3.8.13 - Retreating for More than a Year (Shawwal 595/1198-597/1200)

It seems that Shaykh Muhyiddin decided to retire from the people for a short time, but perhaps he was accompanied by his close companion Abdullah Badr al-Habashi, who became like his shadow. We do not know exactly how Shaykh Muhyiddin spent this period, but we will find him after more than a year in southern Maghreb in the city of Sale, and before that he will meet again with al-Khader, peace be upon him, for the third time, on the southwestern coast of Andalusia.

Additionally, there are also some indications that the Shaykh was in this period in Seville, where one of the manuscripts of the famous book: the Positions of the Stars: Mawâqi’ al-nuj?m wa-ma?âli’ ahillat al-asrâr wa-l-’ul?m (RG 443) mentioned that he wrote a copy there in the month of Rabii I in 596 [Bayazit 3750].

As we will also find in the following chapter, it is almost certain that Shaykh Muhyiddin has traveled to southern Maghreb via the Atlantic Ocean, and not through Algeciras and Ceuta as he usually does. This means that he left Andalusia from the southwest coast, perhaps from the area of Routa, which he used to spend days in tourism as we mentioned before. It is not unlikely that he has spent most of his isolation in these coastal and mountainous places, which he said earlier that it is considered a favorite place for ascetics and the poor people of Allah, as he also met there with Shaykh Ibn Ashraf al-Rondi as we mentioned at the end of Chapter II and also in the beginning of this chapter above.