Masjid al-Iman
A`udhu billah min ash-shaytan ir-rajeem
Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem
Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaada, nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
Allah swt created us and ordered us. He ordered us in a nice way, to follow His Path, the path of Islam by sending messengers, by sending prophets. His Greatness, Allah’s greatness, cannot be described. Whatever we try we cannot describe His greatness.
Look now, I am wired. You have this, you have this, you have this. In order that your voice can be heard. SubhanAllah. Allah swt created us wired. Not with these wires. If we have to have wires in our bodies like these wires, we will look funny, all these wires coming out from your ears, from your eyes, from your heart. Compare these wires to the wires inside your body, how much Allah swt has perfected his creation. Not only human being but everything that Allah swt created is perfect. And it is heavenly wires.
Look an airplane, they say in an airplane the wires that are in the airplane from beginning to end are thousands and thousands of miles, isn’t it. It might be , Allah knows, I don’t know, this technology but they say hundreds of miles or thousands of miles in an airplane for it to function.
So the bodies of human being, ask doctors, there are doctors here, ask them if you put all these veins and arteries and all these capillaries together how much distance they make. [hundreds of thousands of miles] in the human being. Did you think about it. We are amazed about how the human being has been wired and every vein, even capillaries, are so tiny and blood is going through them, like pipes.
Look the hair. Do you know how many hairs you have? You don’t know I don’t know, he doesn’t know, because we are not counting. If you cannot… you might know. So if we don’t know how many hairs we have how are we going to know our lord? Hugh? How are we going to know about Sayyidina Muhammad (s) who is the creation that creation has been created for him.
I cannot argue, I don’t want to argue with this issue. But my belief is that Allah created creation when He created Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and asked him about the meaning of servant what is the meaning of servant and the Prophet (s) replied the servant is the one who is need of Allah’s mercy at every moment in his life. And he said, "I am sending you, Ya Muhammad (s), as messenger to every creation in this life.” The Prophet (s) asked, “Ya Rabbee did you create them yet?” He said, "Not until I have the one to send to them I don’t create them.”
So awliyaullah may Allah be pleased with them, our Shaykh and Grandshaykh one time he was telling a story about Sayyidina Jibreel, when he asked Allah swt Ya Rabbee, show me Your kingdom, where your kingdom ends. He said, "Ya Jibreel. Open your wings and move with that speed I gave to you.”
600 wings, according to many narrations that Sayyidina Jibreel has 600 wings. When he used to come bringing the revelation to the Prophet (s) to earth, he used to use 2 wings. And when he opens these 2 wings it covers the whole universe. When he comes to the Prophet (s) the Prophet (s) is seeing only these 2 wings and Jibreel .
He is bringing wahy in a moment, kun fayakoon. He is not going to use a space shuttle to come and ride it and moving and moving and moving. In one moment prophet went to qaaba qawsayn in one moment. Allah s wt folded the time and space for him. In that one moment he was going through all these paradises and visiting hellfire and when he visited hellfire bringing the temperature of hellfire to temp of a bath in order for prophet to see. And then he returned to his home and his mattress was still warm. How long it takes of r the mattress to become cold back when you leave the mattress? Very short time. For people of dunya it was very short time. But Allah stretched that time. Can you question? Eiterh your believe or you don’t believer. If you are a believer or not. Be and it will be.
So Jibreel was there in one moment.
So Sayyidina Jibreel said, "Ya Rabbee let me to see.” And Allah swt said to Jibreel “Open all our wings and go will all your speed.” How much speed. Not worldly speed. What is speed of light? 300,000 km in one second. In one second you be on the moon a s the distance from earth to moon is 300,000 km.
He moved with heavenly speed, not with dunya speed, 70,000 years of heavenly years. Imagine. With 600 wings and moving. From where there is no beginning and there is no end. And what did he see?
He saw a white crystal areas, a place that everywhere he is looking he can see only white crystals like a desert but heavenly white crystals. In between there is a tree and on top of the tree is a bird and every moment the bird goes down, picks up one crystal, go up the tree and eat it then come back down, then pick up…
That is what he is doing.
And he said, "Ya Rabbee I am tired. Is it finished yet?”
He said, “No you didn’t see its beginning yet.”
And he [Grandshaykh] said all these crystals are universe and that bird symbolize Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and he goes down and picks one and eat it, that means he is the messenger for all these universes that I am creating in every moment. He is a messenger to every creation, for every planet that we cannot see. For every universe that we cannot see and anyone living he is their messenger. He is the only one that has been sent. Not like other messengers.
So that reality Sayyidina Muhammad (s) his greatness, as a servant to Allah swt Allah blessed and dressed him with all these knowledges that appears to awliyaullah’s hearts. And from these knowledges came knowledge of there is a knowledge of to know about yourself, that we begin the lecture with it.
If you don’t know about yourself how you want to know about your Lord, when the Prophet (s) said, "man `arifa nafsahu faqad arafa rabbahu – who knows himself knows his Lord.” Ok so if you [think you] know yourself how many hairs do you have? You don’t know how many you have. We don’t know? How many we have? How man I have. 652400. Count. We don’t know.
So if we don’t now about our hairs, how are we doing to know about our good amal or bad amal.
The Prophet (s) said, "Akhwafa ma akhaafu `ala ummatee ash-shirk al-khafee. The thing I fear most for my Ummah is hidden shirk.”
So today they say be careful don’t put anyone with Allah swt. Allah is One, He is the Creator.
Sayyidina Muhammad (s) is one in his reality as a servant to Allah swt. You cannot be like the Prophet (s) and the Prophet (s) cannot be like God swt, Allah.
But that doesn’t mean the Prophet (s) doesn’t have the power of intercession. That is completely different subject. Allah gave him to intercede and intermediate for anyone in any moment.
Allah gave it in Holy Qur'an, that whenever they are oppressors to themselves they come to you Ya Muhammad (s) then you ask for them forgiveness and Allah will forgive them.
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلاَّ لِيُطَاعَ بِإِذْنِ اللّهِ وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذ ظَّلَمُواْ أَنفُسَهُمْ جَآؤُوكَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُواْ اللّهَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ الرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُواْ اللّهَ تَوَّابًا رَّحِيمًا
Wa ma arsalna min rasoolin illa liyuta`a bi idhni Allahi wa law annahum idh dhalamoo anfusahum ja’ooka fastaghfarollaha wastaghfara lahumu ar-rasoolu la-wajadoo Allaha tawwaaban raheeman.
We sent not an apostle, but to be obeyed, in accordance with the will of Allah. If they had only, when they were unjust to themselves, come unto thee and asked Allah's forgiveness, and the Messenger had asked forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah indeed Oft-returning, Most Merciful. Surat an-Nisa [4:64]
So that subject, we know that Allah gave the Prophet (s) the authority for intercession at any moment.
So we have to that is established. So to know yourself is as the Prophet (s) said you have to know yourself to know Allah swt. We don’t know ourselves. So our duty is what? To begin to learn about ourselves.
Are we on the right side or the wrong side. Are we thumma aamanoo or we are on thumma kafaroo. are we on believers side or unbelievers side. Are we doing what prophet and Allah want or not? Simple example, that will tell you where you stand. Very simple for everyone, men and women. Don’t go so far, "O what we have to learn and what we have to know?” very simple example. Do you have anger or not? Do you get angry or not? [yes] yes, we get angry.
What did the Prophet (s) say about anger? Al-ghadabu kufran Ya Aba Bakr. He is addressing his companion and friend when he was in the cave. He said, "O Aba Bakr, anger is disbelief. When you get angry you are on the side of unbelievers are we getting angry? A lot. Too much.
The Prophet (s) in order to build bridges with the non-Muslims, when he was in Mecca, he was praying towards Masjid al-Aqsa in order to build bridges. He was always praying towards there, although he was able to pray towards Mecca, towards ka’ba, he was trying to win people hearts who are not accept ing Islam. That is why he was directing himself to Jerusalem to Masjid al-Aqsa. Until Allah sent, Ya Muhammad (s), those how are going to believe are going to come and those who are not will not. So turn yourself back to Ka’ba.
But he tried because he wants everyone to come in the fold of Islam. Because the Prophet (s) his message is to make everyone discipline himself and go in the way of Allah wt.
So anger takes you away to the way of shaytan. That is why men and women, husband and wife, brother and family, brother and brother, sister and sister, husband and wife, if they are fighting with each other you must know that at that moment you are on the side of shaytan. No excuse.
Because “al-jidal yudfi`u nur al-qalb – argument will extinguish the light of the heart.” Don’t argue if you want to reach maqam al-ihsan if you want to reach moral excellence if you want to reach maqam al-Ihsan. If you don’t then you say shahada and say your 5 prayers and fast Ramadan and give charity and you make your hajj, then you will be ok.
But if you want to be seeker and gnostic in the way to Divine Presence then this will not take your there. What will take you there is when you build up knowledge of yourself.
Not to be on the way of anger, as Sayyidina Muhammad (s) said to Sayyidina Abu Bakr, anger will take you to the way of disbelief.
Why we have bloodshed on earth. Because everyone wants his opinion to be accepted and he will not accept the opinion of anyone else. So when you have argument with brother or sister or father or mother or wife or husband. What do you have to do? You have to go take shower and pray 2 rakaats. If that doesn’t cool you don then go for a walk out of the house.
That is for everyone. For brother and sister and husband and wife.
Then when you begin to control that aspect of your character you begin to control it and you begin to control your jealousy then you being to control your other bad characters. One after one. else you cannot move in the way of Gnosticism.
You are coming here not to learn about prayers, everyone knows about prayers. But you are coming to learn about spirituality. That is what you are trying to do here. You are trying to teach people to build their spirituality. How to ascend up to reach the Divine Presence. What kind of procedures we have to follow. What kind of teaching we have to follow?
So we hope the first step, we take lesson today with us, is to know the greatness of our lord and to know about our lord is to know about yourself. When you know about yourself then you being to know about your lord. First step in that is to keep your anger down. Try. That is not easy. The road has lot of obstacles. Try to keep on the road by reciting, “Ya Haleem. Ya Haleem.” What is, “Ya Haleem.” The Forebearer. Is it correct? Forbearance. “Ya Haleem,Ya Haleem,Ya Haleem,Ya Haleem,Ya Haleem.” Keep reciting, gives you that forbearance and calamity. You become calm. Then “Ya Saboor” teaches you patience. These are swords against bad characteristics. These are … why Allah said, "Call on Me by My heavenly Beautiful Names and Attributes.” Why? Because there is power in these Names that change the bad characteristics to good characteristics.
Allah is patient with everyone. He sent Sayyidina Muhammad (s) to show his patience with all His servants to bring us to his way. May Allah bring us to his way and the way of Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
May Allah bless us to see Sayyidina Muhammad (s) in dunya and akhira. In every moment of our lives to feel his presence of His Prophet and to feel the presence of His awliya.
Wa min Allah at-tawfeeq bi-hurmati 'l-Fatiha.
We have to remember every time there is dhikrullah to bring water as that water will be cure for people and shifa as the Prophet said, al-fatihat lima quriat lah.
Don’t forget that, those people who have problems and sicknesses bring water and solve your problems and your sicknesses. It is very easy and very simple.