Bismillah

I met Shaykh Ibrahim in 2001 in Columbia N.C. At this time I was financially and physically broken
and bereft. Over the week I spent in his company he very attentively asked me to do personal
errands for him and assigned me to attend to his needs. During these brief moments when we spend
time together he watching over my work, he would ask me questions about my family, my education
and interests. At the end of this first meeting he suggested that I move from the state I was living to
elsewhere and start all over again.

I had another opportunity to meet Shaykh Batawi in 2005 on his visit to Washington D.C. for I have
made my home in its vicinity on his advice. I have regained most of my health and once again could
smile; my finances are still meager but the life style I opted for as a student of tasawwuf made it to
be sufficient not only to live on but also to share  around some of it with others.

On this visit I found him sick and worried, I took permission of Shaykh Nooruddeen, his khalifa in the
West, to take care of him.

Together with other students of Shaykh Nooruddeen I spent a most wonderful time caring for him as
I took care of my own father when he was ill. Shaykh Batawi would do exactly as I asked him in
matters of his rest, diet and medicine. His trust in my ability to care for him made me double check
myself and restored the confidence in myself, which I had lost over the years.

Once he was restored to health he refused all help from me but would gently allow me to stay by him
and joke at my dismay. On this visit I found the love of my father returned to me by Allah az wa jal.
He was as latif as my father was, his eyes smiling at my dismay just like my father’s eyes when I was
young. We chatted and joked and he fed me from his plate at times knowing I do not eat after others;
a habit I acquired working in hospitals for many years.

During this time I had a dream in which Shaykh Batawi gave me a picture frame. I do not recollect
what it was in it except that the colors and hues of the picture it contained were enchanting. In the
morning I told him my dream and asked him what it meant. He did not say anything, as though he
never heard me. Due to politeness I kept silent but remained intrigued.

Next morning he called me to his room and changed my life! I sat spellbound not understanding a
word he spoke wondering how I was going to make this change he was asking me to make.

It was something I was not ready for but as my shaykh I had to obey him, I couldn’t for the life of me
understand his logic to put me into a situation which most people dread to venture. I had to trust
him even though he gave me a choice to accept or refuse his suggestion.  He looked deep into my
eyes and explained a few of the very important things of the life I would live from then on accepting
my silence as acceptance. So gentle were his words and so gentle were his eyes that I sat
mesmerized — all fears leaving my heart and a quiet stillness filling that space in my heart.

I did not see him again until 2007 on a brief visit to Egypt when he introduced me to his family and
invited me to his house and to sit with him.

Gently asking me again how I was doing in my new life searching my face and heart. It was then he
told me that I have permission from him to teach along with my beloved and finally he signed the
documents making us husband and wife under the shari’a.