Zakariyya Harnekar – Pearls of Wisdom #7
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
But this week,
looking forward to
Eid, but we need these, we need these
days in our lives.
Alhamdulillah.
Yesterday, we spoke about
idea of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
making himself known to you.
I spoke a little bit about
some reason I think this is gonna stick
today.
Allah
making himself known to you and then seizing
that moment when Allah
makes himself known to you. Right? So we
said,
When he, Allah
opens up for you some door of knowing
him, then do not worry. Do not concern
yourself.
At the same time,
that your action may that your actions may
be little. If Allah opens up a door
to knowing him, then don't look at your
actions and focus on the fact that, you
know, perhaps it's not commensurate. My actions are
so little. How can this door of knowing
Allah open up for me?
Because Allah only opened up that door for
you because he wants to make himself known
to you.
Don't you know
that knowing Allah
is something that he makes reach you, something
that he presents to you, and your actions
are things that you present to him.
And how do the things that you can
present to him in any way compare to
what he presents to you? They'll never be
commensurate.
Right?
So
we had this idea
of we had this idea of
seizing that moment
when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
makes himself known to you or allows himself
to be known to you.
And oftentimes, that comes
by by an experience.
Right? It comes through an experience, like, you
might be sitting in the and I mentioned
some of this yesterday. You might be sitting
in the and it moves your heart.
Right?
And,
and in that moment, you might be thinking
of Allah
intensely,
and you are thinking about ways that you're
gonna adapt your life and how you're gonna
be different and all of those things.
And that planning
or that those intentions that you create for
yourself in that moment, that is part of
how you seize that opening from Allah
You may hear a verse of the Quran
and that verse of the Quran just hits
your heart.
Maybe it's, you know, and and there's various
states that it can find you in.
Perhaps you are
you're hearing something and it gives you an
intense
sense of hope in Allah.
Such that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's jamal becomes
known to you.
And then it's as if you feel, you
know, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala can forgive me
for everything and Allah can forgive the whole
world and guide everyone.
Sometimes it's
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala makes
his jalal, his majesty known to you.
And you just perceive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
grandi in that moment and everything else seems
like nothing to you, and you think that
you want to divorce divorce yourself from the
dunya and all worldly things.
Sometimes it may be that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala just in in that moment,
it's his,
you know, also his jalali qualities, but what
manifests itself in, like, taking people to task
to you in a moment,
and you are filled with a deep sense
of fear and awe for Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And it leads you to make tawba and
reform your life in that way.
And you think about what you are experiencing
and you you you make certain decisions in
that moment.
Those decisions are part of how you seize
that moment,
how you seize that opening from Allah Subhanahu
Wa'ala.
But there's a difference
between Awal
and Muhammad.
Let's hope the stage is shown. There's a
difference
between awal
and
maqamat.
What is that difference?
The ulema of taskeah, they speak about ahal
as something that you experience, but it's temporary.
Something that you experience,
but it is temporary.
You will have that you know? And like
I mentioned yesterday, you must find yourself in
the company of the pious.
Yes. You'll find yourself in the company of
the pious and you'll find yourself in a
heightened state of iman. Even the companions
they felt the same.
One companion, alhamdulillah
once he was,
you know roaming around and he was saying
that
Abu Bakr
got hold of him and he said what
are you saying?
So he said that
he told Abu Bakr
that when I'm in the company of Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, then my iman is extremely
high.
But when I come out of that company,
then I get indulged in the dunya and
it takes a tip.
So Abu Bakr looked at himself and he
said, hey. The same applies to me.
So he thought as well Abu Bakr
is a munafiq
It cannot be.
If Abu Bakr can be a, then none
of us cannot be. But,
he certainly wasn't. So they now got they
had this dilemma.
There are times when I have these experiences
and then I come down from them.
Right?
And in that moment,
it seemed to them or they felt like
it's a sign of hypocrisy.
So they went to Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa
sallam and complained to them. And Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam gave them some counsel, but
one of them was that iman, it increases
and it
decreases.
Yeah. And I'm just mentioning that much because
it's what pertains to what I want to
speak about here. Alright? And that is
that we have these states,
these experiences that we have, but they are
fleeting and they are temporary.
You can take hold of them
and keep them for a bit longer by
making those decisions in that moment,
right, deciding on certain things.
But what you actually want to do is
you want to almost
beg those.
You want to beg those, bank them if
you want, and change them from
from states that are temporary
into something that takes you to a different
Maqam.
And a Maqam is
a station
that is permanent.
Right? So you find people
that you experience something in that moment. Maybe
you have this hal and that hal allows
you to do a lot in that moment.
You can you know, you're feeling so in
such a high. You'll just
give tons of money in charity.
You're feeling on such a high, you can
make for the whole night.
You you can experience those highs. But what
you actually want to do is
you want to experience that but
you also want it to take you to
a different.
And that comes
on account of obviously having sincerity,
but also acting out
on the decisions that you make in that
time.
So if we for example,
it was that moment you are making tons
of for
something wrong that you commit in your life.
Right? What if it may be? Maybe you
are engaged in haram contracts.
Maybe you are engaged in
sexual activity that you shouldn't be, self pleasuring
or sexual deviance, whatever it may be, or
you are drinking or smoking or whatever the
case may be.
So you make a lot of in that
moment, and then you make a decision to
stop.
It will take you to a different you
know, you you've done well in that Haal
for that moment, but it will take you
to a different Maqam if now after you
come down from that moment,
you come down from that experience,
you firmly
resolve, you stick to those decisions that you
made.
So you come down from that,
but you tell yourself, you know what? I'm
still not gonna
do that thing again. I'm not gonna smoke
that. You know, when the next morning comes
after you've fallen asleep in that state and
you want to reach for the next entry,
then you tell yourself, no.
I'm not going to be ungrateful for that
experience that Allah gave me.
And that's oftentimes more difficult
than to make all of those decisions or
to say
a 100 times, whatever the case may be.
But when you do that
and you now make
go against you and have and and cling
to that
and not letting it fly away from you,
then it will take you to a different
Nakam.
And you'll find it that that you can
remain there. Perhaps you were somebody who swore
a lot,
and then you
some in some moment, Allah just, you know,
gave you with the that you must stop
with this. And then you decided, now I'm
stopping.
But then, you know, it's easy to fall
back into old habits, but when you want
to go there, when you're there, when shaitan
whispers to you and leads you there, then
you nip him in the bud. You stop
him. You overcome him,
and you and you and you start trying
to fight against it every time every time
every time every time.
He wants to take you back to your
old ways, you fight against him. Then you
may find that, you know what? That sin
that you are once committing is a thing
of the past. It's not even it's not
even present in your life at all.
It's not present in your life at all.
Now you say Alhamdulillah.
Allah allowed me to, you know, bag that
momentary experience, that that overcame me. Allah helped
me to convert it or Allah converted it
for me
into a different Maqam.
I was the person that swore a lot,
that spoke obscenely,
Alhamdulillah.
Now Allah is taking me after that. Now
I'm a person, not a foul word comes
at the moment, Alhamdri.
But, obviously, you know, the journey of life
never ends.
As we mentioned before, as as you actually
go to a different Maqam, your perception increases.
Now you now there's other flaws in yourself
that you'll see. I don't speak obscenely anymore,
but perhaps I
don't give people the attention that I should
give them when I speak to them.
They
and and you become more perceptive of those
things and then perhaps another halal overcomes you
at another time, but you bag that into
a different maqam when you get in. And
that's how,
you know, that's how you can journey through
these marathib or these levels of of attaining
closest to Allah of really becoming a better
person. Otherwise, what happens is,
you know, you get this hal, you make
those decisions, 5 days go like that, but
next year,
when the next Ramadan comes, you'll see you
at the same place you were the previous
Ramadan.
Or when the next Hajal comes, you find
yourself at the same place where you were
when you when you found the previous Hajal.
So how are you not then going forward?
Allah's gifting you these ahuwal,
but you're not going forward.
That would be on account of not of
not bagging them, of not retaining them, of
not holding to them.
And, if you're finding it like I said,
if you're finding it difficult to
to retain them, it doesn't matter.
You just strive. Allah doesn't expect from you
anything more than striving. Allah doesn't expect from
me anything more than striving. If it is
that I find myself going back to that
sin,
you just make the over again. With a
sincere broken heart, you make the over again,
and you carry
on. You know, you don't even know.
Perhaps
perhaps that is,
how the manifestation of your retaining that looks.
And then we said that,
So now you understand what that hal is.
Right?
And we spoke about this Hikma yesterday, so
I'm not gonna go into too much depth
of it.
But
in this one, he says that actions differ
because
the states that overcome people
differ.
Right?
And I and I reference this in relation
to, you know, there are people who are
closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. They are
more conscious in the Ibadah. Therefore, the Ibadah,
even though they may be doing the same,
actually it differs.
I mentioned the statement of Habib Umar Radil,
that, you know, one person,
he thinks about eating whilst he's praying,
and other people pray while they are eating.
Both of them pray, both of them eat,
but how different they are.
Right? So the actions seem the same, but
they're actually in reality different actions because the
people undertaking those actions have different states.
How does it relates to what I just
mentioned is that people on different Maqamah, people
on different stations,
their actions differ even though they may look
the same because of the state of their
hearts.
And this takes us into the next hikmah
of
where he says that
actions
are simply
lifeless forms,
the external forms.
And the thing that gives life or the
life source
or the life force within those actions is
having Ikhlas whilst doing them.
The life force of our
actions which are,
you know, just which are lifeless forms,
they are that we have Ikhlas whilst doing
them. What does Ikhlas mean?
Sincerity. What does sincerity mean?
In the Arabic language,
you know, we we might know it from
the fact that the
passive participle
or the
the ismul
of this word, Allah use it in the
Quran for the
The elect slaves of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Why? It means that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has selected them. That's why
they are. So the is what?
One who selects.
The person that has
is one who specifies
Allah
and Allah alone for his actions.
Right? So when he does the action,
whatever the action may be,
the first thing that he does is he
is seeking to please Allah by doing that
action.
Right. He's seeking to please Allah by doing
that action. He's not looking to anyone,
anything other than Allah when undertaking the action.
When I stand
to make salah,
I'm making salah to please Allah.
I'm not making salah because it feels nice,
then I'm doing it to please myself.
I'm not making salah
so other people can see, look at me,
and say that I'm pious because then I'm
doing it for.
That's a very big sin.
I'm not doing it
simply because I have to.
Sometimes you have to drag yourself there,
but I'm not doing it simply because I
have to. I'm doing it because Allah wants
me to do.
I'm doing it in recognition of my,
my slave hood, and I'm doing it because
Allah wants me to do it.
For no when you when you train yourself
to do your actions for no reason other
than that,
you will find that your actions have life.
You'll find that your actions have
have life. So
it's worth
taking a moment
when undertaking an action
to remind yourself of that.
And it's not something that's strange to us.
We're shafi is generally what do we do
before we do an act of worship?
Not just to add the the intention in
our heart, but it's recommended to say it
also.
You don't think you're too caught up whether
that makes you go crazy.
But,
you you stand there and
you
say
whatever.
Whatever it may
be. But
generally, it ends with.
I'm doing it.
And if any part of your intention is
important,
then that's probably the most important part.
Okay. The will tell you, no, the other
parts are most necessary for the, you know,
for the correctness of your action.
But in terms of the life of your
action, if any part of your is important,
it's that one.
That I'm doing it.
I'm doing it for Allah.
So the practical advice from this one is
that
when we engage in actions,
we should be cognizant of them.
We should be con as we walk into
if you know, I'm not gonna stand there
and say my because I want to get
a raka'ah.
This part of the you tell yourself while
you're walking there, I'm going to pray for
the sake of Allah.
When your family are nagging you to buy
them takeouts,
then you tell yourself, I'm gonna buy them
takeouts because Allah wants me to spend in
my family.
When you,
when you're going to work in the morning,
I'm going to work because
it will please Allah
that I am, you know, seeing to my
needs and the needs of my family. Whatever
it may be, you make sure that Allah
is first and foremost in action. And it's
again like all of the other things that
we spoke about something that you train yourself
to do.
There must be this running conversation between yourself
and Allah in your heart.
Right? All the time you just there's a
running conversation. You you you constantly speaking to
Allah. You might not be moving your lips.
You might not be saying anything, but constantly
you are.
You're connecting to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And,
you know, I always used to think
and I always used to think that it's
actually impossible.
It's impossible to to to maintain that constant
state of of communication with Allah, of dhikrullah,
of your heart being connected to Allah.
I just think to myself, no. That's just
something that the big sheikh or sufis say
that you must do.
How can you be constantly concerned with black
constantly
concerned with
something, let alone Allah?
But then one of my my shaykh gave
me a example,
and it really hit home for me.
And it's something that I probably experienced as
well, and that's why it hit home.
And many of us might have done the
same.
Just think about the moment when one of
your loved ones, somebody near and dear to
you, found themselves in the hospital,
and you don't have clarity about what the
situation is, whether they're gonna make it or
not.
Let's say, for example okay. I experienced it
when there was my grandmother,
and
what happens is you tend to you be
there,
and all the time that you're there, you're
thinking about them.
Eventually,
you know, you sit in the hospital and
you're making dua for them, thinking about them,
all of that stuff.
Eventually, you have to go.
You might want to stay there,
but eventually, you have to go home. While
you're driving home, what you're thinking about?
Your loved one over there.
All the time, you might be looking at
the cars around you and you might be
changing your gaze and all of that stuff,
but your mind is
concerned. Your heart is concerned with that person
that's beloved to you.
And then you go home.
You pull your car in, everything. You open
up your door. You turn in the key.
All of those things you're doing.
But where's your mind?
You're not actually concerned with turning the key.
You're not concerned with it. You're concerned
with your beloved,
but your body is doing a whole lot
of things. You're living to a normal person
that, you know, your neighbor sees you opening
your door. You just look like an ordinary
guy opening their door.
You're driving. The person is driving next to
you. He might see you, hey, driving slow
in the lane or but to you to
him, you just look like an ordinary person
driving. What you're doing? You're focusing on driving.
No. You're focusing on your beloved, but you're
doing all of those things.
You go home.
You lie in your bed, maybe,
and you go sleep. While you're lying in
your bed, you're thinking about your beloved. When
you wake up in the morning, first thing
you think is you're thinking about your beloved.
You go to the kitchen, you make yourself
some breakfast, you're thinking about your beloved. You
go to work, maybe you're my mum there,
whatever. You carry on doing what you have
to do, but you're still concerned with your
beloved.
That's something that you might have experienced.
You're living a normal life,
but you're concerned
with
your
beloved.
Allah
says,
Those who believe
there are more intense
than there are more intense in the love
for Allah.
Those who believe are more intense in the
love for Allah. If you can think like
that, if you can be so concerned, you
all can be connected
to your beloved grandmother,
mother, child, whoever it is.
Those who believe they love Allah more.
So why can't we be concerned with Allah
all the time?
We've experienced that constant concern.
Perhaps we need to work on our love
for Allah.
Perhaps we need to work on our in
our love for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But
certainly
it's an attainable thing.
Certainly it is an attainable thing. So we
should set for ourselves lofty goals.
And if we increase in love for Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and our love for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
supersedes our love for anything else.
Our love for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala supersedes
our love for anything else.
Then it's easy to have
Then it's easy to have your to do
this thing for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala first
and foremost,
before any other object.
And you'll find yourself like that. You know,
when you're concerned about that beloved person of
yours in the hospital,
and nobody can do anything
for them but Allah,
then you super
particular about not doing a wrong thing.
Isn't it so?
I don't want to do something bad. Just
now Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, you know, doesn't
allow that outcome that they want there with
my beloved because of my badness.
You know, I've seen people do this even
for a soccer match.
The team is playing.
No. I'm serious.
Now they think to themselves, yeah, for the
duration of the soccer match, I must be
an angel so that my team wins.
You know, they they might think to themselves,
I must go back because I know if
I don't go back to my team's gonna
lose.
How can we be so much more for
these crazy things?
For these meaningless futile things.
Right. But we can't be so serious about
Allah.
There must be something wrong.
That's how Allah
increases
in in his love.
But one of the ways to
one of the ways to become more connected
to Allah
is to disconnect your heart from other things.
To actively disconnect your heart from other things.
I can tell you, look, one of my
hobbies is coffee. I love coffee
and I like making coffee.
And I like coffee machines and I like
coffee gadgets and I just like making coffee.
But sometimes, you you get to a point
where you know this
is going overboard.
No. It is.
You get to a point where you think
to yourself, no. This is going overboard.
And then you have to tell yourself, no.
I need to take myself back to something
more important
because you can get absorbed in that thing.
And when you get absorbed in that thing
so much, then your mind is thinking about
that all the time. But if your mind
is thinking about that all the time, then
your mind is not thinking about Allah during
that time.
So if you want to
get more connected to Allah, you need to
detach yourself from from those things that your
heart is connected to,
those things that your heart desires and loves.
And people are different in hobbies. I just
use my hobby as an example.
But people have the things that they like.
And and nowadays, actually, there's so much distraction.
Sometimes people spend their time in things that
they don't even like.
For example, scrolling YouTube.
You know, in the night, oftentimes, it's like
the habit of people. You lie in your
bed, you're scrolling YouTube, and you're watching things
about things that you really don't care about
at all.
Isn't it?
You you like you sometimes there watching a
recipe. You know, I'm not gonna go make
this recipe now.
My wife's not gonna go make this recipe
for me, not anytime soon.
But you're sitting there, you're watching it, and
then that gets you on to another fried
chicken with the super crispy batter. And it's
like means nothing at all.
Like, seriously.
There's so much distraction that you're not even
spending time on something that you love. You're
just spending time on random things.
But if you want to actually get connected
to Allah, you have to disconnect from those
things.
Firstly, you have to disconnect from those things
that you don't even love, that you're busy
with.
And then you need to disconnect from those
things that do concern you, that do make
in Shirkhal that do busy your heart.
That's buzzing your heart instead of Allah.
So
there are a number of ways to do
that. And,
there are a number of ways to do
that. And that's gonna take us into the
next 2.
The other days we were doing one of
a Hekem and now we're going through a
few of them because and I don't want
to deprive you of your enemy.
But
okay.
In the next Hekem
bury your existence,
bury yourself
in the land of obscurity.
Bury yourself, bury your existence in the land
of obscurity.
What does it mean, the land of obscurity?
The land of obscurity is a land wherein,
you know, nobody knows you.
Nobody knows you. You're not looking for fame.
You actually don't want to be seen.
You don't want to be seen. You know,
oftentimes, you'll see the masha'yid when they come
into a gathering and people want them to
come sit in front, then they don't want
to sit in front. They
They want to sit at the back.
And if they're sincere in
that, if they're sincere in that desire to
be there,
then that's because they want they desire that
obscurity.
Sometimes it can be a fake thing.
Everybody has enough.
So you say, no. No. I don't want
to go there. I don't want to go
there. I don't want to go there. But
you know, no. I actually don't want to
go there.
That's fake.
And everybody has those tests.
The nafs inclined you to those things. But
obviously, the person that finds himself in that
nakam, in that position,
they are the ones that need to fight
that.
Either they should just go
and not make an issue of it, or
they should be sincere in their desire for
that for that obscurity.
And I'm saying this, but it should never
become the preoccupation
of, you know, the ordinary person when then
I see this color being put in the
front of the yeah. He's been fakely. No.
You mustn't do that.
No. Nobody nobody knows what's happening in the
balcony of that person, the inside of that
person.
Right?
But if they're sincere in that desire,
then that's on account of the fact that
they desire that obscurity, and everybody should desire.
Sometimes
people are given like, people are presented with
that
fame, but they don't want it. They desire
obscurity.
And perhaps that is because Allah
knows that for them to be seen in
that moment is much better for them.
Like, for example, we may take some of
the masha'il.
Habib Omar,
not too long ago, not many years ago,
he wasn't known to anyone.
You know, one of his students,
close students that grew up with him, sir
Muhammad al Saqaf.
He was telling us once.
I was sitting in a in a very
small gathering with him, and he was telling
us that,
you know, he remembers the
the early days of Habib Umar when he
was young, and they were even younger. There
were children with
him. And he said they had nothing.
They had nothing.
For long periods of time, he said he
said, they would eat just dry rice.
Nothing else.
They didn't have much at all. You know,
it's also narrated about Hamid Omar that people
would come to him to study
in the early days.
And because, you know, in those in those
regions, the winter can get very biting cold.
The the students that the foreign students,
they requested some blankets, so he brought them
blankets.
And only after a while,
they came to know
that
these blankets that he gave us were the
blankets of his babies.
But that's at the time when nobody knew
them.
So, sir Mohammad al Saqaf was telling us
that, you know, for long period we would
eat just dry rice. Nothing. We didn't have
anything.
But he said, you know, he was
almost being nostalgic about that time saying, you
know, but what he experienced during that that
time,
when they were known to know now they're
famous. He said, that time when you were
known to nobody.
Nobody would send us a thing. Nobody knew
us.
We were just there learning, spending our time
in Haibat with Haib Muhammad.
He said, that at that time,
we felt as if we were angels walking
this earth.
He said, we were so detached from this
earth. It's as if we were angels walking
this earth.
But that comes from that obscurity and that
connectedness to Allah.
So, even though our is telling us,
bury yourself
in the land of obscurity,
of being unknown.
And like I said, I was making the
point that some people are presented with it,
and they don't want it. But perhaps in
that moment, Allah knows that it's better for
people that they be known.
So Allah, for example, took
some aspect of Habib Ummah out of that
world of obscurity.
He made him known to the
the Cape Town community, for example,
and see what a good effect it has
had on
so many youth
who attend the Mawali, then the Burdas, and,
you know, want to be better people on
account of that. Had he not been known,
they might not have attained that benefit.
So Allah took him out of that world
of obscurity and made him known.
So that and and and I'm using him
as an example because he's an example that's
known to people. There may be many other
masha'if like that.
Generally, that's the state of the mashaif. The
beginning is obscure.
The beginning is obscure. Nobody knows them. They
they are ardently devoted to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
And then people come to know them, and
generally when they come when they come to
be known by people in the mureed want
to give them all things and give them
stuff.
And perhaps at times on account of not
wanting to hurt their feelings, they take those
things.
And so you see them with a lot
of people around them, but, actually,
despite being amidst those means, they are also
very detached from them.
If you take them again into that moment
of obscurity, they'll be just as happy as
they are in the moment of having that
means,
Because it doesn't really matter to them.
It's in their hand, it's not in their
heart.
Right?
But then on the other end of the
spectrum, you have those people who Allah have
favored
with the fact that nobody knows them.
You know, perhaps the person that's sitting in
the Majma was in the dhikr. Nobody's looking
at him in the Majma.
Allah blessed him with that opportunity. He can
be amidst the people and he's still in
obscurity,
but he's sitting there desiring to be seen
by people.
Oh, how ungrateful he is for that opportunity
that Allah gave him.
You know, sometimes
the person that, yeah, that doesn't want it,
he's sitting there and people are looking at
him, but he doesn't want people to be
looking at you.
And then there's the person that's in that
Majma who nobody's looking at him,
but he wants people to be looking at
him.
Don't be like that.
Ibn 'Abdu'lalahu is telling us that sincerely,
if you, you know, if you want that
closest to Allah, if you want
to have the detachedness from the dunya, you
must bury your existence in the land of
obscurity,
of of being unknown,
of, you know,
of not wanting to be known to other
people
and even not thinking much of yourself.
So he says,
whatever grows, whatever sprouts
of plants that were not buried in the
earth,
They never bear their fruits
or they never flower properly.
Listen to that profound.
He says,
bury your existence in the land of obscurity
because if anything
that is not
buried
beneath the earth
and then it produces some kind of crop
or some kind of flower, it does not
flower properly.
So, he's telling you, if you want to
flower properly as a slave of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, then you must also bury yourself
in obscurity.
One of the examples that we know of
this is Imam Al Ghazali
He was the one of the greatest scholars
of his time. He was the leading academic
of his time.
Everybody knew him. He was the main scholar.
Usul Al Firk. Firk,
logic, mantakk, all of he was the main
scholar. Everybody knew him. He had the highest
position of academia at that time,
But he recognized, you went through a crisis.
He recognized, no. This is taking him away
from Allah.
He's not doing it sincerely for the sake
of Allah. So what did he do? He
left.
And he had many
periods of
leaving the people.
But at the time, he went for a
long period of time.
What was he doing? Where was he? Allahu
alam, he just went away from the people.
He wanted to be unknown.
He wanted to be
unknown. He wanted to bury himself in that
obscurity. Why? So they can become detached from
the people. He can be detached from his
post. He can be detached
even from that ailment that he was doing
for himself.
Even from being that the alien that people
are looking to with,
you know, glowing eyes.
He You want you to become detached from
all of that and you want to become
attached to Allah.
So, Ibn Wa Ta'ala tell us tells us,
idifanwudaka
fee arudulhumool.
Bury yourself, your existence in the land of
obscurity.
What is what is not buried but produces
crops or produce or flowers, it does not
flower perfectly.
Now,
the one is about humul.
Humul that that being obscure,
you can be obscure
whilst being amidst people.
You can be
obscure whilst being amidst people. You can
you can divorce yourself from seeking fame, from
seeking recognition whilst you are with people.
I give you an example.
My teacher, Mawlana Ata'a
very few people knew his worth while he
was alive.
Though he was a mis people, he used
to come pray in this Masjid regularly.
He used to be in the Strand
Masjid, in the Strand community. He was there,
but really few people knew him. He didn't
desire for him.
And in fact, some people came to know
about him, but he was like just self
effacing.
You were just self effacing, like, you know,
in fact, many of the people there, they
call him.
Like instead of the people call him.
Even though, like, I never met a island
more knowledgeable than in my life.
And whilst, you know, not just being knowledgeable,
he was deeply engaged in his Ibadah as
well.
And he would never speak about it. Not
only is Ibadah in his charity, he used
to give, like,
you know,
I can safely say
by the time he was 48,
he didn't have a house.
He didn't have a house. He was still
renting from his friend and he could afford
it because his friend wasn't charging him much.
He didn't have much.
And then he attained the house at
that age. In fact, you know what happened?
This is now not connected, but I can
you want must I tell you the story?
He told us one day in class,
used we were fortunate to spend a lot
of time.
He told us one day in class
that, you know,
it came to that age
and
his friend actually needed the house.
His son was gonna get married and things
like that.
But obviously he was very generous to allow
Molata to live there for many years.
And they are good friends Alhamdulillah.
But it came to that age, you know,
his wife asked him like,
you know, yeah, when are we gonna have,
you know, our own house?
And it weighed heavy on his heart because
look his wife, Subhanahu, he'll tell you she
was
super pious
because
that madrasah, that mona'at started, it started in
the house,
Right?
And he lived in that house with his
family in 2 rooms.
On the right of those two rooms
was the his madrasah and the boys used
to sleep there.
Now imagine
you get your wife to tell you it's
a normal size not a big house, not
a small house.
Imagine you go to your wife one day
and tell your wife look here we're gonna
go live in this house.
She's probably thinking oh yes, now we're gonna
move out to the parents place, okay we're
gonna move into this house. Then you tell
her, yeah. We're gonna move into the house,
but 20 boys are gonna move in with
us.
That's on the one side of our room.
And on the other side of our room,
we're gonna have blossoms.
What's your wife gonna tell
you? You're a Jason's mom.
SubhanAllah, she put up with it. The madrasah
started it for many years.
Many of
the, you know,
big people who do work in this community,
they came from that origin. That's when Mona
Ata was teaching. And, you know, I don't
think you
you perceive the sacrifice in it until you
go and you actually see that house.
That's very small.
Like, the place in which you were living
was very small.
So obviously you can imagine his wife was
somebody who really sacrifice with
him. So if she had the right to
ask, you know,
when we can have our own place?
She really had the right to ask.
So,
wasn't in a position to purchase a house
at that time.
He passed away at about 52
around 53, somewhere around
so it wasn't long before he passed away.
So it really, you know, it weighed heavy
on his heart. He wanted to give his
wife, but he didn't have. So his heart
was like, you know, concerned. He he wanted
to give it to her.
But then he said, you know, one day
his wife came to him. It was it
was weighing down,
and sometimes we could see on Molotwa
when he was when he was burdened.
But his wife then came to him one
morning, like, really happy,
and she told him that she had a
dream.
And in this dream, she saw his 5th
teacher.
Mullata had a very strong connection with that
heth teacher of his,
Hafid Abdul Rahman Miya.
That he said, you know, Imam Al Atta
attributed a lot of what Allah granted him
to the duas of that teacher of his
and to the care of that teacher of
his.
That in addition to the duas of his
parents.
So she came to me and she said,
in this dream I saw
your teacher.
But, Munatwala said, like, how did you know?
Because you didn't know him, you didn't see
him. So she said, look, she just knew
that that was his teacher
And
he told her in the dream, look here,
she mustn't
she must leave Molotah. She mustn't burden him
with those worldly things.
She mustn't, you know, make him concerned with
those worldly things.
And then he took her, he told her,
come with me.
So she went with him in the dream,
and then she took him into this garden,
and he showed her some huge palaces.
And he told
her,
you know, leave.
Don't, you know, leave. Don't concern him with
these worldly things. This is what's waiting for
you.
Right?
This is what's waiting for you.
So she woke up in the morning very
content.
No more concern. Don't worry about that.
If it was burning, don't worry about that.
So when Atas, you know, obviously, he was
very emotional and he told her, see
see, look at the house in Jannah. So
she told him, no. What do you mean?
You told me that's my house in Jannah,
not yours.
But, you know, they were really jovial people.
So, you know, he was laughing
in in theory while he was telling us
the story as well.
But I think somehow SubhanAllah
out of nowhere somebody came to him and
actually
came to hear that,
you know, he didn't have a house and
they were shocked by it. May Allah bless
that person as well. And that person offered
to purchase house
and told him that look you can
I'm purchasing this house
and either you can buy it from me
and pay me back as you are able
to
or
you can just stay in the house and
for as long as you need without pain.
Look at that.
He was mumboom, Allah let his wife have
this dream. She removed that concern. And may
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala send somebody to to
see today.
Given the time to the hadith,
the one whose concern is the Akhirah,
Allah gathers his affairs, places his contentment in
his heart and the Dunya comes to him
even if the Dunya doesn't want to come
to him.
So,
I mean, back to the point.
Molotah was somebody who lived amongst the people.
But whilst being amongst the people, he lived
a life of obscurity.
Like I can guarantee
you. Once we, you know, one of the
we went to Turkey with Mona Taha once.
Myself Mona Khali was with us.
And a few Mona Yusuf was with us
as well. Mona doctor Yusuf was with us
as well.
And they met us on the airport
and, you know, obviously we went to them
and things like that. And recently last year
I went again and I'm and I was
with the Sheikh that meet us at the
airport. And he was telling me, you know,
he's a Syrian scholar as well.
He was telling us, you know,
when we meet you at the airport
and we saw you the first time, I
thought to myself, is that the Sheikh?
He doesn't even have socks on like
is this they were, like, talking we're gonna
come meet this big sheikh. Is it, like,
is this the sheikh that we're coming to
meet? He was, like, saying, no.
You can't can't be so
but anyway,
so he went to this.
But he said after that meeting with Molotah
and after spending those days with Molotah,
of all the masha'ikh that they hosted and
they really hosted some big masha'ikh,
he said nobody had an effect an effect
on him like Molotah had.
So he said that, you know, when he
heard of Mullata's passing on that Friday, they
really moved his heart.
And he said, not a day goes by
except that he thinks about Mullata.
And, I mean,
you know, there is a scholar in Turkey,
a Syrian scholar in Turkey from a big
family of scholars saying this about our teacher
here Mullain Atua,
who by and large was unknown to the
people.
If you had to see him in the
shop, whatever, you're just saying, oh, yeah. There's
Butat Tawah.
No.
But so that's humul. That's that living in
that land of obscurity.
But if you can't attain that, then you
have to do something else.
You have to do something else. So, Ibn
'Azza' says,
Nothing
benefits the heart.
Nothing has benefited the heart
like seclusion.
One thing is you are amidst the people,
but you're in that obscurity.
A different thing is when you actually remove
yourself from the people.
You actually remove yourself from from the company.
You find yourself alone.
You remove yourself from the people
and you disconnect, you cut yourself off from,
you know, those external influences and what that
does is it allows you to enter the
Maidan of fiqra, the lands, the fields of
of contemplation.
So you you literally strip yourself. You physically
remove yourself from the company, from the people,
from your phone, like we're supposed to be
doing in the Atikaf.
We remove ourselves from all of those things
physically
and we find moments wherein our mind is
contemplating Allah Subhanahu.
Nothing benefits the heart according to Ibn 'Azza'Allah
like that Ausla.
So you see the difference either you're in
that Ardu Khumool, you're in obscurity despite being
amidst people, the other is you can't attain
that. So you physically remove yourself from people.
You physically remove yourself from people. Obviously again,
you have to be responsible in this. You
can't just decide, you know what? I have
a family. People I must look after. I'm
just gonna leave them and,
you know, go do whatever I want to
do. No. You have to be responsible.
But what you can afford is
We generally can afford it and we just
make excuses for not to. You can afford
1 night in Atikaf.
You can afford 10 days in the month
of Ramadan, 10 nights in the month of
Ramadan in Atikaf.
You can afford
you can afford
to spend not even that
one from one walk to another walk between
Maghrib and Aisha. You can afford to spend
that in the Masjid.
You can afford to spend it in obscurity.
Sometimes even the Masjid may not be that
place.
You know, if you're a person, people know
you, whatever, you have friends there, you're gonna
you know, looking if I go to Masjid,
I'm gonna end up talking. So I go
to the Masjid for my salah so that
I can get salah and jamaal, but then
you know what? I'm gonna go sit in
my car.
I'm gonna go
park in front of the beach.
Obviously, now it's a time when you're not
gonna be seeing other things at the beach.
Right?
You know, I'm gonna go sit in a,
you know, in a quiet place.
So nothing benefits the heart like that.
So I think when we when we come
to learn these things, we have to we
have to make a resolve. You know? I'm
gonna try and implement some of these things.
I'm gonna try and get my heart detached.
I'm gonna try
and connect my heart to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
And then I want to end with 1
more Hikma
and our time is up. I want to
end with 1 more Hikma, this is the
last class.
It's number 16
in the hikm.
How can it be conceived
that something will veil Allah when he is
the one that makes everything apparent?
How can it be perceived
that
something will veil Him when He is the
one that manifests everything?
How can it
How can it be perceived
that something can veil Him when He is
apparent in everything?
How can it be conceived that something will
veil him when he is apparent to everything?
How can it be perceived that something veils
him
when he is the apparent
before the existence of everything?
How can it be perceived that something will
veil him
when he is more apparent than anything?
How can it be that something else veils
him when he is the one
and there is nothing else with him? How
can it be perceived that something will veil
him when he's closer to you than everything?
How can it be perceived that something will
veil him when without him there would be
nothing other than him?
Oh,
how amazing it is. How can it be
that something would even come into existence from
non existence?
Or that something that came out that once
didn't exist now exists.
Without
the one that is attributed with
constant existence.
How can it be that something veils us?
You know, how can it be that we
go through this world, we see the tree,
we see its beauty,
but yet we are veiled from Allah? How
is it possible, ibn al-'Allahu alaihi is saying?
How is it possible that
you see yourself, that you know that you
came from a drop of *,
but still you can't see the work of
Allah in that?
How is it that you can see that
you are sick one day and then you're
cured another day and you know that you
didn't do that, but you don't see Allah
in that?
How is it possible that you are veiled
from Allah, that once you were in poverty,
your family was in poverty, now you find
yourself in wealth,
but that veils you from Allah. How is
it so?
How is it so that you were once
a young child weak and Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala gave you strength
and you didn't do anything to attain that?
How is it so? How can you be
veiled from Allah despite all of that? How
is it possible? How is it that you
think anything has the power to veil Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, when He is the one
that's, you know, that's closer to than your
own jugular vein?
You see the journey to Allah,
the journey to Allah
is not a journey from one point to
another point.
The journey to Allah is not a journey
from Cape Town to
Makkah.
The journey to Allah is not a journey
from your house to the masjid.
The journey to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
not a journey from one physical location to
another physical location.
No.
The journey to Allah is right where you
are.
The journey to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
begins and ends right where you are.
All that it is is a journey of
the veils being removed.
It's a journey of the veils being removed.
Why? Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
We are closer to Him than even His
jugular vein. If Allah is closer to you
than your jugular vein, why do you need
to go somewhere else to find Him?
Allah is to be found where you are.
Allah is to be found where you are.
Allah is to be found in your home.
Allah is to be found in the Masjid
or wherever you find yourself. Allah is to
be found there.
The only problem is that there are things
that are availing us from Allah.
What we need to do is remove those
veils.
Remove those veils
and there is none more able to remove
those veils from us
than Allah himself,
than Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
himself.
So wherever we are we need to connect
ourselves to Allah. Wherever we are, we need
to ask Allah to to unveil himself from
us. Wherever we are, we need to ask
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to make himself known
to us. Wherever we find ourselves, we need
to ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for our
hearts to be seen Him. We need to
ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for our hearts
to be immersed in Him. We need to
ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for our hearts
to be overcome with Him.
And if I may, you just borrow another
hikmah
in another hikmah he
says that
you must not
become heedless.
He says you must not become heedless
from making the zikr of Allah from remembering
Allah Subhanahu wa'ta'ala because
you are heedless whilst remembering him.
Listen to this. He says
Don't leave making the zikr of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala because you're not having all of
those feelings. You're not present with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala whilst you are making the zikr.
He says
Because he says, it's much worse for you
to become heedless from making zikr
than to be heedless whilst making zikr.
It's much worse for you to become heedless
of making dhikr, than to be heedless whilst
you are actually making dhikr.
He says,
Perhaps
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will raise you
from making zikr
whilst being heedless of him and making that
zikr
to a state of making zikr
Perhaps Allah will raise you from the state
of making zikr whilst not even thinking about
him to a state when you are making
zikr of him and you are wakeful. You
are actually thinking about the zikr that you
are making.
And from the state of making dhikr whilst
being conscious,
to the state of making dhikr of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. As if you are present
with Allah Subhanahu
and from the state of making zikr whilst
you are present with Allah, to a state
of zikr,
to a state of making zikr of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala whilst you are absent from
everything other than him. 1 used to make
zikr, you're saying Allahu Akbar but you're not
thinking of Allah.
1 used to say Allahu Akbar whilst you
are thinking of the meaning of Allahu Akbar.
1 used to say the name of Allah,
Allah, Allah, La ilaha illallah.
Whilst you are it's as if you are
patient with Allah, but you can still perceive
what is around you. 1 is to be
saying Allah, Allah.
And it's as if you see nothing but
and it's as if you see nothing but
and
he says,
That is not difficult for Allah.
For Allah to take you heed this person
who is saying Allah's name with your tongue
and nothing else To take you through all
of these stages
to a state of remembering Allah, then to
a state of being present with Allah, then
to a state of being absent from everything
other than Allah. That's not difficult for Allah.
So don't become heedless.
So now we were in Atikaf. We were
doing a little bit more than we usually
do.
Don't let it be when we leave this
place that we go back to doing nothing.
Right? Even if it be that you institute
in your day, you know what I'm gonna
say, we were making laila, alhamdulillah, we were
saying Allah's name was our beautiful
moon shades. Yeah. We have brother Shaheed, Masha'Allah.
And we were we were making these adkar,
and perhaps you were feeling something while making
them, perhaps you weren't feeling.
But let it not be that when we
leave the siyati kaf, we don't say Allah's
name.
Let it not be that when we leave
the siyatiqaf, that the day passes and we
don't say la ilaha
ill. No. Now we have to be better.
If you want to convert the hal into
the maqam,
then we have to tell ourselves, now I'm
gonna be better.
5 minutes in my day, after one salah
in my day, I'm gonna sit and I'm
gonna say Allah's name.
And even if you start of doing that
and you're thinking of everything other than Allah,
it's okay.
Just do it anyways.
Do it
anyways.
Don't now actively tell yourself, you know what?
I'm gonna go do it while I'm looking
at my phone. No. Don't do that.
Do it trying to be present,
but I'm saying even if you're not present,
still do it anyways.
Still do it anyways.
And then the rest is the rest is
Allah business.
And if we let nothing else from all
of these hikam,
it's that Abi ibn Atha'ala is telling us,
look here, man.
Do what you must do.
Do what Allah tells you to do,
but don't have any ears about yourself when
doing
it. Everything is actually about Allah. It's not
about you. The story of your life is
about what you know, you were just this
leaf in the winds of decree that Allah
is making blow from pillar to post.
You just
as wave in the ocean of this world
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is causing to
flow. That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is causing
to ebb and flow.
But the story of our lives are not
a story of us. The story of our
lives is about what Allah is doing with
us.
The eyes mustn't be on me. The eyes
mustn't be on my actions. The eyes must
be on Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah,
Allah, Allah,
Allah.
And with this, we'll end.