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The Greatness and Rank of Shah Naqshband (q)

Part 1 of 2

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

Saturday, Jan 10, 2009, ASIM Burton , MI USA

A`udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ir-rajeem

Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem

We are doing Dhikr as the 14th Muharram is the `Urs of Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه. Don't say, "why we came here, it’s snowing." Allah knows it is snowing, Allah made it to snow in order to test us to see if we are going to come or we are going to sit at home and say, " we have firewood and chimneys and we are warm Saturday evenings. Allah swt doesn’t like lazy servants.

You must be very happy and must be very thankful that Allah gave us this opportunity to come tonight and make that special Dhikr for the night of the passing of Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه and to visit the holy hair of the Prophet (s).and this occasion is worth millions and millions and we don’t know how much is its value Allah is the one who rewards His servants. And Allah swt made this opportunity easy for us to come. We have to be very thankful. Sayyidina Shah Muhammad Naqshband قدس سرّه is not an ordinary saint. Allah gave him special characteristics that Awliyaullah are not aware, some of them are not aware of the characteristics that Allah gave to Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه.

One time one of his characteristics is that one time Sayyidina Abayazid al-Bistami, who is one of the biggest saints, one of the saints that Allah swt gave them power beyond the power of human mind. Allah gave him power on some angels that he was using these angels for the benefit of the community. Sayyidina Bayazid al-Bistami with his dedication said, "Ya Rabbee, I am not returning until I reach your Divine Presence. And he was progressing in worshipness and giving his time to reach that Divine Presence. Where did he used to do seclusion? Not like us today or like no one is doing seclusion or if they are doing seclusion they do it in a room or in an easy place. He was doing seclusion in a well 70 m. down. Which means 250 ft. approximately down. He is sitting down in the dry well and he is doing his seclusion there. He is not doing seclusion like we do seclusions for forty days. But he is doing seclusions for year and years, asking Allah swt to open for him His Divine Presence.

We, all of us, are coming in these associations thinking we are big Awliya. Everyone thinks himself or herself to have reached the highest level of sainthood. He puts on a turban and grows a little bit of a beard then he thinks, “O I am someone to be respected.” And we are asking, "O Allah we put on a turban and have grown a beard, so open for us your Divine Presence.” Is that correct, Abu Bakr? [yes!] Muhammad Amin? We do a little bit and we want too much. Alhamdulillah no problem; Allah is Generous. We are not like those saints that came before and we are not like Mawlana Shaykh; we are weak servants. We ask that Allah give us even though we are moving like ants, because Allah is generous.

But in those days they were dedicated in order to reach. We are asking, Ya Rabbee open for us. We are asking and Allah likes His servants to ask. Are you asking? Ask. Idoo`nee astajib lakum – ask Me I will respond to you.

So he was asking and asking and asking through many many seclusions until he heard a voice that “Ya Abayazid! What you want?” and it is coming to his heart that message. Like today they say they are sending text messages on these phones. Awliyaullah have and had technology more advanced than this thousands of years before. Sayyidina Bayazid had that technology 1000 years ago. And with a voice. Do you have a text message with a voice on the computer? No. It is with writing. Their text message is with a voice and sometimes you can see also.

What is the message coming? “O Bayazid what do you want?”

He said, “I want my Lord’s Divine Presence. I want my Lord to open for me that I can enter into that ocean of love, ocean of worshipness, ocean of dedication to my Lord.”

He sent back a text message. He received it and then he was able to send it back, so now there is a connection. Before he was sending, sending, sending. This time he got the answer. Immediately the text back to the same phone. He got the answer and then sent back a message to the same number. He sent back, “Ya Rabbee, I want my Lord’s love.” He got a message back, “Do you want that?”

He replied, “Open for me Your door that I might be inside.”

That is nice. Do you want that? [yessir] Then you have to behave the same way he behaved. Who said “yes,” raise your hand. This one he doesn't care. You don’t want? [shrugs]

See. “Ya Rabbee I want to go there.” “Ok, on one condition.” “Ok, what is that. Go and make yourself to be a…” What? “To be a dump for My servants. A dump place.”

You see in many places these big dumps where all these trucks come carrying all the waste materials and dump it. Do they dump it or not? [yessir]. So what do they do there? They dump all this garbage. “O Abayazid. You want for My Divine Presence to be opened for you? Go be a dump for My servants.”

It means “be like the earth.” The earth you stand on it, you step on it, you blow it up, you put a bulldozer on it, it doesn’t complain. It means, “be like earth, no complaints. Carry My servants. Be Humble to them and let them dump their waste on you and you give them back in return rewards.”

When you dump waste in dump areas, after a while what happens? What do you see when you pass by dump areas? You will see fire there from a gas which has been formed from the waste that has been dumped. That is when you become a dump you will be like a fire, you will be like that love to that Divine Presence increasing constantly, becoming like a lamp, like a flame, dancing from that love. A flame is coming out shaking and shaking and shaking because it is immersed in the love of its Creator.

It means when you become a dump you become a flame, giving light. People throw garbage in the dump because it is not worth anything. But no, in reality it is worth a lot. When Awliyaullah give their lives for their mureeds and their followers for Allah’s sake, they get tired. But they say, “no problem,” and for the sake of their followers they carry that. Then Allah makes them like flames, dancing in the Divine Presence.

So the voice came to him, “You want for My Divine Presence to be opened to you, then go and be a dump for My servants.” It means “humble yourself. Don’t show yourself, your ego.” “Don’t argue” it means. Don’t argue between you and your wife. Between you and your husband. Between you and your daughter and between you and your son. Don’t argue between your brothers and sisters. Argument will extinguish the light of the heart.

Today everyone argues. You tell them don’t argue they say, "No, we have to argue. You like it or you don’t like it, we have to argue.” Why are they fighting with me? Leave me. Everyone wants to stand on his position. No one wants to bow to the second one. No one wants to give a space to the other. We are here to learn. It is an advice, so if you like to take it, you take it and if you don’t like to take it, don't take it. Don’t argue. "Al-jidaal yudfi`u nur al-qalb - Argument will extinguish light of the heart.” Some people if they don’t find someone to argue with they will fight with themselves. They look in the mirror and they argue.

They do that everywhere here. They call it emptying yourself in the mirror. You don’t see these groups where they sit in groups and they empty themselves, and then finally they don’t reach anywhere. And at the end they say, "go and fight with yourself in the mirror.” So at the end they get frustrated even and break the mirror.

So he heard, “Go and be dump to My servants.” So we are coming to the story of Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه but this is important to build upon.

So to become a dump is not easy .You have to make something which will make the people beat you up and then see if they carry you or not.

So Sayyidina Bayazid al-Bistami with his high level of spirituality the people cannot understand what he is saying. I am not going into the story of what he did, but he did 2 things that made confusion in the village. So at that moment, scholars, they didn’t understand what he is doing or saying. And they ordered for Bayazid to be eliminated; to be executed or to be killed.

So they put him in a hole and they began to throw stones at him until he will die. Because what he did wasn’t accepted. Relating to what he did, I will tell one story.

One day Bayazid was going in the alleys between homes and passed by a house where a beautiful lady came out, he hugged her and went into the house and locked the door. And everyone was angry, saying, “what did he do? This is against Shari`ah!” Today they do that a lot; they don’t care for Shari`ah or not.

So his students and scholars left him saying, "what he did was wrong.” Except for one, he was standing at the door waiting for his teacher to come out. Sayyidina Bayazid came out after two hours and looked around and said, "O where are your friends?” There were 200 of them but after he hugged the lady they all left and cursed him.

If it was this one or any of us, and shaykh asks us, where are your friends we would say, "they ran away,” to make ourselves big.

So he said, "O Sayyidee, my concern is you, my duty is you. I don’t know about them, you may ask them.”

So that is adab. Then Sayyidina Bayazid said, "come inside the house.” He said, "this is my sister. What you behaved, you behaved in a manner that no one behaved like you. I am going to get you married to my sister.” That mureed never expected to get married to the sister of Sayyidina Bayazid. But because he didn’t put in his heart any doubts Allah rewarded him.

Then he got married to his sister and then they came and said, "we have to kill him because he has done something against Shari`ah,” as they didn’t know she is his sister.

They took him and throw him with stones until he fell unconscious, and they thought he had died. They threw his body and put it in the dump.

After a few days he revived from that shock of being beaten, and when he awoke he said, "O Allah, whoever harmed me give them from my hasanaat and put their sayiaat on me.”

In this way showing respect to Allah’s servants because by this means he made a situation when he has to accept His servants in the way they are harming.

People are harming each other. We cannot harm Allah, but they are disobeying Allah and Allah says, “No problem, I forgive.” So to understand the secret of that ayah he had to experience that.

Are we forgiving those who harm us? No sir. No, we put oil on the fire to make it bigger.

So after he recovered after seven days in the dump, and constant `ibadah asking Allah to forgive them. He said, "I am leaving this village” and he went to the seashore and there he found a boat. He asked the captain if he can join them. And they went into the sea and the sea became very stormy.

Look at their belief; their belief is not like people of today. They said, "One of us is a sinner. That sinner must go and throw himself in the water.” And Bayazid came and said, "that one is me. Don’t throw anyone else.” And he threw himself in the ocean and he said, "Ya Rabbee, I will not come back until I find the truth. And he was going in that ocean at a very high speed down. Allah opened the seven earths for him. That means that he goes deeper and deeper. And that means Allah opened the universe for him so that he goes deeper and deeper and comes out in another place in the universe in order in order to say, “I am going in search of your Divine Presence.”

So after going for seven days he heard in a very no light area he reached a place where he is hearing dhikrullah, and they were making dhikr Huuuuuuuuuuu he was approaching but he was worried and the voice was growing. And he said that all the power that Allah gave to him, Sayyidina Bayazid had the power that if he sends it around the earth he can see every person on earth and know what is his present and his past and his future. Using all that power he was unable to count all the people making dhikr there.

And suddenly he heard a voice, “Ya Bayazid what are you doing here? This is not your territory, this is my territory.” That was Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه doing dhikrullah before he was on earth, when he was a soul in his spiritual life conducting the dhikr with all his mureeds. It means whoever came as a mureed of the Naqshbandi Order from Abu Bakr as-Siddiq up to the Day of Judgment; anyone in the Naqshbandi order was present there with Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه in the Divine Presence. That was one of the characteristics of Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه.

He said, "I was not able to count them and I was not able to know anything about them, but I knew that I am one of them, but with my soul there, not with my body.” And this is a way that Allah gave to Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه to prepare all his mureeds.

Don’t think our dhikr here is what is going to save us. No our dhikr there our dhikr is under Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه and up to Judgment Day we are there doing dhikr Huuuuuuu. Huwa means absolute unknown. It means whatever you know still you don’t know more. That means there is no end to knowledge, knowledge is never ending.

So Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه, is that one who is, and as Grandshaykh said, "in the association of Awliyaullah in the presence of the Prophet (s) that Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه is going to fill four paradises. Cannot the remaining Awliyaullah fill the rest? The Awliya are debating saying “cannot we fill the rest.”

So we are ummatan marhouma - an ummah that Allah has been rewarded and granted mercy. As long as we are on the right way, following the Shari`ah. But we are weak and helpless. One day on the right side, next day on the wrong side. Ya Rabbee we cannot do more than that. We are asking Your Spport. May Allah forgive us. 14th Muharram is the day that Sayyidina Shah Naqshband قدس سرّه left dunya with his body and yet he is still training his students with Dhikrullah and all of us are in that presence.

May Allah forgive us.

Wa min Allah at-tawfeeq bi-hurmati 'l-Fatiha

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