A short Association, because now our egoes are pleased that we just had a delicious dinner with every kind of Allah Almighty's favors, so many n'imat [favors] granted us through the doctor's generosity. And we are first thanking Dr. Akmal Khan; we must first say "Thank you" to you, to your family, and as you are giving your generosity to me and to my followers, Allah Almighty should reward you and your ancestors, blessing them and giving hidayat [guidance] for your descendants. May Allah bless everyone that is coming here, from far distances or near ones, and Allah Almighty rewards everyone according to their intentions. Allah Almighty is always looking at our hearts, what are our intentions.
And we are saying, "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem, bismillahi-r-Rahmani-r-Raheem."1 We are escaping from Shaytan to Allah, to hide us. We are asking His divine shelter and His divine protection because it is so difficult for us to defeat Shaytan, because our egoes are also always going with Shaytan. If our egoes were not going with Shaytan, it would be easy, but our egoes and Shaytan are from the same characteristic.
Shaytan was the first rebellious one toward Allah; in the Divine Presence, the first one who was rebellious was Shaytan, not anyone else before him. And he did his worst for his Lord, while it was right to do his best for his Lord, Allah Almighty, and Shaytan was cursed and kicked out of Heaven to earth.
And our egoes are also never accepting to be servants. Our nafs -- that means ego -- is never happy to be a servant to Allah Almighty. Therefore, the same characteristic in Shaytan is with our egoes. And when our egoes are with Shaytan, it is like a man and woman coming together and bringing forth a baby; nafs, our ego and Shaytan, when coming together, must give a birth to an evil, there must be an evil born.
Therefore, Allah Almighty, through His first Message to mankind, through the first man and first prophet, Sayyidina Adam, was advising His servants, "Don't give a chance that Shaytan approaches you." If you are giving that chance to him, sharr, evil, must come; a sin must must be there. A sin is born; when Shaytan and our ego go together, a sin quickly comes. Therefore, Allah Almighty is teaching, from the first prophet up today, that you must ask a shelter from Him from Shaytan. Therefore we have been ordered to say "Audhu bil-Lahi min ash-Shaytani-r- Rajeem."
"Audhu bil-Lahi min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem" -- that means we are weak ones. We aren't able, by ourselves, to defeat him, to throw him away. Therefore we must ask divine help: "O our Lord, give us a shelter from Shaytan." And Shaytan is everywhere and with everyone. No one is going to be without Shaytan; not any place, even holy places, where Shaytan is not there -- everywhere. Only one place that no Shaytan is in; the only place that Shaytan is forbidden to be there, that is in K'abah. Shaytan can't enter inside it -- no. He can't be there, or quickly he will be burned. Instantly he will be turned to be ashes; he can't come inside it -- prohibited. And also at the grave of the Prophet, turbatu-Rasool,2 (SAWS), inside it, he can't be there, instantly burning and turning to ashes. But in every other place you can find so many shaytans, and also with you, coming with you, even sleeping with you, eating with you, walking with you. 2
When you are sleeping, he is sitting, not sleeping. Not sleeping and he is waiting for you, so that he may see you when you are waking up. If he sleeps, you may make wudhu and pray, but he is looking at you, if you are waking up and says, "Sleep, sleep. It is still dark. Don't get up. You must sleep. Still a long time to morning." Every time you are begin to wake up he says, "There is still a long time before adhan.3 Sleep, sleep well." Yes? Is it not so?
Therefore, every time a person is waking up, Shaytan is saying to him, "Don't get up. Sleep. It is so beautiful to sleep. Rest. Even now you are not resting; you are working too much and not resting, taking no pity on your own self. Sleep!"
Therefore, Shaytan is everywhere and with everyone. Never leaving you, always coming, saying to you, "I am your bodyguard; trust in me. I am guiding you to an excellent situation. Come with me, follow me." "Follow me"; writing on his back and saying to everyone, "Follow me, follow me." Just as it is written on some cars in an airport, "Follow me," similarly Shaytan is going in front of everyone, man and women, writing and saying, "Follow me" -- and not only writing "Follow me" but also with a microphone in his hand saying, "Please follow me! Follow me! Don't look right and left but just follow me. I am with you always," and people are running after him, day and night.
Therefore we must say, "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem. O our Lord, we can't do anything with Shaytan if You do not help us." When you are saying "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem," he is jumping from here to a distance, but then, slowly, slowly, slowly running, approaching you.
When you are saying "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem," it is like kicking a football, kicking him, "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem" and throwing him away.
Therefore, any time that you are feeling yourself in a bad situation and not able to take control of yourself, you must say "'Audhu bil-Lah min ash-Shaytani-r-Rajeem, 'audhu bil-Lah. . . . " At least seven times you can say it, and he is going to be tired, running away.
Yes. And we are saying "Bismillahi-r-Rahmani-r-Raheem." If Allah Almighty does not help us, we can't do anything. "Bismillahi-r-Rahmani-r-Raheem" means, "O my Lord, I am helpless, I am weak, and I am asking Your support, divine support. I am in need of Your blessings, I am in need of Your mercy, I am in need of Your favors. O my Lord, please grant me, please support me, to be able to do something, something for You." Not something for anyone else. If you are doing something for anyone else, it is going to finish and vanish, but everything that you are doing for Allah, it is for you forever. It is impossible for it to be taken away, Allah Almighty keeping it in His treasures. When you are in need, at that time of most need for ourselves on the Day of Resurrection, we should ask help and He should give it to us.
Therefore, you must try to be with Allah, and whoever is with Allah, Allah Almighty, in every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, He will be supporting, and no one will come to Sheikh Nazim to say, "O sheikh, pray for me because my business is getting bad, getting no more profit. Please pray to Allah for me."
Yahu, I am saying, "Allah is closer to you than I am. Why are you not saying it to Him?" Allah is closer to His servants than themselves. "Wa 'alamu anna Llahu yahulu baina-l-marri wa qalbihi"4 -- this holy verse is saying that Allah Almighty is coming in yourself and coming in your heart. And you can't reach your heart; Allah is closer than you to your heart. No one can imagine how close He is to you. It must be so, because He is the Creator.
He is the Creator, and He creates what you are thinking and for what you are thinking and for what you are working and what is your purpose and what is your aim; He knows before you know it. I am saying, "Why are you not asking from Allah, coming to me and saying to me that 'Pray for me,' while between you and Allah Almighty there is nothing." You can say, "O my Lord"; you can say, "Ya Rabb, ya Rabb, ya Rabbi," and He is just reaching to you or He is just with you, because you can't stand up without Allah's Power; if His power does not go through your whole body, even through cells then you cannot function, cannot be alive. Cells must be alive with Allah Almighty's power or even the smallest cell can't be alive in your blood, in your brain, in your skin, in your flesh, in your organs. Every cell must be with its Lord and must glorify its Lord.
Therefore, we must try to reach a state that by praying we are able to reach Allah Almighty's Will -- that means, what He is asking for me, for you, for anyone else, and if you understanwhat is His will for you, then not to object to it, not to reject or object to Allah Almighty's Will, and then you should be happy.
Try to be with Allah Almight's Will. Don't put your will in the place of your Lord's Will, or don't put your will against the Will of your Lord. Whoever puts his will in opposition to the Will of Allah, he is going to fall into an endless depression. Mostly depression is coming from that point, because you want something and Allah Almighty wants something else. And even if all mankind is going to insist on one purpose, they can't change it, they can't make their will to precede or subjugate Allah's Will. If Allah Almighty says "No," no one can make it "Yes." If He says "Yes" for something, even if all nations say "No," it must transpire as He wills.
Therefore, that is the most keen knowledge, keen treatment for depressed people. Depressed people must know that what they are saying "Yes" to is not going to be or what they are saying "No" to is not going to be. They must learn that only Allah Almighty can say "Yes;" in spite of all mankind saying "No!" If He says "Yes," that must be. If all mankind says "Yes" and Allah Almighty says "No," it is going not to be. That must be taught to everyone, because depression is increasing day-by-day, and it is a kind of punishment from Allah Almighty that His servants are not using their will and their minds for their actions; they are acting without using their minds and wills, and every time they are making mistakes.
Even a simple mistake harms people. What if you make an mistake, every time, every moment, every hour, every day coming against the Will of Allah, and your will makes mistakes? But now it is the time of atheist people; they are saying "No God." Astaghfirullah5 -- no God but Allah! Allah is God. And they are not teaching about God in schools -- it is forbidden in schools to be taught about Allah, and they are saying, "If anyone wants to know something about their Lord, there is the church. Go in and learn there."
They are so proud of not putting it into the curriculum of students; they are saying, "If you want to ask about God, go. There is a church. This is something that you can believe or not believe -- it doesn't matter." Put a symbol there -- in the midst of universities, as a symbol, a symbol of mystery. I saw in Cambridge and Oxford, in universities, huge cathedrals, but they are not putting at the beginning of every knowledge the knowledge that leads us to Allah, to God. Therefore, their teachings are harmful and with no result, making people depressed, because if a person says "There is No Allah, no God," that means he is in a situation where there is no any support from any direction and then he can fall down. Therefore, governments must change their educational policies, to put knowledge about Allah as the first lesson for little children all the way up to academic studies. They must say first, "In the name of Allah, All-mighty, All-Merciful, who created us, who granted us to be His servants." As long as they do not put this, they are going to be in suffering, with no peace, and fighting continuing.
May Allah forgive us. Therefore, O people, listen and try to act, try to believe, try to act according to your beliefs. Don't let Shaytan come to you so you can follow him. Shaytan is in Hell, and anyone following Shaytan is just going to fall into Hell. And the Prophet is in Paradise; whoever wants to follow him, he should reach the Prophet in Paradise. May Allah cause us to be in Paradise with His prophets, with His awliya (saints) and anbiya (prophets) and with pure ones, and may He change this world to take away devils and to make us among His sincere servants so that we should reach happiness and contentment and pleasure from Allah Almighty.
Footnotes
(1) I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the Rejected.
(2) The grave of the Prophet, SAWS.
(3) The call to prayer.
(4) 8:24.
(5) I ask Allah's forgiveness.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Returning your Lord's favors
Bismillah alrahman arrahim, La hawla wa la kuwwata illah billah al`ali al`azim,
This is not a lecture but an association. Lectures are in Universities. We are more than university people. You know more than university students, therefore, we are not in need of lectures, but associations for reminding what you know and making it not to be known by your egoes. It is a rememberance and reminder.
We must always ask His pleasure. That is, mens’ main target is to look for their Lord’s pleasure. Kings must look for their Lords’ pleasure. Emperors must look for their Lord’s pleasure. How can they make their Lord pleased with them?
We are here not to collect this world’s treasures because you can collect and can have everything from it, but you must know that you can not use them. Even now, everyone is asking to have everything for his own self, not to give to anyone else anything. Even though he can not use it all. You can have treasures but you can not use it all for yourself. You can use a small amount but our ego is never getting satisfaction with small amounts. Asking to have everything for his own. That is nonesense. If he leaves his ego to reach everything - every treasure and not thinking about his Lord’s pleasure, then he accomplished nothing ! he accomplished nothing. He is going to be repentant, going to be sorrowful endlessly but never going to be usefull for humans. Finally he will repent, because when time is over and his chance just finished - we have been granted only one chance to have our Lord pleased with us, If you did that, you are lucky, very lucky. Everything you reached in this life will leave [you can not carry] and must go away. Therefore, we are trying to make our lord pleased with us. We must think of it that every action that we are doing, our target is to make our lord pleased with us.
We must learn this, and this is the teaching of all prophets. From beginning to end.
Adam, peace be upon him. He was the first prophet and first man. First man and first prophet. First man in paradise, created in paradise. He was first man in paradise. And Allah almighty making him pleased.
Adam wasn’t pleased when he was created. Adam was created in paradise and everything in paradise looking at him, and he wasn’t pleased. And his Lord knowing that he wasn’t pleased, because if man is alone he is not going to be pleased. Loneliness. Not for men. Therefore if you are going to be alone in London city what are you going to do? Go everywhere ! Buckingham palace- no one there, Oxford street - no one there. Therefore everyone living must look - that this person is giving a piece to me. Because if I am alone here I will not be able in confidence to be happy. But since London is full with people and people are enjoying each other - this is a grant, blessing from Allah almighty that millions are living in this city.
Adam was alone. Do you think that in paradise there will be one hundred men. If whole London is going to be men, all around, no one else, all around no one else, men will end up mad people. And the Lord of heavens knowing what would make Adam pleased - There is no sleeping in Paradise. Sleeping HERE. We get tired and ask to sleep. But not in paradise, no one going to be tired -
The Lord taking a rib bone and created Eve, our mother. Adam was very happy. Allah almighty knowing and granting men and from his blessing was trying to make his servant pleased.
If Allah is making you pleased, is it not true that you have to make Him pleased with you? Allah almighty, everything he created on earth to please us. But it means nothing if there isn’t our ladies. It means, even Paradise has no value if our ladies are not there. Yes, useless. What I mean to say, the Lord of heavens created everything on this earth to make you pleased. Is it so or not? Why are you not thinking to make Him pleased, Ya Himar! Ya animals! They are not asking to make their lord pleased with them, they are going down to the level of animals. Men must try to make their Lord pleased with them, because the Lord asking to make us pleased, always with his endless favors. He is trying to make mankind to be pleased in pleasure- everything, under our command. And we are not thinking to make our Lord pleased with us! These people are making their level below that of animals.
Ula’ka kal an`am bal hum adal.(Quran 7:179 and 25:44)
The Lord almighty, Allah saying that their level is that of animals, but really their level is below that of animals. Therefore, men and women, you must try to make your Lord pleased with you. He is giving you please throughout your whole life and you are not giving ! Then punishment.
Yes, Adam peace be upon him, was very pleased. He became so pleased, you can not imagine. Just completed his pleasure with Eve, our mother. Then everything that happened is to teach mankind. And for Adam and Eve, Allah is addressing them: “Oh my servants, this paradise is for you - everything. Make yourselves pleased and enjoy everything. This pleasure is for you, and I am making that tree for my pleasure. Don’t touch it! don’t eat! This is my pleasure. Keep it. This is my favor. keep it. Don’t approach. keep my pleasure.”
Then Shaytan making Eve and Adam - they are not thinking. Allah is making them pleased with everything , and Shaytan is not making them think about it, that Allah’s pleasure must be kept. They cut it. When they are coming and eating they are not taking care of their Lord’s pleasure. Then quickly Allah almighty is saying, Oh my servants! I did for you my best to make you pleased in paradise, for your pleasure and I was saying this tree this is my pleasure. You are not keeping my pleasure? GET OUT! GO AWAY! ... Sending them down.
Therefore, everyone must look, the biggest lesson and teaching for us. If you are not keeping His pleasure then no pleasure for you forever. If you are asking His pleasure, you should be pleased every time here and hereafter. Biggest lesson. Teachings from Allah almighty. keep it and you shall be happy.
This is not a lecture but an association. Lectures are in Universities. We are more than university people. You know more than university students, therefore, we are not in need of lectures, but associations for reminding what you know and making it not to be known by your egoes. It is a rememberance and reminder.
We must always ask His pleasure. That is, mens’ main target is to look for their Lord’s pleasure. Kings must look for their Lords’ pleasure. Emperors must look for their Lord’s pleasure. How can they make their Lord pleased with them?
We are here not to collect this world’s treasures because you can collect and can have everything from it, but you must know that you can not use them. Even now, everyone is asking to have everything for his own self, not to give to anyone else anything. Even though he can not use it all. You can have treasures but you can not use it all for yourself. You can use a small amount but our ego is never getting satisfaction with small amounts. Asking to have everything for his own. That is nonesense. If he leaves his ego to reach everything - every treasure and not thinking about his Lord’s pleasure, then he accomplished nothing ! he accomplished nothing. He is going to be repentant, going to be sorrowful endlessly but never going to be usefull for humans. Finally he will repent, because when time is over and his chance just finished - we have been granted only one chance to have our Lord pleased with us, If you did that, you are lucky, very lucky. Everything you reached in this life will leave [you can not carry] and must go away. Therefore, we are trying to make our lord pleased with us. We must think of it that every action that we are doing, our target is to make our lord pleased with us.
We must learn this, and this is the teaching of all prophets. From beginning to end.
Adam, peace be upon him. He was the first prophet and first man. First man and first prophet. First man in paradise, created in paradise. He was first man in paradise. And Allah almighty making him pleased.
Adam wasn’t pleased when he was created. Adam was created in paradise and everything in paradise looking at him, and he wasn’t pleased. And his Lord knowing that he wasn’t pleased, because if man is alone he is not going to be pleased. Loneliness. Not for men. Therefore if you are going to be alone in London city what are you going to do? Go everywhere ! Buckingham palace- no one there, Oxford street - no one there. Therefore everyone living must look - that this person is giving a piece to me. Because if I am alone here I will not be able in confidence to be happy. But since London is full with people and people are enjoying each other - this is a grant, blessing from Allah almighty that millions are living in this city.
Adam was alone. Do you think that in paradise there will be one hundred men. If whole London is going to be men, all around, no one else, all around no one else, men will end up mad people. And the Lord of heavens knowing what would make Adam pleased - There is no sleeping in Paradise. Sleeping HERE. We get tired and ask to sleep. But not in paradise, no one going to be tired -
The Lord taking a rib bone and created Eve, our mother. Adam was very happy. Allah almighty knowing and granting men and from his blessing was trying to make his servant pleased.
If Allah is making you pleased, is it not true that you have to make Him pleased with you? Allah almighty, everything he created on earth to please us. But it means nothing if there isn’t our ladies. It means, even Paradise has no value if our ladies are not there. Yes, useless. What I mean to say, the Lord of heavens created everything on this earth to make you pleased. Is it so or not? Why are you not thinking to make Him pleased, Ya Himar! Ya animals! They are not asking to make their lord pleased with them, they are going down to the level of animals. Men must try to make their Lord pleased with them, because the Lord asking to make us pleased, always with his endless favors. He is trying to make mankind to be pleased in pleasure- everything, under our command. And we are not thinking to make our Lord pleased with us! These people are making their level below that of animals.
Ula’ka kal an`am bal hum adal.(Quran 7:179 and 25:44)
The Lord almighty, Allah saying that their level is that of animals, but really their level is below that of animals. Therefore, men and women, you must try to make your Lord pleased with you. He is giving you please throughout your whole life and you are not giving ! Then punishment.
Yes, Adam peace be upon him, was very pleased. He became so pleased, you can not imagine. Just completed his pleasure with Eve, our mother. Then everything that happened is to teach mankind. And for Adam and Eve, Allah is addressing them: “Oh my servants, this paradise is for you - everything. Make yourselves pleased and enjoy everything. This pleasure is for you, and I am making that tree for my pleasure. Don’t touch it! don’t eat! This is my pleasure. Keep it. This is my favor. keep it. Don’t approach. keep my pleasure.”
Then Shaytan making Eve and Adam - they are not thinking. Allah is making them pleased with everything , and Shaytan is not making them think about it, that Allah’s pleasure must be kept. They cut it. When they are coming and eating they are not taking care of their Lord’s pleasure. Then quickly Allah almighty is saying, Oh my servants! I did for you my best to make you pleased in paradise, for your pleasure and I was saying this tree this is my pleasure. You are not keeping my pleasure? GET OUT! GO AWAY! ... Sending them down.
Therefore, everyone must look, the biggest lesson and teaching for us. If you are not keeping His pleasure then no pleasure for you forever. If you are asking His pleasure, you should be pleased every time here and hereafter. Biggest lesson. Teachings from Allah almighty. keep it and you shall be happy.
“AND WE TAUGHT HIM KNOWLEDGE FROM OUR DIVINE PRESENCE”
We are reading from my Grandsheikh's lectures. Grandsheikh was an unlettered man, but Allah Almighty teaches some people because they put everything out of their hearts excepting their Lord, and they choose their Lord over everything—until their Lord loves them, and when He loves His servant He gives him treasures from His knowledge. No one can learn this knowledge through books, this knowledge which is called "`ilm-ul-laddunni," or knowledge directly from His Divine Presence, as the Qur'an declares: "And We taught him knowledge from Our Divine Presence." (Surat-ul Kahf: ayat 65). Outward religious knowledge is easy to obtain, even non Muslims can know it, but this knowledge can't be gained except through purifying the heart of all created things, of all that exists besides Him Almighty.
One of those chosen people was our Grandsheikh Abdullah Ad-Daghistani, Sultan al-Awliya. He was telling us from his knowledge-treasures that every verse of Qur'an and hadith of the Prophet, Peace be Upon Him, contains every knowledge concerning everyone living, already passed away, or yet to be born in future generations; therefore, if a person is thinking about or pondering over verse of Qur'an or a hadith, he may attain the ability of clear distinction, and so he will find his way to his Lord with ease. If anyone takes up his journey with a holy verse or hadith, his path will become clear within himself, as Allah says about His Prophet that he is calling people to a clear, bright, clean and safe way. Therefore, it is important for everyone to search for a verse or a hadith and ponder it so that it will become clear to him and then, so many beneficial ways and Divine Signs will appear to him.
Grandsheikh said that each person will derive benefit from verses and hadiths according to his faith-power. The more faith-power he reaches, the more benefit he may derive; he may dive deeper and deeper into those meaning oceans contained therein. Grandsheikh said that Awliya may perceive at least twenty-four thousand meanings from one verse's oceans of meanings. You can't see anything in a drop of water, but when you are looking with a microscope you may see millions of living bacteria coming and going every which way. Therefore there cannot be any valid objection to this saying, and anyone who claims that there is only one meaning for an ayat is indeed a foolish person.
If anyone is objecting, we may say to him, "Oh my brother, look—Allah sent to Muhammad only one book. Now just look at the Islamic World and you will find huge libraries overflowing with books, and the main source for all these books is the Holy Qur'an; millions of books on the whole range of Islamic topics (and very precious books at that) —where then, do all these books come from?" They are springing from the living source of the Holy Qur'an; they didn't exist, nor could they have ever existed before the Qur'an was revealed. It is then but a small thing to say that a Wali can know at least of twenty-four thousand meanings for a verse. You can find libraries growing every day. Some Islamic authors wrote several hundred volumes on the meanings of Qur'an, and now even Europeans are joining the Muslims in writing about its meanings. This generation may write two or three books on every book which is presently in the library just for their clarification and explanation. And so, you may know that the Knowledge of Qur'an is constantly expanding.
If such is the case for scholarly knowledge of the Qur'an, then what about the knowledge of such people whose teacher is Allah Himself? Allah's Knowledge is limitless, and for all He bestows upon His servants from it, still it will never decrease. We are never going to be satisfied with our level of learning, as mankind has a boundless yearning for knowledge. Therefore, Islam is best and Islam is highest—giving mankind as much knowledge as it could wish for, and explaining the reality of all existence. There is a proverb: Man will never be satisfied with regard to two desires—money and knowledge: whosoever seeks money will never say "enough," and likewise he who seeks knowledge will never say "enough." This saying points out the two sides of man's personality: the ego (nafs) asking for endless pleasures in this life and the soul asking for endless heavenly knowledge.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
One of those chosen people was our Grandsheikh Abdullah Ad-Daghistani, Sultan al-Awliya. He was telling us from his knowledge-treasures that every verse of Qur'an and hadith of the Prophet, Peace be Upon Him, contains every knowledge concerning everyone living, already passed away, or yet to be born in future generations; therefore, if a person is thinking about or pondering over verse of Qur'an or a hadith, he may attain the ability of clear distinction, and so he will find his way to his Lord with ease. If anyone takes up his journey with a holy verse or hadith, his path will become clear within himself, as Allah says about His Prophet that he is calling people to a clear, bright, clean and safe way. Therefore, it is important for everyone to search for a verse or a hadith and ponder it so that it will become clear to him and then, so many beneficial ways and Divine Signs will appear to him.
Grandsheikh said that each person will derive benefit from verses and hadiths according to his faith-power. The more faith-power he reaches, the more benefit he may derive; he may dive deeper and deeper into those meaning oceans contained therein. Grandsheikh said that Awliya may perceive at least twenty-four thousand meanings from one verse's oceans of meanings. You can't see anything in a drop of water, but when you are looking with a microscope you may see millions of living bacteria coming and going every which way. Therefore there cannot be any valid objection to this saying, and anyone who claims that there is only one meaning for an ayat is indeed a foolish person.
If anyone is objecting, we may say to him, "Oh my brother, look—Allah sent to Muhammad only one book. Now just look at the Islamic World and you will find huge libraries overflowing with books, and the main source for all these books is the Holy Qur'an; millions of books on the whole range of Islamic topics (and very precious books at that) —where then, do all these books come from?" They are springing from the living source of the Holy Qur'an; they didn't exist, nor could they have ever existed before the Qur'an was revealed. It is then but a small thing to say that a Wali can know at least of twenty-four thousand meanings for a verse. You can find libraries growing every day. Some Islamic authors wrote several hundred volumes on the meanings of Qur'an, and now even Europeans are joining the Muslims in writing about its meanings. This generation may write two or three books on every book which is presently in the library just for their clarification and explanation. And so, you may know that the Knowledge of Qur'an is constantly expanding.
If such is the case for scholarly knowledge of the Qur'an, then what about the knowledge of such people whose teacher is Allah Himself? Allah's Knowledge is limitless, and for all He bestows upon His servants from it, still it will never decrease. We are never going to be satisfied with our level of learning, as mankind has a boundless yearning for knowledge. Therefore, Islam is best and Islam is highest—giving mankind as much knowledge as it could wish for, and explaining the reality of all existence. There is a proverb: Man will never be satisfied with regard to two desires—money and knowledge: whosoever seeks money will never say "enough," and likewise he who seeks knowledge will never say "enough." This saying points out the two sides of man's personality: the ego (nafs) asking for endless pleasures in this life and the soul asking for endless heavenly knowledge.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
Purity Of Heart
To Forgive And Forget And To Be Immune To Vainglory
Once the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was sitting with his companions, when, sighting from afar a man approaching, he said: "Oh my companions, if you want to behold one of the inhabitants of Paradise, look at that man who is now approaching". The man presently arrived and took his place among the congregation. The next day, and yet the next day after that, the Prophet delivered his companions the good tidings of that man's eternal felicity (without saying anything, however, to the man himself).
So often I have heard people lay claim to possessing pure hearts. Especially people who reject religion and mystical practices out of hand love to make such claims. We don't lay any such claims, but we believe that our Way is the way of purification, and that our efforts should set us in the right direction. Anyone who thinks of himself as a pure-hearted person should pay heed to this account and reexamine his claim in light of it.
This account has reached our time through Abdullah, the son of Umar, the second Khalipha of Islam. When Abdullah heard the Prophet laud that person three times he decided to follow him to his house and seek both his blessings and knowledge of exactly what means had led to his attaining such a high station of perfection in this life.
When Abdullah arrived at the man's home he knocked on his door and was welcomed in. The man asked him: "May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?" Then Ibn Umar related to the man what the Holy Prophet had said about him each of the three preceding days. The man said: "I know". Abdullah Ibn Umar continued: "Oh my brother, I would also like to be one of those fortunate people to have secured a place in paradise while still living in this world. What exactly have you done to attain such distinction in the Divine Presence? What kind of ascetic austerities have you undergone? What kinds of superrogatory acts of devotion have you performed?"
"Oh Abdullah, I don't worship more than you or anyone else does. My being given those good tidings is not a result either of my austerity or my devotions. There are, however, three attributes that I have cultivated and which I prize very much, as one would cherish rare pearls in his possession. First of all, every night as I lay in bed before sleeping I say to my Lord: "Oh my Lord, if any of Your servants has harmed me today, either with his hand or with his tongue, I have forgiven him with complete forgiveness, and will never raise a complaint against him to anyone nor to You, neither now nor on the Day of Judgement. You are my witness that I have forgiven them all: now and forever, here and hereafter."
I must ask all people who claim to be pure of heart: Can you forgive in such a manner? Or do you run to court over sixpence, reciprocate for a single word of abuse with a shower? When slapped do you turn the other cheek, or answer it with ten blows? Do you hold grudges over a long period of time? If you react in this manner to provocation you must know that you are cultivating filth and disease, not purity. Don't hold grudges, for their fruit is hatred and enmity. Where then is your purity?
Then Abdullah Ibn Umar said: "Hmmm... that is a very difficult attribute to emulate. Tell me the second attribute-that, perhaps, may be easier to aspire to". The man said: "Look, if I were given the whole world and its treasures, and if the people were to make obeisance to me, saying. 'We are making you our king and putting a huge royal treasury at your disposal. Please take your place now on the Imperial throne and order us to do what you like, your wish is our command', I would not be happy or gratified at all. And what is the sign that I really feel this way? That is the third attribute, and it confirms the second, is proof that I care nothing for wealth and power. For, if those same people were to come the next day, abuse me and kick me off the throne, saying, 'Go away! We don't accept such a foolish king who is not even happy at being crowned king nor pleased at having sovereignty over the whole world bestowed upon him, nor with vast wealth and treasures', I would not be sorry in the least, but greatly relieved".
Are such attributes so easy to attain that everyone should go around claiming to have purity of heart? If someone were to give us an ordinary house -forget about palaces -we would be happy, and certainly if they came the next day and claimed it back we would be sorry. So what about having the whole world at our command? Such renunciation is a sign that the topmost point of fait has been reached. Allah has said, "The material world is of less value to Me than the wing of a mosquito". That man had attained certainty of this, had taken this wisdom to heart and stopped coveting this world. The true believer will say: "Oh my Lord, as much as the material world is worth in Your sight, so let it be in mine".
excerpted from
Mercy Oceans: Oceans of Unity
Once the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was sitting with his companions, when, sighting from afar a man approaching, he said: "Oh my companions, if you want to behold one of the inhabitants of Paradise, look at that man who is now approaching". The man presently arrived and took his place among the congregation. The next day, and yet the next day after that, the Prophet delivered his companions the good tidings of that man's eternal felicity (without saying anything, however, to the man himself).
So often I have heard people lay claim to possessing pure hearts. Especially people who reject religion and mystical practices out of hand love to make such claims. We don't lay any such claims, but we believe that our Way is the way of purification, and that our efforts should set us in the right direction. Anyone who thinks of himself as a pure-hearted person should pay heed to this account and reexamine his claim in light of it.
This account has reached our time through Abdullah, the son of Umar, the second Khalipha of Islam. When Abdullah heard the Prophet laud that person three times he decided to follow him to his house and seek both his blessings and knowledge of exactly what means had led to his attaining such a high station of perfection in this life.
When Abdullah arrived at the man's home he knocked on his door and was welcomed in. The man asked him: "May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?" Then Ibn Umar related to the man what the Holy Prophet had said about him each of the three preceding days. The man said: "I know". Abdullah Ibn Umar continued: "Oh my brother, I would also like to be one of those fortunate people to have secured a place in paradise while still living in this world. What exactly have you done to attain such distinction in the Divine Presence? What kind of ascetic austerities have you undergone? What kinds of superrogatory acts of devotion have you performed?"
"Oh Abdullah, I don't worship more than you or anyone else does. My being given those good tidings is not a result either of my austerity or my devotions. There are, however, three attributes that I have cultivated and which I prize very much, as one would cherish rare pearls in his possession. First of all, every night as I lay in bed before sleeping I say to my Lord: "Oh my Lord, if any of Your servants has harmed me today, either with his hand or with his tongue, I have forgiven him with complete forgiveness, and will never raise a complaint against him to anyone nor to You, neither now nor on the Day of Judgement. You are my witness that I have forgiven them all: now and forever, here and hereafter."
I must ask all people who claim to be pure of heart: Can you forgive in such a manner? Or do you run to court over sixpence, reciprocate for a single word of abuse with a shower? When slapped do you turn the other cheek, or answer it with ten blows? Do you hold grudges over a long period of time? If you react in this manner to provocation you must know that you are cultivating filth and disease, not purity. Don't hold grudges, for their fruit is hatred and enmity. Where then is your purity?
Then Abdullah Ibn Umar said: "Hmmm... that is a very difficult attribute to emulate. Tell me the second attribute-that, perhaps, may be easier to aspire to". The man said: "Look, if I were given the whole world and its treasures, and if the people were to make obeisance to me, saying. 'We are making you our king and putting a huge royal treasury at your disposal. Please take your place now on the Imperial throne and order us to do what you like, your wish is our command', I would not be happy or gratified at all. And what is the sign that I really feel this way? That is the third attribute, and it confirms the second, is proof that I care nothing for wealth and power. For, if those same people were to come the next day, abuse me and kick me off the throne, saying, 'Go away! We don't accept such a foolish king who is not even happy at being crowned king nor pleased at having sovereignty over the whole world bestowed upon him, nor with vast wealth and treasures', I would not be sorry in the least, but greatly relieved".
Are such attributes so easy to attain that everyone should go around claiming to have purity of heart? If someone were to give us an ordinary house -forget about palaces -we would be happy, and certainly if they came the next day and claimed it back we would be sorry. So what about having the whole world at our command? Such renunciation is a sign that the topmost point of fait has been reached. Allah has said, "The material world is of less value to Me than the wing of a mosquito". That man had attained certainty of this, had taken this wisdom to heart and stopped coveting this world. The true believer will say: "Oh my Lord, as much as the material world is worth in Your sight, so let it be in mine".
excerpted from
Mercy Oceans: Oceans of Unity
SOME SECRETS OF HIS DIVINE REALM
I am always asking Divine Help from my Lord so that I may clearly explain these important matters. Perhaps hundreds or thousands of people will listen to these words, and I am asking my Lord to grant them understanding and benefit, so that they may tread a straight path and escape from the traps of devils. This is a very high ideal, and everyone must have this ideal and purpose. We must try to help everyone, not only for the sake of our own salvation, but for that of all mankind. Allah Almighty is calling us to this way.
We are speaking about the holy verses (Ayat) of our Creator, Allah Almighty. According to our Grandsheikh's explanation, every verse is an endless independent ocean of meaning; you can take all things from that ocean. Even if we would absorb from the ocean of one ayat throughout all eternity, it would never be exhausted; they remain the same limitless oceans eternally.
Perhaps someone may ask, "For what did Allah create these eternal oceans?" We must know that Allah Almighty is never in need of anything, and therefore is creating all those oceans solely for the sake of His servants. The main attribute of Allah Almighty is His Being beyond need of anyone; but while He is never in need of anything, His creatures' main attribute is to be in need at every moment. The creature can never be above need of his Creator; if the Divine Help which keeps everything in existence was to be pulled out for even a second from the smallest atomic, particle, then that piece would cease to exist.
Now, you must know that Allah Almighty is the Creator, and He is forever creating. No one can define a limit or a beginning for His creation. He was creating from pre-eternity and will create forever. Eternity means 'outside of time'; Allah is the Creator, and He brought the Sons of Adam into time—but they originated outside of time. They are like a gigantic river: every creature coming from timelessness, from a world where time has no meaning, then entering into time and ultimately returning to eternity from whence he came. On both ends of the river's journey we find eternity.
We are all in need of those endless meaning oceans, and every creature is swimming in them, from his Lord's favors. The divine reason for His verses being such endless oceans is that we may say, "Our Lord has limitless sovereignty over His Realm." For such a realm there must be an infinity of servants, creatures, worshipers, angels and kingdoms. No one can fully understand his Lord; one may know a little regarding his Lord, but it is quite impossible to know all. He is the absolute solute King over His Kingdom, and there is no partner unto Him. When His servants know this they will say, "Oh my Lord, we are powerless." When they are thus recognizing and admitting their powerlessness, He gives them from His Divine Power and dresses them with it, which enables them to dive into those oceans and derive more and more benefit from Divine Wisdom and Knowledge.
Our Grandsheikh was saying that each Prophet and Saint has a special position and rank particular to him and unlike that of another. In accordance with their respective positions, they are taking Divine Wisdom and Knowledge from that ocean. What are they doing with this Knowledge and Wisdom' The more they take of it the more they are improving through Divine Lights, thus approaching their Lord's Divine Presence where they experience boundless pleasure in witnessing more beauty oceans from His Divine Face. Therefore, they have become obsessed with their Lord. If, for example, a thirsty person drinks salty water, he will demand more and more in a vain attempt to quench his thirst, and eventually , he will die. In the case of Prophets and Saints, they also ask to drink more and more of their Lord's beauty oceans; but contrary to the drinker of salt water, they become endlessly more satisfied as they drink and grow ever more pleased with their Lord's Presence, so that they pursue it tirelessly and will sacrifice all things for the sake of this Divine Favor.
The Prophets and Saints who sacrifice everything in this way are most wise and discerning, but those people who neglect that excellent and most valuable life, turning instead to this dirty life, are the most foolish of people; they abandon eternal life in exchange for a bit of fading enjoyment.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
We are speaking about the holy verses (Ayat) of our Creator, Allah Almighty. According to our Grandsheikh's explanation, every verse is an endless independent ocean of meaning; you can take all things from that ocean. Even if we would absorb from the ocean of one ayat throughout all eternity, it would never be exhausted; they remain the same limitless oceans eternally.
Perhaps someone may ask, "For what did Allah create these eternal oceans?" We must know that Allah Almighty is never in need of anything, and therefore is creating all those oceans solely for the sake of His servants. The main attribute of Allah Almighty is His Being beyond need of anyone; but while He is never in need of anything, His creatures' main attribute is to be in need at every moment. The creature can never be above need of his Creator; if the Divine Help which keeps everything in existence was to be pulled out for even a second from the smallest atomic, particle, then that piece would cease to exist.
Now, you must know that Allah Almighty is the Creator, and He is forever creating. No one can define a limit or a beginning for His creation. He was creating from pre-eternity and will create forever. Eternity means 'outside of time'; Allah is the Creator, and He brought the Sons of Adam into time—but they originated outside of time. They are like a gigantic river: every creature coming from timelessness, from a world where time has no meaning, then entering into time and ultimately returning to eternity from whence he came. On both ends of the river's journey we find eternity.
We are all in need of those endless meaning oceans, and every creature is swimming in them, from his Lord's favors. The divine reason for His verses being such endless oceans is that we may say, "Our Lord has limitless sovereignty over His Realm." For such a realm there must be an infinity of servants, creatures, worshipers, angels and kingdoms. No one can fully understand his Lord; one may know a little regarding his Lord, but it is quite impossible to know all. He is the absolute solute King over His Kingdom, and there is no partner unto Him. When His servants know this they will say, "Oh my Lord, we are powerless." When they are thus recognizing and admitting their powerlessness, He gives them from His Divine Power and dresses them with it, which enables them to dive into those oceans and derive more and more benefit from Divine Wisdom and Knowledge.
Our Grandsheikh was saying that each Prophet and Saint has a special position and rank particular to him and unlike that of another. In accordance with their respective positions, they are taking Divine Wisdom and Knowledge from that ocean. What are they doing with this Knowledge and Wisdom' The more they take of it the more they are improving through Divine Lights, thus approaching their Lord's Divine Presence where they experience boundless pleasure in witnessing more beauty oceans from His Divine Face. Therefore, they have become obsessed with their Lord. If, for example, a thirsty person drinks salty water, he will demand more and more in a vain attempt to quench his thirst, and eventually , he will die. In the case of Prophets and Saints, they also ask to drink more and more of their Lord's beauty oceans; but contrary to the drinker of salt water, they become endlessly more satisfied as they drink and grow ever more pleased with their Lord's Presence, so that they pursue it tirelessly and will sacrifice all things for the sake of this Divine Favor.
The Prophets and Saints who sacrifice everything in this way are most wise and discerning, but those people who neglect that excellent and most valuable life, turning instead to this dirty life, are the most foolish of people; they abandon eternal life in exchange for a bit of fading enjoyment.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
"ASK MORE OF ME AND I WILL BESTOW ON YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE OF THIS BOUNDLESS OCEAN."
Everyone and everything is powerless in relation to Allah Almighty, and no one has any power without his Lord's giving it to him. If the Lord Almighty gives power to servants, they may become powerful, but their original state is one of total powerlessness. If a servant declares his powerlessness in front of his Lord, it is an honor for that servant, and as a result of his humility his Lord will grant him power and support in every situation. The Prophet, Peace be Upon Him, is the first to declare his powerlessness in the Divine Presence; therefore, Allah Almighty has granted him more power than He ever gave to anyone. This is a very good lesson for mankind: if we are seeking more Divine Support and spiritual power, we should first admit our own powerlessness.
Now Grandsheikh is explaining more upon this point: Allah Almighty gives of His Power to His beloved servants so that they may swim in those oceans of knowledge and wisdom. What they take, they take eternally; they ask endlessly and are endlessly bestowed upon by their Lord. Neither servant nor Lord is ever going to say 'enough'; rather, the Lord will say, "My servant, ask for as much as you can because I am always giving more and more. Ask ten and I will give a hundred, ask a hundred and I will give a thousand, etc.; if you don't ask, I shall become angry with you."
It is one of Allah Almighty's attributes that He always wants to give more to His servants—if you can recognize this attribute, it will give you satisfaction. If Allah were to say, "That is enough don't ask more," it would mean that He doesn't have any more to give to His servants, and if it were so the treks of mankind would explode. But Allah Almighty says, "Oh My servants, ask more and more, and I will bestow more than you can possibly imagine." We must thank Allah for this and be happy that we have such a Creator, such a Lord.
Our Grandsheikh says that although you may take more and more from Allah's wisdom and knowledge oceans, don't think that you can take all, for in reality you can take but one drop, not a bit more. Perhaps that drop may even be a huge drop, but it is still only a drop, and no matter how large it is, it still has bounds, whereas His ocean knows no boundaries. In this is real pleasure for us: Everything that Allah Almighty is giving us grows within bounds. If we could go beyond the realm of boundaries we would become partners to Allah, and that is an impossibility.
Now my Grandsheikh was saying that there are two kinds of knowledge. One kind belongs only to the Almighty Himself, and the other kind Allah Almighty gives to His servants. We are speaking about that second kind only, for the first kind, the knowledge belonging to His Essence (Dhat), is impossible to behold, even for the Angels, Prophets and Saints—off limits. The endless oceans which He bestows upon His servants are nothing compared to His Essential Knowledge, which He is keeping to Himself.
Look at this point also: When Allah Almighty called His Prophet on the Night of the Ascension (Laylatul-mi`raj) and spoke to him without intermediary, He imparted unto Muhammed three types, or area/e of knowledge. One part of that knowledge He ordered the Prophet to keep with himself only: "No one can know that; it is private between Me and you.". The second part He allowed the Prophet to share with a selected elite (Khawas) of the Nation (Ummah), and the third part He ordered to be opened to everyone. The accounts we read in books about the mi'raj are from the third part of these knowledges, and further knowledge of it is given to people according to their individual ranks, The palm tree has a knowledge that it may produce dates, the orange tree has a different knowleddge, as it learned from its Lord to make oranges. Apple trees produce apples, olive trees olives, and just so everything in the universe is producing according to its rank and position..
You have also been taught a knowledge from your Lord, but now in our position it is covered. You are yet like a seed which hasn't even been planted. You must plant yourself in seclusion (Khalwa).). As the seed must be covered by earth, so you must be covered from this world—then you can know yourself. When a seed is in the ground for ten days, it Will sprout, but our seed has not yet been planted and thus we cannot yet see whether we are orange trees or olive trees. This is the reason why the Prophet relates from Allah Almighty: "As long as you don't know yourself you can't know your Lord."
Bees learn to make honey, snakes learn to bite you, and mules learn to kick you in the head.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
Now Grandsheikh is explaining more upon this point: Allah Almighty gives of His Power to His beloved servants so that they may swim in those oceans of knowledge and wisdom. What they take, they take eternally; they ask endlessly and are endlessly bestowed upon by their Lord. Neither servant nor Lord is ever going to say 'enough'; rather, the Lord will say, "My servant, ask for as much as you can because I am always giving more and more. Ask ten and I will give a hundred, ask a hundred and I will give a thousand, etc.; if you don't ask, I shall become angry with you."
It is one of Allah Almighty's attributes that He always wants to give more to His servants—if you can recognize this attribute, it will give you satisfaction. If Allah were to say, "That is enough don't ask more," it would mean that He doesn't have any more to give to His servants, and if it were so the treks of mankind would explode. But Allah Almighty says, "Oh My servants, ask more and more, and I will bestow more than you can possibly imagine." We must thank Allah for this and be happy that we have such a Creator, such a Lord.
Our Grandsheikh says that although you may take more and more from Allah's wisdom and knowledge oceans, don't think that you can take all, for in reality you can take but one drop, not a bit more. Perhaps that drop may even be a huge drop, but it is still only a drop, and no matter how large it is, it still has bounds, whereas His ocean knows no boundaries. In this is real pleasure for us: Everything that Allah Almighty is giving us grows within bounds. If we could go beyond the realm of boundaries we would become partners to Allah, and that is an impossibility.
Now my Grandsheikh was saying that there are two kinds of knowledge. One kind belongs only to the Almighty Himself, and the other kind Allah Almighty gives to His servants. We are speaking about that second kind only, for the first kind, the knowledge belonging to His Essence (Dhat), is impossible to behold, even for the Angels, Prophets and Saints—off limits. The endless oceans which He bestows upon His servants are nothing compared to His Essential Knowledge, which He is keeping to Himself.
Look at this point also: When Allah Almighty called His Prophet on the Night of the Ascension (Laylatul-mi`raj) and spoke to him without intermediary, He imparted unto Muhammed three types, or area/e of knowledge. One part of that knowledge He ordered the Prophet to keep with himself only: "No one can know that; it is private between Me and you.". The second part He allowed the Prophet to share with a selected elite (Khawas) of the Nation (Ummah), and the third part He ordered to be opened to everyone. The accounts we read in books about the mi'raj are from the third part of these knowledges, and further knowledge of it is given to people according to their individual ranks, The palm tree has a knowledge that it may produce dates, the orange tree has a different knowleddge, as it learned from its Lord to make oranges. Apple trees produce apples, olive trees olives, and just so everything in the universe is producing according to its rank and position..
You have also been taught a knowledge from your Lord, but now in our position it is covered. You are yet like a seed which hasn't even been planted. You must plant yourself in seclusion (Khalwa).). As the seed must be covered by earth, so you must be covered from this world—then you can know yourself. When a seed is in the ground for ten days, it Will sprout, but our seed has not yet been planted and thus we cannot yet see whether we are orange trees or olive trees. This is the reason why the Prophet relates from Allah Almighty: "As long as you don't know yourself you can't know your Lord."
Bees learn to make honey, snakes learn to bite you, and mules learn to kick you in the head.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
POSITION OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD ON THE LAST DAY
The Last of the Prophets, Sayyidina Muhammad, Peace be Upon Him, is the most humble person of all mankind; no one can attain to his humbleness in the Divine Presence. Humility is the most beloved attribute of mankind in the eyes of Allah Almighty. To whatever extent we can be humble just so much is our Lord raising us higher; as much as a person is proud in front of his Lord, that much his Lord will debase him.
Allah Almighty raised His Beloved Muhammad to the highest ranks in the Divine Presence and entrusted him with the distribution of ranks to all mankind according to their need. The ranks of the various Propphets and Saints have been divided up and bestowed by Muhammad, and also, for believers in general, their ranks of faith (Iman) have been given by him. Allah Almighty has deputized the Prophet Muhammad to judge every creature, but he is never judging beyond that authority—that authority may extend to every creature but Allah Almighty is the Judge of Judges and He holds in His Hand judgment for all creatures including Muhammad. Grandsheikh was saying that Allah Almighty may open up to His Prophet the reality of being judge for all creatures on the Last Day. He will give to him authority to be judge for all people gathering on the Last Day in the Divine Presence. On that day, the Prophet's authority for judgment will appear. To know this is enough to know the honor belonging to our Prophet, who said in a hadith: "On that day Adam and all the Prophets will be under my flag. I am not saying this from pride, but only to inform you so you may believe in what my Lord is giving me on the Last Day; on that day all Prophets will be under my flag by the order of Allah Almighty, and by His command I am informing you so that you may know every one's rank in the Divine Presence."
When Adam's soul was first blown into him, he looked up to the throne of Allah; later, when he sinned in Paradise and Allah Almighty sent him to Earth, he asked his Lord, "Oh my Lord, for the sake of Muhammad, forgive me." Allah Almighty asked him, "Oh Adam, how did you know Muhammad when yet he is not created?" "Oh my Lord, when my soul entered my body and I first opened my eyes, I looked to Your throne, where I saw written, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger" (La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun Rasulallah), and so I know that he must be the most beloved person to You Almighty and the most honorable of creatures that his name may be thus written alongside Yours. Allah Almighty answered Adam, "Yes, you are right, he is My beloved, and is so respectable in My sight that I created you and shall be merciful with your sons as well. I created whole Universe for his sake; if you ask Me for forgiveness for his sake, I shaIl forgive"
Allah Almighty will give authority to Muhammad on the Last Day. On that day Allah will judge everyone, and when He is finished with His judgment He will call Muhammad to the most praised station (al-Maqam-ul-Mahmud), which no one else can reach. Allah Almighty shall say, "Ask, and whatever you want shall be granted to you, for these people are now subject to your judgment." This is the meaning of the Qur'anic saying that Muhammad was not sent but as a mercy to the worlds.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
Allah Almighty raised His Beloved Muhammad to the highest ranks in the Divine Presence and entrusted him with the distribution of ranks to all mankind according to their need. The ranks of the various Propphets and Saints have been divided up and bestowed by Muhammad, and also, for believers in general, their ranks of faith (Iman) have been given by him. Allah Almighty has deputized the Prophet Muhammad to judge every creature, but he is never judging beyond that authority—that authority may extend to every creature but Allah Almighty is the Judge of Judges and He holds in His Hand judgment for all creatures including Muhammad. Grandsheikh was saying that Allah Almighty may open up to His Prophet the reality of being judge for all creatures on the Last Day. He will give to him authority to be judge for all people gathering on the Last Day in the Divine Presence. On that day, the Prophet's authority for judgment will appear. To know this is enough to know the honor belonging to our Prophet, who said in a hadith: "On that day Adam and all the Prophets will be under my flag. I am not saying this from pride, but only to inform you so you may believe in what my Lord is giving me on the Last Day; on that day all Prophets will be under my flag by the order of Allah Almighty, and by His command I am informing you so that you may know every one's rank in the Divine Presence."
When Adam's soul was first blown into him, he looked up to the throne of Allah; later, when he sinned in Paradise and Allah Almighty sent him to Earth, he asked his Lord, "Oh my Lord, for the sake of Muhammad, forgive me." Allah Almighty asked him, "Oh Adam, how did you know Muhammad when yet he is not created?" "Oh my Lord, when my soul entered my body and I first opened my eyes, I looked to Your throne, where I saw written, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger" (La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun Rasulallah), and so I know that he must be the most beloved person to You Almighty and the most honorable of creatures that his name may be thus written alongside Yours. Allah Almighty answered Adam, "Yes, you are right, he is My beloved, and is so respectable in My sight that I created you and shall be merciful with your sons as well. I created whole Universe for his sake; if you ask Me for forgiveness for his sake, I shaIl forgive"
Allah Almighty will give authority to Muhammad on the Last Day. On that day Allah will judge everyone, and when He is finished with His judgment He will call Muhammad to the most praised station (al-Maqam-ul-Mahmud), which no one else can reach. Allah Almighty shall say, "Ask, and whatever you want shall be granted to you, for these people are now subject to your judgment." This is the meaning of the Qur'anic saying that Muhammad was not sent but as a mercy to the worlds.
from the book Ocean Mercy Hidden Treasures
1)You Need a Guide by Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani
_______________________________________________________________________
1)" You Need a Guide "
Maulana Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani
N. Cyprus. 28. Feb. 01
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
Forgiveness, oh our Lord, forgiveness, we are asking…we are in need…forgiveness. Tawbah, ya Rabbi, tawbah astaghfirullah. We are asking forgiveness from Allah Almighty, meded ya Sultan ul Awliya. For every wrong step we are asking forgiveness. Wrong step - who is loosing his guidance, who lost his guide, is becoming as a person like in the desert, he lost everything and he never knows which direction may go and stepping wrong steps, like this, like that, trying. Man, all of them, without a guide from Allah Almighty, they are like such people, they lost their ways through desert. Hundreds ofpeople, thousands of people, millions of people, billions of people, and the deserts are so big, and they are in need of a guide.
Allah Almighty, when He granted his forgiveness for Adam and Eve, said to them: I`m sending you to earth, and also I`m sending to you my guides. If I am not sending my guidance through my guides, you are never going to find your way. Allah Almighty was angry with satan, because he was never asking pardon, he never said: oh my Lord, I`m sorry for what I did. He was saying I am right, you are not. Then Allah Almighty left him, because at the beginning he just destroyed everything between Allah Almighty and himself. He Just put TNT under the bridge from servant to his lord. And it exploded. Then he sent to them a guide, from beginning they were refusing and fighting their Lord.
But Adam and Eve, Allah bless them, they are saying:
'Oh our lord, we did wrong, it was not true of servant to break the order of his Sultan. We did it, but we repented and we are saying: pardon, we are so sorry, oh our Lord. Every punishment, if You are punishing ourselves, it is for You, because we are wrong. We did not good. We did something wrong and that wrong thing towards You, it is not easy, oh our Lord, but now we are knowing. At that time we were blind, now just we awakened. Please forgive us.'
And Adam was crying. Adam was crying . They have been so down on earth from paradise Eden not on earth, but in heavens. Just he was coming on Adams Peak in Sri Lanka (they are saying), and its old name Serendip. Serendip is written through the holy books that Adam is coming down and landing on it. And he was on that mountain, he was crying and asking forgiveness and asking to be forgiven and asking pardon from Allah Almighty. Three hundred years he was standing on one foot and people were suprised when they looked that it is not two feet figures, it is only one, yes, one, because he was not standing on his two feet, but he was punishing himself and standing on one foot. Therefore there you can see the sign of one foot. He knows. Three hundred years he was crying and asking forgiveness.
It is not easy to make Sultan angry, for servant. It is so deep thing to make his Lord angry with him. He may kill him, he may destroy him, he may carry him out of existence, never once again they come into existence. That is for Sultan. When he is angry with his servant, he can do. Therefore Adam (aleyhi salaam) was trembling and asking forgiveness. 'Pardon, oh my Lord! I`m so sorry!' Three hundred years crying and asking forgiveness.
And then Allah Almighty said: 'Oh Adam, I grant to you my blessings. I forgive you. For the honour of that one, that I created whole creation for his honour, The Seal of Prophets, Seyyidina Muhammad (sallAllahu aleyhi wa sallam). If you are not asking for the sake of that one, I`m not going to forgive you. But you are asking from me for the honour of someone that I can`t refuse. I accept, because it is so endless value for him in my Divine Presence, therefore I`m forgiving you. Oh Adam, you and your children should be on earth up to time that I decided the limits for your descendants, your whole generation, I am putting a limit for their lives on earth. Up to that time I am sending to your generation, to your descendants, to your children, up to last day, I am sending my guide. I am sending my guidance through my guide.'
Because: this water without this glass, can be here? – Guidance without guide can`t be, can`t reach servants. Therefore Allah Almighty promised to send his guidance and it must be with some selected, directed, chosen ones. They are looking like you, but through their inner structure they are different. A prophet, he is a man. Women can`t be a man. Looking like you are. Physically they are like you, but spiritually just different. Because they are chosen ones, and they have a relationship to heavens that`s making a difference between ordinary people and prophets.
Now so many foolish people, square-head people, mungo-type people. (probably mungo, a sort of rat or so) Some mungo-type people which are thinking they know everything, but they are square-head people, can`t be able to get out from their square limits, they are thinking that everything through their square head - no more, beyond their square head no more anything. They are saying that can`t be between servants and Lord any waseet, mediator. They are, as Allah Almighty is saying, they are jinns, from shaitan`s generation, but they appear as men. Shaitan`s generation but they appear as a man. Those people who say: no mediator between servant and his Lord. But they are only making this to break down the messengerhood.
With that idea that shaitan is making now to be all around people, they say no mediator between man and his creator, they are going to make people deny messengerhood between man and his Lord. If no prophets, no one reaching to Allah. They must carry you to Divine Presence. They have been granted messages, heavenly messages that are granted to them to bring to ordinary people. But their creation is extraordinary. If they were like you like me, we may take a holy book from heaven also. If no difference between ourselves and prophets, that means we can reach to Allah by our self and we convey orders from our Lord ourselves. That is a new corruption to take away from hearts faith, Because everyone from Christians and Jewish and Muslims they have faith through their hearts that their prophets bringing heavenly messages from Divine Presence to them. All believers are believing that prophets are mediators, that means taking from Divine Presence guidance and bringing to people to show them or to teach them how they should come again to Divine Presence. All holy books trying to make the ways for mankind that they lost through a huge desert, that heavenly messengers come to them saying: follow us! Even in so many airports I saw a little cap read follow me and a gigantic Boeing following it. Such a small place, airport, next to the big world, and that captain he is in need to find his last station to follow that small cap that written on it follow me.
And what about mankind? They are saying: we are not in need to follow anyone. No mediator, that is a shaitanic corruption, that just spread through east and west through 20th century and asking to jump to 21st century also. But people are becoming awakened to know that some ones, that they are representatives of shaitan, making that corruption to loose people`s faith and to loose also the ways to paradise. Therefore, beware oh people, don`t stay without a guide, because you can`t know your way to heavens. That captain pilot in a huge Boeing plane asking a guide to reach which gate he is going. And you must try to know which key you are going to heavens with. You can know it only through heavenly messengers. Try to keep your faith and try to run away from those satanic people that they are representatives of big shaitan and his followers, to save yourself here and hereafter. May Allah forgive us!
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Azeez Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Kareem Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Subhan Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Sultan Allah
Endless Sultan Allah! Eternal Sultan Allah! From pre-eternal up to eternal and His Sultanate is in eternity. May Allah Almighty accepting our faith to be to His endless eternity sovereignity. And give much more honour and praise to His most beloved servant seyyidina Muhammad , peace be upon Him,bi hurmatil Fatihah
………………………………………..
It is something… it is something from our spiritual headquarters, it is not a prepared lecture, but it is just new knowledge coming now for you that you are coming from Italia to open your ears, not this, but ears of heart, to hear something that is a base for every faith. No any religion or no any religious person can refuse what we said to you. As a golden piece can`t be refused from Turkish jewellery, Italian jewellery, English jewellery, Arab jewellery, Greek jewellery, they are not refusing, no one can say that it is tin. What we have been granted to address to you, it is such a value. No one can object to it, it is new and fresh and powerful. To make faith fixed through your hearts. Al-Fatihah And through east and west no one just authorized to speak on such a subject because it is not time to appear saints of Allah Almighty, his friends, to people. But only one, one spring it is always going to run, for anyone asking something from reality can reach and can drink. Therefore you can`t find in Italy, in Turkey, in Arabia, in Pakistan, in Turkestan, in America, in England, in Spain, in Africa, no one speak on that point. It is closed, or like zip (laughter), there is a knot. They know, but no permission to speak. But our Grandsheykh, he was permitted to speak in such a deep realities for an opening, for when Mahdi(aleyhi salaam) coming, then we may understand something. When Jesus Christ coming and Mahdi(a.s.) there will be much more opening for you for understanding what Jesus Christ coming and addressing to people. And he will be addressing from secrets of Holy Qur`an. Well, asSalaamu aleykum. (wa aleykumusSalaam). Insha Allah you shall reach to that. Al-Fatihah.
[From the-heart.net]
*Moulana Sheik Nazim Haqqani, the Mufti of Cyprus and Grand Sheik of the Naqshbandi Sufi tariqah. It is by his words and character that hundreds of thousands of people have come to Islam across the world. His simple yet powerful guidance is followed by over 2 million Muslims around the world.
These lectures have been transcibed and Moulana's first language is not English.
Should you wish to know more about Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani or the Naqshbandi Tariqaah kindly request or visit the websites listed below.
http://www.naqshbandi-sa.org
http://www.naqshbandi.org
http://www.the-heart.net
1)" You Need a Guide "
Maulana Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani
N. Cyprus. 28. Feb. 01
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
Forgiveness, oh our Lord, forgiveness, we are asking…we are in need…forgiveness. Tawbah, ya Rabbi, tawbah astaghfirullah. We are asking forgiveness from Allah Almighty, meded ya Sultan ul Awliya. For every wrong step we are asking forgiveness. Wrong step - who is loosing his guidance, who lost his guide, is becoming as a person like in the desert, he lost everything and he never knows which direction may go and stepping wrong steps, like this, like that, trying. Man, all of them, without a guide from Allah Almighty, they are like such people, they lost their ways through desert. Hundreds ofpeople, thousands of people, millions of people, billions of people, and the deserts are so big, and they are in need of a guide.
Allah Almighty, when He granted his forgiveness for Adam and Eve, said to them: I`m sending you to earth, and also I`m sending to you my guides. If I am not sending my guidance through my guides, you are never going to find your way. Allah Almighty was angry with satan, because he was never asking pardon, he never said: oh my Lord, I`m sorry for what I did. He was saying I am right, you are not. Then Allah Almighty left him, because at the beginning he just destroyed everything between Allah Almighty and himself. He Just put TNT under the bridge from servant to his lord. And it exploded. Then he sent to them a guide, from beginning they were refusing and fighting their Lord.
But Adam and Eve, Allah bless them, they are saying:
'Oh our lord, we did wrong, it was not true of servant to break the order of his Sultan. We did it, but we repented and we are saying: pardon, we are so sorry, oh our Lord. Every punishment, if You are punishing ourselves, it is for You, because we are wrong. We did not good. We did something wrong and that wrong thing towards You, it is not easy, oh our Lord, but now we are knowing. At that time we were blind, now just we awakened. Please forgive us.'
And Adam was crying. Adam was crying . They have been so down on earth from paradise Eden not on earth, but in heavens. Just he was coming on Adams Peak in Sri Lanka (they are saying), and its old name Serendip. Serendip is written through the holy books that Adam is coming down and landing on it. And he was on that mountain, he was crying and asking forgiveness and asking to be forgiven and asking pardon from Allah Almighty. Three hundred years he was standing on one foot and people were suprised when they looked that it is not two feet figures, it is only one, yes, one, because he was not standing on his two feet, but he was punishing himself and standing on one foot. Therefore there you can see the sign of one foot. He knows. Three hundred years he was crying and asking forgiveness.
It is not easy to make Sultan angry, for servant. It is so deep thing to make his Lord angry with him. He may kill him, he may destroy him, he may carry him out of existence, never once again they come into existence. That is for Sultan. When he is angry with his servant, he can do. Therefore Adam (aleyhi salaam) was trembling and asking forgiveness. 'Pardon, oh my Lord! I`m so sorry!' Three hundred years crying and asking forgiveness.
And then Allah Almighty said: 'Oh Adam, I grant to you my blessings. I forgive you. For the honour of that one, that I created whole creation for his honour, The Seal of Prophets, Seyyidina Muhammad (sallAllahu aleyhi wa sallam). If you are not asking for the sake of that one, I`m not going to forgive you. But you are asking from me for the honour of someone that I can`t refuse. I accept, because it is so endless value for him in my Divine Presence, therefore I`m forgiving you. Oh Adam, you and your children should be on earth up to time that I decided the limits for your descendants, your whole generation, I am putting a limit for their lives on earth. Up to that time I am sending to your generation, to your descendants, to your children, up to last day, I am sending my guide. I am sending my guidance through my guide.'
Because: this water without this glass, can be here? – Guidance without guide can`t be, can`t reach servants. Therefore Allah Almighty promised to send his guidance and it must be with some selected, directed, chosen ones. They are looking like you, but through their inner structure they are different. A prophet, he is a man. Women can`t be a man. Looking like you are. Physically they are like you, but spiritually just different. Because they are chosen ones, and they have a relationship to heavens that`s making a difference between ordinary people and prophets.
Now so many foolish people, square-head people, mungo-type people. (probably mungo, a sort of rat or so) Some mungo-type people which are thinking they know everything, but they are square-head people, can`t be able to get out from their square limits, they are thinking that everything through their square head - no more, beyond their square head no more anything. They are saying that can`t be between servants and Lord any waseet, mediator. They are, as Allah Almighty is saying, they are jinns, from shaitan`s generation, but they appear as men. Shaitan`s generation but they appear as a man. Those people who say: no mediator between servant and his Lord. But they are only making this to break down the messengerhood.
With that idea that shaitan is making now to be all around people, they say no mediator between man and his creator, they are going to make people deny messengerhood between man and his Lord. If no prophets, no one reaching to Allah. They must carry you to Divine Presence. They have been granted messages, heavenly messages that are granted to them to bring to ordinary people. But their creation is extraordinary. If they were like you like me, we may take a holy book from heaven also. If no difference between ourselves and prophets, that means we can reach to Allah by our self and we convey orders from our Lord ourselves. That is a new corruption to take away from hearts faith, Because everyone from Christians and Jewish and Muslims they have faith through their hearts that their prophets bringing heavenly messages from Divine Presence to them. All believers are believing that prophets are mediators, that means taking from Divine Presence guidance and bringing to people to show them or to teach them how they should come again to Divine Presence. All holy books trying to make the ways for mankind that they lost through a huge desert, that heavenly messengers come to them saying: follow us! Even in so many airports I saw a little cap read follow me and a gigantic Boeing following it. Such a small place, airport, next to the big world, and that captain he is in need to find his last station to follow that small cap that written on it follow me.
And what about mankind? They are saying: we are not in need to follow anyone. No mediator, that is a shaitanic corruption, that just spread through east and west through 20th century and asking to jump to 21st century also. But people are becoming awakened to know that some ones, that they are representatives of shaitan, making that corruption to loose people`s faith and to loose also the ways to paradise. Therefore, beware oh people, don`t stay without a guide, because you can`t know your way to heavens. That captain pilot in a huge Boeing plane asking a guide to reach which gate he is going. And you must try to know which key you are going to heavens with. You can know it only through heavenly messengers. Try to keep your faith and try to run away from those satanic people that they are representatives of big shaitan and his followers, to save yourself here and hereafter. May Allah forgive us!
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Azeez Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Kareem Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Subhan Allah
Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Sultan Allah
Endless Sultan Allah! Eternal Sultan Allah! From pre-eternal up to eternal and His Sultanate is in eternity. May Allah Almighty accepting our faith to be to His endless eternity sovereignity. And give much more honour and praise to His most beloved servant seyyidina Muhammad , peace be upon Him,bi hurmatil Fatihah
………………………………………..
It is something… it is something from our spiritual headquarters, it is not a prepared lecture, but it is just new knowledge coming now for you that you are coming from Italia to open your ears, not this, but ears of heart, to hear something that is a base for every faith. No any religion or no any religious person can refuse what we said to you. As a golden piece can`t be refused from Turkish jewellery, Italian jewellery, English jewellery, Arab jewellery, Greek jewellery, they are not refusing, no one can say that it is tin. What we have been granted to address to you, it is such a value. No one can object to it, it is new and fresh and powerful. To make faith fixed through your hearts. Al-Fatihah And through east and west no one just authorized to speak on such a subject because it is not time to appear saints of Allah Almighty, his friends, to people. But only one, one spring it is always going to run, for anyone asking something from reality can reach and can drink. Therefore you can`t find in Italy, in Turkey, in Arabia, in Pakistan, in Turkestan, in America, in England, in Spain, in Africa, no one speak on that point. It is closed, or like zip (laughter), there is a knot. They know, but no permission to speak. But our Grandsheykh, he was permitted to speak in such a deep realities for an opening, for when Mahdi(aleyhi salaam) coming, then we may understand something. When Jesus Christ coming and Mahdi(a.s.) there will be much more opening for you for understanding what Jesus Christ coming and addressing to people. And he will be addressing from secrets of Holy Qur`an. Well, asSalaamu aleykum. (wa aleykumusSalaam). Insha Allah you shall reach to that. Al-Fatihah.
[From the-heart.net]
*Moulana Sheik Nazim Haqqani, the Mufti of Cyprus and Grand Sheik of the Naqshbandi Sufi tariqah. It is by his words and character that hundreds of thousands of people have come to Islam across the world. His simple yet powerful guidance is followed by over 2 million Muslims around the world.
These lectures have been transcibed and Moulana's first language is not English.
Should you wish to know more about Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani or the Naqshbandi Tariqaah kindly request or visit the websites listed below.
http://www.naqshbandi-sa.org
http://www.naqshbandi.org
http://www.the-heart.net
What is Naqshbandia
Historically speaking, the Naqshbandi Way can be traced back directly to the first of the rightly-guided caliphs, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq , who succeeded the Prophet in his knowledge and in his role of guiding the Muslim community, and indirectly to the fourth rightly-guided caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib .
Imam Ahmad relates in his Musnad the following Tradition with a reliable, authentic chain of transmission: “Abu Bakr does not surpass you by virtue of much fasting or prayer, but by virtue of a secret that took root in his heart.” The Prophet alluded to this secret when he said, in the following Traditions mentioned respectively by Suyuti, “Whatever God poured into my breast, I have poured into the breast of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq,” and by Bukhari, “God has expanded my breast to receive what He has expanded the breast of Abu Bakr and Umar to receive.” This knowledge is again alluded to in the following authentic Tradition related by Tirmidhi, “I am the City of Knowledge and Ali is the Door.”
This knowledge is the heavenly knowledge possessed only by prophets and their inheritors, the saints. The latter are defined thus by Ali ibn Abi Talib " ":
They are the fewest in number, the greatest in rank in the sight of God. By them does God protect His creation. They are His proof on earth, until they bequeath it to their likes, and plant it firmly in their hearts. By them knowledge has taken the reality of things by assault so that they found easy what those given to comfort found hard, and found intimacy in what the ignorant found desolate. They accompanied the world with bodies whose spirits were attached to the highest regard. They are the vice-regents of God, the Exalted, in His land. How one yearns, how one yearns to see them!
God said in the Holy Quran referring to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq " r":
He was the second of two in the cave, and he said to his friend (Abu Bakr), ”Do not be afraid for God is with us.” (9:40)
Of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq r.a, the Prophet said:If I had taken to myself a beloved friend, I would have taken Abu Bakr as my beloved friend; but he is my brother and my companion.
The Naqshbandi School is distinguished from other Sufi orders by virtue of its having taken its foundations and principles from the teachings and example of six bright stars in the firmament of the Prophet . These great figures were:
1. Abu Bakr as-Siddiq "r",
2. Salman al-Farsi "as",
3. Jafar as-Sadiq "as",
4. Aba yazid Tayfur al-Bistami,
5. Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani and
6. Muhammad Bahauddin Uwaysi al-Bukhari, known as Shah Naqshband, from whose name this Order takes its title.
Behind the word Naqshband stand two ideas:
• naqsh, which means engraving and suggests engraving the name of God in the heart,
• and band, which means “bond or rope” and indicates the link between the individual and his Creator.
This means that the Naqshbandi follower has to practice his prayers and obligations according to the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet and to keep the Presence and Love of God alive in his heart through a personal experience of the connection between himself and his Lord.
1. Besides Abu Bakr as-Siddiq "r", one of the stars in the firmament of the Prophet was
2. Salman al-Farsi "as". His origin was Isfahan, Persia, and he was the one who advised the Muslims to dig a trench in the Battle of Ahzab. After the Muslims seized al-Madain, the capital city of Persia, he was made governor of that city and remained there until his death.
3. Another star was Jafar as-Sadiq "as". Although a descendant of the Prophet on his father’s side and of Abu Bakr "r" on his mother’s, he rejected all positions of honor in favor of retreat and spiritual learning and practice. He was called “the inheritor of the Prophetic Station” and the “inheritor of the truthful station.” The oldest recorded occurrence of the term “Sufi” was in reference to his student, Jabir ibn Hayyan, in the middle of the second century after hijra (the migration). He was a master in exegesis, a scholar of Traditions, and one of the greatest scholars qualified to give legal decisions in Madinah. His commentary upon the Quran is partially preserved in Sulami’s Haqaiq at-tafsir. Layth ibn Saad, one of the most reliable transmitters of Traditions, witnessed miraculous powers as the latter was able to ask for anything and God would grant it to him on the spot.
4. Another star was Bayazid Tayfur al-Bistami, whose grandfather was a Zoroastrian. Bayazid made a detailed study of the statutes of Islamic Law and practiced self-denial. All his life he was assiduous in the practice of his religious obligations. He urged his students to put their efforts in the hands of God, and he encouraged them to accept a sincere and pure doctrine of knowledge of the Oneness of God. This doctrine, he said, imposes five obligations on the sincere:
* Keep obligations according to the Quran and Sunnah
* Always speak the truth
* Keep the heart free from hatred
* Avoid the forbidden food
* Shun innovation
Bayazid said that the ultimate goal of Sufis is to know God in this world, to reach His Divine Presence, and to see Him in the hereafter. To that effect he added, “There are special servants of God who, if God veiled them from His vision in Paradise, would have implored Him to bring them out of paradise as the inhabitants of the fire implore Him to escape from Hell.”
5. Yet another star in the firmament of the Prophet was Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani, who was born in the village of Ghujdawan, near Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan. He studied the Quran and the Islamic sciences of both external and internal knowledge until he reached a high station of purity. He then traveled to Damascus, where he established a school from which many students graduated and went on to become masters of jurisprudence, the Traditions, and spirituality in their time, both in the regions of Central Asia and in the Middle East. Abd al-Khaliq continued the work of his predecessors by formulating the dhikr (remembrance of God) passed down from the Prophet according to the Sunnah. In his letters he set down the code of conduct that the students of the Naqshbandiyya were expected to follow.
6. Imam of the Naqshbandi Way: Shah Bahauddin Naqshband
In this constellation, we come finally to Muhammad Bahauddin Uwaysi al-Bukhari, known as Shah Naqshband, the Imam of the Naqshbandi Way. He was born in the year 717 AH/1317 CE in the village of Qasr al-Arifan, near Bukhara. After he mastered the sciences of the Divine Law at the young age of eighteen, he kept company with Shaykh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi, who was an authority on the Traditions in Central Asia. After the latter’s death, he followed Shaykh Amir Kulal, who continued and perfected his training in the external and the internal knowledge.
The students of Shaykh Amir Kulal recited dhikr aloud when sitting together in a group and silent dhikr when alone. Although Shah Naqshband never criticized nor objected to the loud dhikr, he preferred the silent dhikr. Concerning this he says, “There are two methods of dhikr.
One is silent and one is loud. I chose the silent one because it is stronger and therefore more preferable.” The silent dhikr thus became the distinguishing feature of the Naqshbandi among other Sufi orders.
Shah Naqshband performed the prescribed pilgrimage three times, after which he resided in Merv and Bukhara. Towards the end of his life, he went back to settle in his native city of Qasr al-Arifan. His teachings became quoted everywhere, and his name was on every tongue. Visitors from far and wide came to see him and to seek his advice. They received teaching in his school and mosque, a complex which once accommodated more than 5,000 people.
This school is the largest Islamic center of learning in Central Asia and still exists in our day. It was recently renovated and reopened after surviving seventy years of Communist rule.
Shah Naqshband’s teachings changed the hearts of seekers from darkness to light. He continued to teach his students the knowledge of the Oneness of God in which his predecessors had specialized, emphasizing the realization of the state of excellence for his followers according to the Tradition of the Prophet , “Excellence is to worship God as if you see Him.” When Shah Naqshband died, he was buried in his garden as he requested. The succeeding kings of Bukhara took care of his school and mosque, expanding them and increasing their religious endowments.
Later shaykhs of the Naqshbandi Way wrote many biographies of Shah Naqshband. Among them are Masud al-Bukhari and Sharif al-Jarjani who composed the Awrad Bahauddin, which narrates his life’s works, including his legal decisions. Shaykh Muhammad Parsa, who died in Madinah in 822 AH/1419 CE, wrote Risala Qudsiyya, in which he talks of Shah Naqshband’s life, his virtues, and his teachings.
Shah Naqshband’s literary legacy included many books. Among them are: Awrad an-Naqshbandiyyah, Tanbih al-ghafilin, Maslak al-anwar, and Hadiyyatu as-salikin wa tuhfat at-talibin. He left numerous noble expressions praising the Prophet and he gave many legal rulings. One of his opinions was that all the different acts and kinds of worship, whether obligatory or voluntary, were permitted for the seeker in order to reach Reality. Prayer, fasting, paying the poor-due, striving, and self-denial were emphasized as ways to reach God Almighty.
Shah Naqshband built his school on the renewal of the teachings of Islam. He insisted on the necessity of keeping the Quran and the teachings of the Sunnah. When they asked him, “What are the requirements of one who follows your way?” he said, “To follow the Sunnah of the Prophet .” He continued saying: “Our way is a rare one. It keeps the unbreakable bond. It asks nothing else of its followers but to take hold of the pure Sunnah of the Prophet and follow the way of the Companions of the Prophet in their efforts for God.” Before speaking about the principles and transmission of the Naqshbandi Order, let us provide a brief explanation of tasawwuf (Sufism).
Searching for the True Inheritor of the Secret of the Prophet
The Shaykh
• The shaykh must be deeply imbued with the knowledge of the religion, externally and spiritually. He must inherit from the Prophet and all his predecessors the ability and blessing to guide the followers in the externals of the religion and its inner realities.
• He must be able to guide them according to their needs to the Divine Presence and the Presence of the Prophet .
Importance of Finding a Shaykh
God said in the Holy Quran:
O ye who believe, fear God and keep company with those who are truthful. (9:119)
God’s Word is for all time, for every era and for every century. It is an ongoing order, from which we understand the importance of keeping company with the trustworthy. God orders all human beings to accompany them, because by keeping their company, one will see how they live their lives, how they deal with people, how they address their companions, how they eat, how they sleep, and how they worship. By accompanying them, one will learn all their good manners and their ways of life.
Another way to understand this verse is that one should accompany a trustworthy person, because to be trustworthy is very rare and not many people achieve it. Everyone, however, can find a trustworthy person and accompany him, in order to be guided. Following a trustworthy person is essential to our spiritual path. Such a person is needed to lead us, to guide us, and to be a beacon for us on that way.
In the Naqshbandi Order, the living presence of a connected shaykh is essential. Through his physical and spiritual linkage to the Prophet , he establishes the disciple’s connection. The disciple’s obligation is to maintain his connection to his shaykh, to hold tightly to the hand of the one within his reach. The shaykh maintains the further connection to the previous shaykhs and to the Prophet .
From what has been said above and in the biographies of the masters, the importance of accompanying a true master is clearly demonstrated. It provides the seeker with the opportunity to learn the essentials of ethics and good conduct, to discover the hidden defects of his heart, and to be lifted to the states of perfection. There are two requisites for entering upon such an endeavor: when the seeker feels the need to seek in this way, he must purify his intention and ask his Lord to connect him to a truthful person, and he must look in his own country for someone who will point him in the direction of the perfected guide.
The Need for a Living Guide
If one is separated from his shaykh by death or other circumstances, it becomes necessary to find a living guide who can complete the work of the first master. The path itself is not the goal, but the means to reach the goal. Holding on to the attachment to a master who is no longer present usually represents an unrealistic expectation and a false hope. It may also be a manifestation of pride. Although they had already pledged themselves to the Prophet , the Companions had to take initiation with Abu Bakr "r" after the Prophet died. As they renewed their pledge to the successive caliphs, Umar "r", Uthman "r", and Ali "as", so too does a sincere seeker need to put his hand into the hand of a living shaykh, and renew his initiation, in order to complete his journey to the Divine Presence.
Qualifications of a Master
Masters of Tariqa possess the following four qualifications:
A SCHOLAR IN THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE RELIGION
The master must be a scholar in all religious obligations, such as the conditions of prescribed prayers, the conditions of prescribed fasting, and the conditions of the prescribed poor-due. He must be knowledgeable in Islamic jurisprudence and all necessary matters of the Divine Law. He must be a scholar in the science of monotheism (Oneness of God) and all the other conditions of faith.
A KNOWER
To be a knower means the master must have the knowledge of the conditions of the state of excellence, as mentioned by the Prophet in the Tradition:
Worship God as if you see Him, and if you do not see him, know that He sees you.
A knower must bear witness in his heart that God is the Unique One in His Essence, in His Attributes, and in His Actions. He must know about His Attributes through vision and taste, by experiencing self-effacement in the Divine Presence.
SANCTIFIED
The master must have already purified or sanctified himself as a seeker under a master of his own. He will have come to know the different stages of the ego, its illnesses and its defects. The master must be fully aware of all the methods Satan uses to enter the breast. He must know all the ways to sanctify others and the methods to heal his followers in order to raise them up to reach the state of perfection.
If a seeker comes to the shaykh with perfect sincerity and truthfulness, asking to be initiated in the Order, the shaykh must not hurry to initiate him, until he knows that he will remain trustworthy when he reaches the goal. He must look at his capability. If his capability corresponds to the capability of the near ones, then he will show him the way, as it is the way of the trustworthy.
That way is built on effacing one’s own will and connecting and submitting oneself to the will of one’s shaykh. The seeker must do as the Prophet said, “Die before you die!” He must leave his natural will, which causes him to move according to his mind, and leave all his affairs to the will of his shaykh. The shaykh will lift him up through a path filled with difficulties, train him through worship, and guide him to a state of complete self-effacement. Only this will elevate him to the Divine Presence.
That is why Khwaja Ubayd Allah al-Ahrar said: Who is the shaykh? The shaykh is the one who can know, through the vision that God has granted him, the capability of his disciple. From the day he meets him to the day of his death, he will know which state the disciple will attain, in which way he will taste, and in which way he will reach the Divine Presence. If the shaykh cannot summon that knowledge, it is forbidden for him to give the seeker initiation. The shaykh must avoid the wealth of his disciple. If the disciple wishes to help the shaykh it, is his choice. The states of guidance are above all states, and the master must not ask except from the Divine Presence.
It is said that once a disciple of Junayd came to him and wanted to give him all his money. Junayd refused and said, “No.” When that same disciple reached the state of perfection and was lifted up to the Divine Presence, he came to Junayd and again offered to give all his money to him. At that time Junayd said, “Yes. Now, I accept, because when you give now, you will not regret later.”
We do not like our disciples to give money to the shaykh before they have reached the state of perfection because they might regret later and be in doubt. This will harm them. When the disciple reaches that state, he will give sincerely and will never regret it later.
The evidence of this is that Abu Bakr "r" and Umar "r" came to the Prophet " and from the first Abu Bakr "r" gave all his money.
The Prophet asked, “What have you left for your family?” He replied, “I have left them God and His Prophet .” When the disciple reaches the state of real generosity and real perfection, then the shaykh may accept what he gives. If he has not reached that state, his gift must not be accepted.
The shaykh must not order any of his followers to do something he himself cannot do or would not do. He must know all the obligatory and forbidden actions according to the Divine Law. Similarly, he must know all the states of spirituality, and must have tasted all tastes, so that he is an example, and when he speaks he speaks with real knowledge. An example of this is a lady who came to a perfect shaykh with her son, saying, “My son is always asking for sweets. Please pray for him to leave that desire, as I do not always have sweets to give him.” He said, “Be patient for three days and then bring him back to me.” After three days, she brought him back and the shaykh told him, “O my son, do not eat candies, because it is harmful for your stomach.” From that day the child never ate sweets again. Sometime later someone asked the shaykh, “Why did you wait three days to give the child that advice?” That shaykh replied, “When the lady came to me, she asked me to prevent her child from eating sweets. I could not do that for him because I myself was under that temptation of eating sweets. So I stopped eating sweets for three days. When I had stopped, I was able to supplicate for him, and that supplication was accepted.”
Qushayri relates in his Letters that Hallaj was once asked to talk about poverty. He said, “Wait a minute.” He entered his house, went out somewhere, and came back. Then he sat and spoke, saying poverty consists of this and that. One disciple asked him, “O my shaykh, why did you not speak like this from the beginning?” He said, “When I was asked, I had one dirham in my house. I could not speak about poverty while I still had something. So I went and took that dirham, spent it in God’s way, and then I could speak on poverty.”
HAVING AUTHORIZATION
The shaykh must have authorization from his master to train his followers and to show the Way of this Path. That permission must reach him through the chain of the Grandshaykhs from one to another, all the way back to the Prophet "S". As the wise person will not go to a doctor who has no license in healing, so the seeker in this way must find a perfect guide who has received the license, the permission, from his shaykh.
Imam Muslim said, “This great knowledge (the knowledge of the self) is by itself the religion. So you have to know from whom you take your religion.” In the book of Hafiz ibn Ali, Kanz al-ummal, the following Tradition is found:
The Prophet said, “O Umar, your religion is your flesh and blood. Look at those from whom you take your religion. Take it from those who are on the right path and do not take from those who have deviated.” A knower said, “Knowledge is a spirit which is blown into the hearts, not philosophy or pretty tales to be written. So be very careful from whom you take it.”
The Signs of Mastery
The main indication of mastery is that when you sit with a master you feel a breeze of faith, spiritual pleasure. He does not speak except about God. He is always advising the good. You will benefit from being in his company as you benefit from his words. You will benefit when you are far from him as you benefit when you are near him. You must see among his disciples the picture of faith, sincerity, humbleness, and piety (God-consciousness), and you must remember, when you are mixing with them, the highest state of love, truth, and deference to others. You must see that his followers represent all different kinds of people in the community. That is how the Companions of the Prophet "S" were.
Initiation
The seeker must follow a perfect master able to guide him to the way of God, Almighty and Exalted, and to illuminate for him that way until he reaches the state of annihilation. The seeker must give his oath and his promise to his guide, to learn from him how to put aside his bad manners and to lift himself to better conduct in order to reach the perfect knowledge of spirituality. The meaning of initiation and its conditions has been mentioned in the Holy Quran, in the Sunnah of the Prophet "S", and in the lives of the Companions:
Verily those who swear allegiance to thee indeed swear allegiance to God. The Hand of God is over their hands. So whoever breaks his oath, breaks it to his own loss; and whoever fulfills the covenant that he has made with God, He will surely give him a great reward. (48:10)
And fulfill the Covenant of God when you have made it. Break not your oaths after making them firm, while you have made God your surety. Certainly, God knows what you do. (16:91)
And fulfill the covenant, for the covenant shall be questioned about. (17:34)
We see the Quran encouraging people to give their oath and to keep their oath to the Prophet "S", who leads them to the Presence of God, Almighty and Exalted. That initiation was done in the time of the Prophet "S" and after the time of the Prophet "S".
According to the Sunnah of the Prophet "S", the oath was taken from men, as a group or as individuals; from women, as a group or as individuals; and even from children.
Bukhari and Muslim narrate that Ubada ibn Samit "r" said: The Prophet "S" said, “Give me your pledge and oath not to associate anything with God, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to kill your children, not to backbite, not to fall into sin. And who keeps his promise, then his reward is from God, Almighty and Exalted.” And then we gave our pledge to the Prophet "S" and our oath.
The Prophet "S" gave initiation to all people and urged them to take it. Bukhari and Muslim narrated in their books that Abd Allah ibn Umar ² said:When we pledged to the Prophet "S" to listen and obey, the Prophet "S" said, “To the limit that you can bear.”
INITIATION OF WOMEN
The Prophet "S" accepted the allegiance of women many times. It is narrated by Imam Ahmad in the Musnad that Salma bint Qays ˉ said:
I came to the Prophet "S" with many people from the Helpers. We gave him our pledge that we would not associate anyone with God, we would not steal, we would not commit adultery, we would not kill our children, we would not backbite, and we would not disobey. We gave him our pledge and we went.
INITIATION OF CHILDREN
The Prophet "S", according to the books of Nisai and Tirmidhi, accepted allegiance from Umaymah bint Ruqiyyah "r". It was narrated by Tabarani that Izza bint Khayyil "r" gave her allegiance to the Prophet "S" when she was not yet seven. It was also narrated by Tabarani in an authentic Tradition that the Prophet "S" accepted the allegiance of al-Hasan "as", al-Husayn "as", Abd Allah ibn Abbas ², and Abd Allah ibn Jafar "as" when they were seven years of age.
INITIATION WITH THE CALIPHS
The Companions of the Prophet "S" gave their pledge to the caliphs of the Prophet "S" after his passing. It is narrated through the biographies of the Companions that they gave their pledge to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, to Umar ibn al-Khattab, to Uthman ibn Affan, to Ali , to Muawiya "r", and to all the caliphs who came later, as they had given it to the Prophet "S". The Prophet "S" said in a Tradition related by Abu Dawud and Ahmad: Whoever imitates a group of people will be of them.
Therefore, the inheritors of the master of the Sufi orders, especially the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, inherited the initiation in every century. Just as it was an obligation in the times of the Prophet "S", the Companions, the Successors, the Successors of the Successors, and in the times of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuks, and Ottomans, so it is also an obligation to give our pledge to a perfect guide who leads us to the Way of God, Almighty and Exalted. And who is a better guide than the Sufi masters who are inheritors of the Prophet "S" and inheritors of the Divine Presence?
The scholar, Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, said: Abd al-Qadir Gilani, the Arch-Intercessor of the Sufi Orders, Shaykh Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, and all the Masters of the Naqshbandi Golden Chain, opened the door of initiation as wide as possible, for every individual who has good and true belief, to find something that will be of value to him spiritually, and for everyone to renew his covenant with God, Almighty and Exalted. These Sufi Masters of the Naqshbandi Golden Chain and all Sufi orders lifted their followers to a station of truthfulness, to feel the responsibility of their initiation and to renew their faith.
Thus we see that it is an important factor in every Sufi order for one to give one’s allegiance to the shaykh in order to sanctify oneself and to be lifted up to the Divine Presence. These guides are the revivers in every century to connect our hearts with the heart of the Prophet "S", who in turn connects our heart to the Divine Presence. These guides are the beacon of the light of the Prophet "S" and the Light of the Divine Presence. They are the true examples for all people to follow.
Imam Ahmad relates in his Musnad the following Tradition with a reliable, authentic chain of transmission: “Abu Bakr does not surpass you by virtue of much fasting or prayer, but by virtue of a secret that took root in his heart.” The Prophet alluded to this secret when he said, in the following Traditions mentioned respectively by Suyuti, “Whatever God poured into my breast, I have poured into the breast of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq,” and by Bukhari, “God has expanded my breast to receive what He has expanded the breast of Abu Bakr and Umar to receive.” This knowledge is again alluded to in the following authentic Tradition related by Tirmidhi, “I am the City of Knowledge and Ali is the Door.”
This knowledge is the heavenly knowledge possessed only by prophets and their inheritors, the saints. The latter are defined thus by Ali ibn Abi Talib " ":
They are the fewest in number, the greatest in rank in the sight of God. By them does God protect His creation. They are His proof on earth, until they bequeath it to their likes, and plant it firmly in their hearts. By them knowledge has taken the reality of things by assault so that they found easy what those given to comfort found hard, and found intimacy in what the ignorant found desolate. They accompanied the world with bodies whose spirits were attached to the highest regard. They are the vice-regents of God, the Exalted, in His land. How one yearns, how one yearns to see them!
God said in the Holy Quran referring to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq " r":
He was the second of two in the cave, and he said to his friend (Abu Bakr), ”Do not be afraid for God is with us.” (9:40)
Of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq r.a, the Prophet said:If I had taken to myself a beloved friend, I would have taken Abu Bakr as my beloved friend; but he is my brother and my companion.
The Naqshbandi School is distinguished from other Sufi orders by virtue of its having taken its foundations and principles from the teachings and example of six bright stars in the firmament of the Prophet . These great figures were:
1. Abu Bakr as-Siddiq "r",
2. Salman al-Farsi "as",
3. Jafar as-Sadiq "as",
4. Aba yazid Tayfur al-Bistami,
5. Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani and
6. Muhammad Bahauddin Uwaysi al-Bukhari, known as Shah Naqshband, from whose name this Order takes its title.
Behind the word Naqshband stand two ideas:
• naqsh, which means engraving and suggests engraving the name of God in the heart,
• and band, which means “bond or rope” and indicates the link between the individual and his Creator.
This means that the Naqshbandi follower has to practice his prayers and obligations according to the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet and to keep the Presence and Love of God alive in his heart through a personal experience of the connection between himself and his Lord.
1. Besides Abu Bakr as-Siddiq "r", one of the stars in the firmament of the Prophet was
2. Salman al-Farsi "as". His origin was Isfahan, Persia, and he was the one who advised the Muslims to dig a trench in the Battle of Ahzab. After the Muslims seized al-Madain, the capital city of Persia, he was made governor of that city and remained there until his death.
3. Another star was Jafar as-Sadiq "as". Although a descendant of the Prophet on his father’s side and of Abu Bakr "r" on his mother’s, he rejected all positions of honor in favor of retreat and spiritual learning and practice. He was called “the inheritor of the Prophetic Station” and the “inheritor of the truthful station.” The oldest recorded occurrence of the term “Sufi” was in reference to his student, Jabir ibn Hayyan, in the middle of the second century after hijra (the migration). He was a master in exegesis, a scholar of Traditions, and one of the greatest scholars qualified to give legal decisions in Madinah. His commentary upon the Quran is partially preserved in Sulami’s Haqaiq at-tafsir. Layth ibn Saad, one of the most reliable transmitters of Traditions, witnessed miraculous powers as the latter was able to ask for anything and God would grant it to him on the spot.
4. Another star was Bayazid Tayfur al-Bistami, whose grandfather was a Zoroastrian. Bayazid made a detailed study of the statutes of Islamic Law and practiced self-denial. All his life he was assiduous in the practice of his religious obligations. He urged his students to put their efforts in the hands of God, and he encouraged them to accept a sincere and pure doctrine of knowledge of the Oneness of God. This doctrine, he said, imposes five obligations on the sincere:
* Keep obligations according to the Quran and Sunnah
* Always speak the truth
* Keep the heart free from hatred
* Avoid the forbidden food
* Shun innovation
Bayazid said that the ultimate goal of Sufis is to know God in this world, to reach His Divine Presence, and to see Him in the hereafter. To that effect he added, “There are special servants of God who, if God veiled them from His vision in Paradise, would have implored Him to bring them out of paradise as the inhabitants of the fire implore Him to escape from Hell.”
5. Yet another star in the firmament of the Prophet was Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani, who was born in the village of Ghujdawan, near Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan. He studied the Quran and the Islamic sciences of both external and internal knowledge until he reached a high station of purity. He then traveled to Damascus, where he established a school from which many students graduated and went on to become masters of jurisprudence, the Traditions, and spirituality in their time, both in the regions of Central Asia and in the Middle East. Abd al-Khaliq continued the work of his predecessors by formulating the dhikr (remembrance of God) passed down from the Prophet according to the Sunnah. In his letters he set down the code of conduct that the students of the Naqshbandiyya were expected to follow.
6. Imam of the Naqshbandi Way: Shah Bahauddin Naqshband
In this constellation, we come finally to Muhammad Bahauddin Uwaysi al-Bukhari, known as Shah Naqshband, the Imam of the Naqshbandi Way. He was born in the year 717 AH/1317 CE in the village of Qasr al-Arifan, near Bukhara. After he mastered the sciences of the Divine Law at the young age of eighteen, he kept company with Shaykh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi, who was an authority on the Traditions in Central Asia. After the latter’s death, he followed Shaykh Amir Kulal, who continued and perfected his training in the external and the internal knowledge.
The students of Shaykh Amir Kulal recited dhikr aloud when sitting together in a group and silent dhikr when alone. Although Shah Naqshband never criticized nor objected to the loud dhikr, he preferred the silent dhikr. Concerning this he says, “There are two methods of dhikr.
One is silent and one is loud. I chose the silent one because it is stronger and therefore more preferable.” The silent dhikr thus became the distinguishing feature of the Naqshbandi among other Sufi orders.
Shah Naqshband performed the prescribed pilgrimage three times, after which he resided in Merv and Bukhara. Towards the end of his life, he went back to settle in his native city of Qasr al-Arifan. His teachings became quoted everywhere, and his name was on every tongue. Visitors from far and wide came to see him and to seek his advice. They received teaching in his school and mosque, a complex which once accommodated more than 5,000 people.
This school is the largest Islamic center of learning in Central Asia and still exists in our day. It was recently renovated and reopened after surviving seventy years of Communist rule.
Shah Naqshband’s teachings changed the hearts of seekers from darkness to light. He continued to teach his students the knowledge of the Oneness of God in which his predecessors had specialized, emphasizing the realization of the state of excellence for his followers according to the Tradition of the Prophet , “Excellence is to worship God as if you see Him.” When Shah Naqshband died, he was buried in his garden as he requested. The succeeding kings of Bukhara took care of his school and mosque, expanding them and increasing their religious endowments.
Later shaykhs of the Naqshbandi Way wrote many biographies of Shah Naqshband. Among them are Masud al-Bukhari and Sharif al-Jarjani who composed the Awrad Bahauddin, which narrates his life’s works, including his legal decisions. Shaykh Muhammad Parsa, who died in Madinah in 822 AH/1419 CE, wrote Risala Qudsiyya, in which he talks of Shah Naqshband’s life, his virtues, and his teachings.
Shah Naqshband’s literary legacy included many books. Among them are: Awrad an-Naqshbandiyyah, Tanbih al-ghafilin, Maslak al-anwar, and Hadiyyatu as-salikin wa tuhfat at-talibin. He left numerous noble expressions praising the Prophet and he gave many legal rulings. One of his opinions was that all the different acts and kinds of worship, whether obligatory or voluntary, were permitted for the seeker in order to reach Reality. Prayer, fasting, paying the poor-due, striving, and self-denial were emphasized as ways to reach God Almighty.
Shah Naqshband built his school on the renewal of the teachings of Islam. He insisted on the necessity of keeping the Quran and the teachings of the Sunnah. When they asked him, “What are the requirements of one who follows your way?” he said, “To follow the Sunnah of the Prophet .” He continued saying: “Our way is a rare one. It keeps the unbreakable bond. It asks nothing else of its followers but to take hold of the pure Sunnah of the Prophet and follow the way of the Companions of the Prophet in their efforts for God.” Before speaking about the principles and transmission of the Naqshbandi Order, let us provide a brief explanation of tasawwuf (Sufism).
Searching for the True Inheritor of the Secret of the Prophet
The Shaykh
• The shaykh must be deeply imbued with the knowledge of the religion, externally and spiritually. He must inherit from the Prophet and all his predecessors the ability and blessing to guide the followers in the externals of the religion and its inner realities.
• He must be able to guide them according to their needs to the Divine Presence and the Presence of the Prophet .
Importance of Finding a Shaykh
God said in the Holy Quran:
O ye who believe, fear God and keep company with those who are truthful. (9:119)
God’s Word is for all time, for every era and for every century. It is an ongoing order, from which we understand the importance of keeping company with the trustworthy. God orders all human beings to accompany them, because by keeping their company, one will see how they live their lives, how they deal with people, how they address their companions, how they eat, how they sleep, and how they worship. By accompanying them, one will learn all their good manners and their ways of life.
Another way to understand this verse is that one should accompany a trustworthy person, because to be trustworthy is very rare and not many people achieve it. Everyone, however, can find a trustworthy person and accompany him, in order to be guided. Following a trustworthy person is essential to our spiritual path. Such a person is needed to lead us, to guide us, and to be a beacon for us on that way.
In the Naqshbandi Order, the living presence of a connected shaykh is essential. Through his physical and spiritual linkage to the Prophet , he establishes the disciple’s connection. The disciple’s obligation is to maintain his connection to his shaykh, to hold tightly to the hand of the one within his reach. The shaykh maintains the further connection to the previous shaykhs and to the Prophet .
From what has been said above and in the biographies of the masters, the importance of accompanying a true master is clearly demonstrated. It provides the seeker with the opportunity to learn the essentials of ethics and good conduct, to discover the hidden defects of his heart, and to be lifted to the states of perfection. There are two requisites for entering upon such an endeavor: when the seeker feels the need to seek in this way, he must purify his intention and ask his Lord to connect him to a truthful person, and he must look in his own country for someone who will point him in the direction of the perfected guide.
The Need for a Living Guide
If one is separated from his shaykh by death or other circumstances, it becomes necessary to find a living guide who can complete the work of the first master. The path itself is not the goal, but the means to reach the goal. Holding on to the attachment to a master who is no longer present usually represents an unrealistic expectation and a false hope. It may also be a manifestation of pride. Although they had already pledged themselves to the Prophet , the Companions had to take initiation with Abu Bakr "r" after the Prophet died. As they renewed their pledge to the successive caliphs, Umar "r", Uthman "r", and Ali "as", so too does a sincere seeker need to put his hand into the hand of a living shaykh, and renew his initiation, in order to complete his journey to the Divine Presence.
Qualifications of a Master
Masters of Tariqa possess the following four qualifications:
A SCHOLAR IN THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE RELIGION
The master must be a scholar in all religious obligations, such as the conditions of prescribed prayers, the conditions of prescribed fasting, and the conditions of the prescribed poor-due. He must be knowledgeable in Islamic jurisprudence and all necessary matters of the Divine Law. He must be a scholar in the science of monotheism (Oneness of God) and all the other conditions of faith.
A KNOWER
To be a knower means the master must have the knowledge of the conditions of the state of excellence, as mentioned by the Prophet in the Tradition:
Worship God as if you see Him, and if you do not see him, know that He sees you.
A knower must bear witness in his heart that God is the Unique One in His Essence, in His Attributes, and in His Actions. He must know about His Attributes through vision and taste, by experiencing self-effacement in the Divine Presence.
SANCTIFIED
The master must have already purified or sanctified himself as a seeker under a master of his own. He will have come to know the different stages of the ego, its illnesses and its defects. The master must be fully aware of all the methods Satan uses to enter the breast. He must know all the ways to sanctify others and the methods to heal his followers in order to raise them up to reach the state of perfection.
If a seeker comes to the shaykh with perfect sincerity and truthfulness, asking to be initiated in the Order, the shaykh must not hurry to initiate him, until he knows that he will remain trustworthy when he reaches the goal. He must look at his capability. If his capability corresponds to the capability of the near ones, then he will show him the way, as it is the way of the trustworthy.
That way is built on effacing one’s own will and connecting and submitting oneself to the will of one’s shaykh. The seeker must do as the Prophet said, “Die before you die!” He must leave his natural will, which causes him to move according to his mind, and leave all his affairs to the will of his shaykh. The shaykh will lift him up through a path filled with difficulties, train him through worship, and guide him to a state of complete self-effacement. Only this will elevate him to the Divine Presence.
That is why Khwaja Ubayd Allah al-Ahrar said: Who is the shaykh? The shaykh is the one who can know, through the vision that God has granted him, the capability of his disciple. From the day he meets him to the day of his death, he will know which state the disciple will attain, in which way he will taste, and in which way he will reach the Divine Presence. If the shaykh cannot summon that knowledge, it is forbidden for him to give the seeker initiation. The shaykh must avoid the wealth of his disciple. If the disciple wishes to help the shaykh it, is his choice. The states of guidance are above all states, and the master must not ask except from the Divine Presence.
It is said that once a disciple of Junayd came to him and wanted to give him all his money. Junayd refused and said, “No.” When that same disciple reached the state of perfection and was lifted up to the Divine Presence, he came to Junayd and again offered to give all his money to him. At that time Junayd said, “Yes. Now, I accept, because when you give now, you will not regret later.”
We do not like our disciples to give money to the shaykh before they have reached the state of perfection because they might regret later and be in doubt. This will harm them. When the disciple reaches that state, he will give sincerely and will never regret it later.
The evidence of this is that Abu Bakr "r" and Umar "r" came to the Prophet " and from the first Abu Bakr "r" gave all his money.
The Prophet asked, “What have you left for your family?” He replied, “I have left them God and His Prophet .” When the disciple reaches the state of real generosity and real perfection, then the shaykh may accept what he gives. If he has not reached that state, his gift must not be accepted.
The shaykh must not order any of his followers to do something he himself cannot do or would not do. He must know all the obligatory and forbidden actions according to the Divine Law. Similarly, he must know all the states of spirituality, and must have tasted all tastes, so that he is an example, and when he speaks he speaks with real knowledge. An example of this is a lady who came to a perfect shaykh with her son, saying, “My son is always asking for sweets. Please pray for him to leave that desire, as I do not always have sweets to give him.” He said, “Be patient for three days and then bring him back to me.” After three days, she brought him back and the shaykh told him, “O my son, do not eat candies, because it is harmful for your stomach.” From that day the child never ate sweets again. Sometime later someone asked the shaykh, “Why did you wait three days to give the child that advice?” That shaykh replied, “When the lady came to me, she asked me to prevent her child from eating sweets. I could not do that for him because I myself was under that temptation of eating sweets. So I stopped eating sweets for three days. When I had stopped, I was able to supplicate for him, and that supplication was accepted.”
Qushayri relates in his Letters that Hallaj was once asked to talk about poverty. He said, “Wait a minute.” He entered his house, went out somewhere, and came back. Then he sat and spoke, saying poverty consists of this and that. One disciple asked him, “O my shaykh, why did you not speak like this from the beginning?” He said, “When I was asked, I had one dirham in my house. I could not speak about poverty while I still had something. So I went and took that dirham, spent it in God’s way, and then I could speak on poverty.”
HAVING AUTHORIZATION
The shaykh must have authorization from his master to train his followers and to show the Way of this Path. That permission must reach him through the chain of the Grandshaykhs from one to another, all the way back to the Prophet "S". As the wise person will not go to a doctor who has no license in healing, so the seeker in this way must find a perfect guide who has received the license, the permission, from his shaykh.
Imam Muslim said, “This great knowledge (the knowledge of the self) is by itself the religion. So you have to know from whom you take your religion.” In the book of Hafiz ibn Ali, Kanz al-ummal, the following Tradition is found:
The Prophet said, “O Umar, your religion is your flesh and blood. Look at those from whom you take your religion. Take it from those who are on the right path and do not take from those who have deviated.” A knower said, “Knowledge is a spirit which is blown into the hearts, not philosophy or pretty tales to be written. So be very careful from whom you take it.”
The Signs of Mastery
The main indication of mastery is that when you sit with a master you feel a breeze of faith, spiritual pleasure. He does not speak except about God. He is always advising the good. You will benefit from being in his company as you benefit from his words. You will benefit when you are far from him as you benefit when you are near him. You must see among his disciples the picture of faith, sincerity, humbleness, and piety (God-consciousness), and you must remember, when you are mixing with them, the highest state of love, truth, and deference to others. You must see that his followers represent all different kinds of people in the community. That is how the Companions of the Prophet "S" were.
Initiation
The seeker must follow a perfect master able to guide him to the way of God, Almighty and Exalted, and to illuminate for him that way until he reaches the state of annihilation. The seeker must give his oath and his promise to his guide, to learn from him how to put aside his bad manners and to lift himself to better conduct in order to reach the perfect knowledge of spirituality. The meaning of initiation and its conditions has been mentioned in the Holy Quran, in the Sunnah of the Prophet "S", and in the lives of the Companions:
Verily those who swear allegiance to thee indeed swear allegiance to God. The Hand of God is over their hands. So whoever breaks his oath, breaks it to his own loss; and whoever fulfills the covenant that he has made with God, He will surely give him a great reward. (48:10)
And fulfill the Covenant of God when you have made it. Break not your oaths after making them firm, while you have made God your surety. Certainly, God knows what you do. (16:91)
And fulfill the covenant, for the covenant shall be questioned about. (17:34)
We see the Quran encouraging people to give their oath and to keep their oath to the Prophet "S", who leads them to the Presence of God, Almighty and Exalted. That initiation was done in the time of the Prophet "S" and after the time of the Prophet "S".
According to the Sunnah of the Prophet "S", the oath was taken from men, as a group or as individuals; from women, as a group or as individuals; and even from children.
Bukhari and Muslim narrate that Ubada ibn Samit "r" said: The Prophet "S" said, “Give me your pledge and oath not to associate anything with God, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to kill your children, not to backbite, not to fall into sin. And who keeps his promise, then his reward is from God, Almighty and Exalted.” And then we gave our pledge to the Prophet "S" and our oath.
The Prophet "S" gave initiation to all people and urged them to take it. Bukhari and Muslim narrated in their books that Abd Allah ibn Umar ² said:When we pledged to the Prophet "S" to listen and obey, the Prophet "S" said, “To the limit that you can bear.”
INITIATION OF WOMEN
The Prophet "S" accepted the allegiance of women many times. It is narrated by Imam Ahmad in the Musnad that Salma bint Qays ˉ said:
I came to the Prophet "S" with many people from the Helpers. We gave him our pledge that we would not associate anyone with God, we would not steal, we would not commit adultery, we would not kill our children, we would not backbite, and we would not disobey. We gave him our pledge and we went.
INITIATION OF CHILDREN
The Prophet "S", according to the books of Nisai and Tirmidhi, accepted allegiance from Umaymah bint Ruqiyyah "r". It was narrated by Tabarani that Izza bint Khayyil "r" gave her allegiance to the Prophet "S" when she was not yet seven. It was also narrated by Tabarani in an authentic Tradition that the Prophet "S" accepted the allegiance of al-Hasan "as", al-Husayn "as", Abd Allah ibn Abbas ², and Abd Allah ibn Jafar "as" when they were seven years of age.
INITIATION WITH THE CALIPHS
The Companions of the Prophet "S" gave their pledge to the caliphs of the Prophet "S" after his passing. It is narrated through the biographies of the Companions that they gave their pledge to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, to Umar ibn al-Khattab, to Uthman ibn Affan, to Ali , to Muawiya "r", and to all the caliphs who came later, as they had given it to the Prophet "S". The Prophet "S" said in a Tradition related by Abu Dawud and Ahmad: Whoever imitates a group of people will be of them.
Therefore, the inheritors of the master of the Sufi orders, especially the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, inherited the initiation in every century. Just as it was an obligation in the times of the Prophet "S", the Companions, the Successors, the Successors of the Successors, and in the times of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuks, and Ottomans, so it is also an obligation to give our pledge to a perfect guide who leads us to the Way of God, Almighty and Exalted. And who is a better guide than the Sufi masters who are inheritors of the Prophet "S" and inheritors of the Divine Presence?
The scholar, Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, said: Abd al-Qadir Gilani, the Arch-Intercessor of the Sufi Orders, Shaykh Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, and all the Masters of the Naqshbandi Golden Chain, opened the door of initiation as wide as possible, for every individual who has good and true belief, to find something that will be of value to him spiritually, and for everyone to renew his covenant with God, Almighty and Exalted. These Sufi Masters of the Naqshbandi Golden Chain and all Sufi orders lifted their followers to a station of truthfulness, to feel the responsibility of their initiation and to renew their faith.
Thus we see that it is an important factor in every Sufi order for one to give one’s allegiance to the shaykh in order to sanctify oneself and to be lifted up to the Divine Presence. These guides are the revivers in every century to connect our hearts with the heart of the Prophet "S", who in turn connects our heart to the Divine Presence. These guides are the beacon of the light of the Prophet "S" and the Light of the Divine Presence. They are the true examples for all people to follow.
Miracles in Naqshbandiyyah
Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
Suhbah
[Excerpted from Pearls and Coral, a forthcoming Naqshbandi publication]
In the Naqshbandi order one does not have permission to display miraculous powers. Showing all manner of miraculous powers will not bring you to a higher standard. In his youth, Grandshaykh used to do too many but then he was ordered by his Shaykh to "divorce" miraculous powers. His Shaykh said, "As they divorce one spouse from the other, you must divorce miraculous powers; don't come back to it – no need to. People have to follow us because of our 'ilm – our inspired knowledge – not because we can go through the wall, or walk on fire, or fly in the skies."
I know shaykhs who take this [holds his belt to his ear], and they speak through it like a telephone. They then call your parents in their country, just like this. This is not something we like in the Naqshbandi order.
I will tell you a story of Sayyidina Shah Naqshband, the leader of this order. In those days in Bukhara, they used to harvest wheat crops, grind, and make bread to eat. One day, a drought came, and for two or three years there was no rain. So there were no crops, and therefore no flour in the city. Children were dying of hunger.
They knew that Shah Naqshband was a very big saint, so they came to him and they said, please! the whole city is dying. Shah Naqshband was very famous both in external knowledge and internal knowledge, and is still considered one of the big scholars in Islam.
After seeing them starving and starving, feelings of mercy filled his heart and he said, "Whatever wheat is left in the city, bring it to me."
They found a little bit of wheat at the house of the richest person in the city. They brought that precious wheat to him. He went to the flour-mill. At that time they used cows to turn the grinding-stone. So he put that wheat between the two stones, and he put his head in the yoke instead of the cows, and he started going around. As he was turning, flour was coming out. The more he was moving, the more flour was coming out, coming, coming, and he ordered all the city to come and fill bags. All their houses were filled and they had provisions for three or four years ahead, from that small amount of wheat they had brought to him. He displayed that miraculous power – but he had displayed it without permission. Before saints show any miraculous power, they must seek permission from the Prophet (s) through their spiritual connection. If permission is granted, they can display such power without being blamed for it later. If permission is not given, then the saint is obliged to keep himself as an ordinary person and not display any difference from other people.
Shah Naqshband, although he is the greatest leader in that realm, had not taken permission. When he was dying, after the murids had placed him on his bed, they kept seeing him fall down. As he kept falling down from his bed – his long beard reached down – he repeated, "Ya 'Afuww ya 'Afuww... O Forgiver, forgive me, O Forgiver, forgive me..." and kept crying.
Through inspiration he heard a voice asking him, "Why did you show miraculous powers? Do you have more mercy in your heart than I? Didn't I know that they were starving? I am the One who made them starve. Why did you interfere with My will?" Great saints know that if you display miraculous powers, you are interfering with the Will of God. That is why they do not like to show them. They want to keep swimming in that ocean and whatever of His Will God has written to come to pass, they accept it and do not attempt to change it. Saints of a lesser level attempt to change the will of God because they have not yet arrived at that stage of perfection.
That is why Naqshbandi Shaykhs who carry their secrets from the Prophet (s) do not display miraculous powers. Their miraculous power consists only in their knowledge, the inspirations that come to their hearts. They do not try to show physical miracles. I know of a saint in Tripoli, Lebanon. It is a very famous story from my father and my uncles. His name is Shaykh `Ali al 'Omari, a Qadiri saint. When an Italian ship came to the Lebanese sea-shore in 1942 and that ship was full of food packages for the Lebanese people, the Italian commander refused to unload the ship for some reason.
The order was to go back. That saint went to the sea-shore, took a fishing-pole, hooked the ship and held it, just like that, and the ship could not move – finished. He said, "I will not let that ship move until they unload the cargo." After two or three days of negotiations he was still there, without need for him to go to make wudu', eat, or anything. He was praying and holding his fishing-pole. He would not move. When they unloaded, he released the ship. There are saints who interfere, but this does not characterize the highest level of perfection.
There was a Naqshbandi saint by the name of Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi. I saw these events concerning him when I was about eighteen or nineteen years old. I was in Grandshaykh's house in Damascus. A delegation of scholars visited him, saying: "O Mawlana, they want to make a road, and Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi's maqam (his grave or shrine),is in the way. The government sent bulldozers to raze that grave, but they cannot touch it. Every time the bulldozer comes to that point, it stops. If they try to strike the grave, the bulldozer breaks down." They had come to Grandshaykh with the knowledge that there is connection with Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi through tariqah, and were asking him: "Please, solve this problem for us."
Mawlana Shaykh `Abdullah replied: "Give me two or three days."
After two days, he said, "Go to the place of the saint tonight; make dhikr, all of you, then open his grave in the morning and remove him for burial elsewhere."
But Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi had died five hundred years ago! So they said like the Wahhabis say today: "What is left of him?" They said "He's finished; there's just dust there now!" What dust? The Prophet (s) said: "God has forbidden the earth to eat the body of prophets."1
God has said in Qur'an "They are alive in the presence of their Lord, being provided for." (Aali `Imran, 169)
What is true of prophets and shuhada in these two examples is true of saints also, of good people, of sincere people. They are alive. So they were laughing – "He's still there?" Of course he is still there, otherwise why is your bulldozer unable to go through?
That night they went and made dhikr. In the morning, Shaykh `Abdullah's students began to open the grave, block after block, until they came to the main stone. They took that big stone away and the air all around was diffused with a beautiful fragrance. A brilliant light emerged. It was the hour of the dawn prayer (fajr) when all is dark with the day just beginning to break on the horizon. They found him there in his burial shroud, as though he had been buried that very day, perfectly clean, his face looking as if he had just died. It seemed as if his skin would redden if you just pinched it. I was there. When they opened the tomb and removed him I was with my brother. They lifted him from the grave and buried him in another place not far away.
He had been buried there for five-hundred years. What is this that people are saying: `there are no saints' when God says in His Holy Qur'an: "God's saints – there is no fear on them and nor do they grieve." (Yunus,62) and in Hadith Qudsi:
Awliya'i tahta qibaabee`i Ia ya'lamuhum ghayree" (Ghazali, Hujwiri). "My saints are under my domes, no one knows them other than Myself."
Scholars are known by everyone. If He wanted to mention scholars he would say 'ulama`iy. But he said Awliya'i, my saints are under my domes, not "my scholars are under my domes." No one knows them – they are hidden. Saints are hidden. And you do not buy sanctity with a scholar's 'ilm (knowledge). A saint is a grant to people from God. Saints do not become saints by going to universities and receiving degrees. The condition of sainthood is a reward granted from God to person's heart. Even if he knows nothing at all in the way of academic knowledge, God opens up paths in his heart and, at that time, there is nothing of this life that he does not know.
1 Ahmad, Abu Dawud, Ibn Abi Shaybah, Nasa'i, Ibn Majah, Darimi, Ibn Khuzaymah, Haythami, Hakim, Dhahabi, Ţabarani, Bayhaqī, Suyuti,Nawawi.
Miracles in Naqshbandiyyah, part 2
If anyone looks for a saint, he will find one. If anyone looks for an `alim he will find one. If anyone looks for a good person he will find one, and if anyone searches out a bad person, he will find one.
Whatever the intention of your heart is, you will find what is in accord with it. If your intention is to be with a saint, you are going to find a saint.
Who put that intention in your heart? God did. He is telling you: Look for my saintly ones. If your intention is to find an `alim, you will find one, and if your intention is to find a good person, you will find one.
One day when I was a young boy, in the mid 50's, I was with my oldest brother, who was himself about 25 at the time; we were in the grand mosque in Beirut. It was the time for 'Asr - the afternoon prayer, and my uncle, who was the mufti, was leading the prayer.
A person entered, having a very black beard, and sat next to my brother. The afternoon prayer was ending. My brother had been looking for saints since childhood. The person who sat besides him was very handsome with blue eyes, a white complexion, and a turban.
He called my brother by name and said to him, "Are you Salim?" My brother answered, "Yes, how do you know me?" He said, "Don't ask. You are Naqshbandi," and it was not a question, but my brother said, "yes." He continued, "You are in a branch of Naqshbandi, you are not in the main trunk."
We were connected to my uncle's side before knowing Grandshaykh `Abdullah ad-Daghestani: in Egypt, Shaykh Muhammad(s) Amin al-Kurdi, and in Damascus, Shaykh Ibrahim Ghalayini. He said, "I have been sent to you by my Shaykh, Shaykh `Abdullaah, from Damascus. It is time for you to go and meet him." That was Shaykh Nazim. I was then ten years old.
When the heart is looking for a saint, you will find him, and your heart will tell you, "this is a saint," but your ego will come and say "NO" and interrupt you. When this happens, know that you are on the right way. Sometimes you will think, "this is a saint," and then, "this is not a saint"; at that time, you must know that there is some reality there.
We were attracted to him. We loved him because there was light coming from him. My brother took him to my uncle and we invited him to the house. He stayed overnight and then said, "Come with me to Damascus."
We went to Damascus the next day. SubhanAllah! When we saw Grandshaykh `Abdullah, we felt a great attraction. We saw that all shaykhs in Syria were coming to him, though Grandshaykh did not know how to read or write. Great scholars with big turbans next to which ours are small, people seventy and eighty years of age, came and sat like children in front of Grandshaykh. And when Grandshaykh opened his advice, their 'ilm, their learning was as nothing. They found something extraordinary. He gave explanations that no one had heard before.
We were so attracted that from that time until now, Alhamdulillah, that early connection is still there.
Saints come to you; but they come once. If you do not catch them, they do not come a second time. You have to be very careful. They are not like scholars. Scholars even go from door to door. Some Muslims are now taking their names out of directories, because people come knocking at their doors!
Ulama al-huroof, scholars of words and letters, like to run after people to bring them to their classes because they don't have anything. But saints have everything and therefore come one time. Then you are connected. That's it. So they leave you. Whenever they want you, they pull that rope back and you will come into their presence. One minute of sitting in their association is enough in order to be taken with them on Judgment Day. But everyone must be aware of this fact: Saints come one time, not twice. They do not like to insist. If you are attached, that's it. If you lose, you lose them in this life but not in the hereafter.
If you have sat with them it is enough for you; but in this life you will not feel happiness and see spiritual progress if you lose that connection.
Do not allow too many doubts to enter into your mind; do not allow your heart to shake and become unsteady. They are not asking anything from anyone. They work only for Allah. If anyone believes, he will benefit. If anyone disbelieves, he is a loser. They are not saying to everyone to come and believe in them.
People ask Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, "Why are you not going after people to make them come?" He says, "What God sends, these are selected people. We don't want the unselected. There are many people outside. You can go to them. I am leaving them for others. I want the selected ones. When the selected ones come, you can depend on them. The unselected ones come and go, come and go, like a sieve. What remains are the selected ones."
Saints need selected people. They do not want the leftovers - by which I do not mean with respect to people's hearts but with respect to their moral character. Saints then, take what comes to them.
What is left over, they discard. Do not lose that opportunity and be like leftovers - discarded. Reality does not visit people many times in this life. In fact, it comes only once. As Qur'an said: "Those who believe in the unseen." (2:3)
You need faith in the unseen. That is why the Sufi teachers of the Naqshbandiyyah order do not like to show miracles. If I pass through this wall to the other side, you are certainly going to believe. But what is the value of that belief – nothing at all.
That is why the first pillar of religion in Islam is faith in the unseen. If you want to see, then there is no faith: you have seen. Your spiritual standing, therefore, will not be high.
Why did the Sahabah (r) become the Companions of the Prophet (s) and achieve that high level? Because they believed in the Unseen. The Prophet (s) came, and everyone was worshipping idols. He said, "Leave idols and worship God!" "But where is God – we are not seeing God, but we see the idols." Therefore they believed in the Unseen. Once they believed, God sent more to their hearts. That is why He said to them in Qur'an "O believers, believe in God and in His Prophet."
"O believers..." He called them believers, because they believed in the Useen. At first, before entering Islam, they were unbelievers; He called them to believe in the Unseen, to believe in God. When they said, "Yes, we believe," He called them "believers"; believers without seeing.
Now, he wants to raise them. He is going to take them from the "unseen" position to the seen position. "O believers, believe!..." If they were called believers to start with, what is left to believe? If he has already called them believers, why is he ordering them again to believe?
This means that the initial belief referred to at the beginning of the verse was a lower stage of belief, an imitative belief. He wants to raise them: "Believe now in God and His Apostle." It means, "I am going to show you that light in your hearts. I am raising you from the level of imitation, which is the common level for everyone, up to the seeing level, the heart level that is higher – belief
in God and in the Prophet (s)."
Have they not believed already? But He wants to show them. Now, our belief is mere imitation. Our ego is fighting us – "No, he is not right, yes, he is right... Don't accept this, accept that..." When we accept, they will take you to the other shore.
What do you need in order to cross that ocean from this shore to that? You need two means: Either a bridge, or a vessel to take you, such as a ship or an airplane. If you do not find either of these means, you will never reach the farther shore. This is why God gave this order in Qur'an. They were believers in the Unseen on this shore, having been accepted by Him; but He wants to take them to the second shore, and he told them "Believe" a second time in God and the Prophet (s)," so they can cross to the shore of safety.
There are three levels in the Naqshbandi order:
`Ilmul Yaqin, the knowledge of certainty, `Aynul Yaqin, the eye of certainty,
and Haqqul Yaqin, the truth of certainty.
But before reaching this level of understanding, you must have reached three prior levels:
Mahabbatullaah, love for Allah; Mahabbatu`l-Habib, love for the Prophet (s);
Mahabbatul-mashaayikh, love for saints.
When a man loves a woman, she is always present in his heart. You are always seeing her. When you love someone, you are always remembering her either through the phone or buying her roses or taking her on a picnic. Look what happened to Romeo and Juliet, how Romeo spent all nights either with his guitar or his poetry, while she was up on the balcony, he was sending poems up to her - remembering her.
The first level in Sufism – and in Shari`ah also, it is the same in both – is love of God. If you do not have love for Allah, how are you going to find true pleasure? Everyone in this life now has love for dunya (the world), not for Allah. We have love for the material world. Everyone wants to get everything from this dunya. Don't they know that Allah, who created this dunya, has everything?
They say in Arabic, "ma siw'alLah," "whatever other than God." There is God, and there is what God created. They are after the created, they are not after the Creator. Whatever is other than God, people are running after it – the material world.
But who created that material world? Is not Allah its Creator? And if His name is "the Creator," it means every second He is creating something. He is not stopping creation. Do you want to run after such a Creator who has everything and keeps creating, or do you want to run after some superficial inventions?
Now, anyone who runs after religion or is seeking reality is called raj'i in our countries – a "backward" person. In all Arab countries and all Muslim countries without exception, anyone who seeks reality, who seeks Allah, who seeks love, is called 'backward'.
Is someone who seeks His Lord a 'backward' person? This is the attitude now in those regions. They look at you wondering, "what kind of people are these?" They are ashamed of you in their society. That is what many tryants did when they came. We are seeking only to be good people, people with good manners in society, loving Allah, loving the Prophet (s), loving saints, loving humble people.
What is the shame in this? Everyone is running after the pleasures of this life. No one is running after the Creator of pleasures, the One who has everything. I remember when Grandshaykh was once sitting and speaking about Mahdi (as) He said: "Men are running after women, and women after men. And all the focus of human mentality is this – sexuality; there is nothing else! Everyone is running after that, they have that intention in mind. Yet that intention is coming from God's Ocean of Beauty. God has created that beauty inside men and women."
We are not saying that this is forbidden. God has permitted human beings to love that beauty within the confines of marriage. And Grandshaykh said that in Mahdi and Jesus' (as) time, when Allah is going to open the light of that Ocean to every man and every woman, when they look at that Ocean of Beauty God will be sending to them, the thought of sexual pleasure will be as spit – as nothing, because at that time you will have the whole ocean.
This is what God mentioned in the Qur'an and the Prophet (s) said in Hadith: in Paradise, you are always in never-ending, continuous pleasure.
Now, you take your pleasure for one hour – then it is over. There, it is continuous, for men and women.
In the Last Days, when Mahdi and Jesus appear (as) and Allah opens that Ocean, everyone is going to be running after that light coming from there: the light of complete love.
Now we are trading with Allah because we do not see. If we live to see the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as), there will be no more trading. Traders are trading now – those that are trying to hold themselves in order not to fall into the pleasures of this life.
Anyone that falls into the pleasures of this life now will not find himself in a high position in the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as) time. Anyone that tries to hold himself now, as the Prophet (s) said, keeping his religion patiently as if he is holding fire; if you hold now, you are going to get everything later. But if you allow your body to take everything from this life now, you are not going to find happiness and pleasure there.
The first stage, as we said, is love of Allah, love of the Prophet (s), love of saints. When you have that love, they are always present in your heart. Then you will reach:
Hudurullah, presence of Allah;
Hudurullaah Habib, presence of the Prophet (s);
Hudurullaah mashaayikh, presence of the saints.
When you have Presence, you don't feel anything there except Allah at that time. Then you have:
Fanaa'un fi-lLaah,
fanaa'un fir-Rasaal,
fanaa'un fil-mashaayikh.
At that time you vanish into the stage of non-existence. You are non - existent, and God is existing, the Prophet (s) is there, your Shaykh is there. Through your Shaykh you go to the Prophet (s), and then your Shaykh is finished. For then the Prophet (s) hands you over to God.
When you have accomplished those three levels, only then you go to:
`Ilmu`l-Yaqin;
`Aynu`l-Yaqin;
Haqqu`l-Yaqin,
the three levels of certainty that we began mentioning above. Right now you may have certainty, you may know it, only you hear it and understand about it, but you cannot feel it or see it or live it.
As we were discussing now what Allah is going to open from the Oceans of Beauty in the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as), you are hearing, taking knowledge from that; some of you are feeling; some, only taking knowledge. The second level, 'Aynul Yaqin, the eye of certainty, is when you can see.
When Mawlana Shaykh Nazim speaks, you can see that light; but you cannot feel it, you cannot take the pleasure.
Haqqu`l-Yaqin, the truth of certainty: at that level you hear it, you see it, and you feel it. The first level of knowledge is through hearing. That is why in all verses in the Qur'an where God wants to begin describing, He says "hearing" – everything begins with hearing. At the second level you can both see and hear without feeling, like television: you can see and hear the speaker, but you cannot feel as if you were sitting with him. The third level is as if you are sitting with them in the studio, feeling everything, present, past, and future events. When you are with saints at that level, you will see all three realms.
This is what the Prophet (s) told the Sahabah (r) when he ordered, "Come to me and come to Allah." That is why Allah told them this verse in Qur'an: "O believers, believe..."
His taking them from the position of "belief – unseen" to the position of "belief – seen" hinges on the command "Believe!" That kind of higher belief we do not have, but we have what can be called imitative belief – the position of belief in the unseen. "I want you now to see and to feel what you used only to
hear" –that is the second and third levels: knowledge of certainty, eye of certainty, truth of certainty.
The Prophet (s) took the believers from this shore of the ocean to that other shore with Allah's command "Believe." He showed them complete feelings of happiness and perfect pleasure. If all of us direct ourselves to God and the Prophet (s) and put the love of God and His Prophet (s) in our hearts, at that time they will take us from that level of believing in the Unseen which is mere imitation, to a level of real believing because it is belief in the "Seen."
This is what Naqshbandi teachings are trying to show – to take you from the Unseen, to feel and to See.
In this time people worship five times a day, according to Divine Law, beginning with the words "Allahu Akbar..." and praying. But your heart is preoccupied with materialism and busy with the world of material things. You are standing in the "unseen" position. If you go higher, these teachings will take from the unseen to the "seen," and when you say ALLAHU AKBAR, you will find yourself in front of Ka'bah, seeing and feeling yourself praying there.
That is Shari`ah; this is Tariqah. Shari`ah is the ocean, Tariqah is the ship, the means that allows you to swim in or to cross that ocean. It will protect you from sinking. It will make you see, because it polishes you, scrubbing away the rust from your heart.
Insha`Allah all of us will be following the truth and not accepting what our ego is telling us. We are not telling you not to take your share from this life. Take your share from this life, but put one foot here in this world and one foot there in the hereafter.
Wa mina-llaahit-tawfiq bi hurmati`l-Fatihah.
Suhbah
[Excerpted from Pearls and Coral, a forthcoming Naqshbandi publication]
In the Naqshbandi order one does not have permission to display miraculous powers. Showing all manner of miraculous powers will not bring you to a higher standard. In his youth, Grandshaykh used to do too many but then he was ordered by his Shaykh to "divorce" miraculous powers. His Shaykh said, "As they divorce one spouse from the other, you must divorce miraculous powers; don't come back to it – no need to. People have to follow us because of our 'ilm – our inspired knowledge – not because we can go through the wall, or walk on fire, or fly in the skies."
I know shaykhs who take this [holds his belt to his ear], and they speak through it like a telephone. They then call your parents in their country, just like this. This is not something we like in the Naqshbandi order.
I will tell you a story of Sayyidina Shah Naqshband, the leader of this order. In those days in Bukhara, they used to harvest wheat crops, grind, and make bread to eat. One day, a drought came, and for two or three years there was no rain. So there were no crops, and therefore no flour in the city. Children were dying of hunger.
They knew that Shah Naqshband was a very big saint, so they came to him and they said, please! the whole city is dying. Shah Naqshband was very famous both in external knowledge and internal knowledge, and is still considered one of the big scholars in Islam.
After seeing them starving and starving, feelings of mercy filled his heart and he said, "Whatever wheat is left in the city, bring it to me."
They found a little bit of wheat at the house of the richest person in the city. They brought that precious wheat to him. He went to the flour-mill. At that time they used cows to turn the grinding-stone. So he put that wheat between the two stones, and he put his head in the yoke instead of the cows, and he started going around. As he was turning, flour was coming out. The more he was moving, the more flour was coming out, coming, coming, and he ordered all the city to come and fill bags. All their houses were filled and they had provisions for three or four years ahead, from that small amount of wheat they had brought to him. He displayed that miraculous power – but he had displayed it without permission. Before saints show any miraculous power, they must seek permission from the Prophet (s) through their spiritual connection. If permission is granted, they can display such power without being blamed for it later. If permission is not given, then the saint is obliged to keep himself as an ordinary person and not display any difference from other people.
Shah Naqshband, although he is the greatest leader in that realm, had not taken permission. When he was dying, after the murids had placed him on his bed, they kept seeing him fall down. As he kept falling down from his bed – his long beard reached down – he repeated, "Ya 'Afuww ya 'Afuww... O Forgiver, forgive me, O Forgiver, forgive me..." and kept crying.
Through inspiration he heard a voice asking him, "Why did you show miraculous powers? Do you have more mercy in your heart than I? Didn't I know that they were starving? I am the One who made them starve. Why did you interfere with My will?" Great saints know that if you display miraculous powers, you are interfering with the Will of God. That is why they do not like to show them. They want to keep swimming in that ocean and whatever of His Will God has written to come to pass, they accept it and do not attempt to change it. Saints of a lesser level attempt to change the will of God because they have not yet arrived at that stage of perfection.
That is why Naqshbandi Shaykhs who carry their secrets from the Prophet (s) do not display miraculous powers. Their miraculous power consists only in their knowledge, the inspirations that come to their hearts. They do not try to show physical miracles. I know of a saint in Tripoli, Lebanon. It is a very famous story from my father and my uncles. His name is Shaykh `Ali al 'Omari, a Qadiri saint. When an Italian ship came to the Lebanese sea-shore in 1942 and that ship was full of food packages for the Lebanese people, the Italian commander refused to unload the ship for some reason.
The order was to go back. That saint went to the sea-shore, took a fishing-pole, hooked the ship and held it, just like that, and the ship could not move – finished. He said, "I will not let that ship move until they unload the cargo." After two or three days of negotiations he was still there, without need for him to go to make wudu', eat, or anything. He was praying and holding his fishing-pole. He would not move. When they unloaded, he released the ship. There are saints who interfere, but this does not characterize the highest level of perfection.
There was a Naqshbandi saint by the name of Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi. I saw these events concerning him when I was about eighteen or nineteen years old. I was in Grandshaykh's house in Damascus. A delegation of scholars visited him, saying: "O Mawlana, they want to make a road, and Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi's maqam (his grave or shrine),is in the way. The government sent bulldozers to raze that grave, but they cannot touch it. Every time the bulldozer comes to that point, it stops. If they try to strike the grave, the bulldozer breaks down." They had come to Grandshaykh with the knowledge that there is connection with Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi through tariqah, and were asking him: "Please, solve this problem for us."
Mawlana Shaykh `Abdullah replied: "Give me two or three days."
After two days, he said, "Go to the place of the saint tonight; make dhikr, all of you, then open his grave in the morning and remove him for burial elsewhere."
But Sidi Sa'd ad-Din Jabawi had died five hundred years ago! So they said like the Wahhabis say today: "What is left of him?" They said "He's finished; there's just dust there now!" What dust? The Prophet (s) said: "God has forbidden the earth to eat the body of prophets."1
God has said in Qur'an "They are alive in the presence of their Lord, being provided for." (Aali `Imran, 169)
What is true of prophets and shuhada in these two examples is true of saints also, of good people, of sincere people. They are alive. So they were laughing – "He's still there?" Of course he is still there, otherwise why is your bulldozer unable to go through?
That night they went and made dhikr. In the morning, Shaykh `Abdullah's students began to open the grave, block after block, until they came to the main stone. They took that big stone away and the air all around was diffused with a beautiful fragrance. A brilliant light emerged. It was the hour of the dawn prayer (fajr) when all is dark with the day just beginning to break on the horizon. They found him there in his burial shroud, as though he had been buried that very day, perfectly clean, his face looking as if he had just died. It seemed as if his skin would redden if you just pinched it. I was there. When they opened the tomb and removed him I was with my brother. They lifted him from the grave and buried him in another place not far away.
He had been buried there for five-hundred years. What is this that people are saying: `there are no saints' when God says in His Holy Qur'an: "God's saints – there is no fear on them and nor do they grieve." (Yunus,62) and in Hadith Qudsi:
Awliya'i tahta qibaabee`i Ia ya'lamuhum ghayree" (Ghazali, Hujwiri). "My saints are under my domes, no one knows them other than Myself."
Scholars are known by everyone. If He wanted to mention scholars he would say 'ulama`iy. But he said Awliya'i, my saints are under my domes, not "my scholars are under my domes." No one knows them – they are hidden. Saints are hidden. And you do not buy sanctity with a scholar's 'ilm (knowledge). A saint is a grant to people from God. Saints do not become saints by going to universities and receiving degrees. The condition of sainthood is a reward granted from God to person's heart. Even if he knows nothing at all in the way of academic knowledge, God opens up paths in his heart and, at that time, there is nothing of this life that he does not know.
1 Ahmad, Abu Dawud, Ibn Abi Shaybah, Nasa'i, Ibn Majah, Darimi, Ibn Khuzaymah, Haythami, Hakim, Dhahabi, Ţabarani, Bayhaqī, Suyuti,Nawawi.
Miracles in Naqshbandiyyah, part 2
If anyone looks for a saint, he will find one. If anyone looks for an `alim he will find one. If anyone looks for a good person he will find one, and if anyone searches out a bad person, he will find one.
Whatever the intention of your heart is, you will find what is in accord with it. If your intention is to be with a saint, you are going to find a saint.
Who put that intention in your heart? God did. He is telling you: Look for my saintly ones. If your intention is to find an `alim, you will find one, and if your intention is to find a good person, you will find one.
One day when I was a young boy, in the mid 50's, I was with my oldest brother, who was himself about 25 at the time; we were in the grand mosque in Beirut. It was the time for 'Asr - the afternoon prayer, and my uncle, who was the mufti, was leading the prayer.
A person entered, having a very black beard, and sat next to my brother. The afternoon prayer was ending. My brother had been looking for saints since childhood. The person who sat besides him was very handsome with blue eyes, a white complexion, and a turban.
He called my brother by name and said to him, "Are you Salim?" My brother answered, "Yes, how do you know me?" He said, "Don't ask. You are Naqshbandi," and it was not a question, but my brother said, "yes." He continued, "You are in a branch of Naqshbandi, you are not in the main trunk."
We were connected to my uncle's side before knowing Grandshaykh `Abdullah ad-Daghestani: in Egypt, Shaykh Muhammad(s) Amin al-Kurdi, and in Damascus, Shaykh Ibrahim Ghalayini. He said, "I have been sent to you by my Shaykh, Shaykh `Abdullaah, from Damascus. It is time for you to go and meet him." That was Shaykh Nazim. I was then ten years old.
When the heart is looking for a saint, you will find him, and your heart will tell you, "this is a saint," but your ego will come and say "NO" and interrupt you. When this happens, know that you are on the right way. Sometimes you will think, "this is a saint," and then, "this is not a saint"; at that time, you must know that there is some reality there.
We were attracted to him. We loved him because there was light coming from him. My brother took him to my uncle and we invited him to the house. He stayed overnight and then said, "Come with me to Damascus."
We went to Damascus the next day. SubhanAllah! When we saw Grandshaykh `Abdullah, we felt a great attraction. We saw that all shaykhs in Syria were coming to him, though Grandshaykh did not know how to read or write. Great scholars with big turbans next to which ours are small, people seventy and eighty years of age, came and sat like children in front of Grandshaykh. And when Grandshaykh opened his advice, their 'ilm, their learning was as nothing. They found something extraordinary. He gave explanations that no one had heard before.
We were so attracted that from that time until now, Alhamdulillah, that early connection is still there.
Saints come to you; but they come once. If you do not catch them, they do not come a second time. You have to be very careful. They are not like scholars. Scholars even go from door to door. Some Muslims are now taking their names out of directories, because people come knocking at their doors!
Ulama al-huroof, scholars of words and letters, like to run after people to bring them to their classes because they don't have anything. But saints have everything and therefore come one time. Then you are connected. That's it. So they leave you. Whenever they want you, they pull that rope back and you will come into their presence. One minute of sitting in their association is enough in order to be taken with them on Judgment Day. But everyone must be aware of this fact: Saints come one time, not twice. They do not like to insist. If you are attached, that's it. If you lose, you lose them in this life but not in the hereafter.
If you have sat with them it is enough for you; but in this life you will not feel happiness and see spiritual progress if you lose that connection.
Do not allow too many doubts to enter into your mind; do not allow your heart to shake and become unsteady. They are not asking anything from anyone. They work only for Allah. If anyone believes, he will benefit. If anyone disbelieves, he is a loser. They are not saying to everyone to come and believe in them.
People ask Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, "Why are you not going after people to make them come?" He says, "What God sends, these are selected people. We don't want the unselected. There are many people outside. You can go to them. I am leaving them for others. I want the selected ones. When the selected ones come, you can depend on them. The unselected ones come and go, come and go, like a sieve. What remains are the selected ones."
Saints need selected people. They do not want the leftovers - by which I do not mean with respect to people's hearts but with respect to their moral character. Saints then, take what comes to them.
What is left over, they discard. Do not lose that opportunity and be like leftovers - discarded. Reality does not visit people many times in this life. In fact, it comes only once. As Qur'an said: "Those who believe in the unseen." (2:3)
You need faith in the unseen. That is why the Sufi teachers of the Naqshbandiyyah order do not like to show miracles. If I pass through this wall to the other side, you are certainly going to believe. But what is the value of that belief – nothing at all.
That is why the first pillar of religion in Islam is faith in the unseen. If you want to see, then there is no faith: you have seen. Your spiritual standing, therefore, will not be high.
Why did the Sahabah (r) become the Companions of the Prophet (s) and achieve that high level? Because they believed in the Unseen. The Prophet (s) came, and everyone was worshipping idols. He said, "Leave idols and worship God!" "But where is God – we are not seeing God, but we see the idols." Therefore they believed in the Unseen. Once they believed, God sent more to their hearts. That is why He said to them in Qur'an "O believers, believe in God and in His Prophet."
"O believers..." He called them believers, because they believed in the Useen. At first, before entering Islam, they were unbelievers; He called them to believe in the Unseen, to believe in God. When they said, "Yes, we believe," He called them "believers"; believers without seeing.
Now, he wants to raise them. He is going to take them from the "unseen" position to the seen position. "O believers, believe!..." If they were called believers to start with, what is left to believe? If he has already called them believers, why is he ordering them again to believe?
This means that the initial belief referred to at the beginning of the verse was a lower stage of belief, an imitative belief. He wants to raise them: "Believe now in God and His Apostle." It means, "I am going to show you that light in your hearts. I am raising you from the level of imitation, which is the common level for everyone, up to the seeing level, the heart level that is higher – belief
in God and in the Prophet (s)."
Have they not believed already? But He wants to show them. Now, our belief is mere imitation. Our ego is fighting us – "No, he is not right, yes, he is right... Don't accept this, accept that..." When we accept, they will take you to the other shore.
What do you need in order to cross that ocean from this shore to that? You need two means: Either a bridge, or a vessel to take you, such as a ship or an airplane. If you do not find either of these means, you will never reach the farther shore. This is why God gave this order in Qur'an. They were believers in the Unseen on this shore, having been accepted by Him; but He wants to take them to the second shore, and he told them "Believe" a second time in God and the Prophet (s)," so they can cross to the shore of safety.
There are three levels in the Naqshbandi order:
`Ilmul Yaqin, the knowledge of certainty, `Aynul Yaqin, the eye of certainty,
and Haqqul Yaqin, the truth of certainty.
But before reaching this level of understanding, you must have reached three prior levels:
Mahabbatullaah, love for Allah; Mahabbatu`l-Habib, love for the Prophet (s);
Mahabbatul-mashaayikh, love for saints.
When a man loves a woman, she is always present in his heart. You are always seeing her. When you love someone, you are always remembering her either through the phone or buying her roses or taking her on a picnic. Look what happened to Romeo and Juliet, how Romeo spent all nights either with his guitar or his poetry, while she was up on the balcony, he was sending poems up to her - remembering her.
The first level in Sufism – and in Shari`ah also, it is the same in both – is love of God. If you do not have love for Allah, how are you going to find true pleasure? Everyone in this life now has love for dunya (the world), not for Allah. We have love for the material world. Everyone wants to get everything from this dunya. Don't they know that Allah, who created this dunya, has everything?
They say in Arabic, "ma siw'alLah," "whatever other than God." There is God, and there is what God created. They are after the created, they are not after the Creator. Whatever is other than God, people are running after it – the material world.
But who created that material world? Is not Allah its Creator? And if His name is "the Creator," it means every second He is creating something. He is not stopping creation. Do you want to run after such a Creator who has everything and keeps creating, or do you want to run after some superficial inventions?
Now, anyone who runs after religion or is seeking reality is called raj'i in our countries – a "backward" person. In all Arab countries and all Muslim countries without exception, anyone who seeks reality, who seeks Allah, who seeks love, is called 'backward'.
Is someone who seeks His Lord a 'backward' person? This is the attitude now in those regions. They look at you wondering, "what kind of people are these?" They are ashamed of you in their society. That is what many tryants did when they came. We are seeking only to be good people, people with good manners in society, loving Allah, loving the Prophet (s), loving saints, loving humble people.
What is the shame in this? Everyone is running after the pleasures of this life. No one is running after the Creator of pleasures, the One who has everything. I remember when Grandshaykh was once sitting and speaking about Mahdi (as) He said: "Men are running after women, and women after men. And all the focus of human mentality is this – sexuality; there is nothing else! Everyone is running after that, they have that intention in mind. Yet that intention is coming from God's Ocean of Beauty. God has created that beauty inside men and women."
We are not saying that this is forbidden. God has permitted human beings to love that beauty within the confines of marriage. And Grandshaykh said that in Mahdi and Jesus' (as) time, when Allah is going to open the light of that Ocean to every man and every woman, when they look at that Ocean of Beauty God will be sending to them, the thought of sexual pleasure will be as spit – as nothing, because at that time you will have the whole ocean.
This is what God mentioned in the Qur'an and the Prophet (s) said in Hadith: in Paradise, you are always in never-ending, continuous pleasure.
Now, you take your pleasure for one hour – then it is over. There, it is continuous, for men and women.
In the Last Days, when Mahdi and Jesus appear (as) and Allah opens that Ocean, everyone is going to be running after that light coming from there: the light of complete love.
Now we are trading with Allah because we do not see. If we live to see the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as), there will be no more trading. Traders are trading now – those that are trying to hold themselves in order not to fall into the pleasures of this life.
Anyone that falls into the pleasures of this life now will not find himself in a high position in the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as) time. Anyone that tries to hold himself now, as the Prophet (s) said, keeping his religion patiently as if he is holding fire; if you hold now, you are going to get everything later. But if you allow your body to take everything from this life now, you are not going to find happiness and pleasure there.
The first stage, as we said, is love of Allah, love of the Prophet (s), love of saints. When you have that love, they are always present in your heart. Then you will reach:
Hudurullah, presence of Allah;
Hudurullaah Habib, presence of the Prophet (s);
Hudurullaah mashaayikh, presence of the saints.
When you have Presence, you don't feel anything there except Allah at that time. Then you have:
Fanaa'un fi-lLaah,
fanaa'un fir-Rasaal,
fanaa'un fil-mashaayikh.
At that time you vanish into the stage of non-existence. You are non - existent, and God is existing, the Prophet (s) is there, your Shaykh is there. Through your Shaykh you go to the Prophet (s), and then your Shaykh is finished. For then the Prophet (s) hands you over to God.
When you have accomplished those three levels, only then you go to:
`Ilmu`l-Yaqin;
`Aynu`l-Yaqin;
Haqqu`l-Yaqin,
the three levels of certainty that we began mentioning above. Right now you may have certainty, you may know it, only you hear it and understand about it, but you cannot feel it or see it or live it.
As we were discussing now what Allah is going to open from the Oceans of Beauty in the time of Mahdi and Jesus (as), you are hearing, taking knowledge from that; some of you are feeling; some, only taking knowledge. The second level, 'Aynul Yaqin, the eye of certainty, is when you can see.
When Mawlana Shaykh Nazim speaks, you can see that light; but you cannot feel it, you cannot take the pleasure.
Haqqu`l-Yaqin, the truth of certainty: at that level you hear it, you see it, and you feel it. The first level of knowledge is through hearing. That is why in all verses in the Qur'an where God wants to begin describing, He says "hearing" – everything begins with hearing. At the second level you can both see and hear without feeling, like television: you can see and hear the speaker, but you cannot feel as if you were sitting with him. The third level is as if you are sitting with them in the studio, feeling everything, present, past, and future events. When you are with saints at that level, you will see all three realms.
This is what the Prophet (s) told the Sahabah (r) when he ordered, "Come to me and come to Allah." That is why Allah told them this verse in Qur'an: "O believers, believe..."
His taking them from the position of "belief – unseen" to the position of "belief – seen" hinges on the command "Believe!" That kind of higher belief we do not have, but we have what can be called imitative belief – the position of belief in the unseen. "I want you now to see and to feel what you used only to
hear" –that is the second and third levels: knowledge of certainty, eye of certainty, truth of certainty.
The Prophet (s) took the believers from this shore of the ocean to that other shore with Allah's command "Believe." He showed them complete feelings of happiness and perfect pleasure. If all of us direct ourselves to God and the Prophet (s) and put the love of God and His Prophet (s) in our hearts, at that time they will take us from that level of believing in the Unseen which is mere imitation, to a level of real believing because it is belief in the "Seen."
This is what Naqshbandi teachings are trying to show – to take you from the Unseen, to feel and to See.
In this time people worship five times a day, according to Divine Law, beginning with the words "Allahu Akbar..." and praying. But your heart is preoccupied with materialism and busy with the world of material things. You are standing in the "unseen" position. If you go higher, these teachings will take from the unseen to the "seen," and when you say ALLAHU AKBAR, you will find yourself in front of Ka'bah, seeing and feeling yourself praying there.
That is Shari`ah; this is Tariqah. Shari`ah is the ocean, Tariqah is the ship, the means that allows you to swim in or to cross that ocean. It will protect you from sinking. It will make you see, because it polishes you, scrubbing away the rust from your heart.
Insha`Allah all of us will be following the truth and not accepting what our ego is telling us. We are not telling you not to take your share from this life. Take your share from this life, but put one foot here in this world and one foot there in the hereafter.
Wa mina-llaahit-tawfiq bi hurmati`l-Fatihah.
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