`Isha Suhbah at Private Residence (Audio Only)
(Suhbah in progress.) The Prophet (s) said:
انزل الناس منازلهم
Anzil an-naasu manaazilahum.
Give everyone their stations. (al-Haakim, from Sayyida `Ayesha[r])
So young people can sit on floor, older ones can sit on chairs. The Prophet (s) said:
اخشوشنو فان النعمة لا تدوم
Ikhshawshanoo fa inna an-n`im laa tadoom.
Live harshly as the favors may not last.
Train yourself to live harshly; that is why in Hajj is training one to live in difficulty, but unfortunately all of us try to pick the best package in order live the best life. So live harshly, not all your life, but to train yourself so that one day you may have to live harshly or then you are going to complain and Allah doesn’t like peple to complain. Why do people come to America? In order not to live harshly and, alhamdulillah that Allah opens a place that you don’t live harshly, but keep remembering how much people are in difficulties.
The Prophet (s) said:
تفكر ساعة خير من عبادة سبعين سنة
Tafakkarru sa`atin khayrun min `ibaadati saba`een sannah.
To remember Allah (swt) (contemplate or meditate) for one hour is better than seventy years of worship.
“It is better to reflect on what you are doing, it is rewarded better than worship of seventy years or of one year,” for just one hour of contemplation, because in that one hour if you think and reflect and meditate on something you might find a lot of issues that you didn't think about before. Why does the Prophet (s) want the ummah to think? We have to thank Allah that He gave us mind. Why did He give us a mind? To think! Why are we not thinking? We are not thinking; you think in work, “How we cannot pay our taxes,” but we never think, “How I am going to face Allah (swt)?”
So thinking is good for your dunya and good for your Akhirah and it makes you remember all these agonies that you see in countries around the world, and you see children as orphans with no parents and it is not easy. We go to Indonesia and we see orphanages where there are children with no fathers and no mothers being raised by, alhamdulillah, pious people who take care of them. Just like a major orphanage that we go to every year, it has 2800 orphans. Girls and boys are separate and they raise them both in an Islamic way but also with secular studies, so they finish high school and go directly to college and university. And you see these boys and girls, at night they have no father and no mother, nobody to give them love. They are taken care of, alhamdulillah, but there is no one to give them love like a mother gives love to her daughter or to her son. So there is no one who will take care of them, not only what they dress and what they eat, but people need to be loved.
You have a cat at home? [Two, Sayyidee.] Mashaa-Allah you have two cats at home and you show them love more than you show to someone else! That is why for thinking for one hour, Allah will reward more than your worship of seventy years. It is good for us then to think every day. Ask (a mureed) how many hours he used to think about giving someone a loan? Hours or days? [Sometimes months.] In order to make sure it is the right decision. What then about thinking in order to build up your safety savings in the bank of Akhirah? Everyone has it, Allah gave him a bank; that bank is what is written on your right shoulder, and what is written on your left shoulder is what? [The expenses, Sayyidee.] The expenses? How much you are losing from the right side? But these expenses as the Prophet (s) said, “I observe the `amal of my ummah and if I see good, I thank Allah, and if I see bad, I make istighfaar on their behalf.” So by the Prophet’s intercession the expenses are stopped, they will not let you lose from what you have saved. Therefore, any `amal you do, at the end wrap it with salawaat on the Prophet (s) and then Shaytan cannot touch it, but if you leave it in your hand it will leak out and disappear. People don’t live by this hadith; if they lived by it they would live happily, if they think about what they have done during the day and (plan) something better they can do the next day.
Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, may Allah give him long life, said that often Grandshaykh (q) was telling him, in all suhbats of Grandshaykh he says in Islam we have 500 maamooraat, orders, and 800 forbiddens, manhiyyaat and he ordered Shaykh Nazim to go into seclusion and to count how many forbiddens he can recognize of the 800. Normal Muslims like us, how many can we count of forbiddens? Ten, fifteen, twenty, one-hundred. Can you count? You, too many! If you are a great scholar you cannot count more than fifty or sixty. Everyone knows the forbiddens are pork, wine, anything that makes you drunk, eating a dead animal, gambling, killing, cheating, stealing, what you want to count more than that of ten, fifteen or twenty, then you cannot any more.
Mawlna Shaykh Nazim (q) said, “I entered seclusion and began to audit myself since (the time) I was young up to today, and I was able to detect 167 forbiddens.”
Still today, up to the 800 is a long way to go! If you are able to count one-hundred forbiddens and you stop them, then oooh, Allah will open in your heart visions and inspirations and all kinds of things that you can help the whole ummah when you are able to count how many forbiddens you have done in your life, or how many forbiddens you think that are bad and you stop doing them, Allah will reward you with a reward that no one can imagine!
We mentioned about husn al-khuluq, when Sayyidina Muhammad (s) mentioned to Abu Hurayrah (r) when he asked, “Yaa Rasoolullah! What can we do to improve our good manners, husn al-khuluq?”
First he said, an tassil man qata`k, “To connect with the one who cut you down (reestablish broken relationships).” It means when he harmed you and cut you down, go and make peace with him, that is what the Prophet (s) saying, go and make peace with him. You might say it is not from your side to make peace, he is the one who cut relations, but the Prophet (s) is saying it is from good manners that you connect with the one who harmed you. It means wa maa ataakum ar-Rasool fa qudroo, what Prophet (s) gives you take and don’t ask questions! Maybe when you are first to approach the one who made enmity to you and come to him with a flower, that one might come back to you and you might build bridges. Prophet (s) wants people to build bridges to unite.
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ
Yaa ayyuha ’n-naasu innaa khalaqnaakum min dhakarin wa unthaa wa ja`lnaakum shu`ooban wa qabaaila li-t`arafoo inna akramakum `inda Allaahi atqaakum inna Allaaha `aleemun khabeer.
O Mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another, (not that you will despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you and Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Surat al-Hujuraat, 49:13)
To make ma`arifah, to relate to each other, to know each other, to learn from each other, think good about each other, to praise each other, look after each other, too many to unite with each other. Are we doing that? One family and another family fight. Brother and brother they fight with each other and sister and sister fight, and Allah is saying in Holy Qur'an to build bridges:
“We have made you male and female, and nations and tribes to get to know each other and build bridges.” Anything that you feel is necessary to help in making each other in a better community and better society is an order in Islam, and not only that, it is an order in Holy Qur'an and an order in Holy Hadith! Interfaith is an order on every person in Islam, it is not just that you are doing it out of building relationships, no. You are under obligation, because when the Prophet (s) said:
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)
وأوصى النبي صلى اللّه عليه وسلم أبا هريرة بوصية عظيمة فقال: يا أبا هريرة! عليك بحسن الخلق. قال أبو هريرة رضي اللّه عنه: وما حسن الخلق يا رسول اللّه؟ قال: تصل مَنْ قطعك، وتعفو عمن ظلمك، وتُعطي من حرمك
(رواه البيهقي).
Awsaa ‘n-nabiyyu sall-Allahu `alayhi wa sallim Aba Hurayrah bi-waseeyyati `azheematin fa-qaala: yaa Aba Hurayrah radiAllahu `anhu, `alayka bi-husnu ‘l-khuluq. Qaala Abu Hurayrah: wa maa husna ‘l-khuluqi yaa Rasoolullah. Qaala: tasila man qata`k, wa ta`foo `amman zhalamak, wa tu`tee man haramak. (Narrated by Bayhaqi)
And he said to Abu Hurayrah (r), “I have been sent to train in best manners, to connect who broke the relationship,” he asked him, “What are the good manners?” and Prophet (s) replied, “to connect with the one who cut you.”
Now who broke the relationship? Who? Who is the one who is the farthest one from you? Not your community. Here also, the meaning is not just to build bridges with your family and children and brother, etc., but also to build relationships with different communities that have cut you, like the Jews, they don’t believe in your prophet. Look how difficult it is, but he is telling you, “Build relations with them.” The Jewish people don’t accept the Christians and the Christian order is to build relationships. Christians and Jews don’t accept Muslims and the obligation of Muslims is to build relations with them, which is not easy. You have to go through too many ways to build relationships! And Allah said:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوباً وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا
Yaa ayyuha’n-naasu innaa khalaqnaakum min dhakarin wa unthaa wa ja`alanaakum shu`ooban wa qabaa’ila li-ta`rafoo.
O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, We made you nations and tribes that you may know one another. (Surat al-Hujuraat, 49:13)
وَلَوْ شَاء اللّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً
wa law shaa Allahu la-ja`alakum ummatan waahida.
If Allah has so willed, He would have made you one nation. (Surat al-Ma'idah, 5:48)
but He did not. He made you different nations, because He knows that in making different nations there is broken connections. He wants to see how much you are going to build bridges! The whole universe is under a test from Allah to see who is going to listen and build bridges, not to go and blow each other up! Different people blow each other up. So interfaith is inside the religion because we are all the same. What is the thing that makes us different? What makes us different from each other? [Nationality?] What? The biggest problem that makes us different is our head. If you remove everyone’s head, everyone is similar. Is there any difference? Where is the difference? In the head. Take away the head, then everyone is the same. It means that in the head there is something wrong. Psychiatrists and psychologists have to study what is wrong here as all our problems are coming from the head.
The bad desire is here. An example is, mashaa-Allah I am looking at the table, you have arranged food for everyone on the table and how many different types of food? Why make one or many? Are they equal? Why? What makes them different is the taste. If all tasted similar, it would be only one dish. If you bring daal, because everyone likes daal, lentils--and this plate of lentils here you put on top parsley and on the other you put coriander and on other cilantro and on the other you put tomato, make ten of them and put on top different things--you think it is ten dishes, but whatever you eat it tastes the same. So the difference in taste is from here to here (the front of the tongue to the back of the tongue), but when it reaches to the oesophagus it ends the same. So we are fighting for from here to here, that is it, the whole fight!
So communities, different religions, if they connect back with the one who broke with them, who broke with Muslims? The other beliefs. And who broke with the other beliefs? The beliefs before! And then what did the Prophet (s) say? Connect.
Prophet (s) said:
An ta`afoo `amman zhalamak
To forgive who oppressed you.
Allahu Akbar! How can I forgive the one who oppressed me, who backbited me?
وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا وَلَا يَغْتَب بَّعْضُكُم بَعْضًا أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ
Wa laa tajasassoo wa laa yaghtab b`adakum b`adan ayyuhibbu ahadukum an yaakula lahma aakheehi maytan fa-karihtumooh.
And spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? No, you would abhor it. (Surat al-Hujurat, 49:12)
Prophet (s) also said:
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم قال إياكم والظن فإن الظن أكذب الحديث ولا تحسسوا ولا تجسسوا ولا تناجشوا ولا تحاسدوا ولا تباغضوا ولا تدابروا وكونوا عباد الله إخوانا.
Iyyakum wa ’dh-dhann fa-inna adh-dhanna akdhab al-hadeeth wa laa tahassasoo wa laa tajassasoo wa laa tanaajashoo wa laa tahaasadoo wa laa tabaaghadoo wa laa tadaabaroo wa koonoo `ibaadullaahi ikhwaana.
Beware of suspicion for it is the worst of false tales, and don't look for the other's faults, and don't spy and don't hate each other, and don't desert (cut your relations with) one another. O Allah's slaves! Be brothers! (Narrated by Abu Hurayrah. Bukhari)
When someone harms you with all this, you feel he is the biggest enemy. What did the Prophet (s) say? Forgive him. Allahu Akbar! There is secret behind it we don’t know, but maybe we can understand that you are rewarded, that might be behind it if you are patient and forgive who harmed you. How many Muslims are harming Allah? He tells them “Do this,” they do the opposite, yet He still forgives them. Allah forgives whoever repents. Look how much He is teaching us adab! “I am forgiving you,” Allah says, “You oppressed Me by following Shaytan. You are following your enemy and still I am forgiving you! Why are you not forgiving your brother and sister and the community?”
If everyone will forgive each other, will there be war? War will disappear. Understood?
And then, tu`tee man haramak, “To give to the one who cheated you and took your money.” How am I going to give to the one who cheated me and took my $100,000 and I have to give him what he wants? But the Prophet (s) knows that from behind it, Allah might give you treasures of Heaven, treasures of Akhirah, that better for you!
So we go back to where we began: the Prophet (s) is coming with all this to teach us how many bad manners, so it means how many forbiddens are there: bughud, enmity, hate, stinginess, jealousy, all these bad characters, you can count them as the forbiddens. The trunk of the problems in this world, the trunk of all problems, of the tree of problems, is two: anger and arrogance. All bad manners, all the branches of the tree of bad manners come from the trunk, which is made of anger and arrogance. These two are the main problems. You get angry at Allah when you are arrogant, thinking, “Why did You give him more than You gave me? Why does he have better than what I have?” If Allah wants you to have better He would have given you better, so you have to accept what Allah gave you. If you accept what Allah gave you, you will be happy all your life!
If you go to California, I was one time driving through San Francisco and you come under these highways where there are overpasses and a lot of homeless people are happy living under those bridges of the highways. But I saw a rich homeless man living under three bridges over each other and he made his house of (cardboard) cartons and he was happy, but that was a castle for him and he was still homeless but happy! How many times I saw that in San Francisco, not here. I saw the homeless go to garbage cans and look for something to eat and we are not happy with what Allah (swt) has given us! Go to the hospital and see, then come and speak and say if you are happy or not with what Allah gave you! Are you happy with what Allah gave you or people in hospital are happier? You have to thank Allah every moment in your life! And Allah said, “You have to thank Allah with no return,” (not thinking of reward).
Allah (swt) said:
لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
La-in shakartum la-azeedanakum.
If you thank Me, I will give you more. (Surah Ibrahim, 14:7)
“If you are thanking Me, I am going to give you more in dunya and Akhirah.” That is our life, an tassil man qata`k. An example of that is a Jewish man that the Prophet (s) went to ask to make a ring for him (s). Why did the Prophet (s) have to ask a Jewish citizen in Madinah to make him a ring? There were too many who could make a ring for the Prophet (s), but he (s) wanted to extend (his hand), an tassil man qata`k. The Prophet (s) wanted to show us this as he was the most humble. Are we humble? He was the most humble and he is the Seal of Messengers, the Perfect Human Being that Allah created and he went to a Jewish person living in Madinah and said, “Make a ring for me.” The Seal of Messengers, the highest level of persons that Allah created, went to a Jewish man and it was not that the man came to him, and that Jewish man was so happy that the Prophet of Islam came to him to make him a ring, and the Prophet (s) said, “Make sure you write ‘Laa ilaaha illa-Llah’ on it.”
So the Jewish man made the ring and came to the Prophet (s). For someone to come to the Prophet (s), do you think Allah will send him to Hellfire? He came to the Prophet (s) and he had done a service for the Prophet (s), and he gave him the ring. The Prophet (s) saw ‘Laa ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammad Rasoolullah’ written on the ring. He wanted to say to the Jewish man, “I asked you to write (only) ‘Laa ilaaha illa-Llah,’ I didn’t ask you to write ‘Muhammad Rasoolullah’” because the Prophet (s) wanted him to write Allah's Oneness on the ring; he was praising Allah and thanking him by writing ‘Laa ilaaha illa-Llah’.
Then Jibreel came to the Prophet (s) and said, “You chose the most lovely Name and put it on the ring and Allah chose the most lovely name to Him and Allah put that on the ring.”
The Jewish man took up Islam immediately when he saw that ‘Muhammad Rasoolullah,’ that Allah gave it, the man didn't write that. When you connect with the one who cuts you, you build relationships and we are not trying to connect because of our head, the problem is there. If I take his head and switch your head and put his head on your body, and his body and your body remain, you will still be (you) and he will still be (him). But the head is most difficult to fix, and the others follow the head.
Allah (swt) wants you to connect everyone together in order that He will be happy, because all of us are His Creation. I am not better than you and you are not better than me, as the Prophet (s) said:
االناس سواسيه كااسنان المشط
An-naasu sawaasiyatan ka-asnaani 'l-masht.
People are equal like the teeth of a comb.
لافرق بين عربي ولا اعجمي الا بالتقوى
Laa farqa bayna `arabiyya wa laa `ajamiyy illa bi ’t-taqwaa.
There is no difference between Arabs and non-Arabs (one race and another) except in piety.
If you are speaking Arabic or not speaking Arabic, there is no difference; you are Pakistani and don't speak Arabic; you are Saudi and you speak Arabic, but what makes you sincere? From neck and down makes you sincere or from the neck and up? Sincerity comes from the neck and up, piety comes from the neck and up, desire comes from here and up. If that doesn’t work, the whole body works according to the head. So we have to be open-minded in order that we have to pave the way.
There was a Jewish person who was pious and one day he opened the Tawrat and was reading and saw the name of the Prophet (s) in the Tawrat, popping up. He saw it in four places in Tawrat. At that time Tawrat was not written on paper but written on leather. So he scraped it and took out the name of the Prophet (s). He said, “Alhamdulillah I took the name of the Prophet (s) out.” The next day he took out Tawrat to read and saw the name of the Prophet (s) in eight places and he got upset. And he scraped it off. and he opened the next day and found the name of the Prophet (s) in twelve places. He closed the book and he was in Sham and he moved to Madinah from Sham because he wanted to see the Prophet (s). He wanted to connect; when he saw the reality he wanted to connect. We see the reality, but we don't try to connect with each other. We see what we did wrong, but don't try to connect with each other.
“The Tawrat has mentioned about the Prophet (s) and Injeel has mentioned about the Prophet (s) and still we are first to disconnect, so let me be first to connect.” He went to Madinah and started asking more and more and he met Sayyidina `Ali (r) and asked him to take him to see the Prophet (s). And the Prophet (s) had already left dunya, and he said to Sayyidina `Ali (r), “I came all the way from Sham to Madinah to see Muhammad. And I found him dead. Can you get from me his clothes that I can smell the perfume of the body of the Prophet (s)?” A Jewish man who scraped the name of the Prophet (s) from the leather pages of the Tawrat was coming to smell the scent of the body of the Prophet (s) and we, even if we do salawaat once a day or two or five times in a day, we forget to continue salawaat on the Prophet (s).
So what did he do? Sayyidina `Ali (r), out of love, brought him the cloth of the Prophet (s) and he took it and kept smelling it and smelling it non-stop out of love to the Prophet (s). What kind of smell did Allah give him in his nose, we don't know, that made him so much in love and with `ishq to the Prophet (s)? He raised his hands and said, “Yaa Rabbee! I am becoming Muslim,” and he said, “Ash-hadu laa ilaaha illa-Llah and pointed to the grave of the Prophet (s) and said, “Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasoolullah,” and he said, “Ay Rabbee, I don't want to be away from my Prophet take my life.” And at that moment he died, Sayyidina `Ali (r) took his body and washed it and covered it and buried him in Jannat al-Baqi.
And so that hadith, that if you approach one span Allah comes to you one arm, and if you come walking, He comes to you running, try to come towards Allah You are like a child who stands up and falls and your parent picks you up. So our duty is to try and if we fall then we ask forgiveness. Our duty is to try to walk and if we fall then we stand up, and then we fall and we stand up; to direct ourselves to Allah (swt), not to go left and not to go right.
Sayyidina Musa (a), `alaa rasoolina afdal as-salaat wa ‘s-salaam, was a prophet and they like to go seeking nature and meditate in their walking, thinking about Allah (swt), seeking ma'rifatullah. They feel nearness to Allah (swt) and so they go on a journey. One time Sayyidina Musa (a) was going on a journey and he reached to the top of Toor Sina where he reached to speak with Allah (swt) and he was Kaleemullah, the only one able to speak directly with Allah with no intermediary, and he heard a voice coming from the mountain and could not understand the voice or what it was saying. He approached closer and the voice was becoming clearer and clearer, coming from the cave and he began to hear:
الحمد لله اللذي َفَضَّلنْيْ عَلَى كَثِيرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَق تَفْضِيلاً
Alhamdulillahi ’Lladhee fadalanee `alaa katheerin mimman khalaqa tafdeela.
All praise be to The One that honored me over many of whom He honored.
(Du`a based on Surat al-’Israa, 17:70)
“Alhamdulillah that Allah favored me over much of His Creation.” So he kept coming forward and found a cave where the voice was coming from and he saw a man in sajda saying, “Alhamdulillahi ’Lladhee fadalanee `alaa katheerin mimman khalaqa tafdeela.” If you recite this three times daily, Allah will open for us unimaginable things in dunya and Akhirah! He looked and saw a man in sajda repeating that and suddenly that man raised up from sajda, and he saw that man had no arms and no legs from the hip downwards (only a torso). He looked at the man and he was astonished and wanted to say something, but he could not say anything. Then he saw a deer coming to the man, approaching him and opening his legs near the mouth of the man to suck the milk and that was his food!
Sayyidina Musa (a) was surprised from the man. He said to the man, “I can understand the deer is giving you food, I can digest that, but to say, ‘Alhamdulillah Allah has preferred me over many,’ you have no arms, no legs, so how has Allah preferred you over many? It doesn't click in my mind.”
In the mind of Sayyidina Musa (a) it didn't click because he used to mainly take by external sense, what makes sense to the mind. There were many things that didn’t make sense to Sayyidina Musa (a). It was like bullet points, “Do this and that,” only Shari`ah. To Sayyidina `Isa (a), there was akhlaaq, good manners, and in Islam there are both, Shari`ah and akhlaaq.
He said, “ I cannot digest it, I cannot understand.”
And he said, “Yaa Sayyidina Musa (as), I am thanking Allah that he preferred me over many.”
“How did he prefer you?”
He said, “He made me Muslim and that is enough.”
So alhamdulillah that Allah created us Muslim, not only with arms and legs, but with health and wealth! So our duty is to carry the flag of da`wah, to show the greatness of Islam, to show the love to the Prophet (s) and to other prophets, and to build our homes first! We have to build our differences as Muslims. Now Muslims build differences with non-Muslims, but they don't build the differences between themselves. We are separated into many different groups and they don't look out for how to bring these groups together, they only look at interfaith, but they need to look at “internal interfaith.” Before you go to the Internal Revenue Service you go to do an internal audit, then you go to international audit, but we are not even doing an internal audit!
May Allah support us. We say, “Shukran yaa Rabb, shukran yaa Allah!”
Bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
(Du`a.)
About the meteor (in Russia), that is a sign from Allah (swt), so be careful!
http://sufilive.com/Be_Thankful_for_What_You_Have-4843.html
© Copyright 2013 Sufilive. All rights reserved. This transcript is protected
by international copyright law. Please attribute Sufilive when sharing it. JazakAllahu khayr.