In the Name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.
Within
Sufism, why is so much emphasis placed on love of the Holy Prophet?
(May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
The following talk given at the
Almiraj Sufi and Islamic Study Centre will provide clarification.
Colour
Your Life with Love for the Prophet Muhammad (saw)
In the Name of Allah, Most Beneficent,
Most Merciful we begin and in Him we put our trust. All Praise is due
to Allah and unlimited salutations upon our Holy Prophet Muhammad. Peace
be upon you and the Mercy of Allah my dear brothers and sisters.
Allah teaches us in the Quran about
the greatness and importance of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Complete
and total submission in Love to the Holy Prophet is absolutely necessary
to achieve success in the spiritual journey. Allah and His Angels continually
send salutations upon the Holy Prophet and we also should excel in giving
salutations of peace and blessings upon him.
Allah addresses The Holy Prophet
in the text of the Quran, saying "Say to them: If you claim that
you love Allah, then follow me. Then Allah will love you". In order
to gain the love of Allah, we must take the steps necessary to embody
the love of our Holy Prophet to such an extent that it penetrates the
very core of our being and colours our life, our thinking and our daily
affairs. The Holy Prophet said "I have been sent to complete the
higher etiquette (akhlaq) and he also said 'Your religion is conduct'.
Part of religion is worship. You could compare worship (ibadah) to a
tree and its' fruit to conduct (mu'amalah). No one becomes a true believer
until his desires are in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Prophet.
Here we need to examine ourselves thoroughly to see whether our desires
and our actions are in accordance with the teaching of our Holy Prophet
Muhammad.
The problems and upheavals in the
modern world are unique. Every nation on the Earth is boiling over with
difficulties. There are no easy solutions to all of these problems,
but the solution is in the purity of the Islamic teaching and with Muslims
who are awake and conscious of this responsibility. The book of Allah
contains everything that we need. The mystery and enlightenment of the
Quran are found within the Universal Man, The Holy Prophet Muhammad.
He is the perfect example of the implementation of the guidelines that
we find in the Holy Quran. When asked concerning his character, his
beloved wife Aisha answered "He is the embodiment of and a walking
Quran".
The Quran and the Science of Prophethood
together open the way for the seeker of Truth and men and women of higher
awareness - they provide the answers that have eluded humanity for so
long.
The perfect solution for humanity
is found within the esoteric teaching and the Science of Prophethood
within Islam. The teaching of The Holy Prophet Muhammad will once again
come alive in all nations. The Holy Prophet said 'Islam will enter every
house'. Not through television or other media, but through active teaching.
We must ask ourselves as Muslims
- Do we really love the Holy Prophet Muhammad more than our children,
our businesses and our families? This is what is required from us if
we truly desire success in this life and the life to come.
One of the great Companions of
the Holy Prophet (saw), Omar ibn al Khattab, came into his luminous
presence and said to him "Oh Messenger of Allah, I love you more
than anything except my own self". The Holy Prophet replied to
him "Oh Omar, you cannot be a true believer until you love me more
than yourself". Without hesitation, Omar immediately replied "Oh
Messenger of Allah, then I love you more than anything, even my own
self". Upon hearing this, the Holy Prophet smiled and laid his
hands over Omar's heart and said "Now; now you are a true believer".
Once you completely surrender to
the love and teachings of The Holy Prophet, then you become a true believer,
when this love permeates the very core of your being - then - success
is yours.
When we are physically ill, we
go to the doctor. We follow his directions explicitly, to the minutest
detail - even if it includes getting up in the night to take the prescribed
medicine. When we are unwell, the regaining of our health becomes like
a religion to us and we would go to the ends of the Earth if we had
to.
However, when we open a book that
contains the prescriptions of the Holy Prophet (saw) to cure our spiritual
sickness, we are unable to hear or see. We say, 'Insha'Allah later on
perhaps, when I'm older'. None of us has a contract with Allah that
states that we will live until we are 70 or 80 years old. We live our
lives as if they will continue forever, but in the time of the Holy
Prophet, the Companions were concerned about their brothers if they
went to sleep at night without writing their will and tucking it under
their pillow. Their awareness of death was much higher than ours and
they knew that they did not have a guarantee they would wake up in the
morning. Today, we don't write wills, we take out life insurance 'just
in case'. Death seems so far removed from us, we rarely give it any
thought. Until it comes upon us suddenly and we cry "Oh Allah,
send me back, so that I may do some good deeds" and Allah says
"No, but it is only a word that they say".
We don't get a second chance, so
the opportunity we are given in this life is very important. To be lucky
enough to accept the message and then to become one of the 'Mahdi' (rightly
guided ones) who will guide others to Allah is an enormous gift and
blessing from Allah.
There are so many different interpretations
of the coming of the Mahdi and Christ. With everything there is the
inner and the outer. One is the universal concept and one concerns us
as individuals. What's important for us on an inner level is the Hadith,
which says that the Dajjal (Antichrist) will enter every town except
for Mecca and Medina. Mecca and Medina are analogous to the Heart and
the Spirit. In the Arabic language, 'Dajjal' means 'to mislead' or 'the
one who misleads'. In this case, the Antichrist is analogous to the
Nafs (or lower self). There is no need to wait for the end of time for
the Dajjal to come - take the opportunity to work on your own self,
your 'inner dajjal' now.
In the writings concerning the
end of time, it is also said that Gog and Magog will come out and drink
all the water, and destroy a great part of the Earth. The Gog and Magog
are representative of the bad thoughts that eat up all the good things
that we think about Allah.
So, the Antichrist is your ego
self, bad thoughts are your Gog and Magog and your Heart is the Mahdi.
If your heart becomes surrendered to the teaching of The Holy Prophet,
the Mahdi within you comes alive and becomes 'the rightly guided one'.
Allah said "Neither My Heavens
or My Earth contain Me, but the Heart of My believing slave contains
Me". If our heart is on the right track and headed in the right
direction, then it will guide us to our destiny - which is nearness
to Allah.
My dear brothers and sisters, please
remember that Allah gives us a great blessing when He places in our
hearts love of the Quran and the certainty that the Quran is the Word
of God. Our salvation is in the Quran. We must also understand that
in order to reach the doors of the Quran, we must follow in the footsteps
of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. We need to set aside time in our daily
lives not only for salutations upon the Holy Prophet, but to try and
embody the life and etiquette of his message. He was the master of correct
behaviour and a walking example of the Quran.
What the world needs today is proper conduct. The Holy Prophet said
that the time would come when an honest man would be very hard to find.
In today's society, honesty has all but disappeared.
What we need is a return to the
Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (saw). This prescription contains everything
that we need to heal the world's difficulties and all of the diseases
of the 'self' that we see today.
To be modernised, you can follow
any of the teachings of today, but to be civilised , you must follow
the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), the Perfect Master of Mankind
- the One that Allah sent as a Mercy to the Worlds.
We ask Allah (swt) to grant us
nearness to Him, by Him, for Him and to fill our hearts with the love
of for His Beloved, The Holy Prophet Muhammad, the love of his teaching
and the love of his example. We ask Allah to make us into one of those
who will guide others to the teaching of Muhammad, the Holy Prophet
of Allah.
There is no success except in the
following of The Holy Prophet. We ask Allah to take us by the hand and
guide us to his Love, Insha'Allah. May Allah forgive us and guide us
to Him. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'Alamein.
The Shaykh of the Tariqa Miriamiyya, Shaykh Isa Nur ud Din Ahmad
said
'All civilisations are in decline, but in different ways, the decline
of the East is passive
and that of the West is active. The fault of the East in decline is
that it no longer thinks;
that of the West is that it thinks too much and thinks wrongly.
The East is sleeping over Truth, the West is living in error.
From the Chronicles of the Sufis
Almiraj Sufi & Islamic Study Centre, Inc.
