Abdal Hakim Murad – Khwaja Ubaidullah Ahrar Paradigms of Leadership
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Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala
Rasulillah Ali he was Akbar he woman who Allah. Welcome back for
the latest in our possibly indefinitely to be extended series
of reflections on paradigms of leadership, people seem to like
the bio data approach to ideas. So with each of these, often quite
dramatic, all these moving human stories of people coming from
different times and places and spiritual and 50 coordinates in
the ALMA, we try to hang on that peg that particular idea or
concept that insha Allah will not be entirely devoid of relevance
and interest to ourselves.
I want to cover a variety of percentages today, but I'll be
focusing for most of my presentation on just one. But I'm
going to circle in on that revered destination by recalling our
coordinates in time and place, maybe a wealth
of knowledge probably today, but maybe I will have other resonances
as well. 1441
That's where we are. It's a well 1441. And we can start with this
one, Russia had Island hired one of the great classics of our
biographical literature by somebody called Molana, Ali Safi
Molana Ali ibn Hossein Safi,
which again is
from a Naqshbandi world. And before I finally get to my
subject, let's just outline what that world was not today and
Tasmania, but back then in Hora San, one of the incredible
fountain heads really have that inward as well as the outward
productivity of this Alma, Horace, and had never been much before
Islam touched it. Few ancient Zoroastrian texts, but basically,
not much. And then suddenly, it became great center for all the
Hadith scholars and in the Hanafi, many chef a jurist and some of the
great tariqas Cobra Weir, and the NAACP bandier, most evidently, and
also the yes IV, which we tend not to experience here, but which are
important in Central Asia, and the Turkish world, from * Ahmed,
yesterday one of the two great disciples of Chef use of Hamadani.
So the founder of this terracotta, properly speaking, because
everything is subject to the prophetic and external authority
of the religion, the founders are all the Holy Prophet. And you can
see the founder of all the Sunday methods is the Holy Prophet and
his light reflected through the prism of the early generations in
a particular way, the madhhab of Iraq, Medina, and geographically
because of the dispersal patterns of the Sahaba, you have what
becomes regional schools, and something similar happens to the
inward life of Islam and the machinery of the drinking places,
but perhaps even more so. Because even though the flip recognizes
which something which we often neglect, the importance of local
custom, as a component of the Sharia, the order and the order,
thereby giving the application of Islamic law, and even the content
of Islamic law, a difference according to time and place.
Similarly, the inward life, which deals with the human soul, which
is much more part of a place, and the culture of a place, then our
outward form, that there is a certain regional specificity.
However, sometimes if it's the Sudanese today, firstly, just
really in the Sudan,
but the great 30 of us, including that toilet trends of October,
October, we have the four found for Imams and before October and
monana Bahat the Nakba and got this a lot of Sarah, who is
certainly one of of the four that Terry really is kind of everywhere
in the ALMA hasn't really touched Morocco much, although there's not
abundance and Morocco. But there's lots of documentaries in
Indonesia, and all over Central Asia. It's the Tarika default
theory of Central Asia, East Africa, certainly in Turkey.
Certainly in Bosnia.
She came with left this morning to go to tend to his father, we need
to pray for GFC heads father because he's having quite serious
heart surgery tomorrow and that's a Dr. Bandy lineage
everywhere in the OMA noche van der so, very specific to Bukhara
and it's already
In but somehow manages to become a part of the universalism of Islam.
So hijo de Nacht band, dies 1389, one of the most transformative
figures of the Ummah,
from the village of Kasuri RFN. The Palace of the nose of God is
the village is still called, which is half an hour's drive outside
Mahara and still an amazing place, a place of wonders, what have your
relationship to the Tariqa otter to some wolf might be is still
really beautiful,
huge area hundreds of acres of lakes and mulberry trees and
there's a
an old madrasa there. And it's an old observatory where they'd work
out the times of the prayers, Miss Arthur Horner, replaced for
travelers, several mosques and it's a place where people in
Bukhara, which is a kind of sovietised, urban space,
unfortunately tend to go, we can just in order to enjoy the
serenity of this place, and that's where he's buried and when you go
to these harder gone, the great masters have not been de Lyonne in
Central Asia to their tombs, you see that really simple. Remember,
this is somebody Tarrasch, Sunday fIying tariqa and the graves are
all basically open to the sky and to the to the rain. They have a
kind of marble enclosure around them, but the tombs themselves
really simple. And you remember that kind of austerity that these
people represent so if we can ever visit those Pakistan, which is you
can see Imam Bukhari and Imam Timothy, it's everybody is their
Imam, that already Martini nanny. It's an incredible place. It's
certainly worth visiting them as our affordable Dean notch band.
And
his story is
one of those almost demoralizing the austere stories of Sufi
transformation.
Many teachers including Amir kolel, who saw him as the young
man with promise,
and they got him to
take the hard road to sanctity. So for seven years, he was directed
to be a rude meander in all his biographers, though, as the roads
as you can imagine, pretty dreadful.
Even worse than they are thanks to the Highways Agency 10 years after
the recession and the cuts are nothing but potholes. So one of
the things medieval Sufis liked to do was to go out and kind of just
fix public utilities just drag some rubble and put them in
pothole so he did this for seven years. And then he was directed
to look after animals for seven years. Any book on animal rights
in Islam there's going to love the stories of Hyderabad in knocked
abandoned and
you can imagine medieval cities got lots of sick animals around
and kind of neglected creatures that people have just chucked out
and mangy dogs and so forth. So as part of their ego surpassing
techniques,
they would go out to surf the street animals so let me just read
his own words as documented in a later hagiography.
In the beginning of my travel on this way, I met a lover of Allah
and he told me, it seems as if you are one of us, I told him I hope
to be a friend to you.
One time he asked me how do you treat yourself?
That's I said to him if I find something I think Allah and if
not, I'm patient, Saba
is smarter than say said, that is easy. The way for you is to burden
your ego and to test it. If it loses food for one week, you must
be able to keep it from disobeying you.
I was very happy with his answer, and I asked his support. He
ordered me to help the needy and to serve the weak and to motivate
the heart of the brokenhearted. He ordered me to keep humbleness and
humility and tolerance. I kept his orders and I spent many days of my
life in that manner. Then he ordered me to take care of animals
to cure their sicknesses to clean their wounds and to assist them in
finding their provision. I kept on that way until I reached the state
that if I saw an animal in the street, I would stop and make way
for it.
Then he ordered me to look after the neighborhood dogs with
truthfulness and humility and to ask them for support.
He told me because of your service to one of them, you will reach
great happiness.
I took that order in the hope that I would want it
would find one dog. And through service to that dog, I would find
that happiness.
One day, I was in the company of one of them, and I felt the great
state of happiness overcome me. I began crying in front of him,
until he fell on his back and raised his paws. In the air. I
heard a very sad voice or sound emanating from the dog. And so I
raised my hands into and began to say, I mean, after the dogs kind
of groaning, it was a sick dog until the dog became silent.
What then open for me was a vision which brought me to a state in
which I felt that I was part of every human being and part of
every creation on this earth. So he has his, his fat, his mystical
experience beyond description. And this is a characteristically
Naqshbandi story. Okay, they're very Sharia compliant. But he's
making a mean to the dog out of a kind of stray dog in the streets
of Bahara. The dog is good.
I mean, I mean, everybody's crazy dervish does really lock him up.
And that's really characteristic of the way that they see things
service. Deathmatch is absolutely essential, in this case, service
to these kinds of pie dogs in the street, that no one would give a
second
glance to normally but usually kick out of the way. So a
difficult path, but sad, it is the word that use great happiness.
When the ego goes really goes rather than just feels proud of
itself for allegedly not being there when it really isn't there
there is a liberation, the Teddy Reed. And this strange
circumstance of saying, I mean to the dog out of the dog, that's how
he has launched and becomes
a de noche band with this amazing place outside
Bokhara.
But again, I'm not going to focus on him during this lecture, but on
the disciple of the disciple of his disciple, allotted in Bukhari
is one of his great more reads, who hands on this light to a mole
on the apple, shall he? Who hands it on to Hawaii Raja or Badal? La
Harar? Sometimes called Obaidullah touch candy.
Who is it was Becca Stan, they're kind of they overdose on these
Hydreigon that they're everywhere. And the places are really full of
people and you get people from India, Turkey, the Caucasus
visiting and they're really busy. And hydro alcoholic or Giovanni
establishes the eight principles on which the turret loads later,
Bass was a predecessor of Chabad in Auckland is in the town of
water divan.
And Nicola al Alami terney. Bob smrc they will they're surrounded
by road good rose gardens and they're very serene, nice places.
Pakistan is nice.
But hydro Obaidullah Harar is kind of a special case is buried in a
what used to be a village just outside.
Outside Summerland
which is itself is kind of miracle city despite the sovietization you
can see the clash between the sacred and the secular. Maybe more
clearly in summer con than in any other city on the earth because
you've got the Soviet blocks, gray concrete, everywhere rational,
efficient, inhuman. At the center of town, you've got this register
on the square. Has anybody been to register on square symbol kondia.
What is site this miracle? These three immense mother assets sky
blue covered in the world's finest finest ceramics facing each other
around this square. It's like say the three greatest cathedrals in
Christendom kind of next to each other and its aesthetic overload.
And you can see the tourists kind of looking at this and just not
saying anything because it's just such a staggeringly serene,
brilliant statement of the the greatness of our civilization.
So there's that and one of the madrasas is open again. I remember
my on my first visit, it was still the Museum of atheism.
Depressing. So all these was back school children will be taken and
send these kinds of waxworks of how the mullahs would deceive the
people and take their money.
That's gone now. Atheism turned out not to be quite as
dialectically inevitable as
Marx and Lenin thought. And as mothers of students back then
In one of the
I think it's the tiller carry madrasa, one of the three. And
it's restored to something of its its intended function. But yeah,
you shouldn't die without seeing registered square. It's one of the
great sights on us. So, Hydra Obaidullah after our is buried in
near his house, his mahanagar his dervish retreat in cash gear,
suburb of summer cons. And again, it's kind of simple. There's no
sky blue dome or anything, just kind of this square of a stone
retaining wall, and then simple tombstone and a million Uzbeks and
others they're
receiving the blessings. But, again, characteristics Naqshbandi
and we'll see this as we progress through his life, although I
mainly want to do bio data, but to kind of go to the Russia hat and
recites the way Sharif Abdullah used to do some of his his words
of incidents in his life. But
he started off inconceivably poor
and put through the sort of refiners fire of deliberate
poverty for years and years as part of the process of overcoming
his ego. But later in his life, he becomes one of the richest men in
the world, at least ostensibly, because everybody wants his to art
and all of the landowners that Amir is giving him huge areas of
land.
So that according to some of the walk documents, and the Russians
when they take over and regularize their central Asian colonies and
1870s sort of maker registers, there's maybe 3200 villages, and
their lands and estates are his walk through and somebody called
Joanne grocers and American expert on Central Asia and the document
is written on the lock fears which is still there in the University
Library in in Tashkent and indicate the enormous amount of
stuff that he ostensibly owned, finally eliminated, nationalized
by the Soviets, of course, in the 1920s, so they could put up these
great tower blocks and the collective farms where millions of
people died.
Not a great ending to that story, but for five centuries, Central
Asia was really economically dominated by these Alkaff, which
were used to support sacred knowledge. The mother says, to
build mosques, to do things like to build and maintain bridges. And
also to establish the 100 guards the lodges have larger or better
laterals, Naqshbandi Italia, particularly to the north.
Just call to mind if you can the geography of where we are. The
Eurasian landmass right in the middle of it is what we now call
was Becky Stan, although that's not really a real historical
designation, it's part of what used to be horizontal then became
Turkistan.
That is so ethnically mixed people have some icons to basically speak
Farsi, they don't speak Uzbek
unless there's a policeman around but basically it's Farsi speaking.
And this Turkistan, if you're looking at it from the rest of the
OMA
or from China, which it was closely connected to,
or Mongolia, where the Mongols came from, or from Western Europe,
Marco Polo goes to as the center of everything but what is there to
the north. To the south, there's Persia and India. Amazing things
that East is China to the west is the Silk Road to the north.
Has anybody seen Antonio Banderas in that film about Ibn fatherland,
the 13th warrior
to kind of stupid Michael Crichton horror film, but it's based on the
life of Ibn fadlan Who is this 10th century Baghdad traveler, who
decided
to go north what happens if you go north from the ALMA at that time?
Not China, India, Europe, Africa, but North? Well,
what happens north of Tashkent Samarkand, Bukhara is of course,
enormous step land. Flat, undulating grass, like the
American prayer is that seems to go on forever.
Full of whale naked men with sort of feathers through that bald
heads who
are likely to kidnap you and take you into eternal
exile. Difficult, nomadic warrior peoples native get the kip
Jackson, the Cossacks, people coming from that world of tough
step ponies the weather is excruciatingly awful because
you're dealing with the center of the landmass. So in the summer,
it's shockingly hot in the wind.
into even endless Pakistan, average temperatures in summer
cons in January, February rounded up minus 30 Centigrade. It's kind
of a deep freeze. And remember these people who are cleaning the
roads, look after the street animals that are living in that.
But to the north of it, you've got Siberia.
Let's come to India instead, if you're sort of somebody wanted to
do traveling in that part of
India sounds nice. So not many people went up there. And the
Islamism of those regions, which was a big factor of our history
comes about, partly because the Mongols who don't mind being cold
and sitting on ponies for three months and drinking horse milk and
they conquer those areas.
And after the death of Genji ISKCON you have the fragmentation
of the Mongol Empire and the Ultron order the Golden Horde
takes over much of what's now Ukraine, the Russian steppe, the
North Caucasus and Western Siberia. And as Ganges clans
descendants Islam eyes, locals become the Mongol Mongols become
the moguls in India and then the Golden Horde also become an
Islamic polity, you get significant Muslim populations
established right up there, which is still still the case in
northern Russia, you can find Muslim communities. There was a
high rate of severe Siberia before Ivan the Terrible crashed through
its kind of amputated bits of the armor. But back in this period up
there to the north.
problematic if you've seen the 13th warrior, you'll see that it's
Omar Sharif is kind of on a horse and Antonio Banderas and going to
the north because of some crazy story about vikings zombies that
they've been prophetically chosen to go and combat. It's not the
real urban fatherland anyway, that riding north and you get Vikings
who are kind of not the kind of people you'd like to bump into on
a dark night. And then you've got these sort of proto Cossacks and
it's hard and not a tree insights and nobody really went up there.
Except the notch Pandia because one of the usages of the elk off
of hydro Obaidullah specifically to try and get the hardier type of
Murray to settle to the north, rather, as the Cossacks were kind
of quasi church organization were used by the Russians several
centuries later to colonize the same territories.
Same sort of principle.
So that was one of the uses of this enormous amount of wealth
that came into his coffers which he himself didn't touch because of
this Dr. Grande tradition of
not accepting the football gifts to the dervishes but still a
reminder of how economically
our wise
significant these these movements were. So
let's just get stuck into this nice text much nicer than my own
words.
What have we got here?
Something
okay, this is just a reminder about
the Sharia compliance of these people.
Let's start with that, with that thought.
And this is
Nolan Ali. Safi himself writing.
Among the preachers whose clippers I have greatly enjoyed, I must
mention Mowlana shamsudeen.
When Maulana shamsudeen was delivering a hotbar he could not
hold back his tears and he wept convulsively in order to
understand the reason for his weeping, I asked and listen with
careful attention.
He said Mirza Shahrukh, one of the great Mongol rulers is known as
the emperor of the Muslims. According to what I've heard, one
of his companions was called to account for claiming to have had
relations with one of his concubines and he was killed at
mirrors command by being thrown down from the minaret. This
penalty has no connection with the rule of the sacred law. The first
question is whether or not the alleged crime is actually proved.
Even if it is proved. This is not its penalty.
In the sacred law, there is no penalty in the form of execution
by being thrown down from the minaret. If it's not proved, it
means the man is definitely innocent. And how can this
injustice to a Muslim be explained? from every point of
view mirrors as every action is inconsistent with the sacred law
so this is in his court?
And he's got a Mongol ruler breathing down his throat but he's
not hesitating to point out that the sacred law is here being
violated.
I understood that the Mowlana was weeping for this reason. In those
so attached to the religion nothing is felt more acutely than
anguished concern for the sacred law, and the pain caused by
disrespect for the sacred law
is another one another story
Molana she habit in say our army was the teacher of the Sheikh
Hasina Dean haffi and the venerable Mowlana Yahoo. Shahi,
who is hired to obey the laws and shave when he came to summer
country was requested to deliver a hot bath.
The venerable Mowlana Muhammad Arthur Samuel candy, one of the
great masters of wisdom. Audrey Gunn was also there at the time.
Maulana she had the Dean accepted the invitation and Before mounting
the pulpit the minbar he bowed down and kissed the lowest step on
it, staircase.
On seeing this site, Maulana Muhammad Arthur stood up at once
left the congregation and went out of the mosque.
When Maulana she had the Dean observe this situation, he
descended from the minbar without starting his cockpit and followed
after Maulana Muhammad. He caught up with him and asked what
impropriety Did I commit, so that you left my sermon without waiting
for me to say a word? And he received this answer. We are
constantly striving to ensure that no bid are remains among the
people. But what about you? From where did you acquire the bidder
of kissing the lowest step while mounting the minbar? In what area?
And what Hadith Did you see this prescribed? Which of the great
Imams did this? If such a practice emerges from people of knowledge
like you, how shall we be able ever to attend the hotbar? These
stories are also part of this. This is not some kind of dervish
latitude and area and this is
Shadow This is Sunny, Sunny Tarrasch. Very signifying emphatic
pro Sharia Islam.
Now,
maybe one of the interesting paradoxes of our history
is this phenomenon that academics and historians are increasingly
discussing called the Timurid, Rene Sals.
And one groans and decode is an attempt by somebody or other to
prove that Islam was kind of on the track that the West has
followed. And so Rene sauce, what a wonderful thing it was in
Europe, so the Muslims have done it. So
it's kind of an apologetic thing, but nonetheless,
the descendants of Timor in Herat
in the 14th, or 15th centuries did create a civilization that was
quite extraordinarily productive and brilliant.
And what we need to reflect on is the fact that it was also
absolutely under the sign of an octagon de Sufism.
So this Tariqa that says, I'm not going to hear your chutzpah if
you're kissing the step of the minbar because that's a bit ah, is
also producing the miracle of Herat. Even today in her art you
can see ruins of buildings are kind of miracles that the lapis
lazuli that they have an Afghanistan so this amazing sky
blue tiles and the calligraphy and it's like seeing calligraphy and
heaven those buildings are
incomparable.
Now the Timurid dynasty is founded by Timor
who is buried in Uzbekistan Gore Amir, one of the great sights of
summer and huge dome.
And underneath it there is his grave under the biggest piece of
jade that's ever been discovered anywhere in the world and it's
still there.
Kind of Chinese Mongol idea that Jade preserves from corruption
thought to be from heaven, they're still there, and it's very
atmospheric place. Even when you remember that the guy probably
killed millions of people and piled up the skulls of Muslims in
great pyramids and was one of the bad Mongols really. And
from the barrel is tribe one of the remnants of Ganges Hans
original bloodletting Hoard.
He rules a lot of India Central Asia is big cities though we're
kind of in Central Asia somewhere on both Herat
now,
one of the biggest questions in all of Islamic history is
How these
sort of axe murderers who come from the shamanistic Buddhistic
regions of Mongolia, and build these mountains of skulls and kill
half the population of Hungary and it's kind of
a holocaust, but 10 times worse
when they took the city of balf, which was the city of 100,000
people, only 40 People who had supposed to have survived and much
of Central Asia still depopulated, they say because because of that
everybody died. How is it those people
kind of, sort of, I don't know the Mordor of the age, some kind of
completely dark negativity,
that they became Muslim
and end up producing not just the wonders of India, the Taj Mahal,
blah, blah, but also in Afghanistan in Herat, the Timurid
renascence.
Quite a transformation. And it's worth reading around that the
conversion of the Mongols to Islam. One of the big, significant
strategic factor of history, everybody in Europe was praying
for them to become Catholics. Some of them did. It was kind of
touched on go, because the early moguls had more or less prohibited
the practice of Islam and Buddhist temples all over Iran and the
Khalifa had been trampled to death 1258 And it was, seemed to be the
end of the world.
The first Mongol ruler to convert was a Verizon, Verizon phone, who
was brought up by a Chinese Buddhist monk
that converts through processes that you can read about in Thomas
Alamos book, the preaching of Islam. There's a whole chapter on
the conversion of the Mongols, which uses something called the
title of Rashid Deen, which is one of the big medieval Persian
history books and you can read about the role of the Sufis,
particularly the Cobra way tariqa
saifuddien Yahia, Bukhara, Z in particular, and the Naqshbandi
Tariqah, in converting them. And there's a lesson for us in that.
Because 1258 Mongol sack, Baghdad, maybe they even used the Mongol
word for shock and all
and then the Americans don't but what is the different response of
the Ummah
back then, not shouting and terrorism and suicide bombing and
stabbing the Mongol soldier in the market in Baghdad, even though the
Adan was prohibited and halau slaughter carried death sentence
and Islam was kind of
prescribed, but instead they occur patients and a determination not
just to survive and be angry. But to convert the Mongols in reverse
to see them as human beings who need something better. So pity
instead of anger.
And as a result, you have lots of extraordinary stories about the
patience of some of the great Sufi sheiks, Madonna, Rashid Rashid,
the dean and someone can't summon to the courts of the of one of the
pagan hands
and his entourage, the Mongols said, we want to have a laugh. So
please show us how you Persians pray.
Praise to Rackers and then one of them comes over to him grabs his
head and bangs it on the floor in the hope of making him angry so
he'll say something that gets him put to death. The Emir says you
Persians look at you down there, you're like dogs. And he just
says, but for Islam, we will be worse than dogs.
And he's allowed to go and through those moments of the extraordinary
dignity of these people. You find that eventually people like azam
and also all j two, or j two becomes
first a Christian because his mother is a Nestorian princess and
then he becomes Muslim. So He's baptized as Nicholas.
Great Church bells all over Europe. Ha. Half the ummah of
Islam is ruled by King Nicholas now and I think
the Messiah is going to come but he ends up becoming Muslim because
of the spiritual quality of these people.
So I've been thought, if
radical friends in Baghdad and Mosul instead of doing what they
choose to do with all of that anger had done what the KNOX
Bundys and others have done six centuries before.
Who knows maybe Paul Wolfowitz would be mod or something, the
world would look very different. That is the power of monotheism
that even those monster Mongol barbarians are
They have souls to and they can be transformed. So there's a lesson
for us in that and it's worth reading about, about these people.
So the team reads by this time they've been Muslim for a century
and they create this incredible little jewel in the crown of
Islamic civilization.
One of the great Persian painters commanded in Baghdad you can see
his works at the British Library or extraordinary refinement is
from there. The timber it ruler of Herat, Alok bag bills about most
famous Observatory in this world, or maybe anywhere before the
invention of Galileo and lenses. This is done through
naked eye observation. But you can still see it in some organs with
extraordinary ways of calculating the elevation trajectory of the
the traveling stars.
Great Works of architecture, the Shah, he's in the in summer,
possibly the world's most beautiful cemetery, staggering
place.
The mausoleum of quadrate Achmed yesterday, which is in Turkey
standards now in Kazakhstan, every one of those places full of
snow and
scary men on horseback, but they're going up. And he really
becomes the patron saint of what is now Kazakhstan
and wonderfully beautiful building.
So her art becomes this huge center and the sole Tom.
Hossein bicara. It's again, there's no time to go through his
story, but it's very dramatic story because it's kind of exiled
and in hiding for 10 years and then comes comes to power.
Capturing her art is Tim Morris, great grandson
and his re educated we have his autobiography indicating his
Naqshbandi sympathies.
And one of the things that we find in Timurid hierarchy is a great
conviviality between Sunni and Shia II.
Which was not the case in some parts of Iran, whether we're
playing like sub sub R ers to caravan whether it was very
strong, disputatious Ness, but the Timorese didn't
appreciate this at all.
And so you have in Salta and for St. bicara has accounts of the
admin bait to kind of what the Arabs used to call before the
current ruptures to share your Hassan In other words, a good
sympathy with Adnan bait and Cabana and Imam Hussain, rather
than the kind of extremism
and he arranged these extraordinary festivals street
festivals. So one model Orientalist calls it the Florence
of the East, you know, the Italians love to have the street
festivals,
flags and and knights on horseback and so forth. It was very much a
fluorescent kind of place. Um, Rockman Jami is that if your
mother as a student, you'll think
it's coming to an urban Ohio job it's the most dull Arabic book
ever milenge army in Turkey now means
it excruciating Arabic syntax, but this is one of his books. He's
also the author of
the half hour ng
seven thrones, these, this incredible
series of stories Joseph and zone a salaryman and upside Nayla and
merge known in the most exquisite book length couplets. They're some
of the classics of our civilization, but more lab drama
and Jeremy also
next Monday. Last year, I was in Tartu in Estonia,
where they happen to have in their little University Library, one of
the world's great companies of the half hour,
which was a gift from
18th century Persian king to the Tsarist ambassador, so somehow
survived Hitler and Stalin and the left iPhone. It's their
staggeringly beautiful thing. A jewel,
and one of the monuments of our civilization and you see, the
calligraphy, the binding, the illumination, everything perfect
and it's from a knock Bundy culture.
Think that this emphasis on poverty is self knotting Sharia
compliance means you can't have one of the world's great
civilizations. The beauty of Timurid her art it's not it's not
like that. It's not like the desert against the city austerity
against beauty. It's it's much more sophisticated than that. So
I'm doing off man Jamia days 1492
With this half hour on this
books on irrigation that his grammar book and his interest in
astronomy mathematics. The never had an on switch is one of the big
texts which we have on Naqshbandi biography basically focusing on
15th century knock band is never had once, which means something,
the briefings or the exhalations of intimacy, very nice text.
Alicia didn't have our E, another of the jewels in the crown of the
Timurid.
Release us who becomes kind of a senior minister at the Timurid
court and possibly the greatest of all early Turkic poets, the use of
language called Chagatai, as the Mongol switched over about a
century from Mongolian, to kind of Turkic, this Chagatai Turkish
which isn't spoken any longer includes a lot of Arabic and
Persian word is quite archaic.
But the main street in Tashkent now is named after him. And again,
a great
enthusiast for the KNOX brand is he feels 17 mosques just in her
Arts
is Mona jet. His book on the benefits of old age, which he
writes when he's old?
And also a biography is the biographical sort of lips on the
great Naqshbandi saints. Camilla Dean Hussain Vyas, Kasha FEA,
author of a number of great Persian texts, including the
unwary So Haley, which was a set text for British India office
officials in the 18th century when they wanted to deal with the
Indian elite. That meant you had to know your Persian literature.
So the first printed edition was in ball dock, if you can imagine
if you've been to ball dock in Hartfordshire.
They did several editions there.
But also the router Shahadat, which of course, has a little
version which we recite here in Cambridge, which is commemoration
of the sufferings of the end and bait. Remember this interesting
thing that this is an expanding city and you think the knotch band
is there, Susana is the only one that goes back to Abu Bakr Siddiq.
And yet they're producing the civilization that is so open to
the end beta and produces
the role of the shahada, which even amongst the Shia is the
preferred recital for modern they do it in villages in Iran. It's in
10 chapters. One chapter is recited on each of the first 10
days of Muharram. He's Naqshbandi and Twelver. Shia love it, they do
it in Lucknow and places in India as well, which is interesting in
terms of contemporary ideas of these polarities. It's not either
or, it can be both. And so
the author of this book
will and Ally Safi is the son of Kashi who produces the road to a
Shahadat, so very much in the knocked Bundy
documentary tradition.
So, we have the notch Bundys doing this rather extraordinary thing of
being instrumental in converting the mass murdering tribes to
Islam,
and ushering in a certain way, the second half of Islamic history
when things become very sort of Persianate and Turkic and the
moguls are not like the earlier dynasties, and the greatness of
the Golden Horde, the Crimea, the Ottomans, in a sense come out of
this.
And in the midst of this sort of Naqshbandi revival, not just with
the spirit but of the civilization arts, crafts, poetry etc of Islam,
or you have alkaloid or Badal avarage
who was born in 1403, in what was then called Shesh, which is now
Tashkent, which has become the ozbek capital.
Earlier times if you are Shashi some of the great Hanafi foco.
Shashi, it meant you from Tashkent. If you look at the map,
you can see this is kind of further out further away from the
Middle East, then Bokhara and some icons. It's kind of, it's not
terribly, it's like an hour's drive from the Kazakh border. So
up there, you've got
the wild men and the treeless steps.
The snakes.
But Tashkent sheshe becomes really a major outpost of Myrtle reedy
Hanafy and then knocked Bundy civilization
some psychological Obaidullah is is from them.
And we learn all kinds of things about his
childhood and we're so used to Muslim hagiography is that say we
memorize the Quran at the age of five and he was stunned all of his
teachers in Hadith by the age of seven and etc, etc. It seems he
was a bit of a non academic child. And his parents kind of despaired
sending him to mother, a certain mother, a son who didn't really
get into it.
And we have the account in
this eyewitness account of how he recalled his childhood, I can find
where we start from.
This is what He himself said I used to go to and from school.
My heart was always with along and I assume that everyone else was
just like me.
One cold winter day.
While passing through the countryside, my foot sank into the
mud. While trying to set it free. I also let the hem of my coat get
stuck. A state of off let heedlessness overcame me at that
moment being so caught up in this business is going to stuck. I was
distracted from remembering Allah. Young villager is busy playing
nearby. And I scolded myself saying, Look even in such
agonizing labor, that young man is thinking of his makeup. How can
you forget him just because of a little effort to retrieve your
foot from the mire, sobbing and blubbering. I burst into tears.
At that stage, I still suppose that everyone was the same as
myself, and I assumed it was normal, obvious to remember a lot
every moment. until I reached the age of puberty, I could not
understand that there were people heedless of Allah. I thought that
Allah had greeted everyone to be aware of himself.
In fact, as I later came to realize, not to be heedless of
Allah can be a divine favor, peculiar to only a few of his
servants. What is a divine favorite peculiar to only a few of
his servants. It can only be obtained through spiritual
exercise and struggle with a lower self, though it's a property that
few seem able to acquire, even by those means.
According to the conscious nephew hajus Hop while I the other
children are playing games, we are trying to get the variable Hijjah
Obaidullah to join us but we could not persuade him. In spite of our
most persistent efforts. He would stand in a corner, happy as if
playing by himself and he would remain in his own special state.
And then we have some information about how he was when he became a
little older. The venerable Quadra himself relates.
In a dream during the early stage of my spiritual development, I saw
the venerable quadrate but I didn't document he exerted such
power of dispensation on my inner being, that no strength was left
in my legs. Then he suddenly turned and started walking away.
Making my utmost effort I ran after him and caught up with him.
He turned back and said, May you be blessed? Sometime later, I also
saw the venerable quadrate Mohamed pasa in a dream. He tried to
affect me with his power of dispensation, but he could not
succeed.
The venerable Hydra again relates to this in the palace of all of
Bay Mirza, remember, he's the one who's built this amazing
observatory, there was an officer charged with the enforcement of
penalties. He used to administer the penalty of flogging. The
officer sent word to Tashkent, announcing that the sons of the
chef's were to assemble in a gathering and that he wished to
see them
duly gathered together 17 young men who I was the youngest.
Each time that officer shook someone's hand, the person was
seen to enter a state of Rapture.
When my turn came, I decided to resist that state, if it started
to overtake me too, and I was successful in my resistance. The
officer was very pleased with my resistance. He brought me to the
front and heaped all kinds of favors upon me.
For my part, I wondered how someone can be endowed with such
inner strength in it be engaged in political and police engaged
administration in the service of the bay. I was utterly baffled by
this buddy read my thoughts and he said,
I was a pupil of the venerable Quadra Hassan author. I spent a
long time at his side, and I strove to enrich my inner being,
but success is
duded me, when I express my pain to the venerable Hajah he
instructed me to work at the salt ions command, and to attend once
again to my inner being by secretly helping the oppressed. He
also wrote a letter to those concerned, declaring me free to
follow my own guidance. With the help of the shock I received from
this action and from realizing that the venerable Harjit expected
me to succeed, I finally attained my goal, through performing the
duty that he had imposed upon me. Since I patiently endure the agony
I suffered, whenever I could not help the Muslims and trouble the
poor and the unfortunate, those whose rights were being violated,
I was able to obtain the degree you now witness.
So that's another kind of tribulation, that leads to an
unexpected sort of high spiritual state that HYDRA is telling him go
to work as a policeman for the
for the government, secretly tried to help the poor and the
oppressed. And the suffering that you'll experience whenever you're
not successful in that will be an overcoming of your ego, and you'll
achieve this enlightenment as a result of that.
I was in the early stage of my career, my mother owned a farm,
she sent me a quantity of wheat, which was bought by me by nomadic
took, which means basically, one of these kind of half shamanistic
rough guys from the north took is basically a rude word.
In this culture, while I was busy storing the wheat that took went
off with his sacks, it was unclear where he had gone and which road
he had taken. At that moment, a dreadfully disturbing question
took root inside me.
Why did I put myself at fault by failing to seek spiritual grace
from this simple fellow, it seemed that I had missed an opportunity
that was important,
leaving the weight unattended, I set out after that took, I caught
up with him halfway along the city road and I begged, take notice of
me, cast a caring glance on my condition.
Perhaps Allah will put me in contact with the blessing of your
spiritual influence I made this may be protected and my knotty
problems may be solved. The man looked at me with astonishment.
And he said, presumably you're practicing the teaching of the
Turkish sheiks, whomever you see, assume that he is fitter. Assume
that every night is the Laila to cuddle
as myself, I'm a turkey who lives in the desert. And I hardly know
how to wash my face correctly. How can the things you seek exist in
me
that took was deeply affected by my plea so much that he raised his
hands and offered a dose on my behalf. Through the blessing grace
of that supplication, experience, revelations and disclosures within
my inner being
no one knows what prayer of supplication Allah will accept and
under what conditions that is a secret. But there's again
characteristically Naqshbandi teaching that you assume the best
of everybody, such and such a person, maybe I'll hit you may be
the kind of smelly guy who's bringing you wheat on his bullock
cart, but he may be the one who can help you to overcome ego and
and reconnect with with RA.
During my childhood, the power of imagination at my disposal was
beyond my understanding, to the point where I could not even
conceive of going outside the house on my own.
Then one night I experienced the state in which involuntarily I
felt compelled to visit the tomb of the very venerable Sheikh, Abu
Bakar Shashi, I jumped up and left the house. I went to the tomb, I
sat facing the tomb of the venerable SHAEF, no trace of fear
affected me. I stayed like that for an hour. From there, I moved
over to the tomb of shift carbon to where I was still unafraid.
I've also visited the other tombs that none of them did, I feel
afraid. Despite my young age and my wild imagination, in the shade
of the spirituality of the saints, not one atom of fear was inspired
in me by those awesome tombs. In the darkness of night.
When the state of mind began to captivate me, I made a nightly
habit of wandering around all the tombs of Tashkent. The tombs are
situated quite far from one another, but I used to visit them
all in one night. At that time, I just set foot in the age of
puberty. The people of my household soon became worried
about these nightly wonderings of mine. So they sent my foster
brother on my tail and tried to find out whether or not I was
doing something bad.
One night when it's next to the tomb of she have and to hold,
along came my foster brother. Soon as he reached my side, he laid his
hand on mine and begin began to shudder. He said that he could see
strange and mysterious thing
I sent him home. When he got there, he told my relatives, you
need not be suspicious of him any longer, you must realize that he
has fallen into a different state from ours. In the dark night, at
the head of tombs into which 10 men could not be inserted at the
same time he stays all alone until morning.
After learning this, the people of the household understood that I
had been endowed with a spiritual state of divine origin, and they
wiped their bad suspicions from their minds.
One other night I was sitting at the tomb of Sheikh Zina didn't.
The to was on the outskirts of the city and in a lonely spot. There
was a madman in Tashkent, a fellow with a huge body like a statue,
and he had killed someone in the city in recent days. People were
afraid of him, and they kept their distance from any place where he
had been seen. Suddenly, while I was at the head of the tomb, he
appeared and scream, get up, get out of here go away. I gave him no
response and did not interrupt my visual.
The man went on shouting, but I still took no notice. He sprang
forward, plucked some dry herbs from the head of the tomb and made
them into a bouquet. Then he opened the lantern burning at the
head of the tomb and ignited the herbs. His purpose was to set the
burning herbs on top of my head. As he was approaching me in order
to do this, a sudden gust of wind extinguished the flaming herbs in
his hand.
The madman was utterly enraged. This time, he launched a verbal
tirade and this state of affairs continued until the morning.
Suddenly, just as the day was dawning, he disappeared like a bat
that has seen the light. He had gone to Tashkent and there in the
early morning hour, he turned the market upside down. He also killed
a man, the people getting together and beat him to death with sticks.
As the venerable Kadri himself relates, people tell us certain
things having appeared to them from the tombs, nothing of the
kind had ever shown itself to meet, so is there but in a state
of sobriety.
While the venerable Quadra Abdu Holic was Divani, and his
affiliates were strolling through the market quarter and the bizarre
the noise and hubbub of the people in the merchants, which there is
as the sound of remembrance, vicar. They never heard anything
other than the remembrance. In the early stage of my own development,
the remembrance had become so predominant and preponderant for
me that I heard the remembrance in every sound and whisper of the
wind.
One day, a rich man from summer camp held a wedding feast. at the
invitation of a friend, I'd gone to a spot near the site of the
feast, all the shouting and calling of the wedding guests, as
well as all the sounds of music came to my ears like the Dhikr
like the remembrance, I neither heard nor listened to anything
else. At that time, I was 18 years of age.
Then it moves on to his adult life.
I was inherit at the time of Mirza Shahara as the prince as far as
money was concerned, I did not have a bean,
idiomatic translation, the turban on my head was in tatters. As soon
as I knotted one part of it, the rest will come on down and dangle
loose.
One day as I was passing through the marketplace, a beggar asked me
for something I had no money to give him. So I approached a cook,
remove the turbine from my head and said, This turbine is old, but
it is clean. It could be used for drying and wiping when you're
washing the pots and pans, take it and give this poor beggar a dish
of food.
After giving the beggar enough to satisfy his hunger to cook set the
turban before me with great politeness, but I did not accept
it, and I went on my way.
The venerable Hydra relates, I worked in the service of many
different people, but I had nothing, not even a horse or a
donkey to call my own. I changed my captain once a year, because
it's cotton cotton padding wore out. Every three years I managed
to get by with one fur coat and one jacket.
One winter season together with mold animal surfer, I was sitting
in a room with a view of the street. The floor of the room was
below the street level, rain, water and mud leaked into our
room. In the mornings, we used to go and perform the ritual prayer
in the congregation on mosques. My clothes and my undergarments were
so flimsy that half of my body never got warm.
In all the time I spent away from home, I could never easily obtain
a couple of jugs of warm water for my ritual ablution when I needed
to restore my ritual purity, I will sometimes leave my shifts
company and go all the way into town. This is probably a places
completely frozen
the thought occurred to me if only the venerable chef would consider
letting the spiritual porpoise, for cut out their vision have a
drop of warm water so that they could perform that ablutions here
in the icy winter. Alas, that day was never granted. Here we are
ready to make proper use of a cubicle, a lamp light water, steam
bath and a bite to eat. Yet we're all caught up caught up in
wrangling, unaware of the priceless opportunity we are
missing.
In the time of mirrors the shadow there was a rich man, the chief of
the moneylenders, who showed great respect for the path of the Quadra
gun. In particular, he recognized a special grace of the venerable
quadrate Mohammed pasa. I would not eat at the table of anyone in
the city, and I refused all the invitations of this notable
individual. Ramadan finally arrived. The man came to me and
said, during this Ramadan, you will break your fast every
evening, but my place, I asked to be excused. He insisted and
insisted. When I repeated my request to be excused, he said, if
you did not break fast every evening at my place, let my wife
be divorced with a triple repudiation.
Reluctantly, I was obliged to act in accordance with a man's
insistent demand.
I experienced much help and positive interest from this man.
In those times, I did not have the means to refuse to reciprocate. I
did have the means later on, but the man had died. By that time, I
was at least in a position to give his son 10,000 dinars as well as
providing him with some other services.
throughout his entire life, the venerable Hydra Obaidullah TASH
candy never once accepted a present from anyone.
One of the great masters stitched a caftan for him out of white
lamb's wool with his own hand and sent it to him. He took every care
to ensure that the present was made of lawful material.
When the venerable Cuadras saw it, he said, This caftan is
permissible to wear because the scent of rectitude and lawfulness
drifts from it. Not once in my whole life, however, have accepted
a gift from anyone convey our apology to the Venerable Master
and present this to him as our gift this time.
So lots of stories about Sherry scrupulousness When you accept a
gift, you can never be entirely sure of its origin.
At the age of 24, he moved to Herat, where he stayed for five
years establishing fellowship with a Sufi sheiks. Then at the age of
29, he returned to his native land. After that, in order to
obtain lawful sustenance, he embarked on a farming venture in
partnership with an associate in a short space of time, due to the
great blessing Allah bestowed on his venture, he was incapable of
managing it himself, so he appointed an agent in his stead.
The venerable Hydras wealth and property increased at such a rate
that the accounting office could hardly keep pace with it.
On the second occasion, where this poor creature that's Alia, Safi
rubbed his face on the venerable Cuadras doorsteps Persian
hypervolt. One of his agents informed me that his fields
numbered more than 1300. In those days, he was engaged in the
purchase of many additional fields, in just one part of his
farmlands, an area called Joy bar, which means irrigated, lots of
streams 3000 workmen were employed.
As the Hydra himself relates my tithe to the court, granary of
Sultan Ahmed Mirza amounts to hundreds of 1000s of measures per
annum.
Whenever produce was stored in the venerable hydrous granary, its
quantity had always increased by the time it was taken out. As for
those who witnessed the supernatural wonder, they totally
reinforced their bond of connection with the venerable
Harada.
When giving his own explanation of this marvel, he would say, my
wealth is for the benefit of the poor. That is why it has this
particular quality.
From the beginning to the end of his path of perfection, there are
no limits to the venerable Hydras help and kindness bestowed in the
highest degree on acquaintances and strangers on friends and foes
alike. You service to one and all without distinction became a
legend on everybody's tongue.
As he himself relates, I took it upon myself to care for three
invalids who are lying in Mola Nakata Dean's madrasa in
Summerland because their disease was getting worse they were making
their beds filthy. I wash them by hand, and change the underclothes
by hand, since the service of mine was very frequent that
He's infected me too. I also became bedridden. Despite this
condition of mine, I continued to fetch a few jugs of water and wash
the invalids clean.
on the spiritual path of the Masters of Wisdom, whatever the
moment demands, one must act accordingly. Remembrance and
vigil, vicar and maraca can only be practiced when the situation
does not call for service to the Muslims.
Priority is service. Since a service may be the means of
winning the heart, it takes precedence over dhikr and maraca.
Some consider the performance of no effing optional acts of worship
to be more important than service. As a matter of fact, however, the
prosperity of the heart is the product of service. If Hyderabad
de noche band is and his affiliates seem not to have
accepted anyone service, this is simply because of their preference
for performing service themselves and practicing modest humility. It
is essential to love the doer of good and the strength of
attachment corresponds to the measure of affection. Those
committed to this path of sacrifice themselves for the
benefit of their fellow creatures. And they're distinguished by the
fact that they expect nothing in return.
It is not in books that I discovered Sufism, but through
serving my fellow creatures, everyone has a role to follow. And
mine has been the road of service. I try to be of service to everyone
that everyone I have high hopes
and then the Russia hat turns to some of his remarks, commenting on
some or anak passages and some Hadith. So we might briefly look
at these just to indicate again, the Tarita is very focused on a do
reverent,
contemplative attitude towards scripture.
Moving from the outward meaning into the living text beneath.
And some of the greats
esoteric tough series have come from this
from this tradition.
So alhamdulillah here on Bill Alameen 01 verse one. This is what
he says. Praise hummed has its inception and its consummation.
Praise has its inception, where the servant is thankful for the
blessing bestowed upon him, because he realizes that praise
increases that blessing. As for the consummation of praise, it
comes at the point where Thankfulness is the expression of
gratitude for strict fulfillment of the duty of servitude, which
Allah has imposed upon his servant. Praise also reaches its
consummation when the servant realizes that he is at the point
of manifestation, where Allah the Exalted praises himself.
As for the servants, perfection, it requires him to recognize his
own non existence and the true existence of Allah and to
acknowledge that neither essence not attributes, not actions belong
to him at all. This is the
sort of Asha Riomaggiore the understanding that everything is
actually the consequence of the direct divine agency, which is not
how we see things, but at a
non egotistic higher level of perception, we see that everything
is through the divine agency.
And then he comments on waka Lilo Minh Iberia, Shaco, few of my
servants are thankful.
Thankful. Listen, reality is the servants recognition in the
blessing of the bestower of the blessing. According to the
venerable Imam Al Ghazali, to savor and enjoy the blessing is
not at odds with thankfulness. To enjoy the blessing is a means of
access to the lord of truth.
So despite the difficult beginnings, this is not
necessarily an aesthetical tradition. It's all about
the attitude to the things that one possesses. So we might have to
fast forward.
Yeah, a oneness or intimate for Corrado, in Allah, mankind you are
the poor or the needy, towards God.
The human being is needy. Allah knows to his eternal knowledge
that the human being by virtue of his human condition is in the
state of needing water, bread, and other means of worldly
subsistence. Whatever he needs, therefore, the reality of this
need is nothing other than his dependence on God.
To emphasize this point, one day the venerable codger provided
those present at his meeting with various warnings and admonitions,
he said, you wandering the streets and stand there to no good
purpose, you must at least try and do some useful work so that your
fellow creatures may benefit by you. You must also make the effort
required to attain the perception of oneness in multiplicity.
This is the $100 customer at the end
seeing not just the
outward manifestation of objects in creation but seeing the source
and the unifying principle, which underlies them and gives them a
sense
and then, some of his comments on Hadith.
Remember, this is an awkward Bundy lineage since the law and
therefore traces it's
the reception of its spiritual fragrance back to Abu Bakr Siddiq.
So a text that he likes is one of the last things that the Holy
Prophet says when he's too sick to lead the prayer and Yama to set to
Kulu for Jatin Illa for gentle Abbey Bakker. Today, all the doors
of the mosque are closed except the door of Abu Bakr. One through
he comes because he has to lead the prayer in the absence of the
Prophet and this idea of
Abu Bakr, Siddiq, which is also related to friendship,
truthfulness, being real with somebody, Saudi because a friend
Sidious is this
persistent holy truthfulness that this is inseparable from the
principle of, of, of muhabba or love. And much of this tradition
is about the relationship or the to what you're between chef and
disciple being a relationship of love.
In perceiving the perfection and ability to sacrifice at the chef,
inevitably the breed loves the chef and the chef automatically
through his love of everything which he sees as being
manifestations of the Divine plenitude and every moment is full
of love for for creation, despite the difficulty of his personal
circumstances. So he links this to this saying towards the end of the
Sierra close the doors of the mosque except Abu Bakr is door,
and this is what he says, the Mosque of the Prophet Allah give
him, bless him and give him peace has many doors. During the death
sickness of Allah's Messenger, when he was in his final moments,
he gave orders for all the other doors to be closed. And for the
door belonging to the venerable Abu Bakr to be left open.
A * gone, the masters of truth and reality, have had many things
to say on this subject. For instance, the connection of
destiny is superior to all other connections. So the day will come
when the doors of all other connections are closed, and the
door of loves the link will be left open. Apart from love and
affection, there is no connection that leads to Allah, and results
in attainment of the goal. So it's the Holy Prophet love for Abu Bakr
is 30th name. Remember when the two are hiding from the Quran
together, make the history together. That's That's
friendship, the love that existed between them is taken to be a
characteristic of
all there seems to be no time expectation, the day will come
when the doors of all other connections are closed. So as the
armor moves into times, when things are harder, and austerities
become harder to practice, this principle of sort of magnetism,
the jazz of love, is going to become more salient in people's
spirituality. And you see this as the discourse of our spirituality
moves through its literary history. The early period is quite
ascetical health earring penitential and then it moves
through Rumi and even Araby to discourse of love for God and love
for creation love for each other. No, because that's something
different. It's just a different
emphasis, because
this is the the process by which people can still relate to the
truth
since the venerable Abu Bakr This is Safi here commenting, since the
venerable Abu Bakr is the starting point of the way of the * gone,
the Masters of Wisdom, love and affection constitute the
distinctive feature and emblem of their connection.
After explaining this point, however, Obaidullah went on to say
the whole endeavor is not to lose this connection. So this principle
of love is really essential
to the entire
internet and there's not other very interesting things that
pertain really to the specifics of Adam in the Hanukkah.
The importance that everything in the spiritual space should be from
Halal origins and even if somebody comes in wearing something that
has not been attained, obtained lawfully or on which
there might be any impurity than the spiritual atmosphere is
dissipated. He has a number of explanations of that. But time is
moving on. It's just a look at some of the other
statements is a nice one. One day when the venerable Bay is eat be
stormy, who is in the sencilla of the hydrogen. Although his much
earlier was passing by a certain place, a wet dog came out and
shook itself.
To keep the spattering drops of water from touching his clothes,
the venerable Bay as he pulled his coattails together and stepped
back. The dog acquired the faculty of speech and it said, if a single
drop from me had touched the hem of your garment, you could have
washed it with a small amount of water and restored it to the state
of purity.
As for the dirt you have dropped into your inner being, by folding
your coattails and considering yourself pure and superior to me,
where can you find enough water to purge that filth away
it is necessary to lift the burden from one's fellow creatures and
this can only be done through lawful earning, or the path of the
Masters of Wisdom. The hand dust is applied to making lawful
profit, while the heart is always devoted directly to the Beloved.
Remember this principle that we we noted of deal
by yard, dust by car that the heart is with the beloved the hand
is with with with the work and we saw this in the
craftsmanship of
Maulana Abdullah Ross.
Now this is such a rich book and there's so much here
some things
I think we've probably
got one of these beads of do quite clear from the idle hate
sprinklings.
Sophie is telling us
and the idle hate the wellspring of life is dhikr it's hockey
itself. It's everything that washes us from the contaminations
of the ego. This is classic spirituality, the ego nafse self
is a contamination that actually, despite all of its promises,
obstructs our happiness by transcending it by drawing the
dagger of Mujahidin as Junaid says, trying to stab it
recurrently in all of those moments where it's ego against
service recurrently we become habituated to something else and
become different human beings and start to function as human beings
as opposed to as remembers
in his early life as a small child of Hydra, or might have just
assumed, of course, everybody sees reality and remembers God. The
world is calling out with his name. And it was hard for him to
understand that there'd be some people who are not in that
condition, but it's the ego that gets in our way. So let's just
close by reading.
Just the story of his demise.
We've only done about 5% of the book.
According to the author of the Russia heart, there was there Safi
when this poor creature obtained the honor for the second time
of encountering the venerable Khawaja. It was the 24th day of
the month reveal after India Ah 893 1488. When I was in his
company, he made his age known saying after three years and four
months my age will be 90.
In the month of Muharram, he felt sick with an illness that would
transport him to the realm of perpetuity. Since he survived
until Ruby Allah will have that same year it can be reckoned that
he had reached the age of 89.
On Wednesday, the 20th of Muharram the venerable Hodge left his place
in cuffs year and set out on the road to the village of kamanga Ron
along the way, he alighted to spend the night in Gordian and
then on the Thursday morning, he took the highway in the direction
of C'mon Gohan. He was so weak that he could not pass beyond the
town. So he spent that night there too. On the Friday morning, he
again attempted to travel. He made frequent stops along the road and
tried to catch some rest. On the Saturday night, at the time of the
evening prayer he finally reached Come on, get on. Well, he stayed
for seven days, still able to stand in spite of his weakness. On
the seventh day a Friday, his infirmity became intense and he
collapsed into bed
confined to his bed he duty performed his ritual prayers for
three months and he was guilty of no admission, despite the fact
that he could not stand on his feet. The month of Ruby on our
wall finally arrived. His illness had reached its ultimate stage.
One evening, he asked, Has the evening prayer Maghrib been
announced? Yes, we replied. It has been announced only by Nordson
science could you perform that these evening prayer? Shortly
after the prayer, he suddenly stopped breathing and attained to
the mercy of the Lord of truth?
But there's more information about the last hours of Chef Obaidullah
Aha. So how do we engage with this? Somebody born and raised and
disciplined in an age in which there were great teachers and
great
possibilities for stepping outside, tedious dusty soul
contaminating worldliness into a space where one could clearly see
what our task is, which is the KNOX Vandy masters say it's hosted
out of down awareness with every breath. Nowadays, in a new agey
way, we might say mindfulness that this is the Naqshbandi Way Horsh
stardom, attentiveness with every breath in every moment. Be aware
of the unique brilliance and divine replaceability of the
disposition of creation in that second, even if you're just
putting a splint on the poor of a dog in the street, be aware of the
irreplaceable excellence and accent of that moment. Don't just
space out and let it pass away because it is what it is. But also
be aware of the possibilities for service and service. In this way
takes priority over dhikr
bodies do not have thicker, mostly the silent, thicker, Bert. Sir,
this is their way as we've seen eminently in the life of the great
codger and the life of a motorhome Abdullah Ross.
But through not ego, but what they call Nazar Barkada. Sheikh
Abdullah in particular, follow this principle another abarca Don
second principles means to look at your feet
to look down, not to kind of ostentatiously check your time for
the microphone and to look with the Boris Johnson thing. Look at
me, doesn't matter what I'm going to say I've got no idea but here I
am just ego in all of its
best mediocrity.
But
no, the real one is not the one who's looking to the cameras but
the one who is looking down. So humility
is
such an essential principle suffered a doubt about the journey
to the homeland. We're all heading back to the lab. Back to the place
of return than that I had no tradition in the Quran. Often,
what is after death is referred to as the place of return we speak of
them that adds suffering. Bhutan is a reality. We have to be aware
that that's the journey that we're taking
you on a plane to Dusseldorf or something but much more certainly
then that you're on the journey to the next world plane can be
diverted or there can be a catering strike or something and
who knows but this journey, the destination is one that you will
definitely reach and remembering that is indispensable.
halvat that Angelman is another of their principles, the Hydreigon
solitude in the crowd. In other words, when with others, don't
have to step outside their company, but do not be swept up by
the kind of herd instinct of the crowd with a kind of endorphin
inducing mass emotion or thoughtlessness of a party culture
or a football supporting culture or whatever else it might be, be
alone in that crowd. Because not because of your awareness of
superiority, but because of your awareness that you have important
things to do at that time. So let's highlight our Angelman
and the other ones of the eight principles that we need to recall
and reflect on how they are articulated in the lives of people
like Khawaja Obaidullah, yet current Remember, it's been dhikr
make the remembrance whatever the circumstance, even if it seems to
be fitments rather than doing your was etha or your Hutton remember
It's fitness not an alternative to remembering God had is an
opportunity to remember him. That's important for those who are
in modern high pressure careers. I think when I think I don't really
have time for God at work because so much in my in tray, you have to
think carefully about your daily life and figure out how you can
use its features its rhythms, as a means for service. And as a means
for service also as a means for remembrance, even at the service
is just so you can put food on your family's table at the end of
the day, that also is a noble service and should not be
underestimated. But try and find ways of sanctifying even the
profane things that you do.
There's got
restraining your thoughts be conscious of the jumping of the
monkey thoughts as a random stream of consciousness in the head,
which never takes you anywhere, particularly helpful. Only
discipline thinking is going to improve you and improve your life.
So that inward restraint is important, which takes them on to
what they call nigga dashed, which is developing techniques for
scrutinizing the flow of consciousness consciousness in
your mind. So that you are making use of every moment, this horse
down down, how can you be attentive in every every breath,
only through some kind of inward discipline, not through spacing
out the strange things that the brain does when watching
television or consciousness, who knows where when is comatose or
almost dead? What is required is to be aware of the tendency of the
thoughts to stray, which is one of the advantages of religious duty.
If you use to discipline your thoughts during your five daily,
namaz prayers, that is going to be helpful exercise that will assist
you in being a disciplined person and other times as well because
it's the same kind of muscular aspect of the brain and your
consciousness that's being developed. Get into the habit of
resisting, will gathering, spacing out and you will find everything
else comes more easily for you in your life.
And then Yad dasht concentrate on God the vicar is not just upon
Allah Subhan Allah and certain qualities but focus on the divine
reality as Alkhateeb, the near the only true reality. Everything else
is just kind of contingently or provisionally real, but the
absolute Hawk is the Lord, to Baracoa to Allah, and engraved
that upon the heart, which is pretty the meaning of knockout
band, the divine name is ingrained is engraved upon the heart be
aware of that. What does the heart say? Moment The fetuses heart
starts to beat which is said to be the time of the installment of the
spirit, Allah, Allah, Allah. Most of the time, we're not listening,
the lowest patient with us, but to focus on that to realize that the
divine name is inscribed upon our heart and
will
enable us to open our eyes and start to become living human
beings rather than just consumers on autopilot until we end up
drugged in some retirement home.
May Allah save us all from that prospect and make us people who
benefit from the richness of the earpiece ability and the
giftedness of every moment in shall with his help, because
without his help, we can do nothing at all. But a glorified
equal law for men called Mr. Mr. Halleck.
Cambridge Muslim College, training the next generation of Muslim
thinkers