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Baha' al-Din Naqshband
Baha' al-Din Naqshband (b. March 1318, Qasr-i Hinduvan, Chagatai Khanate – d. March 2, 1389 Qasr-i Hinduvan, Timurid Empire) was the eponymous founder of what would become one of the largest Sufi Sunni orders, the Naqshbandi.
Baha' al-Din was born in March 1318 in the village of Qasr-i Hinduvan, which was one farsakh (about 3 miles) from the city of Bukhara. Like the majority of the sedentary population of the region, Baha' al-Din was a Tajik, i.e. a speaker of Persian and a participant in its culture.
Three days after his birth, Baha' al-Din was adopted as a spiritual son by Baba Mohammad Sammasi, a master of the Khwajagan, a Sufi order founded by Yusuf Hamadani (d. 1140). It was Baha' al-Din's paternal grandfather who brought him to Sammasi, as he was a murid (novice) of the latter. Sammasi later entrusted Baha' al-Din's training to his distinguished student Amir Kulal.
Early texts do not mention how Baha' al-Din gained the nickname "Naqshband", nor its meaning. An agreement was later partly reached that it referred to the naqsh (imprint) of the name of Allah that is firm in the heart through constant and continuous prayer. In Bukhara, Baha' al-Din more practically became its patron saint and was commonly referred to as "Khwaja Bala-gardan" by its inhabitants. Amongst the members of the present-day Naqshbandi order, particularly in Turkey, Baha' al-Din is known as "Shah-e Naqshband."
Baha' al-Din died on March 2, 1389, in Qasr-i Hinduvan.
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The Naqshbandi is a major Sunni order of Sufism. Its name is derived from Baha' al-Din Naqshband. Naqshbandi masters trace their lineage to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Sunni Islam and Ali, the fourth Caliph of Sunni Islam. It is because of this dual lineage through Ali and Abu Bakr through the 6th Imam Jafar al-Sadiq that the order is also known as the "convergence of the two oceans" or the "Sufi Order of Jafar al Sadiq".
The Naqshbandi order owes many insights to Yusuf Hamdani and Abdul Khaliq Gajadwani in the 12th century, the latter of whom is regarded as the organizer of the practices and is responsible for placing stress upon the purely silent invocation. It was later associated with Baha' al-Din Naqshband in the 14th century, hence the name of the order. The name can be interpreted as "engraver (of the heart)", "pattern maker", "reformer of patterns", "image maker", or "related to the image maker". The way is sometimes referred to as "the sublime Sufi path" and "the way of the golden chain."
The Naqshbandiyya order became an influential factor in Indo-Muslim life and for two centuries it was the principal spiritual order in the Indian subcontinent. Baqi Billah Berang is credited for bringing the order to India during the end of the 16th century. He was born in Kabul and brought up and educated in Kabul and Samarqand, where he came in contact with the Naqshbandiyya order through Khawaja Amkangi. When he came to India, he tried to spread his knowledge about the order, but died three years later. His disciple Ahmad Sirhindi took over after his death. Later he became known as Mujaddad-i-Alf-i-Thani. It was through him that the order gained popularity within a short period of time. Shah Waliullah Dehlawi was an 18th-century member of the order.
The Naqshbandiyya was introduced into Syria at the end of the 17th century by Murad Ali al-Bukhari, who was initiated in India. Later, he established himself in Damascus, but traveled throughout Arabia. His branch became known as the Muradiyya. After his death in 1720, his descendants formed the Muradi family of scholars and sheikhs who continued to head the Muradiyya. In 1820 and onward, Khalid Shahrazuri rose as the prominent Naqshbandi leader in the Ottoman world. After the death of Khalid in 1827, his order became known as the Khalidiyya, which continued to spread for at least two decades. In Syria and Lebanon, the leaders of every active Naqshbandiyya group acknowledged its spiritual lineage, which had retained the original Naqshbandiyya way. Later a strife between Khalid's khalifas led to disruption of the order, causing it to divide.
When political leader Musa Bukhar died in 1973, the pre-Mujaddidi line of the Naqshbandiyya in Greater Syria came to an end. One of the only branches to have survived till recently is the one based in the khanqah al-Uzbakiyya in Jerusalem. The number of its members had increased at the end of the 19th century. The Farmadiyya branch, which practices silent and vocal invocation, is still present in Lebanon and is named after Ali-Farmadi.
During the middle of the 19th century Egypt was inhabited and controlled by Naqshbandis. A major Naqshbandi khanqah (a building designed for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood or tariqa as a place for spiritual practice and religius education) was constructed in 1851 by Abbas I, who did this as a favor to the Naqshbandi sheikh Ahmad Ashiq. Ahmad Ashiq headed the order until his death in 1883. Ahmad Ashiq's was a practitioner of the Diya'iyya branch of the Khalidiyya. In 1876, sheikh Juda Ibrahim amended the original Diya’iyya, which became known as al-Judiyya, and gained a following in al-Sharqiyya province in the eastern Nile Delta.
During the last two decades of the 19th century two other versions of Naqshbandiyya spread in Egypt. One of these was introduced by a Sudanese, al-Sharif Isma'il al-Sinnari. Al-Sinnari had been initiated into the Khalidiyya and Mujaddidiyya by various sheikhs during his time in Mecca and Medina. Initially, he tried to obtain a following in Cairo but was not able to, therefore he resorted to going to Sudan. It is from there that the order spread into Upper Egypt from 1870 onward under Musa Mu’awwad, who was al-Sinnari's successor. Muhaamad al-Laythi, son of al-Sinnari, was the successor after Mu’awwad's death.
Ma Laichi brought the Naqshbandi order to China, creating the Khufiyya Hua Si Sufi ("Multicolored Mosque") menhuan (order). Ma Mingxin also brought the Naqshbandi order, creating the Jahriyya menhuan. These two menhuan were rivals, and fought against each other which led to the Jahriyya Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt of 1895.
Some Chinese Muslim Generals of the Ma Clique belonged to Naqshbandi Sufi menhuan including Ma Zhan'ao and Ma Anliang of the Khufiyya Naqshbandi menhuan. Ma Shaowu and Ma Yuanzhang were other prominent leaders from the Jahriyya Naqshbandi menhuan.
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The following would always apply to genuine Sufi Naqshbandi masters or sheikhs:
- They must comply with the Sacred Law.
- They must adhere to the Sunnah.
- They must be a scholar. There can be no tasawwuf without knowledge.
- They must not engage in Bid'ah (religious innovation).
- They accept interaction with other disciples of the order.
- They do not accept the personal certification of dead persons, in dreams, or through special spiritual experience (rawhani). There is a rare exception to this rule according to the uwaisi concept of spiritual transmission, where someone who lived before can train and transmit knowledge to someone who came later.
- They receive written personal certification only in the presence of witnesses.
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The following are the Naqshbandi principles. Known as the Eleven Naqshbandi principles, the first eight were formulated by Abdul Khaliq Gajadwani, and the last three were added by Baha' al-Din Naqshband.
- Remembrance (Yad-kard): Always orally and mentally repeating the dhikr.
- Restraint (Baz-gasht): Engaging in the heart repetition of the al-kalimat at-tayyiba phrase – "La-ilaha il-allah muhammadur rasul-allah".
- Watchfulness (Negah-dasht): Being conscientious over wandering thoughts while repeating al-kalimat at-tayyiba.
- Recollection (Yad-dasht): Concentration upon the Divine presence in a condition of dhawq, foretaste, intuitive anticipation or perceptiveness, not using external aids.
- Awareness while breathing (Housh dar dam): Controlling one's breathing by not exhaling or inhaling in the forgetfulness of the Divine.
- Journeying in one's homeland (Safar dar watan): An internal journey that moves the person from having blameworthy properties to having praiseworthy properties. This is also referred to as the vision or revelation of the hidden side of the shahada.
- Watching one's step (Nazar bar qadam): Do not be distracted from the purpose of the ultimate journey.
- Solitude in a crowd (Khalwat dar anjuman ): Although journey is outwardly in this world, it is inwardly with God.
- Temporal pause (Wuquf-i zamani): Keeping account of how one spends his or her time. If time is spent rightfully give thanks and time is spent incorrectly ask for forgiveness.
- Numerical pause (Wuquf-i adadi): Checking that the dhikr has been repeated in odd numbers.
- Heart pause (Wuquf-i qalbi): Forming a mental picture of one's heart with the name of God engraved to emphasize that the heart has no consciousness or goal other than God.
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Muraqaba is known as spiritual communion. In this practice one tries to unveil the mystery of life by losing oneself in it. One imagines his heartbeats calling out the name of the almighty. It is highly believed that it is true that our heart calls out for Allah with every beat. But it is our hearts which are draped by sins and so the heartbeat is heard as dhak dhak and not Allah Allah. Muraqaba is done by sitting in a lonely place with eyes closed and maintaining a calm position, imagining your exterior eyes closed, interior eyes opened, your heart calling out for Allah, and trying to hear the word 'Allah' in each and every heartbeat.
Tawajjuh is the basis of spirituality. It is the process of transferring spiritual light (Faiz) that the shaykh transfers from his enlightened heart to his or her murid's (student's) heart. This light leads the way to enlightenment and makes truth differentiate from false. No spirituality is possible without Tawajjuh. This is how Islamic spirituality differs from other spiritual practices. In Islamic spirituality, murid tends to be more and more in the company of his shaykh to receive Faiz through Tawajjuh that makes enlightenment an easier process as his heart day by day enlightens up to God's presence and his commands towards him and humanity. The process of Tawajjuh is like lighting a candle from another candle. The candle that lightened the other loses nothing, and the candle that got lighted, gains everything.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha%27_al-Din_Naqshband
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muraqabah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqshbandi
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