`Isha / Church of the Holy Apostle
A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem. Bismillahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem.
Nawaytu 'l-arba`een, nawaytu 'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu 'l-khalwah, nawaytu 'l-`uzlah,
nawaytu 'r-riyaadah, nawaytu 's-sulook, lillahi ta`ala fee haadha 'l-masjid.
Ati`ullaha wa ati`u 'r-Rasoola wa ooli 'l-amri minkum.
Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (4:59)
As-salaamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. As we have been mentioning for the last two days, we have to be sweet, because if you are not sweet you are not a human being. Allah made a human being sweet, and He honored them. When Allah honors someone, He dresses them with something that is appealing to others. If you are walking on a street or in a mall, you see a pot of biryani, or a pot of curry, and near it a bouquet of flowers, and around it all kinds of sweet chocolates, so many that you cannot even imagine. Which one will you take, the biryani, the curry, or the sweets? If you say, "I will take the biryani," I don't think that is true, there is no biryani in this country. So what do you take? You take the sweets, as it is more appealing. Just like an art gallery shows art in different ways. It appeals to the eyes because it is nice. Everything wild, disgusting, and ugly doesn't appeal to the eye.
How then are we going to meet our Lord? With sweetness or with ugliness? That is a big question mark. When He calls us, "Yaa `ibaadee, come to Me!" Are we going to be dressed with the dress of sweetness or ugliness? We don't know. Allah said in the Holy Qur'an:
وَقُلِ اعْمَلُواْ فَسَيَرَى اللّهُ عَمَلَكُمْ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَسَتُرَدُّونَ إِلَى عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
Bismillahi 'r-Rahmaani 'r-Raheem. qul `amaloo wa sayara Allahu `amalakum wa rasoolahu wal mo'monoona wasatarraddoona eela `alimal ghaybee washahadatee fayunabbeekum bima kuntum ta`maloon.
And say: "Do (righteousness): Soon will Allah observe your work, and His messenger and the believers. Soon will you be brought back to the Knower of what is hidden and what is open, then will He show you the truth of all you did." (At-Taubah, 9:105)
Allah said, `amaloo, "do!" He didn't say, "Do good or bad," but He said, "Allah is going to see what you do."
فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا
fa alhamaha fujooraha wa taqwaha.
He inspired the self of its good and its bad. (Ash-Shams, 91:8)
And then He said, `amaloo, "do!" Whether you like to do good or bad, you are free to choose; whatever road you like, take it. But Allah and His Prophet (s) willsee what you have done. Allahu laa shareeka lahu, "There is no partner to Allah." Allah's most sincere servant is Prophet Muhammad (s). He will see what you have done and so will the Prophet (s); he will be waiting to make shafa`ah (intercession). Allah (swt) will say to him, "This one is of your nation, see what he did of good or bad." On the Day of Judgment, Prophet (s) will take the one who did bad under his shafa`ah, and anyone who did good, Allah will look at him with His good appearance, then that order will come for Prophet to intercede for anyone. It is not simple. One person, a wali, can eat and swallow all the sins of the Nation of Muhammad (s), so what then do you think about the Prophet (s)?
O Muslims! We have to be sweet and appear as a nice dress. When you come with a nice dress, everyone looks at you, thinking, "Mashaa-Allah, he is nicely dressed." Not only his clothes, but for men, their beards and their turbans. Today people look for those who are good in turbans. We are not saying wear a turban everywhere you go, but wear a turban or hat when you go to the mosque. Go to any Ahlu ’l-Sunnah mosque in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, or Turkey, you will find a basket of hats. Put a hat on your head out of respect. Outside is alright not to wear it, but when you enter a mosque, wear a hat, as Prophet said:
العمائم تيجان العرب فإذا وضعوا العمائم وضع الله عزهم
al-amaaimu tijaanu al-`arab.
Turbans are crowns of Arabs.
That is sweet to wear. Whoever puts it down, Allah will put it down. Today they shout at you, "bida`, shirk!" What is haraam, shirk, and bid`a in wearing a hat? Today some Muslims think it is kufr to wear a hat in a masjid. When they look at you with a turban they say, "Look, these people might be from the Stone Age." And according to the hadeeth of Prophet (s), Allah honored men with turbans and women with hijab. Whoever honored the sunnah of Prophet (s) by wearing a turban or hijab will have a sweet dress on the Day of Judgment.
O Muslims! There is sweetness in every action; let us maintain that. As Prophet (s) said, "A smile in the face of your brother is sadaqah." It is to be sweet; instead of being rude, be sweet to each other. There is too much rudeness in this world today. Run away from it and don't sit with rude people. If you want people to listen to you, be sweet. Otherwise, why do they have to come to you? The cheapest, lowest element in the Periodic Table is iron, something you don't care much for. You throw a beam of iron on the ground by your feet. But a beam of tin, aluminum, or copper is worth some money. If you find gold, you rub it with your mouth and quickly swallow it before anyone takes it. You put it in your safe box, in your stomach! (laughter)
Iron is the cheapest, so anyone whose character is like iron is the cheapest. What do you use to attract iron, since it is the cheapest and the easiest to fix? Use a magnet. What does a magnet attract? It attracts iron. Does it attract gold? A magnet makes the iron sweet because when it attracts these small screws they become like magnets. They take the dress of the magnet, which is sweet. The magnet always turns to the north pole; it is a guide. Gold is not attracted to the magnet, and it is already precious by itself, but not iron. So you need a magnet to magnetize the iron and then slowly that iron gets sweet: you need a guide to show you sweetness, otherwise all your life you will be like someone who is not polished. We need to be polished. The most difficult thing in our life is to be polished, because the ego doesn't accept this.
If you come to someone and say, "I will polish you and be your guide," they say, "Why do you want to guide me? I will guide you." We don't say, sami`na wa ata`na, "We heard and we obeyed." Today you give advice and they come and they go, me included. All of us are the same, we come and we go. So what is the benefit of guidance today? People are stubborn. Before, people used to learn and they used to be guided. People in the west are spoiled; go to the east to see their behavior and discipline! They come in the thousands and the masajid are full. Here, you get 15 or up to 100 people attending the mosque. What we need is someone to dress us with sweetness.
Prophet (s) showed us that a smile in the face of your brother is from imaan. Faith is sweet. Faith is to believe. The whole belief of Muslims is in the six pillars of faith, to bring us up sweetly. When Prophet (s) began the message it was belief, before ordering prayer or fasting or doing anything. That came later, not at the beginning. Our problem today is that we let our ego control us. Unless you rein the horse it will take you wherever it likes. So what do you need ? A bridle. Where is the bridle for the ego? There is no limit for the ego to take you to dangerous places. But Allah (swt) is merciful because He said, "Don't lose hope of My forgiveness, but repent." Everyone has sins. Don't say, "I am not a sinner." All of us are sinners. You cannot walk in a mall without seeing hundreds of haraam things, with both men and women, unless you don't go to malls! Let one person raise his hand who doesn't go to malls. (Mawlana is the only one who raises his hand; laughter.) Alhamdulillah, we found one. Out of necessity you are going to the mall. Allah (swt) allows for people who don't know or who have to survive.
فَمَنِ اضْطُرَّ غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلاَ عَادٍ فَلا إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ إِنَّ اللّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
Faman idturra ghayra baaghin wa laa `adin falaa ithma `alayhi inna Allah ghafoorun raheem.
But if one is forced by necessity, without wilful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits,- then is he guiltless. For Allah is Oft-forgiving Most Merciful. (2:173)
Look at that ayah. There are so many ayats of punishment, but one ayah wipes out all of them. It refers to the one who, out of necessity, has to go the mall or eat something that is not accepted or do something haraam. But it is out of necessity. In going to the mall you see hundreds of things that attract the eyes, but it is out of necessity that you are going there. "I am not going there to do anything that Allah doesn't like, but it came in my way." He has no sin, it will not be written for him as a sin. Inna Allah ghafoorun raheem, Allah (swt) is the One Who forgives you. "Look, Allah, it is out of necessity." You have to do this. For example, if you need medicine or you get a heart attack or shortness of breath, you go to the mall to get the medicine. Then Allah (swt) will forgive you because you went out of necessity.
For those who go for amusement only, to watch and to go around for no reason (like going to Starbuck's), only spending time there, then there is a question mark. Ask forgiveness and Allah (swt) will forgive. But you must not do something like that, as veils of darkness will come on you. That darkness is in what you are seeing; this attracts that reflection and you lose your sweetness.
O Muslims! As I said at the beginning, one wali, because he left his ego ... with awliyaullah, their time is for their mureeds; their entire life is for the benefit of their followers. It is not like our time, which is for our desires. They have no desires. They threw them away, they divorced their desires. It is a very strict order for awliyaullah. When Grandshaykh (q) finished five years of seclusion, when he was coming out he became so sweet. He began to attract people on the way. And from him came miracles, that no one was able to understand the kind of greatness that Allah (swt) dressed on him with all these miraculous powers. His shaykh, who was in the same time as his uncle, Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) said to him, "O my son, our tariqah is not to show miracles like other tariqahs. Our tariqah is knowledge, our tariqah is behavior, our tariqah is moral excellence. Our tariqah doesn't accept showing miracles to people. Divorce miracles."
He used that word "divorce," talaaq al-karaamaat. We don't say "miracles" in Arabic for awliya, but we have miracles only for Prophets. But in English we use the same word. It is karaamat in Arabic. "Divorce miracles," he said, "`AbdAllah Effendi, my son, divorce karaamaat with six divorces." That means leave no way to come back to them; since there are not six divorces, it means our tariqah is not giving our ego a chance. This is as Prophet (s) said, and as we know this tariqah is based on Shari'ah. Don't ask me, "Is Sufism a sect? No, the Wahabis are a sect. Tasawwuf is not a sect, but it is a way to keep very straightforward on Shari'ah. As the Prophet (s) said, allahuma laa takilnee ila nafsee tarfat `aynin wa laa aqal, "Don't leave me to my ego for the blink of an eye or less."
This camera, has twenty-four blinks or frames per second. The Prophet is saying, "Don't leave me to 1/24 of a blink of a second!" That means the blink you cannot see with the normal eye, because the eye can see 24 blinks in one second but you cannot detect that. It is not that blink only. How many times do you blink in one second? One blink every two or three seconds. That is the outside blink, but the inside blink of the eye to see the frames, is 24 frames at 1/24 per second! And the Prophet (s) said, "Don't leave me to my ego for the smallest one."
Prophet (s) is teaching us. When Sayyidina Abu Bakr (q) heard this hadith, he went to Ka`aba, locked the door and sat crying for seven days! He put a stone in his mouth to stop talking for seven years, taking it out only for eating and drinking. That is because he didn't want to talk. That is why you see him only in 25 ahadeeth. He was not like Sayyidina Abu Hurayrah (r), who brought several thousand ahadeeth, which is important for the ummah. Today we open our computer, go on the Internet and become a mufti, and we write books on Islam, not knowing usool ad-deen, nor fiqh, nor Shari`ah!
Shaykh Sharafuddin (q) said to Grandshaykh `AbdAllah (q), "My son, put miracles down," Grandshaykh said, when he came out from that seclusion, "For three days I was not able to control myself. Whatever I was doing, I was moving with miracles," and he didn't explain what those miracles were.
One wali in the time of Sayyidina Shah Naqshband (q) ... From his time it was called the "Naqshbandi Order," but in the previous time of Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (q) it was called "Siddiqiyya." Shah Naqshband (q) will fill four paradises with ummat an-nabi, with the intercession of Prophet (s), and they say other awliya cannot fill the other three? They come to Prophet (s) and ask him for his shafa`ah. Yes, we Muslims have a way out, an exit from our sins by the shafa`ah of our Prophet (s)! But be sweet to our Prophet (s); don't be aggresive to Prophet and don't avoid doing his teachings! Make salawaat on him. Be sweet and then you remember Allah (swt). Be sweet. When you love someone you remember them. Don't be with biryani, be with chocolate; you want to eat chocolate. (laughter) When someone is sweet you give him everything.
When we are sweet with the Prophet (s) he will come to us with everything. Shafa`at an-Nabi cannot be described. I can describe in one hadith, but that cannot really be described. One person saw a dream in the time of Prophet (s) and it was Judgment Day and Allah (swt) was questioning him and judging him. Finally, when He judged him, He said, "What do you want? That I judge you on your `amal (actions) or on My mercy?" He said, "On my `amal. I did enough." Then Allah (swt) was shouting, "Come angels of punishment and take him to Hellfire!" Why? Because He took one of his eyes and put it on the Scale (of deeds)and that one eye overtook the Scale. One favor of Allah (swt) cannot be described!
You see people in the the gym every day, running and jogging. For what? To be healthy, in order to not feel sick. But they don't know that one organ is more valuable than all the `amal that Allah gave. That is why we have to say, "Shukran, ya Rabb, alhamdulillah.
لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
Wa la'in shakartum la-azeedanakum."
If yo are grateful, I will add more (favors) unto you. (Ibrahim, 14:7)
Say shukran lillah 100 times per day!
Immediately, they took him to Hellfire and that fire began to burn him. The Prophet (s) appeared in front of them. "Take him out, to Paradise as he did one salawaat in his life." Be sweet with Prophet (s) and he will be sweet with you, and he will be sweet even if you are rude. When you give perfume to someone to wear, you put it on his hand so he smells nice. Now everyone is using perfume, men and women. This is sunnah, especially when you are going to the masjid, to smell nice, especially in Mecca and Madinah.
Awliyaullah are perfume. They are not with perfume, they are perfume. You sit with them. When you sit with a blacksmith, he is using fire and charcoal to work on the iron. One small particle of fire may jump and burn your hand, and you will have pain. But if you go to the perfumerie, attar, you get a nice fragrance. So to which one do you go: from the blacksmith you may get burned, and from the perfumerie you get a nice smell. If you go to Shaytan you get burned. If you go to someone on the way of Allah (swt) you get perfume. They give you perfume, since they are perfume. When they give you baya` they give perfume continuously. They don't like to say, "Our mureeds are bad ones," so they dress you with all kinds of perfumes in the Divine Presence.
The Prophet (s) observes the ummah once every 24 hours. As in the hadeeth, tu`radu alay `amal ummatee, "The deeds of the nation are presented to him and if he sees good, he praises Allah, and if not, he asks forgiveness." That means, keep us in the presence of Prophet (s) in Madinatul-Munawarrah and in Mecca al-Mukarramah in Ka`batullah and near Hajar al-Aswad!
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.