HAZRAT AL-JUNAYD AL-BAGHDADI(RAZI ALLAH ANHU)
Imam Junayd ibn Muhammad Abu al-Qasim
al-Khazzaz al-Baghdadi (d. 297 AH/
909-910 CE)
By GF Haddad and Dr. Alan
Godlas
Al-Junayd ibn Muhammad
ibn al-Junayd, Abu al-Qasim al-Qawariri
al-Khazzaz al-Nahawandi al-Baghdadi al-Shafi`i
(d. 298). The Imam of the World in his
time, shaykh of the Sufis and "Diadem of
the Knowers," he accompanied his
maternal uncle Sari al-Saqati, al-Harith
al-Muhasibi, and others.
He is referred to by the sufis as
sayyid-ut taifa i.e. the leader of
the group. He lived and died in the city
of Baghdad. He laid the groundwork for
"sober" mysticism in contrast to that of
"God-intoxicated" Sufis like al-Hallaj,
Bayazid Bistami and Abu Sa`eed
Abul-Khayr.
Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami
stated:
His father used to
sell glasses. Hence he was called
the flask seller (al-Qawariri).
His family origin was from Nahawand, and
he was born and raised in 'Iraq--that is
what I heard Abu al-Qasim al-Nasrabadhi
saying. He was a scholar of
jurisprudence (faqih), having
studied it according to the method of
Abu Thawr [Ibrahim ibn Khalid ibn al-Yaman
al-Kalbi]. He would issue legal
judgments in his circle of students.
[As a student] he [had] been in the
company (sahiba) of Sari al-Saqati,
Harith al-Muhasibi, and Muhammad ibn
'Ali al-Qassab al-Baghdadi, and others.
He was among the leaders of the folk and
among their masters, being well spoken
of by all."
Sulami included Junayd as
being among the transmitters of the
following hadith: The Prophet said,
"Beware of the perspicacity of the believer,
since he sees by the light of God, may He be
exalted. Then he recited [the ayah]:
Indeed in that are signs for those who
have insight (Qur'an 15:75)."
Sulami stated that Junayd
said, "Nearness through ecstasy (wajd)
is 'in-gathering' (jam'); and absence
through humanness is separation (tafriqah)."
Sulami stated that Junayd
used to say
We did not learn (lit.
take) Sufism by discourse, rather by
hunger, abandoning the world, and
severing [one's attachments to] familiar
and pleasant things; since Sufism
consists of purity of [one's]
relationship with God. Its
foundation is in turning away from the
world, as Harith [al-Muhasibi] said, "My
self (nafs) has turned away from
the world; so I have spent my nights in
wakefulness and my days in thirst."
Sulami stated that Junayd
said, "Whoever knows God is only made happy
by Him."
Abu Sahl al-Su`luki
narrates that as a boy al-Junayd heard
his uncle being asked about
thankfulness, whereupon he said: "It is
to not use His favors for the purpose of
disobeying Him."
He took fiqh
from Abu Thawr - in whose circle he
would give fatwas at twenty years
of age - and, it was also said, from
Sufyan al-Thawri. He once said: "Allah
did not bring out a single science on
earth accessible to people except he
gave me a share in its knowledge." He
used to go to the market every day, open
his shop, and commence praying four
hundred rak`as until closing
time.
Among his sayings
about the Sufi Path: "Whoever does not
memorize the Qur'an and write hadith is
not fit to be followed in this matter.
For our science is controlled by the
Book and the Sunnah."
To Ibn Kullab who was
asking him about tasawwuf he
replied: "Our madhhab is the
singling out of the pre-eternal from the
contingent, the desertion of human
brotherhood and homes, and obliviousness
to past and future." Ibn Kullab said:
"This kind of speech cannot be debated."
His student Abu
al-`Abbas ibn Surayj would say, whenever
he defeated his adversaries in debate:
"This is from the blessing of my
sittings with al-Junayd."
Al-Qushayri
relates from al-Junayd the following
definitions of tasawwuf:
* "Not the profusion
of prayer and fasting, but wholeness of
the breast and selflessness."1
* "Tasawwuf
means that Allah causes you to die to
your self and gives you life in Him."
* "It means that you
be solely with Allah with no
attachments."
* "It is a war in
which there is no peace."
* "It is supplication
together with inward concentration,
ecstasy together with attentive hearing,
and action combined with compliance
[with the Sunnah]."
* "It is the upholding
of every high manner and the repudiation
of every low one."
When his uncle asked
him to speak from the pulpit he
deprecated himself, but then saw the
Prophet
in his dream ordering him to speak.
Ibn Kullab once asked
al-Junayd to dictate for him a
comprehensive definition of tawhid
he had just heard him say. He replied:
"If I were reading from a record I would
dictate it to you."
The Mu`tazili al-Ka`bi
said: "My eyes did not see his like.
Writers came to hear him for his
linguistic mastery, philosophers for the
sharpness of his speech, poets for his
eloquence, and kalam scholars for
the contents of his speech."
Al-Khuldi said: "We
never saw, among our shaykhs, anyone in
whom `ilm and hal came
together except al-Junayd. If you saw
his hal you would think that it
took precedence over his `ilm,
and if he spoke you would think that his
`ilm took precedence over his
hal."
Like the Sunni
imams of his generation, al-Junayd hated
theological disputations about Allah and
His Attributes: "The least [peril] that
lies within kalam is the
elimination of Allah's awe from the
heart. And when the heart is left devoid
of Allah's awe, it becomes devoid of
belief."
Once a young Christian
asked him: "What is the meaning of the
Prophet's hadith: 'Beware the vision of
the believer for he sees with the light
of Allah'?"2
Al-Junayd remained immersed in
thought then lifted his head and said:
"Submit, for the time has come for you
to accept Islam." The young man embraced
Islam on the spot.
Al-Junayd defined
the Knower (al-`arif) as "He who
addresses your secret although you are
silent." Ibn al-Jawzi cites another
example of Junayd's kashf in his Sifa
al-Safwa:
Abu `Amr ibn `Alwan relates: I went
out one day to the market of al-Ruhba
for something I needed. I saw a funeral
procession and I followed it in order to
pray with the others. I stood among the
people until they buried the dead man.
My eyes unwittingly fell on a woman who
was unveiled. I lingered looking at her.
Then I held back and began to beg
forgiveness of Allah the Exalted. On my
way home an old woman told me: "My
master, why is your face all darkened?"
I took a mirror and behold! my face had
turned dark. I examined my conscience
and searched: Where did calamity befall
me? I remembered the look I cast. Then I
sat alone somewhere, asking Allah's
forgiveness assiduously. I decided to
live austerely for forty days. [During
that time] the thought came to my heart:
"Visit your shaykh al-Junayd." I
travelled to Baghdad. When I reached the
room where he lived I knocked at his
door and heard him say: "Come in, O Abu
`Amr! You sin in al-Ruhba and we ask
forgiveness for you here in Baghdad."3
About the Sufis al-Junayd said:
* "They are the members of a single
household that none other than they can
enter."
* "The Sufi is like the earth: every
kind of abomination is thrown upon it,
but naught but every kind of goodness
grows from it."
* "The Sufi is like the earth: both
the righteous and the sinners walk upon
it. He is like the clouds: they give
shade to all things. He is like the
raindrop: it waters all things."
* "If you see a Sufi caring for his
outer appearance, then know that his
inward being is corrupt."
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya related from
al-Sulami that al-Junayd said: "The
truthful seeker (al-murid al-sadiq)
has no need for the scholars of
knowledge" and: "When Allah desires
great goodness for the seeker, He makes
him flock to the Sufis and prevents him
from accompanying those who read books (al-qurra')."4
This is similar to al-Junayd's saying
reported by al-Dhahabi: "We did not take
tasawwuf from what So-and-So said
and what So-and-So-said, but from
hunger, abandonment of the world, and
severance of comforts."
Al-Junayd also said: "Among the marks
of Allah's wrath against a servant is
that He makes him busy with that which
is of no concern to him."5
Ibn al-Qayyim
in al-Fawa'id asserts the
superiority of the struggle against the
ego (jihad al-nafs) over all
other struggles and quotes al-Junayd:
Allah said: Those who have
striven for Our sake, We guide them to
Our ways (29:96). He has thereby
made guidance dependent on jihad.
Therefore, the most perfect of people
are those of them who struggle the most
for His sake, and the most obligatory of
jihads (afrad al-jihad)
are the jihad against the ego,
the jihad against desires, the
jihad against the devil, and the
jihad against the lower world.
Whoever struggles against these four,
Allah will guide them to the ways of His
good pleasure which lead to His
Paradise, and whoever leaves jihad,
then he leaves guidance in proportion to
his leaving jihad.
Al-Junayd
said: "[The verse means] Those who have
striven against their desires and
repented for our sake, we shall guide
them to the ways of sincerity. And one
cannot struggle against his enemy
outwardly except he who struggles
against these enemies inwardly. Then
whoever is given victory over them will
be victorious over his enemy. And
whoever is defeated by them, his enemy
defeats him."6
Ibn `Abidin
related in his fatwa on the
permissibility of dhikr
gatherings:
The Imam of the Two Groups,7
our master al-Junayd was told:
"Certain people indulge in wajd
or ecstatic behavior, and sway with
their bodies." He replied: "Leave
them to their happiness with Allah.
They are the ones whose affections
have been smashed by the path and
whose breasts have been torn apart
by effort, and they are unable to
bear it. There is no blame on them
if they breathe awhile as a remedy
for their intense state. If you
tasted what they taste, you would
excuse their exuberance."8
In his Kitab al-Fana' ("Book
of the Annihilation of the Self") al-Junayd
states:
As for the select and the select
of the select, who become alien
through the strangeness of their
conditions - presence for them is
loss, and enjoyment of the
witnessing is struggle. They have
been effaced from every trace and
every signification that they find
in themselves or that they witness
on their own. The Real has
subjugated them, effaced them,
annihilated them from their own
attributes, so that it is the Real
that works through them, on them,
and for them in everything they
experience. It is the Real which
confirms such exigencies in and upon
them through the form of its
completion and perfection.9
Al-Junayd went on pilgrimage on foot
thirty times.
In the process of trial of
al-Hallaj, his former disciple, Caliph
of the time demanded his fatwa
and he issued this fatwa: "From
the outward appearance he is to die and
we judge according to the outward
appearance and Allah knows better".
Death of Hadhrat Junayd
al-Baghdadi
On his deathbed he recited the Qur'an
incessantly. Al-Jariri related that he
told him: "O Abu al-Qasim! Put yourself
at ease."
He replied: "O Abu
Muhammad! Do you know anyone that is
more in need of Qur'an at this time,
when my record is being folded up?" He
finished one khatma then started
over until he recited seventy verses of
Sura al-Baqara, then he died. Ibn `Imad
al-Hanbali said: "If we were to speak of
his merits we could fill volumes."
Before his death Junayd ordered that all
the saying of knowledge attributed to him
which people have written down should be
buried. When people asked him the reason he
said, "When the people have the knowledge of
the Prophet of Allah with them, I desire
that I may meet Allah Ta'ala in the state
that there remains nothing attributed to
me".
After his death Shaykh Ja'far
al-Khaldi saw him in a dream. Ja'far al-Khaldi
asked Junayd "How did Allah Ta'ala treat
you?"
Junayd replied:
Those subtle signs were finished, those
phrases disappeared, those sciences were
annihilated, those illustrations were erased
and nothing helped us except some rak`ats
which we used to pray before dawn".
Main sources:
al-Qushayri, Risala 148-150;
Ibn `Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab
2:228-230;
al-Dhahabi, Siyar A`lam al-Nubala'
11:153-155 #2555;
Ibn al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya
al-Kubra 2:260-275 #60.
Tarikh Baghdad - al-Khatib
Baghdadi page 248 vol 7 - via Tarashay
page 28/29- Mufti Maulana Muhammad Taqi
Uthmaani
al-Sulami,
Tabaqatal-Sufiyah, selected from pp.
155-163 (thanks to Dr. Alan Godlas)
Blessings and peace on the Prophet, his
Family, and his Companions
GF Haddad ©
Notes
1In al-Qushayri,
Kitab al-Sama` in al-Rasa'il al-Qushayriyya
(Sidon and Beirut: al-Maktaba al-`Asriyya,
1970) p. 60.
2Narrated from Abu Sa`id al-Khudri by al-Tirmidhi
(gharib) with a weak chain, Abu Imama
by al-Tabarani with a fair (hasan) chain
according to al-Haythami in the chapter on
firasa in Majma` al-Zawa'id, Ibn `Adi,
al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, and al-Quda`i in
Musnad al-Shihab (1:387). Also narrated
by al-Bukhari in his Tarikh, Ibn al-Sani,
and from Ibn `Umar by Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Tabari,
and Ibn Kathir in their commentaries of the
verse (Therein lie portents for those who
read the signs (15:75). Ibn al-Jawzi
includes it in the forgeries. Al-Sakhawi in
al-Maqasid al-Hasana (#23) rejects
Ibn al-Jawzi's grading of mawdu`, but
considers its chains all weak, as do al-Albani
in his Silsila Da`ifa (4:299-302) and
al-Ahdab in Zawa'id Tarikh Baghdad
(4:340-343 #687). However, al-Suyuti
declares it hasan in al-La'ali'
al-Masnu`a (2:329-330) as do al-Shawkani
in al-Fawa'id (p. 243-244) and al-Zuhayri
- Albani's student - in his edition of Ibn `Abd
al-Barr's Jami` Bayan al-`Ilm (1:677
#1197). The purported weakness of al-Tabarani's
chain revolves around the narrator `Abd
Allah ibn Salih al-Juhani. Cf. al-Dhahabi,
Mizan (2:440-445 #4383).
Al-Sakhawi cites another narration
whereby the Prophet
said: "Allah has servants who know (the
truth about people) through reading the
signs" (tawassum). Narrated from Anas
with a fair chain by al-Bazzar in his Musnad,
al-Tabarani, and Abu Nu`aym in al-Tibb
al-Nabawi as stated by al-`Ajluni in
Kashf al-Khafa'.
3In Ibn al-Jawzi, Sifa al-Safwa
1(2):271, chapter on al-Junayd (#296).
4Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Madarij al-Salikin
(2:366).
5In Ibn al-Jawzi, Sifa al-Safwa,
chapter on al-Junayd.
6Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Fawa'id,
ed. Muhammad `Ali Qutb (al-Iskandariyya: Dar
al-Da`wa, 1992) p. 50.
7I.e. Sufis and fuqaha'.
8Seventh Letter in Shifa` al-`Alil wa
Ball al-Ghalil fi Hukm al-Wasiyya bi al-Khatamat
wa al-Tahalil (p. 172-173).
9Translation communicated to the author
by Michael Sells, Haverford College.
Ref: http://www.sunnah.org/history/Scholars/imam_junayd.htm
