Searching for the Teacher of the Age
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Ja’far ibn Yahya ( q.s. ) of Lisbon was determined to find the Teacher of the Age, so he travelled to Makkah as a young man to seek him. There he met a mysterious stranger, a man in a green robe, who said to him - before any word had been spoken, “You seek the Greatest Shaykh , the Teacher of the Age. But you seek him in the east, when he is in the west. And there is another thing which is incorrect in your seeking.” He sent Shaykh Ja’far ( q.s. ) back to Andalusia, to find the man he named: Muhyi ad-Din, son of al-‘Arabi, of the tribe of Hatim ath-Tha’i: “He is the Greatest Shaykh .” Telling nobody why he sought him, Shaykh Ja’far ( q.s. ) found the ath-Tha’i family in Murcia and inquired for their son. He learnt that he had actually been in Lisbon when Shaykh Ja’far ( q.s. ) set off on his travels. Finally he traced him in Seville. “There,” said a cleric, “is Muhyi ad-Din.” He ...