Pondok Pesantren at-Taufiqy
As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. Alhamdulillah rabbil `alameen as-salaatu wa ‘s-salaamu `ala ashrafi’l mursaleen sayyidina wa nabiyyina Muhammadin wa `ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma`een. Ama ba`ad, wa naqool alhamdulillah that Allah brought us back to see Mawlana Shaykh Tawfeeq after many years, perhaps seven or ten years, and especially to this room with the prayers and duas, where Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) came.
You can see that we have made some salawaat on Prophet (s) and everyone was happy, but with the salawaat the light went out, there was no electricity, why? To tell us that the light and the day, and the darkness and night, are in Allah’s Hand: He can stop it, He can send it. So we don’t have anything in our hand except salawaat on Prophet (s), and if you send it you win and if you don’t, you lose.
Some people often speak of interfaith programs. Every religion has a chair and everyone speaks about peace. Do you want peace? Come here, this is peace! Salawaat on Prophet (s) brings peace to everyone, not the kind of peace they talk about in interfaith programs and afterwards they still fight each other. Here no one says anything, our peace is salawaat an-Nabi (s)! On the night of Mi`raaj, Allah allowed Sayyidina Musa (a) to ask something, He allowed him to speak to Sayyidina Muhammad (s). That’s an interfaith: Sayyidina Musa (a) has his Ummah, Bani Isra`eel, and Prophet (s) is carrying his Ummah, kuntum khayrun ummati ukhrijat li ‘n-nas, the best of all Ummahs! Allah said, “Yaa Muhammad, I give permission, speak with Sayyidina Musa.” In Holy Qur’an, Allah said to Prophet (s):
إِنَّا فَتَحْنَا لَكَ فَتْحًا مُّبِينًا لِيَغْفِرَ لَكَ اللَّهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِن ذَنبِكَ وَمَا تَأَخَّرَ وَيُتِمَّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَيَهْدِيَكَ صِرَاطًا مُّسْتَقِيمًا
Verily, We have granted you a manifest victory that Allah may forgive your faults of the past and those to follow, fulfill His favor to you and guide you on the Straight Way. (Surat al-Fath, 48:1,2)
What is the meaning? Before we go into the meaning, first recall when Prophet (s) went to Mi`raaj and saw Sayyidina Musa (a) and all Anbiya, what did he do? He prayed as the imam of all Anbiya as he is alive and, although they were not, he prayed on all of them because in his presence they were all alive. His presence can make everything alive, his presence can make the impossible possible! No one can comprehend the power of Sayyidina Muhammad (s)!
So Sayyidina Musa (a) asked him, “What has Allah assigned to your Ummah? What are you going to tell them, because Allah gives every prophet something, so what did He give to you?”
“He gave me fifty prayers over the day and night.” Now we only pray five prayers.
Sayyidina Musa (a) looked at Sayyidina Muhammad (s) in Paradise and said, “Yaa Akhee, your Ummah is not better than mine in their `amal. I tried mine they didn’t listen and yours isn’t going to listen, because fifty prayers is too much! Ask for less.”
Prophet (s) said, “I feel shy. How can I go back? I cannot ask.”
Sayyidina Musa (a) said, “Ask from here, He will respond to you.” Innahu samee`un qareebun wa mujeebu ‘d-da`awaat.
Sayyidina Muhammad (s) afdalu ‘l-`ibaad, afdal makhluqat, nooruhu noorun fee kulli maqan wa zamaan...sa`alaa rabbahu an yaftaha `alayhi khamsoona salaah an yuna qisuhum khaleelan fa ma azawajal qabila Sayyidina Muhammad wa khafata ‘s-salawaati ila khamsa `arba`een…. This is ‘interfaith,’ to convince someone that your religion is normal, good and peaceful. So Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and Sayyidina Musa (a) spoke with each other for the benefit of not only the Ummah, but the whole world. And Sayyidna Muhammad (s) was kaana mahmooman, sad about something. Inna fatahnaa laqa fatahan mubeena, Allah said to Prophet (s), “I opened for you a clear victory, something that I didn’t open to anyone before you.” What did Allah open?
“We have opened for you your chest very clear for you to understand, because in your heart I will put everything that destroys sins.” Allah’s Name is al-Qahhar, The Destroyer, The Subduer. Allah (swt) is telling Prophet (s) that He opened for him not a window, but the whole dunya and Akhirah, to make sure every person from Ummat an-Nabi will enter in Paradise, and no one will stay behind in any moment: that is fathan mubeenan. Awliya can extract more than this, but we cannot do that because people will not understand. There is no way a Nabi or Wali or anyone except Prophet (s) will understand this greatness of the universe Allah created. Why? Because there is something in it that Allah gave exclusively to Prophet (s): Inna fatahnaa laqa fathan mubeena li yaghfirika lakAllahu ma taqaddam min dhanbinka wa yutimma ni`amatahu `alayka, ma ma`ana yutimma ni`amatahu `alayka bi’l `aaraab...fatama man ni`amah fan asbahaa fatha mubeena min ni`ama ma bish shukr min naas.
Shaykh Gibril Haddad: “Li-yutimma” means, “So that Allah will perfect His Favor to you,” so the condition of fathan mubeen, the clear opening, is the perfection of Allah's Favor to the Prophet (s).
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham: Wa lam yaqul faqaalaa ni`amatahu, wa lakin hiyya ni`aman katheera, yani laa taqtasi ni`amatin waahida hiyya ni`aman katheera…
Shaykh Gibril Haddad: Although Allah (swt) used “ni’amat” in the singular, as if saying “one,” here it means “unlimited” favors.
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham: “Ni`amatahu” is singular, not plural, but in reality if you go into the knowledge of Awliyaullah, they say “ni’amat mughdat” is Prophet (s), so all the ni`am goes into that, which is why it is singular. Li anna ta`ghdaadu ni`am yaqaal bi’l jama`a wa yutimma ni`amauhu `alayka wa laka huwa qaal bil mufra wa yutimma ni`amatuhu ni`ama wa yutimma ni`amatuhu `alayk ya`ani kullil ni`am dakhallat fil ni`amatin muhadadatin khaassatin billayi azawajal wa rasoolih salAllahu `alayhi wa sallim.
Shaykh Gibril: So when the ni’mat is completed and all the favors are entered, then the Maqaam of Gratitude is realized, then Allah will show you, and bring you on the Straight Path.
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham: It means the ni’mat is built up on many ni’mat. Who can know them? Bring the biggest imam in the world and let them sit and try to write how many ni’mah are there. You (a mureed) are a PhD, can you do that? Wa yutima ni`matahu `alayka, as soon as He completed, Allah said, then immediately Allah opened to the Ummah--not Prophet (s), because he has it already. In this surah, Allah is speaking to the Prophet (s), but really it is for the Ummah, wa yutimma, He is going to give you the benefit of His ni’mat that no one can count and understand except Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
Are they able to enter into that matter? No one can except Sayyidina Muhammad (s), and the salawaat and recitation we make enters us in the ocean of ni’mah from Rasoolullah (s). That’s why if you pray salawaat one time, Allah prays on you ten times. Ana hauyun tariyun qabree, “I will hear you.” He can see us and hear us, and that is a ni’mat. “All that will be opened to you, yaa Muhammad, for your Ummah. Allah will complete all His Favors upon you,” and no one was able to count the ni’mah to this world and Akhirah except Prophet (s), because that knowledge is where on the day of Mi`raaj Sayyidina Jibreel (a) said to Sayyidina Muhammad (s), “I cannot move forward, you move.” No one can reach the meaning of these ni’aam, because they come from Prophet (s) having entered the Divine Presence, where he extracts them! And Allah gave him (s) all these favors in a surah (Surat al-Fath) that whoever memorizes and recites it, it is as if they performed all these ni’aam. For example, how many people are here? Students, cleaners, the doctors? Shaykh Mustafa estimates fourteen thousand, but whatever the number, the example is that if you look at them, Allah gave you a ni’mat different from another, and everyone will receive different ni’aam, like when they eat everyone tastes the food differently, don’t believe they taste the same thing! Everyone is different. So that is why the ni’aam are too many to count, but when they enter the Ocean of Prophet (s) as servants they become one, because when a drop of water enters the body of water it becomes part of the whole, not separate.
I saw someone who was able to write 187 ni’aam; another Wali was able to count seven-hundred favors, not more. Prophet Muhammad (s) contains all ni’aam: he is al-Qassim, the Divider, although it is Allah’s Name, but he is the one who receives it and divides it by Allah's permission, and he is honored to be Allah’s servant. So when he (s) receives that ni’mat, he will guide you to Siraat al-Mustaqeem, then you will not fall into Hellfire because you are following him. When you follow:
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)
So love is the biggest key to open that Ocean of the Divine Presence that no one knows about except Sayyidina Muhammad (s)! He is the First and Last, and the Servant of Allah (swt), and he acquired for us the status of kuntum khayratun ukhrijat li ‘n-nas, “You were the best of ummahs that Allah has sent to humanity.” That is the biggest ni’mat Allah gave in our understanding. Awliyaullah can translate and make tafseer of this in many, many books. I told you about my uncle who was a genius of the Arabic language, and of the letter “Alif” alone he published twenty-seven volumes. Now when we read “Alif,” we pass over it without consideration. May Allah (swt) open our hearts.
Sometimes a speaker makes soup of his speech, mixing it up, and sometimes worse. Sometimes they don’t give you soup, they connect you with them, when Awliya speak they connect us with them. That is why you cannot find tonight’s tawsiyya in books, because it is directly from heart to heart. We don’t need to say whose heart is on the other side, but this is how it works and this is how big `ulama, like Imam Bukhari, compiled their sihah. Whenever Imam Bukhari wanted to add a Hadith, he prayed Istikhara and asked Prophet (s) in a dream or vision, “What should I do with this Hadith?” and Prophet (s) instructed him to keep it or discard it.
Awliyaullah are now hidden because the situation today is not good, there is too much bloodshed, so we ask Allah (swt) to forgive us and guide us to the Right Way.
Wa min Allahi t-tawfeeq. As-Salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.
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