18 Facts About Salih al-Ja'fari

Salih al-Ja'fari was a Sufi scholar, who lived and taught in Cairo, Egypt.

Salih al-Ja'fari therefore taught there for more than forty years, thirty-three of those as an officially appointed teacher.

Salih al-Ja'fari was a spiritual guide and the founder of the Ja'fariyya tariqa.

Salih al-Ja'fari was a descendant of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad through his grandson al-Husayn.

Salih al-Ja'fari's ancestors came from the Luxor region in Upper Egypt.

Salih al-Ja'fari's grandfather Salih, after whom he was named, was a Qur'an teacher who moved from Egypt to Dongola in Sudan and established a school for teaching the Qur'an.

Salih al-Ja'fari was born in 1910 in the northern Sudanese city of Dongola.

Salih al-Ja'fari learned the Qur'an and the basics of Islamic scholarship at a young age at the hands of his grandfather's students.

Salih al-Ja'fari moved to Cairo at the age of twenty in 1930 to study at the Azhar Mosque and lived the rest of his life there.

Salih al-Ja'fari studied with the most renowned scholars of his age, and was particularly close to a number of the most celebrated scholars of Hadith.

Salih al-Ja'fari became the Imam of the Azhar Mosque and one of its orators and most celebrated teachers.

Salih al-Ja'fari was most famous for his Friday lecture after the Friday prayer, which were attended by hundreds, or according to some counts, more than a thousand people.

Salih al-Ja'fari's lessons began as commentaries and explications of verses from the Qur'an but would focus heavily on spirituality.

Salih al-Ja'fari discussed jurisprudence according to the four schools of thought in Sunni Islam, and was himself affiliated with the Maliki School, though he did not restrict himself to it.

Salih al-Ja'fari had the ability to practice Ijtihad to deal with contemporary issues.

Salih al-Ja'fari dedicated much time to finding the works of the scholar and revivalist Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi, editing them, and publishing them.

Salih al-Ja'fari wrote hundreds of poems on spiritual guidance and on love of - and in praise of - Muhammad, as well as supplications to God.

Salih al-Ja'fari summarized his path in those lines of poetry:.