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To Taste the Honey You Have to Taste Bitterness

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

28 August 2014 Fenton Zawiya, Michigan

A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytani ‘r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem.

Nawaytu 'l-arba`een, nawaytu 'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu 'l-khalwah, nawaytu 'l-`uzlah,

nawaytu 'r-riyaada, nawaytu 's-salook, lillahi ta'ala al-`Azheem fee hadha 'l-masjid.

أَطِيعُواْ اللّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ الرَّسُولَ وَأُوْلِي الأَمْرِ مِنكُمْ

Atee`oollaha wa atee`oo 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.

Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (Surat an-Nisa, 4:59)

As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh.

Masaajid are Allah’s Houses and Allah owns them. He owns what He likes and what is perfect and good, and that’s why it is better to keep your house, your heart, your body and system useful so that Allah looks at that usefulness in you, because:

إن الله جميل يحب الجمال

Allahu jameel wa yuhibbu ‘l-jamaal.

Allah is Beautiful, He loves beauty. (Narrated `Abdullah bin Mas`ood, Sahih Muslim)

One of Allah’s Beautiful Names is Jameel, Absolute Beauty. He is the Creator of beauty and He loves beauty, so we must love beauty, and to love beauty is to love the good words, the good speech, the good advice, something that people like. That’s why Sayyidina Shah Naqshband (q), the sincere pious servant of Allah, Muhammad Bahauddin an-Naqshband (q), after whom the Tariqah has been called, said:

طريقتنا الصحبة والخير في الجمعية

Tariqatunaa as-suhbat wa 'l-khayru fi 'l-jami`yya.

Our way is companionship (to be together in association) and the best is in the gathering.

Our way is advice and the good is in association, whatever is good comes from an association. So to those people who are sitting to listen, Allah sends His Mercy on them; even if it is only one person, Allah sends His Mercy on that one person. If there are 100, Allah sends on everyone 100 different mercies from the other on every person. If there is one person he will get 10. Let’s say, if there are 100 you get 1,000 mercies from Allah, 10 x 100 = 1,000, and everyone will get the same amount, so it multiplies. So we say, “Yaa Rabbee keep us united,” and unity is not only by mouth, but by action:

وَاعْتَصِمُواْ بِحَبْلِ اللّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلاَ تَفَرَّقُواْ

W `atasimoo bi hablillaahi jamiyy`an wa laa tafaraqoo.

Hold fast to Allah's rope and don't separate. (Surat Aali-`Imraan, 3:103)

That is an ayah and they say that the rope of Allah is the Holy Qur’an, which is true of course, but in reality, who is carrying the Holy Qur’an? To whom was the Holy Qur’an revealed? It was to Prophet (s). This means the rope of Allah (swt), the rope that takes you to the Presence of Allah (swt) in Akhirah and in dunya, and dresses you with His Presence, is to follow the Way of Prophet (s), as he said:

الدين نصيحة

Ad-deenu naseeha.

Religion is advice.

It is not religion to listen in this ear and throw it out from the other: when we listen, sami`ana wa ata`ana, “we listen and we obey,” we listen to Allah’s Words, the Holy Qur’an, we listen to Prophet’s Words, the Holy Hadith, we listen to our scholars’ words and we obey. But we don’t listen to someone whose advice is for dunya:

الدني جيفة و طلابها كلابها

Ad-dunya jeefatun wa tullaabuhaa kilaabuhaa.

The world is a carcass and those who seek it out are dogs.

Dunya is a carcass and its people, or its slaves, are the dogs. This is because dogs go on the carcass, the dead body, and bite on it. So dunya is expressed by awliyaullah as a ‘dead body that has a bad smell’ and those who run after it have the characteristics and bad behavior of a dog who is biting and snatching. In Arabic it is yanhush, which means taking bite after bite from a dead body, a carcass, which is dunya. The one who runs after dunya is going to see that carcass, and the one who runs after Akhirah is running after Prophet (s). We have to choose! Dunya represents evil, if you run after its dead body. That’s why Allah sent the Holy Qur’an, messengers, pious imams and awliya, to direct and bring people back into their normal way.

Alhamdulillah, people here are coming together for an association and an advice. No one can understand and know what Allah (swt) gives to His servants, no one knows what Allah will give everyone. As long as you are doing good, Allah is happy and Allah loves goodness. He doesn't look at dirty things, He looks at the good things, good `amal. He doesn’t look at bad `amal, because Allah is good and likes goodness. We look at dirty `amal because we are being trapped by Shaytan, but Allah doesn’t look. That’s why awliyaullah come and say to you, “If you do good you will be rewarded indefinitely,” not only will you be rewarded just for that moment and then it goes, no! What comes here of that Rahmah from Allah (swt) will be with you until the Day of Judgment, it will come every moment until you die and when you are in the grave. And what He gives you now at 9 o’clock in the evening will be different from what He gives you at 9:15, and it will be different at 9:16, 9:17 and so on. All of that will be increasing and multiplying until the Day of Judgment. No one knows what Allah gives and whatever you describe, you are still not describing the Reality of what He gives!

Grandshaykh `AbdAllah’s Wisdom: To Get the Honey Don’t Reply to Your Enemies

Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, gave a lecture on the 13 Rabi` al-Akhir, the month after Mawlid an-Nabi (s). It was the year 1388 Hijri. How many years ago? It is 1435 Hijri today, so it comes close to 50 years ago. He said, “Always drink the bitterness, the sourness,” that means drink (what they throw on you), oppose what the bad ego, the bad desire is telling you to do, swallow it and not do it, in order to get the honey. Honey will not be given to someone who does not feel the bitterness of this dunya. It means oppose dunya until you taste its bitterness, then Allah opens for you the nahr al-`asal, to receive and quench your thirst with honey. Knowledge is honey. Do you want honey? [Yes.] Then try to drink bitterness, oppose your bad desires. If they say, “Do this,” you do the opposite by being patient, sabr, patience after patience. If anyone harms you or anyone says something to oppose you and you are on Haqq and they are on Baatil, Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, said, “Take it, accept it, even if they say anything against you, keep quiet, don’t respond, in order that you can quench your thirst from the honey that will be sent to you by Prophet (s).”

Unfortunately, we have not reached that level yet. If anyone says something or opposes us we want to answer back and then fitna is created, so what is the benefit? No benefit! Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, and Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, may Allah bless his soul, said, “I am describing something for you. You look at your neighbor and you say, ‘O neighbor, there are too many black flies flying around your farm.’ He doesn’t look at his garden or his farm, that all the wild animals are destroying it. He is only looking at something that is not his concern and neglects what he is doing. He is showing off badness, thinking he is above everyone.”

This is a lecture that was given in 1388 Hijri and now it is 1435 Hijri. So Grandshaykh said 47 years ago, tajarra al-murr, “Drink the bitterness.” It means if their words are poison, take it, don’t say anything, then you will get the honey! Do we want honey? Everyone say “yes.” [Yes!] Then what do we have to do? We must take the poison and keep quiet, take the difficulty that they are trying to label you with and don’t say anything. You will benefit, because awliyaullah will give you. You don’t need to give them anything, you don’t need anyone to give anything. This applies to every one of us here, to those on the Internet and to those who see this in the future. That is why the Prophet (s) always says:

‏انما بعثت لاتمم مكارم الاخلاق

Innamaa bu`ithtu li utammimu makaarim al-akhlaaq.

I have been sent to perfect the best of conduct (your behavior and character). (Bazzaar)

The Prophet (s) is saying, “I have been sent to perfect your manners and your characters,” and these are the good manners. What did Prophet (s) do? Are we going to follow Prophet (r) or ourselves? What we are doing for ourselves, we are not doing for Prophet (s). They threw him in Taif; they wounded him and threw rocks on him, wounding his legs and making the blood flow. That is the Messenger (s) who went to Qaaba Qawsayni aw Adnaa! What happened? In that situation, he raised his hands and said:

Allahumma ’hdee qawmee fa-innahum laa ya`lamoon.

O Allah! Guide my people because they don’t know.

What kind of great personality, what kind of great Noor he has)? And what kind of great love to the ummah? They wounded him and he prayed for them, for them to be guided. Allahu Akbar! If someone hits you with a stone on your feet and legs, wounding you to the extent that you begin to bleed, what will you do? Will you keep quiet? Show me one person who would kept quiet! Only the Ahlu ’l-Bayt kept quiet.

Prophet (s) knew they are going to kill Sayyidina Hasan (r) and Sayyidina Husayn (r) in the future, he knew they are going to kill Sayyidina `Uthman (r) and Sayyidina `Ali (r), but he was patient. He was able to change and ask, “Yaa Rabbee!” Allah would say, “Yaa `Abdee,” And the Prophet (s) could have said, “Save them!”

Allah would save them, but Prophet (s) left it to Allah’s (swt) Will.

So that is why if anyone comes against you and if you are right, try to be right, then you have a right against him on the Day of Judgment. This is a general teaching, it is not something for a certain person, no, it’s for all of us. We have to behave, we have to control our ego from answering other people who might say something we don’t like, because then we will not get the honey! How do you get the honey? After how many stings? It is not easy. So what do you do? You dress yourself with all these metal dresses so that the bees cannot come inside and sting you, but still there are some inside who sting you in order to get honey. For sure, dunya is going to make someone sting you in order to get you honey from awliyaullah from the other side.

Who is watching you? Allah has His angels that look at you, good or bad, is it not? Allah does not need inspectors. What is this ‘inspector’? Did you hear in Tariqah that there is an inspector? That is why you don’t need anyone: you do right, you have someone that you gave your hand to and took baya` from, and that person is Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, may Allah bless his soul, so follow him and go. You don’t need anyone, as long as you don’t obey your ego you are on the right side, but if you obey your ego then you are on the wrong side. So when you don’t obey your ego, as Grandshaykh (q) said, “Allah’s Mercy is so huge, no one can describe it, no one can limit it, He dresses you with His Infinite Mercy. No one can understand how dear is the prayer to Allah (swt).”

The Lazy Prayer and Allah’s Mercy

However, when we pray we pray with laziness, we are lazy in offering our prayers. He said, inna ’l-`abdaa yatahammmalu qaleelan min al-mujahada fee a`adai ‘s-salaat, “Allah’s servant finds laziness, all kinds of laziness and obstacles comes in order for him not to pray in the right, pious and compassionate way. He goes to prayer lazy. ” If there is a group of people, he feels shy not to pray with them, but he is lazy and wants to finish quickly. In the previous days, we used to pray Sunnah a lot, but today many are not praying. When I was living in Jeddah, you saw people pray four raka`ats and then leave, three for Maghrib and then leave; they prayed without Sunnah. They brought the obligation, the Fard, but no Sunnah, when the Sunnah is a must, as is an obligation. In any case, that shows you your laziness. He said, “If you struggle a little, do a little bit of mujahada, and show a little bit of patience,” yaqoolul yaa Muhammad, yaa Habeebi, Allah says to Prophet (s), “O My Beloved One, yaa Muhammad! If I were to give you permission to look through the power of Light that I gave to you, the Power of Vision, the Light you see with,” which has no end, it is a huge Noor; the Noor that you cannot describe:

اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ

Allah is the Light of the Heavens and Earth. (Surat an-Noor, 24:35)

You cannot describe that Noor, “If I gave you permission to go through that Noor to look at what I am going to give to the one who is praying even with laziness, difficulty and no patience, if I give you that power to see what I am going to give to that one who is making sajda, without hudoor [mental] presence and with all kinds of gossips in his heart, you will never be able to know the fadeelah, reward that I am going to give him on his salaah and his sajda!”

Allah (swt) is saying, “No one can determine how much I reward the one who prays for Me, sunnah, fard or nawaafil, anything! And there is no way for anyone to know about the reward, the favor that I am giving to that person who is making the sajda. I am the One Who gives! When I give, I don’t take back!”

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim Always Turns His Face Toward His Followers,

Even When They Sin

When Karam al-Kareem gives you something, He doesn't take back. Not as some people in Tariqah say, “Mawlana Shaykh Nazim will turn His face away from you if you don't follow this or that order!” That is not karam if he turns his face from what he gives, as Allah gave to him and he gives to his followers, so he doesn't turn his face from them, He turned his face TOWARD them! For whatever mistake they do, he turned his face towards them to bring them back or what is the benefit of a shaykh? For what reason do we take a shaykh? To guide us. Otherwise we will be like others: study by yourself, read by yourself and do by yourself. Yes, for sure it is accepted and you will go to Paradise. You don't need a teacher, but a teacher is to take you, to carry from you that difficulty, to clean you, to present you to the presence of the Prophet (s); to present you, to love and to be sincere in your prayers. They increase in your heart this kind of love in order that you will admire the prayers, the `ibaadah. Their concern is how to increase the `ibaadah, not how much they have to turn their face from you. If he is turning his face from us, it is not generosity, not karam. Awliyaullah have karam.

If we get hurt by people and feel pain and sadness, we answer them to make our ego happy, is it not? Grandshaykh `AbdAllah said when awliyaullah are hurt by people, when they get that difficulty on them, from their great love to Allah (swt) that is in their heart, they will get ecstasy from the bitterness of that patience, of being patient on those people who are attacking them. They feel happiness, because this is the way that they feel they are reaching, tatahammaloon al-`adaad, through the heavy weight of obstacles. Thus, they don't mind. It is written with big flashing lights, At-tareeqatu kulluhaa tahammal al-`adaad, or, at-tareeqatu mahabbatu `adaad. I heard it many times from Grandshaykh (q), at-tareeqatu kulluhaa tahamma al-`adaad. “Tariqah in all its ways, any moment in the way that you follow, this shaykh or that, you are being guided by one or follow one.”

Allah said to follow one and choose the one you like:

وَلِكُلِّ قَوْمٍ هَادٍ

Wa li kulli qawmin haad.

And for every nation there is a guide. (Surat ar-Raad, 13:7)

Allahu Akbar! There is a guide for every group of people. Allah said in the Holy Qur'an that every one cannot be under one guide, it is impossible. Every one’s heart is open to a guide. Allah said it in the Holy Qur'an, “For every group of people there is a guide,” so don’t come to us and tell us which guide we have to follow. We are not listening to what you say! We don’t know what you say, people don’t know what they say. It is as if Tariqah is an ownership.You register a book in the Library of Congress to copyright it, or you register your company as LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), saying, ‘At-Tariqah X is an LLC company.” It is not! In business there is LLC and Incorporated. In LLC, they don’t run after you even if you go bankrupt (limited liability), but if the business status is Incorporated, they run after you (for payment). So many people register their businesses as LLC.

Allah said, “Everyone has a guide. To every group there is a guide.” Do you know that ayah? So alright, for every group of people there is a guide. Alhamdulillah, we reached to find a guide that we felt alright with, and others felt alright with a different one. We felt alright with Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, Sayyidina Shaykh `Abdullah al-Fa’iz ad-Daghestani (q), and we also got to be with Grandshaykh Sayyidi Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani (q). These two wings are enough, we don’t want six! The plane will fly with these two wings, that’s it, we follow them, we follow their teaching, and alhamdulillah we are okay! But we have to:

لاَّ يُحِبُّ اللّهُ الْجَهْرَ بِالسُّوَءِ مِنَ الْقَوْلِ إِلاَّ مَن ظُلِمَ وَكَانَ اللّهُ سَمِيعًا عَلِيمًا

Allah loves not that evil should be voiced in public except where injustice has been done, for Allah is All-Hearing and All-Knowing. (Surat an-Nisa, 4:148)

The Immense Rewards of Suffering the Bitterness of Patience

Allah doesn't like you to express how they oppressed you, so don’t attack them, let people say what they want to say. Do you want to quench your thirst for honey, to eat it? Then feel the bitterness! That’s why he said, Wa bi haadha sabr wa mahabbatuhum lillahi `azza wa jall. hadhihi ‘l-maraarah, “From their love to Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s), they get ecstasy and enjoyment and they rejoice in that bitterness of patience.” Al-miraarata wa miraratu ’s-sabr, the bitterness and the bitterness of patience. Because if there is bitterness, you take it, but there is a deeper bitterness. In general, you accept a bitterness; sometimes you might oppose it and answer the others, but he says, “And they enjoy in the bitterness of being patient.” To keep patient and not to come against, and this is indeed the awliyaullah.

So no one can understand these rewards that Allah gives. May Allah forgive us and may Allah keep guiding us to the way of awliyaullah. Their way is open, anyone who knocks on the door will enter. Knock on the door and enter, you will go directly. You want to say, “O my Shaykh, I want to go to you directly, I don’t want the one on the left or the one on the right to give me advice. I am going to you directly.” Will he say, “No, don’t come.” You already took his hand, you took baya` with him. He didn’t revoke your baya`. Inshaa-Allah we will go in that way, on the way of not coming against anyone. It’s not our way and not Mawlana shaykh Nazim’s way. Mawlana never opened his mouth to backbite anyone, never! I never heard him! That’s what is important. Don’t open your mouth, keep silent. Sayyidina `Ali (r) said, “Keep silent, don’t talk.”

May Allah bless us and forgive us. Bi hurmati ‘l-habeeb bi hurmati ‘l-Fatihah.

This is not directed to someone, but this is a general message, because there are too many shuyookh around the world. You are not the only group, there are too many groups. Whether from this tariqah or any other, there are thousands of tariqahs, thousands! In India there are might be a million tariqahs! There are one-billion two-hundred thousand people there. We are exaggerating, but there are thousands of tariqahs. Do we say those are wrong and we are right? No, you don’t know who their shaykh is. There are 124,000 awliyaullah. Where are they? They must be somewhere, in different places.

You are guided to the Sultan of Awliyaullah. Alhamdulillah, we are happy that we consider our shaykh Sultan al-Awliya, but do we drop the other awliya and say that they do not exist? No, we cannot do that. Awliyaullah exist; there are 124,000 and they have their ways to the Prophet (s). Where are the five qutubs? Where are the 40 khalifahs of Mahdi (a)? Where are the 59 deputies of Mahdi (a)? There are 99: 40 khalifahs and 59 deputies. They are on the 99 Names of Allah’s Beautiful Names and Attributes, every khalifah is under one attribute. Do we say zero to all of this and to what you offer and you don’t offer? Who respects will respect, who doesn’t respect is free.

May Allah forgive us. We will continue this topic later inshaa-Allah.

Wa min Allahi tawfeeq bi hurmati ‘l-Fatihah.

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