Yesterday I went out on an 11-hour “march” all over Cairo, to say my final goodbye to its most important people- that people that make it so special. But I wasn’t alone, I was part of a group of more than 100 people, at certain points of it many more, but the number fluctuated as the day, and night, passed by. This group, the the Jaafari Ahmadi Muhammadi Tariqa (al-tariqa al-Jaafariyya al-Ahmadiyya al-Muhammadiyya) does this on the day after each of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, every year.

We started at seven in the morning at al-sayyida Zaynab (r.a.) and ended at night at her younger brother sayyidna al-Husayn (r.a.), and all the way we would chant songs in praise of the Prophet (pbuh) and his family and companions.

Many of those we visited I had visited earlier, and I talked about who they were and described them in the earlier post, Farewell Visits 1, and they are: Zaynab bint Ali, Zaynul Abidin Ali bin al-Husayn, Sukaya bint al-Husayn, Fatima al-Nabawiyya bint al-Husayn, Ruqayya bint Ali al-Rida b. Musa al-Kadhim b. Jaafar al-Sadiq, Nafeesat al-Ilm (sayyida Nafeesa), Aisha bint Jaafar al-Sadiq, and al-Husayn, radi Allahu anhum.

As for the others, some I had visited earlier, and some for the first time. They are:

- The companion of the Prophet (pbuh), Uqba bin Aamir al-Juhayni (r.a.), who narrated hadiths from the Prophet which are in Bukhari and Muslim, and famous as “the narrator of the hadith of the Hawd“. Fixed into the wall near his tomb was a wide slab of semi-precious stone that, according to the custodian of the tomb, was given to him as a gift by the Prophet (pbuh). Thus people touch it for baraka, because the Prophet (pbuh) had touched it. We were told by the leader of our group that when he had to cancel this trip one day many years ago (in the reign of Sadat), on that very night as soon as he fell asleep sayyidna Uqba appeared to him and said, “Why didn’t you come? I was waiting for you”.

- Ahmad al-Dardir (d. 1787), known as “Little Malik”, a great Maliki scholar and wali.

- Al-Imam al-Shafii, whose tomb was built by Saladin. The above-mentioned shaykh al-Dardir used to see the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in his sleep a lot; some say every night. So one time another shaykh of the Azhar said to him, “They say that you speak with the Prophet, can you ask him about me?” So al-Dardir did and answered him the next time he saw him that the Prophet said of him “he is a good man, but in him is jafwa“. This is the same word, meaning coldness toward someone or antipathy, that the Prophet used in more than one hadith to describe those who do not visit him when they go to Hajj. So the shaykh cried and cried and said, “The Prophet means that I do not visit him, but I am an old man and I cannot possibly go now, what shall I do?” So Ahmad al-Dardir asked the Prophet the next time he saw him in a dream vision and the Prophet answered him, “I am at the tomb of al-Shafi’i every Friday from Asr until Fajr, so let him come to me there.” And after that it became the habit of the Azhar scholars to go there every Friday, one group after the next, but this was back when scholars were real ulama, and students were real tullab.

- Zakariyya al-Ansari. His tomb is in the hallway between the tomb of al-Shafii and the adjacent mosque. When you hear someone giving a lesson in Shafi’i fiqh and he refers to “Shaykhul Islam”, then he is referring to Zakariyya al-Ansari.

- The Maliki Masters (Al-Saada al-Maalikiyya)- Three of the companions and students of Imam Malik, as well as other great Malikis of Egypt from later times.

- The Sultan of the Scholars, Izz al-Din bin Abd al-Salam. I was so happy to see his name painted on the ruins of a medieval structure, and when we went inside, one person from the group was asked to give us a lecture on the importance of acquiring ilm, and then the gates of the Heavens opened, and it poured down on us a truly blessed pouring, and we raised our hands high, wide smiles of thanks to Allah on our faces, and prayed with certainty that our prayers will be answered. It was beautiful.

- Shaykhul Islam, the Qadi al-Qudat the mujaddid of the seventh century, Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, the first person to refer to his shaykh, Izz al-Din b. Abd al-Salam, as Sultan al-Ulama.

- Ibn Ata’illah al-Sakandari, the great sufi and scholar who wrote the infamous Hikam or Aphorisms, upon which there have been countless commentaries.

- The Sultan of the Lovers, the great sufi poet Ibn al-Farid.

- “The Sultan of the East and the West” Ibn Abi Jamra, author of a famous commentary on a selection from Sahih al-Bukhari. While he was writing his commentary, he would see visions of the Prophet (pbuh) expressing his approval of what he wrote, and sometimes others would see those visions instead and relate them to him.

- Al-Saada al-Wafa’iyya, a very famous family of sufi shaykhs that was very influential and powerful in Cairo, and they had their own tariqa- there were 13 tombs there. Two of them in particular are very famous as great awliya.

I think that’s it, and it took us eleven hours as I said, to walk to each one, recite some poetry in praise of the Prophet, his family and companions, listen to a small speech about adab, ilm, or fiq, and how to properly visit such places, and move on. We also had lunch in sidi Uqba bin Aamir’s moque.

We were supposed to also visit the “Faqih of Egypt” al-Layth, who had his own madhhab at the time of Imam Malik, and Rabi’a al-Adawiyya and Dhul Nun al-Misri, the ancient and famous sufis, but we didn’t have the time.

May Allah accept from us our striving to visit His chosen servants, and inspire us to be like them, and reward us with a visit to His Beloved, sayyidna Muhammad salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam. And alhamdulillah for allowing me to seal my three-year stay in Egypt with this great final goodbye.