Columbo

Salaam,

So on a cold Saturday, the time is 10:30pm and we stand there, four of us, shivering outside Sheikh Nuhs house, eagerly waiting for him come to out. We here the rattling of a gate, we all lean forward, could it be him...? No, it’s someone else and so we go back to our former state, some doing dhikr, some memorising words, some just standing there.


I’m outside Sheikh Nuhs house on this cold night so that I can take part in what is known locally as “The Walk” Basically every night at around 10pm Sh Nuh goes on a 20 min walk around the local area doing his nightly dhikr and therefore some of the more hardcore mureeds join him on this walk, so I decided to join this time to check out what their always on about.

Anyway, there we are, waiting, waiting, waiting...and then he comes out and starts off on his walk down the road and we all follow him. He walks ahead and we follow behind him, all of us with our misbahas reciting and repeating praises to Allah and his prophet.

So we walk down a street, then up another street, then down another one etc etc..untill we come back to the sheikhs house and then he turns round and everyone goes upto to his shake his hand and kiss it at the same time and I go up and do the same.

To be honest i didn’t personally feel much spiritual benefit by going on this walk – for me everyone was walking too quickly and so you couldn’t concentrate on what you were saying, and then you had to look out for cars when crossing he road etc so I didn’t feel it was very conducive to gaining a spiritual feeling. But I guess all the mureeds go on the walk as they feel just being around the Sheikh and by just being in his presence they get some kind of Baraka or feel more spiritual which is fair enough I suppose.


Anyway as a further part of my investigation (that sounds so dodgy and clinical – “investigation”) into the Shadili tarika I attended the Latifiya the other day. Basically as part of the Shadili tarika, every Tuesday after Maghrib mureeds sit in a circle and repeat “Ya Latif” , one of the 99 names of Allah which means along the lines of The Gentle, The Kind, The merciful, a 1000 times.

Alhamdulilah it was a pretty nice experience, with around 30-40 mureeds all in a light hum and in unison reciting this with Sh Nuh sitting in front leading the way. Then after the recitation we had a short lesson wrt teachings from a book by Imam Shadili until Esha.

Although rewarding, again I felt that the pace of I was a bit too quick (i'm a hard man to please..) – I don’t know, for me I suppose wrt to dhikr I like to go at a steady pace so that each word sinks in and means something rather than go at breakneck pace just to say that particular thing x times. At times it as going so quickly that i’m sure instead of saying “Ya Latif” I ended up saying something like “Ya Thalfeef”…lol. But anyway I think the whole concept of congregation dhikr is one which is very rewarding and something which isn’t done enough, in the west anyway so it was pretty good.

The only remaining thing, the main thing associated with the Shadili tarika, which I haven’t attended yet is their Hadra they do every Thursday and Saturday. This is the most “controversial” thing they do – from what i hear it involves standing around in a circle, bending back and forwards repeatedly (like going to and fro from the ruku position) and almost ending up jumping at some stages doing dhikr “from the chest”.. to be honest this sounds a bit OTT for me so I think im gonna give it a miss but I think by attending a lot of their lessons and events it Has opened up my eyes to the necessity of these things to fulfill ones spiritual aspect of Islam.

Who knows what will happen to me in the future…

Salaam