Khwaja Muhiuddin Farman Allah; Ghawth al-Adham Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani's meeting with Khwaja Yusuf al-Hamadani

Abu Sa`id `Abd Allah ibn Abi `Asrun (d. 585), the Imam of the School of Shafi`i, documented the meeting between Khwaja Yusuf al-Hamadani, who was the highest authority of the Khwajaganiyya of his age, and Khwaja Muhiuddin Farman Allah, Ghawth al-Adham Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, who was still a young man at the time:

 "When I began a search for religious knowledge I kept company with my friend, Ibn al-Saqa, who was a student in the Nizamiyya School, and it was our custom to visit the pious. We heard that there was in Baghdad a man named Yusuf al-Hamadani who was known as al-Ghawth, and that he was able to appear whenever he liked and was able to disappear whenever he liked. So I decided to visit him along with Ibn al-Saqa and Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, who was a young man at that time. Ibn al-Saqa said, "When we visit Shaykh Yusuf al-Hamadani I am going to ask him a question the answer to which he will not know." I said: "I am also going to ask him a question and I want to see what he is going to say." Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani said: "O Allah, protect me from asking a saint like Yusuf Hamadani a question, but I will go into his presence asking for his baraka -- blessing -- and divine knowledge."

 "We entered his association. He kept himself veiled from us and we did not see him until after some time. He looked at Ibn al-Saqa angrily and said, without having been informed of his name: "O Ibn al-Saqa, how dare you ask me a question when your intention is to confound me? Your question is this and your answer is this!" Then he said: "I am seeing the fire of disbelief burning in your heart." He looked at me and said, "O `Abd Allah, are you asking me a question and awaiting my answer? Your question is this and your answer is this. Let the people be sad for you because they are losing as a result of your disrespect for me." Then he looked at Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, made him sit next to him, and showed him honor. He said: "O `Abd al-Qadir, you have satisfied Allah and His Prophet with your proper respect for me. I see you in the future sitting on the highest place in Baghdad and speaking and guiding people and saying to them that your feet are on the neck of every Wali! And I almost see before me every Wali of your time giving you precedence because of your great station and honor."

Ibn Abi `Asrun continues, "`Abd al-Qadir's fame became widespread and all that Shaykh al-Hamadani said about him came to pass. There came a time when he did say, "My feet are on the necks of all the Awliya," and he was a reference and a beacon guiding all people in his time to their destinations.

The fate of Ibn al-Saqa was something else. He was brilliant in his knowledge of the divine Law. He preceded all the scholars in his time. He used to debate with the scholars of his time and overcome them, until the caliph called him to his association. One day the Caliph sent him as a messenger to the King of Byzantium, who in his turn called all his priests and the scholars of the Christian religion to debate with him. Ibn al-Saqa was able to defeat all of them in debate. They were helpless to give answers in his presence. He was giving answers to them that made them look like children and mere students in his presence.

His brilliance made the King of Byzantium so fascinated with him that he invited him to his private family meeting. There he saw the daughter of the King. He immediately fell in love with her, and he asked her father, the King, for her hand in marriage. She refused except on condition that he accept her religion. He did, leaving Islam and accepting the Christian religion of the princess. After his marriage he became seriously ill. They threw him out of the palace. He became a town beggar, asking everyone for food, yet no one would provide for him. Darkness had come over his face.

One day he saw someone that had known him before. That person relates: "I asked him, What happened to you?" He replied: "There was a temptation and I fell into it." The man asked him: "Do you remember anything from the Holy Qur'an?" He replied: "I only remember rubbama yawaddu al-ladhina kafaru law kanu muslimin -- "Again and again will those who disbelieve wish that they were Muslims" (15:2)."

He was trembling as if he was giving up his last breath. I turned him towards the Ka`ba, but he kept turning towards the East. Then I turned him back towards the Ka'aba, but he turned himself to the East. I turned him a third time, but he turned himself to the East. Then as his soul was passing from him, he said, "O Allah, that is the result of my disrespect to Your saint, Yusuf al-Hamadani."Ibn Abi `Asrun continues: "I went to Damascus and the king there, Nur al-Din al-Shahid, put me in control of the religious department, and I accepted. As a result, dunya entered from every side: provision, sustenance, fame, money, position for the rest of my life. That is what the Ghawth Yusuf al-Hamadani had predicted for me." ¹

The Meeting With Al Khidr (Alahi Salam)

It is recorded in the book Qala'id Al-Jawahir (Necklaces of Jems),

"It was Abu 's-Sa'ud al-Huraimi who said: "I once heard our master, Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir (may Allah be well pleased with him), say:

"'I stayed in the deserts and ruined areas of 'Iraq for twenty-five years, as a solitary wanderer. I did not get to know my fellow creatures, and they did not get to know me. My only visitors were groups of the men belonging to invisible realm [ghaib], as well as some of the jinn. I used to show them the way to Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He).

"'I was also escorted by al-Khidr (peace be upon him), when I entered ' Iraq for the very first time, though I did not then know who he was, and he stipulated that I must never contradict him. When we reached a certain spot, he said to me: "Sit down and stay here," so I sat down and stayed where he told me to stay, for three whole years. He would come to see me once each year, and he would tell me: "Stay here in your place, until I come to you again! " "'The charms of this world, its ornaments, and its desires kept coming to me, in all their shapes and forms, but Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) would always shield me from being influenced by their attraction. The devils [shayatin] would also come to me in various disturbing guises, and they would engage me in combat, but Allah would always strengthen me against them. My own lower self [nafs] would adopt a certain attitude toward me: at one time it would humbly beseech me to let it have what it wanted, then at another time it would engage in a fight with me, but Allah would always help me to keep it under control. I took my lower self sternly to task, and whenever a particular method [tariq] of spiritual discipline proved effective for this purpose, at an early stage, I would embrace it, grasp it firmly with both my hands, and continue to apply it on a regular basis.

"'I stayed for a long period of time in the ruined areas of the big cities, taking my lower self sternly to task by applying the method [tariq] of spiritual discipline. Thus I spent one year eating food from the dumps, without drinking any water, and one year drinking water. Then I spent a whole year drinking water, but without eating food from the dumps, and another year without eating, drinking, or sleeping. I did fall asleep once, in the Great Porch of Chosroes [Iwan Kisra], on a bitterly cold night. I experienced a seminal emission in my sleep, so I got up and went to the bank of the river, where I performed a major ritual ablution. In the course of that night, I experienced forty seminal emissions, and I performed the major ritual ablution forty times on the bank of the river. Then I climbed back up to the Porch, afraid of falling asleep yet again. I also stayed for two years in the ruins of al-Karkh [an ancient suburb of Baghdad], where my only source of nourishment was the papyrus plant [bardi]. At the beginning of each year, a man would come to me with a jubba made of wool.

"'I entered into a thousand different states of being [alf fann], in order to obtain relief from this world of yours, and my condition could only be diagnosed as dumbness [takharus], craziness [balam] and insanity [junun]. I used to walk barefoot amid the thorns and other hazards. If anything scared me, I would venture straight into it. Never did my lower [nafs] prevail upon me, in the effort to get what it wanted, nor did anything ever seduce me with its worldly charm.'

"May Allah be well pleased with him!"

Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir covers an enormous distance, quite unaware that he is running at high speed

Shaykh 'Umar said: "I once heard our master, Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir (may Allah be well pleased with him), say: 'Spiritual states [ahwal] used to come upon me unexpectedly, in the early stage of my wandering, so I would adapt to them, take possession of them, and disappear into them, away from my ordinary existence. I would run at high speed, though quite unaware that I was doing so, and then, when the unusual condition left me, I would find myself in a place far removed from the place where I had been at the outset.

"'On one such occasion, the spiritual state [hal] came upon me while I was in the ruined area of Baghdad. I ran for the space of an hour, quite unaware that I was running. When I recovered my normal consciousness, I found myself in the region of Shashtar, where the distance between me and Baghdad was that of a twelve-day journey. As I stood there, reflecting on my situation, a woman came up to me and said: "Does this really strike you as something surprising, when you are none other than Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir?"' "May Allah be well pleased with him!"

The Six Month Seclusion of Shaykh Nazim

The current Imam of the Naqshbandiyya, the venerable Khwaja, Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil is Jilani, meaning a direct descendent from his fathers lineage of Ghawth al-Adham Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani. 

When the venerable Khwaja was only 33 years old, he was ordered into seclusion by GrandShaykh Abd Allah Daghestani who told him, " I have received an order from the Prophet for you to make seclusion in the mosque of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani in Baghdad. You go there and make seclusion for six months. "

About this same seclusion the venerable Khwaja himself stated,

'My heart yearned to make khalwa with Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, and so I left without questioning the order of my Shaykh, for Baghdad and upon arriving at the Mosque of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, I was welcomed by a very tall man.  He told me he would be serving me during my entire seclusion.  He then showed me to my room.  I was served one bowl of soup and bread for breakfast, and the same for dinner.  I only emerged from my room for the five prayers. Other than that I spent my whole time in that room. I was able to reach such a state that I was reciting the whole Qur'an in nine hours. In addition to that I was reciting 124,000 times the dhikr 'laa ilaha ill-Allah' and 124,000 prayers on the Prophet (s) (salawat) and I was reading the entire Dalail al-Khayrat [book of devotions]. Added to that I was regularly reciting 313,000 'Allah Allah' every day, in addition to all the prayers that were assigned to me. Vision after vision was appearing to me every day. They used to take me from one state to another and give me a state of complete Annihilation in the Divine Presence.'

His Support to Shaykh Nazim

The venerable Khwaja, Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani said, '(While I was secluded in Baghdad) Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani summoned me to his tomb.  I immediately performed fresh wudu and took a bath and offered two cycles of Nafil prayer and then approached his blessed tomb.  I then greeted him as my grandfather and immediately, in a vision, I saw him come out of his holy tomb.  He was standing beside me and I saw behind him there was a very beautiful Throne, studded with precious jewels and diamonds (it was the Throne of the Ghawth).  He sat on that exalted Throne and asked me to sit beside him.  I obeyed him, and we sat as would a grandfather and his grandson.  He was smiling at me and he told me he was pleased with me.  He also said that my GrandShaykh held a very high spiritual station amongst the Saints of the Naqshbandi Order.  He then told me I was his grandson and that he was now going to grant me the spiritual station, power and authority of the Ghawth (which only he carried).  He then initiated me with his holy hands directly into the Qadri Order and granted me what he willed.  Before the seclusion ended, (I reached a state wherein) I saw him in flesh, not in spirit, but as you see a living person, he embraced me and gifted me ten coins from his era, as a token of my visit (which I still have with me today)'.
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¹ al-Haytami, Fatawa hadithiyya 315-316.