When Stones Speak and Trees Cry

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

7 June 2014   Singapore

Suhbah at UE Convention Center

As-Salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh. Mashaa-Allah, Mashaa-Allah Allahumma zid wa baarik, this is the first time I am seeing so many people. Salaam `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh. First of all, I would like to thank the organizers that they allowed me to speak today in this beautiful garden of human beings, and I was very honored to be introduced yesterday to Ameen Fatwa of the Republic of Egypt, Sayyid Shaykh Amin `Abdu ‘l-Qawiyy, thank you for coming. 

I am not Azhari. I wish [I was], but my parents sent me to secular universities, but alhamdulillah, I managed to study Shari`ah and study Islamic law and to be with my uncles, who were the heads of `ulama of Lebanon, and I learned from their experience. In any case, I would like to say thank you for coming and this is a special event, in three-four days it will be the fifteenth of Sha`ban, Laylat al-Bara`ah, the Night of Innocence, the Night of Freeing from Hellfire, and inshaa-Allah Allah will free us from Hellfire!

From where I have to begin and from where I have to end? Shaykh Nassir said to me I have the whole time, even until Fajr, so we might stay Fajr, we don’t know!  Alhamdulillah. Everyone is waiting to hear what I am going to say and I will go out of the subject a little bit to say that we are Muslims, all of us, and we hope to keep the Shari`ah as much as we can. No one can keep the entire Shari`ah, it’s impossible, not even an `alim cannot keep it, because you know there are distractions, we are distracted and sometimes commit one sin here, one sin there, but we repent and ask forgiveness. Shari`ah is not an easy subject to discuss, regardless of wherever the `alim reached, because:

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Above every knower is a (higher) knower. (Surah Yusuf, 12:76)

It means `ilm doesn’t finish, it keeps escalating, it keeps ascending like a mi`raaj, within the term ‘mi`raaj’, not the real Mi`raaj. Always knowledge is ascending and you can always find other people who are higher and higher and higher in knowledge. I don't like to use rude words, but we have been criticized that we don't keep the Shari`ah, and I have to say that if this is true, we say “istaghfirullah” if I have done something against Shari`ah, as Allah will forgive when we say “istaghfirullah” and repent:

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Say, "O my servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah, for Allah forgives all sins, for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surat al-Zumar, 39:53)

“Say, ‘O my servants who have transgressed the limits! Don’t lose hope from Allah’s Mercy!’” Inna Allaaha yaghfiru ’dh-dhunooba jamee`an, “Allah will forgive all the sins.” They complain against us and I like to clarify it as it is my right, without attacking anyone, but I say it is my right to answer. We love the Prophet (s) in our hearts, and our body, our life, we want to give it to the Prophet (s)! And every Muslim likes to do that and Sahaabah (r) did that. So we hope that Allah (swt) will dress us with the real dress of love to the Prophet (s) and there is no other love in dunya except that one, and we mention why. We love the Prophet (s) and we like to praise him as much as we can and because of that we have been accused of shirk, they say, “Too much praising of the Prophet (s) is shirk.” No, it is not shirk! Allah (swt) ordered angels to make salawaat on the Prophet (s), Allah ordered them to make salawaat on Prophet (s), and the angels are not on the same number as human beings, angels are far more in number than human beings and all of them are ordered to make salawaat on the Prophet (s)! 

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Verily, Allah and His angels send praise on the Prophet. O Believers! Pray upon him and greet him with a worthy salutation. (Surat al-'Ahzaab, 33:56) 

‘Allah and His angels’: Allah is giving His Mercy to the Prophet (s) and angels are ordered to make salawaat, and Allah (swt), as the Prophet (s) said:

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Whoever prays on me one time, Allah prays on him ten times. (Sahih Muslim)

Whoever makes salawaat on the Prophet (s), Allah makes on him ten salawaat. That means Allah loves His servants to make salawaat on the Prophet (s). And what kind of salawaat do they make, what is their salawaat; is it like our salawaat? Their salawaat is clean, but ours is blended with our ego. Their salawaat is not typical of ours; we have one, two, three ways of doing salawaat that we call in Arabic “seegha”. And many Muslims did that and there are many books written on salawaat of Prophet (s), with thousands and thousands of salawaat. But angels are different than us, their salawaat is not one salawaat, it is not the same as Allah gave a different salawaat to every angel, so imagine how many different salawaat have been sent on the Prophet (s)! When Allah says, “Inna-Llaaha wa malaa'ikatahu yusalloona `ala 'n-nabiyy,” the verb is in the future tense and this means “non-stop”, they never stop praising the Prophet (s) in their heavenly language!

And the language in Heaven is the language of Holy Qur'an, which is Arabic; it means these angels are doing a salawaat in the language of Holy Qur’an in a way we cannot understand their salawaat, we cannot hear it. And don’t think that the angel is given a salawaat and he will repeat that salawaat; no, he will do another salawaat because there is no repetition of any salawaat! 

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Verily, when He intends a thing, His Command is, "Be!" and it is (comes into being)!

(Surah Yaseen, 36:82)

Allah, kun fayakoon, Allah (swt) Allahu Akbar al-`Azhamatu li-Llah! There is no copy machine there to repeat the same salawaat. If that angel does one salawaat, the next salawaat is different, the third salawaat is different, the fourth salawaat is different and there is no end to these salawaats which are all different from one angel to another.

O Muslims! That is why we like to hear qasaa'id and Mawlid an-Nabi (s), [recitations for] the Prophet's Birthday. Some people say it is not accepted and we are not going to argue if is it accepted or not; people are free to chose if you like to do it, you do it and if you don't like to do it, don’t do it. You are in a country that has democracy, if I can say this, so you can say what you like as long as it is within the limit of Shari`ah.

Three Important Issues

‘Mawlid’ vs. ‘Seerah’

But I will mention here that Ibn Katheer, in his book, Al-Bidaya wa 'n-Nihaya, which is a big book of many volumes, has mentioned a story entitled “Qisat Mawlid an-Nabawi ash-Shareef,” he mentioned the story of the birth of Prophet (s). Tayyib, why then do we have to hide it and call it ‘Seerat’ an-Nabi (s)? It is not ‘seerah’, seerah is different; it is from the time of Sayyidina Ibraaheem (r) to the time Prophet (s) is born up to the time he left dunya, that is seerah. ‘Mawlid’ an-Nabi (s) is when he was born. So we have rights and if Ibn Katheer has the right to mention it in his book, we have rights as long as we don’t do go outside Shari`ah and we stay within the limits of Shari`ah we are allowed.

Standing When Prophet’s Name is Mentioned

They say, “Why do you stand up?” All of you are reading the Mawlid and it is written there “Mahal al-Qiyaam” in the Mawlid books that you distribute here in the Muslim community. Look at the book; when you come to the part where Sayyida Amina (r) gave birth to Prophet (s), everyone stands up. Is this correct? Am I saying something wrong? They stand up. So now let us think a little bit. When the head of the tribe came to see the Prophet (s), the Prophet (s) said to Sahaabah (r), the people who belonged to that tribe, qoomoo li sayyidikum, “Stand up for your master, he is coming.” (Bukhari) Why then are we not allowed to stand up when the name of the Prophet (s) comes? I am not going to say as they say because this is a belief between you and Allah (swt), but I will say that in the time of the Ottoman Empire, for 700 years all Ottoman kings in their association with the cabinets of ministers and viziers and `ulama and shaykh al-Islam, when the name of Prophet (s) comes they stood up to show respect for Prophet (s), so why must we not stand up for respect of the Prophet (s)?

When you go to visit Sayyidina Muhammad (s) in Madinatu 'l-Munawwara you go to Muwaajaha ash-Shareef to give him salaam, facing the Prophet (s) there, do you sit or do you stand? Let us do what they say, sit and make du`a before the Prophet (s) and give salaam to him, but you cannot, you must stand as you are there, and then give salaam to Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r), to Sayyidina `Umar (r) and Sayyidina `Uthmaan (r), as they are there. Sayyidina `Ali (r) is something else, we will not open that subject. So if we are allowed to stand before the Prophet (s) in Madinatu 'l-Munawwara, why then can we not stand when we recite and the Prophet (s) is mentioned?

Second, in Shari`ah, there is no way to make sajda to anyone other than Allah (swt), it is impossible as it is only for Him, period, and there are no exceptions! When Allah ordered angels to make sajda to Sayyidina Adam (a), that is something else, Allah does what He wants, and it is said by `ulama that it was a sajda of respect, not of servanthood. They differentiated it as sajda of servanthood is only for Allah (swt) and sajda of respect was ordered by Allah to angels, not to us, and that is it! So no one can make sajda to anyone. So we all agree that we cannot do that.

Kissing Hands

In some cultures, people kiss hands. It is accepted is to kiss the hand of your father and your mother, and the hand of an elderly scholar or pious person; other than that it, is not allowed. So it is not our mistake that they bring culture within Shari`ah and they want to kiss the hand of whom they like; they cannot do that as it is not accepted in Shari`ah to kiss the hand of a stranger. And, unfortunately, I have to say that in the Sub-continent, as in Lebanon, we never saw anyone touch the hand of a lady, but in the tradition or culture of Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and some other countries, they have the custom to kiss the hand of men and women. No matter how many times we say not to, the culture is ghalibun `alayhim, overcoming or possessing them. They think they are doing something out of love, but to the people from the outside and inside, it appears as something strange. So please, kissing of the hands is not necessary. Ladies may give salaam and gesture with their hand on their chest and so can men, and it is alright if men want to kiss the hand of an `alim. Likewise, is alright for ladies to kiss the hand of an `alima, female scholar.  

These three issues are bothering us, and everyone is waiting for a mistake in order to expose our dirty laundry, so please, this is important for us to know, as this is what makes us happy and will make Allah happy.

Let us go back now to what we were supposed to speak about. I don't know where Shaykh Nassir brings me subjects from high above and wants me to speak about them! He wants me to speak about the miracles of the Prophet (s)