Riyadat an-Nafs

Assalamu Alaykum.

Ramadan is near, and so I would like to take this opportunity to upload a beautiful little book about fasting written by the Azhari imam, Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari (r.a.), for you to download. It is written in Arabic, and is titled Asraar al-Siyaam, lil Khawass wal Awaam. This was only made available online a day ago or so on (www.algaafary.com/ar/), so I downloaded it right away and re-uploaded it on Hadithuna for you to download. It covers much more than fasting: It is more like a little handbook on iman, uboodiyya, and the spiritual path.

It also contains an ijaza of the famous Salaat Azeemiyya for all those who see it, and this is something that is absolutely priceless.
If you can read and understand Arabic well, then this is the perfect book for you this Ramadan, insha’Allah.

Asrar al-Siyam

On my  last trip  to Damascus I noticed that they really like to put roses in their food… For example, they would put dried rose petals on top of traditional sweets. They also add “Damascus Rose” to the famous Middle Eastern herbal tea known as Zuhoorat, which is a mixture of medicinal and aromatic flowers. But best of all, they make a delicious rose petal jam! Yes, it’s a jam made out of Damascus rose petals, and it is delicious! I brought a jar back with me to Amman, and discovered that there is a magical chemistry that goes on when you combine it with butter that makes your taste buds dance with joy.

Before realizing that you can actually eat roses, I only knew about Rose Water. In the Muslim world, there are two very famous flower-essence waters  that we use in our food: Flower Water (also known as Orange Blossom Water) is a very popular drink in the Middle East, while Rose Water is used as an ingredient in desserts (and as a face and skin cleanser for women). These waters are made from the distilled essential oils of flowers, and are thought to have great benefits, most notably their calming effect on the mind.

But beside that calming effect, it seems that Muslims have for a very  long time attached to Roses a more spiritual significance. For example, when Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders, he had the Dome of the Rock, the Aqsa Mosque, and the Mosque of Umar washed and purified with Rose Water brought from Damascus. Historians tell us that more than 500 camels were needed to bring in enough Rose Water to do the job, and some princes from Saladin’s own family were more than eager to scrub the floors, walls, and ceilings of these holy places with their own hands. Another great ruler, the Mamluk king Baybars, had the Kaaba itself washed with Rose Water!

But what is the secret behind this great importance given to the rose?

According to Shaykh Hakim Chishti, author of The Book of Sufi Healing, the rose -”the Mother of Scents and the Queen of the Garden”-  is a very important symbol in Muslim culture.

“The symbol of Sufism itself is the rose….The placement of the rare and refined beauty and sweetness of the rose blossoms – at the end of a long, stern stem full of prickly thorns- aptly symbolizes the mystic path to Allah the Almighty.”

It is well known that the Prophet Muhammad’s perspiration- salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam – smelled sweeter than any scent known to man. Umm Sulaym used to collect his drops of perspiration as he slept and use it as a perfume. Shaykh Chishti says that “the reason these droplets were of such elegance is that they contained the essence of his soul.” Salla Allahu alaa sayyidna Muhammad!

And it seems that there is a  trace of this essence of the soul of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam in the rose. In the chapter of the book entitled “The Soul of the Rose“, Shaykh Chishti says,

The 124,000 prophets Allah has sent to the world with His Guidance had different bodies but the same soul…. Allah said that the first thing He created in the universe was the soul of prophecy. He said that He made it from the absolute of His own light, called nur. Allah further stated that if He had not created this soul of prophecy,  He would not have created the universe.

After Allah the Almighty made this magnificent soul, it was of such luminous nature and so burning with light that it began to shed drops of perspiration. And from this sweat of the soul of prophecy, Allah made the soul of the rose. This is the actual origin of the art and science of aromatherapy.

If you want to know more about the benefits of roses and how they are used by Muslim healers and spiritual masters, and how they are “charged” with the healing power of the Qur’an, then I suggest you read that beautiful chapter in The Book  of Sufi Healing. But until then, here are three simple ways to enjoy the benefits of the rose (though only the second is probably strong enough to really have an effect without constant use):

1) Get Rose Jam from Damascus.

2) Use rose essential oils. Shaykh Chishti says that it is “the most superior of all scents in the floral realm. Rose works simultaneously on the physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies, purifying and uplifting all three.”

3) Make this delicious drink that I often enjoy, whose recipe I took from Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook & Art Gallery,

Rose Milk.

[Ingredients:]

4 cups milk

3 tbsp. honey

2 tbsp. rosewater

Cinnamon

[Preparation:]

In a small, heavy pot, gently warm the milk until it is a comfortable drinking temperature. Stir in the honey and rosewater. Pour into cups and garnish with a light dusting of cinnamon.

So purify your body and soul with the essence of the Rose as Salah al-Din purified with it the Aqsa Mosque.  Let the essence of the rose help you on the spiritual path – that long and difficult path that is full of thorns – until you reach the end of the stem and find Beauty. And what else do we seek on this path, if not Eternal Beauty?

Taken during the mawlid of Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari. One of the shaykh’s madeehs (poems of praise) of the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam is being recited.

It starts with:

Rasool Allah your light has shone and sparkled

and the heart of the lovers became inclined towards you.

And for that, the lover has given up money

and has come here to your maqam, in order to visit you.

رسول الله نورك قد تلالا * وقلب العاشقين إليك مالا
وقد زهد المحب لذاك مالا * وجاء إلى المقام هنا يزور
وقد لاحت عليه بروق نور * من الفيحاء مع عطر الزهور
…
لدى المختار قد وافاك سعد * تجارتك السعادة لا تبور
إلى هذا الحبيب أخيّ فانظر * إلى خلف الستور تراه ينظر
على هذا لرب العرش فاشكر * وقل يا رب غفرا يا غفور
ومن عينيك فاسكب للدموع * وقف بالحب مع أهل الخشوع
مع الداعين في خير الجموع * تكاد نفوسهم شوقا تطير
فمنهم صامت في خير حال * ومنهم مادح خير الرجال
ومنهم ساهر طول الليالي * يحيّي المصطفى فهو الشكور
…
ولا كل الذي قد زار زارا * ولا كشف الأكنّة والستارا
ومحجوب الفؤاد تراه مارا * وأخّره عن العليا دثور
ولو عرف الهوى لتراه يجري * إلى الفيحاء في ظهر وعصر
وفي ليل وفي صبح وفجر * ويصحبه من الرحمن نور

One day a man named Amr went to the great imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and asked him, “What causes the hearts to become tender?” The imam looked around at his companions, then he bowed his head down for a very long time, thinking. Then he raised his head and said, “My son, it is by eating halal.”

Amr then went to the famous Sufi Bishr al-Hafi and asked him the same question. Bishr replied, “Do not the hearts find assurance in the dhikr of Allah“. So Amr said, I just came from Abu AbdAllah (Ahmad ibn Hanbal), and Bishr said, ‘What did Abu AbdAllah tell you?”, so Amr replied, “He said: By eating halal“. So Bishr said to him, “He gave you the true cause, the true origin!”

So Amr continued to another person, Abd al-Wahhab bin Abil Hasan, and repeated the question once more. “Do not the hearts find assurance in the dhikr of Allah” came the answer. “I’ve just come from Abu AbdAllah” said Amr. Abd al-Wahhab’s face went red from excitement and said, “What did Abu AbdAllah tell you?” So Amr replied, “He said: By eating halal.” So Abd al-Wahhab replied, “He has given you the essence of the matter! The true origin is as he said. The true origin is as he said!”

Source: Muhammad Abu Zahra’s Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

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The famous ascetic Ibrahim ibn Adham used to always say: “Make sure that what you eat is tayyib, and then don’t worry if you don’t spend your nights in worship and your days in fasting.” Meaning: it is enough for you.

Ibrahim once said to the other great ascetic of their age, Shaqiq al-Balkhi: “I have not been able to enjoy life except in Bilad al-Sham. From mountain to mountain, I used to escape with my religion. Oh Shaqiq: He is not noble in our eyes who is ennobled by a lot of Hajj or Jihad. He is noble in our eyes who knows exactly what he puts into his mouth.” Meaning, whether it is 100% halal or not.

Source: Muhammad Khalid Thabit’s Madaaris al-Hubb, Masaani’ ar-Rijal.

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Ibrahim was told of an ecstatic youth who had extraordinary experiences and disciplined himself severely.

“Bring me to him so that I may see him,” he said.

They took him to the youth.

“By my guest for three days,” the youth invited him.

Ibrahim stayed there and observed the youth’s state attentively. It surpassed even what his friends had said. All night he was sleepless and restless, not reposing or slumbering for a single moment. Ibrahim felt a certain jealousy.

“I am so frigid, and he is sleepless and unresting the whole night through. Come, let us investigate his case,” he said to himself. “Let us discover if anything from Shaytan has invaded his state, or whether it is wholly pure and in all respects as it should be. I must examine the foundation of the matter. The foundation and root of the matter is what a man eats.”

So he investigated what the youth was eating, and discovered that it came from haram sources. “Allahu Akbar! It is Satanic!” Ibrahim exclaimed (without revealing it to the youth).

“I have been your guest for three days,” he said to the youth. “Now you come and be my guest for forty days.”

The youth accepted. Now the food Ibrahim ate was earned by the labor of his own hands. He took the youth to his home and gave him of his own food. Immediately the ecstasy vanished. All his ardor and passion disappeared. That restlessness and sleeplessness and weeping of his departed.

“What have you done to me?” he cried.

“Your food was haram,” Ibrahim answered. “Shaytan was all the time going and coming in you. As soon as you swallowed lawful food, the manifestations he had been contriving in you became revealed for what they were, the Devil’s work!”

Source: Copied (with some changes) from A.J. Arberry’s Muslim Saints and Mystics, which is a translation of al-Attar’s Tadhkirat al-Awliya.

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So remember: the root and foundation of your entire spiritual state is in what you eat. “Make sure that what you eat is tayyib, and then don’t worry if you don’t spend your nights in worship and your days in fasting.”

أطب مطعمك ولا عليك أن لا تقوم بالليل وتصوم بالنهار

————

Note 1: You could say that it is misleading to say that the secret is in eating halal. Rather, it’s in not eating haram. Now the true secret of the matter is unknown to me, and these great men have not spelled it out. But one might venture a guess and say that the food you eat carries with it either a quality of light or of darkness. If it comes from halal money, then it is light. And if it comes from haram money (or in the case of meat, is prepared in a haram way), then it carries in it a darkness. And this food that you eat, becomes part of you. You are what you eat. So the flesh, the bones, the cells of your body that are made by that food carry within them that quality of darkness. The Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said that the flesh of man that has grown from haram food belongs more in the Fire than it does in Paradise. And perhaps this darkness also covers your heart, and prevents it from remembrance of Allah, or from benefiting from that remembrance. And Allah is the one who truly knows the reason.

Note 2:

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)

(Salla Allahu alayka wa sallam)

These are pearls of guidance for the seekers of this age by the great faqih, and the complete guide to Allah Most Transcendent, author of the infamous aphorisms of wisdom (hikam) on which have been written countless commentaries, in countless languages, wherever Muslims live.

Sayyidna al-Shaykh Ibn Ata’Allah al-Sakandari wrote in one of his books:

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* You must, my brother, do a lot of salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, for the zabaniya (the gate keepers of Hell) will not approach the servants (khuddam, sing. khadim) of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, in honor of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

So this protection might avail with taqseer (not doing enough) what plentiful righteous deeds do not avail, if they lack this reliance on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam – this special type of reliance.

* With salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam you become connected to the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

And the salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam is beneficial in any form, and nothing is more beneficial for illuminating the hearts and for the arrival of the seekers (mureedeen) to Allah ‘azza wa jall than it. For he who perseveres in doing salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam will gain many lights, and through its blessings he will be connected to the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, or meet someone who will take him to him, especially if he had istiqama (uprightness, straightness in following the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam).

This is especially important at the end of time when the guides to Allah are few,  and people are confused about what is right and wrong. So he who wants the guidance of the people should order them, from the masses (awamm) to the elites (khawass), to do  Istighfar (asking Allah’s forgiveness) and Salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

* He who has missed out on doing a lot of fasting and qiyam (staying up at night in worship) should occupy himself with the salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, for if you did every possible type of  obedience your entire life, then Allah does one salaat on you, that one salaat will outweigh all that you have done in all your lifetime from all kinds of good works of obedience; that is because you do salaat according to your ability, and Allah ‘azza wa jall does salaat according to His Lordship. This is if it was only one salaat, so how is it then if Allah ‘azza wa jall did ten salaats on you? *

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* Referring to the hadith of sayyidna Muhammad salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam: “He who does one salaat on me, Allah will do ten salaats on him.”

If you’ve read Amin Maalouf’s great classic Leo Africanus, then I’m sure you haven’t forgotten Shaykh Astaghfirullah, the fiery preacher of Granada, whose sentences were peppered with the word “astaghfirullah” so much that they would count how many times he said it in every sermon. When Granada was lost, and the Muslims left for Fez, Shaykh Astaghfirulah stopped preaching and stayed at home, his health growing weaker by the day. Yet one day, the novel’s protagonists go to him asking him to expose the corruption of a certain man, and by the next day, “the shaykh seemed to have been restored to health.” And now you can’t help but cheer him on as “his turban could be seen circulating feverishly in the suqs, fluttering under the porticos, before sweeping into a hammam” where he would get all the information that he needed about the villain for his upcoming sermon. Yes! Shaykh Astaghfirullah is back, walking the streets of Fez, and is about to deliver a sermon about a man so evil that it would undoubtedly score very high on the “astaghfirullah” count!

Well, when I was in Fez this summer, I had some interesting encounters with our neighborhood’s very own Shaykh Alhamdulillah, as I like to call him. Now bear in mind that while the fictional Shaykh Astaghfirullah was a “real” shaykh, Shaykh Alhamdulliah was only a shaykh in his own mind. He was always outside in the streets, talking to little kids, or towering over young men not much younger than himself, putting his large arms around their shoulders, counseling them. I don’t think I ever didn’t find him outside in the streets. He dressed, and looked, very Salafi.

One Friday, I was waiting for a taxi outside Bab Ziat, where empty taxis are rarer than Red Sulphur, as I traveled every Friday from the old medieval Fez (Fez Medina), to the modern french-built Ville Nouvelle, where my Fiqh teacher would take me to pray in a nearby mosque, before we returned to his apartment to study Ibn Abi Zayd’s Risala. So I’m waiting for a taxi and one finally shows up when Shaykh Alhamdulliah – and I hadn’t talked to him yet so I hadn’t given him that name yet- appears, pushing another man in a wheelchair. I told him that he can have the taxi, and he was really grateful about that, but then he came back to ask where I’m headed, and it turns out they were on my way, so I joined them.

They were going to pray in a certain mosque in the ville nouvelle. I asked my teacher later why Shaykh Alhamdulillah would go specifically to that far away mosque every Friday, and he said because its preacher was known for not being afraid of criticizing the government in his khutbas. So I had the pleasure of hearing “alhamdulillah” for every single word that came out of my mouth. When we got to that mosque he asked me to come out and help him get the other man out of the car and into the wheelchair. Then he said to that man in the wheelchair, as if reassuring him about my white looks, “He’s Muslim! Alhamdulillah!”

From then on I would bump into Shaykh Alhamdulillah (which is shorter than Shaykh Alhamdulillah-and-Allahu-Akbar if I wanted to be more accurate about it), and have to suffer from his handshakes every single day. You see, Shaykh Alhamdulillah had read how the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, never pulled back his hand from a handshake until the other man did so first, but he seems to have misunderstood how that works. In fact, Alhamdulillah was determined to let everyone in the world know that he was following the sunnah, so he would grab your hand and squeeze it real hard and hold on to it next to his body until you attempted to jerk it free, only then releasing it to you. I really wanted to tell him that that’s not how it worked, but I never got myself to do it.

So one day I’m walking back home when I see Shaykh Alhamdulillah coming out of a small room that was built as a tiny mosque on the side of one of Fez’s ancient walls, but as the paper on the door said, prayer was now shifted to another, presumably larger mosque, in the vicinity. Yet it seems he was in there with a bunch of men and an old shaykh in a wheelchair, and right after they parted and began dispersing, he spotted me and shouted back to them, telling them he wanted to introduce someone to them. Oh no! So one man, knowing that I come from Jordan, insisted that I meet a friend of his family’s, an engineer of my age, who lives in Jordan. So he took my name, and when he heard my last name he said, “Are you related to shaykh so and so, who passed away a couple years ago?” And I said, “yes, in fact I lived in his house for the past three years, in Cairo!” Turns out he knew my uncle and my cousin! Shaykh Alhamdulillah could not believe what he was hearing and was exuberantly shouting out SUBHANALLAH! ALHAMDULILLAH! ALLAHU AKBAR! again and again and again! Then when that man informed them that my family was Palestinian, again we heard ALHAMDULILLAH! MASHA’ALLAH! ALLAHU AKBAR! Having given them my number, I said my salaams and hurried back home.

The next day I’m walking, praying not to have to shake Alhamdulillah’s hand again, which he always insists that you do, by very deliberately, carefully, slowly extending his arm to you, as straight as an arrow, and keeping it there until you shook it, after which he would lock down on it like a bulldog’s jaw on a thief’s arm, and bring it close to him until he saw you trying to save it with desperate jerks. Having been satisfied that you KNOW he’s following the sunnah, he lets you go. So while I was praying not to have to suffer that for maybe the fourth time that day, he jumps at me, grabs my hand, and says, “So are you praying with the Palestinians?” Confused, I said “what do you mean?” So he says, “You know: Oh Allah give victory to them, help them, support them…” and he kept going on and on with prayers in the same manner as the imam does at the end of the Friday khutbah, and I was going “ameen, ameen”. The thing is, I would usually be more than happy to pray for the Palestinians, but this particular situation felt so weird that I was just repeating “ameens” that were just as fake as his dua’s. After he was satisfied, and I realized that he meant “pray for the Palestinians”, I made my escape.

Perhaps more than a week (and many horrible handshakes) later, I was hurriedly trying to get to the venue for the Sufi Nights of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, when I saw him standing in front of that same little mosque, waiting for the old man in the wheelchair to come out, this time on crutches. I’m walking fast, trying to show him I’m in a hurry, and say my salaams from far away, and he was content to return my salaams without a handshake! PHEW! But wait a minute…. you can tell from his face that he’s changed his mind, and his arm begins the same deliberate crane-like movement towards me! Nooo! So I shake his hand and try to pull it back quickly and keep walking, but he JERKS it violently, directing it (and my entire body) toward another man who was standing opposite him, actually lifting me off the ground in the process! Ok so maybe I should have shook the other man’s hand from my own initiative, but I was in such a hurry, and in such fear of Alhamdulillah’s handshakes, that I didn’t even realize there was another man standing next to him! I didn’t say anything about his attempt to dislocate my shoulder, shook the other man’s hand, then rushed away saying that I’m sorry and I was very late for something. “ALHAMDULILLAH! ALLAHU AKBAR!” came the loud reply……

After that night, I never again came close to Shaykh Alhamdulillah, always staying on the opposite side of the road, saying my salaams from far away, and he seems to have realized that what he had done was completely out of bounds and felt ashamed about it, so he never again tried shaking my hand! Alhamdulillah! Allahu Akbar!!!!!

The thing about Shaykh Alhamdulillah is that – and I hate to say this- I never felt any genuineness in any of his actions or alhamdulillahs. Everything about him, from his smile, to his handshake, to his allahu akbars felt fake, and full of riya’. But I do have one great memory about him, one time when he was expressing a religious sentiment which I was certain was free of any show or hypocrisy, and it was on that very first time I met him, in the taxi ride. As it was a Friday, and it is recommended to keep repeating the tasliya on the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) on that day, I heard him repeat it again and again and again (interspersed with a lot of “alhamdulillahs” as well). Then he smiled and looked at the taxi driver and said: “ALHAMDULILLAH! Allah is so generous! If we do salaat on the Prophet once, He himself does salaat on us ten times!! It says so in Sahih Muslim! SUBHANALLAH! ALHAMDULILLAH!” And he said it with such joy at the generosity of Allah, that he really brought joy to me that Friday. The taxi driver agreed with him, noting also Allah’s generosity in that for every good deed is ten times the reward, but every sin is counted only as one.

So that was Shaykh Alhamduillah, who roams the streets of Ziat in the Fez Medina, with his iron-cage handshakes and his ocean of alhamdulillahs! And it is that one thing that he talked about with pure joy and without any hypocrisy, the fact that for ever salaat we do on the Prophet, Allah Most Transcendent does ten salaats on us.. it is that about which I will write my next post, insha’Allah.

And I end by saying, salla Allahu ala sayyidna Muhammadin wa alaa aalihi, and alhamdulillah! Truly alhamdulillah!

I changed what is in the “About” page to reflect the change of direction that this blog has taken. If you look at the oldest posts, which have been transferred from the blog’s previous location  at blogspot, you will see that they deal 50% with soul, 50% with body. I was really focused on strength training back then, and wrote a lot about my quest to lose fat, gain muscle, get strength, etc.

If you look at my latest posts, you wouldn’t even know I ever cared about that stuff. The reason is a decision I had to take not long ago, because of a conflict of interests between advancement of body and advancement of soul. I’m not saying there is conflict between the two in general, and martial arts for example might be a perfect tool for improves body, mind, and soul. But for me there was a  certain conflict, perhaps restricted to my own special circumstances, which has led me to stop my favorite activity of all time. I ask Allah to replace my passion for that activity with the same amount of passion for other soul-oriented activities, like dhikr and reading  the Qur’an, etc.

In leave you with  the words of Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari:

تركت أنسي بغيري * وجئت أطلب أنسي

أنت القريب لنفسي * من غير حس وجس

عرجت نحو سماء * خلفت أرضا لحسي

ناديت يا رب عفوا * إغفر لذنب ورجس

أنا الفقير أناجي * يا رب أنسا بقدسي

عين النعيم شهودي * فذاك قصدي وعرسي

In honor of the month of Sha’baan, the month of Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, I upload the first madeeh of shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari that I fell in love with.

I feel that there is a lot of baraka in this madeeh for those who listen to it, especially because of the du’a at the very end.

YouTube with translation

I hope you enjoy it.

There are four or five figures that, according to Islamic traditions, have never died. Some of them were taken directly to Heaven in their bodies, like the Prophet Isa (Jesus) who was taken to Heaven before they were able to crucify him (1), the Prophet Idris (Enoch), who was raised to Heaven by an Angel, the Prophet Ilyas (Elijah), who was raised to Heaven on a chariot of fire. Some add two non-prophets to the list: al-sayyida Maryam (Mary), and al-Khadir (aka Khidr). Since all of Allah’s creatures must die, and we know that sayyidna Isa will fight along with the Mahdi in the end of times and die afterwards, perhaps we can assume that the same is true of the rest of those on the list. In fact, there is a saying of the Prophet Muhammad about a man who will confront the Dajjal in the end of times, and the Dajjal will kill him then bring him back to life, as proof that his claims are true. But having been revived, that man will say to him: Now I am more convinced than ever that you are the Dajjal, and the Dajjal will not be able to kill him again. Commenting on that saying of the Prophet, the scholar Al-Barzanji says, “This believer whom al-Dajjal kills is al-Khadir, peace upon him.” He then cites the proofs for this view and states that it is also the view of Ibn Abbas, Ma’mar (d. 154), and others (2).

A saying attributed to Kaab al-Ahbar(3) about those who are still alive states that two are in the heavens: Idris and Isa, and two are on earth: Ilyas and al-Khidr. However, it is possible for those in the heavens to come down to Earth, as proven by the fact that all the Prophets in the Heavens prayed on the night of the Ascension behind the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, in Jerusalem (4).

For centuries, scholars have debated about “Abul-Abbas Al-Khadir”: Was he a prophet or a righteous servant? Is he dead or alive? It is said that, thousands of years ago, Allah Most Transcendent gave him immortality (some say he drank from the Fountain of Life), in order to roam the Earth, and help guide seekers on the spiritual path. Among those he helped were even Prophets like Moses, as related to us by the Qur’an. He has been associated with many historical and literary figures, such as the Green Man of pre- and post-Christian carvings, The Green Knight in the tale of Sir Gawain, Robin Hood, and most frequently, St. George. However, St. George cannot possibly have anything to do with Al-Khidr because he was a soldier who died in 303 C.E., and later became venerated as a saint for his martyrdom, so how could he be the same figure?

If you want to your questions about al-Khidr solved, then read the sayings of those who have met him, and I have picked only the ones that mean a lot to me, the ones that are part of my spiritual chain (silsila) of spiritual masters, and we begin with the Ocean from which all spiritual rivers flow, the City of Knowledge, sayyidna Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

The Prophet Muhammad and Al-Khidr

It is reported when the Prophet Muhammad died, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, and people came to pay their condolences, they heard a voice from a corner of the house saying: “Peace be upon you, oh People of the Household, and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Every soul shall taste death, and you will be given your rewards on the Day of Rising. In Allah you will find consolation from every catastrophe, and a successor to every one who dies, and arrival at everything that was missed. So in Allah do trust, and in Him have hope, for the only one who is truly afflicted is he who is denied any reward. And peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.” So sayyidna Ali ibn Abi Talib said, “Do you know who that is? It is Al-Khadir, peace be upon him.” (5)

It is also agreed upon by those who say that Al-Khidr is alive that he and the Prophet Ilyas became part of the ummah of the Prophet Muhammad ever since he became a Messenger, following his Shari’ah. There are many reports in Islamic traditions that every year, they spend Ramadan together in Jerusalem, and that they perform the Hajj every year, and drink from Zamzam, stand together at Arafat during the Hajj, and then cut each other’s hair. It is said that they never part before first saying this supplication:

بسم الله ما شاء الله لا قوة إلا بالله. ما شاء الله كل نعمة من الله. ما شاء الله الخير كله بيد الله. ما شاء الله لا يصرف السوء إلا الله

Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari, whose encounters with al-Khidr we will relate below, has a similar version of this supplication in his wird, which I copy here for your benefit:

بسم الله ما شاء الله لا يسوق الخير إلا الله. بسم الله ما شاء الله لا يصرف السوء إلا الله. بسم الله ما شاء الله ما كان من نعمة فمن الله

Al-Khidr and Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ali ibn Abi Talib, radi Allahu anhu, said:

I entered the Tawaf one night, and found a man holding onto the cover of the Kaaba, saying:

يا من لا يشغله سمع عن سمع، ويا من لا تغلطه المسائل، ويا من لا يتبرم بإلحاح الملحين، اذقني برد عفوك وحلاوة رحمتك

I said to him: repeat to me what you said.

He said: Did you hear that?

I said: Yes.

He said: Supplicate with it after every Salaat, for by Him in whose hand is al-Khadir’s soul- if you had as many sins as the stars of the sky and its rain, and the pebbles of the earth and its sands, you would be forgiven as quickly as the blink of an eye. (6)

Al-Khidr and the early Shadhili Masters

Abul Abbas al-Mursi (d. 685 A.H) said, “Al-Khadir, peace be upon him, came to me once and introduced himself to me, and I acquired from him the knowledge of the souls of the believers, are they tortured or in bliss, so now even if a thousand scholars argue with me about that, and say that he is dead, I would not go back to believing what they say.”

He also said, “As for Al-Khadir, peace be upon him, he is alive. And I have shaken his hand with this palm, and he told me that everyone who says the following every morning, will become one of the Abdaal”:

اللهم اغفر لأمة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم، اللهم أصلح أمة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم، اللهم تجاوز عن أمة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم، اللهم اجعلنا من أمة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم

Some students asked al-Mursi’s master Al-Shadhili about this and he said, “Abul Abbas has said the truth.” (7)

Al-Khidr and Al-Dabbagh

When sayyidi Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh became determined to reach pure servanthood to Allah, he began looking for everyone that people pointed to and referred to as a shaykh, and considered him to be a wali of Allah, and would make that person his shaykh and recite his litanies (awrad), but eventually he would feel his chest became constricted and that he was not progressing, so he would leave it and look for another one, and the same thing would happen again., and this went on for 22 years. During that time, he would stay every Friday night at the tomb of sidi Ali bin Hirzihim to read the Burda of al-Busiri with others. One night, after finishing it, he found a man sitting under the lote-tree near the tomb’s door, and that man spoke to him, revealing to him that he knew what Al-Dabbagh was thinking about, so he knew that he was one of the awliya aarifeen. So Al-Dabbagh asked him to give him a wird, but that man would keep ignoring him until he heard al-Dabbagh ask for it with such determination that he knew he would not ignore what he told him. Then he said to al-Dabbagh: I will not give you the wird until you give me an oath by Allah that you do not leave it, and al-Dabbagh did so. So that man said, Repeat every day seven thousand times:

اللهم يا رب بجاه سيدنا محمد بن عبد الله صلى الله عليه وسلم اجمع بيني وبين سيدنا محمد بن عبد الله في الدنيا قبل الآخرة

Then the man who takes care of the tomb came, and the man said to him: take care of this man for me, so the caretaker said, “I will consider him my master, master.” On the day that caretaker died, right before his soul left his body, he said to al-Dabbagh: “Do you know who that man who taught you the dhikr at the lote-tree is? He is sayyidna al-Khidr, peace be upon him.” So for four years, Al-Dabbagh repeated that du’a seven thousand times a day, until he received the spiritual opening (fath) (8).

When al-Dabbagh became a great shaykh, and the Qutb of his time, his student the scholar Al-Lamati asked him questions about al-Khidr. The Qur’an tells us that Al-Khidr knew some things from the world of the unseen (like the future, etc), that the Prophet Moses, alayhi assalam, did not know. Because of this, many scholars argued that Al-Khidr must be a prophet, for if he were just a righteous servant and wali of Allah, he could not have known more than a prophet about these things. Sayyidi Al-Dabbagh replied,

Generally, the (spiritually) great are strong in witnessing Al-Haqq, Most Transcendent, and weak in witnessing the creation, whereas the (spiritually) small are strong in witnessing the creation and weak in witnessing al-Haqq, Most Transcendent. And this is what happened in the story between sayyidna al-Khidr and sayyidna Musa- upon our Prophet and upon them be peace and blessings- in what was related to us by Allah Most High in his great Book, from the story of the ship, the young man, and the wall. For knowledge of these things was hidden from sayyidna Musa alayhi assalam because he was (absorbed) in the witnessing of that which is stronger than that, and that is Al-Haqq, Most Transcendent, and therefore Moses’s ignorance of these matters is utmost (spiritual) perfection.

His analogy, in relation to al-Khidr, is like two servants for a king. As for one of them, the king has chosen him for himself, and made him sit with him, having nothing to do but standing in front of the king, looking at his face, and if the king left he left with him, and if the king entered he entered with him, and if he ate he ate with him and if he drank he drank with him, and if he spoke he spoke with him. While the other servant has been appointed by the king to run the affairs of his subjects, so he goes out to them and does with them as the king commands, and speaks to them about their affairs and how to improve their state, and he might be away from the king for a long time in order to do these things. There is no doubt, then, that the first servant is closer to the king and more knowledgeable of his secrets from the second, even though, if he were asked about any of the affairs of the king’s subjects, he would not know about them as much as the second servant, especially if the subjects lived far away from the city of the king. And thus was the state of Moses with Allah Most High, for he is like the first servant, and sayyidna Al-Khidr is like the second servant, for sayyidna Musa is greater than him, without question, because he is the Messenger of Allah, and his kaleem (the one with whom he spoke) and his chosen one….

[Al-Khidr] is not a prophet, but a servant that Allah has ennobled by giving him knowledge of Himself…and there is nothing in his knowledge of the preceding matters that Moses did not know about, which necessitates that a non-prophet be more knowledgeable than a prophet, for what we have said earlier, that Moses- peace be upon him- was pre-occupied from these things with witnessing of Al-Haqq, which is something unparalleled, and therefore there is nothing that necessitates belief in (al-Khidr’s) prophethood.

Al-Khidr and Ahmad ibn Idris

Sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris became, in his own words, “a firm adept on the path” at the hands of his shaykh Abul Qasim al-Wazir. After the latter’s death, Ibn Idris saw the Prophet Muhammad and al-Khidr in a waking state. The Prophet ordered al-Khidr to implant in him the dhikrs of the Shadhiliyya order, which he did in the presence of the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam. Then the Prophet turned to al-Khidr and said, “O Khadir, teach him that which joins together all the dhikrs, invocations, and prayers for forgiveness, and is superior as to reward, larger as to number, more exalted in worth and greater in obtaining assistance.” Al-Khidr asked him, “What is that, Oh Prophet of God?”, and the Prophet Muhammad said these prayers that would become the supplications of Ahmad ibn Idris, and al-Khidr repeated them, and then Ibn Idris repeated them after the both of them. Then the Prophet said, Oh Ahmad, you have been given the keys to the heavens and earth, which are the dhikr, the salaat (on the Prophet), and the prayer for the forgiveness of sins. If you say them once, they are equal to the world and what is in it many times over.” (9)

Al-Khidr and Shaykh Saleh

Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari said,

“And in one year, and I think it was my first Hajj in 1372 A.H., I met a Kurdish man who was going through a certain spiritual state, he came to me and put his hand on my head and started saying: Blessed! Blessed! So I said to him: Where is sayyidna Al-Khidr, peace be upon him? and He said: You will meet him at the Noble Rawda (of the Prophet). So when I arrived to Medina, I sat one day after the Asr prayer in the Rawda, and a man came to me, the like of whom I have never seen before. He was wearing a yellow turban, and does not have a likeness among the people, and he had a great white beard. He greeted me and said: Does this Prophet, peace be upon him, if we greet him, does he hear us, see us, and return the greeting? So I said to him: Yes. So he said to me in an eloquent Arab tongue: You put my heart to rest, may Allah put your heart to rest! Then he said to me: If we were back in our countries, and we send him our greetings, does that reach him? So I said to him: Yes. So he said to me: You put my heart to rest, may Allah put your heart to rest! Then he asked me about other things that I cannot remember now.

Then people came to greet me and when they were gone I looked around but could not find him, and the words of the Kurdish man at Mina came to my mind. Then at night, I saw him in a dream vision: It was as if I was in the ship that he boarded with sayyidna Musa, peace be upon him, at sea, and I saw him standing on land, in the same clothes and manner in which I saw him, and he was greeting me from far away, and pointing to me with his hand, meaning: I am the one you saw yesterday. Upon our Prophet and upon him be Allah’s peace and blessings.”

One scholar who was a student of shaykh Saleh and was an important figure in the Egyptian Ministry of Education, says:

“In one of Shaykh Saleh’s lessons, a man who is a top-level government official and consultant, and used to come in his (luxurious) car to attend the lessons, said to the shaykh: Can sayyidna al-Khidr appear in the form of a man, any man, or does he have a particular form in which he appears? The shaykh did not reply to him, and then another man, who had the appearance of poverty and need on him, asked the shaykh a question, and the shaykh answered him, after which that man left. Then the shaykh turned and said: Where is the one who asked the first question? So the man said: Me, oh shaykh! So the shaykh said: The man who asked me a question after you was al-Khadir, so the man started looking right and left, looking for that other questioner, but couldn’t find him!!”

Al-Khidr and I

These were the encounters with al-Khidr that happened to people that I am connected to, spiritually.

As for me, I have not, to my knowledge, met or seen sayyidna Abul-Abbas alayhi assalam. However, many people have seen him all over the Muslim world, and they have constructed buildings to commemorate the vision and to honor his presence. Such a building is referred to as a “mash-had“: A place of seeing. My friend and I have tried to visit as many of these mashhads as possible, and have seen at least four in Jordan so far, and at least two in Syria. These mashhads usually have empty tombs in them, covered in a green shroud. The last one I saw was inside the Citadel of Aleppo, and I asked permission from our tour guide, who was the manager of the citadel, to give me a moment to read the Fatiha over the empty tomb, to which he replied: “Why would you read the Fatiha to him, when he is still alive?” Good point, I thought, and we moved on.

I leave you with a line from one of Shaykh Saleh’s poems:

And how many are the worshipers  that walk * with the Qutbs and with Al-Khadir.

وكم من عابد يمشي * مع الأقطاب والخضر

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1) I wrote a more in-depth article about that topic in my review of The Jesus Papers.

2) www.sunnah.org/msaec/articles/khidr.htm

3) He was a Jewish Rabbi who converted to Islam during the Caliphate of sayyidna Umar ibn al-Khattab. The saying comes from Ibn Kathir’s Stories of the Prophets.

4) Read more about that in Fiqhul Israa’.

5) Al-Bayhaqi, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa.

6) Ibn Asakir, at-Tirmidhi, Ibn al-Jawzi, as quoted in Ibn Kathir’s Al-Bidaya wal-Nihaya.

7) Dr. Abd al-Halim Mahmood, Qadiyyat at-Tasawwuf: Al-Madrasa al-Shadhiliyya, Cairo: Dar al-Maarif.

8 ) You can read a translation of this fath experience here: www.bogvaerker.dk/Bookwright/ibriz.html

9) Translation, slightly altered, from “Two Sufi Treatises of Ahmad ibn Idris” by Bernd Radtke, Sean O’Fahey and John O’Kane, in Oriens, Vol. 35, (1996), pp. 143-178.