brnaeem.blogspot.com/2009/10/when-two-prophets-met.html

Such a beautiful and amazing post!

A brother from India asked me for the lines of the Qasidah Muhammadiyya of Imam al-Busiri, and while at first I replied that I was busy translating something big, I remembered the rights of the Mustafa, ṣalla Allāhu ‛alayhi wa ‛alā ālihi wa sallam. So here it is, insha’Allah.

The Arabic:

محمد أشرف الأعراب والعجم                    ‍
محمد خيـــــــر من يمشي على قــــدم
محمــد باسط المعروف جامعه                   ‍
محمـــــد صاحب الإحســان والكــــرم
محمــد تاج رسل الله قاطبــــة                    ‍
محمـــــــد صــــــادق الأقوال والكلـــم
محمــــــد ثابت الميثاق حافظــه                    ‍
محمـــــــد طيــب الأخــلاق والشيــــم
محمـــد رُوِيَت بالنور طينتُــــهُ                    ‍
محمــــد لم يــــزل نــــــوراً من القِدم
محمــــد حاكم بالعدل ذو شرفٍ
محمـــــد معــــدن الأنعام والحكــــــم
محمد خير خلق الله من مضـــــر                    ‍
محمــــد خيـــر رســـــل الله كلهـــــم
محمــــــد دينه حـــق نديـــن بـــه                    ‍
محمــــــــد مجمــــلاً حقاً على علــــم
محمـــد ذكـــره روح لأنفسنــــــــا
محمد شكره فــــرض على الأمــــم
محمد زينة الدنيا وبهجتهـــــــــــا                    ‍
محمــــــــد كاشــــــف الغمات والظلم
محمــــد سيـــــــد طابت مناقبـــــهُ                     ‍
محمــــد صاغه الرحمــــــن بالنعـــــم
محمــــد صفـــوة الباري وخيرتـــــه                     ‍
محمــــد طاهـــــــر من سائر التهـــم
محمـــد ضاحــــك للضيف مكرمــــه                     ‍
محمـــــــــد جـــــــاره والله لم يضـــم
محمــــد طابـــــت الدنيــــا ببعثتــــه                     ‍
محمـــــد جـــاء بالآيـــات والحكـــــــم
محمــــد يـــوم بعث النــــاس شافعنــــا                     ‍
محمـــــــد نوره الهــــادي من الظلــــم
محمــــــــد قائـــــــــــم لله ذو همـــــــــم                     ‍
محمـــــــد خاتـــــــم للرســــــل كلهــــم

The English:

I copied this translation from the beautiful UK-based magazine The Invitation (http://www.invitationmagazine.co.uk/). I hope their publishers don’t mind. You can download the first issue for free, which includes this poem.

Muhammad is the most noble of the Arabs and the non-Arabs,

Muhammad is the best of those who walk by footsteps,

Muhammad encompasses all that is good,

Muhammad is the owner of excellence and nobility,

Muhammad is the crown of the Messengers of Allah, without exception,

Muhammad is the most truthful in words and speech,

Muhammad is firm in his promise, guarding it,

Muhammad is good-natured in manners and character,

Muhammad, his nature was given light to drink,

Muhammad, his light has continued from ancient time,

Muhammad judges with justice, possessing honour,

Muhammad is a treasure-trove of blessings and wisdom,

Muhammad is the best of the creation of Allah, from the lineage of Mudar,

Muhammad is the best of all the Messengers of Allah,

Muhammad, his way of life is truth, we follow it with him,

Muhammad, comprehensive excellence, truly is his distinguishing mark,

Muhammad, his mention is a refreshment for our souls,

Muhammad, thanking him is an obligation upon the communities,

Muhammad is the adornment of the world and its splendour,

Muhammad is the one who removes the grief and the gloom,

Muhammad is a master, his virtuous deeds are delightful,

Muhammad, the Merciful shaped him with kindness,

Muhammad, the elite of the Creator and His choice,

Muhammad, innocent of all accusations,

Muhammad laughs for his guest, honouring him,

Muhammad, by Allah! His neighbour is never harmed,

Muhammad, the world became pleasant through his mission,

Muhammad, he came with proofs and wisdom,

Muhammad, on the day of the raising of mankind, he is our intercessor,

Muhammad, his light is the guide out of darkness,

Muhammad, standing for Allah, filled with eagerness,

Muhammad is the Seal of all the Messengers,

(Our Lord, bless and send peace, eternally and forever,

Upon Your beloved, the best of all creation.)

The Best of All Creation

These two lines:

(Our Lord, bless and send peace, eternally and forever,

Upon Your beloved, the best of all creation.)

are actually from the Burda of Imam al-Busiri, but have been added as a refrain to this poem as well.

It is related that when Imam al-Busiri was composing his Burda, he wrote the first half of the 51st line, which says:

“The extent of our knowledge about him is that he is human”

and did not know how to finish it.

So the Prophet ṣalla Allāhu ‛alayhi wa ‛alā ālihi wa sallam completed it for him and said to him:

“Say: And that he is the best of all the creation of Allah”.

So Imam al-Busiri decided to add this into the tasliya which was the refrain of his poem that is repeated after every line or two lines.

And it was related that al-Ghaznawi used to read the Burda in every night to see the Prophet ṣalla Allāhu ‛alayhi wa ‛alā ālihi wa sallam in the dream, but it never happened. So he complained of this to a completed shaykh who said to him: “Perhaps you are not paying enough attention to its conditions” and asked him to recite it to him. Then when he heard him recite it he said:

“You are not doing the salaat with the salaat upon the Prophet, ṣalla Allāhu ‛alayhi wa ‛alā ālihi wa sallam that Imam al-Busiri used.”

You can therefore see why Muslims chose to add the same blessed line of tasliya to the Qasidah Muhammadiyya.

The Tongue of Poetry

Ali Mubarak said in his Khitat:

“Al-Busiri and Ibn Ata’illah as-Sakandari were both students of Abul Abbas (al-Mursi). So he gave al-Busiri the tongue of poetry and gave Ibn Atai’llah- author of the Hikam- the tongue of prose.”

Imam al-Busiri

The great “Imam of the Poets, and the Poet of the Scholarly Imams” as shaykh Abd al-Ghani an-Nabulsi called him in his commentary on al-Busiri’s Al-Qasida al-Mudariyya, needs no introduction. Nor does the greatness of his poetry need further explanation.

But I thought I’d share the following vision of him by the Sultan of the Madiheen, those who praise the Prophet in their poetry: Sayyidi Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari, may Allah be pleased with him. He was highly influenced by Imam al-Busiri and modeled many of his poems after the poetry of Imam al-Busiri, and even wrote Al-Burda al-Hasaniyya al-Husayniyya, a poem in imitation of al-Busiri’s Burda, but about al-Hasan and al-Husayn, may Allah be pleased with them.

This vision is told in Shaykh Muhammad Khalid Thabit’s introduction to the Burda as it was beautifully published by his publishing house Dar Elmokatam, Cairo. He says:

“I was told by my beloved brother, Dr. Atiyya Mustafa, that his shaykh, Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari – and he was one of the greatest of Allah’s righteous awliya in this age of ours – saw in a vision the Messenger of Allah, salawaat Allah wa salaamuhu ‘alayh, and on his right were sitting Abu Bakr and Umar and the rest of the Companions, and on his left a man by himself. So When shaykh Saleh came toward the sayyid of creation, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa ‘alaa aalihi wa sallam, he commanded him to greet the man on his left and told him that it is Shaykh al-Busiri.”

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

The Shaykhs of the Tariq and the Tarbiya of the Murid:

The Shaykh of the Tariqa, the Imam of the people of Shari’a, and the Paragon of the People of Haqiqa, sayyidi ash-shaykh al-imam al-Azhari, Saleh al-Ja’fari al-Husayni, said in one of his Friday lessons in the noble Azhar mosque:

Know that the founders of all the Sufi tariqas are now in the Barzakh, in the other world. And because of that, each has as much knowledge of his mureed as the knowledge of his khalifa in the world, multiple times over. This tarbiya (upbringing) from the Barzakh is a spiritual tarbiya, and it is a type of the miraculous. As for when the shaykh is still alive on the Earth, then his tarbiya is real: He commands him to do the Salaat, Zakaat, and acts of obedience: “Pray!” “Give Zakaat!” “Do this and that”, and “Don’t do this or that!” And the first way goes further/takes one further than the second. The mureed can   perceive the normal, real, tarbiya of the shaykh. And when his soul becomes stronger and he has a connection with his shaykh who is in the Barzakh and sees him in his sleep, then he will guide him to Qiyam al-Layl and the rest of the acts of obedience. And if his soul becomes even stronger, he will see him in the waking, and sit with him, and talk to him. His shaykh will come to him and tell him of things that will happen to him in his life, and command him to have patience over them, and forbid him to do ugly acts.

Story:

One time I wanted to go somewhere I was walking after Isha in the house, and there was a staircase there. A man came to me and said: Go back! My grandfather was buried in a far away place and when he died was 80 years old, and this man who came to me was 40 years old. But it fell into my heart that he was my grandfather, so I went back, and didn’t ask. And this is from the spiritual kind of tarbiya.

Another Story:

I used to know a shaykh in the Husayn neighborhood, and I was sitting with him once, and said to him: “We want to do a hadra”, so he said: “No! You are here in a country where, if you have one blanket over you then put another one on top of it. But do a hadra and we will come to you!”

Twenty years after the man died, a Moroccan man came from Fas, and stayed in the riwaaq (hall in the Azhar), not speaking to anyone for a month. Praying and not speaking to anyone, leaving the hall to eat outside the Azhar, and so on.

One day I found him at a man who makes tea near the wall, drinking a cup of tea. I said to the tea seller: The price of this tea is with me, tell this man not to pay any money. This man used to not accept that anyone pay anything for him, and would get angry if anyone paid anything for him. But my shaykh came and appeased him and said to him: “Accept it from him”. And I didn’t see any of that.

So the man said to me: “This white-haired man – meaning my shaykh- gives you his salam!” Then he turned to me and said again: “This white-haired man gives you his salam and says to you: ‘Remember what I said to you before: ‘You are in a country where, if you have one blanket over you, then put another one on top of it.’”

And I had not yet reached the level of seeing him awake.

Another Story:

There was a good shaykh called Saleh from Latakiya, and was one of my students, he always came to attend (my)  lesson. Shaykh Husayn al-Kurdi was alive and he was one of the awliya, and he used to wear a black cloak with a button. When he was about to die, he put his turban on shaykh Saleh, and gave him the trust , the secret. But after he died, the state of shaykh Saleh changed so much that shaykh Saleem al-Mufti would go visit him, and he no longer came to attend the lesson.

One time I was sitting in the Abbasid Hall, and I met him and greeted him, and asked him: Why don’t you come to the lesson? He looked to his right and then said: “The Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalhi wa sallam, says to you: You will succeed and receive  the Aalimiyya (PhD at the Azhar) and be hired.” Then he turned again and said to me: “You do salaat on him in which way?” I said: “I took the Ahmadiyya [Muhammadiyya] tariqa.” So he looked to the right again then said to me: “The Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam, says to you to do salaat on him in such and such a way.”

Look how this student of mine’s state changed! But he died two years later.

Shaykh Muhammad Hasanayn Makhloof al-Adawi said: The wali who has arrived can be in Sham, while his soul is upbringing the mureed in Egypt. And the scholars of tasawwuf said that as well, and their evidence for that is that Jibreel, alayhi assalam, used to come to the Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam, in the shape of a man. As one scholar said: Jibreel, alayhi assalam, is in the sky, and has 600 wings, but his soul takes charge of this body and speaks through it, and likewise the wali who has arrived, while he is in Sham, his soul can take charge of the mureed as sayyidna Jibreel, alayhi assalam, took charge of affairs while he was in the sky.

The Shaykh of the Tariqa, the Imam of the people of Shari’a, and the Paragon of the People of Haqiqa, sayyidi ash-shaykh al-imam al-Azhari, Saleh al-Ja’fari al-Husayni, said in his book Al-Ilhaam an-Naafi’ li-Kulli Qaasid (The Beneficial Inspiration for Every Seeker):

Know my brother, may Allah guide you and guide us: That that shaykhs of the path say: “Obedience brings us together, and disobedience seperates us”.

And what greater catastrophe is worse on the mureed then separation between himself and his shaykh?

For the shaykh is the door to the Prophetic Presence (al-Hadra an-Nabawiyya), and the Prophetic Presence is the door to the Holy Presence (Al-Hadra al-Qudsiyya), and he who knows both doors, enters into the presence of both. [Sayyidi ash-shaykh Saleh al-Ja'fari, radi Allahu anhu, has said about that]:

فبابك للمختار شيخك يا فتى * به الوصل بالمختار في حضرة القرب

وبالسيد المختار ترقى إلى العلا * ويدنيك من رب الوجود بلا حجب

Your door to the Chosen One is your Shaykh, oh fataa!

Through him is your connection to the Chosen One, in the Hadra of Nearness

And by the Master, the Chosen One, you rise up high

And he brings you close to the Lord of Existence, without veils!

Important Note:

What I meant by the Shaykh, is the Shaykh of the Tariq who is in the Barzakh. As for the one from whom you took the awraad, he is your door to the Shaykh of the Awrad, and without him arrival becomes very difficult/impossible. And it is enough in him the uprightness (istiqaama) of his outward (zaahir), in doing what is obligatory and leaving what is forbidden, because his  obedience (to Allah) does not benefit you, and his disobedience (to Allah) does not harm you.

And the connection of your actions, sayings, and this figurative/metaphorical shaykh of yours is only to your real shaykh, who has idhn (permission) from the Prophet (al-Hadra an-Nabawiyya).

A Beneficial Story:

( A long time ago) I saw in my sleep while I was in the noble Azhar a man coming to the Azhar, and a sign appeared to me from sayyidi as-sayyid Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, radi Allahu anhu, to receive him. After the vision, the man came, and he was from Algeria, 60 years old, and wearing a worn out Maghrebi cloak. I had brought a white thobe from the Sudan that is called a Shiqqa and taken it to the tailor, and told him to make a Maghrebi cloak from it, but he stalled for two months. But when I took this man with me to the tailor, he said to me: This is the owner of the cloak, not you! Then he finished it on the same day, and I gave it to him. Then I said to him: What is your name? He said: Ahmad al-Jilani. I said: What is your tariq? He said: Qadiri.

He stayed in the Azhar months, fasting the day, and worshipping at night, and sitting by himself, seperating himself from the people. I entered upon him once, having made the intention in my heart to seek some secrets from him, and found him sitting facing the Qibla, repeating the name “Allah” silently and stretching it, and his tears coming out of his eyes. So I sat to his right side. He turned to me and looked at me with anger and said to me: Because you were generous to me, and served me, you want me to give you a secret from the secrets of Allah? I have nothing to give you, there is no idhn.

Then his anger quietened and he said to me: My son, because you were generous to me I will guide you to something greater than the secret that you want:

Know that the shaykh of every tariq has permission from sayyidna Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam, and so the maddad (spiritual sustenance, support) for his mureeds is in his awraad. Stick to the awraad of the shaykh to whom you are affiliated, because the maddad is in them, not in any other. Do not seek a shaykh or a wird other than his.

And the Principles of the Sufis are confined in these kamaalaat (completions):

1- Fanaa’ in the shaykh.

2- If he saw that from you he would take you/present you to the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam.

3- If the Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam, saw from you fanaa’ in him, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam, he would take you/present you to Allah Most High.

This man then traveled to al-Madina al-Munawwara and stayed in it a while, then returned to his country, and died there around the year 1370 A.H., Allah’s mercy and pleasure be upon him.

And it is a great catastrophe for the mureed to deny his immediate shaykh, or his shaykh who is in the Barzakh, and he should have complete acceptance/surrender.

I should be quite free until next September….

so i’m hoping to be invited to some weddings before then…

One in Kazakhstan

One in Singapore

One in Mauritius

and maybe one in Canada

so my friends.. get working on it!  I want to travel!

I went to Damascus on Friday morning with some relatives (three aunts and an uncle), and I booked for us three rooms in a boutique hotel that I found on TripAdvisor.com. I stayed there one night, and came back to Jordan Saturday night. The hotel was a house that was built in the 17th century, with an inner courtyard and fountain in the middle. It had a great old vine tree across the roof, which gave the hotel its name: Old Vine. There was lots of beautiful greenery in the courtyard. It was turned into a 9-room boutique hotel recently. When I went into my hotel room, I was pleasantly surprised to see, among the pictures of old Damascus, a picture of the great emir Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi. I took that as a good sign, as the picture was not in the two other rooms in the hotel!

Then I found out something even better! Sidi Abdul Qadir actually stayed in that house when he came to Damascus, and it was sold by his descendants two years ago to the owners of the hotel! I was staying in the house of Abdul Qadir! Possibly the same room he stayed in! The best thing about the hotel (or worst, depending on the person), is its location. It’s exactly two minutes away from the tomb of Salahuddin and the Umayyad Mosque, and exactly opposite the tomb of sayyida Ruqayya bint al-Husayn (radi Allahu anhum). This means that as soon as you leave the hotel you’ll be stuck in a crowd of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims, who have come to visit Sayyida Ruqayya. Getting out of such a crowd is tougher than you think, but is quite interesting and fun!

Because of this, I thought I’d write a quick summary of who he was, but because of the abundance of information on him, I will introduce two unknown stories about him, each involving an interaction with someone related to me. The first is with one of my spiritual ancestors, and the second with one of my actual ancestors.

Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi’s meeting with Al-Sanusi

Abdul Qadir al-Jazairi’s grandfather, the sharif Mustafa, received the Qadiri and Akbari tariqas in the Eastern lands of Islam, before returning to Algeria where he founded a religious center, Qaytana. His son Muhyiddin, a great scholar, became the main Qadiri shaykh in Western Algeria. His son Abdul Qadir was born in Qaytana in 1807.

In 1826, at the age of 19, he accompanied his father to the Hijaz for the Hajj. In 1827, they went to visit the great scholar and Sufi, sayyidi Muhammad ibn Ali as-Sanusi, who was of Algerian origin. Al-Sanusi invited them to his zawiya in Mecca, on the mountain of Abu Qubays, and invited them to some Couscous.

“Al-Sanusi himself was too ill to partake of this rather filling dish, but he stayed with his guests at the table. He folded his hands and watched the young Abd al-Qadir eating, keeping track of how much food he took. When he had finished fourteen mouthfuls, Abd al-Qadir stopped. Al-Sanusi  urged him to eat more, but the latter excused himself, saying he was not able to eat another bite. Al-Sanusi insisted, “My son, (eating) more will make you greater,” but Abd a-Qadir still refused, and the former said, “This is what God has prescribed.” The youngster did not understand this prediction, which referred to the land that Abd al-Qadir was later to rule….[Then] al-Sanusi said to Abd al-Qadir’s father Muyi’l-Din:

The religion of Islam requires every Muslim to defend it, as far as he is able to, and forbids the Muslim to surrender to the enemy. I say to you that I have the best wishes for this our son Abd al-Qadir, indeed he is of those who are going to make the sacred lands of Islam expand and raise the banner of jihad.

According to the historian al-Libi, this was the reason that three years later, Muhyiddin and Abdul Qadir would decide to begin the revolt, the jihad, against the French invaders of Algeria.(1) Indeed, Abd al-Qadir would lead the resistance against the French for almost 15 years.

On the way back from the Hajj, they joined the caravan to Damascus, and met shaykh Khalid an-Naqshbandi, who let them enter the Naqshbandi path. (2) While they only took this path for the sake of blessing, another great man who would later meet and correspond with Abd al-Qadir took this Naqshbandi-Khalidi path as his main tariqa: Imam Shamyl of Daghestan. Abd al-Qadir and his father then traveled to Baghdad to visit the tomb of shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, and then returned to Algeria.

Abd al-Qadir’s father Muhyiddin began the revolt against the French invaders, and benefited greatly from the networks created by Sufi tariqas. His son Abd al-Qadir succeeded him as the leader of the resistance, and fought the French for almost 15 years. During this time he created a fully-functioning state in the areas that he controlled, in which he enforced the Shari’a very strictly. A saying became popular, that a child with a crown of gold on his head could cross all the lands under his jurisdiction without fear. He also established weapons factories, and was able to fight the French bravely until he was forced to sign a treaty with them in 1847. The french broke their treaty and tricked him, sending him to jail in France, and then in 1855 they allowed him to move to Damascus, where he would teach the hadith and the ideas of Ibn Arabi.

In 1860, severe anti-Christian riots broke out in Damascus, mostly because of the wealth they were acquiring from their relations with the West, and Abd al-Qadir used his influence with the notables of Syria to contain the violence, and, when the massacre begun, he organized his compatriots and supplied them with arms, saving the remaining survivors, more than 30,000 Christians, and leading them to safety in Beirut. This led the French, who used to hold him as their greatest enemy, to give him their highest honors and awards. But probably more important for him, he received a letter of praise from Imam Shayml, the Naqshbandi-Khalidi leader of the resistance in the Caucasus, telling him that his action complied with the Shari’a.

In 1862, he went to Hajj, and took shaykh Muhammad al-Fasi of the Shadhili-Madani tariqa as his guide on the Sufi way. He quickly rose through the spiritual stations until he reached his goal on Mount Hira, after which he went into seclusion at the Prophet’s tomb, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam.(2)

Upon his return to Damascus, he dedicated himself to teaching from the hadith and the Futuhat al-Makkiyya of Ibn Arabi. When he died in 1883, he was buried next to Ibn Arabi, as he had requested. But in 1962 the Algerian government, celebrating its 4th anniversary of independence, moved the body of their national hero back to Algeria.

During the Russian-Ottoman War of 1877-1878, a group of notables from Beirut asked him to be the King of Syria in case the Ottomans were defeated and the independence of the country was jeopardized. He agreed as long as the people gave him allegiance, and the kingdom maintained an attachment to the Ottoman Caliphate. This never happened.

Abdul Qadir and the Mufti of Jaffa

Having described the encounter shaykh Abdul Qadir and my spiritual ancestor, sayyidi Muhammad ibn Ali as-Sanusi, I would like to add this story of his meeting with the great-great-grandfather of my grandmother, the Mufti of Jaffa, Shaykh Husayn al-Dajani.

al-Shaykh al-Qadi Yusuf an-Nabahani says of him:

“Shaykh Husayn al-Dajani, the Mufti of Jaffa. He is the shaykh, al arif billah, the shaykh of the Tariqa, Haqiqa, and Shari’a, the great wali of famous karamaat and manaqib, the shaykh and cousin of my shaykh Abd al-Qadir Abu Rabah al-Dajani, may Allah have mercy on them both and benefit me with their blessings.”

He studied in the Azhar under many great scholars, amongst whom Shaykh al-Islam Ibrahim al-Bajuri ash-Shafi’i, and among the Hanafis, as-sayyid Muhammad ibn Husayn al-Kutubi the Mufti of the Hanafis in the Holy Sanctuary of Mecca. He worshipped according to the Shafi’i school but gave fatwas in both schools. He took the Khalwatiyya tariqa while in the Azhar from shaykh Ahmad as-Sawi, and then was given permission in khilafa and guidance by shaykh as-Sawi’s khalifa when he visited him in Jaffa. He took all the famous and high tariqas from great shaykhs, and has many writings in various sciences. After Allah made the people benefit from him completely, he went to the Hajj and died in the Holy Sanctuary, and was buried next to sayyida Khadija, radi Allahu anha.

Among his famous karamaat is that if someone close to him was coming, either  by land or sea, his legs would start moving against his will in their direction until he would meet whoever is coming, without prior knowledge of their coming. This happened to him many times and many of his students, including shaykh Yusuf an-Nabahani himself, saw this happen to him many times.

One time after Fajr, shaykh Husayn told his wife that he heard a voice say to him: Ya Husayn, rise and go to meet one of the awliya of Allah Most High!

So he commanded his wife to cook food and prepare the house, and walked out of his house, not knowing who he was going to meet. Whenever someone asked him where he was going, he told him that he left to meet one of the awliya of Allah, but that he didn’t know who it was. He kept walking to the north side of Jaffa, on the beach, until he met one of his students, Shaykh Sa’eed al-Ghabra, one of the scholars of Damascus. He said to him: “as-sayyid al-amir Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri is now coming to you, and will be a guest at your house, and I came quickly to tell you to prepare to host him.” Because the Mufti had already told his wife to prepare the house, he continued walking until he met the emir, and brought him and the accompanying notables of Damascus to his house, where they stayed, until he sent with them someone to take them to visit Jerusalem and the blessed places there. This was in the year 1273 A.H. (3)

———
1) Vikor, Knut S., Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge, London: Hurst & Company, 1995, pp. 125-6.

2) Based on the summary in Itzchak Weismann’s Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, & Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus, Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 148-153 and other sources.

3) Summarized from, An-Nabahani, Yusuf, Jaami’ Karaamaat al-Awliyaa, vol 2,  Beirut: Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah, 2005, pp. 42-3.

خل الرياضة وارتض في محبتنا

يا من يروم من المحبوب إحسانا

الإمام الرواس -

Leave riyaada and make our love your riyaada

O he who desires ihsaan from the Beloved

- Imam Rawwass

Meaning: If you want Allah to treat you with ihsaan, with goodness and kindness, and if you want to reach the station of ihsaan, then forget about trying to tame your soul with spiritual exercises and difficult acts of worship. Instead, love us, and let our love tame your nafs. For love is the easiest way to go beyond the veils, and to attain the fayd, the spiritual blessings, from your shaykh.

The Prophet Ibrahim- upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon him and their families, be Allah’s salaat and salaam- was the son of Terah. This is mentioned in Genesis 11:26-27, and Genesis 11:31.

Ibn Kathir confirms in his Stories of the Prophets that this is the correct and widely held belief among the historians and biographers. (1) He also says that the majority of the genealogists, among whom is the Companion and most knowledgeable exegete of the Qur’an, Ibn Abbas- radi Allahu anh- are agreed that the name of Ibrahim’s father is Tareh, and that the People of the Book, the Jews and the Christians, pronounce it Tarekh. (2)

So if Ibrahim’s father is Terah/ Tareh/Tarekh, then who is Azar, who the Qur’an calls as his “father”?

In Sura Maryam, we are told how he called his “father” to the religion, but:

His father answered, “Abraham, do you reject my gods? I will stone you if you do not stop this. Keep out of my way!”

Abraham said: “Peace be with you: I will beg my Lord to forgive you- He is always gracious to me- but for now I will leave you, and the idols you all pray to, and I will pray to my Lord and trust that my prayer will not be in vain.” (Q 19: 46-49)

Then, as Ibn Kathir says, he asked Allah to forgive his father in his supplications, but when it became clear to him that he is the enemy of Allah, he disassociated himself from him, as the Qur’an says:

Abraham asked forgiveness for his father because he had made a promise to him, but once he realized that his father was an enemy of God, he washed his hands of him. Abraham was tender-hearted and forbearing. (Q 9: 114) (3)

Now, in Surat al-An’aam of the Qur’an, this “father” is called Azar.

Remember when Abraham said to his father, Azar, “How can you take idols as gods? I see that you and your people have clearly gone astray.” (Q 6: 74)

Likewise in a hadith narrated by the imams Bukhari, Nasa’i, and al-Bazzar, we are told how:

Ibrahim will meet his father Azar on the Day of Rising, upon whose face is dust. Ibrahim will say to him: “Did I tell you not to disobey me?”

So his father will say to him: “Today I will not disobey you.”

So Ibrahim will say: “Oh Lord. You promised me not to disgrace me on the Day when all people are resurrected, so what disgrace is greater than that of my furthest father?”

So Allah will say: I have made Paradise forbidden for the kaafireen.”

This has led many, including Ibn Kathir, to believe erroneously that Azar is none other than Ibrahim’s father Tarekh, and that he possibly had two names, or one of them is a real name, and the other a nickname. (4)

However, this possibility is denied  completely by the Qur’an itself, so that it is absolutely impossible.

As we have seen above, when Ibrahim, alayhi assalam, first became a Prophet, he called Azar to the faith, and Azar rejected it. Ibrahim left him, and continued to pray for his guidance, until it became clear to him that he is an enemy of Allah, after which he disowned him, disassociated himself from him, and washed his hands of him. He no longer asked Allah to forgive him, for the enemies of Allah will not be forgiven.

As the Qur’an itself says:

It is not fitting for the Prophet and the believers to ask forgiveness for the idolators- even if they are related to them- after having been shown that they are the inhabitants of the Blaze. Abraham asked forgiveness for his father because he had made a promise to him, but once he realized that his father was an enemy of God, he washed his hands of him. (Q 9: 113-114).

The Qur’an is telling the Prophet and his Companions to learn from the example of Ibrahim, and to stop asking forgiveness for their disbelieving relatives. But in Surat Ibrahim, the Qur’an tells us that much later, after Ibrahim’s trials with his people, and his leaving his homeland, and after going to Mecca, and his eldest son Ismail had grown up and helped him build the Kaaba, he prayed to Allah:

Praise be to God, who has granted me Ishmael and Isaac in my old age: my Lord hears all requests! Lord, grant that I and my offspring may keep up the prayer. Our Lord, accept my request. Our Lord, forgive me, my parents, and the believers on the Day of Reckoning. (Q 14: 39-41)

So here we see the Prophet Ibrahim, alayhi assalam, asking Allah to forgive his parents. This is decades after having abandoned prayers for Azar. This is clear proof that Azar is not the same person as Ibrahim’s actual father Tarekh. It shows that Tarekh and Ibrahim’s mother were believers.

Furthermore, we have here what in Arabic is known as atf: conjunction, or coupling. Ibrahim joined the believers to his parents in the du’a (5), as if he was saying: “Forgive me, my parents and the rest of the believers.”

So why does Ibrahim call Azar his father in the Qur’an? That is because in the Arabic language, and in the language of the Qur’an itself, a “father” could be the actual father of a person, or his ancestor, his uncle, or the person who raised or adopted someone.

The Qur’an tells us that when the Prophet Jacob was on his death bed, he said to his sons,

“What will you worship after I am gone?”

They replied, “We shall worship your God and the God of your fathers, Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, one single God: we devote ourselves to Him.” (Q 2: 133)

Here, the term “father” is used to describe Ya’qoob’s actual father Is-haaq, his grandfather Ibrahim, and his uncle Isma’il, alayhim assalam.

And so as the Qur’an calls Ismail the “father” of Ya’qoob, likewise it calls Azar the “father” of Ibrahim, when they are their uncles.

Another example is found in the story of our Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalhi wa sallam.

As is well known in the biographies and hadith collections, the Prophet, at the age of 12, traveled with his uncle, who had adopted him and raised him, to Syria for trade. There they met the monk Bahira, who recognized that the child is a Prophet.

He said to Abu Talib: What is this boy’s relation to you?

He replied: This is my son.

So Bahira replied: His father should not be alive.

So he said: My nephew.

Here we saw Abu Talib calling his nephew “my son.”

Likewise, the Prophet Muhammad called him his “father”.

As is narrated in the hadith collection of imam Muslim, a man came to the Prophet and said: “Where is my father?”

So the Prophet replied: “In the fire.”

Then after the man walked away, the Prophet wanted to console him, so he said to him: “My father and your father are in the fire.”

Here, the Prophet was referring to his uncle who raised him, Abu Talib. He called him that not only because it is normal in the language of the Arabs, but because it was more effective in consoling the man. Of course, the hadiths  describing Abu Talib’s punishment in the Fire make it clear that he was being punished as a sinning believer. How could he not believe when Bahira had told him that his nephew was to be a Prophet, and when Abu Talib composed many lines of poetry praising his nephew’s religion as the best religion.

Instead, Abu Talib was being punished for fearing the people of Quraysh and what they would say about him if he declared his Islam. But when Allah removes the sinning believers from the Fire, Abu Talib will be rescued with them and enter Paradise.

We know that the Prophet Muhammad could not have meant his actual father Abdullah because all of the Prophet’s ancestors were monotheists, as the great scholars of the Ummah have declared. After all, the Prophet had said in the hadith narrated by Abu Nu’aym:

“Allah did not cease moving me from the tayyib backs/loins to the taahir wombs…no two branches branched out of a line except that I was in the best of them.”

As the scholars say, only the believing men and women are described as taahir, and this shows that all of his ancestors, fathers and mothers from Adam and Eve, to Ibrahim’s parents,  until Abdullah and Aminah were believers. (6)

Thus, Azar, as Qur’an, the Seera of our Prophet, and the hadiths all show, was Ibrahim’s uncle. It’s possible that Ibrahim was raised by his uncle just as our Prophet Muhammad was raised by his uncle, and as our Prophet Muhammad said, no one was more similar to Ibrahim then he himself.

This is also a possible explanation of Ibrahim’s describing him on the Day of Judgment as “my furthest father”. Some interpreted to mean that he is far away from me, because he is a disbeliever, but it is possible that it means that he is not his actual father, but one step away from that: his uncle.

And had Ibrahim been the flesh-and-blood son of Azar, Azar would not have said to him:

“Abraham, do you reject my gods? I will stone you if you do not stop this. Keep out of my way!”

Would someone stone his own flesh and blood?

Furthermore, when Azar had rejected Ibrahim’s call, Ibrahim prayed to God:

Forgive my father, for he is one of those who have gone astray, and do not disgrace me on the Day when all people are resurrected. (Q 26: 86-86)

Notice that he only asked forgiveness for one person. Had his parents been disbelievers, he would not have asked forgiveness only for his father and not for his mother.

And likewise in the hadith of Bukhari mentioned above, Ibrahim says:

“Oh Lord. You promised me not to disgrace me on the Day when all people are resurrected, so what discgrace is greater than that of my furthest father?”

Had Ibrahim’s actual parents been disbelievers, Ibrahim’s mother would have been mentioned as well. Instead, only one person is mentioned.

This all shows that this one person could not have been his actual father. For Ibrahim prayed for the believers and among them especially his parents in his old age by saying:

Our Lord, forgive me, my parents, and the believers on the Day of Reckoning. (Q 14: 41)

This verse, as we discussed above, is alone absolute proof that his parents where believers, and that the person Ibrahim stopped asking Allah’s forgiveness for was someone else- his uncle. All the rest was just supplementary evidence.

Now there remains one matter, regarding the Prophet Muhammad’s parents. In a treatise attributed to the great Hanafi scholar Mulla Ali Qari, there is a quote attributed to Imam Abu Hanifa’s Al-Fiqh al-Akbar, in which Abu Hanifa says: “And the parents of the Messenger of Allah- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- died upon the kufr, and Abu Talib died a kaafir.”

However, Shaykh Mustafa al-Hammami says that he saw in his own eyes an Abbasid era manuscript of Abu Hanifa’s Fiqh al-Akbar, in the Shaykhul Islam Library in al-Madina al-Munawwara, in collection 330 of the library. In this ancient manuscript of Abu Hanifa’s work it says:

“And the parents of the Messenger of Allah- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- died upon the fitra, and Abu Talib died a kaafir.”

The fitra, as you know, is belief in monotheism. The great Imam Abu Hanifa said that the Prophet’s parents were monotheists.

Thus it is clear that a copyist changed  “al-fitra” to “al-kufr“. And this is clear because had the original said “al-kufr“,  Abu Hanifa would have said: “And the parents of the Messenger of Allah- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- and Abu Talib died kaafirs“.

But the fact that Abu Talib is mentioned separately, it shows that what it said of him was different than what it said of the parents of the Messenger of Allah.

Furthermore, in his famous commentary on  Qadi Iyad’s ash-Shifa, Mulla Ali Qari himself says:

“As for the Islam of (the Prophet’s) parents, there are different opinions. And the most correct is that they were Muslim, as has been agreed upon by the greatest of the scholars of the Ummah, and has been made clear by al-Suyuti in his three treatises (on the subject).”

This shows that the treatise mentioning otherwise is false. (7)

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

———

1) Ibn Kathir, Qisas al-Anbiyaa’, Beirut and Damascus: Dar al-Khayr, 1997, p. 117.

2) Ibid, p. 120.

3) Ibid.

4) Ibid, p. 120-1.

5) Saleh al-Ja’fari, As-Seera al-Nabawiyya al-Muhammadiyya, Cairo: Dar Jawami’ al-Kalim, 1993, p. 15.

6) Hasan al-Adawi al-Hamzawi, An-Nafahat ash-Shadhliyya fee Sharh al-Burda al-Busiriyya, Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah, 2005, p. 34.

7) Muhammad ibn Alawi al-Maliki, Adh-Dhakha’ir al-Muhammadiyya, Cairo: Dar Jawami’ al-Kalim, 1993, pp.  50-52.

Earlier, in Desert Bloom (riyada.hadithuna.com/desert-bloom/), I wrote about three Sufi zawiyas that I visited in Jordan.

Tonight I added a fourth.

This one was built by shaykh Abd al-Qadir on top of his house. The ground floor of the villa is his house, and the second floor is the zawiya.

As you approach the villa on Sunday nights, you will hear nasheeds from far away, and see heads of the people from the window.

You go up and find more than 60 Jordanian men, sitting all around the room.

Shaykh Abd al-Qadir apparently has hundreds or thousands of murids, having been a shaykh for more than 40 years. He was actually appointed as a shaykh for guidance at the age of 20, by shaykh Mustafa al-Filali, student of shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi. Thus, like shaykh Shaghouri, may Allah have mercy on them all, there’s only one person between him and shaykh al-Alawi.

He was 20 in 1967 when he became shaykh.

After some nasheeds, he gives a lesson, usually inspired by a line from one of the poems that have been recited, as was the case today, and the lesson is quite long and very beneficial and inspiring, mashaAllah. Then there are more nasheeds. And that’s it. You see several people crying with tears at mention of the Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam in the nasheeds. It’s a very blessed place, mashaAllah.

Interestingly, the Rifa’i shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Khateeb of the Imam Rawwass Mosque also became a shaykh around 40 years ago, at the age of 17. At that age he had murids and zawiyas!

As for shaykh Husni al-Sharif of the Khalwatiyya Jami’a tariqa (Dar al-Iman),  he became the shaykh of the tariqa at the age of 24 in 1988.

subhanAllah! Makes one feel ashamed of themselves.

What is Ilm?

The Companion Abdullah Ibn Mas’ud (radi Allahu anhu):

ليس العلم بكثرة الرواية ، وإنما هو خشية الله تعالى

“Ilm is not having many narrations, rather it is the fear of Allah Most High.”

Imam Malik ibn Anas (rahimahullah):

ليس العلم بكثرة الرواية وإنما هو نور يضعه الله في قلب من يشاء

“Ilm is not having many narrations, rather it is a light that God places in the heart of whomsoever He wills.”

Imam Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i (rahimahullah):

ليس العلم ما حفظ إنما العلم ما نفع

“Ilm is not that which is memorized, rather it is that which benefits.”

Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari (rahimahullah):

العلم هو معرفة الله تعالى ومعرفة النبي صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم كما ينبغي

ولو ملأ أحد طباق الأرض علما، ثم قال: لا أتوسل بالنبي صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم، فإنه يكون جاهلا

“Ilm is knowledge of Allah -Most High- and knowledge of the Prophet – salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- as is required.

And if someone were to fill the Earth with knowledge, then he said: I do not do tawassul by the Prophet – salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- then he is ignorant. ”

Commentary on the words of Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari:

Allah Most High said:

هم درجات عند الله

“They are different levels/degrees in the sight of Allah”. (Q 3: 163)

Meaning, that people are of different ranks, stations, degrees, or  levels in the sight of Allah. If it were not for the degrees, no one’s du’a would be accepted by Allah. The degrees of the Prophet Muhammad did not diminish after his death. Instead, he is constantly being raised by Allah Most High.

Those who do not know this, and do not understand his greatness in the sight of Allah, do not have the proper, required knowledge of the Prophet- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam-.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله