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Why Awliya Attract People to Their Graves

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

27 February 2014 Lefke, Cyprus

I was not planning to give a talk, but Mawlana mentioned yesterday to give a talk, to say something. Alhamdulillah we are in a masjid that Allah (swt) granted that masjid a lot of blessings because it has been built for dhikrullah, and it has been built under the guidance of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani, may Allah (swt) give him shifaa and give him a long life, because the sheep always need a shepherd.

All prophets (a), many of them used to be shepherds because a shepherd travels a lot, goes around to various places collecting more sheep, and ‘sheep’ here is in the meaning of students or followers, because followers are more soft than people outside as they have been raised on the hands of their shepherds. We are very...we don’t like to say the word, but it has to be said here, we are very proud with the honor that Mawlana has been granted by awliyaullah, by Prophet (s), by Allah (swt) and by people. I think many of you know that he is one of the most influential masters in the world according to the book that has been published by Georgetown University in America, under the auspices of the King of Jordan. Mawlana is one of the most influential and most successful human beings in these days, that he is spreading da`wa here and there, and for that reason we are proud, not proud that we are seeing ourselves arrogant or great, but proud that Allah has put us under such a human being, that he will guide us and cover our mistakes and present us always every night, as it is his duty by Allah (swt), by Prophet (s), and by awliyaullah, by Grandshaykh `AbdAllah, may Allah bless his soul.

Grandshaykh was like that, may Allah bless his soul. He used to say, “There is one hour that I make sajda before Fajr prayer that all my mureeds I can see them wherever they are and wherever they have difficulty or hardship or heaviness, Allah takes that away from them by the du`a of the shaykh to his mureeds.” Of course all of us, no one can say, “I am perfect.” All of us have different difficulties, we have different kind of sins, sins that we know that it is a sin and we do it and sins we don’t know it is a sin but it comes from within ourselves, as Prophet (s) said in the hadith:

أخوف ما أخاف على أمتي الشرك الخفي

Akhwafu maa akhaafu `alaa ummattee ash-shirk al-khafee.

What I fear most for my ummah is hidden shirk.

“The most I fear for my ummah is the hidden shirk,” means that you think you are something, that you are doing something (great), and you become arrogant and when that arrogance comes within you, that is the hidden shirk. You become ghayyabta rabbaka wa azh-harta nafsaka, “As if you veiled your Lord and you promote yourself.” So everyone has a different kind of sin that we don’t know. Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, said that hour everyone I can see through vision, mushahadah, which is `Ilm al-Yaqeen, `Ayn al-Yaqeen and Haqq al-Yaqeen (`ayn are the eyes that can see). There are three levels in tasawwuf in Maqaam al-Ihsaan:

1. `Ilm al-Yaqeen, to know the knowledge through hearing and through reading, to learn;

2. `Ayn al-Yaqeen, to see the knowledge, the realities through your eyes, mushaahadah, you can see; and,

3. Haqq al-Yaqeen, at the end, the reality of knowledge by hearing and the reality of knowledge by seeing, combined together it is Knowledge of Certainty, that you are seeing correctly what you are observing.

So through mushaahadah, through that level the shuyookh--especially the Naqshbandi shaykhs and all other shuyookh, but we speak about our shaykh--pass in front of him one-by-one like a digital wavelength, not like an analog wavelength. It comes quickly, he can see them, and on their behalf he petitions for them through the Diwaan of Rasoolullah (s) where all awliya are. He petitions his followers in order that they will be granted forgiveness by shafa`ah of Prophet (s). All this is done through Shari`ah; they cannot come out of Shari`ah, so don’t expect that they will do something that is beyond the Shari`ah way. It is everything rooted: the trunk is in the same soil, from that the tree branches come and these branches are a different way, different highways that to take you to your destiny. Still, all of these branches give you fruit and the trunk is the shaykh. Every day he has to present us and petition for us in Diwaan al-Awliya in the association of awliya that they are granted an association with Prophet (s) in the spiritual world, which means through spiritual vision or through the heart or through spirituality, but they have that connection as their pipe is “connected.” If we don’t want to use the word ‘pipe,’ which we used thirty or forty years ago, now we can use the word ‘server.’

Everyone has an email and it goes through the server. So our server, the example of our shuyookh, let us consider is like a server: all of them are connected through their emails and then the server can talk with another server. It can have millions of emails that go through that particular X server, and the X server can talk with Z server. Every server is according to its power or more sophisticated, and that is why awliyaullah, and it depends on their ranks how much they are higher and higher, they can reach higher levels. So if someone is in a high level, all the other servers have to go through him. If a server is in a lower level, he has to go to the higher level server and if the server is in an even higher level, it goes directly to the presence of Prophet (s).

So awliyaullah have those characteristics that they can take their followers with them wherever they are going. Shuyookh, may Allah bless them, those who are living and those who are living in Akhirah in Barzakh, in their graves, which is a Paradise, they are able to reach everyone that is under them. Some of them met the mureeds physically, some of them through spirituality, through dreams or through the heart or through an appearance that they might see that shaykh appearing in different places, in different pictures that approach more and more people.

I was in India three or four weeks ago and I saw something that I felt really sad. I saw these great names of awliya, like Sayyidina Ahmad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi (q), Shaykh Muhammad al-Ma`soom (q), Shaykh Muhammad Sayfuddin al-Faruqi al-Mujaddidi (q), Shaykh as-Sayyid Nur Muhammad al-Badawani (q), and Shaykh Shamsuddin Habib Allah (q). All these awliya went to Central Asia and they took the Naqshbandi Order through Shaykh Ala`uddin al-Bukhari al-`Attar (q), Shaykh Ya`qub al-Charkhi (q), Shaykh `Ubaydullah al-Ahrar (q), Shaykh Muhammad az-Zahid (q), Shaykh Darwish Muhammad (q), Shaykh Muhammad Khwaja al-Amkanaki (q), Shaykh Muhammad al-Baqi BilLah (q), and then to Shaykh Ahmad al-Faruqi (q).

We saw from Shaykh Muhammad al-Baqi (q) seven shaykhs, coming from Sayyidina Shah Naqshband (q) to Sayyidina Ahmad al-Faruqi (q), and they have a huge madrasah there, a huge building where millions of people come to visit that grandshaykh yearly, the shuyookh there and his children and family who are buried there. It was astonishing to see non-Muslims visiting them. In Sirhind there are seven of them, and in New Delhi there are four of them. I was saying there that, subhaanAllah, there are these saints and in our eyes we see them as dead, so then do people come to visit the ones who are dead or those who are alive? Which is better? Alive ones! So if these saints are not alive in their graves, no one would visit them!

I said the example of that is Muhammad bin `Abdul-Wahhab’s grave: no one cares for it, no one visits him, he is dead, but these ones are alive in their graves and people are coming from all walks of life to visit their maqaams, their shrines. And they stand there, everyone in their different ways: Muslims with their Fatihah or their du`as, and the non-Muslims which have too many different religions and different beliefs, are coming. Why are they coming? Now I can say something that someone might reject: we don’t teach Hinduism or Buddhism, as we are being criticized for, but I am surprised that Hindus and Buddhists are the first to visit these maqaams! You can see them there around Sayyidina Ahmad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi (q) and Sayyidina Muhammad Ma`soom (q) and Shaykh Muhammad al-Baqi BilLah (q) and the others that I mentioned, until Sayyidina Khalid al-Baghdadi (q). Hindus and Buddhists are the biggest numbers visiting the graves of these people and some Muslims. Allahu Akbar!

Although we are not Hindus or Buddhists and we don’t teach Hinduism or Buddhism because we don’t know that belief, but you see them there. Don’t you take ibrah, an example, why these people are there? Because these awliya in their graves are calling them to bring them to Islam! What is the work of the wali, is it to cook? Yes, he “cooks” people to become Muslim, so they are “cooking.” Their graves smell nice by their cooking, and of recitation even in their grave they are alive!

Prophet (s) said:

ما بين قبري و منبري روضة من رياض الجنة

Maa bayna qabree wa minbaree rawdatan min riyaadu’l-jannah.

Between my grave and my pulpit is a garden from the gardens of Paradise. (Ahmad)

“Between my grave and my minbar is a piece of Paradise.” Awliyaullah are dressed with that secret. When they die, they have that power with them that their graves, as it is mentioned, imma jannatun minaan aw khufratun min an-naar, “Either their grave is Paradise or it is a piece of Fire.” These people, from the nice smell that comes from that Paradise they are in, they are attracting everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim! If those who are not Muslim are attracted, it means there must be a light that is in their hearts pulling them to these awliya. Why then we don’t focus on improving that light from these people to turn them into Islam? I was there and some people took Shahadah; they were Hindus, I didn’t know them, but they asked me to give a lecture in the academy of one of the big universities in New Delhi, and after that three or four of them took Shahadah. They said, “Shaykh, we were following you since fifteen years on the Internet!” but their baya` is to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q), we don’t give baya` to ourselves.

The greatness is not only the Naqshbandi shaykhs that are pulling people to visit them, but I also saw Shaykh Nizamuddin Awliya (q) in the Chisti maqaam. Thousands of people are going there from all kinds of religions and when one prayer comes all of them pray; even if they are not Muslim, they stand and pray imitating the others. Now, if it is accepted or not we don’t know, but they are attracted by that wali.

So wherever you go in these areas, you see that power. Sayyidina Imam al-Juzuli (q) in Fez, the one who wrote Dalaa’il al-Khayraat, do we say, “wrote” or it has been transmitted to his heart? It is transmitted to his heart to write it, like Sayyidina Muhammad al-Busayri (r) who wrote al-Burdah. After al-Burdah, he wrote one qaseedah which was as perfect as al-Burdah. They considered it the best poem that has been written after Hassan bin Thabit’s (r) poetry and it was Qaseedat al-Burdah, that is read everywhere. One day Muhammad al-Busayri (r) fell sick and had a stroke, and he was already writing one qaseedah, and he saw Prophet (s) in his dream and reciting al-Burdah, and the Prophet (s) touched him and when he woke up the stroke was gone!

Awliyaullah are alive and they are blessed. Dalaa’il al-Khayraat, when Imam Jazuli (q) died they buried him in Fez and after around 100 years they decided to move him to Marrakech. They opened his grave and a very nice smell was coming from his grave filling the whole area and that made everyone faint, and he was as if he was put today, this second! His shroud, his face, his hands were as if he is fresh. They carried him and put him in Marrakech.

Awliyaullah are not sleeping and are not dead. Yes, they disappear as they are dead through their bodies, but they are alive through their spirit and the Earth cannot touch their bodies. Prophet (s) said, “Allah prohibited the Earth to eat the flesh of prophets and awliyaullah.”

So we are all belonging to a father and that father, may Allah give him long life, he is always in remembrance of Allah (swt) and remembrance of Prophet (s), who are taking care of his mureeds, his followers. And many times I said this, because he said it to me, “Everyone of my mureeds is like a jewel on my turban; if that jewel is out of place, the turban, the crown looks bad,” it does not look complete, not perfect, so it has to have that jewel there in its place.

May Allah (swt) keep us with our teacher and give him long life and give all of you long life and bring us to be in unity, because without unity you can break the cane, but with unity if you put a hundred canes together you cannot break them.

There is a great...and people will not tell you this, but I will tell you and I hope it will be on the Internet. There is a great attack on the Naqshbandi Order from Wahhabis, and they accuse us that we do sajda to the shaykh. And I hope that you will keep the way of Shari`ah, especially in these days, because it might be soon that they will ban the Naqshbandi Order in Singapore. So they are trying their best, the Wahhabis, but we pray for Allah’s sake and for Prophet’s sake that Allah will not make this happen. They are banning Naqshbandi teachings, banning dhikr, banning tariqah, which they already did in Malaysia and which is being implemented by some states but not all, and the disunity makes them have an advantage to break us easily!

So all of us, including me, are under scrutiny from the Wahhabis in every center around the world. Wherever they see Naqshbandis, there are Wahhabis looking at what Naqshbandis are doing, because it is the strongest, rather one of the strongest, I don’t want to say ‘strongest’ as some shuyookh will say, “Why did you say that?” So it is one of the strongest tariqahs that call for peace and love and respect and dignity and tolerance, but our differences and our fights might cause problems. We ask Allah (swt) to save us and to keep the limits of Shari`ah, especially in public, in order not to be in their hands or between their teeth biting us!

May Allah (swt) forgive us.

Bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.

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