Imam Jamal al-Din al-Aydarus

Sayyid Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Shaykh al-Aydarus (970-1031 AH / 1562-1622 CE) was born in Tarim in the Hadramawt valley of southern Yemen, a descendant of the Ba Alawi sayyids. He memorized the Qurʾan as a boy and was raised under his father, studying several branches of knowledge alongside the spiritual path.

When his grandfather, Shaykh ibn Abd Allah, heard how far he had advanced, he sent for him to join him in Ahmadabad, India, in 989/1581. There he studied core texts and their commentaries under his grandfather, received his initiation into the Sufi path, and on reaching mastery was given general permission for teaching and initiation and appointed his successor. His grandfather died in 990/1582, and Sayyid Muhammad took up the work of teaching and distributing food, maintaining the ties between the communities of India and Hadramawt. He honored every connection his grandfather had made, including those that amounted to a single meeting.

He later settled in Surat, where he was held in regard by Muslims and non-Muslims alike and the sultan of India esteemed him. His charitable spending ran past his considerable income, and he took loans in order to keep giving. He died in Surat in 1031/1622 and is buried there.

He is known for a single work, Idah Asrar Ulum al-Muqarrabin, translated into English as Sacred Journey. Writing a generation later, Imam Abd Allah al-Haddad called it the distilled essence of tasawwuf, said that explaining its title alone would require volumes, and read it in his teaching gatherings so often that as soon as one reading ended another would begin.