Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The Sufis of Hadramaut Part 1: Hadramaut before the arrival of Sufism




Hadramaut before the arrival of Sufism

Hadramaut is one of the regions of the muslim world into which Islam arrived quite early. Its people from the appearance of islam were upon the sunnah knowing nothing of the innovations that would appear later. The Prophet himself sent to this region a number of companions with the task of calling the people to pure faith and administering the affairs of state.  Among them  were the noble companions Ziyad ibn labid and Ukkashah ibn thawr.
Hadramaut continued thus, upon the sunnah unaware of innovation for some time.  Muhammad ibn Abi bakr Al-Shilli the famous Hadrami historian noted in his tome on the history of Hadramaut : “ The people of Hadramaut were busy with the sciences of fiqh and compiling prophetic narrations and there was no one among them aware of the path of Sufism” .
He noted in another portion of the same book concerning the early scholars and the righteous men of hadramaut  “… except that the majority of them remain with their graves unknown even the general location thereof ; this being due to the early scholars’ abhorrence of building over graves or engraving on them”.  

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