a'udhu billahi min 'ash-shaytaani 'r-rajeem
bismillahi 'r-rahmani 'r-raheem
Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaadah, nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum
From where to begin, where to end? Ma`rifatullah is so huge that it is very difficult to understand, except only to understand when you are in the presence of a sultan, a wali. Yesterday in the previous session we spoke of `Abdur-Raheem al-Maghribi, in the presence of Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani and how much he tried, `Abdur-Raheem al-Maghribi, but with all his questions how he failed without submission. And awliyaullah, they have stories with their followers in order that the others will learn. without stories human beings cannot understand. They like stories. Allah knows what mind has put on human beings so they like all kinds of stories.
If you want to give them knowledge, people cannot understand, but if you give them a story people always understand. And this small limited, limited your mind is limited. Your mind is limited? Do you know?
And these stories that happens between mureed and shaykh are the type of the lowest that can happen in order the student can understand. because the wali goes down all the way to the level of the student.
So it is like cartoon. Do you watch cartoons? So stories of awliyaullah with their students are like cartoons; people will be interested. If no story, no interest. If you speak day and night about `adhamatullah - Allah's Greatness - it doesn't stay in your mind. Fut if you say a story it stays there.
What is the evidence from Holy Quran:
Nahnu naqussu `alayka ahsana al-qasasi bimaa awhayna ilayka hadha 'l-qurana wa in kunta min qablihi la-mina 'l-ghafileen.
We do relate unto thee the most beautiful of stories, in that We reveal to thee this (portion of the) Qur'an: before this, thou too was among those who knew it not. 12:3
We nahnu naqussu we narrate to you the best of stories, ahsan al-qassas. Because Allah doesn't like except the best, that is why when we said that Allah doesn't look at dirtiness of human beings, so HIs mercy is huge he doesn't look at what His servants are doing of bad he looks at what they are doing of good.
We narrate to you the best of stories in which we have revealed to you the Holy Quran, Ya Muhammad.
So the Holy Quran is full of stories and incidents that relate to those stories.
So today we begin the discussion the story of one of Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani with one of the `ulama - his name is Ubaydullah al-Amawi.
And it says by date: 21 Muharram, year 510.
Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani قدس سرّه was sitting with his followers for Khatm al-Khawajagaan to do the khatm. He is the head, he is the khalifatullah of the Khatm. and the originality of the khatm came, as awliyaullah they mention, where Sahib, in the cave when the Prophet (s) was migrating from Mecca to Madina. There in that cave, Ghaari-Thawr where the Prophet (s) was hiding from the unbelievers they are coming to kill him.
There was one of the wisdoms, the secrets of that cave is the beginning of the first Khatm Khawajagan dhikrullah that has taken place by the leadership of Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani that he received his khilafa on that from the Prophet from Allah swt to conduct Khatm al-Khawajagan.
So in that cave as you know the Prophet (s) after the snake was eating the leg of Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r) and then Prophet stopped it, and most of you know that story and if you don't you may get from the internet or from the Naqshbandiyya Sufi Way.
There the Prophet, Allah ordered him to order all prophets to appear and all awliya to appear and all Naqshbandiyya souls to appear. So the Naqshbandiyya souls if we want to call them Naqshbandiyya, you can call them whatever you want. In the time of the Sahaaba they were called Siddiqiyya and in time of Sayyidina Bayazid they were called Tayfuriyya and then it was called Naqshbandiyya when it was spread far east and far west by Shah Naqshband and it is called Haqqani today as it is spread east and west today and it is also called Mujaddiyya as it was spread far east and west, and in Southeast Asia you find a lot of the Khalidiyya (branch) as it was spread by Sayyidina Khalid al-Baghdadi who spread it east and west. And so in every century it was called something based on the current shaykh of the order.
So in that cave the Prophet (s) ordered Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani to be the leader of this originatd secret of that way that the followers of it going to continue up to Judgment Day and he ordered all Naqshbandi souls to appear and Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani led the dhikr there. Anyone who appeared in that cave is going to appear in dunya. Even if he came only one time to a Naqshbandiyya Khatm Khawajagan, it means he is part of that appearance in the Ghaari Thawr.
One time one person comes and sit in Khatm it means he is related to Shah Naqshband to Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r) all the way to the Prophet (s). That is a sign that he was in that cave under any guidance of any wali. It is not restricted to the Haqqani branch but all branches that cal lthemselves Naqshbandiyya - that word will put them inside that cave. There are thousands of branches. But where is the secret that is something else.
When you say "I am a Naqshbandi follower" - like I met one very important politician, a very important highly political person form an Arab country where you don't normally find Sufi orders. He said to me, "I am Naqshbandiyya" and I asked from which shaykh. He said from "this shaykh." Whenever he loses ablution he goes to sleep. But Allah will protect you due to having ablution. If you are in place you have no water, it is so simple, pats the earth, make tayyamum.
Anyone who says he is following the Naqshbandiyya tariqah, whatever his shaykh, his soul must have been present in Ghaari Thawr.
And the khalifatullah - the leader - for that Khatm is Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani قدس سرّه. Allah gave him that specialty. He knows all the souls present by name and what they are doing in their life and what is going to happen to them and he knows every smallest detail that they are going to do from the day of promises til they go to Paradise on the Day of Judgment.
He knows all their details, how long they are going to live, how many breaths they are going to breathe and how they are going to do in their life and when that mureed is about to die he sends him to be present, as awliya are free to move, sends him to make talqeen adh-dhikr. Talqeen means to put on the tongue. He puts on the tongue of everyone the secret of the dhikr for everyone who was present in that cave - laqana. Don't think that takes time, that is by shrinking time and space.
How he cannot do that when Allah is ordering? How he cannot do that when Allah is asking him, "Ya `Abdul-Khaliq! Take your stick and go to Merv." That is his village. "Go to that area and there is a huge rock (sakhra), you hit your stick by it."
When he went and hit that rock with his stick the rock cracked and water was coming from it. And it is there until today and people drink from that water.
And He said, "Ya `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani! Your responsibility from now to the Day of Judgment is that I am going to create from every drop of water an angel and your responsibility is to give it a name different from all the others. You cannot give two angels the same name. They must be different names.
In dunya you want to call a child a name there are too much resemblances in names; is it not? You say "Khalid". There are thousands of Khalids. Say "Sahib". There are thousands of Sahibs. You say "Hashim", there are thousands of Hashims.
Thousands of names are the same for different people. Thousands of one name for different people.
So he was ordered to give these angels name that are not similar, but are all different. And imagine from a waterfall, Allah creating an angel and Sayyidina `Abdul-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani has to give a name for that angel up to Judgment Day and all these angels will be divided to different people.
Their praises will be written to different people in the Order. Let us call it Siddiqiya as Naqshbandiyya comes from two different sources and one comes form Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r) and one from Sayyidina `Ali (r) and they come together in Sayyidina Ja`far as-Saadiq. So in reality Sayyidina Ja`far is "of the two wings" - he combined the two streams of knoweldge, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, Salman al-Farsi, Qassim. Sayyidina Ja`far a is the fourth in the silsila. Then he gave to Sayyidina Bayazid al-Bistami.
Ubaydullah al-Amawi. He is from Sham and you know Sham at that time was a fountain of knowledge. Sham and Baghdad.
They don't call themselves `AbdAllah. Because they don't consider they deserve that level of title. Instead they call themselves `Ubayd. Do you know the difference between `abd and `ubayd? `Abd is servant and `ubayd is servant of servant of servant of servant the lowest of servants. They feel shy to say "servant". Now we say Abdul-Hameed, Abdul-Hafeedh. But when people say the names, they "eat" the `abd and leave only the name - that is haraam. These are Allah's Beautiful Names and Attributes.
So he said, "Tell me what is in your heart." And we continue that tomorrow.