Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Essentials of Islamic Spirituality- Rights and Benefits of a Shaykh
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The speakers discuss the importance of shaping dreams to align with Shaykh's values and avoiding overwhelming feelings. They stress the need for consistency in actions, honesty, and showing support. The speakers also stress the importance of showing actual behavior and learning from others, especially those who are not as confident.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, and peace
and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah,
Muhammad.
And to the early and the general, and
to the later.
So we continue our reading of this.
Are we on the benefits of companionship of
the qualified Shaykh?
I think that's where we are.
So he's going to discuss what are supposed
to be the benefits of being in the
company.
We talked about what a qualified Shaykh is.
Now, what is in there for the murid,
for the disciple, for the student?
The benefits of association with a qualified Shaykh
are manifold.
Among such benefits are that the noble and
lofty qualities of the Shaykh slowly pass on
to the disciple.
Even if the disciple is not totally reformed,
he will have gained the ability to discern
and recognize his faults.
So he's saying that the lofty qualities of
the Shaykh should slowly pass on to the
disciple.
I mean, that's just normal companionship of anybody.
You stay in companionship with somebody, a powerful
one will pass on his qualities to the
other, because that's just the way humans benefit
from one another.
In fact, the way Imam Ghazali explains it,
he says, you will, without realizing, you will
actually steal behavior from the person you're close
to.
It will come into you without you even
realizing.
That scene, you know, you get this nisbah.
It's just that humans are very muqallid.
Humans are muqallid by nature.
Most humans are anyway, right?
So then he says, OK, even if the
disciple is not totally reformed, he will have
gained the ability to discern and recognize his
faults.
At least that much, inshallah.
The disciple follows the Shaykh in character and
habit, attainment of joy and pleasure in remembrance
and worship, enhancements of courage and obtaining clarification
and contentment from the Shaykh in the event
of spiritual conditions that may overcome the disciple.
You're obviously not going to follow a Shaykh
who's scared of doing zikr.
Why would you do that?
Why would you make somebody obviously going to
follow somebody who you think is onto it
so that you can try to emulate that
same path and follow the same way?
The disciple will discern his own spiritual conditions,
which becomes manifest in the talks of the
Shaykh.
Such talks being the essence of the matter.
A lot of people want just personal time
with the Shaykh.
And that's very, very difficult.
Even those Shaykhs who start giving a lot
of personal time eventually get burnt out.
Or they have to then get, or then
it just provides, sorry, creates an environment of
competition and exclusivism and things like that.
So, the main, not to say that you
can't have private conversation.
There's always been private morasalah, private consultations.
But what should be a useful way, unless
it's just a very small group, then it's
okay and they're just not expanding at all.
Is that once you expand, it's very difficult
to keep everybody consulted as such, right, if
you can use that term.
So, the idea is that the Shaykh should
receive correspondence about issues that people are facing.
And then he basically brings that up in
the gatherings so that everybody, anonymously obviously, in
the gatherings, so everybody benefits.
That's how generally it was the case.
That's how it used to be the case,
aside from personal matters where you can definitely,
if you've got the time.
A lot of people, they just switch off
a Shaykh because, and some Shaykhs actually do
get so big and so frequented by different
people that they don't have the ability to,
and then they have to pick and choose.
And then that gets very complicated and then
people feel left out.
So that's why it gets complicated.
Some Shaykhs, what they do is they'll get
you to consult one of their main, some
systems have what they call Muqaddams.
In some systems they call them Khalifas, so
it could be whatever.
So, for example, the Shahadahis, they have the
Muqaddam, so in each area they might have
a Muqaddam, so people from the area go
to the Muqaddam, the one who's been pushed
forward, the one who's been presented to others
or made to stand in place of.
That's what it is.
And likewise, the Khalifas, it just depends on
the Shaykh once.
Sometimes the Shaykh will say, go to a
Khalifa and another says, no, because you're not
going to get along there or it's going
to not be the right way that I
will need to progress.
It just depends.
There's no hard and fast rule about any
of this.
The disciple will discern his own spiritual conditions
which become manifest in the talks of the
Shaykh.
You're supposed to listen carefully and then reflect
over the talks, such talks being the essence
of the matter.
He will increase in the desire to perform
virtuous deeds.
The disciple's ability in this path becomes manifest
to the Shaykh.
You can tell when somebody, because from what
they're saying, you can tell if somebody is
improving or not, as long as they're honest
with themselves, not making stuff up or not
hiding stuff.
That's what it is.
You have to be honest for this to
benefit.
At the end of the day, it's guidance.
It's just instrumental guidance and inspiration.
That's what they're providing.
The disciple's ability in this path becomes manifest.
Love for Allah should increase, so the swift
attainment of cures for spiritual ailments.
He obtains the prayers, the duas of the
Shaykh as well.
His doubts and uncertainty should be eliminated as
a result of the light emanating from the
heart of the Shaykh.
This is the tawajuh that they speak about.
This light has its effects on the disciple.
Spiritual darkness is dispelled by this light.
The reality of all things should become manifest.
There are degrees regarding the efficacy of this
light, obviously, depending on the disposition of the
seeker.
So it works both ways.
Shaykh could be very powerful, but the seeker
is weak.
He doesn't get much out of it because
he's not able to download as much.
It's up to you to download.
If the Shaykh doesn't have much to give,
then you try to download more, and you
can't.
Maybe Allah will give you that download on
the side if you're true and sincere.
The light has its effect on the disciple.
Spiritual darkness is dispelled by this light.
The reality of all things becomes...
Sorry.
There are degrees regarding the efficacy of this
light, depending on the disposition of the seeker.
One of high and noble disposition can attain
the full beneficial effect of the light by
merely looking at such an accomplished Shaykh.
I guess you're not going to believe until
you actually experience that.
It's just like, how do you do that?
In such cases, the seekers attain spiritual progress
and ranks without even physical association with the
Shaykh in some cases.
Just don't expect that to happen to you
unless Allah has decided that for you.
Speaking to one Shaykh, he's got mureeds in
a certain town in Pakistan.
He's got a number of them, but then
he's got mureeds from a certain family which
are Sayyids.
He said they're just instantly kindled.
You can just tell that their stories or
their feedback of what happens when they start
doing dhikr and so on, they're just instantly
kindled.
The family of the Prophet ï·º definitely, from
my observation and close interaction, they have ajib
qualities if they allow them to be manifest.
Because they've got that blood.
But unfortunately, a lot of them, they're messed
up.
Not a lot of them, but some of
them are messed up.
But if they turn to the right, subhanAllah,
they can get kindled very fast into the
light of Iman.
That doesn't mean that you have a disadvantage.
They've just got an advantage.
Everybody else is normal, I guess, because that's
special.
What are you going to complain about?
No, you don't because Allah's path is open.
So for example, one of the things that
I've seen in the family of the Prophet
ï·º is generosity.
I've not met all of them, obviously.
But the many that I've come with and
had close interaction with, they've got generosity.
That's a quality.
The Prophet ï·º is supposed to be jawad,
extremely generous.
So I've seen that definitely is one of
them.
And the other one is that they, mashaAllah,
they're able to come close to Allah very
easily.
Okay, the next one he talks about is
rights of the Shaykh.
We'll start this one.
We'll read a bit of it.
The seeker should believe that he will attain
his goal through the agency of a Shaykh.
You need that philosophy.
You need that approach.
Because if you think, oh, I'm not sure
if I'm going to get anything or not
from here, then you've already stunted your growth
to a certain degree.
If the seeker turns his attention elsewhere, i
.e. towards another Shaykh, while he remains a
disciple of one Shaykh, he'll be deprived of
the spiritual grace and benefit of a Shaykh.
Some are very, very strict about this.
And they actually have a…
Different Shaykhs have different rules about this, you
can say, or different understanding of this, or
policies towards this.
Sometimes the policies are quite clear.
You cannot go to anybody else.
So I've had cases where I've held a
program somewhere, and a person will come and
say, I really want to attend, but, you
know, I'm not allowed.
No, they'll say, is it a Tasawwuf program?
I'm like, no, this is just a Hadith
program, it's not a Tasawwuf program.
Okay, then we can come.
Some, like the…
They're called the Tijanis that I spoke to
from West Africa.
Sorry.
There you go.
And Mauritania.
Their policy was that you can go to
any Shaykh for Tabarruk, but not for Irshad.
So you can go to meet them, absolutely
do that.
So you're not going to shut other…
I think that's really good, at least, right?
Because some, they just don't go to any
other Shaykh.
They just completely abandon them, right?
And then that makes it seem very cultish
and so on.
I can see the benefit of sticking to
one Shaykh, that, you know, you're not going
to get confused, because that can definitely happen,
especially with the condition of Shuyuf today, that
they're not all perfect, right?
So then you see somebody else, you know,
and then you're like, oh, and then you
jump ship.
And then after that, you find something there,
so you jump ship again, and then you
come back to the first one, because I
don't know.
So that's fine.
You know, you go, you can take Tabarruk
and so on.
There's nothing wrong with that.
So the disciple should in all ways be
obedient to his Shaykh and render sincere and
complete service to him.
In the absence of the love of the
Shaykh, there is no real benefits.
The signs of the love for the Shaykh
is immediate fulfillment of his orders.
He should never carry out any act without
his permission, because sometimes the Shaykh resorts to
an act that is appropriate for him in
view of his rank and spiritual state, but
the same act may be fatal poison for
the seeker.
So don't just blindly copy the Shaykh, but
ask him, because he may be doing something
at another level, whereas you're supposed to work
at another level.
The disciple should recite the remembrances and the
litanies, the wada'if, which the Shaykh prescribed
and refrained from all other forms of litanies.
Lots of people are like, oh, I'll do
this, I'll do this, and then eventually get
burnt out, they can't do it.
If you want more litany, go to your
own Shaykh for it, or say, can I
read this as well?
So I know there's one person constantly writes
and says, I'd like to do this as
well.
I found that very useful, so I want
to do that as well.
And then and then every month or every
three months, it's a change, it's different.
It's like you get excited about something.
Just the first thing that I think we
should need to all achieve is steadfastness in
at least the basic amounts.
That is important.
It's nice to be exotic and try different
things, but that's not the purpose.
The purpose is, yes, if you do something
once, at least you've done it.
But if you don't have a steady, steadfast,
regular, that is important.
Regular means beyond the obligations.
That has to be done.
If we're talking beyond the obligations, you know,
you're doing your awwabeen.
You are reading this much istighfar and this
much salawat.
Do that first.
Once you've done that, and I can do
that comfortably, alhamdulillah, it's within my daily natural
routine now.
My self doesn't protest over this.
In fact, it seeks it like it does
food.
Bismillah, we'll start more then.
That's a major mistake people make.
They just want to do different exotic.
Oh, I found this new litany.
I found Ibn Arabi's work.
I found his work.
Let me do that one.
OK, do it once maybe, but make sure
you do yours as well.
And if you've ever come across the word
of Ibn Arabi, it's jalali, man.
It's very jalali.
Right.
I think the disciple should recite the remembrance,
as we said.
In the presence of the guide, the disciple
should direct all his attention towards him.
The attention has to be such a degree,
such a degree, that the disciple should not
even perform nafl option prayer in the presence
without his permission.
That's if you're going to sit with him,
then benefit.
Unless it's a nafl gathering, then it's fine.
You're not going to go there, like, may
nafl yaha barak.
Like, what's the point of that, you know?
I mean, if you're sitting the whole day
with the shaykh, then he might even get
tired of it.
Like, OK, nafl barak.
Do you understand?
That's fine.
Do not speak with anyone while in his
presence.
In fact, do not pay attention to anybody
else.
Do not stretch the legs in the direction
of the guide, even if he is not
directly in front of him.
Never lodge any objections against the guide.
If the seeker is unable to understand any
act of the guide, he should not entertain
any misgiving, but should recall the episode of
Musa al-Islam and Khidr alayhi salam and
consider that some wisdom must be behind the
act.
Unless it becomes recurrent and it just starts
getting weird.
Then, of course, this is a hugely confusing
part.
There's some people who maintain this and the
shaykh is doing absolutely haram and wrong and
whatever.
And there are some taqwaal about this as
well, that even if you see them doing
like a certain blatant wrong, you know, you
must do some ta'weel and so on.
To a certain degree, yes, because they might
be making a mistake.
Might be a moment of weakness can happen.
But if you see something week in, week
out, month in, month out, that means there's
some other issue going on.
Never desire the guide to display miracles.
Otherwise, you know, I'm just going to wait
for five months and see if he does
any miracle.
Otherwise, I'll go and find the next one.
When in doubt, immediately discuss the problem with
the guide.
A lot of people don't do that.
They just start, shaitan takes over that.
If you don't discuss, you should be upfront,
meaning in a polite way, discuss.
Should the doubt still remain after having discussed
it, consider it to be the result of
your defective understanding first.
If the guide does not respond, the seeker
puts forward the doubt, the seeker should consider
that he is yet not capable of comprehending
the explanation, maybe.
Seize all possibilities.
Hence the guide's silence.
He should await another opportunity for clarification and
inform the sheikh of dreams, as well as
any interpretation of such dreams that come to
his mind.
Because for a lot of people, one of
the means of communication from the divine is
dreams.
That is an absolute possible method of communication
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Inspirations and dreams, right?
And some people are just better at dreams
than others.
They just have emotional, physical, whatever it may
be, makeup by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
is that they just always saw dreams.
Before they might have seen messed up dreams,
and now they're seeing better dreams because the
environment they've created in their mind is better.
So now that's reflected in better dreams.
Might still see a bad dream because there's
a lingering thought from the previous time.
The disciple should not remain aloof from the
guide without need and permission.
Should constantly stay in touch.
And then there's some other which we will
read insha'Allah.
And so we'll stop here today.
Any questions on this?
I think majority of the people of the
world don't have any dreams, or any relevant
dreams, or any useful dreams.
Is that the case?
Meaning, is it very special to actually have
these dreams that can be interpreted?
Yeah, so some dreams are just adhaat wa
ahlaam.
Some have a significance.
So there are certain signs when a dream
is significant.
Most of the time in a dream, it's
going to be one point which is significant.
Everything else is just the context and fluff.
Literally.
Hazrat Maulana Yusuf Sahib told me this himself,
and I asked him, I want to learn
dream interpretation.
So next time I mention it, he goes,
look, most of this stuff is irrelevant.
This is the main point.
So in a lot of dreams, the main
point is one point, or two points.
Sometimes it could be more than that.
But there's no hard and fast rule about
dreams.
It is so varied in terms of what
it can be and what it can't be.
I think a person should probably learn to
distinguish between their adhaat wa ahlaam.
That, oh, this is something I was talking
about yesterday, or I experienced yesterday, an event.
So this is just some weird, filtered remnant
manifesting itself in a different way.
That's essentially what it is.
That's adhaat wa ahlaam.
If it's a frightening dream, most of the
time, that is from al-hulum wa min
ash-shaytaan.
So you're supposed to just ignore that anyway.
And if it's a good dream, which really
sticks out, makes you feel good, or makes
you feel particularly, significantly concerned about a certain,
that is the ones that you might want
to get something on.
Because, you see, somebody comes to a scholar
and asks about a dream that they see.
The scholar doesn't know the interpretation.
He doesn't go to anybody else.
So he's going to be left without any
interpretation.
I don't know the answer.
That's the simple way.
That's what I say to most people.
I don't interpret dreams.
Oh, but you've got a course on dreams.
Yes, I do, but I don't interpret dreams.
Because that's more inundated with fikhi fatawa.
Imagine dreams.
That would be, that opened a door to
much more than fatawa.
That'd be go crazy.
It's very difficult.
But somebody needs to do it.
There's not enough good dream interpreters out there,
so somebody needs to do it.
Someone feels that they don't get dreams.
Of course, I think there's the hadith of
Ibn Umar that he never used to get
dreams, or he used to see people, they
get their dreams interpreted.
So he said that, oh Allah, please show
me a good dream.
So could you say from that, if someone
feels that they don't get dreams, that they
can ask Allah that, oh Allah, show me
a good dream?
Absolutely, because there is a kind of an
inspiration aspect to dreams, isn't there?
So yes, you can, but I don't think
you should feel too bad about it.
Dreams can be frightening as well, and so
on.
So if you're not one who generally sees
dreams, it's fine.
Or you forget dreams very easily, then that's
fine.
It's just your make-up.
You definitely don't want to become obsessed by
dreams, because that's not a life.
That's not reality.
So I just had a question about, you
know, regarding the connection or the relationship between
the sheikh and the murid or whoever.
You know, there's one thing of like adab,
and then there's another thing which like other
people feel that this is their adab.
So like being normal, you know, acting like
that.
What's your thoughts about that?
Is that something that sometimes some people feel
that they need to be, you know, like
that?
You don't need to do the adab of
yourself, and you don't need to do adab
in a very particular way.
Sometimes it actually sounds, it looks pretentious, and
it's actually, it's very irritating.
So if somebody is just like that, that's
their nature, that's fine.
We can accept that, but to become like
that, unless you're forcing yourself that way because
you're so arrogant, and you're forcing yourself that
way just to kind of bend it the
other way so that you can get moderation,
then as a ilaj, that might be okay.
There's one person who's with Mufti Taqeesa for
a very, very long time, and he's just
over tawadhu.
So when we're sitting in Mufti Taqeesa's room,
there's two children, he'll tell them to sit
on the chair, and he'll sit on the
floor, whereas he's a mufti himself.
And then he asked me, like, do you
think I do too much takalluf?
And I think, yes, in some cases, I
think you overdo it.
That's what I think.
But then he is probably naturally doing that.
He just feels like, you know, so is
that a balance?
Sometimes if it reaches tablil, your own kind
of humiliation, because that's wrong as well, to
overdo it.
You know, don't do so much takalluf that
you seem like you're, yeah, it's okay to
be nothing, to feel like that.
But then there is a self-dignity that
you must maintain as well.
So the level of tawadhu that we find
in, you know, in the ulama of India
and, you know, our previous ulama.
So that seems very alien to our country,
to the West today.
It just seems so.
I think in individualism, that's why everybody can
say what they want.
You can generally tell very easily if a
person has come from a background, whether Arab,
non-Arab or Indian or whatever.
And if they've had connection with a sheikh
or religion or just a good family, you
can tell that straight away.
They just don't come across as, you know,
they don't come across as with that kind
of arrogance.
You can just tell pretty much straight away.
There's some people who are not even arrogant,
meaning they don't carry themselves in an arrogant
manner with any airs or graces, but they
don't have adab either, because they've never been
introduced to adab.
So they might not be arrogant by nature
or bold by nature or brash by nature,
because generally arrogance and brashness kind of go
together, right?
To a certain degree.
But they're just, they might be calm, but
they're just weird.
You know, they don't have adab.
So adab is something different to that, because
sometimes just by your nature, you may be
a very bold individual, which can very easily
tick people off, just naturally.
Can't help it, right?
But you have adab, so you're trying to
minimize it.
And sometimes it takes a while for that
to come through, because the initial reaction is,
oh, this guy is a bit too forthcoming,
forthright.
You have to be careful with that.
I've had to, with sheikh, I've had to
be careful like that, because sometimes the first
impression lasts.
And, you know, I like to kind of
like just ask the question.
And that sounds challenging sometimes.
And then after that, you've just missed your
relationship with them.
You'll have to rebuild it, or you have
to prove that you're not the guy he
thinks you are.
It's a bit complicated.
There's just natural personality traits that you have
to overcome.
I've learned from others, when they've come across
that, okay, I see that I can try
to do, that's where I learn it from.
Okay, now I understand why so-and-so
was like, didn't really give me so much
attention.
It's because I was probably like this guy.
Do you understand?
It takes a while.
That's why I believe that as a human,
it's very important as a human being, you
show other ways then.
Like you just out of your realm of,
and maybe I'm going into a more student
-teacher relationship as opposed to what are you
doing now?
Because then what are you supporting?
But student-teacher relationship.
As I've mentioned before, if you say a
good word to the sheikh, or, you know,
just say something in support, or you show
that you're going out of your way to
learn, or you give a gift, or you
do some khidmah, then that just shows your
human side.
A lot of the time, it's the academic
side that comes forward, and that just puts
somebody off that this guy is just pure
academic.
And that's essentially where it comes.
The clever guys, this is what happens.
You have to be very careful.
You just sound like you're just this arrogant
student.
Because you've got no insanity in you.
Do you understand?
That's a very important thing, especially for people
who are brash and bold.
If you're just a very humble guy from
the beginning, you don't have that issue generally.
Do you understand?
Yeah, it's a complicated one.
It's a complicated one.
I'm sure I've turned some sheikh off because
of the way I probably approached it, or
something like that.
And they can't see the insanity in you
because you're not making the effort.
Okay, I think we're over time.
JazakAllah khair.
We'll speak to you next week, inshallah.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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Jazakallah Khair.
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.