Shadee Elmasry – Who is Habib Umar bin Hafiz
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Al-Habib Umar Ibn Muhammad Ibn Hafid Ibn
Salim really was considered one of the most
influential according to one of the recent journals
that produced the most influential and look at
the most influential scholars is Al-Habib Umar
Ibn Muhammad Ibn Hafid Ibn Salim and the
author says, I first saw Habib Umar with
Habib Ali and some of their students leaving
the Prophet's Mosque in Medina by the door
close to the Baqi' graveyard where many of
the Prophet's relatives and companions are buried.
They move with a sense of purpose and
unity like a single body which distinguished them
from the rest of the visitors there.
This was the new generation of the Habib
or the beloved ones and I had met
Habib Ahmad Mashhoor Al-Haddad and Habib Abdul
Qadir Al-Saqqaf two great mountains in the
autumn of their lives I've met them, meaning
at the end of their lives.
Now the energy of this young group was
something different.
They were like a gentle cyclone.
Five years later in 1998 visiting South Yemen
to attend the commemoration of the Prophet Hud
I took permission to photograph Habib Omar Al
-Tarim and I was a little nervous as
I set up the camera and tripod for
the photo.
I didn't know him very well but had
heard that he had been singled out for
particular attention by various spiritual guides and scholars
from childhood as if being groomed for a
weighty destiny.
And I'm going to ask you to tell
the story about his childhood which is almost
like Hollywood really if you think about it.
It's like mythical to be honest.
It's like mythical.
As I watched him through the lens I
could see how vital his spiritual energy was
as he sat quietly invoking the name of
Allah.
He was extremely courteous and composed but there
was an air of wildness about him an
intoxicating light that drew people to him like
moths to a flame and burned away the
darkness in one's soul.
Now years later his followers are in the
tens of thousands.
His college in Tarim, Dar al-Mustafa is
attended by students from around the world.
When he visits the Far East he attracts
vast audiences.
In ten years he had changed greatly transforming
from an impassioned saint to a seasoned sage.
He travels extensively taking little food and sleep.
Whenever he speaks about the Prophet and his
family it is as if he knows them
personally.
And you always hear a new intimate story
about them.
His face is often slightly upturned as if
drawing energy from a vast unseen.
And that's where we'll stop.
The Far East, when he goes to Indonesia
it seems to be like soccer stadiums.
And some of these events when you look
at them you don't see the end.
I don't know if they're spilling into the
streets you just see people upon people upon
people must be easily easily over 50,000.
Madison Square Garden as a visual it's 17
,000 people.
So if I'm looking at it it's like
double that.
Easily double that.
It could even get up to be more.
With certain majazes especially.
If you look back at the previous visit
that he just did to I think it
was Indonesia or Malaysia?
The last visit he did.
Malaysia, huh?
I've never seen anything like that.
Stadiums, I'm telling you.
Football stadiums.
80,000 to 90,000 people.
Okay, the story about Habib Omar's youth.
His childhood.
Like a mythical moment.
In retrospect.
They say about Habib that his father used
to see him gather up pillows after his
durs or go to the animals that they
had.
And Habib would practice delivering the durs while
he was still a child.
And his dad like when he saw that
he saw that that was like he saw
that there was something in his son.
May Allah protect him.
And specifically the famous story that they tell
about the father, the martyr Mohammed bin Salim
bin Hafidh who was kind of like the
Imam of Tarim in his time, right?
And it was during the time when the
communists had control over Yemen.
And you hear some of the kind of
like raw displays of Iman in the face
of Kufr.
Kind of when they relate the stories of
how the Habib kind of stood up to
these communists.
But basically any type of display of religion
you're wiped.
And they were constantly attacking the communists because
they were saying like Habib you can't just
take people's wealth and reapportion it.
This is dhulm.
So the ulama were really up in arms
against the communists when they came and took
over Yemen.
And of course they were like atheists.
And they used to have like Habib always,
he talks about this he mentions this he
talks about how they used to have a
sign that would say La Sult Ya'la
Ala Sult Al-Hizb And they had this
big sign it said no voice will be
louder than the voice of the communist party
basically, right?
And then years later after the communists had
been kicked out of Yemen and everything was
all said and done, Habib hosted his Jassat
Al-Ithnain, the dars where he talks where
he gives exegesis of the Quran he hosted
that class in that saha where that same
sign was in that same square.
And then he said they used to say
that there would be no voice louder than
the voice of the communist party and now
you hear the voice of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam and his lord Jalla Jalaluh blasting through
these alleyways, right?
So what happened was Habib Muhammad bin Salim
Rahimuhullah basically what happens is they used to
have them come and check in with the
communists in a place, like they had this
little building next to Jami Tareem and Jami
Tareem was the place where most people pray
Jum'ah in Tareem, right?
And it was the oldest Jum'ah in
Tareem for a while before they ended up
establishing another one, there's Fiqh behind that in
the Shafi'i school, you can't have more
than one Jum'ah simultaneously.
Same with us.
So what happens is that was under construction
so they were praying in Masjid Mihdar, which
is far away from where the check-in
was happening, right?
So Habib Muhammad on Jum'ah, every single
Jum'ah they had to go and check
in, so he leaves Habib Omar with his
shawl in Masjid Mihdar.
Habib Omar at this point is 9 years
old.
He's 9 years old, he's a young boy.
He leaves him with his shawl and he
goes to check in and he's never seen
again after that moment, right?
He's never seen again after that moment and
as Habib would grow as Habib would grow
older his brother Habib Mashhoor Allah yarhamu who
passed away recently Habib Ali Mashhoor, he saw
that Habib was kind of nasheato was promising.
There was a lot of promise in the
way that Habib was growing up and so
he had him move from Hadhramaut in order
to continue his education.
He went and he studied with Habib Muhammad
Haddar who would become his his father-in
-law later in life in the city of
Beidah which is in the north of Yemen,
right?
But the shahid here is that Habib Muhammad
like when he was kidnapped they saw this
as a huge blow, right?
Because Habib Muhammad was the imam of Hadhramaut
at that time, right?
And the imam of Tareem, but he even
like some of the poets when they write
some of the poetry about this moment they
mention that there was a secret in the
fact that he left his shawl with Habib
Muhammad, right?
There was kind of a hand-off that
was happening there.
And the people of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, they have insight into these things yanzuroon
binoorillah, right?
So he left it and he went astushid
Allah yarhamu and there's many stories about the
habaib standing in the face of this kufr
like they mention a story of one of
the habaib that he despite them threatening them
and telling them you can't come out dressed
up like in the typical gear that they'll
wear, right?
He was walking through the streets and wearing
the jubbah and the imamah and the ridah
and all of these different articles of clothing
that are linked with the prophet by sunnah,
right?
And when they saw him they said, ya
habib, why are you doing this?
You're going to get yourself in trouble.
And he said so that people don't forget
this prophetic this prophetic guise, right?
So what did they do?
They took him they tied him up to
the back of a car and they started
dragging him through the streets.
And the whole time he's yelling allahu akbar
allahu akbar, allahu akbar until he passes out.
So you have these mawaqif that these ulama
they really stood in the face of this
kufr May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reward
them on their behalf, right?
They used to be in the city of
Tareem, the ribat of Tareem which was one
of the oldest schools in Tareem and Dar
al-Mustafa which didn't exist yet all of
these different institutions of learning were closed because
of the communists As Sheikh Omar Hussain al
-Khatib he says that we used to hide
our books of Nahu.
They used to hide their books of grammar
and they used to go by night and
sneak into the homes of the shuyukh in
order to read books of grammar with them
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when
he saw this kind of this desire to
enliven the religion, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
put barakah in their knowledge.
And now look at it, spreading all over
the world.
I mean we think that we have issues
here.
They had massive, massive calamities where they fell
too.
These communists are not just, they have policies
that are unlawful they're atheists.
Direct and open atheists, right?
Explicit atheism that's what communism brings with.
The more you go up in their ranks,
it's not like here you become a western
liberal and you can say the name Islam,
I'm a Muslim, I believe in a higher
power, blah blah blah.
You have that here in the west where
you could have that as long as you
have all the other poisons you could say
that, right?
But there it's an explicit atheism that you
have to embrace and Marx was a materialist
before he was an economist he was a
materialist, right?
He was a philosopher, I mean, and materialism
was his philosophy.
So they're not only facing this in Dar
al-Islam they were also attacked severely because
of their Ash'ari Aqeedah and their Ghazali
and Tasawwuf.
They were attacked severely to the point that
it was like almost in hiding in both
ways.
Amounts of fitan and a destruction of a
legacy or at least a perceived, an attack
on their legacy and an attack on this
that really I don't think we can really
imagine and appreciate the fight that they had
to fight to go through.
And the fact that now it's a place
where people go for ilm would have probably
been an unheard of concept 30 years ago.
Right?
This would have probably been unheard of and
the school opens up what?
1995?
Dar al-Mustafa opens up 1995 and Habib
Omar was one of the he was the
spearhead of all this Da'wah and that's
why a lot of people go there.
So Oh, SubhanAllah.
So that's the anniversary of the school's anniversary.
His father was was his body recovered?
They never recovered it.
So there was no like, there was Janazat
al-Ghaib.
Was it even?
Because there's a waiting period There's a waiting
period.
I'm not sure what they did exactly.
But yeah, I mean they never recovered his
body.
Rahimahullah.