Sufi Master, Sidi Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i ash-Shadhuli

Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i ash-Shadhuli, known by his students as “Sidi” (an affectionate name for father), lives in the Holy City of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. He is a teacher in the Holy Mosque of Al-Aqsa and he is a judge of the Islamic Courts in Palestine and also the Overseer – an appointment which he holds from the government of Transjordan. He has been living in Jerusalem since the year 1959.

In 1974, Shiekh Sidi, may God be pleased with him, set up a Zawiyya for seekers coming from the Western countries to study the Sufi path of the religion of Islam. He says about the teachings, “Know that the Sufi way, or Tasawwuf, is the most important thing in life, and the greatest thing in knowledge , and it is the science of Allah’s light. This knowledge illuminates its knowers like the sun illuminates the Earth. It is the source of all Lights and of all Secrets.”

For many years Sidi has been a teacher at the Sacred Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, which is linked for all Muslims to the Holy House in Mecca in the tradition of the Night Journey of the Prophet Muhammad. Sidi is well known to many people both in Palestine and in many countries around the world. Not only is a teacher and counselor for those who come to Al-Aqsa Mosque, but he is also its custodian.

Sidi has students and followers in the Holy Land as well as in America and the European countries, but it has only been since 1993 that the order has come to his heart to travel in order to visit his students in other countries. There is also an order from Allah for him to open his teachings to those who are sincerely seeking for the truth of their existence, the meaning of their life and for the healing of their wounds, which until 1993, had been reserved only for study in his Zawiyyah in Jerusalem.

For all those who are aware that the suffering and sickness in this world are not of a material, but of a spiritual nature, the medicine lies in the purification of our hearts and souls, and in the tearing away of the veils which cover the seat of our Real Life, the Heart. In this way we may come to understand and know of our true heritage and of what Allah has given to each of us when He, in his Mercy and Wisdom, created us and brought us into this world. But we are actually ignorant of this gift until he calls us to come and give ourselves back to Him, our Lord, through the following of His Path. This is the Path of all the prophets and messengers and the way of the return to our Holy Abode in the world of the Unity. This is the science of Tasawwuff, the Knowledge of the Sufi Path.