After breakfast we went to Bab al-Shaykh and saw the
place that I had always wished to visit. I ran to enter the place
like a man who was eager to see him and to throw myself on
his lap.
I mixed with the multitude of visitors who were gathering
around the place like the pilgrims in the House of Allah.
Some of the visitors were throwing sweets, so I quickly
picked up two. I ate one for blessing and kept the other in my
pocket as a souvenir. I prayed there, recited some supplications and drank water as if I was drinking from Zamzam.
I asked my friend to wait for me until I wrote a few postcards to my friends in Tunisia to show them the picture of the
place of Shaykh Abdul Qadir with its green dome. I wanted
to prove to my friends and relatives in Tunisia my high state
which brought me to this place that they have never been
able to reach.
We had our lunch in a popular restaurant in the middle of
the capital, then I was taken by my friend to a place called al-
Kazimiyyah. I only got to know that name through him mentioning it to the taxi driver who took us there. When we
arrived in al-Kazimiyyah we joined a multitude of people,
children, men and women walking in the same direction.
Everyone was carrying something with him or her, which
reminded me of the time of the pilgrimage. I did not know
where they were going until I noticed a glittering coming
from golden domes and minarets. I understood that it was a
Shia mosque, because I knew before that they decorate their
mosques with gold and silver; something Islam has prohibited. I did not feel at ease when we entered the mosque, but
I had to respect my friend's feelings and follow him without
choice.
When we entered the first door I noticed that some old
people were touching it and kissing it, so I engaged myself
with reading a plaque saying: "Unveiled Ladies are not
allowed to enter", with a saying by Imam Ali: "A day will
come when women are seen wearing transparent clothes or
even naked...etc."
When we reached the shrines, my friend started reading
the permission to enter, while I occupied myself by looking at
the gate and I was astonished by all the gold and engravings
of the Qur'anic verses which covered that gate. My friend
entered first then I followed him, and my mind was full of the
legends and fables which I had read in books which condemn
the Shia. Inside the shrine I saw engravings and decorations
that I have never seen before, and I was surprised by them
and felt as if I was in an unknown and unfamiliar world. From
time to time I looked with disgust at those people who were
going around the grave, crying and kissing its bars and corners, while others were praying near the grave. At that
moment a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.)
came to my mind, which states: "Allah cursed the Jews and
Christians for making mosques of the graves of their saints."
I walked away from my friend, who, as soon as he entered,
started crying, and left him to do his prayers. I approached
the plaque which was written especially for the visitors and read
it but could not understand most of it because it contained
strange names that I did not know. I went to a corner and
read the Opening Surah of the Qur'an (al-Fatiha) and asked
Allah for mercy on the person who is inside the grave saying:
"O Allah if this dead person is a Muslim then have mercy on
him for You know him better than I do." My friend came
near me and whispered in my ears, "If you want anything.
you better ask Allah in this place because we call it the gate
of requests." I did not pay much attention to what he said.
God forgive me, rather, I was looking at the old men with
black or white turbans on their heads and the signs of prostration on their foreheads, with their long perfumed beards,
which added to their dignity alongside their awesome looks.
I noticed that as soon as one of them entered the shrine,
he started crying, and I asked myself, "Is it possible that all
these tears are false? Is it possible that all these old people
are wrong?.
I came out perplexed and astonished about what I had
seen, while my friend walked backwards, as a sign of respect,
so that he did not turn his back to the shrine.
I asked him, "Whose shrine is that?" He said, "Imam
Musa al-Kazim." I asked, "Who is Musa al-Kazim?" He said,
"Praise Allah! You, our brothers, of the Sunni sect ignored
the essence and kept the shell".
I answered him angrily, "What do you mean we ignored
the essence and kept the shell?"
He calmed me down and said, "My brother, since you
came to Iraq you never stopped talking about Abdul Qadir
al-Jilani, but who is Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, and why should he
attract all your attention?"
I immediately replied proudly, "He is one of the descendants of the Prophet. And had there been a prophet after
Muhammad it would have been Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, may
Allah be pleased with him." He said, "Brother al-Samawi,
do you know Islamic history?"
I answered without hesitation, "Yes." In fact what I knew
of Islamic history was very little because our teachers prevented us from learning it, for they claimed that it was a black
history, and not worth reading. I remember, for example,
when our Arabic Rhetoric teacher was teaching the Shaqshaqiyyah oration from the book "Nahj al-Balaghah" by
Imam Ali, that I was puzzled, as were many other students,
when we read it, but I dared to ask the following question:
"Are these truly the words of Imam Ali?" He answered:
"Definitely, who would have had this eloquence apart from
him. If it were not his saying, why should the Muslim scholars
like Shaykh Muhammad Abduh, the Mufti of Egypt, concern themselves with its interpretation?" Then I said, "Imam
Ali accuses Abu Bakr and Umar that they robbed him of
his right to succeed as Caliph".
The teacher was outraged and he rebuked me very
strongly and threatened to expel me from the class, and
added, "We teach Arabic Rhetoric and not history. We are
not concerned with the dark episodes of history and its
bloody wars between Muslims, and in as much as Allah has
cleaned our swords from their blood, let us clean our tongues
by not condemning them".
I was not satisfied with the reasoning, and remained
indignant towards that teacher who was teaching us Arabic
Rhetoric without meaning. I tried on many occasions to
study Islamic history but I did not have enough references
nor the ability to buy books. Also I did not find any of our
learned people to be interested in the subject, and it seemed
to me as if all of them had agreed to forget all about it and not
to look into the matter. Therefore, there was no one who had
a complete history book
When my friend asked me about my knowledge in history, I just wanted to oppose him, so I answered him positively, but it was as if I was saying, "It is a dark history, full
of civil strives, intrigues and contradictions." He said, "Do
you know when Abdul Qadir al-Jilani was born?" I
answered, "Approximately between the sixth and the
seventh century."
He said, "How many centuries then have elapsed between him and the Messenger of Allah?" I said, "six cen-
turies." He said, "If there are two generations in a century
then there were at least twelve generations between Abdul
Qadir al-Jilani and the Messenger".
I agreed. Then he said, "This is Musa ibn Jafer ibn
Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Fatima al-Zahra, between him and his great-great-great grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, there were only four generations. In fact he
was born in the second Hijra century, so, who is nearer to the
Messenger of Allah, Musa or Abdul Qadir?
Without thinking I said, "Him of course. But why don't
we know him or hear people refer to him?"
He said, "This is the point, and that is why I said, and
allow me to repeat it, that you have ignored the essence and
kept the shell, so please do not blame me and I beg your pardon."
We talked and talked, and from time to time we stopped
until we reached a learning place where there were teachers
and students discussing ideas and theories. As we sat there I
noticed my friend started looking for somebody, as if he had
prior appointment.
A man came towards us and greeted us then started talking with my friend, and from the conversation I understood
that they were colleagues at the university, and that another
colleague was coming to the place soon. My friend said to
me, "I brought you to this place to introduce you to a historian scholar who is a professor of history at the University of
Baghdad, and his Ph.D. thesis was about Abdul Qadir al-
Jilani and he will be of use to you, with the help of Allah,
because I am not a specialist in history". We drank some cold
juice until the historian arrived, and I was introduced to him,
then my friend asked him to give me a brief historical view on
Abdul Qadir al- Jilani. After we had more cold drinks, the
historian asked me questions about myself, my country and
my job and asked me to talk to him about the reputation of
Abdul Qadir al-Jilani in Tunis.
I gave him plenty of information in this field and told him
that people think that Abdul Qadir carried the Messenger of
Allah on his neck during the night of Mi'raj [the night of the
prophet Muhammad's (s.a.w.) ascension to the seven
heavens] when Gabriel was late for fear of getting burnt. The
Messenger of Allah told him then, "My foot is on your neck
and your foot will be on the neck of all the saints until the day
of Judgement."
The historian laughed when he heard what I said, but I
did not know whether he laughed at those stories or at the
Tunisian teacher standing in front of him!
After a short discussion about the saints and the pious
people, he told me that he had researched for seven years,
during which he traveled to Lahore in Pakistan, Turkey,
Egypt, Britain and to all the places where there are manuscripts attributed to Abdul Qadir al-Jilani and he scrutinized
them and photographed them but could not find any proof
indicating that Abdul Qadir al-Jilani was a descendant of the
Messenger. All what he found was a verse attributed to one
of his offspring in which he says, "...and my forefather was
the Messenger of Allah: " It was perhaps the interpretation of
some of the learned people of the saying of the Prophet "I am
the grandfather [forefather] of every pious person." He also
informed me that recent historical research proved that
Abdul Qadir al-Jilani was not an Arab but of a Persian origin,
and came from a small town in Iran called Jilan, and he
moved to Baghdad where he studied and then taught at a
time when there was a moral decay. He was a God-fearing
man and people liked him, so when he died they established
the Qadiriyyah sufi order in his memory, as was the case with
the followers of any Sufi teacher. He added, "Truly, the
Arabs are in a lamentable state with regard to this situation."
A Wahabi rage stormed in my mind and I said, "Therefore, Doctor, you are a Wahabi in ideology, for they believe
in what you are saying, there are no saints." He said, "No, I
am not a follower of the Wahabi ideology. It is regretful that
the Muslims tend to exaggerate and take extreme views.
They either believe in all the legends and fables which are not
based on logic or canonical law, or they deny everything,
even the miracles of our Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) and his
sayings because they do not suit their way of thinking."
For example, the Sufis believe in the possibility of Shaykh
Abdul Qadir al-Jilani being present in, let us say, Baghdad
and Tunis at the same time; he could cure a sick man in Tunis
and simultaneously rescue a drowning man in the River Tigris
in Baghdad. This is an exaggeration. As a reaction to the Sufi
thinking, the Wahabis denied everything, and they said that
even the pleading to the Prophet is polytheism, and this is
negligence. No my brother! We are as Allah said in His
Glorious Book:
And thus we have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people. (Holy Qur'an 2:143).
I liked what he had said very much, and thanked him for
it. I also expressed some conviction in his argument. He
opened his briefcase and got his book on Abdul Qadir al-
Jilani and gave it to me as a present. He then invited me to his
house but I excused myself, so we talked about Tunis and
North Africa until my friend came back and then we returned
home after having spent the whole day visiting friends and
holding discussions.
I felt tired and exhausted, so I went to sleep. I got up early
in the morning and started reading the book which dealt with
the life of Abdul Qadir, and by the time my friend got up I
had finished half of the book. He asked me several times to
have my breakfast, but I refused until I had finished the
book. I became attached to the book which put me in a state
of scepticism which lasted until just before I left Iraq.