Shaykh Saleh explained that people today have come to believe that saints are infallible but this is not the case. Saints can make mistakes. Only the Prophets can be said to be infallible and this is because "they are disciplined by God."
Then Shaykh Saleh told a long complicated story about a Qutb. In the story the Qutb had to do many terrible things in order to preserve the harmony of the world, including seeing to the death of a child who was destined to become a murderous tyrant. At the end of this convoluted and awful tale, Shaykh Saleh said, "Why would anybody want to be a Qutb?" He shivered. "I don't want to be a Qutb!"
During that period, my wife’s uncle, a gold merchant who had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and had spent years in prison during the time of Gamal Abdul Nasser, invited me repeatedly to visit his Sufi Shaykh. I wasn't interested in Egyptian politics and assumed that his shaykh was a Muslim Brotherhood shaykh with some Sufi connection. I never took him up on his invitation. I was a fool. His shaykh was the great Sufi master Shaykh Hassan Mawlatawi, who was, I learned many years later, the living Qutb of his age.
May God be well pleased with Shaykh Saleh Al-Ja'fari and Shaykh Hassan Mawlatawi and let us benefit from their blessing in spite of our many imperfections.
“Do not keep company with anyone whose state does not inspire you and whose speech does not lead you to God.”
Shaykh Ibn Ata‘illah Al-Iskandari*
THREE HUNDRED
In London he came to visit with an official entourage, but when he sat within our circle he assumed his essential role as spiritual guide. He spoke of Sahl ibn Abdullah Al-Tustari, may God be well pleased with him, who, as a youth, was instructed by his shaykh to pray constantly and prostrate much until one day his heart stayed in prostration even after his body rose up. He had reached the Station of Prostration (Maqam Al-Sujud) and his heart remained prostrate for the rest of his life. He told this story in a state of serene rapture, as if he himself subsisted in the station he described, but God knows best. His presence both electrified and calmed the assembly. His rapture was infectious… and unforgettable.
This was in 1975 when Dr. Abdul Halim Mahmoud was Shaykh Al-Azhar, the single most important official religious figure in Sunni Islam at a time of dramatic change for the Muslim world. The sudden wealth flowing into the Muslim states from the OPEC price rises had given the Islamic world new political and economic clout and a place on the world stage. King Faisal’s pan-Islamic movement had revived an interest in institutional Islam as an alternative to Arab Nationalism which was in decline in the aftermath of the Fall of Jerusalem in 1967. The October War of 1973 had placed Egypt back at the political center and given Anwar Sadat new prestige as a strong Arab leader.
Sorbonne educated, Dr. Abdul Halim was the most cosmopolitan religious figure in Egypt with a finely tuned political acuity. He was also a Sufi scholar with deep spiritual roots and a prolific writer on Sufism. And, most importantly, he was one of God's saints with a secret group of disciples. He would only accept a disciple who had first seen him in a dream and it is said that since his death he continues to teach his disciples in dreams and visions.
When I settled in Egypt in 1976 it was Shaykh Al-Azhar who facilitated my stay and signed an official document that I had converted to Islam in his presence, even though I had been a practicing Muslim for years. He watched over those of us from the West who had embraced Islam and made sure that we kept good company.
The last time I saw him was in Los Angeles immediately after Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Israel, which had endeared the Egyptian leader to the West and branded him a traitor to the Arab and Islamic world. Shaykh Al-Azhar had been sent by Sadat to the US on an official visit to reach out to the Muslim community in America. He gave a talk at UCLA, where we went to meet him. We were able to sit with the Shaykh for a while and then moved with his entourage to the Central Mosque in Los Angeles. He led the prayers. I was thrilled to stand shoulder to shoulder and pray beside the legendary qari (reciter of Qur'an) Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Houssari. Shaykh Al-Azhar then gave a press conference. I remember the reporter from Newsweek asked, tongue in cheek, "Do you think that America could become a Muslim country?" Shaykh Al-Azhar answered with a twinkle in his eye, "Why not? Americans believe in God and Islam is the religion of God. It is not impossible.” How things have changed.
Outside the mosque I met him. He greeted me warmly. I told him with some pride that three people had just converted to Islam with me. He smiled sweetly and said, "Why not three hundred?" His response left me deflated. Was he teaching me humility? Was he teaching me not to be satisfied with a small achievement but to aspire to greater things? I expected a pat on the back and felt that my efforts had been dismissed by this great man.
In retrospect, it occurred to me as I was setting down these memories decades later that one of the three souls who had converted to Islam was an intense and brilliant 18 year old former theological student who subsequently learned Arabic, traveled the world in search of knowledge, sitting with many of the great men of the Way and emerged as one of the most influential Muslim thinkers and orators in the West, reaching millions and guiding thousands on the path of Islam. He is known today as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. In balance I would say he counts for three hundred, at the very least. Perhaps Shaykh Al-Azhar understood this with the eye of insight.
God knows best.
“Whoever wishes to see three hundred men in one man has only to look at me, for I have followed three hundred teachers and from each of them I have derived a quality…”
One of the men of the Path*
THE MERCHANT
One evening I walked into our zawiya in London and found my companions gathered around two elderly Sufis from Hadramaut who lived in Saudi Arabia. One was stout and one was thin. They sang qasa’id from great awliya of Hadramaut. Their voices were rough and unmusical but they sang with great passion and intensity and they transfigured the room.
I had just been married. My wife was from Makkah and we planned to live there. When I was introduced to these men and they were told that I was planning to resettle in Makkah, the stout one told me I could find them on Fridays in the Holy Mosque near Bab Al-Rahma.
When I finally arrived in Makkah I did try to find them near Bab Al-Rahma but in the vastness of the Holy Mosque I never did and eventually gave up looking. Their names slipped my mind and I forgot their faces.
A year or two after I arrived in Saudi Arabia I was with my shaykh Sayyid Omar Abdullah in Jeddah. One day he insisted that we visit a great Sufi, a wealthy trader, at his home in the Kandara District of Jeddah. He had been invited to lunch and he dragged me along. (Being dragged along by Sayyid Omar was one of my favorite pastimes.)
We parked outside a plain, large, undistinguished old stucco house, walked up the stairs to an apartment and came upon the trader, Shaykh Mohamed BaShaykh, reclining on a couch in the sitting room. As was his custom, he had returned from his office in the old souk, prayed the noon prayer and was resting until lunch was served. Every day guests would arrive – friends, family and visitors – and would have lunch with BaShaykh.
That first day, over the afternoon meal, Sayyid Omar introduced me. BaShaykh said casually, "I know Haroon. I met him in London.” He had been the stout one. The thin man I came to learn was Shibli, who lived nearby. This was to be the first of many days I would sit at this great man’s table.
Sayyid Omar had known BaShaykh for decades. They were old friends and companions on the Way. Sayyid Omar had enormous respect for him. Indeed, although not the richest, he was one of the most respected merchants in Jeddah. Sayyid Omar told me how he attained his wealth.
When he was a young man, like so many young men from Hadramaut, BaShaykh left his home to see the world and seek his fortune. He travelled to Mombasa and then to the island of Lamu, off the Swahili coast in Kenya. He was very poor and was sitting in the Riyadha Mosque, which had been built by the Hadrami wali’ullah, Habib Salih, the patron saint of Lamu.
As BaShaykh was leaving the mosque a man suddenly approached him and told him he must go to Jeddah where he would find his fortune. BaShaykh was headed elsewhere but when he arrived at the airstrip to leave the country he found that the flight he planned to take was cancelled and that, instead, there was a cargo plane on the tarmac ready to take off for Jeddah and was offered free passage to the Red Sea port. He climbed into the small aircraft and from that point the way became easy for him.
He made his fortune importing livestock from Sudan to Saudi Arabia for the pilgrims. He was very wealthy but he lived a life of simplicity and austerity. His greatest extravagance that I could see was the daily gathering he would hold in a large assembly room (majlis) he'd built on the ground floor of his house. Every evening dozens of Sufis would gather, remember God, and be fed.
Otherwise, he seemed utterly indifferent to his wealth. He carried out his business in a small, pokey office in the old souk in Jeddah and he slept on a cheap steel folding bed. I got the feeling that his sons chafed under their father’s asceticism. He simply didn’t care for anything the world had to offer. His knowledge was encyclopedic. His presence was medicinal.
The last time I saw BaShaykh was at the funeral of our Shaykh Habib Ahmed Mashhur Al Haddad. We greeted one another. The encounter was deeply poignant. Both my teachers had passed. BaShaykh was like a magnificent boulder on the shore soon to be covered by the inevitable rising tide.
“The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse and never forgets God for a single moment.”
Shaykh Abu Sa’id Fazlu’llah bin Abi’l Khair *
THE ENGLISH SAINT
The first authentic book on Sufism I had ever read was A Muslim Saint of the 20th Century (later re-titled A Sufi Saint of the 20th Century) on the life and teaching of the Algerian Shaykh Ahmad Mustafa Al-‘Alawi. The author was Dr. Martin Lings, who at the time was Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the British Library. The book had a deep impact on me and was instrumental in sending me on the Sufi way. At around the same time I discovered a Folkways recording of a Yemeni Sufi hadra with annotations by Dr. Lings. I played the recording over and over again, longing to join this powerful celebration of remembrance.
So, in a very real sense, my journey began with Martin Lings, whose Muslim name was Abu Bakr Sirajud’din, and, although I only met him once, his presence and influence has, indirectly, been a guiding light for me through the course of my journey.
I once asked my shaykh Sayyid Omar Abdullah who among Western Sufis could have attained deep spiritual knowledge. Without hesitation and to my surprise he answered that it would be Martin Lings, who he had known since their days as students at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. I asked him why and he said, "He has made the act of invocation the priority of his life and has organized his life around the remembrance, contemplation and worship of God.”
The legacy of Martin Lings is unique and extraordinary. His writings on Sufism have guided generations of believers on the Way and his sublime Sira (biography) on the Prophet, peace be upon him, is the finest in the English language. As a spiritual guide, he left a wonderfully useful system for keeping to the Path in the modern world. His disciples have had enormous influence on the literary and intellectual revival of Sufism in the West.
My meeting with Shaykh Abu Bakr was the result of a brief but moving friendship with his very first student. During my first sojourn in Egypt in 1976. I was introduced to Sidi Abdul Latif, a Swiss faqir, who had become an invalid after a freak accident. Although he was only in middle age, he was bedridden. He blamed his doctors, who had prescribed heavy doses of cortisone, which exacerbated his condition. He would say, "They have killed me, these doctors." While he was confined to his bed, he seemed otherwise relatively robust and I was sure his health would eventually be restored. Whenever he claimed to be dying, we tried to comfort him, saying, "No, you will be fine. God will heal you.”
We would visit him at his home regularly and sing qasa’id from the diwans. He took great comfort in our visits. When we would arrive he would say without preamble, "Okay, let's start," and we would begin the invocation. During one period, I became very busy with work and study and didn’t manage to visit Sidi Abdul Latif for a few weeks. Finally, I felt remiss and decided to pay him a visit. We climbed the stairs to his flat in the leafy suburb of Maadi. His young son Mohamed met us at the door, his face marked with grief. His father had passed away 8 days before. We were led to Sidi Abdul Latif's room. His wife was sitting in his bed, weeping and praying.
As Mohamed and his sister Rawhiya looked on, Sidi Abdul Latif's wife told us how he had died. He had asked for the Qur'an to be recited. He listened for a long time. Once the Qur'an had been recited he pointed his right index finger, repeated the Muslim confession "ash-hadu an la ilaha illa ‘llah wa ash-hadu anna Sayyidna Mohamedan Rasulullah”. He looked to heaven and expired. The moment his spirit left his body, his visage, which during his life had been strained with discomfort, became luminous and serene.
As I had spent considerable time with Sidi Abdul Latif before he died, Abdallah Schleifer, one of his close friends, asked me to write to Martin Lings, who was his guide, and describe my meetings with Sidi Abdul Latif. I did so and the letter was sent to him. Sometime later I received a message that Dr. Lings was moved by my letter and wanted to see me.
A few years’ later I was passing through England and arranged to visit Dr. Lings at his home in Kent. At that time I was searching for a spiritual master and was intrigued by his writings and attracted to the Sufi order he led in England because many of my friends were members.
I took the train to the closest station to Shaykh Abu Bakr’s home in Kent and was met on the platform by his wife Sayyida Rabia who drove me to their cottage on a leafy country road. The cottage had one of the most beautiful English gardens I have ever seen.
His presence was austere, serene and arid. He was, at once, profoundly English and yet profoundly oriental. He wore an immaculate Moroccan djellaba and burnoose and a perfectly wrapped white turban in his home. In my suit I felt entirely out of place and he draped another burnoose over my shoulders, which I wore for the duration of my visit. The atmosphere of his home was rarified and light. His voice was smooth and mellifluous; his speech slow and meticulous.
He thanked me for my letter and we spoke of Sidi Abdul Latif. We had a healthy lunch beautifully prepared by Sayyida Rabia. Over tea I told him that I was attracted to his order because many of my closest friends were initiates. He said, "That's not a very good reason." I shrugged and said, "Well that is the reason I have at the moment.”
After tea we took a serene walk in Sidi Abu Bakr’s exquisitely lush garden. I had a profound sense that our silent stroll around these paradisiacal grounds was steeped with meaning.
We said our farewells at the door and Sayyida Rabia drove me back to the station to catch my train back to London.
It was the last time I ever saw this great man, who was a treasure to mankind, a Muslim through and through and a true Man of God. May God be well pleased with him.
Martin Lings passed away on May 12 2005 at the age of 96.
Sufism is central, exalted, profound and mysterious; it is inexorable, exacting, powerful, dangerous, aloof ---- and necessary.”
Martin Lings *
GAZING AT THE HOUSE
I would meet him at dawn before the Kaaba in the mataf between the Station of Ismail and the Yemeni Corner where he would be sitting with his disciples invoking the Names of God and gazing at the House of God. While we were sitting in this way he said, "If you could see with the eye of insight you would see that the Kaaba is more than a building of stone; you would see its reality.” We would pray the dawn prayer in congregation and then Shaykh Abdul Qadir 'Isa would lead us on the circumambulation (tawaf) around God’s House. Normally, one makes a single tawaf of seven circuits. Shaykh Abdul Qadir would rep
eat the seven circuits of tawaf over and over and over again until sunrise.We would then all pray the sunrise prayer (Salat Al-Shurouq) and part ways. He did this every day he was in Makkah. I found this practice intoxicating...and taxing. Shaykh Abdul Qadir was always energized and exhilarated. He was consumed by the remembrance of God and enraptured by His House.
He was one of the most famous Sufis of his age, the successor to Shaykh Mohamed Al-Hashimi, who succeeded the Algerian Shaykh Ahmed Mustafa Al-’Alawi, may God be well pleased with them. I had heard about him when he was still residing in Aleppo and leading the Alawiyya Sufi Order in Syria. We knew of him through a Syrian disciple who was living and studying in England during the 1970s. He was the spiritual guide to tens of thousands of followers throughout Syria and abroad. His weekly gatherings in Aleppo were legendary, attracting thousands. During the 1980s, with the rise of the Muslim brotherhood and Islamic dissident groups, Sufis became suspect and Shaykh Abdul Qadir, as one of the most influential Sufis in Syria, was forced into exile. He first settled in Makkah Al Mukarramah as a guest of one of his disciples, a wealthy Saudi businessman.
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