Imam Sharani was one of the great awliya of Egypt and an imam of
Islamic law of the Shafii School. His given name was Abdulwahhab. He was born
in 1491 AD (898 AH). He was descended from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Imam Sharani began his academic life in Cairo while he was still
very young. He was intelligent and hardworking. He memorized the Qur’an by the
age of seven. He also memorized most of the books he studied in his lessons.
Sharani
frequented the circles of knowledge and took lessons from various imams. Later
he added a complete list of the great imams whose knowledge he had benefited
from, at the end of his book Tabaqat. With that he in a
sense showed his faithfulness to his teachers.
Sharani became competent in knowledge of hadith and Islamic law
at a young age. Ali al-KHawas and Sayyed Ibrahim ed-Dusuki were among his famous
teachers.
When
it was asked of him how he entered the path of Sufism and how he proceeded, and
who brought him to it, he answered, “I initially learned the way of Sufism from
Khidr, alayhi’s-salam and my master Ali al-Hawas. First I firmly believed in
and submitted to them. I did whatever they commanded. I struggled against my
soul for years; and disciplined it by doing the things it did not want to do. I
did so to the extent that I used to tie a rope to the ceiling of my room, put
it around my neck, and worship my Lord. When I felt sleepy, I wanted to lie
down; but the rope around my neck prevented me, so I had to continue the
worship. As I avoided the prohibited (haram),
I also left what was superfluous of the permissible (mubah). When I had nothing to
eat, I did not want anything from anyone, but instead I ate grass. I did not
even pass by the shadows of the governors’ mansions and the houses of the
Sultan’s men; I used to change my direction. I obeyed the commands and
prohibitions of the religion as much as I could. And Allah (SWT) bestowed upon
me the pleasure of performing acts of worship.” (Al-Mizan al-Kubra)
Allah bestowed upon Imam Sharani many spiritual bounties. Some
of them are as follows:
He
used to hear the recitations (dhikr)
of the inanimate beings and the animals from sunset to dawn (during the night).
One day he was performing the evening (maghrib)
prayer behind his teacher, Imam Aminuddin,
who was extremely scrupulous in avoiding what was forbidden; suddenly, he
started to hear the recitations of the columns, walls, mats and stones. He was
afraid. Then he heard the words and the recitations of everything in Egypt, and
of the creatures in other countries and in the oceans.
“O my Lord Who gives the sustenance of the inanimate, the
animal, the plant and everything! O You, Who never forgets to give food to the
creatures, and Who never stops giving bounties even to the ones who rebel! You
are exalted above any imperfection and defect,” recited a fish in an ocean.
The ones who spoke out against Imam Sharani were warned in their
dreams, and they stopped being against him.
Imam
Sharani, an heir of our Prophet regarding the science of exterior (ilm az-zahir) and the science
of interior (ilm al-batin),
raised many students. His madrasa (school) was as busy as a beehive.
Students came in huge numbers from all around the district, and they studied
hard to benefit from Imam Sharani’s knowledge. He taught his students both ilm
az-zahir and ilm
al-batin. His typical characteristic was that he used to compare
similar aspects of the Islamic schools of law, and that he used to narrate many
hadiths about the End Times, the Doomsday and Mahdi.
One
of the scholars of the last period of the Ottomans, Manastirli Ismail Hakki,
said the following about Imam Sharani and his works: “This person was a
marvellous scholar like Imam Ghazali, and he had uncommonly deep knowledge in
the science of exterior and interior. Many of his unique works were published
in Egypt. All of them have been admired by the great scholars. However,
especially his books Mizan al-Kubra, Lataif
al-Minan, and Al-Yawaqit wal Jawaher are
worth giving one’s life for”.
Imam
Sharani wrote more than 300 books. The most valuable of them is “Mizan al-Kubra” which
comprises the knowledge of all the four Islamic schools of law. Another
precious book is “Tabakat
al-Kubra”. This is a valuable book which includes the manners, wonders
and words of more than four hundred great scholars and saints beginning from Asr
al-Sa’adah (the Age
of Bliss).
Imam Sharani foretold that the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim
would conquer Egypt and spoke in praise of him. Imam Sharani passed away in
Egypt in 1566 leaving behind hundreds of books and thousands of students.