Abu Bakr bin Ahmad was a Ba Alawi scholar born in Tarim in 990 AH. His biography in Al-Mashra al-Rawi was written by his son, Muhammad bin Abi Bakr al-Shilli. Abu Bakr memorised the Quran with Umar bin Abdullah al-Khatib and pursued fiqh, hadith, Quranic commentary, Arabic and tasawwuf with scholars in Hadramawt and the Hijaz.
He travelled through the valleys of Hadramawt, studied in Aden and later performed Hajj and spent four years in Medina. His teachers included Abd al-Rahman bin Shihab al-Din, Abd al-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Ali bin Aqil al-Saqqaf, Abu Bakr bin Ali al-Muallim, Abdullah bin Shaykh al-Aydarus and scholars of the Haramain. The biography remembers him as a teacher and as someone attentive to family, students and other scholars.
Karamat and received devotional accounts
Al-Shilli says that his father disliked displaying karamat and avoided extraordinary claims about himself. He nevertheless records repeated reports that Abu Bakr’s prayers for people were answered, that people who sought his intercession obtained what they hoped for, and that hostility or plotting against him was often followed by reconciliation.
Al-Shilli also preserves a personal recollection that he felt his father knew when he had been occupied with obedience or with play even while they were apart. He further records a conversation before al-Shilli’s proposed journey to India in which Abu Bakr said that his own allotted time seemed near its end and that he had wished his son could be present at his death. Al-Shilli travelled, and Abu Bakr died during that absence. These accounts are preserved as part of the family’s received devotional memory.
Abu Bakr died five nights before the end of Safar in 1053 AH.
Lineage and source note
Primary source: Al-Mashra al-Rawi fi Manaqib al-Sada al-Kiram Al Abi Alawi, volume 2, biography of Abu Bakr bin Ahmad written by his son Muhammad bin Abi Bakr al-Shilli. It records his Tarim birth in 990 AH, teachers, travels, religious learning, devotional reputation, attributed karamat and death in 1053 AH.