Everybody is aware of the name of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, for he is mentioned in various Ahadith. It is clear from the Ahadith that Imam Mehdi will come at a time when there is a lot of Fasaad, disorder and disharmony in the Dunya, as well as corruption and Fitnah, and nobody will know what the Straight Path is, what the wrong path is, what the right path is, who is on the right path, who is a liar and who is false. There will be a weird scenario in the world at that time, and the Deen will have become a joke. Everyone will understand the Deen according to his own desire; everyone will think ‘I know the Deen better than others’, and there will be a lot of differences among the people and a lot of arguments and quarrels. There will be people with their own Masjids, and there will be different Tafsirs and contradictory Bayans - and at that time, Mehdi alayhi salam will arrive.
It is stated in some Hadiths that he will stay in this Dunya, and establish the Khilafat ar-Rashidah, and we can imagine that a good time will return then. There will be peace, contentment and justice, and issues will end; there will be Islam beyond Islam, alhamdulillah, the ideal Islam, the real Islam. Mehdi alayhi salam will come with the Deen.
Today as we sit here and talk about this and think about this a little bit, some results should come out of this discussion, shouldn’t they? After all, this is a discussion about Islah, about rectification; this is an Islahi Majlis, so may Allah ta’ala allow us to speak about beneficial things. Let us make a Niyyah for Amal, my brothers. Do we all make Niyyah that we will practice? Don’t sit without making this intention to practice. This is not about listening to stories and anecdotes and fairy tales, so if you don’t have the intention to practice, it would be better for you to go now. Whenever you come here, sit down and make this intention ‘InshaAllah, when I hear something, I will practice upon that.’ Do you all make this intention? Good.
There will be Barakah when you make this intention – remember this point. I will get a lot of benefit, for if your Niyyah is correct, then I will get different thoughts, good thoughts that I can share with you. This is because the Faidh is coming to you, and due to the intention that you make, Allah ta’ala will make a discussion that matches your Niyyah. If people come thirsty, then Allah ta’ala will dig wells for them, make fountains for them, bring clouds for them, bring rain for them, give floods for them and make rivers for them – He will give oceans for those who are thirsty! But if we have no thirst and say that we have no need, then Allah ta’ala will say ‘I will give them a drought – finish them.’ If they are not even thirsty and they have no desire, no need and no passion, then what is the point? If you are thirsty and are in need, then Allah ta’ala will enable those discussions to take place that we are in need of, and due to you, I will succeed as well - so make Niyyah again. Have you all made the right Niyyah for sitting here, that we will practice upon what is discussed? Okay.
So when Imam Mehdi alayhi salam comes to this world, then peace and tranquility will ensue and Islam beyond Islam will come into being. So now, let us think for a moment about what Islam he will bring. What Islam will he bring? Will he bring Masjids? SubhanAllah, we already have Masjids, and we have Qur’ans, and a person can sit in a corner reading Qur’an, and he doesn’t care about us and we don’t care about him. He can sit there enjoying himself – look what a big Masjid this is. There is a hall upstairs and other rooms on the side. And if we choose not to pray here, we can go two yards down the road and go to another Masjid; and if we don’t want to go there, we can go to another Masjid - is there any shortage of Masjids? So what kind of Jamia Masjid will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam construct when he brings Islam? Tell me. We already have the Qur’an – there are so many Qur’ans on the shelves, with different scripts, some colour-coded, some with Tafsir. Everywhere you look, someone is reading Qur’an, and someone is reciting Qur’an. Is there a lack in this respect? So what will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam bring that is not already present today? Say SubhanAllah. Will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam bring a new Kitab? He will bring the Shari’ah of he who was the Seal of the Prophets, the Final Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, so there will be no issue there.
And he who comes after, namely Hadhrat Isa alayhi salam, who was a Prophet from before, he will also follow the same Shari’ah that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam brought to his world; he will do Amal on those same Sunnahs. No new book will come. Fitnahs will come, but no new Kitab will come. Fitnahs and disputes will come with people claiming that they are prophets – such things will appear like bubbles; this is the reality. Shaytan will continue to do his work in every generation and in every era. So Masjids are many, and they are full, and people wear the Sunnah – you have got Sunnah Libaas and beards, MashaAllah. There are announcements, and what a good thing it is that people are reciting the Qur’an.
What is wrong then? What will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam come to do? Why will he come? What Deen is he going to bring that suddenly, everything will change, and peace will come, and light and contentment will come? What Islam will he bring? Obviously, whatever Islam he brings, we must have that Islam today, no? Say SubhanAllah. Don’t we have that Islam today? So then what need is there for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam? Is there a need? Everything is present and everyone is here, and Masjids are full, and different types of people are sat, with different types of faces. MashaAllah, there will be women upstairs or downstairs – every Masjid has a different system. There are different features, and people come for Jumu’ah, and during Ramadhan you see people coming and going. During Hajj time or for Umrah, the Haram is filled with Hajjis and pilgrims - there are so many people now that things have opened up again. There are no spaces, and tickets and flights are full, and there is no shortage of Hajjis or people doing Umrah or people praying Salah. There is no lack of Tableegh, and no lack of Dhikr, so what Deen will he come with that will make this change come about so suddenly? This is the question that arises, isn’t it?
So if we realise today that Imam Mehdi will come with the real Deen - which he will - then all of us should make the Niyyah from today that that we will start practicing the Deen that he brings – say SubhanAllah. Why wait and wait for ages for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam to come? If we know what he is going to bring, then we must start from today because maybe this will allow us to join with his Jamat – end of story. Maybe a phone call will come, and he will say ‘Come, you are in my Jamat. Come and join me – why are you sat there in Bolton?’ This is the age of phone technology, so maybe he will send a text message to me and you, saying ‘What are you doing there, so-and so? Come, come – I have arrived, and you are in my Jamat.’ This is nothing to laugh about, so keep your sleeping bag ready. People practice this. The Jamat people do this, MashaAllah; they go for this many days, so they are fully practiced at this. All that is needed is for the call to come – say SubhanAllah.
The call will come to those who are practicing the Islam that he will bring. So if we practice that Islam from today, then my friends, it is obvious that we will have to accept one thing. We have to accept that what he brings will not be the Islam of today – say SubhanAllah. It won’t be the Islam we see now, and we have to accept that the Deen we are practicing today has no connection with Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, absolutely none. There will definitely be a difference between the Islam that he brings and what we have today. Why? Today, a Muslim is faced with more wretchedness and negativity than has ever been the case in history. The extent to which we are astray and wretched and disrespected and dishonored means that Muslims are drowned today. Allah ta’ala said that the dirtiest thing, the most wasteful thing which is most disliked by Allah in the whole universe is what? Do you know what that thing is? This Dunya. Out of the whole Universe, this Dunya is most disliked. And today the Muslims are running after this Dunya. He is drowned in it, and he cannot stop; from head to toe, he is drowned in this Dunya, fully immersed in it, whatever form he takes - Sufi sahib, that sahib, whatever title you care to name, and even if his face and appearance is like a Muslim and whatever deed he does. Only honesty comes out of my mouth, so don’t take what I am saying badly. Don’t take what I am saying negatively – there is no need for that. I have sat down here, so let me speak as well.
So brothers, the reality and the truth is this, that any type of person we find in the world today, whether at the Ka’abah or in Madinat-ul-Munawwara, wherever, at all the holy sites you can go to, even in those places, there is a storm brewing in the Dunya in which Insan is drowned. And Allah ta’ala dislikes most of all the thing that people are drowned in – and what is that called? Dunya.
Yet we say it is Islam that surrounds us. If we are asked ‘Who are you?’ we say ‘I am a Muslim’ – Astaghfirullah. The title is on our heads – we say ‘We are Muslims’ – but these are just titles, for we are immersed in that thing which Allah ta’ala dislikes the most. And the Hadith concludes with the observation by Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam that ‘Destruction will come to my Qawm when the Dunya will overtake and overwhelm them.’ Otherwise, there is no way they can be destroyed, for they have a fantastic Deen. There is nothing greater than Iman - and is there anything greater than the Qur’an? Is there anything more fantastic than the orders of Allah ta’ala and the orders of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam? Tell me. But we have wasted it all, and what has caused this to be wasted? Dunya – Dunya, the world, material concerns. Pir, Faqir, Tazkiyah – everything is wrapped up and backed by the Dunya.
Dunya is not just money; it is not money and cash. The definition of Dunya is when a person has greed within him – he wants fame, he wants to be popular, he wants money, he wants respect. He thinks ‘I am the only one who should be respected. It is me, it is my ego – I should be acclaimed, and I should be accepted, for I am better than others’ – this is all Dunya. He wants fame, he wants to be popular, he wants money, or he wants respect. He thinks ‘It is just me who should be respected, only me. It is my ego that counts and only I should be acclaimed. I should be accepted because I am better than others. I am better.’ This is all Dunya. He is full of desires and indecent thoughts while is in Sujud or reading Qur’an or on Hajj and Umrah - this is his state.
So what will be the Deen which Mahdi alayhi salam brings? Will it contain Salah, or not? There will be Salah, there will be Zakah, there will be Hajj – there will be everything. I recall a Hadith, so let me share it with you. This is a very beneficial Hadith, and its narrator is Abu Hurayrah radhiAllahu anh, and he said that the Gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that on the Day of Judgement, when the Dunya comes to an end, and Qiyamah is set up and the Court of Allah is established, Salah will be presented in that Court. Salah is the biggest Amal that we have, isn’t it? Salah will be presented to Allah, and it will say ‘I am the biggest Ibadah of this Ummah.’ Salah will present itself, and Allah ta’ala will say ‘Okay, I know who you are. You are Salah and you are a good thing’, but then Allah will put it to the side. This is a Hadith we should listen carefully to. We say ‘I am a Muslim, and I pray Salah. I pray Salah a lot – I am a real Muslim’ – and this is a good thing. We have nothing more than this, today, don’t we? We say ‘Yes, I pray Salah regularly. I am a steadfast Musalli – Salah, Salah, Salah.’ So Salah will come first, and Allah will say ‘This is good.’
Next, Sawm will come forward. We prepare so much for fasting, and after fasting, we say ‘Oh, don’t ask – I am a Jannati. I am in Paradise, I am in heaven – Jibreel alayhi salam is waiting to meet me. He will give Wahy to me, for I am pious.’ In I’ttikaf, everyone is pious and glorious – say SuhanAllah. The truth is coming out here, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. Whoever sits in I’ttikaf is so pious, and after, when he leaves, people put a nice necklace of flowers around his neck and say ‘MashaAllah. You did I’ttikaf and you did Ziyarah in I’ttikaf, didn’t you? MashaAllah.’ People praise him, saying ‘He did this and he did this’, and he enjoys hearing it. He comes back from Umrah, and he is so pious – alhamdulillah. Allah Himself is saying that these are good things; they are not bad things. Yes, Allah ta’ala has given you the Tawfeeq to do good. So the fast will say ‘I am the fast, oh Allah, and he fasted and he did this.’ Allah will say ‘Good – you are good.’ Look how great an action fasting is. A person who fasts has a great status. The one who does Siyam and Qiyam is at a high level, isn’t he? He says ‘Yes, I keep a fast every Monday and Saturday’ – this is a very good thing. Allah will say ‘This is good.’
Then Sadaqah will come. Sadaqah will come forward and say ‘Oh Allah, I am Sadaqah – I am charity’ - how great an action Sadaqah is! And Allah ta’ala will say ‘Yes, you are a good thing, but go to the side.’ The Hadith explains that one Amal after another will come forward – recitation of the Qur’an will come, Jumu’ah will come, all the deeds that we do and that we practice, a person’s Imamah, his beard, his Sunnah clothing, and Allah will say ‘Good thing, good thing, good thing.’ And at the end – say SubhanAllah – Deen-ul-Islam will come. It will come forward and introduce itself as Islam – SubhanAllah. These are the words of the Hadith. If I give a full explanation, it will become very lengthy, so I won’t go into a detailed explanation. There are a lot of points that come out of this Hadith, many points. With your Barakah, I have to put the brakes on, otherwise a great deal of time will be taken up on this Hadith. This is a very nice Hadith which has come to my mind.
So the Deen itself is the last in the line to come forward. All the understanding about Mehdi alayhi salam has come into my mind here – what a great Hadith this is to explain it. So Islam will come forward, and the first thing it will say as it steps forward will be ‘Ya Allah, You are Salam’ – SubhanAllah – ‘and from Your Name, Islam has come, oh Allah. Oh Allah, You are Salam, and I am Islam!’ SubhanAllah – submission beyond submission. ‘Oh Allah, You are Salam, and I am Islam.’ So then the answer comes from Allah – the direction changes. Allah will reply ‘Good; this is good’ – the same words are used. ‘But be sure of one thing, that today, on this Day of Judgement, whatever happens, Jannah, Jahannam and everything will be based on you, oh Islam. Whoever belongs to you will go to Paradise, and whoever is detached from you will go to Hell.’ Now there is a very long explanation and unpacking of this Hadith, for many doors open up into which we could disappear at any second, but I will bypass these meanings and continue with our theme.
So what we realise from this is that it is a good thing that we pray Salah and keep fasts and do all these other actions and deeds, but we have hidden Deen away. Yet this is the Deen about which Allah has said ‘You are good, and the decision will be based on you, oh Islam, not the A’maal that were presented before you.’ The decision will be based on you, oh Islam, so what are you? We need to know because the decision will be based on you. So what we realise is that Salah, fasting, Hajj and Zakah are not the sole components of Islam. Islam is not based on these things, although these are parts of Islam – say SubhanAllah. This is the biggest Fitnah that shaytan has injected into us in this day and age – remember this. This is the biggest Fitnah that he has put into us, and consequently, Islam has been hidden. These things are there, these practical aspects, but we think that all these actions I mentioned to you are all we have to do, and yet Islam, which Allah ta’ala likes most of all has been hidden. All of our A’maal will be weighed and accepted based on Islam, which is the real Islam. Salah will be accepted as Salah, and fasts will accepted as fasts when they are based on the reality of the Islam that Allah ta’ala accepts.
They are great actions, and Allah says that they are good things. What action can be greater than Salah or fasting? Allah likes these actions, but we have destroyed the reality of the matter. Nafs and shaytan have destroyed the reality of all of these things. Whilst cloaked by these actions, we have destroyed the real Islam; whilst cloaked by these actions, we have spoiled the name of Islam. People have run away from the Deen and they consider many things that Allah likes to be bad.
Do you understand what I am saying? People have started to consider good deeds to be bad because we have eliminated the real essence of Islam. We have oppressed Islam and have done injustice to Islam. Salah as been dishonoured. If you ask someone ‘Have you prayed Salah?’ the reply comes ‘Oh, I have seen many dodgy people who pray Salah.’ Have you experienced this kind of push-back? If you ask ‘Why don’t you keep a beard?’ they say ‘Oh, I have seen many people who keep a beard and who follow the Sunnah and who do Dhikr, oh Sufi Sahib.’ So what is it that gives these great A’maal a bad name, these deeds that we practice and with which we associate ourselves? Why do people run away from these deeds and make fun of them? If you ask ‘Why don’t you keep a beard?’ they say ‘Oh, if we keep a beard, people will ask what we are doing and remind us that they have seen other people who keep beards who are thieves and robbers.’ Is this not the case? Tell me.
So when Imam Mehdi alayhi salam comes, what Deen will he bring? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has clarified this; he did not hide this knowledge from us – no. The Hadith continues – look at this. Either Hadhrat Anas radhiAllahu anh or Abu Hurayrah radhiAllahu anh narrates this Hadith, I can’t remember which – the Hadith is found in Mishkat. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘I swear by Allah the Creator, in whose Hands is my life, a person cannot be a Muslim…’ and then he gives a condition. You can argue and you can declare Fatwas, and some Moulvis and Muftis make Fatwas immediately, but let them put a Fatwa to contradict this Hadith if it is not acceptable. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam made an oath, and then said ‘لَا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ– a person cannot be a Muslim….’ And what was the condition? A person who doesn’t pray Salah? Who doesn’t keep fasts? Who doesn’t perform Hajj? No – listen, for this is the Deen that Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will bring. The Deen that Imam Mehdi alayhi salam brings is being defined for you. ‘لَا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ – neither a man nor a woman can be a Muslim unless he desires for his brother what he desires for himself.’ SubhanAllah. I hear a small SubhanAllah – say SubhanAllah loudly!
Do you understand the Deen now? So why do you only respond with a small SubhanAllah? It is because we don’t have the Niyyah to do Amal on this, that is why, otherwise you would jump up on hearing this, and say ‘SubhanAllah! Is this how we will succeed? Is that it?’ Yes! All of your Salah, fasting, Hajj and Zakah are based on this action, I swear by Allah. The Qur’an tells us this, that all actions are based on this one factor. Is this not a great Hadith? Tell me. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘No, no, a person cannot be a Muslim if he does not desire for his brother what he prefers and likes for himself.’ Do you like people swearing at you? Would you like it if somebody picked your pocket? Would you like it if someone lied to you? Would you like it if somebody swore at your father? Would you like it if someone was unjust to you? Would you like it if someone broke into your house and stole your money? Would you like it if someone defrauded you? Would you like it if someone stole money from you? Would you like such things to be done to you? Would you like it if someone swore at you? Would you like it if someone oppressed you? Would you like it if someone hated you, or had malice against you in his heart, or if someone backbited against you or did black magic against you? Does anyone like these things? He cannot be a Muslim if he doesn’t want to prevent other people experiencing these things as well.
All of these things – malice, slander, oppression, hatred – are bad enough in wider society, but these things are active in our own homes; these things run within our own families These sins are evident among our close relatives – they start within our own homes. In our own homes, we argue from morning to night, the father with his son, or if not with the son, then with the mother, and the mother shields the son like a wall, like a mad woman, and the father cannot accept her behaviour. Yet this person comes to pray Salah and he reads Qur’an, and he has a beard and a turban. Look at the character of this person who is doing Hajj and Umrah. Do you understand these points that I am making? Are my words clear so that you understand what our Deen is? Do you understand now and realise what a big drama we are playing, what a big deception this is? Every day we are throwing coffins into the grave after people die, but does anyone do so with sadness, thinking ‘What Islam is he leaving this world with?’ If you looked in his home you would see how many doubts and suspicions and complaints are made by his relatives, and you would see how much money he has taken away from them, and you would see the money that he has looted from the Masjid. Tell me.
I remember another Hadith now, SubhanAllah, which is narrated by Hadhrat Abdullah bin Umar radhiAllahu anh and is found in Mishkat. ‘The Muslim is he from whom other Muslims are safe and protected’ – protected from what? “مِنْ لِسَانِهِ وَيَدِهِ” Allah ta’ala has given two dangerous weapons, and shaytan and Nafs utilize these two things. They utilize these two things so much that they will drag us towards Jahannam from morning to evening. For every Ibadah that we do, we have these two opposite actions, and that is why Allah ta’ala says ‘Okay, don’t show Me your Ibadah, rather, show Me the real Islam. Did you protect Deen? Did you protect your Salah? Did you protect your Hajj? Did you protect your fasts? These are good actions, but how much did you protect these actions? You destroyed these actions – with what? With your tongue and your hands.’
As long as the definition of the Mu’min is that he is a person from whom others were safe from his hands and tongue, then Islam will say to Allah ‘I am Salamat beyond Salamat. Oh Allah, You are Salam and I am Islam – I have come from Your Name.’ So can it be that a Muslim could commit oppression on others? Can you imagine that a Muslim would oppress others? Can you imagine that a Muslim will do injustice to other people? Can you imagine that a Muslim will mock other people, or criticize other people, or break other people’s hearts?
Look, what are the ways in which people’s hearts can be broken? You can break somebody’s heart with just a few words. Even without words, if you just walk in front of a person in a certain way, he will think ‘Is he walking in this style in order to break my heart? Is he trying to pester me, to look at me in a sad way, or in a bad way?’ Just by looking, just by staring at someone, just by speaking in a certain way, a person’s heart can be pierced. Internally, mentally, in respect of his Nafs, a person can torture another person. Mentally, verbally or through your manners, even though you haven’t slapped him, you are still torturing him mentally and making him mad. This is how our society is today, and yet if we are asked, we say that we are fine.
I took a promise from you in the beginning that from today we would become the party of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam. Yes? This Deen of Islam came in this way, and Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come with this Deen when he comes; this is the Islam that will run and prosper. No son will oppress his mother, and no sister will oppress her brother, and no husband will oppress his wife, and no wife will oppress her husband or children, and vice-versa. MashaAllah, a society will come into being that upholds the two Hadiths that I have shared and explained to you. The Muslim will only be he– SubhanAllah – who likes for others what he likes for himself. If he likes something for himself, he will like that his Muslim brethren have that as well. He will think ‘If somebody swears at me, no problem – but I will not swear at him.’ And this was how the Deen started. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam came with this Deen in the beginning, and then it changed and changed until you see the kind of Deen that we have in Bolton today. This is what I am explaining to you. The Deen changed and transformed and changed – into what? What form do we have today? Think about it yourself.
This is the biggest Sunnah of Nabi-al-Karim sallallahu alayhi wasallam: our society and our personal actions and our Akhlaq, our character, Aadaab, manners – the whole of life from A to Z. {لَّقَدۡ كَانَ لَكُمۡ فِى رَسُولِ ٱللَّهِ أُسۡوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ۬}. Allah announced this, saying ‘If you want to remain as Muslims, then until Yawm-al-Qiyamah, one hundred percent do everything exactly in the way that My Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam prescribed for you.’ What did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam prescribe for us? His personal example was that he endured swearing, and stones being thrown at him such that blood came out of his body, and mockery and being pestered by people, and he lost a tooth and suffered injury and so much other oppression besides. What hardship did he not experience? And yet, in his whole life, never once did Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam seek or take revenge for his own sake. Exacting revenge is a far cry from his example. Far from exacting revenge, he would never even speak against those who did wrong to him, so to even say bad to such a person is a far cry from his example; rather, Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam would make Dua for those people – he prayed for them, SubhanAllah. He demonstrated this to us practically.
I would like to share one beautiful event of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam on the subject of Akhlaq. On one occasion, three individuals became guests of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam; Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam put them up as guests. Now obviously, guests have rights, but Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was busy, so he explained to them that sometimes he might arrive early, and at other times he might come later. So he said ‘You can go to where I keep my goat and take milk for yourselves. Take what you need, but keep one share for me so that when I come later, I can also have some milk.’ So when evening came, these three individuals went to the goat and drew milk for themselves – and this was a matter of just a few drops. There was not a bucket-load of milk to be drawn from the goat of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, for it was probably thin and frail and it would have been hard to get any milk from it. So whatever milk came out, they just took two or three mouthfuls each and then put some aside for Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So these Companions stated that once it so happened that they had put some milk on the side, and then shaytan put a Waswasah into one of them, saying ‘MashaAllah, Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam gives freely to all of the Sahaba, and he has no need to eat much, so why not drink this share of his today as well.’ So the Companion said ‘With this Waswasah in my head, while my other two colleagues were sleeping, I went and consumed the share that we had put aside for Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. I drank it all, and then I said to myself “What have I done here? How could I have made this mistake?” My condition dropped suddenly as I realized that the Master of the Two Worlds would soon come and would be hungry and would ask what had happened to his drink. I so desperately didn’t want to be destroyed by hearing such a thing from his blessed mouth, and so I was in such a bad way at that time. I kept looking around and wondering when he would return, all the time thinking about what I should do and what would happen to me. I felt that it would better for me to pass away before having to face this situation. But soon I saw that the respected and honourable Rasool of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was coming, so I lay down and held my breath, thinking that I was finished.’
So first, the gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam prayed two Rakahs of Nafl Salah, and then he went to get his share of the milk. When he got there and found that the bowl was empty, SubhanAllah, the Companion was expecting words to come out that would destroy him, but what Dua came from his mouth? Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam raised his hands and said ‘Ya Allah, whenever You give to me, give to him as well. Whenever You give me food to eat, give him food as well.’ This was the Dua that came out for that person, SubhanAllah. When he heard this Dua, the Companion relates that he felt refreshed as if his life had come back to him. He says ‘I immediately came out of my bed and took my knife and resolved to try to find a goat or some animal that I could slaughter, so that I might make a dish with its meat and then present it in the service of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, for otherwise he would not have eaten anything all night long. I went outside, and I saw that same goat which we had been milking was standing there with its udders completely full of milk, so full that they were hanging down due to the weight of the milk. I wondered if this was the same goat and thought for a moment that it must be another goat, but then I understood that this was a Mu’jiza of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So I went inside, picked up the biggest bowl in the house, and then went out and drew milk from the goat until the bowl was full. Then I approached and quietly gave Salam to Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked the Sahabi why he had come, and he replied ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, I have brought milk for you – please drink it.’ Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam smiled and said ‘Oh, have you brought milk?’ The Companion said ‘Yes - it is amazing that your goat, which had so little milk before, now has so much that I have filled this whole bowl from its udders.’ Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Okay, that’s fine, but before you give any to me, put some aside for your two friends who are sleeping.’ SubhanAllah, this is what Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam left behind for the Ummah – what you like for yourself, you should desire those same things for others. The Companion was extremely happy, and he rejoiced so much that passion overcame him, and so Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked him why he was so happy. He then told him the whole story, telling Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam of the action he had done and what had transpired thereafter.
This is Islam, but do we see this Islam around us, my brothers? I said at the outset that we do not have this Islam, and that is why Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come, because Islam will have ended. Islam is not about having Masjids; all these things around us are not Islam. Rather, Islam is what I am sharing with you. Show me some locality where this Islam is found, and then I will accept that Islam is alive. You should be able to show me this everywhere, especially here where we have all these Sufis sitting here. But we have tricksters and fraudsters who come to do Tazkiyah. I am speaking honestly with you because you are my students, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. We say we have come for Tazkiyah and for rectification, but what Tazkiyah will be attained if our Niyyah is not correct? Some have come in order to become something, to become a Sufi Sahib or a Wali of Allah, or for this or that purpose, Allahu Akbar.
Tazkiyah is such a great subject in Deen. Where does Tazkiyah start? Tazkiyah means purification, and what we take as assistance in this task of purification is Allah! We take Allah’s Name – through Allah’s Name, the whole world is purified. The whole Universe is maintained through this, and Qiyamah cannot come while this Name is still present in one person’s heart – but it has to be present in a pure heart. As long as this Name is to be found within a pure heart, Allah will say ‘How can I bring Qiyamah? My Name prevents Me from establishing Qiyamah.’ We say we are attached to this Name, but have we done Tazkiyah? Have we done Tazkiyah when reciting this Name? Something is lacking inside us, without doubt.
The system has ended in our Khanqahs - the atmosphere of Tazkiyah has ended. If we step forward today really wanting Tazkiyah, the real, genuine Tazkiyah, then we will love for everyone else what we love for ourselves. I will want to become that Muslim whose hand and tongue do not give pain and difficulty to anyone else, whether internally or externally. I will not stare at people nor mock them nor be rude to them, and I would always be careful to avoid causing pain to anyone’s heart. Make this Niyyah before sitting down to do Muraqabah, to do Tazkiyah and to purify yourself: ‘Oh Allah, I am about to come back to You – I will come back to You soon. Oh Allah, I need this intention!’ Allah ta’ala has mentioned so many times in the Qur’an that we are soon to return to Him. Allah is saying ‘I know you, I watch you and I see you; I know, I see and I hear – I know everything.’ What does this mean? Allah is saying ‘I am taking the accounts of your deeds – I know those things that are hidden between your breaths. How can you even try to hide from Me? Correct yourselves, because you will have to present everything to Me from A to Z.’ Allah ta’ala says {إِنَّهُ ۥ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ۬} - He is telling us ‘I watch, I am aware, and I can see things that you cannot see.’
Allahu Akbar, what a great announcement! This is the subject of the whole Qur’an, and from this another great subject of Tazkiyah arises, so we will come towards Tazkiyah now – listen. Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come with Islam, and today we say that we want to be included in his party – and there is still time, alhamdulillah. There is still time. Some people have given the good tidings that he is going to come in the fifteenth century, which means the time is close, and that is why I am taking a promise from you. If you prepare yourselves from today, you will be able to go into his party. We have to practice this Islam from today, Allahu Akbar. We have to practice the Islam that does not cause pain to anybody, that does not break anybody’s heart, that does not commit oppression against anyone. And on top of that, benefit other people with yourself; benefit the enemy, benefit those who are against you, rescue those who are drowning – and then see how your house will become Jannah. No negative words against anyone will come upon your tongue, and inside you there should be no hatred or malice.
Malice is such a thing that even after doing all the Ibadahs during the day, if a person goes to sleep at night with malice in his heart, then he is sleeping with destruction and there is nothing to his name. When a person sleeps, his heart should be free from malice, hatred and dislike for others. Do we do this action? We say ‘Oh no, no, no, I pray Salah and I pray Tahajjud and I do so much Dhikr and this and that’, but no greed for Dunya should be with you in your bed when you go to sleep at night. There should be no hatred or oppression, and no desire for the Dunya – and I have told that everything is Dunya, including fame, title, acclaim, respect, and honour. Put all of this to one side and take it out of your heart, for there is only one thing for which Allah ta’ala sent us to the earth and which we have to prepare for, which is to attain the true pleasure of Allah, of al-Haqq.
We should think ‘My whole body is available to please My Rabb, oh Allah! The breaths that I am taking, and the body that You have given to me, and the Deen that You have given to me, and the Ni’mahs that You give for my sustenance, the roast and the kebabs and the biryani, you have given all this to me for this purpose. What should I do? I should please My Rabb in every second of my life. Every day and night of my life I want to please You, and from the break of each dawn, I want to ensure that I do not displease my Rabb. I want to please Allah with every action of my day. You give me so many Ni’mahs, and I will keep on eating and enjoying the Dunya.’ Yes, enjoy – run around, have houses and cars, and eat food and fruits. Eat and be grateful to Allah, but do not present a Deen to Allah through which Allah’s displeasure is incurred. Don’t do actions which will cause Allah to be unhappy with you. Rather, what should you say? Say ‘When I do a good action, oh Allah, may I keep on practicing that which makes You happy’, and then the Noor will shine through the Ni’mahs that Allah ta’ala has given to you. Noor will come into your Qur’an, and Noor will come into your A’maal, and then these Ibadaat which I mentioned before, those deeds which are good, they will become elevated, and through them you will do Ziyarah of your Rabb, of your Lord. This is the true Islam, and we need to grab hold of it.
What is the Deen? Tell me. What is that Salah, and what is that Jumu’ah, and what is that Tahajjud, and what is that Tableegh that we are doing? What are the speeches and conferences and Durus that we attend? We have malice and hatred even in these gatherings; we have Hasad, envy of others, and we sit with pride and Takabbur. You can see this on every side, from your actions and from your face, for you don’t look at the people who you do not like, and you even have a different way of giving Salam to them. As for the people who benefit you in the world, you bow to them and run after them, speaking to them nicely and smiling at them, yet you speak to those who you do not like in a different way because you dislike them. In one gathering, four of you, you, your son, your wife and children all have different ways of treating people, smiling and laughing and presenting yourselves nicely to those with whom you are happy. This destructive habit has spread into all areas of society, even in the Masjids. Once this happened to me in a Masjid, where a person who did not like me stood next to me for a whole week in Salah, as if by chance – this happened in Masjid ar-Rahman. All these games used to take place, so that whenever I would go to pray Salah, he would come and pray next to me and would deliberately elbow me, causing pain to my side through his constant elbowing - may Allah give Khair to him. And then the next day I would have to stand next to him again in prayer.
What is the state of Muslims today? Tell me. And yet when you hear the words of such people, their statements are so pious that it sounds like Nabuwwat is going to come to that person - this is such a big deception. The whole of Islam and Deen is based on Akhlaq, character and manners – that’s it. But what is our condition? What a game shaytan has played with us, such that the Deen that we have learned gives rise to places where there is no goodness. That is where we have taken our Islam. We need to learn the Deen of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, and where can we learn this? We will learn it from the Khanqahs, from the Ahl-ul’llah. There is no Dars that will teach this to you, and no Dar-ul-Uloom where you can learn it. There is only one place where you will learn the Deen of Islam and Tazkiyah, and that is from the Khanqah, from the spiritual hospital.
Look at the history of our pious predecessors. If you read about the Walis of Allah and the pious elders, you will see that their whole lives were spent in the Khanqahs. You will not see one such personality who did not go to the court of a friend of Allah through whom his life was changed and improved. But now Dhikr has ended, they are not to be found, Tazkiyah has gone, and when the necessary Tazkiyah does come before us, we dislike it, hate it and mock it. People don’t understand it and there are barriers put up against it today; there are restrictions and fake practices as well. But if today, we want to practice the real Islam, the truth of which Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam swore by Allah, then we must implement the Deen where we love for others what we love for ourselves. If we want to bring that Islam into our lives, then the first thing that we need to do is clean the heart, purify the heart and acquire Taqwa, for this is where Taqwa is found. It is in the heart, not in the ears, nor the lips or mouth, nor in the body. Taqwa comes first in the heart; it comes in the heart. And how do you make the heart ready? Through the Dhikr of Allah -{وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ}. And where is Dhikr practiced most of all? Dhikr takes place in the Khanqahs – where else does it take place?
Hadhrat Aisha Siddiqua radhiAllahu anha asked ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, how do we know whether someone is close to Allah, a friend of Allah, a pious person?’ What example did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam give? He said ‘The sign of a pious person is that when you see him, then you remember Allah.’ You remember Allah and do Dhikr. You think ‘Oh, this person is good – he is a Dhakir.’ So if you find this condition in yourself that when you see a person, you are reminded of Allah and do Dhikr, then immediately grab his feet, for he is a Wali of Allah. Think ‘This is the person that Rasooullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam mentioned, and I am seeing him with my own eyes today.’ But we even look at him in a different way, and wonder whether he has any miracles or Kashf, and we ask how much ‘Ilm he has, and whether he has studied Hadith or has graduated from somewhere, and whether he knows Qur’an, and what his speech is like, and what technical points does he make about grammar and so on. We put thousands of preconditions first, and do not pay attention to the sign that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us about, which is that as soon as you sit down in his gathering, your heart comes to life - and not just one Latifah but all seven Lataif, all seven stages, come alive with the remembrance of Allah.
Allah’s Kamal is in a human being – Allah ta’ala has made such a great creation. Look, consider the Ka’abah that we have – what is in the Ka’abah? It is made of bricks and stones – it is a house, nothing else, and yet it is the House of Allah. A Masjid is also made of clay and stones and bricks and soil – like the Ka’abah – so what makes them special? It is that Allah’s Tajalli, Allah’s Magnificence, descends onto the Ka’abah, which is why the whole world loves the Ka’abah. The birds come and fly around it, and the angels come and do Tawaf around it. The whole world loves the Ka’abah, but it is not the walls of the Ka’abah that they are in love with. What do they love then? Allah ta’ala’s Dhat, His Tajalliat, His Magnificence. My Hadhrat would sit in front of it from morning until night, and even in the night, he would only depart for one hour. This was my Hadhrat, and I would sit with him, and from morning, all day and all night long, Hadhrat Sahib would sit, and would just keep looking at the Ka’abah; there was no other Ibadah. He was weak and would not be praying Nafl or reciting Qur’an. By Allah, there was no other action apart from Muraqabah and looking at the Ka’abah. He would sit in front of Rukn-e-Yemeni – I spent all my time with him there. You know the Rukn-e-Yemeni? Until today, that scene is still before my eyes, SubhanAllah. For his whole life, whenever he went there, Hadhrat Sahib would sit in front of Rukn-e-Yemeni, and I would sit with him in his company.
Once, I started wondering whether he was looking at the stones or at the rocks or at the walls or at something else, but the Walis of Allah look at the Tajalliat of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, at Allah’s Magnificence, at Allah’s Glory. Otherwise, how could anyone sit so long? Tell me. There is no way anyone could sit that long. In addition, I never saw him eating. Why? How could he eat? He was not in a state for eating and he had no desire, because of Allah’s Tajalliat. Musa alayhi salam asked ‘Ya Allah, show me Your Tajalli’, but Allah ta’ala said ‘You can’t see My Tajalli, but look at this tree.’ SubhanAllah, then Allah ta’ala cast His Tajalli onto that tree and the gleam of that Magnificence caused Musa alayhi salam to fall unconscious. And this is the Ka’abah, the House of Allah, where Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam has made prostrations – such great Tajalli of Allah descends upon the Ka’abah.
Now consider the human being, SubhanAllah. In the reality of Insan’s heart, there is not just one Ka’abah, rather there are seven levels of that Ka’abah, you might say – Qalb, Ruh, Sirr, Khafi, Akhfa. There are all these levels and stages in the body, and Allah ta’ala’s special Tajalliat descend upon them; Allah’s special focus comes upon them. Ask Hadhrat Mujaddid Alf Thani rahmatullah alayh. If we go to a Shaykh and find that this does not take effect, what is the reason for that? It is because the Dunya comes into us, the darkness of the Dunya, so we reflect that, and we cannot become good human beings. How will the good colour and the true effect of Deen come into us? Latifa Qalb and Ruh and Sirr and Khafi – these are stages and levels. On the Ka’abah, the House of Allah, there is a black cloth which shrouds the Ka’abah, but Allah ta’ala says ‘There are different, unique colours of My Tajalliat which descend’ – SubhanAllah. We think that the cover of the Ka’abah is black, but Allah ta’ala says that the best colour of Allah’s Tajalli is black – this is a unique thing that I am telling you here. That is why the Ka’abah is hidden inside a black cloth – remember this point. So different colours and lights reflect from Allah ta’ala’s Tajalliat, and the colour black is unique in this regard.
Now if we look at the human being, inside a person’s body, we see what is written in the Maktoobat of Hadhrat Mujaddid Alf Thani rahmatullah alayh. What was the Kamal that he had, and what was his greatness as a Wali of Allah? It was not that he had one Ka’abah within, but rather seven sealed Ka’abahs were opened up to the Tajalliat so that they could absorb and receive the Tajalliat of Allah. The first Sabaq has a link to Hadhrat Adam alayhi salam, the next to Hadhrat Ibrahim alayhi salam and Hadhrat Nuh alayhi salam – every Nabi has a connection to each lesson. But you lot don’t come to Dhikr, and you don’t want to understand, so what will you learn? I have given you a small Sabaq, to do ten thousand or twenty thousand Tasbeehs, and then you say ‘Oh, I try.’ Is this how we try? You have been given such a great gift, and this is how you protect it? You should give yourself completely and become Fana, immersed, in Allah’s Name, in Muraqabah. You should do this continuously.
If you want to rise up in the group of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, then MashaAllah, you have arrived – do Muraqabaat! Do Muraqabah, do DhikrAllah, and then the phone call will come from Imam Mehdi alayhi salam. He will say ‘Come, come – I haven’t told anyone else, but you can come. Come and join my Jamat’ – and then you will get your bedding together and go there. But this will only happen to that person who has the real Islam, because he will come with the real Islam. Which Islam will he bring? Remember this – that Islam which Allah Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam explained to us: “الْمُسْلِمُ مَنْ سَلِمَ النَّاسُ” – The Muslim is he who protects and safeguards people from his hand and from his tongue. When we become Muslims like that, then alhamdulillah, understand that Islam has come to us. It won’t just come through words, by opening up Sahih al-Bukhari and giving a Bayan, or by praying, or by doing this or that action. Islam does not come through these actions, no. Go to a Wali of Allah, sit with him, and what comes from his heart will purify the heart. This is Deen – it is acquired through the company of the Wali of Allah.
So how do you receive Islam? The method is unique, very different indeed. If you want to learn this ‘Ilm, then go with a true and honest heart and connect yourself to a Wali of Allah. Go with a true heart – and what is a true heart? It is one that gives sacrifices – yes indeed. You have to purify your house in every way, and that is the first sacrifice. There should be not one morsel of Haram in your house; not one morsel obtained through lies should find its way into the house. Do we do Dhikr like this? Tell me. Our eyes should be so pure that no strange thing that Allah dislikes should fall within your gaze. Your eyes should not look at wrong things, and your ears should not listen to wrong things, and your hands should not lift up any wrong things. The question of eating a Haram morsel should not even arise. What happens today is that people say ‘It doesn’t matter – I am doing work of the Deen, so it doesn’t matter if I sign on the dotted line. It doesn’t make any difference.’ Allahu Akbar. You are doing the work of the Deen while lying and signing up to false information, and as a result, you are drawing false cheques. When I speak, you will have to listen to the truth. Yes? You are doing the work of the Deen in the name of Islam but look at the style of the Dunya in their work of Deen – they are signing claims for money from here and there. He says ‘I am claiming this and that benefit, and because I am doing work of the Deen, this is permissible.’ Is this how the work of the Deen is conducted?
I will give you two examples of the work of the Deen. Shall I give you examples of the work of the Deen? Take Deoband – how did the Madrasa of Deoband begin? Tell me. Where did it come from, and who laid the foundation? How? What was the Hal at that time? Was Dunya there? Were there worldly factors involved? Haram is Haram, unlawful is unlawful, so if Shari’ah has prohibited something, if you do unlawful deeds, then how can Dhikr take effect and Noor go into you? How will it penetrate your Lata’if? Your body should be pure, clean and transparent. There are very big Hadith which explain that a person’s Dua does not go beyond his neck if he has Haram morsels inside him. So have a true Niyyah, and go to the Wali of Allah with an honest intention.
In my own life, I have seen individuals like this. One man came from Pakistan and said ‘Hadhrat, I have heard about you, so please make me a friend of Allah.’ This took place in the old Khanqah during the night, and I said ‘Sit down, make the transaction with me, and if you don’t return as a Wali of Allah, then come and complain to me.’ He replied ‘I will make that transaction’ – and this is a person with a big name. I said ‘Make the promise’, and he replied ‘I do promise, truly.’ What did he do? He had a massive office, and very high-ranking office in what you might call the Department of Thieves, otherwise known as the Customs Department in Pakistan. This is where the most stealing and looting takes place – there is no question of anything there being Halal – and he was a high-ranking officer in the Customs Department of Pakistan. I asked him ‘Do you steal?’, and he replied ‘Yes.’ Then I asked if he looted and consumed the wealth of others wrongfully, and he said ‘Yes.’ I said ‘How much Haram do you have?’ and he said ‘I have got millions of Haram earnings in my possession.’ I asked him where the money was, and he said ‘It is in various bank accounts, where it is gathering interest.’ ‘You take interest on it as well?’ I said. ‘So what else? You take interest on Haram earnings and your employment itself is Haram and you are telling me that you want to be a Wali of Allah. Would you rather what you have now or attain Wilayat?’ He said ‘I want Deen!’
Allahu Akbar – say SubhanAllah loudly. I am telling you this event from my own life – this is my experience of what happens when you put your hand in that hand. But we say ‘Oh no, no, no, I can’t leave my chapattis. I have got this house, and I cannot tell Hadhrat because I have got my cheques coming from there. If I don’t keep up this wrong action, how will I live my life, and how will my children grow up, and where will they eat from? And what will happen to me? Where will I get money from?’ For three years, this Faqir worked in a factory. I worked with my hands in front of hot stoves, doing night shifts to earn. There were many other ways open to me, big posts and ranks with titles that people would offer, but I had promised my Hadhrat that I would not earn nor eat Haram. I have never in my life signed up to benefits, and I would not do so even if I were to die of hunger.
I am giving you encouragement, my brothers, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. Allah is saying ‘This is what I will ask you about tomorrow, and I will take Hisab from you and punish you for not being able to practice Deen. You left Allah’s Name and you left the Barakaat of Allah, and you left the Noor of Allah’s Deen while running after food. Did you not think that I would feed you and give you bread to eat? I even give to those who don’t believe in Me, so if you became Mine, would I not give you food as well? I put you in a test for just a little while, so could you not pass that test? Could you not even take up the challenge for a few days? The animals are better than you, then. I just gave you a test for a few days, and I would have given you more - I would have opened the doors of Mercy for you if you had just endured that test for a few days. But instead, you kept on eating Haram, and all the while you took the name of Deen by saying that you were doing the work of the Deen.’ Do you think it is okay to practice one thing and not another and say ‘It’s okay – I can take this Haram money? Okay, fine – take it then. Is this the way we practice Deen here? In Pakistan, for example, there are no benefit cheques to be claimed; there is no social security. So go there and do the work of the Deen; it is only here that we take the money.
So, brothers, this person said to me ‘Okay, I will leave all these wrong things.’ He lost millions! He resigned from his job, and after that, he was on the street, finished, because all his money had gone. But today, his Khanqah is still running, alhamdulillah. That same individual once had heart surgery, and afterwards his doctors asked ‘Who is this person? While he was having a heart by-pass operation, his heart was saying something!’ This is what happens, my brothers, because in order to go to Allah, you have to give things up. This is the real Niyyah. We pray Salah and give Fatwas, but I have told you his Hal now and what happened to him. I have explained his Hal to you, and this is the Hal that is described in the Hadith from Mishkat that I shared with you.
The real thing is this Islam – what is this Islam? SubhanAllah, it is when there is peace and contentment in everything. Allah subhana wa ta'ala says that you should obtain contentment and love and peace and prosperity; you should get Sakeenah from Islam, and that is when you become a man. Don’t be a drama Sufi and a fake, immersed in cultures and traditions, calling people Naqshbandi and this Bandi and that Bandi. No Bandi, nothing, just true Tawbah; repent and be prepared for the Hadith of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he said ‘Whoever becomes mine, be prepared for poverty, for poverty and hunger run to that person.’ Yes! Don’t count two plus two after that. The days will go, so be ready for struggles. Think ‘I won’t consume Haram even if it means that I will pass away.’ Fitnah is finished at that time. That’s it – Haram is Haram; end of story, that’s it, accept it. Say SubhanAllah.
This is the Islam that we should bring into our lives, and then Islam will come, my friends. May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do Mujahidah. The real Mujahidah should come into our lives, and we should acquire strength in our hearts through the Mujahidah that we are doing. We should have the Quwwah, the power and the intensity so that the Dunya disappears from our hearts and Allah’s Radha overcomes us. And that time will not come to pass until we present ourselves and take the company of a friend of Allah in the way that I have explained to you. Whatever he says that you should stop, you stop it; if he says leave it, then leave it; if he says that this is wrong because it is against Shari’ah, then leave it. Leave everything, even if it evaporates into the air. You say ‘But what about this? Oh Hadhrat Sahib, I am finished if I follow what you are saying’ - and then you make people become my enemies. You make people go against me. No, no, no – this is not success.
Don’t put the blame on me; this is the Hukm of Shari’ah, and that is why I am saying this. Don’t give my name as your excuse to people when people ask you why you are not doing something. You tell them ‘Oh, my Shaykh said I should not do this’, but this is nothing to do with the Shaykh. The Shaykh is the guide, but this is Haram. That is why we do what we do. Tell them ‘Before, my eyes were closed, but he put such an injection on my heart that my eyes opened, and now I can see that Haram is Haram. I can see this in reality. My eyes can see that what I am consuming is like swine. This money is making everything I put into my body like the flesh of swine, and Barakah cannot come if I am lying and committing fraud and eating from this. I am committing fraud and taking from the Dunya, and if I do this and people pray Salah behind me, then I am destroying their Salah as well.’ Allahu Akbar.
This is the reality - Deen is very simple. Why is Deen hard for us? Because we haven’t done Tazkiyah. I swear by Allah, you cannot imagine the enjoyment you get from eating Halal. I am telling you, this is a Deen of enjoyment, enjoyment that comes from poverty, hunger, difficulties. There is so much enjoyment and taste in a life lived for the sake of Allah – you cannot imagine the taste. Otherwise, Bilal would never have lain down on the hot coals or upon the hot, burning sand. So much taste and enjoyment came to him in the path of Allah that he persevered through all of his difficulties, SubhanAllah.
So there are no problems, my friends, for we have the means and the resources. Have you understood? Don’t wait for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam to come. People say ‘When is Imam Mehdi alayhi salam coming?’ but when he comes, he will say, ‘Bring those Munafiqs first, those people from Bolton, those thieves who are claiming that they are Muslims, but they destroyed the Deen. They have destroyed and dishonoured Allah’s Deen. They would run away from Salah, and they would run away from the people of the beard; these are the people whose Akhlaq was spoiled. They were wasteful people, and that is why people have run away from practicing.’
Allah has explained the alternative to this, saying ‘It is your decision. Those who go to Jannah will be those whose Akhlaq was good. They maintained good Akhlaq despite their difficulties. But Jahannam will be filled with those who had bad Akhlaq.’ This is the meaning of the Hadith, isn’t it? I didn’t go beyond that into the detail that follows.
So let us do Dua to Allah ta’ala, saying ‘Oh Allah, You are so Merciful in allowing us to pray Salah! You are so Merciful in allowing us to recite Qur’an. Oh Allah, You are so Gracious in making us do the work of the Deen and in changing our faces and allowing us to wear the Sunnah Libas. You have taught us the Sunnah and given us knowledge, but, oh Allah, we are so hypocritical! We are Munafiqs – why don’t we change ourselves? Oh Allah, I promise to You that I will do Dhikr Katheer, and I will have a true connection with my Shaykh, with the right Niyyah. Whatever he says and guides me towards, I will continue to accept that. But I will not give his reference and say that he said that I should do this or that. It is the Hukm of Allah, so I will persevere and will be patient.’
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the ability to practice on these words and may Allah ta’ala allow us to elevate our Akhlaq and purify it so that we can become good Muslims. Don’t dislike people – love people. Whenever you go and sit with people, do not allow dislike and hatred to enter your heart. Don’t do that, but rather look at how a person has benefitted you. Even if he swears at you or dishonors you or does something bad to you, treat people in the way Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam used to treat people. He would never take revenge for his own sake. He would say ‘Okay, he did these wrong things, but I forgive this person’ – SubhanAllah. If you do this, whose rank is elevated? His or yours? Your rank will rise, and your status will rise, because you say to Allah ‘I forgive him with all my heart, so, oh Allah, give him elevation and give him more light, and give him progression and promotion. I have forgiven that person. Oh Allah, all I want is You and nothing else. If I get You through this transaction of forgiving, then this is a very good bargain, and a very low price to pay. I will go to his house and ask for forgiveness to attain this result.’
Look at how Allah becomes happy at this! If Allah says ‘Go – ask him for forgiveness and I will be happy with you’, will you not go to that person and ask him for forgiveness? Tell me. Is it such a big thing to ask for forgiveness? Even when you lie down, check your heart and say ‘Oh Allah, take the dislike of this person out of my heart. He took my money and my wealth, and he swore at me even though I have a higher status than him. He dishonored me, but oh Allah, I forgive him because through this I attain Your nearness. I forgive him for Your sake, and I do Dua for that person. Oh Allah, make him pious as well, and make him good, and remove his difficulties.’ See what Sakeenah you get when you sleep in that night; you will have such a peaceful sleep. Never go to sleep with dislike and hatred of people in your mind; never go to sleep with anger, for when you go to sleep with anger, you will get a migraine, heart attacks and depression. All these things happen due to anger and hatred, and you will toss and turn during the night. But when you forgive everyone and go to sleep with the Pleasure of Allah, then you will have such a deep, nice sleep that people will not be able to wake you if they try!
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen
Recite Durood Sharif and let us do some Dhikr.
It is stated in some Hadiths that he will stay in this Dunya, and establish the Khilafat ar-Rashidah, and we can imagine that a good time will return then. There will be peace, contentment and justice, and issues will end; there will be Islam beyond Islam, alhamdulillah, the ideal Islam, the real Islam. Mehdi alayhi salam will come with the Deen.
Today as we sit here and talk about this and think about this a little bit, some results should come out of this discussion, shouldn’t they? After all, this is a discussion about Islah, about rectification; this is an Islahi Majlis, so may Allah ta’ala allow us to speak about beneficial things. Let us make a Niyyah for Amal, my brothers. Do we all make Niyyah that we will practice? Don’t sit without making this intention to practice. This is not about listening to stories and anecdotes and fairy tales, so if you don’t have the intention to practice, it would be better for you to go now. Whenever you come here, sit down and make this intention ‘InshaAllah, when I hear something, I will practice upon that.’ Do you all make this intention? Good.
There will be Barakah when you make this intention – remember this point. I will get a lot of benefit, for if your Niyyah is correct, then I will get different thoughts, good thoughts that I can share with you. This is because the Faidh is coming to you, and due to the intention that you make, Allah ta’ala will make a discussion that matches your Niyyah. If people come thirsty, then Allah ta’ala will dig wells for them, make fountains for them, bring clouds for them, bring rain for them, give floods for them and make rivers for them – He will give oceans for those who are thirsty! But if we have no thirst and say that we have no need, then Allah ta’ala will say ‘I will give them a drought – finish them.’ If they are not even thirsty and they have no desire, no need and no passion, then what is the point? If you are thirsty and are in need, then Allah ta’ala will enable those discussions to take place that we are in need of, and due to you, I will succeed as well - so make Niyyah again. Have you all made the right Niyyah for sitting here, that we will practice upon what is discussed? Okay.
So when Imam Mehdi alayhi salam comes to this world, then peace and tranquility will ensue and Islam beyond Islam will come into being. So now, let us think for a moment about what Islam he will bring. What Islam will he bring? Will he bring Masjids? SubhanAllah, we already have Masjids, and we have Qur’ans, and a person can sit in a corner reading Qur’an, and he doesn’t care about us and we don’t care about him. He can sit there enjoying himself – look what a big Masjid this is. There is a hall upstairs and other rooms on the side. And if we choose not to pray here, we can go two yards down the road and go to another Masjid; and if we don’t want to go there, we can go to another Masjid - is there any shortage of Masjids? So what kind of Jamia Masjid will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam construct when he brings Islam? Tell me. We already have the Qur’an – there are so many Qur’ans on the shelves, with different scripts, some colour-coded, some with Tafsir. Everywhere you look, someone is reading Qur’an, and someone is reciting Qur’an. Is there a lack in this respect? So what will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam bring that is not already present today? Say SubhanAllah. Will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam bring a new Kitab? He will bring the Shari’ah of he who was the Seal of the Prophets, the Final Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, so there will be no issue there.
And he who comes after, namely Hadhrat Isa alayhi salam, who was a Prophet from before, he will also follow the same Shari’ah that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam brought to his world; he will do Amal on those same Sunnahs. No new book will come. Fitnahs will come, but no new Kitab will come. Fitnahs and disputes will come with people claiming that they are prophets – such things will appear like bubbles; this is the reality. Shaytan will continue to do his work in every generation and in every era. So Masjids are many, and they are full, and people wear the Sunnah – you have got Sunnah Libaas and beards, MashaAllah. There are announcements, and what a good thing it is that people are reciting the Qur’an.
What is wrong then? What will Imam Mehdi alayhi salam come to do? Why will he come? What Deen is he going to bring that suddenly, everything will change, and peace will come, and light and contentment will come? What Islam will he bring? Obviously, whatever Islam he brings, we must have that Islam today, no? Say SubhanAllah. Don’t we have that Islam today? So then what need is there for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam? Is there a need? Everything is present and everyone is here, and Masjids are full, and different types of people are sat, with different types of faces. MashaAllah, there will be women upstairs or downstairs – every Masjid has a different system. There are different features, and people come for Jumu’ah, and during Ramadhan you see people coming and going. During Hajj time or for Umrah, the Haram is filled with Hajjis and pilgrims - there are so many people now that things have opened up again. There are no spaces, and tickets and flights are full, and there is no shortage of Hajjis or people doing Umrah or people praying Salah. There is no lack of Tableegh, and no lack of Dhikr, so what Deen will he come with that will make this change come about so suddenly? This is the question that arises, isn’t it?
So if we realise today that Imam Mehdi will come with the real Deen - which he will - then all of us should make the Niyyah from today that that we will start practicing the Deen that he brings – say SubhanAllah. Why wait and wait for ages for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam to come? If we know what he is going to bring, then we must start from today because maybe this will allow us to join with his Jamat – end of story. Maybe a phone call will come, and he will say ‘Come, you are in my Jamat. Come and join me – why are you sat there in Bolton?’ This is the age of phone technology, so maybe he will send a text message to me and you, saying ‘What are you doing there, so-and so? Come, come – I have arrived, and you are in my Jamat.’ This is nothing to laugh about, so keep your sleeping bag ready. People practice this. The Jamat people do this, MashaAllah; they go for this many days, so they are fully practiced at this. All that is needed is for the call to come – say SubhanAllah.
The call will come to those who are practicing the Islam that he will bring. So if we practice that Islam from today, then my friends, it is obvious that we will have to accept one thing. We have to accept that what he brings will not be the Islam of today – say SubhanAllah. It won’t be the Islam we see now, and we have to accept that the Deen we are practicing today has no connection with Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, absolutely none. There will definitely be a difference between the Islam that he brings and what we have today. Why? Today, a Muslim is faced with more wretchedness and negativity than has ever been the case in history. The extent to which we are astray and wretched and disrespected and dishonored means that Muslims are drowned today. Allah ta’ala said that the dirtiest thing, the most wasteful thing which is most disliked by Allah in the whole universe is what? Do you know what that thing is? This Dunya. Out of the whole Universe, this Dunya is most disliked. And today the Muslims are running after this Dunya. He is drowned in it, and he cannot stop; from head to toe, he is drowned in this Dunya, fully immersed in it, whatever form he takes - Sufi sahib, that sahib, whatever title you care to name, and even if his face and appearance is like a Muslim and whatever deed he does. Only honesty comes out of my mouth, so don’t take what I am saying badly. Don’t take what I am saying negatively – there is no need for that. I have sat down here, so let me speak as well.
So brothers, the reality and the truth is this, that any type of person we find in the world today, whether at the Ka’abah or in Madinat-ul-Munawwara, wherever, at all the holy sites you can go to, even in those places, there is a storm brewing in the Dunya in which Insan is drowned. And Allah ta’ala dislikes most of all the thing that people are drowned in – and what is that called? Dunya.
Yet we say it is Islam that surrounds us. If we are asked ‘Who are you?’ we say ‘I am a Muslim’ – Astaghfirullah. The title is on our heads – we say ‘We are Muslims’ – but these are just titles, for we are immersed in that thing which Allah ta’ala dislikes the most. And the Hadith concludes with the observation by Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam that ‘Destruction will come to my Qawm when the Dunya will overtake and overwhelm them.’ Otherwise, there is no way they can be destroyed, for they have a fantastic Deen. There is nothing greater than Iman - and is there anything greater than the Qur’an? Is there anything more fantastic than the orders of Allah ta’ala and the orders of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam? Tell me. But we have wasted it all, and what has caused this to be wasted? Dunya – Dunya, the world, material concerns. Pir, Faqir, Tazkiyah – everything is wrapped up and backed by the Dunya.
Dunya is not just money; it is not money and cash. The definition of Dunya is when a person has greed within him – he wants fame, he wants to be popular, he wants money, he wants respect. He thinks ‘I am the only one who should be respected. It is me, it is my ego – I should be acclaimed, and I should be accepted, for I am better than others’ – this is all Dunya. He wants fame, he wants to be popular, he wants money, or he wants respect. He thinks ‘It is just me who should be respected, only me. It is my ego that counts and only I should be acclaimed. I should be accepted because I am better than others. I am better.’ This is all Dunya. He is full of desires and indecent thoughts while is in Sujud or reading Qur’an or on Hajj and Umrah - this is his state.
So what will be the Deen which Mahdi alayhi salam brings? Will it contain Salah, or not? There will be Salah, there will be Zakah, there will be Hajj – there will be everything. I recall a Hadith, so let me share it with you. This is a very beneficial Hadith, and its narrator is Abu Hurayrah radhiAllahu anh, and he said that the Gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam stated that on the Day of Judgement, when the Dunya comes to an end, and Qiyamah is set up and the Court of Allah is established, Salah will be presented in that Court. Salah is the biggest Amal that we have, isn’t it? Salah will be presented to Allah, and it will say ‘I am the biggest Ibadah of this Ummah.’ Salah will present itself, and Allah ta’ala will say ‘Okay, I know who you are. You are Salah and you are a good thing’, but then Allah will put it to the side. This is a Hadith we should listen carefully to. We say ‘I am a Muslim, and I pray Salah. I pray Salah a lot – I am a real Muslim’ – and this is a good thing. We have nothing more than this, today, don’t we? We say ‘Yes, I pray Salah regularly. I am a steadfast Musalli – Salah, Salah, Salah.’ So Salah will come first, and Allah will say ‘This is good.’
Next, Sawm will come forward. We prepare so much for fasting, and after fasting, we say ‘Oh, don’t ask – I am a Jannati. I am in Paradise, I am in heaven – Jibreel alayhi salam is waiting to meet me. He will give Wahy to me, for I am pious.’ In I’ttikaf, everyone is pious and glorious – say SuhanAllah. The truth is coming out here, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. Whoever sits in I’ttikaf is so pious, and after, when he leaves, people put a nice necklace of flowers around his neck and say ‘MashaAllah. You did I’ttikaf and you did Ziyarah in I’ttikaf, didn’t you? MashaAllah.’ People praise him, saying ‘He did this and he did this’, and he enjoys hearing it. He comes back from Umrah, and he is so pious – alhamdulillah. Allah Himself is saying that these are good things; they are not bad things. Yes, Allah ta’ala has given you the Tawfeeq to do good. So the fast will say ‘I am the fast, oh Allah, and he fasted and he did this.’ Allah will say ‘Good – you are good.’ Look how great an action fasting is. A person who fasts has a great status. The one who does Siyam and Qiyam is at a high level, isn’t he? He says ‘Yes, I keep a fast every Monday and Saturday’ – this is a very good thing. Allah will say ‘This is good.’
Then Sadaqah will come. Sadaqah will come forward and say ‘Oh Allah, I am Sadaqah – I am charity’ - how great an action Sadaqah is! And Allah ta’ala will say ‘Yes, you are a good thing, but go to the side.’ The Hadith explains that one Amal after another will come forward – recitation of the Qur’an will come, Jumu’ah will come, all the deeds that we do and that we practice, a person’s Imamah, his beard, his Sunnah clothing, and Allah will say ‘Good thing, good thing, good thing.’ And at the end – say SubhanAllah – Deen-ul-Islam will come. It will come forward and introduce itself as Islam – SubhanAllah. These are the words of the Hadith. If I give a full explanation, it will become very lengthy, so I won’t go into a detailed explanation. There are a lot of points that come out of this Hadith, many points. With your Barakah, I have to put the brakes on, otherwise a great deal of time will be taken up on this Hadith. This is a very nice Hadith which has come to my mind.
So the Deen itself is the last in the line to come forward. All the understanding about Mehdi alayhi salam has come into my mind here – what a great Hadith this is to explain it. So Islam will come forward, and the first thing it will say as it steps forward will be ‘Ya Allah, You are Salam’ – SubhanAllah – ‘and from Your Name, Islam has come, oh Allah. Oh Allah, You are Salam, and I am Islam!’ SubhanAllah – submission beyond submission. ‘Oh Allah, You are Salam, and I am Islam.’ So then the answer comes from Allah – the direction changes. Allah will reply ‘Good; this is good’ – the same words are used. ‘But be sure of one thing, that today, on this Day of Judgement, whatever happens, Jannah, Jahannam and everything will be based on you, oh Islam. Whoever belongs to you will go to Paradise, and whoever is detached from you will go to Hell.’ Now there is a very long explanation and unpacking of this Hadith, for many doors open up into which we could disappear at any second, but I will bypass these meanings and continue with our theme.
So what we realise from this is that it is a good thing that we pray Salah and keep fasts and do all these other actions and deeds, but we have hidden Deen away. Yet this is the Deen about which Allah has said ‘You are good, and the decision will be based on you, oh Islam, not the A’maal that were presented before you.’ The decision will be based on you, oh Islam, so what are you? We need to know because the decision will be based on you. So what we realise is that Salah, fasting, Hajj and Zakah are not the sole components of Islam. Islam is not based on these things, although these are parts of Islam – say SubhanAllah. This is the biggest Fitnah that shaytan has injected into us in this day and age – remember this. This is the biggest Fitnah that he has put into us, and consequently, Islam has been hidden. These things are there, these practical aspects, but we think that all these actions I mentioned to you are all we have to do, and yet Islam, which Allah ta’ala likes most of all has been hidden. All of our A’maal will be weighed and accepted based on Islam, which is the real Islam. Salah will be accepted as Salah, and fasts will accepted as fasts when they are based on the reality of the Islam that Allah ta’ala accepts.
They are great actions, and Allah says that they are good things. What action can be greater than Salah or fasting? Allah likes these actions, but we have destroyed the reality of the matter. Nafs and shaytan have destroyed the reality of all of these things. Whilst cloaked by these actions, we have destroyed the real Islam; whilst cloaked by these actions, we have spoiled the name of Islam. People have run away from the Deen and they consider many things that Allah likes to be bad.
Do you understand what I am saying? People have started to consider good deeds to be bad because we have eliminated the real essence of Islam. We have oppressed Islam and have done injustice to Islam. Salah as been dishonoured. If you ask someone ‘Have you prayed Salah?’ the reply comes ‘Oh, I have seen many dodgy people who pray Salah.’ Have you experienced this kind of push-back? If you ask ‘Why don’t you keep a beard?’ they say ‘Oh, I have seen many people who keep a beard and who follow the Sunnah and who do Dhikr, oh Sufi Sahib.’ So what is it that gives these great A’maal a bad name, these deeds that we practice and with which we associate ourselves? Why do people run away from these deeds and make fun of them? If you ask ‘Why don’t you keep a beard?’ they say ‘Oh, if we keep a beard, people will ask what we are doing and remind us that they have seen other people who keep beards who are thieves and robbers.’ Is this not the case? Tell me.
So when Imam Mehdi alayhi salam comes, what Deen will he bring? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has clarified this; he did not hide this knowledge from us – no. The Hadith continues – look at this. Either Hadhrat Anas radhiAllahu anh or Abu Hurayrah radhiAllahu anh narrates this Hadith, I can’t remember which – the Hadith is found in Mishkat. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘I swear by Allah the Creator, in whose Hands is my life, a person cannot be a Muslim…’ and then he gives a condition. You can argue and you can declare Fatwas, and some Moulvis and Muftis make Fatwas immediately, but let them put a Fatwa to contradict this Hadith if it is not acceptable. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam made an oath, and then said ‘لَا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ– a person cannot be a Muslim….’ And what was the condition? A person who doesn’t pray Salah? Who doesn’t keep fasts? Who doesn’t perform Hajj? No – listen, for this is the Deen that Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will bring. The Deen that Imam Mehdi alayhi salam brings is being defined for you. ‘لَا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ – neither a man nor a woman can be a Muslim unless he desires for his brother what he desires for himself.’ SubhanAllah. I hear a small SubhanAllah – say SubhanAllah loudly!
Do you understand the Deen now? So why do you only respond with a small SubhanAllah? It is because we don’t have the Niyyah to do Amal on this, that is why, otherwise you would jump up on hearing this, and say ‘SubhanAllah! Is this how we will succeed? Is that it?’ Yes! All of your Salah, fasting, Hajj and Zakah are based on this action, I swear by Allah. The Qur’an tells us this, that all actions are based on this one factor. Is this not a great Hadith? Tell me. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘No, no, a person cannot be a Muslim if he does not desire for his brother what he prefers and likes for himself.’ Do you like people swearing at you? Would you like it if somebody picked your pocket? Would you like it if someone lied to you? Would you like it if somebody swore at your father? Would you like it if someone was unjust to you? Would you like it if someone broke into your house and stole your money? Would you like it if someone defrauded you? Would you like it if someone stole money from you? Would you like such things to be done to you? Would you like it if someone swore at you? Would you like it if someone oppressed you? Would you like it if someone hated you, or had malice against you in his heart, or if someone backbited against you or did black magic against you? Does anyone like these things? He cannot be a Muslim if he doesn’t want to prevent other people experiencing these things as well.
All of these things – malice, slander, oppression, hatred – are bad enough in wider society, but these things are active in our own homes; these things run within our own families These sins are evident among our close relatives – they start within our own homes. In our own homes, we argue from morning to night, the father with his son, or if not with the son, then with the mother, and the mother shields the son like a wall, like a mad woman, and the father cannot accept her behaviour. Yet this person comes to pray Salah and he reads Qur’an, and he has a beard and a turban. Look at the character of this person who is doing Hajj and Umrah. Do you understand these points that I am making? Are my words clear so that you understand what our Deen is? Do you understand now and realise what a big drama we are playing, what a big deception this is? Every day we are throwing coffins into the grave after people die, but does anyone do so with sadness, thinking ‘What Islam is he leaving this world with?’ If you looked in his home you would see how many doubts and suspicions and complaints are made by his relatives, and you would see how much money he has taken away from them, and you would see the money that he has looted from the Masjid. Tell me.
I remember another Hadith now, SubhanAllah, which is narrated by Hadhrat Abdullah bin Umar radhiAllahu anh and is found in Mishkat. ‘The Muslim is he from whom other Muslims are safe and protected’ – protected from what? “مِنْ لِسَانِهِ وَيَدِهِ” Allah ta’ala has given two dangerous weapons, and shaytan and Nafs utilize these two things. They utilize these two things so much that they will drag us towards Jahannam from morning to evening. For every Ibadah that we do, we have these two opposite actions, and that is why Allah ta’ala says ‘Okay, don’t show Me your Ibadah, rather, show Me the real Islam. Did you protect Deen? Did you protect your Salah? Did you protect your Hajj? Did you protect your fasts? These are good actions, but how much did you protect these actions? You destroyed these actions – with what? With your tongue and your hands.’
As long as the definition of the Mu’min is that he is a person from whom others were safe from his hands and tongue, then Islam will say to Allah ‘I am Salamat beyond Salamat. Oh Allah, You are Salam and I am Islam – I have come from Your Name.’ So can it be that a Muslim could commit oppression on others? Can you imagine that a Muslim would oppress others? Can you imagine that a Muslim will do injustice to other people? Can you imagine that a Muslim will mock other people, or criticize other people, or break other people’s hearts?
Look, what are the ways in which people’s hearts can be broken? You can break somebody’s heart with just a few words. Even without words, if you just walk in front of a person in a certain way, he will think ‘Is he walking in this style in order to break my heart? Is he trying to pester me, to look at me in a sad way, or in a bad way?’ Just by looking, just by staring at someone, just by speaking in a certain way, a person’s heart can be pierced. Internally, mentally, in respect of his Nafs, a person can torture another person. Mentally, verbally or through your manners, even though you haven’t slapped him, you are still torturing him mentally and making him mad. This is how our society is today, and yet if we are asked, we say that we are fine.
I took a promise from you in the beginning that from today we would become the party of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam. Yes? This Deen of Islam came in this way, and Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come with this Deen when he comes; this is the Islam that will run and prosper. No son will oppress his mother, and no sister will oppress her brother, and no husband will oppress his wife, and no wife will oppress her husband or children, and vice-versa. MashaAllah, a society will come into being that upholds the two Hadiths that I have shared and explained to you. The Muslim will only be he– SubhanAllah – who likes for others what he likes for himself. If he likes something for himself, he will like that his Muslim brethren have that as well. He will think ‘If somebody swears at me, no problem – but I will not swear at him.’ And this was how the Deen started. Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam came with this Deen in the beginning, and then it changed and changed until you see the kind of Deen that we have in Bolton today. This is what I am explaining to you. The Deen changed and transformed and changed – into what? What form do we have today? Think about it yourself.
This is the biggest Sunnah of Nabi-al-Karim sallallahu alayhi wasallam: our society and our personal actions and our Akhlaq, our character, Aadaab, manners – the whole of life from A to Z. {لَّقَدۡ كَانَ لَكُمۡ فِى رَسُولِ ٱللَّهِ أُسۡوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ۬}. Allah announced this, saying ‘If you want to remain as Muslims, then until Yawm-al-Qiyamah, one hundred percent do everything exactly in the way that My Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam prescribed for you.’ What did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam prescribe for us? His personal example was that he endured swearing, and stones being thrown at him such that blood came out of his body, and mockery and being pestered by people, and he lost a tooth and suffered injury and so much other oppression besides. What hardship did he not experience? And yet, in his whole life, never once did Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam seek or take revenge for his own sake. Exacting revenge is a far cry from his example. Far from exacting revenge, he would never even speak against those who did wrong to him, so to even say bad to such a person is a far cry from his example; rather, Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam would make Dua for those people – he prayed for them, SubhanAllah. He demonstrated this to us practically.
I would like to share one beautiful event of Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam on the subject of Akhlaq. On one occasion, three individuals became guests of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam; Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam put them up as guests. Now obviously, guests have rights, but Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was busy, so he explained to them that sometimes he might arrive early, and at other times he might come later. So he said ‘You can go to where I keep my goat and take milk for yourselves. Take what you need, but keep one share for me so that when I come later, I can also have some milk.’ So when evening came, these three individuals went to the goat and drew milk for themselves – and this was a matter of just a few drops. There was not a bucket-load of milk to be drawn from the goat of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, for it was probably thin and frail and it would have been hard to get any milk from it. So whatever milk came out, they just took two or three mouthfuls each and then put some aside for Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So these Companions stated that once it so happened that they had put some milk on the side, and then shaytan put a Waswasah into one of them, saying ‘MashaAllah, Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam gives freely to all of the Sahaba, and he has no need to eat much, so why not drink this share of his today as well.’ So the Companion said ‘With this Waswasah in my head, while my other two colleagues were sleeping, I went and consumed the share that we had put aside for Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. I drank it all, and then I said to myself “What have I done here? How could I have made this mistake?” My condition dropped suddenly as I realized that the Master of the Two Worlds would soon come and would be hungry and would ask what had happened to his drink. I so desperately didn’t want to be destroyed by hearing such a thing from his blessed mouth, and so I was in such a bad way at that time. I kept looking around and wondering when he would return, all the time thinking about what I should do and what would happen to me. I felt that it would better for me to pass away before having to face this situation. But soon I saw that the respected and honourable Rasool of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was coming, so I lay down and held my breath, thinking that I was finished.’
So first, the gracious Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam prayed two Rakahs of Nafl Salah, and then he went to get his share of the milk. When he got there and found that the bowl was empty, SubhanAllah, the Companion was expecting words to come out that would destroy him, but what Dua came from his mouth? Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam raised his hands and said ‘Ya Allah, whenever You give to me, give to him as well. Whenever You give me food to eat, give him food as well.’ This was the Dua that came out for that person, SubhanAllah. When he heard this Dua, the Companion relates that he felt refreshed as if his life had come back to him. He says ‘I immediately came out of my bed and took my knife and resolved to try to find a goat or some animal that I could slaughter, so that I might make a dish with its meat and then present it in the service of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, for otherwise he would not have eaten anything all night long. I went outside, and I saw that same goat which we had been milking was standing there with its udders completely full of milk, so full that they were hanging down due to the weight of the milk. I wondered if this was the same goat and thought for a moment that it must be another goat, but then I understood that this was a Mu’jiza of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
So I went inside, picked up the biggest bowl in the house, and then went out and drew milk from the goat until the bowl was full. Then I approached and quietly gave Salam to Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.’ The Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked the Sahabi why he had come, and he replied ‘Ya Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, I have brought milk for you – please drink it.’ Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam smiled and said ‘Oh, have you brought milk?’ The Companion said ‘Yes - it is amazing that your goat, which had so little milk before, now has so much that I have filled this whole bowl from its udders.’ Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Okay, that’s fine, but before you give any to me, put some aside for your two friends who are sleeping.’ SubhanAllah, this is what Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam left behind for the Ummah – what you like for yourself, you should desire those same things for others. The Companion was extremely happy, and he rejoiced so much that passion overcame him, and so Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked him why he was so happy. He then told him the whole story, telling Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam of the action he had done and what had transpired thereafter.
This is Islam, but do we see this Islam around us, my brothers? I said at the outset that we do not have this Islam, and that is why Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come, because Islam will have ended. Islam is not about having Masjids; all these things around us are not Islam. Rather, Islam is what I am sharing with you. Show me some locality where this Islam is found, and then I will accept that Islam is alive. You should be able to show me this everywhere, especially here where we have all these Sufis sitting here. But we have tricksters and fraudsters who come to do Tazkiyah. I am speaking honestly with you because you are my students, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. We say we have come for Tazkiyah and for rectification, but what Tazkiyah will be attained if our Niyyah is not correct? Some have come in order to become something, to become a Sufi Sahib or a Wali of Allah, or for this or that purpose, Allahu Akbar.
Tazkiyah is such a great subject in Deen. Where does Tazkiyah start? Tazkiyah means purification, and what we take as assistance in this task of purification is Allah! We take Allah’s Name – through Allah’s Name, the whole world is purified. The whole Universe is maintained through this, and Qiyamah cannot come while this Name is still present in one person’s heart – but it has to be present in a pure heart. As long as this Name is to be found within a pure heart, Allah will say ‘How can I bring Qiyamah? My Name prevents Me from establishing Qiyamah.’ We say we are attached to this Name, but have we done Tazkiyah? Have we done Tazkiyah when reciting this Name? Something is lacking inside us, without doubt.
The system has ended in our Khanqahs - the atmosphere of Tazkiyah has ended. If we step forward today really wanting Tazkiyah, the real, genuine Tazkiyah, then we will love for everyone else what we love for ourselves. I will want to become that Muslim whose hand and tongue do not give pain and difficulty to anyone else, whether internally or externally. I will not stare at people nor mock them nor be rude to them, and I would always be careful to avoid causing pain to anyone’s heart. Make this Niyyah before sitting down to do Muraqabah, to do Tazkiyah and to purify yourself: ‘Oh Allah, I am about to come back to You – I will come back to You soon. Oh Allah, I need this intention!’ Allah ta’ala has mentioned so many times in the Qur’an that we are soon to return to Him. Allah is saying ‘I know you, I watch you and I see you; I know, I see and I hear – I know everything.’ What does this mean? Allah is saying ‘I am taking the accounts of your deeds – I know those things that are hidden between your breaths. How can you even try to hide from Me? Correct yourselves, because you will have to present everything to Me from A to Z.’ Allah ta’ala says {إِنَّهُ ۥ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ۬} - He is telling us ‘I watch, I am aware, and I can see things that you cannot see.’
Allahu Akbar, what a great announcement! This is the subject of the whole Qur’an, and from this another great subject of Tazkiyah arises, so we will come towards Tazkiyah now – listen. Imam Mehdi alayhi salam will come with Islam, and today we say that we want to be included in his party – and there is still time, alhamdulillah. There is still time. Some people have given the good tidings that he is going to come in the fifteenth century, which means the time is close, and that is why I am taking a promise from you. If you prepare yourselves from today, you will be able to go into his party. We have to practice this Islam from today, Allahu Akbar. We have to practice the Islam that does not cause pain to anybody, that does not break anybody’s heart, that does not commit oppression against anyone. And on top of that, benefit other people with yourself; benefit the enemy, benefit those who are against you, rescue those who are drowning – and then see how your house will become Jannah. No negative words against anyone will come upon your tongue, and inside you there should be no hatred or malice.
Malice is such a thing that even after doing all the Ibadahs during the day, if a person goes to sleep at night with malice in his heart, then he is sleeping with destruction and there is nothing to his name. When a person sleeps, his heart should be free from malice, hatred and dislike for others. Do we do this action? We say ‘Oh no, no, no, I pray Salah and I pray Tahajjud and I do so much Dhikr and this and that’, but no greed for Dunya should be with you in your bed when you go to sleep at night. There should be no hatred or oppression, and no desire for the Dunya – and I have told that everything is Dunya, including fame, title, acclaim, respect, and honour. Put all of this to one side and take it out of your heart, for there is only one thing for which Allah ta’ala sent us to the earth and which we have to prepare for, which is to attain the true pleasure of Allah, of al-Haqq.
We should think ‘My whole body is available to please My Rabb, oh Allah! The breaths that I am taking, and the body that You have given to me, and the Deen that You have given to me, and the Ni’mahs that You give for my sustenance, the roast and the kebabs and the biryani, you have given all this to me for this purpose. What should I do? I should please My Rabb in every second of my life. Every day and night of my life I want to please You, and from the break of each dawn, I want to ensure that I do not displease my Rabb. I want to please Allah with every action of my day. You give me so many Ni’mahs, and I will keep on eating and enjoying the Dunya.’ Yes, enjoy – run around, have houses and cars, and eat food and fruits. Eat and be grateful to Allah, but do not present a Deen to Allah through which Allah’s displeasure is incurred. Don’t do actions which will cause Allah to be unhappy with you. Rather, what should you say? Say ‘When I do a good action, oh Allah, may I keep on practicing that which makes You happy’, and then the Noor will shine through the Ni’mahs that Allah ta’ala has given to you. Noor will come into your Qur’an, and Noor will come into your A’maal, and then these Ibadaat which I mentioned before, those deeds which are good, they will become elevated, and through them you will do Ziyarah of your Rabb, of your Lord. This is the true Islam, and we need to grab hold of it.
What is the Deen? Tell me. What is that Salah, and what is that Jumu’ah, and what is that Tahajjud, and what is that Tableegh that we are doing? What are the speeches and conferences and Durus that we attend? We have malice and hatred even in these gatherings; we have Hasad, envy of others, and we sit with pride and Takabbur. You can see this on every side, from your actions and from your face, for you don’t look at the people who you do not like, and you even have a different way of giving Salam to them. As for the people who benefit you in the world, you bow to them and run after them, speaking to them nicely and smiling at them, yet you speak to those who you do not like in a different way because you dislike them. In one gathering, four of you, you, your son, your wife and children all have different ways of treating people, smiling and laughing and presenting yourselves nicely to those with whom you are happy. This destructive habit has spread into all areas of society, even in the Masjids. Once this happened to me in a Masjid, where a person who did not like me stood next to me for a whole week in Salah, as if by chance – this happened in Masjid ar-Rahman. All these games used to take place, so that whenever I would go to pray Salah, he would come and pray next to me and would deliberately elbow me, causing pain to my side through his constant elbowing - may Allah give Khair to him. And then the next day I would have to stand next to him again in prayer.
What is the state of Muslims today? Tell me. And yet when you hear the words of such people, their statements are so pious that it sounds like Nabuwwat is going to come to that person - this is such a big deception. The whole of Islam and Deen is based on Akhlaq, character and manners – that’s it. But what is our condition? What a game shaytan has played with us, such that the Deen that we have learned gives rise to places where there is no goodness. That is where we have taken our Islam. We need to learn the Deen of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, and where can we learn this? We will learn it from the Khanqahs, from the Ahl-ul’llah. There is no Dars that will teach this to you, and no Dar-ul-Uloom where you can learn it. There is only one place where you will learn the Deen of Islam and Tazkiyah, and that is from the Khanqah, from the spiritual hospital.
Look at the history of our pious predecessors. If you read about the Walis of Allah and the pious elders, you will see that their whole lives were spent in the Khanqahs. You will not see one such personality who did not go to the court of a friend of Allah through whom his life was changed and improved. But now Dhikr has ended, they are not to be found, Tazkiyah has gone, and when the necessary Tazkiyah does come before us, we dislike it, hate it and mock it. People don’t understand it and there are barriers put up against it today; there are restrictions and fake practices as well. But if today, we want to practice the real Islam, the truth of which Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam swore by Allah, then we must implement the Deen where we love for others what we love for ourselves. If we want to bring that Islam into our lives, then the first thing that we need to do is clean the heart, purify the heart and acquire Taqwa, for this is where Taqwa is found. It is in the heart, not in the ears, nor the lips or mouth, nor in the body. Taqwa comes first in the heart; it comes in the heart. And how do you make the heart ready? Through the Dhikr of Allah -{وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ}. And where is Dhikr practiced most of all? Dhikr takes place in the Khanqahs – where else does it take place?
Hadhrat Aisha Siddiqua radhiAllahu anha asked ‘Oh Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, how do we know whether someone is close to Allah, a friend of Allah, a pious person?’ What example did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam give? He said ‘The sign of a pious person is that when you see him, then you remember Allah.’ You remember Allah and do Dhikr. You think ‘Oh, this person is good – he is a Dhakir.’ So if you find this condition in yourself that when you see a person, you are reminded of Allah and do Dhikr, then immediately grab his feet, for he is a Wali of Allah. Think ‘This is the person that Rasooullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam mentioned, and I am seeing him with my own eyes today.’ But we even look at him in a different way, and wonder whether he has any miracles or Kashf, and we ask how much ‘Ilm he has, and whether he has studied Hadith or has graduated from somewhere, and whether he knows Qur’an, and what his speech is like, and what technical points does he make about grammar and so on. We put thousands of preconditions first, and do not pay attention to the sign that Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has told us about, which is that as soon as you sit down in his gathering, your heart comes to life - and not just one Latifah but all seven Lataif, all seven stages, come alive with the remembrance of Allah.
Allah’s Kamal is in a human being – Allah ta’ala has made such a great creation. Look, consider the Ka’abah that we have – what is in the Ka’abah? It is made of bricks and stones – it is a house, nothing else, and yet it is the House of Allah. A Masjid is also made of clay and stones and bricks and soil – like the Ka’abah – so what makes them special? It is that Allah’s Tajalli, Allah’s Magnificence, descends onto the Ka’abah, which is why the whole world loves the Ka’abah. The birds come and fly around it, and the angels come and do Tawaf around it. The whole world loves the Ka’abah, but it is not the walls of the Ka’abah that they are in love with. What do they love then? Allah ta’ala’s Dhat, His Tajalliat, His Magnificence. My Hadhrat would sit in front of it from morning until night, and even in the night, he would only depart for one hour. This was my Hadhrat, and I would sit with him, and from morning, all day and all night long, Hadhrat Sahib would sit, and would just keep looking at the Ka’abah; there was no other Ibadah. He was weak and would not be praying Nafl or reciting Qur’an. By Allah, there was no other action apart from Muraqabah and looking at the Ka’abah. He would sit in front of Rukn-e-Yemeni – I spent all my time with him there. You know the Rukn-e-Yemeni? Until today, that scene is still before my eyes, SubhanAllah. For his whole life, whenever he went there, Hadhrat Sahib would sit in front of Rukn-e-Yemeni, and I would sit with him in his company.
Once, I started wondering whether he was looking at the stones or at the rocks or at the walls or at something else, but the Walis of Allah look at the Tajalliat of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, at Allah’s Magnificence, at Allah’s Glory. Otherwise, how could anyone sit so long? Tell me. There is no way anyone could sit that long. In addition, I never saw him eating. Why? How could he eat? He was not in a state for eating and he had no desire, because of Allah’s Tajalliat. Musa alayhi salam asked ‘Ya Allah, show me Your Tajalli’, but Allah ta’ala said ‘You can’t see My Tajalli, but look at this tree.’ SubhanAllah, then Allah ta’ala cast His Tajalli onto that tree and the gleam of that Magnificence caused Musa alayhi salam to fall unconscious. And this is the Ka’abah, the House of Allah, where Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam has made prostrations – such great Tajalli of Allah descends upon the Ka’abah.
Now consider the human being, SubhanAllah. In the reality of Insan’s heart, there is not just one Ka’abah, rather there are seven levels of that Ka’abah, you might say – Qalb, Ruh, Sirr, Khafi, Akhfa. There are all these levels and stages in the body, and Allah ta’ala’s special Tajalliat descend upon them; Allah’s special focus comes upon them. Ask Hadhrat Mujaddid Alf Thani rahmatullah alayh. If we go to a Shaykh and find that this does not take effect, what is the reason for that? It is because the Dunya comes into us, the darkness of the Dunya, so we reflect that, and we cannot become good human beings. How will the good colour and the true effect of Deen come into us? Latifa Qalb and Ruh and Sirr and Khafi – these are stages and levels. On the Ka’abah, the House of Allah, there is a black cloth which shrouds the Ka’abah, but Allah ta’ala says ‘There are different, unique colours of My Tajalliat which descend’ – SubhanAllah. We think that the cover of the Ka’abah is black, but Allah ta’ala says that the best colour of Allah’s Tajalli is black – this is a unique thing that I am telling you here. That is why the Ka’abah is hidden inside a black cloth – remember this point. So different colours and lights reflect from Allah ta’ala’s Tajalliat, and the colour black is unique in this regard.
Now if we look at the human being, inside a person’s body, we see what is written in the Maktoobat of Hadhrat Mujaddid Alf Thani rahmatullah alayh. What was the Kamal that he had, and what was his greatness as a Wali of Allah? It was not that he had one Ka’abah within, but rather seven sealed Ka’abahs were opened up to the Tajalliat so that they could absorb and receive the Tajalliat of Allah. The first Sabaq has a link to Hadhrat Adam alayhi salam, the next to Hadhrat Ibrahim alayhi salam and Hadhrat Nuh alayhi salam – every Nabi has a connection to each lesson. But you lot don’t come to Dhikr, and you don’t want to understand, so what will you learn? I have given you a small Sabaq, to do ten thousand or twenty thousand Tasbeehs, and then you say ‘Oh, I try.’ Is this how we try? You have been given such a great gift, and this is how you protect it? You should give yourself completely and become Fana, immersed, in Allah’s Name, in Muraqabah. You should do this continuously.
If you want to rise up in the group of Imam Mehdi alayhi salam, then MashaAllah, you have arrived – do Muraqabaat! Do Muraqabah, do DhikrAllah, and then the phone call will come from Imam Mehdi alayhi salam. He will say ‘Come, come – I haven’t told anyone else, but you can come. Come and join my Jamat’ – and then you will get your bedding together and go there. But this will only happen to that person who has the real Islam, because he will come with the real Islam. Which Islam will he bring? Remember this – that Islam which Allah Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam explained to us: “الْمُسْلِمُ مَنْ سَلِمَ النَّاسُ” – The Muslim is he who protects and safeguards people from his hand and from his tongue. When we become Muslims like that, then alhamdulillah, understand that Islam has come to us. It won’t just come through words, by opening up Sahih al-Bukhari and giving a Bayan, or by praying, or by doing this or that action. Islam does not come through these actions, no. Go to a Wali of Allah, sit with him, and what comes from his heart will purify the heart. This is Deen – it is acquired through the company of the Wali of Allah.
So how do you receive Islam? The method is unique, very different indeed. If you want to learn this ‘Ilm, then go with a true and honest heart and connect yourself to a Wali of Allah. Go with a true heart – and what is a true heart? It is one that gives sacrifices – yes indeed. You have to purify your house in every way, and that is the first sacrifice. There should be not one morsel of Haram in your house; not one morsel obtained through lies should find its way into the house. Do we do Dhikr like this? Tell me. Our eyes should be so pure that no strange thing that Allah dislikes should fall within your gaze. Your eyes should not look at wrong things, and your ears should not listen to wrong things, and your hands should not lift up any wrong things. The question of eating a Haram morsel should not even arise. What happens today is that people say ‘It doesn’t matter – I am doing work of the Deen, so it doesn’t matter if I sign on the dotted line. It doesn’t make any difference.’ Allahu Akbar. You are doing the work of the Deen while lying and signing up to false information, and as a result, you are drawing false cheques. When I speak, you will have to listen to the truth. Yes? You are doing the work of the Deen in the name of Islam but look at the style of the Dunya in their work of Deen – they are signing claims for money from here and there. He says ‘I am claiming this and that benefit, and because I am doing work of the Deen, this is permissible.’ Is this how the work of the Deen is conducted?
I will give you two examples of the work of the Deen. Shall I give you examples of the work of the Deen? Take Deoband – how did the Madrasa of Deoband begin? Tell me. Where did it come from, and who laid the foundation? How? What was the Hal at that time? Was Dunya there? Were there worldly factors involved? Haram is Haram, unlawful is unlawful, so if Shari’ah has prohibited something, if you do unlawful deeds, then how can Dhikr take effect and Noor go into you? How will it penetrate your Lata’if? Your body should be pure, clean and transparent. There are very big Hadith which explain that a person’s Dua does not go beyond his neck if he has Haram morsels inside him. So have a true Niyyah, and go to the Wali of Allah with an honest intention.
In my own life, I have seen individuals like this. One man came from Pakistan and said ‘Hadhrat, I have heard about you, so please make me a friend of Allah.’ This took place in the old Khanqah during the night, and I said ‘Sit down, make the transaction with me, and if you don’t return as a Wali of Allah, then come and complain to me.’ He replied ‘I will make that transaction’ – and this is a person with a big name. I said ‘Make the promise’, and he replied ‘I do promise, truly.’ What did he do? He had a massive office, and very high-ranking office in what you might call the Department of Thieves, otherwise known as the Customs Department in Pakistan. This is where the most stealing and looting takes place – there is no question of anything there being Halal – and he was a high-ranking officer in the Customs Department of Pakistan. I asked him ‘Do you steal?’, and he replied ‘Yes.’ Then I asked if he looted and consumed the wealth of others wrongfully, and he said ‘Yes.’ I said ‘How much Haram do you have?’ and he said ‘I have got millions of Haram earnings in my possession.’ I asked him where the money was, and he said ‘It is in various bank accounts, where it is gathering interest.’ ‘You take interest on it as well?’ I said. ‘So what else? You take interest on Haram earnings and your employment itself is Haram and you are telling me that you want to be a Wali of Allah. Would you rather what you have now or attain Wilayat?’ He said ‘I want Deen!’
Allahu Akbar – say SubhanAllah loudly. I am telling you this event from my own life – this is my experience of what happens when you put your hand in that hand. But we say ‘Oh no, no, no, I can’t leave my chapattis. I have got this house, and I cannot tell Hadhrat because I have got my cheques coming from there. If I don’t keep up this wrong action, how will I live my life, and how will my children grow up, and where will they eat from? And what will happen to me? Where will I get money from?’ For three years, this Faqir worked in a factory. I worked with my hands in front of hot stoves, doing night shifts to earn. There were many other ways open to me, big posts and ranks with titles that people would offer, but I had promised my Hadhrat that I would not earn nor eat Haram. I have never in my life signed up to benefits, and I would not do so even if I were to die of hunger.
I am giving you encouragement, my brothers, so don’t take what I am saying negatively. Allah is saying ‘This is what I will ask you about tomorrow, and I will take Hisab from you and punish you for not being able to practice Deen. You left Allah’s Name and you left the Barakaat of Allah, and you left the Noor of Allah’s Deen while running after food. Did you not think that I would feed you and give you bread to eat? I even give to those who don’t believe in Me, so if you became Mine, would I not give you food as well? I put you in a test for just a little while, so could you not pass that test? Could you not even take up the challenge for a few days? The animals are better than you, then. I just gave you a test for a few days, and I would have given you more - I would have opened the doors of Mercy for you if you had just endured that test for a few days. But instead, you kept on eating Haram, and all the while you took the name of Deen by saying that you were doing the work of the Deen.’ Do you think it is okay to practice one thing and not another and say ‘It’s okay – I can take this Haram money? Okay, fine – take it then. Is this the way we practice Deen here? In Pakistan, for example, there are no benefit cheques to be claimed; there is no social security. So go there and do the work of the Deen; it is only here that we take the money.
So, brothers, this person said to me ‘Okay, I will leave all these wrong things.’ He lost millions! He resigned from his job, and after that, he was on the street, finished, because all his money had gone. But today, his Khanqah is still running, alhamdulillah. That same individual once had heart surgery, and afterwards his doctors asked ‘Who is this person? While he was having a heart by-pass operation, his heart was saying something!’ This is what happens, my brothers, because in order to go to Allah, you have to give things up. This is the real Niyyah. We pray Salah and give Fatwas, but I have told you his Hal now and what happened to him. I have explained his Hal to you, and this is the Hal that is described in the Hadith from Mishkat that I shared with you.
The real thing is this Islam – what is this Islam? SubhanAllah, it is when there is peace and contentment in everything. Allah subhana wa ta'ala says that you should obtain contentment and love and peace and prosperity; you should get Sakeenah from Islam, and that is when you become a man. Don’t be a drama Sufi and a fake, immersed in cultures and traditions, calling people Naqshbandi and this Bandi and that Bandi. No Bandi, nothing, just true Tawbah; repent and be prepared for the Hadith of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam when he said ‘Whoever becomes mine, be prepared for poverty, for poverty and hunger run to that person.’ Yes! Don’t count two plus two after that. The days will go, so be ready for struggles. Think ‘I won’t consume Haram even if it means that I will pass away.’ Fitnah is finished at that time. That’s it – Haram is Haram; end of story, that’s it, accept it. Say SubhanAllah.
This is the Islam that we should bring into our lives, and then Islam will come, my friends. May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do Mujahidah. The real Mujahidah should come into our lives, and we should acquire strength in our hearts through the Mujahidah that we are doing. We should have the Quwwah, the power and the intensity so that the Dunya disappears from our hearts and Allah’s Radha overcomes us. And that time will not come to pass until we present ourselves and take the company of a friend of Allah in the way that I have explained to you. Whatever he says that you should stop, you stop it; if he says leave it, then leave it; if he says that this is wrong because it is against Shari’ah, then leave it. Leave everything, even if it evaporates into the air. You say ‘But what about this? Oh Hadhrat Sahib, I am finished if I follow what you are saying’ - and then you make people become my enemies. You make people go against me. No, no, no – this is not success.
Don’t put the blame on me; this is the Hukm of Shari’ah, and that is why I am saying this. Don’t give my name as your excuse to people when people ask you why you are not doing something. You tell them ‘Oh, my Shaykh said I should not do this’, but this is nothing to do with the Shaykh. The Shaykh is the guide, but this is Haram. That is why we do what we do. Tell them ‘Before, my eyes were closed, but he put such an injection on my heart that my eyes opened, and now I can see that Haram is Haram. I can see this in reality. My eyes can see that what I am consuming is like swine. This money is making everything I put into my body like the flesh of swine, and Barakah cannot come if I am lying and committing fraud and eating from this. I am committing fraud and taking from the Dunya, and if I do this and people pray Salah behind me, then I am destroying their Salah as well.’ Allahu Akbar.
This is the reality - Deen is very simple. Why is Deen hard for us? Because we haven’t done Tazkiyah. I swear by Allah, you cannot imagine the enjoyment you get from eating Halal. I am telling you, this is a Deen of enjoyment, enjoyment that comes from poverty, hunger, difficulties. There is so much enjoyment and taste in a life lived for the sake of Allah – you cannot imagine the taste. Otherwise, Bilal would never have lain down on the hot coals or upon the hot, burning sand. So much taste and enjoyment came to him in the path of Allah that he persevered through all of his difficulties, SubhanAllah.
So there are no problems, my friends, for we have the means and the resources. Have you understood? Don’t wait for Imam Mehdi alayhi salam to come. People say ‘When is Imam Mehdi alayhi salam coming?’ but when he comes, he will say, ‘Bring those Munafiqs first, those people from Bolton, those thieves who are claiming that they are Muslims, but they destroyed the Deen. They have destroyed and dishonoured Allah’s Deen. They would run away from Salah, and they would run away from the people of the beard; these are the people whose Akhlaq was spoiled. They were wasteful people, and that is why people have run away from practicing.’
Allah has explained the alternative to this, saying ‘It is your decision. Those who go to Jannah will be those whose Akhlaq was good. They maintained good Akhlaq despite their difficulties. But Jahannam will be filled with those who had bad Akhlaq.’ This is the meaning of the Hadith, isn’t it? I didn’t go beyond that into the detail that follows.
So let us do Dua to Allah ta’ala, saying ‘Oh Allah, You are so Merciful in allowing us to pray Salah! You are so Merciful in allowing us to recite Qur’an. Oh Allah, You are so Gracious in making us do the work of the Deen and in changing our faces and allowing us to wear the Sunnah Libas. You have taught us the Sunnah and given us knowledge, but, oh Allah, we are so hypocritical! We are Munafiqs – why don’t we change ourselves? Oh Allah, I promise to You that I will do Dhikr Katheer, and I will have a true connection with my Shaykh, with the right Niyyah. Whatever he says and guides me towards, I will continue to accept that. But I will not give his reference and say that he said that I should do this or that. It is the Hukm of Allah, so I will persevere and will be patient.’
May Allah ta’ala give all of us the ability to practice on these words and may Allah ta’ala allow us to elevate our Akhlaq and purify it so that we can become good Muslims. Don’t dislike people – love people. Whenever you go and sit with people, do not allow dislike and hatred to enter your heart. Don’t do that, but rather look at how a person has benefitted you. Even if he swears at you or dishonors you or does something bad to you, treat people in the way Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam used to treat people. He would never take revenge for his own sake. He would say ‘Okay, he did these wrong things, but I forgive this person’ – SubhanAllah. If you do this, whose rank is elevated? His or yours? Your rank will rise, and your status will rise, because you say to Allah ‘I forgive him with all my heart, so, oh Allah, give him elevation and give him more light, and give him progression and promotion. I have forgiven that person. Oh Allah, all I want is You and nothing else. If I get You through this transaction of forgiving, then this is a very good bargain, and a very low price to pay. I will go to his house and ask for forgiveness to attain this result.’
Look at how Allah becomes happy at this! If Allah says ‘Go – ask him for forgiveness and I will be happy with you’, will you not go to that person and ask him for forgiveness? Tell me. Is it such a big thing to ask for forgiveness? Even when you lie down, check your heart and say ‘Oh Allah, take the dislike of this person out of my heart. He took my money and my wealth, and he swore at me even though I have a higher status than him. He dishonored me, but oh Allah, I forgive him because through this I attain Your nearness. I forgive him for Your sake, and I do Dua for that person. Oh Allah, make him pious as well, and make him good, and remove his difficulties.’ See what Sakeenah you get when you sleep in that night; you will have such a peaceful sleep. Never go to sleep with dislike and hatred of people in your mind; never go to sleep with anger, for when you go to sleep with anger, you will get a migraine, heart attacks and depression. All these things happen due to anger and hatred, and you will toss and turn during the night. But when you forgive everyone and go to sleep with the Pleasure of Allah, then you will have such a deep, nice sleep that people will not be able to wake you if they try!
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen
Recite Durood Sharif and let us do some Dhikr.