40 Thousand Invocations of Blessing

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Shaykh ‘Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ahmad ash-Sha’rani (q.s.), referring to the gnostic, Shaykh Ahmad ibn ‘Abdullah az-Zawawi as-Suhrawardi (q.s.), said, “The wird of Shaykh Ahmad az-Zawawi used to consist of forty thousand invocations of blessing and he once said to me, ‘Our procedure is to make frequent invocations of blessing upon Allah’s Messenger (s.a.w.), to the point where he keeps us company in a state of wakefulness and we associate with him like the companions.  We then ask him about the affairs of our worldly life.  We also ask him about those Prophetic traditions which the hafizh has reported to us on weak authority, and we act in accordance with what he has to say about them.  When that experience does not come about for us, it must mean that we are not among those who make a frequent practise of invocation of blessing upon him’”