رمادی
Sayyid Shaykh Rajab al-Kabir al-Rawi al-Rifaʿi was a seventeenth-century spiritual teacher closely associated with the early religious history of Rawah. Local…
Sayyid Shaykh Rajab al-Kabir al-Rawi al-Rifaʿi was a seventeenth-century spiritual teacher closely associated with the early religious history of Rawah. Local records give his life as approximately 995–1087 AH (c. 1587–1676 CE). He is said to have settled in Rawah and established a mosque at the foot of the town’s hill around 1073 AH, together with a private chamber for spiritual retreat and a ribat near the Euphrates for visitors and travellers. Accounts remember him for worship, fasting, nightly prayer, teaching, spiritual guidance and kindness toward the poor and vulnerable. After his death, he was buried on the summit of the hill outside old Rawah. A large dome was constructed over his grave, and a mosque was later built beside it for visitors, daily prayer and funeral prayers. A graveyard subsequently developed around the shrine, and modern photographs confirm that the domed shrine and surrounding burial ground remain identifiable in Rawah. The grave complex should not be confused with the present zawiya of Shaykh Muhsin al-Rawi al-Rifaʿi inside Rawah. That zawiya belongs to later descendants of Shaykh Rajab and continues the family’s Rifaʿi gatherings, whereas Shaykh Rajab’s own grave is the domed shrine situated on the elevated graveyard site.