13 Ramadan 1427/5 October 2006
after Fajr
A`udhu billahi min ash-shaytaan ir-rajeem
Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem
Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaada, nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-Rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
B
efore an athletic event you see people warm up. Warming up, they are preparing for the big event. Every big event needs a warm-up. If you don’t warm-up you might not be able to win the game. And before warming up you need to train. Training is important in order that you will be chosen, or you will be elected or selected to play in the final or to be on the team.
You might be selected from thousands. Look when they have world cup soccer, they pick the best teams in every country. Then they begin to play each other until they come to the finals. But before coming to the finals they were trained. And they are then selected and then they warm up for finals and then they train even more for the finals.
So Allah I sent his messengers to train us and sent the seal of the messengers to show us how you can be in the best team. Awliyaullah are those who are training the Ummah, training in them every way possible in order to get them to be the selected ones in the finals. Look how much Prophet e prepared and how much he trained his Sahaaba.
One time in Egypt you know there is this Christian sect, al-Kuptiyyooon, the Coptic. One time Sayyidina Umar ibn al-`Aas son y, one of the Sahaaba, was in Egypt and he has many crowd with him, so one Coptic person when he saw him, he begin to say to him, “We are the children, the son of Amr ibn al-`Aas y, the best of Sahaaba, better than your parents and better than you. You are only a piece of dirt. You are a Coptic person.” Then he took the whip that is used to whip horses and slashed him, not hard, but in order to humiliate him. He was showing he is higher than him and slashed him, whipped him. That Coptic person got sad and he traveled all the way to Madina to Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattaab y complaining about son of Amr ibn al-`Aas y. So at that time, son of Amr ibn al-`Aas y returned to Madina and that Coptic person complained to Sayyidina Umar y who was the calipha at that time, and in the big association Sayyidina Umar y called the son of Amr ibn al-`Aas y and asked him, “Did you say this.” He said, “Yes!” Sayyidina Umar y said to him, “Allah I sent Sayyidina Muhammad e as the messenger of love and messenger of peace. You whipped him in a delicate manner in order not to harm him but to humiliate him. I am calling on that Coptic person to whip you in same manner as you whipped him.” Sayyidina Umar y wants to show Islam doesn’t accept injustice. There are no differences. There is differences between you and him in the relationship with Allah I. But between Him and you there is no difference. So he returned the right of that Coptic in front of everyone.
So that is example of how they have been trained in order to keep the right of everyone. Today we humiliate each other even. Even to try to destroy each other. And even an animal you cannot let that animal down.
The example of that is the example of Sayyidina Ali y. One day he was in a trip outside the Madina. Suddenly he jumped out from his horse and took a stick and begin to as if to search in the sand with his stick. The Sahaaba were surprised what is he doing in the sand with his stick. The Sahaaba asked him, “Ya Ali y what are you doing, we are on the middle of the way to that tribe and we stopped that whole caravan and you are picking in the sand looking for what. He said, “I am looking for something I don’t want to be responsible on Judgment Day in front of Allah I.” They said, “Let us help you in that.” He said, “That is my responsibility, not yours.” He said, “When I was on the horse, [you know the horse when it moves, it goes up and down], it gallops, and as it was galloping there was a flea, [the white bug] in the beard, [that comes in the beard and hair], there was one flea that I saw was from my beard falling into the sand. And it is my responsibility if that flea is hungry or not.” [It might be when it was in my beard it was eating something there]. “Now it is falling in the sand and I saw it falling in the sand and I want to find it to put it back in its place.”
Although Prophet e said, kullu muddarin yuqtal - everything harmful thing is [permitted to be] killed, so fleas have to be eliminated. So here he wants to teach Sahaaba and teach us. He is responsible if that flea will die from hunger. He wants to tell us that everything we do must be to the highest level of perfection and respect. Although he has to kill the flea but he stopped. In order that flea might be hungry. Let it first eat and then fall down. But not falling down from hunger.
So this is an example of Grandshaykh saying in order to tell us we have to be very careful. It means to that extent Sayyidina Ali y was looking to be sure he doesn’t harm a flea.
How much we are harming. Look I see some people, if there is a worm or ant in the house, they go slowly and take a paper, “O my darling, O my love!” and put on a paper and have to put on tree or somewhere else. Not to kill it. That is good. They do that for an ant but they don’t do it for human begins. They fight with human beings. They fight with each other.
Look the son of Amr ibn al-`Aas y took back [received] the revenge of the Coptic. He whipped him as he was whipped. So that is Islam’s way of love. This is training to reach a situation that you will be selected from the “finals” to be of those whom Allah I described. That is why the whole message of Islam came and tariqah from heart of Shari`ah, the Prophet e explained in order to get the selected ones to be on the top, in order that they will be later, to train the Ummah. That is why awliyaullah are trainers to the Ummah. That is why you see them today in football games, soccer games, they put these trainers from one team to another. They are precious like diamonds. What do you think about awliyaullah that are more precious than soccer teams? That soccer team is wasting of time.
There is also soccer team between us and Shaytan. Awliya teaching us to compete with Shaytan. Shaytan has many tricks. Shaytan when he comes has many tricks.
The Prophet e prohibited to trade with Qur’an. You cannot recite and take money for it. You cannot teach Qur’an and take money out of it. That is never accepted, never we heard that. Today shaytan is playing game with everyone. I don't teach Qur’an if you don’t pay $20.00 dollars or $500 dollars a session. The Prophet e taught Sahaaba not for money. He never sold or traded Kalaamullah. You cannot sell or trade maqaam al-Ihsan or the Words of Allah I. You can sell or trade with science but not with anything related to heavens. What are you selling—angels? They come today with all kind of different ways to sell angels. Not only that, they make angel statues and sell them. This is protection angel, guardian angel, safety angel; I don’t know what kind of angels they are selling. Or they sell you energy.
Energy is for everyone, go and get it. You see all these groups today they are selling energy. Why are they selling energy? Why energy is only monopolized to some people so they can get it or it is for everyone? So whatever they can find to sell you, they sell you.
Look go to the bookstores, Muslims and non-Muslim bookstores and see how they are using things to sell. All of us we have this problem, trying to sell something, us and others, something that is not our property. Qur’an is your property. Islam is your property. Allah I sent for everyone.
إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللّهِ الإِسْلاَمُ
Inna ad-deen `indallahi al-Islam.
Behold, the only [true] religion in the sight of God is [man's] self-surrender unto Him; [3:19]
Even fatwa for a Shaykh you cannot ask money for it. When you give a fatwa, and you are charging a person money, that will be thrown on you. Angels will throw on your face with this `amal -- you are doing when you are asking something in return. If they like to give that is something else. But you cannot sell what is there, what Allah I gave you.
You know in Islam you cannot hold back knowledge. It is haraam. That is why the Prophet e has to relate the message and told them, “Whatever you heard from me relate it.” Whatever you have, give it out. You cannot hold it. That is why you see Sahaaba never hold it, but passing that knowledge to everyone. Sayyidina Abu Hurayrah y passed everything except one thing. What is that? What he said if he said it they would cut his neck. He shared that [only] with private people.
So Sayyidina `Ali y said, “I have to find that put it back in its place. Then if I kill it I follow the Sunnah of the Prophet e in killing whatever is harmful.” But not to let it fall and die by itself in the dust.
Everything harmful has to be eliminated. Shaytan is harmful. So you have to kill that ego problem from your heart. Our egos are so big you cannot accept any complaint or criticism. You cannot accept criticism from anyone. Immediately we get upset. The Prophet e said, “Kill anything that is harmful.” In every `amal we are doing there is something wrong we are doing. You have to fix it.
Sayyidina Ali y is not saying that because of himself, not because of something that he doesn’t want to be asked on Judgment Day, he is showing the Sahaaba that even the flea that is on your beard which you can take and kill, but when it falls down it is your responsibility to bring it back and put it in its place. Then you can—because it is harmful—take and kill it.
That is why the Prophet e was always warning the Sahaaba not to get angry and he was saying to Sayyidina Abu Bakr y, “Anger is disbelief.” It makes people drunk. Then they don’t know what they are doing. You must not be angry. Try to be patient. Like the flow of the water, don’t struggle like salmon. If someone says to you something you don’t like, the ego goes against the flow of the water. When you make the salmon go with the follow of the water then there is no struggle. Then you will reach the peaceful self.
The first important principle for awliyaullah is to leave anger. And to struggle against anger. Every affliction that comes on you is coming with anger. It is the affliction carry with it anger and jealousy. Every affliction comes because either someone is looking at you with a bad eye, saying, “I want to have what he has, I want to be like he is, I want to be respected like that one.” This is hasad. Anger comes because you dislike the way he is doing things because you wanted to do these things like him or like here. Whatever it is. If it is to you[r benefit], you don’t get angry with yourself but when the other is doing it you get angry. That is Hubb an-nafs.
So the Prophet e trained the Sahaaba to throw that from their hearts. That is very difficult, it is not so simple. That is thru training. Like these Suhbat. These are not for a particular situation but,
وَذَكِّرْ فَإِنَّ الذِّكْرَى تَنفَعُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
Wa dhakkir fa-inna adh-dhikra tanfa`u al-mumineen.
Yet go on reminding [all who would listen]: for, verily, such a reminder will profit the believers. [51:55]
So suhbats are to remind us of our weaknesses and our problems in order to solve it. The Prophet’s e association with Sahaaba is to remind them to leave what is needed to be left. And the most important is always not to drop the love of Prophet e and awliyaullah from your heart.
Grandshaykh said many times said that when I bombard you with criticism it is like someone bombarding you with a cannon, be happy. That bombardment is taking everything wrong in you with that association. When I am criticizing you that is a cleaning process for your behavior to clean you with what you have been afflicted with and affected with and contaminated with. We have lots of contaminations.
When you go to hospital you may have complications in your body. They try to solve one problem, and then there is another problem. They solve diabetes there is kidney problem they solve coma you have heart problem they solve coma problem you have mental problem they solve mental problem you.
We are contaminated completely they have an epidemic they have to put us in quarantine. All of us are in quarantine. None of us is out of quarantine. Even awliyaullah they have quarantine. Prophet e has quarantine for them. So don’t say, “Why do I have quarantine.” That is to eliminate everything possible.
So in transplant in order to prevent problem they have to be sure there is no rejection of the body of any sort so they give huge antibiotics in order to bring immune system down to prevent it from rejecting.
That immune system is the ego system. It does not like anything that comes from Allah I or Prophet e or wali. It says they are attacking you. Why are they attacking me always? They are attacking in order to clean us in order to put their transplant. They want to put all the organs of the soul. That is why they give you high does of antibiotics, of criticism. They give you high dose, high dose, high dose. You fall from top to bottom. Shaykh is completely destroying me, my fame, my importance. Then when you reach that level of nothing, then you understand you are not worth more than an ant. Then they transplant in your knew organs. Then the light of Allah I, allahu nurus-samawaati wal-ard, Allah I is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth, the beauty of that light will find a place to sit. If the ego contamination is still there any complications that doesn’t let you to reach anywhere.
Anyone who gets contaminated with anger the first three hours he is a prisoner of shaytan. Anyone, Grandshaykh is explaining, if a person fights with his wife or she with her husband or with the community or with each other, the first three hours shaytaan in authority on you. So be careful the first 3 hours. Make ablution, pray two raka`ats. Anger doesn’t go, go out of the house and walk in the streets. Go sit by the ocean and say Allahu Akbar, Subhanallah. Never the ocean gets tired of reaching you thru its waves. These waves, when they are coming to the shore, they are coming with praising and tasbih. They are reaching humanity and reaching the Ummah. The waves are always coming and they are cleaning. They are a cleaning process. Sit there and look. The ocean doesn’t get tired, masha-Allah.
If within three hours our anger didn’t go, we will be prisoners to Shaytan for forty days. If we are prisoners for Shaytan for 40 days and that anger didn’t go, then we are completely immersed in anger and when we die we die as miskeen. The “Poor” guy died from cancer of anger. There is no treatment for that illness. Only dirt can treat that person, underground. We stop here and Insha-Allah we continue next time.
Bi hurmatil Fatiha.
Grandshaykh said, “I have bombardment only for two people. I have two students. Nazim Effendi ? and Husayn Effendi ?. When I bombard on them it is for others to listen.”