Suhbah at Private Residence
A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem.
Nawaytu 'l-arba`een, nawaytu 'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu 'l-khalwah, nawaytu 'l-`uzlah,
nawaytu 'r-riyaadah, nawaytu 's-sulook, lillahi ta`ala fee haadha 'l-manzil.
Ati`ullaha wa ati`u 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.
Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (4:59)
What does it mean, “Don’t leave me to myself for the blink of an eye.” That means, “Yaa Rabbee! If for one blink of an eye I think I know something or have something, then I am lost and committing shirk.” Servanthood must claim nothing! A real servant of Allah must say, “I am nothing and I know nothing!” If you say, “I am something and I know something,” it means you know nothing and you are not listening to what the Prophet (s) said, because he said this to teach us.
In Surat an-Najm, Allah (swt) gives an oath by the shooting stars:
وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَىمَا ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ وَمَا غَوَى وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَىإِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْيٌ يُوحَى
wan-najmi idhaa hawaa maa dalla saahibukum wamaa ghawaa wa maa yantiqu `ani ’l-hawaa in huwa illa wahyun yoohaa.
By the star when it is shining, your companion is neither astray nor being misled, nor does he say anything of (his own) desire; it is no less than inspiration sent down to him. (An-Najm, 53:1-4)
“By the star when it is shining, your friend never deviated or went down, and he does not open his mouth to say something from his own desires, nor claims he knows something, but I, the Lord of Heavens, am giving him that revelation.” It means as soon as Prophet (s) opens his mouth to speak, he is giving revelation. Whatever the Prophet (s) speaks it is revelation; if he speaks with his wife it is revelation, if he speaks with his grandchildren it is revelation. Because Allah said ma yantiq, “he doesn't speak,” he doesn’t utter a sound except it is revelation! He doesn't cough but that it is revelation! And Allah is addressing the whole universe, even to angels. Allah's ancient Word, Kalaamullahi ’l-qadeemi, addressing the angels, “My Prophet who is the one, the Secret of Creation, does not claim anything.”
(cut..mic off)
...something in our life. everything is coming to us from Allah (swt). It is adab, discipline, to say, “Whatever is good is coming from You, and whatever is bad is coming from our nafs.” So when we reach that reality, we understand:
وَفَوْقَ كُلِّ ذِي عِلْمٍ عَلِيمٌ
fawqa kulli dhil `ilmin `aleem.
Above every knower is a (higher) knower. (Yusuf, 12:76)
Above every level there is a higher level. If there is someone is sitting on top of a roof, Allah will send someone above them in knowledge. What do you say to such a person? So that is the big problem today in the ummah: leaders think they know everything, that they are at the top of knowledge, but really they are the most stupid of knowledgeable ones. Who is giving them opinions and what to say? Advisers around them who have no brain give them ideas. If they had a brain, why would they have to sit on the chair; leave it and go! For what are all these killing and massacres?
The Prophet (s) said, “If you want to make afdal jihad, the best jihad, you can say kaleematu `adil, a just word,” and that is justice. `Inda sultaanin jaa'ir is to say haqq in the presence of a sultan who is an oppressor. He didn't say, “leader,” he said, “sultan.” I will explain to you, as I said in the afternoon, from the `ilm in this hadith. Prophet (s) is not going to come to you from the first level such as a janitor, electrician, carpenter, then teacher, then lawyer, then professor, then minister, no. Start at the top, from sultan all the way down. You have to say a word of justice.
Who is our sultan that we are following? People might say we are following the Prophet (s). No, you are following the sultan of your self, your ego is your sultan! That makes you fall into miseries and problems, so you have to stop your ego. That is the best jihad, struggling with your ego. You have to say, “O self! I have to make jihad against you as you are throwing me in Hellfire, in a well I cannot get out of it.” That is sultanan jaa'ir, that oppressive sultan in you! Look at your ego! Don’t look outward as you can’t find anything there. You might find people and you get sick. No, backbite yourself! Audit your self! Ask, “How many bad characters do I have?” then say a word of justice to your self. Say, "No, I am wrong!" Even if you are right, don’t say, "I am right."
[Allah said on the tongue of] the Prophet (s) said:
فَلَا تُزَكُّوا أَنفُسَكُمْ
Fa laa tuzakoo anfusakum.
Don’t praise yourself. (an-Najm, 53:32)
In khalwah (seclusion), awliyaullah order you not to count your good manners, to leave them but count the bad manners. Allah honored you with good manners, but you must count the bad manners and then struggle against them, make jihad against them. Do we have bad characteristics? We come home as if we are a sultan of the house, (ordering) "You do this, you do that," shouting at everyone. Ladies get afraid, but not anymore, now they are the sultan. (laughter) A wife told her husband, “Don’t polish the floor, don’t change the wood,” but he has to change it, and his wife fell down when he did that. We always claim we are the best. Everyone of us thinks, “I am the best. I know everything.” Look now on chat on the Internet. Everyone of them is knowing better than the others, everyone is teaching the other. That is good, that discussion to improve themselves by finding their mistakes.
And in such associations we find our mistakes. That is why in seclusion they say, “Find and fix your bad manners.” Try to find and cut them, one after one. The best jihad against yourself is to make sure you stop your anger and pride, the worst of all bad characters. When you are proud of yourself you are never going to accept any criticism. You think you are on the top, and no one can criticize you because you are the highest.
Allah (swt) said, “Above every knower is a (higher) knower.” That is the worst character, especially among professors and academia; they think they know more than anyone. That is the worst character as it does not allow you to humble yourself. In that state, how can you accept, forgive, and make peace? What is problem of world today? They cannot accept to hold hands and make peace.
Allah (swt) said:
وَاعْتَصِمُواْ بِحَبْلِ اللّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلاَ تَفَرَّقُواْ
w `atasimoo bihablillahi jamee`an wa laa tafarraqoo.
And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not be divided. (Aali `Imraan, 3:103)
To the contrary, the ummah is separating; even husband and wife are separating. How many families come to Mawlana Shaykh complaining about their marriage? That is because one does not want to humble himself or herself to the other; their ego is claiming they are higher. When you claim something and someone opposes you, then anger comes. What does anger mean? He or she is drunk, and a drunk or mentally ill person has no responsibility. When you are drunk you are mentally ill; you break chairs, windows or lights in the house, because there is no reason left.
So what did the Prophet (s) say?
al-ghadabu kufrun yaa Aba Bakr.
Anger is unbelief, O Abu Bakr.
It means, “You left your religion!” I heard this many times in the Middle East, when two people are fighting, one says, salli `ala an-nabi, “Praise the Prophet (too calm down).” But the other says, "No! I don't want to calm down, shut up!” That is kufr, unbelief. So the other one says, “You created a curse also, and you are responsible for it.”
Anger and pride are the trunk and roots of the tree of bad characters, and we carry 800 bad characters within ourselves! When Grandshaykh (q) ordered Mawlana Shaykh into seclusion in Madinat al-Munawwara, he ordered him to count (identify) the bad characters in him, and Mawlana Shaykh Nazim counted 187 bad characters. If Mawlana will ask me now to count my bad characters, I will not be able to count more than ten or twenty, because these are hidden within us, and like a virus or bacteria, you are veiled from them; they are there but you cannot see them. That is why when they analyze blood they can performs hundreds of tests from one vial of blood, and within five minutes they may find so many bacteria.
SubhaanAllah! How does that answer come? A machine can unveil and expose the sicknesses that exist in your blood within five minutes, and we, with our hearts and brains, cannot identify or extract all these bad characters in us because we are veiled. Awliyaullah are not veiled, because they cleaned themselves from bad characters. They were able to go through their bodies and pull out these characters like the machine taking out garbage. That is Haqiqat al-Jazbah, the “Reality of Attraction.” That loving care of Allah, inaayatullah, comes on you. What more do we need to come on us?
So our sultan is one, the self, and that’s why we have struggle. People struggle to come here (to this association) or not. When your real Islamic sultan appears, it orders us, “You must come here!” However, when Shaytan says, “No, you don’t have to go there,” we listen. When we want to go to the mosque, Shaytan comes, so we are in a perpetual struggle against our nafs. When the Reality of the Divine Presence dresses us, then we sit in mosque day and night and we don't even come home!
O brothers and sisters! Don’t follow the sultan of your self, the oppressive sultan, sultanan jaa'ir. Remember, the Prophet (s) said, “The best jihad is to say a word of justice in the presence of an oppressive sultan.” The sultan who is oppressing you is your self!
May Allah give you a happy life and happy time. We thank our hosts, husband and wife, and all those children, and all these people who came here, who sang heavenly songs in the presence of Prophet (s).
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.