Suhbah at As-Siddiq Institute & Mosque (ASIM)
Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Kareem Allah. We ask support from Qutb al-Mutasarrif, the one responsible for everything in this time, and we ask for his presence in this gathering.
Salaam `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh. Alhamdulillahi rabbi ‘l-`alameen, we are gathered once again in this masjid, the House of Allah. We are blessed to be accepted in the Presence of the Lord Almighty. If it was not for His guidance, if Allah did not guide us to the way of Islam, to the way of our beloved shaykh, grandshaykh and all our grandshaykhs, and the way of the Prophet (s), how would we have come here? So many people outside don't know that a masjid is a place to come worship the Creator; it looks like any building from the outside. If someone did not direct his attention to His Lord and find out that there are buildings used for other than sleeping and business and lodging, that there are buildings that are sanctuaries for those looking for their Lord, this building can look like any other building with a ceiling and four walls and a door. But what is inside this building is different from what is inside a warehouse or restaurant down the street. The outside is the same, bricks, stone, windows, but the difference lies in the heart of this building, not what it looks like from outside.
They say mosques, synagogues and churches can be built in the most magnificent ways. You can build a magnificent building like the mosques in Hyderabad or Istanbul, to equal a palace. So what is on the outside does not matter, what is inside matters. This building looks like any other building, but on the inside it is different, just like human beings look the same on the outside, but on the inside they are different. What you find on the inside of any human being is different; what is outside looks the same, all have eyes, ears, a mouth, nose, tongue. We can all read the same books: a Jewish, Christian or a Muslim scholar can all pick up the Holy Qur'an and Hadith and read them, each one can speak about them and all are scholars, but the difference is on the inside, who has the faith. Anyone can go to a library and pick up a book and read it and discuss it with people, even a hypocrite, a Muslim, Christian, Jew, etc. What do hypocrites read? So how would you know the right one to follow if a Christian can pick up a topic and read the explanation in Islam, or a Jewish person can explain it and memorize it? Any hypocrite can pick up the same explanation and memorize it and tell people, even an atheist.
The Holy Qur'an is a beautiful book and it has so much sweetness for the heart, and same with the Hadith. So do I follow an atheist, a Christian, a Jewish person, a hypocrite, or a Muslim? They are all saying things I like and hope for: Jannah, Allah's favors in Paradise, we all want that. But which one can we follow, him or her, as there are shaykhas today in Muslim conferences, so how do we know which one to follow? Like buildings are the same from outside, so you know? How do you go inside a human being to see if he is sincere, because a hypocrite is not sincere in what he says and he does not apply it to himself. So how to determine whom to follow is the big question nowadays.
What did the Prophet (s) say in Hadith?
ستفترق هذه الأمة على ثلاث وسبعين فرقة
This Ummah will split into 73 sects. (Abu Dawood, Tirmidhi)
“My nation will be split into seventy or more groups.”
We don't know more than five, six or seven groups--Shi`a, Sunnis, Druze, Alawi--and each one says, “We are the right ones.” So which one's ideology or which imam's way are you going to follow? How do we know? We don't know, we are sheep, we need a shepherd and we are not shepherds, but where do sheep go? Do sheep dwell in barren lands or find a pasture or a fresh tree to eat from? They eats from pastures, so sheep go to where they feed. We are all sheep asking for our shepherd. Of course, our shepherd is Sayyidina Muhammad (s), but we are no-mind people. We need someone to take us to the way of the Holy Prophet (s), so how would you know from these seventy or more groups which is the right one?
Where do we go,like this building is the same as others. How do we know who to follow? All are confused. We are quitting, we are leaving the way because we don't know which guide to follow, so where do we go? To kitaabullah was sunnati Rasoolullah, we go to Holy Qur'an and the examples of our Holy Prophet to find the way, as the Prophet (s) said:
تركت فيكم أمرين لن تضلوا ما تمسكتم بهما : كتاب الله ، وسنتي
If you hold on to the Holy Qur'an and my Sunnah you will not lose the way.
(Malik's Muwatta)
We need to know the inside of a human being to know the real human being. How do we do that? We need spiritual power, we need the help of the spiritual world and help of the Divine Presence.
We follow the way of Grandshaykh `AbdAllah al-Fa'iz ad-Daghestani (q) and Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil (q), and Grandshaykh `AbdAllah left two noble shaykhs, two have passed from his time, and we have one from the time of Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil (q), so we have three. What did Allah (swt) say in Holy Qur'an?
قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللّهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
Say (O Muhammad), "If you (really) love Allah, then follow me! Allah will love you and forgive your sins, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surat Aali-'Imraan, 3:31)
Who is the one who follows the Prophet (s)? Seventy groups or more, so if you find that group, they lead you to the Prophet (s). Allah said in Holy Qur'an, “The sign of the one who follows the Prophet (s) is that Allah's love will reach them”.
Allah is saying to the Prophet (s), “Tell them if you follow me Allah will love you”, so the true sign of following the Prophet (s) is that Allah’s love reaches them. Now how do you know if Allah's love reached a human being? We don't have the power to know, but if we go to Hadith, we know if a human being is loved by Allah, that is the one we follow. The holy verse says, “Say (O “Muhammad), ‘If you (really) love Allah, then follow me! Allah will love you and forgive your sins, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.’” So how to find out if someone is loved by Allah? Are you loved by Allah, is he or she loved by Allah? We go to a Hadith that is muttafaqun `alayh, agreed upon by both Bukhari and Muslim:
إن الله إذا أحب عبدا دعا جبريل فقال إني أحب فلانا فأحبه قال فيحبه جبريل ثم ينادي في السماء فيقول إن الله يحب فلانا فأحبوه فيحبه أهل السماء قال ثم يوضع له القبول في الأرض وإذا أبغض عبدا دعا جبريل فيقول إني أبغض فلانا فأبغضه قال فيبغضه جبريل ثم ينادي في أهل السماء إن الله يبغض فلانا فأبغضوه قال فيبغضونه ثم توضع له البغضاء في الأرض
If Allah loves a servant He calls Jibreel and says “Indeed I love such and such a person, so love him!” Thus Jibreel loves him, then he calls out to Paradise and says “Indeed Allah loves such and such a person, so love him!” Thus the people of Paradise love him. Then acceptance is made for him on the Earth. (Muslim)
So the sign that Allah loves someone is that the people on Earth love and respect that person, that is the sign we look for. If there is a person going somewhere, even if he is going to Disneyland and people are flocking around him, they don't know him, but they go and leave everything they are doing and surround him. So if this servant travels anywhere in the world and you see hundreds or thousands of people flocking to that person, that is the sign. If we are able to go to a strange place and you don't know anyone and people come, want to talk to you, that means Allah (swt) made the people come to you because Allah loves you, and when Allah loves His servant the people on Earth and in Heavens will love him. This is a sign that that person is following the guidance of the Prophet (s).
If you find someone like that, wherever he or she goes, they surround him, even if they have no questions, they just want to say hello or look at him, then that means this person is following the Prophet (s). If you find one, stick to him. Can there be two? Of course. What, is there only one person that Allah likes? There can be three. Be friends with both, or three or all four or all five or all ten! Allah (swt) says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ اتَّقُواْ اللّهَ وَكُونُواْ مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ
O you who believe! Fear Allah and be with those who are truthful (in word and deed).
(Surat at-Tawbah, 9:119)
It is plural, “be with the Truthful Ones”, that means there are multiple ones, rijaalun sadaqoo maa `ahad `alayhoo'llah. ‘Men’ not “one man”, so it can be more than one, twenty, thirty...
الْأَخِلَّاءُ يَوْمَئِذٍ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ إِلَّا الْمُتَّقِينَ
On that Day friends will become enemies to one another, expect the God fearing.
(Surat al-Zukhruf, 43:67)
On that Day they will be enemies to each other except the muttaqoon, those who fear Allah. How many friends we have these days? On Facebook we have hundreds, thousands, and Allah said, “Except the pious ones.” That is plural, and it means if you can have more than one friend who is a pure, righteous one do it. If you find two or four like that, that is the sign we look for. When we see people loving them and we are loving them, know that person is our friend, he is obeying Allah and he is on the true way of our grandshaykhs.
May Allah make us stick to all of them and make us with the righteous ones and keep us on the ways of all our grandshaykhs and what they left behind and we try to be good ones.
Wa min Allahi ‘t-tawfeeq bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
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