|
Shaykh
al-Akbar Sidi Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi al-'Hatimi al-Andalusi
(rehmatullah alaih) (d. 636/1221)
The Venerated
Qutb, Sidi Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi al-‘Hatimi, known throughout
the Islamic world simply as the "Greatest Master"
(al-Shaykh al-Akbar) as his master Sidi Abu Madyan al-Ghawt
(d. 594/1179) used to call him, is acknowledged to be one of
the most important Sufi teachers in the Islamic world. A vastly
prolific writer and visionary, he is generally known as the
prime exponent of the concept of the Unity of Being (wahdat
al-wujud), even though that particular term, by which his teachings
came later to be designated, was hardly used in his own milieu.
His emphasis, as with any mystic, lay rather on the true potential
of the human being and the path to realizing that potential,
which reaches its completion in the Complete Man (al-Insan al-Kamil).
Shaykh al-Akbar wrote at least 300 works, ranging from minor
treatises to the huge thirty-seven-volume Meccan Illuminations
(al-Futuhat al-Makkiya) and the quintessence of his teachings,
the Bezels of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam). Approximately 110 works
are known to have survived in verifiable manuscripts, some 18
in Shaykh al-Akbar's own hand. He exerted an unparalleled influence,
not only upon his immediate circle of friends and disciples,
many of whom were considered spiritual masters in their own
right, but also on succeeding generations, affecting the whole
course of subsequent spiritual thought and practice in the Arabic-,
Turkish-, and Persian-speaking worlds. In recent years his writings
have also increasingly become the subject of interest and study
in the West, leading to the establishment of an international
academic society in his name.
Mazar
Mubarak Moazzin-e-Rasool, Hazrat Bilal Al Habashy (May Allah
be pleased with him) in the Bab al-Saghir Cemetery to the south
of the old city in Damascus, Syria.
Mazar
of great Sufi Shaikh-e-Akbar Hazrat Muhyyuddin Ibn Arabi encased
in glass in the lower level of a mosque at the bottom of Mount
Qasyun in Damascus. There are Mazarat of other Aulia Allah.
Shaykh al-Akbar's
thought is characterized by a profound visionary capacity, coupled
with a remarkable intellectual insight into human experience
and a thorough knowledge of all the traditional sciences. It
has been tempting for scholars to characterize him as a mystical
philosopher, a formulation that is rather at odds with his own
teachings on the limitations of philosophical thinking. He was
as much at home with Quranic and hadith scholarship as with
medieval philology and letter symbolism, philosophy, alchemy,
and cosmology. He could write with equal facility in prose or
poetry, and utilized the polysemous ambiguity of the Arabic
language to great effect—the characteristic resonances
of rhymed prose (saj’), which are to be found in the Quran,
abound in his works. The complexity of his writings makes him
one of the most demanding of authors, and difficult to comprehend,
leading some Islamic scholars to oppose and even reject his
positions. Among his admirers, his writing was always considered
to be the most elevated exposition of mystical thought in Islam,
and therefore unsuitable for the untrained mind. He combines
a detailed architecture of spiritual experience, theory, and
practice, with descriptions of the attainments of other masters
he met and of his own personal visions, insights, and dreams.
It is his propensity to recount stories from his own direct
experience, primarily in order to make a teaching point, that
allows readers to gain such a detailed insight into his inner
world, and also allows us to reconstruct his life and times
with some accuracy.
Shaykh
al-Akbar’s life
Born on July 28, 1165, in Murcia, Muslim Spain, Abu Abdellah
Sidi Mohammed b. Ali b. Mohammed Ibn Arabi al-‘Hatimi al-Ta’i
al-Andalusi al-Maghribi, as he signs himself (often shortened
to simply Ibn Arabi), was brought up from the age of seven in
Seville, the provincial capital of the Moroccan Almohad Empire
during the heyday of Andalusian Muslim culture. His father served
as a professional soldier in the sultan's entourage, and for
a time the son seemed destined to follow in his footsteps. Contrary
to the romantic picture painted by later writers, the family
was well-off, but neither noble nor very religious. He seems
to have been blessed with an extraordinary visionary capacity
from a very young age, and the seminal experience of his youth
took place when he was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Without
having had any formal training and apparently under the impulsion
of an irresistible inner demand, he undertook a retreat alone
just outside Seville, probably in the ruins of the old Roman
city of Italica, where he had a remarkable dream-vision of the
Prophets, Sidna Isa (Jesus, peace be upon him), Sidna Musa (Moses,
peace be upon him), and the Chieftain of the Universe: Sidna
Mohammed ibn Abdellah (peace and blessing be upon them). According
to his own testimony, each of them is said to have given him
a piece of advice: Jesus, whom he referred to as his first teacher,
exhorted him to follow the spiritual life, and instructed him
to practice renunciation and detachment; Moses, whom Shaykh
al-Akbar regarded as epitomizing the reception of divine inspiration,
promised that he would be given knowledge by God directly, without
any intermediary; and, finally, Sidna Mohammad, who rescued
him from a host of assailants, told him: "Hold fast to
me and you will be safe". As a consequence of this instruction,
Shaykh al-Akbar says, he began his study of the Tradition of
the Prophet (al-‘hadith al-sharif).
This triple
vision also had one other direct result: the great philosopher,
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), who was nearing the end of his life in
Cordoba, asked to meet him, and their celebrated meeting included
a most extraordinary exchange, touching on the very nature of
the spiritual quest: in response to Ibn Rushd's question about
whether mystical illumination produces the same results as rational
inquiry, Shaykh al-Akbar replied: "Yes and no, and between
the yes and the no spirits take wing from their matter, and
necks are separated from their bodies", leaving the philosopher
dumbfounded. This response not only indicates Shaykh al-Akbar's
understanding of the gulf between the philosophical and the
mystical, between intellectual reflection and spiritual retreat,
but also his appreciation of how mystical thought can include
and accommodate apparently contradictory notions.
Within two
years, Shaykh al-Akbar had irrevocably dedicated himself to
a rigorous spiritual life, turning his back on the military
career that his father had wanted him to pursue, and entrusting
everything he possessed into his father's keeping. From this
time he began to frequent other spiritual masters. An account
of the many Sufi teachers, male and female, that he met in Seville,
Cordoba, and other major cities of Andalusia and the Maghreb
is given in one of his most accessible books, The Spirit of
Holiness (Ruh al-quds fi munasahat al-nafs), which provides
a wonderful insight into spiritual teaching in his time. Some
of his teachers were poor and illiterate and referred to Shaykh
al-Akbar as their spiritual son, like his first master, al-‘Uryani,
or one of his female teachers in Seville, Fatima bint Ibn al-Muthanna,
who was already ninety-six years old when they met and appeared
superficially as a simpleton, "though she would have replied
that he who knows not his Lord is the real simpleton".
Others, such as Sidi 'Abderrahman al-Tamimi al-Fasi (d. 1206)
and Sidi Abu Yaqub ibn Yakhlaf al-Qumi al-Abbasi were more apparently
learned, and introduced Shaykh al-Akbar to the teachings of
the Moroccan poles: Moulay Boushayb as-Sarya(d. 561/1146), Sidi
Abu Yaaza Yalnur (d. 572/1157), and Sidi Abu Madyan al-Ghawt
(d. 594/1179), and to central texts of Sufism. Shaykh al-Akbar
reports in Ruh al-Quds fi munasahat al-nafs,
Read
the full biography at the link below:
http://www.dar-sirr.com/Ibn-Arabi.html
For More
pics Visit :
http://amazonintl.in/forum/index.php/topic,8064.0.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Salahuddin
Al-Ayyubi (ra) in Damascus, Syria
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Ibrahim Bin Adham was
popularly known as Abu Ben Adhem. His full name was Sultan Ibrahim
bin Adham, Bin Mansur al-Balkhi al- Ijli, Abu Ishaq.
His
Life He was born in Balkh on the east of Khurasan. His family
was from the Kufa and were descendants of the second Caliph
Omar bin Khattab. He was the king of Balkh but abandoned the
throne to become a Sufi saint. According to the Arabic and Persian
sources like al- Bukhari ( d. 870) and many others, Ibrahim
Bin Adham received a warning from God and abdicated his throne
to take up the ascetic life in Syria. He died in 777-8 and is
believed to be buried in Syrian town of Jabala.
His Legend His legend enlarged gradually from al-Bukhari to
Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani and after its full formation around the
eleventh century, expanded to central Asia under the Mongols,
Anatolia under the Ottoman rule, North India in the age of the
Tughluqids, and Malaysia during the seventeenth century as revealed
in the works by R. Jones.
His
Clans Although his children continue to rule Central Asia, the
kingdom came to an end after Farrukh Shah Kabuli's son was killed
fighting Mongols and the uprooted family moved East to Punjab
(now part of Pakistan and then to India and up to Bangladesh.
Baba Farid Ganj Shakar the famous Punjabi poet and Sufi Saint
was one of his descendants. Adhamies of South Asia call themselves
Farooqi.
His
Masters and Students His master was Fudhail Bin Iyadh whose
master was Abdul Waahid Bin Zaid whose master was Hasan al-Basri.
His successor was Huzaifah Al-Mar’ashi..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Abu Ishaq Shami
.
A Sufi Sheikh Abu Ishaq Shami is one of the first among the
sufi order, namely Chishti Order to call himself Chisti. This
indicates that he belongs to the Chishti Order.The name Shami
implies he came from Syria or even from Damascus (ash-Sham).
Abu Ishaq Shami is supposedly to have met a Sufi who directed
him to settle in Chisht,and acccordingly he is known as Abu
Ishaq Shami Chishti. He died in 940 C.E. in Damascus and lies
buried on Mount Qasiyun, where later on also Ibn al-Arabi was
buried. Looking at the date of his death it is considered that
the Chishti Order is one of the oldest, if not the oldest now
still existing sufi order. However according to most of the
Sufi orders it is considered that their orginations are directly
from the time period of the Prophet Mohammad and the Prophet
him self.
His Masters
and Students Shaikh Ilw Mumshad Dinwari was his Master. He
may had many Khalifa's but Abu Ahmad Abdal carries the Chisti
Chain to South Asia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Moulana Sheikh Abdulah Faiz Dhagistani... click
here to know more
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Sayyid Muhammad Amin ibn Sayyid Úmar ibn Sayyid Ábd
al-Áziz ibn Sayyid
Ahmed ibn Sayyid Ábd ar-Rahim ibn Sayyid Najmuddin ibn
Sayyid Muhammad Salahuddin widely known as ‘Ibn Áabidin’
is praised in these words: the prominent, praiseworthy and noble
scholar; an ocean of knowledge; the master scholar [jahbadh];
the great jurist [faqih]; the genius; the finest among the later
scholars and the last of the research scholars; one with an
exalted ancestry [hasib,nasib]; the erudite Imam; the litterateur.
click here to know more
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
The Syrian city of
Aleppo is famous for its rich history of Islamic scholarship;
hence, it is often referred to as ‘the city of scholars’.
Aleppo is the cradle of many pious and leading scholars of Islam.
Amongst them was the Friend and Gnostic of Allah `azza wa-jall,
`Allama `Abdallah Sirajuddin al-Husayni radiallahu `anhu,
an extraordinary scholar who dedicated his entire life to the
service of Islam.
For his
full biography, click on his name below and repeat this on the
website:
Shaykh `Abdallah
Sirajuddin
The light of Aleppo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Place
of the 40 Abdals, Damascus, Syria,2007, Part 1 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY8U0iM81c4&NR=1
Click
here to know more
|
