Imam al-'adani

His Lineage

He is Imam Abu Bakr al-'Adani bin Imam 'Abdullah al-'Aydarus bin Shaykh Abu Bakr al-Sakran bin Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Saqqaf bin Shaykh Muhammad Mawla al-Dawilah, bin 'Ali Mawla Darak, bin 'Alawi al-Ghuyur, bin al-Faqih al-Muqaddam Muhammad, bin 'Ali, bin Muhammad Sahib Mirbat, bin 'Ali, bin 'Alawi, bin Muhammad Sahib al-Sawma'ah, bin 'Alawi, bin 'Ubaydullah, bin al-Imam al-Muhajir il-Allah Ahmad, bin 'Isa, bin Muhammad al-Naqib, bin 'Ali al-'Uraydi, bin Ja’far al-Sadiq, bin Muhammad al-Baqir, bin 'Ali Zayn al-'Abidin, bin Husayn al-Sibt, bin 'Ali, bin Abu Talib and Fatimah al-Zahra’, the daughter of our Master Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets .

His mother was al-Sayyidah al-Waliyyah 'A’ishah bint Shaykh 'Umar al-Mihdar.

Qubah Imam al-'adani

His Life

He was born in Tarim in 851 (1447). His father said before his birth: “I have been given good tidings of a child who will be amongst the people of wilayah, who will receive special care ('inayah) and who will be someone of noble character.” His father took care of his upbringing and spiritual progress, along with his uncle Shaykh 'Ali bin Abu Bakr al-Sakran and Shaykh Sa'd bin 'Ali Madhaj. He memorised the Qur’an and mastered the Islamic sciences while still in his youth, such that his father appointed him as a shaykh of the inward and outward sciences at the age of 14. From then on his life was spent teaching and calling to Allah.

In his youth he would worship by night in the valleys outside Tarim, reading ten ajza' of the Qur’an in prayer and returning before Fajr. He went for twenty years without sleeping.

On his return from his second Hajj the scholars of the city of Aden heard that he was nearby and resolved to come to meet him. Instead he informed them that he would come to visit them. Thousands of people came to greet him as he entered Aden on 13th Rabi' al-Thani 889. He said: “It is my intention to take all these people to Allah.” The people of Aden continue to celebrate the day of his arrival in the city to this day. He took up residence in Aden, built a mosque and began to teach. Students from far and wide came to learn from him and the religious life of Aden flourished. He had great concern for the common people, especially those not on the straight path. He said: “If I see a believer who Allah has given the ability to perform that which is incumbent upon him and to avoid enormities then I am content. What troubles me is when I see a believer who has fallen into disobedience of Allah and into the traps of the Devil, so I expend my efforts to save him.” Knowing that the night is the time when most acts of disobedience are committed, he would gather the people together every night to remember Allah. The gathering would continue until Fajr, at which point he would lead the people in prayer and then give them a day’s wages and tell them to go home and sleep. Their souls thus became accustomed to obeying Allah, and they had no time to dis-obey Him.

He was famous for his noble character and immense generosity, which led him to accumulate great debts in order to help the needy. One of his compan-ions rebuked him for accumulating these debts, to which he retorted: “Do not come between me and my Lord, for I have only spent this money seeking His pleasure, and He has promised me that He will pay back these debts before I leave this life.” Every year he set aside money for students of knowledge and visitors and contributed to many charitable projects, such as the repair of the mosques of Tarim and the construction of drainage channels to prevent flood-ing in Aden and several areas of Hadramawt.

He counselled people to have a good opinion of Allah, which he called “the greatest treasure” and “Allah’s greatest name,” and to have a good opinion of Allah’s slaves. He said: “The one who has a good opinion of someone will not lose out even if his opinion proves to be wrong; the one who has a bad opinion of someone will not benefit even if if his opinion proves to be correct.” He gave the following counsels: “Anyone who does not prevent himself from following his caprice will experience abasement;” “two things cause the fool-ish person the most trouble: greed and getting involved in that which does not concern him.”

He said: “You must visit the awliya’ and come to know them. If your inten-tion is correct and your belief is firm, then the spiritual and physical realms are linked just like the spirit and the body are linked. No blessings come from the spiritual realm except by means of movement in the physical realm. The evi-dence for this is in Allah saying to Maryam: shake towards yourself the trunk of the palm tree (Maryam, 19:25) and saying to Musa: strike the sea with your staff.(Al-Shu'ara’, 26:63) Allah thus made the shaking and the movement of the staff in the physical realm a cause for the receiving of blessings from the spiritual realm.”

He would often make the following invocation in his gatherings:

"O Allah, bless us with the most expansive of intellects, the purest of minds, the purest of actions, the best of character, the most plentiful provision, complete well-being, the best of this life and the blessings of the afterlife.”

His Death

He remained in Aden until his death in 914 (1508). He was buried next to the mosque which he established. The sultan of the time erected a great dome over his grave and built a school next to the mosque, Ribat al-'Aydarus. The Ribat continues to flourish to this day, under the directorship of Habib Abu Bakr bin 'Ali al-Mashhur, who has also greatly revived the annual visit in Rabi' al-Thani.