Sayyid Hashim Jilani

When my friend Al Ameen from UK had visited Kerala for the last time we had talked of a lot of things. Among that he remembered an incident of Shaikh Ibrahim Osi Efa, a UK based scholar using his prayer bead, while taking a class, within his pocket while his fingers moved them slowly. Ashraf Nurani, another friend of mine, had also recollected such an incident when he met Syed Farid Al Attas, a well-renowned academician and author, at an academic conference. He was busy writing with one hand and the other hand was moving the rosary beads along. The two instances I mentioned here prove us how popular these prayer beads have become in the daily life of common person, ranging from scholars to academicians to traders. Used by some, when praying and person influenced by religion in their de...

“Were we to visit her, we would find her earth Fragrant, perfumed as Ambergris breathing; Well-mannered, we would tread barefoot in her villages, Beholding that in a secret Wadi were we walking…((Editor’s Introduction, Muhammad Bin Abubakar Al Shilli, 1982:8)). These are the lines from one of the most celebrated Hadrami poets of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Sayyid Abu Bakr bin Shihab about his hometown, Tarim. Tarim is a hamlet situated in the Hadhramaut Valley of south Yemen. An important center of theological and juridical learning, Tarim is also an abode to several hundred Sayyed communities from where millions of them lit the candle of Hadrami Diaspora and migrated to various parts of the globe. History of Alavi Sadath in Tarim marks a beginning by the arrival of I...

Still Do You Want to Keep Your Hands Aside?

Abdullah Bin Alavi Al Haddad: Legend of the Ba Alavi Sadath