Voices of Islam (107 page)

compete with each other and believed that if his gaze merely fell upon a disciple he was transported to a higher state, and would attain realization. But the Shaykh himself knew that the divine light was not limited in this way and could come to the disciple anywhere, even if he were at the end of the earth.

Fatima al-Yashrutiyya
197

Many visited the Shaykh for the purpose of acquiring his qualities and attributes, which were an embodiment of the Muhammadan nature. When our brother ‘Uthman Pasha, a Turkish minister in the Ottoman state, once visited him, he said to our Shaykh, ‘‘I have been honored with a vision of our master. Am I not then better than ‘Ali Rida Pasha?’’ The Shaykh answered him by saying, ‘‘Being united to the essences is better than being united to the qualities.’’ When Shaykh Hafi ‘Uthman, the famous Turkish reciter of the Qur’an, came to visit my father, he composed a poem during his journey at sea. When he entered the
zawiya
my father asked about the poem he had composed, although no one had known anything about it. The Hafiz was astonished and asked, ‘‘Do you know what is hidden, or has a spirit inspired you?’’ Our Shaykh replied, ‘‘Do you not recite the Noble Qur’an?’’ ‘‘Certainly,’’ he said. ‘‘God has said in His Mighty Book: ‘The Knower of the Unseen, which He reveals unto none save every Messenger whom He has chosen (62:26–27).’ I am of those whom the Messenger of God has chosen, for I am descended from him and linked to him.’’ At this, Hafiz ‘Uthman was fi with joy and entered into the Way of the Shadhiliyya. He was one of those who attained to knowledge of God. The Shaykh also said to him while giving a talk one day, ‘‘You are of those who have preserved the Qur’an in your memory. Our Lord, the Glorious and Most High, has favored us with you.’’ Shaykh Hafi ‘Uthman answered, ‘‘With those who put the prescriptions into practice.’’ Our Shaykh said, ‘‘Is there anyone aside from our Prophet who practices everything in the Qur’an? Rather, do you not practice only a part of it, even if only a single letter?’’ ‘‘Certainly,’’ he said. The Shaykh replied, ‘‘This suffi He also said, referring to the Sufi masters, ‘‘When you are told that there lives in Syria a great and wise man, learned in the sciences of the outward and the inward and in gnosis and realization, one possessing pleasing qualities and Muhammadan characteris- tics, that which comes to you is the Lore of Certainty (
‘ilm al-yaqin
). When you have abided with him and realized his outward and inward qualities, and found him to be above that which they have described to you, your knowledge of him becomes the Truth of Certainty (
haqq al-yaqin
). So what is it that has disappeared between yourself and him, when neither he nor you have changed, and there has been no increase or decrease in his being or in yours? The answer is that what has disappeared is your ignorance of him.’’

NOTES

Reprinted from a work published by Fons Vitae with the permission of the publisher. (Ed.) following a note signifi that the note was added by the General Editor of this set.

1. Farid al-Din ‘Attar (d. 1230
   CE
   ), Section on Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya in
   Tadhkirat al-Awliya
   (Memorial of the Saints) translated in Michael A. Sells,
   Early Islamic
   

   198
   Voices of the Spirit
   

   Mysticism: Sufi Qur’an, Mi’raj, Poetic, and Theological Writings
   (New York and Mahwah, New Jersey: The Paulist Press, 1996), 161.
   

2. Shaykh Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Madani was originally from the city of Mecca. In 1807, he left Arabia on a spiritual journey to Morocco, where he met Mulay al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi in 1809. He also met a number of other famous Sufi shaykhs, including the West African revivalist Sidi Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811) and Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (d. 1837
   CE
   ), a Moroccan shaykh and Sufi reformer then residing in Arabia. Eventually settling in the region of Tripoli in Libya, Shaykh al-Madani founded the Tariqa al-Shadhiliyya al-Madaniyya, which, along with the Sanusiyya Tariqa, was one of the two great Sufi orders of Libya during the nineteenth century. Shaykh al-Yashruti, who was then living in Tunis, became acquainted with the Madaniyya order because of the close relations between Tunisia and Libya. See Martin Lings,
   A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi, His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy
   (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), 70–71; See also R. S. O’Fahey,
   Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition
   (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1990), 71. (Ed.)
   

3. Margaret Smith,
   Rabi‘a the Mystic A.D. 717–801 and Her Fellow Saints in Islam
   (1928 Cambridge University Press fi edition; repr., San Francisco: The Rainbow Bridge, 1977), 102.
   

4. These famous lines by Ibn ‘Arabi come from the collection of poems titled
   Tarjuman al-ashwaq
   (Interpreter of Desires). They have been reproduced and translated in many different ways. For an edition and translation based on Ibn ‘Arabi’s own commentary to this collection of poems, see
   The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq: A Collec- tion of Mystical Odes by Muhyi’ddin Ibn al-‘Arabi,
   trans. Reynold A. Nicholson (1911; repr., London: Theosophical Publishing House, Ltd., 1978), 66–70. (Ed.)
   

5. Chris Waddy,
   The Muslim Mind
   (Lanham, Maryland: New Amsterdam Books, 1990), 164–165.
   

6. Takıya
   is an Arabic term that means ‘‘place of repose.’’ Among the Yashrutiyya Sufis, the term is used for a domed prayer hall.
   Takıya
   is the origin of the Turkish word
   tekke,
   which is a synonym for
   zawiya
   (literally, ‘‘corner’’), a Sufi meeting place. (Ed.)
   

7. The Prophet Salih is mentioned in several Suras of the Qur’an. Salih was the prophet of a people called Thamud, who are described in the Qur’an as building castles in the plain and hewing houses out of hills (Qur’an 7:78). When they reject the One God, Salih warns his people that their gardens, springs, tilled fi and date-palm groves will not last forever (Qur’an 25:146–149). The Qur’an also states that at the time of its revelation, one could see the dwellings of Thamud empty and in ruins (Qur’an 27:52). Clearly, Thamud were an Arab trading people because their ultimate transgression was to unlawfully hamstring a camel that was consecrated to God (Qur’an 11:64). For this sin, God destroyed them with an earthquake. The Qur’anic descriptions of Thamud fi the Pre-Islamic Nabataean civilization, centered at the capital city of Petra in modern Jordan, quite closely. The inhabitants of Petra built temples and castles in the plain and hewed tombs and other buildings out of solid rock, as described in the Qur’an. Archaeologists have also determined that Petra’s prosperity was brought to an end by massive earthquakes in the years 363 and 561
   CE
   . The association of the Prophet Salih with the Nabataeans is further strength- ened by name of
   Mada’in Salih
   (Cities of Salih), which was given by local Arabs to a
   

   Fatima al-Yashrutiyya
   199
   

   famous Nabataean site in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Although the tomb of Salih that Shaykh al-Yashruti visited in Palestine is quite far from Petra, the greatest kings of Petra were occasionally known to have controlled Palestine and Syria as far north as Damascus. In a famous episode in 2 Corinthians 11:32–33, the Apostle Paul escapes from Damascus and the clutches of the Nabataean King Aretas by being lowered in a basket from the city walls. For a good description and overview of the history of Petra and the Nabataeans, see Jane Taylor,
   Petra
   (Amman, Jordan: Al-‘Uzza Books, 2005). (Ed.)
   

8. In 1913 the Committee of Union and Progress, also known as the Young Turks, took over direct control of the Ottoman government. The general Mustafa Kemal, who took the title of
   Ataturk
   (Father of the Turks) in 1934, assumed control of the secular government of Turkey in 1919 and ruled the nation until his death in 1938. After the end of World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Se`vres in 1920, the Republic of Turkey was established in 1923, followed by the formal abolition of the Ottoman Empire in March 1924. (Ed.)
   

9. Sa‘d Zaghlul (ca. 1860–1927) and other leaders of the
   Wafd
   (Delegation) Party of Egypt started a series of nationalist demonstrations against the British protectorate and ruling dynasty of Egypt in 1919. Their movement espoused a social revolution that advocated, among other things, the control of the Egyptian economy by Egyptians, the abandonment of the veil by women, women’s participation in social life and nationalist politics, the destruction of the quasi-aristocratic pasha class, the assumption of power by people of peasant background, and the removal of the Turkish element from Egyptian politics. See Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot,
   Egypt’s Liberal Experiment: 1922–1936
   (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977), 43–72. (Ed.)
   

10. The ‘‘Great Palestinian Disaster of 1948’’ of which Fatima al-Yashrutiyya refers are the events surrounding the creation of the State of Israel and the fi
    

Arab-Israeli war. These events led to the flight and in some cases the forcible evacuation of much of the population of northern Palestine. (Ed.)

18
‌

G
OD
’
S
M
ADMAN

•

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

1

I saw a
majdhub
1
at the Ka‘ba and O, was he crazy!

He took old men’s canes and

threw them on the ground in the path of people doing
tawaf
2

then paraded back and forth jubilantly, crazy eyes gleaming.

He walked off in people’s sandals, gesturing, crying out in

hoarse, weird Arabic phrases repeated

over and over. He was

about thirty, black hair, unruly beard, wiry, intense, O

very intensely laughing and insistently repeating things to a

crowd both

visible and invisible that

seemed to ignore him—
God’s clown!

He shuffled past in lady’s shoes.

He was courteously escorted away by one of the guards. Later he

sauntered by in a different robe, white cap and

202
Voices of the Spirit

shoes altogether, momentarily pinched from someone, still muttering to himself.
In front of

God’s House!
Ecstatically rambunctious. Handsome,

more radiant than most. Fashioned directly from God’s hands. Let loose

among us. Out of control. But

not altogether: I saw him walk past with an open

Qur’an in one hand as if making a point,

waving his free arm, insisting on something unknown to me in his

crazy discourse to

no one listening. I feared he might throw the Qur’an down as he did the

canes and sandals, but

majdhubs
are directly under God’s command— he was bodily

guarding the Word of God. He may have been exhorting us to do so.