Riyadat an-Nafs

Having spoken about my journey from Jordan to North Cyprus and back, I have left some of my experiences to be discussed on their own. Before setting off from Jordan, I wanted to know how to get to Lefke, shaykh Nazim’s little town, preferably by land and sea. I asked shaykh Abdessalam, shaykh Nazim’s representative in Jordan, who was the close companion and translator of shaykh Nazim’s own shaykh, shaykh Daghestani, for more than 30 years. He told me to go to shaykh Ibrahim in Damascus, in the Mosque of Shaykh Daghestani, which contains shaykh Daghestani’s maqam and the zawiya. Shaykh Ibrahim, he said, would give me all the details I needed. I went to pray Isha at the mosque there on a Sunday, but I didnt know that there will be dhikr after Isha, which I was most eager to join. Shaykh Ibrahim spotted me, as I had met him before, and signalled to me to wait and enjoy the dhikr, and that we’ll talk later. As I found out later, the shaykh leading the dhikr that night was a Shadhili-Rifa’i, who asked to use the zawiya to do his dhikr. As for the Naqshabandi dhikr, it’s on Thursdays. The young shaykh leading the dhikr was in his late twenties, or maybe early thirties. He had a large scar from a blade that went across his right eye, from the forehead down to the cheek, but alhamdulillah his eye was intact. He looked truly powerful and impressive. The people he was leading in dhikr were young children, around  5 or 6 years old. There was a huge group of them, seated in a long line, all wearing turbans with flowing tails, and all had miswaks protruding from their turbans. The adults, being Shadhili-Rifa’i and Naqshabandi shaykhs, sat with their backs against the Qibla wall, while the children sat in a much longer line facing the Qibla wall. I went and sat in the line of the children, at the very end of it.

The dhikr was beautiful, being composed of Sura Yasin, Imam al-Busiri’s Qasida Muhammadiyya, a poem of tawassul by Allah’s Beautiful Names, and other such compositions and du’as. But I noticed that the first thing recited in the dhikr, the first thing in their book of awrad, was the Istighfar Kabir of shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris, radi Allahu anhu. And their tahlil (La ilaaha illa Allah) contained the Idrisi ending of “fee kulli lamhatin wa nafasin ‘adada ma wasi’ahu ilm Allah.” (With every glance and every breath, as many times as all the things contained in Allah’s knowledge). And in the middle of the wird, was none other than the Salaat Adheemiyya (also spelled Azimiyya or Azeemiyya) of sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris as well. This made me quite happy, but I wasn’t particularly surprised. The power and blessings of these adhkaar is acknowledged by all tariqas from East to West.

I remembered the time I visited Marrakesh and was invited to join the dhikr of the Habeebiyya tariqa, a branch of the Shadhiliyya-Darqawiyya. They also contained the Istighfar Kabir and Salaat Adheemiyya, and I noticed a footnote saying: These du’as of shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris were not found in the earliest copy of the Habeebiyya awrad, but have been kept here because of their great power.

Dr Mark Sedgwick says in his book Saints and Sons,

“Ibn Idris’ prayers are generally regarded by Sufis today as extraordinary, especially the central prayer, the Azimiyya…The Azimiyya has become popular far outside the orders deriving from Ibn Idris. It is used, for example, by Shadhilis in Tunis with no known connection to Ibn Idris, and by Alawis (an ancient order of Hadramawti origin) in Singapore, and perhaps elsewhere. Non-Ahmadi appreciation of the Azimiyya is illustrated by a story told by an Alawi:

One day, an Alawi shaykh who was traveling with some companions passed another caravan. He insisted on stopping the other caravan and on opening the saddle bag of a slightly surprised old man. Inside he found some clothes and a piece of paper, on which was written the Azimiyya. “Ah,” he said, “I wondered where that strong light was coming from.”

The Azimiyya is the most famous Idrisi prayer, but the awrad are also regarded highly. A non-Idrisi, an early twentieth-century Azhari imam in Cairo, habitually read three awrad- Akbarian, Shadhili, and Idrisi. Another contemporary non-Idrisi Shadhili described them as being of incomparable beauty, with nothing similar since Ibn Ata Allah al-Sikandari (d. 1309), the earliest and most famous Shadhili shaykh.

It is interesting that later Idrisi tariqas have remained strong in the production of prayers. The Sanusis and the Khatmis were the “two fountainheads of the literature of prayer most popular [in the 1950s],” and the Salihiyya (a branch of the Ahmadiyya) produced the greatest poet in the Somali language.”

[Saints and Sons, pp. 18-19]

And let’s not forget the Sultan of the Madiheen, the Azhari imam, shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari, one of the greatest poets in the Arabic language.

Shaykh Ibrahim ar-Rashid, one of the main students and successors of sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris wrote in a letter:

“As for the Azeemiyya. The Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam was asked about its virtues. He said: ‘It outweighs Dalai’l al-Khayrat by a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand times.’ He said “a thousand” twenty times. And it is greater and more than that, but this is to make it easier for us to understand. Understand the secret of his saying: “in every glance and every breath, as many times as all the things contained in the knowledge of Allah, the Great.”

Shaykh Ibrahim ar-Rasheed also wrote a treatise on the life and great rank of his shaykh sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris, and in it he wrote:

“And among his karaamaat, radi Allahu anhu, is that one of his murids died in Mecca, may Allah Most High honor it, and was buried in the Mu’alla. And there was a man from the brothers, from the people of kashf, of illuminated baseera (spiritual vision), standing there during the burial. He saw sayyidna Azrael alayhi assalam, who came with bedding from Paradise and great lamps, and expanded the grave as far as the eye can see, and prepared the bed for the dead man and put the lamps for him.

The man who saw this said to himself: I wish if I died Allah would honor me with such an honoring (karaama). So sayyidna Azrael alayhi assalam turned to him and said: Each and every one of you will have like this karaama, by the blessing of the Salaat Adheemiyya.”

Anyway, the sight of all those very young children sitting there, in full sunna gear, reciting adhkaar and nasheeds, was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life, and a memory I will never forget inshaAllah. It gave my heart such joy that is was dancing, enjoying the dhikr far more than usual.

Then in Turkish Cyprus, I went with three friends to visit what is known as Hazret Omar Turbesi, the maqam of hazret Omar. This was a maqam of seven Sahaba, Companions of Rasool Allah, alayhi wa Alihi salawat Allah, that had come as part of an expedition to try to conquer Cyprus and bring the light of Islam to it. Omar, I believe, was the commander of the army, and one of the seven who were martyred. Their bodies were left inside a cave right on the beach. According to the information on the maqam wall, when the Muslims finally conquered Cyprus several centuries later, they found the seven bodies in the cave, unchanged, as if they had died that same day. So they moved them out of the cave and buried them on the beach.

Alhamdulillah, I consider their visit the greatest and most beneficial part of my whole trip. There, we read some Qur’an and nasheeds at the maqam. I opened a book of selected Qur’anic Suras to be read for the dead, and I noticed that at the end of the book was the Salaat Naariyya, aka Salaat Tafrijiyya, of shaykh Abd al-Wahhab at-Tazi, the shaykh of sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris. This salaat is also widely acknowledged for its immense power. Once again, I find the prayers of the shaykhs of my silsila wherever I go, walhamdulillah!

On the way back home, I passed by Antioch, where two friends and I went to visit the maqam of shaykh Habib al-Najjar there, a big wali that everyone loves there. I dont know anything about him, but I read in a travel guide book that he was killed by Christians. One of my companions, Osman, a murid of shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi, told me that Shaykh Nazim always encouraged everyone going to Turkey to visit his maqam.

We went to the maqam, and found two green sarcophagi, and were surprised to see a large group of young school kids in their school uniforms. They must have been around 9 years old, I think. They were just sitting there at the maqam. Since many people in Antioch are Arabs, I spoke to some of them. They said that their school unexpectedly closed today, so they all decided to come sit in the presence of this great wali! We were shocked! What kind of children that young think like this? School is out, so let’s go visit a wali of Allah! And it was a very large group of kids, with no adults anywhere. Ya Allah! May Allah increase the children of this kind.

Even though on the wall above one of the sarcophagi it said “Habib Najjar,” Osman wasn’t convinced, as he didnt feel anything special there. Then the kids showed us a staircase going underground, and said that there are more maqams downstairs. So we went down, to find that the original maqams are downstairs. The ones on top were just empty ones representing the ones in the bottom, for those who cannot go down the narrow stair case. And this time we all felt it. As soon as we reached the bottom you could feel the spiritual power there. Osman was satisfied.

So we sat down, and all the kids sat with us, forming a large circle. I asked the children if they knew some Qur’an by heart, and then we all recited together the Fatiha and Ikhlas, and the last two suras, three times each. Then I asked them if they knew any nasheeds but they didnt. So Osman, Ibrahim and I began to repeat “Allah Allah” and they went along, which I spiced up with some lines of Ibn al-Farid’s poetry, in the same way they do in many Shadhili hadras in Syria and Jordan. At this point one of the kids began to beat his chest, while another kid made a twirling motion with his hand. He was asking if we should twirl like the Mevlevis. I invited him to the middle of the circle to twirl for us, which he did. Osman told me he was twirling in the wrong direction, but we just let him do his thing. He was going too fast though, and started getting dizzy, so I made him stop. It was quite funny.

Once we finished, the kids excused themselves and began to leave, so we decided to begin doing more dhikr, and began doing 100 istighfars. As soon as we began, and the kids heard us, they came back down and joined us until the end! “We decided to come back and sit with you,” they said. And this time they brought in two older school kids, somewhere around the age of 14 maybe. I dunno where they found them from. After the istighfars,  they said their goodbyes once more, and Osman led Ibrahim and I in some salawat and tahlils.  If only we could have filmed such an amazing sight!

These young children of Syria and Turkey gave me two precious memories that fill me with joy every time I think about them. May Allah bless the children of the ummah of sayyidini wa mawlana Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam. May Allah increase in them the love of Allah and His Messenger, and His awliya, and His dhikr. And May Allah raise them up to benefit this ummah, to serve their parents, honor their neighbors and guests, to have the best of good manners, and to raise the banner of Islam.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صل وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

I spent a night in Girne then I continued my journey to Lefke, the little town where shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi lives. I arrived on Friday, maybe half an hour before the adhaan for Jumu’ah. Fridays are the only days that shaykh Nazim now can come out, because of his old age and health condition. May Allah bless him in his age.

The Jumu’ah khutba was short. It was almost entirely du’as, the khutba itself being two or three sentences long. It was done by someone other than shaykh Nazim. The whole thing was recited beautifully, and the few lines about the approach of the end of Muharram were enough to do their job.  Then I was pleased to see that after the Salaat, everyone did the dhikr together, not individually or silently. That is how sayyidna Ibn Abbas, radi Allahu anhu said it was done in the time of the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa sallam: he said that if you were outside the mosque, you could tell when the Salaat ended by hearing the dhikr.

After that there was a hadra and a lesson by the shaykh about what kind of things we should concern ourselves with, and what things we shouldnt waste our time thinking about. He talked about how animals are always concerned with their food, and so they keep themselves worried about affairs of the earth, while humans are supposed to rise above that, and to think about their souls. “Do you ever see a cow looking up?” He asked us. “They are always looking down, at their food.”

It was a very small and simple dergah (zawiya), beautifully decorated. The mihrab was really special and I loved that beside mentioning the names of the 4 caliphs, radi Allahu anhum, it had a hadith praising each one. There you see so many people from all parts of the world, dressed outwardly in the sunna, reviving the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa sallam. And by spending more than two days there I saw that they all strived to live the sunna in every way, not just in dress. They lived quite simply when they were in Lefke, visiting the shaykh. Most just slept in the dergah, on the floor, covering themselves with a blanket or sleeping in a sleeping bag. The food they ate was really basic, and not the most delicious, but I’m sure that it contained a lot of baraka.

While I slept the first night in a hotel nearby, the second night I was locked out of my hotel. They close their door at 12 pm, and no one was picking up on the late-night number they had for those who came later. So on that second and final night there, I found myself walking back to the dergah in the middle of the night. I went outside to the kitchen/dinner area, which is in the garden, and prayed two rak’ahs. Somehow I felt that the shaykh was observing me, from the little mud room that he had built for himself on top of the roof. Then I went inside and found a beautiful space on the floor of the mosque to sleep, covering myself in my jacket.

Someone gently woke me up one hour or so before fajr, and said to me: “I’m going to pray tahajjud now.” That was his way of inviting me to join them. I looked around and saw everyone around me up, praying tahajjud on their own, or worshipping Allah in any way. I sat up cross-legged, with my back against the wooden minbar which was behind me, too tired to get up. Then I must have fallen asleep in that position.

Then as the Fajr adhaan began, the same man, a very large and sweet man with much light on his face, gently rubbed his hand across my back in circular motions to wake me up for Fajr. Amazingly sweet of him! So I got up to go do wudu, and saw above me a tall man in green reciting the adhan on a raised metal platform. It was really beautiful. That man, Omar, was a mysterious fellow. A British revert. He was the first person I saw in Lefke, and guided me to the zawiya. Likewise, my two friends who had come from the UK had arrived the night before me, and he was also the first person they saw in the town, and guided them to a place to stay. Made me liken him to al-Khadir alayhi assalam.

After the Fajr salaat, everyone did a beautiful dhikr/hadra together. And I remember sitting there, watching, and thinking: SubhanAllah, this is why Allah Most High loves the Sufis. Always coming together and doing dhikr at every opportunity. Worshipping Him with a most beautiful spirit.

I considered it a good-bye gift from shaykh Nazim, that I was forced to sleep in the dergah that night. What an unforgettable experience!

I saw people from every kind of nationality there: A great number of Turks, some Lebanese and Syrian men, a Kazakh, a Chechen, a Somali, a few Russians, a British Palestinian, and others who were born Muslim from all parts of the world. And there was also a great number of converts from all parts of the world.. many of them British.

I made a friend there, Ibrahim, who was a British convert with quite an interesting past. He heard that I was going back to Jordan through Syria and decided to come along, to see Syria and learn as much Arabic as possible in a month before going back to Lefke to get married. We flew from the Lefkosa airport in Turkish Cyprus to Antioch (aka Hatay) in Turkey, near the Syrian borders.

There we checked into a great little hotel then went outside to get a fruit cocktail juice. As we were sitting enjoying the juice, a large man came and greeted Ibrahim! It was Osman, a Belgian convert who had been living in Lefke for the past 10 years, working as an unofficial taxi driver for all the people who are coming and going from the Airport to Lefke and back. He was also on his way to Syria, having spent the last 5 days in Turkey with a friend. He had gotten on bus hoping to buy a ticket on the bus itself, and at one point, they realized that he didnt have a ticket, and told him that he cant buy a ticket on the bus. And so they threw him out the bus. And where did they make him get out? Right in front of the fruit juice place, where we were sitting! SubhanAllah! We invited him to join us in our hotel room – now realizing that it was for this reason that we were given a room with three beds- , and the next day we went to visit the maqam of shaykh Habib Najjar, a great wali who was martyred at the hands of the Christians in Antioch. Then we took a special taxi that goes to Aleppo.

As we arrived in Aleppo, the taxi driver called his friend, who used to do the same job: driving people from Turkey to Syria or the other way around. He asked him to drive us around Aleppo and help us out, which was much needed because of our luggage which we didn’t know where to place. So we agreed on a price, and he spent the few hours that we had in Aleppo with us.

We went to the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo to pray, and to visit the maqam of the Prophet Zakariyya, alayhi assalam. Then this taxi driver says to me: You know, I once had a large group of 45 converts, mostly European, who came here to Aleppo to visit a shaykh. They came from Cyprus, from a shaykh there.

“Shaykh Nazim?” I asked.

“YES! Him! All these converts, shaykh Nazim had sent them to visit a shaykh here, near Aleppo, called Shaykh Hussein. He was a very old man when I drove them to him in a big bus. I dont know if he’s still alive.”

Osman explained to us that shaykh Hussein was another murid of shaykh Abdullah Daghestani, and that there was at first a dispute on who was shaykh Daghestani’s successor, him or shaykh Nazim. And SubhanAllah, this taxi driver of ours took all these murids to visit that blessed man!

Then he took us to the bus station where we took a 4-hour bus down to Damascus, where the shaykh of the Naqshbandi zawiya in Damascus had sent us a driver to pick us up from the bus station. He took us straight to the house of shaykh Nazim near the zawiya up Qasyoon mountain, where murids who are passing by Damascus are invited to stay. I left Osman and Ibrahim there and went to sleep in the hotel I always like to stay in.

The next day, they went around to explore Damascus, while I had other business to attend to. But at night, I decided to go to the house to say my goodbyes. Neither of them had phone numbers there, so I decided to just go and inshaAllah they would be there. My friend and I walked across Damascus to an area called Rukn al-Din, where we rode on the back of a little pick-up truck (they’re like taxis specialized for the difficult climb up the mountain, where you go through very narrow roads and need difficult maneuvering).

He dropped us off near the Zawiya, where you would have to walk to hit the zawiya. But then I realized as I was paying him that I wanted the house of shaykh Nazim, not the Zawiya, and that I didn’t know where to find it. Just as this thought was forming in my mind, I saw a large turban entering the house right in front of the taxi. I looked up above the door and saw “Bism Allah ar-Rahm ar-Raheem” in beautiful calligraphy, and realized that the pick up truck driver dropped us off right in front of the house! SubhanAllah. “Follow the white rabbit,” I thought. I knocked on the door, only to realize that it was Ibrahim who had just entered the house before me, wearing that turban. Perfect timing, subhanAllah!

As soon as I get in, I see Osman about to leave, as he had an appointment elsewhere. Perfect timing to say goodbye, and to give him my number in Jordan! Then a man came in through the door into the house. A Syrian man, from the area, the short stubble on his face was all gray. But he didn’t seem to speak. I asked Ibrahim who that was, and he said: I dont know, he just invited himself in.

I tried to speak to him, to see what he wants, but it seems that he was a mute, and I wasn’t getting his gestures at first. But then I realized that he was making the shape of a long beard with his hand, and was trying to say: “How is the shaykh?”

“Shaykh Nazim?”  I asked

He was so happy when I mentioned shaykh Nazim’s name that his eyes welled up immediately with tears, and he raised his hands to the skies, making a du’a for shaykh Nazim. It was so touching and emotional.

I told him that shaykh Nazim was well alhamdulillah. He was so happy that he grabbed my hand and tried to kiss it, but I pulled it away! SubhanAllah at the great love he must have for this shaykh. And I’m quite sure that this was not a man from the tariqa, but just a man who lived in the neighborhood and must have interacted with the shaykh when he used to visit Damascus a long time ago.

After that I went back to the hotel, and set off the next day back to Amman. On Thursday I went to the Naqshabandi dhikr and told shaykh Abdessalam there of my successful journey.

Alhamdulillah, this was truly an amazing journey, full of great tangible blessings, and amazing things. So many interesting stories, so many interesting people. So many almost miraculous things. But this is not the place for them. I will just conclude by saying that I have now a profound appreciation for shaykh Nazim and that great work he’s doing for this ummah. A long time ago, I might have had some doubts about shaykh Nazim, but they are all gone now, replaced with a strong belief in his wilaya. May Allah give him long life, and benefit us by him and by all the awliya.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صل وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

The Journey Continues

From Konya, the home of mawlana Jalaluddin ar-Rumi, I continued my journey toward North Cyprus, a country that was created by Turkey, and is not recognized by the rest of the world. There, in the little town of Lefke, was shaykh Nazim. I travelled by buses to a little port town called Tasucu (pronounced Tashuju), where you can get daily boats to the popular resort town of Kyrenea (Girne). Slept the night there, and took a boat the next day at noon. Now, there are boats that take 6 hours, and boats that take 2.5. I had assumed that the 6 hour boats are just really really slow, because they carry cargo and all kinds of things. But I was wrong. The 6 hr boats might be a little slow, but the 2.5 hr boats were just really really fast.

5 minutes into the sea, a man from the crew walked down the isles, just as flight attendants do when they’re giving you a nice hot towel to clean your hands and face with. Except he was passing out puke bags.

Not long after that, people on the boat began to puke. Soon, almost the entire boat was running to the back of the boat and throwing up, some of them basically stayed there the whole time. Others bent over on their seats, with their heads down, as if they’re about to faint, while others squirmed in their seats, or went into a fetal position. An old Turkish comedy film was being played on tv, and people’s laughter became louder the more scared they were.

Alhamdulillah I did not throw up. I took out my tasbeeh and started doing some tahleels, as the boat jumped (almost flying) from wave to wave.

Allah Most High said in a Hadith Qudsi:

“I, I am Allah, there is no god but I. He who admits to My tawhid enters My fortress, and he who enters My fortress is secure from My punishment.”

Sayyidi wa mawlay Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari radi Allahu anhu said:

“He who does dhikr with Lā ilāha illa Allah should keep the meaning of the ḥadīth ‘is secure from my punishment’ in mind, and assure himself of safety and security as long as the dhikr goes on.”

So I kept reminding myself that while I repeat it, I am in the fortress of Allah, in a safe and secure place.

The Benefit of Travel by Sea (and by extension, Air)

Sayyidi wa mawlay Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris, radi Allahu anhu said:

“And no one truly knows the greatness of the earth except he who rides the sea. For if he rode it, and experienced the swaying and dizziness, and became ill without any illness, let alone the great terrors of the strong winds and the like, then he would know the greatness of the earth.

Our shaykh, sayyidi Abd al-Wahhab at-Tazi rode the sea 40 days. He was asked: How long were you on the sea? He said: 40 years! He made each day a year, and he, may Allah be pleased with him, used to say: “There is nothing good in the sea except one: the attachment of the heart to Allah alone.” And right he was. For the human experiences the cutting off of all attachments except from Allah Most High, so that even if the Sultan was with you on the sea, you do not rely on him. No- he is scared like you, restless. And so the sea, even if in riding it there are terrors, its tribulations are good, a blessing. For the best of tribulation is the one that produces pure tawhid. He who rides the sea is secure from shirk: “But when He saves them and brings them to the land, then they commit shirk.” (Q 29:65)

Whether He really saves them to the land or sends them a mild wind with which they travel, they will commit shirk. “When you are sailing on ships and rejoicing in the favoring wind, a storm arrives.” (Q 10:22) Because they became happy by the wind, not by its Creator, as if it came from themselves, and so He punished them by sending a storm. For the origin of misguidance is happiness in other than Allah. “Thus does Allah lead unbelievers astray. That is because you were wont to rejoice on the earth in other than the haqq.” (Q 40:74-5) And al-Haqq is Allah. “This then is Allah, your Lord, the haqq. So what is there, beyond the haqq, except misguidance?” (Q 10:32)

A Great Ijaza

Since we are speaking of travel by sea and its blessings, I thought this would be a great opportunity to present the reader a great blessing that came while sayyidi Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari was travelling by sea. This is a great blessing to everyone who reads it, so read carefully.

The shaykh says:

“I was travelling by sea on the boat from Jeddah to Libya, and I saw in my sleep that I was sitting in the room that I was in, on a bed, and next to me was another bed. I was sitting and reciting the First Salaat (of the Salawat of Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris). So when I began reciting it, the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam entered the room and sat on the other bed and he said, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam: ‘I came to hear from you the salaat of Ibn Idris.’

Then he laid down on his right side, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, and the more I continued in reciting it, the more his light increased, and so did his visbility to me, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam. So I thought to myself, whilst in the middle of the recitation, to get up and greet him, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, so I stood up and kissed his noble hand and he wiped with it my face and my chest. Then he pointed to me with his hand to sit and finish the salaat. So I sat back and finished the First Salaat, and said after it: “Oh you of perfect body, of you of beautiful attributes,” until the end of the Seventh Salaat. Then I woke up from my sleep, rejoicing, happy, thanking Allah Most High.

And he, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, had already given me a general ijaza for all the salawat. And that is that I saw in my dream that I was doing salaat on the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, with salawat other than the ones from our Idrisi tariqa. But when I began with the Azeemiyya (of shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris), he appeared to me, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, sitting on a chair. So I got up and kissed his noble hand and said:

“Shall I do salaat on you, oh Messenger, with this formula?”

So he said: “With it and with other than it.” And he pointed with his noble head from top to bottom, and from bottom to up, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam tasleema.

And I give ijaza to all the brothers from the Idrisi tariqa and from others, from the East to the West of the world, in this Salaat Azeemiyya, in which the Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam gave me ijaza. And likewise I give them ijaza in the First Salaat, which the Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam heard from me, and like wise I give them ijaza with the rest of the salawat, which the Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam gave me ijaza in by saying: “With it and with other than it.” And I make my sanad in that the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam.

And I have great hope that everyone who hears these words of mine, and turns with his heart and body toward these salawat, and recites them regularly with love and belief, that he will see him, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, in sleep and in the waking. And nothing stands between me and the doubters except trying.

So oh you who is fond of himself, proud of his every action, heedless of the enclosures of sanctity, turning away from the causes of his uns, hurry to us! And then hurry to us! For in every age we have appearances… and pearls, and jewels!”

———-

So there you go, oh happy reader. You now have an ijaza in the great Salaat Azeemiyya, and the rest of the Salawat of shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris, and all other salawat formulas in the world. And your sanad is this:

From the great Qutb, sayyidi Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari, from the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam.

Here is the Salaat Azeemiyya (riyada.hadithuna.com/files/2009/06/azeemiyya-ijaza.jpg) with the shaykh’s sanad in it from the Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, as well as the sanad that he took in the waking from his shaykh, sayyidi shaykh Muhammad from his father sayyidi shaykh Abd al-Aali, from his father sayyidi shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris, may Allah be pleased with them all. And it is known as the Formula for Openings (Seeghat al-Futooh) in the Mirghaniyya, Sanusiyya and Rashidiyya tariqas. And here again, shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari repeats that he gives ijaza in it to all the believers who see it.

And reciting it regularly brings about close adherence to the Prophetic Sunna, and nearness to the Messenger salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صل وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

Bism Allah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem

I just came back from a 10-day trip to visit two “mawlana’s” that have captured the hearts of millions of people, just as much in the West as in the East: Mawlana Jalaluddin ar-Rumi, and Shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi. Two of my friends were going to fly to Cyprus to shaykh Nazim’s town of Lefke, and I wanted to meet them there. We all wanted to see Shaykh Nazim in person, not through the internet and all its hujub. I decided to go by land and sea instead of the skies, so I set off to Damascus from Amman and stayed a night there with my friend, before taking a bus to Antioch (aka Hatay) just across the Syrian-Turkish borders. The bus left at 10 pm and arrived in Hatay at 4 am. Stayed a couple hours in the bus station and prayed Fajr there, then took a 6 am Bus to the large city of Adana.

The first thing that struck me after crossing the Syrian-Turkish borders was the beauty and blessedness of this land. The second was the grace of the slender Ottoman-style pencil-shaped minarets. I had always hated them in Cairo, but now I realize that it is because they were taken out of their intended landscape and put where they do not belong. Usually on top of Mamluk minarets whose tops had fallen off. But now that I see them in their natural home, built not with the large stones of Cairo, but with material that befits them, attached to mosques with very high domes, I see their beauty. And as my bus journeys took me across the plains and mountains of southern Turkey, my heart would smile every time I spotted one of these minarets in the distance, in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere. “Allahu akbar!” my heart would rejoice. How beautiful is the minaret- this sign of the spread of Islam. It makes you feel that there is no acre of land in the vast territories of Islam that is not blessed by the takbir of the muaddhin. “Allahu akbar!”

In Adana I bought a bus ticket to Konya, waiting only one hour there. There happened to be a man working there who could speak some English, so he helped me buy my ticket from the Bus company. I remember him putting his two index fingers next to each other and saying the Turkish word for “brothers.” “We are brothers,” he repeated in English. “Muslims. Now there are no more visas between Turkey and Lebanon, and inshaAllah soon also Jordan will be the same. Then we will be brothers again, like 100 years ago.”

Turkey and Jordan did agree to drop the visa between the two countries by the 1st of January this year, but the implementation of this decision seems to have been delayed. I had gotten a visa from the embassy in Jordan a month ago for a trip that never happened, and ended up using it on this trip.

Konya

Konya is in many ways the heart of Turkey. It is deep within Turkish territory, in the middle of Turkish plains and deserts. It is also one of the largest cities in Turkey, with a massive industrial portion of the city, the “Konya Sina’i” (Sina’i is Arabic for industrial).

It is also a religious heart of the city. One not very religious Turk complained to me that the people there are too strict and uptight about religion. Alhamdulillah, I thought, that religion there was strong. Konya was the capital of the Seljuk Turks, and I visited the beautiful Alaeddin Hill, on top of which were the ruins of the main Seljuk Palace, and the intact mosque of the rulers (which was surprisingly plain and simple). Its courtyard housed the tombs of all the Sultans.

But more than anything, Konya is known as the city of mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi. So when I arrived there, I took a taxi and asked him to take me to “mawlana.” To find a hotel next to the Mevlana Museum, which was the shaykh’s Zawiya complex and burial place, now turned into a Museum. I found a perfect little hotel called Hotel Rumi right next to the museum. (Yes, the rooms were quite roomy).

Konya is full of amazing mosques and sites, but I only visited one mosque adjacent to the Museum, and then paid 2 Turkish Liras to get in. How beautiful is that place! How serene! Mawlana Jalaluddin was buried inside his zawiya, and the bodies of his son and many of his closest followers surround him. Inside the same structure there are his personal clothes, tasbeehs, and many fascinating things on display. It seems he also owned a beautiful little box in which was a noble hair  from the blessed beard of the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam.

The museum inside also contained beautiful ancients manuscripts of the Qur’an, popular Sufi works, and especially mawlana’s own poetry collections. But what struck me the most was seeing a little old manuscript of the shaykh’s Wird collection. So I took out As-Salawat al-Arba’eeniyya of sayyidna wa mawlana Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari,  a short 40-salawat wird for times of travel and when very busy. I asked for permission from the museum workers to sit near the maqam, and they allowed me to, so I sat there and read them.

Now, despite being a museum, packed with tourists, it was still such a powerful spiritual place. The feeling I got, standing in front of the maqam, cannot be described. Almost brought me to tears right away. What made me really happy as well was that almost all tourists were Turks. The maqam was constantly being visited by young Turks, old Turks, families, individuals. There happened to be quite a large group of Japanese tourists when I went in, but beside them, everyone else was a Turk. It was beautiful to see them stand in awe and reverence for a very long time in front of the maqam, making du’as. Then seeing them greet the hair of Rasool Allah and kiss its wooden stand and the glass surrounding it. At one point, a museum security guard saw us honoring the hair, so he himself decided to come near and make duas there. It was beautiful to see him willing to step out of his role, to put Heavens before Earth, and to come show the noble hair its due respect.

While I was sitting reading my wird next to the maqam, I noticed two legs come and stand next to me for a very long time. I finished my wird just as the museum was being closed, and the man who was making du’as next to me helped me stand up, and we both went and prayed Maghreb. Then I went and bought the wird of mawlana Jalaluddin.

The next morning I went back into the museum, greeted the hair, and went back and sat down next to the maqam again. This time I read the wird of mawlana Jalaluddin, which is one of the most beautiful wirds I have seen. The Threshold Society has published it (the Arabic text), with transliteration and an English translation. For those who would like a taste of mawlana’s daily spiritual sustenance, they can get it from here (www.sufism.org/).

Interestingly, the same man who had come to visit mawlana before Maghreb the day before, and saw me reading my wird, came back the next morning as well, this time with a wird of his own in hand. Perhaps it was mawlana’s wird as well. And he stood next to me again, reading.

After that I went to visit the mashhad of Sham at-Tabrizi. It cannot be his actual tomb, as the Sun of Tabriz left Konya and disappeared.

There are two theories about the fate of that great spiritual master. The first is that he left town in December 1247 and never returned, and the second is that he was called outside the room where he had been talking in privacy with Rumi, and then assassinated. This latter theory comes from later sources, like Aflaki’s biography of Rumi, but Rumi’s own son says that that Shams left and disappeared forever, so that is the more accurate source.

Second, as Dr. Erkan Turkmen states in Teachings of Shams-i Tabrezi, Rumi went to Damascus twice in search of his master and failed to find him, “which leads us to believe that Shams really disappeared because Rumi could not be so naive as to remain unaware of the fate of his master.

Finally, Rumi gave up looking for Shams and found him within himself:

‘Since I am him then why am I looking for him? I am just like him and I shall speak on my own.’”

Shams himself had once said to the people around Rumi:

“If I were to speak the truth, all of you in this madrasah would aim for my life. But you would not be able to do anything. The harm of that would fall back on you. If you want, try.”

There are tombs attributed to mawlana Sham at-Tabrizi in Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world. We know of another great disciple of Shams, Hasan al-Bulghari (d. 1299), who settled in Kirman in Iran and taught and guided people there. He received his khirqa from Shams at-Tabrizi, and he was one of the spiritual guides and of the great Alauddawla as-Simnani.

For a short time, this great sun appeared in the world, and set it aflame. But it was not usual for a master of that caliber to appear so obviously back in that age. Back then, the greatest spiritual masters remained hidden. He said to Rumi:

“We’ve turned out to be two marvelous people. It’s been a long time since two people like us have fallen together. We are extremely open and obvious. The awliya didn’t use to be obvious.”

It seems that after a while, Allah covered His beloved once again with His curtains, and kept him hidden, out of the view of public.

After Konya, I set off on a trip to visit one of the descendants of mawlana Jalaluddin, mawlana shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi, whose mother traced her lineage to that great master whose tomb now is the heart of Konya, or rather, the heart of Turkey itself.

An article from the Jabhat Ulamaa al-Azhar (The Azhar Scholars Front), explaining how the world was tricked by Tantawi and the Ministry of Religious Affairs to make it look like the fatwa on the steel wall was the decision of the Azhar’s fatwa commitee (Majma’ al-Buhooth) and not Tantawi himself.

www.jabhaonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=191:2010-01-03-10-23-49&catid=36:2009-10-18-15-31-20&Itemid=63

It says that scholars came to attend what they thought would be a normal session of the Majma’ on Thursday Dec 31, and that the matter of the wall was not in the list of matters they would discuss. Despite the members being surprised to see television cameras in the hall, which is not something usual, they did not pay them much attention, and many assumed that they were there to chase the Minister of Religious Affairs, who was attending the session.

After all the matters that were on the list were discussed, the members of the Azhar were shocked to see the Shaykh of the Azhar, Tantawi, take out a piece of paper from in front of him, and read from it the special fatwa in which he supported the construction of the wall and turned its opponents into sinners in front of the TV cameras. That’s when everyone realized that it was for this moment that the cameras were there. Which meant that the entire thing was pre-planned outside the Majma’ with the Minister of Religious Affairs and the Minister of Media.

And as soon as Tantawi finished reading it, he got up from his seat and left, thus abruptly ending the session, amidst the shock that tied the tongues of everyone present, and no one was given a chance to comment upon it or discuss it.

And thus to everyone who saw this moment on TV, it looked like the  fatwa was the result of the discussions that took place that session, and the final decision of the Majma’ as a whole, when in fact it was a trick by Husni’s puppet, Tantawi, who never once cared for the opinions of true Azhari scholars.

One time shaykh Wagdy Ghoneim criticized him for giving a fatwa to please the Egyptian government, and which was opposed by every other scholar out there. Shaykh Ghoneim said to him: “Ya shaykh, 500 ulamaa have opposed your opinion!”

He replied: 500 plumbers!

Ghoneim repeated: 500 ulamaa have opposed this opinion!

Once again: 500 plumbers!

My friend Madi joined the Viva Palestina convoy when it first came to Amman. He’s been blogging about his experiences whenever he could, and I highly recommend you read it as he’s a really great writer.

See especially his most recent post about the two days that the convoy spent in a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia, Syria, while waiting to be able to cross by sea to Egypt. Very touching. Almost made me cry.

(madi2gaza.blogspot.com/)