Which Will be the Best Deed on the Day of Qiyamah?
The gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was once asked ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, which Ibadah will be the greatest and have the highest rank on the Day of Judgement?’ SubhanAllah – this is a very big question. This Hadith is present in Jami’ul Usool. The first thing that we need to understand here is what Qiyamah is – and the reality of the Qiyamah is not hidden. Allah ta’ala tells us clearly in the noble Qur’an; Qiyamah has been mentioned clearly. There is no bigger event than Qiyamah in the Hereafter, and no human being who has ever been born will escape this – everyone will pass through this. It is not optional; it is not an event about which anyone can say ‘Okay fine - I will attend,’ or ‘No, I don’t want this to happen to me.’ This is a very big reality – just as death is. You know this - after death and the grave, the next phase is Qiyamah. And this is the definition of Iman. This is the meaning of faith – remember this. And the more a person’s Iman strengthens and increases, that becomes his Aqidah, his conviction. What comes after Iman? Aqidah, belief – a person’s belief strengthens and develops.
However, a person’s conditions and circumstances affect him to a great extent, and that is why the gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that as the gap in days and years from his time increases, people’s mindsets will change, and Fitnah and Fasad will increase, and shaytan and Nafs will grow in strength and influence. People of Iman will be present, but what will happen? Their Aqaaid will be very weak; Iman will be very weak - this comes from those words every one of which is truthful. So when the importance of this event comes out of people’s hearts, and they say ‘Oh, it’s just Qiyamah - it comes after death; yes, it’s okay.’ But if we look at it from a serious point of view, it is a massive reality.
Look, if I think about my family today and the home in which I spent my early life, MashaAllah, even today, the scene of my family home is in front of me. How many years must have passed since then? There were thirteen members of the family – children, grandparents, father. It was a big place with three floors, a big house, alhamdulillah, with land as well - we were landowners. And everyone had his own room – it was full of life. The house had a total of sixteen rooms, with attached bathrooms and so on. I am telling you this because this shows the reality of a human being – if I close my eyes and think back, I can go back there right now to that same home. Obviously, it has gone now – we left it long ago – but if I went to that house, it would be a shock. I would think ‘What has happened here?’ Of those thirteen people, only four are still visible, and they are bed-ridden. Nine people of that household have disappeared. So tell me, if I went there and asked ‘Where is my brother? Where is my sister? Where are my grandparents? Where is Cha-Cha Gi and the rest of my relatives?’ the reply would be ‘Everyone has gone! They have disappeared.’ And the four that are left are all elderly and are ready to depart. That is the reality, but the situation with Insan is that Waswasah and the environment influence and overwhelm a person, and then he meets reality at the end.
So the reality of Qiyamah has been explained by Allah ta’ala in the Qur’an, and those whose hearts have been reformed tremble when they come to those verses. They become filled with fear and awe about Qiyamah and wonder what will happen to them in the light of those verses and the Hadith. But as for us, we listen to them as if they are a story, and we don’t have any concern. This is the reason that we go to the friends of Allah; the objective is that the freshness of Iman comes into our hearts and these feelings can arise. And that is what Allah ta’ala says in the Qur’an, where it is made clear that the biggest Alim is the one who has Khashiyah in his heart. The praise of the Alim has been made, and the biggest of Alims are those in whose hearts there is fear. It is not about Bukhari or the Muwatta of Imam Malik; Allah ta’ala has explained this in a verse of the Qur’an regarding the people of knowledge, where Allah ta’ala says that the biggest Alim is that person into whose heart fear and Khashiyah has entered. If fear has entered a person, he cannot halt his preparation even for a second, that preparation for the place to which he knows he will have to go – say SubhanAllah. Tell me – Allah’s Qur’an is saying this about the people of knowledge. {إِنَّمَا يَخۡشَى} – is this not a verse of the Qur’an? But the basis of our thinking has changed. Our approach to everything has altered – think about it.
So if there is no fear of Allah in the heart, if there is no Khashiyah, then that body is a waste; his Dhikr is a waste if there is no Khashiyah in that action. If Dhikr does not develop Khashiyah inside you and me, then it is not benefitting us – remember this. Remember this, that if the company of the Sheikh does not change your heart, then that Sohbat is not giving any benefit to you and me; there is something lacking inside us. There is nothing lacking in the person who is giving, but what is lacking is something in our Niyyah, in our sincerity. There is nothing lacking in Dhikr, rather there is something lacking in me, because I am not doing Dhikr with the right intention. Yes? There is nothing lacking in the Qur’an; there is no gap there – rather, the gap is in ourselves. We touch the Qur’an and read it, but we do not do so in the way that we should. The Noor of the Qur’an is present, and the benefits are there, and there is nothing lacking in ‘Ilm, or in Bukhari Sharif, or in the Kitabs. No, there is something lacking inside us.
SubhanAllah, my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh said ‘There is nothing lacking in the Alim nor in the student apart from the right intention – and this is lacking in both of them!’ Ajeeb! This was said in a great gathering of scholars – Muftis and other great personalities were sitting there when Hadhrat Sahib said this. Hadhrat Sahib just made this small statement, and all of them were Sufis and straightaway they exclaimed ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’ – they started saying this from all sides. This was in a Khanqah which was full of people with pure hearts; it was a big congregation of Ulema. Mufti Abdul Sattar Sahib rahimahu’llah was there – what a great man! He was Mufti al-A’zam at Khair ul-Madaris at that time –it was he who prayed Hadhrat Sahib’s Janazah Salah, and he was present at that gathering. But when the friends of Allah say something, it is a cure which makes hearts come to life. If we have the Niyyah that we are going to the company of a friend of Allah in order to make our hearts come to life, then it cannot be that the hearts will not become alive. Come with this Niyyah: ‘I want to make my heart come to life because I have got big problems and defects, as well as difficulties and worries; I am surrounded by sins!’ and then Allah says ‘There is nowhere else you can get a cure – { َكُونُواْ مَعَ ٱلصَّـٰدِقِينَ}.’
So make Niyyah – correct your intention. Hadhrat Sahib said that what is lacking in both the Alim and the student is that they don’t have the right Niyyah. Who did those with the correct Niyyahs become? Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi’i and Imam Malik. They read these Kitabs, and they studied Fiqh and delved into jurisprudence, but what was the difference? That when they heard those words, those Walis of Allah and those Ulema would tremble. So what we need is the right Niyyah. How can it be otherwise, when the Qur’an has announced that a person who does feel fear is not an Alim? The heart is the fountain, so correct the heart and reform the heart. This should be our Niyyah, that everything we are attaining, in whatever form, and every Amal that we are implementing, whether reading Qur’an, reciting, acquiring ‘Ilm – whatever action you are performing and whatever you are attaining – there should be just one objective: ‘I need to develop the fear of Allah in my heart.’ This is the peak, or you could say the summary, or the essence.
If you don’t have fear in your heart, you will not be successful in the Akhirah, because the grave means nothing to you and death is nothing to you; all that matters is two plus two equals four in your shop. It’s all about money and wealth and the material things a person can see in front of him. Beyond that, there is nothing – he doesn’t even know that there is something after that. His idea of accounting is two plus two, and when he is hungry, his answer to two plus two is ‘Four chapattis.’ This is our Hal - the temporary, material things have overwhelmed us and even when we think about doing the work of the Deen, all we look at is the money. We look for status in respect of Deeni actions, and we think ‘What is the benefit in this for me? What gains will I make on the back of this? What expenses will I have? How much Dunya can I make? What resources will I get out of it?’ So it is us who are spoiled, even though the elements of the Deen are the same and the Noor is present within them. They cannot change – they are sparkling and glowing. Even today, there are people who want to change; even though they may be one in a hundred thousand, such people are present here today. They attain the same ‘Ilm and become Alims full of Khashiyah and fear; there are Alims like this today and there are reciters of the Qur’an like this today as well - you can find people who have this quality.
So regarding the discussion about Yawm al-Qiyamah, about this great Hadith of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam and this very important message, a person should rejoice when he hears this. If you have read about Qiyamah, about how severe Qiyamah is, the feeling when you hear this Hadith should be as if you have thrown water over the fire; after hearing it, you will sleep easy. Your sleep will be so comfortable when you understand the reality. We have seen people die, and our Iman is there, but we don’t have Aqidah. Yes? Beyond Iman there should be Aqidah, but we don’t have Aqidah. Brothers, sisters, father, uncle – we see all these people departing in death, but we still don’t believe. We should think that we are also going to die, and we are also going to go into the Hereafter, so we should reflect on where we will go, and where we will not go. But we don’t think like this. Rather, when someone dies, we think, ‘Quickly, quickly, let me get my share of this person’s inheritance. How much money will I get? Oh, forget him – he’s gone. His car is mine and that shop is mine and I want to know how much else I will get from him. What is my share?’ This is our function these days in the Dunya. While their mother is dying, the children start fighting over her bangles - I am not making this up. Before they have even come off her hands, they start fighting about her bangles and her rings. Imagine what kind of people these are and what their situation will be on the Day of Qiyamah.
Why does this happen? It happens because we have turned our faces away from the Khanqahs. We have stopped attending them and have stopped acquiring the Sohbat of the friends of Allah. This is the drought that is occurring today. When the Khanqahs were functioning and the Walis of Allah were present, SubhanAllah, the hearts of human beings remained alive. And this is the miracle of a Wali of Allah, that today we are doing Dhikr of Allah in this portion of the night. When I turned around after praying Salah, I was thinking ‘Today we are doing Dhikr late, after Isha, so maybe today there will only be ten or fifteen people here,’ but SubhanAllah, today, my Sheikh’s status and Faidh is being distributed. There are still thirsty people today, and there are also people who can quench that thirst, and they will remain until the Day of Qiyamah. It is not the case that this system has ended. Yes, there may be only a few for every hundred thousand – look at how many people live in this town. So many people live here, but Allah has selected these people and Allah says ‘People will arrive for Dhikr, so you carry on – sit down and keep doing your work.’ SubhanAllah. Who has brought me and you here? Tell me. SubhanAllah, Allah has brought us here. And for what has Allah ta’ala specifically brought us here? For Dhikrullah. There is one brother here who has come from far away – people come from the surrounding areas, don’t they? And yet people who live close by run off and say ‘What is happening here? Oh, let’s leave quickly before it starts.’ Is this something that a person should leave?
So regarding the Day of Qiyamah, the Sahabi asked, saying ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, may my mother and father be sacrificed for you, tell me about the Day of Qiyamah.’ They knew that there was nothing more severe and momentous than the Day of Qiyamah; the biggest trial of all will occur on the Day of Qiyamah. You cannot imagine the heat – the heat of thousands of exploding atoms bombs would not produce the heat of the Day of Judgement; the Hadith and Qur’an tell us this. Tell me, if it is 100 degrees or 80 degrees outside, we go mad and say ‘Where is a fan?’ People bring fans out – and there will be fans on that Day as well; fans producing a breeze cooler than you can imagine will be activated on that Day. And the switch to turn on those cooling fans is here today. I swear by Allah, if you activate the switch for those fans today, when you arrive there, the button you have pressed today will start that fan up on the Day of Judgement. You can do this here, today, in this world that we are living in, and that is why the Sahabi asked. Allah ta’ala has given us this world for this reason, so that if you prepare today according to those words which I am about to share with you about the grave and Qiyamah, then the Day of Judgement will be like a holiday for you.
Now there is nothing in the world that can compare to the heat of the Day of Judgement, and there is nothing in the world that can compare to the darkness of the Day of Judgement, even the most intense darkness here. There are no words to describe the intensity of the darkness on the Day of Judgement. Allah says in the Qur’an { أَلۡهَٮٰكُمُ ٱلتَّكَاثُرُ (١) حَتَّىٰ زُرۡتُمُ ٱلۡمَقَابِرَ} – Allah is saying ‘You cannot comprehend this, so I am just giving you an example here.’ What will the sweat be like on the Day of Judgement? We don’t know, but there will be so much sweat that people will be drowning in their sweat. So when those events are occurring, imagine if your condition is that you feel as if you are on holiday! There will be people who feel as if they are on holiday on that Day - those who do Amal on this Hadith will feel as if they are on holiday. On the one hand there will be the severity of Qiyamah, but on the other, Allah ta’ala will afford release to people. We are listening because Allah ta’ala loves us, and that is why we are here. Why does Allah ta’ala love us? Because we love the Dhikr of Allah – that is why Allah a’ala loves us. { فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ } – Allah ta’ala says ‘Remember Me and I will remember you.’ I have shared that with you, so inshaAllah, Taqwa will come and Niyyah will come. Do you make Niyyah for this, brothers? Yes.
You shouldn’t waste these things if we have come here for this. You have come from far away and have left your work, and I don’t know what discussions with friends and family you will have sacrificed. You have left shaytan in your house – you have sacrificed that to come here. That is the biggest thing, that you have left shaytan in your home and come here. Such matches that you would have been watching, and quarrels ‘This is mine - he says it’s mine, she says it’s mine’ – you have left all of that and have divorced and detached yourself from that falsehood; you have divorced yourself from the world. You have said ‘I give all three declarations of divorce to the Dunya, because I am going to Allah.’ If you have left such things and come to the house of Allah for this gathering, will Allah not love you? Say SubhanAllah.
So brothers, the Day of Judgement is such a tremendous event, but Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Why are you scared and afraid? If My Habeeb sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told you something in his blessed words, then pay attention and listen to that. What is there to be afraid of?’ Yes, there will be severe challenges in that same place, and so many people will be running around totally naked on that Day, and nobody will know them – no relatives, no associates, nobody at all. But there will be another scene playing out on that Day, where people will be celebrating a holiday and enjoying themselves! This will be the same Day of Qiyamah, but they will be laughing and saying ‘It’s all okay!’ Imagine – those Hadith make this clear. Those enjoying themselves in this way will be those who listened to this Hadith and started making preparation for Qiyamah. This Hadith tells us that a question was posed about the Day of Judgement, and what a great question it was. He didn’t say ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, tell us an Amal.’ He said ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, please tell us the greatest deed for this time.’ The Sahaba asked for and aimed for the highest peak, saying ‘We want to go to that Jannah where you will be, sallallahu alayhi wasallam – we don’t want to leave you, ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. We try to never let your face leave our sight here, so we cannot imagine being without you there. Tell us that place where you will be in Jannah where we can go and continue to see you and do your Ziyarah.’ They were Ashiqs – true Ashiqs, true lovers.
They were not lovers of marches and conferences; they were true lovers, not drama lovers like us. We can’t even keep a beard and other actions and yet we want to be called Ashiqs. We oppose the Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and we do that deed which he disliked the most, a Kabeerah sin. He would not even look at the faces of those who removed their beards. These are the words, so I am warning those who have got short, trimmed beards about this. We will need Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam tomorrow – remember. We will need him, but with this face? Read the Hadith. Even the angels will not recognize you. They will say ‘Who is this person? What kind of face and appearance has he got? Oh, leave him.’ That will be the Hal of the person just due to his beard. So how do we dare not to extend the hair of the beard to four fingers’ length in imitation of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us ‘Do this action – I like this.’ So how can mercy come when a person does a deed which Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam dislikes, a deed which causes Allah’s Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to personally reject that person? He was told ‘People will pray Salah in a manner that will oppose you, and they will spend Ramadhan in opposition to you, and pray Salah in opposition to you, and they will do Dhikr in opposition to you. They will stand there in an appearance and form that opposes you.’ Do you do Tawbah, brothers, or not? Tell me.
What is the benefit of doing this action? Please, tell me one benefit in the world. Okay, forget Deen and forget Akhirah, just tell me one benefit in the world of doing this action that we do. It is a waste of time and a waste of money to shave the face with this blade– how much time are we wasting? Yes? We are messing up the sink, spreading dirty hairs all over the sink, hairs everywhere – tell me one benefit of this action. No? We do it because shaytan has said to us ‘You’re fine – don’t worry, I am going to drag you into hell.’ We are happy with those deeds for which there is nothing for us in the Hereafter. One point to remember today, whether you are thinking about this world or the Hereafter, Allah ta’ala stepped back, saying {قُلۡ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ} – ‘I go back and I put My Nabi in front.’ Allah has stepped back, saying ‘I don’t need your Ibadah, I don’t need your Salah, I don’t need your Qur’an – I step back. I am free from you, and I will only be connected to you when you bring My Nabi along with your deeds.’ SubhanAllah - tell me. This is such a simple fact, but we don’t even understand this.
So what preparation are we making for Qiyamah? Tell me now. We don’t even understand this point, so if we were to die today, what kind of death would it be? A true, honest individual who understands what I have just said will stand in front of Allah and say ‘Oh Allah! I seek Your forgiveness. We have committed a big sin by giving displeasure to Your Nabi!’ A person who doesn’t have Yaqeen on this in his heart does not have an atom’s weight of Iman! The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said “ لاَ يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى أَكُونَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ وَلَدِهِ وَوَالِدِهِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ” ‘How can a person who does not love me be a Muslim?’ He told this to the whole world! He said ‘If I am not more beloved to you than yourself, your children, parents and the whole of mankind, then how can you say that you have Iman?’ “ لاَ يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى أَكُونَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ وَلَدِهِ وَوَالِدِهِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ” The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam defined this.
So do we do Tawbah, brothers? That is when the benefit of this Majlis will come. Don’t put yourselves into the hands of shaytan, for this is such a big trap. What food is he giving you to eat that means you don’t even do Tawbah in respect of this point? I am making this request due to the fact that we are visibly, openly committing this sin, and just like a father, I am urging you to leave this sin for the sake of Allah. Detach yourselves from this sin for the sake of Allah. Why do you spoil yourselves and your children and your homes? Why do you spoil your Ibadaat with this sin? Just let your beard grow to the length of four fingers, to the width of a fist – who will take anything away from you if you do so? Who will fight you or beat you? Shaytan overwhelms people with such a big spell - the Qur’an says that shaytan casts his black magic on human beings. But such people do not understand Qur’an, and they do not have determination or courage because shaytan doesn’t want them to practice. He makes them scared and afraid, and so they tremble and shake, saying ‘Oh, how can I do this? It’s too hard for me.’ It is very bad indeed to think like this.
So to come back to Qiyamah, SubhanAllah, the Sahabi asked Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘What is the greatest Amal? Please tell me the most virtuous deed.’ He was asking for the Afdhal Amal, the highest grade, the highest rank of Ibadah, saying ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, tell me that deed that gives the highest rank and status, the greatest rank. He asked and requested for two things, ‘Oh Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam tell me what the most virtuous and the highest ranking Ibadah on the Day of Judgement will be?’ In other words, he was asking for the Ibadah that would give him the highest Maqam on Qiyamah - say SubhanAllah – and also the Ibadah that would give him the highest level of Paradise; this is what the Sahabi asked.
Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not say ‘Why are you asking? Just for the sake of it?’ No, this was not the case. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam knew that he was asking so that they could do the Ibadah and not waste time, because they had Aqidah, strong belief, that they were going to go to Qiyamah. They were saying ‘We have been told about Qiyamah, so why should we ask about something that will be insignificant at that time?’ SubhanAllah – they were all sat there, and Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam knew that he was not asking for a small thing; a direct discussion was taking place, alhamdulillah. ‘We are not asking for a small thing – tell us the big thing! Tell us about that Ibadah, about that deed that will enable us to attain this.’ How happy must Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam have been that his student was asking this, that with affection, love and passion, he wanted to prepare for Qiyamah; and that Faidh did not end there, for even today, in Bolton, the Faidh of that Sahabi has arrived. Yes? It has reached here via Hadhrat Ali Murtaza qaddasAllahu Sirrah; it has reached us by means of his Faidh, so that we can also practice this.
So will you do this brothers? Is that a true promise? You are not afraid, are you, thinking that a big Amal will be prescribed and that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam will tell you to do some very hard action? Is this the case? Does everyone make this promise? Yes. What a great statement this is - on the Day of Judgement you will be on holiday, in ease and comfort, on the highest Maqam due to the highest-grade Amal that you performed, and that Amal is being shared with us now. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam looked towards the Sahabi, and then said ‘Dhikrullah!’ SubhanAllah – no other answer was given apart from that. Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Oh my companions, in these moments that you are in the world, do no other action. Do Dhikrullah as the Qur’an says - { ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَـٰمً۬ا وَقُعُودً۬ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَڪَّرُونَ}. Do it in this way, the way that the Qur’an has prescribed. { يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَـٰمً۬ا وَقُعُودً۬ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ} Remember Allah when walking, sitting, lying down, sleeping. When walking, do Dhikr, when eating, do Dhikr, when sitting, do Dhikr of Allah, when you are at your shop, do Dhikr of Allah, when you are at home, do Dhikr of Allah; in other words, at every moment, you should be immersed in the Dhikr of Allah. And if you do this in this world, your Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has promised that you will not experience the severity of the Day of Qiyamah. That severity will not be for you. Why? Because this Dhikr of Allah that I am prescribing to you is such an action that Allah ta’ala has stated it will give you the highest Maqam in Jannah, and the highest rank of the Day of Qiyamah.’
SubhanAllah - this is Dhikr of Allah, my brothers. Say SubhanAllah. So we have no need to be afraid. If we adopt this Amal regularly and steadfastly, then Allah ta’ala has promised that this is what you will attain; there is no doubt about this – end of story! This is a solid point. So if Waswasah of shaytan arises now, then cast those thoughts out of your mind. Take up the Tasbeeh and practice this very simple method. Allah has prepared a very easy way for you to do Dhikr; you don’t need to work hard, and you don’t need to make extra effort. There is a very simple method. If you want to adopt Dhikr consistently, then go to a person of Dhikr and sit with him. That’s it – end of story. If I say that I am hungry and I want to eat a take-away, then people will say to me ‘Then go to that take-away and eat the food.’ If I say ‘I want to get meat for my dinner – where should I go?’ then people will say ‘Go to the butchers, buy the meat and then cook it.’ This is the case, isn’t it? It is a simple formula. If I want to buy some flour, then where do I go? I find out which shop sells flour and then I go there.
So if Allah Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has prescribed Dhikrullah and has said that it will take you to the highest Maqam, then Allah ta’ala has clearly stated that if you want to learn Dhikr, go to a teacher of Dhikr and sit with him. Allah is saying ‘I will open that shop for you - I will show you the door and open up that place for you.’ At that place you will get nothing else other than Dhikr - there is no disputation there, no discussion about this or that Masa’alah or other arguments, no questions as to who people are, or where they come from, whether Deobandi or this or that, no splits and arguments about contentious questions, nothing of the sort. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has promised that the Aqidah of whoever does Dhikr will be correct; his Aqidah will be correct, his belief will be correct, and his Amal will be correct. He will be a person who follows the path of Haq, because a person who doesn’t follow the path of Haq cannot influence you. If I am on the Haq, for instance, how can a person not attain a high rank? It is proven that Dhikr is an action which makes a human being totally pure and correct.
So we should realize that Allah has told us about the Ahl-adh-Dhikr; if we want to ask somebody a Mas’alah, who should we ask? Who is named in the Qur’an? Not the Alim – the Huffadh will know this. {فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ} Who should you ask if you want to know? The Ahl-adh-Dhikr. We interpret this as meaning the scholars, don’t we, but the Qur’an does not say that. What does the Qur’an say? {أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡر} If you do not know, then ask the Ahl-adh-Dhikr - {فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ}. People have written beautiful points about this. Ask the scholar, for the scholars know the Masa’il – they have the knowledge, so they should be asked the questions. But the Qur’an has differentiated between types of scholar in a beautiful way here, saying ‘Ask an Alim who is Ahl-adh-Dhikr.’ There are two types of Alims – on one hand is the dry, barren Alim, and on the other is the Alim who is a Dhakir; and the Alim who will give you the right answer is the Alim of Ahl-adh-Dhikr; the Dhakir Alim will give you the right answer. Say SubhanAllah.
Do you understand this commentary? Do you understand what I am saying? Yes? I heard this myself from the friend of Allah. Dhikr is such a great action and we have proven here that it corrects their Aqidah, and it corrects their Masa’il, and it corrects their understanding, and it corrects their practice, because Allah has promised that He will give this high-level reward and rank. And a person cannot be a true and honest Dhakir unless he keeps the company of a teacher of Dhikr; and if that teacher is correct himself, if his Ibadah and his Amal are correct, if you are learning from him, then this will rub off on you and you will become correct as well – say SubhanAllah. That’s it.
So just put your hands together and don’t fall into traps and disputes and start asking ‘Why don’t you do this? Why do you say this? Why are you doing this? Are you honest?’ If he is sat there, whatever he is doing is totally correct. What we are doing is totally correct, because this is what Allah ta’ala has promised from Ahl-adh-Dhikr, SubhanAllah. Whatever is lacking in us, Allah ta’ala will fill that gap; Allah will continue to deliver us and take us to the truth. So when the student goes to the Majlis, he will not look for shortcuts, and that Wali will clearly say what is Halal and what is Haram, what is lawful and unlawful. He will not cheat or look for shortcuts or play games – his Nasiha will be clear: this is Halal and this is Haram. That Dervaish will not take shortcuts and try to contaminate the issue and play games; the matter is straightforward – leave Haram and go towards Halal. SubhanAllah – that’s it; end of story.
The fact is that this is the determination we need. Don’t look for shortcuts – the Sheikh doesn’t take shortcuts. He doesn’t think ‘Oh no, if I tell them the truth, then I won’t get their charity – they won’t give any money and I won’t get anything from him. If I tell the truth, then he won’t come back again; if I say this, then a dispute or quarrel may break out. He is a wealthy man – how will we get supporters here and succeed materially if I tell the truth? No, no, no, I don’t want to upset him – if I say the Haq to him, he will run away and never come back. Oh, I don’t want to upset him.’ No, the Wali of Allah, the Faqeer, will say the truth whether people like it or not. He says ‘If a rich man comes to me, I send him back poor. And when a poor man comes, I will send him back as a rich person in the Hereafter.’ This is how he thinks, SubhanAllah. This is the reality. You won’t hear ‘Oh, you don’t have to do this and that;’ just straightforwardly ‘This is Haram and that is Halal’ – he says the truth and is honest and tells you that you must correct yourselves.
This is what Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, SubhanAllah, so prepare for Qiyamah properly so that we are playing on that day and smiling and laughing. Those people will say ‘We heard all these things about Qiyamah, that the Hisab and the Kitab would be hard and so on, but it seems like we have come to Paradise!’ They bypass the Hisab and the Kitab and will be taken into Jannah without that trial – have you not read this? It says that the Dhakir will enter into Jannah laughing. Yes? He will be laughing while he enters into Jannah. So let us take hold of this path of Dhikr today – will you take hold of it, brothers? Go to a Wali of Allah, to a teacher of Dhikr, and explain your Hal to him, your condition and your circumstances, and then {جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا }- do Mujahidah, strive, make an effort. Allah ta’ala says { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ }, so when you come to this path, your job is to work hard, and Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Then in return, I undertake to show you the path, the right path, the Straight Path, so leave the paths of Haram. Your hearts will be guided automatically, and Allah will not allow you to go towards Haram.’ If your hands still want to go towards Haram, then Allah has promised { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ }, so take hold of that Straight Path, go to a Wali of Allah, a Sheikh, and learn Dhikr – and then work hard and make effort on that.
So what is the Mujahidah referred to by { جَـٰهَدُواْ}? Does it mean staying up and toiling away? No – it is easier than that; it is to complete the amount of Tasbeehs that you are prescribed. To be regular and steadfast on that is called Mujahidah – SubhanAllah. That’s it – and you will also be given a sheet; and I am speaking about my method here, for every sheikh has his own method and system. It is a simple matter – you go and meet the teacher and explain to him that you are fearful of Qiyamah and that you want to correct yourself. Go with the true Niyyah that you want to be reformed, and then listen to his words and advice and then practice on it. Be consistent on the Dhikr that he prescribes to you, whether it is fifty or sixty Tasbeehs, because the definition of Mujahidah is being consistent on what has been prescribed. We are living in such a dangerous situation that shaytan will try to stop you following that prescription and will make you think ‘Oh, I am lazy – I can’t do it.’ No, present yourself in the gatherings of Dhikr every morning and evening – that is Mujahidah. That is working hard, so how difficult is it for you to do that? Just come to Allah’s house for Dhikr every morning and evening, and in return, all the severities of Qiyamah will be taken away from you. Yes? Allah is saying that He will guide you due to this Mujahidah.
I am not saying that you should seclude yourself in the mountains or leave your children or isolate yourself and leave your job and business. Allah is not saying this – not at all. Allah is saying ‘Do this and My rewards will come to you. Your business will flourish, your employment will go well, and I will give you ease and comfort. I will give you the food and bread you need so that you can live in comfort and can continue to do My Dhikr easily and comfortably.’ These are the paths that Allah ta’ala has promised to open up. Consistency and regularity means to go to where your Sheikh sits, and attend the morning and evening Majalis steadfastly and regularly; this is the definition of Mujahidah. Say SubhanAllah. Don’t take shortcuts and bunk off sometimes, attending when you feel like it and not when you don’t, because if you do, Allah will give to you in proportion to that and will say ‘I will put a cap on this person because he is not following the path; he is just an empty husk and is running after the Dunya.’ Come in the same way that you go to your shop, regularly, from morning until evening. You do that, don’t you? But what do you get from there? Just an envelope at the end of the month, with which you buy chickens, eat well and then go to the toilet and pass stool. Do you think you have earned a lot? This is nothing! Allah is saying ‘Come here for thirty minutes every morning and thirty minutes every evening, and for that I will remove from you all the severities of the Day of Judgement!’ Can you compare the two? So will you come brothers? Yes?
I am just reminding you every week, but it is for you to react, alhamdulillah. Yes? Don’t think about where you live – the further you come, the more Thawab you will get. Remember this. If you are coming from Liverpool and you tell someone that you are going to come here every morning to pray Fajr, people will say ‘Are you mad? Are there no Masjids here?’ But that person will reply, ‘They are fine for you, but I am going there because that is where I will get success. The true good news will come to me if I go there and do the action that they do there. I don’t care what you say – I am going.’ People travel two hundred miles for this! Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi rahmatullah alayh used to travel two hundred miles to see his Sheikh Hadhrat Sirajuddin Damaani rahmatullah alayh. When he arrived, his Sheikh would say ‘Is that you who has arrived, Fazal Ali?’ He would reply ‘Yes,’ and the Sheikh would say ‘Okay, sit down. You have missed the Langar but there is water here for you to drink.’ He would arrive with the hunger of so many days on the road, but then he would be told, ‘Okay, lie down and have some sleep.’
My Hadhrat rahmatullah alayh used to say ‘I would walk for three days to reach my Sheikh, and on the way, there was a big river, the river Sind’ – and that river looks like a sea it is so wide; you haven’t seen it, but I am from there, so I have seen it. We used to cross that river on a boat – it is a river, but it seems like a sea, and you have to cross it on a ship; I have sailed on those ships myself. My Sheikh would travel on foot from Gadai Sharif, the village where he lived, and his Sheikh’s instruction was ‘Don’t you dare ask anyone for anything to eat or drink on the way; don’t ask anybody – bring your own provisions.’ So he used to take dried, cooked chick-peas, and this is how he learned the Name of Allah that we are doing here today; that was his Mujahidah, going all the way there from Gadai Sharif. He worked hard – imagine his Maqam today. Once I saw him in a dream in Jannah – SubhanAllah. He was sat in the highest level of Jannah, and his whole family was with him, SubhanAllah. I shook his hand and presented myself, and he gave me a Hukm as well. What Jannah he must be in now! I saw Hadhrat Sahib sitting and enjoying himself in those beautiful surroundings – the image is still before my eyes; I can see that scene in front of me now, SubhanAllah.
We have to spend just a few days in the hardship of this world, my brothers. He put the words of this Hadith into practice, so you too should save yourself from bad actions and take hold of Dhikr; that’s it. We will teach you Dhikr, and then you will learn Qur’an and how to recite and become an Alim and attain fear of Allah – you will develop everything that will elevate you on the Day of Judgement, because Allah has promised. It cannot be that you do this and then get nothing in return, no. Allah will develop all those Ibadaat – you will be enabled to do all this through Dhikr of Allah. When you first came to me, did you pray Tahajjud and Ishraq at that time? You would have said ‘Oh Hadhrat, that is too hard for me,’ but now people go quickly in the morning to do Dhikr – it has become a routine of your life now, hasn’t it? Did you feel able to wear Imamah before you started coming? Tell me – did you wear Imamah? When your heart is small and tight, shaytan has you in his trap, but when you start coming, the hearts immediately get reformed and corrected and gain the courage to say ‘Oh begone with you, shaytan! I have come onto the Path now.’ That is the real reaction.
Allah ta’ala has mentioned the Sibghatullah in the Qur’an – this is a great word. Allah ta’ala says in the Qur’an that there is no colour better than the colour of Allah, but what is the colour of Allah? There can be no physical description of Allah, so what is that colour? Allah is saying ‘If you want to see My colour, then look at the Sunnahs of My Habeeb sallallahu alayhi wasallam. If you want to see My colour, then look at the ways and the effects of My Awliya – that is where you will see My colour.’ So when you go, your job is to immediately embrace the ways of your Sheikh and incorporate them into your lifestyle. People should be able to recognize you from far away and ask you ‘Are you linked to that Sheikh? Do you have a connection with him?’ This happens, doesn’t it? You go into the marketplace or are walking around the shopping centre, and someone says ‘Oh - are you connected with that Sheikh?’ If you ask how he knew just by seeing you walking around, he says ‘Well I can just see that you are connected.’ That is when you know you are succeeding. If the world recognizes you like this today, then on the Day of Judgement, the angels will recognize you as a person of Paradise.
So all of these words represent a systematic method that the Qur’an has told us – it is a syllabus. If we follow that syllabus and study it, then nothing is hard, alhamdulillah. The grave will not be hard, and death will not be hard – in fact, death will seem lovely to you at that time. You will think ‘Let me quickly pass through the doors of death so that I can get to the Hereafter.’ This is success, and this is how the Dhakireen will be at the time of their death. So this working hard is not what we think of as hard work. When you first came, were you able to pray Tahajjud? You thought ‘Oh, Tahajjud is too hard, and praying Ishraq is too hard.’ It seemed hard at that time, but after coming into the practice of Dhikr, look how easy those actions have become for you. Those same things that seemed so hard, Tahajjud and doing this and that and the other, doing Tasbeehat and attending Majalis every morning and evening – that all seemed too hard for you. People think like this – they regard it as too much to do. But for you, it is just a click of your fingers and is not hard at all. You think to yourself ‘Getting up in the morning is not hard – it’s a piece of cake.’ So what has made this change happen? Dhikr of Allah has brought you to this point. You have seen with your own eyes how easy Allah ta’ala makes it, because Allah has promised in the Qur’an and says { جَـٰهَدُواْ} - ‘You work hard, and then I will show you the path of how to pray Tahajjud; it is for Me to wake you up, and I will bring you to My Dhikr - you just have to be determined.’
So do you all make Niyyah for this? Yes! Come and pray Salah here and make a life schedule that incorporates this. Resolve that ‘In the morning I am going to wake up and pray Salah, and then I am going to sit with my Sheikh and do Dhikr, and then I will go to work and run my shop or my business, and when the evening comes, I will partake of the Ni’mahs that Allah ta’ala has given me and will have a first class standard of food and drink, after which I will go into my Sheikh’s company again and then come back home.’ That’s it - Mujahidah has been done. This is such a small thing. Are you afraid of Jannah? And yet here, Allah ta’ala is saving you from Qiyamah itself - so can’t you even do this one small action? And look at our destiny and good fortune - Hadhrat Sahib used to have to go so far to meet his Sheikh, so if you have come from Liverpool, that is nothing. From Liverpool or Blackburn to here is nothing, and if you are local and have to come from within this town, that really is nothing at all.
I have just given you an example of difficulty, namely that a person was hungry and had no food and no clothes. Hadhrat Sahib said that he used to get there at night after the food had all gone, so he would go to sleep hungry. But the next morning, after the Thursday night, he would feel fresh and be ready to do Ziyarah of his Sheikh and do Dhikr of Allah on Friday morning. What great people they were, my friends - tell me! What great people they must have been. And they said that at that time, they would get a piece of dry chapatti and milk to eat – but what chapatti was it? Hadhrat Quraishi Sahib rahmatullah alayh would himself cut down the wheat to make the flour for those chapattis while engaged in Dhikr of Allah, and he would say ‘SubhanAllah, with the Barakah of Dhikr, I am cutting this corn for my Mureeds, and due to this, Allah ta’ala makes the soil soft for me.’ He himself used to cut that corn, and those Noorani womenfolk, those Dhakirahs, those Shakirahs – they were not acting out a drama – used to grind that corn. So he would cut the crop and the womenfolk of his house used to grind it into flour and make the chapattis and prepare vegetables, and then in the evening, those who used to come on Thursday nights to learn Dhikr would become great Qutbs and Abdals and Ghawths.
I am mentioning this because this gathering here today has a connection to Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi’s company. So many of his Mureeds are lying today in Jannat al Baqi in Madina. Hadhrat Abdul Ghafoor Madani Sahib – what names I could tell you! Go to Al Baqi, and you will see the students of Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi rahmatullah alayh; I can point them out to you and tell you whose grave is this and that and the other. My Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh used to say this himself; he would say ‘Look at where the people who ate those chapattis ended up!’ Why? Because the person who harvested that corn was a Dhakir and he cut it himself, and then the Dhakirahs ground it into flour and then cooked it; the people who ate it were Dhakireen and the ones who prepared it were Dhakireen. He would say ‘Our stomachs would be filled by just half of one of those chapattis.’ As soon as morning came, we would do Dhikr; and after the Thursday night and that food and the Dhikr in the morning, we would then go back to the villages and towns where we came from. It would take my Hadhrat take two days to return home – imagine those personalities. Look at how they learned Dhikr of Allah, and the struggle and toil they had to go through. It was he who prescribed Dhikr to me after going through all this.
I will share one statement of my Hadhrat Sheikh rahmatullah alayh with you. He said to me ‘Babu, do you desire that the Muhabbat of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam comes into your heart?’ He asked us this, saying ‘Do you want this?’ - and the love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam is not some minor thing. It is no minor matter to attain the love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Yes? Imagine how desperate those Ashiqs will be. A person who has fallen in love with a woman cannot sleep at night, so imagine a person who loves Allah and his Rasool – will he fall asleep in the night? So my Sheikh was asking ‘Do you really want this love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam to be in your heart? Do you want your sins to be eliminated?’ We said ‘Yes, yes! We want this.’ Then he said ‘And do you want the wretchedness of the world to be eliminated from you?’ Again, we said ‘Yes – we want this!’ And then Hadhrat Sahib asked ‘Do you want to develop passion and desire for good deeds?’ I can show you these words of his in writing. So we put our hands together and said ‘Hadhrat, please, we do want to attain this.’ So then Hadhrat Sahib said ‘Then why don’t you do the Dhikr of Allah?’ SubhanAllah.
The Ghawth of his time was guaranteeing this because he had been given this guarantee himself before from the chain of Sheikhs. That is how he could give that guarantee. Yes? He said ‘This guarantee has come from Rasool-e-Arabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and now I am giving you this guarantee as well. So if you don’t get this from Dhikr, then come and complain to Ali Murtaza; come to me and tell me.’ So will we do Dhikr? Yes?
I have worked hard to explain this, because the gathering tomorrow morning should be as big as this one. Tomorrow is Jumu’ah, and wherever you have come from, love has now been kindled in our hearts. Dhikr is a great deed, and how will we get success? Don’t think ‘I have this sin within me, and I have that defect’ – don’t worry. Take hold of Dhikr, and inshaAllah, before you die you will become whole. Yes? Don’t think ‘I have these habits from before so I have to eliminate them first,’ or ‘Oh, I still have a connection with that woman,’ or ‘I still owe that person money, so I must get rid of that debt first.’ Look, don’t be deceived in this way. Allah says ‘Don’t be ashamed to come in front of Me. It doesn’t matter how many sins you have, still come to Me. You can be ashamed of your father and mother and society, but come to Me naked – I will hide you and put you behind a veil because I am as-Sattar!’ Is this not the attribute of Allah ta’ala? He is as-Sattar, so he says ‘Come to Me naked, full of sins – bare yourself! I will hide you.’ Your mother won’t hide you – she will say ‘He is close to me – he hasn’t committed any sins.’ SubhanAllah – say SubhanAllah!
Allah is great and Kareem and Merciful, so don’t think ‘I will eliminate this sin first; I will stop doing this first and then I will go towards goodness.’ No. Allah says ‘I am not interested in this – come to Me! At least come to Me. Come to me and I will eliminate all of your wrongs – don’t worry.’ So don’t be deceived by thinking that you have committed many sins and you have to get rid of them first – it doesn’t matter. Allah says ‘You practice, and I am as-Sattar so I will hide them and reward you on top of that. Allah is saying ‘There is only one way to meet Me – only one Tariqah.’ What is that? It is Dhikrullah, about which Allah says { فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ } – ‘ You remember Me and I will remember you. You remember Me and come to Me, and My Rahmah will overtake you.’ That’s it – straightforward; end of story.
This is Allah’s prescription - don’t leave Dhikr; be steadfast every morning and evening. Okay? And don’t think that you have to leave sins first – no. Just make a Niyyah – ‘InshaAllah, when I die, I will die on that Maqam that Allah ta’ala has promised for the Dhakireen. I will be steadfast so that I can die as one of them. Allah has made this promise in the Qur’an. So if you are forced to do wrong or there is illness or other difficulties and ups and downs occur, or if you can’t open your eyes, even that is forgiven. Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh said that your attendance will be recorded as if you were there, SubhanAllah. The angels will say that he didn’t arrive, but they will be told ‘Oh no – he came. Write down that he came!’ They will be forced to write that he was there.
So, brothers, will you come? Is that a true promise? Okay, that is all I can do. I can only do this – never mind you, I am telling myself that I should come; I am reminding myself as well. You will definitely come, but a person like me, who is weak and useless and has nothing to his name, might slip up. I might oversleep, so make Dua for ‘Afiya. May Allah ta’ala not give us an illness that causes us to put the brakes on, because illnesses can come, can’t they? A person can get a bad back or a stomachache or a stiff neck, in which case what can person do, the poor soul? He can’t do anything. So make Dua that Allah gives me ‘Afiya, wellbeing and good health so that we can physically arrive and attend, and so that we do not stop, with the Fadhl of Allah.
Remember one thing: we are in the era of severe sicknesses today, so make a promise to Allah that we will not stop despite these sicknesses. Listen to me carefully. Pledge to Allah that despite these sicknesses, we will still come, and Allah will say ‘Promise Me this, and I will not let the sickness come to you!’ Say SubhanAllah. Very few people among us are sick, and if someone is just a little bit sick, he still reaches the gathering of Dhikr. Allah says ‘If you are courageous like this, then I am your Rabb, and I will not let the sickness come to you.’ Those people who are regular in Dhikr get affected by sickness very seldom, and if they are affected, they only experience light discomfort, just for the sake of raising them. Allah says, ‘Look, I have made you a little unwell, so sit down for a while and rest.’ Then Allah gives the injection and rewards that person fully at that time. If he has a high fever, a temperature and a bit of flu, understand that Allah ta’ala has given him a rest, a little respite. Allah Himself is saying ‘Just stop here for a while and recover.’
But more often, Allah ta’ala doesn’t allow a person to get sick. Many people who have a problem, such as migraine, start Dhikr and then they don’t even know where their migraines went. I have seen many instances such as this come in front of me, because nothing is in control of the human being – he becomes healthy when he starts this. For example, Allah ta’ala is the One who gives release from Corona or other sicknesses that may come. Who gives this relief? Allah! It is Allah who brings ease after the hardship.
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do Amal on these points. Ameen
Recite Durood Sharif.
The gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was once asked ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, which Ibadah will be the greatest and have the highest rank on the Day of Judgement?’ SubhanAllah – this is a very big question. This Hadith is present in Jami’ul Usool. The first thing that we need to understand here is what Qiyamah is – and the reality of the Qiyamah is not hidden. Allah ta’ala tells us clearly in the noble Qur’an; Qiyamah has been mentioned clearly. There is no bigger event than Qiyamah in the Hereafter, and no human being who has ever been born will escape this – everyone will pass through this. It is not optional; it is not an event about which anyone can say ‘Okay fine - I will attend,’ or ‘No, I don’t want this to happen to me.’ This is a very big reality – just as death is. You know this - after death and the grave, the next phase is Qiyamah. And this is the definition of Iman. This is the meaning of faith – remember this. And the more a person’s Iman strengthens and increases, that becomes his Aqidah, his conviction. What comes after Iman? Aqidah, belief – a person’s belief strengthens and develops.
However, a person’s conditions and circumstances affect him to a great extent, and that is why the gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that as the gap in days and years from his time increases, people’s mindsets will change, and Fitnah and Fasad will increase, and shaytan and Nafs will grow in strength and influence. People of Iman will be present, but what will happen? Their Aqaaid will be very weak; Iman will be very weak - this comes from those words every one of which is truthful. So when the importance of this event comes out of people’s hearts, and they say ‘Oh, it’s just Qiyamah - it comes after death; yes, it’s okay.’ But if we look at it from a serious point of view, it is a massive reality.
Look, if I think about my family today and the home in which I spent my early life, MashaAllah, even today, the scene of my family home is in front of me. How many years must have passed since then? There were thirteen members of the family – children, grandparents, father. It was a big place with three floors, a big house, alhamdulillah, with land as well - we were landowners. And everyone had his own room – it was full of life. The house had a total of sixteen rooms, with attached bathrooms and so on. I am telling you this because this shows the reality of a human being – if I close my eyes and think back, I can go back there right now to that same home. Obviously, it has gone now – we left it long ago – but if I went to that house, it would be a shock. I would think ‘What has happened here?’ Of those thirteen people, only four are still visible, and they are bed-ridden. Nine people of that household have disappeared. So tell me, if I went there and asked ‘Where is my brother? Where is my sister? Where are my grandparents? Where is Cha-Cha Gi and the rest of my relatives?’ the reply would be ‘Everyone has gone! They have disappeared.’ And the four that are left are all elderly and are ready to depart. That is the reality, but the situation with Insan is that Waswasah and the environment influence and overwhelm a person, and then he meets reality at the end.
So the reality of Qiyamah has been explained by Allah ta’ala in the Qur’an, and those whose hearts have been reformed tremble when they come to those verses. They become filled with fear and awe about Qiyamah and wonder what will happen to them in the light of those verses and the Hadith. But as for us, we listen to them as if they are a story, and we don’t have any concern. This is the reason that we go to the friends of Allah; the objective is that the freshness of Iman comes into our hearts and these feelings can arise. And that is what Allah ta’ala says in the Qur’an, where it is made clear that the biggest Alim is the one who has Khashiyah in his heart. The praise of the Alim has been made, and the biggest of Alims are those in whose hearts there is fear. It is not about Bukhari or the Muwatta of Imam Malik; Allah ta’ala has explained this in a verse of the Qur’an regarding the people of knowledge, where Allah ta’ala says that the biggest Alim is that person into whose heart fear and Khashiyah has entered. If fear has entered a person, he cannot halt his preparation even for a second, that preparation for the place to which he knows he will have to go – say SubhanAllah. Tell me – Allah’s Qur’an is saying this about the people of knowledge. {إِنَّمَا يَخۡشَى} – is this not a verse of the Qur’an? But the basis of our thinking has changed. Our approach to everything has altered – think about it.
So if there is no fear of Allah in the heart, if there is no Khashiyah, then that body is a waste; his Dhikr is a waste if there is no Khashiyah in that action. If Dhikr does not develop Khashiyah inside you and me, then it is not benefitting us – remember this. Remember this, that if the company of the Sheikh does not change your heart, then that Sohbat is not giving any benefit to you and me; there is something lacking inside us. There is nothing lacking in the person who is giving, but what is lacking is something in our Niyyah, in our sincerity. There is nothing lacking in Dhikr, rather there is something lacking in me, because I am not doing Dhikr with the right intention. Yes? There is nothing lacking in the Qur’an; there is no gap there – rather, the gap is in ourselves. We touch the Qur’an and read it, but we do not do so in the way that we should. The Noor of the Qur’an is present, and the benefits are there, and there is nothing lacking in ‘Ilm, or in Bukhari Sharif, or in the Kitabs. No, there is something lacking inside us.
SubhanAllah, my Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh said ‘There is nothing lacking in the Alim nor in the student apart from the right intention – and this is lacking in both of them!’ Ajeeb! This was said in a great gathering of scholars – Muftis and other great personalities were sitting there when Hadhrat Sahib said this. Hadhrat Sahib just made this small statement, and all of them were Sufis and straightaway they exclaimed ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’ – they started saying this from all sides. This was in a Khanqah which was full of people with pure hearts; it was a big congregation of Ulema. Mufti Abdul Sattar Sahib rahimahu’llah was there – what a great man! He was Mufti al-A’zam at Khair ul-Madaris at that time –it was he who prayed Hadhrat Sahib’s Janazah Salah, and he was present at that gathering. But when the friends of Allah say something, it is a cure which makes hearts come to life. If we have the Niyyah that we are going to the company of a friend of Allah in order to make our hearts come to life, then it cannot be that the hearts will not become alive. Come with this Niyyah: ‘I want to make my heart come to life because I have got big problems and defects, as well as difficulties and worries; I am surrounded by sins!’ and then Allah says ‘There is nowhere else you can get a cure – { َكُونُواْ مَعَ ٱلصَّـٰدِقِينَ}.’
So make Niyyah – correct your intention. Hadhrat Sahib said that what is lacking in both the Alim and the student is that they don’t have the right Niyyah. Who did those with the correct Niyyahs become? Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi’i and Imam Malik. They read these Kitabs, and they studied Fiqh and delved into jurisprudence, but what was the difference? That when they heard those words, those Walis of Allah and those Ulema would tremble. So what we need is the right Niyyah. How can it be otherwise, when the Qur’an has announced that a person who does feel fear is not an Alim? The heart is the fountain, so correct the heart and reform the heart. This should be our Niyyah, that everything we are attaining, in whatever form, and every Amal that we are implementing, whether reading Qur’an, reciting, acquiring ‘Ilm – whatever action you are performing and whatever you are attaining – there should be just one objective: ‘I need to develop the fear of Allah in my heart.’ This is the peak, or you could say the summary, or the essence.
If you don’t have fear in your heart, you will not be successful in the Akhirah, because the grave means nothing to you and death is nothing to you; all that matters is two plus two equals four in your shop. It’s all about money and wealth and the material things a person can see in front of him. Beyond that, there is nothing – he doesn’t even know that there is something after that. His idea of accounting is two plus two, and when he is hungry, his answer to two plus two is ‘Four chapattis.’ This is our Hal - the temporary, material things have overwhelmed us and even when we think about doing the work of the Deen, all we look at is the money. We look for status in respect of Deeni actions, and we think ‘What is the benefit in this for me? What gains will I make on the back of this? What expenses will I have? How much Dunya can I make? What resources will I get out of it?’ So it is us who are spoiled, even though the elements of the Deen are the same and the Noor is present within them. They cannot change – they are sparkling and glowing. Even today, there are people who want to change; even though they may be one in a hundred thousand, such people are present here today. They attain the same ‘Ilm and become Alims full of Khashiyah and fear; there are Alims like this today and there are reciters of the Qur’an like this today as well - you can find people who have this quality.
So regarding the discussion about Yawm al-Qiyamah, about this great Hadith of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam and this very important message, a person should rejoice when he hears this. If you have read about Qiyamah, about how severe Qiyamah is, the feeling when you hear this Hadith should be as if you have thrown water over the fire; after hearing it, you will sleep easy. Your sleep will be so comfortable when you understand the reality. We have seen people die, and our Iman is there, but we don’t have Aqidah. Yes? Beyond Iman there should be Aqidah, but we don’t have Aqidah. Brothers, sisters, father, uncle – we see all these people departing in death, but we still don’t believe. We should think that we are also going to die, and we are also going to go into the Hereafter, so we should reflect on where we will go, and where we will not go. But we don’t think like this. Rather, when someone dies, we think, ‘Quickly, quickly, let me get my share of this person’s inheritance. How much money will I get? Oh, forget him – he’s gone. His car is mine and that shop is mine and I want to know how much else I will get from him. What is my share?’ This is our function these days in the Dunya. While their mother is dying, the children start fighting over her bangles - I am not making this up. Before they have even come off her hands, they start fighting about her bangles and her rings. Imagine what kind of people these are and what their situation will be on the Day of Qiyamah.
Why does this happen? It happens because we have turned our faces away from the Khanqahs. We have stopped attending them and have stopped acquiring the Sohbat of the friends of Allah. This is the drought that is occurring today. When the Khanqahs were functioning and the Walis of Allah were present, SubhanAllah, the hearts of human beings remained alive. And this is the miracle of a Wali of Allah, that today we are doing Dhikr of Allah in this portion of the night. When I turned around after praying Salah, I was thinking ‘Today we are doing Dhikr late, after Isha, so maybe today there will only be ten or fifteen people here,’ but SubhanAllah, today, my Sheikh’s status and Faidh is being distributed. There are still thirsty people today, and there are also people who can quench that thirst, and they will remain until the Day of Qiyamah. It is not the case that this system has ended. Yes, there may be only a few for every hundred thousand – look at how many people live in this town. So many people live here, but Allah has selected these people and Allah says ‘People will arrive for Dhikr, so you carry on – sit down and keep doing your work.’ SubhanAllah. Who has brought me and you here? Tell me. SubhanAllah, Allah has brought us here. And for what has Allah ta’ala specifically brought us here? For Dhikrullah. There is one brother here who has come from far away – people come from the surrounding areas, don’t they? And yet people who live close by run off and say ‘What is happening here? Oh, let’s leave quickly before it starts.’ Is this something that a person should leave?
So regarding the Day of Qiyamah, the Sahabi asked, saying ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, may my mother and father be sacrificed for you, tell me about the Day of Qiyamah.’ They knew that there was nothing more severe and momentous than the Day of Qiyamah; the biggest trial of all will occur on the Day of Qiyamah. You cannot imagine the heat – the heat of thousands of exploding atoms bombs would not produce the heat of the Day of Judgement; the Hadith and Qur’an tell us this. Tell me, if it is 100 degrees or 80 degrees outside, we go mad and say ‘Where is a fan?’ People bring fans out – and there will be fans on that Day as well; fans producing a breeze cooler than you can imagine will be activated on that Day. And the switch to turn on those cooling fans is here today. I swear by Allah, if you activate the switch for those fans today, when you arrive there, the button you have pressed today will start that fan up on the Day of Judgement. You can do this here, today, in this world that we are living in, and that is why the Sahabi asked. Allah ta’ala has given us this world for this reason, so that if you prepare today according to those words which I am about to share with you about the grave and Qiyamah, then the Day of Judgement will be like a holiday for you.
Now there is nothing in the world that can compare to the heat of the Day of Judgement, and there is nothing in the world that can compare to the darkness of the Day of Judgement, even the most intense darkness here. There are no words to describe the intensity of the darkness on the Day of Judgement. Allah says in the Qur’an { أَلۡهَٮٰكُمُ ٱلتَّكَاثُرُ (١) حَتَّىٰ زُرۡتُمُ ٱلۡمَقَابِرَ} – Allah is saying ‘You cannot comprehend this, so I am just giving you an example here.’ What will the sweat be like on the Day of Judgement? We don’t know, but there will be so much sweat that people will be drowning in their sweat. So when those events are occurring, imagine if your condition is that you feel as if you are on holiday! There will be people who feel as if they are on holiday on that Day - those who do Amal on this Hadith will feel as if they are on holiday. On the one hand there will be the severity of Qiyamah, but on the other, Allah ta’ala will afford release to people. We are listening because Allah ta’ala loves us, and that is why we are here. Why does Allah ta’ala love us? Because we love the Dhikr of Allah – that is why Allah a’ala loves us. { فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ } – Allah ta’ala says ‘Remember Me and I will remember you.’ I have shared that with you, so inshaAllah, Taqwa will come and Niyyah will come. Do you make Niyyah for this, brothers? Yes.
You shouldn’t waste these things if we have come here for this. You have come from far away and have left your work, and I don’t know what discussions with friends and family you will have sacrificed. You have left shaytan in your house – you have sacrificed that to come here. That is the biggest thing, that you have left shaytan in your home and come here. Such matches that you would have been watching, and quarrels ‘This is mine - he says it’s mine, she says it’s mine’ – you have left all of that and have divorced and detached yourself from that falsehood; you have divorced yourself from the world. You have said ‘I give all three declarations of divorce to the Dunya, because I am going to Allah.’ If you have left such things and come to the house of Allah for this gathering, will Allah not love you? Say SubhanAllah.
So brothers, the Day of Judgement is such a tremendous event, but Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Why are you scared and afraid? If My Habeeb sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told you something in his blessed words, then pay attention and listen to that. What is there to be afraid of?’ Yes, there will be severe challenges in that same place, and so many people will be running around totally naked on that Day, and nobody will know them – no relatives, no associates, nobody at all. But there will be another scene playing out on that Day, where people will be celebrating a holiday and enjoying themselves! This will be the same Day of Qiyamah, but they will be laughing and saying ‘It’s all okay!’ Imagine – those Hadith make this clear. Those enjoying themselves in this way will be those who listened to this Hadith and started making preparation for Qiyamah. This Hadith tells us that a question was posed about the Day of Judgement, and what a great question it was. He didn’t say ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, tell us an Amal.’ He said ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, please tell us the greatest deed for this time.’ The Sahaba asked for and aimed for the highest peak, saying ‘We want to go to that Jannah where you will be, sallallahu alayhi wasallam – we don’t want to leave you, ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. We try to never let your face leave our sight here, so we cannot imagine being without you there. Tell us that place where you will be in Jannah where we can go and continue to see you and do your Ziyarah.’ They were Ashiqs – true Ashiqs, true lovers.
They were not lovers of marches and conferences; they were true lovers, not drama lovers like us. We can’t even keep a beard and other actions and yet we want to be called Ashiqs. We oppose the Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and we do that deed which he disliked the most, a Kabeerah sin. He would not even look at the faces of those who removed their beards. These are the words, so I am warning those who have got short, trimmed beards about this. We will need Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam tomorrow – remember. We will need him, but with this face? Read the Hadith. Even the angels will not recognize you. They will say ‘Who is this person? What kind of face and appearance has he got? Oh, leave him.’ That will be the Hal of the person just due to his beard. So how do we dare not to extend the hair of the beard to four fingers’ length in imitation of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam told us ‘Do this action – I like this.’ So how can mercy come when a person does a deed which Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam dislikes, a deed which causes Allah’s Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to personally reject that person? He was told ‘People will pray Salah in a manner that will oppose you, and they will spend Ramadhan in opposition to you, and pray Salah in opposition to you, and they will do Dhikr in opposition to you. They will stand there in an appearance and form that opposes you.’ Do you do Tawbah, brothers, or not? Tell me.
What is the benefit of doing this action? Please, tell me one benefit in the world. Okay, forget Deen and forget Akhirah, just tell me one benefit in the world of doing this action that we do. It is a waste of time and a waste of money to shave the face with this blade– how much time are we wasting? Yes? We are messing up the sink, spreading dirty hairs all over the sink, hairs everywhere – tell me one benefit of this action. No? We do it because shaytan has said to us ‘You’re fine – don’t worry, I am going to drag you into hell.’ We are happy with those deeds for which there is nothing for us in the Hereafter. One point to remember today, whether you are thinking about this world or the Hereafter, Allah ta’ala stepped back, saying {قُلۡ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ} – ‘I go back and I put My Nabi in front.’ Allah has stepped back, saying ‘I don’t need your Ibadah, I don’t need your Salah, I don’t need your Qur’an – I step back. I am free from you, and I will only be connected to you when you bring My Nabi along with your deeds.’ SubhanAllah - tell me. This is such a simple fact, but we don’t even understand this.
So what preparation are we making for Qiyamah? Tell me now. We don’t even understand this point, so if we were to die today, what kind of death would it be? A true, honest individual who understands what I have just said will stand in front of Allah and say ‘Oh Allah! I seek Your forgiveness. We have committed a big sin by giving displeasure to Your Nabi!’ A person who doesn’t have Yaqeen on this in his heart does not have an atom’s weight of Iman! The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said “ لاَ يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى أَكُونَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ وَلَدِهِ وَوَالِدِهِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ” ‘How can a person who does not love me be a Muslim?’ He told this to the whole world! He said ‘If I am not more beloved to you than yourself, your children, parents and the whole of mankind, then how can you say that you have Iman?’ “ لاَ يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى أَكُونَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ وَلَدِهِ وَوَالِدِهِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ” The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam defined this.
So do we do Tawbah, brothers? That is when the benefit of this Majlis will come. Don’t put yourselves into the hands of shaytan, for this is such a big trap. What food is he giving you to eat that means you don’t even do Tawbah in respect of this point? I am making this request due to the fact that we are visibly, openly committing this sin, and just like a father, I am urging you to leave this sin for the sake of Allah. Detach yourselves from this sin for the sake of Allah. Why do you spoil yourselves and your children and your homes? Why do you spoil your Ibadaat with this sin? Just let your beard grow to the length of four fingers, to the width of a fist – who will take anything away from you if you do so? Who will fight you or beat you? Shaytan overwhelms people with such a big spell - the Qur’an says that shaytan casts his black magic on human beings. But such people do not understand Qur’an, and they do not have determination or courage because shaytan doesn’t want them to practice. He makes them scared and afraid, and so they tremble and shake, saying ‘Oh, how can I do this? It’s too hard for me.’ It is very bad indeed to think like this.
So to come back to Qiyamah, SubhanAllah, the Sahabi asked Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam ‘What is the greatest Amal? Please tell me the most virtuous deed.’ He was asking for the Afdhal Amal, the highest grade, the highest rank of Ibadah, saying ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, tell me that deed that gives the highest rank and status, the greatest rank. He asked and requested for two things, ‘Oh Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam tell me what the most virtuous and the highest ranking Ibadah on the Day of Judgement will be?’ In other words, he was asking for the Ibadah that would give him the highest Maqam on Qiyamah - say SubhanAllah – and also the Ibadah that would give him the highest level of Paradise; this is what the Sahabi asked.
Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam did not say ‘Why are you asking? Just for the sake of it?’ No, this was not the case. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam knew that he was asking so that they could do the Ibadah and not waste time, because they had Aqidah, strong belief, that they were going to go to Qiyamah. They were saying ‘We have been told about Qiyamah, so why should we ask about something that will be insignificant at that time?’ SubhanAllah – they were all sat there, and Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam knew that he was not asking for a small thing; a direct discussion was taking place, alhamdulillah. ‘We are not asking for a small thing – tell us the big thing! Tell us about that Ibadah, about that deed that will enable us to attain this.’ How happy must Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam have been that his student was asking this, that with affection, love and passion, he wanted to prepare for Qiyamah; and that Faidh did not end there, for even today, in Bolton, the Faidh of that Sahabi has arrived. Yes? It has reached here via Hadhrat Ali Murtaza qaddasAllahu Sirrah; it has reached us by means of his Faidh, so that we can also practice this.
So will you do this brothers? Is that a true promise? You are not afraid, are you, thinking that a big Amal will be prescribed and that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam will tell you to do some very hard action? Is this the case? Does everyone make this promise? Yes. What a great statement this is - on the Day of Judgement you will be on holiday, in ease and comfort, on the highest Maqam due to the highest-grade Amal that you performed, and that Amal is being shared with us now. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam looked towards the Sahabi, and then said ‘Dhikrullah!’ SubhanAllah – no other answer was given apart from that. Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Oh my companions, in these moments that you are in the world, do no other action. Do Dhikrullah as the Qur’an says - { ٱلَّذِينَ يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَـٰمً۬ا وَقُعُودً۬ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ وَيَتَفَڪَّرُونَ}. Do it in this way, the way that the Qur’an has prescribed. { يَذۡكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَـٰمً۬ا وَقُعُودً۬ا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمۡ} Remember Allah when walking, sitting, lying down, sleeping. When walking, do Dhikr, when eating, do Dhikr, when sitting, do Dhikr of Allah, when you are at your shop, do Dhikr of Allah, when you are at home, do Dhikr of Allah; in other words, at every moment, you should be immersed in the Dhikr of Allah. And if you do this in this world, your Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has promised that you will not experience the severity of the Day of Qiyamah. That severity will not be for you. Why? Because this Dhikr of Allah that I am prescribing to you is such an action that Allah ta’ala has stated it will give you the highest Maqam in Jannah, and the highest rank of the Day of Qiyamah.’
SubhanAllah - this is Dhikr of Allah, my brothers. Say SubhanAllah. So we have no need to be afraid. If we adopt this Amal regularly and steadfastly, then Allah ta’ala has promised that this is what you will attain; there is no doubt about this – end of story! This is a solid point. So if Waswasah of shaytan arises now, then cast those thoughts out of your mind. Take up the Tasbeeh and practice this very simple method. Allah has prepared a very easy way for you to do Dhikr; you don’t need to work hard, and you don’t need to make extra effort. There is a very simple method. If you want to adopt Dhikr consistently, then go to a person of Dhikr and sit with him. That’s it – end of story. If I say that I am hungry and I want to eat a take-away, then people will say to me ‘Then go to that take-away and eat the food.’ If I say ‘I want to get meat for my dinner – where should I go?’ then people will say ‘Go to the butchers, buy the meat and then cook it.’ This is the case, isn’t it? It is a simple formula. If I want to buy some flour, then where do I go? I find out which shop sells flour and then I go there.
So if Allah Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has prescribed Dhikrullah and has said that it will take you to the highest Maqam, then Allah ta’ala has clearly stated that if you want to learn Dhikr, go to a teacher of Dhikr and sit with him. Allah is saying ‘I will open that shop for you - I will show you the door and open up that place for you.’ At that place you will get nothing else other than Dhikr - there is no disputation there, no discussion about this or that Masa’alah or other arguments, no questions as to who people are, or where they come from, whether Deobandi or this or that, no splits and arguments about contentious questions, nothing of the sort. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has promised that the Aqidah of whoever does Dhikr will be correct; his Aqidah will be correct, his belief will be correct, and his Amal will be correct. He will be a person who follows the path of Haq, because a person who doesn’t follow the path of Haq cannot influence you. If I am on the Haq, for instance, how can a person not attain a high rank? It is proven that Dhikr is an action which makes a human being totally pure and correct.
So we should realize that Allah has told us about the Ahl-adh-Dhikr; if we want to ask somebody a Mas’alah, who should we ask? Who is named in the Qur’an? Not the Alim – the Huffadh will know this. {فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ} Who should you ask if you want to know? The Ahl-adh-Dhikr. We interpret this as meaning the scholars, don’t we, but the Qur’an does not say that. What does the Qur’an say? {أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡر} If you do not know, then ask the Ahl-adh-Dhikr - {فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّڪۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ}. People have written beautiful points about this. Ask the scholar, for the scholars know the Masa’il – they have the knowledge, so they should be asked the questions. But the Qur’an has differentiated between types of scholar in a beautiful way here, saying ‘Ask an Alim who is Ahl-adh-Dhikr.’ There are two types of Alims – on one hand is the dry, barren Alim, and on the other is the Alim who is a Dhakir; and the Alim who will give you the right answer is the Alim of Ahl-adh-Dhikr; the Dhakir Alim will give you the right answer. Say SubhanAllah.
Do you understand this commentary? Do you understand what I am saying? Yes? I heard this myself from the friend of Allah. Dhikr is such a great action and we have proven here that it corrects their Aqidah, and it corrects their Masa’il, and it corrects their understanding, and it corrects their practice, because Allah has promised that He will give this high-level reward and rank. And a person cannot be a true and honest Dhakir unless he keeps the company of a teacher of Dhikr; and if that teacher is correct himself, if his Ibadah and his Amal are correct, if you are learning from him, then this will rub off on you and you will become correct as well – say SubhanAllah. That’s it.
So just put your hands together and don’t fall into traps and disputes and start asking ‘Why don’t you do this? Why do you say this? Why are you doing this? Are you honest?’ If he is sat there, whatever he is doing is totally correct. What we are doing is totally correct, because this is what Allah ta’ala has promised from Ahl-adh-Dhikr, SubhanAllah. Whatever is lacking in us, Allah ta’ala will fill that gap; Allah will continue to deliver us and take us to the truth. So when the student goes to the Majlis, he will not look for shortcuts, and that Wali will clearly say what is Halal and what is Haram, what is lawful and unlawful. He will not cheat or look for shortcuts or play games – his Nasiha will be clear: this is Halal and this is Haram. That Dervaish will not take shortcuts and try to contaminate the issue and play games; the matter is straightforward – leave Haram and go towards Halal. SubhanAllah – that’s it; end of story.
The fact is that this is the determination we need. Don’t look for shortcuts – the Sheikh doesn’t take shortcuts. He doesn’t think ‘Oh no, if I tell them the truth, then I won’t get their charity – they won’t give any money and I won’t get anything from him. If I tell the truth, then he won’t come back again; if I say this, then a dispute or quarrel may break out. He is a wealthy man – how will we get supporters here and succeed materially if I tell the truth? No, no, no, I don’t want to upset him – if I say the Haq to him, he will run away and never come back. Oh, I don’t want to upset him.’ No, the Wali of Allah, the Faqeer, will say the truth whether people like it or not. He says ‘If a rich man comes to me, I send him back poor. And when a poor man comes, I will send him back as a rich person in the Hereafter.’ This is how he thinks, SubhanAllah. This is the reality. You won’t hear ‘Oh, you don’t have to do this and that;’ just straightforwardly ‘This is Haram and that is Halal’ – he says the truth and is honest and tells you that you must correct yourselves.
This is what Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, SubhanAllah, so prepare for Qiyamah properly so that we are playing on that day and smiling and laughing. Those people will say ‘We heard all these things about Qiyamah, that the Hisab and the Kitab would be hard and so on, but it seems like we have come to Paradise!’ They bypass the Hisab and the Kitab and will be taken into Jannah without that trial – have you not read this? It says that the Dhakir will enter into Jannah laughing. Yes? He will be laughing while he enters into Jannah. So let us take hold of this path of Dhikr today – will you take hold of it, brothers? Go to a Wali of Allah, to a teacher of Dhikr, and explain your Hal to him, your condition and your circumstances, and then {جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا }- do Mujahidah, strive, make an effort. Allah ta’ala says { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ }, so when you come to this path, your job is to work hard, and Allah ta’ala is saying ‘Then in return, I undertake to show you the path, the right path, the Straight Path, so leave the paths of Haram. Your hearts will be guided automatically, and Allah will not allow you to go towards Haram.’ If your hands still want to go towards Haram, then Allah has promised { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ }, so take hold of that Straight Path, go to a Wali of Allah, a Sheikh, and learn Dhikr – and then work hard and make effort on that.
So what is the Mujahidah referred to by { جَـٰهَدُواْ}? Does it mean staying up and toiling away? No – it is easier than that; it is to complete the amount of Tasbeehs that you are prescribed. To be regular and steadfast on that is called Mujahidah – SubhanAllah. That’s it – and you will also be given a sheet; and I am speaking about my method here, for every sheikh has his own method and system. It is a simple matter – you go and meet the teacher and explain to him that you are fearful of Qiyamah and that you want to correct yourself. Go with the true Niyyah that you want to be reformed, and then listen to his words and advice and then practice on it. Be consistent on the Dhikr that he prescribes to you, whether it is fifty or sixty Tasbeehs, because the definition of Mujahidah is being consistent on what has been prescribed. We are living in such a dangerous situation that shaytan will try to stop you following that prescription and will make you think ‘Oh, I am lazy – I can’t do it.’ No, present yourself in the gatherings of Dhikr every morning and evening – that is Mujahidah. That is working hard, so how difficult is it for you to do that? Just come to Allah’s house for Dhikr every morning and evening, and in return, all the severities of Qiyamah will be taken away from you. Yes? Allah is saying that He will guide you due to this Mujahidah.
I am not saying that you should seclude yourself in the mountains or leave your children or isolate yourself and leave your job and business. Allah is not saying this – not at all. Allah is saying ‘Do this and My rewards will come to you. Your business will flourish, your employment will go well, and I will give you ease and comfort. I will give you the food and bread you need so that you can live in comfort and can continue to do My Dhikr easily and comfortably.’ These are the paths that Allah ta’ala has promised to open up. Consistency and regularity means to go to where your Sheikh sits, and attend the morning and evening Majalis steadfastly and regularly; this is the definition of Mujahidah. Say SubhanAllah. Don’t take shortcuts and bunk off sometimes, attending when you feel like it and not when you don’t, because if you do, Allah will give to you in proportion to that and will say ‘I will put a cap on this person because he is not following the path; he is just an empty husk and is running after the Dunya.’ Come in the same way that you go to your shop, regularly, from morning until evening. You do that, don’t you? But what do you get from there? Just an envelope at the end of the month, with which you buy chickens, eat well and then go to the toilet and pass stool. Do you think you have earned a lot? This is nothing! Allah is saying ‘Come here for thirty minutes every morning and thirty minutes every evening, and for that I will remove from you all the severities of the Day of Judgement!’ Can you compare the two? So will you come brothers? Yes?
I am just reminding you every week, but it is for you to react, alhamdulillah. Yes? Don’t think about where you live – the further you come, the more Thawab you will get. Remember this. If you are coming from Liverpool and you tell someone that you are going to come here every morning to pray Fajr, people will say ‘Are you mad? Are there no Masjids here?’ But that person will reply, ‘They are fine for you, but I am going there because that is where I will get success. The true good news will come to me if I go there and do the action that they do there. I don’t care what you say – I am going.’ People travel two hundred miles for this! Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi rahmatullah alayh used to travel two hundred miles to see his Sheikh Hadhrat Sirajuddin Damaani rahmatullah alayh. When he arrived, his Sheikh would say ‘Is that you who has arrived, Fazal Ali?’ He would reply ‘Yes,’ and the Sheikh would say ‘Okay, sit down. You have missed the Langar but there is water here for you to drink.’ He would arrive with the hunger of so many days on the road, but then he would be told, ‘Okay, lie down and have some sleep.’
My Hadhrat rahmatullah alayh used to say ‘I would walk for three days to reach my Sheikh, and on the way, there was a big river, the river Sind’ – and that river looks like a sea it is so wide; you haven’t seen it, but I am from there, so I have seen it. We used to cross that river on a boat – it is a river, but it seems like a sea, and you have to cross it on a ship; I have sailed on those ships myself. My Sheikh would travel on foot from Gadai Sharif, the village where he lived, and his Sheikh’s instruction was ‘Don’t you dare ask anyone for anything to eat or drink on the way; don’t ask anybody – bring your own provisions.’ So he used to take dried, cooked chick-peas, and this is how he learned the Name of Allah that we are doing here today; that was his Mujahidah, going all the way there from Gadai Sharif. He worked hard – imagine his Maqam today. Once I saw him in a dream in Jannah – SubhanAllah. He was sat in the highest level of Jannah, and his whole family was with him, SubhanAllah. I shook his hand and presented myself, and he gave me a Hukm as well. What Jannah he must be in now! I saw Hadhrat Sahib sitting and enjoying himself in those beautiful surroundings – the image is still before my eyes; I can see that scene in front of me now, SubhanAllah.
We have to spend just a few days in the hardship of this world, my brothers. He put the words of this Hadith into practice, so you too should save yourself from bad actions and take hold of Dhikr; that’s it. We will teach you Dhikr, and then you will learn Qur’an and how to recite and become an Alim and attain fear of Allah – you will develop everything that will elevate you on the Day of Judgement, because Allah has promised. It cannot be that you do this and then get nothing in return, no. Allah will develop all those Ibadaat – you will be enabled to do all this through Dhikr of Allah. When you first came to me, did you pray Tahajjud and Ishraq at that time? You would have said ‘Oh Hadhrat, that is too hard for me,’ but now people go quickly in the morning to do Dhikr – it has become a routine of your life now, hasn’t it? Did you feel able to wear Imamah before you started coming? Tell me – did you wear Imamah? When your heart is small and tight, shaytan has you in his trap, but when you start coming, the hearts immediately get reformed and corrected and gain the courage to say ‘Oh begone with you, shaytan! I have come onto the Path now.’ That is the real reaction.
Allah ta’ala has mentioned the Sibghatullah in the Qur’an – this is a great word. Allah ta’ala says in the Qur’an that there is no colour better than the colour of Allah, but what is the colour of Allah? There can be no physical description of Allah, so what is that colour? Allah is saying ‘If you want to see My colour, then look at the Sunnahs of My Habeeb sallallahu alayhi wasallam. If you want to see My colour, then look at the ways and the effects of My Awliya – that is where you will see My colour.’ So when you go, your job is to immediately embrace the ways of your Sheikh and incorporate them into your lifestyle. People should be able to recognize you from far away and ask you ‘Are you linked to that Sheikh? Do you have a connection with him?’ This happens, doesn’t it? You go into the marketplace or are walking around the shopping centre, and someone says ‘Oh - are you connected with that Sheikh?’ If you ask how he knew just by seeing you walking around, he says ‘Well I can just see that you are connected.’ That is when you know you are succeeding. If the world recognizes you like this today, then on the Day of Judgement, the angels will recognize you as a person of Paradise.
So all of these words represent a systematic method that the Qur’an has told us – it is a syllabus. If we follow that syllabus and study it, then nothing is hard, alhamdulillah. The grave will not be hard, and death will not be hard – in fact, death will seem lovely to you at that time. You will think ‘Let me quickly pass through the doors of death so that I can get to the Hereafter.’ This is success, and this is how the Dhakireen will be at the time of their death. So this working hard is not what we think of as hard work. When you first came, were you able to pray Tahajjud? You thought ‘Oh, Tahajjud is too hard, and praying Ishraq is too hard.’ It seemed hard at that time, but after coming into the practice of Dhikr, look how easy those actions have become for you. Those same things that seemed so hard, Tahajjud and doing this and that and the other, doing Tasbeehat and attending Majalis every morning and evening – that all seemed too hard for you. People think like this – they regard it as too much to do. But for you, it is just a click of your fingers and is not hard at all. You think to yourself ‘Getting up in the morning is not hard – it’s a piece of cake.’ So what has made this change happen? Dhikr of Allah has brought you to this point. You have seen with your own eyes how easy Allah ta’ala makes it, because Allah has promised in the Qur’an and says { جَـٰهَدُواْ} - ‘You work hard, and then I will show you the path of how to pray Tahajjud; it is for Me to wake you up, and I will bring you to My Dhikr - you just have to be determined.’
So do you all make Niyyah for this? Yes! Come and pray Salah here and make a life schedule that incorporates this. Resolve that ‘In the morning I am going to wake up and pray Salah, and then I am going to sit with my Sheikh and do Dhikr, and then I will go to work and run my shop or my business, and when the evening comes, I will partake of the Ni’mahs that Allah ta’ala has given me and will have a first class standard of food and drink, after which I will go into my Sheikh’s company again and then come back home.’ That’s it - Mujahidah has been done. This is such a small thing. Are you afraid of Jannah? And yet here, Allah ta’ala is saving you from Qiyamah itself - so can’t you even do this one small action? And look at our destiny and good fortune - Hadhrat Sahib used to have to go so far to meet his Sheikh, so if you have come from Liverpool, that is nothing. From Liverpool or Blackburn to here is nothing, and if you are local and have to come from within this town, that really is nothing at all.
I have just given you an example of difficulty, namely that a person was hungry and had no food and no clothes. Hadhrat Sahib said that he used to get there at night after the food had all gone, so he would go to sleep hungry. But the next morning, after the Thursday night, he would feel fresh and be ready to do Ziyarah of his Sheikh and do Dhikr of Allah on Friday morning. What great people they were, my friends - tell me! What great people they must have been. And they said that at that time, they would get a piece of dry chapatti and milk to eat – but what chapatti was it? Hadhrat Quraishi Sahib rahmatullah alayh would himself cut down the wheat to make the flour for those chapattis while engaged in Dhikr of Allah, and he would say ‘SubhanAllah, with the Barakah of Dhikr, I am cutting this corn for my Mureeds, and due to this, Allah ta’ala makes the soil soft for me.’ He himself used to cut that corn, and those Noorani womenfolk, those Dhakirahs, those Shakirahs – they were not acting out a drama – used to grind that corn. So he would cut the crop and the womenfolk of his house used to grind it into flour and make the chapattis and prepare vegetables, and then in the evening, those who used to come on Thursday nights to learn Dhikr would become great Qutbs and Abdals and Ghawths.
I am mentioning this because this gathering here today has a connection to Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi’s company. So many of his Mureeds are lying today in Jannat al Baqi in Madina. Hadhrat Abdul Ghafoor Madani Sahib – what names I could tell you! Go to Al Baqi, and you will see the students of Hadhrat Fazal Ali Shah Quraishi rahmatullah alayh; I can point them out to you and tell you whose grave is this and that and the other. My Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh used to say this himself; he would say ‘Look at where the people who ate those chapattis ended up!’ Why? Because the person who harvested that corn was a Dhakir and he cut it himself, and then the Dhakirahs ground it into flour and then cooked it; the people who ate it were Dhakireen and the ones who prepared it were Dhakireen. He would say ‘Our stomachs would be filled by just half of one of those chapattis.’ As soon as morning came, we would do Dhikr; and after the Thursday night and that food and the Dhikr in the morning, we would then go back to the villages and towns where we came from. It would take my Hadhrat take two days to return home – imagine those personalities. Look at how they learned Dhikr of Allah, and the struggle and toil they had to go through. It was he who prescribed Dhikr to me after going through all this.
I will share one statement of my Hadhrat Sheikh rahmatullah alayh with you. He said to me ‘Babu, do you desire that the Muhabbat of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam comes into your heart?’ He asked us this, saying ‘Do you want this?’ - and the love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam is not some minor thing. It is no minor matter to attain the love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Yes? Imagine how desperate those Ashiqs will be. A person who has fallen in love with a woman cannot sleep at night, so imagine a person who loves Allah and his Rasool – will he fall asleep in the night? So my Sheikh was asking ‘Do you really want this love of Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam to be in your heart? Do you want your sins to be eliminated?’ We said ‘Yes, yes! We want this.’ Then he said ‘And do you want the wretchedness of the world to be eliminated from you?’ Again, we said ‘Yes – we want this!’ And then Hadhrat Sahib asked ‘Do you want to develop passion and desire for good deeds?’ I can show you these words of his in writing. So we put our hands together and said ‘Hadhrat, please, we do want to attain this.’ So then Hadhrat Sahib said ‘Then why don’t you do the Dhikr of Allah?’ SubhanAllah.
The Ghawth of his time was guaranteeing this because he had been given this guarantee himself before from the chain of Sheikhs. That is how he could give that guarantee. Yes? He said ‘This guarantee has come from Rasool-e-Arabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and now I am giving you this guarantee as well. So if you don’t get this from Dhikr, then come and complain to Ali Murtaza; come to me and tell me.’ So will we do Dhikr? Yes?
I have worked hard to explain this, because the gathering tomorrow morning should be as big as this one. Tomorrow is Jumu’ah, and wherever you have come from, love has now been kindled in our hearts. Dhikr is a great deed, and how will we get success? Don’t think ‘I have this sin within me, and I have that defect’ – don’t worry. Take hold of Dhikr, and inshaAllah, before you die you will become whole. Yes? Don’t think ‘I have these habits from before so I have to eliminate them first,’ or ‘Oh, I still have a connection with that woman,’ or ‘I still owe that person money, so I must get rid of that debt first.’ Look, don’t be deceived in this way. Allah says ‘Don’t be ashamed to come in front of Me. It doesn’t matter how many sins you have, still come to Me. You can be ashamed of your father and mother and society, but come to Me naked – I will hide you and put you behind a veil because I am as-Sattar!’ Is this not the attribute of Allah ta’ala? He is as-Sattar, so he says ‘Come to Me naked, full of sins – bare yourself! I will hide you.’ Your mother won’t hide you – she will say ‘He is close to me – he hasn’t committed any sins.’ SubhanAllah – say SubhanAllah!
Allah is great and Kareem and Merciful, so don’t think ‘I will eliminate this sin first; I will stop doing this first and then I will go towards goodness.’ No. Allah says ‘I am not interested in this – come to Me! At least come to Me. Come to me and I will eliminate all of your wrongs – don’t worry.’ So don’t be deceived by thinking that you have committed many sins and you have to get rid of them first – it doesn’t matter. Allah says ‘You practice, and I am as-Sattar so I will hide them and reward you on top of that. Allah is saying ‘There is only one way to meet Me – only one Tariqah.’ What is that? It is Dhikrullah, about which Allah says { فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ } – ‘ You remember Me and I will remember you. You remember Me and come to Me, and My Rahmah will overtake you.’ That’s it – straightforward; end of story.
This is Allah’s prescription - don’t leave Dhikr; be steadfast every morning and evening. Okay? And don’t think that you have to leave sins first – no. Just make a Niyyah – ‘InshaAllah, when I die, I will die on that Maqam that Allah ta’ala has promised for the Dhakireen. I will be steadfast so that I can die as one of them. Allah has made this promise in the Qur’an. So if you are forced to do wrong or there is illness or other difficulties and ups and downs occur, or if you can’t open your eyes, even that is forgiven. Hadhrat Sahib rahmatullah alayh said that your attendance will be recorded as if you were there, SubhanAllah. The angels will say that he didn’t arrive, but they will be told ‘Oh no – he came. Write down that he came!’ They will be forced to write that he was there.
So, brothers, will you come? Is that a true promise? Okay, that is all I can do. I can only do this – never mind you, I am telling myself that I should come; I am reminding myself as well. You will definitely come, but a person like me, who is weak and useless and has nothing to his name, might slip up. I might oversleep, so make Dua for ‘Afiya. May Allah ta’ala not give us an illness that causes us to put the brakes on, because illnesses can come, can’t they? A person can get a bad back or a stomachache or a stiff neck, in which case what can person do, the poor soul? He can’t do anything. So make Dua that Allah gives me ‘Afiya, wellbeing and good health so that we can physically arrive and attend, and so that we do not stop, with the Fadhl of Allah.
Remember one thing: we are in the era of severe sicknesses today, so make a promise to Allah that we will not stop despite these sicknesses. Listen to me carefully. Pledge to Allah that despite these sicknesses, we will still come, and Allah will say ‘Promise Me this, and I will not let the sickness come to you!’ Say SubhanAllah. Very few people among us are sick, and if someone is just a little bit sick, he still reaches the gathering of Dhikr. Allah says ‘If you are courageous like this, then I am your Rabb, and I will not let the sickness come to you.’ Those people who are regular in Dhikr get affected by sickness very seldom, and if they are affected, they only experience light discomfort, just for the sake of raising them. Allah says, ‘Look, I have made you a little unwell, so sit down for a while and rest.’ Then Allah gives the injection and rewards that person fully at that time. If he has a high fever, a temperature and a bit of flu, understand that Allah ta’ala has given him a rest, a little respite. Allah Himself is saying ‘Just stop here for a while and recover.’
But more often, Allah ta’ala doesn’t allow a person to get sick. Many people who have a problem, such as migraine, start Dhikr and then they don’t even know where their migraines went. I have seen many instances such as this come in front of me, because nothing is in control of the human being – he becomes healthy when he starts this. For example, Allah ta’ala is the One who gives release from Corona or other sicknesses that may come. Who gives this relief? Allah! It is Allah who brings ease after the hardship.
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do Amal on these points. Ameen
Recite Durood Sharif.