Suhbah at As-Siddiq Institute & Mosque (ASIM)
A`oodhu billaahi min ‘ash-Shaytani 'r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem. Dastoor yaa Sayyidee, madad. Dastoor yaa Qutb al-Mutassarif, madad.
Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Kareem Allah!
Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Sultan Allah!
Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Subhaan Allah!
Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, `Azeez Allah,
Salaam `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. We call on Allah (swt) with His Holy Names and Attributes. During dhikr something comes into your heart; you are asking something and Allah (swt) knows what is in each and every one of our hearts and lives, what we are hiding from people and what secrets we have inside of us.
يَوْمَ تُبْلَى السَّرَائِرُ فَمَا لَهُ مِنْ قُوَّةٍ وَلَا نَاصِرٍ
The Day when secrets will be put on trial, then Man will have no power or any helper.
(Surat at-Taariq, 86:9-10)
There will be a Day when the secrets are opened. Today no one knows what secrets you are hiding, even the person next to you doesn't know, but there will be a Day when Allah (swt) will open for all the secrets to be known. How would one feel then when his hatred for his fellow brother comes out, when the sin he does in one night comes out in front of everyone? How would he know when something he stole from someone comes out and he is known as a thief, a liar and a cheat? That Day is going to come when the secrets will be revealed, then they will have no support and no helper.
Today you have people commit a crime and allies help them conceal it, but on that Day there will be no helper and no one to conceal it. Allah (swt) is warning us to be sure your inside is clean because it is going to be outside on the Day of Judgment! There is a du`a:
اللهم اجعل سريرتي أفضل من علانيتي
Allahumma ij`al sareeratee afdal min `alaniyyatee.
O my Lord, make my inner better than my outward.
That is why a mu’min comes with so much Light on Judgment Day. Today when you meet a mu’min you don't know if he is a saint or not, he behaves piously and good, but you don’t know on that Day his Light will shine because his good will come out. Today we hide our hatred and hypocrisy from others, but what happens when our inside comes out, when Allah (swt) will not even look at that person? There is a group of people on Judgment Day that Allah (swt) will not look at.
وَلَا يَنْظُرُ إِلَيْهِمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ وَلَا يُزَكِّيهِمْ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
Allah will not speak to them or look at them on the Day of Resurrection, nor will He purify them, and they will have a painful punishment. (Surat Aali `Imraan, 3:77)
There is a group of people on Judgment Day whom Allah (swt) will not look at, nor will He clean them, and they will have a very painful punishment. We don’t want to be from that group, so when our inward manifests its ugliness, the Prophet (s) said on the Night of Ascension that he saw people that stunk from their sins. That could be us on the Day of Judgment, from our sins! So how does it feel when someone is smelly and ugly on the Day of Judgment and Allah (swt) does not look at him? There is a du`a from Hizb al-`Azham that Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) recommended we read every day, a collection on the side of Dala’il al-Khayraat:
عَنْ عُمَرَ بْنِ الْخَطَّابِ قَالَعَلَّمَنِي رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ قُلْ اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْ سَرِيرَتِي خَيْرًا مِنْ عَلَانِيَتِي وَاجْعَلْ عَلَانِيَتِي صَالِحَةً
Allahumma ij`al sareeratee afdal min `alaniyyatee wa 'ja`la sareerati saaliha.
O Allah! Make my inward better than my outward and make my inner self righteous. (Sunan at-Tirmidhi)
If we make this du`a, don't you think Allah will accept it? Yes, as He said;
ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
Call on Me, I will answer you. (Surah Ghafir, 40:60)
So if we ask, “O Allah! Make our inward better than our outward and make our inner pure,” will not Allah (swt) accept it? Yes, He will, but Allah (swt) does not like kufr, rejection of His favor, so we have to ask and then Allah will answer our call. During dhikr we each know our thoughts, whether from our heart or our ego. If it is a good thought, mashaa-Allah that's good, but if it's a bad thought we have to fight it off because it will manifest later in our life or on the Day of Judgment. If we had a good thought then may Allah (swt) make it more.
For example, if I think, “Tonight I will make up with someone I fought with,” that is good, islaah. If I think,“Tonight I will pray late into the night.” mashaa-Allah that is good. “Tomorrow I will kiss Mom’s/Dad’s hand,” mashaa-Allah that is good. Allah (swt) rewards us for good thoughts and when we have bad thoughts, Allah (swt) will punish us, so we need to repent.
On that Day when our inward is visible to everybody, we have to be careful that we have iman and good character because that will appear to people. The Prophet (s) gave us so many ways to do that, all you have to do is Google search “Hadith” or “Hadith on light” and “dhikrullah” you will find all kinds of Hadith narrating how all our inner will be cleaned up on Judgment Day. If we did dhikr, we will be shining, whereas others will have darkness on that Day.
وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ عَلَيْهَا غَبَرَةٌ
And (other) faces that Day will have dust upon them. (Surat `Abasa, 80:40)
There will be faces frowning, dark, full of dirt and dust, but on the other hand there will be faces full of light, blissful and happy. We have to worry about what kind of face we are going to have. We live this life for 20, 30, 40 years or more, then we are going to leave and will meet our Lord and there is no way out of that, everyone dies. The Prophet (s) said:
من مات فقد قامت قيامته
When someone dies, his Day of Judgment has come. (Daylami)
As soon as we leave this world our Day of Judgment comes, so we ask Allah (swt) to forgive us and that in the last moments of our life we leave with full iman and with Shahadah, “Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha illa-Llaah wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasoolullah,” inshaa-Allah, that we live, die and meet our Lord on these words!
This knowledge came to us from whom? I don't know, and he did not know and you did not know. Allah (swt) created human beings and said:
إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُومًا جَهُولًا
Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant. (Surat al-Ahzaab, 33:72)
“Surely, the human being was created ignorant.” Who taught us? All the books written on iman, Islam and Shar`iah, who brought that? The Prophet (s) brought it: no one could reach that knowledge without the Prophet (s), who did not read or write and never had a book in his hand! [someone sneezes]
Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Shahid al-Haqq! Allahu Akbar! He (s) never read, he did not know the letters, did not know how to read or write, so how did that knowledge come? Nowadays people say you have to go to university to read Shari`ah and study volumes and take tests or else you are not a knowledgeable person. Is this not true? People take crash courses these days. Why? They want a stamp from someone whom they never met, and that dean or whoever, in Saudi or wherever, stamps that certificate and then mashaa-Allah they know everything! [Laughter.] Yet the Prophet (s) did not read any books and at that time, in that context, the way he came to this world he was illiterate; he did not read religious books of the Jews or Christians; rather, the knowledge came to him without reading books.
That means to learn you don’t need your eyes, ears, tongue of your physical body. When you read a book you use your eyes and you want to hear as well, so when you cannot read you don't need your eyes to learn because real learning is spiritual. So the Prophet (s) got this knowledge from where? Where did it come down to, on which part of Sayyidina Muhammad (s) did Creation come down? His heart! It came to his heart, not to his physical eyes! So that spiritual, real knowledge comes to one’s heart, so if anyone does not read or write, we cannot dismiss them as someone who cannot speak about Islam, Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s).
People nowadays go by what they see and they ask, “Do you have a diploma from an Islamic university? No? Then we don't want to listen to you. Can you show us Allah (swt)? No? Then we don't believe you.” They asked the Prophet (s), “Can you fly up in the sky? Can you bring a book down to us?” They actually asked the Prophet (s) to do extraordinary things because they wanted to see with their eyes because they could only comprehend with their senses, but the Holy Qur'an came to the heart, which is not part of the five senses!
One with heavenly knowledge knows things without having a diploma, such as our shuyookh, guides; they didn't go to a university somewhere in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, no! They went to a saint, a wali, because the knowledge is there. They didn't have to go to a classroom and sit on a desk and memorize and then take a test and say, “Oh, I am a full-fledged scholar now, I know everything.” It is good to do, but that is not the only way. Today when you go to any conference, they want your credentials; if someone came to a conference and wants to talk, will they let him? You must have letters attached to your name and be connected with some university. What is that? That is Shaytan blowing, “I am big, I am bigger, I know, I know, I have a PhD, and MBA, I am a Doctor of Shari`ah, `Allaamah, Mawlana.” All these titles are attached to their names and also “al-Hajj”, and he becomes bigger and bigger and bigger as Shaytan is blowing on him!
I remember Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) saying, “I did not go except to my shaykh and look at his knowledge.” Books and books and books were written about him, but not by him; he never wrote a book. He follows the footsteps of the Prophet (s) to a 'T'. Whenever I go back to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q), I look and find he follows the Prophet (s). Did the Prophet (s) ever write a book or tafseer? No, he never took a pen and wrote any of it, the Sahaabah, Tabi`een and Tabi` tabi`een (r) wrote it and explained it. To my knowledge, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) never wrote a book from cover to cover, but people wrote what he said.
Ask people often to pray for you, as no one knows when a servant's du`a will be accepted by Allah (swt).
Did Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) do that or not? I never knew this Hadith, that is why we have to read. I remember whenever Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) met someone, he said to them, “Pray for me.” Why? Because he is putting himself down so humbly, anticipating, “Allah (swt) might accept your prayer, so pray for me.” He is putting himself down, which is another example of how he follows the Prophet (s).
His inward is so pure and so beautiful, I cannot say his inward is better than his outward, but I can say they are both so pure. Let us follow our guide and do as he does, that is why we take a guide. He asked others for their du`a and that is confirmed by Hadith of the Prophet (s).
Wa min Allahi ‘t-tawfeeq bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
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