I wrote earlier about the Syrian shaykh Ahmad al-Khodari, who studied under 3/4th of all the great ulama of Damascus of his time, before going to study in the Azhar, and then coming to Jordan to become the imam of Jordan’s oldest mosque until now.

He is a very blessed old man, and a great scholar, and almost all the great scholars in Jordan studied under him. He’s also very quiet, and rarely speaks to anyone. The first time I encountered him in the Husayni Mosque in downtown Amman, he was going back and forth across the prayer hall with his rosary, and I knew right away that he was a blessed man, from the look of him. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I tried to speak to him, but he smiled and signalled to me that he was busy with the rosary, so I left him and prayed whatever prayer I needed to pray at the time, and then I looked for him but he had disappeared.

His son, subhanAllah, became the imam of the mosque near my house recently. So he took me to the Shadhili dhikr in Sahab where I saw him the next time, and asked him if he knew shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari. As I said earlier, as soon as I confirmed to him that I was talking about the imam of the noble Azhar mosque, his face lit up in such a way that is difficult to describe- similar to when you ask a lover about his beloved. And he told us two stories that he remembered from shaykh Saleh’s Friday lessons.

Today, his son and I went up to him again and mentioned my shaykh again. Again, as soon as we mentioned him, his face lit up. All of a sudden, he became a talkative man, which really surprised his son. He wanted to tell us about the shaykh, and he kept talking and talking. Now his son told me later how shocked he was, as his father rarely praises anyone, no matter how great a shaykh or scholar or wali he is. And yet here he wanted to keep talking about shaykh Saleh, and even after the conversation ended and I went to bring the car around, he went back to talking about shaykh Saleh to his son!

He told us how the shaykh used to go every Friday after Asr to the maqam of sayyidi al-imam al-Shafi’i, and would compose poetry there, and recite it out loud. I wrote earlier the story about why the scholars of the Azhar had a habit of praying Asr at the maqam of imam al-Shafi’i on Fridays, or going there after Asr on Fridays. I highly recommend you read it here.

And he said how every night after praying the Isha prayer at the Azhar, he would go and spend some time at the mosque of Imam al-Husayn, visiting the maqam.

Then he told us about his own stories with the shaykh. He said that he had such respect and love for the shaykh, that one day, when he was fasting a nafl (voluntary) fast, and there was only 20 minutes left until Maghreb time, he entered the riwaq (hall) in the Azhar where shaykh Saleh always stayed, and found him and his students eating. So he said he broke the fast, even though there were 20 minutes left, in order to share the food with shaykh Saleh.

Then, I’m not sure if it was shaykh Al-Khodari or someone else who was listening to this story, who said, that there is a famous saying: “The meeting of the loved ones is a eid, so break your (voluntary) fasts for their sake.”

Then shaykh al-Khodari told us that one day him and a Kurdish student were fasting, also a voluntary fast. The call to Maghreb came and they rushed to join the prayer without having broken their fast yet. So after the prayer ended, shaykh Saleh called them to him and whispered to them: “You two are fasting, let me invite you to some sugar cane juice.” !

“We had not told him that we were fasting. He just knew. His karamaat were apparent”, shaykh al-Khodari commented.

Then the conversation ended, and as I said, I went to bring the car around, but the shaykh went back to talking about shaykh Saleh to his son. His son told me that at that point, his father’s eyes welled up with tears as he talked about him, and said to him: “For shaykh Saleh, the Ahlul Bayt were a red line. Their matter was very serious to him. He had such an amazing love for them that cannot be matched.”

After that, his son came with me back to Amman. On the way, he decided to call someone he knew called professor Abdul Jaleel, who is one of the oldest professors in Jordan University, he said. He is also a great scholar and a man of Allah, who has an amazing mind, the imam told me. He told me that since he spent a lot of time in the Azhar, he most probably knew shaykh Saleh, so he called him to see if we can go visit him, even though it was late at night. So he called him, only to find out that he had left his big house in Amman to a plot of land that he owns in the desert, where he often goes and spends some nights on his own, to be alone with Allah, without any distractions.

So on the phone, the imam asked him if he knew shaykh Saleh. Shaykh Abdul Jaleel told him that he not only knew him, he had a very close and loving relationship with him! The imam then said to him: “I read some of his poetry, and it indicates that he was a great scholar, a man of firm knowledge in the religious and linguistic sciences. He was something very serious, wasn’t he?”

So shaykh Abdul Jaleel replied to him: “He was the Badawi of his time!”

Now, if you’re not from the Arab world, you might not know the significance of that statement, so let me explain. In the Arab world in general, and beyond it, there are four awliya of the past that are known as the Four Poles. They are thought to be the biggest four Qutbs in history, and while a few others (like al-Shadhili and Ibn Arabi) might be added to their ranks, or held to be an equal to them, these four hold a very special place in the minds and hearts of the people, and are thought to be the great poles of Tasawwuf in history.  They are: Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, Ahmad ar-Rifa’i, Ahmad al-Badawi, and Ibrahim al-Dasouqi.

Shaykh Ahmad al-Badawi was a moroccan sayyid, who went as a child with his family to Mecca, and grew up there until he became a shaykh, and received his openings in Mecca, and was commanded to go to Tanta in Egypt, where he taught until he was buried. He is known as “Abul Fityaan” ( Father of the People of Futuwwa) and Shaykhul Arab (The Shaykh of the Arabs), and has many other glorious titles. His yearly mawlid festival is the largest in all of Egypt, and might be the largest in the world. He is thought to be THE shaykh of Egypt. He lived during the Mamluk period, in the time of the Crusades, and the great Mamluk leader, al-Zahir Baybars, destroyer of the crusaders, had a great belief in him, so much so that they say he was his murid. Shaykh al-Badawi’s karaamas in saving captured Muslims from the prisons of the Crusaders are very well known, and until this day, generation after generation of Egyptians repeat these lines:

The sayyid al-Badawi stretched out his hand from Tanta,

Brought the prisoner out from behind the bars of the Franks.

At the beginning of the night he reads his wird and repeats it,

And at the end of the night, he shakes hands with the Prophet!


So when the venerable shaykh Abdul Jaleel called him the Badawi of his time, that would be exactly equal to calling him the shaykh al-Jilani of his time, and that is how I always thought of him, considering his character and his charisma and his influence as a preacher and a teacher in the great Azhar mosque, which greatly paralleled the character and influence of shaykh al-Jilani as preacher and teacher in Baghdad.

In fact, shaykh Saleh had a very close relationship with shaykh Ahmad al-Badawi. When the shaykh was still a young student at the Azhar, he would give all his money away to feed his fellow students, and would remain hungry. One night, he couldn’t sleep because of the pains of starvation, and began to cry. So shaykh al-Badawi appeared to him and said to him: “Allah will expand your rizq for you, but don’t forget the brothers.”

After that vision, the shaykh decided to visit his maqam in the city of Tanta twice a year for the rest of his life.

In another vision, shaykh Saleh saw a meeting of the souls of the awliya under the dome of imam al-Husayn, who were deciding whether or not shaykh Saleh should be moved to Medina as he always wished. So shaykh al-Badawi said in a loud authoritative voice: “I AM THE SHAYKH OF THE AWLIYA! And I say that shaykh Saleh stays here with us in Egypt. But he will go every year on Hajj and to visit his grandfather, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam!”

So shaykh Saleh one night began to wonder: “Why does shaykh al-Badawi keep appearing to me, when I do not follow his tariqa?” So the soul of shaykh al-Badawi appeared to him and said: “Because I love you, shaykh Saleh. You have such a high worth in the sight of Allah that only He knows its greatness!”

One time, in shaykh Saleh’s friday lesson, a man stood up and said:

“Oh mawlana the shaykh, my son got lost, and I searched for him for three days without finding him. So I went to a high place and shouted as loud as I could: Oh Shaykhul Arab! Oh Sayyid! I want my son!

And as soon I finished this sentence, I found a man next to me saying: Is this your son? So I looked and saw that it was really the son that I was looking for, and I swear by Allah that this really happened to me!”

So shaykh Saleh said to him:

“You told me a story, and I will tell you another story:

I had given my birth certificate to a bookseller for a period of two years. And every time I would ask him for  it he would say: I returned it to you!

Then it happened that the Ministry of Religious Affairs requested the birth certificate, and without it I would not get my degree. So I prayed the Fajr prayer then I sat down reciting poetry of praise of the sayyid al-Badawi, may Allah Most High be pleased with him. And I said to him: Will my certificate be lost, and my degree with it, while you are present?!

Then I went after that to the owner of the library and gave him a cup of tea with milk and said to him: Drink the tea and look for the certificate. So he got angry and said to me: Your matter is truly strange! Two years have passed, while you have been asking for the certificate, and I keep telling you that you took it back from me, and you don’t believe me!  So I said to him: For my sake, look for it just one more time.

So as soon as he put his hand and lifted one of his books he found the certificate! So when he was shocked by that I said to him: I spoke to the sayyid al-Badawi, and he is a wali whose du’a is answered.”