Suhbat
Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
Salamu alaykum
Audhu 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'l-`uzlah, nawaytu's-salook lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
Allah swt sending for us all kinds of messages, thru his messengers and thru the Seal of Prophets and messenger, Sayyidina Muhammad, who has, the Prophet (s) has made sure that there are people whom Allah loves them and they love Allah that they carry continuously the message of Sayyidina Muhammad tilt he day of judgment.
O Muslims! Awliyaullah are trying their best to make sure that the message of action, not the message only of “qeel wa qaal – this one said this and this one said that.” No they want action.
You can hear that word too much, “Action!” Where do you hear it? In the movies. Why do they use that word “action”. Why they don’t keep talking? You hear that too much “action”. Who says that? The director. So any director in the spiritual realm teaches actions. Prophet wants them teach actions. And Allah wants from his prophet to make sure the Ummah do actions in their lives. Without actions there is nothing. You did action, you came here. If you didn’t do that action you would be staying at home.
So what they want to tell us today is that don’t only make your concern what you eat and what you drink. What you eat and what you drink is the action fro your body. But remember o my servant that there must be action for your soul. There must be something that will fill up your soul that will give it energy and change the batteries. If you don’t charge them the batteries will slowly begin to die and then “there is no benefit at that time to regret - La yanfa` al-nadm.” Regret is over. You are going to face a hard time.
Don’t say, I say, “la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah, Ya Ghulam!! O kid!" “O child.”
“Don’t think if you say la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah it is enough. It is not enough.”
O why he is saying like that!? Why that wali, that Grandshaykh is saying that? Because we know that whoever says la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah illa-Allah will enter
There is a big meaning here. Whoever says la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah. will enter
So what do you have to add? You have to add to iman, faith, qawlan wa `amal. Faith is not only theories - it is action. You have to show action. No action, then no movie. Your life is a movie. One day it is going to be closed. But your akhira is a reality. When you do action for akhira it is not only a movie but it is going to be continuing forever and every moment you are ascending to a higher paradise and higher paradise and higher paradise. So don’t think when you go to paradise these paradises are not ascending. No, they are ascending in higher and higher levels. When you are with the Prophet (s) then you are ascending with him. And what we are saying now is theory, but it is real theory. You have to show action.
Allah says, “O My servant!” to us. And the Prophet (s) says, “O my nation!” to us, [meaning] “those who believe in me.” And awliyaullah says, “O kid!” We are all servants. So Allah swt calls us servants. We are all from ummat an-Nabi (s), so the Prophet (s) calls us ummat. And awliyaullah call us “Ya Ghulam!! O kid!” They teach us day to day and know our reality.
Don’t come to Allah swt with sins and ma`siyyya and zallaat. Zal al-lisan means “the tongue slipped.” Don’t slip and come to us with forbiddens.
If you left behind your prayers and your fastings and your actions and you are coming to Me with forbiddens and sins, don’t expect you are going to be in a continuous action. Until you repent.
So if you want to acquire a higher level come with actions. And these actions are what?
A man came to the Prophet (s) and said, " ya Rasulullah, I love Allah.” Do you love Allah. [insha-Allah] do you love Allah swt?
Then what did the Prophet (s) say? Ittakhidh lil-bala’i jilbaban. A man came to the Prophet (s) and said, " I love Allah.” He said, "Ok make from afflictions a jubbah.” Ittakhidh lil bala’i jilbaban. Bala’an he described as a piece of cloth. And what do you do with a piece of cloth? You dress it. So prepare yourself with whatever afflictions come to you from Allah, be patient. Bala. The Prophet (s) was patient on the abuse of his tribe. Be patient from those who harm you. Don’t say this and that about them. Carry the responsibility in front of Allah swt. [Say:] “Whatever obstacles are there, Ya Rabbee, I am continuing.”
Or else if you don’t be patient on afflictions, on bala, when you say la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah illa-Allah muhammadun Rasulullah it is only by tongue it is not by reality.
A man came to the Prophet (s) and said, "O prophet I love you.” The first one came and said, " “I love Allah” and the Prophet (s) said, " take affliction as your robe.” He said, "asta’id lil faqri jilbaban - Prepare for poverty to be a dress for you.”
It means don’t be bankrupted from Allah’s mercy. Because everyone thinks faqr is what? It is for someone to be poor. These awliyaullah are not poor, they are rich. It is not richness of wealth. It is the richness of knowledge. He said, "Prepare to be poor and dress the dress of poverty.” That means always show to your Lord that you need more from his blessing and from ma`rifatullah. Of good character show that you have nothing and you are asking for more and for more and for more. Then when you show that Allah is al-Ghani, we are the poor. It means poor to reach that eternal to be in that ocean of eternal love and blessings. That is what you need, the tajallis of Jamal and Jalaal - the manifestation of [Divine] Beauty and Majesty. Then you are rich. Then form poverty, Allah makes you rich. As much as you are rich, still you are poor, in relation to Allah’s greatness.
Who is not poor. It is only one, Sayyidina Muhammad whom Allah raised him and said, “I perfected you, Ya Muhammad!” وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلى خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ wa innaka la-`ala khuluqin `adheem - You are of trememdous highly character.
So don’t come with la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah with no action. If no action you will go to where you came from, at the first level in paradise you will stay.
Allah doesn’t accept qawlan bila `amal- a statement without action. What is the action? It is imtithal al-amr wa intiha `an il-munkar - to submit to the order. It means to be ready for any order that comes to submit to it immediately and to try to stop yourself from falling into the tricks of shaytaan. The tricks of shaytan are too many. He tricks you in every moment of your life and Allah swt is observing you how you are not going to listen to what shaytan is saying.
O Muslims! O believers! Those who are going to win are those who are going to be patient. Poverty and patience, come together in the heart of a believer.
Don’t be proud. To be poor means not to be poor, but be happy with what Allah is giving. Al-muhiboon mubtaloon.if you are really a believers, really believers face a lot of problems. Now today in the way that people are holding tight to their religion, what happened to them. They face a lot of problems. If you have a beard what happened to you. Go to a Muslim country, if you have a beard they stop you and question you: “Why you have a beard?” “O Allah gave me a beard. What can I do? I don’t have a razor.” “No you have to have a razor.” “No I don’t want a razor.” “No, you have to have a razor, else you are a terrorist.”
Everyone who has a beard, becomes in eyes of people disgusting. Why Allah made us to have a beard? To shave it or leave it?
So a believer is afflicted. Wherever you turn your face, from one problem you try to run out from that problem, another problem comes.
But if you be patient, Allah will inspire you. Allah will love you. Allah will give you. So don’t expect a gift from people. But wait for the gift that comes from heaven. The gifts that come from heaven are too many but our duty is to wait in order to get it. You cannot be lajuj, insisting, "O where is my gift? Where is my gift?” You are not worshipping for a gift. Allah wants to give, He gives. Allah said,
وَلِلَّهِ الْعِزَّةُ وَلِرَسُولِهِ وَلِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
" all-`izzatu lillahi wa li rasulihi wa l’il-mumineen.- But honour belongs to Allah and His Messenger, and to the Believers.” [63:8]
So He promised that. Therefore wait for it.
Not like Sayyidina Musa, saying “when, when?” It took 40 years to get rid of Fira`un. Since he asked, if he had not asked it would have taken one moment.
Prophet never asked anything. When you nag, you are nagging, then people get upset with you. What do you think about Allah swt. Submit to him. Don’t be nagging, like this one.
Huh?
O corrupted! He is speaking to whom, he is saying “O corrupted!” He is speaking to his people. If we say now “O corrupted!” everyone will run away. Grandshaykh said, " “When a wali says to his student “O corrupted”, "O backbiter!” or anything, or “O cheater”, then he is taking that bad character away. He doesn't say it to humiliate you but he is saying it to get it out of you by their power. He says it in front of people in order you will be feeling that humiliation, but in reality he wants you to be humiliated in dunya not in akhira. So he takes that bad characters from you. Because every one of these students is a scholar, everyone is a big balloon, full of air. You see big, flying these scholars. So he wants to take that bad character out of their heart, that arrogance, that pride. O corrupted, don’t sit wit believes!
Why? He wants them to be pure to sit with believes. Al-jins m`a al-jins. Gender with gender. Same element with same element. You cannot mix apples and oranges. You cannot put water with juice but must be water with water. You put believers with believers, corrupted with corrupted. O corrupted that you are looking at me. Ayyuha ’l-fasiq! Ittaqi ’l-mumin - Beware of that believer that sits besides you. La tadkhul ma`hu wa anta mulawis ma` al-ma`asi - Don’t come and sit with him and you re polluted with sins because there is going to be reflection.
How they know that, 1000 years ago, that there is pollution? They think that modern science found pollution. But from back then awliyaullah know about negative and positive energy. Ayyuha ’l-fasiq is negative energy and corrupt energy. He is speaking to the spirits of these people. The Prophet (s) said,
اتقوا فراسة المؤمن، فإنه ينظر بنور الله. ( أخرجه ابن عبد البر في كتاب جامع بيان العلم وفضله ج سنة 196 )
“Ittaqoo firasat al-mumin fa innahu yandhuru bi-nurillah - Beware of the vision of the believer, for truly he sees with the light of Allah.” You cannot hide, they see everyone they look at you they see you and he hears and how much you are lying in front of them. You sit like a lamb and you are a fox.
You see a lamb, grazing, but they see you from behind the veil, looking at the heart, you are a hyena eating the carcasses of the people. That is why don’t sit in front of a wali too much, run away. That is because you are corrupted. You sit in front of them you are polluting them. But awliyaullah they have char. That whatever bad character, Negative character, you come with they swallow into their ocean and dilute it. Anything come it becomes so dilute that it doesn’t show anymore.
He said, "Don’t sit among believers and pollute them with your forbiddens and your sins and make them like you but come and sit with them with a clean heart.”
You are a blind person. You are a blind one. You don’t know that awliyaullah can’t see your heart. You are trying to come to them showing them that you are praying and fasting to show you are good. No, they know your heart.
When the Prophet (s) asked the Sahaba, “Who is the poor one, the bankrupted one – man al-muflis?” They said, "The one who has no wealth. He said, " no the bankrupt one is the one with no `amal.” The are the ones who have no `amal, they hide their personality. They are like hyenas and wolves they want to eat everyone; they are blind. If you are blind what do you need to do? Some people come to eye doctors and say, “we cannot see.” He says, “Ok, take these eyeglasses and you can see now.”
And some people come and even with eyeglasses they cannot see. They have cataracts. Then they say, "O we have to take that one out and put new for you in order for you to see.’ That means, “O corrupted ones, come to the doctor. In order to take that blindness from you, you need ot come to a doctor the take that blindness from you. Without a guide you will never take away that corruption.
Allah is guiding us to those guides who carry the message of Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
He said, "When he was asked, to when O my shaykh is that blindness to disappear?” he said, "You have to be between the hands of a doctor and you have to show… tuhsin dhannak feehi. You have to trust Him and you don’t doubt Him.” [It means:] “You have to take your children and sit at this door waiting from him to come to you and accept you in.”
One person came to a wali and said, "O my shaykh! Accept me at your door. He said, “What I have to accept you. He said to be like these ones, the mureeds.” He is jumping to be at high level.
Mureed is high level as we said before we are all lovers we are not yet mureeds.
He said, "I cannot accept you as mureed.”
He sad, what about these. He said, they never reached level of mureeds, all of them .
He said, " then what you want to accept me as?” so the mureed was thinking how to humiliate himself to make the shaykh happy with him. He said, "O my shaykh accept me as a donkey at your door.” For what, I am riding all of them.
“Donkey” here means patience. “Teach patience. Accept me as only a means to bring out for me that character of patience; to dress my heart. Then I will be patient on my bros and sisters. Then I will be patient on the afflictions in my life, and then I wont nag too much.
He said, “No I have too many of that,” and he was thinking and thinking. That was Grandshaykh story and Mawlana Shaykh’s story. And then he said, "Accept me as a dog at your door. “
You know that the dog is important for hunters, you cannot go hunting without a dog. That is why in Islam a dog is accepted for hunting. Because the dog at the door of the shaykh will bring the prey and the shaykh will immediately catch it.
So it means the one who has been give permission or the one who is so hard worker, they get more people, dragging them to the shaykh in order that the shaykh will clean them.
So it means “Accept me at your door in order to make me loyal and sincere.”
And he was trying as much as possible to bring himself down in order to be accepted at shaykh’s door. [saying:] “Don’t leave me blind, O my shaykh!”
That perfects la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah illa-Allah, so that it comes with action. When the shaykh accepts you, you have to accept his sour medicine. Because there are sicknesses that they have medicine for them today but they are very sour. Doctor! Is that correct? Sour in what? [in taste] In taste? Not only in taste. But they are very sour in treatment. Like today they give today chemotherapy. That is a very sour medical treatment. That makes the people suffer more than the cancer itself. But at the end with Allah swt’s cure it will give some good result. So he is saying, “You have to be patient on his medication that he will give to you because it is going to be very sour.”
[It means:] “Don’t run away you are already a patient. You have a spiritual cancer that makes our heart dead, that makes your spirit dead.”
He wants to rejuvenate the positive energy in your soul. He has to give you big spoonfuls of that sour medicine.
Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, used to say that “When you enter tariqah don’t think you are entering to find peace.”
The Prophet (s) said, لا راحة فى الدين "la rahata feed-deen - There is no relaxation in religion.” you are always going to suffer because you have to be patient and carry more and more, more and more.
He said, “[it is] like one person, who was in the jungle…” Just as we are all in the jungle of this world. The world is like a jungle. All of it is like wild characters, wild animals surrounding us.
[so he said,] "Like someone in the jungle, and someone… and these hyenas come on him. And he is on a high cliff.”
What he will do? He wants to run away from them. So he is standing on the cliff and they jump on him and what happens? He falls all the way down in the valley. And they go down. To do what? To eat him and to bite him.
He said, “When someone enters tariqah he is going to fall from the cliff all the way down and then all these hyenas will bite him, bite him and bite him, until he is completely dead. That is tariqah. You like it, enter.”
They didn’t show us all this [yet]. They are only playing with us, giving us candies.
They want you to fall from that cliff of egoism and they want to bring you down. They send all of what Allah gave them of power, very fierceful power, to cut you in pieces until you submit completely to Allah’s will and the Prophet’s will. They are not bringing you in to keep feeding you and feeding you and feeding you.
Tariqah today is candy compared to what it was before. People today are different they run away. Before they will not run from the door of the shaykh. Even they see all kinds of problems . they don’t say, what will I have for tomorrow. Today people all ask, “What do I have for tomorrow?”
Life is what you can face today of difficulties. The Prophet (s) said, “I am the most who was abused and tortured from my tribe” and he is the Prophet (s).”
So tariqah is to take that blindness out. To take that cancer out; to take that wild characters out. To make you to say la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah. We are asking Allah for the sake of Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and for sake of our shuyukh to take that imitational, when we say la ilaha illa-Allah muhammadun Rasulullah to turn it into a real one with action and with power. Because when a wali says la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah he shakes the heart it if he wants. So when he says it, it takes kufr away. When a mu’min says it, he takes the kufr of himself out and he feels it like an earthquake.
When you say la ilaha illa-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah you have to feel that sword coming from your belly and going across the right side and coming over the left side where the heart is, cutting the ego in half and it will shake it like an earthquake. May Allah show us the reality of la ilaha illa-Allah
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