Tag: tasawwuf

Translation of the Munfarijah (Relief-Poem) of al-Ghazali

December 4, 2023

القصيدة المنفرجة

المنسوبة إلى حجة الإسلام أبي حامد الغزالي قدس سره
Attributed to Imām Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111)
Translated by Yusuf Chaudhary[1]

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم، والحمد لله رب العالمين
وَالصَّلاةُ وَالسَّلامُ على سَيدِّنا مُحَمَّدٍ النَُورِ الذَّاتِي وَالسِّرِّ السَّارِي فِي سَائِرِ الأَسماءِ وَالصِّفاتِ، اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ صَلاةً كامِلَةً وَسَلِّمْ سلامًا تامًا عَلى سَيِّدِنا مُحَمَّدٍ الذي تَنْحَلُّ بِهِ العُقَد، وَتَنْفَرِجُ بِهِ الكُرَب، وَتُقْضَى بِهِ الحَوائِج، وَتُنالُ بِهِ الرَّغائِب وَحُسْنُ الخَوَاتِيم، وَيُستَسقَى الغَمَامُ بِوَجهِهِ الكَرِيمِ وَعَلى آلهِ وَصَحبِهِ

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad, the Essential Light and the Secret flowing through the Names and Attributes. O Allah, send Your perfect blessings and complete peace upon our master Muhammad, the one through whom knots are untied, difficulties are relieved, needs are fulfilled, desires and good ends are attained, and rain clouds seek their supply from his noble countenance, and [send peace and blessings] upon his family and companions.

[Click here to read] Translation of the Munfarijah Relief-Poem of al-Ghazali

The Qaṣīdah al-Munfarijah (Poem of Relief) is a prayer-poem written and recited in order to relieve distresses and difficulties through supplication to Allah. It is a 55-line jīmiyya (ending in the letter jīm) poem attributed to the celebrated Muslim scholar Imam Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). The poem shares the same name as the famous Qaṣīdah al-Munfarijah of the Andalusian scholar Yūsuf b. Muḥammad al-Tawzarī, known as Ibn al-Naḥwī (d. 1119), whose Munfarijah is still popularly recited today. In the Islamic tradition, as with books of hadith, spirituality (taṣawwuf), and stories of saints, and other poems such as the Qaṣīdah al-Burdah, both Munfarijah poems are believed to be tried and tested forms of supplication through which Allah brings about relief in times of distress and tribulation. While there is a need for the modern Muslim, cut off due to the colonial trauma from much of his or her heritage, to revive this practice, in the pre-modern world these readings were an important part of Muslim public life, and the rich intellectual and spiritual tradition of Islam was manifest in everyday life.

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Muḥammad Amīn al-Bakrī al-Lārī (d. 1066/1656), author of Risālah fī ithbāt wājib al-wujūd

January 2, 2023

The following is the biography of the scholar Muhammad Amīn al-Bakrī al-Lāri (d. 1066/1656), a sufi scholar from Iran who settled in Damascus in the 17th century. He is the author of Risālah fī ithbāt wājib al-wujūd, a philosophical work from the Akbarian ‘taḥqīq‘ tradition dealing with the existence of God and the issue of Divine Knowledge. The work currently exists only in manuscript form. I am in the process of editing it based on a handful of available manuscripts and hope to complete it with a translation in the coming year, inshāʾ Allāh. I intend to write and upload another post soon with a brief description of the available manuscripts.

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al-Kulliyāt al-Ṣūfiyyah: General Principles of the Ṣūfī Way – Sh Nizar Hammadi

October 2, 2022

بسم الله الرحمـن الرحيم والحمد لله رب العالمين
والصلاة والسلام على سيد المرسلين سيدنا محمد وعى آله وصحبه أجمعين

General Principles of the Ṣūfī Way
al-Kulliyāt al-Ṣūfiyyah
by Shaykh Nizar Hammadi
Translated by Yusuf Chaudhary

كُلُّ مَنِ ادَّعَى معرفةً بالله، ثُمَّ رَأى أن له فَضلًا عَلَى عَبيدِ اللهِ بِما يَكون منه إليهم: من علم يُعَلِّمُهُ إيَّاهم، وَمَال يَجُودُ به عليهم، فليس عِندَهُ مِنَ المعرفة إِلاَّ الدعوى، وأما الْحقيقة فلا.

Every person who claims gnosis of God and then sees that he is better than any servant of God due to what comes from him to them, such as knowledge that he teaches or wealth that he spends on them, then there is no reality to his gnosis, rather only false claims.

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Kitāb al-Qaṣd ilā Allāh: Collection of the Sayings of Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 1258)

February 19, 2019
al-qasd 2

The Sayings of Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 1258). This MS. is dated to 1592. The Cambridge Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts suggests that it may be an early work from the Imām’s students, however, the book has yet to be published by itself, and the compiler is unknown.

Ibn ‘Ayyād al-Shādhilī (d.1740) reproduces it in al-Mafākhir al-‘Aliyyah in a section on the sayings of Imām al-Shādhilī, as narrated by one al-Ustādh Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī. However, he doesn’t introduce the work or mention a source text.

He may be referring to Imām Muḥammad Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī (d. 1583), who passed away just 11 years before this manuscript was written.

Imām al-Munāwī met the son of Imām Muḥammad al-Bakrī and includes an entry for him in al-Kawākib al-durriyyah fī tarājim al-sādah al-ṣūfīyyah. He describes him as “a scholar of the Ḥaramayn, Egypt and al-Shām.” Imām al-Bakrī studied under his father Abū al-Ḥasan al-Mārr, and then al-Shihāb ‘Umayrah al-Burullusī, and was known for giving excellent lessons in ḥadīth, tafsīr and taṣawwuf.