Clearing Our Hearts for Allah Ta’ala

Hazratwala (db) once narrated the following incident:

Hadhrat Mufti Shafi’ ‘Uthmani Sahib (ra) says that once while he was walking with Hadhrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (ra) to his house, Hadhrat took out a pencil and paper, wrote something down, and replaced it in his pocket.

He then addressed Mufti Shafi’ Sahib,
“Mufti Sahib, what have I just done?”

Hadhrat Mufti Sahib replied,
“Hadhrat you took out a pencil and paper, jotted down something and replaced it in your pocket.”

Hadhrat Thanwi (ra) then drew Mufti Sahib’s attention to and pointed out the wisdom of his action, he said,
“Something was repeatedly coming to mind and the apprehension that I may forget it caused my heart to be totally absorbed by it.”

“Having written it down, I have removed the weight that bore so heavily on my heart, vacating my heart for Allah.”

WAITING FOR PERFECT SERENITY IS FUTILE

Hazrat Thanwi (RA) commenting on khushu’, mentioned the following,

“To wait for total settling of the mind, i.e. complete devotion to Allah is futile. This is not possible while one is caught up in this world with its responsibilities and duties. To achieve this even in a troubled and perplexed condition, start the connection with Allah Ta’ala. Gradually such single-minded devotion will follow. Otherwise life will come to an end just waiting, and complete devotion will not be achieved.”

Back to the Basics

أَ لْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَكَفَى وَ سَلاَمٌ عَلَى عِبَا دِ هِ الَّذِ يْنَ ا صْطَفَى اَ مَّا بَعْدُ

 “I think inshaAllah the focus from what I’ve been instructed by speaking to my own shaykh regarding myself and all of us, is that because we are so weak in terms of our understanding of deen, small little things need to actually be taught to us as a dars, as a lesson. Therefore, our good akhlaaq , our bad akhlaaq, exactly what they are, need to be told to us very clearly, without any hesitation without any reservation. Those people that can handle it, then they can handle it, those that can’t, they can’t. Insha Allah I will try to make it as palatable as possible. Human beings sometimes do such things that are beyond the imagination of the normal average human being, nonetheless extremities teach us how to keep a balance and moderation. So my Shaykh (DB) says: Allah mentions in the Quran after taking numerous oaths in surah Shams, Allah Ta’ala says, “And by the soul, Allah ta’ala swears by the nafs of an insaan, and then Allah says then we inspired it, with fujoor, which is open transgression and sinning against Allah Ta’ala. Thereafter Allah Ta’ala mentions wa taqwaha, and then Allah inspired it with piety or taqwa or fear of Allah, or however you want to translate the word Taqwa. Nonetheless, Insaan innately has Fujoor first and taqwa afterwards. After stating all these oaths, Allah ta’ala says the person who purifies their soul is the one who has achieved falaah, success. Falaah could also mean that such a wealth after which there is no poverty, such health after which there is not sickness, such happiness after which there is no sadness or grief, and so on and so forth.  Allah Ta’ala then says and that person who has defiled their nafs and is in truly a state of loss. Hakeem ul Ummat Mujaddid ul Millat, Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (Nawarallahu Marqadahu) says that reformation of oneself is Fardh ‘ayn, mandatory and obligatory on each individual. He would also say the verb to reform, “tazkiya,” is a transitive verb, so we learn that it is not such a verb which can be carried out by the person who does the verb. In other words, the person cannot purify themselves. It requires a purifier and the one being purified.

Those who understand the Quran, one of the purposes of prophethood is that Rasullullah was sent, Allah says “wa yuzakkeekum”, so therefore the job of purification and reformation of society is one of the purposes of prophethood so since there is a dire need for a reformer also since what leads to an obligation is also obligatory. Anything that leads to a Fardh is also Fardh. For example, wudhu on its own is not Fardh, but when you need to pray salat, it’s necessary to have wudhu. Similarly, tazkiya on its own is a Fardh, so anything that leads to that is also obligatory.  So it’s basically imperative to find such a person that can cleanse ones’ evil qualities and should seek out there company. Until a person does not have adequate knowledge regarding the praiseworthy and blameworthy traits of the self, of the person’s nafs, the person won’t be able to gauge what is good and what is bad unless they have some grounding some base knowledge. So instead, out of ignorance, what people do is take good as bad and bad as good. Similarly, many people go sit in the company of pious saints and pious people and what not, but since they’re unaware of their evil traits within themselves, or they are aware but don’t reveal it to those people to help themselves out, so what it is, is that they acquire company and that’s all they get. So a person can come, my shaykh gives this example , he says a person can come sit with me every day after ‘asr time and we’ll have a cup of tea, and we’ll chit chat, and we’ll be really good friends, but that’s all that person will get out of it. He really won’t get any benefit.  As far as the evil qualities within that person, they will never leave unless that person says “Shaykh I have this problem, what do I do? Can you please help me solve this problem of mine or this issue of mine?”  So the diseases which are in one’s heart or in one’s akhlaaq in one’s, for example we all know how to pray, its very easy to say these are the faraidh, these are the Sunnahs of salat etc, but can we really say that in our salah are we connected to Allah Ta’ala or not? If we can say that, then masha Allah the job is done. If we can’t, then that’s a serious issue. Basically it’s like a person comes to school and the teacher takes attendance and says “yes, this person showed up to school”, but after staying seven periods and leaves, does the student learn anything, now that’s another story. So that’s basically what this is suppose to be about, obviously we didn’t really start anything, but the idea is that to understand that these things have to be learnt. They have to be learnt by somebody who learnt them from somebody else etc.

Our deen is Islam, we need to learn how to submit and if we don’t, nothing really happens, nothing really works. If a person cannot submit themselves in the presence of a pious person or the servants of pious people, then beyond that, they will not receive any help; you can’t do things on your own. Those people who think they can solve their own issues are the biggest fools on earth. They’re fools not because I’m saying they’re fools but because Allah ta’ala is saying it’s not something you can do on your own. If it was, Allah would not have sent down so many ambiyaa, Allah would’ve instead just sent down one or two prophets and that’s it, and then Allah would say, “Hey this is what you need to do so on and so forth, figure it out. This is the Quran, this is the Torah, this is the Zaboor, this is the Injeel, figure it out on your own, there’s no need for ambiyaa,” if that was the case, but that wasn’t the case. There are only four books and there are hundreds and thousands of ambiyaa. So a person has to use their common sense and understand that’s how things work and if we can figure at least that much out, then InshaAllah our lives will be much better. “

وَ آ خِرُدَعْوَا نَا اَنِ الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ربِّ الْعَا لَميْن

Getting Off the High Horse

Whether we may admit to it or not, we all consider ourselves to be Allah’s gift to earth.  A person will admit to the most felonious of crimes before they admit to vanity, envy, and/or any other spiritual illness.  Those of us who admit to them, do very little to rectify them.  Those of us who try to rectify them barely or rarely succeed.  Those of us who succeed, become deluded by our so-called success and fall right back into the same problem even deeper and harder.  The only person who is safe is the one who acknowledges their fault(s), tries to rectify the issue(s), proceeds further with more caution and diligence, and remains more suspicious about them self than before.

Compare the above to ourselves.  We think we do others great favors as if they owe us.  Even if we admit to being jealous or arrogant, we just become complacent with our problems.  If we are given a solution to solve the problem, we give up before even beginning or give up halfway.  If we get anywhere, then we think we have conquered the world and it is now our oyster.

The problem with this is that we are already drowning when it comes to Allah, but along with that, we treat people with disrespect.  We behave with insolence towards our elders.  We snap back and retort back every chance we get.  If we are told something, we are so “talented and gifted” that we have an immediate witty reply for everything.  Beyond that, we throw it right back at the one’s we should be laying down our lives for.

What we need to do is get off our high horses and realize where we came from and what our reality was.  We need to realize that if anything, we are at a certain place due to the sacrifices of certain people and not our own meager efforts.  There is an Arabic proverb which means, “How can you love the fruit yet be ungrateful towards the tree?!”  We do not appreciate the people who have helped us along the way.  We love all that we have in every sense, but we do not value those who helped us achieve anything.

The worst is that we treat them as equals.  As if they are obligated to fulfill our “rights”.  Other religions worry about asking for their rights.  Islam teaches us that it is our obligation to fulfill the rights of others regardless of whether our rights are meted out or not.  But our disease is that of unreasonable expectations and not being pleased with the decree of Allah.  We want things to go our way, and Allah forbid, if things do not go our way, then we expect to be given solutions to our own problems that we ourselves created by not realizing that things only go Allah’s way.

When I say that we need to get off our high horses, I also mean we need to stop being animals riding upon one another.  We need to be true to our father Adam (‘Alayhi as-Salaam) and carry on his legacy of being an “Adami”, that is to be a human with a link to Adam (‘Alayhi as-Salaam).  It means to follow in his footsteps and be responsible and own up to our faults.  He could have easily blamed shaytaan, but instead he pleaded to Allah to forgive him and his wife.

The opposite of this is to have a satanic link to iblees and be a devil in disguise.  When iblees disobeyed Allah, he blamed Adam (‘Alayhi as-Salaam) and started to use reason and logic, which by the way was faulty.  Just take stock of ourselves and see how many times we put the blame on others instead of just owning up to our mistakes and taking responsibility.

To conclude, I will mention a famous statement of Hazrat Thanwi (RA).  He said, “I consider myself at present to be the worst of all Muslims, and in terms of the future, worse than all humans.”  If that is how he thought of himself, than we really need to learn to walk with humility on the ground and get off our high horses.

I pray to Allah that He makes us all amongst those servants of His who when they err, they repent immediately and by His grace become His beloveds.

Aameen.

The Nights Allah Swore By…

Respected Readers,

Allah has blessed us by allowing us to witness the days we are in now.  It is sufficient to say that Allah has taken an oath by the coming nights in the Qur’an.  The Prophet (Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wa Sallam) indicated that each night equates to Laylat-ul-Qadr in reward.

Time is of the essence.  Our mashaaikh said, “O man!  You are nothing but a few days.”  Those people that Allah has invited to His Blessed House have left or are leaving.  Those of us who are less fortunate can at least reap the reward of these nights and resemble the people gone for Hajj.

Many articles by great scholars have been written regarding the meritorious nature of these nights.  I do not wish to make this into some academic or scholastic work.  I simply want to put a simple message forward.

My Beloved Allah has sworn by these nights.  That tells me that these nights are beloved to Allah.  Anything beloved to my Beloved should also be beloved to me.  It also shows me that Allah values these nights.  So anything that Allah values, I should also value it.

Us humans are opportunists and intelligent when it comes to the world and its affairs. Unfortunately, when it comes to matters pertaining to our hereafter, we become fools.  It is high time we wise up, wake up, and come to the banquet of reward that Allah has planned out for us in the following nine days and nights.

I pray to Allah that He grant us all the ability to benefit abundantly from these days and nights.  I pray that He allows us to not only reap much reward but also to safeguard whatever we acquire, and ultimately make us from His accepted and righteous servants.

Aameen!