The inclusive ethos of Qadiriyya Sufi Order’s mother shrine in Baghdad, housing the tomb of 12th-century saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani, endures transcending cultural, religious, and bridging sectarian divides as a symbol of coexistence and tranquillity
Much of modern-day Baghdad came into existence when the nationalization of oil in the 1970s created new jobs and drew people from all over Iraq to the city. New neighbourhoods sprang up in the city’s east and west to accommodate the growing population that more than tripled over 20 years.
The American occupation and the civil war that followed would take a heavier toll in the newer areas. The residents in these areas were from all over, which did not matter until social fissures deepened. Trust was the only bulwark left against the chaos, wrote Sabrina Tavernise and Karim Hilmi in The New York Times on Baghdad’s Bab al-Sheikh locality at the height of the bloodshed in 2007.
The war came hard to the locality’s edges but Bab al-Sheikh residents did not let sectarianism drive a wedge between them. Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, and Christians continued living there cheek by jowl rebuffing the toxic mix of religion and politics that was tearing Iraq apart. 12th-century saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani’s shrine remained the neighbourhood’s anchor and bound people together. It preserved the spirit of coexistence in Bab al-Sheikh, which gets its name from his epithet.
We walked into the shrine taking the most accessible of the three doorways—off Kifaḥ Street—into it. An alleyway off the main road led to a wooden door with embossed brass in an arched brick frame. Verses inscribed above the entrance on ceramic tiles called Gilani ‘of those men whose companions never experience doubt or fear of the uncertainties of time; and that although the suns of earlier men have faded, his will forever remain high in its orbit.’
Devotees would invariably use a knocker on the door before stepping into the shrine, which is oriented in a south-westerly direction to ensure the saint’s burial chamber and the adjacent prayer halls face Mecca. The door from Kifaḥ Street led us straight into the shrine’s open central courtyard. A second entrance off Gilani Street on the opposite side had a marble façade. The façade had carved inscriptions of Quranic verses related to the story of the Prophet Moses and his brother, Aaron.
Friend of God
The third entrance nearby had tiles bearing inscriptions from the Quran in which God describes his awlia, or friends, as ‘being those who will not experience fear or be sad. They are those who believe and who avoid wrongdoing. They will be rewarded both in this life and in the hereafter.’
Other inscriptions included ya Allah, ya Muhammad (Oh God, Oh Muhammad)’ and three of God’s 99 names. An older main entrance, which was now redundant as a gateway, is similar in design to the Kifaḥ Street gateway. Two verses inscribed nearby invite the seeker to come to the saint’s door when other avenues have become narrow as God has chosen to bestow upon this saint the gift of answering needs.
Two minarets soar into the sky from the shrine’s central courtyard. The oldest of them is closest to the burial chamber. The minarets have inscribed phrases such as ya Allah, ya Muhammad, names of God, and a Quranic quotation in which God tells his worshippers that to him ascends the good word, and the good deed raises it on them.
The shrine within the walls of Baghdad’s old city became the mother shrine of the Qadiriyya Sufi Order he founded when the saint was buried there. It was earlier a theological college before becoming a hospice for Gilani’s followers and students in the 12th century.
The Qadiriyya would become the biggest Sufi order globally, making the saint among the most familiar in the Muslim world. He is known as Sulṭan al-Awliya’ (king of the saints), Muḥiyyiddin (reviver of the faith), Ghaus-ul-Azam (great helper), and Dastageer (hand-holder) in different parts of the world. The saint is an integral part of the spiritual life in my native Kashmir, the Himalayan Valley he never visited over 4,000 km from his burial site in Baghdad. Popular devotion turned Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani into a saint with local characteristics in Indonesia, which is even farther—8,166 km from Baghdad.
Javanese Muslim Mystical Fountainhead
It is believed the saint visited and spread his teachings in Indonesia. Utrecht University Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies Professor Martin van Bruinessen has cited a 19th-century text in which Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani appears as the fountainhead of a Javanese Muslim mystical tradition. Bruinessen writes this corresponds with a popular belief held in various parts of West Java in later times that it had been Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani who personally brought Islam to Java:
Legends from West Java invariably associate Abd al-Qadir with the sacred cave at Pamijahan in the Karangnunggal district on West Java’s south coast. This is, in fact, the location of the shrine of one of the major saints of Java, ShaykhAbd al-Muhyi, who is credited with introducing the Shattariyya to the island.
Bruinessen writes the saint’s protective powers are highly appreciated in the martial arts tradition of West Java. He notes martial arts schools are organised much like Sufi orders, and each school has distinctive physical and magical techniques. Bruinessen writes one of the schools is characterised by its use of the hizb (prayer formula) of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani, which, it is believed, the saint ‘received’ as a result of long meditations in Pamijahan.
The Sufi movement, or Islamic mysticism, expanded far and wide thanks to saints such as Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani amid growing materialism and immorality. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani arrived in Baghdad in 1095. He studied the Prophet’s traditions, Sufism, Arabic philology, theology, and jurisprudence as per the Ḥanbali School—one of the four Islamic schools of jurisprudence.
The saint spent 25 years wandering in the deserts of what is now Iraq as an ascetic. In 1127, he returned to Baghdad and began the preaching career that brought him to prominence as the Abbasid Empire was fragmenting. The saint considered it his religious duty to work for society’s welfare, particularly for the weak and vulnerable. He considered the service of mankind a spiritual duty.
The dome of the Qadiriyya shrine stood out in the Baghdad skyline centuries after Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent built it in the 16th century when the Ottomans were seeking to bind the empire’s people. Suleiman also completed the restoration of Shia Imam Musa al Kadhim’s shrine, reflecting his inclusive approach. He sought to treat his subjects well irrespective of their sectarian identities and visited both Shia and Sunni shrines. The saint taught and preached for 32 years until he died in 1165. The college’s portico became the nucleus of the shrine after he was buried there.
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani’s shrine is believed to have even survived the 1258 Mongol invasion that left Baghdad in ruins and ended the Abbasid Empire. It later fell into disrepair. Suleiman renovated the shrine after capturing Baghdad in 1534. The sultan constructed the new dome after finding it derelict. He also ordered the construction of a hospice for the poor, and widows besides setting up endowments for the shrine.
A soup kitchen at the Qadiriyya shrine remained an oasis of acceptance when Baghdad was riven with sectarian bloodshed. ‘I cannot live away from the kitchen. It is my peaceful world. We Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds, are all living as brothers and never discuss our sect. We are all Iraqis,’ Abu Saif, a Shia, who worked at the mosque, told Reuters in 2007 as Haj Hameed, a Kurd cooked in the kitchen.
Reuters noted the diversity in the kitchen is matched by the crowd of Sunnis and Shias who queued to serve lentils, chicken, and rice. ‘It is here, and only here, that no one pays attention to whether we are Sunnis or Shi’ites,’ Abu Saif told Reuters as he broke into tears. Sectarian, ethnic, and religious lines blur completely at the Qadiriyya shrine, which is an important site for a ritual marking the end of mourning for loved ones among Shia women. The ritual involves a change of black clothes for coloured ones at a prayer hall adjacent to the saint’s burial chamber and giving discarded garments in charity.
Sameer Arshad Khatlani is a journalist and the author of the Penguin Random House book The Other Side of the Divide
