Hadhrat Mawlânâ Khâlid-i Baghdâdî

Who was Hadhrat Mawlânâ Khâlid-i Baghdâdî?

Mevlana Halid-i Bagdadi, Halid-î Bağdadî, Mevlana Halid, Mawlana Khalid, al-Khalid or Khâlid-i Baghdâdî was an Iraqi Kurdish Sufi, by the name of Shaykh Diya al-Din Khalid al-Shahrazuri, the founder of a branch of the Naqshbandi Sufi order - called Khalidi after him - that has had a profound impact not only on his native Kurdish lands but also on many other regions of the western Islamic world.

Mawlana Khalid acquired the nesba Baghdadi through his frequent stays in Baghdad, for it was in the town of Karadağ in the Shahrizur region, about 5 miles from Sulaymaniyah, that he was born in 1779. His father was a Qadiri Sufi who was popularly known as Pir Mika'il Shesh-angosht, and his mother also came from a celebrated Sufi family in Kurdistan.

He was an influential Ottoman mystic, who is believed by his followers to have been capable of time travel. His best known books are Mecd-i Talid and Shems'u Shumus.