Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai
Hazrat Shaykh Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai (1119-1182) was born on a Thursday in the first half of the lunar month of Rejab in Hasen, in the Vasit province of Iraq. When he was seven years old, his father Sayyid Sultan Ali passed away in Baghdad. From then on his maternal uncle Sayyid Mansur ar-Rabbani al-Betaihi took him into his care & educated him.
The maternal part of Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai's family goes back to Hazrat Husayn, the son of Hazrat Ali (kaw). On the paternal side his lineage goes back to the Prophet Muhammad (saw) as follows:
Hazrat Ali (kaw), the master of the community, husband of Hazrat Fatima & the founder of Imams, a relative of the prophet;
Hazrat Husayin, Imam of Muslims, the chief of the Mu'mins (believers in Islam) who were tried & afflicted with various troubles & calamities, the martyr of Karbala;
- Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin (Q.S.)
- Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (Q.S.)
- Imam Jaffar as-Sadiq (Q.S.)
- Imam Musa al-Kazim (Q.S.)
- Imam Ibrahim al-Murtaza (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Musa Sani (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Ahmad Salih Akbar (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Abu Abdullah Husayn (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Hassan Qasım Abu Musa (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Muhammad Abu'l-Qasim (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Al-Mahdi Makki (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Abu'l Mekarim al-Hasan (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Abu'l Fadhail (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Abu Ali Murtaza (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Ali Hazim Abu'l Fewaris (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Sabit (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Yahya Naqib (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Abul-Hasen Aliyy-ar-Rifai (Q.S.)
- Sayyid Hazrat Ahmad ar-Rifai (Q.S.)
In addition to attending the dhikr meetings of his uncle, Shaykh Mansur ar-Rabbani, Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar- Rifai also attended the courses of his other uncle, Shaykh Abubakir, who was a great scientist of his era & the sultan of scientists. He eventually memorized the book Tenbih, which deals with the fikih (Muslim canonical jurisprudence) of Safi according to Imam Abu Ishak Sirazi & wrote an explanation about the book. (This explanation was lost in the Mongol invasion.)
He occupied all his time with acquiring religious knowledge & indeed Allah bestowed on him beautiful knowledge. Eventually even his own teachers & the people who taught him respect learned the essence of respect when they were in his presence.
Graduation & Teaching:
When Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai was twenty years old, Abu Fadhl Ali, who was the Shaykh of Vasit province & his teacher, awarded him a sehadet name (teaching certificate) encompassing the sciences of canon law & permission to initiate a dervish order, gave him the name "father of external & interior sciences," & dressed him with his own dervish's cloak. His teachers & his shaykhs agreed about the greatness of his rank & the superiority of his worth.
Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai remained in Nehr-i Dikla for a short time & after that went back to his father's guest house for travelers in Hasen. He then became very well known. When he was twenty-eight, his uncle Shaykh Mansur requested that he lead the dervish lodge & Caliphs after him. He also instructed him to live in the dervish lodge of Shaykh Yahya an-Neccari, who was his grandfather from his mother's side. Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai took up his post (shaykhship) there as an enlightened master & began teaching in this dervish lodge. His uncle died in the same year. By the time Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai reached the age of thirty-five, his murids (disciples) numbered over seven hundred thousand.
Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai taught the Sunnah (the way of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)) & the details of the Qur'an to the public & he always said that the trade of a wise man is to show the way that leads to Allah & to direct hearts towards Allah.
He held courses on hadith, Islamic canon law, religious precepts & commentary on the Qur'an on all days of the week except Mondays & Thursdays. He sat in his pulpit on Monday & Thursday afternoons & preached to intellectuals & the general public. Because of the depth & the influence of his words, the people were captivated, their intelligence was stupefied & their hearts submitted to him. Apart from the Prophet Muhammad (saw), the companions & disciples of the Prophet & twelve Imams, there was no other person who spoke as well as Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai did.
Whenever he sat in his pulpit to give a lecture, crowds–including advanced scientists, preachers, spiritual teachers & the general public–gathered. When he began to speak, knowledge gushed out with his words like the gushing sea. Wise men were enraptured when they heard his beautiful & influential words & listened to his extensive knowledge. The denying & obstinate were tongue-tied in the presence of the power of the evidence. Literary men profited from his outstanding expression, scientists from his skills, talents & philosophers from his deep & wise manner of speaking.
In his book Sevad ul-Ayneyn, the writer Imam Rafii narrates, “Shaykh Salih Yusuf Ebu Zekeriya el-Askalani, who was a great expert in the canon law of Islam, told me: "I had gone to Ummi Abide to visit Hazrat Shaykh Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai. There were more than one hundred thousand people around the guest house; some were managers, scientists, shaykhs & the others were the normal public. He gave dinner to all of them & was very friendly to everyone. He started to preach in the afternoon of a Thursday. In the audience were preachers from the province of Vasit, as well as a religious community of doctors of Muslim theology of Iraq & the important people of the province. One group asked questions about the science of commentary on the Qur'an, another asked about subjects dealing with the recorded sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), another asked about Muslim canon jurisprudence, another asked about the disagreements between the different religious opinions & yet another group asked many questions about different areas of science. Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai answered more than two hundred questions & he did not get angry when he was answering the questions. I became embarrassed because of the insensitivity of people asking the questions & I stood up & said, "Is this not enough for you? He can answer every question about the written sciences, without facing any difficulty, with the permission of Allah!" Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai smiled at my words & said, "Abu Zekeriya, allow them to ask before I pass away. Certainly the world is a house from which we will all depart. Allah changes all situations, all of the time." All the public cried at this answer. The crowd was perplexed & anxious exclamations were heard. Forty thousand people became his students because of the spiritual effect of his talk."
Teachings & Good Works:
Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai used to advise people to guard themselves from overindulging in the things that are neither recommended nor forbidden by religious law, such as overeating & oversleeping. He used to recommend worshipping at night. He also used to recommend keeping away from people who do not know their limits, who behave in excessive manner, who see themselves as superior to others & who argue with each other.
He used to do his service by himself, repair his own shoes & carry the firewood which was prepared for him to the houses of people who were sick, orphaned, fallen or without relations or friends.
He helped the blind find their shoes after worship & also helped guide them to the places that they wanted to go. He respected old people & recommended respecting them. He always used to quote the words of our Prophet Muhammad (saw), "If a person shows respect to old people & those in need, Allah will assign people who will respect them when they are old."
Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai used to go to the houses of the leprous & bedridden, wash their clothes, bring their meals, sit & eat with them & pray for them. When he heard that the people of his city were sick in a far-off city, he used to visit them. He also cured wounded animals & said, "Compassion for the creatures of Allah is one of the qualities that bring human beings closer to Allah."
He was very kind & compassionate to orphans. He would cry for the poor, grow merry with their joy & behave very modestly towards them. He considered himself as one of them.
Great people in Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar- Rifai's time said, "The most important reason for his reaching his high station was his great kindness to all creatures & his humility."
He used to show respect to the wise & the experts in the canon law of Islam & wanted everybody else to respect them. He said, "The wise are the leaders & fundamentals of the community."
Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad ar-Rifai was not inclined towards worldly things. He did not store any possessions at any time: although he had great wealth, he did not own more than two garments at the same time, either in summer or winter. His wealth was much more than the wealth of governors & famous rich men. He used to distribute his revenue to dervishes & to people who came to the dervish lodge. Upon his passing away, his possessions were given to the people.
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