On an occasion, Sidi Shaykh Abd al-Ghani brought his family to Cairo to visit his father, Shaykh Salih al-Ja’fari. Arriving at the Azhar; they came across the Shaykh al-Azhar, Shaykh Abd al-Haleem Mahmoud, who greeted them and asked what they were doing in Cairo; to which Sidi Abd al-Ghani replied “We came to visit the Kaaba of Ilm” – in reference to the noble Azhar itself. Shaykh Abd al-Haleem smiled and looked towards the Maghrebi Hall (where Shaykh Salih lived) and said “Shaykh Salih is the Kaaba of Ilm!”.