Alhamdulillah, today I hit the jackpot: I found the most beautiful dhikr in Jordan so far.
However, it is not in Amman, but in the nearby industrial city of Sahab. And though I missed most of the dhikr, it’s the faces there, the people, that made me love it so much.

I went with an old Jordanian man, two mosque imams, and one ex-imam (who is banned from doing khutbas after a certain fateful khutba upset the authorities).

The mosque was called Masjid al-Muttaqeen, and it seemed to be at the very end of Sahab.

We went late, missing the majlis of Salawat on Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, and the mawlid sharif.

But we got there as they were beginning the hadra. I usually don’t like hadras, but this one I really liked. The recitation of poetry was beautiful, and so was the choice of poetry. But most beautiful was the sight of all those pure Bedouin Jordanian men, with long flowing beards, either intensely dark, or white and shining like the sun. It reminded me of the ancient paintings of sufi Samaa’. I was so impressed by the faces of everyone there. It felt like everyone was a wali.

It was a Shadhili zawiya, and their shaykh is Abd al-Karim ‘Urabi al-Husayni, who was the disciple of shaykh Muhammad Sa’eed al-Kurdi (and then of his khalifa Abd al-Karim al-Momani al-Hasani) , who took from shaykh al-Hashimi, who took from shaykh al-Alawi.

The shaykh lives in Irbid, almost three hours away by car, and he usually comes every Monday for the dhikr, but couldn’t make it today. Others come from Amman and many different places.

I was most happy to see shaykh Ahmad al-Khodary, the Syrian imam of the Masjid al-Husayni in central Amman. He is a very old man, with a beautiful long beard, and he is a true scholar of great scholarly weight. He taught all the famous mashayekh in Amman.

He had left Syria to study in the Azhar, and from there he came to Amman, which he never left since. He refuses to stay away from the Husayni Mosque, which is built on the site of a mosque built by sayyidna Umar ibn al-Khattab, radi Allahu ‘anh.

I had met him only once before, when I went to pray in the Husayni mosque. He was going back and forth across the mosque, with his tasbeeh. I felt that he was a very blessed man, and wanted to talk to him, but by the time I prayed, he had disappeared.

Since he studied in the Azhar, I asked him if he met shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari. He said: “The imam of the Azhar mosque?” I said “yes.” His face lit up, and his smile expressed so much love. He said: let’s sit down, so I can tell you about him. So a chair was brought to him, and we all huddled up around him, as he told us two stories that he heard from shaykh Saleh in the Azhar.

He told us how every Friday after the Jumu’ah Prayer, a large chair would be brought for the shaykh, and he would stand on it – and he was a tall man, he said – and he would teach for 1.5-2 hours.

These are the two stories that he told us he heard in the lessons of shaykh Saleh, that stuck with him the most:

1) There was a man who used to always go visit his friend, the imam of the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Husayn, but this man had something in his heart regarding the presence of Imam al-Husayn in that mosque. One day, this man came into the Azhar, and shaykh Saleh saw as if a huge army of soldiers suddenly descended upon the Azhar courtyard, filling it so that there was no place to take a single step, and they all beat this man to the ground.

Shaykh Saleh was shocked! Is this a dream or is this in the waking? It was surreal! Then they all suddenly left as quickly as they came. The shaykh went to him, and realizing that it’s because of what he had in his heart about imam al-Husayn, said to him: “If I had known that, I would have joined them in hitting you!”

(I think this is how the story went, but it wasn’t very clear to me, so I might have misunderstood it, and Allah knows best).

2) There was a poor scholar who would go give free lessons at the mosque of Sayyida Nafeesa, radi Allahu ‘anha. His friend was the inspector of mosques for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and he said to him: why don’t you move to another mosque, a certain small mosque, where the Ministry pays the scholars who teach there. If you stay here, you will never receive anything for your lessons!

So the man agreed, and moved to this other mosque, and started getting paid. After a while, he saw sayyida Nafeesa in his dream, and she said to him: Leave this money, and come back to my mosque, and I will make you Shaykh of the Azhar!

He listened to her, and went back to teach for free at her mosque. After a while, the Shaykh of the Azhar died, and they looked everywhere, and decided he was the most pious and righteous man, and gave him the job!

I asked all the same people to please take me again next week, but earlier, so I can catch the entire dhikr session with these amazing amazing shuyukh. MashaAllah. I was in such a blessed blessed place tonight.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله