Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Essentials of Islamic Spirituality- Need for Congeniality
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الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد وعلى
آله وصحبه أجمعين أما بعد Last time the
discussion was about the signs of a qualified
Shaykh and obviously they gave the absolute optimal
option which is very very difficult to generally
find but the best that you find you
go with them so page 31 is where
we are and he discusses here congeniality with
the Shaykh congeniality with the Shaykh experience has
proven that in order to gain spiritual benefits
i.e. for your balcony right in a
benefit and mutual congeniality which they call Munasaba
right between the Shaykh and disciple is a
necessary condition if you feel any kind of
hiccup that is going to stop your benefits
if you feel any kind of resistance or
obstacle or difficulty in communication then you can't
really benefit right normally benefit is dependent upon
affection which is the reality of natural congeniality
which is Munasaba Fitriya you can have a
natural affinity with somebody then that's even better
sometimes a Shaykh will refer a seeker to
another Shaykh because of the lack of such
congeniality between them like I can't deal with
you you're you know maybe you need more
time and I don't have the time to
give or you misunderstand things or I misunderstand
you either way you're genuinely and sincere is
like okay you know what it's not going
to work let me let you know go
to this individual he should be of great
benefit in doing so the Shaykh establishes either
by deduction or divine inspiration that the seeker
has congeniality with a certain Shaykh so you
can either just get that look I think
there's going to be more Munasaba with him
he deals with that more for example sometimes
what happens is that a Shaykh would be
more focused on the spiritual side only so
if there's somebody who comes who is more
technical or academically inclined they're going to feel
that this person won't respect me as much
because there's some people who are academic they
just don't respect anybody else unless they're academic
as well they just can't see through that
that's why what's most amazing is that Qasim
Nanoti Sahib Maulana Qasim Nanoti, Maulana Rashid Ahmad,
Maulana Shahid Ahmad look how academic they were
but they went to * Imdadullah who was
not even a full Alim but I guess
his thing his his spirituality was probably so
powerful that all of that was just overlooked
and they just went beyond that and he
became their Shaykh he's considered the Shaykh of
Ta'ifah because he's obviously not the first
Shaykh but he is the Shaykh from whom
this all sprouted in the subcontinent before that
there was Shaykh Nizamuddin Awliya there was Bakhtiyar
Kaaki Rahimahullah many other great Shaykhs but then
they'd been a lull for a long time
so then suddenly * Imdadullah comes on the
scene there's this whole British thing going on,
occupation of India, freedom movement and then MashaAllah
these Maulana Qasim, Maulana Shahid Ahmad, Maulana Ashraf
Ali Thani and Maulana Khalil Ahmad all of
these they suddenly MashaAllah they come in the
field and they've just produced so much this
whole Deoband movement comes up and that's why
he's called Shaykh of Ta'ifah because so
many people benefited from him these people, he's
from Tanabon, he actually sent Maulana Ashraf Ali
Thani back to Tanabon from where he was
teaching in I forget which town he was
teaching in, which madrasah he was teaching in
he sent him back there to revive the
Khanqah because Tanabon had become desolate after the
British destruction of it after the Muslims from
there, and I'm going to be talking about
this soon somewhere that they resisted the British
there because that was the centre point that
British came and just destroyed that whole area
and then they had to lay low because
they were constantly under watch but Maulana *
Imdadullah after he'd migrated to Makkah Mukarramah he
sent Maulana Ashraf Ali Thani there and said
look don't worry and MashaAllah Maulana Ashraf Ali
Thani's work just took off and brought Tanabon
back into the picture, Alhamdulillah and there were
a number of other great shaykhs from that
area as well so in this path it
is essential that congeniality exists between the shaykh
and seeker otherwise the latter will not benefit
such congeniality is the basis for the acquisition
of benefit and passing the spiritual grace of
the disciple it could also be possible that
sometimes you may have a certain fiqh-y
preference fiqh-y opinions and inclination and while
the shaykh closest to you might be there
and accessible and so on but you know
that you differ quite a bit and not
all shuyuh because they're all human beings and
individuals have the same wus'ah and zarf
and broadness of allowing flexibility within and having
a difference of opinion Maulana Rashid Ahmad has
very different opinions fiqh perspective and bid'at
perspective from Maulana * Imdadullah and it's very
interesting the way he even became a murid
and a khalifa Maulana Rashid Ahmad actually come
to Tanavon for a debate or something a
discussion or a debate and he said there's
a * Imdadullah here, let me go and
meet him so he went to meet him
and they just so hit it off together
as such he said look just go tomorrow
and go tomorrow or I'll go tomorrow each
one of them like someone is like just
go tomorrow or Maulana Shaykh Ibn Ganguly would
say I'll stay here today I'll go tomorrow
40 days passed like that or a bit
more and then at the end of it
he finally had to go right and then
he just got khilafat straight away so they
just hit it off and he'd gone there
just incidentally he'd gone there for some other
purpose and then it's kind of interesting how
he started his khanqah there in the middle
of nothing because Gango had Maulana Abdul Quddus
Gangohi before him some time back and his
khanqah had been there but then had lost
so he's the one who kind of you
can say revived Gango to be a center
that's what happens certain place have a shaykh
and then that shaykh dies out nobody's there
from the murids or khilafat that's strong enough
to draw people there there's going to be
somebody there but they're going to kind of
lose their attraction unless they're very strong there's
very few cases where the son or the
next khalifa actually does a really great job
it doesn't always happen that's why they lose
and then somebody else there's always a khalifa
generally that does like after Shaykh Ibn al
-Hadith Maulana Zakaria the next person probably that
was known to be kind of the stand
-in or the deputy the main deputy well
they had multiple but probably the one par
excellence must have been Mufti Mahmood al-Hassan
Gangohi obviously in England it was Hazrat Maulana
Yusuf Sahib with hands down Maulana Bilal Sahib
and Maulana Hashim Sahib they also khalifa but
they were always under him there was no
doubt about that but I think in overall
Mufti and he used to really respect Mufti
Mahmood as well Shaykh Yunus became more popular
for his hadith dars as opposed to becoming
being a khalifa of him and so on
for Maulana Tanvi they were multiple we didn't
see the early period they were great ones
well I mean with Maulana Tanvi everyone is
a great one I mean I just I'm
amazed by this individual when you look at
the khalifa they've all been accepted for the
service of his deen Maulana Tanvi's khalifa, Maulana
Masoodullah Khan Sahib how much work he's done,
Maulana Abu Rahul Haq Sahib then Maulana Khair
Muhammad Jalil Risab during translation of the Quran
that madrasa in Lahore is connected to him
there's, Lahore or Multan?
he's done a translation Maulana Abdul Majid Dariyabadi,
Sayyid Suleiman Nadwi well some of the biggest
things no he's a khalifa of Maulana Abu
Rahul Sahib he's a grand grand student right
although he became very popular probably even more
popular than Maulana Abu Rahul Haq Sahib in
a sense but there's just loads of them
and they're just all amazing they're just absolutely
all amazing Mufti Shafeesa is another one and
Maulana Zafar Tanvi obviously all of these were
special students, nephew as well it's just amazing
right how much he managed to affect so
many different people multiple people who did so
much work right I just don't have it
all in my mind right now but that's
probably been one of the most successful ones
right and they were proper because he had
a very very rigid routine and very particular
right he was very transparent, very particular so
anyway I don't know how we got into
that subject you're saying yes sometimes you may
not have a congeniality there may be the
greatest sheikh there but you know that if
you're going there you might have to give
up certain things or you may have some
differences of opinion and not everybody has that
openness right so that's why they might find
somebody else so that's kind of the congeniality
you're speaking about sometimes you'd be surprised by
certain shuyuk if you read Hazrat Shaikh or
Unke Khulafa right which is what Hazrat Shaikh
told me to read once it's the story
of all the Khulafa of how they met
if you look at Maulana Abdul Hafeez Maki
he didn't agree with all of this stuff
and then he went to ask certain questions
to Hazrat Shaikh and Hazrat Shaikh just responding
to him in a really open way he
was like oh wow and then that's it
he just he just took it on right
it was yeah that's how it is you
need to have that congeniality with the sheikh
in this path it is essential that congeniality
exists between the sheikh and the seeker otherwise
the latter will not benefit the sheikh will
not benefit he won't do his job properly
he won't be able to do his job
properly such congeniality is the basis for the
acquisition of benefit and passing of spiritual grace
to the disciple congeniality entails that they exist
between the sheikh and disciple compatibility and harmony
to such a degree that the disciple discerns
no rejection in his heart for any word
or act of the sheikh even though the
disciple may at times be afflicted by mental
disagreement with any word or act of it
you're going to have that tells you to
do something oh man that's tough I can't
why is he telling me to do that
doesn't he get it he's being favorable to
the other murid or something like that that
act you know the whole thing of having
lots of others there's a one of the
fitnas in there is that there becomes a
bit of a competition sometimes or a misunderstanding
with others or somebody's trying to be bigger
than the others that's sometimes an issue and
the sheikh has to be very particular in
trying to stop that cultish behavior from developing
in short harmony and compatibility are conditional for
a pledge but a lot of people don't
understand that they just become bait to somebody
because everybody else is or he's the biggest
buzurg in town we went to visit mashallah
a great sheikh in Pakistan I loved him
his demeanor the duas that he gives really
really humble man and heard stuff about him
because I got another friend I know who
had studied with him and he never pushed
it or anything you know he just mashallah
spoke to us showed us a few different
things gave us some kitabs but his one
guy is like he said he said you
know we don't do that just in a
jam I mean how am I going to
connect with him like how many times am
I going to you know I need somebody
that I can have access to yes he's
great if I was here I don't mind
he's a great person when somebody came to
our shop my dad was there and I
spoke to him for a while and then
after five days he goes paper and he
wrote khilafat for him so okay in the
absence of the essential condition striving in the
absence of this essential condition like if you
don't have compatibility then mujahadat striving certain forms
of exercise designed to subdue the lower self
riyadat meditations and are all future if you
don't have congeniality and you've got this gerber
in your heart and problem in your heart
with the shaykh then you're going to make
all of these efforts because you're doing it
supposedly under their watch what they believe is
that all of this came through the hearts
of the mashayikh so if you've got an
issue and it's dirty in between then it's
all going to be messed up if you're
going to do riyadat do it yourself then
but if you're going to do it under
this then you're not going to get much
out of it and if you do it
separately you may not get much either depending
on how you do it and what your
issues are so even if you are then
seeing unveilings and mukashifat and kashf and so
on it's not there's no point of it
in the absence of natural congeniality what happens
then you just can't find somebody that you
just naturally incline to it's not always easy
the disciple should endeavor to inculcate intellectual congeniality
munasaba aqliya probably say more rational now right
what that means is because deriving benefit depends
on it what that means is that you
have to force yourself to think of all
of the good points and why you're benefiting
why you have congenial because you can't always
get 100% congeniality anyway you just have
to do your best right for this reason
I want you to refrain from entering into
the pledge until total congeniality is present so
try to make this up that look I
is the best that I have any questions
so you know obviously Rasulullah his greatest student
you could say is Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu
definitely yeah and Abu Bakr is known as
a Siddiq right and even minan nabiyyina wa
siddiqina wa shuhada wa salihin so you know
the quality of Sidq is come before the
shuhada and the salihin so being salihin why
is what's so important about Sidq Siddiqin what
you have to understand is you have to
understand what Siddiqiya refers to if you listen
to the lectures on the section of khareedah
bahiya which is online as the introduction to
tasawwuf or whatever it's called so he explains
the maqams so you start off with the
maqams of Sidq and sabr and all of
that the highest maqam which is the one
that beyond it is nubuwah which you can't
acquire so the highest possible to acquire maqam
is Siddiqiya that means absolute veracity that means
being a champion of truth not just in
what you say a lot of people think
that it's about what you say right but
it's not about what you say it's not
just about what you say it's actually about
what you do so you are totally truthful
to Allah and truthful to Allah means absolute
sincerity you could just say that Siddiqiya is
this ultimate form of sincerity for Allah and
goodwill for Allah where you are nothing it's
all for Allah like being able to give
all of your wealth away in the path
of Allah and leaving your family literally in
the hands of Allah not in a crazy
way that I'm just going to go and
see what happens but trust in Allah so
it incorporates it goes beyond it's beyond tawakkul
so it's not just speaking the truth but
it's actually being truthful in every aspect that's
Siddiqiya of course even within Siddiqiya they say
is that it's multiple stages within that and
you can carry on going up there's no
end to Siddiqiya because you're traveling to Allah
and there's no Allah is infinite so there's
no end to that but you can never
become a prophet the prophets get that straight
away when they get it they're already at
the maqam of Siddiqiya because it starts above
that the verse of Quran is there a
connection between how do they generally translate that
it's a wonderful dua it has to incorporate
that the way I do things the way
I come out of things the way I
leave things all of that must be included
in there you know this phrase of take
the good and leave the bad yeah so
you know if you're speaking to let's say
someone awam right and you say this take
the good and leave the bad so then
people say how do they know what the
good is and how exactly you can't say
that to everybody ulema generally use that that's
a ulema academic term which they say they
generally say they generally say that regarding people
like Zamakhshari who is known to have contributed
hugely but then has aberrant positions based on
his i'tizal so that's more of an academic
statement you have to have that criteria it's
like are we not allowed to touch it
because it's so bad if you know what's
wrong then it's fine you've got the criteria
to understand that and that's with anybody's view
you know lots of people not most but
lots of people have something that you may
not agree with and you may think it's
totally futile and wrong and maybe even corrupt
you can take the benefits the point of
a lecture is to encourage people to act
to get further an inspiration an encouragement persuasion
the next step is to actually start learning
seriously to read books to take on a
subject of Islam and to understand all the
subjects of Islam at least at their basic
level so that we can become more aware
of what our Deen wants from us and
that's why we started Rayyan courses so that
you can actually take organized lectures on demand
whenever you have free time especially for example
the Islamic Essentials course that we have on
there the Islamic Essentials Certificate which you take
20 short modules and at the end of
that you will have gotten the basics of
most of the most important topics in Islam
and you will feel a lot more confident
you don't have to leave lectures behind you
can continue to listen to lectures but you
need to have this more sustained study as
well Jazakallah Khair Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh