Husain Sattar – Fundamentals of Tasawwuf #5
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
As you're well aware, we've been discussing the
as a theme, we've been discussing the science
of the, in particular, we should say the
science of the soul. Maybe that's a better
way to phrase it.
And
we've covered several aspects of the soul.
Maybe you can even take it one step
back and you can say we're discussing the
science of being human. And we've covered several
aspects of being human, which is
the most important of which is that human
beings are a composite of a body and
a soul
and that, we have to grow the body
and grow the soul.
However,
the body must be placed in its context,
and the soul should be elevated in order
for a human being to be able to
achieve perfection
in their pursuit
of pleasing
Allah
So that's the summary and the details were
elucidated over several hours of lectures now.
And we're really coming to the
end of
the series.
It's very interesting because,
when you're when I'm thinking about the handicap
for every year, I spend the 1st 20
days thinking about what to say in the
last 10 days.
And,
I can tell you for certain that
none of these lectures,
were were at all prepared.
Meaning, I the stuff I had was thought
I was gonna say has yet to be
said. It won't be said, actually. And I
just changed the topic one day.
I don't know.
You know? Sometimes the person who
throws a random shot hits the target as
well. So, you know, you just it just
came up that way, and then
one lecture led to the next lecture, then
it led to the next lecture.
So,
I guess,
maybe put another way, it's really the Talab
of the of the that
determines
what occurs.
So, Sheikh Qalam Habib,
my sheikh's sheikh. So Sheikh Wilam Habib was
Sheikh Zofakar's Sheikh.
He,
he is very very well known for the
talks that he used to give and, in
particular very well known for the explication of
the ayats and the Quran that he used
to place within his talks. I mean, they
say that when he was sitting in his
talks, he would open the Quran for you
in ways that you could never
you had never thought of before.
I actually never got to hear any of
his talks.
Some people have recorded some of his talks,
and they have there is actually a website
where you can actually listen to those
talks. The only talk I've the only portion
of a talk that I've ever heard, which
is actually on that website, was the beginning
of a talk in which he's sitting down
with the,
the students, and he says to the students
he's explaining to them that
what he says
has nothing to do with what he intends
to say, but instead it has to do
with the follow-up of the of the people
sitting there. Meaning,
it's often whatever the desire of the group
is, that's often the result of the of
the talk. You know, that's pretty much what
you can say the talk ends up being.
So if there's a lot of okay. Let
me put it another way. There's really different
scenarios that can occur. 1,
the speaker is so powerful,
so spiritually advanced that he moves the audience
in the direction that he wants to move
them. That's option a. That's scenario a. Scenario
b,
that the students are so demanding of something
or so sincere of something that even if
you have a worthless speaker, they move the
that talk in the direction that they want
the talk to go in. So that's the
scenario that we find ourselves in. I wrote
10 pages of 10 talks, and none of
them have happened yet. And and all of
them are basically maybe the follow-up of the
audience. That's what I'm trying to say, and
and that's not a very eloquent win. Let
without with the lack of eloquence. I'm trying
to say that. So, anyway, today the discussion
for today is now to put a name
on everything that we've discussed so far.
So we've covered a lot of different concepts,
and those concepts can be encompassed within 3
individual terms, and they're they're often interchangeably used.
So the first term that's used for the
science of the soul that we've discussed is
called,
deskia.
That's one name that's used for this science.
The second name that's often used is called
Ehsan. Ehsan means excellence.
Teskea means purification. So you have Teskea, Ehsan.
And, the third name or term that's given
to this science is called Tasawur.
So these are the 3 most popular terms,
used for this science,
and I thought it's better to explain the
science and then to put the name on
it rather than give you a name and
then explain the science. And the reason why
I chose that order is because, in essence,
these sciences had no names until after
the right? There was no such thing as
the
at the time
of that name was given later. Just like
we could say that there was no,
you know, there was no collection of hadith
called bukhari at the time of Rasulullah
That collection was put together later.
So we can the other way that the
people
of the the people of the the say,
they say that the was a reality without
a name
and then eventually it became a name and
unfortunately
sometimes without a reality.
So,
the idea here, at least the way that
the reason why I chose this lecture in
this particular order was because I thought better
present the reality and then eventually tie in
the name. So that's what we're going to
do today. We're gonna tie in the name
from Quran and Hadith.
And, tomorrow's lecture will then be the more
the practical. You know, that was all lectures.
You know? That was all the theory. So
this is the theory. This is the and
then now tomorrow, we have to put it
all together into so how do I practically
develop myself in the science of the civil
war?
Like, what are the how how do you
do how do you actually practice the civil
war? How do you find a teacher? What
steps do you have to make, etcetera? So
that would be the most practical of the
of the series, and that'll be tomorrow tomorrow's
talk, and it will be the final talk
in the series as well.
So,
when Ibrahim and
Hazrat
Ismail constructed the Kaaba, when they completed the
construction of the Kaaba, they made several duas
to
Allah When Hazrat Ibrahim
and Hazrat Ismail
completed the construction of the Kaaba,
they made several duas
at that time.
Those duas have been preserved by Allah
within the Quran.
And, at the very beginning of this session
when Hafiz Amir recited,
the verses, he recited some of those verses
and I'm going to repeat some of them
to you so that you can see the
types of du'a that 2 prophets made after
completing an act which was mandated by their
lord.
So Allah
states in his glorious book,
When Hazrat Ibrahim alaihi
Hazrat Ibrahim and Isma'in
raised
the house of Allah
meaning they built the Kaaba.
They they made the following du'a. Number 1.
Very beautiful.
They said, oh Allah. Oh, oh, oh, our
Lord,
accept from us.
Accept this act of worship from us.
So the very first thing they did when
they constructed the Galva was to ask Allah
for acceptance.
Now they weren't sitting there patting themselves in
the back saying, look what a great job
we did. Look at this amazing structure that
we've put together.
We should be proud of ourselves, and we've
completed this task in the name of Allah
They had the ultimate humbleness and humility,
and they were begging from Allah
that this deed be accepted.
So they start out by saying,
O Our Lord accept from us
You are
the one who is all hearing and the
one who is all knowing.
So this was the first dua that they
made.
The second dua that they made,
which just continues on with this series of
verses,
O Allah, make us
among those who submit to you.
So they're asking to be Muslim. They're asking
to be among those who submit to their
offer.
And from our offspring,
create a nation
of people who are submissive to you, who
are Muslim to you.
And exemplify
for us our
rituals of worship
and turn towards us
verily you are the oft turning,
you are the merciful.
So this was the second du'a which they
made. That oh Allah. So first they said
oh Allah accept the structure that we've produced.
Then they said, oh Allah make us your
servants
and create from our offspring
a group of servants
that will be submissive to you.
And then they made a third dua which
is also narrated.
And O our Lord,
send among the Muslim offspring, because they've made
a dua to create an ummah. Within that
send
send among them a messenger
minhum who comes from amongst them.
So they asked that Allah
send a Messenger
within that community
to perform various functions.
So this was the 3rd dua. So dua
number 1, accept what we've produced.
Dua number 2, create amongst us and from
us offspring that will be submissive to you
and show us and guide us to the
rituals of worship so that we may worship
you.
And then finally, send amongst us a messenger.
Now, they ask for a messenger.
And what's interesting is that Rasulullah
in a Hadith
states himself that I am the result of
the dua of my father Ibrahim
Just to show you that this dua was
so accepted that obviously Allah
is narrating it for us to recite till
the day of judgment.
However, at the same time, Rasulullah
also said that I am the result of
the du'a of my father Ibrahim
and it's based on this particular du'a that
we've just recited.
Now, it's interesting that Hazrat Ibrahim
and Hazrat Ismail
when they're making this dua, they not only
asked for a Messenger,
but they elucidated
the function of the Messenger within the community.
So they were very particular. They didn't just
say send us a messenger from amongst us.
They said send us a messenger from amongst
us, and then they listed
what the tasks of that messenger would be.
So what did they say? Number 1,
that this messenger should recite upon the community
your ayat.
So this is the first function of the
messenger,
that he recite among the upon the community
the ayat of
And if you look at the life of
Rasulullah
you'll see that his primary function was indeed
to take the Quran, which was revealed by
Allah
upon his heart and to articulate it to
recite it to the companions.
So this was one major function of Rasulullah
which was to capture the Quran
and then to transmit it to the companions.
So you can just imagine, I mean, in
this day and age, we're so caught up
in the ability of things to capture and
transmit. Right? I mean, if you have a
GPS system and it has the ability to
capture map data from a satellite, we're so
amazed by it. Right? We're just perplexed by
it that this thing knows exactly where you
are. It's capturing data at all times, and
then it's transmitting to you where you are
and telling you where you should go. Or
you look at these complicated cell phones and
you're amazed at what kind of data they
can capture. You know, they're capturing
huge emails and they're capturing messages and they're
capturing video and pictures and text, and it
amazes us that this little machine can capture
that and then transmit it to people. And
we should think about the heart of Rasulullah
how amazing it must have been that it
captured
the word of Allah
That word that were you to descend it
on a mountain, it would have crushed the
mountain.
That same word that would have, had it
been descended on a mountain, it would have
crushed the mountain. The heart of Rasulullah
had the ability to capture
and then to transmit it to the companions.
So this was really the, one of the
major functions of
that he recites upon them your verses.
Then the second function that was listed,
and that he teaches them the Kitab.
Now what is the Kitab? The Quran.
So that the function of Rasulullah
was actually twofold with the Quran. Number 1,
to actually take the words as revealed by
Allah to capture them and then to
capture them and then to then to transmit
them exactly as they had been revealed. So
that was function 1. But then function 2
was to
to actually teach them that book that was
being recited upon them,
that it wasn't sufficient to have the book
alone, but also
was the exemplifier of that book. He elucidated
that book. He explained that book. He exemplified
that book. In fact, he was the Quran
walking on the earth. Right? That's another description
of Rasulullah
that we know from hadith. He was the
Quran
walking on the earth.
So this was the second function of
Rasulullah
3rd function of Rasulullah
He teaches them the book which was the
second function and the hikmah and wisdom.
Now the
they explain here that this word al hikmah
actually refers to the hadith,
the wisdom of how to be good, how
to have good character, etcetera.
This was all basically contained within the hadith.
So that now we have three functions of
Rasulullah
Number 1, recitation of the book.
Number 2,
explication of that book. And then number 3,
the statements that he makes, the life that
he lives, everything he basically does gets captured
separately in a category called hadith, and that
was also part of the teaching or responsibility
that he was bestowed by Allah
in the favor of the community.
So this was the 3rd function.
The 4th function,
and that he purify
them. So 4 functions of
recitation of the book,
teaching of the book,
hadith,
and
purification of the companions.
So these were the major functions
of
and this 4th function,
to purify them,
this 4th function is actually,
you can say is classified as the science
of desquia. Now actually, if you think about
this, and we'll go into more detail later,
each of these functions is actually captured in
a science. For example, recitation of the Quran
is a science. Right? The Quran teach this,
and they teach it through
and they teach it through memorization.
That's one function of
The explication of the book is called tafsir,
and that's one function of
Just the statements that he makes concerning Allah,
concerning himself, the way he acts, the way
he eats, the way he sleeps, basically is
a reflection of the effect of the Quran
on him, the effect of the
relationship that he had with Allah
and we call that hadith. And then finally,
he purified
the,
the companions, and we call that dazkiyah.
So this is where you get the word
dazkiyah,
this 4th function.
Now,
you could say, well, you know, I mean,
this technically
if you just look at it very, very
technically, in an accurate academic way, you could
say, well, that's not really a fair definition
of the 4 functions of the functions of
Rasoolullah
because these are the functions that were requested.
Right? This is what Hazrat Ibrahim
and Hazrat Ismail
They are requesting from Allah
to send a messenger like this. So if
you really wanted to argue for completeness' sake,
you can say, well, those were the requests,
but what did the messenger actually come to
do?
So it's beautiful that you can actually dig
a little deeper into the Quran, and you
can actually find
Allah's description of the fact that he sent
Rasulullah
as a favor upon the community.
So this comes a few ayaas later in
the same, Surah Al Baqarah. And Allah
states,
one of the favors that we have bestowed
upon the community is that we have sent
amongst you
a messenger.
Okay?
Just as we have sent a messenger amongst
you, that is from you, meaning from the
same,
lineage as you, from the same
ethnicity as you, from the same language as
you, right?
So now Allah
describes that one of the favors was that
He sent a messenger, but then Allah
also takes this one step further and begins
to elucidate the functions of that messenger. Now
in the words of Allah, what are the
functions of that messenger?
So the exact same
four functions that Hazrat Ibrahim
made du'a for when Allah
describes the sending of Rasulullah
as a favor upon the community,
he actually narrates the exact same four functions.
So you can see you can see that
Allah, Subhanahu, Wa Ta'ala, send the messenger with
those four functions.
But actually, there's one slight difference.
There's one slight difference when you compare the
Dua versus the actual description of Allah
What's that slight difference? The order.
Now when Hazrat Ibrahim
made the dua, what did he what did
he say? Right?
So he recites the ayah, that's number 1.
Number 2,
he teaches the book and he teaches wisdom,
which is hadith, so that's 234
23. And number 4 is what?
Now look at the words of Allah
concerning the favor upon the community.
So do you see the difference?
The order of tesquia was changed. Rather than
being 4th, it was put second.
Alright? So based on this, that some of
the old Lama argue, that it highlights the
importance of the the science of tazkiyah.
That really when when these functions are being
elucidated,
instead of putting it forth, it was brought
second when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described it
to highlight the importance
of tazkiyah in the development of a true
Muslim.
Alright? So that's a very important point to
note here. Because obviously, I mean, it's major
that it's a function of Rasulullah
It's one of the four functions. But it
also was moved to the second on the
list when
Allah
describes the sending of Rasulullah
Now, Ajib, that the Prophet
was able to carry
all 4 of these functions to perfection.
Yani,
all of these functions
were contained within 1 human being
and that's amazing.
Because you think about it just to receive
the Quran what a major weight that would
be on an individual.
But Rasulullah
he was able to carry it.
Then to teach the Quran what a major
weight that would be on an individual. But
again Rasulullah
exemplified it. And then to be able to
be such an individual
that anything you say
and anything you do automatically
becomes Deen, imagine how perfect the individual must
be.
Remember that anything Rasulullah
ever says automatically goes into 1 of 2
baskets. Either he says Quran
or everything else is Hadith.
Right? There is no other way out.
Anything
that comes from the blessed tongue of Rasulullah
Sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is either called Quran
or it's called Hadith.
Right? There is no third category.
So to be so perfect in your
in your connection with Allah
that everything you do, everything you say,
every
act is basically an act of worship that
I mean imagine the weight on Rasulullah
Alright? And then on top of that to
have to purify the community is not an
easy task, but Rasulullah
was there to purify the community spiritually.
So these were the 4 major tasks of
Rasulullah
and it just blows you away. It's amazing.
It's just amazing how one individual
could carry all 4 of these heavy, heavy
tasks.
Now, Rasulullah
was given the blessing of being able to
carry each of these tasks and he did
so to perfection.
And when he carried these tasks,
these tasks needed to be maintained so that
they could be maintained so that they could
be transmitted from generation to generation to generation
until the Day of Judgment
because this was the final beam.
So that whatever Rasulullah
brought had to be captured and retained until
the last day. Correct?
So the Quran that was revealed had to
be captured till the last day. The statements
of Rasoolullah
had to be captured till the last day.
The education of Rasoolullah
concerning that book had to be captured till
the last day. Now this weight that this
the amount that Rasulullah
carried was so weighty that Allah
created around the Messenger over a 120,000
companions who acted to capture that which was
revealed upon a single individual.
Yeni otherwise stated the Sahaba
were the carriers
of the weight that was placed on the
shoulder of Rasulullah
and in order to carry it Allah
created
120,000
plus companions to carry that weight.
That shows you that how much weight was
carrying, that we think of the companions as
stars.
We think of the companions as sources of
guidance. You say companion automatically you have aloof,
you have uludu, you know, they're truth, you
don't have to even go into their lives
to decide whether or not you accept the
narration from them. Once you reach a companion,
it's done in the science of hadith.
So
120,000
plus
incredible beings like the companions about
whom is revealed
they were provided to Rasulullah
to capture and to carry that weight that
was placed upon his shoulders.
Now, Rasulullah
made a very beautiful statement,
actually summarizes this entire notion.
What does he say? He says that Allah
is the giver.
Right? In fact, I have it written here.
Rasuulullah
says,
that verily I am the divider
and Allah is the one who gives. So
this statement states that Allah
bestowed upon me the deen, Rasool Allah is
saying, Allah
bestowed upon me the deen, and I divided
it amongst my companions.
Alright, so they inherited this deen from Rasulullah
Now, they captured the deen
and they captured it in the most perfect
way.
That's amazing. That's the, you can say the
fidelity
of the Sahaba.
The fidelity of the Sahaba, which you know
also is just amazing
because when you have that much data, let's
just put it in a very technical way
just for today's data, when you have that
much data and you have to transmit that
much data from one place to another place,
in any case, in any type of data
transfer, there will always be some lack of
fidelity,
meaning you'll always get some data corruption. Anybody
who's into data, databases, data management knows that
if you take a huge amount of data
and you transmit that data to some other
source, invariably you're going to get some degree
of corruption.
Okay?
And it happens even in the human cell.
You know that the human cell contains DNA
and the DNA is extensive, extensive, extensive how
much DNA there is in a cell and
how much data is contained within that DNA.
Well, every time the cell divides and produces
another cell and it copies the DNA, invariably,
you pick up some mutations.
There's always some mutations that occur. There's a
basal level of mutations that occur as that
data is being transmitted.
So
when this data is being transmitted to Rasulullah
one of the special states of the companions
or one of the special characteristics of the
companions was they captured it with absolute fidelity.
Exactly,
exactly what Rasoolullah
was given, they captured it exactly in that
way and they exemplified it to perfection.
So much so, so much so that Allah
states in the Quran,
that if you believe the way they believe
now who's being addressed the kuffar
and the kuffar are being told what? If
you believe the way that the companions believe,
then you have attained guidance.
Meaning it's the only community in the history
of the world that Allah
was able to say about that community that
they actually are the mihiar, they are the
criterion of guidance. It wasn't said you need
to believe the way the Messenger believes. It
was said if you believe the way the
companions believe because the companions
captured exactly what the Messenger brought so that
they became a source of the Deen.
In another place,
Allah says, when it said to them to
believe the way the people believe now look
it wasn't said to them, 'believe the way
the Messenger believes.'
It was said to them, believe the way
the people believe, meaning the companions believe. Why?
Because the companions actually with absolute fidelity captured
what Rasulullah
brought, so that they actually became sources of
the Deen as well.
They became
sources of the Deen as well. What did
Rasulullah
say about his companions?
That my companions are like stars.
Follow any of them and you will be
guided.
Because of the fidelity
with which they captured the message that was
revealed upon Rasulullah
And this is why if you go into
the details of Islamic law, you'll see that
the actions of the companions are also called
hadith. It's a very little bit of a
technical discussion. We're not going to go there,
but you can ask your scholars, people who
you respect in this matter. You'll learn one
day, if you study the thing long enough,
that actually the actions of the companions are
also classified in this particular category as hadith.
And that we also study the actions of
the companions and we put a tremendous amount
of weight on them.
Okay? And this goes into the whole discussion
of why we pray 20 rakas, taraweeh, okay,
etcetera etcetera. And I don't wanna go into
it, but it actually is a fundamental concept
within our deen.
And,
maybe another time. So, the point here again
is that what I'm trying to highlight is
that the fidelity of the capture
was perfect.
Now, once the Sahaba captured what was
or there was someone brought, now the
responsibility
fell upon the next generation to capture what
the Sahaba had taken.
So the Tawain, which is the next generation,
had to capture what the Sahaba took and
then the Tawbatawain had to capture what the
Tawain took and then each subsequent generation
was responsible
for
maintaining
exact maintaining
the Deen as it was revealed upon Rasoolullah
Now this task proved to be so weighty,
This task
proved to be so weighty
that we ended up producing
major sciences of the Dean, which sought to
basically preserve various aspects of the Deen. So
for example,
one of the sciences that over time arose
among the within the Muslim community
was called,
was a group of people called the Mufasirim,
and the science was called Tafsir.
Now what did what was the responsibility of
the Mufasirim?
To take the explication
of the Quran
as given by Rasulullah
and as understood by the Righteous of this
community
and to preserve it,
to preserve it, to make sure that it
had been transmitted with fidelity, and then to
transmit it to the next generation with fidelity.
And this science has become so extensive
that there have been millions and millions of
scholars that have fallen under the category of
mufasidin.
And they're all doing what? Merely trying to
preserve the explication of the Quran that Rasulullah
provided for the community.
Okay, now those millions of scholars were just
preserving one aspect of the Deen and they
created a science in order to do so
and that was called the science of tafsir
and they are called mufasirin.
Alright, now similarly we had a responsibility to
preserve the recitation of the Quran.
The Quran was revealed by the angel Jibreel
in a very particular way to the heart
of Rasulullah
and he revealed it exactly as he recited
it exactly as it was revealed upon him
with the same pronunciations,
with the same Tajweed,
alright,
the exact words that were revealed upon him
were then spread to the community.
And it became the responsibility
of a group of scholars called the Qur'a,
the reciters,
to preserve and maintain
that Qur'an that was revealed at the time
of Rasulullah
And you see amongst us, subhanAllah, in this
gathering today, you know, what do we have?
30, 40 of these Qur'a. We call them
Qur'a, right? They're hufas of the Qur'an. And
what have they spent many years doing? They
spent many years preserving
the book of Rasulullah,
the book that was revealed upon Rasulullah
in the same way that it was revealed
upon the heart of Rasulullah
So what happens when these children,
in some cases elders, when they memorize this
Quran,
their teacher gives them a Sanat. Their teacher
gives them a certificate. And what does the
certificate say? Their teacher says, I memorize from
X, from A, who memorized from B, who
memorized from C, who memorized from D, who
memorized from E, all the way back to
some companion, all the way back to Rasulullah
And that's in Hajib sanit because where does
that salah go next?
To Angel Jibril
to Allah.
Ajib sanit. Ajib sanit. It's a very unique
sanit if you could ever have the ability
to plug into that power outlet. That's juice.
Right? I mean, that is amazing. That is
amazing. That and I wish you wish that
for all our children. Wish you wish that
for ourselves, you know, that we have the
ability to attain that senate. But that's just
beautiful.
And this is actually what happens anytime anyone
becomes a hafib. They plug themselves back into
a senate. Now similarly, there were a group
of ulama and you can think how much
effort for hips is occurring. Right? And that's
just one little aspect. I shouldn't say little.
That's just one aspect of Rasulullah
Now also there was the hikma
so they had to be taught the hikma.
Now the hikma was also preserved. What was
the hikma? The hadith.
So you see that a group of scholars
arose within the community
to capture and preserve the statements,
actions, dealings,
everything that revolved around Rasulullah
And what do we call those scholars? Muhadithin.
So for example, Imam Bukhari is a famous
a member of this group of scholars. Imam
Muslim, Imam Ahmad,
etcetera, etcetera, Imam Tirmidhi.
Alright? May Allah bless each of them.
All of these people were just major scholars
in the science of hadith, but there have
been
1000000 of scholars, and all of them are
carrying on their shoulder the weight that was
eventually present just on that one messenger of
Allah, Muhammad
Okay? So that's another branch, and you can
see now what what this has ended up
producing is
probably close to billions of people, let's say
100 of millions of people,
all taking one little brick on their shoulder
and trying to maintain the structure of what
carried on his own back.
So from the from the Prophet
to the
120,000 plus companions to then a bigger generation
of Tabein to a wider generation of Tabatabine
to a wider generation to a wider generation,
you know, it becomes a huge tower. It
becomes a huge tower of preservation of the
deen.
Now
this is, these are the various Islamic sciences.
And in the same way, just as the
words of were preserved as hadith and the
Quran of that came from the tongue of
was preserved by the Quran and the meaning
of that Quran was preserved by the in
the same way, this category of
was also preserved.
There was a spiritual
dimension to what
brought.
He taught the Sahaba a special
connection
with their Lord and a special disconnection from
the life of this world.
In other words, he taught the Sahaba how
to balance the development of both the body
and the soul and it was in his
company that they actually
received a huge amount of that grew their
soul,
just even just sitting in their company. In
fact, if you think about the company of
the companions with Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasallam, now
look, in his company they heard Quran.
In his company they heard explication of the
Quran. In his company they heard hadith and
they observed hadith. Alright? And in his company
they attained a certain a certain degree of
spiritual
blessing that came merely from his company alone.
So much so, so much so that when
you read the descriptions of the companions,
some of their time was spent hearing, but
most of their time was spent in silence.
Often they sat in front of Rasulullah in
absolute
and the
and the
that were emanating from his blessed heart.
So this also was a science that Rasulullah
brought to his companions.
He carried on his shoulders. The companions subsequently
captured that science in their heart, captured that
love for Allah, that passion for the
the understanding of the of the falseness of
this life and the permanence of the hereafter.
They captured this from the heart of and
then they subsequently transmitted it from generation
generation to generation.
The righteous of our community did. And this
science is called Thessia.
So that was a very, very lengthy explanation
to highlight that
that there is a science that you should
appreciate, which was called DESKIA, and it is
preserved all the way until this day and
age. Now what I want to highlight to
you and what's very important to take home
from this discussion is that each of the
individual sciences
is bound by the other sciences,
and each of the individual sciences is respected
by the other sciences.
For example,
the tafsir of the Quran is bound by
the hadith.
So you can't just randomly make up the
tafsir of the Quran and those let's say
you make up something in your mind that
you think is the tafsir of the Quran
and it contradicts hadith, it contradicts, you know,
the statements of the scholars,
that is not acceptable.
Each science is within the bounds of all
the sciences.
Alright? So in the same way,
and this is one of the major points
that I've been trying to hit home over
the last few days, is that desgia too
must be bound by the sciences.
Desgia must be within the realm of the
Sharia, otherwise it is not an acceptable science.
It is not what
brought.
So it must always
exist within the
of the Sharia and
through the light of the sunnah. And this
is a very important concept because
you say the word
it's loaded. You know, again, I told you
that you can find you can start seeking
out science, the the scholars of Tisauwuf or
the people of Tisauwuf or the people of
Tisauwuf or the people of Tisauwuf, and if
you look for a 100 moshay, 99
will be doing things that often have nothing
to do with the sharia. And because this
has become so commonplace in this day and
age, people are very hypercritical of the SAWUF.
And, you know, sometimes they use the term
Sufism, which again I told you I don't
like that term, but anyway people use that
term. And people are hypercritical, and rightly so.
We're not going to defend something that has
nothing to do with the sharia just because
it has the name. We're going to clarify
that what we are naming as the sharia
is that which has to do with the
sharia.
Alright? What we are naming as the sharia,
or in this case, tezkia
is that which has to do with the
Sharia,
is bound by the Sharia, and is accepted
by the scholars of Sharia.
Now for example, people who
are Mufasirin,
they accept fiqh as a science, they accept
the dudweed as a science, they accept teski
as a science.
People who are,
they accept tafsir as a science, they accept
teski as a science, they accept hadith as
a science. People who are,
right, or the teski,
people of, they accept all of the other
sciences. They study them. They learn them. They
encourage others to study them. They don't have
anything to hide, and they stand up and
they ask to be judged by them.
They ask to be judged by them. They're
not hiding from the Sharia. They're standing up
and telling you gauge me against the Sharia
because otherwise, we will all fail.
Is that clear? So where you see
at Tazkiyah, the people of Tazkiyah, you must
see within them the Sharia and the Sunnah.
You must see that they speak of the
Sharia and the Sunnah. You must see that
they respect
the sciences of the Sharia and the Sunnah
and that they encourage their students to study
the Sharia and the Sunnah because they have
nothing to hide. It's not that if you
go and study, you're gonna see that this
shaykh now is doing something that was never
present in any hadith. It would be very
you know, that that shaykh should have nothing
to hide.
Okay. So
that's an important concept that I wanted to
clarify.
Now
everything that we've discussed all over the last
few days, all of that is the foundational
underpinnings, what is the theory of the metaphysics
behind the science of desguia. And again, I
told you the practical some of the practical
discussion will come tomorrow.
So that's the first name,
The second common name for this particular science
is called
The second name
is called
means excellence.
And it this name arises
from hadith.
Now
where did the name tazkiya come from?
Quran. Quran. Okay. Very good. This name comes
from
Hadith. The basis of this name
is a Hadith narrated by Hazrat Umar
and Hazrat Umar
narrates
that oh, I wanted to read this hadith.
So where is it? Okay.
Yeah. So Hazrat
Umar he narrates a hadith
which actually comes in the book of Imam
Muslim. And so I I'll just narrate the
hadith to you, portions of it in Arabic
so you can hear it because it's such
a beautiful hadith. It's actually in the book
of Imam Nawawi, but it's also in the
book of Imam Muslim.
So, he said he says
He says, one day, we were sitting in
the presence
of and if you heard me explain this
hadith before,
I I always say when I explain this
hadith that you could be done right there
because what more would you ever wanna say
that we were sitting in the company
of
I mean, that's that's our dream. Right? I
mean, this is our hope that one day
Allah will place us in Jannah and we'll
be able to just sit in the company
of
and what
that would be that we're sitting in Jannah
together, but instead we're sitting
with
So may Allah make that a reality for
him.
So one of my favorite lines of this
hadith, despite the fact that the had the
gist of the hadith hasn't even come yet,
he's just describing the background. But I just
this line always really just makes me smile.
So we were sitting amongst
one day.
When all of a sudden a man came
from
almost nowhere.
He had pure white clothing. You know, strong
white, super white. He had super white clothing.
And then, Shadidus
Sawadeh Shaw and he had jet black hair.
Alright? Now,
it's interesting
that Hazratullah
says
that That we looked at this man who
all of a sudden, okay, we're sitting with
Rasulullah
the way we always sit with Rasulullah
and all of a sudden this guy shows
up. He's
got super white, pure shiny white clothing,
and he's got jet black hair.
And we never saw this guy before, and
no one knew this guy.
Now it's interesting because this guy has such
white clothing that they recognize that there's no
way he could have traveled from far. Because
if you travel from far through the desert,
your clothes are gonna get dirty. Alright?
But at the same time, nobody recognized him.
So they were already in some sort of,
you know, shock and awe about what was
going on.
So then he continues, and he begins to
describe actually what happened.
So he says that interestingly,
that this man then showed up with his
super white clothing
and with his dark black hair, and he
came and he sat
right in front of Rasulullah
Now, how did he sit before Rasulullah
He put his knees up against the knees
of Rasulullah
SAWHIVASANAM.
And then he put his hands on his
thighs. Now there's 2 ways you can interpret
this. So Rasulullah SAWHIVASANAM is sitting like this,
okay, like in tashahood position, and this individual
comes and sits opposite Rasulullah
facing him, knee to knee, in tashahood position.
Then he takes his hands, and depending on
how you interpret the hadith, either he took
his hands and put them on his own
thighs, or he put them on the thighs
of Rasulullah
He put them on his thighs. Who is
his? His owner? Rasulullah
That's debated.
So he put his thighs he put his
hands on thighs. Right? He put his hands
on the thighs. Now that he's sitting like
this or he's sitting very very close in
front of Rasulullah
Now, so what does this man do?
Fakal, so he begins to speak. He says,
You Muhammad,
O Muhammad,
Islam,
inform me about Islam.
Now this mind you is at the very
close to the end of the,
mission of Rasulullah
So sort of like a summary gathering.
So what happens he says, You Muhammad
inform me concerning Islam,
so Rasulullah
says, Al Islam
Islam is that you testify
that there is
no deity worthy of worship except Allah,
and that Muhammad
is the Messenger of Allah.
So that's the entry into Islam.
Then what?
And you
establish the prayer,
you pay the Zekah
and you fast the month of Ramadan.
And yet you visit the house, meaning the
Kaaba or Hajj,
if you are able to.
So the man came, sat down and said,
You Muhammad,
inform me about Islam. And then the prophet
informs him about Islam.
Now then what does he say? Sadakta,
you told the truth.
You are correct, basically.
Now the Sahaba were even more
put into wonder by this because then Hazrat
Umar
says,
We were shocked
that this guy first of all, nobody knows
this guy. He comes and sits right in
front
of
then he asks a question as if he's
looking for an answer, but then he then
he says that the answer is correct, as
if he already knew what was going to
be said. So now they're totally confused that
this guy is asking questions but then also
saying correct, so what's the deal?
So anyway,
the narration continues.
Pause, so he says,
So, he says, now give me or inform
me about Iman.
So then Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says what?
Iman is that you worship Allah
So he says that,
Iman
is that you believe in Allah,
His angels,
His books that have been revealed,
his messengers,
the final day, and that you believe
in,
called up, the good of it and the
bad of it. Meaning that's something that Preeta,
the destination of deeds. Okay?
So this is
all now the category of imam.
So again, what does this man say? You're
correct.
Then he says he has a third question.
So inform me about Ihsan Now this is
the keyword in this whole narration for this
discussion.
So now the man
who is unrecognized
but is not a traveler says tell me
about Ihsaan,
tell me about excellence.
So you tell me about Islam, you tell
me about Iman, now tell me about
Ihsan.
So what does he say? Rasulullah
says:
That you worship Allah as if you see
him.
Fa'illam
taquntara'at
and if you cannot see Him fa'illnahuyaaraka'
He rarely sees you.
So Ihsan
is the name of a concept in which
you are so cognizant of Allah
that you worship Him as if you see
Him, as if He's right there in front
of you. You're praying and then you're feeling
like He's right there in front of you.
And if you're not able to achieve that,
then at least you should recognize that He's
watching you. If you can't achieve the state
that you're, you know, you're able to contain
him, then you should recognize that he is
watching you.
Now it's it's very interesting because as I'm
reading this, I want a very interesting discussion.
When you discuss this hadith in in Deore
Hadid, there's a really interesting discussion that they
bring up in the interpretation of what this
actually means.
So they say that one group of scholars,
which, actually, I'm gonna disprove this in a
second. I'm just telling you this just as
an interesting side aside. They say that one
group of scholars, actually, when they translate this
statement, they don't translate it in the way
that I just translated it. So they argue
the following so here's the translation, the accepted
translation,
that you worship Allah
that you worship Allah as if you see
him
and if you are not able to see
him
then barely he sees you. So this is
the accepted translation.
Now one group of scholars in their
academic discussion okay. I'm not claiming this to
be the interpretation. I'm just saying in an
academic discussion just to show you the fun
that you have when you learn these types
of hadith. So they say this is the
this is one way to translate this statement.
That you worship Allah as if you see
Him.
And if you don't exist, then you'll see
him.
And if you are not, then you'll see
him. Meaning, if you finish yourself completely, that's
when you'll actually see him.
You have to know a little bit of
Arabic to understand how beautiful this is. But,
actually, then you have to know a little
bit more Arabic to know that, but, grammatically,
this is not valid. That statement is not
valid. The way the the translating it with
that construct is not valid. I'm just telling
you that this is the fun of going
and learning, you know, these discussions come up.
So, anyway, they accept the translation,
that you worship Allah as if you see
him.
And if you're not able to see Him,
then you should at least know,
and this is Asam.
Now, in the end of the hadith, it
ends up that
this man leaves. He actually,
sat for a little bit of time and
then eventually got up and then the Prophet
said to him, O Umar do you know?
O Umar do you know who this man
was? And then Fadus SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says
fa inna hu Jibreel,
he was Jibreel
Why did he come? Atakkum
you'allimukum
deenakkum
He came to teach you your Deen.
Highlighting that there are 3 major components of
Deen.
Number 1
Islam,
number 2 Imaan.
And number 3,
Ehsan.
And that this Ehsan is the essence of
Deen because that is when you are, it's
worshiping as if you are, while you are
cognizant
of Allah.
And that's the essence of me.
So this second name, I
take you back, right? The second name called
Ehsan,
this name arises from this hadith,
Mal Ehsan. What is Ehsan?
So this is the second
name of this science.
Okay. 3rd name of this science, which is
often used interchangeably,
is called Tasawwuf.
Now it so happens that among the three
names,
Teskea,
Ehsan,
and Dasselwuf,
the more commonly used name and the more
popular term has actually become Dasselwuf.
But you can use any of these terms
interchangeably, we accept them all. If somebody says,
you know, what are these lectures? I can
say these are lectures of Thesskia, these are
lectures of Ehsan, these are lectures of Tasawwuf.
It makes no difference to me how you
want to name them. It's basically,
you know,
they're equivalent terms.
So but the 3rd term for this science
is called the tesauwuf, and the word tesauwuf
is a very debated word,
because it can technically have
dozens of definitions
dozens of definitions.
But among the most popular two
steps,
sources for this word are number word number
1,
sodwowfug.
Sodwowfug.
And if you look at those three base
letters,
then it gives you the meaning of a
simple type of cloth, which was almost like
a wool,
alright, that was worn by the people
who were the masters of the sew wuv.
Now recognize that I told you that one
of the essential components of the science of
the soul is that you restrict the body
and that you grow the soul. Right? That
you do not you you give the body
its needs, but you don't go into the
level of desire. Right?
The smart one was the one who crushed
his
So, you know, these people are going to
crush their And what are they not going
to do? That they're not going to put
their
after their desires. And we discussed this
yesterday or sorry, 2 days ago.
So in this particular instance, the the meaning
of the cell wolf would then be the
group of people that wore this type of
clothing. And why did they wear this type
of clothing? Because this was their
abstinence from the luxury of life.
They wore a very simple,
harsh kind of almost like a little bit
of a rough type of clothing, and they
wore this clothing because they were restricting their
nafs. And this clothing became so popular among
this group of scholars or this group of
people preserving this aspect of the deen then
everybody just started calling them Sufi, right, because
they wear this, so that you is you
pertaining to something else, it's a relational you,
or the science of tasawwuf. Okay? So that's
where one one potential aspect of where this
name came from. Another place where this name
could have come or this word could have
come from is from the base letter sod
fa waw. So if you take the base
letters of sod fa waw,
then what it implies is cleaning. It has
a meaning of cleansing something.
And so you can say that the is
sort
of the form 5.
You can say which
form 5 has a concept of the,
you know, of of overtaking
something, a really heavy duty cleaning. You can
put it that way. That when you put
it into verb form 5, to sew
I get the sew
the word to sew would come from there.
When you put it in verb form 5,
it has this meaning of overcoming
cleaning very, very deep. And And so you
can say that
the were very careful about keeping their soul
pure and clean.
So you can think about it that way
as well. Anyway, these are the 3 main
terms that have been applied to this science.
Number 1, tazkiyah,
derived from the
Quran. Number 2, ehsan,
derived from the famous hadith of Jibril
or number 3, the word tasawwuf, which was
which basically arose or derived from
the characteristic
of these people who were involved in this
science.
Now
the focal point, again, for me to remind
you is that each of these
that this science is an important part of
the Deen. It's highlighted by the function of
the messenger,
and it's highlighted by the angel Jibreel
coming and teaching what was Deen. In a
way, he's coming and teaching what was Deen,
one of those aspects of Deen was
the ehsan. So it is an essential
aspect of our theme, and it is something
that we should pursue.
And some people like to argue that it's
the one of the key sciences that everybody
must pursue, because in the salwulf come many
different aspects, which we haven't had the time
to discuss. Look, the salwulf is an experiential
science. Remember I told you when Imam Ghazali
wanted to learn the science of the salwulf,
he couldn't study books. He had to leave
his books and go and study under a
teacher.
It is an experiential science in which a
teacher and a student develop a relationship
and the teacher begins to teach the student
to purify themselves, to disconnect from this world,
to attest themselves to Allah
and in that many things are purified. For
example,
the teacher focuses on purifying envy,
greed,
pride,
arrogance,
stinginess,
all of these things are different characteristics that
are purified in the science of the subwoof
and to be honest with you, we haven't
done very much justice to the subwoof itself
because actually those should have been the discussion,
you know, diseases of the heart and how
the cell wolf seeks to purify those diseases
of the heart because those are mandatory for
every one of us. Like, we know that
we will not enter Genent if there's an
ounce of pride in our heart. So that
pride must be purified. It's almost a mandate
to be able to get into Jundna.
Otherwise stated,
when people go to Jundna,
there's 2 pathways to Jundna. Let's make it
very simple. There's 2 pathways to Jundna.
One pathway is, but let me actually back
and give you a general principle. You're not
very much into these principles, right? So let
me give you one general principle concerning Jundra.
Rule of point concerning Jundra.
Jundra is a pure place
and only the pure can enter Jannah.
That's the principle concerning Jannah. Jannah is a
pure place
and only the pure can enter Jannah. There's
no room for any najasa in Jannah. There's
no room for any filth in Jannah.
Now,
once you have that fundamental principle in mind,
now
the next question arises, which is actually the
key question that pertains to us, and that
is, so how will we go into Jannah?
So if Jannah is a pure place and
you have to be pure to get into
Jannah, there's only 2 options.
You purify yourself here
so that you can enter into Jannah directly
there,
or you will be purified there and then
eventually placed into Jannah. Right? So there's 2
groups of people. There will be 1 group
of people that will be directly entered into
Jannah, and there will be another group of
people that will spend some time in Jahannam.
Jahannam,
the fire of Jahannam will purify them just
like the fire of this earth purifies gold
and metal.
Okay? And then eventually they'll be taken out
of Jahannam pure and then be put into
Jahannam. Does that make sense? Just as a
very general concept.
So for us it becomes mandatory to purify
ourselves here because if we don't become purified,
then we
to purify ourselves here because if we don't
become purified here, we will be purified
much more harshly there.
So we don't want that, right? We don't
want to have to face Jahannam to be
purified. We want to directly go into Jannah.
And it's so much much easier to purify
yourself in this way, right? It's so much
easier. Because
this life is just the flicker of an
eye. It's the flicker of the eyelid. And
that life in Jahannam could be a 100000
years before your cry is even heard.
You know, you cry, and you're in such
a deep pit of hellfire that it takes
a 100000 years before your response comes.
Just imagine.
You know, it takes 40000 years before
you ask the angel something, and then 40,000
years later, as Mufti Usain was giving an
example, you get your reply.
So wouldn't it be better to simply take
a little bit of effort and purify yourself
with this short flicker of a life rather
than have to be purified over there?
So this is the gist of the science
of the simile,
that we seek to purify the heart here
because otherwise it will be purified there. And
we know what's gonna happen. What is going
to be presented to Allah on the Day
of Judgment is our hearts. And my shaykh
used to say it very beautifully. He'd say
he would say that whatever you put into
your heart,
that's what's gonna come out on the Day
of Judgment. You can't in your mind say,
I'm Muslim. I'm good. I'm Muslim. I'm good.
You know, everybody should love me
and then think that you're going to do
anything you want and you'll survive. Everything you
put into the heart on the day of
judgment, Allah, it will be just like a
sponge.
Your heart will be squeezed and everything will
come out and whatever comes out, jannah or
jannah.
Okay? So there will be no facade there.
You know, today we sit together and everybody
says assalamu alaikum, assalam.
We dress up like very good Muslims and
we act like we're righteous and we we
respect one another. But the reality but on
that day these the facade will be gone.
Only the reality will remain, what's in here,
what's really in here.
So every time we see something we shouldn't
see with our eyes, it goes into our
heart.
Every time we hear something we shouldn't hear
within our ears, it goes into our heart.
Every time we think we we speak something
we shouldn't speak, it goes into our heart,
and that then is the sponge that takes
up all of this filth around us. So
on the day of judgment, we're gonna have
trash receptacles.
It's gonna be like a garbage pit, and
our hearts will squeezed and filth will come
out. And no matter what you claim with
the tongue, the heart's reality will be present.
Right?
You have to come to Allah with.
It comes in the Quran, right, that what's
going to benefit people on that day? Salim,
a pure heart.
So we have to recognize that the heart,
that the battle is
right here
and that this heart must be purified and
that when this heart is purified, it becomes
worthy of being presented so that Allah can
squeeze it on the day of judgment, or
it can be squeezed, let's put it that
way. It can be squeezed on the day
of judgment, and goodness comes out of it
rather than filled.
So we have to protect
our eyes because what are the pathways to
the heart? The mind, the eyes, the tongue,
the ears, right? These are all the pathways
to the heart. So we must protect the
pathways to the heart to keep the heart
pure. The science of the is
number 1, crushing the and number 2, purifying
the heart. And all of it is actually
put together in a very, very in a
in a package. Put it that way. But
these are the 2 main
battles in
to crush the nuff so that you can
tame it and make it your your friend,
to guide you along the path agenda,
and to purify the heart so that it
elevates,
approaches Allah, and prepares itself for its entrance
into Jannah.
Is that clear? So that's basically the science
of the cell wolf in a nutshell.
Now
if you look at the various sciences of
our deen,
you'll see that among the sciences there often
exist schools of thought.
So for example, if I say is a
science of the deen
and that science aims to to
to capture and preserve the hikmah of Rasulullah
what he was one
of the functions for which he was sent,
then we know that not only was fiqh
preserved, but fiqh was preserved in 4 major
schools of thought.
Now fiqh, when it was being preserved, there
were hundreds
of schools of thought. It's not that there
were only 4.
There were hundreds of schools of thought, but
among the schools of thought, only 4 eventually
survived the evolution of time within the
being. So that now if you say, okay,
what are the accepted
schools of Islamic law? You have the school
of Imam Abu Hanifa,
right, the school of Imam Shafi'i, the school
of the school of Imam Malik, and the
school of
Ahmad
So these are the accepted 4 schools of
thought. And what do these schools do? They
take the Quran and they take the hadith,
and they apply general principles. So they say,
okay, look. The goal is that we want
the believers of the community to be able
to practice the the fiqh of Rasulullah center.
The source of that is the Quran and
the hadith.
Right? And the goal is to practice fiqh.
So they take the Quran, take the hadith,
look for standard principles within the Quran and
the hadith, interpret it, and create a mechanism
of everyday conduct of life, which is called.
Now they haven't created something new.
All they have done is organize the Quran
and the hadith in a palatable way so
that the average human being can practice it.
So much so that if you have an
enormous scholar, let's say you have a very,
very high scholar, they're not bound by the
schools of law.
They're not bound by the schools of law.
They often will cross over into another school
of law because they make an interpretation based
on the source of that, which is the
Quran and the hadith,
highlighting to us that it's not the school
of law that is so important inasmuch as
the fact that these are derived from the
Quran and hadith.
But the schools of law exist as mechanisms
to practice this because of the fact that
we are not
masters of Arabic, hadith, Quran interpretation,
etcetera.
So that's how we're bound by these schools.
So anyway, there are 4 schools of law.
All of them are acceptable. And each of
them is designed to do the exact same
thing with some minor differences based on interpretation.
And
those interpretational differences, just as a tangent, existed
all the way at the time of Rasulullah,
so I send them, and they will exist
until the day of judgment.
So sometimes the fool stands up, the foolish
one stands up and says, woah, these schools
of law, these didn't exist at the time
of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Brother, I just
followed the Quran and the Hadith. Okay? So
people like to make these claims as if
they think that all the Quran and Hadith
was unified at the time of
Rasulullah It was not. The Sahaba had interpretational
differences even in the presence of Rasulullah,
even in the presence of Rasulullah.
We all know that
at the end of the Battle of the
Ditch, when
commanded his troops to now go to Beni
Qurayza and to lay siege on the fortress
of Beni Qurayza, what did he say to
them?
He said to them that you should not
you should pray as you should not pray
asr until you get to Beni Qurayza.
They were rushing to get to Beni Coreza,
and he told them to not pray the
Usim prayer until they get to Beni Coreza.
Now they were rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing. It
so happened that the time for the Usim
prayer came, and it was ending. And we
all know this famous incident. So what was
the debate among the companions?
One group of companions said, Rasulullah
literally
meant
don't pray Asar until you get to Bani
Qureza.
So even if we miss the time for
Asar, we still will we will miss it
and keep traveling, and we'll pray when we
get to Bani Qureza.
And another group of companions said what? Another
group of companions said that, no, Rasulullah
was just telling us to be quick. He
wasn't literal. He was being
figurative. Meaning hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.
Get there by Usur. But if you don't
get there by Usur, you still have to
pray Usur on the way. So half of
them or another group prayed Usur on the
way. So when they went to
and they said, which one of us was
right? What did he say? Both of you
were right.
Highlighting that interpretational
differences existed
from the statements of Rasulullah
at the time of the companions and that
they were accepted at that time. It was
understood
that Rasulullah
was making legal statements, and legal statements will
always be interpreted. Why do you think we
have a constitution, you know, there's a constitution
in this country, and there's all these judges
and law professors that are constantly trying to
understand what did the constitution actually mean. Because
any legal document will always have interpretational
differences within it. And so those exist even
in the statements of the Quran and the
hadith. Now it doesn't exist in every statement.
Some are absolute. You have to pray 5
times a day. There is no interpretational difference
there.
Lohr prayer, a fajr prayer, an asa prayer,
a maghita prayer, an isha prayer there is
no interpretational difference there. And actually, if you
really want to be simple about it, 90%
of the deen has no interpretational difference within
it. The fuqaha
distinguish
themselves by about 5, 10 percent of the
deen. It's these small issues that come up
as differences, but of course, we as human
beings like to point out the differences and
ignore the similarities
because that's human nature.
Right? But remember that these schools of thought
are inherent within law. They're not created by
a group of people who were trying to
trying to
bypass the law. These were interpretations of Qur'an
and Hadith,
taken from Qur'an and Hadith. So it wasn't
that Imam Abu Hanifa somehow started giving his
own statements and respected his own statements more
than he respected Quran and hadith. He interpreted
the Quran and the hadith, taught his companions
to do so, they agreed with some of
his principles, they disagreed with some of his
principles. Over time, that entire group of people,
from Imam Abu Hanifa, actually even before him,
to the companions to which they traced back,
especially Abdul Laban Masood
where much of the Hanafi Madhub comes from,
all the way through to Imam Abu Hanifa,
Sahibayn
and then the countless scholars that came after
them, this all became one major school that
was named after Imam Abu Hanifa, but it
wasn't the statements of Imam Abu Hanifa. So
that should be very very clear. Whether it
be Imam Shafi'i, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmad Rahmatullah
alayhim Ajmeen, it's all the same thing.
I mean, so this has to be a
very clear principle that, you know, these are
this is the way of our the schools
of law were derived. Anyway, that's a whole
tangent. That's another 10 day series, you know.
But, anyway, the point is we should just
have that very clear in our mind. Now,
at the same time, there were schools a
lot in men schools in many things. Like,
for example, in recitation of the Quran, maybe
you don't appreciate this, but our recitation of
the Qur'an is actually one of many ways
to recite the Qur'an. And we all recite
it in the same way, but there are
other means of reciting. And for example, we
had,
Mullana Qari Noman
come here and remember that he recited before
us and he recited in another school of
recitation.
Again, preserving
recitational
differences that inherently existed at the time of
Rasulullah
Now Hazratullah,
just as an example of this, got caught
up in that recitational difference thinking that that
was not permissible, that there is no room
for recitational differences.
So what happened? You know the famous story.
Hazrat Omar was
praying behind someone and the person began to
recite the Quran in a way that he
was not used to reciting.
So he says himself, I'm sitting there praying
behind this man and the debate in my
mind was, do I grab him by his
neck now or let him at least do
his salam?
Right? You know this famous incident. So he
says that I at least gave him the
space to do his salaam. As soon as
he completed his salaam I grabbed him by
his neck,
dragged him to Rasulullah
and said listen to what he's reciting,
highlighting that, well what? There's no room for
recitational difference at the time of Rasulullah
So Rasulullah
said what? Let him recite, he recited and
Umar
recited, okay? And then what? Rasulullah
said that Rasulullah
revealed the Quran with 7 different dialects.
So each of these dialects is acceptable,
highlighting that there was even recitational difference at
the time of Rasulullah
It's not black and white. You know, people
think it's just all black and white. It's
not just black and white like that. It's
not just, you know, brother, this is Bukhari
Hadith, and you're done. And the ajeeb thing,
there was no Bukhari Hadith at the time
of Musa Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, so
their whole foundation is gone. Right? People who
argue this, that you should just follow the
Bukhari hadith. Well, where was where where which
hadith says I should follow Bukhari hadith? I
was told to follow and follow hadith. This
whole Bukhari thing came later, but anyway, that's
a separate discussion. Sometimes things just make no
sense.
Now,
basically, what you have to recognize is that
so there's these schools, right, and there's often
schools of interpretation. In Arabic grammar, there's schools
of interpretation. In fiqh, there's schools of interpretation.
In recitation, in Tajweed, there's schools of interpretation.
In the same way, in the science of
tazkiyah or ehsan
or tasalwuf,
there are schools of interpretation.
So what these schools of interpretation did now
what are they doing? They're basically taking Quran
and Hadith, and they're trying to make it
easy for the average believer to be able
to develop themselves along that line.
So there were some interpretational differences just off
the get go. For example, you know that
soul wolf, Hassan, tezgea has 2 major components.
Number 1, growing the soul. Number 2, crushing
the nuffs. That's very simplistic. All schools of
thought recognize recognize these two principles. So one
school of thought said, better crush the nuffs
first and then grow the soul. And another
school of thought would say, no, let's grow
the soul and then crush the nuffs. Okay?
So in this way, you already have one
division right there. Okay?
And then remember that these are all going
to be traced back to different companions eventually,
you know, and so there's also some differences
there. But some schools of the cell wolf
eventually develop.
Now, these schools of Tassal Wolf were named
after the most,
the most prominent
teacher of that school who taught, who eventually
Allah gave the hikmah and the wisdom and
the tawfi to teach millions, if not 100
of 1000 of students.
So for example, you have the Naksha Bandi
School. Okay?
Now, this is named after an Imam from
Bukhara
who basically
became such a proficient
scholar in this science that millions of students
learned from him. And so, millions of students
began to practice the Sharia and the Sunnah
based on what they learned from him and
began to inculcate this aspect of desquia that
they named it after him.
So then you have also the Chishti school,
which was named after
another famous Imam of the science of the
SAWU, who basically taught millions of people
this science and the goal of approaching the
Sharia and the Sunnah. And so it was
named after a particular scholar. And so you
have 3 or 4, maybe 4 or 5,
let's say, major schools of DeSaul.
And each of these schools
is accepted
only in the context of the Sharia.
So, for example, if somebody comes in here
today and says,
you know,
brother, I
don't like any of the 4 schools of
Islamic law. I got a better idea. I'm
gonna create a new school. Alright? And it's
gonna be a lot it's gonna be a
much better school, much better than the other
4 schools. So this guy starts creating his
own rules, and they have nothing to do
with the Quran and nothing to do with
the hadith. We throw it in the garbage.
Right? We are going to get rid of
it. We're not going to give any weight
to it. So, in the same way, the
schools are just names. If somebody comes up
and says, I am an imam of the
Hanafi school, and then he quotes you things
that have nothing to do with the Sharia,
okay, he's just making up random rulings based
on his own mind,
then you're going to say rejected. I don't
care if you call yourself an imam of
the Hanafi school, you have nothing to do
with the Ahnaf, you have nothing to do
with the Quran, you have nothing to do
with the Sunnah. So, in the same way,
the confusion that's arisen with the name of
the schools of tasawwuf is that, again, often
just as I mentioned earlier, you have highly
deviated people
who take these names and then begin to
practice
seeking,
feeling over Qur'an and hadith.
So if it feels good, it's called
So then they're dancing at graves and burning
hashish, you know, and smoking up and feeling
close to Allah and they call that
But again, that's not
that has nothing to do with
It's far removed from the Sharia and the
Sunnah, and it has nothing to do with
what we're talking about in this gathering. So
do you understand?
Now,
you also have to understand that these schools
of thought were experiential.
These schools of thought were experiential and this
is also a highly misunderstood
concept
concerning aspects of our Deen,
which is that when schools of thought were
developed, whether they be, for example,
let's make an example, in the science of
Tajweed,
that those schools of thought were experiential
and they determined
methods of teaching Tajweed that they felt would
be good for their students,
would allow their students to achieve the goal.
But those methods don't need to necessarily be
found in the Quran and the hadith. Now,
let me give you the example of tajweed
because it's easy to understand, and then we'll
explain it in the context of tasawwuf.
Now, look, let's say that we want to
learn tajweed.
So, we know that Fajwid is the method
of reciting the Quran the way Rasulullah
recited it. Actually, take it one step back,
the way that the angel Jibrid
recited it, take it one step back the
way that Allah revealed it in his recitation
to the Angel Jibril
So we are preserving
the enunciation
and the pronunciation
of the words of the Holy Quran.
Okay, now you get
a Muslim from the subcontinent.
Okay.
He wants to learn how to pronounce the
Quran properly, but he's slowing up the letter
based on his language. Okay. So for example,
he comes to a teacher and the teacher,
he wants to learn how to pronounce the
letter bawd. So he's saying, zod, zod,
zod. Right? And the teacher says, No, you
have to pronounce it bawd. Alright. So then
the teacher basically says, Look, I want you
to go home tonight and I want you,
10 times after every prayer to say,
and I want you to create that pocket
and let the air come out from one
side or the other side, by the way,
which is debated among the scholars of, you
know, Tajweed that they debate which side the
air should come out. So anyway,
every time after prayer, I want you to
10 times recite.
Okay? Now if he's sitting there after prayer
one day and he recites
and this brother comes up and says, what
kind of bida are you engaging in?
Right? What kind of bida are you engaging
in? Then he should he's gonna say, yeah.
I should I should go ahead and ask
my teacher. Can he give me a hadith
that says that,
will any of the companions or any of
the righteous people before recited
10 times after?
You're saying, cool.
Right? You're going to say to this person
that you have to think a little bit.
This is experiential.
You don't need a proof for this. This
is experiential. It is trying to achieve what
existed at the time of Rasulullah
we are not claiming it to be mandatory,
we are not claiming it to be nas,
we are not claiming it to be part
of the deen. It is the experience of
the teacher that tells you that this is
the best way to memorize,
now or to learn the pronunciation.
A boy comes to you, The boy says,
I'm you say, how what's your name? He
says, I'm Zayd. You say, what are you
doing Zayd? I'm memorizing Quran.
So you say, how are you memorizing Quran?
I go to a madrasah. Okay. And what
what how do you how does your teacher
teach you? Well, I'm memorizing the 30th juz,
then the 29th juz, then the 28th juz.
So you're memorizing backwards. Okay. Then Zayd says,
here's my friend, Abdullah. Say, Oh, Abdullah. How
are you? Okay. Abdullah, what are you doing?
I'm memorizing Quran. Okay. How are you memorizing
Quran? I'm memorizing the 1st juz, then the
2nd juz, and the 3rd juz. Okay? Then
you can say to these 2 kids that
what are you guys doing? This is all
bidah.
This is all bidah. There were no adza
at the time of Rasulullah
There was no just 1, just 2, just
3. This was all created later.
And when you think the Sahaba memorized just
1 then just 2 then just 3, no.
They memorized in a different order. So this
is all bina you should stop what you're
doing. Now which person would stand up and
do that? You're not going to do that.
Why? Because it's the experience of the teacher.
Right? That within the guise of the Sharia
and the sunnah is seeking something, is seeking
a goal, but has not disturbed the Sharia.
Okay? Now if the teacher says, look brother,
you're really memorizing the Quran, you don't need
to pray Fajr, Zohar, and Usr, you just
pray Maghrib and Ishada, and you'll memorize the
Quran more quickly, we'll slap the boy in
the face and say go to another place.
Why? Because now the teacher is trying to
use his experience and trying to circumvent the
sharia. So that becomes dead obvious that this
is unacceptable.
So do you understand?
Okay? So experience has a role within the
Deen
and we do this all the time. We
open up Islamic schools, right? Where where is
that present within this which hadith tells you
to open up Islamic schools? No. It's the
experience at this time. Right? Now then people
have an Islamic school and they try to
take zakah to run the Islamic school. They
need a slap on the face. Right? Of
course, this is a misinterpretation of this DNA,
is that people start taking zakah money and
then using it to run schools, which is
a whole separate debated issue. But I'm telling
you, that's when we should stand up and
nobody stands up then, but they're ready to
stand up against experience.
When the sharia is being broken, that's the
time to be standing up. I mean, zakah
was designed for the poor.
It's very, very clear among the ulama that
this is not the place where zakah can
be spent. But anyway, we don't stand up
then.
But any what we're trying to highlight is
that there is room for experience. And then
just simply, I mean, these examples come up
all the time. Brother comes to me and
says, bro, I'm having trouble with my schedule.
So tell me what's the most important thing.
I said, look, the most important thing is
you eat a good breakfast in the morning,
so you'll be fresh during the day. Okay?
And if you eat a good breakfast in
the morning, inshallah, you'll be able to stay
awake until you'll feel more energetic. Then he
goes and tells his friend who's studying someplace
else, and then his friend says,
or there's no hadith. This guy is talking
to you outside of hadith. I say, look,
excuse me, I'm not talking about hadith. This
is experiential.
Okay? If I tell you to exercise 20
minutes in a day, I can't find you
a hadith that says exercise 20 minutes in
a day. It's experiential, but it's good for
your body. It fulfills a mandate of the
which is to exercise,
to do archery, to swim, to play, to
compete against one another. It keeps the body
healthy. So this is the point that I'm
highlighting is that
often experiential
issues
are permissible
where they do not go against the guys
of the Quran and the Hadith.
Now, same thing in the science of the
solo.
There's going to be issues that are experiential.
You know, so for example, the teacher might
say, look, you should recite every day a
100.
Alright? And then a year later he might
say, now I want you to every day
imagine that your heart's calling in the name
of Allah. Okay? Or you might say, I
want you to fast
every other day for the next 6 months.
So when the teacher is assigning these different
exercises,
all it is is the same type of
exercise that you would assign the Hafiz student
when you assign him an exercise of 3
lines, or you would assign the Tidjweed student
when you assign him the exercise of saying
bib, bib, bib 10 times after every prayer,
etcetera.
The people of the tasawwuf, the scholars of
tasawwuf don't claim this to be exactly derived,
that you can literally find it's outlined in
a Quran in hadith, nor do they claim
that this is a mandatory method.
Okay? Nobody's standing and saying that this is
the only way by which you can achieve
your goal.
Nobody's saying that this is the only way
by which you can achieve your goal.
We say that. This is experiential.
If you wanna use it, use it. And
if you don't want to use it, find
any way you want. No problem. Because it's
not mandated, it's not the only way to
achieve the goal, and it is not a
binding method to achieve the goal. So we
also don't say, if you don't practice the
sewwuf, then you're lost. You can practice anything
you desire that will get you to your
goal. The only thing you have to ask
yourself is, Have I sincerely achieved my goal?
Is that clear? So remember that often within
the sewwuf, there'll be many
against Tasawwuf, many points of contention against Tasawwuf.
1st point of contention, that it doesn't exist
within the deen. That's not
obviously true.
2nd point of contention, that,
you know, that it's full of all these
things against the sharia. I've already made that
clear. Where any science where any science
outsteps the boundary of the sharia, we reject
it wholeheartedly,
openly,
clearly, we reject it. Whether it be tasawwuf,
whether it be fiqh, whether it be memorization
of the Quran, etcetera. Alright? So we are
always bound by the guidelines of the sharia,
and the goal should always be
achievement of the sunnah,
which is why I told you, what, 2,
3 days ago, that just as the goal
of the Tajweed Madrasa is to establish the
pronunciation of the time of Rasulullah,
all right, just as the goal of the
5th is to practice the deen according to
the way it was practiced at the time
of Rasulullah,
the goal of the salawaf is what?
To achieve the states that existed in the
hearts at the time of Rasulullah
So that, as I made very clear a
couple days ago, if you come to me
and say I'm doing these exercises
and I saw last night in my dream,
I saw the prophet
and I saw last night that or I
saw the night before that I was in
Jannah,
and every time I do my vikah, I
feel a cool breeze blow blow across my
forehead. That all means nothing to
me. It means nothing to me. Because the
sign of having achieved something will be that
you come and say, you know what? I
never paid zakah. I'm paying zakah now.
You know what? I used to leave my
sunnah prayers. I pray my sunnah now. You
know what? I never prayed in the masjid.
I prayed 3 prayers in the masjid, and
I'm hoping Allah will give me the tawfiq
for 5.
You know what? I used to mis fast
in the month of Ramadan. I fast all
my fast in the month of Ramadan.
When these types of statements come from the
mouth of the Saliq, when the mouth when
the Saliq begins to say more beloved to
me than the fashion of the people of
the dunya
is the fashion of the sunnah, then I
know that that person is progressing.
That's the sign that the person is progressing,
that the sharia and the sunnah become beloved
to that person, and that is tasawuf, nothing
more, nothing less. And we should be very
clear about it because otherwise you get very
confused. If you type in this word on
the Internet, you're going to get super confused.
Alright? So that be that very clear. We
are we are bounded by the sharia,
and the goal is to sunnah.
We are bounded by the sharia,
and the goal is to sunnah. Now remember
that a few days ago I was telling
you that I wanted to give you that
famous quote of Shikha Bhattar Hindi? So somebody
found it.
And now I'll read it to you because
Sheikh Zulfikar told me that this is worth
its weight in gold, and so I'm telling
you that this is worth its weight in
gold.
So let's read you this one quote. So
he says and again, this is a translation,
I don't have the actual wording in front
of me, but I did at one point.
So he says, We need the ness, not
the fos.
We need the ness, not the fos. Now
what's ness?
Nas refers to the contextual text that establish
law within the deen. So Quran and the
hadith, these are nas.
So it's he say saying we need the
nas, not the nas. What's fals? The fusus
al hikm. The hikm. So the hikm was
a book of spirituality,
of concepts of spirituality.
So he's saying for us what's more important
than the hiccup
is actually the Quran and the hadith. And
then I gave you this quote the other
day. Sufficient for us are
the We don't have to bother with
the Sufficient for us are the
We don't have to bother
with the is a book, a famous book
of
in which spiritual states are described. What are
the?
Revelation.
Okay? So the
are the revelations that were revealed upon the
prophet
and the hadith basically, because both of those
are Wahid. So for us,
we are we are
for us are the
and we don't have to bother with
the And again, this is highlighting that principle
in a much more eloquent way.
So
I told you that these are experiential methods
that are based on the that are seeking
to aim for the Quran and the hadith.
They must be present within the boundary of
the sharia and their goal must be the
sunnah.
And remember that the key caveat is always
that we restrict everyone, we judge everyone according
to this. Now, let me make it very
clear.
You don't have the permission to judge others.
And we have no business judging anyone, because
if we want to look for sickness, we
don't and and and problems, we don't have
to go further than ourselves.
And the one of the greatest blessings that
luck can ever bestow upon anyone is that
you learn to critique
yourself rather than critique and criticize anyone else.
Our critique and criticism arises when we are
trying to make decisions about where to invest
ourselves.
So if you're looking to find a scholar
of tisauwuf or a sheikh of tisauwuf, then
it becomes the utmost that you
judge that person according to the Quran, the
hadith, the sunnah, the sharia.
But otherwise,
this does not give you a license to
now judge others.
We make excuses for others, and we have
no business judging them. Allah will judge each
person on the Day of Judgment. Each person's
sincerity will be measured according to what however
Allah decides to judge them. So be very
careful about this, and I discuss this in
detail
yet in the 2 days ago or maybe
3 days ago that this is one of
the very dangerous things that arises, especially on
the path of the civil war, is that
people begin to criticize and judge everyone around
them, and they forget to judge themselves.
Our critiquing and criticism that has been created
within us is not to be used to
judge others. It's to be used to judge
ourselves.
You know, the vast majority of hadith you
see in Rasulullah
complaining about what? His own inability to worship
Allah the way he deserves to be praised,
not the Sahaba's inability to worship Allah the
way he deserved to be praised. So
our criticism and critique is restricted to us.
And whomever Allah
invites along his path, Allah will judge them
in the way that he decides to judge
them. But when we make a decision about
where to invest our time, where to invest
our effort,
what path to take, It's like marriage. You
know? It's the rare opportunity where you get
an up you get the chance to say,
okay. Should I take this or not take
this? That's a critical transaction
where critiquing becomes necessary. In the same way,
when you're seeking teachers of, you know, the
dean, it becomes also essential
to be able to to critique them in
that way, to hold not to critique them,
but to hold them up to this criteria.
Let's put it that way.
So, anyway,
all of that was
the the discussion of the name
Mignitezkeia,
Tasawwuf
or Ehsan.
So all of this was a big discussion
on the name of the realities that we've
discussed over the last 5 days. What is
this? Lesson 5?
Lesson 5 says 4 days. So over the
last 4 days. So now the only thing
that remains is the practical,
which actually should have been
the vast majority of what we spoke about.
But, anyway, that will then be discussed inshallah
tomorrow. So tomorrow's final our final gathering.
Potentially, is the final gathering.
And in that discussion in that, we'll discuss
some basic concepts
of the practical of the settlement.
And then so inshallah, let's we'll close this
session,
with that final
reminder about tomorrow.
As usual, let's,
just,
spend a few minutes doing,
and then, and then we'll try to spend
some time,
making for the night. And then again, the
next program will be at 3:30 in the
morning.