Nazim Al-Haqqani

Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Qubrusi al-Haqqani (21 April 1922 – 7 May 2014), commonly known as Shaykh Nazim, was a Turkish Cypriot Sufi Muslim leader and scholar, the spiritual leader (Grand Shaykh) of the Haqqani branch of the Naqshbandi order of Sufism.¹ The Arabic article describes him as one of the authorities of Naqshbandi Sufism, who received the Qadiri order from his father and the Mawlawi order from his maternal grandfather.²

Nazim al-Haqqani was born Mehmet Nazim Adil on 21 April 1922 in Larnaca, Cyprus; the Arabic and Urdu articles give 23 April 1922, the Arabic pairing it with 26 Sha'ban 1340 AH.¹² From childhood in Cyprus he attended the lessons of his grandfather, a shaykh of the Qadiri order.² In 1940 he moved to Istanbul, where he enrolled at Istanbul University to study chemical engineering, and he studied classical Arabic and fiqh under Jamal al-Din al-Alsuni, from whom he received an ijaza to teach those subjects.¹

Nazim was initiated in the Naqshbandi Sufi order by Sulayman Arzarumi, who directed him to continue his studies in Damascus; he entered Damascus in 1945, after the end of the Second World War.¹ In Damascus he met Abdullah al-Faiz ad-Daghistani, with whom he exchanged the bay'ah; ad-Daghistani trained him in the Naqshbandi path and became his principal murshid until his death in 1973.¹ Sent back to Cyprus by his shaykh's order, he began missionary activity there and gathered many disciples who accepted the Naqshbandi order.²

In Cyprus he defied the prohibition on reciting the call to prayer in Arabic, performing the adhan in Arabic and spending a week in prison, before continuing from Nicosia's grand mosque.² From 1952 he lived in Damascus, continuing his studies with ad-Daghistani while spending three months or more each year in Cyprus.¹ After ad-Daghistani's death in 1973 he was regarded as his spiritual successor; from 1974 he visited Western Europe annually, attracting a substantial following among Western European and North American seekers, and from 1980 his lectures on Islam and Sufism were published in English and other European languages.¹ He was frequently included in The 500 Most Influential Muslims, ranked 42nd in the 2013–2014 edition.¹

In later life Nazim received visitors at his home in Lefke, Cyprus.¹ He had been receiving medical care at the Near East University Hospital in North Nicosia since 17 April 2014 for kidney and respiratory failure, and died on 7 May 2014, aged 92; he is buried at his dergah in Lefke.¹

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