Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān, centre, in a praise session at the mosque of the Baghdad Takiya (1990s).
The takya is a spiritual school that prepares a disciple to be a worshipper, a seeker, and a good person and a reformer in society. We want a Muḥammadan (PBUH) society, a society like the society of the Companions of the Messenger (PBUH), “The forerunners, the forerunners (10)—they are the ones that are brought near [to Allah]” (al-Wāqiʿa 56:10-11). We seek their moral character, “Indeed, you are of a great moral character” (al-Qalam 68:4). May Allah (exalted and high is He) send His blessings and peace upon you, O my Master, O Messenger of Allah.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān (Sermon, 22 January 2010)
When Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad became the Master of Ṭarīqa in early 1978, Iraq’s central takya, meaning the Shaikh’s residence, was in the district of Imām Qāsim in Kirkuk in northern Iraq. This is where Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Kasnazān settled down in 1968. Our Shaikh expanded the takya, adding an adjoining house to it and making a takya for women. He vacated his house next to the takya, where he used to live during his father’s Shaikhdom, and turned it into a takya for dervishes as well.
Shortly after assuming the Shaikhdom, Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad made a very important strategic decision. He moved the central takya to Baghdad, thus moving his place of residence from Kirkuk to Baghdad. This led to the spread of Ṭarīqa like never before. When he became Master, there were only three small takyas in Baghdad: one in the al-Raḥmāniyya quarter, which was a room in a house; another in the al-Ardharūmlī quarter; and a third near the al-Gaylānī Shrine. There was only one caliph in Baghdad, named “Bāqir” (may Allah have mercy on him), who managed the al-Raḥmāniyya takya, the city’s first Kasnazānī takya.
When the Shaikh visited Baghdad early in his Shaikhdom, staying in the Ibn Khaldūn hotel, near the al-Ṣarrāfiyya Bridge, he spoke to a dervish named Kāmil Shihāb (may Allah have mercy on him), who used to manage the al-Ᾱrdharūmlī takya, about the necessity of establishing a takya in a dedicated building. He would meet with the disciples there, and they would be able to regularly practice dhikr, worship, and preach. He directed Kāmil to search for suitable land to build the central takya upon, having given him an idea of the kind of place to look for. After checking out potential sites, Hajj Kāmil proposed a plot of land in the district of Ḥayy al-Quḍāt in central Baghdad with an area of 1,365 square metres. As the land was in the suburbs of Baghdad, some Arab and Kurdish disciples thought that it was too far from the city centre and not easily accessible. When our Shaikh visited it, however, he concluded that it was the right place for the future takya.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān during the Friday prayer in the Baghdad takya. Next to him is the martyred poet caliph ʿAlī Fāyiz (middle of 1990s).
The land was surrounded by a fence, but neighbouring houses dumped their rubbish on it. The authorities were considering more than one plan for using the state-owned land but they had not made a final decision. A karāma facilitated the Ṭarīqa’s acquisition of the land. Shortly after, a large number of disciples in seven large buses visited the Shaikh in Karbchna, where he was supervising the renovation of the shrines. Hiding among the visitors was a young man named ʿAlī from the security department of the National Command of the ruling Baʿath Party in Iraq. He had been sent by security agencies to spy on Ṭarīqa. Ṭarīqa had always been a source of concern for the government, which did not understand that it was a spiritual, not a worldly, organization. Its concern was further heightened by the fact that the Ṭarīqa’s Shaikh was a Kurd, as were many of its dervishes. The central government was in conflict with Kurdish political and armed wings. Our Shaikh was sitting with guests in his house, which is located on a hill about 250 metres away from the Shaikhs’ tombs. He suddenly summoned caliph Muḥammad Maḥmūd (may Allah have mercy on him), who served as his administrative deputy among caliphs and dervishes, described the spy to him, and told him to deliver a message to him.
Caliph Muḥammad found the visitor among disciples near the shrines. He took him aside and delivered our Shaikh’s message to him: Karbchna was a safe zone, so there was no need for the pistol he was hiding. Also, there were Kurdish fighters in surrounding areas that could cause trouble for him if they knew that he was armed. Muḥammad asked the visitor to leave the pistol with him. He would accompany him on the way back after the visit had ended and return it to him in Sangāw after he and the rest of the dervishes had crossed the danger zone and entered the total safety zone, where there were no Kurdish fighters. The man looked shocked and denied that he was carrying a weapon. When he found that Muḥammad was absolutely confident in the Shaikh’s assertion, the astonished man acknowledged that this was the case and gave him his pistol. He asked the dervish to take him to see the Shaikh. When our Shaikh received him, he repeated what he had said before, that Karbchna was safe, and that it was best not to carry a weapon in this area since Kurdish fighters might misunderstand the situation and hurt him if they came to know that he was armed. He reassured him once again that the caliph would return his weapon to him in Sangāw. He told him that Ṭarīqa had nothing to hide to be spied on and that the main concern of the Shaikh and dervishes was to remember and worship Allah. He urged the visitor to write an accurate and detailed report to whoever sent him of what he saw. He also asked him to come and see him again afterwards.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān in a praise session at the Amman takya, Jordan (12 December 2013).
ʿAlī became a sincere disciple. He used his connections to secure the approvals needed for building the takya on the land in Ḥayy al-Quḍāt. A karāma turned this man from a spy on Ṭarīqa into one of its good disciples. He came at the perfect time to provide an important service for Ṭarīqa, helping to expedite the building of the new central takya in Baghdad.
The takya’s land was registered in 1979, about a year after our Master assumed the Shaikhdom, and its construction began in 1980. The Shaikh regularly visited Baghdad to oversee the construction work. In the beginning, he would stay in a hotel, but when his visits became longer, he rented a house. The takya opened in 1982, so he visited it more frequently until he moved with his family that year to permanently reside in his home in the takya. Baghdad became the Ṭarīqa’s preaching hub.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān in a session of praise in the courtyard of the Baghdad takya (1996).
The takya was designed and built under our Master’s direct supervision. He appointed Shaikh Sāmān Maʿrūf as the lead engineer. He asked him to make a mosque that could accommodate those who prayed and performed dhikr, a hall for dervishes, some of whom would stay in the takya, and a house for the Shaikh, which would also never be without guests. When he said that he wanted the dhikr yard to be large, Shaikh Sāmān said that it was difficult to do that. Influenced by the size of the small dhikr yard in the Kirkuk takya, he said that he believed that the area the Shaikh wanted for the yard would be too large for the expected number of dervishes. The Shaikh replied that the Shaikhs bring as many disciples as a takya can accommodate: the bigger the takya is, the greater the number of disciples. He asked him to make the dhikr yard as large as possible. Thanks to continuous preaching, dervishes started to fill the takya’s yard on Monday and Thursday nights, when dhikr circles were held. About a decade later, the Shaikh reiterated the same words when commenting on the building of the takya in his farm in Dora, which Ṭarīqa started to use for some religious celebrations when the central takya could not accommodate attendees.
The Master asked for a special hall for women to be built, where female preachers could educate female dervishes and those who wanted to learn about Ṭarīqa. Therein, his mother would also receive those who wanted to visit her to seek her prayers or advice. When the dhikr circles were established on Monday and Thursday nights, the sleeping room, which overlooks the takya’s courtyard where the dhikr was held, was also reserved for women, so that they may participate in the dhikr at a distance from men.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān after the afternoon prayer at the Amman takya, Jordan (15 October 2016).
The Shaikh made the door of the takya’s mosque a replica of the new door that was designed for the shrines in Karbchna. He did not want to use pillars inside the hall of the mosque, which was twenty-two metres long and seventeen metres sixty-five centimetres wide. Shaikh Sāmān said that the mosque’s huge dome, whose peak was seventeen metres above the mosque’s floor, needed to be supported by pillars. The Shaikh repeated his request to not have any pillars inside the mosque. Sāmān said that even though he, as the engineer, thought that supporting pillars were necessary, he would make the dome without them, relying on our Shaikh’s spiritual influence. Two days after casting the dome and putting up temporary wooden pillars to allow the building materials to harden, the caliph who was supervising the construction noticed that one of the wooden pillars had tilted. Shaikh Sāmān reiterated that the dome was supposed to be supported by pillars but expressed no concern for it since it did not collapse during the casting process. After the mosque’s completion, a huge, very heavy chandelier was also hung from the dome’s roof.
After the dome was covered from the outside and a crescent moon was placed on its peak, Shaikh Sāmān saw in a dream Shaikh Ismāʿīl al-Wilyānī’s hand supporting the dome. One day, when a group of engineers asked our Shaikh how the dome of the takya’s mosque stood without supportive pillars, he replied, “Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm’s hand is supporting it until the Day of Resurrection”. Shaikhs Ismāʿīl al-Wilyānī and ʿAbd al-Karīm here represent the Shaikhs of Ṭarīqa in general and their spiritual protection of the takya. Even large explosions near the takya as a result of aerial bombardments during the Gulf War did not affect the mosque’s dome—further proof of its being under the protection of Ṭarīqa’s Shaikhs.
Dervishes usually take part in the building of takyas because it is a blessed effort, as takyas are Allah’s houses wherein preaching and dhikr take place. When establishing the main takya in any given city, it is not only disciples from that city that participate in building it, but dervishes from other cities also come to help. This is how, for instance, the central takya in Baghdad was built.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad in the middle of the dhikr circle at the Baghdad takya (1990s).
The following is one of the karāmas that accompanied the building of the central takya in Baghdad. Our Shaikh, who was in Kirkuk at the time, sent caliph Aḥmad Ḥusayn and another caliph named Muḥammad to a factory in the city of Erbil to buy marble for the takya. He specified the type of marble to them, its colour and dimensions, and the required amount. The factory’s manager apologised and said that what they wanted was unavailable. The Shaikh asked them to once again go to the same factory and ask for the marble. Hesitantly, Aḥmad reiterated that the factory’s manager told them that the marble was unavailable but that he would go again as this was the Shaikh’s wish. Our Shaikh patted him on the back encouragingly and said, “Go Kasnazānī, Kasnazānī”. When they reached the factory, Muḥammad felt too embarrassed to ask for the marble again, so Aḥmad alone went to the manager’s office. He told those present in the office that he knew that they had already told him that they did not have this kind of marble, but that he had returned to check once again to be sure, in deference to the Shaikh’s wish. The manager restated that they did not have that kind of marble. An employee there who was writing something put his pen aside and asked the caliph to follow him to the storehouse because he was reminded of the possible availability of this kind of marble. He removed a cover that revealed the marble that the Shaikh wanted. The available amount matched the desired quantity. Stunned, the employee said, “Your Shaikh knows our factory better than us!” This karāma reminds us of a muʿjiza of Jesus (peace be upon him), which was his ability to know what people had stored in their homes, “I inform you of what you eat and what you store in your houses” (Āl ʿImrān 49).
.Louay Fatoohi 2004-2024. All rights reserved
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