Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 13 Ramadn 1442 Late Night Majlis The Fearless Shaykh ESA
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah, we reached the small barak,
13th night of Ramadan.
The Ever Living, the Source of all Life
and the One through whom all things subsist,
we cry out
desperately for Your mercy.
Rectify for us our entire affair,
and do not leave us to our own
devices even for the twinkling of an eye.
The
stories that we
recount in
this reading,
they're stories of real people who lived in
very desperate times,
who fought very real enemies,
and were in very real mortal danger,
from each other,
from their external enemies,
from themselves,
and this is a story of their bravery
and their struggle.
Sadly, there are many people who need to
hear these stories of bravery
in order to fortify themselves internally.
And oftentimes, the people who need to hear
these things the most are the ones that
are most heedless.
So glad tidings to a person who Allah
gives tawfiq to hear
and listen and benefit
and take strength. May Allah
increase their ranks
and put the affair of the Muslims in
their hands. And may Allah
relieve,
of this affair, those people who neither have
the strength inside to carry it,
nor do they seek it, nor do they
have the responsibility enough in order
to cultivate that strength inside of them,
that they can keep the trust that Allah
has given
them with regards to the Ummah of Sayid
Muhammad
So we continue our reading.
From his book The Saviours of the Islamic
Spirit
under the
chapter regarding
the
great Sheikh
of his age
And under the sub subheading,
is a deen in the battlefield.
Writes,
these were the days when
the dissensions amongst the Muslim monarchs had again
created
a situation favorable to the Crusaders who unsheathed
their swords to take an offensive against,
Mansurah in Egypt.
Izadina accompanied the forces
sent to retrieve the city from the Christians.
A chronicler of the time,
writes that
prayer for the success of the Muslim forces
was readily answered by God.
The reinforcements of the crusaders could not reach
them as their ships were taken by a
gale, which submerged quite a few of them.
The Mongols had also started raiding and plundering
the Muslim territories by then.
Once there is an imminent danger
of Mongol invasion of Egypt,
but the Sultan and his commanders were so
disheartened that they could not muster courage to
face the Mongol hordes.
Encouraged the sultan to fight against the Mongols.
He even assured the sultan of his success
against the Mongols.
At last, the sultan agreed to his suggestion,
but as he was facing paucity of funds,
he sought the advice of Izzaddin about raising
the necessary finance through loans from businessmen.
Izzudin, however, advised, first, bring the ornaments of
your women folk and those of your dignitaries
and nobles
and all of the treasure they have in
their possession.
These are all prohibited by the Sharia and
should be used for meeting the expenses of
this expedition.
If you still need the money, then you
can raise it through loans.
Surprising though it may seem, the king and
his nobles brought out with a demure all
of the jewelry and valuables they possessed as
Sheikh had directed.
The riches so brought forth were enough to
meet the expenses of raising an adequate force
to face the Mongols who were defeated by
the Egyptian army as predicted by Izzidine.
A still more surprising incident of the sheikh's
life described by the historians
relates to his insistence upon auctioning those dignitaries
of the Sultan's
court,
whom he held to be the property of
the state exchequer since they happen to be
slaves who had not been emancipated in accordance
to the provisions of the Sharia.
These chiefs of state were recruited as royal
levies from the Turkish Mamluks or slaves,
but had risen to the positions of authority
and wielded great influence in the government of
Egypt.
One of them even held the post of
a minister of the Sultan.
Izzuddin pronounced the juristic opinion that these chiefs
were still slaves in accordance to the rules
of the Sharia and should be treated as
such until they can be formally emancipated.
The posh population of Egypt immediately ceased cooperating
with such chiefs and dignitaries who were placed
in such an invidious position that they had
to call upon the sheikh and inquire what
he proposed to do with them.
Izzaddin, however, told them plainly that he would
sell them in a public auction on behalf
of the state
treasury, and thereafter,
there they would be emancipated as provided by
the Sharia.
They appealed to the sultan who also tried
as the analysts have
recorded to placate Izzidine, but he remained adamant.
During the discussion on the subject, the sultan
told Izzidine that he should not concern himself
with the affairs of state and also said
something,
as it has been reported, which was taken
ill,
by Izzaddin.
The sheikh returned to his house and announced
his decision to leave Egypt immediately.
The news spread like wildfire in Cairo, and
an overwhelming majority of its population decided to
follow Izzadine and migrate with him. The matter
was brought to the notice of the sultan
who was also told that if Izzadine went
away from Egypt, his kingdom would also come
to an end.
Extremely worried by this vastly deteriorating situation,
the sultan himself went to bring Izzadine back
to the city
who had, by then, left it with a
large section of its inhabitants.
The sultan had at length to give Izzedine
who was allowed to auction the chi given
to Izzedine who was allowed to auction the
chiefs. The Mamluk minister, however,
still tried to dissuade the sheikh, but failing
in his efforts, decide decided to slay Izzadine.
He went with his entourage, sword in hand,
to the house of Isidin and knocked at
the door.
The son of Isidin who came out to
answer the call went in and told his
father what he had seen, but the Sheikh
calmly said,
my son, your father is not lucky enough
to be slain in the way of God.
Is the Dean came out without the slightest
trace of fear on his face. As soon
as the minister saw Izzedine, he was overtaken
by a flutter and the sword fell from
his hand.
With tears in his eyes, he humbly repeated
the question,
my lord, what do you want to do
with us?
I will auction you, the sheikh's reply went.
And where will you spend the sale proceeds?
The minister demanded again. The Sheikh replied crisply
on the welfare of the Muslims.
The minister asked again, who will collect the
sale price?
Isadine replied myself.
The minister at last agreed to be sold
by the sheikh who auctioned him with the
other mom Mamluks. As a mark of respect
to the position held by these dignitaries, the
sheikh fixed a higher price for each and
asked them to deposit the sale price. The
money thus collected by Isadino spent on the
welfare projects while the chiefs were granted their
warrant of emancipation.
The historian, Ibni Suki,
writes,
such an incident was never heard of,
earlier about anyone.
This is perhaps the only example of its
kind recorded by history about the
and veneration ever, accorded to any scholar. So
this is an interesting story. There's a little
bit of a background that's needed.
These slaves were not like normal
slaves. This is not like, you know, someone
picking cotton out in the field,
in the south.
What happened was in the old days, in
Muslim world,
the original armies of conquest were basically the
rank rank and file of of the ummah.
And then once the state became powerful
and,
it essentially establishes itself and their safety,
in,
the lands, all the way from, Tunis,
and Morocco in the west
all the way to, Central Asia, Kashgar,
which is now the eastern occupied eastern Turkestan
in the in the in the east.
What happens is there's no real enemies left
to fight, except for very occasionally. And politicians,
they need armies in order to fight each
other, in order to unseat their relatives and
to become,
you know, king or whatever and fight their
enemies, political enemies. But normal rank and file
Muslims don't wanna fight fight those battles. And
no Muslim wants to go and fight his
brother and kill someone in the battlefield or
be killed by someone in the battlefield just
so one candidate can become a king or
a prince or a governor or whatever versus
the other.
People usually don't care about those things. Regular
people don't care about those things. And by
and large, the Muslim populace was relatively devoted
to Islam. They didn't wanna die doing these
things. So what ends up happening is
they will recruit,
they will recruit slave armies. Basically,
warrior,
cast or class people from
Africa, from Central Asia, from different places in
the world.
They will purchase,
those people and then train them, as,
soldiers, slave soldiers,
in order to fight their their their wars
and their battle, battles as mercenaries.
And they'll promise them if you win this
battle, we'll give you, you know, this money
and that, you know, position and power and
blah blah blah. And so those are the
people who used to fight these fight these
wars. And interestingly enough, that's how the Turks
kinda,
first come into,
contact with the Muslim world is that they're,
basically brought in large numbers as slave mercenaries.
They become Muslims
at some point, and they become very devout
Muslims,
at some point. But what ends what ends
up happening is,
you know, Banu Abbas, who is heavily dependent
on these, slave armies,
from outside, and then afterward also on, like,
bureaucrats,
non Arab bureaucrats that kinda help them plan
their wars. And, you know, it's kinda like
these
for hire type people, like, kinda corporate sleazeball
type people. Like, you know, you have,
you know, your RJR Nabisco is trying to
sell cigarettes to children. Nobody no normal person
would do that job. But, you know, you
go to business school, they kinda give you
this training on how to be a sleazeball.
And, you know, there'll be people like, okay.
Well, let let's make this, like, Joe Camel
or whatever and, you know, market, you know,
make it irresistible for children or whatever. So,
yeah, they have a class of people like
that basically are hired to be the bureaucrats
of the state, and slave,
mercenary slave armies are are hired to be
the military of the state. Well, what ends
up happening at some point or another is
the Turkic, slave armies realize, hey. We hold
all the power in the state, and, there's
really nothing stopping us from taking the state
over. And that is effectively the end of
the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate. The first
part of the Abbasid Caliphate, there are actually,
there are
effective rulers.
They're people who actually have power in their
hands. At some point or another, the the
the Seljuq,
you know, Turkic slave generals
will tell the Khalifa, look, calm down. You
have a nice palace.
Slave girls and, food and singing and all
this other fun stuff and plants and gardens
and peacocks and all this other jazz.
Nice clothes. Why don't you guys just calm
down and enjoy yourselves? And, don't really make
any comment about running the country? Because you're
not good at it. And, you know, if
you do, we're gonna put an end to
your rule.
And that is a source of a lot
of intrigue in politics. And then since then,
a lot of, a lot of Muslim states
will follow this model. The king will
prefer to have slave armies, mercenary armies
over actually levying troops from the normal Muslim
populace,
because they can depend on those slave armies
to fight their weird political wars and,
not have a conscience when they're fighting. Whereas
Muslims will be like, hey. Yeah. We're not
giving to the crusaders or, you know, that
that type of stuff. They're not gonna be
down for it.
So some of these people were, you know,
that we're talking about in this section, they're
quite despotic people. They're very powerful.
They were warriors.
They held a lot of clout in the
state. There's no justice system above their heads.
And, it's not like, you know, is, like,
oh, you're a slave, so we're gonna treat
you like a slave, you know, because, you
know, some dude is trying to pick cotton
in the in the field, and he doesn't
want him to be free. That's not that's
not what's going on here. What's going on
here is there's, like, a despotic,
person, in, in a high position of power,
who
probably is
not the most upright, government functionary.
And in a way of putting a check,
like a political move to put a check
the state,
who has these tendencies that the more power
they have, the more despotic they behave, the
more they hoard the people's wealth, the more
they act in their own self interest rather
than in the interest of the common populace.
He he basically brings up this technicality that
you guys are still technically slaves. And according
to you
know, you can't, you know, enter into agreements
and all this other stuff,
like a free man can. And so he
says they have to be auctioned. And he
does this very in a very calculated way
in order to,
kinda abase them and drop their dignity in
the eyes of the people in order to,
let them know that, hey. You're,
you're not untouchable.
And, you guys need to be on on
notice the way you behave and the way
you consume and the way that you tax
and etcetera, etcetera. You can't just work with
impunity.
And it's actually good because what does it
do? It actually
rehabilitates these people into general society as well
so that they
act like one of the rather than,
you know, some sort of, like, unscrupulous mercenary
warlord,
which is something that does happen. It's a
really, really interesting it's a really interesting,
era in Muslim history.
And
the fact is that, you know, people are,
you know, for good reasons, they have they're
uncomfortable with slavery.
But the slavery that was practiced in the
Muslim world is very different than the slavery
that was practiced in the American South. And
you never have this kind of weird issue
where, you know, clergy members have to, like,
have political jousting matches with slaves because the
slaves are too powerful.
But that's a kind of a peculiarity,
a unique peculiarity
of the Muslim system.
And so that's basically what's going on. That
this kind of warlord mercenary guy, the sheikh
is like, you know, he's like, we're gonna
auction
you, and, we're gonna, you know, take your
price and good put it in the exchequer,
the state exchequer, in order to kinda show
you what's up. And this guy literally came
to kill him, and he could have done
it. And the Sheikh came out and, you
know,
sometimes
a little bit of, bravery at the right
time gets in the head of a coward.
A coward thinks, oh, man,
you know, this guy is so confident. You
know? Is he bluffing, or does he really
have something behind him? And, Allah Allah Allah
Allah is the one who, protects his.
It's something very beautiful actually in this story
because it it's reminiscent of a story of
the messenger of Allah
himself
that he,
hung his sword from a tree
and took a nap under its shade. And
the companions were,
that were out out with him in that
foray,
were
resting, by another tree so as to not
disturb him, to give him his space. And
so Bed Bedouin,
a non Muslim Bedouin
really really stealthily stuck snuck in, and he
stood over the
with his
sword unsheathed.
And, when the Rasul sallallahu alaihi wasallam opened
his eyes and saw him with his sword,
naked sword,
held over his head, The Bedouin said, who's
gonna save you from me now?
And the Rasulullah
said, Allah.
And the Bedouin, he started to shake,
and his hands tremored, and the sword fell
from his hand.
And, if this is not, just one more
proof of how much barakah there is in
the divine name,
I don't know what is.
And so the Rasul took
the sword and and stood up and held
it over him then and said, who will
save you from me now?
And the man pleaded with him that be
a generous be generous with me. Be be
noble with me. And the
prophet he didn't he didn't kill him.
But, you know, this this story of the
Sheikh Ezebin of Islam is very, beautiful in
the sense that it's also reminiscent of that
prophetic,
that prophetic
incident.
And
the people who love the you'll
see their lives,
mirror his in very interesting ways at times.
Some in in in different, like, particular ways,
Allah will,
honor them,
by having some experiences that that
resemble the experiences of
the in their own little way.
And,
so that's that's really that's really beautiful.
But it doesn't work if you're a coward.
If you're don't have conviction, it doesn't work.
Your conviction is not, you know, based on
your own abilities in yourself.
Definitely could not have taken on,
taken on, this, like,
Turkic,
warlord mercenary warlord.
He had no army. He was a man
who read books for a living.
But,
the conviction was what in the in the
divine name
that, he,
he stood and he stood for what was
right regardless of who was in his face.
And Allah came to his aid
like
does for those who believe.
Is it Dean and the kings of Egypt?
Egypt witnessed quite a few political upheavals during
Isidin's stay in that country.
When he arrived in Egypt,
a monarch of dynasty,
was ruling over the country. He was succeeded
by his son,
after whom the Turkish chiefs,
seized the reign of government.
They too held in high esteem,
while,
the celebrated Turk Sultan,
Al Malik al Vahir Beibers was especially
devoted to the sheikh. So what he's you
know, Moana is saying is that basically, Turan
Shah was a very weak and ineffectual
ruler after,
Al Malik
Sal Hayyub.
And,
basically, their their dynasty is overthrown
by those same Turkic,
slave generals,
and that is
what starts the Mamluk dynasty. The word Mamluk
in Arabic means,
owned.
And when saying you know, when you describe
a human being as Mamluk, it means they're
a slave. And so we have this, Mamluk
dynasty, a slave king dynasty. There's a very,
very prominent one,
which this describes its inauguration in Egypt and
Syria, and there was another prominent one in
the Indian subcontinent,
which is also a very interesting time. The
was a disciple of
the
who we mentioned,
before,
in the first 10 days.
And
the slave king dynasties usually in general had
very good relations with the and
actually honored the
as the patrician class of society
more so than the old Arab rulers did
with their, tribal hierarchy.
So Turan Shah is, is,
deposed,
and then the Mamluks,
take over. And in particular,
it was, it
it was the Sheikh
Babers, who was a very pious man
and he'll we'll talk. It's a really interesting
period of history.
I'm I don't know if he's going to
get into
I don't recall right off the top of
my head if he's gonna get into it,
but the,
the last days of,
Al
Malik, were really interesting. They're kinda really weird.
His most favorite
slave girl,
a woman by the name of, Shadr Dur.
Shadr
being a tree and Dur means pearls.
So that was her name. She was a
very,
she was a very intelligent woman, and she
essentially
will, in the in the twilight days of
the king,
effectively take power from him while he's in
convalescence, and she'll rule Egypt. And there's, like,
a whole bunch of weird intrigue with regards
to that. And
after after that kind of weird period in,
Egyptian and very interesting period in Egyptian history,
Turan Shah takes over and then,
after he's, deposed the the Mamalik basically deposed
the Ayyubid dynasty
for the protection of the state because it's,
on the
verge of being, gobbled up, by the crusaders
in the west and the Mongols in the
east.
It was on the advice of Izzidine that
Babers invited Abu Qasim Ahmed, the uncle of,
the last,
Khalifa,
who had escaped the massacre of the Mongols
to Cairo in 659,
after Hijra,
and acknowledged him as the, Khalifa under the
title of al,
Mustansir Billah.
The first, to take the oath of allegiance
with him was,
Izzaddin, and next came the Sultan Babers after,
whom the chief, the chief judge,
and then the principal,
and nobles, which is another really interesting,
chapter in history
that, the Mongols, when they, sacked Baghdad,
they killed the Khalifa, and
they, you know, they basically killed everybody, and
they ended up destroying the entire,
entire, Abbasid royal family,
except for, this one, individual,
Abu Qasim Ahmed,
who escapes from,
escapes from Iraq.
Now the historians will, say that this is
a very controversial matter whether he is actually
part of their family or not, or they
just kinda put him in as a prop
or he made a fake claim or whatever.
There's a lot
of contention,
around that,
around that matter, and I'll leave it to
the historians.
You know, just my own common sense thinking
is that,
you know,
probably the main part of the family was
all massacred anyway.
And,
to be honest with you,
if he was part of the family, he
would have necessarily been a very distant part.
And if he wasn't, a Khalifa is a
Khalifa anyway. And,
the Muslims have an obligation to unite under
one ruler.
All of the Muslims didn't acknowledge him as
being the legitimate Khalifa, but the central heartlands,
of Islam,
generally did. And when the Khalifa is then
formally ceded to,
to the Ottomans, it's from the the the
the lineage of this,
of this, Khalifa who's installed in Egypt after
the sack of Baghdad.
And this is also the hikmah of that
he kept the institution alive,
for those years.
The moral rectitude of
Izzaddin was a much celebrated,
person for his generosity, kindness, and humanity as
for his profound knowledge and piety. The chief
Kadi Badruddin Abu Jamaa, who is a very
famous, scholar in our tradition,
relates that when Isidin was still in Damascus,
a slump in prices once overtook the market.
As the prices of groves had suffered a
steep fall, the wife of Izzedine gave him
an ornament to purchase a grove so that
they might spend the summer in it. Izzedine
sold the ornament and gave over the sale
proceeds in charity. So she gave some part
of her jewelry because she thought, oh, look.
The market is low, and, this is, like,
you know, women that that was their savings
in in those days,
was in their jewelry
as it is with some women still to
this day. He sold the ornament and gave
over the sale proceeds and charity. Later, when
his wife asked if he had purchased the
grove, replied
yes, but in paradise. I saw many poor
people in great distress, so I spent the
money on them.
His wife, thanked God for the good act
of Izzedine.
Don't tell the story to your wives. They're
all going to,
you know,
write some sort of complaint about you to
islamqadot
com. But those were different people.
Allah
mercy and exalt their their ranks.
Badruddin
also,
has written that Izzidine gave, as freely when
he was poor as when he happened to
be rich. If he had nothing to give
a beggar, he would part with a portion
of his turban.
This is also
that he never left anyone empty handed.
If he had anything to give, he would
give it. And this was also a
practice of many of the many of the
the
and the great
of the as well as the.
And there are people who have sections of
the the the the turbines or the jubbas
or the the the the clothing of,
the clothing of the masha'ikh. And this is
what it means to give someone the shirt
off their back,
that these are the people who actually put
that into practice. May Allah
exalt their ranks.
In the era when people will kill their
own brother for,
some luxury,
they used to give even the the shirt
off their back for a stranger.
Izzedine was equally courageous and truthful against his
own self as against the kings and nobles.
Even Subki and both write that once during
his stay in Egypt,
made a certain mistake in the juristic opinion,
given by him.
As soon as he came to know of
his mistake, he got an announcement made that
the people should not act upon that opinion
since it was wrong.
Again, this is an era when people, you
know, try to sweep their, own mistakes under
the rug because they don't wanna have a
PR issue.
These people were,
you know, PR issue is a public relations
issue. These people don't wanna have a a
law relations issue, and so they used to
do these things.
Relates
that had also favored, been favored with inner
enlightenment.
His
also not a small figure in our, in
our history.
He'd also been favored with inner enlightenment.
His fearlessness,
disregard for worldly power, fame, and riches, and
above all,
the unflinching faith and trust in God showed
that he had attained the sublimeness of spirit.
Ibn al Subki record records that Izzaddin was
a disciple of the famous spiritual mentor, Sheikh
Shehabuddin Suhrawardi,
who had authorized him to guide others in
the mystic path, meaning he was a sheikh
of that.
Izzadine also had,
the opportunity of meeting with,
and remaining in the company,
of another reputed,
Abul
Hasan Shaddili,
who is also Sheikh Mashaikh. Masha'Allah. Allah raised
his rank,
from his Khalafah.
You have,
see the Abu Abbas al Mursi,
and then after him,
also from the disciples of that tariq is,
Imam Busiri, Sahib,
Al Burda,
and a number of great
in the, old times and, even in the
new ones, and even in the the current
and contemporary ones all the way up until
this age.
Those were the pillars of the Ummah, the
ones that resisted the French, and the ones
that resisted the, the colonizers and the usurpers
and the Muslim lands, and the ones who
preserved the when the Madars were destroyed
and still, proliferate them to this day. May
Allah
have mercy and give that Eid those who
follow their,
their their and those who uphold,
their standards and those who uphold their values
and those who
continue to serve with excellence.
The
and,
the Hadamat of
I mean,