Hadrat Qari Siddiq Sahib Bandwi (r.a.) was an astonishing personality. When he came to Gujarat the first time, he delivered a talk and said in it: “Brothers! This is very strange. You have a teacher teaching Bukhari Sharif for the entire year. But when it is time to complete the book, you invite a person from U.P. What an absurdity!?” I realized our folly when he said this.
Hadrat Qari Siddiq Sahib Bandwi (r.a.) came to Manchester once. Someone said to him, “Hadrat, there are many people here who would like to pledge bay‘ah at your hands.”
Hadrat severely reprimanded them against this and said to them: “Brothers! There are some mashayikh (Sufi Shaykhs) in this place. They all have permission from their Shuyukh to accept bay‘ah from others. Why do you not refer to them? I will stay here for five days and go away. How am I going to treat your spiritual ailments? You are not going to write to me [whereby I could treat your spiritual ailments]. If I accept bay‘ah from you, I will be unnecessarily increasing my following. What benefit is there in doing that?”
Such was the level of selflessness of our elders. People are coming to them and asking them to accept their bay‘ah, and they are saying to them, “Refer to those who are present here, and show respect to them.”
Hadrat repeated this several times for three days, “Increase the respect of the local ‘ulama’, and link the people to your local ‘ulama’.”
(An Echo From the Heart: A collection of lectures delivered by Mawlana Abdullah Kapaurdi Sahib)
