So this knowledge and this transmission has always been in the hands
of the people who remember Allah, who do dhikr of Allah, because the
dhikr of Allah affects the heart, it purifies the heart. The ones who
want that, then they say, ‘I am faqir’, and at this point, you have
to then say, ‘Am I sincere? This is a test, all right how important
is it?’ You see, the Murabitun had three rules. The first was da’wat
al-haqq, the second one was radd al-mudhaalim and the third was qat-
al-mujariyi, the third one was to remove unjust taxes.
Now this da’wat al-haqq (invitation to the truth) is the commitment
of the fuqara, this is their job, this is their duty. I mean you must
understand the state people are in, not in some spiritual or
intellectual way that the people talk about. It is khusr. People
recite this famous surah, again and again and again and simply do not
realize that the loss is theirs because they are not following the
deen of Islam, because they have not given Allah His due. Allah says
in the Qur’an, “They have not measured Allah with His true measure .”
This is a tremendous statement.
How do you measure Allah by His true measure? By your disappearance,
you will be more and more measuring Him by His true measure. And then
if you are to disappear completely then it is possible, by your non-
existence. If you diminish you will know more the measure of Allah,
you will be nearer the measure of Allah and if you disappear
completely you will have measured Him by His true measure because you
will not exist. If you do not exist then you have measured Him
because there is nothing else to measure. So the increasing of
knowledge is the diminishing of the nafs. The real knowledge is your
non-existence before His existence. You see, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al- Habib, radi Allahu ‘anhu, told me there were two tariqa as-suffiya. One was the tariqa of Harith al-Muhasibi, which was an outward tajrid, tajrid adh-dhahir, of zuhd, of extra prayer, of much dhikr,
of much purification, and of much journeying fi sabil lillah. You
understand? This way, the way of Harith al-Muhasibi, he said was for
very exalted people. So for very high people, this was possible. But the other way was the way of Shaykh Shahdhili, Shaykh ‘Abdalqadir al-
Jilani, and Imam Junayd. And this was a tariqa which was not like al-
Muhasibi’s. It was that the tajrid was interior, tajrid al-batin, a
tajrid which was to remove all that was inside. When the person
retires in the dhikr of Ism al Adham and recites the name of Allah, A-
L-L-A-H, then they strip off the attributes, the sifaat. They strip
off all the sifaat of their consciousness until they diminish and
diminish and diminish and diminish. .At one point in the khalwa, Shaykh al-Fayturi, raheem Allah, came inand said, “How are you doing? ” and I said, “Well, the dhikr stopped and then I couldn’t say it and then I began to hear the dhikr.” And he said, “Look at this, what is this? There were you looking for the dhikr and here the dhikr came looking for you.”
So this is the diminishing of the self before the Majesty of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta’ala, and the Highness of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
So if you put this dimension in a person, someone who says, ‘My life
is impossible, I cannot pay the money, I haven’t got the something, I
need this for my wife, my children are without all these things.’
Shaykh Muhammad ibn al Habib, radi Allahu ‘anhu, says in the Diwan, “
Make all your troubles One,” and put all these troubles to Allah.
Shaykh al-Fayturi, raheem Allah, used to say, “Fuqara, you really do
need Allah. Don’t you understand?” He used to sit there and say: “You
really do need Allah. What are you doing? What is the matter with you
all? Why are you all in such a state? You really do need Allah, and
Allah is near, qarib. He is not far, He is near, nearer than the
nearness of yourself, of your life-self; of your jugular. You need
Allah. You’re faqir but you need al-Ghaniyu, al-Hamid but He’s near.
What is the turbulence, why this uncertainty?” Then by the dhikr you
reach a point where you have ‘Ayn al-yaqin. ‘Ayn al-yaqin is that you
see in the inwardness, and you see in the hiddenness, what is the
Certain. And this sureness and this firmness is confirmed inwardly
and outwardly, but there is a point at which this confirmation and
totality is Haqq al-yaqin. But the Haqq al-yaqin goes to other times
in Qur’an when Allah ta’ala speaks of the yaqin and says: ” What is
the yaqin? ” Now the yaqin is that you will certainly die, it is
mawt. So the people of sufiyya understand that you should ‘ die
before you die’. Die in the meaning before you die in the hiss”. Mawt
qabla ta’moot”. Die before you die.
Now this is a knowledge which comes by the going towards it. If you
go towards it, it comes towards you. If you desire knowledge,
knowledge comes to you. “Fear Allah and He will give you knowledge.”
What is complete fear is your non-existence. If you appear with
majesty before the mouse, the mouse dies of fright. Is that not true?
This is the slave before his Lord. Now, this contract of going to
Allah, this path for the faqir, is a path of yearning. It is when the
slave is pleased to be a slave. At that point, slavehood as we know it changes its character, and the slave, the ‘abd, becomes the beloved, mahbub. So the ‘abd becomes mahbub, so everything that was bitter becomes sweet. Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallim said the sign of the mumin is that wuduis sweet for him. So the act of slavery that
you must wash before salat becomes this sweet, sweet thing. This is
the sign of the mumin.
Now this is tarbiyya, this is development, this is the creating of
the free. The only free person is the one who has accepted slavery.
That is why the modern Arabs have complaints about everything because
they are not content with Allah. Being content with Allah gives you
this pleasure.
Allah says in the Qur’an, speaking of the awliya of Allah, ” They are
pleased with Him and He is pleased with them . Radi Allahu ‘anhum wa
radu ‘anhu.” So wilayat is His, because in their being content with
Allah, it reflects back that Allah is content with them.”I am in my
slaves opinion of Me, so have a good opinion of Me.” (Hadith Qudsi)
If you have a good opinion then Allah does also. If you are content
then Allah is content with you and then you have wilayat and wilayat
is closeness. Wilayat is qurba, it is closeness. The friend is the
one who is near. Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says in Qur’an, speaking
about Rasul, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallim, “He brought him to
within two bows lengths”… of the Throne.
