Long before he became Ghaus-e-Azam, a young traveller from Jilan chose honesty over forty gold coins. Nine centuries later, that choice still shapes how Kashmir remembers him.
Peerzada Masarat Shah
Walk into the lanes of Khanyar in old Srinagar during the days of Gyarvi Sharif and the air itself seems to change. Devotees arrive before dawn, lamps are lit, prayers rise from the courtyard of the Dastgeer Sahib shrine, and the name on every tongue belongs to a saint who never set foot in the Valley. Hazrat Sheikh Sayyid Abdul Qadir Jilani (Radiyallahu Ta’ala Anhu), revered as Ghaus-e-Azam and Muhiyyuddeen, lived and taught in Baghdad nearly a thousand years ago. Yet in Kashmir his memory is not distant history. It is part of daily faith.
To understand why, one has to go back to the beginning of his story, and to a lesson he learned from his mother before he ever became a scholar.
A birth awaited
Historical reference works place his birth in 470 Hijri, corresponding to 1077 or 1078 CE, in Jilan, the green region along the Caspian Sea. Devotional sources add that he was born at the start of Ramadan, and they treat his arrival as a blessing long anticipated.
One narration, cherished in Sufi circles, links his coming to Hazrat Junaid Baghdadi (RA), the celebrated master of an earlier age. In a state of spiritual ecstasy, Junaid is said to have repeated: “His foot is on my shoulders.” When his puzzled disciples asked what he meant, he explained that he had been shown the spiritual rank of a great saint who would appear in a later time. For the followers of Ghaus-e-Azam, this narration became a sign of the station he would one day hold among the Awliya Allah.
His father was Sayyid Abu Saleh Musa and his mother Sayyida Ummul Khair Fathima (RA). Traditional genealogies trace his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ on both sides: through Imam Hasan on his father’s side and Imam Husayn on his mother’s.
The fasting infant
Few stories about his early life are told as often as one from his very first Ramadan. According to the traditional account, his mother noticed that her newborn son would not nurse during daylight hours and took milk only after sunset. The manaqib literature, the body of devotional writing on the virtues of saints, records this alongside dreams and other signs connected with his birth.
Readers may approach such accounts in different ways. For devotees, they point to a spiritual destiny visible from the cradle. For others, they reveal how deeply a community loved the man and how it chose to remember him. Either way, they have been preserved with care for centuries.
A child called away from play
The childhood that followed is portrayed as unusual. While other boys chased games, young Abdul Qadir was drawn towards the remembrance of Allah. One narration says that whenever he tried to join his friends at play, a voice from the unseen called him back. At first it frightened him, and he would run home to his mother. Over time he grew used to it, and his heart turned more and more towards worship.
Whether one reads it literally or as a devotional image, the story carries a plain message that travels well across the centuries: a heart fixed on Allah is not easily held by the world’s distractions.
**The road to Baghdad**
He received his early religious instruction in Jilan. But the great centre of learning in the Muslim world at the time was Baghdad, seat of the Abbasid caliphate and home to its most respected scholars. Historical sources record that he arrived there around 488 Hijri, at about eighteen years of age, to pursue advanced study.
His mother knew what that journey meant. The roads were long and caravans were often attacked. Still, she did not let fear stand between her son and knowledge. She gave him forty gold coins for the journey and stitched them carefully inside his clothing, where no thief would think to look.
Then she gave him something worth more than the gold. “Always speak the truth,” she told him, “and never tell a lie.”
The robbers
The story of what happened next is perhaps the best known episode of his early life, and it is told in homes, classrooms and mosques across Kashmir to this day.
On the road, the caravan was attacked by bandits. The travellers were searched and stripped of their belongings. One robber came up to the young Abdul Qadir and asked whether he had anything of value. He answered that he had forty dinars.
The robber laughed. Surely no one would volunteer such a thing. He assumed the boy was joking and walked on. A second robber asked the same question and received the same answer.
Eventually the matter reached the leader of the gang. The boy’s clothes were examined, and the coins were found exactly where he had said. The robbers were bewildered. Why would anyone reveal hidden wealth to the very men taking everything?
His reply was simple. He had promised his mother he would not lie.
The traditional account says the moment shook the robbers deeply. The honesty of a teenage traveller woke something in their conscience that no sermon had reached. In many tellings, they repented on the spot. The lesson that has come down with the story is clear: truth may feel costly in the moment, but sincerity has the power to change hearts.
Scholar, preacher, master
In Baghdad, the young man from Jilan studied Hanbali jurisprudence and the religious sciences under leading teachers of the city. In time he became a teacher himself, then a preacher whose gatherings drew crowds from every walk of life, and finally a spiritual guide whose influence spread far beyond Iraq.
His life came to stand for a union that many seekers found rare: firm adherence to the Shari’ah, deep scholarship, constant worship and inner discipline, held together by good character. The Qadiriyyah order that carries his name would spread across Africa, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. He passed away in Baghdad in 561 Hijri (1166 CE), and his shrine there remains a place of pilgrimage.
**Why Kashmir holds him close**
In Kashmir, the Qadiriyyah tradition took root through generations of scholars and Sufis, and devotion to Ghaus-e-Azam became woven into the religious life of the Valley. The Dastgeer Sahib shrine at Khanyar is its most visible expression. The observance of Gyarvi Sharif, marked on the eleventh of the lunar month, brings families to the shrine and fills homes with recitation, food shared with neighbours, and stories of the saint told once more to children.
And among those stories, the one about the forty coins is almost always the first. It is easy to see why. It asks nothing extraordinary of the listener: no miracle, no hidden knowledge. It asks only that a person keep the promise he made to his mother.
The lesson that lasts
The greatness of Ghaus-e-Azam is remembered through his rank and his miracles, but just as much through the qualities his life displayed. His journey teaches perseverance. His search for knowledge teaches dedication. His devotion teaches remembrance of Allah. His conduct teaches that true spirituality cannot be separated from character and obedience to Allah.
At the centre of it all sits a mother’s parting instruction to her son on the road out of Jilan: speak the truth.
May Allah Almighty shower His mercy upon Hazrat Ghaus-e-Azam, Sheikh Sayyid Abdul Qadir Jilani (Radiyallahu Ta’ala Anhu), and grant us sincerity in faith, respect for our parents, love for sacred knowledge and the courage to remain truthful in every circumstance. Aameen.
