In the Name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.
"Whatever is in the heavens and on earth does
declare the Praises and Glory of Allah, the Sovereign King, the Holy
One, the Exalted in Might, the Wise." (Holy Qur'an 62.1)
Narrated 'Umar bin Al-Khattab:
I heard Allah's Messenger say: "The spiritual benefit of deeds
and actions is subject to the intention and every person will receive
spiritual grace according to what he has intended. Whoever migrated
for Allah and His Messenger, then his migration is for Allah and His
Messenger. But, whoever migrated for worldly benefits or for marriage,
his migration was for what he migrated for." (Bukhari Volume
1, Book 1, Number 1).
"Behold, those whom the angels gather in death while they are
still sinning against themselves, [the angels] will ask, 'What was
wrong with you?' They will answer: 'We were weak and oppressed in
the earth.' [The angels] will say to them: 'Was, then, Allah's earth
not wide enough for you to migrate to another place?'" (Holy
Qur'an 4:97)
We give limitless and endless thanks
and gratitude to our Beloved Allah, Most High, for giving us the gift
of life and that from among His creations, He has created us as human.
Alhamdulillah, He has blessed us with the capability for knowledge
and understanding and knowing truth from falsehood so that we can
become a true human being. He did not create us as part of the mineral
kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, or the animal kingdom, but created
us in the best form, the form of the Universal Man. It is an honour
that comes with responsibilities. To fulfil our potential and go beyond
the physical form to the angelic form we are required to take things
seriously and not to squander our lives and our time away, throwing
them away like an unwanted gift that becomes worthless garbage. Otherwise,
instead of coming into illumination, we run the risk of sinking deeper
into the darkness of our own making and that is a crying shame.
As true human beings, when we say 'thank you' to our Beloved Creator,
we truly mean it - because you are a human being and you know that
you are and you have the awareness of the time limits that are part
of this place we call Earth. In the scheme of things, whether we are
aware of it or not, this is called movement and migration - from one
reality to another. This is not 'trans-migration' as some would believe,
but it is the transformation of negative energy towards positive energy,
from unpleasant activities and thoughts that eat away at our soul
to an opening of the heart to the Creative Truth, Al Haqq, filling
it with light.
We come from the beginning of the Timeless Time, and enter the confinement
of this world of cause and effect. For certain, one thing that we
must be constantly aware of is that one day we will also depart from
this realm. This Hijra, or migration if you wish to put it
in a different frame, is something we all experience. As human beings
we are constantly in a state of movement from one place to another.
We first migrated from the world of the spirit, to the world of similitude.
This is the place where the spirit has an identity, but does not yet
have a separate existence of its own. From there we migrated to the
world of the womb. This is our resting place until we make the migration
into the physical (or corporeal) world itself, taking our place on
the earth and developing our self according to the circumstances and
geographical location that Allah has placed us in.
There is no one ever, except for God Himself, who has the intimate
details of death, and life. In other words, what we call destiny,
which is the secret of God alone. We don't arrive on this earth in
possession of our return ticket nor can anyone truthfully say that
he chose to come to planet Earth at this particular place and time.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar and a charlatan. This part
of the program is reserved for Allah alone. It says in the Holy Qur'an
"Maa kaana lahum ul kheera" "They have no choice"
"Your Lord does create and choose
as He pleases: no choice have they (in the matter): Glory to Allah
and far is He above the partners they ascribe (to Him)!" (Holy
Qur'an 28:68).
"Verily the knowledge of the Hour
is with Allah (alone). It is He Who sends down rain, and He Who knows
what is in the wombs. Nor does any one know what it is that he will
earn tomorrow: nor does any one know in what land he is to die. Verily
with Allah is full knowledge and He is acquainted (with all things)."
(Holy Qur'an 31:34)
This is a fact, my dear brothers and
sisters. Through the mercy and loving generosity of Allah, He gave
all of His creations the opportunity to reach a state where they can
enjoy and experience the beauty of Allah through all of His manifestations
in this earthly realm. The Holy Prophet
said to one of his companions "To fulfil the compulsory commands
of Allah, is to become one of the highest among those who worship
Allah". There is no point whatsoever in our acknowledgement of
the Unity of God if we do not follow it up with submission to His
commands. This is takabbur, or arrogance.
In the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad,
there was a tribe of people who were so proud and arrogant that they
tried to make their declaration of La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad
Rasul Allah conditional upon their being excused from placing
their foreheads on the ground in prostration to God. This they refused
to do. In the end, they had to accept it as part of the message. To
place your head on the ground in submission to Allah is one thing,
but to prostrate your heart in submission to Allah is another. The
Holy Prophet
said "To fulfil the commands of Allah". What are these commands
that he spoke of? Allah wants us to worship Him and He confirmed this
by saying:
"I have not created the humans and
the unseen creations except to worship Me." (Holy Qur'an 51:56)
The last Prophet and Messenger of Allah
is the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
When we acknowledge this then the second step is to worship, because
there is no point in acknowledging Allah if we do not fulfil His commands.
So-worship you must! When you say you believe, you are saying "I
love". The two are connected together.
What does is mean to worship? Worship is not just the movements of
the body or performing certain practices that you think are part of
the religion. It is the re-orientation of the heart to remove the
illusion that you love anything other than Allah and to make the Supreme
Being the Master of your heart and intellect. It is a state of knowledge,
because in the true sense you cannot worship something that you do
not know.
So, the Sufis say: "Worship!" Worship in the Arabic traditions
is called 'ibadat. 'Ibadat should take us to 'ubudiyya
meaning slavehood. You are a slave to none but the One. If worship
does not produce this result then it has not been done properly. The
highest state of consciousness is to be completely and totally submitted
to your Beloved, Allah, the Supreme Being, the Creator of all things
and the Sustainer of all things. This is not slavery, but it is freedom
in its very essence, because now you are in a state of oneness and
unity, not a state of multiplicity and fragmentation within yourself
and your personality. This is the purpose of life itself, to achieve
this goal.This life we live is a transitory state, a state of worshipping.
In a real sense, the Creator tells us in the Holy Qur'an that He is
always 'on a new affair'.
"Everyone in the heavens and earth
requests His aid. Every day He is engaged in some affair."(Holy
Qur'an 55:29)
Our thoughts, actions, states, and our
lives are not stationary, but in a constant state of movement and
renewal. The failure of our unconscious self to awaken to reality
makes us see that every day is much like the one before. The Reality
of the Truth tells us a completely different story.
To free ourselves; our emotions and desires must be directed towards
the Creator Himself. Whatever we love, we should love for His sake
and whatever we dislike, we should dislike for His sake. When you
achieve this, then you will find that everything else becomes easy.
You are for Allah and Allah is for you. You enter the state of "And
He is with you wherever you are". If the human does not find
the Reality, the Truth of the Creator of the Universe, he will never
feel complete or achieve peace of mind. Anyone who tells you otherwise
is a liar and a peddler of false hopes in the land of the blind. These
people will give you the promise of seeing the sunrise in the midnight
hour.
Humanity is discovering new things all the time about this universe
we live in. In the 21st century, the Age of Modernisation and complications,
scientists have discovered yet another galaxy similar to ours - 41
light years away from us. It is interesting to note the distance of
41 light years. In the teaching of Islam, whenever we wish to complete
a full cycle (or khatm) of recitation of verses or chapters
of the Holy Qur'an, this is done 41 times. If you wish to complete
a voluntary spiritual fast, the length of this is also 41 days. The
number 41 is a powerful indicator to the awakening of the consciousness.
One of the companions of the Holy Prophet,
Ibn Abbas, said that there are 70,000 earths like ours and in every
one of them is Ibn Abbas. There is so much more available for us to
learn; however, if the knowledge that descends from Allah is not utilised,
it will return back to its source.
In the Science of Numbers, the number 41 is reduced in its essence
to 5, which is an indication to the complete human being, (The four
elements and the spirit of God) and the secrets of the Divine teaching
of Islam. The number five is a prime number, and cannot be divided
by anything other than itself and the One.With this is mind, if we
look at the five daily prayers and the five pillars of Islam, the
five foundations of belief and the five great ones from the Holy Prophet
and his family; the five senses, the great days within the Islamic
year are five and the power to grasp within the hand are the five
fingers, then you will see that the number 5 and Friday (the 5th day
of the week), have a very powerful spiritual connection to one another.
If you recite any Chapters of the Holy Qur'an 41 times on Friday,
your success, if you are sincere, is totally assured, with the Grace
of Allah.
In Surat al Jumua'h (The day of gathering, or Friday) Allah
draws our attention to the creation aspect of things so that we don't
feel alone in our spiritual struggle to remember God. He says "Yusabihu
fillahi ma fi samawati wa ma fil ardh". "Everything
in the heavens and in the earth remembers Allah". Yusabih
is from the word sabaha, meaning 'to swim', to swim in the
Grace and the Beauty and the Mercy of Allah. The constant movement
of this 'swimming' indicates life, and in movement is life, in you
and in everything in the Universe.
Then He mentions four of His Holy Names, Al Malik, The Sovereign
King of all things. Then He mentions Al Quddus, The Holy, to
balance the awe inspired by the Name The King with the gentleness
of The One who gives gifts in a gentle way - this is like cool water
on a hot summer day. He says I am King, but I am also The Holy. I
will never do injustice to you. Next comes Al Aziz, The Mighty.
This particular Name is the One who does not do wrong to anyone. Then
follows Al Hakim, The Wise. This Name deals with the gift of
sacred and secret knowledge. With these four Names, He is telling
us that the universe and everything contained within it is praising
Him.
His words are giving us encouragement, asking: What is stopping you
from claiming the great honour of remembering Allah as the entire
universe does? We have a tremendous capacity for remembering all of
the stupid and worthless things that bring us no benefit, things that
even the devil himself would love to forget. But we hang on to them
and keep bringing them back- these things that have been buried through
the Divine Grace and should stay buried. We can't seem to leave things
alone and take the shovel of our minds and the key to our memory archives
and dig them up over and over again. In this way, we burn the candle
at both ends until our lives are wasted, having brought no benefit
to ourselves or to others. This is the real loss of wisdom and the
sacred.
But if we contemplate on and try to understand the meaning of the
everlasting book of miracles, the Holy Qur'an, then we may, by the
Grace of Allah, achieve success, both inward and outward.
"A Messenger has come to you from
among yourselves. Your suffering is distressing to him; he is deeply
concerned for you; he is gentle and merciful to the believers."(Holy
Qur'an 9:128)
He is the One who sends to those who
have no concept of Divinity or Unity, one from among themselves so
that the message will be complete and the cycle will open to a greater
one and the true knowledge will begin to open and flourish on this
planet Earth. He talks about the end of cycle when he speaks of others
who have not arrived yet. We are reading this now and yet there are
others who will come in the future who will have a much higher awareness
of the Supreme Being, greater nearness and knowledge of Allah than
ourselves. This confirms the saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
when he spoke of 'my followers'. When the Holy Prophet
speaks of his followers, this indicates the whole of humanity. No
one knows except Allah Himself which is best, those in the beginning,
the middle or the end. You find muslims all over the globe sighing
for 'The golden age of Islam', looking back to the 'good old days',
but we say that the Golden age of Islam is yet to come. Insha'Allah,
my dear brothers and sisters, we will be lucky enough to be among
those who take part in this great and beautiful spiritual time to
come. It is a time of ma'arifah, or knowledge of God. This
is not just studying things and doing things by inheritance - just
because you were born into a Muslim family or have read a few books,
but during this age, Allah will fill your heart with His light.
What makes it difficult for all of us is demonstrated by what one
Shaykh said "I have been afflicted with four things-these four
calamities have arrows and they have been hunting after all of us".
The first is the shaytan, or the one who has been distanced
from Allah. Anything which keeps us far from Allah falls into this
category. He continued to say "myself, the world and the people
of the world". These four things require struggle. This struggle
becomes very easy when we follow the advice of the Holy Prophet
when he said "When you fulfill the commands of Allah, then you
become among the best of those who worship Allah". Zuhd,
or detachment does not mean that we must separate ourselves totally
from the material life because Allah has placed us on this earth to
contribute to the improvement and success of humanity. Allah said
"And do not forget your share of this worldly life".
"But seek the abode of the Hereafter
in that which Allah has given you and neglect not your portion of
the world, and be kind even as Allah has been kind to you, and seek
not corruption in the earth; truly Allah loves not the corrupters."
(Holy Qur'an 28:77)
For this reason we have been told in
a saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
Ad deen al mu'amalah, the spiritual teaching that we have is
based on conduct or right actions. The essence of the teaching is
your conduct - when your personality is transformed and your actions
become similar to the personality and conduct of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad
himself. It has been said that if you desire to see the Holy Prophet
Muhammad
in your Imagination, then you should read the
Qur'an. His character is exactly as the Qur'an advises us to be. He
was a walking Qur'an and his character was the Qur'an. The Qur'an
contains many wonderful things which deal with today, with yesterday
and with the end of this migration story that we have been speaking
of.
We arrived from the spiritual realm to this earthly realm and we will
once again return back on our final migration. All too often, what
we forget is how we arrived here. What sort of passport did we have?
What type of luggage? Did we have clothes with us? Any sort of material
possessions? We will all find that we came here totally and absolutely
naked and helpless, in a state of purity, without sin, and carrying
within us the Essence of the Merciful, The irony is that when we arrive,
we are crying and everyone around us is laughing, welcoming us to
this realm. When we leave, this is reversed, you are laughing, happy
to be going home, and everyone else is crying. If you look deep down
you will find that they are crying because you have escaped and left
them behind.
When the People of Allah visit a friend who is in a state of migration
to the other realm, they speak to him as if he is going on a holiday,
asking him to convey their greetings to those who have gone before.
Their certainty is with the next realm because they know that this
realm is transitory, we live in a dreamlike world. The Holy Prophet
said that "People are asleep and when they die,
they awaken". He gave us a very good system when he said "Die
before you die". He loved us so much that he wanted to make sure
that before our organic death takes place that our conscious rebirth
will be complete.
The Holy Prophethas
many wonderful names that Allah has given to him. Some of these are
mentioned in the Holy Qur'an, where it says "He is towards the
believers most merciful and kind". So merciful and kind is our
Prophet
towards us that he will intercede and help even those from the lowest
grades of belief to elevate them to a state of higher spiritual awareness
and purification. The Holy Prophet
said to his companion, 'Umar ibn al Khattab "Oh 'Umar, I have
delivered it to you (this beautiful spiritual teaching) clear, without
any blemish. Her night is like her day" (Musnad Ahmad). The night
and the day are exactly the same, so pure, so complete, and so successful
for anyone who implements this teaching. You don't need anything else.
We should not leave our Islam just at the five pillars. You can not
build a house on pillars alone, but you need to complete the exterior.
Then you have to go inside and complete and beautify the interior
so that this house we build (your self) will be of great comfort and
happiness to you and to everyone that you bring to your house as well-a
true house of peace.
If you only know about the five pillars, this is not the complete
Islam and will not bring you the success that is your right. This
would be like inheriting a great treasure and leaving it buried in
the backyard. The treasures that we have in our hands in the form
of the Qur'an and the form of the teaching and the practice of the
Holy Prophet Muhammad
give success to every human being and to every created thing on this
planet Earth and the entire galaxy as well. Allah says in the Holy
Qur'an "We have not sent you except as a mercy to all the creations".
If we were able to travel to the end of the Universe and found another
civilisation there, they would be able to tell you who Muhammad
is. His stamp, his knowledge and his mission did not start just 1400
years ago; it started from the beginning of the timeless time and
will end with the end of time itself and beyond, when everything will
return to the Sovereign Good, Allah, ArRahman, ArRaheem.
We ask Allah to give us all success and to fill our hearts with His
knowledge, peace and tranquillity and to give us the opportunity to
deliver this great, beautiful message to our own innermost selves,
and to all of the creations so that they can experience peace of mind
and tranquillity, living as true human beings, every day fully in
the present, without past or future in the presence of the Loving
Allah. Ameen.
After all, charity begins at home and the Holy Prophet
said 'with your self, begin'.
Wa Assalamu alaikum. And peace
be upon you.
Wa ma tawfiq illah billah. And success is only by Allah.
Murshid F. A. Ali ElSenossi
Almiraj Sufi & Islamic Study Centre, Inc.
