The Location of the Bangalore Takya

Date: NA/6/2011
Location: Saraipalya – Bangalore – Karnataka

When the Shaikh decided to send me to India, he told me:

Caliph, for twenty years we have been trying to build a takya in Bangalore. Your target is preaching and building a takya.

Following the commandment of my Shaikh, during my preaching journeys I was also looking for some land on which to build the takya. Every time I found a potential candidate, I would tell the Shaikh, but he rejected all that I found, usually because they were too far from where the caliphs and dervishes lived.

One day I saw in a dream the Shaikh driving his old red Land Cruiser, a version from 1990, and I was sitting next to him. He told me: “Son, do you see that lamp with the yellow light?” I said: “Yes,” he said: “I want you to get a piece of land in this area.” I said: “By the spiritual power of the Shaikh, I will.” He went on to say:

My land is here. I have documents that show that the land is registered under my name. Try and find these documents.

I promised the Shaikh to do so and he drove us off. On our way back, we saw a train pass near that place. I then woke up. From that point on, whenever a piece of land was recommended to me, I would ask whether there was a nearby train track, looking for that sign.

After a while, I saw another dream. This time the Shaikh was sitting in the car while I was standing outside. He was speaking to me through the window. He asked me: “Son, have you found the place?” I answered that I was still searching, I then woke up. When I told the Shaikh about the two dreams he said: “Allah willing, the Shaikhs will give you what you saw.”

A week or so later, I was one day in Shadab Nagar, which is in the centre of Bangalore and close to all caliphs. A Muslim estate agent came to me with the paperwork for a piece of land in Saraipalya. I told him that it was too small, as I was looking for a piece of land that was at least one thousand square metres because it was for a takya. He had other adjacent lands, so I told him I needed eighteen to twenty of them. The agent said that they would cost a lot. I had no money then, but I relied on Allah.

I asked him about his name, and he said: “Muḥammad Irshād.” When I heard the name, I almost cried. I saw in the name the first sign from my Master that this was the land that was destined to be for the takya. The estate agent’s first name, “Muḥammad,” is the same as the Shaikh’s first name, and his second name, “Irshād,” which means “preaching,” is the activity of the takya. This and the wonders that followed were also witnessed by caliphs Zakariyya Ibrāhīm Shaikh, Fairūz, and Jaʿfar, the driver.

When we arrived at the piece of land to have a look at it, it was afternoon. I was overwhelmed by a feeling that I cannot explain. I felt like entering Paradise, because we went past a train track. I then saw the street lamp. I told my accompanying caliphs that the lamp was yellow. I told them about the two dreams I saw. I said that the combination of the two signs from the dream that we saw in the land and the fact that the name of the estate agent was “Muḥammad Irshād” was conclusive evidence that this was the land of the takya. The area was overwhelmingly Hindu, with two or three houses of Muslim families. They had a small mosque built out of clay. I told my companions that we would collectively perform the dhikr of afternoon while we waited for the darkness, so that they could see the yellow colour of the lamp. The area was full of mosquitos, so the caliphs wanted to make me change my mind and leave, but I insisted that we waited until it was dark.

At sunset, we collectively performed the sunset prayer. We waited for the street lamps to be lit to see the colour of that lamp, but half an hour passed and the lamps were still off. I asked Fairūz and Jaʿfar to go to the Hindu owner of a small store under the lamp and ask him about why the lamps were not lit and what colour that lamp was. The storeowner said that there was a power cut and they were informed that the power would be back at nine in the evening. He also told them that the lamp was white. I swore a solemn oath that it is yellow. They were astonished by my insistence given that the storeowner would surely know better the colour of the lamp that lit his store!

I told the caliphs that we would stay until the power was back to verify the colour of the lamp. This meant staying at the mercy of the mosquitos for another ninety minutes. After the call to the night prayer, we performed the prayer and the dhikr after the prayer. After a while the power was back. The lamp was indeed white. Zakariyya noted that, so I swore again that the lamp is yellow. Zakariyya laughed hysterically when he saw my immovable belief despite being contradicted not only by the storeowner but even by the eye. But Zakariyya’s laughter quickly turned into astonishment when the white light started to turn yellow. It turned out that it was a halogen lamp. I asked the caliphs to go back to the storeowner and ask him why he said the lamp was white. The man came out of the store to look at the lamp. When he saw it, he also was astounded. He said that would swear that it used to be white and that he was completely confident of that because he had had the store for many years.

The other aspect of this wonder, which is the secret behind the Shaikh’s identification of the colour of that lamp as yellow, is that all the other lamps were white. It was the only lamp that was yellow! The caliphs cried after seeing this karāma. I repeated to the caliphs my statement that this land was certainly ours. I asked them to start doing the paperwork.

Two days later, Muḥammad Irshād came with another man whom he introduced as the middleman between us and the landlords. I asked him his name and he said “Aḥmad Irshād”! So the signs continued. After we paid the deposit, we went to an office in which we met someone called ʿAbbās, who was the representative of the landlords. After I greeted him, he started kissing my hand and foot, and he pleasantly surprised me when he said that his mother, who had died over fifteen years ago, was a dervish of ḥaḍrat Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Kasnazān. She had taken the pledge from caliph ʿAbd ar-Razzāq Sharīf, one of Shaikh ʿAbd al-Karīm’s caliphs. Wishing to serve the Ṭarīqa in some way, ʿAbbās said that he would try to get a discount on the price of the square foot of the land.

ʿAbbās then took us to meet a more senior representative who was in charge of many other pieces of land, including the one we would like to purchase. This Muslim man also said that he would like to be of service to the Ṭarīqa because the land would be a takya of Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gaylānī. He offered to bear the costs of the opening ceremony of the takya. I thanked him and asked him his name, just for him to stun me by saying that his name was “Irshād.”

When I told ḥaḍrat Shaikh Muḥammad al-Kasnazan that the name of the first person was “Muḥammad Irshād,” the second “Aḥmad Irshād,” and the third “Irshād” he commented:

And your Shaikh is “Quṭb al-Irshād (the Pole of Preaching)”, praise be to Allah, and the Ṭarīqa is all about Irshād (preaching). This takya is yours, Allah willing, by the spiritual power of our Master al-Gaylānī, and the spiritual power of Shah al-Kasnazān.

Indeed, we bought the land and built the takya, as the Shaikh said and the chain of amazing karāmas indicated.