Mawlana sheikh Abdallah al Faiz Dagestani (قـدس الله سره) was born in Dagestan in the year 1309 H./1891 AD. to a family of doctors. His father was a general practitioner, and his brother was surgeon general in the Russian Army. He was raised and trained by his uncle, Shaykh Sharafuddin ad-Daghestani (قـدس الله سره), who was the master of the Naqshbandi Order at that time and took special care of him from his early life.
During Shaykh Sharafuddin’s (قـدس الله سره) sister’s pregnancy, (sheikh Abdallah’s mother) he told her:
“The son you are carrying has no veils on his heart. He will be able to see events that have passed or that are coming. He is one of those who can read the Unseen Knowledge from the Preserved Tablets (lawh al-mahfudh) directly. He is going to be Sultan al-Awliya’ in his time. He is going to be called, among the saints, ‘Naqeeb al-Ummah’, the Leader of the Nation of Muhammad. He is going to perfect the ability of being with God and being at the same time with people. He will inherit the secret from the Prophet which he referred to when he (SAW) said, “I have one face looking at the Creator and I have one face looking at Creation,” and “I have one hour with the Creator, and I have one hour with the creation. When you give birth to him call him `Abd-Allah’, because he will be carrying the secret of Servanthood. He will spread the Tariqa back to the Arab countries, and through him, his successor will spread the Tariqa in Western countries and in the Far East. You must be careful with him. I am asking that when he reaches the age of seven you give him to me to raise and to be under my guardianship.”
His parents never heard him cry. In his childhood, at the age of one year, they often saw him with his head on the floor in prostration. His mother, family, and neighbours were astonished at this. He spoke at the age of seven months and was able to make himself understood clearly. He was unlike other children in other respects as well. He would often be seen moving his head from right to left while voicing the Divine Name. At the age of three he used to tell visitors about their future. He would know their name without being familiar with them or being told. He surprised many people from his country. People used to come to visit his parents’ home to see this remarkable child and to hear him speak.
By the age of seven he was reciting Qur’an. He used to sit with his uncle, Sheikh Sharafuddin (قـدس الله سره), and answer the questions people put to him. His answers were always very clear on matters of the Shari`ah, though he had never studied jurisprudence. He would recite the supporting evidence from the Qur’an and Prophetic Narrations without ever having studied the science of Prophetic Narrations. This caused people to be more and more attracted to him. The scholars of his time verified his decisions and accepted his jurisdiction. Knowers in his time were so fascinated with his knowledge, though he was only seven years of age, that they would come from afar to hear the spiritual knowledge that flowed from him like a fountain. His uncle asked him how he was able to speak so effortlessly and endlessly. He answered, “O my uncle, it comes to me as words written right in front of me from the Divine Presence. I only have to look and read what is written.”
He was extremely meticulous in keeping the prescriptions of the Shari`ah. He was the first to appear for Salat (prayer) in the mosque five times a day. He was the first to be present for Dhikr. He was the first to be present in the meetings of scholars and He was the first to be present in the spiritual gatherings.
Sheikh Abdullah’s(قـدس الله سره) father passed away when he was thirteen, after which time he worked to support his mother. He married when he was fifteen. Six months after his marriage, he was ordered by Sheikh Sharifuddin(قـدس الله سره) to enter seclusion for five years. This seclusion was in a cave, deep in a large forest, high on a snow-covered mountain, where one person served him seven olives and two ounces of bread each day.
When Sheikh Abdullah (قـدس الله سره) emerged from this seclusion, at the age of twenty, he was conscripted into the Turkish Army. He was sent to the Battle of Safar Barlik in the Dardanelles, where he was shot through the heart but miraculously survived, experiencing elevated spiritual states when he was close to death.
Sheikh Abdallah(قـدس الله سره) then moved from Turkey to Egypt and later to Aleppo in Syria. Afterwards Sheikh Abdallah(Q) moved from Aleppo to Homs and then to Damascus. He established an initial Centre in Damascus, bringing the Golden Chain of the Naqshbandi Order back to Damascus where Sheikh Khalid al-Baghdadi (قـدس الله سره) had previously had such a profound effect in the early 1800’s. Soon people of all walks of life began to crowd into this Centre, with food being served to hundreds of people each day.
Sheikh Abdullah(قـدس الله سره) then moved his Centre to the Mountain of Qasiyun, the highest point in Damascus, near to the Mosque where hazretleri Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (قـدس الله سره) is buried and also to where Sheikh Khalid al-Baghdadi(قـدس الله سره) is buried. His two senior disciples, Sheikh Nazim. (قـدس الله سره) and Sheikh Husayn (قـدس الله سره ) helped him to build a house there. This house and the Mosque next to it formed his new Centre, that can still be seen today, with Sheikh Abdallah’s ( قـدس الله سره) grave being located within the Mosque. Sheikh Abdallah(قـدس الله سره) received hundreds of thousands of visitors for healing, prayers, education and training at this Centre.
After his earlier long seclusions, Sheikh Abdallah(قـدس الله سره) went into over twenty seclusions, that varied in length from forty days to one year. Some of these seclusions were made in Madinah, Damascus, Jordan and at the tomb of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani(قـدس الله سره) in Baghdad. With each seclusion, his spiritual power and rank was raised.
Sheikh Abdullah’s (قـدس الله سره) life was full of beneficial activity. He was always smiling and was never angry. He had no income, yet food was always abundant in his house, feeding up to two hundred people at a time, who often arrived unannounced. He helped the needy and sheltered many of the homeless in his mosque – he served humanity.
He predicted the day he would die in 1973 and after passing away on this day, a doctor tried to revive him after he was clinically dead. He shocked and amazed the doctors and relatives present when he opened his eyes, put up his hand and asked for the doctor to stop. As he laid in state at the Mosque of Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, approximately four hundred thousand people prayed beside his body and attended his funeral. His successor, Sheikh Nazim v(قـدس الله سره) prayed the funeral prayer and oversaw the burial of Sheikh Abdullah. (قـدس الله سره)
Sheikh Abdullah (قـدس الله سره) passed the secret of the Naqshbandi Order to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani. (قـدس الله سره)
