Ali abd Ussamad (Freddy Bollag)
Leader of the European and the Russian community of the Tidjanyyah tariqa.
He was born in 1935 году in Switzerland in a Jewish family. Since an early age he was led by the desire to find his own way to the Divine, hence he studied the Cabbala, the esoteric foundations of Judaism, and even travelled to Israel in search of a teacher. However, he met his first master in his native Basel. This was sheikh Abd Urrahman Yahya from the Alawiyya Sufi order.
Guided by him, Freddy studied intensely the foundations of Islam as well as the works of the French mystic Rene Guénon (initiated in the Shadhiliya Sufi order) and the major texts of Hinduism: the Upanishads, the Sutras, etc. After many years of relentless search Freddy Bollag definitively chose the esoteric Path and accepted Islam. Two years later he met master Amadou Hampâté Bâ, a sheikh from the Tidjanyyah order.
In 1960 Hampâté Bâ initiated Freddy in the Tidjanyyah tariqa and guided him on the Sufi path until his death in 1991. However, Freddy feels he is in contact with his Maser even today through extra sense perception.
Another major event for Freddy was meeting Shri Haidakhan Baba (Babaji) in 1980, while he was travelling in India. Babaji is considered to be a divine reincarnation on earth (an avatar). During their meeting Babaji confirmed Freddy’s choice of the path of Islam as correct and revealed to him some secrets of Hindu meditation. Under the influence of his communication with Babaji Freddy began exploring the numerological secrets of the sacred text of the Quran.
The beauty of number correspondences and the divine grace of numerical connections between verses in the Quran filled Freddy with admiration and prompted a vast study which he has not completed yet. Freddy Bollag published several books dedicated to this question. In Russian, he published The Name of Allah and the number 66. As the author himself puts it, the further his study advances, the greater his admiration for the Quran becomes, as the perfect embodiment of the Divine Word, and the more confirmations for his intuitions he discovers, even in the most unlikely places. Thus, after one of his books appeared in Europe, an anonymous sender mailed to him a photocopy of an ancient manuscript in Arabic, entirely dedicated to the secret names of God in the Quran and to their numerology.
Today Freddy Bollag is a master who is recognized and respected in Europe not only by his students and the other Tidjanyyah order masters but also by the sheikhs of other orders. As is well known, he has a close friendship with Nazim al Kursi al Haqqani, sheikh of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. He is also on very good terms with masters from the Hinduist traditions: for example, Babaji’s closest student, Sri Muniraj Maharaj. Freddy Bollag is one of the founders of the Swiss Babaji ashram Center of Unity Schweibenalp and the founder of numerous Sufi centers in Europe. At present, he has focused his attention on Russia, a country which he believes to be very spiritual and very progressive and which he simply loves. At the age of 70 he is still a man full of life and of divine love. Meeting him is in itself a stroke of luck for all who walk the esoteric Path.
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