Shaykh Ma al-Aynayn was a Saharan saint, scholar, and master of the esoteric sciences whose following spread across the western Sahara from his foundation at Smara in the Saguia el-Hamra. Reputed for his baraka and for the power of the written talismans he composed, he gathered disciples and tribes under his religious authority in the desert north of Mauritania, and his memory is bound to the traditions of hjab, the Islamic esoteric knowledge by which the Bidan seek protection, healing, and the management of unseen forces. His many sons carried his blessing and his brotherhood onward, and his stone town of Smara remained a symbol of Saharan sanctity long after his death in 1910.