Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari - Biography - Life and The Path of Naqashbandi Sufi Order

Life and The Path of Naqashbandi Sufi Order

He was born on the 14th day in the month of Muharram, in 717 H./1317 CE, in the village of Qasr-i Arefan near Bukhara. Allah granted him miraculous powers in his childhood. He had been taught about the secret of this tariqat by his first teacher, Sayyid Muhammad Baba As-Samasi (q). Then he was given the secret and the mastery of the Order by his shaikh, Sayyid Amir al-Kulal (q). He was also Uwaysi in his connection to the Prophet, as he was raised in the spiritual presence of Abdul Khaliq al-Ghujdawani (q), who preceded him by 200 years.

The Beginning of His Guidance and the Guidance of His Beginning

Shah Naqshband (q) was eighteen years of age when he was sent by his grandfather to the village of Samas to serve the Shaikh of the Tariqat, Muhamad Baba as-Samasi (q), who had asked for him. From the beginning of his companionship with the Shaikh, he perceived within himself countless blessings and the urge for great sincerity and devotion. Of his youth he relates:

"I would arise early, three hours before Fajr prayer, take ablution, and after making Sunnah prayers, I would go into prostration, supplicating God with the following prayer: "O my Lord, give me the power to carry the difficulties and the pain of Your Love." Then I would pray Fajr with the Shaikh. On his way out one day he looked at me and said, as if he had been with me when I made that supplication, "O my son, you have to change the method of your supplication. Instead say, 'O Allah, grant your pleasure to this weak servant.' God doesn't like His servants to be in difficulties. Although God in His Wisdom might give some difficulties to His servants to test them, the servant must not ask to be in difficulties. This would not be respectful to your Lord.'

"When Shaikh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi died, my grandfather took me to Bukhara and I married there. I lived in Qasr al-'Arifan, which was God's special care to me because I was near to Sayyid Amir Kulal. I stayed in his service, and he told me that Shaikh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi had told him a long time before that, 'I will not be happy with you if you will not take good care of him.' One day, I was sitting with a friend in seclusion, and the Heavens opened and a grand vision came to me and I heard a voice saying, 'Is it not enough for you to leave everyone and to come to Our Presence Alone?' This voice reduced me to a state of trembling, causing me to run away from that house. I ran to a river where I threw myself. I washed my clothes and prayed two rakats in a way that I had never prayed before, feeling as if I was praying in the Divine Presence. Everything was opened to my heart in a state of Unveiling (kashf). The entire universe disappeared and I was not aware of anything other than praying in His Presence.

"I had been asked, in the beginning of my state of Attraction, 'Why are you going to enter on this Path?' I answered, 'In order that whatever I say and whatever I want will happen.' I was answered, 'That will not be. Whatever We say and whatever We want is what will happen.' And I said, 'I cannot do that. I must be permitted to say and to do whatever I like, or I don't want this Way.' Then I received the answer, 'No, it is whatever We want to be said and whatever We want to be done that must be said and done.' And I said again, 'Whatever I say and whatever I do is what must be.' Then I was left alone for fifteen days, until I was overwhelmed with a tremendous depression. Then I heard a voice, 'O Baha'uddin, whatever you want, We will grant.' I was overjoyed. I said, 'I want to be given a Path (tariqat) that will lead anyone who travels on it straight to the Divine Presence.' And I experienced a great vision and heard a voice saying, 'You are granted what you have asked.'"