Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 11 Ramadn 1442 Late Night Majlis Sultn of the Ulam Izz b abd alSalm ESA
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We've reached this Mubarak, 11th night of Ramadan.
The second 10,
the second 10 nights of Ramadan and days
are characterized by
forgiveness.
Forgive and have mercy,
and you are the best of those who
have mercy.
We're in need of.
Oftentimes, we find ourselves trying to ice skate
uphill,
in life.
And it's really nothing other than
a believer is destined to go to Jannah,
but then we do, like, all this dumb
stuff in our lives,
and
we have to make up for it somehow.
And, we're sometimes our own worst enemy.
We go around cursing Shaitan, and shaitan looks
at us and says, well, I didn't have
anything to do with that. In Ramadan, I
definitely didn't have nothing to do with that.
And, you know, these are some stark realizations
we have to make. And, we can
telescope that process
by being humble in front of Allah and
asking for forgiveness.
Allah is the one who asks, is there
anyone who seeks forgiveness that I may forgive
him? Allah is the one who is happier
to forgive you than you are to be
forgiven, and he's happier to hear your,
your request for forgiveness than you are happy
to ask for it. So Allah
give us all from his forgiveness.
Amin,
another note I wanna give is
that this is the,
the traditional time of
the mid Ramadan lull.
I've been talking to people, they say, well,
the ranks are thinning out in the masajid
for
and for, other other prayers and whatnot. And
where I pray, it
seems just as packed as,
as anywhere else where it was. But this
is something I've observed in the past,
that there is this kind of midram amongst
people. Yeah, man. I know. I get it.
You know, you lose a lot of sleep.
I myself am
progressively,
moving up the continuum of, like, sleepless zombie
mode hamza. But,
that's part of the whole thing is that,
you know, the the the
the struggle that a person does.
Allah
says the one who strives and struggles
in our path,
we will guide him the ways to find
us.
And, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. But just like
you have to pray 5 times a day,
just like you have to fast in Ramadan,
just like you can't eat pork, just like
you have to be good to your parents,
etcetera. You can't lie. You gotta tell the
truth. One of the things you have to
do in Islam is you have to make
mujahada. You have to struggle.
And struggle, by its very definition,
is
not something that, comes with ease.
Reynold Nicholson,
the
famous Mustashireq,
who did an excellent job in translating Moana
Rumi's Masnawi Sharif
and,
the kashf almajjub that we actually used to
read from in this medullus.
Reynold Nicholson translates
as self mortification,
which literally means to kill yourself.
I found it, somewhat of an excessive translation.
But, you know, Nicholson was very well read
in
in the books of the Sophia,
and he was,
a man who no one can accuse of
not having a great command over the English
language and probably one of the best translators
from Persian into English,
and probably a pretty good translator from Arabic
as well. And he translated
as self mortification.
And so, yeah, you know,
people are like, oh, look. Fasting is good
because some
intermittent fasting will, like, lower your blood sugar
and, like, fight diabetes, and it's a good
diet. And people in Silicon Valley and Hollywood
are doing it blah blah blah. Yeah. That's
fine, and it may even be true. It
probably is true. In fact, it is true.
However, the point of making for the sake
of is not to look younger and, have
bright skin or whatever. The point of the
is that you should do something. You should
sacrifice something for the sake of
as a as a, a verification
of the truthfulness of your claim of love
for Allah
Otherwise, if it's kinda like, yeah, as long
as my blood sugar is going down, I
guess I'll do this.
You're not gonna really open any doors. So
lose a little sleep. It's okay.
You won't die.
If you're about to die, then get some
sleep. Until then, lose a little bit of
sleep.
Push yourself a little bit more. Read a
little bit more, hustle, make it to the
masjid even if it's hard. One of the
most beautiful traditions that we had in our
Madrasah, which I suspect is, you know, kind
of a Pan Madaras tradition, is when a
student was sick, the teacher would order him
to attend, and if he had to bring
his pillow and blanket and,
his
mat and lay sick in the darshan, but
he he he would he would be allowed
to do that. But we would be there
together, all of us. And even if he
was half delirious or half asleep,
you know, he would be there in the
dars with us.
And,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I think there's, like,
great hikmah in some of these some of
these things.
So, you know, make it. Get there.
So many of us have these kind of
satanic habits, Not satanic in intent, but satanic
in in in consequence.
They have these satanic habits of, like, oh,
I'm not a 100% perfect, so I'm not
gonna go to the masjid right now. I'm
not a 100% perfect. I'm not gonna go
to the gym. I'm not a 100% perfect.
I'm not gonna, you know,
do my work or whatever. You know? Things
are not a 100% perfect. Nothing is a
100% perfect. This world wasn't meant to be
a 100% perfect.
If you think it, you know, you that
that that moment ever exists, you're just deluding
yourself.
And the most perfect thing a person can
do is take the imperfection and do their
best in it. That's what perfection in this
world is.
The person who does their best. Look at
the
the reason we love him
is not because he had one really good
day and we just talk about it again
and again. Rather every single day of his
was filled with difficulties of so many different
types, And he just he still got through
it so beautifully. It just so everything. Someone
was bad to him. Someone fought him. Someone
spoke ill of him. Someone lied about him.
Someone cheated him. Whatever it is. But he
would just
take the the the imperfect circumstance and just
do something beautiful out of it to the
point where the ages will marvel,
and the people of knowledge will be spellbound,
and the, eloquent ones will be unable to
describe with their eloquence how beautiful it was
that he always did his best,
no matter what the circumstances were. And there
are people like that also in this that
are like that.
If you meet them, may Allah
give you,
the gift of laying eyes on them and
they lay eyes on you,
that, they do that in every situation, whatever
it is. Sometimes situations are really ugly. You
know?
But
they just do the best, and they just
bring that best to whatever it is,
that they do. Okay. Now back to you
and me.
It's not gonna be perfect. Just
get your get yourself in the car. Lug
yourself over into the bus, in the subway,
you know, start walking, you know, lug yourself
over to whatever you need to be there,
in the best way that you can for
however much you can. If you gotta tap
out before, you know, you know, 20 is
over or you gotta tap out and get
some more rest or whatever, do so. And
then when you wake up again and you
have a little bit more energy, then go
at it again,
as best as you can. And, even if
it's a if it's a slug,
because
the slaves slugging it out for the sake
of the Lord is beautiful.
And that's where the barakah happens, and that's
when
the decrees are,
read out to the angels in the higher
realm. But this is the one that I
love. And then from there, they will filter
down through the creation,
and they will,
show whether a person likes it or not,
sooner or later. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, sometimes
much later. But one day and when they
do get shown, they're shown forever, they'll be
shown to the entire creation how beautiful it
was that that that that person tried, that
they struggled,
and that it wasn't, like Nicholson said, self
mortification,
but it was really just
just a good effort, which is, like, the
most, like, beautiful thing in the world. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, we may belittle
each other's efforts, but to Allah our efforts
are
are are really really like something nice and
something worthy of being loved. May Allah
give us from his love, Amin.
So this being the second of
Ramadan,
I wanted to shift gears and go back
to a book that we
read from last Ramadan, which is Mawlana Saeed,
Abu Hasan Ali and Nadui's
saviors of the Islamic spirit,
which was published in Arabic as,
the men of,
reflection and, who called,
people toward Islam. And in
Urdu,
published under the name,
The History
of calling, to Islam
and a firm resolve.
And it's really interesting. There are actually 2
different titles.
And, both books, the Arabic and the Urdu,
were written by
Mohan Abu Hasan Ali Naddui,
himself.
And the English translation was
compiled under his supervision.
And, it's interesting also because the first volume
of this book it's an amazing book. It's
a a book people should read. It's not
hard to read. It's not a technical work
of the or whatever,
but a very inspirational,
book that it is,
interesting that,
Mufti Abdulrahman
in London, Mangera,
he kind of rendered the English of this
old English translation into a more readable English.
But,
and, it's it's a great book, and you
should you should buy it. You should read
it. You should benefit from it. I kinda
like the original,
despite its
somewhat peculiar
diction.
Because, first of all, it was something
looked at or at least approved out directly
by Moana Abu Hasan Ali Nadui,
who is sheikh al mashaikh in so many
ways.
He's the he's a sheikh al mashaikh in
so many ways.
Our grand sheikh,
sheikh, Moana,
Sha'abdokadir,
Raipuri
said about him, whose Khalifa he was.
He said about him that this this man
is like the
the duas of so many masha'if and the
Mujahadah of Sayed Ahmad Shaheed and the Talim
and Tarbia of, the
and then,
you know, the fiqhir of,
of, Mujadid al Afsani, Sheikh Ahmed Sarhindi, and,
you know, etcetera. All of them,
basically, their duas were to make a man
like this. And, really, he was a beautiful
person.
Maybe one day we can talk about him
a little bit more in-depth. He himself passed
away on a Friday. This is the night
of Friday. He passed away on a Friday,
having
read,
in the hour that the was gonna be
read
and waiting,
to, go out,
into the Masjid.
And so he had a couple of minutes
left, and he then chose to start Surah
Yaseen.
And when he got to the words of
Allah
and
give them glad tidings
of forgiveness
and a great reward.
Decreed
that he should,
leave,
this world
and,
progress in his journey.
And,
it's a wonderful book.
Is also there in the book,
as is that of the before him. People
don't know this.
Before before,
Shah Abdelkader.
He was also the murid of
the chef,
Moana Ahmed Ali Lahori
or.
He was originally from Delhi,
the British.
Because he
was a threat to them,
they imprisoned him and then exiled him to
Lahore.
And he said that they threw me out
of the leaf from my home and from
anyone I knew
and, threw me out into Lahore thinking that,
by exiling me, from all of my connections
and my power base, that maybe I would
wander from street to street and die broke
and not have any Himma or any courage
or any means to resist them. I said,
don't they know that I carry the book
of Allah inside of my heart?
So
he's a very well known, scholar. Many of
the great from the previous generation actually,
actually,
read the tafsir of Quran from him.
Our own sheikh that we read,
that we read
the sunnun of Imam Nasai and the Muwata
of Imam Malik and Ibn Maja from
he mentions, my father,
was one of his as well. His father
read a hadith from.
And, he said that after his sheikh died,
I said I he didn't really
feel
any sort of attachment to anyone,
after that. And, he just he said all
I remember about my father is that from
from then on until he died, he would
wake up and make the and make and
then the last moments before
the break of the dawn,
he would,
read the salat and salam and the prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
As if he was saying salaam in the
road of Mubarakah. He said that none of
us saw anything but and we never dared
even to ask him but it's as if
he was speaking to the prophet
directly and Allah knows best.
But,
he himself,
one of the things that, even after coming
to Lahore and rebuilding his,
his his for
khidma of the uloom, a service of of
the knowledge of the Quran.
He
he was arrested by the British and harassed
by them, and, one of the things that
they did was they ordered that he be
chained to a block of ice in order
to torture him.
And, they took him off when,
he was basically pushed to the end. Because
the point if you kill somebody like that,
it's gonna cause unrest in the city.
So they took him down. The point is
just to harass him and to break his
spirit.
And they said, what do you think now,
Molina Saab?
And he said the body is freezing, but
the iman is still burning hot. So
I figured it's it's a good book to
read.
So we read we start from the, chapter
number 11
of, a very,
a very inspirational figure,
Sheikh Islam,
with infused with the color and the
the dye that,
is given to us by the through
the,
Abu Hassan Ali, Nadui, and his
chain also.
The heroic endeavors of Saladin who had set
himself to work in the most earnest fashion
with the reintroduction of orthodox creed
in the place of the Shiite creed, which
had,
usurped the land of Egypt.
And, again, the Shiite creed here, I'll add,
is not it's not strictly speaking the same
thing as what's in Iran nowadays, but the
botany creed of the,
Fatima Ismailis.
With it, the chain of educational
institutions started for the purpose,
of, the reintroduction
of Muslim creed
spread
all over his wide realm. And above all,
the personal example set by him and some
of the Muslim rulers in following the religious
precepts and code of moral conduct redirected the
energies of the people toward learning and teaching
religious sciences.
As a result thereof, we find
several erudite scholars during the 7th century.
This is the 7th century after Hijra, of
course. During the 7th, we have we obviously
find many Erudite scholars in 7th century of
the common era, but because those are the
companions of the prophet
this is the 7th century after Hijra,
who had devoted themselves, body, and soul to
the dissemination of Islamic teachings amongst their compatriots.
The most outstanding personage amongst these savants
were,
the sheikh of Islam, Izzudine
ibn Abdulsalam,
who passed away in 660
of the common air 660 after hijra.
He was reputed for profound learning, piety, and
courage. He never compromised with the corrupting influences
of his time and the degenerate ways of
the then rulers.
So this is after
much after the the passing of,
a couple of generations afterward.
So the irredition of Izzudine.
Izzudine ibn Abdul Salam was born in Damascus
in 578 after Hijra. He had the honor
of being a student of several eminent scholars,
of those days such as Fakhruddin Ibnu Asakir,
the great Muhandith,
Seifuddin
Ahmedi, and,
Abu sorry.
Ahmedi,
and Hafiz Abu Muhammad Al Qasim.
According to certain analysts,
he analyst not like like a analyst, like
forecaster,
like, for analytics, but, analyst as in historians,
a n n a l I s t
s. According to certain analysts, he started education
quite late, but he soon acquired such a
proficiency
in the dense sciences that his contemporaries
paid,
glowing tributes to his deep learning and brilliance
of mind.
Ibn
called him the sultan of Olam, sultan, Sultan
Al Ulamah and some of his works. Who
is Ibn Takht ek al-'Aid? Ibn Takht ek
al-'Aid was one of the foremost,
Maliki scholars of his,
of his era,
in Cairo.
And, he was a companion of
who was a Shafiri. He loved him so
much that he, switched from,
from the Maliki, Madhab to the Shafiri Madhab,
because of his,
because of his love of, of him.
And if it was for any other reason
than love, perhaps,
the Malekis would be crossed, but who can
never blame a person for that? That's the
thing that binds us all together, in the
first place.
When
migrated to Egypt in 639,
Hafiz,
Abdul Adhim al Mundiri,
the writer of Tarib and Tarib, suspended giving
Fatwa, giving legal opinions, which is a big
deal. Hafez Munvari is a great not only
Muhandid, but he's considered to be
a a who chose to make Taqleid of
Shafari.
But he he was
a man himself at the very height of
learning.
When he was asked the reason for it,
he said it does not be who have
any jurist to give legal opinion where is
a deen happens to be present.
Another scholar, Sheikh Jamaluddin ibn Hajib, was he
was of the opinion that,
the fiqh of
of Azadeem excelled even Imam Ghazali.
The great, and
compiler of the,
one of the greatest
biographical works,
of the Olamag Biographical Encyclopedia. It's a really
wonderful work. Don't ask if it's translated or
not. Learn Arabic and read it.
Hafiz, writes in his,
in his knowledge of devotion to religion and
awe of Allah he had attained,
that degree of perfection which makes one capable
of
of interpreting,
the revealed law of god and deducing new
laws from it.
And so these are heavy hitters. These are
not people who
give compliments easily, and they're not small people,
in in the intellectual tradition themselves.
Rather, their,
testimony,
is to be taken as
as as something that is a
fact,
and Allah
knows best. There's not small names in the
history of of Islam.
And, again, this is also a tribute to
our tradition that the greatest minds
and the greatest people in it,
as
acute as their vision was
and how sometimes hair splitting they would get,
in dealing with things. What we would consider
hair splitting based on lack of understanding, it
just meant that there are people of precision
in their in their reasoning,
in a way that, you know, lay people
cannot appreciate.
But
as much as that was there, they weren't
people who were,
dogged
and dogmatic,
sectarians
or people who are demagogues that are just
trying to call people to their own personality
cults or whatever. There is a method to
what they did, a system to what they
did, why they agreed, why they disagreed, when
they put their differences aside. And they did
have a greater goal, and you'll see in
in in things like this that they they
actually did have
overall
arching goals that were for the benefit of
the Muhammad
Izzadine occupied the chair of professor for a
fairly long period in the Madras Azzawi Ghazali
of Damascus
along with holding,
the offices of Khatib and Imam and the
principal mosque, of the city, called the Umayyad
Mosque. The the,
masjid of, Bal Umayyah in
in Damascus.
Sheikh Shehabuddin
Abu Shama,
relates that Izzidine vehemently opposed
the innovations in later day,
accretions
like salatul ravaib
and the special prayers of
which had become popular
in his time,
that,
several scholars of note thought it prudent to
keep keep silent about these issues.
And to this very day, if you criticize
a practice which is un Islamic, but people
like it,
be, be prepared to, get shot down,
from every half weighted armchair critic on Twitter
or on
Facebook,
and, be prepared to get canceled.
But, you know, the shift, you know, the
and this is not, you know, the wish
to avoid those quote, unquote inconveniences. It's not
new. Even amongst the olamah, sheikh was not
a person who shied away from speaking the
Haqq, and he didn't care what was gonna
happen afterward.
Al Malik Al Kamil.
Al Malik Al Kamil is one of the
rulers from the Ayyubid dynasty,
descended from Sahadin Ayubi and his family.
Al Malik al Kamil insisted on Izzidine,
for accepting the office of Qadi,
of the chief judge of Damascus. And the
office of Qadi is given to
the person who's renowned to be the greatest
of in a place,
for two reasons. 1 is because you need
fit in order to give legal judgments properly,
and the second is you need to have
renowned and authority and respect in order for
your judgments to be taken seriously.
Melico Campbell insisted on is the dean for
accepting the office of Adi in Damascus, which
he accepted reluctantly after imposing a number of
conditions.
During the same period, al Malik al Kamil
appointed him as his envoy to the court
of the
then
Abbasid Caliphate
Abbasid Caliph. The Khalifa Abbas in those days,
was,
a
a figure that had very little,
political authority, but
showing,
deference to him was a way of winning
legitimacy amongst the the rank and file Muslims
because
people understood that this is part of Islam,
that there is a Khalifa, and that the
Khalifa needs to be respected in order to
show some sort of unity for Islam, which
is definitely the case even though
many people who have modern sensibility may speak
against it but it's definitely the case.
The righteousness of Izzaddin.
Amongst the religious scholars of Syria, Izzaddin was
held in such a high esteem that he
was received by the then king with the
most honorable marks of distinction.
On his own part, however, Izzedine never visited
the king unless he was requested to do
so.
Being dignified,
straightforward, and self respecting, he did not like
to curry favor with the king. Instead, he
insisted always upon the king,
following, the course beneficial
Principality of Alapo Halab.
Allah free it from,
the occupation of,
usurpers.
Al Malik al Ashraf, who held the Principality
of Aleppo after the after the death of
his father, Al Malik al Adir,
sent for Azadeen.
Earlier, the sultan had some misunderstandings
with the sheikh on account of certain views
held by the latter, but the same were
removed as a result of their meeting. The
sultan,
requested the sheikh to forgive him for his
mistake and also to let him have a
word of advice.
Quote, so far as the request for pardon
is concerned, replied to Izzedine,
I forgive everyone with whom I happen to
be displeased, for I will never allow the
sun to go down
upon my enemies against anybody.
Instead of seeking my recompense from human beings,
I desire it from God and God alone.
For the Lord has said, but whoever pardons
and, amends his wage,
is,
the affair of Allah. Meaning, it's Allah's responsibility
to reward that person.
As for my benedictions for you added as
a deen,
I very often pray to God for the
well-being of the Sultan.
For this is also a means for the
welfare of Islam and of the Muslims. God
may grant the Sultan insight and understanding of
the matters which may have,
which may be helpful to him in the
life to come.
Now coming to the advice,
it is my bound and duty to enjoin
the right course since the sultan has asked
for it. I know that the sultan is
reputed for his valor and the brilliant victories
he has won. But
he has won. But the Tatars, meaning the
Mongols, are making
inroads into
Islamic territories.
They have been emboldened by the fact that
the sultan has pitched his arms against Malik
al Kamal and thus,
would not have time to face the enemies
of God. Because there's a
civil war between the family of,
of the
Eubias.
And so he said that you guys are
so busy fighting each other that the Mongols
know that you guys are gonna be easy
pickings.
He said that they have been emboldened by
the fact that the Sultan has pitched his
arms against Al Malik Al Kamil, and thus
he would not have time to face the
enemies of God and the persecutors of the
Muslims.
Al Malik Al Kamil is, however, the elder
brother of the Sultan, and therefore, I would
request that the Sultan give up the idea
of fighting his own brother.
This is a
speech that could be given to anyone of
the Muslim leaders that are there nowadays. They
give up fighting against your brother. There's other
things going on.
Instead, I would advise him to turn his
forces against the enemies of Islam.
The sultan should make up his mind in
these critical days of his illness to fight
for the sake of Allah alone and for
restoring the supremacy of his faith.
We hope to overcome,
the disbelievers
with the help of the Sultan if God
restores his health. This would verily be a
great achievement, but if God had willed otherwise,
the Sultan would undoubtedly be recompensed for his
intention, at least to come to the rescue
of
Islam. Thanks is a dean for his sincere
advice and immediately issued orders redirecting his forces
to face the Mongols instead of.
As soon as the, orders of the sultan
were communicated to the commander of his army,
he retreated,
to Kasira,
on
further request to counsel him something more.
Asked that the sultan is bedridden, but his
chiefs and officials are having rounds of pleasure.
They are reveling in wine and wickedness while
the Muslims are being burdened with new taxes
and tithes.
The most valuable presentation that the sultan can
offer to god
is that the cesspool of corruption is cleansed.
Illegal imposts when taxes are abolished,
tyranny is stopped, and justice is made available
to the people.
Al Malik al Ashraf not only acted on
the advice of Izzaddin, but profusely thanked him
saying, may God give you a goodly reward
for
performing the duty enjoyed
by religion on behalf of all the Muslims,
whose well wisher you undoubtedly are.
He said, sorry. Allow me to be your
companion in paradise.
The sultan also presented 1,000 Egyptian gold mohrs
to,
but he refused to accept them saying, I
met you only for the sake of Allah,
and I do not want any worldly temptation
to be made an additional,
reason for it.
Have mercy on our elders. May
have mercy on the
and those who followed and took up their
way.
And, may Allah
have mercy on the of the prophet
people who are suffering in the east and
in the west because of the corruption and
stupidities of those who are in power as
well as those people from the masses who
should know better, who cast their lot with
the people who have money and who have
power
and, who love indulgent merrymaking
for this dunya, which is a cesspit, which
is going to come to an end soon.
All of us are going to turn into
dust.
Allah
give people
whatever position they are in in society,
you know, prominent or or humble,
the
of choosing something better.
So that, the mercy of Allah can be
easily distributed amongst the people because of their
having
chosen something better and a better way of
living.
And Allah
also give us the
companionship of the,
in this world and in in in Jannah
with his father. Allah
give us all tawfeeq,