Sufism and Tasawwuf - Naqshbandi Sufi Way

Invoking the Beloved is the Main Pillar

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

24 February 2013 Connecticut

Zhuhr Suhbah at Private Residence (Audio only)

Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Kareem Allah!

Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Subhaan Allah!

Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Kareem Allah!

Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Allah, Allah Sultan Allah!

Allah is Sultan of Sultans, Malik al-Mulook! There is no king that can declare himself a king in Allah’s Presence and Allah is present every moment, so not one king or one shaykh or one nabi can say, “I am there” except the Prophet (s), because Allah brought him there! So no one can say, “I am something.” When you empty yourself they fill you. When you think you are full, why do they have to fill you when you believe that you are full? So everyone must come empty; you cannot come to Allah (swt) full because then you cannot say, “Yaa Rabbee, O Allah! I am full and I deserve to be in Your Presence!” No way! No one, whatever he does of good does not deserve to be in Allah's Presence unless Allah loves him. When Allah loves him, that person deserves to be in the Divine Presence.

One of the famous Sufi teachers - they call them professors today - is there anyone higher than a professor? In spirituality there are higher than professors because a professor takes his knowledge, as one of the famous spiritual masters or teachers said, “Knowledge is of two kinds, Knowledge of Paper, theories, bullet points, and Knowledge of Taste.”

For Knowledge of Taste, if this is coffee you need to drink to taste it, but theory does not allow you to taste. It’s like when a doctor studies everything at the beginning as theory, then they send him to practice as a resident to “taste,” to see how the real life of the patient is; how he lives, how he comes and goes, his birth and death; it is a taste and it is experience.

So when we say “Invoking the Beloved,” how can we invoke the Beloved without a taste and without an experience? Might be it is only said by tongue, not by taste, you only speak about it. So taste is important; taste is how you reflect your feelings towards that one whom you are invoking, him or her. So invoking the Beloved does not come from theory but from taste. So poets reflect their taste, what they are feeling; through their taste we can understand what they want us to understand. That is why it is said to invoke the Beloved is...when you want to invoke someone, they call it “the Beloved,” they didn't want to say who, but take any beloved; when you invoke it means you are calling upon or remembering or you are mentioning or you are living his life in you, you are feeling him.

So it is said by one of the famous spiritual masters, al-Qushayri, in al-Risalat al-Qushayriyya, in his book on spirituality, which has been translated into English as, “Invoking the Beloved is one of the major pole, rukn, pillars in this field of Gnosticism. You cannot say, ‘I am seeking the journey,’ without invoking the one you are seeking in your journey.”

And the highest level of invoking the Beloved is by calling upon Allah, calling the Creator; that is the highest level of expressing your feelings towards Him. That is why no one can reach that Ocean of Knowledge through al-`Alim, the One Who Knows everything; you cannot reach ma`rifat without invoking Him, without mentioning His Name and listening and hearing a response.

They speak about poetry and poets. Poetry is what these poets are feeling and calling, and when you invoke someone, when you call upon someone you love, will that someone not respond? If you did not get an answer yet, that means you are not invoking as you should be. I will give an example of Jalaluddin ar-Rumi (q), which is the one they always speak about. But how many Rumi's were there in Islamic spirituality? Too many came in previous centuries! As we said yesterday, the Arabs before the time of the Prophet (s) were all poets and when they wanted to speak with each other they spoke in poetry. They have one form called zajjal which is like two birds speaking to each other; one makes one verse of poetry and it ends with a letter of the alphabet, the letter he ended with, the second poet has to spontaneously begin his verse with and they keep reciting for hours and hours. Also, poetry in Arabic has a balance, not like poetry in English, which can be one long line, then a short line; it had to be on al-bahr, the principle of the style of poetry, how many words in each line and it cannot be extended.

So no one can reach the answer from the Beloved One when invoking the Beloved, and if you did not get an answer it means you're invoking is not yet right and you have to increase it. Sayyidina Jalaluddin ar-Rumi, as because many people mention him, he used to hear the answer. When he was making his poetry it was not him making the poetry, it was the revelation or inspiration that was thrown in his heart at that moment. When he was invoking the Beloved, he was able to detect the wavelength that was coming and he was able to put his poetry and understand, so that when he would say a verse he got an answer, and then he would come with another verse. But we are not hearing what he got as an answer; we are only reading and not even hearing his poetry, and we are fascinated! What do you think if you could hear what he was hearing? Because people like to express themselves through movement, so when you hear something that motivates you, you begin to move with it and they call it “spiritual dancing.” That is moving because you are expressing your feeling together with the sound you are hearing, and like now when the professor was singing, I was looking and some people were closing their eyes and they were not understanding anything except, “Bonjour Mama, bonjour Papa, bonjour mon fils....” But there are some who can understand and that is an example.

So poets like Jalaluddin ar-Rumi, and there are a lot of them, they immediately react to what is coming to them and that is why they whirl, not because of the nice poetry. No, they are whirling as soon as they get the response coming to their hearts and they have to express it; they cannot control themselves so they begin to whirl because it is said:

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Qalb al-mu'min bayt ar-rabb.

The heart of the believer is the House of the Lord.

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Maa wasi`anee ardee wa laa samaa'ee wa laakin wasi`anee qalbi `abdee al-mu'min.

Neither My Heavens nor My Earth contain Me, but the heart of My believing servant contains Me.

(Hadith Qudsi, Al-Ihya of Imam al-Ghazali)

And when it contains, it contains that Light which is a non-stop moving element in the universe, so everything is moving with the Light; it means there is a spiritual light. Just like a long time ago, there was a normal telephone with a dial, the rotary phone--root telephone. What is that rotary phone? It is a rude telephone, you call and you take time to call and the answer comes, and then you have analog that you can get more than one line now, 2-3 lines together. Now you have digital, you have thousands of lines together. So as technology advanced, do you think that spiritual, heavenly technology is not already advanced? That is why spirituality reached the hearts of saints. They are called saints and some people might not like that word, but what do you want to call it? Some people who gave their hearts to the Owner of Hearts, their hearts are in the Hands of their Creator and they can hear thousands of digital information coming at the same time and they can distinguish it between many others and they don't overlap. Like in your computer today, you get hundreds of emails and each one has a connection to a server. So is there no heavenly server? There must be!

So there is a heavenly server and there is the worldly server. The worldly server is the knowledge of theory, `Ilm al-Awraaq, Knowledge of Papers, and the heavenly server is `Ilm al-Adhwaaq, Knowledge of Taste. So when you combine them, you will be the perfect one that tastes. In the same time when you can be sitting with people and at the same time your heart is invoking the Beloved, and not one will overlap the other. That is why it is good to remember or invoke the Beloved with your tongue, because you will reach a time that you fulfilled the requirements where theories are finished for you and now you begin the training and applications.

And now telephones can have tons of applications and what is your telephone? It is your heart; you press the application and get what you need. So the beginning is invoking with the tongue. You finish all the requirements of invoking the Beloved through meditation and then you begin to ascend. When whirling, Jalaluddin al-Rumi was ascending, he was rising, not like today when they whirl and whirl, but they still remain where they are, so they are still in the theory of whirling, not yet in the spirituality of whirling; the spirituality of whirling is different.

So our duty is to begin with invoking through our tongue until we have enough theory and then we begin to invoke through the heart. That is the place that will raise you up through heavenly connection that Jalaluddin Rumi was observing in his whirling. That person who combines theory with the taste, it means the worldly theory that is put by men and the spiritual training or applications, when you combine them you become a perfect man, a perfect human being.

As we are Muslims, how many times do you pray? Five. Can you pray Zhuhr in the time of `Asr? (No.) Can you pray Maghrib in the time of `Isha? No. Everyone must pray on its time. But dhikrullah, invoking the Beloved, you can do anytime with no restriction, it is an open power and worshipness for everyone to ascend! That is why there is no limitation on dhikrullah at any time or how many times. You can do it infinite number of times, all the day, as through the heart you are invoking the Beloved One! The Prophet (s) said according to al-Suhrawardi in the book of Talkhees al-Ma`arif fee Targheeb Muhammad `Aarif:

???? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???????? ?? ???? ????? ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ???????? ????? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ??? ????

If the servant is always busy with Me, remembering Me continuously and he made his suffering and pain and nice life, his desires, whatever it is, he made it for Me, to remember Me, `ashaqtahu, I will love him strongly and I will raise all veils from his eyes, from his heart that are between him and Me and he will not lose his memory when people have lost themselves; sahwu, he will not be heedless when people are heedless, always he is alert to My love. Those kind of people, their words are like the words of prophets although they are not prophets. If I wanted to destroy (by an earthquake or a tsunami or sending asteroids to destroy villages completely), punishing the people who were against My Love and My Remembrance, I mention those people whom I love and when I mention them, I pull out from My decision to destroy others. Idhaa aradtu bil ardi `uqoobatan aw `adhaaban dhakartuhum fa saraftu dhaalika `anhum, when I wanted punishment for some group of people on Earth, I remembered those who are beloved ones to Me and I took that punishment away from them.

May Allah forgive us and may Allah bless us!

Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.

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