AISSAOUA. - French form of the name of the Muslim brotherhood of the 'Isawiyya (in Maghrebi pronunciation Aisawiyya), founded in Morocco in the 16th century by the celebrated holy man Sidi Muhammad ibn 'Isà, and still widely diffused throughout North Africa. Muhammad ibn 'Isà, born at Meknès (Miknās) and dying there about A.D. 1524, was a mystic and thaumaturge, of a type frequent in North Africa, who followed the mystical rule of the Shādhiliyya, in the Moroccan branch of the Giazūliyya; but the fame of the brotherhood headed by him is based above all on the outward practices of noisy and popular thaumaturgy characteristic of its adherents. The seat of the brotherhood, whose leadership is held by descendants of the founder, is at Meknès, where the saint’s tomb is located. Its zawiyas are numerous in southern Morocco (the region of Zarhūn), in Algeria (Duar Uzara, and the departments of Orano and Costantina), and in Tunisia (Tunisi, Gerba, Sfax, Susa, Biserta).
Some zawiyas are also reported in Cyrenaica, at Bengasi, and one at Mecca. Francesco Gabrieli