Suhbah at Mawlana Shaykh Nazim's Dargah
As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmani 'r-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbi 'l-`Alameen, wa ’s-salaatu wa ’s-salaamu `alaa ashrafi 'l-mursaleena Sayyidina wa Nabiyyina Muhammadin wa `alaa aalihi wa sahbihi ajma`een. Alhamdulillahi yaa Rabb al-ladhee ja`altanaa min atbaa`i Sayyidinaa Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani wa ayyadtanaa bi ta`yeedin minhu wa `allamtanaa maa lam nakun na`lam wa haadha bi-fadl al-mashaaykh al-`izhaam.
O Allah! Praise be to You that You have brought us to be from the followers of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim, may Allah bless his soul. One year passed and I cannot accept, not ‘accept’ in the actual meaning, but I cannot figure that Mawlana left dunya as I still remember him every moment and how he was in the grave, that he was as Allah (swt) said:
بَلْ أَحْيَاء عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ
No, they live, finding their sustenance provided in the Presence of their Lord. (Surat Aali-`Imraan, 3:169)
“They are alive in their grave, yurzaqoon,” they are provided with what: with fruits, with meat, with sweets? Allah (swt) said, “They are provided,” and when He provides for someone it means He is dressing him with His Endless Treasures of Knowledge! Allah (swt) created Creation to know Him. So when Allah dressed His awliya, it is in order to know Him more and more, which means to learn. When you are studying at university they take you from a Bachelor’s degree up to PhD, you are increasing in every step, not decreasing.
أولياء الله تحت قبابي لا يعلمهم غيري
My saints are under My domes; no one knows them except Me. (Hadith Qudsi)
When Allah (swt) says, “No one knows my saints except Me”, and, “They are provided for in the Presence of the Lord”, that is not easy: it means the one who is in the Divine Presence is protected and Allah keeps that one with Him. When Allah has given awliyaullah that rank of provision, it is a rank of protection from Hellfire, punishment and any act of Shaytan within us for his followers. This is because of his sainthood and that he is in the Divine Presence, not outside. That is one of the meaning of yurzaqoon; it does not mean to get anything worldly in the grave, it means the grave will become a paradise. And what is the benefit if a paradise is empty, where you sit alone and say, “I am in paradise.” The wali needs companions and you are his companions, his friends and his sons: you are everything to him, he sits with his people.
Last year in March before leaving dunya, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q) mentioned something, I don’t know if anyone paid attention to it, “I want my friends, I want my old friends, I want my old mureeds. I miss them and want to see them.” If Mawlana misses the old, then he also misses the new because the new become the old, so that means he misses everyone!
Companionship to awliyaullah is important. When Allah (swt) says:
أَلا إِنَّ أَوْلِيَاء اللّهِ لاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Behold! Verily on the Friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve.
“Don’t fear about awliyaullah, don’t bother too much about trying to understand their level as it is impossible. He (that wali) is with Us and with the Prophet (s).” ‘Provided in their graves’ means they are in the association of the Prophet (s) with his Ummah, the awliya and Prophets in the Divine Presence. That is why what we see from the outside is completely different from what is inside, like when you are looking for an oasis and you see water at a distance, but as you approach nearer you find it is a mirage, there is no water. There was water, but your eyes did not see it. Awliyaullah will not tell you to look where there is nothing! It is not a mirage, but normal people do not see the water. For those whom Allah provided `ilm, knowledge, and made that grave an ascension, it is a paradise. They are in `Aalam al-Barzakh, which is mentioned about graves in Ahadeeth of the Signs of the Last Days, where souls of mu’mineen are free to move around the whole world with no restrictions on their movement, because their grave is a paradise.
So they have two kinds of knowledge: one that they tell you and the other they tell someone else, which is different from yours, or they may even tell someone the same thing as they told you, but in a different way. As in Ahadeeth: the Prophet (s) would mention a hadith and depending on the time and moment, how the Revelation comes and who is sitting, he would mention that same hadith, in a longer or shorter way. If a wali is sitting with Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q), the knowledge would be different than the knowledge he would give to mureeds like us. When two awliya are sitting together they speak wali-to-wali, but when they are with their mureeds, it is like father-to-son or father-to-daughter, as they are like his children and he covers them under his wing. You are his children, his sons and daughters. So the knowledge is different, it has two faces: one is on the divine and the other on the normal understanding. I did not want to speak today, we just wanted to come for ziyara and to attend the Urs program.
Why do they call it “`Urs”, did anyone ask? In Arabic `urs means “wedding.” Yes, he is in a wedding, because you give your best of everything in an `Urs. Allah gives His awliya more and more year after year, and that is `Urs for them. For example, look at how the knowledge changes, Allah (swt) mentioned some letters, huruf al-muqatti`at, in the Holy Qur’an and the first letter of Surat al-Fatihah and Surat al-Baqarah is the Alif. To awliyaullah and to Mawlana Shaykh, the Alif represents the Absolute al-Wujood al-Kamil, “The Perfect Existence.” From Alif, awliyaullah can analyze and take out the best of existence, because ‘Existence’ is for Allah (swt) and no one else as everyone will go, but Allah will stay. He is the Creator and we are His servant. So that Alif represents the Existence and you can take knowledge from everything that is under that Wujud, that Existence, even if it is one leaf from a tree or a loquat. So awliyaullah can take all these secrets and that is why the Holy Qur’an begins with Alif.
Allah sends this knowledge that He wants to be known to Jibreel (a), which represents al-Mulk wal Malakut. There are two Laams in “Allah,” one is in “Mulk” and the other in “Malakut,” we are not going to speak about this now. But the two Laams refer to the Existence of al-Mulk wa ’l-Malakoot, the “Earthly Knowledge” and the “Heavenly Knowledge,” or the “Earthly Treasures” and the “Heavenly Treasures.” Laam represents the one whom Allah gives to give, which is Jibreel (a). That is why it is said between awliyaullah that the Laam represents Sayyidina Jibreel (a), we will not go too deep in that.
So what is left? Meem. Alif for Allah, Laam for Jibreel (a), al-Mulk wa ’l-Malakoot, and this whole universe that Allah created is within the Meem. And that Meem is Muhammad (s). While that Meem represents only the Prophet (s), there are secrets in it; not like when people recite “Alif, Laam, Meem,” and think there is no meaning. Meem is made out of two Meems. When you come to the alphabet, you say the Meem twice, and between the two Meems is Yaa. Yaa is the last letter of the alphabet. Alif is the first letter and Yaa is the last; Alif represents the whole Wujood and Yaa represents the Hidden One, and this is between the two Meems. In Arabic grammar the Yaa is Alif, not Yaa; you don’t pronounce it except as Alif. So when the Yaa is between the two Meems, it means one Meem is near the Yaa, which is Alif, and the other Meem is on the other side open to everyone. That is why the Prophet (s) said:
ولكل شيء وجهان وجه الى الخلق ووجه الى ربه
Everything has two faces: one face to Creation and one face to its Lord. (Ghazali in Miskhat al-Anwar)
So one Meem is with the Divine Presence and the other is with the Ummah. What Jibreel (a) gives to the first Meem, the Prophet (s), is given with the best of power, ‘Alif, Laam, Meem.’ When it reaches the second Meem on the other side, the knowledge is given slowly as the Prophet (s) is ascending, like when electricity comes through a transformer it is reduced so that it may be able to carry it; the knowledge that comes to the second Meem is not actually reduced, but rather, it given slowly within the Prophet’s (s) ascension. That is why the Prophet (s) said:
أوتيت جوامع الكلم
I have been given the Mothers of words. (Muslim)
Awliyaullah receive that kind of knowledge and they don’t open it for certain people, only to those who can understand it, so when they open it, it is a certain amount. We must know, however, that when they read “Alif, Laam, Meem,” it is not like how we read it. It does not mean that they will not give to the mureeds what they hide from them, but the mureed cannot take it so they dress them with it and it will slowly go to their hearts, for both men and women. That is why Allah (swt) said:
أَلا إِنَّ أَوْلِيَاء اللّهِ لاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Behold! Verily on the Friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. (Surah Yunus, 10:62)
“They have nothing to fear or be sad about, I am providing them.” They are alive: Mawlana is alive, but he is not here. As soon as he was placed in the grave, angels moved him to Shaam. One time Grandshaykh, may Allah bless his soul, said from these secrets, “When any wali, mu’min or anyone from my followers dies, they will be moved to Shaam as that is the place where Allah will descend with His Throne for the Day of Judgement.”
So they will be blessed with the blessings that are coming on the graves of Muslims and mu’mins who are buried in Shaam. He said, “Any Muslim or mu’min with good faith who enters Shaam, when he goes out, his sins will be erased.” Mawlana’s body is not here. As Grandshaykh (q) said, and I quote, “All 124,000 awliya meet every Monday, Thursday and Friday in an association with the Prophet (s) on Jabal al-Qasiyoun in their spiritual life, Barzakh” That is why all awliya are moved there.
Towards the end, before Mawlana left dunya he used to say that Shaam is Cyprus now. What did he mean by that, no one understood. It means when he was here, the tajalli of Shaam was coming on Cyprus and now because of his presence here, it will become like the tajalli that comes on Shaam. So awliyaullah moved Mawlana to Shaam ash-Shareef. Grandshaykh (q) added, “All Prophets other than Sayyidina Muhammad (s) are moved from their places,” which people don’t know, because there are too many maqaams and there are many prophets, “and when Sayyidina Mahdi (a) comes, their tajalli will also come and their power will appear.”
May Allah (swt) accept from us! You are lucky because you are doing ziyara everyday. We are doing ziyara and remembering Mawlana Shaykh from far away, but we believe that distances are not an issue as they can meet us in seconds. Wherever the mureed is in the world, when he calls on his shaykh he is present, even if he doesn’t see him face to face, his shaykh is present when called upon! We are calling on our shaykh and reading the ayah:
وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذ ظَّلَمُواْ أَنفُسَهُمْ جَآؤُوكَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُواْ اللّهَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ الرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُواْ اللّهَ تَوَّابًا رَّحِيمًا
If they had only, when they were unjust to themselves, come to you and asked Allah's forgiveness, and the Messenger had asked forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah indeed Oft-returning, Most Merciful. (Surat an-Nisa, 4:64)
We are reading this ayah, yaa Sayyidee and coming to you! We are asking for your Intercession in the presence of the Prophet (s), to dress us with the secrets of that ayah! May Allah (swt) bless you and be happy with all of us.
We are facing big danger; if people don’t know, let them know. We need to be united and together, because one stick is easy to break, but one-hundred sticks cannot be broken. I was in England giving a lecture and there was one famous scholar from Pakistan there. He liked the lecture and invited me to Pakistan in June, but I do not think I will be able to go. At the end of the program he came to me and said, “I am Naqshbandi. I have 5 million mureeds and I want everyone to hear what you said. This is the baraka of your shaykh, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (q).” So this is a good tiding, but there is a big attack on the Naqshbandi Sufi Order from a Far Eastern country, from the religious ministry. We are trying to cool it down. We have tried everything possible, but they have been pushed to do that. They began to pick up a few areas and started saying that we are a deviant group. We have to show them otherwise, by following Shari`ah in every action as it should be. There is a misunderstanding and I will keep it at that level, which means that they should have stopped from what they have been accusing us of. If we are united like our families are, there will be no misunderstanding in anything as inshaa-Allah all the mureeds will be united and show Mawlana Shaykh’s love, and Mawlana will show his love to us.
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
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