Palais de la Culture
2010 Africa Tour Series
(NOTE: This event was filled to capacity, 3000 people attended. Mawlana Shaykh Hisham gave Naqshbandi -Haqqani Tariqah to Shaykh Aba Cisse, head of Qadiri Tariqa in Ivory Coast, and Shaykh Ali Ouatara, a Tijani shaykh.)
As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.
A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem.
Bismillahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem.
Ati`ullaha wa ati`u 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.
Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (4:59)
YaaSeen. Wal qur'anil hakeem. innaka laminal mursaleen. `ala siraatim mustaqeem. Wan najmee eeza hawa, maa dhallah saheebookum wama ghawa, wama yantiqoo `anil hawa, in huwa illa wahyayn yooha. TaHa. maa anzalna `alaikal quranaa litashqa illa tazkeeratan limayn yaghsha. Ayyoohal muslimoon, ayyuhal mu’minoon, alhumdulillah. Alhumdulillah, allazee shafa`ana fi hazal yawmil kareem, fi hazeehil qa`ah bi d`awatin mina-shaykh, imama al `aimmah, wa Shaykh-ul Islam, As-Shaykh Idris Quddus.
We would like to say that when Allah (swt) wants to support someone, He will not ask anyone. Even if they are from a lower poor family, or from the highest rich family, He will support that person. And we are all of us, especially the ladies and all the men who are here, on top of them the Imam, Shaykh-ul Islam, Allah (swt) will take them from being normal Muslims, to make them the highest possible Muslims and give them sincerity in their hearts.
O Muslims, O brothers! I am so surprised to see in this country that, alhumdulillah, Muslims come for events and this is an invitation from Shaykh-ul Islam that everyone is coming. Sometimes in Muslim countries you invite people to attend an event and only 100 or 200 people come. Here we are seeing mashaa-Allah may be 2,000 or 3,000 people. All that will be written for you on the Day of Judgment on your notebook, angels will be writing "Shaykh-ul Islam" for you.
O Muslims! Sayyidina Muhammad (s) ordered us to love each other and to be humble to each other. Pride and arrogance are from the characteristics of Iblees. I’m not here today to teach you your religion, astaghfirullah. I need someone to teach me also; I am a student. I don’t see myself as anything..I’m under the shoes of people; I’m at the footsteps, the threshold of imaams and shuyukh. I hope and I love to be under the feet of Sayyidina Muhammad (s)! Humbleness is what we need. If we loose humbleness, we will loose our matters, our unity, and our power. Because if we have humbleness we will feel that whoever wants to sit on the chair, let them sit. I will be at the shoes hiding myself, not to be at the main door; that is better, to let someone else take that responsibility.
Humbleness teaches us how to be a normal human beings and arrogance teaches us how to be devils, so run away from pride and arrogance and run towards humbleness. You can have the highest title in the country, but your heart must be the lowest in front of Allah (swt) and Prophet (s). You don’t need a title then, have the title of `abd, "servant," that is the best title. Be at Maqam-al `Ubudiyyah, the Station of Servanthood; that is what we need. But you can be imaam of course, you can be Shaykh-ul Islam, you can be president, because you have to run the affairs of the Muslims and the community, but in the heart, we all have to be humble.
As Prophet (s) mentioned in a hadith narrated by Imam Ahmad (q), one day Prophet (s) opened his hand and spit in it, and then he put his finger on it and said, “Allah said, ‘O the son of Adam (a)! How you are trying to make Me to run after you, not listening to Me, and I created you from this spit? I have built you up from a sperm, a small drop.” In science today, they count how many sperms come from the man and how many eggs come from the woman, and they found that from the men come more than three-million sperms. All are alike and one of them catches one egg. Three-million small creatures running inside of the male body and from one of them and one egg from the female, “I created you and you are running away from Me. I made you a human being in the womb of the mother. I raised you up, I made you a man, and you became forty years of age, you have everything in the life, you have houses, cars, bank accounts, and whether you are wealthy or not, you forget about Me. Until your soul is being taken out, inna lillahi wa inna ilayhee raji`oon, I am taking it out, you say, 'Allah, Allah! Please leave it a little bit. I will give charity, I will give zakaat.' No! At that time you are lost."
O People! Don’t lose. When someone asks you to give money for a masjid, give. When someone asks you to give for a hospital, give. When someone poor comes to you, give and don’t wait, as Prophet (s) said, “It will be too late when your soul is coming out to say, ‘Give me time, yaa Rabbee, and I will give!’ At that time it is finished, so give now.” Sallu `alayh, allahuma salli `alan nabi. We make one salawaat on Prophet (s) and Allah (swt) sends us ten salawaat from Him! Which is better, Allah’s salawaat or our salawaat? So make one for Prophet (s) and Allah will give you ten from Him!
O Muslims! Everything is created from two. People might say, “Oh, man and woman, male and female,” yes, it is correct. But,even in the atom, even if we take any element from the periodic table in chemistry, there are more than 300 elements and every element has an atom. Every atom has a mass, energy, and electrons. And inside that atom, there is a mass, the body, and there are the electrons circumambulating in a way of tawaaf around the mass (counter-clockwise) at 300,000 kilometers per second. The way atoms consist of mass and energy, human beings are also characterized the same way. We have a mass, a body, and there is the energy, that is the soul inside. The soul is always supporting the body and vice versa. If your soul is clean, your body becomes clean. As Prophet (s) mentioned in the hadith of the heart, “There is in the body a piece of flesh. If it is good, the whole body will be good. If it is bad, the whole body will be bad. That is the heart.” And here, he doesn’t mean only the flesh heart. There are two kinds of hearts: the inner heart, the heart of the soul, and the heart of the body.
O Muslims! Your soul needs purification, your soul needs to be raised up by cleaning it with what Prophet (s) has taught us about moral excellence, the moral behaviors of humanity that Allah (swt) called Prophet (s), wa innaka la`ala khuluqin `adheem. Salloo `alayh, allahuma salli `alan nabi. The soul is the main energy that is moving the body. That’s why the most important thing in Islam is not only the five pillars, these are obligations, and these are movements made by the body. But ihsaan and imaan are something you cannot see, but are there. The good characters, the best of characters, that’s what we emphasize in all religions. They try to speak about spirituality, and unfortunately we don’t see Muslims around the world speak much about spirituality. No one speaks about what Prophet (s) came with, the good manners and good characters for people to learn and understand more.
That’s why Prophet (s) from hadith Haritha, said, “Do you want me to tell you about the people of Paradise?” Do you like to be from people of punishment? No! Let us hear what Prophet (s) said. He said, “Do you want me to tell you about the people of Paradise? The people of Paradise are those who make themselves humble,” who make themselves weak. They always show respect to the elderly and to the young. There was once someone in Islam named Abu Yazid al-Bastami (q), whenever he would see a child, he would go down (to the child's level) and respect them. When he would see children and elderly people, he would go down and respect them. People asked, “Yaa Abu Yazid, why are you doing that?” He said, “I respect the young because they are younger than me and have less sins, and I respect the elderly because they are older than me and have more `amal.”
O Muslims! Be humble, as Prophet (s) said, “Everyone who is feeling humble should humble himself more, to be from the people of Paradise.” He said someone who you think is ugly, with greasy hair, looks disgusting, dirty, smells a lot, and people are running away from him, maybe he is better than all of you. If he asks Allah (swt) for something, Allah might give him because he has a good heart. And Prophet (s) said, “Do you want me to tell you about the people of Hellfire?” He said they are everyone arrogant and ignorant, they don’t know anything, but because they have some money they think they are above everyone.” I am telling you this hadith to show you there is not much time now; dunya is ending and we are now in the Last Days.
When Jibreel (a) asked Prophet (s) about the signs of the Last Days, Prophet said, “When you are going to see the barefooted, naked Bedouin competing in high-rises.” Go to the desert in the Arabian Gulf and you see the whole desert owned by Bedouins is changed into high-rises, where there was nothing before. And Prophet (s) mentioned this 1,400 years ago. The high-rises are even higher than Ka`abatullah and the holy grave of Prophet (s) in Masjid an-Nabawi (s).
I would like to mention this hadith; it is important to know. Prophet (s) said, "There is coming a day when there will be too much money in the hands of people, too much money everywhere." Go and see the Muslim and Arab countries and even here, where too many people have too much money. "And the Qur’an will be opened." Why, the Qur’an was closed before? No, but because of some issues that happened, everyone is interested to see what is this Islam? What is in the Holy Qur’an? Even non-Muslims are sitting down on their computers and reading the Holy Qur’an to see what is inside that message that Muslims are so much interested in. Now you see Holy Qur'an in every bookstore, Muslim or non-Muslim. Everyone is interested to read the Holy Qur’an today, and this is from the signs of the Last Days. I will end with that, because we are going to nominate Shaykh-ul Islam today.
We have to know that the heart is something that has light in it. It is a pearl, a gem, a diamond. It is called by wise people, “the inner self.” And that is why the heart is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an 97 times, al-qalb fil qur’an. The abstract name of the heart is mentioned 15 times, and the chest is mentioned 141 times in the Holy Qur’an. Look how much importance Allah (swt) gave to the heart, where you find many characteristics; first, love and hate. Everything has a positive and negative, always in the heart. Allah (swt) is looking at human beings, who is going to be more positive, and who is going towards devils or towards goodness? Then, you have courage and fear, pain and happiness, softness and cruelty, happiness, peacefulness and difficulties, guidance and deviation.
We are guided through Shaykh-ul Islam today; alhumdulillah we are happy. And then, to be on the Right Path or on the wrong. Alhumdulillah, with your presence today, we hope that we are all on the Right Path.
Aqoolo qawlihaza wastaghfirullahill`azeem leewalakum walee sa’eelil mustaqeem wa ya`fawzaa lil mustaghfireen, astaghfirullah.
Was-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.