Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 1440 8 Ramadn Late Night Majlis Jafar b Nusayr Muhammad b Qasim Rudbari Qasim alSayyari Muhammad b Khafif Sad Maghribi
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AI: Transcript ©
It's the 8th night of Ramadan.
It was just 1 week ago that we
all, got together,
to pray
for the first time.
And now,
it's going.
So if you ain't been reading, you ain't
been doing your zikr, if you ain't been,
coming to your and
masjid and all this other good stuff, then,
it's a good time to start inshallah. It's
always a good time to start. People start
in different ways. Some people are early, some
people are on time, some people are a
little bit late.
But the most important thing is how you
end. And so we we we still have
an opportunity to do that a lot to
argue all of us, Tofit. Mhmm. Before continuing
with our
lesson, this is something I forgot to mention
yesterday,
which was about something I mentioned 2 days
ago in the,
Majes, when we talked about
I mentioned that
Imam Ahmed bin Humble's hadith don't come in
the
Sihas Sita, and
2 people pointed out that that's actually incorrect.
1 Mufti Jabid Iqbal, who's a teacher in
the Kidderminster
branch of the Darulum of Bari in in
in near Birmingham,
Elijah Azi Hilkaire, and then the other is
this young man, who read,
the, Abu Dawood from Sheikh Samrin Nas when
he came to Allentown,
I guess a couple of weeks ago or
months ago.
So that's good,
I'll reward you. He's actually, relatively frequently narrated
from him, the sunun of Abu Dawood. I
think
what I probably should have said instead of
saying what I say is that he's not
narrated from Bukhari even though Bukhari met him.
But,
at any rate, that's the is an and
that's straightened out. And if you look in
the if you look in the SoundCloud in
the recording,
I also left a comment,
at the at the place that I made
that mistake. If anyone else sees a mistake,
you're more than welcome to,
to let me know, Inshallah, I'll reward you
for it. I might not agree with you,
so be prepared with that, but I will
listen Insha Allah, and I do appreciate that
that there are people looking out.
So we,
then continue, through the tavaqaat of the mashaikh.
We'll read
first of Muhammad Jafar bin Nusayr al Khudi.
He's a well known biographer of the saints,
one of the most eminent and oldest of
Junaid's pupils. So Imam Junaid
disciples.
He was profoundly versed in the various branches
of Tasawwuf
and paid the utmost respect to the sheiks.
He has many sublime sayings. In order to
avoid spiritual conceit, he attributed,
his sayings
and anecdotes to different people,
which he composed an illustration of each topic.
And, this is something that,
was mentioned in a previous Tabaka, which we
covered in years past,
which is that of,
Abu Bakr Shibley.
Abu Bakr Shibley
and his tawaka
in,
in this,
kashf al Mahjub. In it, it's mentioned
that the wonders of the world are 3.
The symbolic utterances are Isharat of Shibli, the
mystical sayings,
and the anecdotes are Hikayat of Jafar. And
so this is the same Jafar.
And this,
genre of hikayat using hikayat anecdotes and short
stories
to teach principles of the Tariq.
This is like perfected in the of Mulan
Al Rumi later on. So he's the this
Jafar bin Nusayr al Khudi is attributed with
being one of the the pioneers in the
compilation of this genre of,
of Sufic literature.
It is related that he said, trust in
Allah
is equanimity, whether you find anything or no.
I. E. You are not made glad by
having daily bread or sorrowful by not having
it because it is a property of the
lord who has a better right than you
to either, to preserve or destroy.
Do not interfere, but let the lord dispose,
of his own. Jafar relates, and so this
principle he talks about Tawakkul,
is that when you're doing good, you shouldn't
be too happy about it. And when you're
doing too when you're not doing so hot,
you shouldn't be too,
you know, sad about it. It's funny because
we can say this stuff. We tweet this
stuff. We say these, and we repeat them
again and again. And,
we put on our nice,
and,
get up on the on the pulpit and
give the,
and we say these things
and feel real hot about them. So here,
look now what's the difference between us and
what's the difference between
Jafar relates that he went to Junaid and
found him suffering from fever.
Oh master, he cried,
Beseech God in order that he may restore
you to health.
Junaid said, last night I was about to
tell him, but a voice whispered in my
heart, your body belongs to me. I keep
it well or ill as I please. Who
are you that you should interfere with my
property?
So there you have it.
The next Tabaka is Abu Ali Moham. By
the way, the these these, like, stories we're
reading, these are very, like,
somewhere in the area between don't try this
at home and when keeping it real goes
wrong.
So, yeah, don't don't you know, if you're
at that state,
for me too. For the rest of us,
if we try if we try this, it's
gonna, like, it'll break you. It'll break your
mind. It'll break your enough, so you won't
be able to you you won't be able
to hold it, you know. This type of,
like,
strange level of iman and taqwa and, like,
and Allah to Allah and for Allah to
Allah. A person can try to pretend to
do it for 3, 4 minutes, and then
it breaks.
And everything is as it ends. So if
you're not if you're not there yet, you
know,
be feel free to feel free to, confess
in front of the lord your weakness, and
don't don't don't don't don't break yourself, trying
to do it because the the you know,
it's about it's about how you end. In
the middle, if you try to fly too
high, you're gonna crash. Keeping it real will,
I repeat, go very wrong if you're not
there yet. And these are people who do
these things on the heels of, like,
or like yesterday, I will have like you
grab the the,
whatever, molten iron. You burn your hand, man.
Like, don't
you you walk around with, you know, without
a hand. Don't don't do that type of
stuff. These things happen on the lifetime on
the heels of a lifetime in and zikr
and connection with Allah
They're not just stuff that happens in a
vacuum. Just to let you know. Someone might
say, well, what's the point of us here
talking about this, you know? And there are
some people, all they do is this these
types of stories just like daydreaming for them.
But there are benefits.
One is person will be with the one
that they love. At least if you love
these people more than you love Donald Trump
and,
you know, LeBron James, x y z people,
you know,
even Muslim
people, you know, there are all kinds of
Muslim, like, singers and
sports stars and all that. If you love
these people more than them, Allah
will make you be with the ones that
you love. And another really good,
really good,
benefit is that if a person
knows what the objective is, then they'll be
able to start to understand how to chart
a path to it. And another benefit is
what is, and I find this myself, personally
the most,
one of the most
useful
is that sometimes a person may do something
good. Like, I, you know, I read all
20 and, like, I didn't fidget, and I
this and that, and I've been fasting, and
I feel spiritually high, and you start to
think you're cool. This reminds you you're not
cool.
This reminds you who you are, and that
there's there's still a long way to go.
There's still a long way to go. A
person, once they think they've arrived somewhere, they
stop traveling. Whereas as long as a person
is cognizant of their deficiency, they'll keep getting
better and better.
Abu Ali Muhammad bin Qasem Arud Bari.
He was a great sufi and he was
of royal descent.
Many signs and virtues were vouch safe to
him.
He discoursed lucidly with clarity
on the arcana of Sufism.
It is related that he said, he who
desires,
for himself
only what God desires for him is a
murid.
Sorry. He who desires for himself is a
murid, and he who
only desires what God desires for him is
the murad.
That person who doesn't desire anything
in this world or the hereafter except for
Allah. The one who has goals, they're the
ones who they're the one who wants they're
the ones who want, and the one who
has no goal except for Allah,
that's a sign that they're the ones who
were wanted.
This is a
a
a discourse that he has a little bit
earlier
that,
the one who is
of a high rank is not the one
who loves Allah, but is beloved by Allah.
Being the recipient of the divine virtue is
is superior to struggling in the path of
God.
And oftentimes, the 2 of them go together,
but one is a higher station than the
other because
your own acts, my own acts.
God knows if anything good or is gonna
come out of them. But what Allah
desires for you if it's good, then even
if you're a bad person, you'll end up
turning into a good person.
And so a person should give up in
their own,
in their own
desires and invest their hope in the desire
of Allah. He discourse lucidly on the arkana
of Sufism. It is related that he said
he who, desires desires for himself only what
God desires for him, and he who has
desired does not desire anything in this world,
or the next except for
God. Accordingly, he who satisfied with the will
of God must abandon his own will in
order that he may desire,
whereas the lover has no will of his
own that he should have any object of
desire.
He who desired god desires only what god
desires,
and he who god desires desires only god.
Hence, satisfaction or,
being happy with what your lot is in
life, is one of the stations or
of the beginning.
And love, Mahaba, is one of the states
or ahuwal of the end. The stations are
connected with the realization of servantship or budiyyah,
while ecstasy,
the hal of love,
leads to the corroboration of lordship. It allows
you to bear witness to the of Allah
of him being
lord. This is,
this being so the desire of subsist in
himself, whereas the desired subsist in god.
So if you trust in your own, how
smart you are and how hard you work
and this and that and the other thing,
you'd subsist in yourself.
Whereas the one who is,
who who allies his goal and the other
things,
don't matter to them. That person subsists with
Allah.
The next,
Tabaka, Abul Abbas Qasim,
ibn al Mahdi as Sayari.
He associated
with Abu Bakr al Wasati and derived instruction
from many sheiks. Abu Bakr al Wasati was
one of the companions of Imam Junaid amongst
others.
He was the most accomplished of the Sufis
in companionship
and the most sparing,
of them in friendship. Meaning what? He was
Adarafuhm
Sukhbatan
or as Haduhm Ul Fathan.
He would spend time with the and
he benefited the most from them. And he
was the one at the same time who
would waste the least amount of time with
other people.
Some people have, like, a a a an
addiction that they need to have people around
all the time. People they need to have
people, like, friends with them and converse with
them, and they wanna feel loved all the
time,
which is a very normal human thing. But,
in the tariq, it's a sign of a
person's, like, rawness. You know? They're not they're
not mature.
The person who constantly needs reinforcement from other
people, it's difficult for them to make it
anywhere in this path.
He's the author of lofty sayings and praiseworthy
compositions. It is related that he said, Tawhid
is this, that nothing should occur to your
mind except god, which is an idea that,
Ghazali also mentions. He said the song of
the Hasl Khawas is that a person should
fast from everything even though it's permissible to
think about it other than the remembrance of
Allah.
And,
I,
you know, I if anybody can do that
for more than, like, whatever, 5 seconds, then
they
they they, we they deserve that we should
ask them for a dua.
He belonged to a learned and influential family
of.
Having inherited a large fortune from his father,
he gave the whole of it in return
for 2 of the hairs of the Rasulullah
alaihi wasallam.
Through the blessings of those hairs, god,
bestowed upon him a sincere repentance.
He fell into the company of Abu Bakr
al Wasiti and attained such a high degree
that he became
a leader of the Sufis.
When he was on the point of death,
he gave direction that those hairs should be
placed in his mouth. His tomb is still
to be seen in Maru, which is obviously
before the Mongols desolated it,
and people,
come there
and pray for the things that they desire
and their prayers are granted.
This is something also
has to do with the the
the the maqam of the prophet
prophet
that that, you know, he says my brother
are those who will come after me, but
would desire more than anything else to see
me.
It's mentioned
amongst other books. And so here's a person
who gave their entire fortune, just to buy
2 hairs of the prophet
and because of it, Allah gave him ulayah.
That was how much longing he had for
connection with the Rasool
And when I read this story the first
time, it actually occurred to me that it
doesn't even matter what if the hairs were
fake.
That probably doesn't even matter. Why? Because the
how that was generated in the heart is.
And
my,
my sincere reminder to myself and to, the
the brothers and sisters is what? What's more
important than the hair of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam?
Or is it the the hair of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam?
The hair of the prophet
or the hawa of the prophet
This Quran that that the prophet
brought. And so all of these things are
there, and whoever desires and longs for them,
that person will
and spends money, and spends from themselves, gives
years of their life, and gives time.
A person would be, underestimate Allah to Allah
if they didn't think that Allah would give
them the same gulayah that that the sheikh
got,
for giving his fortune just for 2 hairs
of Rasulullah
The next tabaka, Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Khafif.
He was the imam of his age and
diverse sciences. He was renowned for his mujahada,
for his struggling against himself,
and for his convincing elucidation of
mystical truth.
His spiritual attainments are clearly shown by his
compositions.
He was acquainted with Ibnu Appa, with Shibley,
with Hussein bin Mansur Al Hallaj and,
Jurayri, and associated at Mecca with
Abu Yaqub,
and Nahrajuri.
He made excellent journeys in detachment from this
world, Tajrid,
and was of royal descent. But god bestowed
on him such a repentance
that he turned his back on the glories
of this world.
Again, a person of royal descent, of noble
lineage,
but because of this path, he he gave
all of it up.
He's held in high esteem by the spiritualists.
It is related that he said that unification,
consists in turning away from one's own nature
Because the natures of all mankind are veiled,
from the bounties,
of Allah and blind to the beneficence of
Allah. Hence, no man can turn to God
until he has turned away from nature, and
the quote unquote natural man, Sahib al Tabaa
is unable to apprehend
the reality of Tawhid, which is revealed only
when you see the corruption in your own
nature.
And,
there there's a lot, you know, there's a
lot there. The nafs,
the nafs is just the nafs is a
it's
just a bad it's a bad thing.
It's just a bad thing. It will always
call you to call you to something that
will destroy you. It will call you to,
you know, it will call you to something
that will make a chimpanzee shake its head
at you. It's it's just it's the truth
of stock.
And you can see that I I this
may be somewhat of a tangent and a
aside, but there's a,
a a
BBC documentary
called Dynasties. It has to do with, like,
they they they
do, like, thousands of hours of filming of
of different animals
to see how their family structures and everything,
survive and how they pass on to the
next generation and
the the animals even have. Right?
That there's no,
animal that crawls on or moves on the
earth or
a bird that flies these two wings except
for there's something
like you and them and like them and
you
to not to translate, but to kind of
give the tafsir of it a little bit.
And so you can see that that there
are certain individuals.
They're, like, satanic even from amongst the animals.
And there are certain individuals you see nobility
inside of them. It's not like they're just,
like, dumb animals and every single one is
the same. One is just a little fatter
than the other, one is taller, one stronger.
It's not like that.
And it's really interesting people say this about
the tarikal. They say you have to be
a human before you have to learn to
be a human being before you can be
like a wadi of Allah.
And before you become a alim, you have
to be alim before you can be a
wadi of Allah. You have to have ill
and things like that. And so after seeing
that, I've come to the conclusion you have
to be learn how to be like a
proper animal before you can be a human
being.
There's some lessons there that even animals seem
to understand that, like, you know, human beings
are are are losing because of because what?
Because the way we live allows enough, like,
unbridled access to its own,
its own,
you know, its own desire which destroys it
every time.
So guess what? Amongst the chimpanzees, which one
is most successful? The one who's the, like,
most brutal and strongest? Or the one who
knows how to, like, get along with the
other chimpanzees better? The one who knows how
to get along with the other chimpanzees better
always is dominant.
This nafsizikoothi,
it will completely destroy you every time. It
would completely destroy you every single time. Someone
might say, well, you're using bad language. We
show our brothers over here, they're like, what
does that mean?
I'll tell you after the recording stops. Right?
It's just bad.
The nafs has no like, it's commandment to
you has no redeeming quality until you've broken
it. Like, until you the house broken it
and drained it. Like, you know, like, say
the difference between a no like like a
wild dog and like the the the blind
dog that helps like blind people. That dog
is like so wonderful. It's like so you
love it because you're like, oh, look how
helpful it is. Right? That's because that dog
has been trained. You know what I mean?
It's been broken.
And even then even then it's always that
same kuti. If you don't keep it on
the leash, it will revert back to the
the other thing.
And this is something that nobody wants to
hear. Nobody likes, nobody, you know, you're not
gonna really make a whole lot of friends
with it.
But look, here's the masha'ik saying. It says
no one can turn to God except for
the when they've turned away from their own,
from their own, nature. And the quote unquote
natural man is unable to apprehend the reality
of unification, which is revealed to you only
when you can see the corruption of your
own soul.
When you can see the you can become
so disgusted with it. Like, your your
your ability to, like, eat while another person
is hungry, your ability to, like, make an
excuse for yourself and blame other people. All
of these things are very natural things inside
of a human being. They're like psych psych
psychiatric or self defense mechanisms.
Until you can until you can see how
the automatic nature of the human being is
just
just gonna destroy you,
until you can bear witness it to the
point where, like, it will call you and
then your intellect is like, are we gonna
go through this merry-go-round again? Are we gonna
go through the circus again? It's really easy
to say, but at some point, you know,
it just becomes comical. A person who a
lie gives, like,
some nur in their in their in their
vision, that person will be like, yeah. You
know, I wanna do this right now, but
I know it's not gonna end, so I
kinda don't wanna do it anymore. And those
are very Mubarak people,
the people who can see the the the
ryub and the
the the the deficiencies and and defects in
there and their own, like, in their own
nature.
So the next,
the next,
Tabaka, we'll read that, and we'll call it
call it a night.
A birth man's side and
you'll see him on the shadrach,
shariqa of some of the
and was profoundly versed in various departments of
knowledge.
He practiced austerities,
meaning he made and
and is the author of many notable sayings
and excellent proofs concerning the observation of the,
blemishes,
spiritual blemishes in the nafs.
It is related that he said,
anyone who prefers association with the rich
over the poor, God afflicts them with spiritual
death. Anyone who
prefers
association with the rich over the poor,
god afflicts them with spiritual death.
Again,
not
stuff people wanna hear.
There's probably in this in this in this
country alone
right now, in this very moment, there's probably,
like, 400, like, fundraisers to make a for
to pay off a $100,000 chandelier in a
fancy building somewhere.
People don't wanna hear this.
People literally, do you know what it means?
Masha'Allah.
Do you know what it means? Right? Some
of us, our forefathers were enslaved and brought
here in chains.
That was not their choice.
Some of us,
our forefathers, forsook their own homeland and left
it out of their own volition,
and they came to this country only to
make money.
They left behind their din. They left behind
the the lands of their father. They left
behind their ancestral,
homes. They left behind the ulama. They left
behind the madaris. They left behind the zawai
and the khanqas only to make money. Amongst
them, there's some of them, it was dire
necessity.
So I won't judge all of them the
same.
But they all came here for money, and
I've heard this from them before. I've heard
this from the generation of my father before.
I've heard, Ajib, strange things, like we would
sell the we came here for money. We
would sell the grave the gravestone of our
own mother for money. I've heard people say
things like this before.
And, some you know, one person who says
it, it means a 100 people have it
in their heart. They just just don't they
don't have the they don't have the gall
to say it.
And so this is something that nobody likes
hearing,
but especially the people, the immigrants of our
Muslim, there are many of them who have
a healthy,
quote, unquote healthy love of material things as
well. But nobody nobody wants to hear this.
Nobody wants to hear this at all. Well,
guess what?
He says what? Whoever,
prefers the association of the rich over the
poor, god afflicts him with the spiritual death.
So, you know, I get that the isn't
like super fancy, and there are other places
that are even less fancy than this.
But, you know, if that's the case,
you know, if if that's the case that
whoever prefers association with the rich over the
poor, Allah afflicts them with spiritual death,
then perhaps the the, you know, the secret
is not in the fanciness
of of things,
and how wonderful I can, like, duvet,
mall like
slick feeling it gives you when you walk
in. I get that things should look nice
and clean. We try to clean up. I
mean, the rebat, inshallah, is clean. We try
to clean up as much as we can.
But the idea is what is that that
slick thing, that's not spirituality. That's all fake,
you know, hippie, smoke weed spirituality.
The term association here, sukba,
and sitting with,
are employed
because a man turns away from the poor
only when he has sat with them, not
when he has associated with them, for there's
no turning away in association.
When he leaves off sitting with the poor
in order to associate with the rich, his
heart becomes dead,
to supplication,
and his body is caught in toils of
covetousness.
That person is
becomes what? They become dead. They no longer
ask,
nor nor can they be asked, and they
their body is caught in the toils of,
of covetousness.
They they they their heart Oz,
in in Persian.
The covetousness actually kills you. This is one
of the reasons why Facebook and these things
make people feel horrible, because everybody's trying to
show how wonderful their life is, and very
few people's life is as wonderful as they
showed on Facebook. They show, oh, look. I
hate this, and I did this this vacation.
I bought this, and I graduated, and blah
blah blah. And all these things, you know,
they only show the the the the the
best of things, and a person sees that
in another
a actually becomes it becomes a toil inside
of the body. It actually physically
harms you. Since the result of turning away,
from Mujalasa's spiritual death,
then, how should there be any turning away
from the sohba, from the association
of of of the poor? The two terms
are clearly clearly distinguished from one another in
this in this saying.