Rebuking the Unjust Ruler

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is taken from Shaykh Muhammad ibn Yahya at-Tadhifi’s (q.s.), Qala’id al-Jawahir, as translated by Shaykh Muhtar Holland.  This is a story of Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu Muhammad ibn Abu Swalih ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (q.s.). 

Shaykh Abu al-‘Abbas al-Khadir ibn al-Husayn al-Mawswili (q.s.), who said, “One night, we were in the schoolhouse of our shaykh, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (q.s.), in Baghdad.  While we were there, along came Imam al-Mustanjid bi-Allah Abu al-Muzhaffar Yusuf, the son of Imam al-Muqtafi li-‘Amrillah Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Abbasi.  He saluted the shaykh with the salaam, and told him that he had come to seek his wise advice.  He then set down before him a large sum of money, contained in ten vessels, borne by ten of his personal servants. 

‘I have no need of this,’ said the shaykh, but the visitor insisted that he must accept it, and pressed the matter with great urgency. 

The shaykh then grasped one vessel in his right hand, and another in his left.  They were the best and finest of vessels, by the way.  He squeezed them extremely tightly, until they began to drip with blood.  Then the shaykh said to his visitor, ‘O Abu al-Muzhaffar, do you not feel any sense of shame before Allah (s.w.t.), that you should take wealth from the people, and offer it to me?’ 

He fainted when he heard this, and the shaykh went on to say, ‘By all that is due to Allah, were it not for the sanctity of his ancestral connection with Allah’s Messenger (s.a.w.), I would have let the blood go on flowing all the way to his house!’”