Futuh al-Ghaib of Abd Al Qadir al-Jilani Perhaps the most well known collection of Shaykh Abd Al Qadir Al-Jilani's ,discourses. These short and powerful discourses cover topics of interest to every seeker of the spiritual path. A glimpse at the some of the topics covered will reassure the reader that the Shaykh is addressing issues that are as pertinent in this day and age as the day he spoke about them so many hundreds of years ago About Shaikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani Shaikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani In A.H. 488, at the age of eighteen, left his native province to become a student in the great capital city of Baghdaad, the hub of political, commercial and cultural activity, and the center of religious learning in the world of Islaam. After studying traditional sciences under such teachers as the prominent Hanbalii jurist [faqiih], Abuu Sa'd 'Alii al-Mukharrimii, he encountered a more spiritually oriented instructor in the saintly person of Abu'l-Khair Hammaad ad-Dabbaas. Then, instead of embarking on his own professorial career, he abandoned the city and spent twenty-five years as a wanderer in the desert regions of 'Iraq. He was over fifty years old by the time he returned to Baghdaad, in A.H. 521/1127 C.E., and began to preach in public. His hearers were profoundly affected by the style and content of his lectures, and his reputation grew and spread through all sections of society. He moved into the school [madrasa] belonging to his old teacher al-Mukharrimii, but the premises eventually proved inadequate. In the words of Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi: 'The venerable 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/1166 C.E.,