Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 20 Ramadn 1442 Late Night Majlis Mind Needs Heart New Orleans
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Has brought us to this 20th night of
Ramadan.
This night is the seal of the nights
of the, Wasat, of
the middle of Ramadan.
That this is such a month the beginning
of which is mercy
in the middle of which is forgiveness
and the last of which is manumission from
the hellfire.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us from his
forgiveness.
Allah
in this Mubarak night and the Mubarak day
that follows it.
Make dua for Allah's forgiveness. May He forgive
you and me. May He forgive you and
me such that
we are forgiven and leave from this forgiveness
like the day our mothers bore us.
And may Allah give us the of living
a clean life
for here from here on out, a clean
life and a beautiful life, one with no
regrets
and one with no shame
and one with no ill will and 1,
and with we don't have a guilty conscious
nor do we give anyone else a guilty
conscious,
And likewise,
all the days of our life will pass.
And likewise, all the days of this month
will pass.
Tomorrow,
whoever wishes to go,
into the and to make into
let them enter their place of
before the sun sets.
And, if you're one of them, please make
dua for me as well. Allah
accept from you and accept from me and
accept from the Ummah of Sayyidina Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam Amin.
So we continue with
the 8th chapter of Mawana Sayyid Abu Hasan
Ali Nadwiz,
saviors of the Islamic spirit,
which is the last, chapter in his first
volume.
And it is the one about the life
of Moana Jalaluddin
Rumi.
Rumi,
is one of
the brilliant minds of this Ummah and one
of the
brilliant hearts of this Ummah. And unfortunately, unfortunately,
because
of the people's obsession with
a type of protestant,
protestant, like,
Jerry rig,
approach to Islam.
We have completely missed the boat,
with,
with this just brilliant treasure. Allah Ta'ala
really at his,
at his hands
brought about
a revolution of love
amongst the people,
not necessarily,
that he
brought anything new,
in his poetry,
in his expression.
Rather, what he did was he took those
themes
and those stories and those
images that are painted vividly in the Quran
and in the sunnah of the prophet
and through our tradition.
And he recast them in a beautiful way
such that just regular folks of his era
could, understand them and relate to them. And
really, regular folks from almost every era will
find something that they can relate to. It's
very interesting that, where a lot of Muslims
have kinda clocked out,
literarily.
Milana Rumi is the best selling author,
best selling poet, I should say, in the
English language or was at least for quite
some time.
And,
the fun part is that his, poetry is
so beautiful in its imagery
that it gets people hooked. And, because nobody,
has any in their translations,
they,
basically do
a a a a a a snow job
on the entire,
venture translating him, and god knows what's and
what's the others to the point where if
somebody quotes something and, you know, and attributes
it to Mulana Rumi, unless I see the
Persian,
text with it. I I just don't believe
it, and I don't really see, that there's
enough of a a a consistency that anyone
really should.
But that doesn't mean that, he's not a
beautiful poet.
Our masha'if that we took from in our
Molana Tanvi, Rahimullah,
and Akabir masha'if of Durban.
These were people who were, of the most
strident and stringent adherence to the sharia of
Sayidina Muhammad
and they're the people who whether a person
agrees with them or not, they are the
people who,
expended the most energy and the most resources
in
producing the infrastructure to keep the,
the Sharia and the knowledge of the Sharia
floating around, society.
So if you're gonna read the Hidayah in
the world today or if you're gonna read
the
and or if you're gonna read really even
Sahih Bukhari or Sahih Muslim anywhere in the
world,
statistically,
chances are you're gonna read in a madrasah
that was connected to them.
And, Molana Rumi,
exercised such an effect on Hazratanri
that
he actually wrote a multi volume commentary on
his Masnawi,
in Urdu called the Khalidi Masnawi.
And, really all the vocabulary of Deoban, it's
very,
common to find them quoting, Abiath from Masnawi
Sharif
in, in in
Persian.
And, *
It's reported that he passed from this world,
with a copy of the Masnavi, open,
in something reminiscent to,
you know, Sheikh Al Akbar passing away from
this world with a copy of the open
or, Imam Ghazali
passing away from this world with a copy
of Sahih Bukhari opened that it tells you
something about that person's.
And the is
again,
something that is
attested to by generations of scholars.
A book, that
is a summary of folk folk summary and
a readily easily digested summary of the to
Allah,
the the spiritual path to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And, so many ulama attested to his brilliance.
It said that in the Ottoman madrasa system,
that system that created geniuses like Mustafa
Sabari and, Mohammed Zahid al Kothari,
in the later times and in the older
times, Sheikh Abu Sir Udafendi, Mulla Feneri,
and,
the sheikh,
even, Kamal Basha, etcetera.
You know, great of the tradition,
that, in the Ottoman Madrasa system, it was
a year of that the people, after learning
their and receiving their,
they would read the Masnavi of Molana Rumi
from a scholar known as the Masnavi Khan,
not Khan in the Turco Mongolic sense but
Khan as in
in in Persian means to read. She's the
reader, the reciter who will then go through
the and
and show all the places where Milana Rumi
makes allusions to
precepts, in different,
different
intellectual,
parts of our tradition,
in his poetry in a way that that
regular people would not understand, but it's really
replete with, just gems of the tradition.
And, it's really sad that people have turned
away from it. And to be honest with
you, it's only when I hear the of
the that I wish I spent more time
learning Persian. If a person wants to read
the from a Sunni, who
is,
for who has, you know, that goes back
to Milana Rumi in in the in the
traditional understanding of it. They can contact,
Moana Tamim Ahmedib,
in, the Bay Area.
Unfortunately, there are very few English speakers
who,
have this, mastery of the Persian language and
some knowledge of, the literary tradition in order
to be able to read
with them.
But there are many, Urdu speaking,
like that and many, Persian speaking Ullama in
Afghanistan, Tajikistan, places like this. Will Allah
give us the opportunity to read these books.
They're very beautiful, and they're Mubarak books. There's
a a bait in, Persian,
praising the Masnavi. It's obviously not a bait
of the Masnavi.
So Masnavi,
Moolavi, Moolavi, Mahnavi,
has Quran, Dar Zabani, Pahlavi.
That this Masnavi,
this this
and
godly,
work
of the,
the
the couplets,
that's
that is filled with realities
as if it is a Quran in the,
ancient tongue of the Persians.
And, you know, what happens is literalist, they
lose their mind. They're like, oh, look. These
people think that this book is, like, why?
And, look. They're all Kafirs and whatever. No,
dude. Like,
that's not what it means. I guess some
people,
their mind is,
in a race to the bottom trying to
find out, like, you know, trying to, like,
steal,
shirk,
you know, out of the jaws of, like,
Dohid,
in every single situation. But the point is
is what is that what the point is
is that the the book brings the lessons
of the Quran and the precepts of the
Quran and and teaches it to the people
in so many different,
places
and in so many different ways that regular
people oftentimes, they miss the boat, especially those
who are not conversant in classical Arabic. Many
Arabs even nowadays, they're ayat to the Quran.
They hear it. They have no idea what
it means.
Because it's a different tongue.
It really is a different language. You have
to study it. And so,
sometimes the the the lessons, if they can
be imparted in a simple way for people
who don't have the time to go through,
the rigorous informal study of
of of of tafsir or of hadith or
whatever, This is a great service for people.
And, we ask Allah to raise the rank
of Mawlana and of all those people who
brought the teachings of Islam,
to the people, Ami.
So Molana said, Abu Hasan Ali Nadawi,
he, begins this 8th chapter on Molana Jaladin
Rumi,
who is himself if there is somebody in
the Persianate
that, is known by the the the Lakab,
the title of Maulana without any qualification
needed afterward. It's generally a Molana Rumi.
He's he's begins his chapter on Molana,
with, kind of a backdrop, the crisis of
rationalism.
By the time the 7th century of the
Muslim era began, dialectics had come to occupy
such a pride of place amongst the religious
sciences
that nobody could lay a claim to scholarship
unless he had mastered the controversial issues between
the and
on one hand, and between the and on
the other hand.
Fafarodina Razi, who died in 606,
Hijri,
had attracted,
all minds so powerfully that the human intellect
had come to be acknowledged by all as
in the infallible touchstone for the verification of
metaphysical truths. A compromise between reason and faith,
which was regarded as the ultimate end by
the scholars of the time, had made them
so fond of,
ratiosentation.
I'm sorry. Ratiosentation.
I don't know what this word is nor
have I seen it before, but it's part
of the charm of the old Indian edition.
That no, religious dogma or tenet of the
faith was acceptable to them unless it could
be established by rational arguments, logical syllogism, and
philosophical premises.
It is true that the had
succeeded in building up a powerful system of
Islamic scholasticism,
which gained the day against the atisal and
philosophy.
But they had nevertheless imbibed the spirits spirit
of these sciences.
The system of metaphysical theology evolved by the
Asharis had a deep rationalistic foundation,
which allowed reason to delve into the questions
relating to the nature and attributes of God
and to discuss the metaphysical issues as freely
as did the philosophers in.
As a consequence, naturally, they also had come
to regard, the conceptual data furnished by the
human senses as the most reliable criterion for
verification of certitude.
They had thus accepted logical reasoning, speculative thinking
as a cornerstone for building up their arguments,
for the affirmation
of the religious tenets and finding out the
ultimate reality.
Now there's a lot here,
to unpack.
At first glance, it seems that Mullana Abu
Hassan Ali Nadeau is critiquing Ilmukhlam itself,
which,
which isn't the case. The problem is this.
Look. First of all, you have to define
a couple of things.
When he talks about rationalism, does he say
that this is an attack on rationality? Meaning,
is rationality not a valid source of knowledge
in Islam? And the answer is no. He's
not attacking rationality.
In fact, the Quran,
doesn't ever attack anyone for being rational.
It affirms rationality
as a valid source of knowledge and, in
fact, attacks people for being irrational.
The
the
the idea is not that the Quran is
against rationality, but that rationality is a tool
and a a a kind of a kit
of tools in order to understand the world
around you.
Empiricism is another tool, which is the senses.
But if someone says, well, if I can't
see it, taste it, smell it, touch it,
it doesn't exist,
that person is,
being an empiricist in the sense that they
affirm the truth that's garnered or furnished by
empirical knowledge by the senses and by what
you can count and touch,
above the,
knowledge that can be gained by rationality,
and this is an imbalance.
And so just like that,
the and other scholars had
used the
the formal,
the the the the formal,
study of logic and the forms of logic,
syllogisms, etcetera, in order to try to understand
those things that are not really going to
be understood
through through logic or through rationality.
If you wanna see that you know, if
someone says write a formal syllogism, you know,
explaining
why fire is hot.
This is kinda stupid. You just kinda put
your hand in the fire and you're like,
empirically, you can sense that it's hot and
it's kinda like game over, which leads to,
you know, the
the, the the famous,
verse of poetry in Arabic.
Or however it goes. That, nothing in the
minds is right
if, you say to someone it's daytime and
they say, what's your proof? Like, you should
be able to look outside the window, and
it's just not something you have to discuss.
So like that, rationality is a tool just
like empiricism is a tool. If you use
rationality to try to prove those things that
you should be able to verify empirically,
something's gone wrong. And just like that, there
are some realities that you're not going to
be able to
verify through rationality.
And,
you know, the division of the knowledge of
the deen by the prophet
is very elegant division in the hadith Jibril
that there's Islam,
iman, and ihsan.
And, mashallah rationality has served a person in
their Islam and in their iman a great
amount.
But in their Ihsan, it's not it's not
the horse you're gonna ride. It may be
a helper, but there's something else that's needed
inside the inside the heart in order to
worship Allah as if you see him. And
if you don't see him, to know that
he sees you. And to ignore, you know,
that third set of things, it will cause
an imbalance in a person's,
knowledge and in their action and in their
character. And this is what Mawlana is trying
to say. Otherwise, Masha'allah Fakhruddin Razi was a
great defender of Islam and of the Muslims.
May Allah exalt his rank.
Otherwise,
of Ashari and the school,
they defended Islam against all sorts of follies
and stupidities, and they're the ones who kept
the sunnah as the supreme,
source of
knowledge and of guidance within the Muslim civilization
where the Christians had abandoned abandoned wholesale, Saidna
Isa alaihi sama's teaching, and the Jews had
abandoned Saidna Musa alaihi sama's teaching wholesale,
a long time ago.
And they even abandoned their persons a very
long time ago, a very long time ago,
to the point where it's Muslims who are
walking around dressed like Christ and like Musa
Alaihi Islam. And, it's the Muslims who are
the ones who hold them and their, memory
as holy, and everybody else at maximum pays
them lip service,
and they have nothing to do with them,
at all. And so this is this is,
you know, this the point here is not
necessarily to take a patch out of,
because even Rumi himself was,
sure, you know,
well aware of.
And there are, you know, there are
points and there are motifs from
that will make it into his his verse.
But the beauty of it is that the
verse is not
it's not there necessarily to,
you know, teach you how to form a
syllogism, but it's there to take the fruit
of what we,
approve through those syllogisms,
and
then use it in order to supply the
heart with the power it needs, in order
to worship Allah as if it sees him.
And if it doesn't, to know that he
he sees them.
And, you know, one of the things about,
you know, the syllogism you can make a
syllogism that's
in the form of of rational syllogism and
it still doesn't yield the correct result.
And and and people do it all the
time. If all you,
depend on in your knowledge is rationalism,
you know, sometimes you can deceive yourself with
these these games that people play,
and Allah
knows best. The second thing that I wanted
to mention was when the ulama talk about
in the context of Ilm ul Kalam, when
they talk about philosophy,
they don't mean philosophy in the way that
we,
use it like in the modern academia or
in the linguistical sense, which is philosophy with
the love of wisdom.
That's not,
you know, philo meaning, love and,
Sophia meaning what? Meaning wisdom. Right? Like, the
the,
the Hagia Sophia is the the the church
of the holy wisdom or whatever.
That's not
that's not, that's not what they mean.
Rather,
philosophy was a system. This is the philosophy
that,
was embraced by the and impugned by the,
by the of
the
was a world view and a system
that,
was embraced by the pagans of ancient Greece
and Rome and many ancient paganistic people.
It was a worldview. It was a cosmology,
and it was quite an irrational cosmology.
It was a cosmology that, affirmed, you know,
two realms of the superlunary realm and the
sublunary realm. Superlunary
realm is made up of perfect spheres that
are all in one
eternal motion, which is completely perfect and unchanging.
And the sublunary realm was like a place
that's in complete chaos, and it receives,
you know, instruction or, its power from the
superlunary realm. And there's the original intellect and
then that began begat the second intellect and
then there are 10 different intellects. And the
reason they call them intellects is what is
because in the original old Greek, they were
basically gods. But when you translate that stuff
into Arabic, you know, you're gonna have to
translate it as instead of because otherwise, the
Muslims are gonna, like, burn the book or,
like, throw it in the garbage. And so
what happens is that all of those
old books of ancient Greek pagan thought,
they make it into the Muslim world.
And,
the are like, yeah. This is some good
stuff. And
were like,
no. We don't think so. We don't think,
like, that the, you know, that the the
moon is like
a a a a rock in the sky.
It's not like some sort of thing that's,
like,
channeling, like, some sort of weird divine perfect
celestial,
perfection into the into the earth or whatever.
And so really, the philosophy of the ancients,
which was this worldview,
that was taught part and parcel of the
education system of,
basically the the Greeks and then afterward the
Roman Empire, who is their intellectual
successor and custodian,
and then afterward in in in the middle
ages,
in Europe. And it actually ends up becoming
more or less that that kool aid gets
drunk in the church.
And it was also drunk by the Muslims
who studied those things and took certain useful
parts out of it, which is, you know,
the formal, the formal,
study of logic, the forms of logic.
They kinda took that one useful part and
then took all this other useless parts, all
these other useless parts, with it. And
the
meaning.
They said, yes. That's fine. You know, the
formal Aristotelian logic is has some some usefulness.
And so we're gonna take it, and we're
gonna use it to prove that all the
other, like, kind of about,
about the, nature of the universe and the
universe being having existed forever and all these
these things have no proof and they have
no daleel or burhan.
And, they actually seem to go against the
sunnah of the prophet
and we wholesale reject them.
And so that's what the when, you know,
when you'll hear, like, people like
or some of the other,
kind of, like, speak ill of philosophy, they're
not talking about, like, loving wisdom is bad
and somehow if you think too much about
stuff or if you use too much logic,
you're gonna go astray. That's just dumb.
Wisdom is great. And if wisdom had anything
bad about it, Allah himself would not be
Al Hakim.
And,
the, Sunawas would not be referred to in
the
Quran as in Hikma,
and the Sharia, etcetera,
would not be, you know, referred to as
sources of wisdom.
And if, you know, loving wisdom was a
problem, then none of this would make any
sense.
But,
the when they when they chastise philosophy, they're
talking about that old pagan, like,
pagan worldview and cosmology,
that we don't believe that the, you know,
the stars have one sort of ancient motion
that's perfect that last that, you know, happened
forever.
Rather, it seems to us that they're like
big balls of gas that burn and, like,
do weird violent things that are anything from
regular, and they have many different disparate types
of motion. And, you know, you can go
watch, like, whatever PBS Nova for more details
about that.
And in that sense,
the the the the the
the
were right, and they were right centuries before,
PBS or Carl Sagan ever figured any of
this stuff out.
So,
Shabash. Molana Abu Hassanali Naddui continues that the
religious scholars throughout, the Islamic world had, as
a result, been seized by an excessive formalism
of dialectics,
which too had, by then deteriorated into a
stale science handed down from generation to generation
without any additional modification.
It had been unable to produce for quite
a long time a celebrated thinker like Abu
Hassan al Ashari or Abu Hamid Al Ghazali.
And
the constant engagement of the then scholars with
polemics and logical disputation,
might have made them
bright and quick witted,
which is true because studying, Ilul Kalam is
not easy and it's not for the Daul.
But it certainly extinguished the warmth of their
hearts, and dimmed the light of faith and
conviction.
The dialecticians had undoubtedly been successful in silencing
their opponents by their superior syllogism, but were
unable to provide an unflinching conviction which could
replace skepticism by faith, and disquietude by peace
of mind.
I think this may be somewhat of an
exaggeration to be honest with you, but
there are definitely exceptions to this rule.
But there were a lot of people also
who were very
clever
in their ability to kinda like absorb
and maybe imbalanced in other parts of their
faith. But to say that the, you know,
that the the, you know, the generations did
not produce a mind like that, I think
maybe somewhat of an exaggeration and perhaps some
problem with the translation as well.
As a matter of fact, Wallana continues,
the logical reasoning employed by the dialecticians had
given a rise to numerous questions, which could
never be adequately met by, scholastics.
Also,
the dialectics had no place for intuition, which
is an inevitable source,
for acquisition of knowledge for it. Either did
not recognize any inner sense beyond the normal
senses of perception,
or treated it with contempt.
Obviously, therefore, facts pertaining to mysteries of mute
reality and ecstasy were being contended simply because
these were beyond the ken of senses.
The scholars had developed a predisposition for rejecting
or at least being skeptical about everything which
could not be proved through rational arguments.
Umma having thus been seized by so called
rationalism was losing that fervor of
faith which had
been bequeathed to it by the apostles and
elect of God,
alayhi musatuh as salam
which constituted a fountain head of its strength,
for all time to come. And this is
definitely true that there were a band of
people from the
rationalist,
which included the Muartazilah and perhaps the straying
of certain other minds that weren't openly
against the way of but, were seduced by
it to
not
embrace,
the idea of of
and to try to constantly,
to try to constantly verify the contents of
Wahi through rationality.
Look, we accept Wahi through rational rationality as
being correct
because rationality means that Allah exists.
It teaches us that Allah exists and that
he's 1 and that he sends prophets and
that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is indeed one of them. These are all
rationally proven
according to the talit of the
But then afterward once you believe that the
prophet is sent by Allah to try to
rationally verify everything that's in the Quran is
a type of silliness.
Why? Because the whole function of, Wahia is
to what to teach you teach mankind that
which he knew not.
And if we were able to verify it
in the 1st place, there would have been
no need for the revelation in the 1st
place, which is, something that all of us
know that the revelation was needed. If it
wasn't sent, People would still be, worshiping Lot
and Uz and Herbal and bearing their daughters
alive and doing all sorts of other debauchery
nonsense that, they were doing in Jahiliya and
that they're trying to do again as they
move away from Wahi.
So,
Milana continues philosophical discourses and dialectical argumentation
had turned the people into
academicians
as dry as dust, lacking the warmth of
feeling and certitude of knowledge, which is born
out of divine intuition.
They were nevertheless a few sublimated souls, pure
of heart,
and beatified by divine grace. But the overwhelming
majority of the doctors of faith,
and the laity had become votaries of the
intellect fond of beautiful and high sounding phraseology,
but completely oblivious,
to the radiance of spirit and the love
of God.
Again, this is something hard for people to,
to think of, but there was a time
when you would have brilliant judges
and brilliant,
doctors,
of the law and of creed,
who really were, like, corrupt people in their,
in their, personal conduct. And if you read
the the books of history, you'll see,
you'll see that people like that did exist.
Abu Fazil Faizi,
the,
courtier of Akbar who basically convinced him that
he was god and to start his own
religion is one of those types of people.
He used to boast that he could write
an entire tafsir or the Quran
incomplete without using a letter,
that had a dot in it. So no,
no jim, no
etcetera,
which is a very daunting task. And he
did. He wrote it in 4 volumes.
That's how learned he was in the knowledge
of the sharia,
and he was still a complete
in a. He convinced the,
the ruler of his age to go astray
more or less for his own
financial ingratiation.
And it took someone like the Mujaddid Alfani,
Sheikh Ahmed Sarhandi, the
great of the Ummah, and the great of
the tariqa,
in order to counteract the facade that such
a man had had had reaped,
and that also did exist.
This does not mean that
is evil.
Molana, continues. He said the world of Islam
needed at the time a celebrated spiritual guide
who was both a man of learning and
possessed a a restless soul. He had to
have mastered the religious and temporal sciences so
that he could break the snares of the
intellect and be himself illuminated in order to
light the flames of ardent faith in the
hearts of the people. He had to build
up a new system of scholasticism,
which could impart a sense of satisfaction and
blessed conviction instead of seeking to confute its
opponents by argumentation and polemics.
The man of the hour was Jalaluddin Rumi,
born in 604 after Hijra,
whose messnavi challenged intellectual sophistry
and demolished the spell of words, ideas, and
thoughts held dear by the dialecticians.
Jalaluddin Rumi,
laid the foundation of a new scholasticism so
badly needed by the world of Islam at
the moment.
And so,
inshaAllah we'll read
more about Mawlana's
background. The next subheading is Rumi and his
ancestors, starts the biographical
information about him. Insha'Allah for tomorrow we'll start
that tomorrow. But I think it's important to
recognize
that the
the lead up of Moana Abu Hasan Ali
Nadeau is,
chapter about Moana Rumi. It seems very similar
to almost like a,
madamma and, a censure of.
But,
suffice to say,
the lead up is to what is pointing
toward Moana Rumi. So it's not going in
that same
direction. So try to appreciate that. Try to
appreciate that,
Moana is trying Moana is trying to,
lead up to what to the idea that
if you can learn those most difficult sciences
that are impressive and that will
let you, you know, narrative paradigm
ethos, zeitgeist your way into sounding smart,
in front of everybody.
And, you know, you can get up on
stage and make a sort of, like, intellectual
masturbatory show of how smart you are.
But you don't have, iman inside of your
heart, and you don't live, the life,
and you don't,
have the light inside of your heart to
the point where,
you know, you experience the joy that that
iman, the like the prophet said, the the
joyousness that the iman is supposed to bring
you,
then, that knowledge has been wasted. And if
you have the, the knowledge is useful. It
it really is, and it serves a good
purpose.
And, if the point of Moana's
is to just bash,
then,
I think he would
have wrote the chapter, about someone other than
Moana Rumi,
and Allah Allah knows best.
Allah
give us, all,
Allah give us all knowledge and
action. Allah give us both the formal discourse
and understandings,
the best of what rationality and empiricism
have to teach a human being about, about
existence and about the world around them. And
then afterward, beautify it with the light, of
iman and a faith and of
to worship Allah as if we see him
and if we don't to know that at
least he sees us.
Allah
give all the stuff
say I mean it's a month of Ramadan.
It's a good time to it's a good
time to ask for big things,
because this is the time that Allah,
you know,
he he made these days because he wanted
to give. So ask,
while giving is is is is good. All
of us