Sultan ul Awliya

In 1971, Shaykh Nazim was in Cyprus for the three months of Rajab, Sha'ban, and Ramadan, as was his custom. One day, in Sha`ban, we received a call from the airport in Beirut and it was the Shaykh telling us to come and get him. We were surprised that he had come, as we were not expecting him, but we quickly went to pick him up. He told us, "I have been ordered by the Prophet to come to you today, because your father is going to die. I am to wash him, shroud him and bury him and then go back to Cyprus." We said, "O our Shaykh, our father is healthy, nothing is wrong with him." He said, "That is what I have been ordered." He was absolutely certain, and since we had been taught to accept what the Shaykh says, we submitted to him.

He told us to gather the family and to bring them to see my father one last time. We believed him and we called all the family to come. Everyone was surprised and some didn't believe when we called them; some came and some didn't come. My father knew nothing about that matter, but only saw the relatives coming to see him as something ordinary. It was a quarter to seven. The Shaykh said, "Now I have to go up to your father's apartment to recite on him the chapter of Qur'an Ya Sin ash-Sharif as he passes away." He went up to my father's flat from our flat below. He was greeted by my father at the door. My father said, "O Shaykh Nazim, it has been a long time since we heard you recite Qur'an, won't you read for us?" Then Shaykh Nazim began to recite the chapter of Quran Ya Sin ash-Sharif. Just as he was finishing the chapter, the clock struck seven. Just then my father cried out, "My heart, my heart!" We lay him down and my brother and sister, who are both doctors, came to check him. They found his heart racing out of control and within minutes he breathed his last.

Everyone looked at Shaykh Nazim with awe and astonishment. "How did he know?" we were wondering. "How did he come from Cyprus just for this? What kind of saint is he? How did he know that time so precisely? What kind of secret was he carrying in his heart? What kind of perfect saint is he who knows things that people cannot know?"

The secret he carries is a result of Allah's love and mercy to him. Allah authorized him with that power and prescience because he maintained his sincerity and piety and loyalty to Allah's religion, and kept his obligations and his prayers, and honored His Holy Qur'an. He is like all saints of the Naqshbandi Order before him, like all saints of other orders before him, like his grandfathers Sayyidina `Abdul Qadir Jilani and Sayyidina Jalaluddin Rumi, and like Muhyideen Ibn cArabi who followed and preserved the tradition of Islam for 1400 years.

We were caught between two emotions. On the one hand we cried for our father's passing, and on the other we were happy with our master and what he had done for our father. His coming to take care of our father at his last breath was a gesture we will never forget, and was a blessed miracle written with words of light. He washed his body with his holy hands, covered him with a shroud, and buried him with his holy hands. Having accomplished his task he took a flight back to Cyprus the very same day.

What kind of emotions and feelings enter the heart of a person when he sees such events in front of his eyes, events which the material mind cannot encompass or even imagine? The pen cannot express these feelings. We can only say one thing: this is the truth, this is what happened. It is a reality that happens with a mystical power, an unbelievable power that can be given to a person when he has been granted love from the Divine. With that love he will be granted knowledge from the Divine, wisdom from the Divine, spirituality from the Divine. He will be granted everything. He will be a Knower of the past, a Knower of the present and a Knower of the future.

Once Shaykh Nazim was visiting Lebanon for a period of two months during the hajj (pilgrimage) season. The governor of the city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Ashar ad-Daya, was head of the official convoy to the hajj. He invited Shaykh Nazim to go with him on the Pilgrimage. The Shaykh said, "I cannot go with you, but, Insha-Allah, I will meet you there." The governor insisted, "If you are going, please go with me. Don't go with anyone else." Shaykh Nazim replied, "I don't yet know if I will go or not." After the season of hajj finished, and the governor had returned, he rushed to the house where Shaykh Nazim was staying. In front of 100 people, while we were watching, he said, "O Shaykh Nazim, why did you go with someone else, why didn't you come with me?" We said, "The Shaykh did not go on hajj. For two months he has been here with us, traveling around Lebanon." He said, "No! He was on hajj. I have witnesses. One day I was making the ritual circumambulation of the Ka'aba (tawaf), and Shaykh Nazim came to me and said, 'O Ashar, are you here?' I said, 'Yes, my Shaykh.' Then he made circumambulation with me. We spent the night together in our hotel in Makkah. He spent the day with us on Arafat, in our tent. He spent the night with me in Mina, and he stayed with us in Mina for three days. Then he told me, 'I have to go to Madinah to visit the Prophet.'"

As he told this story, we were carefully observing Shaykh Nazim, as we knew that he had never left our presence in Lebanon. We saw that unique, hidden smile, as if he meant to say, "That is the power that Allah grants to his saints. When they are on His Way, when they reach His Divine Love and His Divine Presence, Allah will grant them everything."

When he saw that, the governor said, "O my Shaykh, what is this miraculous ability that you showed us? It is incredible. That is something I never saw in all my life. I am a politician, and I rely on my mind and my logic. Yet I must say that you are not an ordinary person, you have superhuman powers. It must be something that Allah Himself has dressed you with!" He kissed the hand of the Shaykh and asked him for initiation in the Naqshbandi Order. Whenever Shaykh Nazim would visit Lebanon, that governor and the prime minister of Lebanon would sit in the Shaykh's association. Up until today, their families and many of the Lebanese people are his followers.