Knights of the Qadiri Order: Ode to the Last Prophet ﷺ

Perhaps the secret to Laylatul Qadr is the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Laylatul Qadr, the Night of Power, the Night of Destiny, is the night when the Holy Qur'an was first sent down from Heaven to the world. But is it not true that Rasulallah ﷺ is the embodiment of the Qur'an, the "walking, talking Qur'an"? On the night when the first verses were revealed to him ﷺ, a night which is better than a thousand months of worship, perhaps it could be said that the soul of Muhammad ﷺ completed its instantiation in the world as the awakened Last Prophet, who has arisen at last.

Rasulallah ﷺ is the beloved of Allah. And as we know about the first nature of love, one desires more than anything else for everyone to also love your beloved one. This is a part of ghayrah [protective jealousy]. Habib Kadhim Al-Saqqaf said that before faith entered a companion's heart, it was love for Rasulallah ﷺ. It could be said that it is his ﷺ right to be loved by creation, for his name is "the praiseworthy one", the manifestation of the Divine Light to which all created beings were commanded to bow down to. And the reward for this is that Allah bestows upon you the gift of faith, which is a part of His ghayrah over Rasulallah ﷺ. That His ghayrah demands that whosoever loves His beloved one, He also loves. This person becomes encompassed in the Divine Light of God's love for Muhammad ﷺ.

In this is the secret of the highest stations of faith; that person has become Muhamadiyyun. In one tradition, the Prophet ﷺ said, "People will come to me that I only recognize by the abundance of their prayers on me." Our path then is to become Muhammadiyyun, that is to resemble the beloved of God in our internal state and in our external manifestation, which in totality, is called the sunnah. That by resembling the Prophet ﷺ, the beloved one of Allah, God's love becomes binding upon you. Such is the obligation of love, the second nature of love. And Allah is free of all things.

And if you have ghayrah for Rasulallah ﷺ then you also desire for others to love him too, fulfilling his right upon creation. No doubt, in this are the secrets to faith, obtaining taqwa [God Consciousness], and approaching the stations of the awliyah, who abide in the oceans of light. It could then be said that the heart of Prophet ﷺ is the meeting place between the believer's love and God's love.

Qadi Iyad, in his "Ash Shifa", chapter on "The Prayer on the Prophet", cites the hadith, "Jibril ع called me and said, 'Whoever prays one prayer upon you, Allah prays on him ten times and raises him up by ten degrees.'" A person's status and honor is not based on material accumulation and the artificial judgments of society, for all material hierarchies exist horizontally in relation to each other, equal to the hierarchies of animals. Rather, a person's status and honor is based on the spiritual hierarchy of Being, which exists vertically in relation to creation. It is based on the judgement of Allah, and all people exist within this hierarchy in relation to the Prophet ﷺ, who sits atop all of creation. One's value and honor thus exists in relation to the degree to which we resemble him.

The Qadiri order is based on the path to the Ahl al-Bayt reopened by "the grey falcon", Shaykh Abdal Qadir al-Jilani ع, who is a descendent of Imam al-Hasan ع and Imam al-Husayn ع, the two leaders of the young men [fatah] of paradise, the leaders of the knights of the Ahl al-Bayt, whose inheritance is said to be futuwwa [sacred chivalry]. Together, they represent the sword of Imam Ali ع, the two edges of Dhulfiqar. This ghayrah for Muhammad ﷺ and his family, the Ahl al-Bayt, is the basis of futuwwa. It is the flame of faith that invigorates the heart with new life, revitalizing your Being with the strength of youthful manliness, and this manifests in an idealism that characterizes young men who have dedicated their lives to Rasulallah ﷺ, pledging their allegiance to him beneath the tree at Hudaybiya. Strength, honor, and faith; one pertains to the will to carry out outward actions, one pertains to the inward state that orients one's behavior, and the last to one's state of Being, the mystery of the heart as the basis for all dimensions of man.

This ode is made up of three poems, performed by Muslims from the caucus region who belong to the Qadiri order. The first is Al-Subhu Bada Min Tal'atihi, composed by Muhammad al-Busiri, the Berber Sufi poet who also composed the famous Qasida al-Burda after having experienced a spiritual vision on how to ascend to the dimensions of the Prophet ﷺ.

The second ode is Salla Alaykallah Ya Adnani, composed by an unknown writer. It was written from the perspective of Abdul Mutallib, the grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

The third ode is Tala al-Badru Alayna, an early traditional Islamic poem that the Ansar sang for the Prophet ﷺ upon his arrival to Medina while others say it was sung after his return from the military expedition of Tabuk., likely both.