`Asr Suhbah at Private Residence
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-riyaadah, nawaytu 's-sulook, lillahi ta`ala fee haadha 'l-masjid.
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)
Imagine, today there might be 100 people here. Imagine all of you go to visit Mawlana Shaykh, may Allah give him long life, and 100 people arrive there, you go up, and Mawlana meets you. Like this house, you can fit. Imagine you are 500 people, and it becomes more difficult to see the shaykh. If you are 1000 people, it is now more difficult to see the shaykh. If there are 100 it is easy, but 1000 is difficult. Imagine if you are ten thousand, it might be very difficult to see the shaykh. Maybe he looks from outside, says "As-salaamu `alaykum," and then he goes. If you are 50,000 you look at the shaykh from far away; you cannot see anything any more, and it is very difficult. If you are 250,000 people, like in Indonesia when we were in Jepara. 250,000 people, so how are you going to see? I am standing on the stage speaking with people, Habib Shaykh is there reciting, you can see from afar and that is it. Imagine you are one million; it becomes very difficult to see the shaykh, doesn't it? And it is very difficult for the shaykh to see one million people.
But it is not like that in tariqah. There is no need; it is a waste of time. Tariqah means, when they say for you in the Khatm al-Khawajagan which you are doing every Thursday, Friday or Saturday or whatever day you are doing the dhikr. One of the principles of the dhikr is rabitatu 'sh-shareefah. Rabitah, I think many of you have heard the word. It means to connect your heart with the shaykh's heart. How can that be? Here now, say there are one-thousand people, and we say rabitatu 'sh-shareefah, "connect your heart to the shaykh." Think about the shaykh or, if you cannot be with the shaykh, there are another two possibilities as Grandshaykh (q)said, "Connect your heart with Madinatu 'l-Munawwarah, Prophet (s) or with Meccatu 'l-Mukarramah, al-Ka`abat ash-Shareefa."
But when he says rabitah, and it is an order in tariqah, a principle, it means the shaykh is not a shaykh if he is not able to reach everyone as soon as he connects. Even if there are one hundred or two hundred or three hundred, or one million people, he has to identify you and everyone, one by one, without interrupting the other. When that rabitah is said, his heart will be a digital heart, not an analog heart. Do you understand "analog" and "digital"? "Digital" means a very acute wavelength that can immediately be picked up. Today you have cable television that uses digital broadcasting that can be seen, all of them, and you can have 1000 channels. There are some receiving boxes receiving 1000 channels. The shaykh's heart is a box, a heavenly box that Allah (swt) gave to him so he can reach anyone that is knocking on the door. Like they say today, Mawlana Shaykh Hajji Ghulam Rasool, you have Yahoo or Google, all these different big databases and big engines. If you put in one word, in one or two seconds it searches the whole database and it says, "It is mentioned here and here and here." This is all based on what? On electromagnetic waves. These transmissions are waves that are moving everywhere. If Google has that, can a wali not have that, a heavenly box? Google can give you hundreds of millions of emails and all of them go through one central server, so what do you think of Prophet (s)? If Google can reach...
وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ فِيكُمْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ
Wa `alamoo anna feekum RasoolAllah.
You have to know the Prophet is among you, in you. (49:7)
This means this is the system that Allah (swt) has given. That is why "La ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadun Rasoolullah" works. Laa ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadun Rasoolullah is the key for Paradise and in Paradise everything can be done without difficulties. You don't want tech support; anything related to Heaven has no technology support because one technology support is enough. For dunya, everyone needs tech support for the Internet and these things. Who is our tech support? It is your shaykh; he is the tech support to lead you and to bring you, to navigate you to reach the presence of Sayyidina Muhammad. (Mawlana stands) Allahuma salli `alaa Sayyidina Muhammad .. wa narju rahmatik, yaa Sayyidee, yaa Rahmatan li 'l-`Alameen. (Mawlana sits)
So the greatness of Prophet (s) cannot be described. The shaykh navigates you through this difficult path. Today if you want to go from one place to another place, there is a lady in your car who speaks too much, if you make a U-turn it is wrong, and it doesn't stop. (Laughter) Yes? Why do you put a lady's voice? Put a man's voice! How does that voice know? A lady or a man, whatever it is, how do they know where you are, and which direction you need to go and how you have to do a U-turn? Do they know where there is a U-turn? Do they know where an exit is? Allahu Akbar! How do they know? From above the Earth, is it not? It means anything above the Earth is easily identified.
They found each other in a small alley, a narrow alley, very narrow. Two cannot pass, one has to pass. One said to the other, "You go first." Not like these days, if you say, "Go," he goes, especially in the west. If you come as a guest to the house today, they say, "How many are coming?" "Ten." They go to the supermarket, they buy 10 hamburgers and 10 french fries and they come. This is how it is. Or you come and knock on the door, they say, "What do you want to drink?" You say, "Thank you, I don't want to drink." They say, "Okay, sit." But culturally, in the Muslim tradition it is bad. If they say, "No, thank you," you say, "No, you have to have not only coffee and tea, but food also!" Is it not true?
So these two people met in the street and one of them said to the other in that narrow alley, "You pass."
He said, "No, you pass."
The first one said, "No, you have to pass."
Then that person said, bi madhaa astahiq an attaqaddam, "What did I do to deserve that I should pass first? Why not you? Why me? What is the qualification that I have to pass first?"
It is important. It is not easy. People today take everything easy. If you go one day to sit with the shaykh, you become a wali and you want to lead and they say, "If you put the sun in my right hand or the moon in my left hand, I will not leave that." Who are you? You want to take an example from Prophet (s) and make yourself like Prophet (s)? When he says, "I have the sun in my right hand," he has the sun in his right hand! Or he has the moon in his left hand! He can give that example! No, only Prophet (s) has the right to say that. You say, "I have the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand." You know who I am speaking about. You say, "I have the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand." Do you know what you have in your left hand? You smell your right hand and you will know what you have.
He said to that man in the that narrow alley, "You pass first."
He said, "What did I do to deserve to pass first?"
Do you know what he said? Bi annaka sahabta junayd nisfa yawm, "You are far better than me."
"Why am I far better? We lived together all our lives, we are friends. No, you are better than me! How am I better than you? We pray together, we fast together, we eat together. What is better than you?"
He said, "Because you have accompanied for half a day al-Junayd al-Baghdadi (q)," one of the big saints.
It means if you spend half a day with a wali and the other one did not spend half a day, you are better. So what do you think if someone spent one year with a wali and you did not spend except five minutes? Who is better? This majnoon, who knows himself, who wants to put the sun in his right hand, did he meet Mawlana Shaykh? I took him up for five minutes! So they become, their ego becomes so huge they cannot think anymore.
So that one was saying, "O, my friend, you met al-Junayd al-Baghdadi! You have met that wali for half a day. I did not meet him, so you became better than me." Look at the humbleness; that is humbleness. That is the sultan, that if you want to go penetrate from this universe, you have to be humble. If you are not humble, it is a waste of time. Prophet (s) is the most humble that Allah (swt) created. That is why Allah raised his name with His Name. Correct? If Prophet (s), (Mawlana Shaykh stands) if Sayyidina Muhammad (s) did not have humbleness, how would Allah (swt) raise his name with His Name? (Mawlana Shaykh sits) He would not; it has to be humbleness. [end of this section of video review]
... in the village there is so much drought that they don't have anything to eat anymore. One person, like Hajji Ghulam, or one person now who is going to feel shy, or one person who is saadiq ma` Allah, trustworthy with Allah, came to this person in the village and said, yaa Rabbee bi haqqi ma fee hadha al-raas asqinaa, "Yaa Rabbee! Shower us for the sake of what is in the head." What is in the head? Tibbin. Our heads are full of barley, which means they are empty. But this person said, "Yaa Rabbee! Shower us for what is in the head," and as soon as he said that, rain came.
I will explain what was in his head, but before, one time in 1967, 43 years ago, we were in Hajj with Mawlana Shaykh and it was very hot. We went to Mecca and we were in ihram, the cloth of pilgrimage, and it was very hot. We were doing tawaaf and people were sweating and fainting, it would burn you. It was very hot, and so Mawlana stopped and made du`a, and asking, "Ya Allah for the sake of Prophet (s) and for the sake of awliyaa I am not moving until You shower us with rain." I witnessed that and he was saying, "Yaa Rabbee! Send the rain, send the wind to bring the rain here," and suddenly, out of the blue, it was cloudy and rain, rain, and rain, and rain, and rain! We were in the third tawaaf and Mawlana continued through the fourth, the fifth, and we could not continue because there was no drainage and it flooded Mecca!
He said, "Yaa Rabbee! I did not say so much." You could not sit because the water was still there. This is because there was, as that wali said, "O Allah! Shower us with rain for the sake of what is in my head." They asked him, wa maa fee hadha al-raas, "What is in your head?" It is not what the head contains; that is a humiliating or sarcastic comment. Aand he said, qaal ayna...Abu Yazid al-Bistami, "There is in that head two eyes that saw Abu Yazid al-Bistami (q)," one saint from the Golden Chain. Two eyes were enough to bring the rain, Allahu Akbar!
So I bring the same example from when I saw that rain in Mecca. What was that in the head of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim that brought the rain? Two eyes that saw Shaykh `AbdAllah (q), and Prophet (s), and a head that knows ma`rifah! When Allah gives, He gives! When someone saw Abu Yazid (q) with his two eyes, Allah (swt) showered them. What do you think if his two eyes were seeing a perfect shaykh? It means, how much value is there when you are visiting and seeing the eyes of your shaykh? Grandshaykh used to say, "Anyone who is looking for a qutb and finds one and looks into their eyes will be rewarded with forty years of worship." For anyone who looks at the eyes of a qutb and anyone who sees Mount Uhud in Madinah, it is forty time better than if you look at the eyes of the qutb and you get the reward of forty years of worship! And if you look at Mount Uhud, you get forty times more reward. That is why you don't turn your back to Mount Uhud. So what do you get for ash-shaykh al-kamil, the perfect shaykh? Leave looking at the face of the shaykh, as Allah is granting that if you are looking at the shaykh with all these rewards, it is because you are someone who loves Allah. So what do you think if your heart becomes full of love for Allah?
And may Allah forgive all of us. Now it is Maghrib and we will pray.
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.