In the Circles of Azzawia

From Sunday’s Kitāb al-Shukr to Monday’s Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn, tracing the chains of Shāfiʿī knowledge, the whispered wisdom of teachers, and a daily breeze of remembrance.

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Sunday Morning – Chains of Knowledge, Wings of Mercy

Last Friday, Al Ameen, my swaer, took me to Al Azawia Mosque in Walmer Estate. I had only wanted to greet Shaykh Achmad Hendricks, who was delivering the Jumuʿah khuṭbah. But in the front ṣaff, I also took hands with Shaykh Allie Khalfe.

He smiled and said, “Adli, I’m glad you are here in Cape Town. Come to my dars this Sunday morning.”

I went.

The gathering was in the old style — a teacher seated, a text in Arabic before him, the words flowing into English explanation. Shaykh Allie was reading from Imām al-Ghazālī’s Kitāb al-Shukr (Book of Gratitude). Before the lesson began, Rashaad recited the Qaṣīda al-Burda Sharīf with the beat of the duff — a reminder that knowledge, in our tradition, is not only in the mind but in the heart, the breath, the rhythm.

The room carried the scent of chains of transmission — ustādh to ustādh, back to the author, to the early masters, to the Messenger ﷺ. We were given a chart in Arabic, thirty or so key uṣūl al-fiqh terms, the kind that open doors into the Qurʾān’s architecture. A gift in itself.

Shaykh Allie moved between concepts — ʿilm, tafakkur, ḥāl; gratitude as both unveiling and action; the way arrogance blinds and mercy gives wings; Allah’s command in the Qur’an for Mūsā عليه السلام to speak kindly even to Pharaoh; and how every act, every vessel, every design is part of tawḥīd.

He reminded us that knowledge is not a library of abstractions but an ʿamal — a living response. That Bismillah should precede everything, and that the chains we hold are not shackles but the silsilah — the unbroken links of teachers and students — which, when pulled, draw the heart closer to Allah.

At the end, he placed in my hands a book: A Journey Through Time with Al-Shāfiʿī, Muhammad bin Idris, Volume 2. Another link in the chain, another door to open.

I left with the sense that gratitude itself is a journey — from the first Bismillah to the final Alhamdulillah — and that Cape Town, for all its winds, still holds corners where the old way of learning is alive, unbroken, and quietly shining.

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Monday Night – Two Hours on an Introduction

On Monday night, 11 August 2025, I returned to Azzawia Mosque — this time for the weekly dars with Shaykh Achmad Hendricks.

The WhatsApp invitation from Rashaad Samaai had been simple:

Shaykh Ahmad is currently teaching the Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn of Imām al-Nawawī and the Risālah of Imām al-Qushayrī.

My madhhab is Shāfiʿī — as is the majority of Cape Muslims — so to sit in a reading of Imām al-Nawawī’s masterpiece felt like stepping into my own inheritance.

Shaykh Achmad spent two hours on just the introduction — pausing on its closing lines:

Finally, in cases where there is divergence of opinion among authorities I shall give an impartial exposition of the two opposing theories, the two sides from which one may consider the question in dispute, and the two methods of reasoning adopted in order to solve it; and then I will also, where there is occasion for it, quote separately the decisions of our imam al-Shāfiʿī, and note the relative value of the different appreciations.

From that, a whole world opened: the discipline of fairness, the patience to hold two views in one’s hands, and the humility to weigh them without arrogance.

It took me back to a scene years ago in the Haram at Makkah. A teacher had just finished lecturing his students. When he rose, they swarmed him like bees — those nearest whispering their questions, the teacher answering in whispers too. Everyone leaned in to catch the words. Then, when he departed, they rushed into the market to buy the books he had mentioned.

That is knowledge — not the cold storage of facts, but the living pursuit: sitting, listening, writing, memorising. The kind that makes the heart lean forward. The kind that, even in an age of instant answers, still requires the slow, deliberate turning of a page.

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A Gift for the Road – Daily Adhkār

As we stepped out into the cool Cape Town night, Rashaad Samaai pressed a page into my hand.

“It’s from Shaykh Achmad,” he said.

On it was a short litany to be read three times daily — Names of Allah drawn from the Qur’an and the hearts of the early saints:

Bismi Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm, Yā Allāh
In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. O Allah.

Yā Wāḥid, Yā Aḥad — O The One, O The Unique
Yā Wājid, Yā Jawwād — O The All-Perceiving, O The Most Generous

Infikhnee bi-nafkhati khayr — blow into me a breeze of goodness

Innaka ʿalā kulli shay’in Qadīr — Indeed, Allah has Power over all things.

A simple gift, but in it, a whole ocean — remembrance for the tongue, stillness for the heart, and a daily returning to the Source.

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Closing line:
And so the circles of Azzawia turn — each dars a link, each link a step — until the seeker finds that the journey was not only to the masjid on the hill, but deeper into the heart of the chain itself.