’s traced the contours of mercy and beauty. And where the teaching of the first had been meant for a handful of disciples, that of the second addressed the widest number.
In the course of the 1980s, the modest zawiya of Madagh was transformed into a vast retreat centre designed to receive disciples whose numbers grew ceaselessly. Sidi Hamza watched over all the works, anxious that the building project should follow the needs of a tariqa well on its way to becoming Morocco’s most thriving spiritual path: thousands of new disciples, men and women from every walk of life, were joining it. The revenues of the zawiya’s farmland paid for new buildings and for tens of thousands of meals served each year to visitors drawn by the holy man’s reputation.
The opening to the West
From the 1990s onwards, Sidi Hamza’s teaching spread far beyond the borders of Morocco. Carried by the Moroccan disciples settled in Europe and America, the path gradually took root and drew hundreds of people of non-Muslim background, touched by a message imbued with authenticity, openness, respect and brotherhood. This international dimension can be measured each year at the commemoration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, the Mawlid al-Nabawi, which draws tens of thousands of disciples to Madagh from every corner of the world. In France, the path offers meditation and dhikr sessions in eight cities.
The last years
In the early 2000s, Sidi Hamza settled near Oujda, on the vast expanses of the Angad plateau, and travelled to Madagh for the main ceremonies. Despite his advanced age he remained very active, receiving daily at home disciples who came for counsel, or simply to exchange a glance. In his own words, it is from this relationship of companionship, anchored in everyday practice, that the teaching flows forth, the teaching that neither a book nor a departed master can impart.
Called back to God on 18 January 2017, he left his disciples another master in the person of his son, Sidi Jamal. Since August 2025 the path has been guided by his grandson, Sidi Mounir.