I’ve written earlier about some of the Zawiyas that I visited in Jordan. (riyada.hadithuna.com/desert-bloom/), (riyada.hadithuna.com/another-garden-in-jordan/), and some of its shaykhs (riyada.hadithuna.com/12/).

Today the imam of my local mosque took me to two more of the gardens of Paradise.

The first was the dhikr of the Naqshbandi Haqqani tariqa. It was a small gathering of about 15-20 people in the basement of a mosque. The shaykh there is a Circassian Turkish old man, who came to Jordan many years ago. Because there are some high-profile people who come to his dhikr, it is kept small and not many people know if it.

The shaykh was so beautiful. So full of light. His white face and large white beard shined with so much light. And his eyes seemed to always have a tear in them, always on the verge of crying. I loved him so much, in a way I can’t describe.

The dhikr was beautiful, and then the shaykh got up to personally make us tea and serve us some date-filled biscuits.

Afterwards, the imam drove us to one of the zawiyas of the Qadiri Kasnazani tariqa. We arrived after their dhikr had ended, but we were treated to a long talk by the head of the zawiya, and special recitation of poetry just for our sake.

Before doing the Burda, they sang a stunning poem from their tariqa in praise of Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam, that had this line that I will never forget inshaAllah:

A heart in which you reside can never die,

for how could the light of Allah be extinguished?

The Kasnazani tariqa comes originally from Kurdistan in Iraq, and is the largest tariqa in Iraq. Today they claimed that they are the largest tariqa in the whole world, with 120 million followers. After the war on Iraq, almost a million Iraqis came to Jordan, and tens of Kasnazani zawiywas opened up in Amman, attracting also many Jordanians.

In fact, the shaykh of this zawiya was Jordanian.

[There was a long story about a piece of bread (hence the name of the post) that I have decided to remove after its authenticity came into question in light of things I found out later. However, I will keep this similar story, which is authentic:]

Bishr the Barefoot was born in Merv and settled at Baghdad. The beginning of his conversion happened as follows. He had lived a life of dissipation, and one day as he was staggering along the road drunk he found a piece of paper on which was written, “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” He bought some attar of roses and perfumed the paper with it, and deposited it reverently in his house. That night a certain holy man had a dream in which he was bidden to tell Bishr:

“Thou hast perfumed My Name, so I have perfumed thee. Thou hast exalted My Name, so I have exalted thee. Thou hast purified My Name, so I have purified thee. By My Majesty, I will surely perfume thy name in this world and the world to come.”

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