Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 6 Ramadn 1441 Late Night Majlis Corrupt Virtuous Scholars Addison 04292020
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Prophets
with the able translation of Imamzade. Allah
raised both of them,
in rank.
One is that, this is the 6th night
of Ramadan.
So for those of you who are nimble
with division and fractions,
you know that that means 1 5th of
the month has,
has now passed.
And, it annoys me to no end when
people say,
oh, look how fast Ramadan passed by.
Because if you're spending every moment,
seeking from it, it's Nur and it's Baraka
in its optimal state,
then it will be a very long Ramadan.
And, that's not because it's boring, but that's
because it's Mubarak.
And this is a
a civilizational
understanding that seems to have left,
certain individuals,
but, it's worth reminding one another about.
And the second reminder is that
I should say.
That Allah there are certain people who
free them from the hellfire
and,
there's
a quota for every night. Meaning, it's not
just the last 10 nights. There's a quota
on every night. May Allah
make
us this
night. Don't take it lightly. Even if it
just means to make du'a for 5 minutes
or to make a sentence, one sentence with
complete
in
sincerity
that, you Allah, make me
make me, from the people who was freed
from the fire in this night.
Even just a moment of sincerity,
it can
give a person an eternity of
of bliss and honor. Allah
make us from the,
this night. There have been many people who
have asked me. They said, well, I thought
Shaitan was supposed to be locked up, but
this is happening, that's happening, the other thing's
happening.
And, sadly,
Shaitan is locked up, but
the nafs itself,
it doesn't like going from 0 to pious,
you know, overnight or in 5 days.
And, that's what we've done to it. And
so it's rebelling right now. And it will
do weird things to you. It will give
you weird insinuations.
It will whisper weird garbage to you that
it it wouldn't have said
to you in a regular day? And what
is it? It's like, you know, when 2
people who hate each other get into a
fight,
they they search for, the meanest thing that
they can say to one another.
So that's when, you know,
imagine if someone is arguing with
a woman, what type of slurs will they
use? And if someone's arguing with a a
black person, what type of slurs will they
use? And if there's someone who's arguing with
the Arab, what kind of slurs will they
use? And if someone's arguing with the Muslims,
they'll call them terrorists and Osama and Saddam
and all the worst things they can think
of to say all of the most trite
and most,
unimaginative,
stereotypical
things that they could say to each other.
They're gonna say all those things.
And the nafs is like that also.
The nafs knows that you value your your
iman, and so when you say, hey, no
more eating, drinking, no more looking at beautiful
women and beautiful men and no more backbiting,
and no more gossiping, and cut the music
out, and cut the Netflix out, and all
this other stuff. It's going to obviously come
after come after
the thing that it knows that you, you
you value the most, the things that it
know it knows you value the most, the
people that it knows you value the most,
The priorities that you have in life. Why?
Because it's in pain and it's in torture.
So the bad news is that's gonna happen
for some people, and nobody likes to hear,
those whisperings inside of their inside of their
heart. But the good news, it means that
you're hitting the nafs where it hurts.
And so if the nuffs is hurting too
much, ease up a little bit off of
it. You know? Go take a nap. You
know, you can read like you could finish
your * later. Go take a nap or
whatever. Ease up off of it. If you
know you're already irritable, it's probably not the
best time to, like, you know, I don't
know, talk to small children or something like
that because you're just gonna end up screaming
at them. And,
the rest of it is what? Is that
you know you're hitting the knuffs where it
hurts, so something right should be happening.
So pay it no heed. Pay it no
attention.
You know, pay it as much attention as
you would, you know,
if getting,
getting cussed out by someone with someone with
Alzheimer's,
which is what, you know, unless you're a
completely hot headed person, a complete fool,
you know, if you're getting cussed out by
someone with Alzheimer's who doesn't even know who
they are, much less who you are,
then,
you know, if you actually get feel heard
about that, then that's a bit,
immature. You know, see the bigger picture and
know that the reason your Nas is giving
trouble right now is because you're you're forcing
it to do what's right.
And,
have some saber and some patience. If you
keep forcing it,
it will it will be subdued.
It will be pliant. Inshallah,
if it gets to the point of being
pliant, then even in Shawwal,
the shaitan, when it does start attacking you
again, if your nafs is on your side
or at least if your nafs,
its rebelliousness is mitigated
significantly,
Inshallah, you'll be able to deal with shaitan,
and you'll be able to deal with that.
Make it easy for all of us. But
don't don't listen to these insinuations
and whisperings of of the nafs when it
just cusses you out and attacks everything is
which is dear to you. It's not serious.
It's not coming from inside of you.
It's just, it's just you dealing with the
irrational part of yourself.
And, the best way to deal with the
irrational part of yourself is, frankly, just to
ignore it.
Chapter 4, categories of scholars. Many of the
righteous forebears, Yani the Salaf, such as Sufyanath
Thori or Hamedullah. Sufyanath Thori was
a great scholar in the Tabi'in of Kufa,
and he was the or perhaps the Tabat
Tabi'in,
and he was a great,
a fairy. He was a great scholar of
the
the method of the Muhaddithun in Kufa, whereas
Imamu Hanifa in that in that age was
the great scholar of the people of Ra'i,
the usul, the people of usul and and
principled methodology.
But he Sofiana Thori was a very,
very well respected
and highly esteemed,
individual
in the in the history of this ummah,
such as Sufyanath Thori and others categorize scholars
into various groups.
The best of these groupings is epitomized by
the scholar who knows both Allah and his
commandments.
This by this expression,
refers to those who combine inner and outer
knowledge. We talked about that in yesterday's band.
So if you wanna have a little bit
more discussion about that, you can you can
refer, to yesterday's talk.
These are the most distinguished scholars. They are
praised by Allah.
Indeed, amongst his servants, it is but the
learned who fear Allah.
Allah says in his book,
Indeed, none fear Allah except for the people
of knowledge.
He also says,
indeed, those who were given knowledge beforehand when
our signs are recited to them, they fall
down prostrate on their faces
saying, glorified is our lord.
Indeed, the promise of our lord will be
fulfilled.
They will fall down prostrate on their faces,
weeping, and it increases them in humility.
Again, the the the tie between humility and
between knowledge, which was discussed yesterday.
Many of the righteous forebears used to say,
religious knowledge is not an abundance of memorized
texts, rather knowledge is humility.
1 of them said, fear of Allah is
sufficient knowledge, and being deceived concerning Allah is
sufficient ignorance.
This is a very important
understanding. We have a
tradition. It's a principled tradition.
It is a tradition in which information and
knowledge is ordered in terms of priority.
If a person doesn't understand the first lesson,
the rest of the pieces of the puzzle
are not gonna make sense to them.
The first piece of the puzzle is what?
Is that a person should know their place
and that put that knowledge is, knowledge that
endows humility to the to the knower. If
they don't know humility, then all of their
knowledge will be like the knowledge of Iblis.
It will just, give them a VIP first
class ticket to the hellfire, which is not
not a good thing.
They further said, one who knows Allah experientially
does not necessarily know the commandments of Allah.
Such are the possessors of inner knowledge who
lack adequate comprehension of judicial matters.
The righteous forebears similarly said,
one who knows the commandments of Allah does
not necessarily
know Allah experientially,
Such are the possessors of outer knowledge that
have no inkling of inner knowledge. They neither
fear Allah nor do they possess humility.
They were deemed blameworthy
by the righteous forebears.
One of them said concerning a scholar,
this type is corrupt. They stopped at outer
knowledge while beneficial knowledge fails to reach their
hearts.
They will never savor its fragrance. They have
been overwhelmed by their negligence,
their hardness of heart, and their aversion of
the hereafter. They vie with one another for
this world seeking exaltation in it and are
vainglorious.
The harm and enmity of corrupt scholars.
Corrupt scholars think ill of those who have
obtained beneficial knowledge.
They do not love them nor do they
sit with them. They may even condemn them.
They denounce them saying they are not real
scholars. This is from the treachery of Shaytan
and his deception which prevents these corrupt scholars
from attaining beneficial knowledge with Allah and his
messenger, the righteous forebearers of the Muslim nation
and its imam.
And it's imams,
the people who have
the people who,
the people who, have been praised by all
of them. So he's saying that the, the
treachery of shaitan is what? Is that these
people think themselves better than the the the
the ulama, the people who have beneficial knowledge,
reached their hearts, the the scholars, the inward
and the outward, they have contemptured them. They
don't sit with them. They denounce them and
say they're not real scholars.
And
this treachery of shaitan prevents such
corrupt people
from attaining beneficial
knowledge, which Allah, his messenger, the righteous forebearers
of the Muslim nations, and the imams have
all praised.
And so this what do we take from
this? That there's a sign
that, if there's a a person
who has contempt for the entire scholarly,
for the entire scholarly
edifice,
for the entire institution of scholarship in Islam,
for precedent,
for the established schools
of of fiqh or of really of any
other ones of the science. They have contempt
for them. They say that these people are
not even real scholars. They're all stupid, and
I'm smart,
as opposed to saying I disagree with these
people for this reason or for that reason.
But the person who completely dismisses them, this
is a sign that that person that person
is off the path. And we have, unfortunately,
many people like that.
And, you know,
because there are many people whose arrogance,
prevents them from
valuing what the ulama have to say.
When they find such scholars, they say this
person is like the big, you know, this
is the new sensation. This guy is the
big guy who's gonna revive Islam.
And we have people like that, and they
actually get
space to speak in our in our masajid.
One very interesting,
example of this is this individual by the
name of Javed Ahmed Dukhamidi,
a person who has made in Ka'raf
many of the foundational principles of Deen, has
made in Karah and disavowed a great
majority
over overwhelming
preponderant majority of the corpus of hadith, of
fiqh, of established precedents in in really every
every
different
branch of learning.
And on top of it on top of
it, he was the official
head of the ideological council, which is the
religious,
advisory to the presidency of the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan.
For who? For, Parvez Musharraf, its military dictator.
So even according to actual, like, liberal secular
values, the man was a sellout.
But but because he tells people they don't
have to respect even the most basic norms
of the Sharia, people love him. And so
the masajid that, you know, we're called to
do service for,
oftentimes that sacrifice and
difficulty to ourselves,
Those masajid, at the turn of a dime,
the boards will call,
you know, pretenders like this to go and
speak over there. And even from our own
students, we have the
and the dislike of seeing,
people exalting,
and extolling, you know, things that that that
charlatans like to say.
Well,
you know, I guess if a person if
that's what they want, if they wanna see,
things overturned,
for the sake of overturning them, then a
person like this would be wonderful. If the
knowledge actually had enough importance to them that
they would bother to learn it themselves, then
maybe they would see why such a person,
is
is is really
just very ignorant and careless in their, in
their,
in their just flippant discarding
of
what is deep and meaningful,
scholarship of of the past,
generations
and,
you know, just a weird
type of, like, nuff's trap that, you know,
I'm everyone else in the history of Islam
was an idiot, and I'm the only one
who understood this, which, you know, that type
of attitude to really any
branch of learning or field of learning,
is
is is dangerous. You know? Like they say
about Isaac Newton,
they say that he said that if, you
know, if I have great vision, it's because
I've stood on the shoulders of giants. Meaning
what? He accepted the fact that there's a
whole amount of civilization that brought him, mathematics
and physics that were developed to the point
that they were, that he could, say
and think and develop and work through things
and bring something,
bring something new. Whereas if he had to
spend his whole life, you know, trying to
figure out that, you know, numbers and base
ten are better than Roman numerals or whatever,
maybe he wouldn't have gotten to,
you know, his
development of Newtonian physics,
you know, in the beautiful way that that
he did.
If you're going to just dismiss everything,
then good luck, you know, start from from
square one again. And Rami Di is definitely
not the only person who's like this. And
we have we've had, you know, crackpots even
in North America
who,
who have claimed that they're
and that they don't need any of the
mazahib. We have crackpots that claim their profits,
more than 1,
And I know I have, like, relatives that
fall for these, these types of things. Why?
Because they don't wanna pray 5 times a
day. They don't wanna be told that, you
know, you have to eat halal or whatever.
Some really petty things
because of which people want to rebel against
the entire
scholarly edifice, and, you know,
there's not a lot of khair in it.
And so how does ibn Rajab, who never
met Hamdi before,
describe corrupt scholars?
Corrupt scholars think ill of those who have
obtained beneficial knowledge. They do not love them
nor do they sit with them. They may
even condemn them. They denounce them by saying
they are not real scholars.
This is from the treachery of Satan and
his deception which prevents these corrupt scholars from
attaining beneficial knowledge,
which Allah, his messenger, the righteous forebearers of
the Muslim nation and its imams, all have
praised.
For this reason, worldly scholars dislike religious scholars,
and they and they strive to their utmost
to harm them just as they,
endeavor to harm Saied bin Musayib,
Al Hassan al Basri, Sofiana Thodi, Imam Malik,
Imam Ahmed, and other, upright scholars. May Allah
be pleased with them. So here when he
says worldly scholars, he's not talking about the
people who have the knowledge of, like, physics
and chemistry and biology and these things.
What he's talking about is the people who
have knowledge of stuff like hadith and of
tafsir and things like that, but they pursued
such knowledge for the sake of the dunya.
That's what he means when he says worldly
scholars. He's not talking about just because you're
an engineer, somehow you're gonna, like, you know,
end up persecuting Imam Malik or whatever. That's
not that's not what he's trying to say.
This is because righteous scholars are successors of
the prophets alayhi wasalam, whereas worldly scholars resemble
those who have earned the wrath of Allah,
those who were the enemies of the prophets,
the slayers of the prophets, the murderers of
the righteous.
They are the most intense in their enmity
and envy toward the believers.
Because of their intense love of this world,
these corrupt scholars appreciate neither knowledge of the
religion
nor, true religion. Instead, they glorify wealth status
and positions,
of advantage with rulers.
And if you think Imam Junaid,
if you think any of the great imams
of our tradition didn't have very powerful adversaries
and antagonists,
that were ingratiated with the government,
that that would persecute them,
and threaten them with with with, you know,
imprisonment and fine and death and,
you know, imperil their their dunya,
you know, you need to read a little
bit more history.
One of the ministers said to Mufti, Hajjjad
ben Artha.
You know well jurisprudence and theology.
Hajjjad says, why don't you instead say you
have honor and esteem? The minister said, I
swear by Allah you belittle what Allah has
extolled and you extoll what Allah has belittled.
Meaning,
the Mufti,
the Mufti was praised for his knowledge and,
instead he said, why don't you say you
have honor and esteem? And the minister says
to the mufti what? He says that the
thing Allah has belittled, which is honor and
esteemed, you seek that and the thing Allah
has praised which is,
which is knowledge of jurisprudence and theology of,
you you're trying to put push it to
the side. And
so it seems from the siak, from the
context,
that this Hajj Hajj is not somebody that
even Rajiv thought too highly
of. The deception of Satan.
Many of those claiming inner knowledge speak about
it,
limiting themselves to it, and condemn outer knowledge,
namely namely the study of Sharia legal rulings
and matters concerning the lawful and unlawful.
And they defame its people saying that they
have,
that they're saying that they are veiled and
they're people of superficiality.
This is irresponsible.
This irresponsible attitude
in, engenders vilification of the pure Sharia, the
Sharia
and the righteous deeds, that the prophet
brought, encouraged, and fostered.
Some of them go as far as to
absolve themselves,
of the need, to perform acts of worship,
claiming that worship is for the masses.
They claim that one who has attained nearness
to Allah has no need for worship.
In fact, such rituals are considered a veil
for them. Junaid
and others have said concerning such people,
what they have attained is only the hellfire.
This claim that adherence to the Sharia is
unnecessary is from the greatest,
treachery
and deception of Iblis, of Shaitan,
towards such people. He will continue to play
with them until he causes them to apostatize
from Islam.
Among this group of deceived scholars are those
who imagine that inner knowledge is not received
from the lamp of prophethood nor from the
Quran or Sunnah, but that it issues from
personal divination and mystical inspiration.
They entertain malicious thoughts toward the perfect Sharia
thinking that it hasn't come with, the sword
of knowledge that rectifies hearts and draws people
near to Allah, the knower of the unseen.
This attitude ultimately produces in them a total
rejection of what the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wasallam brought in this regard and leads
them to talk about spiritual matters on the
basis of conjecture and fantasy.
They are astray
and they lead others astray.
And this is interesting because there's a lot
of this going around in,
the age that we live in.
And there's like, you know, there's like mild,
medium, and and and fire sauce for those
of you who are, familiar with the Taco
Bellion paradigm.
There's mild, medium, hot sauce and fire sauce.
And so the mild is what? There are
certain people from the scholars who will talk
about feel goody type stuff,
and avoid
the controversial matters of the Sharia.
That's the that's the mild. The medium sauces,
there are people who will,
talk about feel goody stuff and they will
avoid talking about the sharia
completely.
The hot sauce is what
is that, there are people who will,
you know,
avoid talking about the Sharia
and they will resent the the the people
who talk about Sharia and speak ill of
them. You know, the medium sauce people are
like, well, there's always some Deobandi who will,
bring
up mention of the of the of the
Hilal and Halal and all of those
inconvenient messai or the sharia that are, you
know, well recorded and attested to by precedent.
And, this leaves the, scope open for us
to give, talks about stuff that people are
gonna be happy with. Now while, you know,
whatever, mullah or, you know, unfortunate Mauritanian or
someone who actually sticks to orthodoxy is,
going to, you know, espouse and expound upon,
those parts of the Sharia that we also
inside know are are important, but we're gonna
like leave the, we're gonna leave the the
burden on them and just not talk about
it.
And then there's those who will,
actually
hate on those people for talking about it.
1 is, offloading your heavy lifting onto somebody
else,
and enjoying the ease of not having to
vouch for a part of the sharia, and
the other is actually,
disavowing the heavy lifting incomplete.
And then the fire sauce is what? Is
that, you know, those people who follow the
tariqah of the hulat, like the Isma'ilis and
the Boris and the, you know, a great
number of different heterodox groups that may or
may not claim nubuwa or prophethood or some
sort of secret knowledge that that that,
supersedes the the the knowledge of the Sharia,
that we don't even have to,
bother with these things. We don't have to
worry about them. And this doesn't mean that,
our tradition, as Muslims is not a mystical
tradition. It is a tradition in which spiritual
insight is very important.
But the prophet
left us with,
you know, a very important,
legacy, which is that the Sharia is like,
you know, a geometrical,
very sharply defined set of boundaries,
which shows us,
who whose mystical experiences
are sound and will lead to good and
whose mystical,
experiences are and will just lead to destruction
in this world and the hereafter.
And so,
you know, the sharia is what allows us
to know
that,
you know, these,
you know, fake, fake, you know, helvosaurus type
peers who see
dreams in which, you know, if you don't
pay a $100,000
to, whatever,
charitable fund that they're running tonight that, you
know, a 100,000 people entered the hellfire or
whatever, you can tell you can tell by
the sharia that such people are are are
probably,
you know, blowing smoke, blowing hot air, out
of some orifice or the other.
Whereas there are people who spoke from their
mystical experiences like Shah uliullah,
like, the sheikh Mujadid al Thani, Ahmad Salhindi,
like the, you know, in general, the,
the the oliya and the masha'if of the
tariqa that this the Muslims, in particular the
Sunni tradition,
reveres and extols.
And the difference is what? Is both of
them talk about some mystical experience,
but in one case, the mystical experience will
push them toward
doing something beneficial in society, whereas the other
one,
just pushes toward high levels of Hava consumption,
in some form or the other.
And, you know,
even Rajab mentions this this this statement,
which is that,
you know, that they they entertain malicious thoughts
toward the perfect sharia thinking, that it hasn't
come with the sort of knowledge that rectifies
hearts and draws people
near to Allah the Nur of the unseen.
This attitude ultimately produces in them a total
rejection,
of the what the messenger of Allah brought
and, in this regard and leads them talk
about spiritual matters on the basis of conjecture
and fantasy.
They are astray and they lead others astray.
This reminds me of one of my favorite
stories from the kashf al Mahjub, which we
probably mentioned in years past, but, it's alright.
A good story should be told again a
couple of times. There's no problem with that.
And that is that one of the Imam
Jannaid,
Imam
I mean, one of my favorite stories is
that one of his students
stopped attending the majlis of his sheikh,
And the student entertained inside of him some
sort of fancy that, like, look, I've reached
a station with Allah
And so, like, what's the point? I don't
need to I don't need to associate with
my sheikh anymore.
And your sheikh always, you know, his shadow
should be over you. Even if you're exceed
him in every way, shape, or form, this
is the sunnah. Like, a a a child
who's more pious than his parents should still
show honor to his parents,
and just like a a younger, should still
show some modicum of honor to their elders
even if they exceed them in rank.
You know, so he had, you know, so
he had this this this this idea in
his head and it was all just cheitan.
And cheitan was just messing with him. And
so what happens is he started seeing dreams,
when he would sleep at night of him
being Jannah
and, enjoying the various known delights, of paradise.
So he thought, yo man, I made it,
you know, like I'm a I'm a wally
now, man. That's it. This is is I
made it, you know, I don't need to
go to Majlis no more. I got I
got what I need.
I gots it, you know? And so what
happens is that,
his teacher sees him,
you know, in the city somewhere and he's
like he's like, Britta, how come you don't
come to the Majlis anymore?
And, he makes some, like, real, like, snide,
comment, you know, thinly,
thinly veiled,
you know, veneer of politeness.
Like, you know, like, you know, yeah, we
used to benefit
and we used to benefit so much from
your your company and but
has given us so much now. You know,
meaning, like, I don't have to come no
more. I already I made it. It's all
good.
And so,
Imam Junaid,
you know, your sheikh is intimately aware of
your
station,
if he is also of a station like
Imam Jannaid.
And so,
he's like, oh, okay. I see. That's cool.
He goes, look. Just do me a favor.
He goes, next time you see one of
these visions of being in Jannah or whatever
that you're enjoying right now, he says, just
repeat
3 times.
And so
he's like, okay. Cool. I guess. So the
next time he sleeps and he sees a
vision of Jannah,
and, one of the hurrayin is about to
give him a kiss.
Wouldn't that be so nice? Right?
You know,
just don't don't admit that it would be
nice to your wife. But, wouldn't that be
so wonderful. Right? And so he's about to
receive this kiss, and then he he remembers,
oh, my sheikh told me to do something.
He says that,
and so he says it 3 times. And
all of a sudden,
bam, Jannah's gone. And he's sitting in a
garbage dump in Baghdad, and a dog is
licking his cheek.
And,
those are Mubarak and blessed people. This is
a fitna. God knows,
you know, if I would have passed it
or not, I probably would have been, like,
double as profligate, you know. The people who
sat in those majals were
tested them very stringently.
And so he he had enough good sense
to, you know, to hang his head low
and, come back to Sheikh Sab and
admit that I still have a couple of
things to learn from you. And so he
admitted him back into the majlis.
And so the point is is what is
that there are many people who have these
fantasies inside of their heart, that they have
some sort of spiritual experience,
and it's really nothing. And it's very powerful.
These fantasies are very powerful.
They happen to you and they happen to
me. They're very powerful. A person's power of
imagination is like really it's Allah gave human
beings this ability and it's like something that
nobody else in the creation has. That we
have this ability to make tasawwur, to imagine
things inside of our hearts that,
exceeds even the the natural parameters and boundaries
of time and space and cause and effect.
And we can really come up with some
really
powerful ideas inside of our, inside of our
nafs, but it's from our nafs ultimately. It's
not from Allah.
And, the thing that is from Allah has
barakah and that thing that's from the nafs
is chavis, the nafs is a kuti. If
you don't keep her on a chain, she's
a dog. If you don't keep her on
a chain, she'll ruin your entire din.
25 seconds, 15 seconds, she'll ruin everything good
you've done in your life.
And, you have to be very careful about
that. If it's
if it's if it's, been subjugated and obedient,
it will do great good for you if
you let it off the chain. It will
ruin everything that you worked so hard to
make. Years, decades,
a century of work, it will ruin it
in seconds.
And
this is, you know, I remember Sheikh Nuhar
one time in
a Bayan, he mentioned
something very strange. He said that, Shehu Akbar,
Ibunu 'Arabi, once mentioned that the eye of
the Quran,
the person who understood the amazing nature of
the nafs the most
from
mankind was Firaun,
when he said, which was transmitted in the
eye of the Quran,
I am your Lord most high. Meaning that
he didn't know who the real Allah was,
but he knew the physical world. And when
he looked inside of the
the the the the strange and wondrous
powers and abilities of the nafs,
he, he concluded that he must be god.
And, there's a lot of this, like, egos,
you know, Superman, I think, therefore I am,
type of,
you know, type of, thought out there and
there's a vein of truth in it and
that's why those things are so deceptively powerful.
And there's a very dark,
and a very evil,
you know, set of ideologies and philosophies from
Europe that that emerge from,
from this realization of the power of the
nafs. And we ask Allah to
protect us
from all of those things. But it is
possible that somebody using Islam as a gateway
to
convincing people that spirituality is important
and then funneling their own, B grade,
naf spirituality
and nafsik nafsonic energy
onto a person that they can harm such
a person.
And, you know, one last story I wanted
to share before continuing
is a story about
a great share from Arseel Sala Shah Abdulkudus
Gangohir
He predates Durban by centuries.
And he was a great sheikh of the,
of the Tarikha Teshtiyyah in the Indian lands,
in the Indian subcontinent.
So Shah Abdul Qaduz Gangohi,
he he's buried in in Gango,
and his his Mazar in Hanqa and all
that is still there.
He
was known to be a Sahib ul Karamat
in a way that very few people will
even accept as as being possible nowadays.
And so he had and this is a
very strange story, so take it with a
grain of salt. You know, take it with
a grain of salt if you need to.
But, the the point of the story is
what I want you to take from it,
not necessarily you know, you don't have to
believe it as if it's like a eye
of the Quran. In fact, you don't.
But, they say that he had a room
in which he would make muraqabah and dhikr,
that he would meditate and make dhikr in.
And the room had no windows or doors.
There was just a small,
opening
and that, he would make himself water And
through that
small opening, he would pour himself into that
room and then sit there in complete isolation
and do his dikr and marakaba, and then
he he would come out. So, yeah, you
heard me right. Like I said, I made
my disclaimer a minute ago. You can rewind
and listen to it again if you want
to.
And so what happens is one day when
he, enters into this room and he's doing
his, you know, his whatever, thikr and morakaba,
he,
you know, he's interrupted.
And,
he finds in his room with him,
a Hindu
a Hindu,
yogi,
one of their spiritual practitioners.
And he says he says, Milana Saab, I
wanna ask you something. I have, like, a
I just this thing has been bothering me.
I just need to ask you about it.
I need to talk to you about it.
And, you know, I just I had to
ask. So I interrupted your I'm sorry I
interrupted your, your meditation and whatever, but I
just had to ask.
And he says, what? He says, what is
it you wanted to ask? He said why
is it that you Muslims always,
you know, insist that you're right about everything?
Why is it that you insist you're the
only way to the truth, the only way
to Allah ta'ala? You're the only,
you know, the only people who have knowledge.
You're the only people who have the path
to salvation.
He says, why do you have this this
this this dogged insistence?
And
Moa Shabu Taddoos, he says he says he
says, this is the truth. It's from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. He goes, I can give
you a million proofs,
if you want to. And the yogi is
like, I'm not interested in your proofs. He
goes, look, you turned yourself into water and
entered into this room. I also turned myself
into water and entered into this room. And
so you have your karama, you have your
miracle, and I have my miracle.
He goes, why you know, like, I don't
see what the difference is between the 2
two of us, you know. Talk to me
on that level.
And so, Hazar Shah Sab says, okay. You
wanna talk on that level? He says that,
meet me,
you know, at such and such time and
bring a bucket and
a piece of cloth with you. He says,
okay.
So,
the 2 of them, they meet and Shah
Sab has his bucket and piece of cloth
and this yogi has his bucket and piece
of cloth.
And,
he says, now turn yourself into water and
sit in the bucket for a minute and
then come out.
And so the 2 of them do it
at the same time.
And when they come out,
it says, now smell your piece of cloth
and smell mine. And other shasabs smelled like
perfume,
and the yogis smelled like najasa, like putridity.
And this is the story.
Now a person may say, well, I, you
know, I don't know if I can believe
that or not, which is fine. I I
get that and I I respect, you know,
like, I I I have sympathy for that
part of a person's,
for that part of a person's reaction. It's
fine.
It's not you don't need to accept this
as a completely 100%
true story in order to understand the precept
behind it, which is what?
Which is that,
which is that, you know,
that spirituality in and of itself is not
where it's all
at. Spirituality
combined with what? Combined with right thinking, with
wusool,
with something that will bring you to Jannah
forever,
with something which will be your salvation and
be your rectification,
that's what you want.
And those people, there are some people who
actually bring a very, very potent and a
very real spiritual experience, but it's not good
for you because it will take you to
the hellfire. And we have this bizarre,
you know, condition that we're in, that we
live amongst materialist people who don't
accept,
even the existence of spirituality. So that when
someone sees spirituality,
you know, comes face to face with it,
they're completely floored. It's a paradigm shift and
people think this must be the Haqq, this
must be the truth and it's not. It's
not. If it doesn't lead you to something
good, if it doesn't lead you to something
better, there's no khair in it whatsoever. And
this is what the beauty and supremacy of
the way of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is, is that it's good spirituality, it's good
physicality, it's good mentality, it's good knowledge, and
it's a good beginning, it's a good middle,
and it's a good end. All of it,
there's, beauty and praiseworthiness in it from from
one to the other. So, you know, with
all due respect, I've heard this so many
times over the years,
from people. They say, oh, look at the
path of the oleman, the path of the
madares, and the path of these people and
those it's very dry and I, you know,
it's just not for me. They're it's good,
you know, they learn hadith and stuff like
that. It's very dry. It's not for me.
If you're not going to find spirituality and
knowledge in the hadith of the prophet, it
doesn't exist. If you're not gonna find it
in the Quran, it doesn't exist. If you're
not gonna find it in the books of
fit, it doesn't exist. If you're not gonna
find it in the books of akhida, it
doesn't exist.
Go crack open the go crack open the
kashu mahjub,
and see,
the
wali's wali. You know, you wanna tell oliya
stories, those are the most, like,
just out there oliya stories,
in the world. And if it wasn't that
all of the Ummah bore witness to his
Haymaqam in his station, You
know, both sides of the of of the
divide,
of any divide in ummah, they all, bore
witness to his, great maqam.
People would be forgiven for not, taking,
some of the things he said seriously.
That being said, Bayezid
He mentioned out of all of his,
out of all of his spiritual self mortifications,
mujahhadat, and struggles, the most difficult thing for
him
to, to do was to study,
in particular, to study Aqidah,
to study Ilmukhollam.
Why? Because it imposes on a person a
a a a a logical
framework that the nafs doesn't really wanna accept.
But in it, there's great khair. Obviously, he
wouldn't do it if there was no khair.
And so we continue with the last 2,
3 paragraphs
from this chapter and conclude.
This is examples of virtuous scholars.
It is clear from this that the most
complete and virtuous of scholars are those who
are knowledgeable of Allah and his commandments.
They combine 2 kinds of knowledge,
outer and inward,
outer and inward,
which they receive from the Quran and Sunnah.
They examine what people say on the basis
of the Quran and Sunnah.
That which agrees with these sources, they accept.
And that which contradicts them, they reject.
These scholars are the elite of mankind and
the best of humanity after the prophet
They are the true successors of the prophets
and messengers. By the way, what does it
mean the true successors of the prophets and
messengers? These are the people
who,
with Allah Ta'ala, have mandate and have leadership,
yomukiyama.
If one of these people has a disagreement
with 1 of the other people,
it doesn't matter if the other one has
the money or the
control or the political ascendancy or the sovereign
authority. On the day of judgment, Allah Ta'ala
will treat them as as the rebels, the
ones who rebelled against the system. The system
with Allah ta'ala is that these people are
the ones who are the the successors of
the prophet salayahu alayhi wa sallam. I mentioned
this to you and warn you as a
warning that you and myself that we should
never, be on the wrong side of that,
on the wrong side of that fallout,
lest we
face with Allah
a punishment for, for rebellion.
And,
Bahri is one of the worst one of
the worst of the types of sins that
a person can
incur.
These are the true successors of the prophets
and messengers.
There were many, among the companions of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, including the 4
Khalafar Rashidun,
Saidna Abu Bakr, Saidna Amar, Saidna Uthman, Saidna
Ali radhiallahu anhu,
Al Hasan al Basri, Ata, Tawus, Mujahid, Sayyid
bin Jubeir, Ibrahim al Nafai, and Yahibni
Yahibnu
Abi Kathir
And amongst those who came after the latter
were the likes of Sofia Nathuri, Al Imam
al Oza'i, Imam Ahmed, and others amongst the
righteous
scholars. Has dubbed them
the godly scholars, the Ulamar Abani Yun,
indicating their praiseworthy status.
Their kind is referred to more than once,
and in more than one place in the
Quran, Ali says
of them, the people are of 3 groups,
righteous scholars, students of sacred knowledge, and riffraff.
So either you're one of them or you
sit at their feet
or and Saidna Ali said it. So, you
know, don't argue with me. Don't say that
you're being the supremacist or whatever.
And he said it,
he's the one who about whom the prophet
said
for whoever I'm a mola, I'm a wali,
that this ali is also a wali for
him. He's the one who's Rasuulullah
said about him that this ali, his position
with me is like the position of Harun
with Ibrahim,
except for the the only difference is that
there's no nebbi after me.
And so if he said it, I'm gonna
accept it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know,
it's no offense,
but, I'm sorry. I'm not going to be
able to
reject it so squarely, so easily.
I'm I'm going to have to be bound
by it because if you have authority over
me today, a day will come where,
the authority of these people will be much
more real than the authority of dollars and
of,
of of, you know, blue passports and of
Democrats and Republicans and of police forces and
armies.
Allah
give us salvation on that day. He said
people are of 3 groups,
the righteous scholars, the students of sacred knowledge,
and the riffraff.
Allah gives the to be from the first
two.
And then he went on at length to
describe the corrupt and righteous scholars. We expound
on them elsewhere in this book.
Allah give us to
be people of beneficial knowledge and be students
of beneficial knowledge
and to not be,
ensnared in the trap,
of the nafs, which will always crave,
which will always crave
that which the the the twisted bring because
of its convenience and its warm fuzzy feeling
that it gives us inside right now.
We should,
not put ourselves through torture right now, but
at the same time,
know that, you know, certain
mistakes and certain
types of foolery that we do right now
is going to put us in,
is gonna put us in much more difficulty,
at a later date.
And, out of love for oneself
and out of desire not to put oneself
through difficulty.
May Allah give us all of the tawfiq
to make good choices for ourselves,
for the for those days,
today. And may Allah
make, inshallah, just like there's a Eid Mubarak
at the end of Ramadan, may Allah
make our yomuqiyama,
the breaking of our fast, and the Eid
Mubarak from our, Ramadan of, of worshiping him
in this world.