Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān, and on his right his then General Deputy and the Shaikh of Ṭarīqa after him, Shaikh Nahro, at his residence in London (middle 2000).
The person in whose heart there is no love for the Messenger is not a Muslim, “Say [O Muhammad] ‘If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful’” (Āl ʿImrān 31). The faith of the person who does not follow in the footsteps of the Messenger, the affairs of the Messenger (PBUH), is incomplete. Complete faith means love for the Messenger (PBUH) which pulls you towards love for Allah (exalted and high is He). You love the Messenger (PBUH) for Allah’s sake. The complete seeker is faithful, loving.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān (Sermon, 21 June 1990)
As we saw in the previous chapter, having Prophetic traits is both a result and a sign of righteousness. Every righteous person has a noble character. Good manners are a requirement for a person to reform others. A righteous person cannot help others unless he has good manners that make him a good role model to them, so they would listen to what he says, observe how he behaves, and emulate him. In addition to fine character, there are abilities and gifts required for any role of leadership, including spiritual leadership. Noble manners and leadership qualities were both present in the Messenger (PBUH), making him the best of the messengers and people.
The Shaikh of Ṭarīqa is a spiritual reformist leadership role that leads seekers, both visibly and spiritually, on their journey to Allah. The person whom the Prophet (PBUH) and the Shaikhs choose for this great reformist role must have leadership skills to discharge the huge responsibilities of this role, in the same way that he has to have the manners of the Prophet (PBUH). Allah looks with care at the person whom He has chosen for the Shaikhdom of Ṭarīqa, instilling in him an instinctive ability to acquire leadership skills and providing for him the upbringing and circumstances that help him turn that disposition into reality. These skills and capabilities continue to develop and are polished by spiritual progress, experience, and intellectual growth, both before becoming a Shaikh and while in this position.
In this chapter, we will review some of the leadership attributes that our Shaikh possessed.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān receiving the Vatican Ambassador to Jordan, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, at the Amman takya (March 2015).
21.1 Attractive Personality
Allah graced our Shaikh with an attractive, wholesome personality that endeared him to people since his childhood. This personality was one of Allah’s gifts that was related to his future role as the Master of Ṭarīqa, “I bestowed love upon you from Me” (Ṭāhā 20:39). The blessing of the Shaikhdom multiplied this wholesomeness, causing love for him to spontaneously and quickly enter the hearts of all who saw him. This effect was not something that only dervishes felt, but it extended to people in general. Often, people who had met him for the first time would mention his endearing personality. This helped him to establish a wide range of social relationships with different people, old and young, rich and poor. This attractiveness made him sociable by nature. He was always surrounded by people and his assembly was never free of visitors. When going out, he would always have others accompany him. He enjoyed having people around him and enjoyed helping and serving people.
His attractive personality and leadership qualities, which made people trust him, gave him, from his youth, great social standing among tribal chieftains and community elders. They would listen to what he had to say and often turned to him to resolve their problems and disputes. They started to treat him like a clan chieftain when he was still just a young man.
His love for defending the oppressed made him a mecca for the weak. Many who escaped oppression and persecution turned to him and lived in his village under his protection. The protection of the law was limited, if at all present, in some remote areas. He was brave and unyielding when confronting any oppressor, and he was not afraid of blame when standing up for what is right.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān visiting the shrine of Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gaylānī in Baghdad (1990s).
21.2 Establishing Relationships with Various People
Our Shaikh had a tremendous ability to develop successful relationships with people from different social, cultural, and religious backgrounds. He had strong relationships with a large number of intellectuals, academics, politicians, artists, scientists, clerics, tribal chieftains, and others. He was helped in this regard by his interest in and awareness of different kinds of knowledge, an exceptional ability to engage with people and exchange views on various scientific, cultural, and political subjects, and his respect for different opinions.
His relationship with someone would not be confined to their mutual interests. He was genuinely interested in people’s personal circumstances and the well-being of their families. He was always ready to help.
Personal traits that made him extremely successful in developing social relationships included general courteousness, generosity in addressing others, and purity of heart when treating people. By nature, he loved people in general. He loved to spread amity and cordiality, reiterating and applying this Prophetic tradition, “When a man loves his brother, let him tell him that he loves him”.[1]
21.3 Strategic Thinking
Leadership requires a strategic outlook that enables the leader to see into the future and perceive what most people would fail to see. Sometimes our Shaikh would plan or do something that others did not understand or appreciate at the time and whose benefits would be clear only years later. He also would make decisions and do things that involved a fair amount of risk, but these were calculated risks and far from being reckless or inconsiderate. One example was his historic decision after he became Master to move the central takya from Kirkuk in northern Iraq to the capital of Baghdad, despite the sensitivity of government authorities at the time to religious movements and organizations in general. Besides, he was seen as a Kurd, despite descending from the Prophet (PBUH), at a time when the state and the Kurdish nationalist movement were in uneasy peace. Without this change, Ṭarīqa Kasnazāniyya would have remained of limited presence, mainly existing in the north of Iraq and some other Iraqi cities.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān with a group of dervishes, possibly in Kirkuk (1980s).
21.4 Multitasking
Shaikhdom comes with responsibilities that are completely different from one another. Leading Ṭarīqa requires the ability to manage all those responsibilities simultaneously and with clear vision and efficiency. Within a very short period, our Shaikh might have discussed details of building a takya in a certain city, proposed solutions to certain agricultural problems on his farm, prescribed dhikrs and herbal remedies to diseased dervishes who had come to visit him, checked out new book releases to choose what he would like to read, discussed sending a preaching delegation to some country, and other tasks that completely differed from one another. Managing these responsibilities not only required understanding the details of each case adequately and making the right decisions but also being able to do all this very quickly. A large number of responsibilities means that there is limited time to manage each. Managing different responsibilities efficiently requires special talent that is a necessity of a position of leadership.
21.5 Working Hard
Managing multiple responsibilities at the same time requires the person to be hardworking and willing to dedicate as much time and effort as the different tasks need. Since his childhood, our Shaikh was diligent and assiduous and disliked laziness. When he was at school, he enjoyed his studies and was a hardworking student. He was only eighteen years old when his older brother, Ḥusayn, died, so from then he started to deputise his father regarding his tribal and social responsibilities. He also managed his father’s agricultural lands. He would often drive the harvesting machine until he felt tired and would then ask a farmer to continue the work. Had he not had an excellent work ethic and been able to bear difficult circumstances, he would not have joined the Kurdish movement and lived six years in extreme hardship and austerity.
Throughout his life, out Shaikh continued to work hard. He always urged dervishes to work hard and diligently. He would often repeat the well-known saying, “There is a blessing in moving”. One of his sayings in this regard was, “Work is blessed and renews life”.[2] As he advanced in age and his health deteriorated, this increasingly limited what he could do but he continued to practise as many activities as he could. We have already seen, for example, that in his last months, when his health had seriously deteriorated, he asked for photocopies of forty-five Sufi manuscripts in the collection of the Library of Congress.
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad would urge people to work hard for the good of this world and the hereafter, often quoting this famous ḥadīth,[3] “Work for this world as if you would live forever, and work for the hereafter as if you would die tomorrow”. He would also reiterate it as a reminder that Islam does not call on Muslims to shun this world and its pleasures, but it instructs them to remember that the hereafter is the permanent abode and that they should give it its due in this world.
21.6 Religious Tolerance
The Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) used to welcome People of the Book, debate with them in a friendly manner, and honour them, in an era when religious tolerance was unheard of.[4] Indeed, one of the first things he did after he migrated to Medina was to create what would later become known as the “Constitution of Medina”. It laid out the bases of peaceful coexistence, and even cooperation, between Muslims and the People of the Book and recognized their religious and civil rights.[5] This document, also known as the “Charter of Medina”, is considered the first civil constitution of its kind in history.
The Shaikhs of Ṭarīqa follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (PBUH) in respecting other faiths and urging their followers, and people in general, to not ridicule the beliefs of others. This makes people of other faiths look at Sufi Shaikhs with love and respect. For instance, there was a Jewish cleric named Saʿīd who loved visiting Shaikh Ḥusayn al-Kasnazān. Out of his respect for the Shaikh, he would not sit in his assembly, despite the Shaikh’s repeated request to him to take a seat. His typical reply was that seeing the Shaikh was enough to make him happy. Khawaja Saʿīd even asked for a letter that he had from Shaikh Ḥusayn to be placed under his head when he died as a source of blessings.
Also, when Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm was in Iran, some Jews frequented his assembly. When our Shaikh was in the Kurdish movement, he would from time to time send to his father in Iran a list of medications that he needed. The Jews who frequented Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm’s assembly were the ones who sourced those medications.[6]
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān in a dhikr circle (perhaps 1980s).
Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad was keen on bringing different faiths closer and he encouraged respecting different beliefs and cultures. He opened the doors of the Kasnazānī takyas to those of other faiths who would like to learn about Islam and observe how Muslims worship. In addition to his refusal to make a distinction between Muslim schools of thought, he was doubly keen on cultivating a spirit of cordiality, respect, and constructive dialogue between Muslims and those of other faiths.
Muslim clerics who criticised Sufism or were not inclined towards it did not attend Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm’s assembly. Our Shaikh strived to establish relationships with them, showing generosity towards them when they visited the takya or when he met them anywhere else. At times, he would send delegations of caliphs to religious clerics who attacked Ṭarīqa in their assemblies or from pulpits, to show them, through respect and dialogue, the error in what they said and in creating an unjustified schism between Muslims. His efforts succeeded in reducing the hostility of such clerics towards Ṭarīqa Kasnazāniyya, in particular, and Sufism, in general. He has also reduced tensions between Sufi and non-Sufi groups. This also reflects his extraordinary ability to successfully establish cordial ties with various people, including those of different beliefs.
These are brief descriptions of the leadership qualities of Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad, which he combined with exceptionally good manners, as we saw in the previous chapter. This made him an educator, reformer, and spiritual leader through whom Allah showered benefits on millions of people.
[1] Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, VII, no. 5124, p. 444.
[2] Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān, sermon, 21 October 2019.
[3] Ibn Qutayba, Gharīb al-Ḥadīth, vol. 1, p. 286; Ibn al-Āthīr, Al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-ḥadīth, vol. 1, 359. This ḥadīth is also mentioned by Bayhaqī, “Work like a person who thinks he would never die, and be cautious like a person who is fearful that he would die tomorrow” (Al-Bayhaqī, Al-Sunan al-kubrā, vol. 3, no. 4744, p. 28.) It is mentioned by Kulaynī in this form, “Work like a person who thinks he would die an old man, and be cautious like a person who is fearful that he would die tomorrow” (Al-Kulaynī, Uṣūl al-kāfī, vol. 2, p. 57.).
[4] Ibn Hishām, Sīrat al-nabī, I, pp. 489-490.
[5] Ibid., I, pp. 126-130.
[6] Shaikh Muḥammad al-Muḥammad al-Kasnazān, sermon, 26 October 2019.
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