Staying Awake at Night
In the Qur’an al-Hakim, Allah subhana wa ta'ala has addressed His beloved servants with a lot of love and affection. Why? Allah ta’ala has mentioned a special quality of those beloved people due to which He has made them His beloved servants. So the reality is that Allah ta’ala has unraveled this secret and is saying to us ‘Why are you wasting your time? Why don’t you become My beloved servants as well?’
My brothers, our Deen, our way of life, is not a Deen of words; rather, it is a Deen of action, of Amal. Who is there among us who doesn’t have the desire and the feeling in his heart that he would also like to become a beloved servant of Allah? Who doesn’t feel that? We all understand, but the enjoyment comes when Allah ta’ala says ‘You are My beloved servant.’ How will Allah ta’ala say this? When will Allah ta’ala says this? Look, if you or I want to become that, it will not come for nothing. Allah ta’ala will start to mention us, obviously, when Allah ta’ala attests in the Qur’an that we are doing that action that makes us His beloved servants. Then Allah ta’ala will testify that you are His beloved servant. What a great rank and honour this is – and what a great action brings this rank. The Nafs deceives us about this – but why do we listen? I don’t understand! Why do we listen? Allah ta’ala is speaking to us for a purpose. He is saying ‘Why do you think that I mention certain things in the Qur’an? I do so in order that you realise these points and perform those actions which I tell you are the actions of My beloved servants. I mention the defining qualities of My beloved servants so that you can do what they do and also become My beloved servant.’ So what is the point here? Allah ta’ala is inviting us towards Amal here, but we give up, sit down and cross our legs and say that we are Ashiqs of Allah and of His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam and that our hearts are full of Ishq.
Look, everyone who has Iman has Ishq - love. A person who recites the Kalima automatically has love for Allah and for His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That is the quality of the Kalima – it has the effect of creating that love. But let us not make empty claims. Allah ta’ala is saying ‘These are empty claims unless you do what I tell you that you should be doing. Engage with the factor that will make you My Mehboob, and if you do that Amal, then you will not need to say anything. There will be no need to tell anyone or share your feelings with anyone, for I will announce in the heavens that you are My beloved servant!’ SubhanAllah. ‘I will make the announcement in the heavens, and then creation will recognize you as the servant of Allah, even if nobody in the world recognizes you, and whether or not people say Salam to you and shake your hand. I have selected you!’ So if we do this action as well, then Allah ta’ala will make us His beloved servants.
So what is this quality of the beloved servants of Allah that Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an? {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} Read this blessed verse, and since tomorrow is Jumu’ah, this verse will be read at Fajr as well. What is the meaning of this? Allah ta’ala is saying ‘This is a quality of My beloved servants that causes Me to love them. It is not the person that I love, rather it is the action. Due to that action that he performs, I love My servant.’ Allah’s love is not due to a person’s looks. Whether he is handsome or short or tall or has this or that appearance is not the standard by which Allah judges. Allah is saying ‘Whatever you are, whether you are limping or disabled or useless, if you do those actions in the world that are beloved to Me, then you are beloved to Me.’ So what is the action that Allah states that His beloved servants do? {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} Allah ta’ala says ‘Their attribute is that their sides are not attached to their beds – they keep on tossing and turning from side to side, telling themselves to get up so as to remember Allah.’ Furthermore, Allah ta’ala tells us in this verse that they are desperate; they are lying on their mattresses, but they are not content. They are desperate to get up and pray to Allah, to do Dhikr of Allah or some other worship. In other words, they wake up during the night for worship. What does Allah like? Say it loudly! Being awake during the night. Allah says ‘The people who are awake during the night are My beloved servants – I like them very much.’
Now what did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say in respect of staying awake during the night? Consider this fantastic statement of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. He said that staying awake during the night should be regarded as Lazim, as essential, and that there was no limit to this. So Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Oh My beloved servants, why do you waste your time? Take hold of this action and make it binding upon yourself; don’t leave it!’ Staying awake at night is a brilliant action. It is a brilliant deed, not a minor one.
It is very hard to get up and stay awake at night, but just think, Allah loves us so much and has Muhabbat for us and has decorated Paradise for us, and He says {فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ}. ‘You reject the things I have given you. You don’t have Yaqeen on these points, because you don’t do Amal. You don’t take advantage of those things that I have provided for you. I have made this for you and that for you – {حُورٌ۬ مَّقۡصُورَٲتٌ۬ فِى ٱلۡخِيَامِ}. I have made Hoors for you that nobody has touched, so pure in eyes and hands and body that you cannot imagine their beauty. But {فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ} – you are rejecting these Ni’mahs of Mine! You are listening and you are reading, but you are not doing the Amal from which you can attain this.’ That is why, after every statement, Allah ta’ala says ‘You are not accepting; you are rejecting. Why are you not running towards those actions due to which I will give you these rewards in the Akhirah? You don’t accept them or embrace them or have determination to implement them.’ We say ‘Oh no, it’s too hard’, but is going to Scotland to put up a market stall in the snow not hard? Was leaving our countries to come here not hard, leaving our mothers and fathers and uncles and relatives and friends for the sake of chapattis? We didn’t find that hard, but we find it too hard to do those actions that will construct and decorate our homes in the Hereafter for evermore.
Why is it hard? Because the Nafs is against us. Why don’t people get up in the night after Allah ta’ala has announced in the Qur’an and Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has confirmed what a fantastic action this is? Why don’t we wake up? Because Nafs says that it is too hard - ‘Just pray Fajr – what difference will it make?’ Allah ta’ala has given a bonus to the people of Iman so great that we can’t know how many rewards there are for this waking up during the night. There are so many rewards! Allah ta’ala has given the examples of His Nabis to explain this to us. Once, Hadhrat Yahya alayhi salam couldn’t get up in the night – and Allah ta’ala has given an example to us in this incident. He was a Prophet, and once he didn’t wake up in the night, so Allah ta’ala sent Wahi to him, saying ‘Oh Yahya, if only you realized the extent of the loss you have incurred by not getting up in the night!’ So let us consider what loss we have incurred, and how much we have wasted our lives!
From an hour and a half more sleep, what do you get? All night long, shaytan and Nafs tell us ‘You will get everything from here, from this world – it is too hard for you. Wait for Ramadhan – you can get up then.’ But even in Ramadhan, we don’t get up in time to benefit properly. If it wasn’t for the food, nobody would get up in Ramadhan. It is the food at Suhoor that gets us up in Ramadhan – we want to eat, otherwise we wouldn’t get up. Are we human beings? Think for a moment. How much of our lives has passed? What have we obtained? What we have earned in this world is not even ours! It is not going with us, and in reality, we have no connection with that physical wealth.
I will give you an example: I am sat here now, right now, and all my things are in my house. My whole house is full of my possessions, but if I say ‘La ilaha illa’llah’ right now and close my eyes, have I got anything? When I leave the house, I leave everything at home - when I have left, it is not mine. I have held firmly to this lesson in my life, that when I become detached from something, I consider that it has finished and I have no link with that thing now. Even when I take my shoes off, I feel that they are not mine anymore. They might get stolen or whatever – I don’t worry about them. In other words, I do not feel any connection with anything that is no longer attached to my body. They are nothing to do with me anymore – this is a firm lesson that has become engrained during my life. It is common for us to be sitting in one place while thinking about our mansions in Pakistan or in India, about the house we are having built in Baruch that we plan to find tenants for. And then we end up with tenants who don’t even pay the rent. Instead, they just take over the house for themselves - spiders and scorpions move in and crawl all over the place! This is just a pastime for our brains. What should really happen is that when I take my shoes off after I arrive, I shouldn’t be thinking about them again. Don’t worry about their brand and whether I will get them back again, just think ‘They are not mine – they are strangers now because I have taken them off; they are no longer with me.’
I saw a brother once coming to pray Salah, but he couldn’t come inside the mosque because Allah ta’ala called him back from there. All the things he owned departed from him - his shoes and everything – as we stood there and watched him. As long as we have this love inside us for our things, we will still sit and think ‘These things are mine. My shirt is there, my items are there, my car is parked there.’ Nothing belongs to Insan! If he thinks it does, then he hasn’t become a real human being; he hasn’t understood what a human being is doing in this world. He should be detached and estranged. When you leave your items at home when you come here, you should think ‘I don’t know if I will come back and see these things again.’ We have practical examples before us of these people who leave home and don’t come back. I can’t remember the name of the person I am thinking of, but did he say to his wife ‘I may not be coming back’? He had a home and a car – he was a taxi driver – so did he say ‘I am not going to be back to meet you again’? He didn’t, but in your heart, you should say, when you take your key out of the lock ‘Whether or not I come back to unlock this door is not in my power; it is not mine.’ SubhanAllah.
Appreciate this point. I do this; when I come out of my room, I look at it and smile, thinking ‘I have prayed Salah here, but I don’t know whether I will be back to prostrate here again’, then I say ‘Khuda hafiz’ and I leave the room. SubhanAllah. That is how to be a stranger in the world. This is not acting or showing off, rather this is reality. It is detachment when we think ‘I don’t know if I going to meet you again.’ A person should be detaching himself from things at every second.
How much life we are wasting! If we look at ourselves, do we get up in the night? No. ‘It is too hard’, we say. Think about it: is Allah going to oppress us or do Thulm on us? Is Allah ta’ala going to put us into hardship in the world? Allah says ‘You have no idea of what you are missing. Oh Yahya, because you are a Nabi, I will tell you – and through you, I will declare how much reward there is for this.’ What does Allah ta’ala say? Allah ta’ala revealed the facts – listen to the words. Allah ta’ala is addressing us, so let us understand now - Allah is telling me now, ‘Oh foolish person, if you were to realise!’ We will know when we die. ‘Oh Yahya, if you only realized what a big loss you incurred when you didn’t get up for that night, you would cry and cry, so much so that all of the water in your body would evaporate and be used up by your tears; and then your blood would start coming out of your eyes as tears! And even then, you wouldn’t be silenced due to the depth of your grief. You would tear off your clothes and dress in sackcloth, and sit there crying ‘What have I done?’ You would cry all night long.’ Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.
This is our loss – what a big loss! It is such a big loss – and how can it be compared with the rewards that Allah ta’ala has set aside for this action? Tell me! What a great action this is. Hadhrat Sulayman alayhi salam, a great Prophet with whose name you are familiar, was a Prophet with his own status and glory. Allah ta’ala gave different types of status and glory to each Prophet according to their capacity. He had a glory that nobody else would get. The ants knew him and the birds in the skies knew him and could hear him. All of the kingdoms were in his power – the Jinnat as well. Sometimes he flew in the air, at other times he was on the earth – this was the kingdom and the dominion that Allah ta’ala gave him. What happened in his time? His mother – and the mother is the mother – once said to him ‘Listen to me! Remember one thing: never miss your remembrance of Allah in the prayer when you wake up at night. I, your mother, am telling you that those who do not get up in the night will be empty-handed on the Day of Qiyamah. Their bowls will be empty – they will have nothing.’ Tell me!
She didn’t say this for nothing, and nor did Allah ta’ala say to Hadhrat Yahya alayhi salam that he would cry so much if he knew the loss of not getting up in the night for nothing. We have so much drama and play-acting in the world today – we are close to Qiyamah today, aren’t we? There is so much play-acting: ‘I love this and that, and I am an Ashiq and a lover of Allah!’ ‘Oh, he is an Ashiq!’ – and they put the stamp on him. In the Masjids and in the Khanqahs, lengthy titles are given out and people say ‘You have done so many Tasbeehs and so much Dhikr! Oh, you are a lover of Allah! You have achieved!’ This is a deception and a delusion. An Ashiq is made by only one thing – what is that? Qur’an and Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah! That is what makes an Ashiq - when the good news comes to you from those actions, just as Allah ta’ala is saying to us today – {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}. Allah is announcing ‘It is he who is My Mehboob, My beloved. {يَدۡعُونَ رَبَّہُمۡ خَوۡفً۬ا وَطَمَعً۬ا} He gets up in the night, makes Wudhu, and then stands in front of Me. He remembers Me, and whatever he knows from the Qur’an, even if it is Surah al-Ikhlas, he prays two Rakahs or four Rakahs and then {يَدۡعُونَ رَبَّہُمۡ}, he prays and then he sits down and - ‘Allah, Allah, Allah’ - he keeps reciting and reciting and doing Dhikr of Allah.’ SubhanAllah! The Qur’an is testifying to this. Who are these people? ‘Allah says ‘These are My beloved servants!’
These are not people who are play-acting, people who are looking for a cheap bargain. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ} Allah says ‘Do you think Jannah will come so easily to you, through mere words and dramas and fake games?’ You don’t get Jannah like that. Allah says that Jannah will come when you crush your Nafs. Allah ta’ala says, SubhanAllah ‘When My servant wakes up for Salah, Nafs is at its strongest at that time.’ Nafs says, ‘Oh, you have to go to work in the morning; you have to teach Bukhari Sharif and you have to give lessons and Ta’leem during the day’ – so many whispers of the Nafs come at that time. Everyone has got their own path, and yes, you will get reward for that, but you cannot get this reward if, for the sake of the Dunya, you reject that action through which Allah ta’ala wants to make you His Mehboob. This is Nafs – Nafs is deviating you. Why?
It cannot be that you get a loss from doing an action which Allah ta’ala has ordered you to do. I swear by Allah that you can do any work of the Dunya – business work, Deeni work, whatever – and if you wake up at night, you will be amazed at how much Barakah Allah ta’ala will give you. ‘How did this happen?’ you will say. SubhanAllah! Your eyes and your brain will be more active, you will be better at teaching, quite contrary to the deviating suggestions of shaytan like ‘You must sleep. This is a Shari’ah Mas’ala – how will you be able to deliver your Dars later? How will you be able to teach the children?’ Ask those people who stayed awake all night long, and then in the morning they taught Hadith, Bukhari and Trimidhi. And those in front of them listening to their lessons were affected greatly, even though their teachers’ eyes were swollen due to having stayed awake at night remembering Allah. It is not about having six hours or eight hours or ten hours of sleep, following the Nafs. Allah could let them off, but no – what about becoming a Mehboob, a beloved servant of Allah? Allah is saying ‘This is just your Nafs. You have to crush your desires and nothing else. You have to crush the games of the Nafs.’ Allah’s Hukm has come, and the He will instill Barakah in all the work that you do during the day and will keep you fresh all day long. Allah ta’ala is not oppressing you. If you need to do your work, do you think that Allah ta’ala will not give you the opportunity for that? Of course He will.
Do you understand my words? This is the Qur’an that is telling us this. Why? Because Allah is saying ‘When a person gets up in the night and stands in front of Me, what do I do? I look at My servant and say with pride to all the angels in the Heavens ‘Look at My servant – {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}. Look at how he has left his mattress and his wife, and has washed with warm or cold water, the poor soul.’ And remember this, where it is harder and more challenging, Allah ta’ala will increase the reward in those environments. Where there is a lot of Ibadah going on already, like in Makkah where everyone gets up to do Ibadah, it is easier; you have to pray Tahajjud there, don’t you, so it is not that big a feat. Here it is a challenge and a test, but where the Dunya is spread out in front, where comfort and enjoyment present restrictions and barriers and hurdles, if a servant breaks down those barriers and hurdles and remembers this verse of the Qur’an – SubhanAllah.
Allah’s Walis testify to this. My Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh told us about this. His father was a great Dervaish. He was a very pious elder, a Sheikh of Hadith in Daccan in Bhopal some 200 years ago. I am speaking about Hadhrat Muhammad Hussain qaddasAllahu Sirrahu, rahmatullah alayh. I am speaking about this extremely holy individual, who was such a great Wali of Allah in his time that Hadhrat Saharanpuri would come to Gadai Sharif just to see him and meet him – this was my Sheikh’s father. How great a Sheikh must he have been? Tell me. This is my Sheikh’s blessed father. Hadhrat Saharanpuri Sahib would come to meet him – we are going back two hundred years here. He used to give Dars of Hadith, and my Hadhrat obtained his Sanad of Hadith from his father. So imagine this situation that my Sheikh describes: ‘I was sat in the Khanqah with my father in the last third of the night.’ My Hadhrat was born a Wali, and his father was a Wali, and in the third portion of the night, father and son were doing Muraqabah in the Khanqah. It is due to their Faidh that we are sitting here today, SubhanAllah.
One should never say ‘Oh, such and such has been made a Sheikh, so why am I not a Khalifah?’ My brothers, everyone can become a Wali, but only if you do Mujahidah, only if you make effort. Don’t make complaints to Allah, saying ‘I am here and he is there - why aren’t I a Wali? Why am I not a Khalifah? Why has he been given this?’ Whatever Allah ta’ala has made you, follow the duty that you have been given. Stick to the task and attain the nearness of Allah. That’s it. Just think ‘Oh Allah, You have made me like this. I am here.’ Whether Allah ta’ala has made you a taxi driver or an ironmonger or a doctor or an engineer – accept whatever Allah has made you. Don’t think ‘Why am I not this or that? If I was that, then I would attain Allah’s nearness. He has got that profession and I haven’t; he is a Hafidh of the Qur’an and I am not. Oh Allah, why did You not give me this?’ Don’t differentiate and complain – everyone has got their own status and capacity. Just stand where you are and say ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and then follow according to your capacity. By Allah, that is the way. Say ‘Oh Allah, You are the greatest. You have made me and whatever I am is correct, and I will leave this world pure when the breaths You have allotted to me come to an end.’ But we lose hope; we lose courage and determination. Whose loss is it? Do you think Allah is incurring any loss? No, it is we who are incurring loss. We give up straightaway and lose hope. In the path of the Deen, we suddenly give up and say ‘Oh it’s too hard.’ Just for some little excuse we say ‘Oh no, no, no – it’s too hard for me to practice. I am finished now - I have had it.’
So Hadhrat Sahib, my Sheikh, has written in his Malfuzaat that it was the third part of the night, and he was sat with his blessed father. Hadhrat Sahib was young at the time, and he says ‘I was engaged in Muraqabah and my father also, and suddenly he heard a noise. At this, my father called out “Ali Murtaza, did you hear that? Did you hear that?” I came out of Muraqabah and said “Respected father, I didn’t hear anything.” My father said “Allah ta’ala’s announcement came! He was calling out!”’ SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala says that out of all the 24 hours of the day, the most precious time, in which His special Rahmah and Mercy descends, is that portion of the night when we are directed to wake up - and this is why Allah ta’ala is telling us to wake up. Allah is saying ‘I give you everything at that time – I call you Myself! I come to the lowest heaven and My Rahmah calls: Is there anyone there? Is there anyone calling to Me and asking from Me? Do you have any needs? Ask from Me if you have any health difficulties, issues, problems. Your Rabb has come, so ask from Me and I will remove your problems.’ Allahu Akbar. You run around all day long, dusting people’s shoes and begging people to help you in the Dunya; you tap people on the shoulder and beg from them, but Allah says ‘Even the biggest king in the world is dependent on Me, you madman! Ask from Me!’ The King of kings is saying to us ‘Ask from Me in the third portion of the night and I will give to You!’ SubhanAllah.
But what does Nafs say? ‘Oh no, sleep. You need sleep. It’s ok – it doesn’t make any difference. You have to do this in the world; you are responsible; you have got Deeni tasks; you have got thousands of worldly tasks. Sleep.’ But Allah ta’ala is calling, calling. Hadhrat Sahib’s father said ‘Oh Ali Murtaza, did you hear those words?’ He said, ‘Father, I did not’, so his father said ‘Look - Allah is calling out! I can hear it – can’t you hear it?’ SubhanAllah – he was a Wali of Allah, and this was his connection with Allah. This is the Faidh of Hadhrat Ali Murtaza rahmatullah alayh that is with us today. You are the second generation – I am his Khadim and you are sitting in front of me. This is such a close connection, and where does it come from? It comes here from a small village in Hindustan where he spent his life. You have come here with the Deen and are attaining the Faidh of that great Sheikh right here in Bolton! Just think about where this comes from. Allah ta’ala says ‘It is I who makes the selection! I deliver the Rizq to a person from such a place.’ We are dogs of the stomach and run after provision for the belly, but Allah is saying ‘I am talking about spiritual wealth here! Not the stomach’s wealth.’ {وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يَجۡعَل لَّهُ ۥ مَخۡرَجً۬ا} Allah is saying ‘I will deliver Ruhaniyat to you from such a place – Noor will come, Faidh will come, the light of My Ma’arifah will come, and you will not be able to imagine where it has come from and how it has reached you! You will be born and grow up in some other part of the world, but I will pick you up and take you to a place you could not imagine. And from there, thousands of miles away, the Faidh will descend into your heart – Allah Hu!’ SubhanAllah.
Are we related, me and you? Are you the sons of my Cha-Cha Mamu? What link have I got with you people? Do we have relations in common? I have told you about my attribute that when I leave your company, I feel detached from you. What link have I got with you? I even forget my wife and children when I leave home. Once I shake hands to leave, I become detached and I don’t know who I have left behind. The details have gone – I have passed on and the link with that person disappears. Say SubhanAllah. We are detached; we are separate. One day we will have to leave each other permanently, my brothers, so that will be our condition on that day when we leave for good – we see this. But may we be sacrificed for the sake of Hadhrat Sahib’s Faidh - this is Faidh, blessings, and it calls to you and pulls you here to sit down. Allah ta’ala brings those who He loves and assembles them together. I have given so much Da’wah to many people – this is our Tariqa, isn’t it, alhamdulillah. If somebody is ill, we call them, and if we meet somebody, we invite them to come to Dhikr. Some poor souls come to get a Ta’weedh, just a few, but SubhanAllah, their hearts open up when the Faidh reaches them, and once Allah ta’ala selects them, they forget the thing that they came for and become Dhakirs instead, SubhanAllah – they come to the real path. Allah ta’ala says ‘You madman, can’t you see that this was just a pretext which I used to bring you to My Deen? I will give you more than the thing which you came to beg for. I will give that and more besides. The reality of the issue is that I have made you My servant and My beloved! This is the point. Your face has changed, your Libaas has changed, your heart has changed – you have become My beloved servant and I have mentioned you in the Qur’an!’
It is you people of whom the Qur’an makes mention here. Tonight, make the resolution that ‘Yes, that is it - tomorrow I will stand in the service of Allah, in the court of Allah.’ You are mentioned in the Qur’an today! Allah says {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} – these are the people. Who? Me, you, whoever stands up and turns to Allah. And this is not restricted to men; womenfolk are included as well - even more so. MashaAllah, they don’t need to leave home or have a career or pray Salah in the Masjid, so the formula is very simple for them. They are at home and they make food, so why not wake up in the night? This is a bonus for the womenfolk. They don’t have to leave the house. They are also not free from fighting and quarrelling in the home, nor from politics, but they should abandon gossip-mongering, remove those things from their lives, and bow and submit to Allah. Become like Rabia al-Basri rahmatullah alayha. Look at how the mothers of the believers lived their lives. Research and read about the difficulties they had to endure, and you will see that they never left the practice of waking up during the night – never. The hands of Fatimah az-Zahraa were blistered, and she had no food in her home and no clothes to wear, and she had no money to buy medicine for her children – but the prayer mat was laid out and all night long, she would stand there remembering Allah. This was Fatimah az-Zahraa. She never asked for Dunya – she was the best of the best of women.
How much time we have wasted up until now. Another day has gone, and until now, we have not been waking up at night. Promise that from today, we will not waste time. How should you prepare for this? Make a schedule. Set your alarm clock to wake you up in the night and make the intention that you are going to wake up to worship. Set the alarm and then go to sleep. If you are just starting from today, it could be that your eyes don’t open every time, but alhamdilillah, Allah ta’ala says ‘You tried and I like your effort! I am enjoying the fact that you are trying.’ The pious elders have given a beautiful formula for those who are new to this practice and are struggling. They say that if you wake up and find it hard to leave the bed, keep your eyes open and have courage. They give a formula, which is to say ten times ‘SubhanAllah, wal-hamdulillah, wa la ilaha illa-llah, wa-llahu Akbar’, and then recite Astaghfar ten times, and then Durood Sharif ten times. Then go back to sleep and you will get the reward of waking up for Tahajjud all night long, SubhanAllah! What a great preparation. So at least get to that stage. At least set the alarm and wake up and recite that formula, alhamdulillah. Allah ta’ala is telling us that if that person can wake up and recite those Kalimas, he will get the whole Thawab of Tahajjud and then, due that, tomorrow he will spend every hour standing on the prayer mat inshaAllah – he will progress. But we don’t make that Niyyah and just say ‘Oh, what’s the point – forget it.’ That’s what we say.
Just look at the massive reward that Allah ta’ala has set aside. Hadhrat Dawood alayhi salam – SubhanAllah, what a great Prophet of Allah he was. Allah ta’ala gave him revelation about waking up also. Listen to this Wahiy: Allah ta’ala said to him ‘Shall I tell you how to distinguish between the true lovers and the false people? I have no link to the false liar who talks nonsense once the sun has risen in the morning. My true lovers are those who I love, and My beloved servants love Me too! Who are those beloved servants? Those who wake in the night and stand and remember Me.’ SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala is saying to His Nabi that those who make claims for themselves are false and are liars. The one quality of a person who belongs to Allah is that he wakes up in the night. Allah ta’ala has apportioned that time for those who have love, and so the lovers try to isolate themselves with their beloved at that time in order to speak to Him alone, one to one. This is what those who love Allah do. Look at Hadhrat Bayazid al-Bistami rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep at night? Look at Hadhrat Junaid rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep?
Look at Hadhrat Ali Murtaza rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep? I saw with my own eyes in the Haram Sharif, SubhanAllah, that he would worship all night long, even though he was very advanced in years. He was very aged, but he would sit like I am sat here, looking at the Ka’abah all night long - just him and the Ka’abah. I didn’t see him eating or drinking, though we used to go and drink Zam-zam or go to eat or make Wudhu. Wa-llahi, I never saw Hadhrat Sahib do these things. Never once in my life did I see Hadhrat Sahib leave to make Wudhu or drink tea or have food. No, he would remain wherever I laid out the prayer mat for my Sheikh.
May Allah ta’ala give us the opportunity and make us realise what Khidmah of the Sheikh is. When a person makes Niyyah, he gets the opportunity to do Khidmah in front of the Ka’abah! Allah ta’ala gave such a great opportunity to me, to sit in the service of such a great Wali of Allah in front of the Ka’abah all night long. What a great favour of Allah! Why? Because my Niyyah was correct. I didn’t have the desire for piety or for Khilafah. I wasn’t thinking ‘If I sit with my Sheikh, I will become a Khalifah’ – nothing of the sort, no such desire was there. What was my desire? ‘He is the Wali of Allah, and while he looks at the Ka’abah, I will look at his face.’ SubhanAllah.
This was the Niyyah, and this was the greatest honour for me. And as long as Hadhrat was there, I would not do Tawaaf. You could call this Ishq or mad love – this is not a Mas’ala of the Shari’ah, so don’t put a stamp on this or make a Fatwa saying that this is oppression. I am talking about love here. And he never said this to me either. I was just sat behind my Sheikh, SubhanAllah, and I never did Tawaaf whilst my Hadhrat was sat in front of the Ka’abah. The thought never occurred to me, and neither would I do Umrah. There was no need because I was sat behind my Sheikh – no doing Tawaaf, no going to Masjid Aisha, no Umrah. I said to myself ‘My Tawaaf is he who is sat in front of me.’ SubhanAllah – and Allah ta’ala enabled me to do so many Tawwafs and complete Hajj so many times in later years. I lost count after that. My Cha-Cha who passed away knew this – he used to be with me every year. I think my blessed uncle who passed away completed Hajj 18 times.
These are the points that we need to understand. These are the facts of life that we need to know to attain Allah’s nearness. These are the means; these are the Wasa’il. We start counting – one, two, three, four - but you don’t get anything from counting. You need madness, crazy love, to be immersed – Junun, Muhabbat and Ishq! Our Hadhrat said that you cannot get success from ordinary love; true success is attained when you are madly in love. Be crazy and mad in your love – give yourself away to Allah. If a person is not madly in love with Allah, due to which Allah ta’ala’s love comes, then how will Allah’s nearness be attained?
First and foremost, with whom did the noble Companions have Ishq for? They were in love with the one whom Allah loves. Who were the noble Companions madly in love with first? The gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam – they were madly in love with him, and their tongues bear witness to this. ‘May my eyes be upon your blessed face!’; ‘May I spend all my money upon you!’; ‘I give my daughter in Nikah to you!’ That is deep love; they were Majnun, madly in love, giving absolutely everything. ‘What money have you left, oh Siddique?’ ‘Nothing, Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam . ‘What have you left for those at home?’ ‘I have left Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam.’ And what was he wearing on his body for clothes? He was wearing a sackcloth Kameez with no buttons, so to fasten it he used twigs and thorns! He was asked ‘Have you left anything at home?’ and he replied ‘Nothing, Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. I have given everything. I have left Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam for my family.’ Now listen to what he said to as-Siddique. He didn’t say ‘Oh, you should have used your brain – Shari’ah allows you’, because the status of a Majnun is one thing and the Shari’ah is something else. When a person is madly in love with something, then he forgets everything else. Say SubhanAllah!
Do you understand? Do you understand now the factors of the life of a Dervaish? Am I wasting your time? No? So understand what I am saying. I am trying to make you Ashiqs, those who love madly. Understand what Junun, mad love, is, what deep love and Muhabbat is. Don’t run after Dunya. They may say ‘Why are you doing this? Oh, you’re mad! You’re a crazy fundamentalist!’, but just reply ‘No, no – I did it because I wanted to do it.’ That’s it. When a person sells himself for Allah, then he is Majnun. Look at Laila and Majnun: Majnun was writing ‘Laila’ on the sand, and they asked him ‘What are doing?’ He replied ‘Nothing to do with you. It is none of your business. I am writing the name of my beloved on the sand, then wiping it away, then writing it again, then wiping it away.’
If he loved Laila this much in the Dunya, what about the person who loves Allah? What about his Hal then? He will say ‘I can’t do Tawaaf. You keep looking at the Ka’abah, my Sheikh, and I will just keep looking at you. You are my Waseelah to take me to Allah.’ SubhanAllah. The Sheikh doesn’t even question him, because he knows that he is Majnun. He thinks ‘Forget telling him Shari’ah points – let him just stay there.’ So Hadhrat Sahib sat there, and I sat there behind him all night long, because he is my Sheikh, my teacher. When he said ‘Chalo - come on, let us get up’ which he would do sometimes during the night – ‘Chalo, come on, let’s go and do Umrah.’ Allah! So then we used to go as well. And what was Hadhrat Sahib’s Ihram? SubhanAllah – Hadhrat Sahib would just take his Kameez off and give it to me, and underneath he wore a white Dhoti – a waist wrap – and after taking his Kameez off, he would wrap his Chaddar – his body wrap – around him, and that was his Ihram, SubhanAllah. But we go off elsewhere to get into Ihram, find it, take off our clothes – the Dervaish has no special Ihram. He was already wearing a white Dhoti, so when he took his Kameez off, all he did was wrap his white sheet around him and then say ‘SubhanAllah, let’s go to Masjid Aisha.’ The Niyyah for Umrah would be made and no time wasted, SubhanAllah.
So Allah subhana wa ta'ala is telling us not to make false claims about Da’wah. The lover is he who wakes up in the night – so don’t leave out waking up in the night. Allah ta’ala has given a great reward for this, my friends – a great treasure. In front of the angels, Allah subhana wa ta'ala is proud of those who wake up, but what do we do? Waking up in the night is so valuable and such a treasure. We call it Tahajjud. So wake up! Look, yesterday’s night has gone - if we had woken up, we would have obtained all of these rewards. But Allah ta’ala is so Karim and generous and Merciful that we can make Niyyah today, and say ‘Oh Allah, we make intention for this from now. We have made mistakes before and have been lazy and negligent. Nobody told us about this before and nobody pushed us or explained these things. Our Dunya matters were uppermost and nobody pushed us.’ Then Allah ta’ala tells us ‘Okay, and if you start from today, I will even count the ones you have missed previously!’
I remember another Hadith – two Hadiths have come to my mind at this moment on this subject. Three or four Hadiths have suddenly come into my mind about those who wake up in the night, SubhanAllah. These are the virtues of this Amal, so listen, for several Hadiths are coming to mind as I speak. Listen to these virtues as they come – listen to reward number one: waking up in the night is the Sunnah of all the Ambiya and all the Awliya. When a person wakes up at night for worship, then he is fulfilling this Sunnah. I have already given you examples of this, but Allah has given the example of every Prophet in respect of this practice. And without this practice, a person can never be a Wali of Allah, because special Rahmah comes down in that part of the night. At that time, Allah selects a person for His Wilayat, for His servanthood, not at the time of Dhuhr or Fajr or Asr or Maghrib. The special selection time, when Allah makes a person His beloved, is the third part of the night. That is when Allah ta’ala announces ‘Come! I have made this person My friend!’ Say SubhanAllah. How can me and you become Allah’s friends if we don’t wake up in the night? What kind of empty Wali doesn’t get up? People say ‘Oh, he’s a Wali; he’s Qutb al-Aqtab’, and they give titles upon titles, but they don’t even pray Fajr properly - sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t. Despite this, they have lengthy titles after their names and are regarded as having glory and status. Allahu Akbar - the string of titles after their name is so long that it seems to go on forever! Tell me.
Nobody can be a Wali, a friend of Allah, if he does not get up in the third part of the night and ask from Allah and cry in front of Allah. No such connection – it is nonsense and rubbish to claim otherwise. Allah is saying that those who make such claims are liars and are talking rubbish. So the first factor is that this is the time when a Wali is made. If you want to be a Wali, then the first action, the number one action, is to wake up during the night. As for the rest, yes, be awake for Dhuhr and for Asr and for Maghrib - try as hard as you can. Those times are different, and you will get whatever can be acquired, but the definition and quality of the Wali of Allah is that he gets up in the third portion of the night, for it is then that Allah announces to the angels ‘Come, I will tell you who I have given the title and status of Wilayat to. I have made this person a Qutb, that person an Abdal.’
SubhanAllah – Abdal! The one with this title, when he passes away – for instance, if an Abdal passes away in India – then let me tell you what happens in the third part of the night; these are the principles of Tasawwuf. In the third part of the night, Allah announces ‘I will send this Abdal to India to replace the Abdal who is about to pass away there, so that he can do the work of the Deen.’ This is Allah’s designation and selection. Then Allah controls that region, and in Bolton, here, there, and in whatever region, Allah ta’ala has made a system so that His work can be continued through the Awliya who have been selected.
We can’t recognize who they are, those people who wake up in the night and whose Duas save us from destruction and from difficulties, due to whom Allah ta’ala gives rain, due to whom Allah ta’ala gives wealth, due to whom, despite all our disobedience, earthquakes and destruction do not strike here. We witness ourselves that our women walk naked in the streets, our daughters walk around naked and they drink alcohol and commit lewd actions, immodesty is both inside and outside the home. I am talking about people with Iman, not those who don’t have Iman. What actions don’t take place in our homes? All night long and all day long, young women - children, girls – are engaged in a storm of immodesty and the actions of gangsters. These people have lost their shame. We have lost our shame and our children have lost their shame in these actions that they do. But SubhanAllah, how is it that we are saved? It is due to the Duas of a Wali of Allah that we are being saved, Allahu Akbar. He begs Allah ‘Ya Allah, have Mercy! Hear me Ya Allah – they do not know! Ya Allah, they have no knowledge!’ The wrath of Allah starts to come and then it returns, because Allah says ‘Due to this man, My Haya and modesty is invoked. My Wali, My friend, has raised his hands and is begging me, so shall I send Adhab there? No - My modesty pulls back My anger!’ Allahu Akbar.
When a Wali of Allah passes away in his region, I swear by Allah, that place becomes numb. The birds cry there, the walls cry there, the dogs and cats cry there, saying ‘Oh, the Wali of Allah has died, he has left! He has gone from this place, so what is going to happen to us?’ This is how the animals feel, so don’t walk around big-headed. Who do we think we are? We commit so many wrong actions and weigh down the earth with so much oppression. We take the Ni’mahs from Allah, and then commit indecencies and do immodest actions – and then we complain to Allah! We blame Allah, and yet we stand, big-headed, and disobey Allah openly – we drink alcohol, do Gheebat, we lie, our women and men walk around naked. We reject our parents and tell them ‘Oh, get out of the house! You are old – get out! What are you doing here mother, father – don’t tell me what to do! I have come to this world and I have to earn just as you have to earn. Why are you telling me what to do?’ Is this not happening my brothers? So do we deserve anything? Can such a person deserve anything? Why does Allah give a person Rizq after he does so many Haram actions? We cannot do justice with our challenging of Allah – the Hisab of those people is something else. Allah says ‘I have made Jannah for them here, because you cannot imagine what will happen to them afterwards.’
The Qur’an is in our hands, and Allah ta’ala has given us Masjids. We have the Qur’an in our hands, my brothers – and Bukhari as well. Allah has given us such great Kitabs – do we do wrong actions even after that? So many great lessons are in front of us, and Allah has given us Jumu’ah where we can listen to Khutbahs and sermons about the Qur’an. There are beautiful words on every page. Allah is saying ‘Do you think what I have given to you is story-telling? Shall I give it to other people then, and make you like them, eating the flesh of swine and cats and doing Haram? Shall I give the Qur’an to them?’ Can you imagine these Masjids being given to them and you being turfed out? Can this happen or not? Tell me. Is this impossible? It is not our fathers’ Deen, rather it is Allah’s Karam and mercy that we are sat in the Masjid. Allah ta’ala can replace us with other people, can He not? Of course! But our hair does not stand up when we hear these things, and we don’t feel ashamed.
We don’t have Haya, so what are we doing? We criticize and challenge the Sunnahs of Nabi al-Karim – imagine, imagine! Due to that Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam the world is in existence – it is due to him. His status is so great – he is the Beloved of Allah. Who is the most beloved to Allah ta’ala? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! And what is most beloved to him? His Sunnah! Allah says ‘Whoever loves My Mehboob, I love him’, and His Mehboob sallallahu alayhi wasallam says ‘Whoever loves my Sunnah, I love him’ – here’s the condition. That is the condition –end of story. But people say ‘Oh Sunnah – what is the Sunnah? Forget the Sunnah – don’t tell me about Sunnah. It is not necessary.’ Who is saying this? A person who has the Qur’an in his home. He is making these statements. ‘Oh, leave Sunnah – it is not necessary. It is minor and insignificant and there’s no need to practice it. It is not compulsory.’
And yet Allah ta’ala has made this the basis of His love – {قُلۡ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ }. Allah says ‘This is the condition – I will only love you when you love My Mehboob. Oh My Mehboob, tell them how they can love you!’ And he replies ‘Oh Allah, I love that person who loves my Sunnah: “من احب سنتى فقد احبنى”’ Is this not the case? Allah ta’ala comes back to His verse then – what guarantee does Allah give? He looks to the one that He loves, and the Prophet says ‘He who loves me, I will take him by the hand and walk him into Paradise.’ But this is all just like story-time or folk-tales for us. We can’t even grow four hairs on our chin. Why? But they say ‘Oh no, no – I am an Ashiq; I am a lover; I am a very great Ashiq!’ This is all play-acting, so leave this play-acting and fake practice. Do actions for the grave – think about the grave. My brothers, these are all life’s nonsense and shaytani actions. Do we understand the reality of who Allah loves, of who the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam loves, of who he will do intercession for, of who those people are, men and women? Tell me.
So – ah yes, the virtues. Let us return to that. The Sunnah of every Prophet and Wali of Allah is being implemented when you stand for worship in the night – imagine the Thawab for the Sunnah of the Prophets and the Awliya’llah. They would go to bed and sleep two hours – this was what all of the Prophets of Allah, all 124,000 of them did, and you will be implementing the Sunnah of every one of them. Say SubhanAllah – this is for waking up in the night. So kick the mattress, reject its call, and say ‘From now on, no matter what happens, I am going to get up in the night.’ Will we do this? InshaAllah.
Now – the second principle: Allah subhana wa ta'ala draws the person who wakes up in the night near to Himself – that person attains Allah’s Qurb. Allah is giving this guarantee. Allah ta’ala is saying ‘The biggest Waseelah to obtaining My Qurb is learning to get up in the night. Do this, and you will get closer and closer to Me. You will draw near to me.’ That is why the Tariqa that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam taught of taking a Qailula in the afternoon is such a fantastic action. The definition of Qailula is not that you get under a quilt on the mattress and sleep for three or four hours. No, Qailula is even if you lean back on a chair for ten minutes - I have done this. If you lean back on a chair at work for five minutes with the Niyyah for Qailula, you will get such an intense sleep that full satisfaction and enjoyment is attained from those five minutes. You will have fulfilled the Sunnah of Qailula, and where will that benefit you? What will it deliver to you? It will give you all the virtues because it will wake you up in the night. Look at the connection that our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam gave between the action of Qailula and getting up for worship at night – they are linked together.
So if we get up at night, what should we do? We should sleep a little bit during the day. But this doesn’t mean filling up on chapatis and then sleeping for hours – that is not Qailula. I have seen Qailula demonstrated in the Khanqah – we have spent our life with the Dervaishes who were with the Wali of Allah, Allahu Akbar. They would have dry chapati, and then every Dervaish would lie down. When I went for the first time, I asked ‘What is this practice that they are doing in the Khanqah?’ The reply came: ‘You will realise when they wake up at 2.30am in the night and do Tasbeeh of ‘Allah, Allah’. Then you will realise the miracle of this sleep in the afternoon. You try it.’ So I said ‘Okay, I will’, and lay down. SubhanAllah, this was a different style, for the Qailula was for ten or fifteen minutes, not sleeping and snoring for hours. That is not Qailula. Do you understand what I am saying? You may say ‘Oh no, no, I drive a taxi’ – okay, take your Qailula in the taxi. Do you die when you sleep? Ok, if you have to work, then do it while you are working, and then Allah ta’ala says that when you do so, making the Niyyah for getting up in the night, then Allah ta’ala will automatically make it easy for you to do that action. Say SubhanAllah. So this is a benefit for those men and women who wake up in the night. Do you understand?
Here is another Hadith that I would like to share with you. We commit sins all day – we are human beings, not angels, aren’t we? We are born and sins arise inside us, so we do Tawbah and then we sin again, and then repent again and come back again. So what does Allah ta’ala say? He says ‘My angels are writing all the sins that you keep committing, but, oh My servant, when you wake up in the night, I wipe away all your sins!’ Say SubhanAllah. You become totally pure because Allah ta’ala says ‘This is My time. I want to make you My Wali, so will I leave you impure? Are you mad? First, I will wash you internally and direct that all your sins be wiped away so you are purified. I will make you as clean as an angel and stand you up at the time of Tahajjud.’ SubhanAllah!
Another Hadith has come that I will share with you. Allah is saying ‘Your sins are wiped away, but now that you are standing here, I am going to confer Maqams and status upon you such that I don’t just eliminate your sins; rather, I want to compensate you for the sins you committed that have been wiped away!’ This is Allah’s amazing glory and Rahmah. ‘Oh Allah, do you want to compensate me?’ Allah says ‘Yes! I want to give you more: all the sins you committed are wiped away, and then I will convert that number of sins into good deeds!’ The servant asks, ‘Oh Allah – why are You doing this?’ The reply: ‘I am doing this because you obeyed Me. You have stood up in front of Me in the third part of the night, having crushed your desires and left your bed {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}.’ You have tossed and turned from side to side and have detached yourself from the mattress. You haven’t gone towards Haram, and you have left your Halal wife, and have abandoned your passions and desires, saying ‘Allah, I want You!’ You could have just carried on sleeping in your bed, saying ‘Oh no, I don’t need to do this.’ Those people who are married or are about to get married, pay attention. Understand that this time is precious, so put your wife to the side for a few moments, and stand for the sake of Allah, SubhanAllah.
Challenges come in life, yes - Allah tests a person in many different ways. But remember one thing – once you have started, be solid, no matter what comes in life and whatever gets in the way. That’s it. If illness or sickness comes, I have told you the formula to follow in that case. Just sit there on the bed and recite ten times ‘SubhanAllah wal-hamdulillah, wa la ilaha illa-llah, wa-llahu Akbar’, then ten times Astaghfar, then ten times Durood Sharif, and you will obtain the full Thawab.
There are many Hadiths that keep coming to mind, but now we have to do Dhikr as well inshaAllah, so this is enough. With the Fadhl of Allah, my battery is charged – you have charged my battery, MashaAllah. I make the Niyyah today as well. I am very lazy and negligent, while you are good, pious people MashaAllah. You pray and you do wake up, so make Dua for me so that I can become good at waking up. May Allah ta’ala give me the Tawfeeq. You are good, pious brethren, MashaAllah, and it is due to you that I am sitting here, alhamdulillah. May Allah ta’ala make us all His beloved servants and allow us to do those actions which make us His beloved servants. May Allah ta’ala take us far from actions that are play-acting and make our hearts such that we do not accept any nonsense, SubhanAllah. Ameen. You know, there are many games and dramas today, so may Allah ta’ala enable our hearts to put those dramas to one side, knowing what the real Deen is and not giving in to Nafs and not feeling like doing wrong actions, not inclining towards them. May Allah ta’ala make our hearts like this. And may Allah ta’ala make us only understand good things that penetrate our hearts in a good way. That is the real Deen and the rest is a drama, a fake.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen
In the Qur’an al-Hakim, Allah subhana wa ta'ala has addressed His beloved servants with a lot of love and affection. Why? Allah ta’ala has mentioned a special quality of those beloved people due to which He has made them His beloved servants. So the reality is that Allah ta’ala has unraveled this secret and is saying to us ‘Why are you wasting your time? Why don’t you become My beloved servants as well?’
My brothers, our Deen, our way of life, is not a Deen of words; rather, it is a Deen of action, of Amal. Who is there among us who doesn’t have the desire and the feeling in his heart that he would also like to become a beloved servant of Allah? Who doesn’t feel that? We all understand, but the enjoyment comes when Allah ta’ala says ‘You are My beloved servant.’ How will Allah ta’ala say this? When will Allah ta’ala says this? Look, if you or I want to become that, it will not come for nothing. Allah ta’ala will start to mention us, obviously, when Allah ta’ala attests in the Qur’an that we are doing that action that makes us His beloved servants. Then Allah ta’ala will testify that you are His beloved servant. What a great rank and honour this is – and what a great action brings this rank. The Nafs deceives us about this – but why do we listen? I don’t understand! Why do we listen? Allah ta’ala is speaking to us for a purpose. He is saying ‘Why do you think that I mention certain things in the Qur’an? I do so in order that you realise these points and perform those actions which I tell you are the actions of My beloved servants. I mention the defining qualities of My beloved servants so that you can do what they do and also become My beloved servant.’ So what is the point here? Allah ta’ala is inviting us towards Amal here, but we give up, sit down and cross our legs and say that we are Ashiqs of Allah and of His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam and that our hearts are full of Ishq.
Look, everyone who has Iman has Ishq - love. A person who recites the Kalima automatically has love for Allah and for His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That is the quality of the Kalima – it has the effect of creating that love. But let us not make empty claims. Allah ta’ala is saying ‘These are empty claims unless you do what I tell you that you should be doing. Engage with the factor that will make you My Mehboob, and if you do that Amal, then you will not need to say anything. There will be no need to tell anyone or share your feelings with anyone, for I will announce in the heavens that you are My beloved servant!’ SubhanAllah. ‘I will make the announcement in the heavens, and then creation will recognize you as the servant of Allah, even if nobody in the world recognizes you, and whether or not people say Salam to you and shake your hand. I have selected you!’ So if we do this action as well, then Allah ta’ala will make us His beloved servants.
So what is this quality of the beloved servants of Allah that Allah ta’ala has mentioned in the Qur’an? {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} Read this blessed verse, and since tomorrow is Jumu’ah, this verse will be read at Fajr as well. What is the meaning of this? Allah ta’ala is saying ‘This is a quality of My beloved servants that causes Me to love them. It is not the person that I love, rather it is the action. Due to that action that he performs, I love My servant.’ Allah’s love is not due to a person’s looks. Whether he is handsome or short or tall or has this or that appearance is not the standard by which Allah judges. Allah is saying ‘Whatever you are, whether you are limping or disabled or useless, if you do those actions in the world that are beloved to Me, then you are beloved to Me.’ So what is the action that Allah states that His beloved servants do? {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} Allah ta’ala says ‘Their attribute is that their sides are not attached to their beds – they keep on tossing and turning from side to side, telling themselves to get up so as to remember Allah.’ Furthermore, Allah ta’ala tells us in this verse that they are desperate; they are lying on their mattresses, but they are not content. They are desperate to get up and pray to Allah, to do Dhikr of Allah or some other worship. In other words, they wake up during the night for worship. What does Allah like? Say it loudly! Being awake during the night. Allah says ‘The people who are awake during the night are My beloved servants – I like them very much.’
Now what did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say in respect of staying awake during the night? Consider this fantastic statement of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. He said that staying awake during the night should be regarded as Lazim, as essential, and that there was no limit to this. So Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Oh My beloved servants, why do you waste your time? Take hold of this action and make it binding upon yourself; don’t leave it!’ Staying awake at night is a brilliant action. It is a brilliant deed, not a minor one.
It is very hard to get up and stay awake at night, but just think, Allah loves us so much and has Muhabbat for us and has decorated Paradise for us, and He says {فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ}. ‘You reject the things I have given you. You don’t have Yaqeen on these points, because you don’t do Amal. You don’t take advantage of those things that I have provided for you. I have made this for you and that for you – {حُورٌ۬ مَّقۡصُورَٲتٌ۬ فِى ٱلۡخِيَامِ}. I have made Hoors for you that nobody has touched, so pure in eyes and hands and body that you cannot imagine their beauty. But {فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ} – you are rejecting these Ni’mahs of Mine! You are listening and you are reading, but you are not doing the Amal from which you can attain this.’ That is why, after every statement, Allah ta’ala says ‘You are not accepting; you are rejecting. Why are you not running towards those actions due to which I will give you these rewards in the Akhirah? You don’t accept them or embrace them or have determination to implement them.’ We say ‘Oh no, it’s too hard’, but is going to Scotland to put up a market stall in the snow not hard? Was leaving our countries to come here not hard, leaving our mothers and fathers and uncles and relatives and friends for the sake of chapattis? We didn’t find that hard, but we find it too hard to do those actions that will construct and decorate our homes in the Hereafter for evermore.
Why is it hard? Because the Nafs is against us. Why don’t people get up in the night after Allah ta’ala has announced in the Qur’an and Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has confirmed what a fantastic action this is? Why don’t we wake up? Because Nafs says that it is too hard - ‘Just pray Fajr – what difference will it make?’ Allah ta’ala has given a bonus to the people of Iman so great that we can’t know how many rewards there are for this waking up during the night. There are so many rewards! Allah ta’ala has given the examples of His Nabis to explain this to us. Once, Hadhrat Yahya alayhi salam couldn’t get up in the night – and Allah ta’ala has given an example to us in this incident. He was a Prophet, and once he didn’t wake up in the night, so Allah ta’ala sent Wahi to him, saying ‘Oh Yahya, if only you realized the extent of the loss you have incurred by not getting up in the night!’ So let us consider what loss we have incurred, and how much we have wasted our lives!
From an hour and a half more sleep, what do you get? All night long, shaytan and Nafs tell us ‘You will get everything from here, from this world – it is too hard for you. Wait for Ramadhan – you can get up then.’ But even in Ramadhan, we don’t get up in time to benefit properly. If it wasn’t for the food, nobody would get up in Ramadhan. It is the food at Suhoor that gets us up in Ramadhan – we want to eat, otherwise we wouldn’t get up. Are we human beings? Think for a moment. How much of our lives has passed? What have we obtained? What we have earned in this world is not even ours! It is not going with us, and in reality, we have no connection with that physical wealth.
I will give you an example: I am sat here now, right now, and all my things are in my house. My whole house is full of my possessions, but if I say ‘La ilaha illa’llah’ right now and close my eyes, have I got anything? When I leave the house, I leave everything at home - when I have left, it is not mine. I have held firmly to this lesson in my life, that when I become detached from something, I consider that it has finished and I have no link with that thing now. Even when I take my shoes off, I feel that they are not mine anymore. They might get stolen or whatever – I don’t worry about them. In other words, I do not feel any connection with anything that is no longer attached to my body. They are nothing to do with me anymore – this is a firm lesson that has become engrained during my life. It is common for us to be sitting in one place while thinking about our mansions in Pakistan or in India, about the house we are having built in Baruch that we plan to find tenants for. And then we end up with tenants who don’t even pay the rent. Instead, they just take over the house for themselves - spiders and scorpions move in and crawl all over the place! This is just a pastime for our brains. What should really happen is that when I take my shoes off after I arrive, I shouldn’t be thinking about them again. Don’t worry about their brand and whether I will get them back again, just think ‘They are not mine – they are strangers now because I have taken them off; they are no longer with me.’
I saw a brother once coming to pray Salah, but he couldn’t come inside the mosque because Allah ta’ala called him back from there. All the things he owned departed from him - his shoes and everything – as we stood there and watched him. As long as we have this love inside us for our things, we will still sit and think ‘These things are mine. My shirt is there, my items are there, my car is parked there.’ Nothing belongs to Insan! If he thinks it does, then he hasn’t become a real human being; he hasn’t understood what a human being is doing in this world. He should be detached and estranged. When you leave your items at home when you come here, you should think ‘I don’t know if I will come back and see these things again.’ We have practical examples before us of these people who leave home and don’t come back. I can’t remember the name of the person I am thinking of, but did he say to his wife ‘I may not be coming back’? He had a home and a car – he was a taxi driver – so did he say ‘I am not going to be back to meet you again’? He didn’t, but in your heart, you should say, when you take your key out of the lock ‘Whether or not I come back to unlock this door is not in my power; it is not mine.’ SubhanAllah.
Appreciate this point. I do this; when I come out of my room, I look at it and smile, thinking ‘I have prayed Salah here, but I don’t know whether I will be back to prostrate here again’, then I say ‘Khuda hafiz’ and I leave the room. SubhanAllah. That is how to be a stranger in the world. This is not acting or showing off, rather this is reality. It is detachment when we think ‘I don’t know if I going to meet you again.’ A person should be detaching himself from things at every second.
How much life we are wasting! If we look at ourselves, do we get up in the night? No. ‘It is too hard’, we say. Think about it: is Allah going to oppress us or do Thulm on us? Is Allah ta’ala going to put us into hardship in the world? Allah says ‘You have no idea of what you are missing. Oh Yahya, because you are a Nabi, I will tell you – and through you, I will declare how much reward there is for this.’ What does Allah ta’ala say? Allah ta’ala revealed the facts – listen to the words. Allah ta’ala is addressing us, so let us understand now - Allah is telling me now, ‘Oh foolish person, if you were to realise!’ We will know when we die. ‘Oh Yahya, if you only realized what a big loss you incurred when you didn’t get up for that night, you would cry and cry, so much so that all of the water in your body would evaporate and be used up by your tears; and then your blood would start coming out of your eyes as tears! And even then, you wouldn’t be silenced due to the depth of your grief. You would tear off your clothes and dress in sackcloth, and sit there crying ‘What have I done?’ You would cry all night long.’ Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.
This is our loss – what a big loss! It is such a big loss – and how can it be compared with the rewards that Allah ta’ala has set aside for this action? Tell me! What a great action this is. Hadhrat Sulayman alayhi salam, a great Prophet with whose name you are familiar, was a Prophet with his own status and glory. Allah ta’ala gave different types of status and glory to each Prophet according to their capacity. He had a glory that nobody else would get. The ants knew him and the birds in the skies knew him and could hear him. All of the kingdoms were in his power – the Jinnat as well. Sometimes he flew in the air, at other times he was on the earth – this was the kingdom and the dominion that Allah ta’ala gave him. What happened in his time? His mother – and the mother is the mother – once said to him ‘Listen to me! Remember one thing: never miss your remembrance of Allah in the prayer when you wake up at night. I, your mother, am telling you that those who do not get up in the night will be empty-handed on the Day of Qiyamah. Their bowls will be empty – they will have nothing.’ Tell me!
She didn’t say this for nothing, and nor did Allah ta’ala say to Hadhrat Yahya alayhi salam that he would cry so much if he knew the loss of not getting up in the night for nothing. We have so much drama and play-acting in the world today – we are close to Qiyamah today, aren’t we? There is so much play-acting: ‘I love this and that, and I am an Ashiq and a lover of Allah!’ ‘Oh, he is an Ashiq!’ – and they put the stamp on him. In the Masjids and in the Khanqahs, lengthy titles are given out and people say ‘You have done so many Tasbeehs and so much Dhikr! Oh, you are a lover of Allah! You have achieved!’ This is a deception and a delusion. An Ashiq is made by only one thing – what is that? Qur’an and Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah! That is what makes an Ashiq - when the good news comes to you from those actions, just as Allah ta’ala is saying to us today – {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}. Allah is announcing ‘It is he who is My Mehboob, My beloved. {يَدۡعُونَ رَبَّہُمۡ خَوۡفً۬ا وَطَمَعً۬ا} He gets up in the night, makes Wudhu, and then stands in front of Me. He remembers Me, and whatever he knows from the Qur’an, even if it is Surah al-Ikhlas, he prays two Rakahs or four Rakahs and then {يَدۡعُونَ رَبَّہُمۡ}, he prays and then he sits down and - ‘Allah, Allah, Allah’ - he keeps reciting and reciting and doing Dhikr of Allah.’ SubhanAllah! The Qur’an is testifying to this. Who are these people? ‘Allah says ‘These are My beloved servants!’
These are not people who are play-acting, people who are looking for a cheap bargain. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ} Allah says ‘Do you think Jannah will come so easily to you, through mere words and dramas and fake games?’ You don’t get Jannah like that. Allah says that Jannah will come when you crush your Nafs. Allah ta’ala says, SubhanAllah ‘When My servant wakes up for Salah, Nafs is at its strongest at that time.’ Nafs says, ‘Oh, you have to go to work in the morning; you have to teach Bukhari Sharif and you have to give lessons and Ta’leem during the day’ – so many whispers of the Nafs come at that time. Everyone has got their own path, and yes, you will get reward for that, but you cannot get this reward if, for the sake of the Dunya, you reject that action through which Allah ta’ala wants to make you His Mehboob. This is Nafs – Nafs is deviating you. Why?
It cannot be that you get a loss from doing an action which Allah ta’ala has ordered you to do. I swear by Allah that you can do any work of the Dunya – business work, Deeni work, whatever – and if you wake up at night, you will be amazed at how much Barakah Allah ta’ala will give you. ‘How did this happen?’ you will say. SubhanAllah! Your eyes and your brain will be more active, you will be better at teaching, quite contrary to the deviating suggestions of shaytan like ‘You must sleep. This is a Shari’ah Mas’ala – how will you be able to deliver your Dars later? How will you be able to teach the children?’ Ask those people who stayed awake all night long, and then in the morning they taught Hadith, Bukhari and Trimidhi. And those in front of them listening to their lessons were affected greatly, even though their teachers’ eyes were swollen due to having stayed awake at night remembering Allah. It is not about having six hours or eight hours or ten hours of sleep, following the Nafs. Allah could let them off, but no – what about becoming a Mehboob, a beloved servant of Allah? Allah is saying ‘This is just your Nafs. You have to crush your desires and nothing else. You have to crush the games of the Nafs.’ Allah’s Hukm has come, and the He will instill Barakah in all the work that you do during the day and will keep you fresh all day long. Allah ta’ala is not oppressing you. If you need to do your work, do you think that Allah ta’ala will not give you the opportunity for that? Of course He will.
Do you understand my words? This is the Qur’an that is telling us this. Why? Because Allah is saying ‘When a person gets up in the night and stands in front of Me, what do I do? I look at My servant and say with pride to all the angels in the Heavens ‘Look at My servant – {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}. Look at how he has left his mattress and his wife, and has washed with warm or cold water, the poor soul.’ And remember this, where it is harder and more challenging, Allah ta’ala will increase the reward in those environments. Where there is a lot of Ibadah going on already, like in Makkah where everyone gets up to do Ibadah, it is easier; you have to pray Tahajjud there, don’t you, so it is not that big a feat. Here it is a challenge and a test, but where the Dunya is spread out in front, where comfort and enjoyment present restrictions and barriers and hurdles, if a servant breaks down those barriers and hurdles and remembers this verse of the Qur’an – SubhanAllah.
Allah’s Walis testify to this. My Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh told us about this. His father was a great Dervaish. He was a very pious elder, a Sheikh of Hadith in Daccan in Bhopal some 200 years ago. I am speaking about Hadhrat Muhammad Hussain qaddasAllahu Sirrahu, rahmatullah alayh. I am speaking about this extremely holy individual, who was such a great Wali of Allah in his time that Hadhrat Saharanpuri would come to Gadai Sharif just to see him and meet him – this was my Sheikh’s father. How great a Sheikh must he have been? Tell me. This is my Sheikh’s blessed father. Hadhrat Saharanpuri Sahib would come to meet him – we are going back two hundred years here. He used to give Dars of Hadith, and my Hadhrat obtained his Sanad of Hadith from his father. So imagine this situation that my Sheikh describes: ‘I was sat in the Khanqah with my father in the last third of the night.’ My Hadhrat was born a Wali, and his father was a Wali, and in the third portion of the night, father and son were doing Muraqabah in the Khanqah. It is due to their Faidh that we are sitting here today, SubhanAllah.
One should never say ‘Oh, such and such has been made a Sheikh, so why am I not a Khalifah?’ My brothers, everyone can become a Wali, but only if you do Mujahidah, only if you make effort. Don’t make complaints to Allah, saying ‘I am here and he is there - why aren’t I a Wali? Why am I not a Khalifah? Why has he been given this?’ Whatever Allah ta’ala has made you, follow the duty that you have been given. Stick to the task and attain the nearness of Allah. That’s it. Just think ‘Oh Allah, You have made me like this. I am here.’ Whether Allah ta’ala has made you a taxi driver or an ironmonger or a doctor or an engineer – accept whatever Allah has made you. Don’t think ‘Why am I not this or that? If I was that, then I would attain Allah’s nearness. He has got that profession and I haven’t; he is a Hafidh of the Qur’an and I am not. Oh Allah, why did You not give me this?’ Don’t differentiate and complain – everyone has got their own status and capacity. Just stand where you are and say ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and then follow according to your capacity. By Allah, that is the way. Say ‘Oh Allah, You are the greatest. You have made me and whatever I am is correct, and I will leave this world pure when the breaths You have allotted to me come to an end.’ But we lose hope; we lose courage and determination. Whose loss is it? Do you think Allah is incurring any loss? No, it is we who are incurring loss. We give up straightaway and lose hope. In the path of the Deen, we suddenly give up and say ‘Oh it’s too hard.’ Just for some little excuse we say ‘Oh no, no, no – it’s too hard for me to practice. I am finished now - I have had it.’
So Hadhrat Sahib, my Sheikh, has written in his Malfuzaat that it was the third part of the night, and he was sat with his blessed father. Hadhrat Sahib was young at the time, and he says ‘I was engaged in Muraqabah and my father also, and suddenly he heard a noise. At this, my father called out “Ali Murtaza, did you hear that? Did you hear that?” I came out of Muraqabah and said “Respected father, I didn’t hear anything.” My father said “Allah ta’ala’s announcement came! He was calling out!”’ SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala says that out of all the 24 hours of the day, the most precious time, in which His special Rahmah and Mercy descends, is that portion of the night when we are directed to wake up - and this is why Allah ta’ala is telling us to wake up. Allah is saying ‘I give you everything at that time – I call you Myself! I come to the lowest heaven and My Rahmah calls: Is there anyone there? Is there anyone calling to Me and asking from Me? Do you have any needs? Ask from Me if you have any health difficulties, issues, problems. Your Rabb has come, so ask from Me and I will remove your problems.’ Allahu Akbar. You run around all day long, dusting people’s shoes and begging people to help you in the Dunya; you tap people on the shoulder and beg from them, but Allah says ‘Even the biggest king in the world is dependent on Me, you madman! Ask from Me!’ The King of kings is saying to us ‘Ask from Me in the third portion of the night and I will give to You!’ SubhanAllah.
But what does Nafs say? ‘Oh no, sleep. You need sleep. It’s ok – it doesn’t make any difference. You have to do this in the world; you are responsible; you have got Deeni tasks; you have got thousands of worldly tasks. Sleep.’ But Allah ta’ala is calling, calling. Hadhrat Sahib’s father said ‘Oh Ali Murtaza, did you hear those words?’ He said, ‘Father, I did not’, so his father said ‘Look - Allah is calling out! I can hear it – can’t you hear it?’ SubhanAllah – he was a Wali of Allah, and this was his connection with Allah. This is the Faidh of Hadhrat Ali Murtaza rahmatullah alayh that is with us today. You are the second generation – I am his Khadim and you are sitting in front of me. This is such a close connection, and where does it come from? It comes here from a small village in Hindustan where he spent his life. You have come here with the Deen and are attaining the Faidh of that great Sheikh right here in Bolton! Just think about where this comes from. Allah ta’ala says ‘It is I who makes the selection! I deliver the Rizq to a person from such a place.’ We are dogs of the stomach and run after provision for the belly, but Allah is saying ‘I am talking about spiritual wealth here! Not the stomach’s wealth.’ {وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يَجۡعَل لَّهُ ۥ مَخۡرَجً۬ا} Allah is saying ‘I will deliver Ruhaniyat to you from such a place – Noor will come, Faidh will come, the light of My Ma’arifah will come, and you will not be able to imagine where it has come from and how it has reached you! You will be born and grow up in some other part of the world, but I will pick you up and take you to a place you could not imagine. And from there, thousands of miles away, the Faidh will descend into your heart – Allah Hu!’ SubhanAllah.
Are we related, me and you? Are you the sons of my Cha-Cha Mamu? What link have I got with you people? Do we have relations in common? I have told you about my attribute that when I leave your company, I feel detached from you. What link have I got with you? I even forget my wife and children when I leave home. Once I shake hands to leave, I become detached and I don’t know who I have left behind. The details have gone – I have passed on and the link with that person disappears. Say SubhanAllah. We are detached; we are separate. One day we will have to leave each other permanently, my brothers, so that will be our condition on that day when we leave for good – we see this. But may we be sacrificed for the sake of Hadhrat Sahib’s Faidh - this is Faidh, blessings, and it calls to you and pulls you here to sit down. Allah ta’ala brings those who He loves and assembles them together. I have given so much Da’wah to many people – this is our Tariqa, isn’t it, alhamdulillah. If somebody is ill, we call them, and if we meet somebody, we invite them to come to Dhikr. Some poor souls come to get a Ta’weedh, just a few, but SubhanAllah, their hearts open up when the Faidh reaches them, and once Allah ta’ala selects them, they forget the thing that they came for and become Dhakirs instead, SubhanAllah – they come to the real path. Allah ta’ala says ‘You madman, can’t you see that this was just a pretext which I used to bring you to My Deen? I will give you more than the thing which you came to beg for. I will give that and more besides. The reality of the issue is that I have made you My servant and My beloved! This is the point. Your face has changed, your Libaas has changed, your heart has changed – you have become My beloved servant and I have mentioned you in the Qur’an!’
It is you people of whom the Qur’an makes mention here. Tonight, make the resolution that ‘Yes, that is it - tomorrow I will stand in the service of Allah, in the court of Allah.’ You are mentioned in the Qur’an today! Allah says {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ} – these are the people. Who? Me, you, whoever stands up and turns to Allah. And this is not restricted to men; womenfolk are included as well - even more so. MashaAllah, they don’t need to leave home or have a career or pray Salah in the Masjid, so the formula is very simple for them. They are at home and they make food, so why not wake up in the night? This is a bonus for the womenfolk. They don’t have to leave the house. They are also not free from fighting and quarrelling in the home, nor from politics, but they should abandon gossip-mongering, remove those things from their lives, and bow and submit to Allah. Become like Rabia al-Basri rahmatullah alayha. Look at how the mothers of the believers lived their lives. Research and read about the difficulties they had to endure, and you will see that they never left the practice of waking up during the night – never. The hands of Fatimah az-Zahraa were blistered, and she had no food in her home and no clothes to wear, and she had no money to buy medicine for her children – but the prayer mat was laid out and all night long, she would stand there remembering Allah. This was Fatimah az-Zahraa. She never asked for Dunya – she was the best of the best of women.
How much time we have wasted up until now. Another day has gone, and until now, we have not been waking up at night. Promise that from today, we will not waste time. How should you prepare for this? Make a schedule. Set your alarm clock to wake you up in the night and make the intention that you are going to wake up to worship. Set the alarm and then go to sleep. If you are just starting from today, it could be that your eyes don’t open every time, but alhamdilillah, Allah ta’ala says ‘You tried and I like your effort! I am enjoying the fact that you are trying.’ The pious elders have given a beautiful formula for those who are new to this practice and are struggling. They say that if you wake up and find it hard to leave the bed, keep your eyes open and have courage. They give a formula, which is to say ten times ‘SubhanAllah, wal-hamdulillah, wa la ilaha illa-llah, wa-llahu Akbar’, and then recite Astaghfar ten times, and then Durood Sharif ten times. Then go back to sleep and you will get the reward of waking up for Tahajjud all night long, SubhanAllah! What a great preparation. So at least get to that stage. At least set the alarm and wake up and recite that formula, alhamdulillah. Allah ta’ala is telling us that if that person can wake up and recite those Kalimas, he will get the whole Thawab of Tahajjud and then, due that, tomorrow he will spend every hour standing on the prayer mat inshaAllah – he will progress. But we don’t make that Niyyah and just say ‘Oh, what’s the point – forget it.’ That’s what we say.
Just look at the massive reward that Allah ta’ala has set aside. Hadhrat Dawood alayhi salam – SubhanAllah, what a great Prophet of Allah he was. Allah ta’ala gave him revelation about waking up also. Listen to this Wahiy: Allah ta’ala said to him ‘Shall I tell you how to distinguish between the true lovers and the false people? I have no link to the false liar who talks nonsense once the sun has risen in the morning. My true lovers are those who I love, and My beloved servants love Me too! Who are those beloved servants? Those who wake in the night and stand and remember Me.’ SubhanAllah! Allah ta’ala is saying to His Nabi that those who make claims for themselves are false and are liars. The one quality of a person who belongs to Allah is that he wakes up in the night. Allah ta’ala has apportioned that time for those who have love, and so the lovers try to isolate themselves with their beloved at that time in order to speak to Him alone, one to one. This is what those who love Allah do. Look at Hadhrat Bayazid al-Bistami rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep at night? Look at Hadhrat Junaid rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep?
Look at Hadhrat Ali Murtaza rahmatullah alayh – how much did he sleep? I saw with my own eyes in the Haram Sharif, SubhanAllah, that he would worship all night long, even though he was very advanced in years. He was very aged, but he would sit like I am sat here, looking at the Ka’abah all night long - just him and the Ka’abah. I didn’t see him eating or drinking, though we used to go and drink Zam-zam or go to eat or make Wudhu. Wa-llahi, I never saw Hadhrat Sahib do these things. Never once in my life did I see Hadhrat Sahib leave to make Wudhu or drink tea or have food. No, he would remain wherever I laid out the prayer mat for my Sheikh.
May Allah ta’ala give us the opportunity and make us realise what Khidmah of the Sheikh is. When a person makes Niyyah, he gets the opportunity to do Khidmah in front of the Ka’abah! Allah ta’ala gave such a great opportunity to me, to sit in the service of such a great Wali of Allah in front of the Ka’abah all night long. What a great favour of Allah! Why? Because my Niyyah was correct. I didn’t have the desire for piety or for Khilafah. I wasn’t thinking ‘If I sit with my Sheikh, I will become a Khalifah’ – nothing of the sort, no such desire was there. What was my desire? ‘He is the Wali of Allah, and while he looks at the Ka’abah, I will look at his face.’ SubhanAllah.
This was the Niyyah, and this was the greatest honour for me. And as long as Hadhrat was there, I would not do Tawaaf. You could call this Ishq or mad love – this is not a Mas’ala of the Shari’ah, so don’t put a stamp on this or make a Fatwa saying that this is oppression. I am talking about love here. And he never said this to me either. I was just sat behind my Sheikh, SubhanAllah, and I never did Tawaaf whilst my Hadhrat was sat in front of the Ka’abah. The thought never occurred to me, and neither would I do Umrah. There was no need because I was sat behind my Sheikh – no doing Tawaaf, no going to Masjid Aisha, no Umrah. I said to myself ‘My Tawaaf is he who is sat in front of me.’ SubhanAllah – and Allah ta’ala enabled me to do so many Tawwafs and complete Hajj so many times in later years. I lost count after that. My Cha-Cha who passed away knew this – he used to be with me every year. I think my blessed uncle who passed away completed Hajj 18 times.
These are the points that we need to understand. These are the facts of life that we need to know to attain Allah’s nearness. These are the means; these are the Wasa’il. We start counting – one, two, three, four - but you don’t get anything from counting. You need madness, crazy love, to be immersed – Junun, Muhabbat and Ishq! Our Hadhrat said that you cannot get success from ordinary love; true success is attained when you are madly in love. Be crazy and mad in your love – give yourself away to Allah. If a person is not madly in love with Allah, due to which Allah ta’ala’s love comes, then how will Allah’s nearness be attained?
First and foremost, with whom did the noble Companions have Ishq for? They were in love with the one whom Allah loves. Who were the noble Companions madly in love with first? The gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam – they were madly in love with him, and their tongues bear witness to this. ‘May my eyes be upon your blessed face!’; ‘May I spend all my money upon you!’; ‘I give my daughter in Nikah to you!’ That is deep love; they were Majnun, madly in love, giving absolutely everything. ‘What money have you left, oh Siddique?’ ‘Nothing, Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam . ‘What have you left for those at home?’ ‘I have left Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam.’ And what was he wearing on his body for clothes? He was wearing a sackcloth Kameez with no buttons, so to fasten it he used twigs and thorns! He was asked ‘Have you left anything at home?’ and he replied ‘Nothing, Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. I have given everything. I have left Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam for my family.’ Now listen to what he said to as-Siddique. He didn’t say ‘Oh, you should have used your brain – Shari’ah allows you’, because the status of a Majnun is one thing and the Shari’ah is something else. When a person is madly in love with something, then he forgets everything else. Say SubhanAllah!
Do you understand? Do you understand now the factors of the life of a Dervaish? Am I wasting your time? No? So understand what I am saying. I am trying to make you Ashiqs, those who love madly. Understand what Junun, mad love, is, what deep love and Muhabbat is. Don’t run after Dunya. They may say ‘Why are you doing this? Oh, you’re mad! You’re a crazy fundamentalist!’, but just reply ‘No, no – I did it because I wanted to do it.’ That’s it. When a person sells himself for Allah, then he is Majnun. Look at Laila and Majnun: Majnun was writing ‘Laila’ on the sand, and they asked him ‘What are doing?’ He replied ‘Nothing to do with you. It is none of your business. I am writing the name of my beloved on the sand, then wiping it away, then writing it again, then wiping it away.’
If he loved Laila this much in the Dunya, what about the person who loves Allah? What about his Hal then? He will say ‘I can’t do Tawaaf. You keep looking at the Ka’abah, my Sheikh, and I will just keep looking at you. You are my Waseelah to take me to Allah.’ SubhanAllah. The Sheikh doesn’t even question him, because he knows that he is Majnun. He thinks ‘Forget telling him Shari’ah points – let him just stay there.’ So Hadhrat Sahib sat there, and I sat there behind him all night long, because he is my Sheikh, my teacher. When he said ‘Chalo - come on, let us get up’ which he would do sometimes during the night – ‘Chalo, come on, let’s go and do Umrah.’ Allah! So then we used to go as well. And what was Hadhrat Sahib’s Ihram? SubhanAllah – Hadhrat Sahib would just take his Kameez off and give it to me, and underneath he wore a white Dhoti – a waist wrap – and after taking his Kameez off, he would wrap his Chaddar – his body wrap – around him, and that was his Ihram, SubhanAllah. But we go off elsewhere to get into Ihram, find it, take off our clothes – the Dervaish has no special Ihram. He was already wearing a white Dhoti, so when he took his Kameez off, all he did was wrap his white sheet around him and then say ‘SubhanAllah, let’s go to Masjid Aisha.’ The Niyyah for Umrah would be made and no time wasted, SubhanAllah.
So Allah subhana wa ta'ala is telling us not to make false claims about Da’wah. The lover is he who wakes up in the night – so don’t leave out waking up in the night. Allah ta’ala has given a great reward for this, my friends – a great treasure. In front of the angels, Allah subhana wa ta'ala is proud of those who wake up, but what do we do? Waking up in the night is so valuable and such a treasure. We call it Tahajjud. So wake up! Look, yesterday’s night has gone - if we had woken up, we would have obtained all of these rewards. But Allah ta’ala is so Karim and generous and Merciful that we can make Niyyah today, and say ‘Oh Allah, we make intention for this from now. We have made mistakes before and have been lazy and negligent. Nobody told us about this before and nobody pushed us or explained these things. Our Dunya matters were uppermost and nobody pushed us.’ Then Allah ta’ala tells us ‘Okay, and if you start from today, I will even count the ones you have missed previously!’
I remember another Hadith – two Hadiths have come to my mind at this moment on this subject. Three or four Hadiths have suddenly come into my mind about those who wake up in the night, SubhanAllah. These are the virtues of this Amal, so listen, for several Hadiths are coming to mind as I speak. Listen to these virtues as they come – listen to reward number one: waking up in the night is the Sunnah of all the Ambiya and all the Awliya. When a person wakes up at night for worship, then he is fulfilling this Sunnah. I have already given you examples of this, but Allah has given the example of every Prophet in respect of this practice. And without this practice, a person can never be a Wali of Allah, because special Rahmah comes down in that part of the night. At that time, Allah selects a person for His Wilayat, for His servanthood, not at the time of Dhuhr or Fajr or Asr or Maghrib. The special selection time, when Allah makes a person His beloved, is the third part of the night. That is when Allah ta’ala announces ‘Come! I have made this person My friend!’ Say SubhanAllah. How can me and you become Allah’s friends if we don’t wake up in the night? What kind of empty Wali doesn’t get up? People say ‘Oh, he’s a Wali; he’s Qutb al-Aqtab’, and they give titles upon titles, but they don’t even pray Fajr properly - sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t. Despite this, they have lengthy titles after their names and are regarded as having glory and status. Allahu Akbar - the string of titles after their name is so long that it seems to go on forever! Tell me.
Nobody can be a Wali, a friend of Allah, if he does not get up in the third part of the night and ask from Allah and cry in front of Allah. No such connection – it is nonsense and rubbish to claim otherwise. Allah is saying that those who make such claims are liars and are talking rubbish. So the first factor is that this is the time when a Wali is made. If you want to be a Wali, then the first action, the number one action, is to wake up during the night. As for the rest, yes, be awake for Dhuhr and for Asr and for Maghrib - try as hard as you can. Those times are different, and you will get whatever can be acquired, but the definition and quality of the Wali of Allah is that he gets up in the third portion of the night, for it is then that Allah announces to the angels ‘Come, I will tell you who I have given the title and status of Wilayat to. I have made this person a Qutb, that person an Abdal.’
SubhanAllah – Abdal! The one with this title, when he passes away – for instance, if an Abdal passes away in India – then let me tell you what happens in the third part of the night; these are the principles of Tasawwuf. In the third part of the night, Allah announces ‘I will send this Abdal to India to replace the Abdal who is about to pass away there, so that he can do the work of the Deen.’ This is Allah’s designation and selection. Then Allah controls that region, and in Bolton, here, there, and in whatever region, Allah ta’ala has made a system so that His work can be continued through the Awliya who have been selected.
We can’t recognize who they are, those people who wake up in the night and whose Duas save us from destruction and from difficulties, due to whom Allah ta’ala gives rain, due to whom Allah ta’ala gives wealth, due to whom, despite all our disobedience, earthquakes and destruction do not strike here. We witness ourselves that our women walk naked in the streets, our daughters walk around naked and they drink alcohol and commit lewd actions, immodesty is both inside and outside the home. I am talking about people with Iman, not those who don’t have Iman. What actions don’t take place in our homes? All night long and all day long, young women - children, girls – are engaged in a storm of immodesty and the actions of gangsters. These people have lost their shame. We have lost our shame and our children have lost their shame in these actions that they do. But SubhanAllah, how is it that we are saved? It is due to the Duas of a Wali of Allah that we are being saved, Allahu Akbar. He begs Allah ‘Ya Allah, have Mercy! Hear me Ya Allah – they do not know! Ya Allah, they have no knowledge!’ The wrath of Allah starts to come and then it returns, because Allah says ‘Due to this man, My Haya and modesty is invoked. My Wali, My friend, has raised his hands and is begging me, so shall I send Adhab there? No - My modesty pulls back My anger!’ Allahu Akbar.
When a Wali of Allah passes away in his region, I swear by Allah, that place becomes numb. The birds cry there, the walls cry there, the dogs and cats cry there, saying ‘Oh, the Wali of Allah has died, he has left! He has gone from this place, so what is going to happen to us?’ This is how the animals feel, so don’t walk around big-headed. Who do we think we are? We commit so many wrong actions and weigh down the earth with so much oppression. We take the Ni’mahs from Allah, and then commit indecencies and do immodest actions – and then we complain to Allah! We blame Allah, and yet we stand, big-headed, and disobey Allah openly – we drink alcohol, do Gheebat, we lie, our women and men walk around naked. We reject our parents and tell them ‘Oh, get out of the house! You are old – get out! What are you doing here mother, father – don’t tell me what to do! I have come to this world and I have to earn just as you have to earn. Why are you telling me what to do?’ Is this not happening my brothers? So do we deserve anything? Can such a person deserve anything? Why does Allah give a person Rizq after he does so many Haram actions? We cannot do justice with our challenging of Allah – the Hisab of those people is something else. Allah says ‘I have made Jannah for them here, because you cannot imagine what will happen to them afterwards.’
The Qur’an is in our hands, and Allah ta’ala has given us Masjids. We have the Qur’an in our hands, my brothers – and Bukhari as well. Allah has given us such great Kitabs – do we do wrong actions even after that? So many great lessons are in front of us, and Allah has given us Jumu’ah where we can listen to Khutbahs and sermons about the Qur’an. There are beautiful words on every page. Allah is saying ‘Do you think what I have given to you is story-telling? Shall I give it to other people then, and make you like them, eating the flesh of swine and cats and doing Haram? Shall I give the Qur’an to them?’ Can you imagine these Masjids being given to them and you being turfed out? Can this happen or not? Tell me. Is this impossible? It is not our fathers’ Deen, rather it is Allah’s Karam and mercy that we are sat in the Masjid. Allah ta’ala can replace us with other people, can He not? Of course! But our hair does not stand up when we hear these things, and we don’t feel ashamed.
We don’t have Haya, so what are we doing? We criticize and challenge the Sunnahs of Nabi al-Karim – imagine, imagine! Due to that Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam the world is in existence – it is due to him. His status is so great – he is the Beloved of Allah. Who is the most beloved to Allah ta’ala? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam! And what is most beloved to him? His Sunnah! Allah says ‘Whoever loves My Mehboob, I love him’, and His Mehboob sallallahu alayhi wasallam says ‘Whoever loves my Sunnah, I love him’ – here’s the condition. That is the condition –end of story. But people say ‘Oh Sunnah – what is the Sunnah? Forget the Sunnah – don’t tell me about Sunnah. It is not necessary.’ Who is saying this? A person who has the Qur’an in his home. He is making these statements. ‘Oh, leave Sunnah – it is not necessary. It is minor and insignificant and there’s no need to practice it. It is not compulsory.’
And yet Allah ta’ala has made this the basis of His love – {قُلۡ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ }. Allah says ‘This is the condition – I will only love you when you love My Mehboob. Oh My Mehboob, tell them how they can love you!’ And he replies ‘Oh Allah, I love that person who loves my Sunnah: “من احب سنتى فقد احبنى”’ Is this not the case? Allah ta’ala comes back to His verse then – what guarantee does Allah give? He looks to the one that He loves, and the Prophet says ‘He who loves me, I will take him by the hand and walk him into Paradise.’ But this is all just like story-time or folk-tales for us. We can’t even grow four hairs on our chin. Why? But they say ‘Oh no, no – I am an Ashiq; I am a lover; I am a very great Ashiq!’ This is all play-acting, so leave this play-acting and fake practice. Do actions for the grave – think about the grave. My brothers, these are all life’s nonsense and shaytani actions. Do we understand the reality of who Allah loves, of who the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam loves, of who he will do intercession for, of who those people are, men and women? Tell me.
So – ah yes, the virtues. Let us return to that. The Sunnah of every Prophet and Wali of Allah is being implemented when you stand for worship in the night – imagine the Thawab for the Sunnah of the Prophets and the Awliya’llah. They would go to bed and sleep two hours – this was what all of the Prophets of Allah, all 124,000 of them did, and you will be implementing the Sunnah of every one of them. Say SubhanAllah – this is for waking up in the night. So kick the mattress, reject its call, and say ‘From now on, no matter what happens, I am going to get up in the night.’ Will we do this? InshaAllah.
Now – the second principle: Allah subhana wa ta'ala draws the person who wakes up in the night near to Himself – that person attains Allah’s Qurb. Allah is giving this guarantee. Allah ta’ala is saying ‘The biggest Waseelah to obtaining My Qurb is learning to get up in the night. Do this, and you will get closer and closer to Me. You will draw near to me.’ That is why the Tariqa that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam taught of taking a Qailula in the afternoon is such a fantastic action. The definition of Qailula is not that you get under a quilt on the mattress and sleep for three or four hours. No, Qailula is even if you lean back on a chair for ten minutes - I have done this. If you lean back on a chair at work for five minutes with the Niyyah for Qailula, you will get such an intense sleep that full satisfaction and enjoyment is attained from those five minutes. You will have fulfilled the Sunnah of Qailula, and where will that benefit you? What will it deliver to you? It will give you all the virtues because it will wake you up in the night. Look at the connection that our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam gave between the action of Qailula and getting up for worship at night – they are linked together.
So if we get up at night, what should we do? We should sleep a little bit during the day. But this doesn’t mean filling up on chapatis and then sleeping for hours – that is not Qailula. I have seen Qailula demonstrated in the Khanqah – we have spent our life with the Dervaishes who were with the Wali of Allah, Allahu Akbar. They would have dry chapati, and then every Dervaish would lie down. When I went for the first time, I asked ‘What is this practice that they are doing in the Khanqah?’ The reply came: ‘You will realise when they wake up at 2.30am in the night and do Tasbeeh of ‘Allah, Allah’. Then you will realise the miracle of this sleep in the afternoon. You try it.’ So I said ‘Okay, I will’, and lay down. SubhanAllah, this was a different style, for the Qailula was for ten or fifteen minutes, not sleeping and snoring for hours. That is not Qailula. Do you understand what I am saying? You may say ‘Oh no, no, I drive a taxi’ – okay, take your Qailula in the taxi. Do you die when you sleep? Ok, if you have to work, then do it while you are working, and then Allah ta’ala says that when you do so, making the Niyyah for getting up in the night, then Allah ta’ala will automatically make it easy for you to do that action. Say SubhanAllah. So this is a benefit for those men and women who wake up in the night. Do you understand?
Here is another Hadith that I would like to share with you. We commit sins all day – we are human beings, not angels, aren’t we? We are born and sins arise inside us, so we do Tawbah and then we sin again, and then repent again and come back again. So what does Allah ta’ala say? He says ‘My angels are writing all the sins that you keep committing, but, oh My servant, when you wake up in the night, I wipe away all your sins!’ Say SubhanAllah. You become totally pure because Allah ta’ala says ‘This is My time. I want to make you My Wali, so will I leave you impure? Are you mad? First, I will wash you internally and direct that all your sins be wiped away so you are purified. I will make you as clean as an angel and stand you up at the time of Tahajjud.’ SubhanAllah!
Another Hadith has come that I will share with you. Allah is saying ‘Your sins are wiped away, but now that you are standing here, I am going to confer Maqams and status upon you such that I don’t just eliminate your sins; rather, I want to compensate you for the sins you committed that have been wiped away!’ This is Allah’s amazing glory and Rahmah. ‘Oh Allah, do you want to compensate me?’ Allah says ‘Yes! I want to give you more: all the sins you committed are wiped away, and then I will convert that number of sins into good deeds!’ The servant asks, ‘Oh Allah – why are You doing this?’ The reply: ‘I am doing this because you obeyed Me. You have stood up in front of Me in the third part of the night, having crushed your desires and left your bed {تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمۡ}.’ You have tossed and turned from side to side and have detached yourself from the mattress. You haven’t gone towards Haram, and you have left your Halal wife, and have abandoned your passions and desires, saying ‘Allah, I want You!’ You could have just carried on sleeping in your bed, saying ‘Oh no, I don’t need to do this.’ Those people who are married or are about to get married, pay attention. Understand that this time is precious, so put your wife to the side for a few moments, and stand for the sake of Allah, SubhanAllah.
Challenges come in life, yes - Allah tests a person in many different ways. But remember one thing – once you have started, be solid, no matter what comes in life and whatever gets in the way. That’s it. If illness or sickness comes, I have told you the formula to follow in that case. Just sit there on the bed and recite ten times ‘SubhanAllah wal-hamdulillah, wa la ilaha illa-llah, wa-llahu Akbar’, then ten times Astaghfar, then ten times Durood Sharif, and you will obtain the full Thawab.
There are many Hadiths that keep coming to mind, but now we have to do Dhikr as well inshaAllah, so this is enough. With the Fadhl of Allah, my battery is charged – you have charged my battery, MashaAllah. I make the Niyyah today as well. I am very lazy and negligent, while you are good, pious people MashaAllah. You pray and you do wake up, so make Dua for me so that I can become good at waking up. May Allah ta’ala give me the Tawfeeq. You are good, pious brethren, MashaAllah, and it is due to you that I am sitting here, alhamdulillah. May Allah ta’ala make us all His beloved servants and allow us to do those actions which make us His beloved servants. May Allah ta’ala take us far from actions that are play-acting and make our hearts such that we do not accept any nonsense, SubhanAllah. Ameen. You know, there are many games and dramas today, so may Allah ta’ala enable our hearts to put those dramas to one side, knowing what the real Deen is and not giving in to Nafs and not feeling like doing wrong actions, not inclining towards them. May Allah ta’ala make our hearts like this. And may Allah ta’ala make us only understand good things that penetrate our hearts in a good way. That is the real Deen and the rest is a drama, a fake.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen