I’ve written earlier, in Farewell Visits 1 and Goodbye Cairo, about my visits to the resting places of the greatest men of Cairo, those that made it a blessed city. I had to go back to Cairo for three days last week, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to visit the last ones that are important to me but that I could not visit before. Thus these were final because they made me feel that I have visited everyone who is important to me personally, for now, though there are so many more great scholars, awliya, and Ahl al-Bayt to be visited. Insha’Allah I will get to return to Cairo many more times and visit many more people.

I began by visiting al-Sayyida Aisha bint Jaafar al-Sadeq, who you can read about in Farewell Visits 1. Thought I had visited her before, I decided to begin with her since she was the nearest of the Ahlul Bayt to the awliya that I wanted to visit, and they say that it is ill-mannered to visit awliya before visiting Ahlul Bayt.

After visiting her I went to al-Shafi’i and Zakariyya al-Ansari, again, since they were also on the way. You can read about their significance in Goodbye Cairo. Right next to al-Shafi’i’s Mosque and tomb complex is a small alleyway on the left, which if you take, and keep going straight until the very end of the road, you will reach a dead end, a small square surrounded by buildings. If you go into the building right in front of you, you will enter to the tomb of the Prophet’s companion Uqba bin Aamir, about whom you can read in Goodbye Cairo. I visited him once more.

From the same small square, if you look to the right, you will find a small pathway, and the first building on the right will be the resting place of three great persons:

- Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. Muhammad is the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib, but he is named after his mother whom sayyidna Ali married after sayyida Fatima passed away, radiya’Allahu ‘anhum ajma’een. I wrote about his political and religious importance after the martyrdom of al-Hasan and al-Husayn, radiya’Allahu ‘anhum, in my introduction to The Shii Doctrine of Isma.

- Right next to him is buried Dhul-Nun al-Misri, the infamous ancient Egyptian Sufi.

- And right next to Dhul-Nun is Rabi’a al-Adawiyya. I’m not sure if she’s burried there or if it is just a mashhad, a place where she was seen, but either way it’s worth visiting her and reading the Fatiha on her there, for Allah will notify her of it and allow her soul to be at that place when you visit, insha’Allah.

Then I was lucky to find at the tomb of Uqba someone who told me where to find Jalaluddin al-Suyuti. Visiting al-Suyuti was my main objective of this trip, but no one seemed to know where he was. Turns out he’s very close to al-Rifa’i and to sayyida Aisha. He’s buried in a large tomb (not in a mosque complex), in the middle of a cemetery, and it’s locked so you can’t go in, just read the Fatiha from outside. Al-Suyuti means a lot to me, as a great scholar and the mujaddid of his century, and I really like what little I have read from his works. I have discussed some of the main arguments of his book on the possibility of seeing the Prophet (pbuh) in the waking state, in Waking Vision of the Prophet.

I asked if anyone had the key so I can go inside and someone said that the caretaker of the Rifa’i mosque had it, so we went there to ask but it turned out that was wrong information. Anyway, I re-visited the shaykh al-Rifa’i, a descendant of the eponymous founder of the Rifa’i tariqa.

Then I concluded with visiting sayyidna al-Husayn and saying goodbye to my shaykh, Saleh al-Jaafari, may Allah raise us with them on the Day of Rising. I also said goodbyes to the most beautiful spot in all of Egypt, if not on the entire planet: the courtyard inside the Al-Azhar Mosque.

By visiting al-Suyuti, Rabi’a, Dhul-Nun, and Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya (who I had no idea was in Cairo), I felt I achieved a sense of completion. May Allah allow me to return to Cairo again and again and again.