Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Discourse on Passion 11 Ramadan 1444 Late Night Majlis
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AI: Transcript ©
Invoke
privilege
and digress from the
topic slightly before
starting,
today's reading.
It's from the,
of If
I got a chance inshallah, I, I would
be happy to discuss something about his life.
Maybe we can do that one of the
nights before we we leave.
Many people, I guess, in the subcontinent are
familiar with him. Maybe outside the subcontinent, they
wouldn't be, but they're familiar with his
most famous disciple,
Moana Saeed Abu Hassan Ali Nadui
who's actually, I think, been to Chicago before
at least once.
He actually spoke at Isna one time,
like, way back in the day. It was
a very different Isna back in those days.
But at any rate,
he mentioned the story
which is actually quite common amongst the old
that,
he was once invited to a
a gathering,
and there was food served. And everybody ate,
and he didn't eat.
And then later, after the, gathering was,
completed, he asked the host.
He said, who who prepared the food?
Said, who prepared the food?
And,
he said, well,
it was the, you know, this so and
so had him in the house.
He said, I'm not asking about him. Who
else prepared the food?
And said, the only person, the only person
who helped was
my daughter-in-law
who
made the dough balls that were to be
turned into the roti that that's the bread
that's served with the food.
He said, does she pray?
And,
and the the host, he said, no. She
doesn't pray.
And so
he said that,
it's not really
something appropriate that we should be serving.
And from then on, whenever he would go
to, that,
person's house, the gathering at that person's house,
he would make his own bread.
Of course, legally, this is not an issue.
Legally, it's halal to eat something as long
as you're not eating pork or whatever. You
know, it's halal to eat. But the issue
is this is that he mentioned this story
and the the the context of mentioning it
was what? Was that worldly people?
They think that most people are
sighted. They have sight. They have vision.
Okay.
Most people have vision and a few people
are
are blind.
He said, but it what it seems to
me
is that most people are blind, only a
few people have vision.
And
again, this is not talking about a legal
ruling.
The Sharia is very clear about what's halal
and what's haram. This doesn't violate that that
circle.
But there are some people who have some
sort of knowledge about what will look which
way and what will feel which way and
what will give what result in the day
of judgement. And so they have a sensitivity
toward that.
And that's the purpose of this gathering.
Otherwise, there are other Masjid. People ask me,
is there more reward in praying Isha over
here or praying in the Masjid? I'll tell
them it's more rewarding in the Masjid.
And that's the purpose of reading these books
as what? Just to open the eye toward
these things.
The purpose of a, you know, having this
gathering is to open a person's eyes to
these things. Because
in some sense, if you're praying in the
Masjid,
but you are still are still blind to
it. Because you can you're not only blind
to bad things, you can be blind to
good things as well.
Then there's some sort of problem that's happening.
This is one of the reasons we mentioned
certain things that are common practices amongst the
or common practices amongst the Muslims in America,
or in conferences, or in gatherings, or groups,
or certain types of preachers.
The point is not to hack them down,
and to say bad about them. At the
end of the day, Allah gave them,
They're Muslims. We expect that these people will
be in Jannah forever one day.
All of them.
The purpose is not to hack them down.
Is that what? There's some points that are
getting missed that people actually suffer because they
missed those points. To highlight what those are
to learn. Because at some point or another,
this knowledge is one of the, the one
of the obligations,
to the and on the to preserve.
And when people lose these things, it opens
the doors to a lot of other troubles
and a lot of other difficulties, which we
see unfortunately our community is going through locally
and that the is going through,
around the world.
Otherwise, in the context of in this Risala
mentioning that it seems to me this is
most people think that most people are sighted,
but it seemed and a few are blind,
but it seems to me that most people
are blind, and just a few are sighted.
That this is the the the very problem
that people see
in the prayer mats
that we sit on.
They see
a type of,
tedium,
and they see a type of,
poverty and bad
condition.
And they see in other cars and other
houses and in flash flashing lights and neon
lights and decorated,
gatherings and, you know, good food and wealth
and riches.
They see a type of attraction and a
type of,
of, of energy and charisma that draws them.
Whereas the person who their eye opens to
these things, he'll see in every thread that
a person makes sajdah on in a place.
The fact that somebody prayed here, that you
prayed here right now, It means that in
the every thread of the carpet, there's noor.
Even if the thread is broken or is
the the weave of the carpet is bare.
There's noor inside of it. And there's noor
that rains on that place. And the more
the people say their prayers, the more the
people say their salat, the more the people
hear the Quran, the more the people say,
I mean, to the duas, the more that
the divine name is taken.
Right? We read in the tonight.
Uh-uh. That Allah makes firm. The people who
believe with a firm word in the life
of this world
and in the hereafter. The firm world in
the life of this world world is
And the firm world word in the is
what? Is that when a person enters into
their grave that when the questioners ask them,
who is your
and what is your Deen, and what do
you say about this person
that the person is steadfast and answers correctly.
That all of these things have so much
nur and so much value. The thing is
just if the eye is closed, the person
doesn't see the value in it. And so
this is the reason that we,
you know, we mentioned the the the verse
from,
the the
other day that closed the eyes and closed
the
ears and closed the mouth.
Afterward, if you don't start to see the
the the secret or the mystery or the
light of the truth, then you can laugh
at us and say all these things we're
talking about are all a joke. There's no
no point to them, which is why as,
you know, I mentioned about the thing about
the counting.
You know, it's not necessarily that
I'm so excited the kids are here and
they're praying, because the fact that child is
praying is
already puts them in the 99th percentile. But
I want them to, one day, go the
entire traverse the entire distance, plant the flag
in the homeland, and then afterward, they will
carry the work on after us. That there's
something that that to be said about being
able to go from the beginning into the
to the end in silence.
So that all of the things that affect
the heart from the tongue and from the
ears and from the eyes, that's why we
shut the lights off. That's why the Rasool
used to pray in the dark at nighttime,
that when we shut these, inputs off, then
we allow ourselves to hear something else. And
so that that eye that was blind, it's
not an eye. Right? The eyes that we
all see. Right? Right? Even a sees. But
on the day of judgment,
So he'll say that when Allah raises them
up blind, why, my lord, why did you
raise me up and resurrect me blind while
I was sighted in this world? And the
fact is, were they sighted in the world?
No. Allah tells them so much in that
number of words.
That actually you are blind when you are
alive actually. You're saying you had vision. You
weren't you didn't have vision.
Is it just like our sign used to
come to you, and you completely ignored them?
To this day, just like that, this day
you will be ignored. Like you're blind before,
you're blind.
Now and then another place in the Quran,
Allah actually says that.
That those he actually describes those people in
other places I should say as being blind.
So that's the point of this is exercise
why there's some inshallah.
Otherwise there are many massages that have much
better
uh-uh arrangements
for,
a gathering like this and but a lot
of them, they don't they don't discuss or
they don't acknowledge reality, although there are many
that do as well. Not to not to,
you know, overstep my bound in that. But
the point is is that this is the
the kind of the focus of this gathering.
So with that, we read
of Kashel Majub, the discourse on the nature
of howa of of howa, of passion. Howa
means what? It means like air.
Right? But here, it means passion. It's one
of the number of synonyms in the Arabic
language for love. But Arabic has a number
of language.
Arabic language has a number of words for
love, each of which denotes some sort of
different aspect of love.
So is that thing that completely takes you
away, and it completely
takes you out of any mode of rationality
or any rational thinking.
And in general,
it's a
it's it's it denotes a love that completely
takes a person's senses away, not always in
a good way.
And in the terminology of the Sufis, the
word Hawa is not used in a praiseworthy
in a a praiseworthy sense.
That it's the thing that you're,
nafs, desires
that
is frivolous. It it doesn't actually end up
bearing any benefit or fruit or it's not
something that's good for you. It's not, something
that's good for you. Imagine a person falls
in love with, like, a
electrical transformer and says, no, I love you.
And then my only one
desires to hold you in my embrace. And
then, you you know, a 100,000 volts go
through and you're a smoldering pile of ashes.
You know? It it it no one's saying
it wasn't true love. It probably was,
but, it didn't end well. So that's that's
what we're talking about when we talk about
how are the passion of the nefs.
You must know that according to the opinion
of some, passion is a term
applied to the attributes of the nafs. But
according to others, it's a term,
denoting the natural volition,
whereby the nafs is controlled and directed just
as the spirit is controlled by the intelligence.
The is controlled by intelligence and the is
controlled by. Every,
is devoid of the faculty of that is
devoid of the faculty of intelligence is imperfect.
And similarly, every nafs that is devoid of
the faculty of passion is also imperfect.
Man is continuously being called by intelligence and
passion in contrary ways. If you obey the
call of intelligence, he attains faith. And if
he obeys the call of passion, he arrives
at error and infidelity,
meaning kufr.
Therefore, passion is a veil and a false
guide, and man is commanded to resist it.
Passion is of 2 kinds. 1, the desire
of pleasure and lust, and 2, the desire
of worldly honor and authority.
This is important, this bifurcation, because the first
we generally associate with impious people, but the
second one is completely, like, pious people are
drenched in it. Many people are like many
people will say, oh, look. You know, religious
people are hypocrites and religious people are like
this people. Religious people are like that. It's
the second quality that's deep in people who
look religious that that actually is troublesome.
And, it will cause people problem on the
day of judgment, and it's not actually a
sign of being,
you know, a person who's in, in the
He who follows pleasure and lust hunts taverns,
and mankind are safe from his mischief.
Someone's a drunk, nobody's gonna say, hey, you
know, like, what's your opinion about?
How how are we supposed to solve, like,
world hunger or whatever? You see, you're you're
an alcoholic.
Just go go to sleep. Go away.
He who follows pleasure and lust haunts taverns,
and mankind is, you know, safe from his
mischief.
But he who honors,
he who desires honor and authority,
may live even in his, cell where he
devotes himself to worship and in his monastery,
and has not only lost the way himself,
but also leads other into others into error.
This is this is a problem. You remember
when I subbed in IFS, I remember I
told the 8th grade class that, like, coveting
leadership is haram, just like as haram is
8 you know, eating a ham sandwich. Everyone
freaked out. All all the kids are free.
No. But what if I wanna have a
$1,000,000 and become president so I can help
the Umah? Like, you can help the Umah
anyway.
You need those things. You know? It's the
same thing. Like, I want what do you
wanna become? I wanna become a doctor. Why?
Because I wanna help you. Just suck it
up and say I want money, bro. Like,
you know, like, that's the thing. Right? I
wanted money and that's why I became a
doctor. There are every now and again, I
myself am astonished when I see it. There
are after every 1,000 doctors one I see
that actually does wanna help people. It exists.
So I'm not if it's you, don't get
triggered. I'm not talking about you. Usually, people
like that are not easily triggered anyway. Right?
But,
this is this is this is the problem
is that, like, you know, when that person
is in the and when that person is
leading the salat and is,
giving the speeches and is this is a
sign that that, a lot of trouble is
about to happen. It's a sign that a
lot of trouble is about to happen, and
it's a very dangerous
a very dangerous situation that Allah tests the
ummah in, because there's a really high chance
of things going sideways at that point.
One whose every act depends on passion
and who finds satisfaction in following it is
far from god, although he may be in
a masjid.
But one who has renounced and abandoned it
is near God, even though he may be
in a church.
This is, not to be
conflated with perennialism. He's saying that
that the believer, even if he's sitting in
a church, that that that's going to be
his case. Meaning, the the church is a
place where shit happens. A person who remembers
Allah even in that place, that person Allah
is with them. It's not to be conflated.
People deliberately misinterpret these things to serve their
own weird like purposes, that's not what he's
trying to say, and it's very clear from
the context of the rest of the book
that that's not what he's trying to say.
Ibrahim Al Hawass
relates the anecdote. Once I heard that in
Rum
Rum is Anatolia. It says, once I heard
in Rum, there was a monk who had
been 70 years in a monastery.
I said to myself, wonderful.
40 years, in the term of monastic vows.
What is the state of this man that
he remained there for 70 years? I mean,
the person cut off from the entire dunya.
He's a Christian, but he cut off from
the entire dunya. This has an effect on
the spirit.
You know, you can be a Catherine and
still be spiritual. And being spiritual is not
always a good thing. Some very evil people
are very spiritual people. And their spirituality they
cultivate is very powerful. It's just
evil. So anyway, he's he's astonished that this
man who was able to keep his vows
for 70 years in a monastery.
I went to go see him.
When I approached, he opened a window and
said to me, oh, Ibrahim, I know why
you have come. I have not stayed here,
for 70 years because of my monastic vows.
But I have a dog fowl with passion,
with and
I've taken my, abode in this monastery for
the purpose of guarding the dog.
Sagabani.
Sag is the word in Persian for for,
for for dog. He says to for the
purpose of guarding this dog and preventing it
from doing harm to others.
On hearing them, this, on hearing him say
this, I exclaimed, oh my lord, you're able
to bestow righteousness on a man even though
he be involved in sheer error. And the
guy is a but look at how much
concern this man has with righteous conduct.
He said to me, oh Ibrahim, how long
will you seek men? Go and seek yourself
and when you have found yourself, keep watch
over yourself
for this passion,
clothes itself every day and 360 diverse garments
of godhead and leads ministry. So this is
what his his intuition,
that he he he was given, through this
experience that he was he he felt that
he has to go and seek himself
and keep guard over himself from the example
of this, monk. Why? Because he says that
the the passions of a man takes 360
different disguises.
Why is the word number 360 used
here? It's every the days of the year,
and secondly, is the number of idols that
were in the Kaaba when the prophet
cleansed it. Yes, sir. Right? The Kaaba is
the place where you go to worship, Allah.
But
the 360 idols are the decoys that a
person goes to the house of Allah and
then they get again, the whole thing goes
sideways at the last moment. He said that
the nafs has 360,
different guises of passion that it closes itself
in every day,
and, it leads men astray. In short, the
devil cannot enter a man's heart until he
commits a sin, or he commits to make
to sinning. But when a certain quantity of
passion appears, the devil takes it and decks
it out and displays it in the man's
heart. And this, is called diabolical suggestion. This
is what is.
This is another reason why people say don't
watch TV. So is it haram? Look, I'm
just watching the news. I'm just doing this.
I'm just doing that. Put your phone away.
Is it haram? I'm just putting put away
Facebook, put away social media. What is it?
When there's a certain amount of, like, critical
mass of,
of suggestion, what happens? The heart starts to
incline towards something. The seitan senses that the
heart is inclining towards something. That's where the
weak spot is. That's where he he's going
to attack. He's not gonna attack all
all, you know, the entire heart equally at
every place. He's gonna bring his force down
to bear at the opponent's weakest
point. If you ever fight a war, that's
how you should prosecute your war against your
enemies as well. Trust me, they do that
against you.
So that's where the where the the diabolical
suggestion that was was gonna come from. It
begins from passion in reference to this fact,
god says to Iblis when he threatened to
seduce all of mankind,
verily, you have no power over my servants.
For the devil is really,
the devil is really in a man's lower
soul and passion. Hence, the prophet
said, there is no one whom his devil,
has not subdued except for Omar for he
has subdued his devil. Meaning what? He controlled
his passion.
Passion is mingled as an ingredient in the
clay of Adam,
our father. Whoever renounces it becomes a prince,
and whoever becomes,
whoever follows it becomes its slave.
Junaid was asked
what does it mean to reach god? He
said, it is to renounce one's passion. For
all acts of devotion by which god's favor
is sought, none has greater value than the
resistance to passion because it is easier for
a man to
a a plaque or a a trophy for
this. Not gonna give you a a plaque
or a a trophy for this.
You're not gonna be like the the, you
know, the best whatever. No one's gonna care
if you do this or not. And it's
so difficult. And people look at it and
they say there's so much difficulty for so
little return.
It's a waste of my time.
Let's just go with the flow. Rather, what
is he saying? He says, if you believe,
you know, Barman Bahan, if you laugh at
them, if you say this is all a
joke, that's fine. It's a separate issue. But
if you believe that this, you know, these
people have something of benefit to learn from,
then what is he saying? He says that
Allah loves nothing more than what that a
person should resist his,
passion. Some of the stories in the book
I won't even read over here. They're so,
like, just don't try this at home type
of things about people resisting their own. In
fact, the same thing that Satan the
story of Surat Yusuf. Right? Ham is one
of the words for love. So
That she was taken with him. She was
completely swept up and and and enthralled with
him.
And he was also in love with her.
Meaning, like, it's not like she's like, oh,
like this woman's nasty or what. No. He
was also in love with her. If he
would have been in love with her, I
should say, was it not that he was
shown the the
proof of his lord?
Right. The Burhan is like the the ultimate,
the decisive proof. It's like one level higher
than Hijjah. Right? So the Burhan of Allah
Ta'ala in the tasir of the Quran, what
is it? That Allah Ta'ala in his in
that room showed Sayidna Yusuf alaihi sallam the
timfale of his father, Sayidna Abu alaihi sallam
who's a nabi.
Telling him, like, what? Are you gonna go
with this woman? Like, are you gonna, like,
do this with this woman right now?
And so the the the resistance and the
passion is what? It's the path of the
Islam.
It's not just, you know, like kind of
like Sufi babble that we say, oh, it's
all a waste of time. This is nonsense.
This is unproductive. This is this. This is
that. This is the other thing. No one
will give you a reward for it. Sometimes
the the the struggle will be very bitter.
Sometimes it will be very bitter. It will
be something so stupid or some so simple
that you struggle against yourself. But what does
he say? He says that why? Because the
passion a person for a person to resist
his passion is
harder for them to climb entire mountain, with
his own nails.
I've read in the anecdotes of the
said, I saw a man flying through the
air.
You can take it with a grain of
salt if you want to. He said, I
saw a man flying to the air and
asked him how he attained this degree.
He answered, I set my feet on passion,
on
that I might ascend into the,
air Hawa,
play on words.
It is related that Muhammad bin Falaal Balqir
said, I marvel
at 1 who goes with his passion into
the house of Allah and visits him. Why
does he not
trample on his passion that he may attain
him? Meaning what? The physical proximity?
What he seeks in physical proximity, he may
not attain.
But,
that thing that he seeks through the proximity
of his heart,
he'll attain to it.
There's a number of other
useful things that he he mentioned, but because
we added the darj in the front of
the dars, it's gonna end up becoming too
long, to finish this chapter. So inshallah, we'll
call it a day here.