09-19-2008 | Michigan Zawiya
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
O the son of Adam! My favors are coming to you; I am sending them. I am giving you health I am giving you wealth I am giving you oxygen to breathe, I am giving you everything to build yourself to come to Me. You are like a child in this world. You have to reach manhood to be able to attain My presence. You need to be like the trunk of the tree, with all branches and leaves growing on it and at the end it gives fruit to benefit from it. Be like a tree!
Be something that you get favors from me and you give favors to those in need. Don’t be selfish and don’t take everything to yourself. Woe! You claim that you are My servant, but in reality you are obeying someone else. You are servant for someone else. If you are really My servant you will come against My enemies and my enemies are shaytan, nafs, dunya, hawa. Four elements. If you really are worshipping Me and coming to Me, then leave this dunya behind you. And that is what we see the Prophet (s), as Grandshaykh said, a story, that one day the Prophet (s) was teaching his Sahaba, not theory only, but he was teaching them practices. He wants them to practice. He took them in madinatul munawwara, early after Fajr, to the mountain of Uhud and as soon as the sun begins to rise up from their back, rise up on the horizon, he said, "look at the mountain, give your back to the sun and look to the mountain of Uhud.” They gave their back to uhud mountain and he said, “can you see your shadow?” of course the sun is behind, their shadow is in front of them, they can see it on the ground. Then he said, "now run towards the mountain Uhud and anyone who can catch his shadow I give him my jubbah.” Sahaba, Allah gave them mind and intellectuality, and Allah perfected them. They have perfect minds as they are Sahaba of Prophet. But in front of the Prophet they cannot use their mind. In front of inheritors of the Prophet (s) you cannot use your mind, because for sure it is going to be against what you think. So he said, "catch your shadow” and of course they could not catch their shadow. They didn’t say, “O Prophet our shadow is running in front of us of course we cannot catch it.’ They listened and obeyed. And they ran until they came to mountain and the shadow fell on the mountain.
Then he said to them, look to me now. And he said, "run to me” and they were running to the the Prophet (s) and their shadows were running behind them and the Prophet (s) said to them, who runs for dunya, will never catch it. The dunya is shadow of your ego. When you give me your back and running towards dunya, you are giving your back to Allah and his Prophet (s) you are never going to catch your dunya, and it is going to make you slave ot her.
But when you face the Prophet (s) and run towards him then your shadow will be running after you and dunya will run after you.
Therefore O my child, Ya ghulam! You claim that you are worshipping Him but in reality you are giving your back to Him and you are running after dunya. You are never going to catch dunya and you are never going to be in presence of Allah as you are giving your back to him. Because you are listening to what dunya is telling you. You don’t know that you have 4 enemies, nafs, dunya, shaytan, hawa. They are going to distract you at any moment from My Presence, if you really want Me, then be an enemy to them. Don’t listen to what they Sayyidina keep your sowed in your hand against them. Keep your helmet on your head and don’t take It out. You are always riding the horse. Keep ready always with your helmet, your sword and your horse. The believer is in continuous struggle in fighting his ego. You need to get all necessary instruments and weapons against your own selfishness. He doesn’t take his helmet out, he doesn't take his sword out and he doesn’t get off his horse, but always ready for movement. When he is like that then Allah swt will make dunya slave to him. Because he is on his horse, his face to Me and his back to dunya, then dunya becomes slave to him. Not only does dunya become slave to him but I will make his heart a fountain of knowledge that comes to his tongue to speak and give advice. And I will make him as I made prophets and messengers to me, I will make those scholars, those who are always alter against these 4 enemies, I will make them… where the Prophet (s) said, " al-`ulama waarithata 'l-anbiyaa.” I will take him like that. You want to be inheritor for knowledge, for ma`rifah, you want to accompany My messenger that one who came from me, hand to hand, holding his robe and coming to my door, for him I open and if you are with him, you can enter along with him. But you cannot come to Me with the 4 enemies. Don’t ask me to open the door, I will not open the door. My door is for those who come with no enemy.
If you are coming to the door with an enemy do they let you in? no, they say you are double agent. Don’t be double agent. We are working for Allah we are not working for shaytan.
And we repeat what Sayyidina `Ali said, "O sons of Adam I come to you and show you that I love you, with my favors and you come to me with your sins. And you offer me stinky incense and I give you the best of incense. Very nice smell incense. I give you favors that smells nice and you give me carcass, of raw flesh that has a bad smell.”
My goodness I am sending to you, it is coming to you and instead you are sending to Me your evilness. And every day generous respected angels of mine come to Me every day carrying to My presence your bad `amal. But with that I am still giving and giving and giving in order that one day you come to Me.”
So you see that Allah, the last of his Beautiful Names and Attributes is as-Saboor. He is teaching us patience. He Is the absolute patient one on his servants. He wants the best for everyone. He goes along with you as much as you can until you open your mind and come to your conscious, at the last moments of your life and you say: ashhadu an la ilaha illa-Allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan Rasulullah. Even Fira`un said, " I believe in what the children of Israel were believing and I submit to Allah” but that Fira`un Allah didn’t accept and Sayyidina Jibreel threw mud in his face in order not to continue. And Grandshaykh said, " from spiritual knowledge, Allah said to Jibreel, why you closed his mouth with mud? Who gave you permission? If his heart did not move to repent never would he repent. Like the pot which is boiling - that lid must move. Why did you throw mud in his mouth? Am I going to take from you to give to him? Why did you have that misunderstanding of knowledge I am the generous one. Even he is Fira`un, I gave him life and I created him. Why you close his mouth. I am the one who judges, not you.
We are from Ummata 'n-Nabi even the last moment we say ashhadu an la ilaha illa-Allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan Rasulullah, we will be able to reach shafa`at an-Nabi and Allah’s mercy will reach us. That is the highest favor that Allah gave to ummatin-nabi. That is why don’t look at people what they are doing. You don’t know what Allah will treat them at the end. What we know that Allah will give to ummat an-Nabi (s) according to shafa`at of the Prophet (s). That means that hadith that the Prophet (s) will be given du`a that never were given before in three different sajda and I will make du`a to bring the entire ummah to paradise we know that.
O ghulam! Don’t live with my enemy. People have homes today. Do you bring inside your home an enemy to live with you if you know it is enemy you kick him out.
He said don’t live with nafs, dunya, hawa shaytan. Not sharing with them your life. Not with your desires. Not with your dunya and not even akhira. Drop akhira from your eyes. This is high levels of spirituality. What you have to see is Me. Come to me, in my presence I will keep you.
That is what Rabi`a al-`Adawiyya said. O Allah I am not worshipping you to avoid hellfire and I am not worshipping you to reach a paradise. I don’t care for that . I am worshipping you for you, for that Divine Presence. That is why she is there. That is as the Prophet (s) said, "in akhira, Allah will be seen in paradise.” Not all paradises, Allah will be seen. Human being will enter into paradise with Allah’s mercy seven heavens. Allah appears in one heaven. That is the one you want to be there, in that presence. The other heavens compared to that heaven are like a shack. You want a shack? No. you want a heaven. Shoot for high. Don’t shoot for low. Your goal is the highest.
O ghulam! When you are in that heaven or you are in that Divine Presence, now with dunya and not with akhira, as Rabi`a said, " you are in the treasure. That treasure that n ever disappears and never disintegrates. At that time you get the reward from the Divine Presence where there is no misguidance after that. You will always be guided after that.’
So maqaam al-irshaad, the station of guidance, to be able to guide people, they have to reach that level. They have to be always in the Divine Presence. the Prophet (s) takes them by hand and takes them inside. When they are in struggle with sword against the 4 enemies. Take off the clothes of disobedience with repentance to Allah and to feel shy from Allah in every moment, that he is observing you in every movement. Don’t think he is not.
As the story of Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani, he told his students. Take a rooster and slaughter him in a place that no one can see you. They all took their rooster and slaughtered him and came with it. And out of thousand and a thousand, they all did that except one. And that one, Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani asked him why you didn’t slaughter your rooster. And he said… Allah is seeing me, and if we leave that, I can see that the Prophet (s) is seeing me, and I know that you are seeing me. So how can I slaughter. He said, "O you are the one who is my calipha. You are the real one.” The shaykh teaches and teaches and teaches and one or 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 will come out to be guided and the rest are still trying and struggling until one day they reach their goals.
The heart has a function to do and its function is to keep with dhikrullah. When your heart raakiba bahr at-tawakkal, rides the ocean of reliance, when your heart is sailing in the ocean of tawakkul, reliance on Allah swt, and as the wind takes that vessel, that boat, which is represented as the heart, takes it in any direction, it doesn’t complain, as it take is according to the wind. The wind is the ship’s navigator that wind is like a computer has all the info to carry that ship from one side to the other side and carrying that human being to his destiny in presence of Allah. All that happens by reliance on Allah, tawakkul. Allah as he is navigating you thru that wind, the sails as it is moving, you are going forward. When the wind comes, which means where that fountain of youth, that breathe of inayatullah, Allah’s swt caring for you to reach safety to that second shore, which is in the horizon, he is navigating you all the way, as you are navigating you are leaning, getting ma`rifah, getting more knowledge and more knowledge and as you get knowledge you are disseminating to those who follow you that is why awliyaullah navigate you to the door of the Prophet (s). Then when they reach their they leave you, their work is finished.
Then the Prophet (s) will navigate you to the Divine Presence. That is why Sayyidina Ibrahim said in Holy Qur'an, alladhee khalaqnee wa .. wa idha maridtu fa huwa yashfi`annee…
The one who created me is the one to guide me. The one who created me is the one who will feed me the one who created me is the one who will quench my thirst. And the one who created me si the one who yumeetanee, takes my soul and makes me to die. And the one who created me si the one who, when I am sick will make me well. When you are in that level. You see everything in his hand, nothing in our hand. Then you see that there is no parter with him. There is no sharing.
So you reach the level where he will guide you in everything. He will feed you and quench your thirst,t he will create you from nothing and he will take you back and you get sck he cures you and if you want wealth he gives you. What kind of wealth you want? you want dunya and akhira, rabbbana atina fi 'd-dunya hasanatan wa fil-aakhirati hasanatan wa qina `adhaaba' n-naar… you want akhira, be like Rabia, I don’t want akhira, I want you. What else you need at that time. Your life will be paradise. But not in eyes of people. Might be in eyes of people you are living the lowest kind of life. But that wali, in his eyes, Allah shows him he is living in heaven with all kinds of paradise and his environment is to be with the Prophet (s) and angels and awliya. But people with their blindness look a that wali, how he is living. You have to look a different way.
May Allah forgive us and bless us.
Bi hurmatil fatiha, we continue later.