Shaykh Salih al-Jafari صالح الجعفري

Salih al-Jafari (1328-1399 AH / 1910-1979 CE) was a scholar, teacher, and Sufi guide whose life was bound to al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo for nearly half a century. He was born in 1910 in Dongola, in northern Sudan, where he memorized the Qurʾan and grounded himself in Maliki fiqh and the foundational sciences before journeying to Egypt around 1930 to study at al-Azhar. He settled in Cairo for the rest of his life. After teaching at the mosque informally for over a decade, he was officially appointed a teacher in 1946 by the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar, and he continued instructing there until his death in 1979, more than forty years in all. In his later years he served as imam of the Azhar Mosque and became one of its most celebrated orators, his Friday lessons after the prayer drawing crowds of hundreds. His teaching joined Qurʾanic commentary, hadith, and jurisprudence with the cultivation of the heart. Spiritually he followed the way of Ahmad ibn Idris, the Tariqa Muhammadiyya, a method of teachings and litanies rather than a formal order; after his passing the Jaʿfariyya Ahmadiyya Muhammadiyya order was established in his name and spread across Egypt, Sudan, and beyond. A sayyid descended from the Prophet through al-Husayn, he is remembered through his Qurʾanic teaching and his devotional poetry and salawat, including his Burda al-Hasaniyya wa'l-Husayniyya in praise of the Prophet's family.