Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 16 1440 Ramadn Late Night Majlis Love and the Obliteration of Ego 05212019
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AI: Transcript ©
So we we talked,
yesterday
with regards
to with regards to,
the
fact that making claims,
about your spiritual state,
as well as a number of other
spiritual ailments.
They will they will kind of, like,
they'll mess up the the the the recipe
for
getting nisbud
to
Allah. A person,
the summary was what
that,
all of these different defects that we mentioned
from before. If a person doesn't deal with
them before they try making,
these these defects only come from 1 of
2 sources, either from Shaytan,
that Shaytan has access to a person to
such a level that that he that these
defects have taken permanent residence in their heart,
or, from disbelief.
And so a person cannot be beloved to
Allah to Allah and be one of those
2 at the same time.
And so we continue from where we left
off.
The sub,
heading
give giving up egotism is the way to
proximity,
quotes
one of the,
senior
in the
inception of the madrasah.
He writes a most important point in one
of his letters.
He says the essence of the path of
proximity to Allah most high is to give
up your ego.
A treatment for this as described in
of,
of Imam Ghazali
And people
they they they, like, they feel very, like,
you know you know, real real hippie by
quoting Ghazali
Razzali is in the same line as
in the same line of the the the
Persian
speaking masters of Tasuluf,
basically,
in intermediary between the,
which is a very old book. If you
read the,
you'll see in the rough a lot of
the concepts that are there in the and
other books that that,
that, Imam Ghazali writes later on.
But they're written in a more refined language
because the Sahib al Khashfizay
is a scholar, but he's not known for
his scholarship.
Whereas Ghazali is like the top carnivore in
basically every science except hadith.
And,
so he he presented in a very polished
refined way, but you can see the rough
ideas are there. There are a lot of
there are a lot of things you read
the books of the tradition.
It's like that. Like, you'll see a lot
of the things Tawali will write in his
works of fiqh,
and and his works of hadith. You'll see
them, like, passing comments that Imam Muhammad will
write, like, in something like, it's all Medina
or or in his or
other comments of the elder,
but they're written in passing, and then he'll
just expound upon them. But if you didn't
read the people from before, you'll think that
this is, like, his original thought process, which
is oftentimes not the not true. That's why
there are many scholars from the later times.
Their works are incredibly,
impressive.
But
what it is is that there's, like, one
word that the elders said
that opened the door for, like, understanding for
them, and then they expounded on it. But
if they were to have to figure out
that one word, that would have been impossible.
That's the difference between the founders of the
Madhavs and the olamad madhhabs in later times.
Some of the olamad madhhabs in later time
wrote such works that a person wonders how
is it even this is something like, you
know, if you read if you read if
you read if you read if you read,
if you read,
you know, these types of, later, like, Imam
Noi and things like that. So what does
this this this this person is more Shafiri
than Imam Shafiri is himself. But what is
it? There's a Toji, like, putting someone in
the right direction and then they then then
they just kind of,
you know, once they were put in the
right direction from the elders,
they just kinda let it rip and
then, let their intelligence,
take its course. So at any rate, so,
who's like the same gap in this, in
this in this tradition.
Sorry. Same
link in this chain,
this tradition. He quote someone who's also a
link in that chain in Al Ghazali
that he said in that he described a
way of giving up all of these sicknesses
in the
The later,
the leader the later masters of this path,
prescribed abundant dhikr,
1, eating less, 2, sleeping less, 3, speaking
less, 4, and mingling with people less.
Five things.
And if you can do this, it's kind
of like it's like a sledgehammer,
way of, like, solving all these problems instead
of dealing with them. Okay. This week, I'm
gonna take care of pride, and this week,
I'm gonna take care of jealousy, and this
week that's
very difficult to do it that way. So,
how many of you have taken, like, calculus
before?
Like, the whole year?
Right? So, like, you know, you take calculus,
you take differential equations. You know, there's, like,
different ways of solving problems. So you can
use the Taylor Sears and solve any problem
you want. It's like a sledgehammer. It's completely
inelegant,
way of solving any problem. You're not gonna
get the exact,
answer that you want, but you'll get something
approximate enough. If you go through enough iterations,
that'll get the job done. It relieves you
from having to think about stuff if you
just need a number. Right? So this is
kind of, like, that process.
This kind of that process into solve Is
that a person does these things that by
by making abundant liquor,
you,
will
empower the good part of your heart and
make it strong and healthy.
And by eating less, by, sleeping less, by
speaking less, and by mingling with people less,
you basically strangle the the the capacity you
have for bed.
You'll you'll strangle you just won't have the
you just won't have the Hema to do
it. You know what I mean? Like, Like,
how are you gonna commit to that if
you haven't eaten for days? How are you
gonna you know what I mean? Like, you're
just your thought process goes somewhere else. The
animal part of you kind of weakens and
it lets the lets the the the angelic
part of you assert control.
And through this, he says,
that everything is cleansed at once.
Love, an easy way of giving up egotism.
This is the next subheading, and it is,
something that,
it's a secret that people,
once they discover it, it opens the, like,
the floodgates of iman in a person's heart.
And,
this is something that was talked about them
by the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. And there are a number of hadith
in which he
mentions,
love
in terms of how a person should,
perfect their iman and other things with regards
to a person's deen.
But it's something that we don't really talk
about a whole lot,
in in whatever,
contemporary
American Islam.
Maybe it's very touchy feely,
Maybe it's very emotional and irrational.
And,
the fact of the matter is my Sheikh
he mentioned that. He said that the person
who is,
stringent on their nafs and punctual in their
Ibadat and their orad,
That person attains high and
the person who
facilitates that for others, like the people who
serve the masajid, the madars, etcetera,
Then they're like a like a thief that
they gather the reward of everyone together and
then they make off with all of it.
So they they make even more reward than
the just the person who's good with their
own, tarbia.
And he says that the the people of
love, they like fly in the air, leave
everybody behind. That there's there's something that surpasses
rationality in that path
that,
that a person, like, it opens,
it opens access
to the heart for
types of types of types of,
the outpouring of divine grace that are not
there otherwise.
And that's that's one of the reasons this
whole, like, fick of convenience mentality
in Islam is not it's not really it's
not really gonna go anywhere useful. It's actually
very inconvenient
as well because it blocks a person from
from this path. Because if you're like, well,
do I have to? Do I have to?
That's not you're not gonna learn the path
of love
by do I have doing stuff. You're gonna
learn the path of love by what? Like,
we read the today.
Right? That said, Ibrahim al Islam, you know,
just pick up the accent, smash the idols,
and then we'll worry about what happens later.
You know? That's that's what happens when a
person takes the path of of love. And
love doesn't mean being hippie and giving out
flowers to people. It may,
but it means what? It means that when
your heart is set on something, then it
becomes blind to everything else. And it it
no longer worries about,
today and tomorrow and yesterday, they all become
equal. It's just set on one thing and
you can't you can't take it away from
that.
So I think that Moana Kamruzaman says, I
think that love is the easiest and quickest
route to giving up the ego Through striving
and rectifying small elements of the self, the
self can be overpowered to a certain extent.
However, the nafs doesn't die as long as
it doesn't pass through the phase of love.
Molana Rumi
says in this regard that the one whose
garment is pierced by love is totally purified
of greed and other defects.
Thus, we see that love is the way
to remove greed and other evil qualities.
There is still the contention,
whether evil,
in the self, will come to an end
or whether it's overpowered and made subservient to
due to which,
it cannot act on its demands.
Right? So does does a person get to
the point where they actually destroy all the
evil inside of themselves and they just become
a good person? Or is it just that
they weaken it until they overpower,
overpower their evil?
He says, nonetheless, the capabilities of evil may
remain inside a person because they're intrinsic elements,
and we know that intrinsic elements can't be
separated from the source. As As long as
you have a human body,
you're gonna wanna eat food, you're gonna get
upset when you're hungry and thirsty, you're gonna
want other things that, you know, are not
polite to talk about, in in the Hanukkah.
But,
you know,
it's not that you that it's not that
you transcend those things, but at the very
minimal, you'll
you'll keep them under control. At this point,
I recall a very beautiful example given by
Mawana, Muhammad Qasim Nanoturi
the Bani of Darulun Darulun
Darul
Darul Darul Kasim,
after which
other
other institutions locally have been named,
whether people know it or not.
Allah to Allah to Allah, Allah most high
blessed him with knowledge and sciences,
of this nature.
He says the quality of coolness is an
intrinsic quality in water and can never be
separated from it. This is kind of like
an old school, like the 4 element system.
It's a very, like, ancient way of looking
at things. This is but the quality of
coolness is there in water,
and it can never be separated from it.
So much so that if we were to
boil water to the point that if it's
poured on your body, it will burn you.
Still the same boiling water if you put
it on fire, it'll still extinguish it.
The reason for this is that the heat
which with which the heat which we see
in the in the water is temporary.
It it is acting like fire on our
bodies, but the intrinsic quality of coolness is
still found in it. This is why it
extinguishes the fire. The same can be said
about the self. The nafs, it develops such
capabilities through the heat of love,
that it does not act against the pleasure
of Allah Ta'ala.
Whether the power of opposition,
to Allah's command
remains in the self or no longer remains
in it, this is not necessary or even
detrimental.
Because even if the water is still cool
after heating it,
that that coolness in the water doesn't bother
us. As long as it cooks, cooks the
food, our work is done.
Our work is done. Why then should we
bother about whether the coolness is founded its
essence or not? The the idea is what?
Whether or not the the the the the
nafs is purged from,
from from evil,
evil qualities
or whether the evil qualities are subdued enough
that a person can can move on. It
doesn't matter one way or the other.
Folkloric
Sufism will
oftentimes
focus on
people who it seems that they've actually purged
themselves from evil qualities inside inside of them,
and Allah knows best. And even if such
people do exist, though those types of stations
a person only,
gets by,
you know, not worrying about 4 year degrees
and, like, smartphones
and driving a car and that type of
stuff. You know what I mean? That's a
different type of mindset that that, you know,
a person should be honest with themselves. If
you're not trying to if you're not trying
to do that, you know, if you're not
if you're if you're if you're out of
breath when you make it around the the
corner, you're not gonna make it to the
NBA.
So just don't worry about it. It's okay.
You can watch the games on TV and,
like, you know, still have a favorite player
or whatever. You're not you're not gonna make
it.
So let's leave those to the side. And
oftentimes, Shaitan will use the the
experiences of such people as a way of
putting
a person who's not really going down that
path in the and preventing them from benefiting.
Because what happens, someone will go to one
night or they'll go either it'll be the
27th night or the night or whatever, and
they'll feel like all this,
you know, faith and noor coming to their
heart, which is happening. And Shaitan will be
like, oh, look, you know, now you're made,
you know, and then he'll put put you
into a trap and you'll completely destroy everything
for yourself. And I know this, like, people
will tell you, you live long enough and
you meet enough people. People tell all sorts
of things. This is like, you know, I
the the person who is, like,
an alcoholic who gave up drinking,
you know, the one night that they have
the most profound spiritual experience, the same night
they'll be drunk. Why? Because
they're off balance, because they make the mistake
of thinking that that, these qualities are gone
from them, but they're not really. It doesn't
matter. Don't be like, oh, look. Oh, I'm
still like a
dirtbag, and I should go to *. That
may all be true, in fact. Don't worry
about that though, and don't let it distract
you,
that if you
are are cognizant of your of the the
the the an unclean part of your nafs,
don't let that make you think that you're
still not, that will prevent you from traveling
down the path. And, conversely,
just because you're feeling good right now,
don't let that let you forget that you
still have that inside of you,
lest it, hijack you. Looked enough, it becomes
like a string that you push a spring
you push it down so much then it'll,
you know, it'll it'll it'll knock you again,
and the spring will only lose it's, like,
it will only lose that ability to hit
you as if you, like, keep it pressed
for, like, decades.
Then then it will get crushed, but it
doesn't happen quickly. And if the idea crosses
your mind that it's crushed, the science is
not crushed.
So,
he quotes his sheikh then,
says,
whether love results in the complete termination of
the self or the termination of its demands,
either of the 2 are sufficient for the
realization of our objective.
I was saying to you that love is
an easy and quick path to putting an
end to the egotism of the nafs.
This is what the seniors,
our seniors and dean have been constantly telling
us.
This, the reason for this is that when
love becomes perfect, it leaves no place
in the heart for anything beside the beloved,
with the capital b. This is what is
gauged from the statements of the masters of
this path. I rarely come across an explanation
for this team as good as I have
from Moana Yaqub,
who was quoted from before Rahimabullah,
who says that the essence of love is
for the lover to obliterate himself before the
beloved and lose all his desires. If not,
the love is defective and the beloved will
become part of the desires rather than the
objective of the love.
He says the essence of love is for
the lover to obliterate himself before the beloved
and lose all of his desires. If not,
then the love is defective,
and the beloved will become part of the
desires. It becomes
you you'll think you love Allah or you
think you love something else,
someone else, and your love is just a
a it's a desire of your own nafs.
So really it's nafs that's being that's being
served.
Whereas if you destroy yourself before the the
the beloved,
you lose all of your own desire, and
then you become a vessel like, you know,
like, if like a glass of water is
empty, then then it can be filled with
something else. Well, while it still has something
in it, you can't you can't get filled
with,
you can't get filled with that love. So
he says, subhanallah, what a beautiful and excellent
way of explaining love that the lover becomes
obliterated before the beloved. This can also be
referred to as the abandoning of the ego.
The ego is an obstacle which if removed
a person will become successful.
So,
before because it's a weeknight, I'm not gonna
go and read the next section, but we'll
just end with a couple of things
here.
One of the things I wanted to mention
just to kind of combine the the Keshel
Mahjub
style majlis
with, with this one, which is a little
bit more theoretical, a little bit more hard
on the now. So I think people maybe
actually don't wanna listen to this stuff so
much because it doesn't make you feel good
about yourself whereas hearing stories is very entertaining.
And, since it's Ramadan, you know you know,
a lot of people have a good sense
that we're not gonna go watch, like, whatever
Avengers Endgame.
So this is, like, kind of like a,
like a Muslim Islamic, you know, substitute for
that.
Who was mentioned.
He was his, I guess his sufic biography,
if we if we if we can, He
was a person who
was
a student of knowledge. He came from a
family in which there were,
but
he was a person who
basically toiled in obscurity,
in terms of his studies
until,
one day,
you know, just people realize, wow, this guy
looks smarter than most other people.
And, he was a,
in the full meaning of the word,
meaning that he lived his life,
with such, with such,
simplicity
that they say he only owned one pair
of clothes,
because he heard that the messenger of Allah
owned it. This comes in the hadith at
one time saying, Omar alaihi wa sallam, he
was late for salat al fajr, and they
saw that he actually like, his his his
shirt was wet.
Meaning what? The he he had to what
made him late was he had to clean
it, wring it out, dried, and and and
then he came and led the salat.
So the sheikh was like that as well,
that he had a,
a cloak that he would just wrap as
an izar while washing his one pair of
clothes.
And, that's kinda like how he used to
go around, but it didn't,
he wasn't a person who was cut off
from people. He would go mix with people.
He would debate with people. He would teach.
He would
appear in in different forms,
and,
he was a person who was intellectually very,
he's a person who was intellectually very confident,
and this is the the the
the the what you call the,
the method of the that
they were
they're confident people. They would take their deen
to people. They would share it with them,
and they would not, like, be afraid of
them.
And so his debates are are are well
known and his works are,
his
intellectual academic works are works of genius.
And he also was a person who talked
the talk. These are these are people who
carried the the the of the inside of
their heart.
And so he was also a participant
in the,
what the 1857,
what the British referred to as the Indian
Mutiny.
Mutiny is when you rebel against the captain
of your own ship.
It was
a a war for independence,
and, he was a participant in it as
well.
And,
they actually they got defeated in battle, the
battle of Shamli.
They were defeated in battle, and, they they
were actually wanted men for quite some time.
They're enemies of the empire.
And,
once when on the run from the British,
he was basically took refuge in the masjid,
and they found out he was there.
And,
they surrounded the masjid,
and he thought now if they start shooting,
it's gonna be desecration of the Masjid, then
my blood will spill on it and whatnot.
So it's, you know, why why why put
everyone through that?
So this reminds me of a story also
of Al Hassan al Basri,
because my Iraqi friend is here, so we
may as well talk about the Iraqi mashaikh
as well. So Hassan al Basri,
and,
who he was
under his
Khalifa Habib al Ajami,
who was a man of such siddiq,
that it said one time the
soldiers of Banu Umayyah
broke into his Hujura one time
and said, where is Hassan where is Hassan
Basri?
And Hassan Basri was there. So Habib Ajaemi
says he says he's right there,
and they couldn't see him. It was one
of his karamat. They couldn't see him. And
he's like, what do you mean? He's and
he said he's right there, and they couldn't
see him. And so the soldiers got upset
and they started to abuse him and they
they struck him and said that we should
kill you for for for joking out with
us. And if you see him, you better
tell us where he is or you'll be
in trouble, and they left.
And, so, Al Haslam al Basri he
said, why
did
you give me up to them?
He go he goes he goes, I I
I it occurred to me that the Sharia
allowed would have allowed me to lie in
that situation
because,
because,
you know, that they were gonna they were
gonna harm you,
but I couldn't bring myself to lie.
And, so Allah covered him.
So the sheikh, he was in the masjid,
and, so he just he just calmly got
up and walked out. And so the soldiers,
they asked him,
they said, where is Qasem Nanotwi?
And he pointed inside the message. He said
he was just inside here not too long
ago, and he just walked away.
So, you know, these are not people these
are not,
you know, these are not sellout dollar for
scholar, you know, people who talk real fancy
when there's funding, and then when there's not,
you know, you see them,
whatever, crying about this and that. There were
people they had the the pain of the
inside of their heart, and they, they they
wanted to see it succeed. And they did
things that we benefit from still to this
day. And, you know, they're not just the
people in the super past history books, but
rather they're people who, survived in in times
that are more difficult and more stringent than
the ones that we're in right now.
They saw that the days that, you know,
were hung from the gates of the city,
just because just because of their spending their
life, you know, studying and teaching the Quran.
So these are the people, when they say
these types of things, there's some insight. They
know they've been through the process before as
well.
Give us their love and,
make it a
a a a a a vehicle for us
to
be accelerated
along our path toward him.