Spiritual Guide

Our Guide, Sidi Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rafa’i ash- Shaduli, wrote this the last year he came to visit the U.S. beloveds in 2015:

“To all people who seek love, truth, justice and freedom, regardless of their religion, to all those who search for truth through the way of God. Welcome for everyone who wants to learn how to carry the message of unity – the message of love, mercy, peace, freedom, justice and beauty.

We teach how to purify your self so that your heart can more fully reflect your true essence. In order to carry the message of unity, one needs to embody the divine qualities of love, peace and kindness. Then we can achieve our goal of spreading the real mercy, the real love and the real compassion to all people regardless of their faith or color.

There is no requirement to be Sufi or Muslim. We accept people of all religions because all people are holy; all people carry the divine qualities of Allah.

Sufism teaches people how to be happy in a deep and blessed way. This happens through a unique, divinely-guided process of transformation that leads to understanding one’s essential unity with God and the entire creation. As is written, ” He who knows himself, knows his Lord.”

We teach people how to knock on the divine door of happiness and how to open that door and enter!!

You cannot heal yourself or others without the knowledge of the divine because Allah is the true Healer. Thus our healing process relies on guidance from the Holy Books and deep Sufi knowledge. Once you heal yourself, your heart will contain all of the divine qualities and then you will be a successful healer. Follow Allah in everything. From the Sufi perspective, most suffering and most illnesses arise because we do not follow the orders of our Lord.”

Tribute to Our Spiritual Guide

We follow the Guidance of one of the World’s Great Sufi Masters, Sidi Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal, former Head of the Higher Sufi Council in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. He was affectionately referred to as Sidi.

On November 11, 2015
Sidi Passed From This World to be with his Lord

It is with the utmost gratitude and love that we share this video montage prepared by Amany Shalaby as a tribute and celebration of Sidi’s life of service to God and of the beautiful teachings and blessings he brought into our lives.

The Biography of Sidi al Jamal

Sidi was the guide of the peace,love, mercy, justice and freedom, a teacher at the sacred sanctuary of al-Aqsa in Jerusalem and Head of the Higher Sufi Council, as well as Guide of the Shadhuli path in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Sidi Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i as-Shadhili, the Guide of the peace, the mercy, and the love to the way of Allah through the Sufi path a guide of the Shadhiliyya Tariqa, founded by as-Shaykh Ali Abu-l-Hasan as-Shadhili in Egypt in the thirteenth century. Sidi was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, through his ancestor, Shaykh Ahmad ar-Rifa‘i.

He was born in Tulkum in the Holy Land in 1935. He is the spiritual inheritor through the Shadhili line from his Guide and Master, Shaykh ‘Abdu-r-Rahman Abu-r-Risah of Halab in the land of Syria, and is one who has kept Sufism alive and at work as an institution and a school of thought and spiritual knowledge. In 1997 he restored the 1000 year old Sufi Council that served in the Holy Land. He is the Head of this Council in Jerusalem and the Holy Land and has been a teacher and central figure at the Masjid al-Aqsa or the Dome of the Rock for many years.

Sidi lived on the Mount of Olives in the Holy City of Jerusalem from 1959 to 2015. The teaching from his spirit is very deep and for all those who have a heart and who listen with this heart. His teaching sheds an entirely new light on the reality of Sufism and the significance of carrying this message to everyone in this time.

For many years Sidi was a teacher at the sacred sanctuary of al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, which is linked for all Muslims to the Holy House in Mecca in the tradition of the Night Journey (al-Mi‘raj) of the Prophet Muhammad from the Ka‘ba in Mecca to the al-Aqsa Mosque and from there to the heavens. He was well known to many people both in Palestine and in other countries in the world. Not only was he a teacher and counselor for all those who come to be at al-Aqsa, but he was also its custodian, for through his hand and leadership in these times this Sacred Precinct has been preserved, in the face of many efforts to destroy it, as a place of prayer for the Muslim people who come from all over the world to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem and to take the blessing of the praying in this Mosque. The Shaykh has students and followers in the Holy Land as well as in America and Europe, but it has only been since 1993 that the order came to his heart to travel to visit other countries. At the same time the order came from Allah for him to give teachings to all those in every part of the world who are sincerely seeking for the truth of their existence, the meaning of their life, and to heal their wounds. Up until then, the teaching had been reserved only for study in his Zawiyah in Jerusalem.

Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Jamal was a distinguished person of international stature. He worked consistently with great patience to keep the peace between the people there. He began his career at a very young age as an uncompromising man of God, who had no fear of anyone but God, and because of this took a stand facing governments any time they tried to overlook God in their actions or disrespected people’s right to worship God. Being a judge of the courts, he was a government employee, at the same time that he gave weekly sermons in al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. He was the spiritual counselor to the people of the Holy Land and to all those who visited over the years and gave his life as a sacrifice to this work.

He made monthly journeys all over the Holy Land to help the poor and to make sure that everyone had food and clothing. There were always lines of people at his home and at his office because they knew that they could find real help from him.

The Shaykh opened a Sufi Center in an old building on the road to Jericho, which holds the Prophet Moses’ tomb, may the peace and blessings of God be with him. This center became the head of the Sufi operations of aid. It has also been used to rehabilitate drug users and dealers.

In 1994 he made his first visit to America and continued to be invited here each year to give seminars and teachings at schools and centers across the United States until his death in 2015. Sidi was not a teacher for a few following a spiritual path but opened his heart to help everyone from any country or nationality. He helped people from all over the world. He was a leader who helped to keep peace no matter what the cost and who served humanity without prejudice.