Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Fes 2017 Gatherings of Remembrance 12242017
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It's a hadith of narrated
in Sahih Muslim
That,
Allah
he has certain angels
that are described as Sayahim.
Siyaha in the modern language means tourism.
In the old language, Siyaha means,
to also go
in different parts of the earth and see
what's going on.
So these angels, their whole job is to
go and tour the
the earth. And the spiritual world is
in some ways similar to the physical world,
and in some ways it's the polar opposite.
So just as in the physical
world,
when you look up at the
sky, you see stars.
What is a star? A star is not
a small thing. The sun is a star
as well. And it's a huge,
it's a huge
basically, what? Like a ball
of plasma hydrogen that's infusing and releasing
ridiculous amounts of energy.
And that's essentially what lights up the entire
universe. There's no light except for a star
or a star that collapsed or several stars
that collapsed. Some something like that.
And some of them are really ridiculously big
and some of them are like, obscenely big.
You have something like a black hole or
a neutron star that
it's so big that it even sucks light
in. And some of them are so big
they suck light in so fast that all
the light can't come in quick enough. So
it's spewing out jets of light at the
poles,
that it rotates on, a teaspoon of which
has has more mass in it than
the entire star the entire sun,
or or perhaps even the solar system.
So the spiritual world is what?
The spiritual world is
is inverted. It's inside out. So the angels,
the siyachim,
they look for light, but they're not looking
for physical light, and they're not looking for
physical
greatness
that generates that light. Rather,
they look for
the spiritual light because they themselves are made
of Noor. They're made of such a light
that's not like the light of this world.
The light of this world, the physical light
of this world is has physicality.
It's still carried on photons. It's not completely
it's not completely,
devoid of having some body.
Whereas the angels are Anwar
in the purest form and so they look
for that nur as well.
And that nur is generated by something great,
but not something physically
great.
So when they
tour,
around the earth and they see the light
coming from a place where the vicar of
Allah Ta'ala is made.
They cry out to each other.
Come. This is what you've been looking for.
Come. This is what you've been looking for.
And then they'll crowd out the majlis and
they'll,
attend that that that that sitting in which
the zikr of Allah Ta'ala is made. Whether
it's a 100 people or 10 people or
5 people or just one person alone.
And
they will attend with adab from the beginning
until the end. And then
afterward, they appear in the,
court of the almighty jalawala. And
for those of you who took Aqida, one
might say how do you appear in the
court of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The way
Allah Ta'ala communicates with the angels is the
same way he communicates with the MBIA alaymusalam
or with the rest of the creation, which
is either directly through wahi that enters the
hearts of certain angels
or
through those angels who receive the wahi directly
than informing the other angels.
And so the court of
Allah is what? It's those places where the
angels gather and there are places mentioned in
the book of Allah
the highest of which
is, Al Mala Al Aala which is mentioned
in hadith of the prophet as well,
in which
the the highest ranking of the angels and
the other spirits that Allah
created, they sit together and they receive the
hookm of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala through Rahi.
And so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will ask
the angels,
will ask the angels after they have given
their complete report about what happened.
He'll ask the angels,
that,
what what did you see my slaves doing?
And,
they'll say, I saw them calling on you.
And this is the vikr of Allah Allah.
What is it?
It's calling on Allah
Don't you see like a child calls out
to,
its mother or father or brothers and sisters,
little baby when they want help? You just
call the name. You don't have to explain
anything else afterward.
So they they were calling on you. They
were asking. They were making du'a. Du'a means
to call on somebody.
And Allah will ask them, have they ever
seen me?
And the angels will say, no.
No, our lord. They haven't seen you. And
then he'll ask the question, what if they
had seen me? What do you think? So
Said if they had seen you, they would
have been even more fervent in calling on
you.
And then Allah
asked the angels what were they asking for.
And the angels will say they're asking for
your Jannah, You
Allah. And he'll say, have they seen my
Jannah?
And, the angels will say, no, you Allah,
they haven't seen your jannah.
And then Allah will ask them if what
if they had seen my jannah?
What what then? And Allah and and the
angels will say, Allah, if they had seen
your Jannah, they would have been even more
fervent in asking for it.
And then Allah will ask what were they
seeking refuge from?
And, the angels will say they're seeking refuge
from your fire.
Will ask, have they seen my fire? And
the angels will answer, no.
And then will
ask, what if they had seen what if
they had seen my fire?
The angels will answer, they would be even
more fervent in seeking your refuge from it.
And like this question and answer, we'll go
back and forth between Allah
and between the angels.
And obviously, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala doesn't need
to ask anyone anything.
Although one of the hikmas of this is
what is that it even shows the angels
with the Maqam of
what the of the the the the the
people who make it in this world
is.
It's not easy being people.
It's not easy at all. And in fact,
it's
mentioned in the tafsir, the Mufasirim mentioned with
regards to Harut and Marut who are mentioned
in the Surat Al Baqarah
that, who who were sent as a
to teach them
that
they were forbidden from learning, that sorcery that
they were forbidden from learning, and that sorcery
which caused a lot of chaos and facade
amongst them.
That they are 2 essentially
angels
that
ask Allah
what's the point of this creation
because they seem to do everything wrong.
And so,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, okay, if you
really wanna know, I'll teach you.
And so he sent them
down to earth in human form and said
you just have to stay 1 year
and avoid doing 3 sins. That's all.
So you have to avoid drinking
or to getting intoxicated.
You have to avoid,
you have to avoid
murder. You have to avoid murder.
These 3 sins avoid them for, what, for
1 year.
And
many of us have many years under our
belt
that we've avoided.
At least we go for many years at
a time having avoided all 3.
And,
the angels,
both of them when they came in human
form,
they fell in love with the same woman
who was a wicked woman. And she, 1
by 1, had them do all 3 sins.
And when they finally did all 3 of
them,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caught them and said,
see, now you understand.
And now your punishment for
your punishment for not having,
for not having,
you know, gone with the program from the
beginning or for for for have not having
understood what difficulty there is for the human
beings is that you have to do all
odd jobs. You have to
you're cursed to live and tell you and
do all these different odd jobs for Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So they got like a
angelic demotion.
It's not easy. It's not easy being people.
So,
the amount of
the amount of tafir, a person has to
be able to sit and control their nafs
and do it for the sake of Allah
It's not it's not a small thing. It's
a really big thing,
but also with that, big things come from
it.
Can you imagine Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
who he is and what his greatness is
and what his maqam is from us?
And yet Allah
gave us the
gave us the honor and the privilege
to call on him directly.
And he gave us the honor and privilege
of calling on him by his name.
Our own mothers, if we call them by
their name, they would probably grab us by
the ear for good reason.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
he
taught us his divine name and he allowed
us to call him by it, which is
an honor that wasn't even given to all
of the Umman.
And yet there are people who don't wish
to take the name of Allah Ta'ala or
see it as some sort of matter of
tension or some sort of,
something burdensome or something that is, you know,
they avoid. They flee from it like a
person flees from death. There are some people
if you call them to the salat or
if you call them to,
if you call them to the remembrance of
Allah Ta'ala or any sort of
matter of deen, they they they, like, freak
out and they run away.
And some of us may have been like
that at some point in our lives.
And
what that is
is
a a
a a a, like, a kind of a
a scary sign. It's a sign of, like,
being stripped and devoid of.
But
a person shouldn't dwell on that negativity, not
for themselves nor for others.
Because, Alhamdulillah, as long as a person has
breath inside of them, the door is always
open to come to the remembrance of Allah
Ta'ala. And sometimes in the same person, there's
the the conflict between people
of should I do this or should I
not do this? Should I stay,
occupied with the remembrance of Allah Ta'ala or
should I not do it? Maybe if I
do, I won't get enough sleep or I
won't,
enjoy myself or I'll have to somehow become
such a pious person that it will cause
me some sort of takleef. It will cause
me some sort of harm.
Once said he said
that he gave the like a like a
snake
that that is afraid if it gives up
its venom that it will become, like, powerless.
But the problem is that if you're a
snake, you're a snake.
And so people have so much love for
that love for that venom.
And
the
that when you when you when you remember
Allah
the heart becomes
tranquil and it becomes peaceful. I think probably
the best example of this is the Salat
of Taraweeh.
Many of us for significant portion of our
lives, if not still, don't understand the lick
of the Quran in Arabic.
But still, even a who,
you know, I've seen non Muslims stand in
Taraweeh for the entire thing. Some of them
not only fast, some of them enjoy going
to Taraweeh in the in the in the
Ramadan too.
There was once when I was at university,
a Lutheran pastor,
he used to come and pray with us.
He used to attend the Masjid so frequently
that one day, he, he the church actually
transferred him away from from from where he
was,
to somewhere else.
And I have a feeling that,
you know, he was he was getting a
little bit too, friendly with the natives, like,
level of, like, the church people are wondering
why is this guy doing this. You know?
But people people enjoy that. Even if you
don't understand the lick of it, nobody comes
out
of feeling like I wasted my time. Everybody
comes out with a clean feeling inside of
their heart, and it's the barakah of the
the taking of the divine name.
And even if a person is, quote, unquote,
not feeling it,
which is a really big thing nowadays, as
if people are supposed to feel their way
through life.
There's nothing that nothing that that is worth
achieving this life which happens through good feelings.
In fact, many things that the path of
which is good feelings, that's what's going to
end up destroying a person.
Drug addiction and these types of things, they
feel wonderful and you just keep feeling good,
good, good until one day you die or
you lose,
all the ones you love or you lose
everything you have or, you know, you have
some other sort of perdition and loss.
The idea is that this remembrance of Allah,
everybody when they sit for it, they all
know that there's some there's some and there's
some good that that they get from it
even if a person doesn't understand it completely
and fully. And this is another strange thing
that that people
have this need for understanding everything completely and
thoroughly.
This is Islam. This is the deen of
knowledge.
A person is
is highly recommended to spend as much time
as they can learning,
and you'll find the ready to teach you,
as much as you have Himma.
If you come in the correct way, they're
ready to teach you,
as much as as as you have Himma.
There's nobody who,
dislikes to share this knowledge with somebody.
But at the same time, there are so
many things. Our entire ancestry and forefathers imagine
that. Right? More humanity
than not
live their entire lives without knowing what is
oxygen.
Live their entire lives without knowing what, you
know, hydrogen bonding is. They live their entire
lives without knowing what an electron is. They
live their entire life lives without knowing that
gravity is, like, accelerates
things at 9.8 meters per second per second.
And they knew all of these,
they they didn't know any of these things.
They used to eat oranges before they knew
what vitamin c is. They used to, you
know, go for exercise before they knew what,
like, cardiovascular
health was all about. They used to, you
know,
whatever. They used to have strong muscles without
ever having gone to a gym or, like,
you know, doing 4 sets of 5 5
or 3 sets of 10 or any of
these things.
The idea with life is that Allah
made all of these things for our benefit.
And when we receive benefit from something,
you should continue always continue to learn and
and and seek more knowledge and understand.
But the idea that complete understanding is a
prerequisite to benefiting from something is complete nonsense
from shaitan.
How many of us have ever been shown
a smartphone and say, until I understand completely
how it works,
I'm going to I'm not gonna use it.
This is ridiculous. There are so many people,
Marshall. The entire, like, precept concept that the
whatever
Apple products are made made on is, like,
from the time of, like, old Macintoshes. It
should be so easy to use that, like,
a person who knows nothing about computers should
be able to intuitively use the thing without
having any idea what's going on.
And the funny thing is that we use
things all the time without understanding their function.
One of the founders of Facebook, like, you
know,
probably got
too drunk one night and
felt so much remorse the next day that
he he spilled the beans saying that we
deliberately, like,
made this entire platform manipulative so that a
person is gonna have all these, you know,
weird dopamine rush type experiences from using our
product and be addicted to it. And we
didn't care how it's gonna affect people. And
now that this thing has been going on
for so many years, now I kinda feel
a little bad like, you know, that maybe
we shouldn't have done that after screwing everything
up. Right? But we use all of these
things because we see some benefit in it
without understanding them. Abduin of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala was literally designed for our benefit by
Allah Ta'ala who created us. It was a
perfect fit, tailored fit,
thing for for our lives.
It's okay. You can benefit from certain things
without understanding them completely.
And that's not to say that you shouldn't
understand them. Inshallah, keep striving and keep understanding
more and more. But don't let cheitan say
these little whisperings inside and then
make your entire life pass by, your entire
days pass by without making the remembrance of
Allah Ta'ala. And this is something that,
you know, it's something that's really weird. Like,
look at the society that we're in right
now.
The the place we're visiting right now, you
see that there are people there's bars, there's
people smoking cigarettes, there's all kinds of haram
things happening around us.
However, you'll enter into the city today. You've
already seen fast very different because it was
laid out planned by planned by Muslims unlike
unlike, Casablanca and things like that. Right?
You'll see imagine
the the the number of Masajid, the number
of Madars,
the the the the kind of different society
and different life that people had. It indicates
to you that everything wasn't like it like
it is right now for a large
like, for a very long period of history.
That there was a time when the din
was actually more important to people.
Just like nowadays you walk by a bar
and it hurts you inside that why is
this
is a
why are people doing this?
But you can't say anything.
Why?
Because there's very powerful forces that keep these
things,
keep these things going despite the fact that
everybody hates them.
The flip side, imagine that there was
a period of time for so long that
people really valued the masajid, they valued the
hankas, they valued the
the the word for khanqah in in in
this part of the world is zawiyah. They
valued the zawiyah. They valued the
the the
the remembrance of Allah and it's an entire,
like, lifestyle that that that
surrounds that.
And
that doesn't happen for free. I mean, think
about that. Imagine imagine how difficult is it
just to go to your own relatives
and say, let's pray salat before the time
leaves.
It's an exercise of making a fool making
a fool out of yourself.
You will you'll be like become like the
clown amongst your own Muslim relatives,
Ilham and Rahim Arabuhu, except for people who
Allah has very cost mercy on. You know,
many even ulama, people even from big families
of ulama, they have, like, maybe, like, half
of their families, like, interdying the other half.
Still, it's difficult because a human being, that's
their their disposition, their nature. It's so difficult
to to tell anyone anything.
So imagine what type of
force was what was there
that
convinced the entire society to get with the
program like that.
That type of thing doesn't happen except for
through the dhikr of Allah
That type of thing doesn't happen except for
the through the proliferation of ill
large numbers of people, all of them on
the same page, both in their mind and
inside of their heart.
And help so much help from Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. And the help comes from Allah
Ta'ala. How? Through calling on him and through
asking him. And this is one of the
things that that that I really
hurts me inside about,
you know, our poem, where we live and
where we come from. People run away from
the dhikr of Allah and the ibadah of
Allah
as if it's like, you know, like somebody
Ebola infected whatever
dude running at you. It's not it's not
that bad. It's actually really good for you.
It's good to sit through it even if
you don't feel it. I mean, a person
might ask, how did you learn Arabic? How
did you learn, you know, all these in
Arabic language? How did you learn the Surah?
How did you you just sit there for
long enough. You learn everything.
You just become accustomed to it. In the
beginning, you see something. It's beneficial to you,
but you're not really
exactly accustomed to it. So you force yourself
to sit through it day in and day
out day in and day out. What happens
one day, the thing clicks inside of your
mind, inside of your heart. Most people, it's
sooner than they think.
They start to become habituated and accustomed to
certain things.
And this sitting for the dhikr of Allah
to finish the hadith out,
At the end of the the entire interview
that that the angels have with Allah,
Allah
will tell tell the angels, oh, my angels,
I I make you bear witness
that I have forgiven all of them.
And so the angels make the the the
the the angels make the
the objection that someone was sitting with them,
and, they really weren't there for your sake.
They were just there for some other reason.
Maybe someone dragged them. Maybe they wanted to
show off to someone. Maybe they really had
nothing else to do. I mean, let's be
honest with ourselves. We're on vacation here. If
I called you guys to Addison this morning
to my basement,
who's gonna come? It's, you know and then
you will it's impractical. It's far away. You're
sitting in Morocco right now.
It's
far
away.
So
let's not have pretenses between us and Allah
I'm not accusing you of anything that I'm
not guilty of myself.
Maybe I'm the only guilty one and you
guys are getting falsely accused, but at least
I myself, I'll tell you much why we're
here because it's fun. It's it's a nice
thing to do. Right? Hamdulillahasnaharam.
Awesome.
The angels make the objection.
So so and so was there for whatever
reason, you know. They're just there to go
on vacation in Morocco and, like, whatever, eat
tajeen and like
kebabs.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, what does he say
as as a job to the angels? He
didn't say you're wrong
because he knows better than they do.
What does Allah says,
He says, the people of my remembrance,
they're such a people
that even the one who sits with them,
even the one who sits amongst them, that
person will never be wretched.
That person that person always just by the
fact that someone sits with those people, that
person will be happy.
And this is this is something that, you
know,
we should be careful that we not be
maroon of, that we not be deprived of
when we're over there.
That we we
revive these things inside of our homes. Even
if you don't sit for so long, you
know, if you cannot say
a 100 times,
then sit and say it 10 times.
Can you even sit and say it once?
You know, every day, sit and say it
once.
These are these are important
things.
And there was just one very short manful
of,
other than we I wanted to
share with you. But, again, my friend and
Sheikh
protect him.
He compiled this,
translation
of
4040
in in in good English.
It's just it's about a page long.
He said, respected friends, Allah gives us comfort
and ease throughout the year.
If perchance we may happen to experience some
discomfort or hardship,
then it is fair to complain,
or then is it fair to complain of
that discomfort verbally and become bitter and let
that affect our service of Allah, Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala?
Dear friends,
look at those who are employed for an
army. Soldiers
throughout the year, month after month, they are
at ease and receive their salaries and peace
and comfort.
And at times, they may get deployed and
have to fight in order to defend their
country and land. Now tell me when a
soldier gets deployed
anywhere to fulfill his duty, does he have
any right to complain or become bitter?
Absolutely not.
Rather, it is known that this is the
demand
of honor and dignity
that we have been taken
care of all of the time. And now
when asked to fulfill our duty and take
orders, we must do so without hesitation or
reservation.
Moreover, we have seen that when soldiers are
given orders, they do not refuse.
Instead, they are ready to go and face
the enemy. Additionally, they tolerate all types of
hardship for the sake of making one's authority
pleased.
In fact, soldiers are even ready to give
up their own lives considering it to be
honorable.
How unfortunate must it be for us that
when we receive the bounties of Allah
throughout the whole year
and then upon the instance of a slight
difficulty or hardship, we commence to complain.
Should the conduct of the slave with his
benevolent lord be any less than an average
soldier with the state?
This kefir
that that
that that Azrutani
describes,
it's all it's only a matter of just
having correct perspective about things in your life.
And
the zikr of Allah
is something that that anchors that perspective. It
reminds a person of all of these things.
If a person's heedless, they may behave in
other ways that make sense to them. Why?
Because they're not keeping what they need to
keep in mind in mind.
Allah
give all of us so much.
Inshallah,
in the next, coming days in, we will
go through seeing that we're in fast,
we'll go through
a short text by Sidi Ahmed Zaruk, who
was a person of this city.
Although he died and he was buried somewhere
else, but he was a great faqih of
the city, a Muhaqq of the Maliki, Mal
Habib. Inshallah,
and a a a well known a well
known scholar
all all around.
We'll go through
a short work of his
as well.
But remember while you're here
that amidst all of the taking photos and
all of the selfies and all of the
wonderful food and buying and selling new colors
and
even smells. Fast is a
very
multi
smellular
experience.
Many of which are good smells.
Amidst all of that, you know, stop when
you see a masjid.
Go go pray 2 raka'as there. Literally, in
every corner of the of the city, there's
somebody of Allah that's that's that's that's there,
that was there, that was buried there, that
walked in those streets.
So many books of deen, so many books
of so many
so many, so many,
just
people, come from this place to the point
where the people of the used to say
this is like the second Madinah.
This city was a a a a,
like, a metaphor for din for people.
People who wanted to study and things like
that, they would all come over here. People
who wanted to
meet the, they they would come here. They
would visit the the routes for Hajj from
the rest of Africa used to come through
here.
It's it's a it's an important place.
So stop.
You know, go stop and when you pass
by a masjid,
stop, pray, you know, make your wudu before
you leave home. Pray 2 rakas in, in
all of these different places. All of them
are the houses of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And make dua to Allah Ta'ala. The thing
that Allah Ta'ala gave these people is the
same Allah Ta'ala. He can give it to
us as well. That he give us some
part of it, some portion of it, Insha'Allah,
as well in our own lives and for
our own communities and for our own people.
That Allah
might
make,
you know, make make some of that come
back,
with us. Don't just go around like a
like a heedless
tourist from,
a place that they don't know the name
of Allah or Hizra sallallahu alaihi sallam. Say
slam to the people. You know, don't get
upset with beggars. Don't get upset with the
hustlers. There's a lot of people who are
gonna try to hustle you for all kinds
of different things.
Don't get upset with them. Just smile at
them. Say, keep moving.
Observe all these adab inshallah
that are also connected with the