After Dhuhr Prayers at CSCA, Feltham
As-salaam `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakutuh. Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah rabbi'l-`alameen wa ’s-salaatu wa ’s-salaamu `ala ashrafi ‘l-anbiya wa ’l-mursaleen, Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
I think in the early 1980’s or 1990’s most of you were not following Mawlana Shaykh Nazim. This gentleman, Shaykh Gunes Badri, served Mawlana for more than forty years, but what he got at the end; a slap. And I saw him; I love him and I respect him. He did his best for Mawlana Shaykh, which most of you now are doing, but he did so from the early times at Shacklewell Lanes and Green Lanes in London. He formed the “Muslim Trust” at that time and operated them for the benefit of Mawlana Shaykh. Then the heads of jealousy and corrupt ones, heretics, and the heads of munafiqeen tried their best to put him out, not because they love Mawlana Shaykh more than him, but because they love benefit and profit and to be tyrants like the current Arab rulers to their people, and to be the head. They succeeded.
I didn't want to discuss this, but when I saw him, and many people don't know him, I was reminded that people who are evil in their hearts can do anything to put the others down, even their own clients. During the same time, some people worked for good but they were in and out with Mawlana Shaykh Nazim. Once I witnessed, they came to Mawlana and said, “We want to take revenge from this person as he did our books and then went and told the government.” So there are people who have no faith: their faith is money, and how far they will go to make a conspiracy to get them more money! They say in Arabic, “Divide the community, then you win.”
This man was with Mawlana a long time ago, when we had Shacklewell Lane and Green Lanes mosques, and when we got the Priory he took care of all the insurances. There was no money and he suffered to bring money from here and there to keep the place running. Unfortunately he was mistreated, like many others, like me also, because we want Mawlana Shaykh Nazim’s name to be up, not to be down! When we asked, “Where is Mawlana's name?” they said, “Look , on the banner it is written ‘Shaykh Nazim's Dergah.’” We don't need a banner, we need a place for Islamic education! That is what they don't understand; their thinking is completely abnormal, and they only know how to forge a signature, how to cheat, and how to be corrupt. (A mureed says, "I saw this with my eyes.”) With deep unhappiness, we say amahumullah, “Allah forgive them,” but if they want to be forgiven they must go to everyone and apologize!
Until today we are not safe from their rumors, as happened yesterday with the Council. So alhamdulillah that Allah provided us a place that we can use freely. That (Priory) is Mawlana's place and I can go there anytime and I challenge them to stop me, but why trouble ourselves? They are on their own and we are on our own. Who likes to go there is welcome, who likes to come here is welcome. What are we losing? They are losing.
Alhamdulillah, everyone shows loves and comes here. If you count from one week to today, at least 500 to 600 people have come to see us. So no need; we are okay, Shaykh Gunes. What you did for Mawlana no one else did. Even the one who is sitting on the chair, who thinks he is a lion, didn't do for Mawlana; he did it for his pocket. Haqq is haqq. May Allah keep us on haqq!
Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani (q) said, “Yaa Qawm, aysh hadha? O people, what is this?!” He was not able to digest it. Awliyaullah complain against you and swear at you to bring you back to normal; we are animals and if you whip us we come back to normal. First, I am an animal, a donkey that Mawlana whips, (but we say), sami`na wa ata`na, “We hear and we obey.” Then what does the animal do, “eeeyaaa, eeyyya,” it is unhappy, then after a while the whip cracks! Okay, no problem, the wild animal becomes domesticated. Look at how they bring wild horses. Awliyaullah speak a little bit and they bring you back to normal.
But there is one animal who however much he was beaten, slandered, or cursed, he didn't come back to normal. Allah (swt) said to him, “Go make sajda to Sayyidina Adam (a). I forgive you.” That was Iblees. So for anyone who carries the character of Iblees, there is no way to bring him back; he is finished. They say “gold-plated” or “silver-plated,” which is merely dipped, not solid. So Shaytan made dunya so fancy to people that they think they are getting everything, but they are like Iblees: you whip them and they don’t change.
So alhamdulillah, if Mawlana whips us we will come back to normal, but there are others whom if Mawlana whips them they don’t come back to normal. They are among us and they have to be in the ummah; awliyaullah planted them among us to tempt us. They are worthless as they don’t do anything (no progress), so they plant them between mureeds to be a test. This is how we are.
So he said, what is this, “O people! You are completely falling into craziness, lost in this time and lost from the Door of Allah (swt)!” Who is lost from Allah's Door, he lost completely. Don’t lose yourself to Shaytan; keep on the right track. This tariqah is a long highway and when you are at the beginning of the highway you might make a mistake, such as:
وَأَلَّوِ اسْتَقَامُوا عَلَى الطَّرِيقَةِ لَأَسْقَيْنَاهُم مَّاء غَدَقًا
Wa law istiqaamoo `ala at-tareeqati la-asqaynaahum maa’an ghadaqa.
If they had (only) remained on the (right) Way, We should certainly have bestowed on them rain in abundance. (Surat al-Jinn, 72:16)
“If they had stood firm on tariqah, We would have showered them with mercy.” You are at the beginning and as you drive you find exits. If you miss an exit by mistake, you are lost and you have to come back to the beginning. So if we do something wrong we are exiting Sirat al- Mustaqeem, and as soon as we exit Shaytan is waiting to catch us and to give us something nice. You may say, “This is better than the highway,” but you didn’t continue on the highway and see what is there. If you continue another twenty kilometers, you see not an exit, but a banner that reads, “Restaurant,” or “Service Area,” and you eat, drink, pray; you do everything, and still you are on the highway. So be sure to exit at the service area, where they service you, maintain you, build you up and give you a turban and jubbah, the basics, and they say, “Continue.”
When you continue, scenes of nature come, and then after a while there is another service area, perhaps bigger, and awliyaullah put their followers there. So if followers exit completely from the highway, it is not awliyaullah’s responsibility. Don’t exit, as that is a mistake; immediately dunya is there and takes you in.
So in Islam, first we have to repent so Allah (swt) might forgive us for anything we did against Islam. Kulli maa yukhaalifud-deen al-islam, “Anything against the religion of Islam.” Then immediately comes min kulli maa yukhaalif at-tariqah. As soon as you build the five pillars then you are in faith, as tariqah is built entirely on faith. It is a polishing process. Even if you pray and fast, that is the basic structure but not all. You have to go into higher levels, such as Ihsaan and Tazkiyyat an-Nafs, “Purification of the Self,” and that builds the roof, which is faith, the level of Imaan. As long as you are going straight-forward you will reach Maqaam al-Ihsaan, the station “to worship Allah as if you see Him and if not, to know that He is seeing you.” You are not seeing Him, but He is seeing you: Allah (swt) knows what you are doing.
Yes, we are weak and make mistakes continuously, but we are asking forgiveness, “Yaa Rabbee! Forgive us! O Prophet! Forgive us.” We ask our shuyookh to forgive us. And Allah (swt) said:
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
qul yaa `ibaadiya ‘Lladheena asrafoo `alaa anfusihim laa taqnatoo min rahmatillahi inn ’Allaha yaghfiru ’dh-dhunooba jamee`an innahu huwa ‘l-ghafooru ‘r-raheem.
Say, “O My servants who have transgressed against their souls! Do not lose hope in Allah’s Mercy, as verily Allah forgives all sins. Truly, He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (az-Zumar, 39:53)
So may those whom we harmed forgive us, and we forgive those who harmed us. We are servants who are weak. Let us try to fix, not destroy. If we try as much as we can, inshaa-Allah we will be successful.
So he said, "Where are you going? You are going and killing this dunya. If you really want to preserve Islam in your heart ,fa `alayka bi ’l-istislam.” This is what awliyaullah say. And Grandshaykh says and Mawlana Shaykh says, “If you want to be a good Muslim, surrender to Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s).” Don’t surrender to anyone else. Don’t surrender to Shaytan. One moment, Sayyidina Adam (a) surrendered to Iblees, and he and his grandchildren were sent to Earth and have been treated as we are treated today:
فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَه ُُ وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَرَ
fa man ya`amal mithqaala dharratin khayran yarah, wa man ya`amal mithqaala dharratin sharran yarah
Whosoever has done an atom's weight of good shall see it, and whosoever has done an atom's weight of evil shall see it. (al-Zalzalah, 99:7-8)
You do good you see good, and you do bad you see bad. We were all with Sayyidina Adam (a) in Heaven, and then he came and whispered to Sayyidina Adam (a). He is father of all human beings and he was in Paradise and he knew that Allah (swt) prohibited him to eat from that tree, and he was a prophet.
Allah has made all of that to show us, “O human beings, I created you! If you surrender to Me, I will take care of you, but if you surrender to Shaytan, he will easily play with you.” So that is why submission is important in Islam, but you must surrender to akhirah, not dunya! Everyone surrenders to dunya, and that is our mistake. Submission depends on people’s levels: some surrender highly to Allah (swt), and some surrender mostly to dunya, not to Allah. Then there are those who surrender 99% to Shaytan and 1% to Allah. Those who surrender to dunya want everything for themselves, even if they see a bite in your hand, they want it.
He said, idhaa aaradta al-qurba min Allahi `azza wa jall, fa `alayka bi ’l-istitraahi bayna yadayh qadrihi wa fi`lihi. If you want to be near the Divine Presence, you have to throw yourselves between the Hands of Allah and His will, so that you submit to whatever He has written for you and wanted for you. For everyone there is something that Allah (swt) has written and is not meant for anyone else; it is unique to that person. Don’t come to Him without surrendering, or questioning like a child, or complaining, “Why it is this, why not that?” Allah (swt) knows!
Some mureeds come to Mawlana Shaykh and twist everything to suit themselves. In every tariqah, there must be at least two percent of such mureeds. In the old days, when they left rice out for some time black flies came on it, and these mureeds are the black flies of tariqah. So what do you do with them? You spread the rice under the sun and those black flies go out. Now there are perhaps twelve percent of mureeds whose purpose is only for Shaytan to play with them and make false rumors. Why? To keep themselves safe, as if Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) doesn’t know, although he knows, but he keeps giving them power, saying, “O very good, bless you, you did a great job!” because he knows they want dunya, so let them have it. For donkeys you give straw and for horses you give grain, not hay like for donkeys or mules; for horses, you give something higher, what they deserve.
So if the mureed has luck in dunya and asks for it, the shaykh will give him dunya, because he knows that that mureed doesn’t want akhirah. For those who want akhirah, Mawlana puts them at the door to clean the shoes, like the story of the man with no arms and legs whom Sayyidina Musa (a) asked for him Paradise, and Allah sent a hyena to eat him. Then Sayyidina Musa (a) said, “O Allah, what is this? I didn’t ask you to kill him!” Allah (swt) said, “You asked Me to give him My Paradise, and My Paradise does not come without afflictions.”
These small, black flies between the mureeds are our afflictions, so we have to be patient and work with them; that is where the shaykh is looking, not whether you prayed Salaat an-Najat or wear a turban, but he looks at what you are doing wrong in order to correct it. There are some who inherit the character of Iblees, so whatever you do there is no change for them, as in the story of Grandshaykh’s shaykh, Shaykh Sharafuddin ad-Daghestani(q).
Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) sat in a very high-level association with only high-level, disciplined students. Do people today sit with high-level, disciplined students? No, they sit in a community where they can only discuss dunya; they don’t sit to discuss akhirah. If we say, “Yes, they are sitting and discussing akhirah,” then why do we not see any of them here? Only people from certain nations, certain groups come. You have more than 180 countries around the world, and Mawlana Shaykh’s mureeds are from all these countries! Those followers of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim who boycott our associations here in London have hatred in their hearts toward their Muslim brothers and sisters, so then imagine how much hatred do they have to their own lives? They are oppressors to themselves. Such people want everything to be fancy in this life, but then they will not get the beauty reserved for akhirah. These associations take away sins!
Once Shaykh Sharafuddin ad-Dagestani (q) was sitting with his high mureeds giving a suhbat, as the Prophet (s) said, ad-deenu naseeha, “Religion is advice! Religion is advice! Religion is advice!” That is why if we see a brother or sister doing wrong it is our duty to tell him or her, “You are doing wrong,” not to put a cover on their bad deeds. However, those who we just mentioned are covering some who are doing wrong, petting them to make them bigger, wild animals. Sunnah is, if you know who is wrong, you must say to them, “You are wrong! You must open this place (the Priory) for all Mawlana's mureeds; it is not your place.” If it is written, “Dargah of Shaykh Nazim,” it means everyone can do what they like there, not what you like! It is the responsibility of each of you to expose them and show that they are not doing what Mawlana Shaykh Nazim wants, so that those people will understand! What are they doing in that place? Nothing, only showing some made-up details on websites, writing what is not really correct, exaggerating and blowing everything out of proportion.
So that mureed, like the ones there, came to Shaykh Sharafuddin’s association where he was sitting with all of his followers, giving them advice. And as I said before, in the time of Grandshaykh `AbdAllah ad-Daghestani (q), you could not look in his eyes when he was giving suhbat, as you were afraid that he may whip you if you raised your head; you were not even allowed to scratch your head or your face. He used to say, “One scratch from you lowers the level of the suhbat seven times!” He didn’t like that. Some people do it, but he means to say, “Try to sit like you are in prayer.” Do you scratch yourself in prayer? No, but you can see many Wahhabi's playing with their noses while they are in prayer, and when their phone rings, they take the phone and look at it. They are in prayer! Allahu Akbar. Some Pakistanis burp when in prayer as if it is sunnah, especially Tablighi people. It is not sunnah, it is bad adab! Allahu Akbar.
So when Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) sat with his students in that level of naseeha, advice, the door opened and he saw one person enter. He was in deep knowledge, discussing secrets with his followers, and this man approached. Immediately he said to his right-hand man, "Go to my room and open the drawer; you will see a jubbah decorated with silver and gold, given to me by Sultan `Abdul Hameed. Bring that to me." Grandshaykh (q) said at the time that jubbah was worth 7000 gold coins.
Awliyaullah don’t care for dunya; they want to teach their followers that love of dunya is the head of every sin. Why do people love dunya? They don’t care if they sin because they want dunya.
That one quickly brought the cloak and Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) said to the one who just entered, "Just now I have been inspired to give you this jubbah; it is for you. Allah (swt) is giving you all His blessings! You don’t need to be here, you may go." The man was happy, took the jubbah and left. Why did he do that? That man's presence in the association will not only bring the suhbat down seven times, but it will bring it down to a zero, because he is only for dunya and has nothing for Akhirah. Despite that, he is showing himself as if doing for Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s), which means he was munafiq, a hypocrite. Allah said, la`anallahu kaadhibeen, “Allah cursed the liar,” and he was someone like that. The sign of nifaq, hypocrisy, is that when the hypocrit speaks he always lies. So as for Maseeh ad-Dajjal, you have to do the opposite of whatever he says. If he says, “This is Paradise,” you must know that it is Hellfire. There are some people like that in tariqah: when they open their mouths, they lie, so don’t listen to them or you will waste your time.
Since that man had no chance for akhirah, Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) gave him that jubbah. That action meant, “Do you want dunya? Take this and go; it’s worth 7000 gold coins. Don’t come to these associations as you have no luck in them; just take it and go.” If someone like that who loves dunya comes to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q), he will give him dunya, saying, “Okay, take it and go!” Some of them come to kiss Mawlana’s hand, but he knows the hearts, and some of them are charlatans. Allah (swt), Prophet (s) and awliyaullah know them. Their punishment is not double, it is triple or more, but we say, “Yaa Rabbee! Forgive them and forgive us.”
At the end, we are all under one shaykh, and we are all under Prophet (s). If they go to Paradise, we will go to Paradise easily. Let them and us go to Paradise! May Allah (swt) forgive them and forgive us, bless them and bless us! They don’t want to hear this; they only take what I have said in the past and tell Mawlana. Let them say whatever they want, as I am here with Mawlana Shaykh Nazim’s permission!
Wa min Allah at-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
Two days ago I passed your salaams to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) and he was so happy I came here. He told me, “Go to London,” as I usually don’t come here in Ramadan. Mashaa-Allah, we came and saw all these beautiful faces. Inshaa-Allah we will see you later.
As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.