The Albaani Site

     “Could you tell us your name and place of birth?”

Yusraa Abdur-Rahmaan Aabideen, Umm al-Fadl.
Place of birth: Salt [Jordan], and on the birth certificate it mentions Jerusalem, 1929.

     “O Khaalah [lit: maternal aunt/aunty], could you tell us about your upbringing up until the time you married the Shaikh, may Allaah have mercy on him?”

I grew up in Jerusalem, in the area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. My father worked as a trader, but I never knew him, for he died when I was still young. So I was raised by my brother, Nadhmee, may Allaah have mercy on him.

I remained in Jerusalem until 1948, after which I moved for good to Jordan. The Shaikh, may Allaah have mercy on him, proposed to me in 1981. I used to live in North Marca, so he took me to South Marca, a place I had wanted to get to know more about, so the Shaikh caused me to settle there, may Allaah the Most High have mercy on him.

The Shaikh married his first wife, Umm Abdur-Rahmaan in Damascus, she was Yugoslavian. And she gave birth to Abdur-Rahmaan, Abdul-Lateef and Abdur-Razzaaq, and others [too] who Allaah caused to pass away. Then she too passed away.

The Shaikh then married his second wife, Naajiyah, she was also Yugoslavian. He had nine children with her, four boys and five girls. The boys were: Abdul-Musowwir, Abdul-A’laa, Muhammad and Abdul-Muhaimin. The girls: Aneesah, Aasiyah, Salaamah, Hassaanah and Sukainah.

He married the third while he had been married to the second for about two years. Her name is Khadijah al-Qaadiri and she is Syrian. She is the sister of Dr. Muhammad Ameen al-Misri’s wife, may Allaah have mercy on him, the well-known teacher at the Islamic University of Madinah, and a friend of the Shaikh, may Allaah have mercy on them both.

The Shaikh had one daughter from his wife Khadijah, Hibatullaah. And he divorced his second wife who he used to live with in the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus.

Then he migrated with Khadijah to Jordan in 1980 and settled in South Marca, Amman, close to Shaikh Ahmad Atiyah who was from the closest of people to the Shaikh. [But] then Ahmad Atiyah separated himself from Shaikh al-Albaani and his methodology, and became a Sufi, and then he embraced Baha’ism. We ask Allaah for well-being.

His third wife, Khadijah only stayed in Amman for a short while after which she moved to Damascus and refused to reside in Amman. After approximately six months, the Shaikh sent divorce papers to her and she returned their joint-passport which was with her to him.

Ahmad Atiyah, along with his cousin, Shaikh Jameel, came to South Marca to my brother’s shop and asked him for my hand in marriage [on behalf of the Shaikh] in 1981.

We finalised the marriage contract [i.e., the nikaah], in my cousin’s house in Marca. The Shaikh stipulated the dowry himself! For he informed us that this was the legislated [thing to do]–i.e., that the one proposing marriage stipulates that which he sees fit so that the dowry for his wife will be within his means, so he gave me two hundred dinaars at that time. And he did not stipulate a delayed dowry, for that is not from the Sunnah.

I went with him to the market and we bought some non-circular gold with the dowry, since he did not hold it to be permissible to wear circular gold.

We agreed to get married [i.e., that she would go and live with him] after about two months after the Shaikh would finish building his new house in South Marca. We got married half way through the blessed month of Ramadaan.

See here for part two.