The Messenger of Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam said that Allah Transcendent said,

“Fasting is Mine and I reward it”.

In the great Arabic dictionary Lisan al-Arab, when explaining the root word j-z-y (from which comes the word for “reward”), the great scholar Ibn Mandhur mentions this hadith qudsi and lists many different explanations of the hadith, including different explanations of the first half, “Fasting is Mine.”

He says that the best one is this:

“That ‘Fasting is Mine’ means that fasting is one of the characteristics or attributes of Allah, because He Transcendent does not eat, and so the faster is characterized by one of the characteristics (sifaat) of our Lord, and that does not happen in any of the works of the limbs (jawarih) except in fasting, while there are many among the works of the heart, such as Knowing, and Willing.”

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The great hadith scholar and Qur’an commentator,  Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi, explains it and the rest of the phrase, saying:

“Fasting is Mine and I reward it”: Meaning that fasting is one of My characteristics, as He Most High said, “And He feeds and is not fed.”  And there is a hadith that says “Adopt the qualities of Allah”. So He Most High and Transcendent has ordered His slaves to adopt this characteristic, which is to not eat, for a specified period of time. Thus His saying “Fasting is Mine” means: It is in Truth- in Reality- Mine, because I feed and am not fed.

“And I reward it” means: I am its reward. Because he has adopted one of My qualities, so I made his reward: Looking at Me, and so I am his reward. For a man said to the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, “Give me advice”, and so he said to him: “Fast, for it is something that has no equal.”

If the explanation of this hadith  was not as such, it would have no meaning- high and exalted is Allah above saying something that has no meaning! For if we took the hadith according to its apparent meaning, fasting would be like all other actions, because all actions are done for the sake of Allah, and He Most High and Transcendent gives their reward.

—–

Sources:

Ibn Mandhur, Lisan al-Arab.

Ahmad ibn Idris, al-Iqd al-Nafees, Cairo: Dar Jawaami’ al-Kalim.

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

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 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.” (6)

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) (7).

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.” (8)

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

————–

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

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

8. 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.

Today is the 27th of the sacred month of Rajab, and according to the majority view, that is the day when Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, traveled on his Night Journey (Israa) to Jerusalem, and then ascended from there to the Heavens (the Mi’raaj). Here are some important lessons and rulings for the seeker, that ulamaa have gained through study of the hadiths of the Israa:

The Life of Prophets:

The Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said that during his Israa, he passed over the Prophet Moses standing in his grave, praying (1). Then when he arrived at Jerusalem, all the Prophets came there in their bodies and clothes, and he led them in Salaat (2). Then when he ascended into the Heavens, he saw some of the Prophets there once more, as is well known.

From this we can take the following:

1) Proof that the Prophets are alive after their death, and that their bodies are still intact. The Prophet salla Allah alayhi wa sallam, told his companions that he will hear the salaat and salaam that the people of future generations will say to him, and they asked him how that is possible, when his body has decomposed, and he said, “Allah has forbidden the Earth to eat the bodies of the Prophets” (3).

2) Evidence that the Prophets can be seen after their death, by those who are awake. It also shows that it is not impossible for the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allah alayhi wa sallam, to go to, and appear to, Muslims in different parts of the world, just as the Prophets went to Jerusalem on that night.

3) Evidence that after their death, Prophets can appear in more than one place at once, or travel miraculously from one place to another. For example, our Prophet saw sayyidna Musa praying in his grave, then in Jerusalem, then in the sixth heaven, all in the same night. (4)

Honoring the Places of the Prophets and Righteous Servants

During the Israa’ journey to Jerusalem, the angel Gabriel said to the Prophet, “Descend and pray in this spot”, so the Prophet prayed there, and then Gabriel said, “Do you know where you prayed?”, and when he answered in the negative, the angel explained that he prayed in the place where Moses rested under a tree, in the city of Madyan (See the Holy Qur’an, verse 24 of surat Al-Qasas). (5)

The Angel Gabriel made the Prophet perform the Salaat in another spot during the Israa, and after the Prophet prayed there, Gabriel explained that it was Bethlehem, where sayyidna Isa was born (6). Then they did the same on Mt. Sinai were God spoke to sayyidna Musa (7), and also in Yathrib (8).

The great shaykh Ahmad Al-Dardir wrote, “From this we take the permissibility of seeking blessings from the traces of the Prophets and the Righteous.”

The Imam of the Azhar, shaykh Saleh al- Jaafari al-Husayni, explained that this was because the Prophet descended while on his journey, and got off the Buraq, for the sake of the piece of land on which Moses sat, thus honoring Moses and showing respect to him, and giving thanks to Allah Most High.

The other ruling that we can take from that is the permissibility to visit the grave of Prophet Muhammad and pray next to him.

Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari wrote that the above hadiths showed how Allah Most High honored the places of Moses, and the Prophet was instructed to pray there by the angel Gabriel. And likewise, the Qur’an honored the place of Abraham, and instructed us to pray there. The Qur’an says, “And make the Maqam Ibrahim a place of Salaat” (Surat al-Baqara, verse 125), and in a variant reading it says, “And they took from the Maqam Ibrahim a place of Salaat“. Thus the Qur’an is telling us that previous nations prayed in this maqam, which is where the Prophet Abraham stood while building the Kaaba, and that we should also pray there.

Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari writes, “So how could we not then go to the Prophet - salla Allah alayhi wa sallam- when he is alive in Medina, in a garden from the gardens of Paradise(9) ? And how could we not respect his place, when Allah Most High glorified the place of Abraham and Moses, alayhim assalam?” (10)

Furthermore, it is important to note that neither Madyan, Mt. Sinai, or Bethlehem are on the way from Mecca to Jerusalem, which means that Gabriel made the Prophet travel to them only for the sake of visiting them and honoring them. This is clear refutation of those who say it is not permissible to travel solely to visit the Prophet Muhammad in Medina.

When I went to Umra, I saw that the place where sayyidna Muhammad - salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam- was born, is now a library, and pilgrims are barred from entering it, and a large sign outside tells us that the Prophet never commanded us to visit the place of his birth and that praying there is shirk! However the Prophet himself prayed where the Prophet Isa was born, and if the Salaat is done to Allah alone, then how could it be shirk?!?! They are keeping the Muslims from imitating the Prophet! The place of his birth is more deserving of honor by Muslims than that of sayyidna Isa, and more deserving of performing Salaat there in praise of Allah, thanking him for sending us His Mercy unto mankind.

Should You Fast on the 27th of Rajab?

First of all, no one knows for sure if the 27th of Rajab is really the day of the Israa’ and Mi’raj.

Shaykh Yusef al-Qaradawi says, “Among the prohibited types of fasting is any kind of fasting people initiate on their own without any Shari’ah text or evidence. An example of this is the fasting on the 27th of Rajab thinking that it is the day that followed the night of Al-Israa’ and Al-Mi`raj.” (11)

But there are in fact some reports and traditions about the benefit of fasting that day, and staying up that night. However these traditions make no connection between this day and the Israa and Miraj.

Shaykhul Islam, the imam Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, writes in his Ghunya that scholars have counted 14 nights in which it is recommended to stay up for worship, and among those are the first night of Rajab, the night of the 15th of Rajab, and the night of the 27th of Rajab.

He also relates with his isnad to Abu Hurayra, that the Prophet salla Allah alayhi wa sallam said, “For him who fasts the 27th of Rajab, the reward of sixty months of fasting will be written down for him.”

He says that it is the first day that Gabriel told the Prophet to announce his message to the people, thus it is the first day of the Prophet as a Messenger. Remember that the Prophet fasted on Mondays because it was the day he was born and the day he received the first revelation (12), and fasting on the day he was given the first message to mankind is similar to that, and might explain the merit described in the hadith above.

Al-Jilani also relates with his isnad to Hasan al-Basri the special practice of Ibn Abbas (of seclusion and Salaat from Fajr until Asr) on that day, which he said is what the Prophet did on that day, which shows that this is a special day that should be honored. (13)

And may Allah guide us to honoring His special times, places, and servants.

———-

1. Sahih Muslim

2. Sahih Muslim

3. In the hadith collections of Al-Nasa’i, Abu Dawood, Ibn Majah, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and Al-Bayhaqi.

4. For a more in-depth discussion, see the article Waking Vision of the Prophet: (riyada.hadithuna.com/waking-vision-of-the-prophet/)

5. In the hadith collections of Al-Tirmidhi and Al-Bayhaqi.

6. In the hadith collections of Al-Tirmidhi and Al-Bayhaqi and Al-Nasa’i.

7. In Sunan Al-Nasa’i.

8. The Prophet changed its name to Teeba, and is now known as Al-Madina al-Munawwara. This was in the hadith collections of Al-Tirmidhi and Al-Bayhaqi and Al-Nasa’i.

9. Referring to the hadith in Sahih Bukhari: “Between my house and my pulpit is a garden from the gardens of Paradise” and the hadith in Tirmidhi: “The grave is a garden from the gardens of Paradise, or one of the pits of Hell”.

10. Al-Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari, Al-Siraj al-Wahhaj fee Qissat al-Israa’ wal-Mi’raj, Cairo: Dar Jawami’ al-Kalim.

11. Quoted in a fatwa on Islam Online.net

12. Sahih Muslim.

13. See the chapter called “Majlis: Fee Fada’il Shahr Rajab” in Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani’s Al-Ghunya li-Talibi Tariq al-Haqq.

“One! One!” is all sayyidna Bilal ibn Rabah repeated as he was being tortured by his owners for proclaiming Islam. With a heavy rock crushing his chest, and pushing his bare back into the scorching sand, every inch of his body must have been burning in flames of heat. The midday sun of Mecca torturing the top of his body, and the burning sand torturing his back, there was no escape for Bilal except into the world of the spirit, to which he turned all his attention, until he drowned in the ocean of the witnessing of Allah’s oneness. His body was on fire, but his soul was drinking from the ocean of witnessing: One! One! That was the station of sayyidna Bilal, at the beginning of Islam, so just imagine what stations he reached after being Rasool Allah’s personal assistant.

He become such a lover of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam that he could no longer say the adhaan after his death: his tears always stopping him from finishing “I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” That is why Bilal was happy on the day of his death, saying that he would soon be reunited with sayyidna Muhammad. Allahumma Salli alaa sayyidna Muhammad wa alaa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallem. Perhaps it was because of his great love for the Prophet that Paradise itself loved him, for it is related that the Prophet said, “Paradise longs for three: Ali, Ammar, and Bilal.”

After sayyidna Umar opened Jerusalem to Islam, Bilal moved to Bilad al-Sham, and among the places in which he settled was a place in modern day Jordan, in an area of Amman. That area is now known as Al-Rabahiyya, because Bilal ibn Rabah lived in it, and a mashhad is built there to honor his memory, which I visited.

But during his stay in Bilad al-Sham, Bilal saw the Prophet (salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) in a dream, saying, “Is it not time for you to come visit me?” Bilal woke up sad and scared, and rode to Medina. He went to the Prophet’s grave, crying there and rubbing his face on it. Al-Hasan and al-Husayn heard of his arrival so they went to him, whereupon he hugged them and kissed them, so they said, “We desire to hear your adhaan that you did for Rasool Allah salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam in the mosque.” So he climbed to the top of the mosque and when he said, “Allahu Akbar“, the city shook. When he said, “Ashhadu an laa ilaaha illa Allah“, it shook even more. And when he said, “Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasool Allah”, even the women that stayed secluded in their homes came out and shouted, “Rasool Allah has been raised!” After the day on which the Prophet died, there wasn’t seen as many women and men crying on any day than on that day.

Bilal headed back to Bilad al-Sham after that, dying in Damascus in his sixties. Al hamdu lillah, I found his tomb there and visited it on my last trip, and buried next to him was Abdallah son of Jaafar al-Tayyar. I had visited Sayyida Zainab bint Ali b. Abi Talib in Cairo, who was Abdallah’s wife,  and his father Sayyidna Jaafar in Jordan. Abdallah is famous for his generosity.

“I wonder how the Umayyads would have felt had they known that people would one day climb up to the top of their palaces to watch airplanes landing,” I said to Amar. It was sunset, and the both of us were standing on top of the Throne Hall of Mushatta palace, as a plane landed slowly and gracefully. Of course when you’re inside the plane you know it’s not slow, and not particularly graceful, but from on top of those ancient ruins, that’s how it looked.

The palace was supposed to be the most magnificent in the Middle East, but its founder, Walid II, was assassinated before its completion. There was no one else on the ruin premises, but you can see the military Humvee, with machine gun on top, guarding the little path to Queen Alia Airport just outside the ruins. The only time I saw people there, they were Yemeni workers at the Mushatta Industrial City surrounding the ruins. They had a day off and were enjoying it by listening to the radio, eating, and taking pictures from on top of the Throne Hall, where the Caliph would be seated. This morning I had shown Amar the Citadel in Amman, which was built in a similar manner: At the beginning, there is a large mosque. Then there is a long hallway that travels in a straight line in between all the structures in the palace, leading to a Throne Hall at the very end.

I brought Amar with me from Syria, as I was there the past two days. Amar had emailed me while I was in Fas, saying that he discovered the Umayyad tombs in Damascus, and since it’s only 2.5 hrs away, including the time at the borders, AND I was getting a free ride both ways, I couldn’t pass that up. Inshalla I will be able to talk about the new things I discovered on this short trip to Syria, before I get back to writing about Fas.

As I mentioned in my previous post on Fas, I met a group of top scholars and researchers on my first night in Fas, who gave me two of their best students (and teachers) to teach me. These teachers had acquired degrees in the Ta’leem al-Ateeq (or the Ancient Teaching system of study in the Qarawiyyin Mosque and other mosques and institutes all over Morocco). They had actually lived for about 8 years each in the ancient Saffarin Madrasa that I had visited, and saw the very simple life of its students, who live in very small rooms, shared with one or two more people, and receive less than 50 or 60 dollars to live on, each month. It was exam season in the time that I went, and I got to see my teachers grading exams of young students in this ancient system, and I once went to meet one of my teachers in the Qarawiyyin Mosque, and found that its doors were closed to the public while students took their exams inside! One of my teachers was absolutely brilliant, and he acquired Bachelors and Masters degrees in both the Ancient Teaching system and the modern public university system simultaneously. He also got his PhD in the Ancient System and is now working on his PhD thesis in university, in Law. Fas gets really hot in summer, and a lot of its inhabitants, who originally come from other cities or villages, leave to their cities of origin in summer to escape the heat. This teacher was from Essaouira (home of the famous Gnaoua Festival), and he would go there every summer and memorize the entire books that he would be studying the following semester! He still knows Ibn al-Subki’s Jam’ al-Jawami’ in Usul al-Fiqh by heart, ma shaa’ Allah, la quwwata illa billah!

On my last (full) day in Fas, these teachers took me to meet shaykh Muhammad al-Taaweel, who they said is THE alim of Morocco today, recognized by all as a mujtahid in the madhhab, and is according to their estimation the most knowledgeable scholar in the entire Muslim world. So we went to his house to visit him, and he told me that these teachers of mine come from a unique generation. This is because, as he explained, the system of Ta’leem Ateeq had previously been gutted and weakened, but he didn’t explain when this happened, maybe it was during the French colonization period. Then it was restored to how it used to be, and my teachers were products of this generation, but now new programs have been introduced to completely weaken it again. He said instead of 10 hours of fiqh a week, they have now been reduced to almost one hour a week for certain levels, and complained that you can’t create a faqih from studying it one hour a week. He said what “they” want these days is to create people that carry the label of “Islamist” but have no brains or proper education, so that they provide no intellectual match for other parties, etc. May Allah protect Islam and put baraka in its ever-decreasing number of proper scholars. The shaykh gave me three of his small books to take with me to Jordan.

And so one teacher was assigned to teach me Ibn Abi Zayd’s Risala in Maliki Fiqh. I had taken with me the commentary of Shaykh Zarruq but he preferred we read that of Abul Hassan al-Maliki because it is what they teach at the Qarawiyyin. We read the first quarter of the book with commentary then decided that at this pace we wouldn’t finish in time, so for the rest of the book we only read commentary where we thought it necessary or important.

The other teacher was to teach me the Usul, and he brought showed me some books that we could study. There was no time to study Ibn al-Subki’s Jam’ al-Jawami’ with commentary, so I picked another book, mostly because I liked its cover! It was the Luma’ of al-Shirazi and turned out to be a perfect choice. It’s a book from the 5th century A.H., the century in which the science of Usul al-Fiqh was fully worked out, and in which some of the most important books on the subject were written. The book is short and explains all the important concepts, giving all views on the subject and then arguing for his view. My teacher pointed out to me whenever his view was different than what became the dominant view later on, and gave me the terms that were later put down for concepts that al-Shirazi discussed that still had no name.

We finished just in time, with a couple days to spare, in which we finished a tiny book called Isal al-Salek fi Usul al-Imam Malik, which is quite recent in authorship and simply lists and briefly discusses the Usul that are accepted in the Maliki Madhhab.

Usul al-Fiqh is possibly the most important science in religion, because it teaches you how to understand the Quran and Sunna, and how to derive laws: this it is the source and basis for fiqh.

Finally if you’re wondering why I picked the Maliki madhhab if I come from a country that is either Hanafi or Shafii, it is because the Maliki Madhhab is unique in one of its usul, and that is the Amal of the People of Medina. What I read about it in Yasin Dutton’s The Origins of Islamic Law convinced me that the practice of the people of Medina in the earliest generations is the best gauge of the Prophetic Sunna. Aisha Bewley has an article about it here: ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/aBewley/Page1.html but I definitely recommend you read the chapter on it in Dutton’s book.

The second reason is that my shaykh is a Maliki, and the more that a murid becomes like his shaykh, the closer will their souls be to each other, and the more that his soul will take from the soul of his shaykh. Thus I hope this will bring me closer to my shaykh, rahimahullah wa radiya ‘anh. This is most important reason for my choice.

I also read on my own the first half of Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa on the Maliki Madhhab, in which he discusses its superiority to the other Madhhabs. While known as a Hanbali jurist, Ibn Taymiyya later became a mujtahid mutlaq, not restricting himself to any madhhab and ruling according to what he sees is correct. It has been published as a small book called The Favoring of the Madhhab of Imam Malik and the People of Medina, and Aisha Bewley translated it and published it as The Madinan Way: The Soundness of the Basic Premises of the School of the People of Madina. I read the first half because it discusses the soundness of the usul of the madhhab, while the other half gives examples from particular fiqhi questions by comparing the maliki ruling to the other madhaahib.

Now I’m reading Shaykh Muhammad Abu Zahra’s Malik, which also studies the Maliki usul.

Finally, I plan to read, inshaAllah, a book recommended to me by my teacher, called Usul al-Fiqh by Al-Arabi al-Loh. He said that it basically summarizes what is in all the different commentaries on Ibn al-Subki’s Jam’ al-Jawami and that reading it is like reading all these commentaries. He said that if I read it and understood it, the entire science of the Usul al-Fiqh will be in my grasp, and made me promise him to read it at least twice.

Assalamu Alaykum,

I just returned from a 5-week trip to Morocco, a month of which i spent in Fas. Founded by Idriss II, who is considered to be a saintly descendant of the Prophet (pbuh), Fas (aka Fes or Fez), is considered one of the holiest cities of Islam. As one Arab chronicler wrote,

When he was about to begin construction, he lifted up his hands and prayed for it and its inhabitants in the following words: “Almighty God, make of it a house of knowledge and of legal science, so that in it Thy Book may always be read and Thy laws always observed. Let its inhabitants hold fast to the Book and the Sunna, as long as Thou shalt preserve it.” And so this city never ceased to be a centre of science and of law… Many and varied are the benefits, blessings and graces which Fez received thanks to the prayer which its founder offered on its behalf, thus echoing the Prophet’s intercession for Medina and our lord Abraham’s intercession for Mecca…

Another scholar wrote,

I know of no other Islamic city that is so ancient and so filled with religion and science, that was founded by a true descendant of the family of the Prophet; and the resulting blessing from this has never failed. (These two quotes were taken from Titus Burckhardt’s FEZ: City of Islam)

The year of its foundation was 808 C.E., making it exactly 12 centuries old this year, and I will speak more about this later. Fez became a center of knowledge not only for Muslims, but also for its large Jewish population. One century after its foundation, a Jewish scholar described it as,

“…the great ancient city of Fez, the seat of the Law, the threshing-floor of wisdom, the winepress of the testimony, which drives away sleep to study the Law of the Lord, which breathes divine learning even in its sleep…”

Now in the year 2008, Morocco is celebrating Fas’ 1200th birthday, with year-long celebrations, and on each month focusing on a different theme. I don’t remember them right now, except that May’s theme was a celebration of the contributions of women. You could argue that the greatest contribution ever made to the city of Fas was that of a woman, Fatima al-Fihriya, who in 859, founded the Qarawiyyin Mosque-University, the oldest continuously operating institution of higher learning in the world. The Qarawiyyin became one of the greatest centers of knowledge in the Islamic World and of the world in general, as even Christian and Jewish scholars would visit it and study in it. Her sister made another great contribution by building the Mosque of al-Andalus, so named because it was built by the Andalusi refugees who had come to Fas. This mosque was also an important center of knowledge but not so much anymore.

So not only was I fortunate enough to go to Fas on this special year, I also discovered when I got there that the annual Fes Festival of World Sacred Music would run for two weeks while I was there! Perfect timing, al hamdu lillah!

My father called his friend in Morocco, who called his (important) friend in Fas, who invited six of the top scholars of Fas in their fields for dinner. So on my first night in Fas, I find myself sitting in a room with all these scholars, asking me how they can help me! I told them I went to learn two things: Maliki Fiqh, and Usul al-Fiqh. They recommended two of their best students, who have been teaching at the Qarawiyyin for the past 4 years, and called them for me, in order to start the next day!

If you’re wondering why I picked the Maliki madhhab, coming from a country that is Hanafi and Shafi’i, you can read my next post about my studies in Fas.

It looks like I’m traveling again, possibly for a month. Updates when I get back.