A Concise Description of Jannah & Jahannam by Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani,

Description

The Author: Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani In A.H. 488, at the age of eighteen, left his native province to become a student in the great capital city of Baghdad, the hub of political, commercial and cultural activity, and the center of religious learning in the world of Islam. After studying traditional sciences under such teachers as the prominent Hanbalii jurist [faqiih], Abuu Sa’d ‘Alii al-Mukharrimii, he encountered a more spiritually oriented instructor in the saintly person of Abu’l-Khair Hammad ad-Dabbaas.Then, instead of embarking on his own professorial career, he abandoned the city and spent twenty-five years as a wanderer in the desert regions of ‘Iraq. He was over fifty years old by the time he returned to Baghdad, in A.H. 521/1127 C.E., and began to preach in public. His hearers were profoundly affected by the style and content of his lectures, and his reputation grew and spread through all sections of society. He moved into the school [madrasa] belonging to his old teacher al-Mukharrimii, but the premises eventually proved inadequate.