Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
22 July 2012 Fenton Zawiya, Michigan
Suhbah after Fajr
Allahumma salli ‘alaa Sayyidina Muhammad hatta yarda Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
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`alaa fee haadha 'l-masjid.
أَطِيعُواْ اللّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ الرَّسُولَ وَأُوْلِي الأَمْرِ مِنكُمْ
Ati`oollaha wa ati`oo 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.
Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (Surat an-Nisa, 4:59)
Alhamdulillah Allah (swt) has granted us, and it is a grant from Him, to be Muslims and that we are trying to increase the love of the Prophet (s) and the love of Allah (swt). As you increase the love of Allah (swt) and love of the Prophet (s) in yourself, this is what He likes and this is what He wants. It is said, "O my son! Too many mashaykh are trying to give us beautiful fruits by taking on the headache of checking all the ahadeeth of the Prophet (s), which they have compiled it in a way that we can understand, and this is a big job they are doing. As for us, we only need to eat the fruits.” They are not asking us to do anything except to eat the fruit.
It is said that we do different `amal for our Akhirah, just as we do different `amals for our dunya. As Allah (swt) said in Holy Qur'an:
رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ
Rabbanaa atinaa fi'd-dunya hasanatan wa fi ’l-akhirati hasanatan wa qinaa `adhab an-naar.
O our Lord! Give us goodness in this life and goodness in the Next Life, and protect us from the punishment of the Fire. (Surat al-Baqara, 2:201)
For every hasanah, Allah gives ten times as much of what we are doing of hasanaat, which is not like what Allah gives of hasanaat. Our hasanaat is mixed with our ego and bad desires, as we are struggling against Shaytan. When we do hasanaat, it means we did not accept what Shaytan is saying, but rather we accepted what Allah (swt) is saying. That is why Allah (swt) gives us ten from His hasanaat that has no limits, which is why He (swt) said in the Holy Qur’an, “O Allah! Give us hasanah in this life and hasanah in Akhirah.” When Allah (swt) gives us hasanah, it means, “Yaa Rabbee! Save us from Hellfire!” And the best hasanah that you think within yourself is to be with the Prophet (s) and to feel that presence! So, “O Allah! Give us in dunya the Prophet (s) and in Akhirah to be with the Prophet (s); keep us related to him and to be in his presence.” So the highest understanding of hasanah is “Muhammad (s).” Rabbanaa atinaa fi'd-dunya Muhammad wa atinaa fi ’l-akhirati Muhammad! When you are with the Prophet (s), wherever he goes you are with him. That is why one of the best salawaat is Salawaat al-Faatih:
Salawaat al-Faatih
اللهم صل على سيدنا محمد الفاتح لما أغلق و الخاتم لما سبق ناصر الحق بالحق و الهادي إلى صراطك المستقيم و على آله حق قدره و مقداره العظيم
Allahumma salli `alaa Sayyidina Muhammadini 'l-faatihi limaa ughliq wa 'l-khaatimi limaa sabaq, naasiri 'l-haqqi bi 'l-haqq wa 'l-haadi ilaa siraatika 'l-mustaqeem wa `alaa aalihi haqqa qadrihi wa miqdaarihi 'l-`azheem.
O Allah! Bless our master Muhammad (s), who opened what was closed and who sealed what had gone before! He makes the Truth Victorious by the Truth and he is the guide to Your Straight Path, and bless his household as it befits his immense stature and splendor.
Everything is ughliq, closed, so then “al-faatihi limaa ughliq” means, “O Allah! Make salawaat on the Prophet (s), who opens everything!” Allah (swt) opened everything for him, and for us the Prophet (s) will open. As Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (r) called on Allah (swt) in his prayers, “Yaa Rabbee! Open Your Door for me and give me the key to enter Your Presence!”
Many people ask, “Yaa Allah! Grant success for my son's exams, my son's university, my daughter’s marriage, my daughter's study,” or, “I have black magic. I have jinn on me.” If they would only say, “A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytani 'r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem,” can any jinn or magic stay? Open your mind! So instead of asking, “Can my son go to university,” or “My daughter wants to get married,” Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) continuously asked, “Yaa Rabbee! I want to enter Your Presence, to be there with the Prophets, the Siddiqeen, the Shuhaadaa and the Saaliheen!” That is what Allah (swt) likes. This doesn’t mean that Allah (swt) doesn’t want your son to go to university; that is okay, but rather He wants you to pay attention to your Akhirah.
Some people ask us to pray for them to have a good life in dunya and Akhirah, which is very good, or to pray that their children become from the Saaliheen, or that their daughters marry a good husband and raise their children well in Islam. These are all very good, but I don’t understand it when they ask to pray for their sons or daughters to go to university! If he goes or not, let him be a plumber or something else. Why are you wasting your time? Ahmad al-Badawi (q) did not waste his time; instead, he looked for Akhirah, asking and asking, until finally Allah (swt) sent him someone:
رب اشعث اغبر لو اقسم على الله لأبره
Rubba ash`ath aghbara law aqsama `ala ’Llaahi la-abbarah.
There may be a disheveled, dusty person who, if he swears an oath by Allah, Allah will fulfill it.
(Muslim)
There are such ones among the ummah; perhaps there is one here. SubhaanAllah, how much Allah (swt) looks at humble ones! There might be someone people don’t like and throw him out from the door, but Allah (swt) accepts his du`as! Allah (swt) sent Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) a humble one like that and said, “Yaa Ahmad! Do you want the key for Paradise? I have it.”
And Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) said, “I don’t want the key from you; I want the key from The Keymaker.”
That one said, “As you like, but the Prophet (s) is my witness that I came to you, so don’t say I didn’t come. You want it from Allah (swt), so go take it from Him. Do you think He is going to send it to you through Jibreel (a)?”
At that time Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) was one of the highest ranking awliyas in Egypt and until today, every year two-to-three million people visit his maqaam to observe his urs.
So that man left him, and for six months Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) was asking and asking, until Allah (swt) sent him al-haatif ar-rabbaani, a heavenly voice, saying, “O Ahmad! If you want the key, go to that person from whom you refused it and get it!”
Don’t refuse anyone. If you see a homeless person on the street carrying a sign that reads, “Homeless, give me money,” stop the car and give him money! You don’t know, perhaps he is a wali. Don't look down on people. Allah (swt) will put His Secret in His asghar khalqihi, smallest creation. He gave His Secret to that one who people only see is greasy-haired and disgusting, but from inside he is carrying the Light of an-Noor!
So He said, “The key was with that one, go to him. I sent him to you, but you refused to take it from him.” What can he do other than go and look for him, although he was beside him, veiling himself from sight. One time Grandshaykh (q) came down from his house on Jabal Qasyoun to visit the maqaam of Sayyidina Muhiydeen ibn al-`Arabi (r) in a horse carriage, Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab as-Salaahi (q), a famous Sufi Shaykh, sat beside him in the carriage. As soon as they arrived at Sayyidina Muhiydeen’s maqaam, suddenly a greasy-haired, disgusting one appeared, however you want to describe him. He held the horse and by looking at Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab as-Salaahi, he asked, “Is Shaykh `AbdAllah al-Fa’iz ad-Daghestani (q) your Shaykh or you are his Shaykh?”
Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab as-Salaah (q) answered, which is adab, as the one who is asked must answer. Today you ask someone a question and everyone answers, that is bad adab. Keep quiet and listen. Allah (swt) wants some words to come from everyone’s mouth for you to take advice and wisdom. When you hear people debate, don’t interfere; rather, let them argue and you might take hikmah from it. Allah (swt) will send one word that is important for you to understand, but if you join in the debate it will become steamy, like a Turkish bath!
So Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab as-Salaah (q) answered, “I am not his Shaykh and he is not my Shaykh.” As soon as he said that, which was bad adab, a bad smell came from his mouth and immediately the one asking disappeared. Then he looked at Grandshaykh (q) and said, “What happened, where did he go?
Grandshaykh (q) said, “He is there, I see him.”
Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab said, “What made him disappear?”
Grandshaykh (q) said, “He disappeared from the smelly words that came from your mouth.”
Shaykh `Abdul Wahhab said, “I only said ‘He is not my Shaykh and I am not his Shaykh,’ which is correct.”
Grandshaykh (q) said, “That is bad adab. What is the problem if you had said, ‘He is my Shaykh,’ as I am older? Humble yourself!”
Today does anyone humble himself? No, everyone wants to argue. We are not speaking of other people, but of our own Muslim people, who like to argue. Don’t listen to what they teach you in universities, to criticize the author or teacher and to put him in the corner and lower him! In Islam, adab is to respect.
Sayyidina Bayazid al-Bistami (r) said, “If I see a younger person I respect him as he has less sins than me, and if I see an older person than me I respect him because he has more `amal than me.” So he put himself in a position to always accuse and lower his ego. But we put all kinds of titles in front of our names, “al-Qutb ar-Rabbani,” “Shaykh al-Mashaykh,” “Shaykh at-Tariqah,” “Frankenstein;” that is what we are doing today!
So Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (r) didn’t take the key from that man and then he had to go look for him everywhere. After some time the man appeared and Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) said, “O my brother! Please give me the key.”
He said, “I will give you the key but it is not free anymore, you have to pay.”
Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) said, “I will give you whatever you want from my wealth!”
He said, “No, we are not interested in dunya. I want your `ilm.”
Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (r) was the Grand Mufti of Egypt as well as the Shaykh al-Islam of that time. He said, “I need all the ego-based `ilm on which you based all your knowledge. You made yourself egoistic through the knowledge you learned, which doesn’t work among awliyaullah, so that has to be taken away. You need `ilm like the one given to Sayyidina Khidr (a): ‘And We had taught him a (certain) knowledge from Our Presence.’ (18:65) That is Divine Knowledge. If you want Divine Knowledge, then give me all your bad knowledge you acquired from dunya, which is ‘this one said this, that one said that.’”
Today to prove their scholarship, half the book is footnotes; if you don’t put footnotes, they say, “He doesn’t know anything.” You don’t need footnotes! A wali can take from the Prophet (s) directly. There are many ahadith that are certified by the Prophet (s) in dreams, and as Prophet (s) said:
من رائني في المنام فقد راءني حقا
Man ra'anee fi 'l-manaami faqad raanee haqqan.
Who saw me in the dream saw me in reality. (Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah)
Whoever saw the Prophet (s) in a dream has really seen him; there are no lies in that. If a wali asked the Prophet (s) about a hadith in a dream, that is perfect. That is why Imam Bukhari (r) never put a hadith in his Sahih without first making istikhaara to see a dream with the Prophet (s) telling him if the hadith is authentic and under which chapter to place it. If you didn’t really see the Prophet (s) in a dream, can you lie and tell people you saw him? No, you will feel scared. All awliyaullah authenticized their speeches through dreams. When you see the Prophet (s) saying to you, “This is correct,” how can you say “no”? Don’t reject what awliyaullah say, because they take directly from the Prophet (s) and therefore, they don’t need books!
So he said, “I want your ego-based knowledge.” Today they put titles such as “Professor” and “PhD” in front of their names in order to give importance to themselves, which is from ego and arrogance. Be humble, as the Prophet (s) was humble. Allahumma salli `alaa Sayyidina Muhammad, hattaa yardaa Sayyidina Muhammad.
So Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi (q) asked, “How will you take this knowledge out?”
That one said, “Look into my eyes.”
He looked into his eyes and like a vacuum, all his knowledge was sucked out, taken, until he was not even able to recite Surat al-Fatihah accurately! So everyone started saying, “Shaykh al-Islam became crazy!” and children even threw stones at him and mocked him. What could he do? He had to carry and accept, because he lost all his knowledge.
After six months, that wali appeared to him and said, “Yaa Ahmad! Now you are ready,” and in the same way, he poured Heavenly Knowledge into his eyes, until he became nooraaniyy, luminous, dressed with that beautiful Heavenly Light. After that, no one was able to look at his face or they would faint from seeing that Heavenly Light, so he covered his face with a burqa. Whatever people asked him, either from zhaahiri (external) knowledge or baatini (internal) knowledge, he answered, but to get there he had to suffer three years of tests.
So don’t disrespect anyone because you don’t know, he could be a wali. Don’t look at a person except from an eye of love and respect. If others don’t look at you with an eye of love and respect, that is not your business as it’s their mistake. Your duty is to look at everyone with an eye of goodness and respect, not to backbite them as soon as they leave, which unfortunately is what we do. If we could go back to the time of Sayyidina Adam (a) and Habil and Qabil, we would even backbite them! (Laughter) Don’t backbite anyone; it is prohibited in Holy Qur'an and hadith.
So what do we have to ask for? Rabbanaa atinaa fi'd-dunya hasanah wa fi ’l-akhirati hasanah. “Hasanah” is the Prophet (s)! Yaa Rabbee! Give us Muhammad in dunya and give us Muhammad in Akhirah! That is our goal and we don’t need more than that du`a. When we ask, al-Faatihi limaa ughliq, the Prophet (s) is al-Faatih, The Opener, who taught Salawaat al-Faatih to a Shaykh among awliyaullah of that time and dictated that salawaat to him in a dream. Al-Faatihi limaa ughliq, “He (s) is the Opener of everything closed from you; the Prophet (s) will lift the veils.” Awliyaullah have counted 70,000 veils between us and the Prophet (s). As you progress, veils are lifted one after another, until it becomes thinner and thinner and you can see what cannot be seen.
So it is said that while you work for this life, you have to do for Akhirah as well, to balance between them. In dunya you might do some hard work, al-`amal ash-shaaq, like when they sentence prisoners to hard labor. In dunya you might do hard labor, but the pay is very little. For Akhirah, however, you do a little bit and you get lots of rewards and earn more. So for which do you have to do more? For Akhirah, as you earn much for a little `amal, whereas in dunya you earn less.
If you place the whole wealth of dunya on one side of the Scale and one “Laa ilaaha illa-Llah” on the other side of the Scale, one “Laa ilaaha illa-Llah” will be heavier in the Scale than all your `amal in dunya! So which do we have to do? We say, “Laa ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadun Rasoolullah!”
The author of this book wrote, “Don’t you see the blacksmith doing very hard work and sometimes even burning himself, but he gets little money?” If you do only a little for Akhirah, you get big money and big hasanah in savings. That is why they say, “From His Generosity and Love to His Servants, Allah (swt) will bring His Favor on you that if you do something small, He gives you something big.” For example, if you read Surat al-Ikhlaas three times, it is as if you read the whole Holy Qur'an! So let’s recite it now three times, Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem:
قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ,اللَّهُ الصَّمَد,ُلَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَد,ْوَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ
Qul huwa Allahu ahad, Allahus-samad, lam yalid wa lam yulad, wa lam yakun lahu kufuwan ahad.
Say, "He is Allah, the Unique One!” Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent." (Surat al-Ikhlaas, 112:1-4)
This is the hadith of the Prophet (s). So now we read the entire Qur’an, which, if you want to read it in one sitting, takes twenty or twenty-four hours maximum. In one day you can finish the entire Holy Qur'an, but by reciting Surat al-Ikhlaas three times, you completed it! Sayyidina `Ali (r) heard that hadith from the Prophet (s), whereas not all Companions (r) heard the same ahadeeth. One time the Prophet (s) said, “Whoever recites the whole Qur'an by Fajr time, I will give him a reward.” So they all went home after `Isha and tried reciting until Fajr, but they could not complete it.
Then Sayyidina `Ali (r) said, “Yaa Rasoolullah! I finished it.”
The Sahaabah (r) asked, “How did you finish?”
They were friends and they used to have a sense of humor, not serious like you! The Prophet (s) laughed and joked with his Sahaabah (r).
So they asked the Prophet (s), “Yaa Rasoolullah! How did `Ali (r) finish when none of us were able to do that?”
The Prophet (s) said, “`Ali is right.”
What did he do? He read Surat al-Ikhlaas three times and then slept, while all the Sahaabah (r) stayed awake reading! So recite Surat al-Ikhlaas three times a day, which doesn't mean you don’t read the Holy Qur'an, but rather this is to show that for a little `amal Allah (swt) gives a big reward!
Inshaa-Allah we will continue next time on what Allah (swt) will give for the different kinds of short dhikr.
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
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