Location: Medinatu Mina al-Qamh
He is the Sayyid Jooda Ibraheem and his lineage goes back to the Imam al-Husayn grandson of the Emissary of Godﷺ. He was born (may God be pleased with him) in the year 1264 AH in the country of al-Azeeziya, the center of Mina al-Qamh in the province of Sharqeyya. He acquired religious knowledge through al-Azhar at the hands of the great scholars of his time and gradually developed his knowledge to the point of spiritual elevation.
He (may God be pleased with him) became a symbol for people in the knowledge Jarh wal Ta’deel (Systematic Criticism of the Men of Hadeeth) as well as a master of authenticating Hadeeth from the six notable books of Hadeeth and others. He was also an undisputed authority in the knowledge of the Arabic language in the fields of grammar, morphology, rhetoric, and poetry etc. He was similarly an authority in the intellectual sciences diving into dialectical theology and logic. As for his knowledge of Sufism, he drank his share from its respective teachers and he swam in their oceans of esoteric language and knowledge. He was an aspirant as well as a guide. who guided many on the different paths of Sufism. He acquired authority from the respective Shaykh’s of the Khalwateyya, the Shadhiliyya, the Ahmadeyya, the Rifa’eyya, and the Borhameyya. This was the custom of some of the Sufi masters at this late period in Islamic history, namely to acquire more than one path at a time. He also took the path of the Naqshband that became well known via the gnostic Shaykh Ahmed Diya’ al-Deen al-Kumushkhanawy.
He (may God be pleased with him) was a committed visitor of the descendants of Prophet Muhammadﷺ as well as the saints of Egypt. He used to visit them by foot as a token of respect for their high rank with God.
An array of scholars and pious men became Jooda’s students. Nevertheless if we say that he only produced one scholar, the pious and pure Abdul Azeez Abdul Dayim, this would suffice. He passed away (may God be pleased with him) in the year 1344 AH.
The Shaykh Al Kumushkhanawy who gave the Naqshbandi path to Jooda is the one who wrote the Sufi Encyclopedia, which is the main reference for the mainstream Sufi paths. In this Encylcopedia he defends Sufism as a whole against those who have slandered them as narrow minded and foolish. He argued that those slanderers fell short of their goal since it became obvious to the people that they used jurisprudence and leadership roles for satanic agendas and passions of the ego.
Behind the façade of knowledge and self-righteousness, they are really aiming at revealing the flaws of others, [which is the work of Satan]. One of the clearest evidences is that they pervert information only about those who sincerely seek God through worship and divine remembrance not those negligent of religion. As for the true scholars of jurisprudence they would not come near revealing the flaws of others in the first place due to their great reverence for the folk of God besides the fact that they would be too busy seeking out their own faults instead of others.