The Three Famous People and their Fate

The following account of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani's first encounter with al-Hamadani is related by Haytami in his Fatawa hadithiyya and is quite insightful:

Abu Sa`id `Abd Allah ibn Abi `Asrun (d. 585), the Imam of the School of Shafi`i, said: "When I began a search for religious knowledge I kept company with my friend, Ibn al-Saqa, who was a student in the Nizamiyya School, and it was our custom to visit the pious. We heard that there was in Baghdad a man named Yusuf al-Hamadani who was known as al-Ghawth, and that he was able to appear whenever he liked and was able to disappear whenever he liked. So I decided to visit him along with Ibn al-Saqa and Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani, who was a young man at that time. Ibn al-Saqa said, "When we visit Shaikh Yusuf al-Hamadani I am going to ask him a question the answer to which he will not know." I said: "I am also going to ask him a question and I want to see what he is going to say." Shaikh `Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani said: "O Allah, protect me from asking a saint like Yusuf Hamadani a question, but I will go into his presence asking for his baraka -- blessing -- and divine knowledge."

"We entered his association. He kept himself veiled from us and we did not see him until after some time. He looked at Ibn al-Saqa angrily and said, without having been informed of his name: "O Ibn al-Saqa, how dare you ask me a question when your intention is to confound me? Your question is this and your answer is this!" Then he said: "I am seeing the fire of disbelief burning in your heart." He looked at me and said, "O `Abd Allah, are you asking me a question and awaiting my answer? Your question is this and your answer is this. Let the people be sad for you because they are losing as a result of your disrespect for me." Then he looked at Shaikh `Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani, made him sit next to him, and showed him honor. He said: "O `Abd al-Qadir, you have satisfied Allah and His Prophet with your proper respect for me. I see you in the future sitting on the highest place in Baghdad and speaking and guiding people and saying to them that your feet are on the neck of every wali! And I almost see before me every wali of your time giving you precedence because of your great station and honor."

Ibn Abi `Asrun continues, "`Abd al-Qadir's fame became widespread and all that Shaykh al-Hamadani said about him came to pass. There came a time when he did say, "My feet are on the necks of all the awliya," and he was a reference and a beacon guiding all people in his time to their destinations.

The fate of Ibn al-Saqa was something else. He was brilliant in his knowledge of the divine Law. He preceded all the scholars in his time. He used to debate with the scholars of his time and overcome them, until the caliph called him to his association. One day the calif sent him as a messenger to the King of Byzantium, who in his turn called all his priests and the scholars of the Christian religion to debate with him. Ibn al-Saqa was able to defeat all of them in debate. They were helpless to give answers in his presence. He was giving answers to them that made them look like children and mere students in his presence.

His brilliance made the King of Byzantium so fascinated with him that he invited him to his private family meeting. There he saw the daughter of the King. He immediately fell in love with her, and he asked her father, the King, for her hand in marriage. She refused except on condition that he accept her religion. He did, leaving Islam and accepting the Christian religion of the princess. After his marriage he became seriously ill. They threw him out of the palace. He became a town beggar, asking everyone for food, yet no one would provide for him. Darkness had come over his face.

One day he saw someone that had known him before. That person relates: "I asked him, What happened to you?" He replied: "There was a temptation and I fell into it." The man asked him: "Do you remember anything from the Holy Qur'an?" He replied: "I only remember rubbama yawaddu al-ladhina kafaru law kanu muslimin -- "Again and again will those who disbelieve wish that they were Muslims" (15:2)."

He was trembling as if he was giving up his last breath. I turned him towards the Ka`ba, but he kept turning towards the East. Then I turned him back towards the Ka'aba, but he turned himself to the East. I turned him a third time, but he turned himself to the East. Then as his soul was passing from him, he said, "O Allah, that is the result of my disrespect to Your saint, Yusuf al-Hamadani."Ibn Abi `Asrun continues: "I went to Damascus and the king there, Nur al-Din al-Shahid, put me in control of the religious department, and I accepted. As a result, dunya entered from every side: provision, sustenance, fame, money, position for the rest of my life. That is what the ghawth Yusuf al-Hamadani had predicted for me."

Source:

http://sunnah.org/tasawwuf/scholar16.htm

The Future of Love

The problem is collective, it goes beyond one religion, and needs the cumulative efforts of a group of people from various backgrounds. This problem I refer to is in regards to the materialism that is increasingly pervading our societies and determining our interactions with people. It goes to the extent that it affects our multifarious conceptions of love as well.

Although we may live in a non-Muslim world, or in a Muslim world, be religious, or not be religious, generally we would want to live till a good age, be able to retire at a decent age in peace, and have a loving family or someone that we love.

But if you think about it, this is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. With the logical consequences of feminism leading to women eventually retiring at the same age as men, the retirement age rising (the pension age has risen to 67 (1)), the rise in old care homes, the fall in family values, the rise in divorces, all mean that the future is going to be a lonely timezone. The age of "Asr wuHdaaniyya" (epoch of loneliness). Every type of community is being affected by this problem (even Japan (2)).

This is because people are increasingly deluded by the dunya and chase it. They then lose touch with themselves, with their true nature. When they don't know their true nature, they don't know how to actually care for people on a humane level and assume that everyone is after the dunya. So they themselves have bad opinions of other people and think "oh he's just helping me, to use me". Thus friendships become relationships of use (3), and relationships of use are not truly deep relationships nor true love. Even many of the intimate relationships these days, are relationships of barter, where one trades goods for the physical, or physical for the physical and then moves on to another person after time.

So when the old people/parents are handicapped or constrained, what use are they to their materialistically minded children or to the economy? They can't contribute much to "economic growth" (the measure of modern national success). Thus the government spends less on the old people than is needed, and actually have incentives that they die early (after all, more people on the planet means less resources, so evolution means survival of the fittest and thus the death of the "weak". Evolution is materialism's love). Many of the old may even reach poverty because of the lack of funds towards them. In fact, being lonely means that one of the major psychological needs is left unfulfilled (humans traditionally were part of large families), and you are likely to die early (many old people die at hospital because no one visits them).

Just imagine yourself, that you are 67 years old, and you have no one to look after you, you are alone, probably in an old care home. Or if you are on your death bed, that no one visits you. To die a lonely death. How would you feel? Do you want to be in that situation?

Therefore how we deal with the materialism today, will directly affect our future. We need to encourage more people to look towards the Divine, the Transcendent (through Islamic values), so that we don't treat humans as things to be used, or as material objects, but as humans that we must respect because Allah swt has obliged that and honoured mankind. Even if it costs us to love people, we should still strive to help them. We need to raise children properly, inculcate the Prophetic and Sahabic way in them. This means that we must educate ourselves in regards to Islamic knowledge and the Prophetic way. We need to have both the external (fiqh) and the internal (tasawwuf) forms of Islam in each of us, since then we live according to the perfect way (Islamic way) of living.

The Qur'an says "We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great part of our creation." (17:70)

1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/29/george-osborne-state-pension-age
2) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/04/20124285139116752.html
3) See the book "Affluenza" by Oliver James. Also it is from my observation and what was told in top professional firms that I worked in

A rare human- Sheikh Shukri Luhafi

A friend of mine posted this:
About the blessed visit to Shaykh Shukri al-Luhafi :

''Last month while I was in Syria and subhanAllah words cannot describe him, he truly is an ABDAAL, most humble, gentle and generous, caring, and much much more and he never said no to anything he is sooo beautiful. I learnt so much and i could not contain my tears. 

He is very poor yet so content with his life? Due to age he had difficulties trying to stand up yet for us he went all the way to the shops to buy us food.

If you want to know what a true servant is just look at him. Going to his house was so humbling and neither have i met a great awliya like him !

so simple his house, life, yet he is a beloved of Allah and he is an ABDAAL one state lower than the state of Qadir Al Jilani ? .

I saw so much just by being in his house and company yet he had nothing
He is so amazing May Allah bless him and protect him and provide for him always . Ameen .

Departing from him and his wife was soo difficult because they truly truly touched my heart . When you are in his house you are in heaven?..

He was in another state far beyond ours you can just see by looking at him how deattached to dunya he was and even though he is in his old age he was able to read from a book hizbul bahr for us . '

Islamic Spirituality - The Forgotten Revolution

A very good article by a Cambridge university lecturer:
http://spl.qibla.com/Articles/AR00000138.aspx

"'Blood is no argument', as Shakespeare observed. Sadly, Muslim ranks are today swollen with those who disagree. The World Trade Centre, yesterday's symbol of global finance, has today become a monument to the failure of global Islam to control those who believe that the West can be bullied into changing its wayward ways towards the East. There is no real excuse to hand. It is simply not enough to clamour, as many have done, about 'chickens coming home to roost', and to protest that Washington's acquiescence in Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing is the inevitable generator of such hate. It is of course true - as Shabbir Akhtar has noted - that powerlessness can corrupt as insistently as does power. But to comprehend is not to sanction or even to empathize. To take innocent life to achieve a goal is the hallmark of the most extreme secular utilitarian ethic, and stands at the opposite pole of the absolute moral constraints required by religion.  "

Basis of Inner Peace

Taken from Qur'anic PsychiatryBy Shaykh Syed Mubarak Ali al-Jilani al-Qadiri

"Know that in the thikr of Allah (also following the guidance in the Holy Qur'an) lies the peace of quloob (heart)."

In this ayaat the Creator of the physical and non-physical bodies, Allah Ta'ala, has declared the very basis of the immutable law governing a person's health.

Therefore, the very structure of spiritual health rests on "peace of heart." If this does not exist many psychological disorders, such as nervousness leading to neurosis, and other similar disorders will develop.

The meaning of Islam is peace or total surrender , meaning thereby surrendering one's own will before the Will of the Almighty. The foundation for inner peace rests on the following:

1. One must acknowledge that he has a Creator who has created him for some purpose in this earthly life.
2. One must follow the manual of the Creator which the Almighty sent for His creatures-the guidance in the shape of the revealed books, i.e. the Holy Qur'an, and earlier books (now no longer valid).
3. One must acknowledge that the Creator has been sending guidance and Messengers (peace be upon them) to lead mankind towards physical and spiritual prosperity and the life hereafter.
4. One must believe that the Almighty has created many other intelligent beings such as angels and jinnbeings.
5. One must believe that his/her earthly life is very short, so much so that it has been compared with a short nap which one traveler might take under the shadow of a tree while traveling on the road and then goes on his way.
6. One must believe that this worldly life is full of tests and trials. All these hardships must be borne with patience, steadfastness, taking all calamities, losses, adversities from the Almighty as a test of his Iman (belief). Therefore, he should not grieve over losses or show joy over any gain.
7. One must not believe in any man or deity as his/her creator. Nor should he deny the existence of the Creator. No one can deny Allah without first affirming Him. By saying "I don't believe in Allah" can only mean that Allah does indeed exists, but one refuses to believe in Him. It also amounts to saying "I don't believe in the sun" --though the sun is there. Therefore all such persons can be compared with bats whose eyes don't open before the sun.

Denial of the Creator takes away peace, and the light of reason and intellect from the heart of a person and fills it with doubt. This is the worst disease of the qalb (heart), which causes every imaginable psychiatric (spiritual) malady.

Those who doubt the existence of the Almighty Creator will manifest all or some of the following characteristics: arrogance, anger, cruelty, cowardliness, miserliness, jealousy, hatred, hypocrisy, greed, ignorance, stubbornness, dissension, sloth, lying, selfishness, ill manners, despair, mischievousness, craftiness, lewdness (lack of modesty) perversion, and overpowering sexual despairs, etc.

Thus when the qalb is diseased then some, or all, of the aforementioned characteristics will be manifested in the conduct of any individual, depriving him of peace, tranquillity, sleep, and good health. Deprived of peace, a person will try to find solace in drugs, alcoholic drinks, sexual activities, hoarding wealth or getting power. Ultimately, they fall victim to the most horrible physical and psychiatric (non-physical) diseases.

Look at the fate of many of the world's multimillionaires, Hollywood film stars, rulers of the world, and even "psychiatrists." What a miserable end they usually have! As long as people keep doubting the existence of the Almighty there will be no end to their psychiatric diseases. The Almighty will keep on increasing their miseries by subjecting them to the control of the messengers of darkness, ignorance and deniers of the truth-the Freudians, pseudo-psychiatrists, and other atheists.

In order to have inner peace one must believe in the hereafter, raising of the dead, accountability, judgment, hell and paradise, and the eventually meeting with the One and Only Lord Almighty of Hazrats Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Daood, Sulaiman, 'Isa bin Maryam, and Muhammad the Last and Final Messenger (peace be upon them all!). Even if the non-Muslims follow the Ten Commandments in letter and spirit they will be saved.

The following will give, in a nutshell, the teaching of all the Messengers mentioned above. Those who wish to have perfect physical and spiritual health, as well as those who are suffering and want to be cured of their diseases, will have to follow this code as explained by the Holy Last Messenger, Muhammad :

"You should believe:

1. In Allah, i.e. in His Person and Attributes and
2. The Last Day, and
3. The Angels, and
4. The earlier (Divine) Books (no longer available with original content), and
5. All the Messengers, and
6. The rising after death, and
7. The destiny, i.e., all that is good or bad is from Allah, and
8. That you bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is His Messenger, and
9. That at the time of each salat you establish the salat it is proper time after performing a perfect wudhu. (Perfect Wudhu is one performed with due regard to ever 'adab [due respects] and mustahibbat [desirable action])
10. Pay the zakat (obligatory charity on wealth exceeding a prescribed limit), and
11. Fast during the month of Ramadhan, and
12. Perform Hajj if you have wealth. (The availability of wealth has particularly been mentioned because want of wealth is generally made an excuse for non-performance of Hajj. Otherwise, evidently, the other prerequisites that make the Hajj obligatory should also exist.)
13. You should perform the twelve rak'at sunnat-e-mu'akkadah salat every day. (According to other Hadith, the twelve rak'at are detailed as two rak'at before the two fard (obligatory) rak'at of Fajr Salat, four before and two rak'at after the four fard rak'at of Zuhr, two after the three fard rak'at of Maghrib and two after the four fard rak'at of 'Isha).
14. You should never miss the Witr salat at night, which is wajib (compulsory, but less than fard and more important than sunnat) and is, therefore, specially emphasized.
15. You should ascribe no partners unto Allah.
16. You should not disobey your parents (if they obey the Almighty).
17. You should not devour the property of orphans unjustly. (Unjustly implies that there is no harm in using the belongings of an orphan in a lawful manner as in the case under certain circumstances.)
18. You should not drink wine.
19. You should not commit adultery.
20. You should not indulge in false oaths.
21. You should not give false evidence.
22. You should not yield to your base desires.
23. You should not backbite a Muslim brother.
24. You should not bring a false charge against a chaste woman (or a chaste man).
25. You should not bear ill-will towards your Muslim brethren.
26. You should not indulge in useless amusements.
27. You should not join the idle spectators.
28. You should not call a short-statured person "O, you short-statured one!" with the intention of finding fault in him.
29. You should not indulge in jokes at the cost of others.
30. You should not indulge in slandering others.
31. You should be ever grateful to Allah for His bounties.
32. You should be steadfast in suffering and calamity.
33. You should not sever your ties of kinship with your (believing) relatives.
34. You should discharge your obligations to your relatives.
35. You should not curse any creature of Allah.
36. You should remember and glorify Allah by repeating SubhanAllah (Glory belongs to Allah), Al-Hamdu lil-Lah (All Praises is for Allah), La ilaha il-Lallah (There is no god but Allah), Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) with frequency.
37. You should not miss the Friday and 'Id salat.
38. You should believe that whatever good or bad lot befalls you was predestined and could not be avoided, and whatever you have missed, you were predestined to do so, and,
39. You should not give up the recitation of the Holy Book under any circumstances."

Source: http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid//muslimarticles/peace.html

Meaning of Religion/Din- Syed Naquib Attas

From  the Malaysian genius Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’s book “Islam and Secularism.”

On the connection between deen and madinah.

“It is I think extremely important to discern both the intimate and profoundly significant connection between the concept of din and that of madinah which derives from it, and the role of the Believers individually in relation to the former, and collectively in relation to the latter.

Considerable relevance must be seen in the significance of the change of name of the town once known as Yathrib to al-Madinah: the City – or more precisely Madinatu’l-Nabiy: the City of the Prophet – which occurred soon after the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!) made his historic Flight (hijrah) and settled there. The first Community of Believers was formed there at the time, and it was that Flight that marked the New Era in the history of mankind. We must see the fact that al-Madinah was so called and named because it was there that true din became realized for mankind. There the Believers enslaved themselves under the authority and jurisdiction of the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!), its dayyan*, there the realization of the debt to God took definite form and the approved manner and method of its repayment began to unfold. The City of the Prophet became the Place where true din was enacted under his authority and jurisdiction. We may further see that the City became, for the Community, the epitome of the socio-political order of Islam; and for the individual Believer it became by analogy, the symbol of the Believer’s body and physical being in which the rational soul, in emulation of him who may God bless and grant Peace!, exercises authority and just government.

*dayyan: judge, ruler, governor

~Syed Muhammed al-Attas, Islam and Secularism, p.53, footnote 42

On the meaning of being in a state of debt

The nature of the debt of creation and existence is so tremendously total that man, the moment he is created and given existence, is already in a state of utter loss, for he possesses really nothing himself, seeking that everything about him and in him and from him is what the Creator owns Who owns everything. And this is the purport of the words in the Holy Quran:

Verily, man is in loss (khusrin). (103:2)

Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to ‘repay’ his debt except his own consciousness of the fact that he is himself the very substance of the debt, so must he ‘repay’ with himself, so must he ‘return’ himself to Him Who owns him absolutely. He is himself the debt to be returned to the Owner, and ‘returning the debt’ means to give himself up in service or khidmahto his Lord and Master; to abase himself before Him – and so the rightly guided man sincerely and consciously enslaves himself for the sake of God in order to fulfill his Commands and Prohibitions and Ordinances and thus to live out the dictates of His Law. The concept of ‘return’ alluded to above is also evident in the conceptual structure of din, for it can and does mean, as I will elaborate in due course, a ‘return to man’s inherent nature’, the concept ‘nature’ referring to the spiritual and not altogether the physical aspect of man’s being. It must also be pointed out that in the words of the Holy Qu’ran:

‘By the heaven that hath rain’ (86:2)

the word interpreted as ‘rain’ is raj which means literally ‘return’. It is interpreted as rain because God returns it time and again, and it refers to good return in the sense of benefit, profit and gain. Raj is therefore used synonymously in this sense with rabah, meaning gain, which is the opposite of khusr, loss to which reference has already been made above. Now it is appropriate to mention here that one of the basic meanings ofdin which has not been explained above is recurrent rain, rain that returns again and again; and hence we perceive that din here, like such a rain, alludes to benefit and gain (rabah). When we say that in order to ‘repay’ his debt man must ‘return’ himself to God, his Owner, his ‘returning himself’ is like the returning rain, a gain onto him. And this is the meaning of the saying:

He who enslaves himself gains (rabiha whose infinitive noun is: rabah)

The expression ‘enslaves himself’ (dana nafsahu) means ‘gives himself up’ (in service) and hence also ‘returns himself’ (to his Owner) as explained. The same meaning is expressed in the words of the Holy Prophet may God bless him and grant him Peace!:

“The intelligent one is he who enslaves himself (dana nafsahu) and works for that which will be after death.

p.56-59, Islam and Secularism.

On preaching and how to you should be

And beware not to desire praise from them by preaching, or to let such thought cross your heart, or to believe that you have a status above them, or to intend to [indirectly] praise yourself through showing your innocence of the matters against which you are preaching to them. And be sure that if any such thoughts occurred to you, they would be from your enemy, Satan, who wants to trick you in matters you have been lenient about. And know that preaching to people with good advice and teaching is one of the attributes of the Prophets and Messengers.

So observe carefully how you conduct yourself and how you adopt the etiquette of those whom you are representing among his community. This is why it is said, “The knowers (ʿulamāʾ) are the inheritors of the Prophets.” And it is reported that Sahl ibn ‘Abdullāh al-Tustarī had said: “He who wants to see the sessions of the Prophets should observe the sessions of the ʿulamāʾ; so acknowledge that to them.” And beware not to become arrogant because of that towards those who come to you, for this would be at your peril. And know that there is no difference between yourself and those present before you, except that God has created in you what He manifests through you to them in the form of preaching, after He has created in you the power and will to do so. You are, in your entirety, created for God: your choice, your power, and your deed. The credit in that is to God over you, in creating that for you; you have no credit over others except by the rendering of Godmost-high, not by your own merit.

Taken from Imam Abdul Ghani an-Nablusi from: http://www.hayrah.net/2011/07/on-preaching/