To Achieve More

Once upon a time --

I wanted to achieve more as a Muslim and a human being. When I was introduced to the tariqa of Nuh Keller, I thought I had found the answer. There was a focus on learning and studying fiqh and Arabic that I liked, but also on these sort of mystical things. You have to make a wird three times a day - al amm twice and hizbul bahr once a day. It was like studying and enriching your mind so you can prepare to really approach Allah in all of his glory.

I got the chance to go to Jordan to study. A lot of us came there to study Arabic at Q.I., and some people came on Fulbrights. Some people went there for a few months to just live with the shaykh and make a lot of dikr. I thought I was so blessed to go to Jordan.

Keller has thousands of disciples, around the world. A few hundred live in Jordan and many do come and go for months at a time, and it is constantly changing. They live in Kharabsheh, a regular part of Amman. Not a compound or something like people think, but a regular neighborhood. One of the people there nicknamed it K-town and the name has stuck, sometimes not in a good way. Not all murids are invited or allowed to travel or move to Jordan.

One thing I learned quickly is how big the tariqa is and how you're not that significant in it. Keller doesn’t even know the names of most of his murids, some of whom take bayah over the phone and never talk to him again or even see him. I knew one sister who took bayah with him many years ago. He gave her the wird to say and she never saw him or heard from him again. She was too poor and too busy raising a family to go to the suhba, which isn't child friendly anyway, so it's like they forgot about her. I don't know if she is still a murid. When I told her that I was going to get the chance to go there, she seemed completely unenthused about it.

There is one set of rules for the murids who live in Jordan and another completely different set of guidelines for those who don’t come to Jordan. Within Jordan, some murids are required to live under stricter control than others. Almost all the problems with the Keller group concerns those who lived or stayed in Jordan, and most of the complaints of ex-Sufis and other Muslims are about this particular branch of the Shadhillis.


Soon, my life would become about the adherence to these rules, in an obsessive compulsive way. I remember that we were told about a murid who went crazy with OCD after being in Kharabsheh and listening to the shaykh or one of the murids teach on purity. After living there, it is not surprising to me that someone with an obsessive personality might be attracted to him. There is so much emphasis on this rule and that rule, all having to do with the outward appearances and physical things. It reminded me of the Salafis in a lot of ways. What was I hoping to achieve? By the time I woke up, my goal had become pleasing Um Sahl in making sure that my clothing was as black, baggy and plain as possible. Like many of the women there, Um Sahl and Um Khayr became my focus - making them happy and staying on their good side.

Um A-H