A Prayer Across The Ocean - Talk With Islamic Scholar Habib Omar

His weekly address on the Yemeni TV has won him audience and hearts all over Yemen. Last week prior his weekly TV address, I finally met him at Dar AlMustafa in Sanaa. Everybody went out of his way to show the way to the location. When I finally sat across Habib Omar bin Muhammed bin Salem bin Hafeedh, Dean of Dar alMustafa in Tarim, who perhaps is the greatest living Islamic Sufi scholar, everything seemed overwhelming. The whiteness, the fine scent of incense at the place, simplicity, and ease. Over the past year Dar AlMustafa in Tarim, in Hadramawt, a Governorate in the Republic of Yemen, has emerged an important center of Islamic learning.

Tarim lies some 35 km east of Seiyun, encircled by palm groves and orchards. It takes its name from a local king Tarim ibn Hadramawt ibn Saba Al-Assgar. It was a major center of the Kathiri state until 1960, and also capital of Hadramawt. And since 10th century a religious capital of the Wadi Hadramawt. In the past Tarims reputation as a center of religious teaching extended well beyond the Arabian Peninsula, reached East Africa and Southeast Asia.

Tarim is also known for its libraries, the most famous being the AlKaff library of manuscripts, which houses around five thousand manuscripts from the region covering religion, the thoughts of the prophets, Islamic law, Sufism, medicine, astronomy, agriculture, biographies, history and mathematics. Many go back hundreds of years and often contain vibrantly colored illustrations.

Last year Buzzle published the book review of the Norwegian researcher Anne K. Bang under the title Sufis and Scholars of the Sea, which was meanwhile republished by Journal for South Asian Studies. The central figure Ahmed B. Abo Bakar B. Sumayt (1986-1925) one of the most prominent Hadrami- East African scholars of that period, and Qadi of Zanzibar, has acquired great respect from the British administrators. His reputation as reformer, teacher and propagator of improved agricultural methods extended far beyond the limits of Zanzibar. His greatest strengths, however, were that he was intensely human.

At Dar AlMustafa we very much follow the spirit and personality of Ibn Sumayt, says Habib Omar. At the moment we have some 250 students, who come from various countries, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, UK and even US. Although he was under time pressure for his weekly TV address, simplicity and modesty during the talk were overwhelming. Finally, I requested him to add something about himself. He continued in simple words: I was born in Tarim, my father was mufti there. Unlike ibn Sumayt, I studied in Tarim and Mecca Mukarrama. Prior Yemeni unity, I lived and worked in AlBaida, a Governorate in Yemen. As remembrance at the parting, he hands me simple wooden prayer beads from his recent "umrah" from Mecca Mukarrama. We agreed to meet again in Tarim in Hadramawt.

FURTHER READING
Irena Knehtl: AK Bang Sufis and Scholars of the Sea, book review and profile, on www buzzle.com

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Photograph Tarim in Hadramawt, Yemen