Signs on the Horizons

by Michael Sugich

  One of my teachers in Makkah Al-Mukarramah, Shaykh Ismail, once said to me, "There is nothing worse on the face of the earth than the man of false claims.” The living Shaykh is the spiritual equivalent of a heart or neurosurgeon, with the power to heal hearts and minds. An unqualified pretender without the authentic transmission, knowledge and authority from God and His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, can be as lethal and dangerous as a medical quack and can do untold damage to the unwitting or misguided soul.

  Moulay Al-Arabi Ad-Darqawi wrote:

  "Beware, beware lest you allow yourself to be deceived by someone, for how many there are who appear to be preaching for God when in reality they are only preaching for their desires.”

  Shaykh Ismail also told me succinctly, "Anyone who claims to be a Shaykh of ma’rifa is a liar.” The true Shaykh doesn’t have to make a claim. He simply is. It doesn’t mean that the true Shaykh doesn’t acknowledge his role. He simply doesn’t have to stand up and proclaim and defend his claims. One pretender to the mantle of Ibn Al-Habib created a great deal of confusion when he made his claim, which reached as far away as Makkah Al Mukarramah, where I was living. Si Fudul knew the man and I had been asked by someone living in Makkah to ask Si Fudul his opinion on the matter. I posed the question. With a withering look, Si Fudul shook his head and said dismissively, "He behaves with the hauteur of a king. This is not the behavior of a true shaykh. This fellow only ever had authority to call people to Islam, nothing more.”

  At that point in my life I was without a living shaykh and was deeply concerned about this as all the great Sufi treatises stress the importance of keeping company with a living master. I asked Si Fudul what to do and he said, "In this time it is very difficult to find a living shaykh, nearly impossible. Make the sacred law (Shariah) your shaykh.”

  By the Grace of God, I did find a living shaykh, and eventually a living shaykh for the Habibiyya emerged, recognized by Si Fudul before he passed away. In this interim period I tried to follow the advice of this great, illuminated scholar. May God be well pleased with him and cover him with Mercy and Grace and flood his grave with light until the Day of Rising.

  “The lights of sages precede their words,

  so that wherever illumination occurs,

  there the expression arrives.”

  Ibn Ata’illah Al-Iskandari*

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

  He lived in the Sahara beyond the Atlas Mountains in the oasis settlement of Touroug, a mud-brick ksar, built in the ancient style, a honeycomb of dwellings interlinked by passageways. He was considered one of the greatest saints of Morocco. His name inspired awe and reverence.

  In his youth he had been a majdhoub, a holy madman, whose intoxication (jadhb) was so powerful that he could not live in ordinary society. Some men never emerge from this condition and can never function in polite society. They are technically mad but spiritually quite sane. When the great Sufi Shibli was accused of being mad, he retorted, "In your eyes I am mad and you are sane. May God increase me in my madness and increase you in your sanity!" It takes a great master with knowledge of both the outward and hidden sciences to be able to bring the majdhoub back to the ordinary world while preserving and enhancing his spiritual attainment. Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi came under the care and guidance of Shaykh Mohamed ibn Al-Habib, who restored his equilibrium and elevated his state.

  When Imam Shadhili was asked why he did not write books, he answered, "My companions are my books." In this sense, Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi had been "written" by his Shaykh.

  He was believed to be the spiritual heir of Shaykh Mohamed ibn Al-Habib and when the Shaykh died in 1972 it was assumed that Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi would succeed him to lead the order. When he was called on to take the mantle of Mohamed ibn Al-Habib, he rejected the overtures, saying, "I am not a shaykh! I am not anything!"

  Although he had re-entered the world and was the master of his immediate community, he remained reclusive, rarely venturing out beyond his desert home, which became a nexus of spirituality. Those who had been able to make the journey always returned in a state of awe.

  In consequence, Touroug took on a mystical significance and became a place of pilgrimage, an audience with its master the goal for many seekers. At the time, it took the better part of two days to get to Touroug from Northern Morocco. You had to negotiate the Atlas Mountains and cross the Tafilalet to reach the remote ksar. It was a grueling journey. Yet, once you arrived, you were on a twenty-four hour time-clock. No outsider was permitted to stay in Touroug for more than one day. Twenty-four hours and you were politely but firmly sent packing. No one seemed to question this rigid protocol but it seemed somehow unreasonable to me. Why not the traditional three days?

  One of the most common remarks one heard was the near invisibility of the saint. One visitor came for the first time with a group of fuqara who had met the great man before. They sat in the long reception, drinking tea, performing dhikr and awaiting the appearance of the wali. Finally the novice turned to one of his companions and asked, "When are we going to meet the wali?" His companion answered, "He's the one that has been serving you tea for the last hour.”

  In 1981 I was finally able to make the arduous journey over the Atlas Mountains and into the Tafilalet on the edge of the Northern Sahara to meet the legendary wali’ullah. We arrived in Touroug before sunset. From a distance, the ksar emerged on the horizon like a burnished mythical apparition. It was camouflaged at first, looking like a mound of earth ringed by palms and white desert. As we came close we could see the irregular outlines of the mud brick settlement. Entering into this small oasis was not so much like moving into another time as of moving out of time and space altogether. We were guided in to the ksar through a disorienting labyrinth of steps and passageways which brought to mind the optical illusions in M.C. Escher’s hallucinatory lithographs. We were led to a long room with raised wood-frame cushioned sofas around the walls.

  This turned out to be the home of Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi. We were each handed a woven palm whisk to keep away vicious biting desert flies which buzzed around the room until sunset, at which time they swarmed into the desert night, clustering around the date palms. We sang qasa’id from the Diwan of Ibn Al-Habib as tea was prepared.

  This was the most peaceful place I had ever been. The walls were permeated with remembrance of God. The people were marinated in remembrance of God. Within minutes, without doing anything, we were floating on a sea of tranquility. I had never been so swiftly transported into such a peaceful state so effortlessly.

  Moulay Al-‘Arabi Ad-Darqawi, may God be well pleased with him, would say to his disciples, "Relax the mind and learn to swim." It was there in Touroug that I first understood this saying. My mind relaxed. Thoughts evaporated. My heart was afloat. I was swimming! This was way beyond good vibes. I hesitate to say this, but we were completely stoned on the atmosphere; it was enthralling, addictive. Within less than 10 minutes I never wanted to leave this place. I felt as if this was how life should always be.

  As we sat in this blissful state, singing qasa’id, men passed in and out of the room. Unlike my predecessor I recognized Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi as soon as he entered. His face was beautiful, smooth, leonine and illuminated. He was wreathed in a white beard. He wore the green Darqawi turban. His presence was numinous and light, like a breath. He sat with us and tended to us. The atmosphere in his presence was at once unreal and completely natural.

  Braziers were brought inside the long room and skewers of meat were cooked right in front of us. Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi turned the skewers himself. We ate the meat with bread and used our fly whisks to clear the smoky air. Before retiring we were shown to the lavatories. One would have expected they would have been primitive and malodorous. On the contrary, these waterless latrines had a rich, perfumed smell. Waste was covered by dried camel dung which smelled like new mown grass. We then stretched out on the divans and slept until dawn.

  At dawn we were led by candlelight through th
e dark passageways to the mosque at the center of the ksar. The narrow passageways were open to a sliver of night sky flanked by high walls. One could see stars above. This was a primordial environment. There was no trace of modernity. We prayed the dawn prayer behind the imam and recited the wird in the half light. When the wird was completed we were led back to the home of the saint through the narrow passageways under the cold coppery sky.

  After breakfast we were asked to make the obligatory trip to register with the local district police authority. In the midst of this intoxicating encounter I resisted, but to protect the community had to leave the ksar and show face. Compared to the ethereal gathering we had left, the police outpost seemed vile, squalid and degenerate. Bottles of Moroccan wine were standing in one corner of the commandant's office. Official formalities done, we rushed back to the blessed company of our host where the remembrance of God was the only intoxicant.

  His son took me on a walk outside the ksar to show me the place they held their Eid prayers in the white desert. Nearby was a graveyard, each grave marked by a pot filled with stones. The desert custom was for every member of the community to invoke God thousands of times, marking their invocation with stones from the surrounding desert. These stones would fill the pot that served as a gravestone for the deceased. The surroundings were bleak and yet strangely arresting. He spoke of the pull of the world, which seduced many of the younger men to the cities. We tend to romanticize what we don’t have. Surrounded by the desert with the ksar in the background I reflected on the transience of life. Everything was passing away. I was passing away. This unearthly community living in a city of sand and mud was passing away. I had an overpowering sense of evanescence.

  I had been asked by someone from Makkah to ask Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi an awkward question about a person he knew who had gone astray. By the end of our stay in Touroug this was the last thing I wanted to do but I had promised to pose the question and, against my better judgment, I did. As soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew I’d made a mistake. Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi's sharp response was, "I don't know and you shouldn't think about it!" It was a rebuke delivered with lightning speed but with graceful indifference, more admonition than blame. He was giving me a lesson in good thoughts (husnu al-dhann). Once he had left the room, my companion Sidi Ali slapped his forehead, shook his head, chuckled and said, "If I'd known you were going to ask that question, I wouldn’t have come along.”

  Sidi Ali once told my friend and spiritual brother Shakir Massoud-Priest, "It's like you're travelling in the desert. You're hot and thirsty and on the horizon you see a green line and you know there is water there but as you come closer you start looking at the details. You see someone beating his donkey. You see something else that’s ugly. You need to step back and hold on to your original perception, which is the green and water, and not get too involved in the details. This is husnu al-dhann.”

  Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi walked out with us to see us off and say his farewells. At the door I turned to him and apologized for asking my awkward question. He smiled kindly, as if to say, "It's okay, just don't do it again," and then he closed his eyes and made a long supplication for me.

  As we drove along the desert tracks in the fading winter light, with the taupe colored mud ksar receding in the distance I suddenly grasped why we only had twenty-four hours. Without this rigid time perimeter everybody would have converged on this fragile community. Every seeker would want to settle in and stay forever. The life here was spiritual perfection.

  Sidi Mohamed Bil Kurshi passed away on 29 August 2012 (11 Shawwal 1433 A.H.) at the age of 110

  . May God be well pleased with him.

  “O how long shall we,

  like children in the earthly sphere

  Fill our lap with dust and stones and shards?

  Let us give up the earth and fly heavenwards,

  Let us flee from childhood to the banquet of men.

  Behold how the earthly frame has entrapped thee!

  Rend the sack and raise thy head clear.”

  Maulana Jalalud’din Rumi *

  THE CENTENARIAN

  By the time we met him, he was well over 100 years of age and had lost his sight. He had for eight decades devoted his life to the acquisition of knowledge and blessing. He was the great grandson of the 19th century Sufi master Sidi Al Arabi Al-Hawari and had been initiated by 52 of the greatest Sufi masters of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the famed Algerian Shaykh Ahmed Mustafa Al-‘Alawi. His name was Sidi Mohamed Al-Sahrawi but we always referred to him as the Wali of Bahlil, after the small village he lived in outside Fes. According to Shaykh Moulay Hashem Balghiti, he had a great sense of humor but I remember him for his gravitas and his ardent love of God.

  He made one of the most incisive statements on the human condition I have ever heard. It was this:

  "The sickness of the human heart is, 'what shall I do?'"

  This sums up our spiritual malaise. We don’t know what to do. Spirituality is the science of what to do. The Messenger of God, may God bless him and give him peace, said, "The religion is action" (al-deenu mu’aamalah); when we don’t know what to do, when we are in doubt, we become heart-sick.

  One member of our group had been struggling on the Path. He asked the saint, "What do you do if you perform remembrance of God for year after year but it never reaches the heart?"

  He replied, "You keep on invoking God because you never know when your invocation will take hold of the heart. Sometimes the effects of remembrance cannot be felt until the moment before you die. Have patience. Persist. Never give up.”

  Although he had been initiated by Shaykh Al-‘Alawi, he was adamantly opposed to his practice of putting his disciples into spiritual retreat (khalwa). He recalled that he knew two brilliant young Algerian scholars Shaykh Al-Alawi had placed in khalwa. They emerged from the retreat insane. "They are still insane,” he remarked.

  Years later a member of our group disregarded this admonition, entering into an Alawiyya khalwa - and lost his mind.

  In the aftermath of the death of Shaykh Mohamed ibn Al-Habib, the fuqara awaited the acclamation of his successor. For years no one emerged. There were many great saints of the Habibiyya Order at that time but none of these men admitted to the spiritual authority to guide the fuqara, although some lesser men laid claim to the role and were rebuked. Among the fuqara there was one younger man, an elegant and prosperous businessman named Moulay Hashem Balghiti. His father had been a great Sufi saint but, at the time Moulay Hashem seemed to be no more than a successful young businessman and sincere disciple. During one of our meetings with Sidi Mohamed Al-Sahrawi he said, almost as an afterthought, "You know, Moulay Hashem is a wali’ullah.” This seemed a strange remark at the time because the young man bore no obvious signs of sainthood beyond being a man of obvious piety and a generous host. A quarter century later, he emerged as the successor to Ibn Al-Habib, confirmed by all the living saints, and revived this moribund Sufi Order.

  I visited Sidi Mohamed Al-Sahrawi in 1981 at his home in Bahlil. He had the largest set of prayer beads (tasbih) I had ever seen hanging on the wall of his minzah. When one from our group commented on this gargantuan rosary, he chuckled and said that he’d been offered an enormous sum of money to sell the prayer beads but refused. We sat and invoked God. He was almost childlike in his love of invocation. He wept when we sang from the Diwan of Ibn Al-Habib and threw himself into an impromptu hadra.

  I asked him how to perfect my circumambulation (tawaf) of the Kaaba. He told me that I should make sure to kiss the Black Stone at least once during the seven circuits; that this was like kissing the Hand of God.

  Sidi Mohamed Al-Sahrawi took me close to him, put his arm around me. He took his gigantic tasbih off the hook on his wall and placed it around my neck. He confessed to me, "I only want to have a good opinion of people. I only want to think good thoughts.” May God bless him and cover him with Mercy.

  “Do not abandon the Invocation

&
nbsp; because you do not feel

  the Presence of God therein.

  For your forgetfulness of the Invocation of Him

  is worse than your forgetfulness

  in the Invocation of Him.

  Perhaps He will take you from an Invocation

  with forgetfulness to one with vigilance,

  and from one with vigilance to one

  with the Presence of God,

  and from one with the Presence of God to one wherein everything but the Invoked is absent.”

  Ibn Ata’illah Al-Iskandari*

  TRANSMISSION

  Sayyid Abu Bakr Attas Al-Habshy lived close to my home, in a simple house on a basalt hillside in the Nuzha District of Makkah Al-Mukarramah, but without accompanying my shaykh Sayyid Omar Abdullah I would never have met him. One of the greatest living saints of Makkah, a man of austerity, sobriety and profound knowledge, he was a recluse who never left his house except to attend the Friday congregational prayers. Sayyid Omar and I would visit Sayyid Attas after the Friday prayer and would sit with him until the afternoon prayer. He and Sayyid Omar had known each other for many years and would hold spiritual conversation while I looked on and listened. Visiting Sayyid Attas would become a Friday ritual whenever Sayyid Omar was in Makkah.

  On one of these visits I brought my friend, an heir to an oil fortune who had embraced Islam several years earlier. He had spent a lot of time in Saudi Arabia but had never had contact with people of the Path.