Sheik Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani – The Guiding Star: An Analytical Study on the Guidance of Sheik Abdul Qadir Jilani from a Psychological perspective

الملخص

Sheik Abdul Qadir Jilani is a familiar name that drives the mind towards Sufism on hearing it. His nobility and morality have attracted millions of hearts to his path, Sufism is generally defined as the purification of heart from the diseases like jealousy, anger, lust and worldly desires and focusing on developing closeness with the divine who had created the soul. Unlike the secular psychology Islamic psychology is a soul centric subject where constant spiritual exercise is given to discipline the self like restraining from the worldly whims and still living in the world attached with the society. In Sufi terms it is called as خلوة در انجمن which means “seclusion within gathering” the explanation of this terminology goes like one will go through all the spiritual exercises to discipline his self, restraining it from materialistic matters of the world and making his soul closer to Allah still living in this world in a society not taking it into his heart.

Sheik Abdul Qadir Jilani was one such Sufi master who was capable to restrain his self from the worldly matters and keep himself cautious and conscious on gaining the closeness of Allah in his heart. A familiar incident associated to his life can serve here as an example to his spiritual state where once Sheik was teaching his students and a messenger arrived to the Sheik informing him that.the ship which carried his valuable goods have sunk at sea and it would cause a significant financial loss, the Sheik looked down to his heart and praised Allah saying “Alhamdulillah” after sometime the same messenger arrived and informed that the message given before was by mistake and the Sheik again looked down to his heart and praised Allah saying “Alhamdulillah,” his students were stunned to see their Sheik praising Allah for both and they inquired him about his reaction and he explained that the first time the news came he looked down to his heart searching for sadness or any worries and he found nothing and he was satisfied with whatever Allah has decreed and so he thanked Allah and praised him and when the second time the same messenger returned with the message that the former was a message delivered by mistake he looked down again to his heart searching for overwhelmed joy or excitement having a hope for worldly gain and he found nothing and his heart remained content with Allah’s will so he praised Allah and thanked him this was the spiritual state of Sheik Abdul Qadir Jilani. He was a teacher, a preacher, a mentor and a guide to number of people who followed him.

In this Article I would tend to Analyze the way and style of Sheik Abdul Qadir Jilani in guiding the followers to the closeness of Allah by his speech in his book (Fathur Rabbani) specifically focusing on how to upgrade one’s self from (Nafs al Ammara) the soul that commands and abides by evil to (Nafs al Muthmainna) the soul which is content and at peace.