A`udhu billahi min ash-shaytaan ir-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
W
e said in previous session that Ati` Allah wa ati` ar-Rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum is like 3 trees, and with many branches and with many leaves and they are connected to each other in order that you will get the shade.
Uli’l-amr, Allah ? ordered us to obey them and they are of two kinds as we know previously: one kind is those who are on authority for our, of the country as a whole and those who are on authority for our properties; our country, which I mean that those who are responsible for all the citizens, they look after the country and the security and make is safe for everyone the entire country.
And the others are the ones who are looking after our county. Everyone has his country. His body and his soul are his or her country and awliyaullah are looking for the safety of every individual country from the enemy that comes from within and from without. There are 2 enemies, 2 kinds, 2 within and 2 without our selves. And both of them are characterized in 4 different levels: nafs, dunya, hawa and shaytan.
Ego—bad ego, dunya—wealth, bad desires and the devil. So the awliyaullah are like the country at the border, they always have an army to protect the border to keep them from coming in and that does not mean that in the country there are not those within who are bad people who are trying to harm.
So awliyaullah are always trying to protect from outside enemies and at the same time trying to protect from those who try to hit you inside. And they are monitoring the body and soul in order to reach you in every moment. Grandshaykh described that by a story about Sultan Abdul Hameed.
Sultan Abdul Hameed was a very good and faithful king who used to imitate at night the way of Sayyidina Umar ? who goes at night looking for those who are in need of help or what the citizens are doing at night. So sultan Abdul Hameed changed his clothes and disguised himself and went out. This shows that these authorities, either physical or the saints, always they don’t sleep. Always they sacrifice their rest for our sake. And that is why you have to listen and obey them and not reject them because they are looking after you. If you argue with them then they leave you and you find yourself falling apart.
It is not your cleverness that makes things going well. If they pull their hand you fall down. Sayyidina Adam ?, Allah ? said don’t eat from that tree. Shaytaan came and said eat from the tree and he went and ate. Allah ? let him eat to show him that if he is left unsupported he will fall and commit sin.
So authorities are working for their citizens. Spiritual authorities are working of their students. They are not sleeping. If they pull their hand the student is in problem. If they see from the mureed too much arguing and too much doubt, then they pull their hands, then the mureed will and fall and the mureed will learn.
So sultan Abdul Hameed went out and found 3 people playing kumar, gambling with each other and in between one of them said, “Oh! If I was the son-in-law of the king I wish to be the son-in-law of the king.”
Immediately sultan Abdul Hameed said to the ones accompanying him, “Write his address and his name.”
And Mawlana said don’t think there is no intelligence around you. People are being observed what they are doing. That is why it is best to do according to the authority and to the law. Don’t think there is no police not seeing. No police are observing you. So be good. And he put here between 2 brackets. Allah ? is al-`Afuw ?. If you do something wrong he will forgive you. As Allah ? mentioned in the holy Qur’an in many verses that he is the one who forgives those who repent. The Prophet ? also, Allah ? gave him that power to forgive. If anyone disobeys the Prophet ? -- that is why we are speaking on these 3 trees now—Ati-Allah.
Prophet ? said, “Shafa`atee li ahli'l-kaba'ir min Umattee.” And Allah ? said, “Laa taqnatoo min rahmatillah, inna Allah yaghfir adh-dhunooba jami`yyan.” “Don’t lose hope of Allah’s ? repentance, repent.”
But the uli’l-amr, those who are on authority, if you do something against safety of the country the police immediately come and take you in.
Awliyaullah also want to secure your safety. So they don’t want you to go into disobedience to them, and then they leave you. Then if they leave you then you are going to know how much it is difficult. So he said, Grandshaykh is saying here, immediately they registered his name. So be careful from uli’l-amr those on authority. He said, “Hafidh al-lisaan min salaamat il-insan.” “To safeguard your tongue is to safeguard yourself.” To cut your tongue is better, not to cut it physically. Try not to talk. Every problem is from the tongue.
Prophet ? said,
“Bima ma`na al hadith, “man damina ma bayna fakhayhi wa ma bayna fadkhadayhi admamtu lahu al-jannah”
“Whoever guaranteed for me what is between his jaws and what is between his legs, I will guarantee for him paradise.”
The worst is the tongue. The tongue is always barking, always arguing. All of us. That is why they said if talking is from silver, then silence is from gold. It means always best not to talk why to talk. You make yourself into problems. Either you make authority in problems or make awliya against you or make Prophet ? to be unhappy with you. It is better to talk by saying Subhanallah, wa Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar, make salawat on Prophet ? and to recite Qur’an. Talk what is necessary or else keep quiet.
The second one, because there were three, said, “I like to take the king to make me the minister of treasury to take as much as I like from his treasures. Whatever I want I take. I’d like that.” So he is giving here what the ego likes. It means I like wealth. The 1st one didn’t like wealth, he said I like to get married to the daughter of the king, it means he wants to be around the king, around that happy moment. The other doesn’t care, he wants the money. So the 3rd said, “I want to be sultan Abdul Hameed.” The king said, “Take their names.” So he took their names and the next day, he said, “Bring them [to me].”
Sultan Abdul Hameed was very pure person, he knows, because he was a spiritual emperor. Next morning he sent the police to get them. When the police came to them they were worried but they didn’t do anything. Even though they didn’t do anything but what they have been talking has been registered. They didn’t talk against the sultan. Today people speak against the government and against awliyaullah and if they don’t find anyone to speak against they speak against themselves. Even they speak against themselves. We are molded like that with anger. The Prophet ? told Abu Bakr as-Siddiq ?, “al-ghadabu kufr, Ya Aba Bakr ? -- anger is unbelief.” If we are not angry with our government we are angry with awliyaullah. We don’t like what they say if and if we have horse we beat the horse and if we have no horse we torture ourselves.
So Sultan Abdul Hameed found the first one who said, “I want to be the sultan’s son in law.” That one’s heart is clean. Sayyidina `Umar ? married the Prophet’s ? [grand] daughter in order to be touching Ahl al-Bayt. Because the Prophet ? said who touches the body of Ahl al-Bayt will enter Paradise. In order to show his love to the Prophet ?.
So that person didn’t want wealth or anything—only to be in that presence. So Sultan Abdul Hameed called the Shaykhul-Islam, and told him, “Make marriage for that man for my daughter.” How much he has been honored, Allahu Akbar.
The second one he told him, “Since you are happy with treasure of this dunya that is going to disappear. Never mind, don’t make your eye with hasad. Jealousy. Don’t look at others what they have. If Allah ? didn’t give you how you can be like them, of physical wealth or spiritual wealth?” And he told him, “Bring your bags” and sent him to the Treasury and said, “Fill what you want.” He took a bag and filled it, he was happy with that money.
The third, he told him, “You want to be sultan Abdul Hameed?” He said, “Put him on my throne and tie him, from right and from left and from his legs.” And then he said, “Look above you.” He looked and saw a very sharp sword, hanging at the middle of the head. It comes above that chair, there is a sword hanging on the ceiling which goes immediately to the middle of the head of the sultan’s chair. You see—this is Sultan Abdul Hameed. Look at this sword hanging. That is connected to the ceiling by a very fine thread. It means “anything I do wrong, Allah ? is seeing me and Prophet ? is seeing me and anything I do wrong that thread will break.” So that man was looking at the sword and he was trembling.
And he said to him, “Now you are here from morning to evening, I am giving you the choice to go or run away. But today you stay and sit. If you like, you sit more and if you don’t, you leave tonight.”
So that man saw the sword moving with any wind comes or any xx comes, it is shaking and about to fall. Allah ? put in his heart ru`b, fear. Any moment it is going to hit his head. And he said, “O my son! This is how we are day and night working for the benefit of the country and working to make ourselves safe and make our citizens safe from countries that are aggressors or terrorists that want to come and attack us.”
What Mawlana Grandshaykh wants to say is that authorities don’t sleep. You are sleeping—you move here and you move there and no problem. But authorities are not sleeping; they are moving around and looking for any terrorist attack.
Awliyaullah here, the other authority, are day and night observing what you are doing. How many times we said that awliya are hearing when you are sleeping they hear your movement in your bed from right to left like thunder. You don’t need to tell them if they are looking at you or not. They look and send to you tests to check you. When they are in a conference or in a park, and they want to check the microphones what do they do. “Test, test test.”
Awliyaullah they have the mic, “test, test, test, O not good.” They raise the volume in order that the body will shake. They don’t send “test” [weakly] they want to send you and break you down. They want to break you down and make you to surrender, until you say, “I am running away.” Until that moment to break you down completely, they don’t leave you. They like to break you down.
How much I saw Grandshaykh trying, not trying, istaghfirullah, but testing his followers, from Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? to everyone. And Mawlana Shaykh Nazim ? is testing all his followers, testing you and me and this one and that one, and this calipha and this representative. He does not say, “This one is my representatives.” He gives him more hardship. We failed; what can we do?
In any case they are saving us and looking at us and protecting us. Making that sword, as a way to make them always aware. In order any devil or attack on us they immediately jump on them in order for us not to be under that difficulty.
Allah ? said in holy Qur’an, wa a`iddu lahum ma`statum… w’Allahu y`alamahum. Wa ma tunfiqoo… tudhlimoon.
Allah ? is saying, “You want to come against the authority, awliyaullah ok, then be strong.” Wa`aidda lahum… prepare against your four enemies whatever you have of power and prepare all kinds of self struggle against your desires and prepare and get horses, horses I front of the army, usually in order to put fear in the enemies. Get the horses of the body and soul to be ready to fight the four enemies nafs, dunya, hawa, shaytan, that you are going to put fear in the heart of these enemies, when they come to try to flip you against Allah ? and his Prophet ?. When you are like that then whatever you spend in that way, Allah ? knows it and Allah ? will reward you.
So you don’t want to destroy yourself. You want to destroy the enemies. That is why prepare, Wa a`idda lahum. Prepare what you can of power. Today we don’t prepare power against ourselves we prepare power against others. It might be others are better than you. Prepare against your self first, then when your self is clean then you can clean others. That is why awliyaullah want you to destroy inwardly first, bad desires and ego, and then they give you authority to go after students to bring them to awliyaullah. That is why anyone takes baya` must renew his baya` when he meets the real Shaykh. That is why we tell them, “Go there to Mawlana Shaykh and take his hand.” If he says it is ok, then ok, but your duty is to send to the owner of the house. The doorman cannot be the owner. He cannot be the owner. He brings to the door and the owner will take care of what is needed.
Bi hurmatil Fatiha.