Who is Dervish Muhammad Imkenegi? What kind of person Dervish Muhammad Imkenegi? When did Dervish Muhammad Imkenegi live?
Dervish Muhammad Imkenegi [d. 1562]
Dervish Muhammad (may Allah have mercy on him), who is the son of the sister of Muhammad Zahid, was from the village of Imkene in Shahr-i Sebz. He is from the lineage of the caliph Umar (may Allah be pleased with him). Keeping company with his maternal uncle, Muhammad Zahid, and serving him, he advanced in the path of tasawwuf and was made a successor.
For a long time Dervish Muhammad occupied himself with teaching the Holy Qur’an and religious knowledge to the students of the village in order to conceal his spiritual state. He lived a very simple and humble life. It was only years later that people realised that he was a great Friend of Allah, through the indication of Nureddin Muhammad Khafi, the Kubrevi master. After that the people paid more attention to Dervish Muhammad and began to form assemblies around him.
Dervish Muhammad occupied himself with agriculture and earned his own livelihood. He always showed extreme care to act with taqwa and azimah.
It is recorded that he was competent in the sciences of the madrasah and hadith in particular and he wrote a treatise on some of the deeper matters of tasawwuf.
To those of his students and others who asked him for counsel, he advised them to stay away from bid’a (innovations in religion) and live a life in harmony with the Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). He told people to act in accordance with the etiquette of tasawwuf. He said that it was vital to willingly enter upon the spiritual training provided by the perfected guides who have embraced the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). The spiritual methods of training and adab that true guides inculcate in their followers are nothing more than an application of the ‘tazkiya’ of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) brought to all times and places.
Dervish Muhammad (may Allah have mercy on him) passed away in the hijri year 970 in the month of Muharram in Asfiraz a village to the north of Imkene. Today this place is in the township of Kitab in the region of Kashkaderya in Uzbekistan.
Source: Osman Nuri Topbaş,The Golden Chain of Transmission Masters of the Naqshinandi Way, Erkam Publications
