Don’t Waste Time
Alhamdulillah, on this night of Jumu’ah, Allah ta’ala has again given us His blessing and His Grace and has assembled us in His home for His Remembrance. And He has announced to us, through the blessed speech of His Beloved, words to the effect that ‘To some in the world, I give wealth, to some, I give children, to some, I give kingdoms – I distribute all these and more. But put all these Ni’mahs to one side. The greatest Ni’mah is when I give a servant of Mine the Tawfeeq to do My Dhikr, when I give him the ability to remember Me!’ SubhanAllah. This Dhikr is what causes the whole Universe to exist! When Dhikr disappears, then Qiyamah will come and the Dunya will disappear. Allah’s Karam, blessings, mercy and grace come – this is such a great action. When Allah grants a human being the ability to do this action, to acquire this Ni’mah, then tell me – how great an action this is!
Alhamdulillah, good deeds are many indeed. There are many good deeds that can be performed. There are untold numbers, innumerable A’maal that Allah ta’ala has told us about by means of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and Allah ta’ala has informed us about them because we are capable of performing them. If Allah subhana wa ta'ala gives some deed to someone and tells His Creation about it, whether through the Qur’an or the announcement of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, Allah ta’ala would not direct towards an action that the Creation cannot implement, would He? No. Allah has obviously given His servants the Tawfeeq to implement all the A’maal that have been mentioned for them. Allah ta’ala has installed the chip within us such that if a human being wants to, he can do all of them. Tahajjud is not hard, Ishraq is not hard, At-Tahiyat is not hard, Tilawah of the Qur’an is not hard, reading the Qur’an repeatedly is not hard, doing Hajj multiple times is not hard – and we have examples of this in the world. To do abundant Dhikr is not difficult – it is not hard at all.
Look, if a person wants, he can sit all night long after Isha doing Dhikr. Hadhrat Uthman Damaani rahmatullah alayh, one of our forefather Sheikhs, would sit in Dhikr after Isha, and this was in the long nights in the winter – imagine - and he would still be doing Dhikr when the time for Fajr Adhan came in the morning! This means it is possible. If Allah ta’ala says ‘Do Katheer Dhikr’, then it is possible. Allah has given so many A’maal to us, but the problem is with us. There is a couplet which explains that we are ungrateful about so much and satisfied with so little. Allah ta’ala has given us so many paths, but we have just selected a few only, and do not want to go beyond that. Our thoughts and our minds and our ideologies are towards Hoors and Jannah and high levels, and everyone puts their hands up and says he wants this and this and this. We think we are putting our hands up and that we are doing enough and have already attained these goals – no! Allah ta’ala has given us the means and many routes and paths in this Dunya. Allah says ‘Do it, and then ask. I will give!’ But if we don’t do anything, then what will be able to ask for? Tell me.
If you don’t go to work and open your stall, and then you make Dua ‘Oh Allah, give me food and bread and chapattis’ – has this ever happened? True, it is not impossible for Allah ta’ala to give in this way, for He can give whatever and whenever He wants, but Allah ta’ala has established the world with principles and ways and means. If we don’t adopt the means, how will we attain what we want through our Duas? How? Allah ta’ala has given so many deeds – they are unlimited such that we lose count! But we should do them. Why? Because the day will come tomorrow, very quickly. That day is very close in our destiny when we will be sealed up in a box, At that time, we will find out and think ‘Oh no! Oh no! I could have earned in every second of my life.’ And nothing is difficult.
Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam announces in a unique and wonderful Hadith which has come to my mind in relation to this subject, a Hadith which is narrated by Hadhrat AbdurRahman bin Awf radhiAllahu anh - or perhaps some other Sahabi, I do not remember just now. And how did the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam speak here? He swore an oath – he promised! He said ‘I swear by He in whose Hands is my life’ – in other words, he swore by Allah, in the Name of Allah, thus giving added value and weight to the point to come. And what was the point? He said ‘Shall I tell you of such a deed?’ SubhanAllah – this is amazing, because there are so many actions that we can do, as I said, so many actions, which we could go through one by one. In the same way, there are so many Masjids, but there is only one Masjid of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! Is that not so? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Shall I tell you of such an action that you will not get anywhere else? You will only get it in my Masjid. You can do it in many places, but here, there is no restriction.’ Allah ta’ala is emphasizing here what a fantastic action, what a great action this is. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘This action will carry Thawab equivalent to one month’s I’tikaf in my Masjid!’ SubhanAllah – can you imagine the extent of that Thawab? The Thawab of one month’s I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi is equivalent to this one Amal that is to be mentioned.
Now this Amal will not be difficult, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is Rahmatul-lil-Alameen. He came to teach us how to earn Jannah. Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an that everything is possible. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam came to teach us, to deliver the message to us, to educate us. So what is that Amal that is equivalent to one month of I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi. Think now. What an Amal this will be, this one deed that comes with this great reward equivalent to one month in Masjid-an-Nabawi in I’tikaf. What is the Amal? It is to fulfill the need of someone who is in need. SubhanAllah! Imagine. If any person fulfills someone else’s need, then they attain such a Thawab that it is as if he comes to Masjid-an-Nabawi and does I’tikaf. The reward of one month’s I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi – and who is recommending this? It is the recommendation of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! What does that mean? It means that whoever does this action is guaranteed to get that Thawab – it is confirmed. Look at this!
In a similar vein, in a commonly quoted Hadith regarding a normal action, if a person remains seated in Dhikr after Fajr until Ishraq, and then prays two Rakahs, he will get the Thawab of one accepted Hajj and Umrah – and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam repeated this three times: ‘One Hajj and one Umrah, one Hajj and one Umrah, one Hajj and one Umrah.’ So what is the problem? Don’t we have the energy? Are we not capable of doing this? We do have the energy and the capability.
If we look at this Hadith where it is mentioned that you should fulfill someone’s need, then I say that during just one day, a believer can get this Thawab for one month’s I’tikaf so many times over by doing this deed. The reward is unimaginable! Now you are pious, but if I look inside myself, never mind one day, if I look at my whole life, maybe, just maybe I can find an occasion where I fulfilled somebody’s need. I don’t have time for myself! I don’t even have time to fulfill my own needs – everything comes back to me. I want to get this, I want to buy that, I want to attain this, I want to receive that. We are worried about ourselves, trapped in our own worries. But what an open playing field Allah has given - and this is not just for the needs of a Muslim or a specific nation or a certain type of need, no. The whole world is an open playing field. This is the reward if you fulfill the need of any person, of whatever religion, background, colour, creed – SubhanAllah!
And what kind of need should it be? The need has not been determined in terms of a thousand Rupees or this amount or this much. Whatever a person’s need is at a given time, even if he is in desperate need of a glass of water, if you give him that glass of water, you will have attained the whole reward – the whole Thawab. Never mind today, at least do this just once in your life. Allah ta’ala has given us a long life - just think of the reward just for getting up and giving someone a glass of water! So we have gathered a few actions in our lives, but we don’t want to go beyond that. We think this is enough for us. We think ‘I am doing this deed, and every action and every Bayan is enough’ but we don’t look at this point here. Allah ta’ala has given an open playing field to the believers here, an opportunity, such chances.
But we are miserly people, stingy human beings – why? What is the reason for this? Can we not stand up and sit down and come to the Masjid? Every morning, the reward for one Hajj and Umrah is being distributed, yet we cannot come to the Masjid to do Dhikr? If you go to Hajj and Umrah every year, there is no guarantee that it will be accepted, but in this case, when you the leave the Masjid in the morning after doing Dhikr, you attain the reward for an accepted Hajj and Umrah. But we don’t do it. Why? We say ‘Oh, I don’t have the energy; I am not strong enough.’ There is another category of actions, however, which is so common that if you said ‘You will fulfill your needs of life by doing these actions,’ you would see everyone doing it. If you ask people nowadays ‘How many times did you backbite today? How many times did you lie? How many times did you gossip-monger maliciously? How much enmity did you instill in someone else’s heart? How much did you speak with malice or showing off or pride or conceit or love of Dunya?’ There is such a long list of these vices in this day and age – whole sheets of such examples could be filled. So how is that we have the strength to do all these things? We have a lot of strength and time for actions like these. What is evident from this is that shaytan has grabbed us and overtaken us and overwhelmed us. Shaytan has total control of people through this long list of sins, while we are blind to the many good deeds that are so easy to do in life – apart from the few things that we do which we feel are sufficient. This is hypocrisy – what else is it?
Look at this example of a deed, one for which we do not have to travel, nor buy a plane ticket, nor spend any money, yet the Thawab and the illumination of this deed is so great that it is as if a person has spent one month in I’tikaf in Masjid an-Nabawi. The blessed speech of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us this, so believe it. If somebody fulfills the need of another person, I swear by Allah that he attains the full illumination within him that would be earned by doing Umrah and then I’tikaf for a month in Masjid an-Nabawai and then returning home. SubhanAllah! He attains that Noor and that emotion and feeling immediately because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given the guarantee that he will get the full effect. He may not even know what action he has done, but he gets this. For doing what? For fulfilling the need of a human being. When he is dying, he sees the Thawab and says ‘Oh Allah, what is this great reward? How come I have this I’tikaf to my name?’ Allah says ‘Did you not hear the announcement in regard to that deed which you performed? You were just focused on a few actions and Ibadaat. I wanted to give you so much, but you didn’t accept My invitation even though I gave you energy and health and the ability!’
Look, my brothers, don’t reject this Amal by not trying. Who is not in need of this? We don’t even need to go out to do this. We can do this inside our own homes. Your wife and children have needs, so if we make the intention that we will fulfill some requirement of our child today, or of our wife, remembering that we will get this Thawab, then from morning to night, SubhanAllah, you can earn the Thawab of so many I’tikafs that you cannot imagine. But, on the contrary, we purposely avoid fulfilling their needs in our homes. We say ‘Oh, do it yourself – I haven’t got time. I’m not going to do this for you – you can do it yourself. No, you do this action – don’t tell me to do it!’ We tell them ‘Do this for me’ or ‘Bring me some water’ but we don’t look for opportunities for ourselves to fulfill their needs and requirements.
Who doesn’t need this reward? No-one is saying that you have to give £100,00 or buy someone a house to count as having fulfilled their needs. No, no, it is not about huge giving. Just go out and seek someone, whether among friends or contacts - it could be anyone, someone you know or someone you don’t know - but make an intention when you set out at the beginning of the day that you will definitely help somebody out at least once. Won’t you find even one person who needs help in the whole day? The Sunnah of Allah is such that when a person makes the intention to do a deed, then Allah ta’ala puts the means and the routes. The opportunities will come in front of you. Straightaway, an opportunity will arise. Experience this for yourselves. Set forth to do a deed and Allah ta’ala will immediately give you the opportunity to do it. If you make the Niyyah that ‘Oh Allah, I am looking for someone who is in need, who has an obstacle or a problem, because I want to fulfill his need and attain the Thawab of I’tikaf that goes with this deed’, then Allah will grant various opportunities to fulfill the needs of people. Say SubhanAllah! Do you understand what I am saying?
But even then, we do not do this action – we don’t even think about it. We wake up in the morning but do not think about such opportunities – and neither do we sit in the Masjid and do Dhikrullah. Instead, we fall into the trap of sleepiness and doziness and lethargy. Why is this? How is it that we cannot do these actions? Allah ta’ala has given us so many A’maal, but they seem hard for us to do, whereas shaytan makes us do his A’maal all day and all night. You stay up all night long looking at the phone and the screen, doing shaytani actions. 2am, 3am, and you are still not tired. Does anyone get tired doing wrong actions? Nobody does. And then we cry and say ‘I don’t know why I do these sins. Why am I sinning?’ There is a reason – this is a punishment! This is the biggest punishment in this day and age – remember this. In this era and time, this is the biggest punishment.
So what is the reason for this? Why do we have these feelings and emotions that it is hard for us to do good deeds, such that we run away from them and leave them and don’t even think about them or focus on them or care about them? We have to die and go to the Hereafter, so we should consider all these outwardly small deeds as massive, but instead we are too scared to tear ourselves away from actions that are clearly sins. We are so attached to them! Why is this the case today? Why are we upside down? Why are we on the wrong side in all these matters? The Qur’an tells us why, the Hadith tell us why. What is the reason? Let us analyse the reason that these negative emotions overwhelm a person such that he cannot go towards positive feelings. We have no deeds such as fulfilling someone’s needs, even though we may have gone to Makkah and Madina and made many prostrations. But we have no Tawfeeq inside us to do good deeds such as helping people. The reason for this is contained in the Qur’an, which explains that when these negative feelings and emotions proliferate inside a person, that human being should understand that his Batin is extremely dirty and impure. When a person’s internal self is impure, when his Batin is dirty, then he doesn’t accept good actions and doesn’t want to do them.
There is a reason behind everything, my brothers – there are factors at play here. We are not mad, are we? Are we Jahil or illiterate? No, we have so much knowledge and understanding, as well as ability and energy, but internally we are so dirty that shayateen and Nafs have overtaken our internal condition. We are so full of dirt and impurities within, that when we get up in the morning, we don’t even think about or feel like getting up and doing Muraqabah or Dhikr. A person becomes so utterly weak inside that Nafs and shaytan make him inwardly stingy. So the meaning of the Qur’an and Hadith about this is that when a person gets to this stage, he is totally broken internally, full of dirt and impurity and dust.
So why has this disease spread so much in this day and age in which we are living? It is because the discipline that we should uphold to maintain purity, namely Tazkiyyah, has been shunned. We have left it and we ignore it; we don’t care about it and we are not interested in Tazkiyyah. It may sometimes be mentioned in Bayans or in Durus that you should be cleaning yourself and purifying yourself and washing your heart, and the internal diseases may be mentioned as well. A person might speak on this topic for hours, but nobody says how. Has anyone told you before today? If you are ill, for example, people say ‘Go to the doctor.’ And if you go there with an illness and sit down, will he tell you what malady or illness you have, and then send you off on your way? You would say ‘Excuse me, doctor, but would you please tell me the cure for this sickness?’ The doctor’s job is to identify the malady and then prescribe the cure. The diagnosis comes with a cure – there has to be a cure offered as well.
If I tell you that you have this disease, because you can’t pray Salah or do any of the actions that I have mentioned up to now, those deeds that we hear about but do not perform, then obviously there is an internal problem. The Batin is dirty. But if I tell you about it in a speech, and then say ‘Ok, go home now that you know you are dirty inside’, has that cured us? No it hasn’t. We need to go from there to the next step. First, acknowledge that our Batin is dirty, that we are impure inside, and then the Hukm is that we should clean ourselves and do Tazkiyyah. Purify yourselves. And how should we do that? The whole Qur’an prescribes how to do Tazkiyyah, how to clean our inner state.
The Hadith of Jibreel alayhi sallam tells us, the Hadith of which the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘He came to teach you your Deen today!’ He asked ‘What is Islam? What is Iman?’ And what was third thing? ‘What is Ihsan?’ Jibreel alayhi sallam asked the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘What is Ihsan?’ The questions were about Aqeedah, A’maal and, via the third question, the topic through which all actions will be accepted, namely purification of the Batin – Ihsan. So think for yourselves now – what is Ihsan? In this day and age, consider this Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam narrated by Hadhat Abdur-Rahman Ibn al-Awf radhiAllahu anh – I could not remember it before, but I recall it now – in which he relates, in a unique and wonderful Hadith, that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated ‘I do not fear anything for my Ummah, such as dying hungry or not being able to earn or attain worldly success – I do not have any fear in respect of these things. But I do fear one factor in regard to my Ummah, for it may be the source of their destruction, a factor which will take them towards loss and failure, through which they will be destroyed.’ And today we have become stuck in this state.
If we look around us, in the whole Ummah, country after country has been totally finished - and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us the reason for this. This Hadith is contained in Mishkat. So what is that factor? It is a factor that is linked to the Batin, to Tazkiyyah, to purification. In other words, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us the hint that there would be no Tazkiyyah at that time, and that internal diseases would have arisen and spread, despite the fact that there would be speeches, lengthy debates, conferences and discussions about the Qur’an. They will read the Qur’an, but they will read it for the sake of reading rather than to do Amal. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam foretold that this time would come in the Ummah when people would listen to the Qur’an but would not practice upon the Qur’an, even though the Qur’an was given in order for it to be practiced upon. If someone gives you a nice car, a Mercedes for example, and people tell you to wash it every day and look at it and polish it – but don’t drive it, are you achieving the objective of that car? You are still going everywhere on foot and getting wet in the rain, because you are not driving the car. You have a car, but you are not using it!
Allah has given us the Qur’an and the Deen, but if we don’t drive it, then we have failed to meet the objective of the gift. The usefulness of the car has diminished because it is not being used for its objective. So Allah ta’ala has given us the Qur’an, His Kitab, and He says ‘Do what you want with this Qur’an!’ You can wash it and collect different copies and styles of production - there is no greater Kitab than this Qur’an. But if it is so great, what about the objective of the Qur’an that Allah has informed us about? Just as the car is given so that we can drive it and make journeys in it, the Qur’an has been given, but not for beautiful, melodious, and enjoyable recitation, and not so you can look at the flowing script. All of these are secondary or tertiary features. You will obtain the objective of the Qur’an only when you practice the Qur’an. This is a Hadith in Mishkat. When the Qur’an says something is Haram, accept it as Haram. When the Qur’an says something is lawful and Halal, then accept it as such. When the orders come, then obey the orders. Whoever approaches the Qur’an like this, then the whole effect and colour of the Qur’an will come into a person’s life.
The respected scholars have told us this. The Qur’an does not rub off onto a person through speeches or Durus, but rather through A’maal, through the deeds in that person’s life. He measures and analyses in every second of his life: ‘What is the Hukm of the Qur’an here? What does it say about this? What should I do now?’ Allah has made it so easy! Allah ta’ala has sent so many respected scholars into the world – Imam Bukhari rahmatullah alayh , Imam Abu Hanifa rahmatullah alayh , Imam Malik rahmatullah alayh - and these great personalities distributed the tremendous colours of the Qur’an and their effects to the Ummah. Amal, Amal, Amal, Amal – you will find that all A’maal come from the Qur’an.
So this is the message of the Qur’an. Astaghfirullah, we have ignored the Amal of the Qur’an today, and that is why Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that diseases would be widespread in the Ummah, and that there would be no Tazkiyyah, no purification of the Nafs and of the inner state, and we would forget all the orders of the Qur’an. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘What will be the root cause of this destruction in my Ummah?’ Today, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is telling us the solution to this problem of dirt and impurities inside us. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam directed us towards one disease of the Batin through which previous nations were also destroyed.
SubhanAllah, what a massive example. All the previous nations arrived to the condition of failure because they shunned the purification of their Batin, and so the diseases then flourished. The previous scriptures of the Torah and Injeel and the Zabur would also just be recited but not acted upon, in the same way that we recite the Qur’an but don’t practice upon it. I deal in interest, I am immodest, I lie or backbite or gossip-monger – all the sins mentioned in the Qur’an are in my life, but I continue to read and read and read, over and over again. Do you understand what I am saying, my brothers? I am just repeating the Qur’an, just reciting the Qur’an. There is enjoyment in this, but shaytan has given us this poison pill, and now this disease has become widespread in the Ummah. We don’t wash and purify our Batin, we don’t do Tazkiyyah, so all of the true effect of the Deen has been washed away. The previous nations were also destroyed for this reason, because then Shirk arises - and you see this. Shirk starts emerging when the inner condition of people becomes dirty, and the inner self becomes dirty when it is not cleaned.
Obviously, something becomes dirty and impure when it is not cleaned. If you don’t clean and polish something, inevitably it will become dirty and impurities will arise. If you don’t vacuum the carpet in a room at home, it doesn’t look the same after a while. If you sit there and have food and don’t clean it, in two or three days, spiders and ants and insects will move in. So in respect of the Deen, internally, if shaytan comes and sits and flows within us and we don’t clean our system, will sicknesses not spread within us? Of course they will! The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us about the dangers of a people whose Nafs and Batin becomes so dirty that Shirk and immodesty and sins emerge. So a nation is destroyed and an individual is destroyed when he changes the colour of his Deen, when he believes a false Deen to be the true Deen – as we do today.
We don’t have the true effect of the Deen in our Masjids today; the effect of the Qur’an is not in our lives; the effect of Salah is not present in our lives. We have adopted a few actions in our lives today, and we think that is enough for us and are satisfied with it. We have made a weird Deen in the world today. Why? Because we have shunned that great subject of the Deen, namely Tazkiyyah and purification. We shun it and we don’t accept it, and we just do actions according to our desires. We don’t understand the principles of the Deen and we don’t behave in accordance with the Deen. Tazkiyyah, my brothers, is a very critical subject of the Deen, this business of purifying our hearts and our inner state. So in this Mishkat Hadith that I am explaining, the previous nations failed because they destroyed their Batin, and that dirt inside them generated sin within them. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us ‘That same sin will arise in my Ummah, due to which they will be destroyed.’ And that is what is in front of us today.
Look at the whole Ummah today. We say ‘Corona, Corona’, and complain about everything. Stop this! Everything is by the permission of Allah. Not a leaf can shake or fall from a tree without Allah’s permission. So where did Coronavirus come from, tell me? How did this Coronavirus give all these restrictions in the world today? One variant diminished, and then the next variant emerged. Some might say people are making it, but if so, it is Allah ta’ala allowing that shaytani thought to take root in someone’s mind that he should destroy the world, and so he goes ahead and maybe creates some genetic thing to accomplish this. We don’t know whether this was made by someone or whether it arose naturally, whether it came from here or from there. Everything is by Bi-idhni’llah – by the permission of Allah. We have no idea of the theories behind all this. All we know is that everything happens by the permission of Allah. He has allowed this germ to emerge that infects and that occupies everyone’s minds, and through which so many people are passing away. We don’t need to argue about which nation it came from and who spread it and how it spread. It is Allah the Creator who has allowed it because He is unhappy with us. And why is He unhappy with us? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us what would happen when that action that spread in previous Ummahs becomes widespread, and this happens when Tazkiyyah disappears and the diseases come.
And Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam mentioned one disease. Which disease? Hirs – greed. What is greed? It is love of wealth and money and Dunya, it is lying and committing fraud and other such actions in order to acquire money, which is all we want. Interest, Riba, false statements, false signatures, defrauding people, picking people’s pockets – there are so many methods to earn money that it is beyond imagination. Why do we do this? Because there is dirt within, and so we think it is Jaiz! And with that money and wealth we then do Ibadah. We worship and show big actions as if we are pious and are great worshippers, while inwardly, our greed has made all our earnings completely Haram. Lying, fraud, cheating – the greed for the Dunya overtakes a person and he just thinks about Dunya, Dunya, Dunya all the time.
If we look around us today, within ourselves and in Islamic countries, what is the condition? Everyone is trapped in greed, including in our own personal lives. It is greed that brings a person to this situation. From morning until evening, all we have is greed, selfishness, Dunya and the amassing of wealth. Why is this? It is because of our Batini, internal diseases. The Dunya is being destroyed today due to our internal diseases - because there is no Tazkiyyah. As soon as a person starts Tazkiyyah, alhamdulillah, what will happen? When he washes himself within, he will start to dislike all these wrong things, and then the correct emotions and feelings will arise within that person. For example, when you clean a house, it looks bright and warm and nice afterwards, and the same is true when you clean and wash your heart in the way prescribed by the Qur’an and clean your Nafs in the way that is prescribed.
Is there anyone today who implements this advice of Allah subhana wa ta'ala? Tell me. Those who go to a Sheikh and become Mureeds today, the objective is not to wash and purify themselves, and the Pir Sahib doesn’t have this objective either. Everyone has their own agenda and objectives and targets. Pir Sahib says ‘Oh no, just do Dhikr, my student, and you will get Thawab for this.’ We do actions just to earn Thawab, but at least we should look at the effects of what we are doing. Look at the punishments that go with the sins we are committing. How can a person earn the Thawab of Dhikr when his heart and Batin is dirty? How? Tell me. It doesn’t matter how much you try, the Batin won’t get clean like this. The Sheikh says ‘Oh, I need to keep that student as my Mureed so that I become famous for having these people as my students.’ And the student says ‘I need this teacher because I want to be famous.’ So there is greed mixed up with becoming a Pir and also in becoming a student!
The real effect of having a teacher is that the colour of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam comes into your life. If your feelings change and your lifestyle changes and you acquire the desire and appetite for good deeds, then consider that your objective has been met and that you have gone to the right Pir. I have gone to the right Sheikh because my outward and my inward condition are both changing. Then we can say SubhanAllah, for then we will realise that we have embarked on the right path. But we don’t go to the Sheikh for this. They say ‘Recite this much and you will get this much Thawab, do this action and you will get this much Thawab, do these deeds and those deeds.’ No, put all of this to one side. Thawab will only come when your Batin is reformed and corrected.
Imagine there is a crack in the wall of a room, or a patch of damp from a leak, and someone comes and says ‘This can be fixed very easily! Just wallpaper over it and then paint it.’ After a few weeks, the damp will return, so then you will have to paper over it and paint it again. Have you cured the root cause? No. The proper builder and decorator will say ‘First let us sort out where the damp is coming from. We need to remove the crumbled mortar and the dust, and then fill the cracks and repair it properly inside. Then we can wallpaper and paint it.’ The real objective of being a Pir and of being a Mureed is to do Tazkiyyah and Tasfiyyah. We should go to the Pir with the intention to rid ourselves of all our internal sicknesses and diseases. After that, saying ‘SubhanAllah’ just once is enough! It comes in Hadith that if a person with a pure heart says SubhanAllah once, then his scale of deeds becomes half full just from that one SubhanAllah, because he has learned the Adaab of how to do Dhikr.
But I have to say that today, we have so many actions in our book of deeds that will take us to Jahannam. So where should we start? The first thing to do is to clean and purify ourselves from within. Shaytan says ‘No! Thawab – get this Thawab, get that Thawab, stay in the Masjid this long, read this much Qur’an.’ You will get Thawab only when the dirt has been removed from inside, when your lying, backbiting and Haram has been removed. Greed for the Dunya is stuck inside – the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the greed for the world gets trapped within you. You get one house, and then you want another one, and another settee, and this item and that item – greed for the world is never satiated. So what Thawab are you talking about if greed for the Dunya is stuck inside you?
This is how I speak, my brothers. I can make you count Thawab upon Thawab, I can give a whole list of what brings Thawab all day and all night, the Thawab for listening and so on, but Allah is Khabir and Baseer. Allah knows everything that you are doing – He is listening. If all I talked about was Thawab, Allah would say ‘How dare you just speak about this, telling them how to earn Dunya!’
When I went to my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh – look at what my Sheikh taught me. Hadhrat Sahib’s speeches and discourses were those of a true Wali of Allah who teaches the real objective of life. I went like a dirty spider, and he taught me the Name of Allah. He instilled it in my heart and then – look at the Nasiha of my Sheikh. Until today, it is inscribed upon my heart – I am telling you the very words of the Wali of Allah here. He was sat on a straw mat in the dust, and he said ‘Farooqui Sahib, this Name of Allah that you have attained is very valuable indeed.’ I said ‘Valuable? I have come from London UK.’ He said ‘Oh, did you come from there?’ He didn’t ask me anything about the UK, what was or wasn’t there, but rather he gave me a great prescription. In the world, if you say you are from the UK, you can earn masses of Dunya, but my Sheikh said to me ‘Farooqui Sahib, you have such a valuable Name inside you now. You have learned how valuable this is. If you protect this Name of Allah that you have now been taught in your heart, then Allah subhana wa ta'ala will elevate you just as His Name is elevated. But be careful of one thing.’ Look at his Nasiha now. ‘Don’t run after the greed of the Dunya, Farooqui Sahib! I share this one sentence with my Mureeds in the first sitting.’
In the same way that the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam speaks to his Sahaba, so the Wali of Allah speaks to the whole of mankind! The Sheikh shared this statement with his Mureed – me – in our first sitting. He knew that his Mureed would not get destroyed by any action other than greed for the world. My Hadhrat said ‘You have learned the Name of Allah, and this is a great, great lesson that I have given to you today, oh my student! This is a great gift that you are taking back, but there is one condition’ – SubhanAllah. ‘The condition that comes with this Name is that you must not run after the greed of the Dunya by using this Name.’ In other words, there should be no desire for large numbers of students, or for a big Khanqah and fame and glory and lengthy titles. Listen to the next statement: Hadhrat Sahib said ‘If you have this desire for Dunya in your heart, for fame and glory and achieving in the world, then everything of yours will be destroyed. Everything will be wasted.’
That is the end of the story, the sum of the teaching. Beyond this, what does the Pir-Mureed relationship entail? What other Nasiha can be given? Now, if I were a deceitful person and a liar, I could have earned the Dunya all life-long through greed. But Hadhrat Sahib taught me such a valuable Name of Allah, and with it came a guarantee that if I didn’t run after Dunya, Allah would elevate. Every Mureed of the Naqshbandi Silsila, when he comes to take Bai’ah with his teacher, alhamdulillah, in that first sitting, in that first Sohbat, in that first lesson, the heart and life of the student is revived. Just from Sohbat! People say ‘What happened? What did you get from Hadhrat Sahib? What did he say? What did you learn? How did you change? Where did you learn the Deen from?’ What can I tell you about my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh? The Naqshbandi Silsila has such a great effect!
This is the Silsila of Hadhrat Abu Bakr as-Siddique radhiAllahu anh! This is the order of Hadhrat Abu Bakr as-Siddique, the order of Sohbat, not the order of Taqreers and speeches and technical Bayans and points and grammar and so on. Hadhrat Sahib said to me that if a person cannot take the benefit from his Sheikh in silence, then he cannot take benefit from his Sheikh in anything else, not in words nor in speeches. This is the Silsila of silence! In this Silsila, you get Faidh from silence. Just close your eyes and pull on the Faidh from your teacher - but to do this, there must be compatibility and a connection between the Sheikh and the student.
Once I was asked ‘Why is it that people come to you in their droves?’ After I got the Sohbat, people were amazed when I came back. They thought ‘This dirty man, this simple man has come back, and now he wears Imamah and Sunnah and is spreading the Deen.’ They would ask me ‘What do you tell people? What is this magic?’ I said ‘I don’t do magic – there is no magic in this! It is what was taught to us by our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and the magic is that if you learn Allah’s Name and then recite it and teach it, then everyone will change!’ This is the effect my brothers. This Dunya is amazed and shocked, dumbfounded even, but there is nothing in this to be dumbfounded about. It is our Deen that teaches us this, to be sincere, to do Tazkiyyah, to clean and purify your heart – then see how the Dunya around you will change. You will influence people for the better. Do you want to see people in hardship and difficulty and be unable to help them? If there is one poor soul standing outside your home with no food and no one to ask what his problem is, and no one to help him as he stands in the rain, should you drive past him without asking where he wants to go, to offer him a lift or to drop him off? But we say ‘No. no, I need to get to where I’m going for the sake of Dunya; I need to earn, to work.’ You get thousands of opportunities to do great deeds every day, but you want people to serve you and help you. You want people to give you money and help you, but you can’t spare a second to help somebody else who is desperately in need.
So Tazkiyyah starts from this point, and it ends on this point – remember this. Otherwise, you will be zero in the Hereafter, or less than zero as regards your A’maal. Where does the Deen start? In this Masjid, in the corner of the Masjid, do Tazkiyyah. Learn this. It is not magic, this Dhikr in the morning until Ishraq. It is not about Piri-Mureedi magic and trances, rather, it is the Faidh of my Sheikh, who told me ‘Keep on reciting Allah’s Name and you will continue to be elevated in this world.’ But if you waste this teaching, tread it underfoot, or rub it out, Allah ta’ala will ask you in the Hereafter ‘What about that Halaqah in the Masjid that I gave you? You came for your own objectives, but I gave you that gathering of Dhikr in the Masjid so that all your deeds could be elevated. Your reading of Qur’an in that Masjid should be elevated, the Dars should be elevated – everything should be accepted due to this Amal of Dhikr of Allah that I gave to you. But you said that you didn’t have time for it, and that you couldn’t be bothered.’ This is Tazkiyyah – SubhanAllah. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you with these words?
Understand the real disease that is within us. Why is the Dunya destroyed today? Why is the Ummah destroyed today? There will be bigger Coronas to come after this! Destruction will multiply and more hardships will come. Allah says ‘Make as many vaccines as you can – keep making more!’ Somebody said to me today that he heard of someone who had had the vaccine and was very satisfied and happy due to this. But two weeks later, he was upside down due to Coronavirus, lying in hospital. He said ‘I am in a very bad way, please do Dua.’ So where was the vaccine? Where did it go? Two weeks after having it, he was ill with the disease.
This is like our wearing of scarves and masks, which we wear as a precaution, but is there any guarantee that they will save us from Corona? If someone says ‘The mask and the scarf will save me from Coronavirus’, this is Shirk! So why do we wear scarves? Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us to adopt the means and to ask from Allah. That is why we accept the restrictions and take the precautions, and what happens if you don’t do this is that you will develop pride, thinking ‘I don’t need to wear a mask or a scarf, and I don’t need to do social distancing, and I don’t need to accept the restrictions.’ The problem then becomes one of haughtiness and pride due to feeling that you don’t need to do these things and that you are safe. Those whose Batins are weak have so little fear. They say ‘Oh Allah, I have stayed healthy even though I am a wrongdoer.’ But the sincere person says ‘I am the biggest sinner, and maybe I am in danger, so I will follow all the restrictions and take all the precautions. And I make Dua to You, oh Allah, that You save me.’
I am not criticizing anybody who doesn’t do this, but we need to adopt the means. Allah has given us the means, so we need to follow the rules and the restrictions - but this does not mean that these things will save us. No. We have to ask Allah to save us. Maybe Allah will give another disease or illness, so don’t say ‘Oh, I wore masks and scarves but I still got the disease. Why wasn’t I saved?’ No! We must avoid going against the Sunnah. The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that there are ways to save yourselves from all illnesses. Allah ta’ala says ‘I have given you this Adhab, this punishment, and I have told you that you can protect yourselves from this disease through Dua!’ – which is the Dua of ‘Oh Allah, save us!’ By adopting social distancing and preventative measures, we are making this Dua of ‘O Allah, save us from this!’ Not to do it is Takabbur and pride, which is the biggest disease within us. So submit yourselves, be sincere, and have humility.
So, my brothers, to return to the discussion point that we were considering, the real point that we need to understand is that we need to focus on our Batin and our inner state. Just as we know that the stomach is the root cause of all physical diseases, the root cause of all spiritual diseases is what? It is the Batin, the inner state, the Nafs, which is why we have to do Tazkiyyah. That is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that all the previous Ummahs were destroyed because they left Tazkiyyah. They stopped purifying the heart and the Batin and they headed in another direction. So if you go to a Wali of Allah today and make yourself his Mureed, then you should have sincerity and the intention to get rid of the inner diseases and illnesses, and then follow the cure and prescription and advice of the Sheikh, and stick to that through thick and thin. This is the only way – there is no other way.
Shaytan will come to you and say to you ‘Don’t do this, don’t go to the Sheikh, you don’t enjoy it, you don’t feel like it.’ But you don’t need enjoyment or visions or dreams or miracles or Thawab - you need to look at one thing only, namely, have you stopped lying in your life? Has backbiting come out of your life? Has greed for the world come out of your life? Have you started enjoying praying Salah? Have you started enjoying reciting Qur’an? If so, then consider that alhamdulillah, your Tazkiyyah is more than successful. You shouldn’t think that you will get Kashf or dreams or visions or miracles because you have now come to the reality of life - no. That is a waste of life to be looking for visons and dreams and miracles. You have come to the real life now, but you have to work hard on this. It doesn’t come from talking about it all day long and discussing how much Thawab you will get from this or that action or Dhikr. Don’t just talk about it, rather, come onto the playing field and play! You have to come onto the pitch and play hard and make effort. Your heart should tell you ‘I need to fulfill someone’s needs and help someone and give someone assistance.’ Greed for the Dunya will then come out of your heart.
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq that before we die, we focus on our Batin, clean our Batin, so that we can get the greatest rewards for all our deeds through doing Tazkiyyah and cleaning our Batin and Nafs. Jumu’ah is coming, so what a great opportunity Allah ta’ala has given to us. Is it not Jumu’ah tomorrow? What is the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah? Tell me. What is the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah? How many people will you see coming tomorrow properly prepared? There is an announcement here: the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah is that those who come for Jumu’ah should come in the form of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! His Libaas should be according to the Sunnah. The Hadith go into such detail about the blessed Libaas of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he used to come to Jumu’ah, and inshaAllah, very soon you will see and hear these Hadith. If it happened that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not have an Imamah to hand, then he would tie strips of cloth around his blessed head in order that the effect of the Imamah was visible. This is the preparation of the Libaas of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
But nowadays, people’s Libaas is weird – someone is wearing this style, some else is wearing those clothes, this colour, that colour. There are hundreds of different Libaas styles and designs, but the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said “مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِقَوْمٍ فَهُوَ مِنْهُمْ”. This is a massive Hadith which says that you will be with the people that you imitate. Who is saying this? But who wants to listen? Nobody. Nobody wants to listen. How we waste Jumu’ah! Every action of the Sunnah multiplies the reward for Jumu’ah seventy times – just for one Jumu’ah! It is stated that angels stand at the doors of the Masjid, and they give Salam to those who come with an Imamah upon their head, saying ‘May Salam be upon you, oh you wearer of the Imamah.’ But who is able to wear the Imamah? Only he who does Tazkiyyah, who has the awareness and wants to earn the Thawab. He thinks ‘Do I consider the Imamah minor and insignificant? No way – impossible! It is the greatest of actions.’ This is because he has done Tazkiyyah and so the love has come into his heart. But when you don’t do Tazkiyyah, dirt accumulates. ‘Oh I can just wear a Topi. A Topi is enough, we can just do that. We don’t need to wear Imamah. Why are you saying that we need to wear Imamah? No one else is wearing it.’ So we waste the opportunity.
Look at the styles of Libaas that come into our Masjids. “مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِقَوْمٍ فَهُوَ مِنْهُمْ”. You see this everywhere. Ajeeb Libaas, different styles, and we still say ‘Thawab, Thawab!’ Where will Thawab come from? Which Jumu’ah? Which words are you talking about? The real crux of the matter is that you have to focus on the Batin, on the inner self. Wash it and clean it, and when your Batin is clean, your Jumu’ah will be performed in the way of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. His beautiful Sunnahs will be in your life. You will prepare the same way, do Ghusl the same way, put on the Surma the same way, put on scent the same way, get dressed the same way, and the Libaas that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam liked, you will like that as well. There is no Fatwa about this. I am not saying that it is compulsory or Wajib, no, no, no. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given a free choice in the matter, but he is saying ‘Whoever is mine will look like me. I don’t force anyone. I gave the Faraaidh that had to be given, but as for my Sunnah, its colour is such that if you love me, you will be pulled towards my Sunnah. Whoever you love, you will be pulled towards that Sunnah.’
These are the bargains and transactions of life. It is not a matter of Hadith scholarship and whether it is Sunnah, Wajib, Sunnah Muakkadah or Ghair Muakkadah. The Deen of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has no categories and grades. The question to ask is ‘Did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam do it? If so, then I will do it.’ This is the style of Sahabah. This was the lifestyle of Abdullah bin Umar radhiAllahu anh. He did not like things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not like, and he liked those things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam liked. When someone asked him ‘Why are you doing this?’ he gave a straight answer: ‘Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did it.’ And if he was asked ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ he would reply ‘Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam didn’t do it.’ SubhanAllah. That is the criterion for life. And when does this come into a Mu’min? When his Batin clean. Then he will have these emotions and feelings automatically.
Why don’t we have these emotions and feelings today? Why do we say ‘Oh, you can pray like this. This is enough – I don’t need to do that.’ Why do we keep repeating these baseless statements today? Because our inner selves are dirty. There are such scars and dirt upon our inner selves. We say we don’t care about these things, but in the grave, when we will be looking for Jannah, we will find that we get beaten with shoes instead. Look, however much a person sins, this will accompany him into the grave. Lying will go with us into the grave, backbiting will go with us into the grave, and killing off the Sunnahs will go with us into the grave. Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy will go with us into the grave, when we say one thing and do another. Discarding the Sunnah will go with us into the grave. Being one thing inside and showing something else outside – all of this will go into the grave. The physical aspect of our lives that we show will remain here in the physical realm, but everything that we are inside will come and will be presented as Adhab in the grave. The physical things will stay here.
So why don’t we understand today and start to wash our Batin today? Become human beings and prepare properly for the grave. Say SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala has prescribed the method to clean the Batin, and the best method is the one that Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an Himself: {يَآ أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللّهَ وَكُونُوا مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ} ‘Fear Allah and go to the Sadiqeen.’ Allah ta’ala has given the prescription here. The best way to clean your Batin and your heart is to have friendship with that person who has already embarked upon the path and has passed the test. You will pull on his Taqwa. So the greatest method to do Tazkiyyah of the Batin is Sohbat, the company of the pious. This is the selection of Allah, who says ‘You need to find a pious person.’
And I will tell you the signs of a pious person. Sign number one of the Wali of Allah is that when he reads the Qur’an, he will practice the Qur’an. His recitation will not be hovering in his throat. The biggest sign of the Wali of Allah is that he practices upon the Qur’an that he recites. And I guarantee to you while I sit here on the prayer mat, the first sign of a person who does Amal on the Qur’an is that he has filled his life from A to Z with the Sunnah. Every action of his life is the Sunnah. This is the simple prescription of the Deen. Sign one is that he speaks from the Qur’an and sign two is that he practices the Sunnah from A to Z. When you see such a person, you will see that he tries his best to practice upon whatever he recites from the Qur’an, and the physical sign that he is practicing the Qur’an is that you will see that every footstep of his lifestyle is according to the Sunnah. Hadhrat Aishah radhiAllahu anha was asked what to do when you see such a person, and she said ‘Take his hand straightaway!’ Don’t look for Kashf, visions, miracles or Duas, just take his hand straightaway, stick close to him and travel with him until death. Say SubhanAllah!
And what will be the effect? Allah says {كُونُوا مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ} ‘Don’t worry! This is My guarantee – just stick to them, and I will allow their lifestyle to rub off on you.’ You will speak the truth in the same way, recite the Qur’an in the same way, you will do Amal on the Qur’an in the same way, and that Amal will be visible in the Sunnah on your body and in your lifestyle and your every action. SubhanAllah. You won’t need to make noise and clamour, and you won’t be ashamed to practice the Sunnah. Whatever corner of the world you are in, if thousands of people, or even hundreds of thousands, are upset with you, you won’t care. And if it is said ‘Oh, where is this written? Why is this necessary? Why is such and such not doing this? That scholar said something else’, you won’t care at all about such utterances. When you start to practice the Qur’an, then you have no care about what is happening around you. This is Tazkiyyah – this is purification.
So first make friendship with a person who is like this, and then start to do Mujahidah and work hard. After taking the hand of a great person such as this, then you have to make effort in your life – Mujahidah starts then, hard work. What is the hard work of a Mureed? That his every action must conform with what the Shari’ah says is right. He will not say ‘I can’t do this; I have to compromise there; this is too difficult. These people say I can leave this, so why should I do it?’ Look, you can do what you want, but the Sheikh has given you the greatest assistance in the form of Dhikrullah, and this makes every hardship easy. Do Dhikr Katheer, in high quantity, and do whatever your Sheikh tells you to do, and wherever you see obstacles and barriers and the drag of the Nafs, then do Dhikr more and more, determined to do what is right and leave what is wrong, clear that it is the Nafs that is taking you to destruction, and that you must resort to Dhikr abundantly, morning and night – because there is no limit to Dhikrullah.
Wherever you get stuck and come up against a barrier, just do Amal in the light of what your Sheikh has said is right and wrong. You don’t need to run after your Sheikh and ask every time. If you want, you can take Haram in the form of interest and Riba. His job is finished because he has guided you. He has told you what is right and wrong and has taught you the Name of Allah, he has given you the whole syllabus, and now it is your turn. Your task is to work hard. What do you need to do? For example, if you are going towards sin, or you are not following Shari’ah or the guidance of the Sheikh because you are not doing what is right and leaving what is wrong, then you have to please Allah. You don’t please the Sheikh. Consider that there is still something lacking in your Dhikr, so increase your Dhikr and do more. Until that wrong comes out of your life, keep on doing more and more Dhikr to wash away the impurities. That is the sole cure, the only one. A person should think ‘Why aren’t I obeying my Sheikh? He said this is Haram. Why have I still got greed for the world in my life? Why am I still in love with material things? I am a failure – why? I am not fulfilling my objective; I am not passing the test, so I need to do something about this.’
What is the one cure for this? { وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ} Until you attain success, keep on doing Dhikr, keep on doing Dhikr – this is the meaning of this verse. If you are not successful, don’t leave the Dhikr of Allah. So brothers, if you find that you are doing wrong and going towards unlawful things, don’t just say ‘Do Dua for me’. You have failed - this is a drama! Such a person will never succeed. Do you understand what I am saying?
Deen is so easy and simple. We need to go to a Sheikh, a true Wali of Allah upon whom the signs of a WaliAllah are visible, and if you reach such a true teacher, then be a sincere student. I swear by Allah, the Rabb of the Ka’abah, that it is a lie and a fraud to be chasing rewards if you don’t practice this true Deen. It is impossible to attain rewards - impossible. You cannot get the Thawab of a Hajj if it is paid for by Haram earnings. I am telling you the truth here – these are Hadith! Why don’t we have Yaqeen on these words? Am I lying? If a person is lying and does fraud and cheats people, how can he say that he gets Thawab in his practice of the Deen while he has this lifestyle of Haram? Impossible – it is a deception, a big deception of shaytan! We must open our eyes wide, me and you and everybody else too. After doing wrong actions, unlawful actions, we cannot earn even one percent of Thawab from any of our actions. Thawab is far away from our lives.
If you say ‘SubhanAllah’ once, it would be enough to fill up your scale of deeds if you are acting rightly in your life – but how many people say ‘SubhanAllah’ and have their scale of deeds filled thereby? How many? Why should I tell you that by saying ‘SubhanAllah’, your scale will be filled? The only person whose scale will be filled with reward will that person who has cleaned his Batin. Why should I lie to you by saying otherwise? Should I lie to you and say what is wrong and hide the true Deen from you in order to please myself, or to make a name for myself, or to make money, or to elevate myself? No, this is not the way. A teacher who misguides in this way is sick himself - he is a liar! He is a fraudster. If you don’t teach the students what is right, you are a liar.
A person can never get Thawab if he is doing wrong. Allah ta’ala will weigh the deeds Himself, and such big deeds will be presented, but Allah will first say ‘Did he do this action for Me? Where are the deeds for Me?’ The person will say ‘Ya Allah, all these deeds are for You.’ Then Allah will say ‘You are lying! You did all these deeds for yourself. Your Qur’an was Riya and your actions were Riya. If you haven’t done Tazkiyyah and purified your heart, then how can all these deeds be for Me? Your actions prove that you did all this for your own name and pride and fame and glory. Did you clean your heart and the impurities you had within? Did you purge the Kibr from yourself? Did you have a Sheikh who taught you? Was there one that you could have gone to? Did you follow the Nasiha that he gave?’
But people say ‘Oh, there’s a Sheikh in Japan and I have heard he is a great Sheikh! He has a great reputation, and he does miracles for people and Duas for them. He is my Sheikh!’ We praise these people on the other side of the world, saying ‘He is my Sheikh, he is my Sheikh!’ Oh servant of Allah, is it ever the case that when a person is sick here in this country, his doctor is in India? He is sat in the UK and his doctor is India – have you ever seen a man like that? He is here in the UK and his GP is sitting in his village in India? Have you ever seen that? How can this be? This is also Nafs, as people think ‘Oh, I want a big-shot Sheikh with a lengthy title, so I can tell people that I am his Mureed.’ Oh servant of Allah, we have to please Allah! If Allah wants, He can give you a Sheikh wherever you are. Accept this - He can give you Faidh from the dust of anybody’s slippers. Has that Faidh come into our lives? We need to clean our hearts, our inner selves and reform our lives and improve our Deen.
So this is the message of today. The days are passing and we are in difficult times as sicknesses and diseases are coming; there is noise and Fasaad in the world today; the whole world is jumping up and down; the time has come – we can see this Fasaad and disorder with our own eyes. Everything is evaporating in front of our eyes. So today we should do Tawbah to Allah and change our lives so that we live according to the Qur’an. Yes, do Tilawah, but do Fikr on what you are reciting. Think to yourself ‘How much Amal have I done on what I have recited?’ The Qur’an will give you the colours and the positive effects. Am I right or am I wrong, my brothers? These are big statements and big points. This is the biggest lesson, the biggest Da’wah, the biggest Deen. Me and all of us have to clean our inner state, our Batin, our hearts, and Allah ta’ala has given us the way to do this in the teachings of the Qur’an, so use those means. Then, after that, do A’maal. Do whatever Amal you want after that – Allah has given so many A’maal that there is no limit. There are infinite possibilities – no limit. Deeds upon deeds, rewards upon rewards will come. You can do Tableegh, give Durus, go to Bayans, listen to the Qur’an, do Tilawah – whatever you want – but only after you clean your inner state. Then the colours will come into your life. That’s the message - that’s it. That is the message the Qur’an has given.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq to do Amal on this. Ameen
Let us recite Durood Sharif.
Alhamdulillah, on this night of Jumu’ah, Allah ta’ala has again given us His blessing and His Grace and has assembled us in His home for His Remembrance. And He has announced to us, through the blessed speech of His Beloved, words to the effect that ‘To some in the world, I give wealth, to some, I give children, to some, I give kingdoms – I distribute all these and more. But put all these Ni’mahs to one side. The greatest Ni’mah is when I give a servant of Mine the Tawfeeq to do My Dhikr, when I give him the ability to remember Me!’ SubhanAllah. This Dhikr is what causes the whole Universe to exist! When Dhikr disappears, then Qiyamah will come and the Dunya will disappear. Allah’s Karam, blessings, mercy and grace come – this is such a great action. When Allah grants a human being the ability to do this action, to acquire this Ni’mah, then tell me – how great an action this is!
Alhamdulillah, good deeds are many indeed. There are many good deeds that can be performed. There are untold numbers, innumerable A’maal that Allah ta’ala has told us about by means of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and Allah ta’ala has informed us about them because we are capable of performing them. If Allah subhana wa ta'ala gives some deed to someone and tells His Creation about it, whether through the Qur’an or the announcement of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, Allah ta’ala would not direct towards an action that the Creation cannot implement, would He? No. Allah has obviously given His servants the Tawfeeq to implement all the A’maal that have been mentioned for them. Allah ta’ala has installed the chip within us such that if a human being wants to, he can do all of them. Tahajjud is not hard, Ishraq is not hard, At-Tahiyat is not hard, Tilawah of the Qur’an is not hard, reading the Qur’an repeatedly is not hard, doing Hajj multiple times is not hard – and we have examples of this in the world. To do abundant Dhikr is not difficult – it is not hard at all.
Look, if a person wants, he can sit all night long after Isha doing Dhikr. Hadhrat Uthman Damaani rahmatullah alayh, one of our forefather Sheikhs, would sit in Dhikr after Isha, and this was in the long nights in the winter – imagine - and he would still be doing Dhikr when the time for Fajr Adhan came in the morning! This means it is possible. If Allah ta’ala says ‘Do Katheer Dhikr’, then it is possible. Allah has given so many A’maal to us, but the problem is with us. There is a couplet which explains that we are ungrateful about so much and satisfied with so little. Allah ta’ala has given us so many paths, but we have just selected a few only, and do not want to go beyond that. Our thoughts and our minds and our ideologies are towards Hoors and Jannah and high levels, and everyone puts their hands up and says he wants this and this and this. We think we are putting our hands up and that we are doing enough and have already attained these goals – no! Allah ta’ala has given us the means and many routes and paths in this Dunya. Allah says ‘Do it, and then ask. I will give!’ But if we don’t do anything, then what will be able to ask for? Tell me.
If you don’t go to work and open your stall, and then you make Dua ‘Oh Allah, give me food and bread and chapattis’ – has this ever happened? True, it is not impossible for Allah ta’ala to give in this way, for He can give whatever and whenever He wants, but Allah ta’ala has established the world with principles and ways and means. If we don’t adopt the means, how will we attain what we want through our Duas? How? Allah ta’ala has given so many deeds – they are unlimited such that we lose count! But we should do them. Why? Because the day will come tomorrow, very quickly. That day is very close in our destiny when we will be sealed up in a box, At that time, we will find out and think ‘Oh no! Oh no! I could have earned in every second of my life.’ And nothing is difficult.
Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam announces in a unique and wonderful Hadith which has come to my mind in relation to this subject, a Hadith which is narrated by Hadhrat AbdurRahman bin Awf radhiAllahu anh - or perhaps some other Sahabi, I do not remember just now. And how did the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam speak here? He swore an oath – he promised! He said ‘I swear by He in whose Hands is my life’ – in other words, he swore by Allah, in the Name of Allah, thus giving added value and weight to the point to come. And what was the point? He said ‘Shall I tell you of such a deed?’ SubhanAllah – this is amazing, because there are so many actions that we can do, as I said, so many actions, which we could go through one by one. In the same way, there are so many Masjids, but there is only one Masjid of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! Is that not so? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Shall I tell you of such an action that you will not get anywhere else? You will only get it in my Masjid. You can do it in many places, but here, there is no restriction.’ Allah ta’ala is emphasizing here what a fantastic action, what a great action this is. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘This action will carry Thawab equivalent to one month’s I’tikaf in my Masjid!’ SubhanAllah – can you imagine the extent of that Thawab? The Thawab of one month’s I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi is equivalent to this one Amal that is to be mentioned.
Now this Amal will not be difficult, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is Rahmatul-lil-Alameen. He came to teach us how to earn Jannah. Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an that everything is possible. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam came to teach us, to deliver the message to us, to educate us. So what is that Amal that is equivalent to one month of I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi. Think now. What an Amal this will be, this one deed that comes with this great reward equivalent to one month in Masjid-an-Nabawi in I’tikaf. What is the Amal? It is to fulfill the need of someone who is in need. SubhanAllah! Imagine. If any person fulfills someone else’s need, then they attain such a Thawab that it is as if he comes to Masjid-an-Nabawi and does I’tikaf. The reward of one month’s I’tikaf in Masjid-an-Nabawi – and who is recommending this? It is the recommendation of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! What does that mean? It means that whoever does this action is guaranteed to get that Thawab – it is confirmed. Look at this!
In a similar vein, in a commonly quoted Hadith regarding a normal action, if a person remains seated in Dhikr after Fajr until Ishraq, and then prays two Rakahs, he will get the Thawab of one accepted Hajj and Umrah – and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam repeated this three times: ‘One Hajj and one Umrah, one Hajj and one Umrah, one Hajj and one Umrah.’ So what is the problem? Don’t we have the energy? Are we not capable of doing this? We do have the energy and the capability.
If we look at this Hadith where it is mentioned that you should fulfill someone’s need, then I say that during just one day, a believer can get this Thawab for one month’s I’tikaf so many times over by doing this deed. The reward is unimaginable! Now you are pious, but if I look inside myself, never mind one day, if I look at my whole life, maybe, just maybe I can find an occasion where I fulfilled somebody’s need. I don’t have time for myself! I don’t even have time to fulfill my own needs – everything comes back to me. I want to get this, I want to buy that, I want to attain this, I want to receive that. We are worried about ourselves, trapped in our own worries. But what an open playing field Allah has given - and this is not just for the needs of a Muslim or a specific nation or a certain type of need, no. The whole world is an open playing field. This is the reward if you fulfill the need of any person, of whatever religion, background, colour, creed – SubhanAllah!
And what kind of need should it be? The need has not been determined in terms of a thousand Rupees or this amount or this much. Whatever a person’s need is at a given time, even if he is in desperate need of a glass of water, if you give him that glass of water, you will have attained the whole reward – the whole Thawab. Never mind today, at least do this just once in your life. Allah ta’ala has given us a long life - just think of the reward just for getting up and giving someone a glass of water! So we have gathered a few actions in our lives, but we don’t want to go beyond that. We think this is enough for us. We think ‘I am doing this deed, and every action and every Bayan is enough’ but we don’t look at this point here. Allah ta’ala has given an open playing field to the believers here, an opportunity, such chances.
But we are miserly people, stingy human beings – why? What is the reason for this? Can we not stand up and sit down and come to the Masjid? Every morning, the reward for one Hajj and Umrah is being distributed, yet we cannot come to the Masjid to do Dhikr? If you go to Hajj and Umrah every year, there is no guarantee that it will be accepted, but in this case, when you the leave the Masjid in the morning after doing Dhikr, you attain the reward for an accepted Hajj and Umrah. But we don’t do it. Why? We say ‘Oh, I don’t have the energy; I am not strong enough.’ There is another category of actions, however, which is so common that if you said ‘You will fulfill your needs of life by doing these actions,’ you would see everyone doing it. If you ask people nowadays ‘How many times did you backbite today? How many times did you lie? How many times did you gossip-monger maliciously? How much enmity did you instill in someone else’s heart? How much did you speak with malice or showing off or pride or conceit or love of Dunya?’ There is such a long list of these vices in this day and age – whole sheets of such examples could be filled. So how is that we have the strength to do all these things? We have a lot of strength and time for actions like these. What is evident from this is that shaytan has grabbed us and overtaken us and overwhelmed us. Shaytan has total control of people through this long list of sins, while we are blind to the many good deeds that are so easy to do in life – apart from the few things that we do which we feel are sufficient. This is hypocrisy – what else is it?
Look at this example of a deed, one for which we do not have to travel, nor buy a plane ticket, nor spend any money, yet the Thawab and the illumination of this deed is so great that it is as if a person has spent one month in I’tikaf in Masjid an-Nabawi. The blessed speech of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us this, so believe it. If somebody fulfills the need of another person, I swear by Allah that he attains the full illumination within him that would be earned by doing Umrah and then I’tikaf for a month in Masjid an-Nabawai and then returning home. SubhanAllah! He attains that Noor and that emotion and feeling immediately because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given the guarantee that he will get the full effect. He may not even know what action he has done, but he gets this. For doing what? For fulfilling the need of a human being. When he is dying, he sees the Thawab and says ‘Oh Allah, what is this great reward? How come I have this I’tikaf to my name?’ Allah says ‘Did you not hear the announcement in regard to that deed which you performed? You were just focused on a few actions and Ibadaat. I wanted to give you so much, but you didn’t accept My invitation even though I gave you energy and health and the ability!’
Look, my brothers, don’t reject this Amal by not trying. Who is not in need of this? We don’t even need to go out to do this. We can do this inside our own homes. Your wife and children have needs, so if we make the intention that we will fulfill some requirement of our child today, or of our wife, remembering that we will get this Thawab, then from morning to night, SubhanAllah, you can earn the Thawab of so many I’tikafs that you cannot imagine. But, on the contrary, we purposely avoid fulfilling their needs in our homes. We say ‘Oh, do it yourself – I haven’t got time. I’m not going to do this for you – you can do it yourself. No, you do this action – don’t tell me to do it!’ We tell them ‘Do this for me’ or ‘Bring me some water’ but we don’t look for opportunities for ourselves to fulfill their needs and requirements.
Who doesn’t need this reward? No-one is saying that you have to give £100,00 or buy someone a house to count as having fulfilled their needs. No, no, it is not about huge giving. Just go out and seek someone, whether among friends or contacts - it could be anyone, someone you know or someone you don’t know - but make an intention when you set out at the beginning of the day that you will definitely help somebody out at least once. Won’t you find even one person who needs help in the whole day? The Sunnah of Allah is such that when a person makes the intention to do a deed, then Allah ta’ala puts the means and the routes. The opportunities will come in front of you. Straightaway, an opportunity will arise. Experience this for yourselves. Set forth to do a deed and Allah ta’ala will immediately give you the opportunity to do it. If you make the Niyyah that ‘Oh Allah, I am looking for someone who is in need, who has an obstacle or a problem, because I want to fulfill his need and attain the Thawab of I’tikaf that goes with this deed’, then Allah will grant various opportunities to fulfill the needs of people. Say SubhanAllah! Do you understand what I am saying?
But even then, we do not do this action – we don’t even think about it. We wake up in the morning but do not think about such opportunities – and neither do we sit in the Masjid and do Dhikrullah. Instead, we fall into the trap of sleepiness and doziness and lethargy. Why is this? How is it that we cannot do these actions? Allah ta’ala has given us so many A’maal, but they seem hard for us to do, whereas shaytan makes us do his A’maal all day and all night. You stay up all night long looking at the phone and the screen, doing shaytani actions. 2am, 3am, and you are still not tired. Does anyone get tired doing wrong actions? Nobody does. And then we cry and say ‘I don’t know why I do these sins. Why am I sinning?’ There is a reason – this is a punishment! This is the biggest punishment in this day and age – remember this. In this era and time, this is the biggest punishment.
So what is the reason for this? Why do we have these feelings and emotions that it is hard for us to do good deeds, such that we run away from them and leave them and don’t even think about them or focus on them or care about them? We have to die and go to the Hereafter, so we should consider all these outwardly small deeds as massive, but instead we are too scared to tear ourselves away from actions that are clearly sins. We are so attached to them! Why is this the case today? Why are we upside down? Why are we on the wrong side in all these matters? The Qur’an tells us why, the Hadith tell us why. What is the reason? Let us analyse the reason that these negative emotions overwhelm a person such that he cannot go towards positive feelings. We have no deeds such as fulfilling someone’s needs, even though we may have gone to Makkah and Madina and made many prostrations. But we have no Tawfeeq inside us to do good deeds such as helping people. The reason for this is contained in the Qur’an, which explains that when these negative feelings and emotions proliferate inside a person, that human being should understand that his Batin is extremely dirty and impure. When a person’s internal self is impure, when his Batin is dirty, then he doesn’t accept good actions and doesn’t want to do them.
There is a reason behind everything, my brothers – there are factors at play here. We are not mad, are we? Are we Jahil or illiterate? No, we have so much knowledge and understanding, as well as ability and energy, but internally we are so dirty that shayateen and Nafs have overtaken our internal condition. We are so full of dirt and impurities within, that when we get up in the morning, we don’t even think about or feel like getting up and doing Muraqabah or Dhikr. A person becomes so utterly weak inside that Nafs and shaytan make him inwardly stingy. So the meaning of the Qur’an and Hadith about this is that when a person gets to this stage, he is totally broken internally, full of dirt and impurity and dust.
So why has this disease spread so much in this day and age in which we are living? It is because the discipline that we should uphold to maintain purity, namely Tazkiyyah, has been shunned. We have left it and we ignore it; we don’t care about it and we are not interested in Tazkiyyah. It may sometimes be mentioned in Bayans or in Durus that you should be cleaning yourself and purifying yourself and washing your heart, and the internal diseases may be mentioned as well. A person might speak on this topic for hours, but nobody says how. Has anyone told you before today? If you are ill, for example, people say ‘Go to the doctor.’ And if you go there with an illness and sit down, will he tell you what malady or illness you have, and then send you off on your way? You would say ‘Excuse me, doctor, but would you please tell me the cure for this sickness?’ The doctor’s job is to identify the malady and then prescribe the cure. The diagnosis comes with a cure – there has to be a cure offered as well.
If I tell you that you have this disease, because you can’t pray Salah or do any of the actions that I have mentioned up to now, those deeds that we hear about but do not perform, then obviously there is an internal problem. The Batin is dirty. But if I tell you about it in a speech, and then say ‘Ok, go home now that you know you are dirty inside’, has that cured us? No it hasn’t. We need to go from there to the next step. First, acknowledge that our Batin is dirty, that we are impure inside, and then the Hukm is that we should clean ourselves and do Tazkiyyah. Purify yourselves. And how should we do that? The whole Qur’an prescribes how to do Tazkiyyah, how to clean our inner state.
The Hadith of Jibreel alayhi sallam tells us, the Hadith of which the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘He came to teach you your Deen today!’ He asked ‘What is Islam? What is Iman?’ And what was third thing? ‘What is Ihsan?’ Jibreel alayhi sallam asked the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘What is Ihsan?’ The questions were about Aqeedah, A’maal and, via the third question, the topic through which all actions will be accepted, namely purification of the Batin – Ihsan. So think for yourselves now – what is Ihsan? In this day and age, consider this Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam narrated by Hadhat Abdur-Rahman Ibn al-Awf radhiAllahu anh – I could not remember it before, but I recall it now – in which he relates, in a unique and wonderful Hadith, that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated ‘I do not fear anything for my Ummah, such as dying hungry or not being able to earn or attain worldly success – I do not have any fear in respect of these things. But I do fear one factor in regard to my Ummah, for it may be the source of their destruction, a factor which will take them towards loss and failure, through which they will be destroyed.’ And today we have become stuck in this state.
If we look around us, in the whole Ummah, country after country has been totally finished - and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us the reason for this. This Hadith is contained in Mishkat. So what is that factor? It is a factor that is linked to the Batin, to Tazkiyyah, to purification. In other words, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given us the hint that there would be no Tazkiyyah at that time, and that internal diseases would have arisen and spread, despite the fact that there would be speeches, lengthy debates, conferences and discussions about the Qur’an. They will read the Qur’an, but they will read it for the sake of reading rather than to do Amal. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam foretold that this time would come in the Ummah when people would listen to the Qur’an but would not practice upon the Qur’an, even though the Qur’an was given in order for it to be practiced upon. If someone gives you a nice car, a Mercedes for example, and people tell you to wash it every day and look at it and polish it – but don’t drive it, are you achieving the objective of that car? You are still going everywhere on foot and getting wet in the rain, because you are not driving the car. You have a car, but you are not using it!
Allah has given us the Qur’an and the Deen, but if we don’t drive it, then we have failed to meet the objective of the gift. The usefulness of the car has diminished because it is not being used for its objective. So Allah ta’ala has given us the Qur’an, His Kitab, and He says ‘Do what you want with this Qur’an!’ You can wash it and collect different copies and styles of production - there is no greater Kitab than this Qur’an. But if it is so great, what about the objective of the Qur’an that Allah has informed us about? Just as the car is given so that we can drive it and make journeys in it, the Qur’an has been given, but not for beautiful, melodious, and enjoyable recitation, and not so you can look at the flowing script. All of these are secondary or tertiary features. You will obtain the objective of the Qur’an only when you practice the Qur’an. This is a Hadith in Mishkat. When the Qur’an says something is Haram, accept it as Haram. When the Qur’an says something is lawful and Halal, then accept it as such. When the orders come, then obey the orders. Whoever approaches the Qur’an like this, then the whole effect and colour of the Qur’an will come into a person’s life.
The respected scholars have told us this. The Qur’an does not rub off onto a person through speeches or Durus, but rather through A’maal, through the deeds in that person’s life. He measures and analyses in every second of his life: ‘What is the Hukm of the Qur’an here? What does it say about this? What should I do now?’ Allah has made it so easy! Allah ta’ala has sent so many respected scholars into the world – Imam Bukhari rahmatullah alayh , Imam Abu Hanifa rahmatullah alayh , Imam Malik rahmatullah alayh - and these great personalities distributed the tremendous colours of the Qur’an and their effects to the Ummah. Amal, Amal, Amal, Amal – you will find that all A’maal come from the Qur’an.
So this is the message of the Qur’an. Astaghfirullah, we have ignored the Amal of the Qur’an today, and that is why Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that diseases would be widespread in the Ummah, and that there would be no Tazkiyyah, no purification of the Nafs and of the inner state, and we would forget all the orders of the Qur’an. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘What will be the root cause of this destruction in my Ummah?’ Today, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is telling us the solution to this problem of dirt and impurities inside us. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam directed us towards one disease of the Batin through which previous nations were also destroyed.
SubhanAllah, what a massive example. All the previous nations arrived to the condition of failure because they shunned the purification of their Batin, and so the diseases then flourished. The previous scriptures of the Torah and Injeel and the Zabur would also just be recited but not acted upon, in the same way that we recite the Qur’an but don’t practice upon it. I deal in interest, I am immodest, I lie or backbite or gossip-monger – all the sins mentioned in the Qur’an are in my life, but I continue to read and read and read, over and over again. Do you understand what I am saying, my brothers? I am just repeating the Qur’an, just reciting the Qur’an. There is enjoyment in this, but shaytan has given us this poison pill, and now this disease has become widespread in the Ummah. We don’t wash and purify our Batin, we don’t do Tazkiyyah, so all of the true effect of the Deen has been washed away. The previous nations were also destroyed for this reason, because then Shirk arises - and you see this. Shirk starts emerging when the inner condition of people becomes dirty, and the inner self becomes dirty when it is not cleaned.
Obviously, something becomes dirty and impure when it is not cleaned. If you don’t clean and polish something, inevitably it will become dirty and impurities will arise. If you don’t vacuum the carpet in a room at home, it doesn’t look the same after a while. If you sit there and have food and don’t clean it, in two or three days, spiders and ants and insects will move in. So in respect of the Deen, internally, if shaytan comes and sits and flows within us and we don’t clean our system, will sicknesses not spread within us? Of course they will! The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us about the dangers of a people whose Nafs and Batin becomes so dirty that Shirk and immodesty and sins emerge. So a nation is destroyed and an individual is destroyed when he changes the colour of his Deen, when he believes a false Deen to be the true Deen – as we do today.
We don’t have the true effect of the Deen in our Masjids today; the effect of the Qur’an is not in our lives; the effect of Salah is not present in our lives. We have adopted a few actions in our lives today, and we think that is enough for us and are satisfied with it. We have made a weird Deen in the world today. Why? Because we have shunned that great subject of the Deen, namely Tazkiyyah and purification. We shun it and we don’t accept it, and we just do actions according to our desires. We don’t understand the principles of the Deen and we don’t behave in accordance with the Deen. Tazkiyyah, my brothers, is a very critical subject of the Deen, this business of purifying our hearts and our inner state. So in this Mishkat Hadith that I am explaining, the previous nations failed because they destroyed their Batin, and that dirt inside them generated sin within them. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us ‘That same sin will arise in my Ummah, due to which they will be destroyed.’ And that is what is in front of us today.
Look at the whole Ummah today. We say ‘Corona, Corona’, and complain about everything. Stop this! Everything is by the permission of Allah. Not a leaf can shake or fall from a tree without Allah’s permission. So where did Coronavirus come from, tell me? How did this Coronavirus give all these restrictions in the world today? One variant diminished, and then the next variant emerged. Some might say people are making it, but if so, it is Allah ta’ala allowing that shaytani thought to take root in someone’s mind that he should destroy the world, and so he goes ahead and maybe creates some genetic thing to accomplish this. We don’t know whether this was made by someone or whether it arose naturally, whether it came from here or from there. Everything is by Bi-idhni’llah – by the permission of Allah. We have no idea of the theories behind all this. All we know is that everything happens by the permission of Allah. He has allowed this germ to emerge that infects and that occupies everyone’s minds, and through which so many people are passing away. We don’t need to argue about which nation it came from and who spread it and how it spread. It is Allah the Creator who has allowed it because He is unhappy with us. And why is He unhappy with us? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us what would happen when that action that spread in previous Ummahs becomes widespread, and this happens when Tazkiyyah disappears and the diseases come.
And Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam mentioned one disease. Which disease? Hirs – greed. What is greed? It is love of wealth and money and Dunya, it is lying and committing fraud and other such actions in order to acquire money, which is all we want. Interest, Riba, false statements, false signatures, defrauding people, picking people’s pockets – there are so many methods to earn money that it is beyond imagination. Why do we do this? Because there is dirt within, and so we think it is Jaiz! And with that money and wealth we then do Ibadah. We worship and show big actions as if we are pious and are great worshippers, while inwardly, our greed has made all our earnings completely Haram. Lying, fraud, cheating – the greed for the Dunya overtakes a person and he just thinks about Dunya, Dunya, Dunya all the time.
If we look around us today, within ourselves and in Islamic countries, what is the condition? Everyone is trapped in greed, including in our own personal lives. It is greed that brings a person to this situation. From morning until evening, all we have is greed, selfishness, Dunya and the amassing of wealth. Why is this? It is because of our Batini, internal diseases. The Dunya is being destroyed today due to our internal diseases - because there is no Tazkiyyah. As soon as a person starts Tazkiyyah, alhamdulillah, what will happen? When he washes himself within, he will start to dislike all these wrong things, and then the correct emotions and feelings will arise within that person. For example, when you clean a house, it looks bright and warm and nice afterwards, and the same is true when you clean and wash your heart in the way prescribed by the Qur’an and clean your Nafs in the way that is prescribed.
Is there anyone today who implements this advice of Allah subhana wa ta'ala? Tell me. Those who go to a Sheikh and become Mureeds today, the objective is not to wash and purify themselves, and the Pir Sahib doesn’t have this objective either. Everyone has their own agenda and objectives and targets. Pir Sahib says ‘Oh no, just do Dhikr, my student, and you will get Thawab for this.’ We do actions just to earn Thawab, but at least we should look at the effects of what we are doing. Look at the punishments that go with the sins we are committing. How can a person earn the Thawab of Dhikr when his heart and Batin is dirty? How? Tell me. It doesn’t matter how much you try, the Batin won’t get clean like this. The Sheikh says ‘Oh, I need to keep that student as my Mureed so that I become famous for having these people as my students.’ And the student says ‘I need this teacher because I want to be famous.’ So there is greed mixed up with becoming a Pir and also in becoming a student!
The real effect of having a teacher is that the colour of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam comes into your life. If your feelings change and your lifestyle changes and you acquire the desire and appetite for good deeds, then consider that your objective has been met and that you have gone to the right Pir. I have gone to the right Sheikh because my outward and my inward condition are both changing. Then we can say SubhanAllah, for then we will realise that we have embarked on the right path. But we don’t go to the Sheikh for this. They say ‘Recite this much and you will get this much Thawab, do this action and you will get this much Thawab, do these deeds and those deeds.’ No, put all of this to one side. Thawab will only come when your Batin is reformed and corrected.
Imagine there is a crack in the wall of a room, or a patch of damp from a leak, and someone comes and says ‘This can be fixed very easily! Just wallpaper over it and then paint it.’ After a few weeks, the damp will return, so then you will have to paper over it and paint it again. Have you cured the root cause? No. The proper builder and decorator will say ‘First let us sort out where the damp is coming from. We need to remove the crumbled mortar and the dust, and then fill the cracks and repair it properly inside. Then we can wallpaper and paint it.’ The real objective of being a Pir and of being a Mureed is to do Tazkiyyah and Tasfiyyah. We should go to the Pir with the intention to rid ourselves of all our internal sicknesses and diseases. After that, saying ‘SubhanAllah’ just once is enough! It comes in Hadith that if a person with a pure heart says SubhanAllah once, then his scale of deeds becomes half full just from that one SubhanAllah, because he has learned the Adaab of how to do Dhikr.
But I have to say that today, we have so many actions in our book of deeds that will take us to Jahannam. So where should we start? The first thing to do is to clean and purify ourselves from within. Shaytan says ‘No! Thawab – get this Thawab, get that Thawab, stay in the Masjid this long, read this much Qur’an.’ You will get Thawab only when the dirt has been removed from inside, when your lying, backbiting and Haram has been removed. Greed for the Dunya is stuck inside – the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the greed for the world gets trapped within you. You get one house, and then you want another one, and another settee, and this item and that item – greed for the world is never satiated. So what Thawab are you talking about if greed for the Dunya is stuck inside you?
This is how I speak, my brothers. I can make you count Thawab upon Thawab, I can give a whole list of what brings Thawab all day and all night, the Thawab for listening and so on, but Allah is Khabir and Baseer. Allah knows everything that you are doing – He is listening. If all I talked about was Thawab, Allah would say ‘How dare you just speak about this, telling them how to earn Dunya!’
When I went to my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh – look at what my Sheikh taught me. Hadhrat Sahib’s speeches and discourses were those of a true Wali of Allah who teaches the real objective of life. I went like a dirty spider, and he taught me the Name of Allah. He instilled it in my heart and then – look at the Nasiha of my Sheikh. Until today, it is inscribed upon my heart – I am telling you the very words of the Wali of Allah here. He was sat on a straw mat in the dust, and he said ‘Farooqui Sahib, this Name of Allah that you have attained is very valuable indeed.’ I said ‘Valuable? I have come from London UK.’ He said ‘Oh, did you come from there?’ He didn’t ask me anything about the UK, what was or wasn’t there, but rather he gave me a great prescription. In the world, if you say you are from the UK, you can earn masses of Dunya, but my Sheikh said to me ‘Farooqui Sahib, you have such a valuable Name inside you now. You have learned how valuable this is. If you protect this Name of Allah that you have now been taught in your heart, then Allah subhana wa ta'ala will elevate you just as His Name is elevated. But be careful of one thing.’ Look at his Nasiha now. ‘Don’t run after the greed of the Dunya, Farooqui Sahib! I share this one sentence with my Mureeds in the first sitting.’
In the same way that the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam speaks to his Sahaba, so the Wali of Allah speaks to the whole of mankind! The Sheikh shared this statement with his Mureed – me – in our first sitting. He knew that his Mureed would not get destroyed by any action other than greed for the world. My Hadhrat said ‘You have learned the Name of Allah, and this is a great, great lesson that I have given to you today, oh my student! This is a great gift that you are taking back, but there is one condition’ – SubhanAllah. ‘The condition that comes with this Name is that you must not run after the greed of the Dunya by using this Name.’ In other words, there should be no desire for large numbers of students, or for a big Khanqah and fame and glory and lengthy titles. Listen to the next statement: Hadhrat Sahib said ‘If you have this desire for Dunya in your heart, for fame and glory and achieving in the world, then everything of yours will be destroyed. Everything will be wasted.’
That is the end of the story, the sum of the teaching. Beyond this, what does the Pir-Mureed relationship entail? What other Nasiha can be given? Now, if I were a deceitful person and a liar, I could have earned the Dunya all life-long through greed. But Hadhrat Sahib taught me such a valuable Name of Allah, and with it came a guarantee that if I didn’t run after Dunya, Allah would elevate. Every Mureed of the Naqshbandi Silsila, when he comes to take Bai’ah with his teacher, alhamdulillah, in that first sitting, in that first Sohbat, in that first lesson, the heart and life of the student is revived. Just from Sohbat! People say ‘What happened? What did you get from Hadhrat Sahib? What did he say? What did you learn? How did you change? Where did you learn the Deen from?’ What can I tell you about my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh? The Naqshbandi Silsila has such a great effect!
This is the Silsila of Hadhrat Abu Bakr as-Siddique radhiAllahu anh! This is the order of Hadhrat Abu Bakr as-Siddique, the order of Sohbat, not the order of Taqreers and speeches and technical Bayans and points and grammar and so on. Hadhrat Sahib said to me that if a person cannot take the benefit from his Sheikh in silence, then he cannot take benefit from his Sheikh in anything else, not in words nor in speeches. This is the Silsila of silence! In this Silsila, you get Faidh from silence. Just close your eyes and pull on the Faidh from your teacher - but to do this, there must be compatibility and a connection between the Sheikh and the student.
Once I was asked ‘Why is it that people come to you in their droves?’ After I got the Sohbat, people were amazed when I came back. They thought ‘This dirty man, this simple man has come back, and now he wears Imamah and Sunnah and is spreading the Deen.’ They would ask me ‘What do you tell people? What is this magic?’ I said ‘I don’t do magic – there is no magic in this! It is what was taught to us by our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and the magic is that if you learn Allah’s Name and then recite it and teach it, then everyone will change!’ This is the effect my brothers. This Dunya is amazed and shocked, dumbfounded even, but there is nothing in this to be dumbfounded about. It is our Deen that teaches us this, to be sincere, to do Tazkiyyah, to clean and purify your heart – then see how the Dunya around you will change. You will influence people for the better. Do you want to see people in hardship and difficulty and be unable to help them? If there is one poor soul standing outside your home with no food and no one to ask what his problem is, and no one to help him as he stands in the rain, should you drive past him without asking where he wants to go, to offer him a lift or to drop him off? But we say ‘No. no, I need to get to where I’m going for the sake of Dunya; I need to earn, to work.’ You get thousands of opportunities to do great deeds every day, but you want people to serve you and help you. You want people to give you money and help you, but you can’t spare a second to help somebody else who is desperately in need.
So Tazkiyyah starts from this point, and it ends on this point – remember this. Otherwise, you will be zero in the Hereafter, or less than zero as regards your A’maal. Where does the Deen start? In this Masjid, in the corner of the Masjid, do Tazkiyyah. Learn this. It is not magic, this Dhikr in the morning until Ishraq. It is not about Piri-Mureedi magic and trances, rather, it is the Faidh of my Sheikh, who told me ‘Keep on reciting Allah’s Name and you will continue to be elevated in this world.’ But if you waste this teaching, tread it underfoot, or rub it out, Allah ta’ala will ask you in the Hereafter ‘What about that Halaqah in the Masjid that I gave you? You came for your own objectives, but I gave you that gathering of Dhikr in the Masjid so that all your deeds could be elevated. Your reading of Qur’an in that Masjid should be elevated, the Dars should be elevated – everything should be accepted due to this Amal of Dhikr of Allah that I gave to you. But you said that you didn’t have time for it, and that you couldn’t be bothered.’ This is Tazkiyyah – SubhanAllah. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you with these words?
Understand the real disease that is within us. Why is the Dunya destroyed today? Why is the Ummah destroyed today? There will be bigger Coronas to come after this! Destruction will multiply and more hardships will come. Allah says ‘Make as many vaccines as you can – keep making more!’ Somebody said to me today that he heard of someone who had had the vaccine and was very satisfied and happy due to this. But two weeks later, he was upside down due to Coronavirus, lying in hospital. He said ‘I am in a very bad way, please do Dua.’ So where was the vaccine? Where did it go? Two weeks after having it, he was ill with the disease.
This is like our wearing of scarves and masks, which we wear as a precaution, but is there any guarantee that they will save us from Corona? If someone says ‘The mask and the scarf will save me from Coronavirus’, this is Shirk! So why do we wear scarves? Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us to adopt the means and to ask from Allah. That is why we accept the restrictions and take the precautions, and what happens if you don’t do this is that you will develop pride, thinking ‘I don’t need to wear a mask or a scarf, and I don’t need to do social distancing, and I don’t need to accept the restrictions.’ The problem then becomes one of haughtiness and pride due to feeling that you don’t need to do these things and that you are safe. Those whose Batins are weak have so little fear. They say ‘Oh Allah, I have stayed healthy even though I am a wrongdoer.’ But the sincere person says ‘I am the biggest sinner, and maybe I am in danger, so I will follow all the restrictions and take all the precautions. And I make Dua to You, oh Allah, that You save me.’
I am not criticizing anybody who doesn’t do this, but we need to adopt the means. Allah has given us the means, so we need to follow the rules and the restrictions - but this does not mean that these things will save us. No. We have to ask Allah to save us. Maybe Allah will give another disease or illness, so don’t say ‘Oh, I wore masks and scarves but I still got the disease. Why wasn’t I saved?’ No! We must avoid going against the Sunnah. The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that there are ways to save yourselves from all illnesses. Allah ta’ala says ‘I have given you this Adhab, this punishment, and I have told you that you can protect yourselves from this disease through Dua!’ – which is the Dua of ‘Oh Allah, save us!’ By adopting social distancing and preventative measures, we are making this Dua of ‘O Allah, save us from this!’ Not to do it is Takabbur and pride, which is the biggest disease within us. So submit yourselves, be sincere, and have humility.
So, my brothers, to return to the discussion point that we were considering, the real point that we need to understand is that we need to focus on our Batin and our inner state. Just as we know that the stomach is the root cause of all physical diseases, the root cause of all spiritual diseases is what? It is the Batin, the inner state, the Nafs, which is why we have to do Tazkiyyah. That is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that all the previous Ummahs were destroyed because they left Tazkiyyah. They stopped purifying the heart and the Batin and they headed in another direction. So if you go to a Wali of Allah today and make yourself his Mureed, then you should have sincerity and the intention to get rid of the inner diseases and illnesses, and then follow the cure and prescription and advice of the Sheikh, and stick to that through thick and thin. This is the only way – there is no other way.
Shaytan will come to you and say to you ‘Don’t do this, don’t go to the Sheikh, you don’t enjoy it, you don’t feel like it.’ But you don’t need enjoyment or visions or dreams or miracles or Thawab - you need to look at one thing only, namely, have you stopped lying in your life? Has backbiting come out of your life? Has greed for the world come out of your life? Have you started enjoying praying Salah? Have you started enjoying reciting Qur’an? If so, then consider that alhamdulillah, your Tazkiyyah is more than successful. You shouldn’t think that you will get Kashf or dreams or visions or miracles because you have now come to the reality of life - no. That is a waste of life to be looking for visons and dreams and miracles. You have come to the real life now, but you have to work hard on this. It doesn’t come from talking about it all day long and discussing how much Thawab you will get from this or that action or Dhikr. Don’t just talk about it, rather, come onto the playing field and play! You have to come onto the pitch and play hard and make effort. Your heart should tell you ‘I need to fulfill someone’s needs and help someone and give someone assistance.’ Greed for the Dunya will then come out of your heart.
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq that before we die, we focus on our Batin, clean our Batin, so that we can get the greatest rewards for all our deeds through doing Tazkiyyah and cleaning our Batin and Nafs. Jumu’ah is coming, so what a great opportunity Allah ta’ala has given to us. Is it not Jumu’ah tomorrow? What is the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah? Tell me. What is the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah? How many people will you see coming tomorrow properly prepared? There is an announcement here: the greatest preparation for Jumu’ah is that those who come for Jumu’ah should come in the form of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! His Libaas should be according to the Sunnah. The Hadith go into such detail about the blessed Libaas of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he used to come to Jumu’ah, and inshaAllah, very soon you will see and hear these Hadith. If it happened that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not have an Imamah to hand, then he would tie strips of cloth around his blessed head in order that the effect of the Imamah was visible. This is the preparation of the Libaas of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
But nowadays, people’s Libaas is weird – someone is wearing this style, some else is wearing those clothes, this colour, that colour. There are hundreds of different Libaas styles and designs, but the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said “مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِقَوْمٍ فَهُوَ مِنْهُمْ”. This is a massive Hadith which says that you will be with the people that you imitate. Who is saying this? But who wants to listen? Nobody. Nobody wants to listen. How we waste Jumu’ah! Every action of the Sunnah multiplies the reward for Jumu’ah seventy times – just for one Jumu’ah! It is stated that angels stand at the doors of the Masjid, and they give Salam to those who come with an Imamah upon their head, saying ‘May Salam be upon you, oh you wearer of the Imamah.’ But who is able to wear the Imamah? Only he who does Tazkiyyah, who has the awareness and wants to earn the Thawab. He thinks ‘Do I consider the Imamah minor and insignificant? No way – impossible! It is the greatest of actions.’ This is because he has done Tazkiyyah and so the love has come into his heart. But when you don’t do Tazkiyyah, dirt accumulates. ‘Oh I can just wear a Topi. A Topi is enough, we can just do that. We don’t need to wear Imamah. Why are you saying that we need to wear Imamah? No one else is wearing it.’ So we waste the opportunity.
Look at the styles of Libaas that come into our Masjids. “مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِقَوْمٍ فَهُوَ مِنْهُمْ”. You see this everywhere. Ajeeb Libaas, different styles, and we still say ‘Thawab, Thawab!’ Where will Thawab come from? Which Jumu’ah? Which words are you talking about? The real crux of the matter is that you have to focus on the Batin, on the inner self. Wash it and clean it, and when your Batin is clean, your Jumu’ah will be performed in the way of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. His beautiful Sunnahs will be in your life. You will prepare the same way, do Ghusl the same way, put on the Surma the same way, put on scent the same way, get dressed the same way, and the Libaas that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam liked, you will like that as well. There is no Fatwa about this. I am not saying that it is compulsory or Wajib, no, no, no. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has given a free choice in the matter, but he is saying ‘Whoever is mine will look like me. I don’t force anyone. I gave the Faraaidh that had to be given, but as for my Sunnah, its colour is such that if you love me, you will be pulled towards my Sunnah. Whoever you love, you will be pulled towards that Sunnah.’
These are the bargains and transactions of life. It is not a matter of Hadith scholarship and whether it is Sunnah, Wajib, Sunnah Muakkadah or Ghair Muakkadah. The Deen of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has no categories and grades. The question to ask is ‘Did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam do it? If so, then I will do it.’ This is the style of Sahabah. This was the lifestyle of Abdullah bin Umar radhiAllahu anh. He did not like things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not like, and he liked those things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam liked. When someone asked him ‘Why are you doing this?’ he gave a straight answer: ‘Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did it.’ And if he was asked ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ he would reply ‘Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam didn’t do it.’ SubhanAllah. That is the criterion for life. And when does this come into a Mu’min? When his Batin clean. Then he will have these emotions and feelings automatically.
Why don’t we have these emotions and feelings today? Why do we say ‘Oh, you can pray like this. This is enough – I don’t need to do that.’ Why do we keep repeating these baseless statements today? Because our inner selves are dirty. There are such scars and dirt upon our inner selves. We say we don’t care about these things, but in the grave, when we will be looking for Jannah, we will find that we get beaten with shoes instead. Look, however much a person sins, this will accompany him into the grave. Lying will go with us into the grave, backbiting will go with us into the grave, and killing off the Sunnahs will go with us into the grave. Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy will go with us into the grave, when we say one thing and do another. Discarding the Sunnah will go with us into the grave. Being one thing inside and showing something else outside – all of this will go into the grave. The physical aspect of our lives that we show will remain here in the physical realm, but everything that we are inside will come and will be presented as Adhab in the grave. The physical things will stay here.
So why don’t we understand today and start to wash our Batin today? Become human beings and prepare properly for the grave. Say SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala has prescribed the method to clean the Batin, and the best method is the one that Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an Himself: {يَآ أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللّهَ وَكُونُوا مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ} ‘Fear Allah and go to the Sadiqeen.’ Allah ta’ala has given the prescription here. The best way to clean your Batin and your heart is to have friendship with that person who has already embarked upon the path and has passed the test. You will pull on his Taqwa. So the greatest method to do Tazkiyyah of the Batin is Sohbat, the company of the pious. This is the selection of Allah, who says ‘You need to find a pious person.’
And I will tell you the signs of a pious person. Sign number one of the Wali of Allah is that when he reads the Qur’an, he will practice the Qur’an. His recitation will not be hovering in his throat. The biggest sign of the Wali of Allah is that he practices upon the Qur’an that he recites. And I guarantee to you while I sit here on the prayer mat, the first sign of a person who does Amal on the Qur’an is that he has filled his life from A to Z with the Sunnah. Every action of his life is the Sunnah. This is the simple prescription of the Deen. Sign one is that he speaks from the Qur’an and sign two is that he practices the Sunnah from A to Z. When you see such a person, you will see that he tries his best to practice upon whatever he recites from the Qur’an, and the physical sign that he is practicing the Qur’an is that you will see that every footstep of his lifestyle is according to the Sunnah. Hadhrat Aishah radhiAllahu anha was asked what to do when you see such a person, and she said ‘Take his hand straightaway!’ Don’t look for Kashf, visions, miracles or Duas, just take his hand straightaway, stick close to him and travel with him until death. Say SubhanAllah!
And what will be the effect? Allah says {كُونُوا مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ} ‘Don’t worry! This is My guarantee – just stick to them, and I will allow their lifestyle to rub off on you.’ You will speak the truth in the same way, recite the Qur’an in the same way, you will do Amal on the Qur’an in the same way, and that Amal will be visible in the Sunnah on your body and in your lifestyle and your every action. SubhanAllah. You won’t need to make noise and clamour, and you won’t be ashamed to practice the Sunnah. Whatever corner of the world you are in, if thousands of people, or even hundreds of thousands, are upset with you, you won’t care. And if it is said ‘Oh, where is this written? Why is this necessary? Why is such and such not doing this? That scholar said something else’, you won’t care at all about such utterances. When you start to practice the Qur’an, then you have no care about what is happening around you. This is Tazkiyyah – this is purification.
So first make friendship with a person who is like this, and then start to do Mujahidah and work hard. After taking the hand of a great person such as this, then you have to make effort in your life – Mujahidah starts then, hard work. What is the hard work of a Mureed? That his every action must conform with what the Shari’ah says is right. He will not say ‘I can’t do this; I have to compromise there; this is too difficult. These people say I can leave this, so why should I do it?’ Look, you can do what you want, but the Sheikh has given you the greatest assistance in the form of Dhikrullah, and this makes every hardship easy. Do Dhikr Katheer, in high quantity, and do whatever your Sheikh tells you to do, and wherever you see obstacles and barriers and the drag of the Nafs, then do Dhikr more and more, determined to do what is right and leave what is wrong, clear that it is the Nafs that is taking you to destruction, and that you must resort to Dhikr abundantly, morning and night – because there is no limit to Dhikrullah.
Wherever you get stuck and come up against a barrier, just do Amal in the light of what your Sheikh has said is right and wrong. You don’t need to run after your Sheikh and ask every time. If you want, you can take Haram in the form of interest and Riba. His job is finished because he has guided you. He has told you what is right and wrong and has taught you the Name of Allah, he has given you the whole syllabus, and now it is your turn. Your task is to work hard. What do you need to do? For example, if you are going towards sin, or you are not following Shari’ah or the guidance of the Sheikh because you are not doing what is right and leaving what is wrong, then you have to please Allah. You don’t please the Sheikh. Consider that there is still something lacking in your Dhikr, so increase your Dhikr and do more. Until that wrong comes out of your life, keep on doing more and more Dhikr to wash away the impurities. That is the sole cure, the only one. A person should think ‘Why aren’t I obeying my Sheikh? He said this is Haram. Why have I still got greed for the world in my life? Why am I still in love with material things? I am a failure – why? I am not fulfilling my objective; I am not passing the test, so I need to do something about this.’
What is the one cure for this? { وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ} Until you attain success, keep on doing Dhikr, keep on doing Dhikr – this is the meaning of this verse. If you are not successful, don’t leave the Dhikr of Allah. So brothers, if you find that you are doing wrong and going towards unlawful things, don’t just say ‘Do Dua for me’. You have failed - this is a drama! Such a person will never succeed. Do you understand what I am saying?
Deen is so easy and simple. We need to go to a Sheikh, a true Wali of Allah upon whom the signs of a WaliAllah are visible, and if you reach such a true teacher, then be a sincere student. I swear by Allah, the Rabb of the Ka’abah, that it is a lie and a fraud to be chasing rewards if you don’t practice this true Deen. It is impossible to attain rewards - impossible. You cannot get the Thawab of a Hajj if it is paid for by Haram earnings. I am telling you the truth here – these are Hadith! Why don’t we have Yaqeen on these words? Am I lying? If a person is lying and does fraud and cheats people, how can he say that he gets Thawab in his practice of the Deen while he has this lifestyle of Haram? Impossible – it is a deception, a big deception of shaytan! We must open our eyes wide, me and you and everybody else too. After doing wrong actions, unlawful actions, we cannot earn even one percent of Thawab from any of our actions. Thawab is far away from our lives.
If you say ‘SubhanAllah’ once, it would be enough to fill up your scale of deeds if you are acting rightly in your life – but how many people say ‘SubhanAllah’ and have their scale of deeds filled thereby? How many? Why should I tell you that by saying ‘SubhanAllah’, your scale will be filled? The only person whose scale will be filled with reward will that person who has cleaned his Batin. Why should I lie to you by saying otherwise? Should I lie to you and say what is wrong and hide the true Deen from you in order to please myself, or to make a name for myself, or to make money, or to elevate myself? No, this is not the way. A teacher who misguides in this way is sick himself - he is a liar! He is a fraudster. If you don’t teach the students what is right, you are a liar.
A person can never get Thawab if he is doing wrong. Allah ta’ala will weigh the deeds Himself, and such big deeds will be presented, but Allah will first say ‘Did he do this action for Me? Where are the deeds for Me?’ The person will say ‘Ya Allah, all these deeds are for You.’ Then Allah will say ‘You are lying! You did all these deeds for yourself. Your Qur’an was Riya and your actions were Riya. If you haven’t done Tazkiyyah and purified your heart, then how can all these deeds be for Me? Your actions prove that you did all this for your own name and pride and fame and glory. Did you clean your heart and the impurities you had within? Did you purge the Kibr from yourself? Did you have a Sheikh who taught you? Was there one that you could have gone to? Did you follow the Nasiha that he gave?’
But people say ‘Oh, there’s a Sheikh in Japan and I have heard he is a great Sheikh! He has a great reputation, and he does miracles for people and Duas for them. He is my Sheikh!’ We praise these people on the other side of the world, saying ‘He is my Sheikh, he is my Sheikh!’ Oh servant of Allah, is it ever the case that when a person is sick here in this country, his doctor is in India? He is sat in the UK and his doctor is India – have you ever seen a man like that? He is here in the UK and his GP is sitting in his village in India? Have you ever seen that? How can this be? This is also Nafs, as people think ‘Oh, I want a big-shot Sheikh with a lengthy title, so I can tell people that I am his Mureed.’ Oh servant of Allah, we have to please Allah! If Allah wants, He can give you a Sheikh wherever you are. Accept this - He can give you Faidh from the dust of anybody’s slippers. Has that Faidh come into our lives? We need to clean our hearts, our inner selves and reform our lives and improve our Deen.
So this is the message of today. The days are passing and we are in difficult times as sicknesses and diseases are coming; there is noise and Fasaad in the world today; the whole world is jumping up and down; the time has come – we can see this Fasaad and disorder with our own eyes. Everything is evaporating in front of our eyes. So today we should do Tawbah to Allah and change our lives so that we live according to the Qur’an. Yes, do Tilawah, but do Fikr on what you are reciting. Think to yourself ‘How much Amal have I done on what I have recited?’ The Qur’an will give you the colours and the positive effects. Am I right or am I wrong, my brothers? These are big statements and big points. This is the biggest lesson, the biggest Da’wah, the biggest Deen. Me and all of us have to clean our inner state, our Batin, our hearts, and Allah ta’ala has given us the way to do this in the teachings of the Qur’an, so use those means. Then, after that, do A’maal. Do whatever Amal you want after that – Allah has given so many A’maal that there is no limit. There are infinite possibilities – no limit. Deeds upon deeds, rewards upon rewards will come. You can do Tableegh, give Durus, go to Bayans, listen to the Qur’an, do Tilawah – whatever you want – but only after you clean your inner state. Then the colours will come into your life. That’s the message - that’s it. That is the message the Qur’an has given.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq to do Amal on this. Ameen
Let us recite Durood Sharif.