Ba ʿAlawī Masters
Heritage Trust
Preserving twelve centuries of scholarship
for the benefit of the worldwide ummah.
A century of ink,
a millennium of meaning.
The Baʿalawī Masters produced one of the richest bodies of Islamic scholarship between the 9th and 18th centuries. This Trust exists to gather, authenticate, digitise, and freely share that legacy — so the next generation inherits not just words on a page, but the living tradition they carry.
Formed under the direction of two living scholars.
Their direction keeps every project — from manuscript authentication to global digital distribution — rooted in classical scholarship.
Three pillars of work — for the public benefit, worldwide.
Preserve
Collect, authenticate, and digitise manuscripts produced by the Baʿalawī Masters between the 9th and 18th centuries — and make them freely available to the world.
Advance
Drive original research into this textual heritage and disseminate the useful results — for scholars, students, and the broader ummah.
Educate
Provide and support training and education in the disciplines and traditions carried by this scholarship.
Built on a foundation of UK charitable trust law.
The BaAlwi App.
A daily companion
for the worldwide ummah.
Launched mid-2022 and now the most prominent app used by Sufi orders worldwide. Forever free. Forever ad-free. 5.0★ on Google Play across 29,000+ reviews.
Reaching every corner
of the daily devotional life.
Twelve centuries
in your pocket.
- 01Complete text of the Holy Qurʾān.
- 02Daily, weekly and annual adhkār — all in one place, with audio recordings.
- 03Illustrated maps of sacred sites with relevant prayers and invocations.
- 04Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt, the Burdah and over 20 Mawlids and ṣalawāt collections.
- 05Completely free to use, with no advertisements.
A young, global,
majority-female audience.
Highest engagement among 18–24 year olds. Growing usage across Europe and North America.
From Tarim
to Toronto.
Indonesia307,000
Saudi Arabia31,000
Yemen30,000
Malaysia22,000
Germany18,000
United Kingdom15,000
Authenticating Ba Alawi works,
searchable by root and stem.
- Authenticating and publishing historic Ba Alawi works.
- Making all the key reference works of Ahl al-Sunnah accessible.
- Advanced Arabic search technology.
Beyond our own corpus —
the entire Sunni tradition, searchable.
Phase 2 expands the Smart Library to include the most popular references used by Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamāʿah — searchable by root, stem, keyword, author, and century.
وَشَرْطُ صِحَّةِ التَّوْبَةِ صِدْقُ النَّدَمِ عَلَى الذُّنُوبِ
The Nabawī Heritage
Encyclopedia of Madinah.
Three decades of fieldwork, becoming a single digital reference.
Beyond Madinah — the centres of Islamic civilisation.
Indonesia
A dedicated team documenting the seats of Baʿalawī scholarship across the archipelago — from Tarim to Java.
Makkah, Ṭāʾif & Arabia
Expansion across the Arabian peninsula will follow Madinah, completing the geographic heart of the tradition.
Cairo & North Africa
From al-Azhar westward — the Egyptian and Maghrebi traditions enter the encyclopedia.
The Nabawī Mawālid
Encyclopedia.
- Preservation of historic mawlid compositions.
- Authentication of rare manuscripts.
- Audio and translations planned.
Three years. Four hundred and twenty mawālid, authenticated and freely available.
fully authenticated against originals
expansion through the medieval corpus
toward the full 720+ identified
"Every line we authenticate
is a sentence the next generation
will never have to lose."
Help preserve a millennium of knowledge.
100% directed to the Trust's projects, with surplus invested in Sharīʿa-compliant products. Gift Aid available for UK taxpayers.
Why Sanad Academy?
Learn authentic Islamic knowledge through trusted scholarly chains connected to the Prophet ﷺ.
Study online for free, wherever you are and whenever it suits you.
Access structured courses inspired by the methodology of Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim.
Build your knowledge, character, and spiritual growth through a balanced educational journey.
