HAZRAT KHWAJA HABIB ALI SHAH (R.A.)

 

By Maulana Abdurraouff Soofie

 

It is said that humility is the hallmark of true greatness. In few other personal histories is this adage as faithfully corroborated as in the life history of Hazrat Habib Ali Shah (r.a.), who was the sheikh of our own Hazrat Maulana Shah Abd al-Latif Qazi (r.a.) as well as the Peero Murshid of Hazrat Sufi Sahib (r.a.)

 

Though born into the aristocratic Nawab family dynasty of Hyderabad, India, he is known to have renounced his title and to have entered the realms of true faqiri. As the fourth son of a philanthropist billionaire, Nawab Ahmad Yaar Kham Muhyud Dawlah, he stood to inherit an estate worth several million rupees. The estate was known as Ahmed Baah and was situated in Hyderabad. But this true friend of Allah renounced all these privileges in order to pursue his spiritual goal – a goal he achieved with such resounding success that its effects were even felt on the southern tip of a distant continent – Africa.

 

Hazrat Khwaja Habib Ali Shah’s (r.a.) very birth was the miraculous result of a dua of his Sheikh, Hazrat Khwaja Sayed Muhammad Ali Shah (r.a.) of Khairabad, India, who was a regular visitor to the Nawab family home in Hyderabad. On his departure from the Nawab’s home after one of his many spiritual and educational visits to Hyderabad, Hazrat Sayed Muhammad Ali Shah (r.a.) made an incredible prediction. “Nawab Sahib”, he said, “in your house shall be born one of my own (spiritual) children”. Of course the Nawab was skeptical, and the thought crossed his mind that his wife had passed childbearing age. This thought was detected by the spiritually-sensitive Sheikh who promptly reassured him with the following words, “No, no, don’t doubt what I have said, for this extraordinary child will indeed be born!”

 

The sheikh then left for Mecca and returned to India after two years. He left Bombay soon after his arrival and headed directly for Hyderabad, where his first question to the Nawab was, “Is the child born?”. The Nawab then presented the child to the Hazrat who continued, “For I have come to make the child recite Bismillah”. Hazrat Peer (r.a.) then placed a few gold sovereigns in one plate and some sweetmeat in another, offering both to the child. This was a test designed to show the child’s preference. To everyone’s surprise, he placed on hand on the gold coins and the other on the sweetmeats, an action that was interpreted by the Hazrat as, “Subhanallah, my child will be an ameer and yet be a faqir and be a Faqir and yet be an ameer”. History bears testimony to the truth of this prediction on the life of Kwaja Habib Ali Shah (r.a.), who had hardly any material possessions yet – especially during his trips to the blessed city of Ajmer Shareef – distributed countless rupees to the needy and the indigent.

 

The city of Khairabad was a center of learning and the Khanqah (a spiritual center of Sufis) was a popular settlement for ‘ulema. Khwaja Hafiz Muhammad Ali Shah (r.a.) was the Sheikh and teacher at the center. When, after much hardship the adult Habib Paak reached there, the sheikh, who was spiritually aware of the former’s sacrifices, embraced him warmly and the two men wept for some time. Before long, the sheikh appointed him as a Qutub of Kokan and instructed him to serve the community of the cosmopolitan city of Bombay.

 

Habib Paak (r.a.) then left for Bombay where he established a center in Dockyard Road, Majgown. This center still exists today, perpetuating the legacy of selfless service that its founder was famous for. Indeed, Hazrat Habib Paak’s (r.a.) entire life speaks of profound spirituality, unblemished service and countless miracles. He was a Saahibe Haal Wali, blessed with kashf and Karaamat. His spiritual lineage or Silsila was the Chistiyyah, Qadiriyyah as well as various other orders. Blessed with great foresight, he concentrated on grooming his khalifas (successors) and sent them to different parts of the world with the specific instruction that they provide selfless service to humanity and that they propagate a true Islam that was free of controversy. Always conscious of the need to maintain the purity of the Din, he detested futile debates and ordered his followers to refrain from vain argument. Deeply spiritual, he was able to induce his own state in the mureed (disciple) who was ready for the process. It is related in “Riyaaze Sufi” – which contains a biography of Hazrat Sufi Sahib (r.a.) – that a single spiritual gaze of Habib Paak (r.a.) ushered the former into a state of Istigraaq (a complete submergence into the state of God-consciousness) for forty-eight hours. This phenomenon is the real initiation or bayah that Sufis speak of.

 

Hazrat Habib Paak (r.a.) regularly visited the Mazhaars of Aulia-Allah in India and it was during his meditation at the tom of Hazrat Khwaja Nasirudeen Chiraag Delhi (r.a.) that he was instructed to post his capable khalifa Hazrat Sufi Sahib (r.a.) to South Africa. Hazrat Maulana Abd al-Latif Qazi (r.a.), Sufi Sahib’s brother-in-law, also came to South Africa but was instructed to settle in Cape Town.

 

Their murshid, however, continued his noble work in Bombay. Such was his devotion to his duty there that he passed away at the center on 06 Zil Hajj in 1904. It was decided that his body would be taken to Hyderabad by train so that he could be buried there. The normally twenty-four hour train journey took three days because of the multitudes of people that gathered at every major station along the route and insisted on offering Janaza prayers. Eventually, on 10 Zil Hajj 1904, his body was laid to rest next to the mosque in the city of his birth. But his spirit lives on here at the southern tip of Africa, not only through the approximately twenty-five books he authored on the subject of Tasauwwuf, but mainly through the legacies handed down by two of his most faithful disciples, Hazrat Sufi Sahib (r.a.) and Hazrat Maulana Abd al-Latif Qazi (r.a.).

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