In the name of Allah Most Merciful, all praise is due to Him, and may He whelm His Messenger in peace and blessings, and whelm likewise his household, whom He cleansed from all impurity.

When the Ismaili Shiite dynasty known as the Fatimids established a counter-caliphate in Egypt, they moved there the bodies of some of the descendants of the Prophet, and built shrines for them. In 1154, they brought the head of sayyidna al-Husayn (r.a.), the Prophet’s grandson. It had first been housed in Damascus, and then moved to Ascalon, Palestine. The Fatimids came to control Palestine and moved it to Cairo. The Andalusian traveler Ibn Jubair visited it exactly 30 years later, as well as the place where it had been in Damascus, and confirmed the move.

There are those wo question the fact that al-Husayn’s head is now in Cairo. However I read in the Egyptian al-Ahram newspaper an interview with a shaykh who gave the complete details of a manuscript in a museum in London, written by a contemporary eye witness account who saw the head as it was placed in its new home in Cairo. The shaykh presented the name of the author, the name of the museum, and the manuscript number. Sadly, I did not write down the details.

Anyway, here is something recounted by my shaykh, who was a very famous shaykh from the Azhar, about another shaykh, Hasan al-Adawi al-Hamzawi:

“After he memorized the Noble Qur’an, seekers of ilm took him with them from his home town to the Azhar. He had no money, and became really hungry and was severely distressed, when he heard a man calling: “O people of generosity!”, so he said to him, “Where are these people of generosity that you are calling?” So the man took him by the hand to the dome of mawlana al-Husayn at night, where he found those who offered him bread and food. He stayed doing this until he finished his studies and obtained the diploma from the Azhar.

And then there happened a fitna between the ulama of the Azhar- some of them said: The head of mawlana al-Husayn is here in Egypt, and others said: No. The shaykh al-Hamzawi was of those who said that the head is in Egypt. He then saw mawlana al-Husayn in a dream vision saying to him: “How do you say that what is here is my head? Have you been taking your share of bread and meat from the head without the body?” So the next morning the shaykh al-Hamzawi went and stood among the ulama of the Azhar at the Husayn Mosque and said, “I swear by Allah, I swear by Allah, I swear by Allah: sayyidna al-Husayn is here in his head, his body, and his soul.” From that day the shaykh al-Hamzawi began writing about himself, “the servant of the Husaynid Places”, and then the inner knowledges exploded in his heart until he became the shaykh of the Malikis (in Egypt). And (my) shaykh Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samaluti was one of his closest students.” [1]

It is obvious to any Muslim that nothing is beyond Allah’s power and generosity, and it befits Allah Most High’s power and generosity to re-unite mawlana al-Husayn with his body after he was brought to his final resting place, for he is the grandson of His greatest Messenger, and as his grandfather said of him, he is one of the masters of the people of Paradise. And is not the grave, as he said also, peace be upon him, a garden from the Gardens of Paradise, and are not martyrs (and al-Husayn is the master of all martyrs), alive in their graves, as the Qur’an and hadith clearly state? Then should they not be whole and complete in their graves, for how could a martyr be in Paradise with his wounds or with torn off limbs? Then it is absolutely clear from the Quran and Sunna and reason, and backed up by the visions of the great shaykhs, that Imam al-Husayn is in his grave in Cairo, in his full body, and in his soul, radiyAllahu ‘anhu.

Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad told us, in what we know are absolutely authentic traditions found in al-Bukhari and others, that 1) He who sees him in a vision has truly seen him, for the devil cannot take his form and 2) He who has seen him in a dream, it is as if he saw him awake.

Now my shaykh has written that he fell asleep when visiting the tomb of sayyidna al-Husayn and saw in a vision the Prophet Muhammad at that place, visiting Imam al-Husayn. [2] He also wrote about that in his poetry, saying,

رأيت المصطفى كالبدر يأتي       يزور حسينه حيناً فحينا

فزوروا مثله سبطاً سمياً          وكونوا مثل خير المرسلينا

I saw the Mustafa like the full moon coming,

to visit his Husayn every now and then.

So visit like him a lofty grandson,

and be like the best of the Messengers. [3]

Much more could be said about this, including the benefits of visiting mawlana al-Husayn, and verifiable and authentic stories from great shaykhs who visited him, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

And may Allah guide us all to the straight path.

Wassalam.

——————

1. Al Kanz al-Thariyy fi Manaqib al-Jaafari, Cairo: Dar Jawami al-Kalim, pg 51.

2. See the introduction to the collection of the shaykh’s Husayniyyat, same publishers mentioned above.

3. Muhammad Khalid Thabit, Min Aqtab al-Umma fil Qarn al-Ishreen, Cairo: el-Mokatam for Publishing and Distribution, pg 137.

I only have about one month left in Cairo before I leave it, inshaAllah, and today seemed like a good opportunity to visit some of the great inhabitants of this city that I have not visited before, and say farewell to those I have visited. I mean the Ahlul Bayt and the great scholars and awliya that reside beneath their tombs in gardens of Paradise, as wide as the horizon, though we see them not.

So I thought I’d begin with sayyidna al-Husayn (r.a.), and on the way I visited my shaykh, Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari (r.a). Then when I got to sayyidna al-Husayn, I sat in front of the locked room in which some of the belongings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are kept, and recited a poem by shaykh Saleh about visiting the Prophet, and while I was doing that the Imam of the mosque of Shaykh Saleh spotted me and came and hugged me. He had also come to visit.

صلّ يا ربّى وسلّم       عالنبى خير البرية

عند باب الله سلّم       واقصد الروضة الزّكيّة

وانظر البدر الملثّم       أحمداً خير البرية

ثم نادي يا مكرّم         يا خيار الهاشميّة

يا حبيبي يا معظم        رحمة الله الوفية

…

Then I entered the chamber of sayyidna al-Husayn and read a poem by Shaykh Saleh about the Ahlul Bayt that starts with,

الجعفري له في حبكم أملٌ        ما خاب من جاءكم بالحب والأمل

يرجو بكم من رسول الله نظرته       تهدي الفؤاد لفهم العلم والعمل

Al-Jaafari has high hopes in loving you,

he’s not disappointed who comes to you with love and hope

hoping through you a glance from Allah’s messenger,

that would guide the heart to understand ilm and do good works.

I would read that poem at many of the Ahlul Bayt that I would visit next, and as is done in our tariqa, I read the same poem to Shaykh Saleh himself, substituting “al-Jaafari has” with “O Jaafari we have”, making it about shaykh Saleh, who is also a descendant of the Prophet through Jaafar al-Sadiq (r.a.), hence his name.

After that I visited, for the first time, sidi Ahmad al-Dardir (d. 1787), one of the most famous scholars of al-Azhar, nicknamed “the little Malik” because of his greatness as a Maliki scholar, and a very famous wali. Shaykh Saleh loved him and would visit him often and recite poems at his tomb, may Allah benefit us from his great knowledge and learning. He resides in a mosque behind the Azhar, in the al-Husayn area.

Then I went to sayyida Fatima al-Nabawiyya, daughter of Imam al-Husayn, who married her cousin al-Hasan son of al-Hasan. She was nicknamed “Mother of the Orphans” because she adopted seven children who were orphaned at Karbalaa; and she was constantly with her aunt, the sayyida Zaynab, acquiring ilm from her. I will get to sayyida Zaynab in a minute.

One time shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari wanted to go visit Fatima al-Nabawiyya but it was so hot outside that he decided to sit in the shade in al-Azhar a bit, and he fell asleep. In his sleep he saw Ibn Arabi walking walking with a cloak over his head to visit Fatima al-Nabawiyya, so he got up from the dream and said to himself, “Ibn Arabi comes to visit her from Damascus, and I sit here at the Azhar too lazy to go?!” So he went and visited her, may God be pleased with them all.

I visited another daughter of Imam al-Husayn also, the sayyida Sukayna, and also their brother sayyidna Ali Zaynul Abidin. I read a theory in one scholarly article about architecture in Cairo that this was actually the tomb of his son the famous Imam Zayd, and that his name was dropped when the Ottomans came to restore the place, but I seriously doubt that, and the great awliya have confirmed his presence there. Furthermore, I am currently reading the travels of Ibn Jubayr who visited Cairo in the 12th century and said that both Zaynul Abidin and his son Zayd are buried there. I was pleased to find there a poster on the wall with a poem praising sayyidna Zaynul Abidin, written by shaykh Saleh, so I read that.

To move back up a generation, I visited the elder sister of Imam al-Husayn, and daughter of Imam Ali (r.a.), sayyida Zaynab. It’s probably her great knowledge and ilm that made sayyida Zaynab so famous, not just her genealogy. I have a book which is a collection of all of shaykh Saleh’s poems about sayyida Zaynab. One time shaykh Saleh wrote a poem about her and the Ahlul Bayt, and then he saw her in a dream, from behind a curtain (hijab), and she extended her arm out and gave him a piece of paper, saying to him “this is your permission for Hajj”. After that, he was able to do Hajj every year until his death (except one year which has its own special story).

I also visited Muhammad Ali son of Jaafar al-Sadiq, and his sister Aisha. As you can see, Jaafar al-Sadiq named his daughter after the Prophet’s beloved wife, whom the Shi’a don’t like, despite al-Sadiq being their great Imam. Al-Sadiq was also descended from sayyidna Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (r.a.), which shows that the descendants of Imam al-Husayn married descendants of sayyidna Abu Bakr, whom the Shia again don’t like. But I digress.

Another important tomb belonged to Ruqayya, daughter of Ali al-Rida, son of Musa al-Kazim, son of Jaafar al-Sadiq. Most people think she’s the daughter of Ali b. Abi Talib. Next to her is sayyida Atika, wife of Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr.

Then there was the great sayyida Nafeesa, or Nafeesat al-Ilm. Nafeesa is feminine for “highly valuable and precious” and her name meant “she of precious ilm“. Indeed she was a great scholar, and a descendant of sayyidna al-Hasan, who would sit with Imam al-Shafi’i and they would teach each other hadiths and other sciences. Imam al-Shafi’i would always ask her to pray for him, and he requested in his will that she pray in his funeral prayer, hoping to gain Allah’s acceptance through her. She was very famous for her miracles, and I read somewhere that the Shaykhul Islam in hadith sciences, Imam Ibn Hajar, documented more than 120 miracles from her. Her tomb is famous as a place where prayers are answered. I had also visited, a long time ago, her khalwa, being a tiny space beneath a rock, barely large enough for a human to sit inside, on top of what used to be an empty mountain. It is said that when she would go there to worship, animals of all kinds would flock around her. She married one of the sons of Imam Jaafar al-Sadiq, probably the same one I visited, but I didn’t pay enough attention to his name to remember. I remember there being a chapter about her in Camille Helminski’s wonderful Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure.

Alhamdu li’Allah for making this easy for me, and for inspiring me to do this.

InshaAllah my next visits will be to the sahaba who are buried in Cairo (I’m sure of the existence of one, and I heard there is another, but I’m not sure where to find them). Then there are all the great scholars and awliya. May Allah enable me to visit them before I leave Cairo, and to visit the seal of Prophethood, His Messenger Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa ala aalihi wa sallam.

There are many who say, and I believe that it is true, that if it were not for all the Ahlul Bayt and awliya who are buried in Cairo, the city would have been ruined so long ago, and indeed, one wonders how the city has not self-destructed by now, with all that is wrong in it.

Many people live their lives and die, without really accumulating any great experiences or acquiring wisdom. But there are remarkable men who have done in one lifetime what hundreds, even thousands, could not do in their lifetimes combined. Sometimes when walking in the streets, and this happens mostly at night time, I begin to think of all the people that I see, and all the houses and cars. I think of all these people out there living entire lifetimes that I know nothing about, having all sorts of experiences that I could not even imagine, and it really disappoints me. I wish I could see the lives of others and know them as well as I know mine- I don’t know whether it’s because I want to connect with them, or If i just want to experience what they experience, or learn more about life and the world- but this is sometimes I always think about.

That is why I think studying autobiographies and memoirs might be one of the best ways to enrich one’s life- you gain a condensed version of a person’s lifetime: their most important experiences and insights, without having to live their entire lives. You still miss out on a lot, like the simple pleasures in life, the simple human interactions, but you gain so much. Yet for some reason, I’ve never really been interested in reading someone’s memoirs or autobiography- no matter how great the person, I’ve never really been excited about reading what they wrote. I did buy the autobiography of Malcolm X and hopefully I’ll get to it one day.

Several years ago I read Amin Maalouf’s great novel, Leo the African (also translated as Leo Africanus). It is a fictionalized account of the life of an Andalusian Muslim whose family left when Grenada, the last city of the Muslims, fell to the Reconquista. He had a very interesting journey that led him deep into Africa, and then a capture by Pirates that led him to meeting Pope Leo X who gave him the name Leo Africanus. Amin Maalouf wrote a beautiful novel that incorporated what we know about Leo but also placed him in all of the important events of the time- thus creating a “historical novel” that gives an accurate picture of the world at the time, all the major historical events that happened, and how people lived back then.

This novel is what first got me interested in travel literature, or travelogues to be more precise, as a way to transport you suddenly into the midst of a different place, centuries ago, living life as they experienced it, seeing what they saw. But years passed without me really reading anything of the sort.

More recently, my interest in certain scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries led me to the Rihla (or Voyage) of al-Ayyashi. This was a great scholar from the Muslim maghreb who described his journey to the Muslim East. He interests me because he was one of the shaykhs of Imam al-Sanusi, as well as a disciple of some of the students of shaykh Safi al-Din al-Qushashi. He wrote much about al-Qushashi in his travelogue, but it is hard to find and even its modern editor couldn’t help me find a copy.

But now, I’m reading another rihla, that of Ibn Jubayr. And what can I say except that its every page is pure delight to the reader. Ibn Jubayr was an Andalusi scholar, who went to the Hajj by sea to Alexandria, then down to Upper Egypt and into south Africa, where he crossed the sea to the Hijaz. Horrified by what they saw in the African city from which he crossed, his group swore to take a different route home- which took them up to Iraq and Syria - where Saladin was busy fighting the Crusaders- and then to Sicily.

Ibn Jubayr ended up staying many months in Mecca waiting for the Hajj season, and his description of the Kaaba (back then it was covered in green silk with a red silk band of inscriptions- not black), and all the celebrations of the people of Mecca; the caravans that came from Yemen; and how the people worshiped, etc. It is absolutely fascinating. I cannot imagine reader another book with greater joy than this. Not only is Ibn Jubayr famous for his photographic memory, but he paints the most beautiful scenes, describes the most heart-melting events, that makes this book a true feast for the heart and soul. Trying to tell you more is tough, because where can I begin. All I can do is hope that you will be convinced by this to read it. I am reading it as it was written, in Arabic, but you can get a translation for less than 10 US dollars at islamicbookstore.com/b6396.html . Reading this is worth at least ten times as much, trust me!

After this insha’Allah I plan to re-read Leo Africanus, but this time in its Arabic translation (Amin Maalouf writes in French). I’ve always wanted to read it and this will fit in perfectly, as it is about another Andalusian traveler, at a later point when the Andalus was lost. It will also be a great way to end my current studies about Muslim Spain and North Africa.

Then: perhaps the infamous Ibn Battuta. And then there is al-Ayyashi, if I find it insha’Allah, and then Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, the great scholar of Ottoman times, who describes his visit to Palestine, and meets many members of my family. His voyage is probably the most mystical, since it contains his visions and experiences at the tombs of the Prophets and awliya in Palestine, but both al-Ayyashi and Ibn Jubayr have that to some extent.

So these are the rihla books I would very much like to read next, and maybe one day Allah (swt) will send me on an interesting journey to write my own Rihla.

Umar ibn al-Khattab (r.a.) said, “He who slept without doing his hizb, or any part of it, then read it sometime between  the Fajr and Zuhr prayers, it will be written for him as if he had read it at night.”

Narrated by Abdullah ibn Mubarak. A hizb is one half of a Juz’, which means about 1/60th of the Qur’an, but here it probably stands for whatever your daily wird is.

Assalatu M’iraj al-Mu’min

The greatest gift that Allah bestowed on the Muslim Ummah during the Mi’raj, or Ascent of the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, is the 5 daily Salaat prayers.

And it is as if Allah Most High, out of His great generosity, wanted the rest of the Ummah to have their own mi’raj and so made our salaat our mi’raj. “The Salaat is the M’iraj of the Believer” is a famous Islamic teaching, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). I want to share my thoughts on some of the aspects that make this prayer like the mi’raj.

1) The Ascent of the Messenger of Allah took him to such a nearness to Allah, that the archangel Gabriel, made of light, said that if he accompanied him to that last station he would burn up. Now, this nearness is not in a physical sense, Exalted is Allah above such a thing.

The great Imam Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, considered the greatest scholar and mujaddid of the 7th Islamic century, was asked the following question: What is the meaning of the Prophet’s saying, pbuh, “Do not say I am better than Jonah son of Amittai” despite the fact that he said, pbuh, “I am the master of the children of Adam.” He said to his questioners, “I will not tell you until you pay off the debt of this friend of mine”, for he had a friend who had a debt, and they paid it off. So he said, “What is meant by that is: My nearness to Allah Most High during my ascent to the Tree of the Uttermost End, nay to the Divine Throne, is like the nearness of Jonah when he was in three darknesses, there is no superiority between us in that.” In other words, when Jonah prayed to Allah from within the belly of a whale in the dark depths of the ocean, he was as near to Allah as the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) when he was beyond the 7th heaven, where the lights were so powerful that they would burn Gabriel. There is a tradition: that an angel came from above the seven heavens, and one from below the seven earths, an angel from the far west and an angel from the far east, and they all said “I came from where Allah is”.

Thus just as the Mi’raj took the Messenger (pbuh) to the greatest nearness to Allah Most High, so does our Salaat prayer, for the Messenger peace be upon him told us, “The nearest a servant of Allah comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself”, that is, during the sujood, “so make supplications in that state.”

2) When the Messenger of Allah ascended into the Divine Presence he said, Attahiyyatu lilLahi, wassalawatu waltayyibat, “Greetings to Allah, and prayers and all good things.” To this Allah replied, Assalamu alayka ayyuhal Nabi, wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuhu, “Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah”; so the Prophet said, Assalamu alayna wa ‘ala ibaad Allah as-saliheen, “Peace be upon us, and upon Allah’s righteous servants.”
You should recognize these words, for we speak them during the time we sit up after every two rak’as of prayer. It is said that the rest was also spoken during the Ascension: that the Messenger of Allah said, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah” and that Allah Most High replied, “And I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Thus in our own prayer, we repeat the dialogue between Allah and His Messenger during the mi’raj.

3) In this ascension of ours, we do not merely repeat the dialogue of the Messenger’s mi’raj, but we have our own dialogue. The Prophet’s companion Abu Hurayra repeated three times that our Salaat is deficient (or not even accepted) if we do not personally say the Fatiha during it, even if the Imam says it, because the Messenger of Allah said,

Allah (mighty and sublime be He), has said: I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he has asked for. When the servant says: Bism Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Allah says: dhakarani abdi (My servant has mentioned me/remembered me). And when he says Al-hamdu lilLahi rabbi l-alamin , Allah says: My servant has praised Me. And when he says: Ar-Rahmani ar-Rahim , Allah says: My servant has extolled Me, and when he says: Maliki yawmi d-din, Allah says: My servant has glorified Me. And when he says: Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in , He says: This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for. And when he says: Ihdina as-sirata l-mustaqim, siratal ladhina an’amta alayhim ghayril-maghdubi alayhim wa la d-dallin , He says: This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.

Thus we have our own dialogue with Allah most High during our mi’raj, our Salaat. Now the Qur’an commands us to recite the Qur’an in the form of tarteel, or to pause between the verses, and the great scholar Ahmad ibn Idris emphasizes the importance of doing this during the Fatiha in the Salaat, saying “Stopping at the ends of the verses is for the sake of his Lord’s reply, and that is because for the servant to start saying the next part before his Master’s reply to his first speech is ill-mannered.” So when reciting the Fatiha in our Salaat we must be conscious of Allah’s response to what we are saying, and that we are engaging in two-way speech with the Divine.

4) Our ascension, our journey to Allah, begins with the first takbir, when we raise our hands above our shoulders in a movement that many scholars have likened to that of the throwing off of a garb. As if you are saying, Allahu Akbar, God is Greater than this world, which I throw behind me; God is greater than all worries and distractions, which I throw behind me; God is greater than the ego that does not like to obey commands or to prostrate itself, and so I throw it behind me; God is greater than myself, so I leave it behind me. And thus begins your journey, your mi’raj, in which you get as near as possible to Allah, and act out parts of the Messenger’s own mi’raj. Then, you return to the world, and you say to those around you, whether human or angel, what every traveler says upon his arrival, you greet them with Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, the Islamic greeting formula: Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

Thus I end with a translation from the Iqd al-Nafees, The Precious Necklace in Arranging the Jewels of the Teachings of Ahmad ibn Idris:

The Takbirat al-Ihram for the Salaat (The commencement of Salaat by saying Allahu Akbar): It is that he who is praying forgets everything except Allah and swims in the Kibriya’ (Majestic Exaltedness) and Greatness (of Allah). Then every time he reaches an end of Kibriya, Allah is even greater in exaltedness above that, and so he renews the takbir in the Ruku’ and says: God is Greater, meaning Greater than the end I have reached while swimming in his Kibriya; and it is like that until the middle of prayer. At that point, your inability to swim in a creak from the oceans of his Kibriya is verified, so you return (to the beginning). Then at the end of the prayer you return to Creation and so you say: “Peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy”, for the greeting is not said except by someone returning from a journey. As for someone who has been present, for him to turn to his right and say “Peace be upon you” and then turn to his left and say “Peace be upon you”, that would be considered insanity, because that is not required of him by the law.

And so the Salaat is a journey of Witnessing, a journey of Nearness, a journey of Divine Address- a journey to Allah and then back again to the world of Creation.

دار الكرامة للوراد قد بنيت          يدري بها ذاكر بالليل قد دخلا

قيامك الليل أغلى ما تقدمه           تاج الولاية فوق الرأس قد جعلا

به العبادات قد صارت ميسرة      والروح تكره شيئاً يورث الزللا

قيامك الليل لا تترك موائده          عساك تحظى بسرٍ يذهب الوجلا

الشيخ صالح الجعفري-

The House of Honor was built for the reciters of awrad

It is known to the reciter of dhikr at night, having entered it

Your worship at night (Qiyam al-Layl) is the most valuable thing you offer

(From it) the crown of wilaya, (is) placed over one’s head

With it acts of worship become easy

And the soul comes to hate the things that cause you to slip and lapse

Your Qiyam al-Layl, leave not its dining tables

That you may obtain a secret that removes all fears

- Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari