Here we continue Ismail Haqqi Bursawi’s commentary on the Divine Name al-Mu’min, found in verse 59:23.

He says,

قال الامام الغزالى رحمه الله المؤمن المطلق هو الذى لايتصور امن وامان الا ويكون مستفادا من جهته

Al-Imam al-Ghazali, may Allah have mercy on him, said: al-Mu’min is the Absolute, so that all imagineable safety or security must come from Him.

وهو الله تعالى وليس يخفى ان الاعمى يخاف أن يناله هلاك من حيث لايرى فعينه البصيرة تفيد امنا منه والأقطع يخاف آفة لاتندفع الا باليد واليد السليمة أمان منها وهكذا جميع الحواس والاطراف ولمؤمن خالقها ومصورها ومقومها ولو قدرنا انسانا وحده مطلوبا من جهة اعدآئه وهو ملقى فى مضيق لاتتحرك عليه اعضاؤه لضعفه وان تحركت فلا سلاح معه وان كان معه سلاح لم يقاوم اعدآءه وحده وان كانت له جنود لم يأمن ان تنكسر جنوده ولا يجد حصنا يأوى اليه فجاء من عالج ضعفه فقواه وامده بجنود واسلحة وبنى حوله حصنا فقد افاده امنا وامانا فبالحرى أن يسمى مؤمنا فى حقه والعبد ضعيف فى اصل فطرته وهو عرضة الامراض والجوع والعطش من باطنه وعرضة الآفات المحرقة والمغرقة والجارحة والكاسرة من ظاهره ولم يؤمنه من هذه المخاوف الا الذى اعد الادوية دافعة لامراضه والاطعمة مزيلة لجوعه والأشربة مميطة لعطشه والاعضاء دافعة عن بدنه والحواس جواسيس منذرة بما يقرب من مهلكاته ثم خوفه الأعظم من هلاك الآخرة ولايحصنه منها الا كلمة التوحيد والله هاديه اليها ومرغبه فيها حيث قال لااله الا الله حصنى فمن دخله أمن من عذابى فلا امن فى العالم الا وهومستفاد من اسباب هو منفرد بخلقها والهداية الى استعمالها

And that [Absolute] is Allah Most High. It is clear that the blind man is scared of dying from something that he does not see, from which a seeing eye would give him safety; And the man whose arm has been cut off fears a harm that could only be protected from with an arm, and from which the arm gives safety; and so it is with all senses and limbs, and the Mu’min is the One who created them, fashioned them, and makes them work. And if we were to imagine a man alone, sought by his enemies, lying in a narrow straight, so weak that his limbs cannot move, and even if they could move, he has no weapon, and even if he had a weapon then he could not fight his enemies by himself, and even if he had soldiers he did not have the assurance (amn) that his army will not be defeated, and there is no fortress in which to seek refuge…. So then came someone who healed his weakness and gave him strength, gave him soldiers and weapons, and built around him a fortress, then he has given him amn and aman (safety and reassurance), then he should be called a mu’min (a source of amn) in his right.

And the servant [of Allah] is naturally weak, and is vulnerable to illness, hunger, and thirst from within, and to dangers that can cause drowning, burning, injury, and defeat from the outside. And only he gives him security from these fears who prepares for him medicine for his illnesses, foods that remove his hunger and drinks to quench his thirst, and bodily organs to keep away harm from his body, as well as the senses which act as spies, informing him of the mortal dangers that approach him. Then there is his greatest fear, that of doom in the Next World, from which only the statement of Tawhid shall protect him- and Allah is He who guides him to it, and makes him want to utter it, as He said [in the Hadith Qudsi], “La Ilaaha Illa Allah is My fortress, and he who enters it is safe from My punishment”. And so there is no safety in the world except that it has causes, and He alone creates these causes and guides to their use.
وعبد المؤمن هو الذى آمنه الله من العقاب وآمنه الناس على ذواتهم وأموالهم واعراضهم من المصطلحات فحظ العبد من هذا الوصف أن يأمن الخلق كلهم جانبه بل يرجو كل خائف الاعتضاد به فى دفع الهلاك عن نفسه فى دينه ودنياه كما قال عليه السلام ” من كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليؤمن جاره بوائقه

And the Abd al-Mu’min (the Servant of al-Mu’min) is he whom Allah has given safety from punishment; and he with whom people feel safe (and may entrust to them) their selves, their money, and their honor. And the servant’s share of this attribute is that all creation fear nothing from him, but instead, that all those who have fears wish to find in him refuge to protect them from any danger to their religious and worldly affairs, as he said, peace be upon him, “He who believes (yu’min) in Allah and the Last Day, let his neighbor be safe (yu’min) from him.”

واحق العباد بأسم المومن من كان سببا لأمن الحق من عذاب الله بالهداية الى طريق الله والارشاد الى سبيل النجاة وهذه حرفة الانبياء والعلماء ولذلك قال عليه السلام انكم تتهافتون فى النار تهافت الفراش وانا آخذ بحجزكم

And the most worthy of Allah’s servants of the name al-mu’min he who is a cause of the safety of creation from Allah’s punishment through guidance to the path of Allah and leading toward the way of salvation, and this is the craft of the Prophets and the Scholars, and that is why he said, peace be upon him, “You throw yourselves toward the Fire as do butterflies but I take you by the forelock (toward safety)”.

لعلك تقول الخوف من الله على الحقيقة فلا مخوف الا هو فهو الذى خوف عباده وهو الذى خلق اسباب الخوف فكيف ينسب اليه الأمن فجوابك ان الخوف منه والأمن منه وهو خالق سبب الأمن والخوف جميعا وكونه مخوفا لايمنع كونه مؤمنا كما ان كونه مذلا لم يمنع كونه معزا بل هو المعز والمذل وكونه خافضا لم يمنع كونه رافعا بل هو الرافع الخافض فكذلك هو المؤمن المخيف لكن المؤمن ورد التوقيف به خاصة دون المخوف

You might say that fear is in truth from Allah and that no one truly causes fear except Him, for He is the one who frightens his servants and He is the one who creates the things that cause their fears, so how can amn (safety from fear) be attributed to Him? Your answer is that fear is from Him and safety is from Him, and He is the creator of the causes of both safety and fear; and His being a frightener does not keep Him from being a mu’min, just as his being a Dishonorer (Mudhill) does not keep him from being an Honorer (Mu’izz), but He is the Honorer and the Dishonorer; and His being a Humbler/Lowerer (Khafid) does not keep him from being an Exalter/Raiser (Rafi’), but He is the Exalter and the Humbler. And so is He the Mu’min and the frightener, except that al-Mu’min has been chosen [by Allah] as a Name, but not “the frightener”.

وخاصية هذا الاسم وجود التأمين وحصول الصدق والتصديق وقوة الايمان فى العموم لذاكره ومن ذلك أن يذكره الخائف ستا وثلاثين مرة فانه يأمن على نفسه وماله ويزاد فى ذلك بحسب القوة والضعف

And the unique benefit of this Name is to have safety, honesty, to be believed and seen as trustworthy by others, and strength of iman (faith) in general to the one who remembers, or repeats, this name. And from this uniqueness is that he who has fear should repeat it thirty six times, for he will feel safe about himself and his possessions, and it is increased to that according to one’s power or weakness.

In explaining the Divine Name al-Mu’min in verse 59:23,

Ruzbihan al-Baqli (604 A.H.) said,

وصف نفسه بانه مأمن الخائفين بقوله ٱلْمُؤْمِنُ

He described Himself as the refuge of the fearful by saying “al-Mu’min”

In the tafsir attributed to Ibn Arabi (d. 638 A.H.) it says,
المؤمن لأهل اليقين بإنزال السكينه

He brings tranquility/safety to the those who have certainty by bringing down the Sakeena.

Ismail Haqqi Bursawi (d. 1127 A.H.) said,

المؤمن اى الموحد نفسه بقوله

{ شهد الله انه لا اله الا هو }

al-Mu’min, meaning the one who declares His own Unity in (the verse): “Allah bears witness (shahida) that there is no god but He.” So said al-Zajjaj, or Wahib.

الأمن وهو طمأنينة النفس وزوال الخوف قال ابن عباس رضى الله عنهما هو الذى آمن الناس من ظلمه وآمن من آمن من عذابه وهو من الايمان الذى هو ضد التخويف كما فى قوله تعالى

{ وآمنهم من خوف }
Amn is the peace of mind and the removal of fear. Ibn Abbas (r.a) said, “He is the one from whom people fear no injustice, and the believer is secure from His punishment” and it is from iman which is the opposite of “to frighten”, as in His saying, Most High, “And He made them safe from fear”.

وعنه ايضا انه قال اذا كان يوم القيامة اخرج أهل التوحيد من النار واول من يخرج من وافق اسمه اسم نبى حتى اذا لم يبق فيها من يوافق اسمه اسم نبى قال الله لباقه أنتم المسلمون وانا السلام وأنتم المؤمنون وانا المؤمن فيخرجهم من النار ببركة هذين الاسمين

And it is also reported from him that he said, “After the Day of Resurrection, He takes the people of tawhid who are in the Fire out of it, and the first to come out are those whose names are like those of Prophets, until when there is no one else whose name is like that of a Prophet, Allah says to the rest, ‘You are the Muslims and I am al-Salam, and you are the believers (mu’minoon) and I am al-Mu’min‘ so He takes them out of the Fire by the blessing of these two names.”

[Ismail Haqqi’s tafsir of this Name will continue in the next post, inshaAllah]

I wrote in a previous post about the importance of living with (at least) one of the names of Allah at every point of your life, and how I am now trying to live with the name al-Mu’min, and described some of its meanings. Now I intend to post what has been said of this name in the tafsirs (from www.altafsir.com) of 59:23 where Allah mentions this divine Name and hopefully translate them. This will allow me to find all these meanings easily on my site, and to increase my connection to this name by doing this- because i will be adding a new tafsir or two every few days. In the end inshaAllah I will get to Ibn Ajiba’s description of the name in his great tafseer of the fatiha, because it discusses the benefits of fruits of living with this name, as well as the spiritual realization of the name. I will try to go in the historical order of the tafsirs.

And of course what is most beneficial in this to all of us is to have a more intimate knowledge of the Names and Attributes of our Creator, to strengthen our relationship with Him.

——————

Al-Sulami (d. 412 A.H) wrote,

وقال بعضهم: المؤمن الذى لا يخاف ظلمه

And some have said, the Mu’min is He from whom you fear no injustice.

وقال بعضهم: المؤمن: الموفى بما وعد لأوليائه

And some said, al-Mu’min is is the one who fulfills what He promised to His awliya.
سمعت منصور بن عبد الله يقول: سمعت أبا القاسم البزاز يقول

سمعت ابن عطاء فى قوله: { ٱلْمُؤْمِنُ } قال: المصدق لمن أطاعه

I heard (Mansur ibn Abdallah) say I heard (Abal Qasim al-Bazzaz) say I heard Ibn Ata’ say of al-Mu’min: He who accepts/approves of/believes in he who obeys Him.

وأيضاً فإنه أمَّن المؤمنين عن خوف ما سواه حتى لم يخافوا غيره

Also: He secures the believers (mu’mineen) from the fear of all that is not Him, so that they fear nothing but Him.

Al-Qushayri (d. 465 A.H.) said,

الْمُؤْمِنُ : الذي يُصَدق عَبْدُه في توحيده فيقول له: صَدَقْتَ يا عبدي

al-Mu’min: He who confirms his servant in his affirmation of His unity and says to him: you have spoken the truth, my servant.

والذي يًصَدِّق نفسه في إخباره أي يعلم أنه صادق.

And the one who confirms the truth of all that He tells us, so that it is known that He is Truthful.

ويكون بمعنى المصدق لوعده

And it means He who fulfills his promises,

ويكون بمعنى المخبر لعباده بأنه يُؤمِّنهم من عقوبته

And it means He who tells his servants that He will keep them safe from His punishment.

The Andalusian poet Ibn Hamdis rose to fame at the court of the Abbadid kings of Seville- this was after the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Spain and when each city was ruled by its own king.

He describes in his poems the palace in Seville where he and his companions would sit in a garden surrounded by a stream. The cupbearer would fill cups with wine and let them float in the stream. to be picked up by the men as they floated in front of them, drink the cups, and then put them back in the stream to float back to the cup-bearer!

I remember a certain brook that offered the impiety of drunkenness to the topers sitting along its course, with its cups of golden wine

Each silver cup in it filled as though it contained the soul of the sun in the body of the full moon.

Whenever a glass reached anyone in our company of topers, he would grasp it gingerly with his ten fingers.

Then he drinks out of it a grape-induced intoxication which lulls his very senses without his realizing it.

He sends the glass back in the water, thus returning it to the hands of a cupbearer at whose will it had originally floated to him.

Because of the wine-bibbing we imagined our song to be melodies which the birds sang without verse.

…

It is as if we were cities along the riverbank while the wine-laden ships sailed the stretch between us. 

- The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, pg 270-1, with brackets removed.

At least he admitted its impiety!

I was listening to a lecture by the Saudi shaykh Muhammad b. Musa al-Shareef, who supervises the Al-Tareekh (The History) website. He has a beautiful and inspiring series of arabic audio lectures called Great People from the Lands of Islam, and among those is the one I was listening about, the Mughal ruler of the Indian subcontinent, Aurangzeb, who succeeded his father Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal.

Before getting to Aurangzeb, al-Shareef makes this very thought-provoking remark,

“Here appeared the Mughal state with the appearance of a man called Babur… And this Babur came, he used to rule from Kabul…[and took Delhi] and sat on its thrown the year 933 A.H. (1526 CE), almost 500 years ago. He was able to take Delhi and establish a huge kingdom that lasted for three centuries, and it is the Mughal sultanate, that controlled the entire Indian subcontinent from the Bengal to the Punjab on the borders of Iran, and from Ghazna (Afghanistan) to the Indian Ocean- an enormous and magnificent state. And we have lost this state with our hands- a precious possession, we lost. The Muslims cry over al-Andalus, but al-Andalus would not even make a province, not even 1/100th of the area of India. And if the Muslims cry over Cordoba and Alhambra, then they have lost [in India] colossal palaces with which the castles of Cordoba, Alhambra, and Grenada cannot be even weighed or compared. And if they cried over a few thousands Muslims who died as martyrs in al-Andalus, then in India millions of Muslims have died. There is not even one inch of the Indian lands, almost, except that on it is pure Muslim blood, and upon which the adhaan was heard loud and clear for hundreds of years. Yet we cry over al-Andalus and forget India- thus the Muslims forget their history. They do not know their history in India, and it is a bright and radiant history- great, grand, and beautiful.”

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2007/oct/25/wildlife.photography?picture=331055684

SubhanAllah, what beautiful pictures!

I was flipping through On the Manners Relating to Eating at the university bookstore. It is a translation of the that section from Imam al-Ghazali’s Ihya, and was surprised to see that he recommended eating fruits before meals, not after. He based this on the fact that in a Quranic verse in which foods are mentioned, fruits were mentioned first. Al-Ghazali and his contemporaries knew that everything in the Quran has a meaning, including the ordering of words and verses, and that in it is guidance for every aspect of man’s life. They concluded that fruits are mentioned first because it is healthier to eat them before one’s meal, not after.

This reminded me of when I read Fit4Life less than a year ago. While it was full of wrong information and outright lies even, it was a very beneficial book and one thing it made me think of was the order of the food we eat. It argued that fruits only need 15-20 minutes to be digested by the stomach, so if you eat them after a meal which might take up to two hours or more, the fruit is just sitting there wanting to exit your stomach, perhaps even rotting. I dont know how scientific that is, but it makes sense to get it out of the stomach first and let the stomach digest the meal later, at its own pace. That’s why the book recommended eating fruits then waiting about 20 minutes before eating your main meal. However I then read online about old research by a certain scientist who found out that meals are divided in the stomach into separate layers, so that fruit doesn’t have to have left the stomach before the next meal comes in, because each is digested in its own layer. So you only need wait one or two minutes maybe, before your next food intake. But the ordering of fruit before the next meal remains important, so that when it’s done it can leave the stomach.

During Ramadan last week, one of my relatives said that a Cambridge professor was quoted in an article saying that the healthiest way of eating was the one described in the Qur’an- In a verse about what the people of Heaven are fed, fruits are mentioned first. The professor supposedly said that eating fruits first, and then waiting some 30 minutes before your meal, is the healthiest possible way of eating, and that this is how the Qur’an describes the people of Paradise as eating.

The only time Muslims do this nowadays is in Ramadan, in which they break their fast with dates (a fruit), then go pray, then return to have their main meal. Again, you probably do not need to wait a whole 30 minutes, but it might be best. It is the custom, at least in the Arab world, to eat your fruits after the meal, but I have been turning it down whenever someone offered, telling them that I either have it before my meal or two hours later. Here is some simple Qur’anic guidance for better health.

On a sidenote, I have recently watched Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness. The film is pretty good, but I feel very uncomfortable watching great spiritual men being portrayed by normal actors because it takes away all of their grandeur. Anthony Quinn was an exception maybe in Lion of the Desert when he played the great sufi warrior Omar al-Mukhtar. But other than that I simply cannot stand to see a normal actor playing the role of a great sufi shaykh, or for example, Imam al-Shafii, about whom the Egyptians have made a new tv series.

Still, the film is not bad and is worth seeing. But if you go to the Extras, the interview about it with shaykh Hamza Yusuf is absolutely great and is a must-see.

 We need to start living with Allah’s names. At every point in our life, there is a certain name that will seem especially needed for us, or that will have a certain appeal, based on your spiritual, physical, or emotional states; or maybe based on whatever challenges you face in life. My cousin has been living with Allah’s name al-Qahhar for months now, and he keeps giving me beautiful insights about this name and its manifestations in our lives, it is truly amazing. These days, I’m trying to live with the name al-Mu’min, by simply repeating Ya Mu’min whenever I remember to. I’m not really putting that much of an effort into it, just doing it whenever I remember, and I know that such a small step alone makes a big difference. Here’s why I have chosen the name. We begin with a quote from Hazrat Inayat Khan:

We are able to do anything if we choose to make the effort. The difficulty is that often we do not choose to do so. And why not? Because we do not believe: what is generally lacking in man is belief…. What we obtain is what our belief allows us to obtain, whether of wealth or virtue, power or rank or spirituality. What our belief does not allow us to attain to we do not attain to; we cannot attain it….

How can one get belief? This is the most difficult question anyone can ask, for it cannot be learned, it cannot be taught; it is a grace of God. Belief is essentially the same thing as faith, but only when belief has become a conviction does it turn into faith. I remember my murshid (spiritual teacher) giving me, in blessing me, this wish: “May your faith be strengthened.” Being a young man, I thought, “Is that all he is saying to me, not, ‘May you be inspired,’ or ‘illuminated,’ or ‘prosperous,’ or something else?” But when I think of it now, I know that in that blessing there was all. When belief is strengthened, then there is everything: what we lack in life is mostly due to our lack of belief. But again, this is not something that one can learn or teach or that one can give to anybody; it comes from the grace of God. (pg 43-44).

These are just snippets from Spiritual Dimensions of Psychology that I hope will give you an idea of the importance of having true, strong iman. I do not mean the simple level of iman that we all have, or even the level of certainty that many of us have, but an ever deeper and stronger level of iman; the iman that completely changes us and makes us constantly aware of Allah (swt)

This made me think of the Divine Name al-Mu’min, which Allah calls Himself in the Qur’an. The word comes from the root word a-m-n, which has the following meanings,

to be secure, safe, free from fear
to be quiet, tranquil
to grant protection, safeguard
to be trusted, trustworthy
to believe in

And it is from this root that we have the word iman, which we translate as faith or belief. By calling Himself al-Mu’min, Allah is calling himself:

The Remover of Fear, The Giver of Tranquility, The Source of Faith
The One who faithfully bestows the gifts of peace, safety and security.The One who grants freedom from fear.The One who illuminates the heart with faith. The One who is most trustworthy. (Meanings of the Divine Names)

I read that he who constantly repeats this name is granted security and protection, but I hope that by repeating it I can keep increasing in iman.

For “by the repetition of certain words a definite result can be produced in one’s character” so much so that one’s character can be entirely changed by some words (Spiritual Dimensions, 45)

“And the mechanism of one’s inner being is such that every word that one repeats so many times becomes each time more living, and then this mechanism goes on repeating the same word automatically. Thus if a person has repeated a sacred word for fifteen minutes, throughout the day and night this word goes on, as the spirit repeats it continually.” (pg 48)

With every repetition of a word, the idea it suggests is engraved deeper and deeper in the mind, and so not a single repetition is wasted, as it would have deepened this carving in the mind (pg 68). In fact the name of the Naqshbandi tariqa means carving (naqsh) into the heart (band) the name of Allah. I’m hoping to carve into my heart God’s name al-Mu’min, so that my iman may continue to grow and become alive, and reach beyond the level of certainty to a level of complete transformation.

In Egypt I heard this conversation more than once:

- You’ve lost a lot of weight! How did you do it?

- Through constant dhikr.

Now to me, this sounded really silly, but after a while I came to realize that it was I who was silly. There are at least two ways that you can lose weight from dhikr, and here they are in the order that I read about them/realized them.

Safiyy al-Din Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Dajani al-Qushashi says in as-Simt al-Majid, in the section about dhikr:

Al-Jurayri said, “One of our companions was a man who would constantly say ‘Allah, Allah.’ One day a tree branch fell on his head, causing a skull fracture, and he bled, so the blood formed the words ‘Allah, Allah’ on the floor” . For dhikr is a fire that leaves nothing and spares nothing (Qur’an 74:28), if it enters a house it says “Me, and nothing else!” which is one of the meanings of “La Ilaha Illa Allah“; so if it finds in it wood it burns it, making it fire, and if what’s there is darkness it would be light and illuminate it, and if what’s there is light it would be light upon light (Q 24:35). And dhikr removes from the body all the malignant or harmful excesses that result from overeating and from eating food that is haram; as for all that comes from halal food it does not touch it. And if all the malignant parts are burned and only the pure are left, you would hear dhikr from every part of your body, as if it were a trumpet blow. (pg 11-12)

So you see, this great sufi Master is explaining how dhikr, just like fire, burns all that which is bad (khabeeth) in the body, such as what is caused by eating too much, and especially all that which is haram food. Haram food can be forbidden food like alcohol and pork, or it could be food that was obtained in a forbidden manner or bought with money that was made from a non-halal way, even if it was the person giving you the money who obtained it in a non-halal way, not you (so long as you were aware of that). So as you can see, it is likely that all of us have eaten something that in one way or another was haram and the fire of dhikr burns it better than any fat-burning supplement.

Of course the other way is that dhikr helps you subdue and control your desires, making you able to stop eating as much. All types of dhikr probably do this, but perhaps the most effective is Allah’s name al-Qahhar.

Here is an explanation of the Name and its benefits from Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi’s Irshad: Wisdom of a Sufi Master:

AL-QAHHAR: The subduer. He who dominates all things, and prevails upon them to do whatever He wills.

YA QAHHARU: O Subduer! This invocation helps one to subdue the desires of the flesh, ridding the heart of wordly attachment and leading to inner peace. The recitation of this Name also affords protection against cruel injustice.

Perhaps another useful name is al-Malik (The King), because as Queen of Sheba is quoted in the Quran, when kings enter a town they ruin it and subjugate the noblest of its people. Ibn Arabi understood from this verse an analogy to the light of Allah entering the human heart and leaving there nothing else, and subjugating the nafs. Al-Qushashi says the same thing above, but comparing the heart to a house instead. In any case, with constant dhikr you can control your desires and your food, your body becomes illumined, and you burn all the excesses that have formed from haram food.

Had I been in Egypt on the second day of Eid, I would have went with the brothers from my Tariqa, and our shaykh, to visit all the Ahlul Bayt and the awliya that are burried in Cairo. But Since I was here, I thought I’d do the same. I asked my friend to take me to visit the Prophet’s great companion Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah, for whom I have always felt a special love, and to see who else we can find. I tooka book called The Holy Sites of Jordan to tell us who they were and where to find them; and Men Around the Messenger and the first volume of Hilyat al-Awliya to read more about them on the way. They all died from the Great Plague in the 18th year after the Hijra.

We reached first the companion Dirar ibn al-Azwar. He was one of the early Companions and it is recorded that he once gave the Prophet (pbuh) a she-camel. This poet was best remembered as a fierce warrior who loved combat. He would throw off his armor and shirt when fighting an enemy to show his desire for martyrdom. Dirar was popular among the Muslim fighters and used to boost their morale, as he did in the Battle of Ajnadayn when he challenged Byzantine champions to duels before the battle. He yelled out: “I am the death of the pale faces (cowards), I am the killer of Romans; I am the scourge sent upon you, I am Dirar Ibn al Azwar!”. He is said to have slain several Byzantine champions who accepted his duels, including the governers of Tiberias and Amman. His very name was enough to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy.

Dirar became an army commander during the campaigns of Khalid ibn al-Walid, in the Caliphate of Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with them all. I had mentioned in my first Blog how he was captured by the Byzantines, and how his sister was found fighting alone against several Byzantine soldiers, attempting to save her brother, and that she joined Khalid ibn al-Walid in the battle in which the Byzantines were defeated and Dirar was rescued. The Pakistani army has named a new tank after him (Al-Zarrar, which is how they pronounce his name).

The most important part of that visit was the scent that was emanating from Dirar’s tomb, ridwan Allah 3alayh. There was a little hole in the stone sarcophagus over his tomb, from which the most beautiful scent came out. I have discussed this scent with a friend of mine who has also been to these places, and he says that when he visited, the sarcophagus was covered with green cloth. He removed it and discovered that hole and the beautiful scent. So he asked the caretaker of the tomb complex, but it turned out that that caretaker was new, and had no idea about the existence of the hole, and assured my friend that since he was there they never used incense… Maybe it was after my friend’s discovery that the new caretaker decided to remove the cloth so that all visitors can smell the scent.

After the visit we signed the guest book, in which I noticed that many groups of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, Egyptians, and Jordanians had visited earlier that day, and I would see their names in all the tomb guestbooks that we would visit next.

Two minutes away was the great complex built around the tomb of Abu Ubaydah Amir ibn al-Jarrah. It was a complex of incredible beauty and serenity- it was large but very simple, the white stone and the greenery everywhere, with a blue fountain path, giving it such a calming atmosphere. At his tomb, we found some six men sitting and chanting Sufi songs- there was one about wishing to visit their beloved, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and one about spiritual arriving (al-Wisal). The main singer had a voice from heaven, and I sat next to them and quietly sang a long. It was beautiful.

Abu Ubaydah was one of the first to enter Islam, and was a very close companion, among the compilers of the Holy Quran. He is also among the “Blessed Ten”, or the ten Companions that the Prophet once confirmed will definitly go to Heaven. The Prophet (pbuh) was known in Mecca before his prophethood as Al-Ameen, the Trusted One; he gave this title to Abu Ubaydah when he said, “For every nation there is an Ameen, and the Ameen of this Ummah is Abu Ubaydah.” When the delegation of Najran came from the Yemen to declare their Islam to the Prophet, they asked him to send with them someone to teach them the Quran and the Faith. He told them, “I will send with you someone who is most trustworthy. He is truly ameen, he is truly ameen, he is truly ameen.” Every Companion wished to be that person when they heard this, and Umar said “I had never sought a position of leadership until I heard those words”, and he started to try to attract the Prophet’s attention to himself, but it was Abu Ubaydah who was chosen.

During the Battle of Uhud, Abu Ubaydah realized that the main aim of the enemy was to kill the Prophet, so he made sure he was constantly guarding him- and if ever the fight took him far away from the Prophet, his eye was always on him (pbuh), and he would always come back to him. Once when he was fighting far away, his eyes constantly on the Prophet, he saw an arrow hit the Prophet’s helmet, at which point he swept away all the enemy fighters around him with an angry blow and ran toward the Prophet. Abu Bakr was racing toward him as well but Abu Ubaydah got there first, and when he saw that two rings from the helmet had dug into the Prophet’s cheek and caused him to bleed he turned to Abu Bakr and begged him to be the one to remove the rings from the Prophet’s face. He then bit the first ring and removed it, losing his tooth. Then bit and removed the second ring, losing another tooth. After that, every Companion envied him because the Prophet’s blood mixed with his blood.

When Umar became Caliph, he removed Khalid ibn al-Walid as general of the Muslim armies and placed Abu Ubaydah instead, because Abu Ubayda’s style of warfare was “gentle”. When Syria was opened to Islam, Umar went there and said, “Where is my brother?”, they said, “who is your brother?”, he said, “Abu Ubaydah!” They led him to Abu Ubaydah who took him to his house, where there was only a sword, a shield, and a travel bag with some travel provisions upon which he rested his head when he slept. Umar asked him why he would not share in the great wealth that the Muslims had acquired from Syria and the Sassanian Empire but Abu Ubaydah replied that it was all that he needed for his journey in this world.

Umar loved him so much that on his deathbed he said he would have made Abu Ubaydah succeed him to the Caliphate had he not died from the plague. In fact when the Prophet (pbuh) died Abu Bakr had nominated either Umar or Abu Ubaydah to be the first Caliph, but they refused to have anyone but Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with them all.

One time Umar was sitting with some companions and said, “make a wish!”. One of them said, “I wish this house was full of gold that I may spend it in charity and in the cause of Allah.” But Umar said, “make a wish”, and another man said “I wish this house was full of all kinds of precious stones, pearls, and jewels to spend in charity and in the cause of Allah”, but Umar said, “make a wish!” So they said, “we do not know what to wish for, what do you wish?” So Umar said, “I wish this house was full of men like Abu Ubaydah.”

When the plague spread in Syria, Umar was worried about him and sent him a letter saying, “I am in urgent need of you. If my letter reaches you at night I strongly urge you to leave before dawn. If this letter reaches you during the day, I strongly urge you to leave before evening and hasten to me.”

But Abu Ubaydah knew that Umar wrote the letter because he wanted him to escape the plague, and said, “”I know why Umar needs me. He wants to secure the survival of someone who, however, is not eternal.”

This was his reply: “I know that you need me. But I am in an army of Muslims and I have no desire to save myself from what is afflicting them. This is the army which didn’t separate from me in the battlefield and didn’t betray me. How can I now betray them? I do not want to separate from them until God wills. So, when this letter reaches you, release me from your command and permit me to stay on.”

Abu Ubaydah was soon infected by the plague, and before he died he gave a farewell speech and appointed Muadh ibn Jabal as his successor. Muadh led the funeral prayer and said to the people,

“O people, you are stricken by the death of a man. By God, I don’t know whether I have seen a man who had a more righteous heart, who was further from all evil and who was more sincere to people than he. Ask God to shower His mercy on him and God will be merciful to you”.

We then went on to find the tomb of Shurhabil. He was an early convert to Islam, and Abu Bakr put him in charge of the army that was sent to open Jordan- which was part of Greater Syria to- Islam. Umar later made him governor of three-quarters of the land of Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham). He was best remembered as a man of deep faith, intelligence and justice; a great commander who was loved by all he commanded, and a ruler who was loved by all of those that he ruled over. He died of the plague on the same day as Abu Ubaydah.

We then went to see the ruins of Pella, an ancient city that was opened by Shurahbil, having fought a major battle with the Byzantines on its western plains. Muslims and Christians then lived together in it for over a hundred years before a great earthquake destroyed it and left it abandoned. We saw the ruins of Umayyad-era houses as well as a mosque that was built during Ottoman times when some people settled in it.

After Pella we continued up north to find the tomb of Aamir bin Abi Waqqas. He is the brother of the infamous general Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas who defeated the Sassanians and opened Iraq and Iran to Islam. They were maternal cousins of the Prophet (pbuh). Some sources say that he was the 11th man to convert to Islam, at which point his mother swore to stay out in the sun until he renounced his new faith, but he persisted.

Then finally, we reached Mu’adh ibn Jabal. He was from from the people of Medina, converted at the age of 18, and was present at the Pact of Aqaba when an envoy of Medinans came to invite the Prophet to Medina and gave him their allegiance. He was one of the four Ansar who compiled the Qur’an, and the Prophet (pbuh) said, “Read the Qur’an from four…” and one of them was Muadh. He also said, “The most knowledgeable in my Ummah on what is allowed and what is prohibited is Muadh ibn Jabal”, and “Muadh will be at the forefront of all the scholars on the Day of Judgment.” When Mecca was opened to Islam, the Prophet put him in charge of it, to teach the Meccans Islam, while he lead the campaign of Hunain. Before he died, he sent Muadh to rule Yemen and judge all their affairs.

When he came to Syria, the Companions there used to have such respect for him that they would always turn to him to solve any problem, and they would all look at him with awe, even when he was the youngest of the Companions present. He always sat quietly and silently, but stood out with his radiant face. When a disagreement arose they would go ask him, and hover around him, and they said that when he spoke it was as if light and pearls were coming out of his mouth. People said that a love for him would fall on their hearts upon seeing him. The companions likened him to the Prophet Abraham (pbuh).

Umar once sent a pouch full of money (400 dinars) with a servant to Abu Ubaydah, and instructed him to sit there and watch what he does with it. Abu Ubaydah called his maid and said, “go give seven to so-and-so and five to so-and-so” until there was nothing left in it. Umar’s servant went back and reported this, at which point Umar gave him a similar pouch to give to Muadh ibn Jabal, with the same instructions. Muadh did the same thing, except at the end his wife came and said, “leave some for us for we have nothing!”, at which point he kept for her the last two dinars. Umar’s servant went back and reported this. Umar was very pleased and said, “they are brothers, one and the same.”

During Umar’s reign both Abu Ubaydah and Muadh wrote a letter together and sent it to him, reminding him of his grave responsibilities as Caliph. He sent a letter back thanking them and telling them to keep writing him, for “I cannot do without the both of you.”

Muadh’s greatest honor is when the Prophet held his hand one day and said, “by Allah, oh Muadh, I love you.” Muadh replied, “Oh Messenger of Allah; I too, by Allah, love you!”

When the plague hit Syria, the people started comparing it to the Flood of Noah, except without water. Upon hearing this he stood up to preach to the people and said, “I have heard that which you speak. But this is a mercy from your Lord (swt), the supplication of your Prophet (pbuh), and the way that righteous men before you were taken. Instead of fearing this, fear what is much worse: that a man from among you could leave his house not knowing whether he is a believer or a hypocrite, and fear the rule of young boys… Oh Allah, give the family of Muadh the greater portion of this mercy!”

When he went back home, he found that his first born son Abd al-Rahman, the most beloved person to him, had been infected. He asked him, “Oh Abd al-Rahman, how are you?” And his son replied, “Oh father, this is the Haqq from your Lord, so do not be of those who waver (Qur’an 3:60)”. Muadh replied, “And me too, insha’Allah, you will find me among the patient.” And then Muadh stayed with him the night until he died and burried him the next morning, after which he was infected himself. At night, on his death bed, he kept asking, “is it morning yet?” and they would say no, not yet. Until one time he asked and they said, “yes, it is morning”. So he said, “I seek refuge in Allah from a night whose morning is in the Hellfire.” He suffered during this illness such a suffering that no one else had suffered, and everytime he would regain consciousness he would try to open his eyes and say, “Oh Allah take me, for you know that my heart loves you.”

He son was burried in the same chamber. I cannot begin to express to you the feeling of awe that came over me at the tomb of Muadh (r.a). I thought about moving out to the north of Jordan to live near him and visit him all the time.

From there we set out to pass by the ruins of Umm Qays, and on the way, high in the mountains of northern Jordan, looking out at the horizon, and Lake Tiberias, the sun about to set, and olive trees everywhere, I thought how blessed the land of Jordan was. Perhaps this is how Allah answered the Prophet’s supplication, “Oh Allah, bless us in our Yemen, and bless us in our Syria”.

May Allah allow me to visit the rest of the Sahaba that are burried in Jordan, and to visit their companion, their leader, and their beloved, sayyidna wa mawlana Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa ala aalihi wa sahbihi ajma’een.