He was born in Daghestan in the year 1309 H./1891 AD. to a
family of doctors. His father was a general practitioner and
his brother was surgeon general in the Russian Army. He was
raised and trained by his uncle, Shaykh Sharafuddin ad-Daghestani
(qs), the master of the Naqshbandi Order at that time, who
took special care of him from his early life.
During Shaykh Sharafuddin's sister's pregnancy, he told her:
“The son you are carrying has no veils on his heart. He is
going to perfect the ability of being with God and being at
the same time with people. When you give birth to him call
him “Abdullah”, because he will be carrying the secret of
Servanthood. He will spread the Tariqat back to the Arab
countries, and through him, his successor will spread the
Tariqat in Western countries and in the Far East. You must
be careful with him. I am asking that when he reaches the
age of seven you give him to me to raise and to be under my
guardianship.”
On the 12th of Rabi ul Awwal, a Thursday, his mother Amina
gave birth to her son. As his uncle pointed out they named
him Abdullah. At the age of seven, he stayed with his uncle
Shaykh Sharafuddin ad-Daghestani (qs). By the age of seven
he was reciting the Qur’an. He was extremely meticulous in
keeping the prescriptions of the Shari`ah. He was the first
to appear for Salat (prayer) in the mosque five times a day.
He was the first to be present for Dhikr. He was the first
to be present in the meetings of scholars. He was the first
to be present in the spiritual gatherings. He acquired fame
for healing sick people by recitation of Surat al-Fatiha.
Many people were brought to him with different kinds of
sicknesses and he would read Surat al-Fatiha and blow on
them and they would be healed. Healing was one specialty
from among his endless specialties.
At that time, Daghestan was under the severe oppression and
tyranny of the Russian occupying armies. His uncle, who was
the spiritual head of the village, and his father, who was a
well-known doctor, decided to emigrate from Daghestan to
Turkey. After reaching this decision, they asked Shaykh
Abdullah to make spiritual consultation on the
appropriateness of migrating at that time. Grandshaykh
Abdullah described the event:
"That night I prayed ‘Isha’, then I renewed my ablution and
I prayed two rak’ats. Then I sat in meditation, connecting
myself through my Shaykh, my uncle, to the Prophet (sav). I
saw the Prophet (sav) coming to me with 124,000 Sahaba
(Companions) saying to me, “O my son, I am releasing all my
powers and those of my 124,000 Companions from my heart.
Tell your uncle and the caretakers of the village to migrate
immediately to Turkey”.
Then I saw the Prophet (sav) hugging me and I saw myself
disappearing in him. As soon as I disappeared in him I saw
myself ascending from the Dome of the Rock, the Bait
ul-Maqdis, from which the Prophet (sav) ascended in the
Night Journey. I saw myself astride the same Buraq which
carried the Prophet (sav) and I saw myself carried up in a
true vision, to the Station of Two Bow-lengths, where I
could see the Prophet (sav) but not myself. I felt myself to
be a part of the entirety of the Prophet (sav). Through that
Ascension I received the Realities that the Prophet (sav)
poured into my heart from what he had received on the Night
of Ascension. All these different kinds of knowledges came
to my heart in words of light, which began as green and
changed to purple, and the understandings, were poured into
my heart in a quantity, which is immeasurable.
I heard a voice coming from the Divine Presence saying,
“Approach, O my servant, to My Presence”. As I approached
through the Prophet (sav), everything disappeared; even the
spiritual reality of the Prophet (sav) disappeared. Nothing
existed except Allah, Almighty and Exalted. Then I heard a
voice from all His Lights and Attributes that were shining
in His Presence, “O my servant, now come to the State of
Existence within this Light”. I felt myself come into
existence through the Prophet (sav), after having been
annihhilated, appearing and existing in the Divine Presence,
decorated with the Ninety-Nine Attributes. Then I saw myself
inside the Prophet (sav), appearing inside every creation
that was existing by Allah's Power. That took us to a state
in which we were able to realize that there are universes
other than this universe, that there are endless Creations
of Allah, High and Sublime. Then I felt my uncle shaking my
shoulder, saying, “O my son, it is time for Fajr prayer”.
I prayed Fajr behind him and more than 300 people from the
village prayed in congregation with us. After Fajr my uncle
stood and said, “We asked my nephew to make
istikhara
(spiritual consultation)”. Everyone was eagerly waiting to
hear what I had seen. My uncle immediately said, “He was
brought to the presence of the Prophet (sav) by my power.
The Prophet (sav) gave everyone permission to move to
Turkey”.
Everyone in the village began to prepare for the emigration.
We moved from Daghestan to Turkey on a trip that was full of
difficulties caused both by the Russian soldiers and by
highwaymen who killed without the slightest provocation.
Near the border with Turkey, we were travelling through a
forest, which was known to be filled with Russian soldiers.
It was Fajr time. My uncle said, “We will pray Fajr and then
we will cross the forest”. We prayed Fajr and began moving.
Then Shaykh Sharafuddin said to everyone, “Stop!” He asked
for a cup of water. Someone handed him a cup of water and he
read on it from Chapter
Ya Sin
(ayat 9): “And We have set a barrier in front of them and a
barrier behind them, and We have enshrouded them in veils so
that they cannot see”. Then he read: “Fallahu
khairul hafidhan wa Huwa arhamur-Rahimeen
,
"Allah is the best protector, and He is the Most Merciful of
those who show mercy." [12:64]
As he was reading these verses, everyone felt something come
to their hearts, and I saw all the emigrants trembling.
Allah gave me a vision at that moment so that I could see
that we were surrounded by the Russian Army on every side. I
saw that they were shooting at anything that moved, even a
bird. Then I saw that we were passing by and that we were
safe. We were crossing the forest and they heard no sound of
our footsteps or our animals, until we arrived safely at the
other side of the border. The vision ended as Shaykh
Sharafuddin finished reading. He cast the water ahead of us
and he said, “Move now! But don't look behind”. As we moved
on, we could see the Russian soldiers on every side, yet it
was as if we were invisible. We moved for 20 miles through
that forest. It took us from morning until after Isha
prayers. We did not stop except to pray and we were
invisible to everyone. We heard the Russian army shooting at
people, birds, animals, and anything that moved. But we
passed undetected and unscathed. We were the only people who
were safe. We exited the forest and crossed over into
Turkey.
We travelled first to Bursa, where Shaykh Sharafuddin
established his home for one year. After that he moved to a
place called Rashadiyya, where he established a village for
Daghestani emigrants. It was located thirty miles from
Yalova, which is on the Marmara Coast, around fifty miles
from Bursa. There he built the only mosque in that village,
and next to it he built his own house. Everyone busied
themselves with building their houses. My father and mother
built a house adjacent to the house of Shaykh Sharafuddin.
When I reached the age of thirteen (1904 AD), my father
died. My mother was alone so I had to work to support my
mother. When I reached fifteen years of age, Sayyidina
Shaykh Sharafuddin told me, “Now, my son, you are mature and
an adult, and you have to marry”. I married at the very
young age of fifteen years and lived with my mother and my
wife."
Shaykh
Sharafuddin raised and trained Shaykh Abdullah with
intensive spiritual discipline and long hours of dhikr.
After six months he was ordered to enter seclusion for five
years. He said:
“ I was a newlywed of only six months when my Shaykh ordered
me to enter seclusion for five years. My mother was so
unhappy she went to complain to my Shaykh, her brother,
about it. My wife was also unhappy, but my heart never
complained. On the contrary, my heart was completely happy
to enter the seclusion I desired so intensely. I entered the
seclusion, though my mother was crying and saying, “I have
no one except you. Your brother is still in Russia and your
father has passed on”. I felt sorry for my mother, but I
knew it was an order of my Shaykh and that it was coming
directly from the Prophet (sav). I entered that seclusion
with orders to take six showers every day with cold water,
and to keep all my obligations and daily devotional
practices (wird/dhikr). In addition, I was ordered to read
at least seven, and up to fifteen, sections of Qur'an and to
repeat the Holy Name of Allah 148,000 times and prayers on
the Prophet (sav) 24,000 times daily.
There were many other practices as well, all to be performed
in a focused and meditative state. I was in a cave, deep in
a large forest, high on a snow-covered mountain. One person
was assigned to serve me with seven olives and two ounces of
bread every day. I entered that seclusion when I was fifteen
and a half years old, and I was quite fat. When I emerged
from that seclusion at twenty-two years of age, I was very
thin, weighing only 100 pounds.
What was unveiled to me of experiences and visions cannot be
expressed in words.”
This specially designed seclusion for Shaykh Adullah (q.s)
continued of and on until he was 22 years old. After his
last seclusion, he was eligible for military conscription.
This time he went into the army because of World War 1. He
went to defend the frontline.
He said: “I saw my mother for only one or two weeks. Then
they took me to the battle known as Safar Barlik in the
Dardanelles. One day there was an attack from the enemy and
about 100 of us were left behind to defend a frontier. I was
an excellent marksman, able to hit a thread from a great
distance. We were unable to defend our position and were
under fierce attack. I felt a bullet strike my heart and I
fell to the ground mortally wounded. As I lay dying, I saw
the Prophet (sav) coming to me. He said, “O my son, you were
destined to die here, but we still need you on this earth in
both your spiritual and physical form. I am coming to you to
show you how a person dies and how the Angel of Death takes
the soul”. He presented me with a vision in which I saw my
soul leaving my body, cell by cell, beginning from the toes.
As the life was withdrawing, I could see how many cells are
in my body, and the function of every cell, and the cure for
every sickness of each cell. I heard the dhikr of every
cell.
As my soul was passing away I experienced what a person
feels when he dies. I was brought to see the different
states of death: painful states of death, easy states of
death and the most blissful states of death. The Prophet (sav)
told me, “You are from those who pass in a blissful state of
death”. I was enjoying that passing so much because I was
going back to my Origin, which made me comprehend the secret
of the Qur'anic ayat,
“To Allah we belong, and to Him is our return”
[2:156].
That vision continued until I experienced my soul departing
on the last breath. I saw the Angel of Death come and heard
the questions he would ask. All the kinds of visions that
appear to the dying I experienced, yet I was alive during
that experience and this enabled me to understand the secret
of that state.
As I entered smoothly back into my body the vision ended.
When it ended I saw the medics on the field of battle
looking for the survivors among the dead. Then one of them
said, “That one is alive, that one is alive”. I had no power
to speak or to move, and I realized that it had been seven
days that my body had been lying there.
They took me and treated me, until I recovered and my health
was restored. Then they sent me back to my uncle.
In the last days of Shaykh Sharafuddin’s life, he wrote his
will and gave it to Shaykh Abdullah. He predicted at that
time, “After I die, an opportunity will come for you to
leave Turkey. When that opportunity comes you must take it,
because your duty does not lie here but outside Turkey”.
Shaykh Abdullah (q.s.) had two daughters from his
wife Halima, the eldest was named Rabi’a and the younger
Madiha. Nine of his children have not survived. After his
Shaykh passed away, a delegation came to him from King Faruq
of Egypt to convey the condolences of the King, as Shaykh
Sharafuddin (q.s.) had many followers in Egypt. One of the
princes who came with the delegation saw his daughter Madiha.
He immediately felt attracted to her and asked to marry her.
Shaykh Abdullah realized that this was the opportunity to
leave Turkey that his Shaykh had foretold. He immediately
accepted the proposal, and with his daughter's compliance
the marriage quickly took place. Soon after that he received
an invitation from his daughter's new husband to come to
Egypt.
He said: “I went to Egypt and stayed with my daughter. The
relationship between her and her husband was not good. After
some time the marriage failed and ended in divorce. I took
my Shaykh's advice to use that opportunity. I boarded a ship
with my wife and daughters in Alexandria and sailed to
Latakia. From Latakia I went to Aleppo, where I landed with
only ten piastres [about 10 cents] in my pocket, and no
other worldly possessions with me. I went to the mosque to
pray Maghrib with my daughters and my wife. There a man
approached me and said to me, “O my Shaykh, please be my
guest”. He took me and my family and he hosted us. I
consider this to be one of my Shaykh's miracles, which took
us from Egypt to Aleppo where Allah opened a door for us."
Abdullah Dagistani (q.s.) stayed some time in Aleppo. From
there he moved to Homs, where he visited the mosque and tomb
of the Companion of the Prophet (sav), Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra).
He stayed briefly in Homs. He moved to Damascus, in the
Midan District, near the tomb of Saad ad-Din Jibawi, a saint
from the family of the Prophet (sav). There he established
the first zawiya for the branch of the Naqshbandi Order
which had gone to Daghestan. With him the Golden Chain of
the Naqshbandi Order which had gone from Damascus to India,
Baghdad, and thanks to Abdullah Daghestan (q.s), now
returned from Dagistani to Yalova, again to Damascus.
His two daughters were married, Rabiha had four children,
three girls and one boy. Madiha was married to Shaykh Tawfiq
al-Hibri, one of the great Islamic scholars of Lebanon.
Soon people began to crowd into his zawiya. Then he received
a spiritual order to move to the Mountain of Qasyun. It is
the highest point in Damascus, from whose vantage the entire
city can be viewed. With the help of his two senior murids,
Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil and Shaykh Husayn Ali, he built a
house. This house and the mosque next to it still stand, and
the mosque is the site of his maqam (tomb). He saw in a
vision, while he was building the mosque, that the Prophet (sav),
with Shah Naqshband and Sayyidina Ahmad al-Faruqi, came and
put posts to mark the shape and location of the walls of the
mosque. As soon as the vision ended, the markers were
visible, and everyone present saw them.
Many times he was ordered by the Prophet (sav) to go into
more seclusions. He went into over twenty seclusions during
his lifetime. Some of these seclusions were made in
Damascus, some in Jordan, some in Baghdad, at the tomb of
Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani, and many were in Madinah.
Many wondrous events were observed with our Grandshaykh. His
life was full of beneficent activity. He was always smiling,
and never angry. He always had visitors and they would find
food prepared and ready for them. He rarely was seen
sleeping at night. During the day he was always receiving
people, and at night he was always sitting in his special
room, reading Qur’an, reading Dalail al-Khayrat, doing his
personal dhikr or reading praises on the Prophet (sav). He
used to pray after midnight until the dawn. He helped the
needy as much as he was able and he sheltered many homeless
in his mosque. He served humanity.
Until one day came in 1973, when he said, “The Prophet (sav)
is calling me. I have to go and see him”. He told me, “You
cannot come to me until you have an operation on your eye”,
referring to the shortsightedness in his left eye. After he
went for the eye surgery, he stopped eating. We begged him
to eat, but he refused saying, “I am in complete seclusion,
because the Prophet (sav) is calling me”. He would only
accept dry bread softened by soaking in water, once a day.
He said, “I don't want to live any longer, I want to go to
join my Prophet (sav) and to be with him. He is calling me,
Allah is calling me”. Then he wrote his will and said, “Next
Sunday I am going to pass on”. It was the September 30th,
1973 CE, the 4th of Ramadan, 1393 H. Everyone was surprised
and fearful awaiting that day to see if it would happen.
A mureed who was a witness of that day says: “It was ten
o'clock on the Sunday that he had predicted and we were
sitting in his room. He said to me, “Feel my pulse”. I felt
his pulse and it was over 150. Then he said, “O my son,
these are the last seconds of my life. I don't want anyone
here. Everyone must leave and go to the big meeting room”.
There were only ten of us inside the room. At that moment
two doctors arrived: one was my brother and the other a
friend of his. Both were surgeons. Grandshaykh did not allow
anyone other than family in the room.
We heard his daughter cry out, “My father died, my father
died”. We all ran into the room and we saw that Grandshaykh
was not moving. Quickly my brother took his pulse and his
blood pressure, but they were not detectable. He ran
hysterically to the car to get a syringe with medicine,
returning minutes later. He re-entered in the same manner,
wanting to inject the Shaykh in his heart to try to restart
its pumping. The other doctor said, “What are you doing? The
Shaykh has been dead for over seven minutes. Stop your
foolishness”. But my brother was not able to listen to
anyone. He wouldn't stop and insisted on going ahead with
the injection.
Then Grandshaykh opened his eyes, put his hand up and said
in Turkish: "Burak!" which means, "Stop!"
Everyone was shocked. They had never heard the dead speak
before. I will never forget this in all my life.”
The news of his passing was like a tremendous tornado,
whirling through Damascus, Aleppo, Jordan, Beirut. People
came from everywhere to him for one last look. We washed
him, and from his holy body came a very beautiful smell. We
prepared him for the funeral prayers and for burial the next
day. All the scholars of Damascus attended his funeral. Four
hundred thousand people came to his janaza prayers. People
were lined up from his house to the Mosque of Ibn Arabi,
where his body lay in state.
When we returned to his home after the janaza prayer we saw
the coffin gliding over the heads of people without any help
from anyone, moving to his mosque for its burial. It had
taken us three hours to walk back from the Mosque of
Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi to Grandshaykh’s mosque, a trip which
normally takes twenty minutes because of the huge crowd in
the streets it took three hours.
All the government officials and scholars were at the mosque
waiting to bury him. A message was delivered to the imam
from out of the blue saying, “Do not bury Grandshaykh until
Shaykh Nazim arrives”. For the love of our Shaykh, we were
happy to postpone his burial and insisted to wait until
Shaykh Nazim arrived.
It was Ramadan, everyone was fasting. The scholars and the
crowd grew restless. People said they wanted to go. We told
them they were free to go if they wanted, but that we must
wait. After some time most of the people left, and only the
most sincere followers of the Shaykh remained. Shortly
before Maghrib prayer time, Shaykh Nazim was seen climbing
the stairs. How he arrived so quickly no one knows. It
remains a mystery to this day. Shaykh Nazim brought
Grandshaykh’s body back into the mosque and prayed janaza
over him again. Then he ordered us all to go break our fast.
He buried him with his own hands.
Rahmetullahi aleyh
(mostly taken from
www.naqshibandi.org/chain/40.htm, please check this site
for more detailed information)
