A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytani ‘r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbi 'l-`Alameen, wa ’s-salaatu wa ’s-salaamu `alaa ashrafi 'l-mursaleena Sayyidina wa Nabiyyina Muhammadin wa `alaa aalihi wa sahbihi ajma`een. Alhamdulillah alladhee ja`ala min ummat an-Nabi (s) al-mustafa `alayhi afdal as-salaatu was-salaam.
Allah (swt) not only ordered us, but He granted us prayers five times a day and night to be between the Hands of Allah (swt), under His blessings and mercy, to try to know ourselves and try to understand what we are doing here in dunya, this world.
If He granted us something and we are not happy with it, Allah (swt) will be unhappy with us. We have to accept His grants. Throughout their lifetime, people run after grants or scholarships, to receive assistance in school. Allah is assisting us five times a day, inviting us, “Come to Me!” What are we doing? We run away. Yes, we pray our five prayers here and there, which is not only necessary, but it is to thank Him for His grants. We don't know what Allah will send us from His mercy, to send us to Paradise!
وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ مَا أُرِيدُ مِنْهُم مِّن رِّزْقٍ وَمَا أُرِيدُ أَن يُطْعِمُونِ
I have only created jinn and men so they may worship Me. No sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require they should feed Me. (Surat adh-Dhariyat, 51:56-57)
“I don't want anything from My servants except to worship Me.” Today we put dunya as our first priority and `ibaadah second, which is not healthy because Allah said something and we are doing something else:
وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانتَهُوا
Leave what Prophet forbade and take what he ordered. (Surat al-Hashr, 59:7)
Whatever the Prophet (s) brought you or exposed to give to you, take it and don't say, “yes, no, yes, no,” and then we end up with no. Allah said, wa ma ataakumur-rasoola fakhoodhuhu. What does the Prophet (s) want to give us? He wants to give us a guarantee from Hellfire. That is why He gave us a grant, are we following the grant that Allah gave us five times daily, and each grant is greater than this dunya and its treasures! Allah said, “I don't want you to provide Me with rizq, I am the Provider, I will send them their rizq!” He sent provision to Sayyida Maryam (a).
I like to mention this story of Sayyidina Jaabir (r). From the grants Allah granted him, he sat beside the Prophet (s). Look how happy Sahaabah were to sit with the Prophet (s). Allah pushed us to love the Prophet (s) and ordered all His angels to make salawaat on him (s). He loves His Prophet, the Messenger to All Creation.
So Jaabir (r) said, “One day I was sitting with the Prophet (s) and from there the Prophet (s) came.” Prophet (s) himself entered through the door to give the best salutation, nusalli `ala 'n-Nabi (s), by saying, “Allahumma, allahumma salli 'alaa Sayyidina Muhammadin wa 'alaa aali Muhammadin wa sallim.” That is one of the best grants that Allah gave you besides the prayers, to say salawaat on the Prophet (s). Jaabir said the Prophet (s) came, faqaala, to the Sahaabah, because when the Prophet (s) comes everyone is happy to hear something from him to make them happy. All day and night they promoted Islam and therefore they were so busy, but when they saw the Prophet (s) they were so happy to see and listen to him.
The Prophet (s) said, “Just now Jibreel (a) left this gathering and said, “Yaa Rasoolullah (s), there are servants of Allah who are thanking Him day and night, and asking Allah's forgiveness for the Ummah. Among them was one servant of His many servants,” like Sayyidina Khidr when Sayyidina Musa (a) asked him the teach him the Reality. He said, “Among that group of `ibaadullah, there is one `abd who praised Allah (swt) and prayed for five-hundred years.”
In that time, they lived long lives and he was on an island surrounded by an ocean, where Allah provided him with everything. It might have been the Indian Ocean; I mentioned “Indian” because that is the best place for Awliyaullah: until now, Awliyaullah of Sindh and Hind are there.
He said that person was praying to Allah for five-hundred years non-stop and all around he was surrounded by water and you cannot reach there swimming as it is in an ocean, if you swim you might get tired and die. So that `abd sat for five-hundred years in the same position, not moving, praying to his Lord whatever prayers and whatever he asked for we don't know, and whatever praise Allah opened to him we don't know.
All Awliyaullah are the Prophet's workers, Inheritors and Lovers.
قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللّهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
Say (O Muhammad), "If you (really) love Allah, then follow me! Allah will love you and forgive your sins, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surat Aali-'Imraan, 3:31)
Those servants of Allah had immense love! Jibreel (a) told Prophet (s) how that servant on the island received his provision. If you looked north, south, east, west, in all directions there was only water, which meant that person could not move except by Allah's and the Prophet’s love.
Look at Allah's Greatness! Once on TV, I saw a documentary about an island in Lebanon where they were cleaning the ocean and discovered a hole one-hundred feet below the surface, and very sweet, fresh water gushed out. People will wonder how this can happen, how can you get fresh water in salty water? Who provided that? It would be good to bottle that blessed water and sell it as it is enough for a whole country to survive on. And fresh water flowed from the top of the hill on that island, which was only one or two acres in the middle of the ocean. SubhaanAllah. Did you (Imam Sahib) see that in Mayotte? It is a small island, not connected with any other islands, one dunam, a thousand square meters, and fresh water coming non-stop. Then I read this Hadith, that Allah provided him rizq, “I did not create human beings and jinn except to worship Me.”
We are not saying to leave everything and worship, though it is better, but if you cannot, then come attend together with those who are worshipping and you will get their blessings and they will get your blessings.
Grandshaykh (q), may Allah bless his soul, said, “In Tariqah, it is great if someone feels that worshipness Allah (swt) mentioned in the Holy Qur'an:
وَيُطْعِمُونَ الطَّعَامَ عَلَى حُبِّهِ مِسْكِينًا وَيَتِيمًا وَأَسِيرًا
And they feed, for the love of Allah, the indigent, the orphan, and the prisoner. (Surat al-Insan, 76:8)
“They give food for the love of Allah and His Prophet (s).” To whom do they give? They give to masaakeen, those who have absolutely nothing. “They give them food,” means the Awliyaullah give us food because we are miskeen, so desperately poor, and also orphans. Who does not have a shaykh is an orphan, but the Prophet (s) said:
" إِذَا أَرَادَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى بِعَبْدٍ خَيْرًا ، جَعَلَ لَهُ وَاعِظًا مِنْ قَلْبِهِ يَأْمُرُهُ وَيَنْهَاهُ "
If Allah (swt) wants goodness for His servant, He will make for him a guide in his heart.
(Abu Na`eem al-Ispahani in Hilyat al-Awliya from Ahmad bin Hanbal)
That servant was y`abud al-ma`bood, worshipping Allah (swt) and making salawaat on His Prophet (s). That is what is important: to be in this company, as it is halaqat adh-dhikr, a Garden of Heaven. So that `abd was not in dunya like our dunya, it was his dunya. Awliyaullah have their own dunya, not the normal meaning of dunya, but rather Gardens of Paradise on Earth, hilaaq adh-dhikr.
So he sat there and Allah provided him with a spring he could drink and make wudu from, and he waited for Allah to send him something to eat or not. A mature pomegranate tree had been there since his childhood from which he ate one pomegranate a day, and it was so sweet that you cannot find one like it in dunya. For five-hundred years, he ate one pomegranate, then he woke up for Tahajjud, prayed Fajr and for the rest of the day he fasted.
There was only one ripe pomegranate on the tree at a time, to make sure he only ate one per day. Had he eaten two he would have been like Sayyidina Adam (a) who ate what was prohibited, which he should not. Allah did not want him to fall into that mistake, so arranged that he ate only the one pomegranate provided. Then he made wudu and prayed.
That was his daily life, years didn't count like for us. The average physical life of human beings is eighty years, but this man was in `ibaadah for five-hundred years. Think what Allah will give for five-hundred years `ibaadah, but Allah gave us more than that, He gave us millions of years of `ibaadah, because whoever recites one salawaat, it is heavier than those five-hundred years of worship! On Judgment Day, when they bring the Scale, one salawaat on Prophet (s) will be heavier than all the bad `amal of human beings! May Allah bless us from that!
So when that servant's death approached, he felt it coming in front of him, and he was praying and couldn't decrease or increase. One of his munajaat was: “O, my Lord! I am Your servant coming to You! Forgive me. I am going to leave dunya and I am not happy with it, and I am coming to You.” Then he asked Allah (swt) to take his ajal while he was making sajda. Look to what extent he worried, although he had five-hundred years of `ibaadah on a secluded island and no one was there with him, but when Allah ordered the Angel of Death to take his soul, he said, “Yaa Rabbee! I'm asking something of You!” and Allah said, “Yes,” and from his heart he spoke what he had been inspired. Allah wanted to judge him and he had five-hundred years of worship. That is why Sayyidina Muhammad (s) said to Sayyida `Ayesha (r):
من حوسب عذب
(Yaa `Ayesha!) Who will be judged will be punished for sure. (Bukhari)
Because of that, five-hundred years of worship were erased by the one word he said. He asked Allah that he did not want to be disturbed, and that his death was coming and he didn't want anyone else to be on that island. Allah said through inspiration coming to that servant's heart, "I want to take him with My rahmah.” The servant replied, “There is no need, I already have five-hundred years of worship, so judge me according to my `amal.” In his mind, he had lived five-hundred years worshipping without ever seeing anyone, and he did not sin, he was always in sajda, fasting, eating one pomegranate at night, always in wudu, waiting for his ajal to go to Paradise. So he said, “Why do I have to it make difficult for the angels? Yaa Rabbee, judge me according to my `amal, not by Your Mercy.”
When people do good, they say, “From our amal we gave this and that, did this and that.”
Allah wants to save the whole Ummat an-Nabi (s). So the answer came, “I will take your soul on sajda and judge you according to your `amal.” As soon as that inspiration came, an angel was ordered to put one of his eyes on one side of the Scale. He was still on his deathbed, and it was announced, “This servants judgement is finished: he is going to Hellfire!” Even if he had worshipped for millions of years, he would be judged to go to Hellfire.
In another Hadith, Prophet (s) said that when a servant is judged to go to Hellfire, that `abd can call on Shafa`at an-Nabi (s) and he will be saved. So that `abd said, “Yaa Rabbee, yaa Rabbee! Do not judge me by my `amal, but rather by Your mercy.” When he said that, Allah said, “Okay.”
May Allah not judge us by our sayyi’aat, but only through His mercy, and may He dress us with His mercy! This is the Day of Ashura. What can we do except say Fatihah for Abi Abdillah al-Husayn (r) and his Companions at Karbala. Inshaa-Allah, Allah will forgive Ummat an-Nabi (s).
فِي بُيُوتٍ أَذِنَ اللَّهُ أَن تُرْفَعَ وَيُذْكَرَ فِيهَا اسْمُهُ يُسَبِّحُ لَهُ فِيهَا بِالْغُدُوِّ وَالْآصَالِ رِجَالٌ لَّا تُلْهِيهِمْ تِجَارَةٌ وَلَا بَيْعٌ عَن ذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَإِقَامِ الصَّلَاةِ وَإِيتَاء الزَّكَاةِ يَخَافُونَ يَوْمًا تَتَقَلَّبُ فِيهِ الْقُلُوبُ وَالْأَبْصَارُ
(Lit is such a Light) in houses that Allah permitted to be raised to honor (and) for the celebration in them of His Name. In them is He glorified in the mornings and in the evenings, (again and again). By men whom neither traffic nor merchandise can divert from the Remembrance of Allah, nor from regular Prayer, nor from the practice of regular Charity: Their (only) fear is for the Day when hearts and eyes will be transformed (in a world wholly new). (Surat an-Noor, 24:36-37)
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