Sidi Shaykh Buzidi
1925-2011
Bismi 'Llahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Rahim
I returned in the early hours of this morning from the funeral, in
Nador, of Sid Shaykh Buzidi Bujrafi of the Shadhili-Darqawi-Alawi
tariqa. I will not attempt to give an exhaustive obituary here - that
should be left to one of his murids, I feel - but I would like to try
and describe some reflections on the Shaykh and his passing while they
are still fresh in my mind.
Upon entering the zawiya in Nador, the first thing I was aware of was
timelessness, the timelessness of the place. Though I had not been there
in two years or so, it felt as though I had never left. Sidi Nabil,
muqaddam of the Oujda zawiya, said the same to me later on that day. In
the zawiya of Shaykh Buzidi, there was no time. It was not Monday,
Tuesday, Spring, Summer, December, July; it was only
dhikr Allah, remembrance of Him who is beyond time.
Yet of course there was one crucial difference this
time around: the Shaykh himself was not there to greet us; and this
leads me to the second noticeable presence in the zawiya that morning:
grief. We were greeted by Sidi Abd al-Rahim, the Shaykh's son, whose
face was an image of grief and loss such as I have never seen. It was
all we could do to embrace him, and add our tears to his, without any
words being needed. We had arrived just in time to offer the dawn prayer
with the congregation. Sidi Abd al-Rahim beckoned to Shaykh Sa'id of
Salé to lead the prayer, but the Shaykh took off his woollen cloak and
threw it over the shoulders of Sidi Abd al-Rahim, and bade him lead it.
After the prayer, we recited together the surat al-Waqi'a and other
litanies, and then withdrew to recite our daily wird individually. In
gatherings of years past, the fuqara would usually take the two hours or
so after this to snatch some sleep after their journeys, and the zawiya
would echo with the sound of deep breathing and gentle snores. On this
day, though, there was only the sound of muffled sobs and cries.
At around half past seven, a breakfast of olives and olive oil was
brought out. Usually at this time, Shaykh Buzidi would come out clapping
his hands and singing the Testimony of Faith to rouse the sleeping
fuqara for a day of worship; today it was his memory that roused them.
After breakfast and ablutions, we began the dhikr, singing the poems of
the great spiritual masters of the Order. Many of the lines sung were,
of course, those composed by the Shaykh himself. People began to trickle
in through the doors of the zawiya, coming from near and far, many of
them sobbing, almost all of them weeping. Shaykh Sa'id gave a short
talk, quoting lines that would be repeated by many throughout the day,
from a poem of the Shaykh al-Alawi:
My beloved ones, if you truly follow me,
Then here is the path: walk upon it behind me.
The path of the Shaykh remains, he said, and it is for his disciples to
follow it. He also said that the death of a saint is a time of
rejoicing, for it is only then that he is given his true life in the
realm of the spirit, free of the chains of this bodily life. He then
announced that instead of praying the Friday prayer and funeral in the
zawiya, as had first been planned, he had advised the fuqara to bear the
Shaykh to the mosque for the prayer, and then return him to the zawiya
for burial. This, he said, was so that the funeral prayer would be
attended by all, those who knew the Shaykh and those who knew him not,
and also so that the people could observe the funeral procession and pay
their respects.
At around eleven o'clock, the Shaykh's bier was carried into the zawiya,
covered in a green cloth on which verses of the Quran were embroidered.
The outpourings of sadness intensified; I do not feel you can know what
grief is until you have seen elderly men, normally so stoic and calm,
weeping and wailing for a man they loved solely for the sake of Allah. A
hadra began, the circle made around the Shaykh once more as it had been
so many times in his life. All the Jalal of Allah seemed to be
manifested in the room, and it was too much for some, who collapsed into
grief-stricken heaps upon the floor, clinging to each other for solace.
La ilaha illa Allah. Such love.
And it was love, more than anything else, more even than grief, which
was the dominant presence in the zawiya on this day. The Shaykh's bier
was taken up by his sons and loved ones, and carried through the streets
some distance to the mosque; the procession took perhaps half an hour.
Those several hundred men who walked behind it were connected by nothing
but love: love for Allah, love for His Messenger (upon whom be
blessings and peace), love for those who love Him. If someone were to
ask me what love is, I would attempt no definition, but simply say: Go
to the zawiya of Sidi Shaykh Buzidi. If you cannot find it there, it
cannot be found. The teachings of the Shaykh were simple: dhikr and
mahabba. To describe his state would not take many words. What did he
do? He invoked Allah. What did he embody? He embodied love for Allah and
His Messenger (upon whom be blessings and peace). That is all. His
poems of praise for the Prophet (upon whom be blessings and peace) were
marked by a love that was pure and sincere, with no artifice or
pretension. It was these poems that the fuqara sang as they bore the
Shaykh back to the zawiya after the prayer, as tradesmen and their
customers stood at the doors of their businesses and bowed their heads
in respect. The Shaykh was interred in his zawiya as the mourners
recited the Ya Sin, al-Mulk, al-Ikhlas. A few people spoke as best they
could, choked by their grief; and Sidi Abd al-Rahim, who now finds the
zawiya under his care, was asked to speak, but could not quell his tears
long enough to utter even a word. The Shaykh was in any case not a fan
of words, preferring the
dhikr Allah and the poems of the
righteous to fill his zawiya with sound and life; and the fuqara then
set about doing just that. They are doing it still as I write this, and
will continue to do it thereafter. In the zawiya of Sidi Shaykh Buzidi,
after all, there is no time.
Radiya Allah 'anhu.
