Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Birmingham Part 5 Sd Ahmad Zarrq Usl of the Path 12312017
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He says that
I saw the
aspirants to the spiritual path,
were
afflicted with 5 things in my time.
He was so many centuries ago,
and he's complaining about the affliction of the
people who claim that they're taking the spiritual
path.
What is
making them
deviate or
lose track of where they're coming from, what
they're doing, and where they're going.
And, perhaps if
one of the masters of our age were
to
write something like this now, it would be
more than 5 things.
But suffice to say that the the decay
is most probably cumulative. And if not anything
else,
then at least human nature is human nature.
So there are certain things that are
universally,
universally
troublesome
for the Saliq, no matter what time or
age they live in.
So we should take heed from them,
That the
the those
people who claim poverty for only what Allah
has and aspire to travel this path,
they were afflicted with 5 things.
Number 1, i'tharul jahili alal alm.
Number 1 is preferring
ignorance over knowledge.
Meaning
what?
Meaning
those means that they need to take in
order to learn,
they don't take them,
and, they actually secretly despise them or run
away from them. I've seen this amongst many
people. They refer to people who know too
much fiqh, quote, unquote, the idea that you
can know too much fiqh or too much
this or too much that as dryness
or or not being spiritual or whatever. This
is a bunch of nonsense.
The ruhaniyah of this deen comes through the
wahi that came down on the heart of
Sayedidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The more acquainted one is with it,
the more that person's maqam
has resembled
the the the the the
the. Knowledge
is knowledge is
something without which there is no spirituality that's
of benefit. Otherwise, if you want spirituality,
Iblis was a very spiritually powerful person, as
was Hitler Hitler and Stalin and all of
these people.
Without it being set straight,
through the knowledge of Wahi,
it will end up just being destructive.
And and this preference of ignorance over knowledge,
fleeing from the ulama, fleeing fleeing from the,
wanting to hear feel goody type things
rather than
bring one's life into conformance with the commandment
of Allah and with the sunnah of the
Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
This is an affliction.
If you have this affliction
and, you know, when people ask you, what
does the soul mean to you? So, well,
you know, we focus on more spiritual things
and peace and love and this and that
and other thing. All those things are there,
masha'Allah.
You're not gonna get any beneficial spirituality,
and you're not gonna get peace and love,
you're not gonna get any of those things
in any meaningful way without
understanding the Sharia and understanding the Akhida of
Islam.
Those things will guide you through your tasuf
and allow you to interpret
the experiences that you have properly,
rather than
making you a person who has the habits
of a spiritually powerful person and then diverting
that spiritual power toward,
wrong things like making money or trying to
make yourself into a big man or or
big person that people
respect and come under their influence, etcetera, etcetera.
And there's not enough that we can talk
about with this point.
And number
2,
Being fooled or
falling into delusion
every time a crow makes its
squawking noise.
This is ridiculous. It's become horrible. Social media
has amplified this to the point that it's
it would have been laughable if it wasn't
something really we should cry about. So you
have people, you know, I believe it's the
job of every Muslim to spread light wherever
they go, and they should be light, and
everything should be light, and we should all
just be light.
And it's like, dude,
what the * does that even mean? Like,
you're supposed to be teaching people
the teachings
of Islam, of the the the the the
words of the book of Allah you're supposed
to be teaching people the sunun of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. If someone said, you
know, Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
used miswak before he,
prayed his tahajjud prayer because he wanted his
mouth to have a pleasant odor
when it recited the book of Allah. People
say, oh, man, it looks movi soba, it's
movi stuff again. But, like, you know, when
someone has a Twitter account filled with or
Facebook account filled with fluffy stuff that you
don't really even have to be a Muslim
in order to say or no,
and that's all they talk about, then you
know that there's something missing,
and that something which is missing is deen
because we're not humanists
humanism. What are you gonna do with human
what are you gonna do with humanity?
There are gonna be entire aqam that are
gonna thrown into the heart garbage heap of
the hellfire,
and no one will be able to save
them. That day, you don't need to have
connection with your humanity. That day, you need
to have connection with your lord.
And I'm not saying to be inhuman or
whatever, in fact, much of the path has
to do with
being having salama in your fitra, being sound
in your fitra, but even though that thing
is something that comes from Allah Ta'ala and
is for Allah
and you'll only attain it
through
through implementing the teachings of Wahi. So every
time someone says something that's fancy, if you
run after it, or even even amongst the
olamah I mean, imagine this if there's, like,
you know, 20 sheiks in your land,
that are competent and qualified. And every time
one of you one of them says something,
you go in that direction.
And then the next time the next person
says something, you go into a different direction.
And the next time you say the next
person says something, you go into a third
direction. If you have a vector that that's
going that's being pulled in
all directions at the same time, what's the
net effect? It's 0. They all cancel each
other out. You don't go anywhere. You don't
get anything. If you dig a little here,
you dig a little there, you'll never hit
water. You can't be distracted by,
distracted by the the the, you know, the
noise that every single person makes, rather, you
have to find where your benefit is and
and stick to it.
This is laxity in in all of your
things. Laxity in saying your zikr, laxity in
what you eat and drink, laxity in what
you look at, laxity in what you listen
to, laxity in the company that you keep,
not because you don't know that this is
not beneficial, just because you're being lazy.
And that's one of those things you know,
there's a 100 people who
wish for a,
wish for an opportunity to do something. It's
why everyone always
complains about, oh, immigrants are taking our jobs.
Yeah. If somebody comes from a place where
they can't make ends meet and they can't
provide for their children,
heck yeah. They're gonna be happy to work
hard, and they're gonna hold on to that
job that you think is not,
not worthy of you. They're gonna hold on
to it for dear life, and they're gonna
outperform you in it.
If you're lax about something, you have no
one to blame but yourself.
You have nobody to blame but yourself. And
this is something Allah literally handed it to
us on a on a silver plate. We
don't have to worry about where we're gonna
eat from. We don't have to worry about
shelter. There's no war going on. There's none
of these things going on.
But
being lax about,
about our orod, being lax about our okaat,
about our timings, our schedules, things like that.
This is something that, you know, it's a
choice that we make, and if we make
that choice, then a great part of Khair
is gonna pass us by.
Seeking dignity through the name of through the
name of your tariqa,
or through the name of your your your
sheikh or through the name of your who
you associate with.
And this is something very
this is something very,
disgusting, actually, about the modern practice or the
cultural practice, I should say, of Tasawwuf,
which is not based in Wahid, but is
just kind of the cultural practice of Tassa'uf
that's come up. If your sheikhs of Waliyah
Allah, that does the fact that you took
Be'a with them or that you attend their
lessons or that you listened to their teachings
or that you, much of, posted their picture
up on your Facebook wall or whatever, it
doesn't mean you're gonna go to Jannah. It's
not like the angels on the Yom Kiyama
are like the Israeli custom officers that they're
gonna go through your Facebook page to look
for, like, whatever. Okay. Does he have the
picture of the right sheikh up on his
on his wall? Okay. Let him in.
Remember that there are Ambia
their own wives are not going to make
it to Jannah because of their iniquity.
And if someone could have built a Rasool
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, his own uncle said,
Abu
his own uncle Abu Talib,
a man that all of us have respect
for because of what he did for Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
But he's not he's not it's not gonna
help him on the day of judgment to
get into Jannah. Why? Because the thing he
needed to do himself, he didn't do it.
So instead of being somebody who, you know,
puts their surfboard onto the wave of how
amazing your sheikh is or how amazing your
your, tariqa is, maybe it's time for you
to, you know, grab your and do a
little bit of Allah Allah and and struggle
with yourself
so that instead of riding the wave of
other people's efforts, you can contribute a little
bit yourself as well. Someone might say, well,
how could I ever be as amazing as
my sheikh is? The more amazing you are,
the more amazing your sheikh gets because your
sheikh receives the reward and the the the
progress that comes from your progress. This is
a basic understanding of Din, that
the one who who guides a person to
to good is like as if he did
it themself.
So don't be a sap, don't be somebody
that the mashaikh, when you meet them on
the day of judgment, you'll meet all of
these people one way or the other.
May Allah make the meeting in khair
and and and an afiyah,
for all of us.
You'll meet all of them one way or
the other. You'll see them and they'll see
you. Instead of that day being like, you
know, you just hitchhiked a ride on the
back of the pickup truck without asking, instead
that day, if you could say, like, I
did my best. I I did something with
your teachings and look. You know you know,
you even you benefited from it somehow.
The latter is manifestly superior to the former.
If you have a tariqa,
don't
don't post it up on your Facebook and
your Twitter. Don't
introduce yourself
to other people with it.
Rather be a good person and then later
on when the people find out what tariqa
you're associated with, let that let that impress
them later on. If you really want to,
if you really want to honor the mashaikh
and you want to give dignity to the
mashaikh, that's the way to do it. Someone
once told me, he says that sometimes
there are people who hate on Sufism, and
so they ask me, are you Sufi? And
so he goes, my standard answer is, I'm
not, but my sheikh is.
That's
that's the way you're supposed to answer questions
like that.
Our grand sheikh, Mawana Saeed Hussain Ahmad Madani,
Rahimu Lata'ala
fill his
Kabr with Noor.
He used to sign his name as what?
He used to sign his name as Nangi
Aslaf. It's the embarrassment of our of our
elders.
And he did indeed, he had too much,
even though he lived in Madinah Munawara and
he was
a resident there for 16 years, he taught
the Hadith of Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
in the Ottoman Empire
when the army of the Sharif,
treacherously handed him over to to the British,
and he was imprisoned in Malta, then he
had to come back to India
after that.
And he was known
by the entire column as Madani,
but he never used to sign his name
Madani. He would always sign his name as
as Faisal Badi. Why? Because of his humility
and his
not wanting to be presumptuous with regards to
sacred things.
And we, on the other hand, Khalas, your
you know, you see your brothers and sisters
and ourselves,
the Twitter profile is
the picture of whatever
the Na'al Sharif or of Madinah Munawwara, this
and that, and then, you know, the the
name is like Madinisofi justi nakshbandi 2015
whatever,
and then,
you know, afterward, you know, when you DM
a girl,
you know, like,
about how pretty her hijab is or whatever,
What you don't realize is other than the
the stupidity of what you're doing at the
time,
you're also bringing all of these things into
repute and you're also
destroying the sanctity of all of these things.
And everything is a continuum.
The Sufism
of a fasid is what? Is not to
associate your fist and your stupidity with the
deen.
And there's none of us that is free
from sin. So we should be very careful
about how we use these things, that that
that we only invoke them in a way
that will bring them honor rather than trying
to piggyback off of their honor for us
because,
that's not what that's not what this thing
is about. And the more people will
try to use, tarika and try to use
tasauwuf and try to use din in general
for financial benefit, political benefit, social benefit,
the more it will turn people whose iman
is weak off from deen
and the more it will degrade Islam.
And Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, none
of these people used to do that. They
they none of the Sahaba,
none of them, they all were very humble
with regards to with regards to their their
nisbah, with regards to their connections to the
things of Din.
Entered
the the the the the the the the
haram of Makkah Mukarama on the day of
the Fath with his head bowed so low
that his beard touched the saddle,
of his camels sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. They
were not people who
they were not people who were, you know,
who shouted slogans or made claims with regards
to their own or with regards to
with regards to,
you know, what they had in order to
impress other people or show off or whatever
or make themselves feel good about themselves.
Rather, in fact,
if anything else, the deen made them
scrutinize themselves even more,
even more,
closely.
So, Yajair Mazuruk continues
he says, the 5th point is what?
Expecting that you're going to receive some sort
of spiritual opening without
fulfilling the conditions of that spiritual opening.
That a person hasn't changed their life. They
haven't changed their company. They're still not scrupulous
about, you know, whatever
they eat and drink. They're still not and
and and and
and steadfast in their timings, in their day,
or or their or their or their presence
of mind in their or in fulfilling all
the the conditions of
of receiving opening from Allah
And then they're like, oh, I've been in
the study for, like, 10 years, and I
haven't gotten anything about it. This whole thing,
I don't know about it, man.
It's okay. I mean, there are some people
who they receive their they receive their, you
know, very quickly,
and some people it takes time. And that's
the hikmah of Allah He created people like
that. And then on top of that, there's
some people who
don't receive their fath after a long time,
and it's not because Allah created them to
receive it slowly. It's just because they're not
actually doing any of the things that that
make things happen, which is another thing that
people think,
people think that,
somehow,
somehow
the spiritual world doesn't have any rules or
it's magical or whatever, and the sheikh should
be able to, like, you know, read Ayatul
Kursi
on you, and you're gonna, like, you know,
fly like some sort of waking state of
LSD type experience.
It doesn't work that way, and and Alhamdulillah
doesn't work that way. And anyone who thinks
it works that way should probably
join some sort of obscure form of Hinduism.
They'll probably enjoy themselves more where they'll bring
the actual LSD, and then they can trip
out on whatever experience they want to, and
whatever happens on the other side is their
problem.
That's not how these things work.
The spiritual world is more ordered than the
than the physical world does. The order is
even more strict, and the results from following
the rules are are are are more dependable
even than the results in the physical world.
The akhirah has more ranking in order in
it.
How look how we have favored some of
you over others. And the akhira indeed, the
akhira will have
greater
disparity between ranks
and will show greater favor for some over
others.
Why? Because it's it's the the rules that
govern the spiritual world
are more strict and more
solid than the rules that govern the physical
world.
So see the Ahmad Zarruk then,
he said that,
that that these 5, submitting to these 5
afflictions
has caused 5 ill effects in the Mureeds.
And I see I see
I see the the connection between them is
what? Is that somebody
who is trying the system out but not
actually playing according to the rules,
After a while, beak when they see there's
no result because they're not actually doing the
things that get them results, they instead of
blaming their own nuffs, which is where the
blame should lie,
they blame the system itself and try to
find alternatives to the system.
And so what are they? Says number 1,
that a person should seek
spirituality out of reprehensible innovation
rather than out of the sunnah itself.
Somebody who gets more excited about, you know,
about the the the the special brand and
the special color of their sheikh tasbih than
they do about using miswak or about
praying 2 rakaz after the sun rises.
What is it? Because they think that that
that the sunnah is not gonna get them
results,
and so maybe they have to look for
results in something else.
This is this is nonsense.
And, you know, at least having the same
color tasbih has your shave is not,
it's not reprehensible in and of itself.
But there are it's, you know, it can
be if a person has the aqidah of,
like, you know this is like a shard
or condition of spiritual progress, but,
you know, most most people, at least the
Umumah
groups of people, are not
so susceptible that to that type of,
to that type of flawed thinking.
But there are things that are and the
deen that are not they're not they're not
part of Islam. They're not part of the
deen, and people make them up and they
take great pride in them.
Instead of looking to instead of looking to
those things for spirituality,
it's part of the actual love of Rasulullah
Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam to look to his sunnah, alaihi
salatu salam. With
following the people of
falsehood rather than the people of Haqq, which
I interpret as,
for this age at least, following the people
who tell you what you want to hear
rather than the people who tell you what
you need to hear.
And this has become an entire industry in
our community,
and we seek help from Allah and our
complaint,
and our our our
our our,
our,
sadness we can only share with Allah Ta'ala
about this issue.
And
acting not on any sort of principle or
on any sort of usool,
but according to one's whim in everything one
does or in the most important things that
a person does.
Again,
with regards to your decisions of what you
buy, what you sell, who you transact with,
what, you know, what you,
read, what you who you take as your
leaders and dean, etcetera, etcetera,
instead of, like,
you know, just trying to be like a
surfer and, like, woah. That's amazing. I'm gonna
do that, because it makes me feel really
good.
Try to try to, you know, cut your
brain in on the deal
and, you know, sit and think about, you
know, what the decisions that you make with
regards to your deen, why are you making
them? Are you just saying Amin out loud
because that's what the Arabs do and you're
self hating desi or whatever? Or are you
doing it because you read the hadith and
you, like, understand the proof and you feel
it's superior? I have absolutely
absolutely
no objection with someone who does the latter
even if I don't agree with them. But
the former, you have to understand how that's
not helping anybody.
You have to understand how that's not helping
anybody at all.
And this is a big thing, like, in
our
our our our our community,
that we pick leaders based on demographic considerations
or based on, like, marketing considerations.
The dean is not about marketing. It's not
about it's not about marketing. It's about content.
It's about substance. It's not about style. It's
not about any of those things.
It is it is an usuli
matter, and it needs to be treated such.
And somebody who doesn't understand how those usuli
work maybe should sit and learn them. Allah
teach myself and teach teach all of us,
what what what his where his rida is
so that we can follow it.
Seeking out absurdities,
rather than reality.
Seeking out absurdities rather than realities.
There are some people whose
is about, you know, seeing dreams or doing
miracles, and there are some people whose is
about the the the undying concern inside of
their heart that the day I meet Allah,
he should be pleased with me.
You have to understand how the second is
manifestly superior to the first and how the
first is not an objective objective of the
soul of at all.
I once asked,
Hadid Paygee. He's they call him Paygee because
he was a he was a pure of
our sheikh. He was a brother in the
Tarik of our sheikh, and and he was,
the the the one who made the
arrangements for the Sheikh when
he would visit Pakistan.
And he took Be'a with him from decades
before the partition.
Baiji is a very interesting person. He's a
very stern person that most people are afraid
of
because they know what's good for them.
He's an extremely stern person. He's a man
who,
when he took Be'a with
who is the sheikh
of
amongst other people.
He said when he took when he took
Be'a with Shabdulqadr,
he gave him the maximum weird from day
1. Usually, they give you a little weird,
like, to test you out. In 40 days,
you can do it, then they gradually increase
you, and then a person will, you know,
do what they do.
Most people won't ever get the maximum weird
at all.
He got it from the 1st day, and
he never missed it.
And I stayed with him, for so many
days,
and, I've never seen or very rarely seen
someone who is so
strict in their observation of their times and
then not missing their and not missing their
for Allah, their all of these other things.
So I once asked Baiji, I said, why
is it that,
that, you know, people see dreams and, you
know, all of these other things? And I
very rarely see a dream about anything.
He said, I don't know about you, but
someone asked the same question in front of
our sheikh, Shabd Al Qadr,
and,
he said, there's 2 kinds of people,
the ones who see the dreams
and the ones who don't.
And he asked, which one do you think
is superior?
And the people said, we don't know. And
so the Sheikh says, the one who doesn't.
Why? Because their steadfastest
steadfastness doesn't require any supernatural
coaxing.
Rather, they do what they're supposed to do
because they're supposed to do it.
And this is a very important insight.
This is the favela of the Ansar,
that they didn't enter into Islam for any
political reason or because they got beaten in
battle or because of anything. They entered into
Islam because Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told
them about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and told them about the Haqq of Allah
Ta'ala over His creation, and they accepted it
and submitted to it without even trying to
put any conditions on it.
And because of that, Allah Ta'ala gave them
a rank that nobody else in his creation
will have, and he made their Madinah something
that no other city will ever be and
no other place will ever have that it's
has more barakah than the arshah of Allah
itself,
because in it is Sayidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
This is this is the way we should
be as Muslims.
Instead of seeking all of these novelty, thrill
type experiences or whatever,
seek Allah
himself as
as your goal
and be persistent in in in in in
attempting to attain him even if it's a
slug from the first day you start until
the day you say
enter into your grave. On the other side,
you'll see how manifestly superior it is. And
the one who needs help in the middle
through some experience or feeling or whatever, Allah
will give it to you when you absolutely
need it.
But that's not what you seek. If it
happens, it happens, and it's from the of
Allah Ta'ala, but you don't seek it. You
don't seek the feeling. If you want the
feeling, there are many narcotics which will give
you a very good feeling.
If you want Allah, then you'll receive you'll
get a lot on the day of judgment
that that that that you'll be called out.
Oh, contented soul, return to your Lord.
Pleased with him and he's pleased with you.
That's that's the goal for those people, and
that's what the heart was made for.
Don't
don't get your cheap thrills in
in absurdities.
Rather,
receive the the the value that that that
that you need and the treasure that that
that that that surpasses all other treasures,
in in in the certainty of Allah.
And the 5th one,
that that that this age has shown
many people who make claims,
and those claims don't
don't, you know, don't manifest in any sort
of truth.
Rather, they're just made up claims.
This is something really important.
Our path is not one of claims, making
claims. I did this. I saw that. I
did this. I saw that. The person
who is quick to tell about their own,
their own
wonderful states and their own wonderful achievements.
That person is like the one that the
tree of the salawab
the tree of the salawab and the the
reward that they planted for their akhirah.
They went in with steel toe boots and
stomped it out while it was still sapling.
Don't make claims.
Islam in general and Tasuluf in specific is
not about opening a shop
and then starting your marketing.
It's not about that. Whoever whoever it's about
that, their their their their are like a
like like a stillborn child, like a child
born dead already. It's not gonna grow up.
It's not gonna become a doctor. It's not
gonna do anything. It's just dead. You're just
buried in the ground.
The the
the emergence of
is something that's
of people making claims about different things regarding
themselves.
It's it's completely it's completely, a dangerous thing,
and it will end up making a waste
of a lot of people's times, not just
the but the as well.
So,
don't don't make claims about things. If something
happened, let it be the secret between you
and your your Allah Ta'ala, between your heart
and Allah Ta'ala.
Imagine if you
if you had a, you know, if you
sat with your your beloved,
are you going to tell everybody everything that
happened?
The person who spills their the beans about
their every single experience,
that person that person, they leave nothing between
them and their their beloved
because everything becomes public, which means what? That
there's nothing left between them and the one
that they love. Rather keep those things between
you and Allah. Allah Allah may expose them
himself sometimes
for a known to him,
but,
you yourself don't try to expose them. The
thing that we claim is not the greatness
of ourselves or our own experiences, but we
claim the greatness of Allah and his Rasool,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So if you wanna talk about a miracle,
talk about the miracles of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. If you want to talk
about achievements, talk about the achievements of Rasulullah,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. If you want to talk
about eloquence and beauty, talk about the eloquence
of Allah, ta'ala, and the eloquence of his
Rasool, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Talk about the
beauty of the one who Rasool, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said about him in Allah
Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty. Talk
about the beauty of Sayna Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
Don't don't draw attention to stuff you did
and stuff that you said. Increase people's yaqeen
in Allah and His Rasool
Don't try to increase their yaqeen in you
because there is no yaqeen in you and
I.
None of us know where our end is
going to be. There is no yateen in
you and I. We ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that he should ride in his that
we're people that he love and that he
seals our fate with it. But we never
we never know what's gonna happen until the
very end. Allah ta'ala give all of us
Rasool Allah
ta'ala or Surihi Sayidina Muhammad