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
nuruddinzangi