Much like his own shaykh, Sayyid Muhammad b. ʿAlawī al-Mālikī, Shaykh Seraj’s activity was in concentric circles. Everyone who benefited from his personal direction benefited from his public teaching and his pastoral care, but the reverse was not always the same. He had an international role; he had a public role based in Cape Town, which was intellectual, academic, and religious; he had a pastoral role for Azzawia’s community in particular, and for anyone who came to him for advice. But he also had a more sequestered role as a murabbī — a trainer of hearts and souls.
That reflected his time in Makka, where he had gone through stages of tests with his own shaykh. Such was and is the way of training. Some of those tales related of a shaykh that could be rather strict. Shaykh Seraj, however, probably went much easier on his students in many ways. On certain points of adab and akhlāq, he was impeccable and insisted on such from his close students. His son, Rashid Hendricks, in his first public interview about his father following his passing, noted how Shaykh Seraj continuously reminded his students: al-adab fawqa al-ʿilm — etiquette is above knowledge. For him, the comportment and morality of a student was a barometer of spiritual progress.
But he was such a balanced and easy soul, one might never have noticed any insistence anyway. He was just so easy. And yet, we knew he had spent more than a decade in Makka with his shaykhs, after many years at the hands and feet of his own uncles in Cape Town. If that had been hard for him, he certainly made it easy for his students.
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When Shaykh Seraj deciphered his tradition into a way of engaging with the world, it was always about a radical beauty; a far-reaching inclusion; a spiritual way of being, rather than simply a set of do’s and don’ts. When he taught about that way, he taught by example, not simply by words. As one spent more time with him, one would learn that the more learned a person was, the more flexible — not more rigid — they could be.
That was certainly the case with Shaykh Seraj, who was dedicated to applying universals and remembering first principles, rather than reducing this religion to a narrow and shallow vessel of simply ḥarām and ḥalāl. He knew the forms of the rituals and the protocols extremely well as a result of his training, and taught them precisely. But he also knew that it was mandatory that such forms be infused with iḥsān. Formalism was there, but was never harsh or cruel. He always emphasised the virtues of love, hope and mercy, in contrast to many figures of religion today. The works of al-Ghazālī were and are the backbone of Azzawia’s tradition, and they were embedded in Shaykh Seraj himself.
He severely disliked the clichéd phrase ‘way of life’ to describe Islam, seeing it as empty and hollow. Rather, he spoke of Islam being a ‘way of being.’ And he imparted that consciousness to his students, in private and public.
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In the tradition of Azzawia, there were and are thousands of murīds, in the sense that they were attached to the teaching and the reading of the litanies of Azzawia. It did not mean they were personally inducted into the ṭarīqa per se, which would have involved a formal ijāza of dukhūl, given to very few people in Shaykh Seraj’s lifetime. None of that was necessary. They were a part of a century-old community that had begun via the practice of the bayʿa with Shaykh Muhammad Salih, and which they inherited as part of their continual practice.
With all of these murīds, Shaykh Seraj treated them in the spirit of the school of Ahl al-Bayt — in khidma and maḥabba. Service and love. From the minbar and in public, he could give direct and uncompromising corrections for infractions of principle and ethics. But everyone knew he would welcome anyone who wanted to come to him for advice or counsel. Sometimes, that counsel would be given in a very direct and clear manner, without any room for interpretation. But more often, he would be more suggestive than expressive, more oblique than pointed. For the thousands who came to him privately or listened to his classes, there will be scores of witnesses to this approach.
As Shaykh Ahmad once told me, the institution is based on religion, shaykh and maḥabba. The maḥabba element was exemplified in Shaykh Seraj’s making a clear distinction between unity and conformity — a skill he needed whenever dealing with any community discord. He always seemed to manage, because he was always so tolerant of the diversity of his community, and of human beings at large.
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But there were a few who developed another, deeper type of relationship with him; who received authorisations and permissions to pass on litanies and invocations. Fewer still who were given the ability — and the instruction — to induct people into the ṭarīqa. In this way, Shaykh Seraj’s spiritual impact spread far and wide. But the width and breadth of that impact did not negate the reality that there were different levels of spiritual instruction going on.
In those kinds of meetings, where he would take on the role of a spiritual father with more precision, he would want to focus on works like Qawāʿid al-Taṣawwuf by Zarrūq, Bidāyat al-Hidāya of al-Ghazālī, Qūt al-Qulūb by al-Makkī, al-Lumʿa of al-Ṭūsī, the Ibrīz of al-Dabbāgh. He was very particular about what kind of works would or should be read with different people at different times. He had a certain angle in mind — what the students needed or required, specifically, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach.
If one had the good fortune of travelling around with him to various resting places of the saints, whether in cities like Cairo or Cape Town, one would witness his own deep connection to the spiritual sanctity of those places. Sacred geography was not theory for him. It was lived.
The shaykh was also meticulous about ensuring permissions were explicitly included in ijāzas; teaching how the adhkār were to be read, even what movements might be allowed; books of awrād were provided, and other documents, as well as objects such as prayer beads and shawls, as his own teacher had done. Such objects were then treasured by those to whom he gave them, as reminders of their commitment to God and His Prophet.
For any that he did prepare over time, he did allude to trials they might encounter, and that they should expect the unexpected, with perhaps ‘surprises’ taking place along the way. When those surprises were relayed back to the shaykh, he invariably would smile and show he was not actually surprised in the slightest.
