writes in his biography that sometimesAbdul Qadir’s sermons were attended
by as many as seventy thousand people.
1
This may be somewhat of an
exaggeration, but there is no doubt that the sermons were extremely
popular. The
madrasa
building soon proved too small to accommodate the
eager public, so he shifted his lectures to an Idgah. It is said that he used to
deliver sermons thrice a week – at the Idgah on Friday mornings, at the
madrasa
on Tuesday nights, and at the hospice on Wednesday mornings.
Different kinds of people came to him to learn different things. There
were Sufis as well as scholars of jurisprudence, men of wealth as well as
men of letters. Some came from lands as far off as Mesopotamia, Persia,
and Egypt. Occasionally Jews and Christians attended his meetings and
were often so inspired by his eloquence that they entered the fold of Islam
on the spot. Four hundred scribes recorded his every utterance.
2
Of the
impact made by him as a preacher, Abul Faraj al-Jawzi, a contemporary
writer, says that as a result of his urgings, people eschewed their evil ways
and began to set their feet upon the straight and narrow path of the good
and the right.What was even more extraordinary was that members of his
congregations sometimes breathed their last as a result of the overwhelming
emotion they experienced as they listened to his powerful words.
Entrusted with the running of a large
madrasa
by his teacher, Qadi Abu
Said Mubarak al-Mukharrimi, the Shaykh paid such attention to its constant
improvement that its neighbourhood came to have almost the status of a
madrasa
town. The Shaykh himself used to teach several subjects of the
religious sciences. With both the
madrasa
and the
ribat
at his disposal, the
Shaykh had every opportunity he needed to propagate his teachings. For a
period of forty years (1127-1165), he delivered sermons and gave instruction
1
Bahajat al-asrar, p.. 92
2
ibid., p.. 95
Th e Qa d r i Or d e r 116
