What is Real Mujahidah?
First and foremost, we should do Shukr to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. We should be more grateful to Allah than our tongues can express for Allah ta’ala’s grace and mercy. Furthermore, this is a very great month that Allah ta’ala has given to us, and not just in respect of the month itself, but it also brings good news for every believer that very soon a great month will arrive. This month informs every Mu’min that he should now start preparing for that month, that he should become alert and focused so as not to waste that month. That month is a special Rahmah that Allah ta’ala has gifted to the Muslims, so this month of Rajab, due to its nearness to Ramadhan, has a great many virtues. And this is Allah’s grace that, on this, the first night of Jumu’ah of this month, Allah has given the ability to bone-idle people like us to start this month with Dhikrullah. A human being is unable to count the rewards that Allah ta’ala has gifted in this special time and at this special moment due to this gathering of Dhikr.
There is no other objective of this Majlis apart from gathering and assembling to remember Allah, because, regarding Dhikrullah, Allah ta’ala has said {وَلَذِكۡرُ ٱللَّهِ أَڪۡبَرُ}. Allah says that Dhikr is the greatest thing from any viewpoint, and Allah ta’ala has given us the Tawfeeq to be sat down in an assembly in order to do Dhikrullah, alhamdulillah. There is no objective other than this. My objective is not to give a speech, or to convey Hadith to you, or to give commentary on the Qur’an – these are just a few words about Dhikr that I have heard from my pious elders, which I am sharing with you so that we understand why Dhikr is necessary and why we should do Dhikr and the importance of Dhikr.
We are living in the age of negligence and laziness, and as we get closer to Qiyamah, Fitnahs and corruption are increasing, good deeds are becoming invisible, oppression is increasing, wrong actions are proliferating and shaytan draws our attention towards them. The real actions that Allah ta’ala has given us to attain success in the Akhirah are hiding behind veils and curtains, and their importance has been diminished in our hearts or eliminated altogether. This is a sign of Qiyamah, and another sign is that there will be a lack of good people. The pious people will be veiled and hidden – removed from society, in other words, by Allah ta’ala - and from the removal of just one pious person, darkness is visited upon that generation. The effect of the pious people is such that if a pious person is sat in a town or a city, that whole city benefits from his Barakaat and Faidh and virtues. Hence, when there is a lack of pious people, and good, pious people disappear, and when sins and innovations increase, these are all signs of Qiyamah.
To be able to remember Allah amongst all of this is such a great action, but we see that today, most people have no idea about Dhikr. They have no understanding of the importance of Dhikr. Allah has mentioned such great for rewards Dhikr in the Qur’an and has mentioned and described His Dhikr in so many places. What could be greater than this? One pious elder whose name I do not recall was asked ‘Tell me one virtue from all the Fadhail of Dhikr?’ He replied ‘Among all of the Fadhail of Dhikr, can any be greater than that mentioned when Allah says {فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ}?’ Allah says ‘When you remember Me, I remember you!’ SubhanAllah – can there be a greater reward than this for doing Dhikr? And how does Allah remember you? It is stated that when the lips of a human being move in the mention of Allah ta’ala, as those lips move, Allah ta’ala comes close to that human being and pays special attention to that person, conferring special mercies upon him. Tell me – what great virtues there are in Dhikr for human beings. And if this is the condition of the lips, then if the heart is remembering Him all the time, what will be the remembrance that Allah confers? As long as a person remembers Allah in his heart, then Allah remembers His servant – by name! And Allah also bestows that person with gifts and treasures from His Mercy in the form of Sakeenah and guidance and Taqwa and strength of Iman.
Real success for us is the success of the Hereafter, and this starts from the time that a human being dies. From that point, a person finds out whether he has been successful or has failed - the result is determined at the time that he is lowered into the grave. Allah ta’ala has given us the basis for the real success of a human being in the Qur’an. The standard has been set, you might say – the sign and the criteria for success have been given. The criteria and the methods and the points needed to attain real success have been set out. What is success? After you die, then your Qabr will be full of light, and the Plain of Resurrection will be easy, and the challenges of the Day of Judgement will be easy, and the crossing of the Bridge of Siraat will be easy, and that person will be spared from the fire of Jahannam and be brought into Paradise. This is success for a human being. For a human being to attain this success, the Qur’an explains that there is one method through which all of this can be achieved – and what is that? Mujahidah – striving and making effort.
{وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَا} Allah says that when you try and you make an effort, when you really work hard and embrace the challenge, then He will open up not one path, but the paths of guidance for you. This comes when a person makes effort – the Qur’an is saying this, Allah is saying this. Allah ta’ala doesn’t hide anything from us. Allah is saying ‘If you want to attain My Qurb, My nearness and My love, there is only one way you can attain that, and that nearness will bring success in the phases of the Akhirah and the reward of Paradise. What is the method by which you can attain that? You have to work hard and do Mujahidah.’ {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ } Without hard work, you cannot attain success. We have been sent to this world and we have to do Mujahidah in this world.
{وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } Allah is saying ‘Don’t worry about the grave – just do Mujahidah. {وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } If you do Mujahidah, then wherever you are stuck, I will be with you – “Allah is indeed with those who do good”. I will stand with you and I will support you.’ So the first point we need to understand is that we attain success from Mujahidah, from making effort, from working hard and striving. What is Mujahidah? It is working hard, trying; it is sticking to the task; it is to make a proper effort; it is to stand firm and upright when the challenge is in front of you.
So what is Mujahidah in physical, practical terms? Who are we to oppose? Who or what do we tussle and clash with? Allah ta’ala explains – ‘You have to fight with My biggest enemy. You have to clash with that enemy.’ How? Allah says ‘You have to be the enemy of My enemy. You have to adopt enmity with My enemy and take him on. Don’t shake his hand and don’t be friends with him; don’t embrace him. Don’t listen to anything he says. He is My enemy, so you also must consider him as your enemy and do Mujahidah with him and oppose him and clash with him.’ Who is this enemy?
{قَدۡ أَفۡلَحَ مَن زَكَّٮٰهَا (٩) وَقَدۡ خَابَ مَن دَسَّٮٰهَا } Allah tells us clearly in the Qur’an that the biggest enemy is your Nafs, your base desires. Do you understand this point? Allah is saying ‘Your biggest enemy is that Nafs that is sat inside you. The work of this enemy within is that he will make you challenge Me. Your Nafs will make you have enmity with Me and oppose what I say. Your Nafs will take you in the opposite direction to all the orders that I give you.’
So what do we have to do? Who do we fight against? Who do we oppose and work hard against? The Nafs – the base desires. If you fight your Nafs, then you will attain success. Allah is saying ‘If you fight against the Nafs, then I will open up the paths of success for you. You have to oppose, to clash with, and go against the Nafs. And how long do you have to fight the Nafs? The Nafs is with you until death – the Nafs will not leave you until the Ruh is being extracted. Before that, he will be with you for every moment and in every second, trying to divert you. So you have to remain alert against the cunning ways and tricks of the Nafs – that is how cunning an enemy the Nafs is. The people who adopt the path, understand this message and stand firm, saying ‘Ah, he is our avowed enemy - the enemy of Allah is within us!’ they then grab hold of the method, and resolve always to keep the fact that he is their enemy in plain sight. Who are these people? They are the people who are called Sufis – they are the honourable Sufi-e-Kiram. It is they who have understood this challenge, who have understood the game of life. It is the Nafs that has to be fought and opposed, and only then will Allah say ‘For this, I will show you the phases of success, and I will give you My Mohabbat, My love and My Qurb.’ So if a human being does not oppose the Nafs, he cannot attain success – he cannot.
So what do we think Mujahidah is? We think it is about praying a huge number of Nawafil Salah or performing a huge amount of worship. We think Mujahidah is about doing excess worship, but this is one of shaytan’s cunning tricks – remember this. When a person thinks ‘I have been commanded to do Mujahidah’, what does he do? He starts doing a large amount of worship – Tahajjud, Nawafil, voluntary actions, Nafl Umrah, Nafl Hajj, Nafl Sadaqaat – and then he thinks ‘I’m doing Mujahidah; I’m working hard and doing big Mujahidah, so I’m getting close to Allah.’ This is another deception, let me tell you in passing. Extra Ibadah is a good thing, but this is the initial step for a person. This is the beginning, but it is not Mujahidah; this is not fighting against your Nafs. This is not real Mujahidah – listen to this point.
If, for example, I start praying Nawafil and doing extra Ibadah, this is not Mujahidah. Why not? Doing excess worship cannot not be called Mujahidah – why? Because when a person does Ibadah and lots of worship, that becomes his habit. If, for example, you start keeping fasts, it becomes your habit. Ramadhan is coming, alhamdulillah, and what happens in Ramadhan? The first few fasts are hard and Tarawih is difficult, but after a few days, this changes, and by the time you get to the 30th day of Ramadhan, you don’t even feel like eating during the day. It has become your habit to wake up in the morning to eat Suhoor – you develop a habit. And when a human being has developed a habit, that can’t be called Mujahidah, hard work. Do you understand what I am saying, or not? Extra Ibadah is Nawafil, but it doesn’t remain as Mujahidah. In the beginning it is Mujahidah, but then the habits of worship are developed, and a person becomes accustomed to these actions. If you don’t get up for Tahajjud today, you can develop the habit of doing so. If somebody wakes you up every day for a week or two, this practice will cause your eyes to open automatically and you will be able to do Tahajjud regularly. If you start praying Nafl after Nafl, you will become habitual in that practice. Regular practice becomes a habit as you get used to it, so while it is hard at first, your Nafs gets used to it and the habit is formed.
Real Mujahidah is to oppose that entity at every moment – do you understand what I am saying? You are students and I am a student, so I am making this point so that we are not deceived by any trick. We need to get the path of Allah’s Qurb, and how will we get that path of Qurb? Through Mujahidah, through struggling and striving. We think that extra worship is Mujahidah, but this is incorrect. Let me define to you what Mujahidah is. What is the definition of struggling, striving, making effort and working hard? What is the cunning game of the Nafs? Real Mujahidah is that a person saves himself from sins! SubhanAllah – do you understand? The human being who saves himself from sins, who fights his Nafs, he is the one doing real Mujahidah, because a person can never get the habit of not wanting to commit sins.
Take lying for example. You can never lose the urge to lie, because the Nafs will drag you back towards lying. If you are doing the sheets system, for example - the self-improvement program, the analysis program that is designed to control the Nafs - and you do the Salah sheet, the Qur’an tracking, the Dhikr tracking and all the other sheets, what is the last one? Sins – leaving the sins. And everything goes fine, alhamdulillah - I would say that around 99% of the men and women do well on the other sheets. Thousands of people are doing this, and may Allah ta’ala make you all successful. MashaAllah, this is from Allah, and is a very good action that you are doing, so keep it up otherwise you will lose out. But what is evident is that when it comes to the sins sheet, that is when a person drops and fails. His Dhikr is completed for forty days, with no crosses, and Salah and Tahajjud and extra Ibadah are complete, but when it comes to forty days of no backbiting or lying, that’s where you see the crosses. Three, four, five years – for ten years, even – I am seeing that a person’s sins are not being eliminated. And even if he does progress and sometimes manages forty days, then the sin comes back, and the cross comes again next time.
Why is this? The Qur’an says that this is the real Mujahidah. {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَا} When a person fights with himself to leave the sins, this is when a person attains Allah ta’ala’s nearness. Allah ta’ala tells us not to do sin, so you tell yourself ‘I am not going to sin.’ Your Nafs urges you towards sin, but you say ‘I don’t want to sin.’ So what is the Mujahidah that Allah is referring to that will make you the friend of Allah through doing it? It will make you the rightful owner of Jannah, SubhanAllah, and the rewards of the Hereafter! What will bring this? When you oppose your Nafs and don’t listen to its whispers. The Nafs says ‘Come on, commit a sin now. Just listen to some music for a little while, come on. Just look at that woman for a minute – it’s ok.’ No! This is the trick of the Nafs. Abundant worship is a habit, but remember, you can’t make a habit of totally shunning all sin. That is why the pious predecessors have said that until the last breath of your life comes - what do you have to do? Don’t rely on previous successes and become lazy or negligent. Until your death comes, what do you have to do? You have to be alert and focused on preventing the Nafs from making you commit a sin. Remember this until your last breath, because the Nafs will not leave you until your last breath, when you are dying, when your last moments come when lying upon the death bed. Very pious predecessors and Companions confirm this. I will tell you about Hadhrat Muadh, who was distressed in his final moments, worrying that his final breath might come while his Nafs was making him do something bad. So yes, you can pray abundant Nawafil, but the biggest Mujahidah of a human being and what he has to remain alert about and ask himself about is ‘Am I leaving sins? Are my sins being eliminated? Is Allah’s disobedience coming out of my life?’ This is where we need to focus to attain success.
And what is the success criteria to this Mujahidah? Don’t be afraid if the sin is not disappearing forever – rather, focus on not losing heart and not losing hope. Keep trying, keep trying. Allah says {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا } – so keep trying! Allah is saying ‘Those who strive hard in My cause must keep trying, and I will give you the determination and courage.’ {وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } So when a person keeps trying and trying, when he departs from this world, alhamdulillah, he departs with success because Allah has promised that He will help, SubhanAllah. You won’t hear from them statements such as ‘Oh, I can’t leave sins. I tried to stop lying, but I can’t do it.’ Such statements lead to loss of hope and giving up. They say ‘I tried to leave backbiting but I can’t do it.’ Your sheets system is a fantastic system, for it will remind you. Are you filling in the sheets? If not, it is a big loss and a big deception of Nafs on your part.
Your Sheikh has given you a task. How do you have to control your Nafs? Through striving to leave sins – that is why I have given you this sheets system. It is not for Dhikr and Salah, because that is something you will get used to. Once a person gets used to it, it will be very rare that he leaves Salah. Once he gets used to it, he will always come and pray Fajr in the morning. The odd day here and there maybe, but he becomes habituated to it and so is regular. Sin however, is such a trick that hour after hour, day after day, you have to focus your effort against it until death, continually trying and remaining alert. Keep trying to leave the sins – why? Because Nafs, the carnal desires, will play games with you and try to trick you every second. If you want to stop lying, you will say ‘Oh, I am not going to lie again!’ You will make this claim, but after a little while, the Nafs will make you lie again. You say ‘But I didn’t want to lie ever again, and now I have done it! I gave up and now I have started lying again.’ So then you just have to work hard again.
The Nafs plays tricks. Moulana Rum rahmatullah alayh made a beautiful point on this. There is a Nasiha by Moulana Rumi delivered through the example of a person in the Mathnawi Sharif, which describes a carpenter who went into the jungle to cut wood. After cutting the wood, he lifted it onto his head and carried it home, but when he arrived, he saw that there was a serpent in the wood. The snake was hidden in the wood, which is common to find in the forest, obviously. When he looked closely at the snake, he saw that it was dead and lifeless, so he said ‘Oh, it’s dead! That’s good – I’ll throw it away in the morning.’ He was tired, so then he lay down to rest. Now the snake had been lifeless, but after a while the heat of the house warmed it up and it slowly started to move as energy returned to its body. It started slithering here and there, and soon came across the man, sleeping in his ignorance – so he bit him! Moulana Rum rahmatullah alayh then says that the Nafs is like that snake. We think ‘Oh, I have controlled the Nafs now – I have defeated it! I won’t go near to Zina now and I won’t chat up women now or look at Haram images now. I have closed that device now and I won’t be doing that again.’ But what happens? The Nafs is not dead – it can never die. The Nafs cannot die -it will trick you and play games with you. It is like that snake in the cold – you think it has died, but when he sees that you are in a state of negligence like the man sleeping at night, then it will come back to life and awaken your desire and make you commit the sin again. This is the Nafs.
So what is the method to deal with this? Allah ta’ala has told us clearly, MashaAllah. What a great Hikmah Allah ta’ala has put in the solution. Allah has given us a solution for the most poisonous of things. For this big disease of Corona, for example, there is a cure. Time will tell – remember this. Every malady has a remedy - this is Allah’s Hikmah. If this is true for normal sicknesses of the world, do we think that Allah ta’ala has not given a remedy that can cure the Nafs? Take the example of a plant in the world, a plant which is beautiful so it makes you want to touch it, but it has sharp poisonous thorns that will sting you if you do, sending poison into the body and causing illness. But look at the perfection of Creation - Allah has placed another plant growing around that plant, through which, if you rub it into your hand, the poison of the first plant is neutralized. This happens – Allah has created solutions like this in nature. In the same way, what is the remedy to the danger caused when the Nafs bites you or tricks you? Of course, Mujahidah should always be deployed, and a person should keep asking ‘Where is the Nafs taking me?’ But what is the remedy to counter the Nafs? It is definitely there, for Allah has told us clearly how to be saved. What is that? {وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ } SubhanAllah. It is Dhikr of Allah – the remembrance of Allah.
There is a quality embedded in Dhikr, which is that there is nothing apart from Dhikr that can control the Nafs. No amount of worship will have this effect – on the contrary, if you do a lot of worship, you will become proud. Takabbur will come, Riya will come, and fake actions will be generated in your life which will bring more loss. If you start praying Nafl Tahajjud, thinking ‘I will control my Nafs through Nafl Tahajjud’ what will actually happen is that when you get up in the morning, you will start looking at your face to see if there is Noor on your face from praying Tahajjud. And if you don’t see any Noor and find that the Dua you did after Tahajjud has not been accepted, you will think ‘What’s going on here?’ This happens, doesn’t it? Deception comes in. Similarly, if Allah ta’ala gives a person the Tawfeeq to keep a lot of fasts, he says to himself ‘I keep so many fasts’, and this causes his walking to become a bit haughty and so on. No matter how much Ibadah he does, this will not give him control over his Nafs. Can anybody control their Nafs through Ibadah? Only one thing that can control the Nafs – and what is that? Dhikr of Allah can control the Nafs!
That is why the Sufi-e-Kiram have adopted the practice of Dhikr. It is not magic. They do it because Allah has ordained that if you do not do Mujahidah against your Nafs, you cannot get close to Allah and attain His nearness and His love. You will not get anything. So now we realise that we have to do Mujahidah against the Nafs, and to subdue the Nafs we have to adopt the Tariqah we have obtained from the Qur’an, and this is why the pious predecessors did Dhikran Katheera. They held firm to abundant Dhikr. You go to the company of a Wali of Allah to request his assistance, just as a person goes for assistance when an enemy attacks him, saying ‘Please help me, for a very strong person is attacking and oppressing me.’ You need help and assistance in such circumstances, and in the same way, a human being goes to the friend of Allah and says ‘I am alone, and I cannot control my Nafs, so please help me and assist me. How can I control my desires?’ This is called making a connection with the Ahlu’llah, with the folk of Allah. A student goes to the Wali of Allah to make his path of life easy, to control his Nafs and attain Allah’s nearness. That’s why people go to the company of a friend of Allah. A person attains Allah’s nearness by asking a Wali of Allah for assistance, by seeking him out and saying, when he finds him ‘I have come to you to learn how to control my desires, to learn how to control my Nafs. My Nafs is still out of control even though I have prayed a lot of Salah and have done this action and that action.’
I remember that I myself started to do an abundance of Ibadah, and then good dreams started to come. I share my experiences with you so that I can give you a practical example. I had finished university at that time and felt passionate about Deen, and Allah ta’ala gave me the Tawfeeq to do good deeds. So I did a lot of Mujahidah and made a lot of effort in Ibadah, in Salah, in waking up at night, and I worshipped a lot on my own in my room. I had no family at that time, and my parents were not here – they were in Pakistan and I had come here on my own to study. So, Alhamdulillah, I went towards abundant Ibadah, and performed lots of acts of worship. But despite this, I found that I was still the same – indeed, as I said, more Takabbur comes into a person. He becomes big-headed, thinking ‘I am doing so much Ibadah – I must have become a Wali of Allah. I read so many Juz of Qur’an’ and so on. So I found that success didn’t come, even though I worked hard in Ibadah in this way for several years – still nothing, no success.
Alhamdulillah, Allah ta’ala knows the heart of a person. He knows when he wants to attain the path and to attain His Qurb, and Allah ta’ala has promised ‘I will show the path to whoever wants it’, and so Allah ta’ala arranged for me to meet my Hadhrat Sahib, to meet my Sheikh, SubhanAllah. And in five minutes of Hadhrat Sahib’s company, I changed completely and attained what I had failed to attain through all my years of Ibadah, my fasting, my staying up at night – a person can do as much as he wants. Within five minutes, the whole of my previous intoxication evaporated. Hadhrat Sahib gave me Dhikr, saying ‘Do Dhikr and stick to this practice.’ What I had considered to be Ibadah fell away; it had come to nothing, for it had brought no success. I attained real success by asking the friend of Allah for help, saying ‘Can you help me? I want Allah’s nearness!’ He said ‘Do you want to attain Allah’s nearness? Then come – I will tell you how to control your desires.’ SubhanAllah.
So what happens then? When you go to the Wali of Allah, he teaches you Dhikr and you hold firm to that practice, and then you start to understand the tactics of the Nafs. Even so, a person can still get deceived and fall into the trap of Nafs and shaytan, but not in the same way. He realizes more quickly, and when he does fall into a trap, Allah opens the path of Astaghfar. Then he resorts back to his program of Dhikr, gets back onto the ladder, and starts ascending again, alhamdulillah. He cannot be defeated in a big way by the Nafs if he continues to fight against it. He might stumble, but he won’t be defeated if he has courage and determination.
This is the right path and the straight path to get to Allah, my brothers. That is the right way – by opposing the Nafs. Anyone following this path has no need to be scared. If you have taken the hand of a friend of Allah, there is no need to be afraid. Alhamdulillah, if you follow the guidance and the statements of the teacher, ups and down will come, but the Nafs will never overwhelm you. It will take you towards bad and make you stumble, but it will never defeat you. Rather, on the contrary, you will keep moving towards improvement and progression. If the Nafs deceives you, you do Dhikr again and run back to Allah, then Allah gives even more promotion. Allah actually increases the status and rank of that student who, after falling into sin, shakes himself down and admits that he listened to his Nafs. He recognizes the tricks of Nafs in causing him to lie or backbite. If he lies and tells himself ‘Oh, it was permissible to lie in this circumstance’, or gets angry and says ‘It was permissible to be angry here because otherwise I would not have succeeded in the matter’, the heart of that person, who does Dhikr and has a link with a Wali of Allah, then lights up and he says ‘No, I shouldn’t have got angry – my Nafs deceived me. I lied to myself when I lied, thinking it would bring me success in the world.’ After a short while, he understands how he came to fall down, and feels shame and regret and remorse – and then he cries in front of Allah and attains promotion through that, alhamdulillah. SubhanAllah. Is this happening with you, my brothers?
So follow the sheets system; follow the self-analysis system – this is the life of a Mu’min, my friends. You have nothing to start with, but then you get success. And when the end comes, people gather round, and someone bathes him, the Qabr is prepared, and then he gets lowered into the grave. This has happened today to a very good person of this Masjid and of this town of Bolton, a very pious and righteous man, Qari Ebrahim Bobat sahib rahmatullah alayh. Look how easily he passed away, and everyone, myself included, testifies that he was a great person, MashaAllah, because he had good qualities. There is nothing surprising about him attaining a death like this, because his lifestyle and qualities were good alhamdulillah - he would keep silence, for instance. I remember once we were sat in Dar-ul-Qur’an where I went to host Dhikr, and he was sat right at the front, next to me, and he did a very good Dhikr that day, alhamdulillah. His lifestyle was such that he recognized the Nafs and opposed the desires – and what was the result? That on the first night of Jumu’ah in the month of Rajab, we are doing Dhikr here while he is doing Dhikr in the Qabr. He died in the morning, and before Maghrib, his grave was prepared and his Janazah took place. So he gains the Fadhail of Jumu’ah on his first night in the grave, and there will be no questioning for him, alhamdulillah. He came into his grave with ease – this is success. This is what you call success. Our life in the Dunya is not about eating and wearing clothes and doing special Ibadaat, no. There is a Tariqa, a method, for a Mu’min to follow, a pattern of life. There is a lifestyle that we should adopt, for without it we cannot be successful. Do you understand what I am saying?
What have I explained? I will go over it again to ensure that we understand the point. What is the life of a Mu’min? What should we do to attain success? There is only one path to attain success – and what is that? Mujahidah, working hard. { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا} Allah says ‘Strive, work hard and make effort! If you do Mujahidah, then I will open the paths of My Qurb and My love to you.’ All these secrets will be unlocked - and without Mujahidah, they remain sealed, locked. What do we have to do? Mujahidah? And who do we have to strive against? The Nafs, the desires. Abundant Ibadah is not Mujahidah; this is not the definition. Mujahidah is not performing abundant extra worship. What is the definition of Mujahidah? It is to reject the sins, to reject disobedience – that is Mujahidah. Mujahidah is about crushing the desires. How do we do this? What is the method to go about this? Allah ta’ala says ‘I have given you a Tariqa. When Nafs deceives you and destroys you, the method to cure you of this is what? Dhikr of Allah.
So this is the method, and it entails first analysing ourselves. What method am I adopting? What is my life? How do I spend my time? A person cannot achieve this on his own. If he is doing Nafl worship and this, that and the other worship, that is a waste of life. The straight path is to find a teacher, a friend of Allah, who is following Shari’ah and Sunnah himself, who is a good and pious person. Go to him and say ‘I want to become friends with you – I would like to make a connection with you. Please help me.’ He will then help you with the permission of Allah – Allah Himself will assist you! And then be steadfast on the Dhikr he prescribes for you and follow and practice any Nasiha that he gives you, alhamdulillah. If you remain firm on this path, Nafs and shaytan will run after you trying to divert you, saying ‘Go to that person, go there, don’t stay here, don’t do this.’ Shaytan and Nafs will come to you in different forms, in the shape of human beings or Jinnat, but whatever form they come in, they will try to take you away from that path, saying ‘Go to this other person; Dhikr is not necessary; don’t do this action.’ They will come to attack you because you are on the right path, the straight path. Whatever they say to you, remind yourself ‘The Qur’an has said that this is the path I must follow, come what may!’ Whatever happens, be firm on the path.
Look, I come in front of you because I took my Hadhrat Sahib’s hand, after which I didn’t look left or right. I won’t tell you how old I am, but to this day, this is my Hal. After I took friendship with that one person, I have spent my whole life until the age I have now reached without taking any friendship other than that. I just took that one friend and never looked for a second one. What can I tell you? Great people came to me and said ‘Please make friendship with me.’ I won’t tell you their names – great, pious personalities. You would be shocked if you heard their names. In Makkat-ul-Mukarramah they came, in Madinat-ul-Munawwarah they came to me in Ittikaf, but I said ‘Oh, I have already made friendship with one person and have attached myself to them. You are a great personality with high status and have made such an offer to me because you are so great.’ Allah tests you to find out how strong a person is on his path. This is the same point – once you take the hand of a friend, then stick with it until Qiyamah because it is Allah who has given you the hand of that teacher. I asked from Allah, saying ‘Oh Allah, I want to be corrected and go on the right path, so give me the company of Your Friend through whom I can attain Your nearness.’ So many other invitations may come, but don’t let any gap open up. Just say ‘This is my path: Allah, Allah’s Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and after that, my Sheikh, my teacher, who is guiding me and with whom I am travelling.’ That is when a person attains success.
There are so many paths leading up, down, left and right – many things come in the way. This path is not easy. Allah says {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّة} – ‘Do you think you will just walk into Paradise easily, without being tested?’ Do you think that just by praying Salah and Tahajjud and this and that Nafl Ibadah, you will walk into Paradise? Allah says ‘This is not the test or the challenge. I have created the Nafs to test you. You will rise to a high status and that Nafs will drag you back down to the ground! He will attack you and you will drop. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ} Do you think it is that easy to get into Jannah? Allah is saying ‘No – it is not! I have made a system in the world by which you go up and up and attain a high status, but you will have to do Mujahidah because I have created Nafs, desires and shaytan. I have given you the guidance to pray five times Salah, perform obligatory fasting, but this is not sufficient. No, this is not the situation. The situation is that I want to ascertain how you control yourself against those enemies that have been created to go against you, and who create barriers in the path towards Me. Are you influenced by them, or do you oppose them?’
Do you understand what I am saying? This is the path. Put everything else, all other formulations, to the back – the best path and the best way is this. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Awliya’llah have attained Allah’s nearness through this very path – these are the people who have earned Paradise. Allah ta’ala has given us this path, alhamdulillah. You have a connection with a Silsila, you have been prescribed Dhikr, and Allah ta’ala has given you the lessons, so be firm and steadfast in following this path. Have the Kitab of Allah in one hand and the Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the other. That’s it – end of story! Sit down in this car and travel. And all the while, in parallel, do Dhikrullah. Sit calmly with the Kitab of Allah in one hand, the Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah in the other hand, and in parallel with both, combine them with the Dhikr of Allah. That’s it – three things. If you grab hold of these three things, inshaAllah, never mind what we say, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has guaranteed that whoever holds on to the Sunnah and the Kitab of Allah, that person will be successful. Is this not the case? Is this not what the Hadith in Mishkat says? It is clear.
But we don’t do Dhikr, and we don’t go to the Wali of Allah, and we don’t make friends with the Wali of Allah. When Ramadhan comes, there is no space in the Masjid – you can’t find any room. Even those people who pray Salah regularly will be elbowed out of the way in Ramadhan, with ‘Get back – I got here first.’ People who pray Salah here all year long cannot find space in the Masjid in Ramadhan due to the rush of people coming, but as soon as the moon of Eid comes, the Masjid becomes empty again. And then seals and stamps of approval are waved – ‘I did Laylat-ul-Qadr; I did this and that; I completed this many Qur’ans and did this action.’ So is one month enough for us in life? Is that it? Is that { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا}?
The life of a Mu’min is Mujahidah – his whole life is struggle and effort. There are tests all the time in life. If you go home today, where the environment is usually good, and you find that the mood has changed, then stop there straightaway and understand that this is a test from Allah and that you have to do Mujahidah. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّة} It is not easy to go into Paradise. Stop, control your Nafs and passions, avoid the clash, bring the Shari’ah and Sunnah in front of you, ask what to do to control this situation in order that Nafs doesn’t overwhelm you. Steer yourself away from the sin and immediately place your hands and feet on top of the Nafs. This is one example, but in every field, ask ‘Where is Nafs taking me? Stop! Hey Nafs, what are you doing and where are you going? Stop for a minute – let me compare your impulses with the Sunnah in this situation.’ At this, Nafs will go quiet. Alongside that, do Dhikrullah, and Nafs will be diminished, opposed and crushed.
If you are just doing Tasbeeh and Hajj and this and that Ibadah, then fine – do it. But Allah ta’ala says {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا } – ‘This extra worship is not Mujahidah.’ Mujahidah is when you are the Gulam of the teacher. A horse, a wild horse, runs around all over the place because it is untamed. When somebody puts reins on the horse and takes hold of those reins, he needs only to tug slightly on the rein and the horse will go where he is guided. I was once sat in a cart and when I asked the driver to turn left, he pulled very gently to the left and the horse turned that way. I then said ‘No, turn right’, and with another very slight pull to the right, with no gear change needed, the horse turned right immediately. I said ‘SubhanAllah – how did you do that?’ I too was a wild horse, but when I went to Hadhrat Sahib, Allah ta’ala put the reins on me, and then, whenever Hadhrat Sahib hinted and guided me towards a certain direction, I went that way. Nafs tells you to do this and that, but the Wali of Allah says ‘No - this is rubbish. Whatever I guide you towards, do that.’ Whether you understand what the Sheikh is saying or not, just do whatever your Hadhrat Sahib tells you.
This was the glory of the Sahaba-e-Kiram radhiAllahu anhum. I am sharing with you the extraordinary feeling that the Sahab-e-Kiram used to have. When the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam would ask his noble companions the meaning of something, what would they reply? ‘Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam know best. We do not know; we cannot comprehend.’ If they were asked ‘Has the sun come out?’ they would say ‘We don’t know, oh Prophet of Allah. Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam know best’, even though the sun was visible! There is a lesson in this for us. If a person does not enter into a student-teacher relationship, he will not be able to control himself. A person needs to be become a student and place himself under the control of the teacher. If you are doing Mujahidah on your own, you are like a lone sheep. You have to follow the guidance of the teacher. If he instructs you that you have to come here in the morning, and then you do come in the morning, eliminating your desire, he is giving you practice in obedience, in controlling the Nafs. If I tell you to come in the morning and you do so, following the instruction of your Sheikh and saying to yourself ‘I will do whatever my Sheikh tells me to do’, then when Allah tells you to do something, will you not obey that? What a great point! SubhanAllah – what a great practice is established. When a student becomes steadfast on the teacher’s Hukm, when Allah’s Hukm comes, will you listen to it or leave it? However hard the Nafs pushes against it, you will say ‘I cannot leave this – it is Allah’s order.’
This is how a person gets near to Allah through the Sheikh’s teachings and instructions. That’s what you learn from the company of the Sheikh, from the Wali of Allah. It is no good going to the Wali of Allah and taking Bai’ah, and then continuing to follow your own desires and implementing your own techniques, saying ‘I’ll come when I want, I’ll do Dhikr when I want.’ If you don’t listen to your Sheikh’s instructions, you can do whatever Ibadah you want all life long, but you will be deceiving the Mu’mineen and trying to deceive Allah. {يُخَـٰدِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ } You think you are deceiving Allah but you are not deceiving Allah or the Mu’mineen – rather, you are deceiving yourself {وَمَا يَشۡعُرُونَ} - without realizing it. Mureeds who don’t follow their Sheikh’s guidance are like this. Who are the Mureeds that don’t follow their Sheikh’s guidance deceiving? Allah says {يُخَـٰدِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ} - ‘Do you think you are deceiving Allah and the believers? Rather, you are deceiving your own self - {وَمَا يَشۡعُرُونَ} – but you don’t realise it.’
If you have taken Bai’ah and have pledged yourself to a teacher, the objective of your life has been realized. Why did you make the attachment to the teacher? Dhikr is not the objective. When we go to the Wali of Allah, what do we say in front of Allah? We say ‘We have come to you to be guided on the path. We want to learn from you, so please instruct us and guide us so that we can follow that path.’ If he says ‘Do this, leave that, don’t do this’, that’s totally fine. Whether you understand or not, continue to do as instructed and the result will be positive at the end of the day. But we start shaking and doubting as soon as he tells us to do something. You have to follow the instructions that your Sheikh says in whatever form they come, no matter what the reaction of the world. You just have to obey and implement.
My Sheikh ordered me to come back here to England, from where I had travelled to him, and to teach people here Dhikrullah. He said ‘Don’t spend time in wasteful talk, and don’t talk about or cause disputes between people – don’t create splits!’ My Sheikh gave me this order. And he also said ‘Earn with your own hands, and ensure your earnings are Halal.’ These were the Nasihas my Sheikh gave to me. So I came back having taken Bai’ah, and now many types of work were forbidden to me. I had to work with my hands and could not claim social security – I couldn’t do anything. Some might say ‘What sort of a Sheikh was this?’ But if I hadn’t obeyed, would you be sitting in front of me? I obeyed, and through the Barakah of Hadhrat Sahib, you are sat here today. If I hadn’t obeyed, how could we have this result today? In that case, I would be a thief and a fake.
So what could I earn with my hands? I had nothing. I had to earn Halal, so at first I couldn’t find work. Why? I had to avoid any connection with fraud or lying or cheating, and my previous jobs had been tainted with these; I had university degrees and had found those jobs from them, but now I stopped that due to the Hukm of the Sheikh. As a result, poverty and hardship came and I didn’t want to take social security, so the hardship got to the point of hunger and thirst – it was a bad situation. Previously, my life had passed in ease and comfort, having had a high standard of life. But that’s when a person gets success – when he obeys his Sheikh. If I hadn’t listened to my Sheikh, I could have earned in Haram ways, tricking people, cheating people, making false social security claims, taking jobs in wrongful businesses and so on. I couldn’t follow the professions that my degrees had set me up for, and these were high grade jobs that I had been heading for, but the work was not good in that it went against Shari’ah - and my Sheikh had told me not to work anywhere where I would have to do actions that went against the Shari’ah.
So then shaytan and Nafs started saying ‘This is weird – your situation before was good. You were praying and also doing things in the Dunya before, and now food and drink are scarce, and things are hard for you. What trick of life have you fallen into? It was easier before – what is this path that you are following?’ I said ‘No! Allah ta’ala has shown me this path, and the words of my Sheikh are correct. I will not leave this, no matter what happens in my life.’ I made this a promise. So for a few years, I did hard manual labour – I can’t imagine today how I did that manual work and all the hard jobs I took on. And then, one day, ease came – this is what happens. {إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلۡعُسۡرِ يُسۡرً۬ا} – Allah says ‘After hardship, certainly there is ease’ - so have courage and determination. Take the right path, and after the hardship ends, open your eyes, and when the Janazah prayer is being prayed, that’s when success is attained. You have to wait until that time to find out – {قَدۡ أَفۡلَحَ مَن زَكَّٮٰهَا (٩) وَقَدۡ خَابَ مَن دَسَّٮٰهَا}. Don’t take any other guidance, therefore. Who should you take guidance from? Say it out loud! From your Sheikh, from your teacher.
Have trust in your Sheikh and be obedient to your Sheikh. I am not saying ‘I am your teacher, so worship me and prostrate to me.’ People say things like ‘Oh, he makes people prostrate and they put their hands together in front of him and they’re like a cult or a sect; people worship him and follow him blindly, astaghfirullah, and people pick up his shoes.’ I don’t know why these stories spread in the community – you hear these things. I tell you that the Qur’an prescribes this path that I went down, and I am explaining and defining that path for you, SubhanAllah. There is no Shirk in this and it is not an innovation. What is the link with your teacher? A person’s Sheikh is the deputy of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam – that is how you should understand it. Allah has sent a guide to provide direction, and he teaches the Shari’ah and the Sunnah and right actions – this is the Niyyah a person should have regarding his Sheikh. This has nothing to do with prostration to the Sheikh or kissing this or that or bowing to him – no, no, no. This is not how we are connected to our Sheikh. It is a spiritual connection involving Adab and manners and your whole being - and you do submit yourself to the teacher, of course, inside and out. And if a person has totally submitted himself, can he ever repay those favours he receives? Tell me. If he introduces you to Allah, is he going to make you do Shirk? Is he going to make you worship him and pick up his shoes? This is wasteful talk. Just listen to what he guides you towards – the Sunnah and Allah’s Deen. He will take you to the right path.
All life-long, follow that one path and continue to follow whatever the Sheikh advises. You have to follow his advice and guidance in order to be successful. But if you turn left and right, and leave the path when you want, and do your actions according to your own desires and oppose what he says, then you will get a tracking system - what a great self-improvement program! If you practice this system with steadfastness, do the doors open or not? Tell me. Continue to follow the path, and if the Sheikh tells you to complete the sheets system and sit in the Majlis and leave the sins you have been told to leave, then stick at it – do Mujahidah and work hard. Will this bring you success or not? Don’t stop making the effort. Sticking to the hard work is what brings success. But if a person doesn’t have a Sheikh and has no-one to guide him or explain to him, then he will read this or that Hadith, listen to one person’s speech here and another person’s lecture there, and a human being can never be successful and steadfast on the path like this. I practiced for eight years like this, attending this gathering and that gathering, listening to this and that – you don’t attain anything that way, nothing at all. Rather, it makes you go downhill as you hear them criticize each other’s opinions. You hear ‘This is better than that, this person said this and not that, that opinion is better.’ Just take one path, one teacher and one guidance, and stick to that with Istaqamat. SubhanAllah. Do you understand what I am saying? Otherwise, a person will go off track and move away from {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ}
What we have discussed today is the definition of {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ}. May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to follow this path and this example, to do the actions which the Qur’an prescribes as Deen - { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا} – and strive. Allah says ‘And as for those who strive hard in our cause’ meaning that we should strive against the Nafs. There is no striving against anything else other than the Nafs. Did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam not say, when they came back from a battle ‘I am taking you to the greater battle after the lesser battle.’ The Sahaba asked ‘What is that greater battle?’ and he said ‘The battle against the Nafs, the battle against the desires.’ This is because the Nafs works hard to make you sin and to disobey, but the human being must say ‘I’m not going to listen to the Nafs and I’m not going to do this action.’ This is the solution.
May Allah subhana wa ta'ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do His Dhikr, to be steadfast on Dhikr and to do abundant Dhikr. The more you do abundant Dhikr, the better – and even if Jinn and tricks and games continue, no power should stop you from doing abundant Dhikr. If you feel like Jinn are putting you off, or that ghosts have come, or you feel distressed or down or broken-hearted so you don’t feel like doing it – it doesn’t matter how you feel, complete the amount that your Sheikh has prescribed for you. That’s it. If you are not doing your Mu’amalaat, go and tell your teacher. Say ‘Hadhrat, I am not doing the right amount - make it easy for me. Give me a solution because I am not succeeding.’
Allah ta’ala has created us with an objective in this world, so don’t waste this life. Death can come at any time – no one can say ‘I will die today or tomorrow.’ You can’t plan it. Death will come at the right time, at the appointed time; Allah ta’ala has written and sealed that you will die from Corona, or from this, or due to that. You cannot control the time and manner of your death – these are pointless actions. Just think about the real objective, namely, ‘How can I reach Allah’s presence? Allah has created me for this and gives me food for this and has given me my body for this; this is all for one objective, which is to find out how I can attain the nearness of my Rabb. How do I attain the Qurb of my Rabb? That is the objective of my life from morning to night – one objective.’ Eating, drinking, standing, sleeping – these are not our objectives. These carry on in parallel, but our continuous objective is all day long to do actions that will please our Creator. End of story.
Wake up in the morning and make this intention – ‘Today, I have to please my Lord!’ If you are hungry, eat something, if you are thirsty, drink some tea – this carries on simultaneously – but focus your heart on actions that will please Allah, and say ‘I don’t want to displease my Rabb in any way today.’ That is the objective of life – to please our Rabb. Nobody can force you to die or beat you to death or do away with you; how you will die is written in your destiny. As long as we are alive, we have to do one action. Every second that you have energy in your body and are able to move, just do one action, which is to please our Rabb; do actions to please our Rabb.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen
24th Feb, 2021
Subhanallah may Allah swt give us the same level of Istiqaamah and love which Hazrat sahib have for their Beloved Shaykh
Aameen
First and foremost, we should do Shukr to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. We should be more grateful to Allah than our tongues can express for Allah ta’ala’s grace and mercy. Furthermore, this is a very great month that Allah ta’ala has given to us, and not just in respect of the month itself, but it also brings good news for every believer that very soon a great month will arrive. This month informs every Mu’min that he should now start preparing for that month, that he should become alert and focused so as not to waste that month. That month is a special Rahmah that Allah ta’ala has gifted to the Muslims, so this month of Rajab, due to its nearness to Ramadhan, has a great many virtues. And this is Allah’s grace that, on this, the first night of Jumu’ah of this month, Allah has given the ability to bone-idle people like us to start this month with Dhikrullah. A human being is unable to count the rewards that Allah ta’ala has gifted in this special time and at this special moment due to this gathering of Dhikr.
There is no other objective of this Majlis apart from gathering and assembling to remember Allah, because, regarding Dhikrullah, Allah ta’ala has said {وَلَذِكۡرُ ٱللَّهِ أَڪۡبَرُ}. Allah says that Dhikr is the greatest thing from any viewpoint, and Allah ta’ala has given us the Tawfeeq to be sat down in an assembly in order to do Dhikrullah, alhamdulillah. There is no objective other than this. My objective is not to give a speech, or to convey Hadith to you, or to give commentary on the Qur’an – these are just a few words about Dhikr that I have heard from my pious elders, which I am sharing with you so that we understand why Dhikr is necessary and why we should do Dhikr and the importance of Dhikr.
We are living in the age of negligence and laziness, and as we get closer to Qiyamah, Fitnahs and corruption are increasing, good deeds are becoming invisible, oppression is increasing, wrong actions are proliferating and shaytan draws our attention towards them. The real actions that Allah ta’ala has given us to attain success in the Akhirah are hiding behind veils and curtains, and their importance has been diminished in our hearts or eliminated altogether. This is a sign of Qiyamah, and another sign is that there will be a lack of good people. The pious people will be veiled and hidden – removed from society, in other words, by Allah ta’ala - and from the removal of just one pious person, darkness is visited upon that generation. The effect of the pious people is such that if a pious person is sat in a town or a city, that whole city benefits from his Barakaat and Faidh and virtues. Hence, when there is a lack of pious people, and good, pious people disappear, and when sins and innovations increase, these are all signs of Qiyamah.
To be able to remember Allah amongst all of this is such a great action, but we see that today, most people have no idea about Dhikr. They have no understanding of the importance of Dhikr. Allah has mentioned such great for rewards Dhikr in the Qur’an and has mentioned and described His Dhikr in so many places. What could be greater than this? One pious elder whose name I do not recall was asked ‘Tell me one virtue from all the Fadhail of Dhikr?’ He replied ‘Among all of the Fadhail of Dhikr, can any be greater than that mentioned when Allah says {فَٱذۡكُرُونِىٓ أَذۡكُرۡكُمۡ}?’ Allah says ‘When you remember Me, I remember you!’ SubhanAllah – can there be a greater reward than this for doing Dhikr? And how does Allah remember you? It is stated that when the lips of a human being move in the mention of Allah ta’ala, as those lips move, Allah ta’ala comes close to that human being and pays special attention to that person, conferring special mercies upon him. Tell me – what great virtues there are in Dhikr for human beings. And if this is the condition of the lips, then if the heart is remembering Him all the time, what will be the remembrance that Allah confers? As long as a person remembers Allah in his heart, then Allah remembers His servant – by name! And Allah also bestows that person with gifts and treasures from His Mercy in the form of Sakeenah and guidance and Taqwa and strength of Iman.
Real success for us is the success of the Hereafter, and this starts from the time that a human being dies. From that point, a person finds out whether he has been successful or has failed - the result is determined at the time that he is lowered into the grave. Allah ta’ala has given us the basis for the real success of a human being in the Qur’an. The standard has been set, you might say – the sign and the criteria for success have been given. The criteria and the methods and the points needed to attain real success have been set out. What is success? After you die, then your Qabr will be full of light, and the Plain of Resurrection will be easy, and the challenges of the Day of Judgement will be easy, and the crossing of the Bridge of Siraat will be easy, and that person will be spared from the fire of Jahannam and be brought into Paradise. This is success for a human being. For a human being to attain this success, the Qur’an explains that there is one method through which all of this can be achieved – and what is that? Mujahidah – striving and making effort.
{وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَا} Allah says that when you try and you make an effort, when you really work hard and embrace the challenge, then He will open up not one path, but the paths of guidance for you. This comes when a person makes effort – the Qur’an is saying this, Allah is saying this. Allah ta’ala doesn’t hide anything from us. Allah is saying ‘If you want to attain My Qurb, My nearness and My love, there is only one way you can attain that, and that nearness will bring success in the phases of the Akhirah and the reward of Paradise. What is the method by which you can attain that? You have to work hard and do Mujahidah.’ {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ } Without hard work, you cannot attain success. We have been sent to this world and we have to do Mujahidah in this world.
{وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } Allah is saying ‘Don’t worry about the grave – just do Mujahidah. {وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } If you do Mujahidah, then wherever you are stuck, I will be with you – “Allah is indeed with those who do good”. I will stand with you and I will support you.’ So the first point we need to understand is that we attain success from Mujahidah, from making effort, from working hard and striving. What is Mujahidah? It is working hard, trying; it is sticking to the task; it is to make a proper effort; it is to stand firm and upright when the challenge is in front of you.
So what is Mujahidah in physical, practical terms? Who are we to oppose? Who or what do we tussle and clash with? Allah ta’ala explains – ‘You have to fight with My biggest enemy. You have to clash with that enemy.’ How? Allah says ‘You have to be the enemy of My enemy. You have to adopt enmity with My enemy and take him on. Don’t shake his hand and don’t be friends with him; don’t embrace him. Don’t listen to anything he says. He is My enemy, so you also must consider him as your enemy and do Mujahidah with him and oppose him and clash with him.’ Who is this enemy?
{قَدۡ أَفۡلَحَ مَن زَكَّٮٰهَا (٩) وَقَدۡ خَابَ مَن دَسَّٮٰهَا } Allah tells us clearly in the Qur’an that the biggest enemy is your Nafs, your base desires. Do you understand this point? Allah is saying ‘Your biggest enemy is that Nafs that is sat inside you. The work of this enemy within is that he will make you challenge Me. Your Nafs will make you have enmity with Me and oppose what I say. Your Nafs will take you in the opposite direction to all the orders that I give you.’
So what do we have to do? Who do we fight against? Who do we oppose and work hard against? The Nafs – the base desires. If you fight your Nafs, then you will attain success. Allah is saying ‘If you fight against the Nafs, then I will open up the paths of success for you. You have to oppose, to clash with, and go against the Nafs. And how long do you have to fight the Nafs? The Nafs is with you until death – the Nafs will not leave you until the Ruh is being extracted. Before that, he will be with you for every moment and in every second, trying to divert you. So you have to remain alert against the cunning ways and tricks of the Nafs – that is how cunning an enemy the Nafs is. The people who adopt the path, understand this message and stand firm, saying ‘Ah, he is our avowed enemy - the enemy of Allah is within us!’ they then grab hold of the method, and resolve always to keep the fact that he is their enemy in plain sight. Who are these people? They are the people who are called Sufis – they are the honourable Sufi-e-Kiram. It is they who have understood this challenge, who have understood the game of life. It is the Nafs that has to be fought and opposed, and only then will Allah say ‘For this, I will show you the phases of success, and I will give you My Mohabbat, My love and My Qurb.’ So if a human being does not oppose the Nafs, he cannot attain success – he cannot.
So what do we think Mujahidah is? We think it is about praying a huge number of Nawafil Salah or performing a huge amount of worship. We think Mujahidah is about doing excess worship, but this is one of shaytan’s cunning tricks – remember this. When a person thinks ‘I have been commanded to do Mujahidah’, what does he do? He starts doing a large amount of worship – Tahajjud, Nawafil, voluntary actions, Nafl Umrah, Nafl Hajj, Nafl Sadaqaat – and then he thinks ‘I’m doing Mujahidah; I’m working hard and doing big Mujahidah, so I’m getting close to Allah.’ This is another deception, let me tell you in passing. Extra Ibadah is a good thing, but this is the initial step for a person. This is the beginning, but it is not Mujahidah; this is not fighting against your Nafs. This is not real Mujahidah – listen to this point.
If, for example, I start praying Nawafil and doing extra Ibadah, this is not Mujahidah. Why not? Doing excess worship cannot not be called Mujahidah – why? Because when a person does Ibadah and lots of worship, that becomes his habit. If, for example, you start keeping fasts, it becomes your habit. Ramadhan is coming, alhamdulillah, and what happens in Ramadhan? The first few fasts are hard and Tarawih is difficult, but after a few days, this changes, and by the time you get to the 30th day of Ramadhan, you don’t even feel like eating during the day. It has become your habit to wake up in the morning to eat Suhoor – you develop a habit. And when a human being has developed a habit, that can’t be called Mujahidah, hard work. Do you understand what I am saying, or not? Extra Ibadah is Nawafil, but it doesn’t remain as Mujahidah. In the beginning it is Mujahidah, but then the habits of worship are developed, and a person becomes accustomed to these actions. If you don’t get up for Tahajjud today, you can develop the habit of doing so. If somebody wakes you up every day for a week or two, this practice will cause your eyes to open automatically and you will be able to do Tahajjud regularly. If you start praying Nafl after Nafl, you will become habitual in that practice. Regular practice becomes a habit as you get used to it, so while it is hard at first, your Nafs gets used to it and the habit is formed.
Real Mujahidah is to oppose that entity at every moment – do you understand what I am saying? You are students and I am a student, so I am making this point so that we are not deceived by any trick. We need to get the path of Allah’s Qurb, and how will we get that path of Qurb? Through Mujahidah, through struggling and striving. We think that extra worship is Mujahidah, but this is incorrect. Let me define to you what Mujahidah is. What is the definition of struggling, striving, making effort and working hard? What is the cunning game of the Nafs? Real Mujahidah is that a person saves himself from sins! SubhanAllah – do you understand? The human being who saves himself from sins, who fights his Nafs, he is the one doing real Mujahidah, because a person can never get the habit of not wanting to commit sins.
Take lying for example. You can never lose the urge to lie, because the Nafs will drag you back towards lying. If you are doing the sheets system, for example - the self-improvement program, the analysis program that is designed to control the Nafs - and you do the Salah sheet, the Qur’an tracking, the Dhikr tracking and all the other sheets, what is the last one? Sins – leaving the sins. And everything goes fine, alhamdulillah - I would say that around 99% of the men and women do well on the other sheets. Thousands of people are doing this, and may Allah ta’ala make you all successful. MashaAllah, this is from Allah, and is a very good action that you are doing, so keep it up otherwise you will lose out. But what is evident is that when it comes to the sins sheet, that is when a person drops and fails. His Dhikr is completed for forty days, with no crosses, and Salah and Tahajjud and extra Ibadah are complete, but when it comes to forty days of no backbiting or lying, that’s where you see the crosses. Three, four, five years – for ten years, even – I am seeing that a person’s sins are not being eliminated. And even if he does progress and sometimes manages forty days, then the sin comes back, and the cross comes again next time.
Why is this? The Qur’an says that this is the real Mujahidah. {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَہۡدِيَنَّہُمۡ سُبُلَنَا} When a person fights with himself to leave the sins, this is when a person attains Allah ta’ala’s nearness. Allah ta’ala tells us not to do sin, so you tell yourself ‘I am not going to sin.’ Your Nafs urges you towards sin, but you say ‘I don’t want to sin.’ So what is the Mujahidah that Allah is referring to that will make you the friend of Allah through doing it? It will make you the rightful owner of Jannah, SubhanAllah, and the rewards of the Hereafter! What will bring this? When you oppose your Nafs and don’t listen to its whispers. The Nafs says ‘Come on, commit a sin now. Just listen to some music for a little while, come on. Just look at that woman for a minute – it’s ok.’ No! This is the trick of the Nafs. Abundant worship is a habit, but remember, you can’t make a habit of totally shunning all sin. That is why the pious predecessors have said that until the last breath of your life comes - what do you have to do? Don’t rely on previous successes and become lazy or negligent. Until your death comes, what do you have to do? You have to be alert and focused on preventing the Nafs from making you commit a sin. Remember this until your last breath, because the Nafs will not leave you until your last breath, when you are dying, when your last moments come when lying upon the death bed. Very pious predecessors and Companions confirm this. I will tell you about Hadhrat Muadh, who was distressed in his final moments, worrying that his final breath might come while his Nafs was making him do something bad. So yes, you can pray abundant Nawafil, but the biggest Mujahidah of a human being and what he has to remain alert about and ask himself about is ‘Am I leaving sins? Are my sins being eliminated? Is Allah’s disobedience coming out of my life?’ This is where we need to focus to attain success.
And what is the success criteria to this Mujahidah? Don’t be afraid if the sin is not disappearing forever – rather, focus on not losing heart and not losing hope. Keep trying, keep trying. Allah says {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا } – so keep trying! Allah is saying ‘Those who strive hard in My cause must keep trying, and I will give you the determination and courage.’ {وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ } So when a person keeps trying and trying, when he departs from this world, alhamdulillah, he departs with success because Allah has promised that He will help, SubhanAllah. You won’t hear from them statements such as ‘Oh, I can’t leave sins. I tried to stop lying, but I can’t do it.’ Such statements lead to loss of hope and giving up. They say ‘I tried to leave backbiting but I can’t do it.’ Your sheets system is a fantastic system, for it will remind you. Are you filling in the sheets? If not, it is a big loss and a big deception of Nafs on your part.
Your Sheikh has given you a task. How do you have to control your Nafs? Through striving to leave sins – that is why I have given you this sheets system. It is not for Dhikr and Salah, because that is something you will get used to. Once a person gets used to it, it will be very rare that he leaves Salah. Once he gets used to it, he will always come and pray Fajr in the morning. The odd day here and there maybe, but he becomes habituated to it and so is regular. Sin however, is such a trick that hour after hour, day after day, you have to focus your effort against it until death, continually trying and remaining alert. Keep trying to leave the sins – why? Because Nafs, the carnal desires, will play games with you and try to trick you every second. If you want to stop lying, you will say ‘Oh, I am not going to lie again!’ You will make this claim, but after a little while, the Nafs will make you lie again. You say ‘But I didn’t want to lie ever again, and now I have done it! I gave up and now I have started lying again.’ So then you just have to work hard again.
The Nafs plays tricks. Moulana Rum rahmatullah alayh made a beautiful point on this. There is a Nasiha by Moulana Rumi delivered through the example of a person in the Mathnawi Sharif, which describes a carpenter who went into the jungle to cut wood. After cutting the wood, he lifted it onto his head and carried it home, but when he arrived, he saw that there was a serpent in the wood. The snake was hidden in the wood, which is common to find in the forest, obviously. When he looked closely at the snake, he saw that it was dead and lifeless, so he said ‘Oh, it’s dead! That’s good – I’ll throw it away in the morning.’ He was tired, so then he lay down to rest. Now the snake had been lifeless, but after a while the heat of the house warmed it up and it slowly started to move as energy returned to its body. It started slithering here and there, and soon came across the man, sleeping in his ignorance – so he bit him! Moulana Rum rahmatullah alayh then says that the Nafs is like that snake. We think ‘Oh, I have controlled the Nafs now – I have defeated it! I won’t go near to Zina now and I won’t chat up women now or look at Haram images now. I have closed that device now and I won’t be doing that again.’ But what happens? The Nafs is not dead – it can never die. The Nafs cannot die -it will trick you and play games with you. It is like that snake in the cold – you think it has died, but when he sees that you are in a state of negligence like the man sleeping at night, then it will come back to life and awaken your desire and make you commit the sin again. This is the Nafs.
So what is the method to deal with this? Allah ta’ala has told us clearly, MashaAllah. What a great Hikmah Allah ta’ala has put in the solution. Allah has given us a solution for the most poisonous of things. For this big disease of Corona, for example, there is a cure. Time will tell – remember this. Every malady has a remedy - this is Allah’s Hikmah. If this is true for normal sicknesses of the world, do we think that Allah ta’ala has not given a remedy that can cure the Nafs? Take the example of a plant in the world, a plant which is beautiful so it makes you want to touch it, but it has sharp poisonous thorns that will sting you if you do, sending poison into the body and causing illness. But look at the perfection of Creation - Allah has placed another plant growing around that plant, through which, if you rub it into your hand, the poison of the first plant is neutralized. This happens – Allah has created solutions like this in nature. In the same way, what is the remedy to the danger caused when the Nafs bites you or tricks you? Of course, Mujahidah should always be deployed, and a person should keep asking ‘Where is the Nafs taking me?’ But what is the remedy to counter the Nafs? It is definitely there, for Allah has told us clearly how to be saved. What is that? {وَٱذۡڪُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ ڪَثِيرً۬ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ } SubhanAllah. It is Dhikr of Allah – the remembrance of Allah.
There is a quality embedded in Dhikr, which is that there is nothing apart from Dhikr that can control the Nafs. No amount of worship will have this effect – on the contrary, if you do a lot of worship, you will become proud. Takabbur will come, Riya will come, and fake actions will be generated in your life which will bring more loss. If you start praying Nafl Tahajjud, thinking ‘I will control my Nafs through Nafl Tahajjud’ what will actually happen is that when you get up in the morning, you will start looking at your face to see if there is Noor on your face from praying Tahajjud. And if you don’t see any Noor and find that the Dua you did after Tahajjud has not been accepted, you will think ‘What’s going on here?’ This happens, doesn’t it? Deception comes in. Similarly, if Allah ta’ala gives a person the Tawfeeq to keep a lot of fasts, he says to himself ‘I keep so many fasts’, and this causes his walking to become a bit haughty and so on. No matter how much Ibadah he does, this will not give him control over his Nafs. Can anybody control their Nafs through Ibadah? Only one thing that can control the Nafs – and what is that? Dhikr of Allah can control the Nafs!
That is why the Sufi-e-Kiram have adopted the practice of Dhikr. It is not magic. They do it because Allah has ordained that if you do not do Mujahidah against your Nafs, you cannot get close to Allah and attain His nearness and His love. You will not get anything. So now we realise that we have to do Mujahidah against the Nafs, and to subdue the Nafs we have to adopt the Tariqah we have obtained from the Qur’an, and this is why the pious predecessors did Dhikran Katheera. They held firm to abundant Dhikr. You go to the company of a Wali of Allah to request his assistance, just as a person goes for assistance when an enemy attacks him, saying ‘Please help me, for a very strong person is attacking and oppressing me.’ You need help and assistance in such circumstances, and in the same way, a human being goes to the friend of Allah and says ‘I am alone, and I cannot control my Nafs, so please help me and assist me. How can I control my desires?’ This is called making a connection with the Ahlu’llah, with the folk of Allah. A student goes to the Wali of Allah to make his path of life easy, to control his Nafs and attain Allah’s nearness. That’s why people go to the company of a friend of Allah. A person attains Allah’s nearness by asking a Wali of Allah for assistance, by seeking him out and saying, when he finds him ‘I have come to you to learn how to control my desires, to learn how to control my Nafs. My Nafs is still out of control even though I have prayed a lot of Salah and have done this action and that action.’
I remember that I myself started to do an abundance of Ibadah, and then good dreams started to come. I share my experiences with you so that I can give you a practical example. I had finished university at that time and felt passionate about Deen, and Allah ta’ala gave me the Tawfeeq to do good deeds. So I did a lot of Mujahidah and made a lot of effort in Ibadah, in Salah, in waking up at night, and I worshipped a lot on my own in my room. I had no family at that time, and my parents were not here – they were in Pakistan and I had come here on my own to study. So, Alhamdulillah, I went towards abundant Ibadah, and performed lots of acts of worship. But despite this, I found that I was still the same – indeed, as I said, more Takabbur comes into a person. He becomes big-headed, thinking ‘I am doing so much Ibadah – I must have become a Wali of Allah. I read so many Juz of Qur’an’ and so on. So I found that success didn’t come, even though I worked hard in Ibadah in this way for several years – still nothing, no success.
Alhamdulillah, Allah ta’ala knows the heart of a person. He knows when he wants to attain the path and to attain His Qurb, and Allah ta’ala has promised ‘I will show the path to whoever wants it’, and so Allah ta’ala arranged for me to meet my Hadhrat Sahib, to meet my Sheikh, SubhanAllah. And in five minutes of Hadhrat Sahib’s company, I changed completely and attained what I had failed to attain through all my years of Ibadah, my fasting, my staying up at night – a person can do as much as he wants. Within five minutes, the whole of my previous intoxication evaporated. Hadhrat Sahib gave me Dhikr, saying ‘Do Dhikr and stick to this practice.’ What I had considered to be Ibadah fell away; it had come to nothing, for it had brought no success. I attained real success by asking the friend of Allah for help, saying ‘Can you help me? I want Allah’s nearness!’ He said ‘Do you want to attain Allah’s nearness? Then come – I will tell you how to control your desires.’ SubhanAllah.
So what happens then? When you go to the Wali of Allah, he teaches you Dhikr and you hold firm to that practice, and then you start to understand the tactics of the Nafs. Even so, a person can still get deceived and fall into the trap of Nafs and shaytan, but not in the same way. He realizes more quickly, and when he does fall into a trap, Allah opens the path of Astaghfar. Then he resorts back to his program of Dhikr, gets back onto the ladder, and starts ascending again, alhamdulillah. He cannot be defeated in a big way by the Nafs if he continues to fight against it. He might stumble, but he won’t be defeated if he has courage and determination.
This is the right path and the straight path to get to Allah, my brothers. That is the right way – by opposing the Nafs. Anyone following this path has no need to be scared. If you have taken the hand of a friend of Allah, there is no need to be afraid. Alhamdulillah, if you follow the guidance and the statements of the teacher, ups and down will come, but the Nafs will never overwhelm you. It will take you towards bad and make you stumble, but it will never defeat you. Rather, on the contrary, you will keep moving towards improvement and progression. If the Nafs deceives you, you do Dhikr again and run back to Allah, then Allah gives even more promotion. Allah actually increases the status and rank of that student who, after falling into sin, shakes himself down and admits that he listened to his Nafs. He recognizes the tricks of Nafs in causing him to lie or backbite. If he lies and tells himself ‘Oh, it was permissible to lie in this circumstance’, or gets angry and says ‘It was permissible to be angry here because otherwise I would not have succeeded in the matter’, the heart of that person, who does Dhikr and has a link with a Wali of Allah, then lights up and he says ‘No, I shouldn’t have got angry – my Nafs deceived me. I lied to myself when I lied, thinking it would bring me success in the world.’ After a short while, he understands how he came to fall down, and feels shame and regret and remorse – and then he cries in front of Allah and attains promotion through that, alhamdulillah. SubhanAllah. Is this happening with you, my brothers?
So follow the sheets system; follow the self-analysis system – this is the life of a Mu’min, my friends. You have nothing to start with, but then you get success. And when the end comes, people gather round, and someone bathes him, the Qabr is prepared, and then he gets lowered into the grave. This has happened today to a very good person of this Masjid and of this town of Bolton, a very pious and righteous man, Qari Ebrahim Bobat sahib rahmatullah alayh. Look how easily he passed away, and everyone, myself included, testifies that he was a great person, MashaAllah, because he had good qualities. There is nothing surprising about him attaining a death like this, because his lifestyle and qualities were good alhamdulillah - he would keep silence, for instance. I remember once we were sat in Dar-ul-Qur’an where I went to host Dhikr, and he was sat right at the front, next to me, and he did a very good Dhikr that day, alhamdulillah. His lifestyle was such that he recognized the Nafs and opposed the desires – and what was the result? That on the first night of Jumu’ah in the month of Rajab, we are doing Dhikr here while he is doing Dhikr in the Qabr. He died in the morning, and before Maghrib, his grave was prepared and his Janazah took place. So he gains the Fadhail of Jumu’ah on his first night in the grave, and there will be no questioning for him, alhamdulillah. He came into his grave with ease – this is success. This is what you call success. Our life in the Dunya is not about eating and wearing clothes and doing special Ibadaat, no. There is a Tariqa, a method, for a Mu’min to follow, a pattern of life. There is a lifestyle that we should adopt, for without it we cannot be successful. Do you understand what I am saying?
What have I explained? I will go over it again to ensure that we understand the point. What is the life of a Mu’min? What should we do to attain success? There is only one path to attain success – and what is that? Mujahidah, working hard. { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا} Allah says ‘Strive, work hard and make effort! If you do Mujahidah, then I will open the paths of My Qurb and My love to you.’ All these secrets will be unlocked - and without Mujahidah, they remain sealed, locked. What do we have to do? Mujahidah? And who do we have to strive against? The Nafs, the desires. Abundant Ibadah is not Mujahidah; this is not the definition. Mujahidah is not performing abundant extra worship. What is the definition of Mujahidah? It is to reject the sins, to reject disobedience – that is Mujahidah. Mujahidah is about crushing the desires. How do we do this? What is the method to go about this? Allah ta’ala says ‘I have given you a Tariqa. When Nafs deceives you and destroys you, the method to cure you of this is what? Dhikr of Allah.
So this is the method, and it entails first analysing ourselves. What method am I adopting? What is my life? How do I spend my time? A person cannot achieve this on his own. If he is doing Nafl worship and this, that and the other worship, that is a waste of life. The straight path is to find a teacher, a friend of Allah, who is following Shari’ah and Sunnah himself, who is a good and pious person. Go to him and say ‘I want to become friends with you – I would like to make a connection with you. Please help me.’ He will then help you with the permission of Allah – Allah Himself will assist you! And then be steadfast on the Dhikr he prescribes for you and follow and practice any Nasiha that he gives you, alhamdulillah. If you remain firm on this path, Nafs and shaytan will run after you trying to divert you, saying ‘Go to that person, go there, don’t stay here, don’t do this.’ Shaytan and Nafs will come to you in different forms, in the shape of human beings or Jinnat, but whatever form they come in, they will try to take you away from that path, saying ‘Go to this other person; Dhikr is not necessary; don’t do this action.’ They will come to attack you because you are on the right path, the straight path. Whatever they say to you, remind yourself ‘The Qur’an has said that this is the path I must follow, come what may!’ Whatever happens, be firm on the path.
Look, I come in front of you because I took my Hadhrat Sahib’s hand, after which I didn’t look left or right. I won’t tell you how old I am, but to this day, this is my Hal. After I took friendship with that one person, I have spent my whole life until the age I have now reached without taking any friendship other than that. I just took that one friend and never looked for a second one. What can I tell you? Great people came to me and said ‘Please make friendship with me.’ I won’t tell you their names – great, pious personalities. You would be shocked if you heard their names. In Makkat-ul-Mukarramah they came, in Madinat-ul-Munawwarah they came to me in Ittikaf, but I said ‘Oh, I have already made friendship with one person and have attached myself to them. You are a great personality with high status and have made such an offer to me because you are so great.’ Allah tests you to find out how strong a person is on his path. This is the same point – once you take the hand of a friend, then stick with it until Qiyamah because it is Allah who has given you the hand of that teacher. I asked from Allah, saying ‘Oh Allah, I want to be corrected and go on the right path, so give me the company of Your Friend through whom I can attain Your nearness.’ So many other invitations may come, but don’t let any gap open up. Just say ‘This is my path: Allah, Allah’s Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and after that, my Sheikh, my teacher, who is guiding me and with whom I am travelling.’ That is when a person attains success.
There are so many paths leading up, down, left and right – many things come in the way. This path is not easy. Allah says {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّة} – ‘Do you think you will just walk into Paradise easily, without being tested?’ Do you think that just by praying Salah and Tahajjud and this and that Nafl Ibadah, you will walk into Paradise? Allah says ‘This is not the test or the challenge. I have created the Nafs to test you. You will rise to a high status and that Nafs will drag you back down to the ground! He will attack you and you will drop. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ} Do you think it is that easy to get into Jannah? Allah is saying ‘No – it is not! I have made a system in the world by which you go up and up and attain a high status, but you will have to do Mujahidah because I have created Nafs, desires and shaytan. I have given you the guidance to pray five times Salah, perform obligatory fasting, but this is not sufficient. No, this is not the situation. The situation is that I want to ascertain how you control yourself against those enemies that have been created to go against you, and who create barriers in the path towards Me. Are you influenced by them, or do you oppose them?’
Do you understand what I am saying? This is the path. Put everything else, all other formulations, to the back – the best path and the best way is this. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Awliya’llah have attained Allah’s nearness through this very path – these are the people who have earned Paradise. Allah ta’ala has given us this path, alhamdulillah. You have a connection with a Silsila, you have been prescribed Dhikr, and Allah ta’ala has given you the lessons, so be firm and steadfast in following this path. Have the Kitab of Allah in one hand and the Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the other. That’s it – end of story! Sit down in this car and travel. And all the while, in parallel, do Dhikrullah. Sit calmly with the Kitab of Allah in one hand, the Sunnat-e-Rasoolillah in the other hand, and in parallel with both, combine them with the Dhikr of Allah. That’s it – three things. If you grab hold of these three things, inshaAllah, never mind what we say, Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam has guaranteed that whoever holds on to the Sunnah and the Kitab of Allah, that person will be successful. Is this not the case? Is this not what the Hadith in Mishkat says? It is clear.
But we don’t do Dhikr, and we don’t go to the Wali of Allah, and we don’t make friends with the Wali of Allah. When Ramadhan comes, there is no space in the Masjid – you can’t find any room. Even those people who pray Salah regularly will be elbowed out of the way in Ramadhan, with ‘Get back – I got here first.’ People who pray Salah here all year long cannot find space in the Masjid in Ramadhan due to the rush of people coming, but as soon as the moon of Eid comes, the Masjid becomes empty again. And then seals and stamps of approval are waved – ‘I did Laylat-ul-Qadr; I did this and that; I completed this many Qur’ans and did this action.’ So is one month enough for us in life? Is that it? Is that { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا}?
The life of a Mu’min is Mujahidah – his whole life is struggle and effort. There are tests all the time in life. If you go home today, where the environment is usually good, and you find that the mood has changed, then stop there straightaway and understand that this is a test from Allah and that you have to do Mujahidah. {أَمۡ حَسِبۡتُمۡ أَن تَدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡجَنَّة} It is not easy to go into Paradise. Stop, control your Nafs and passions, avoid the clash, bring the Shari’ah and Sunnah in front of you, ask what to do to control this situation in order that Nafs doesn’t overwhelm you. Steer yourself away from the sin and immediately place your hands and feet on top of the Nafs. This is one example, but in every field, ask ‘Where is Nafs taking me? Stop! Hey Nafs, what are you doing and where are you going? Stop for a minute – let me compare your impulses with the Sunnah in this situation.’ At this, Nafs will go quiet. Alongside that, do Dhikrullah, and Nafs will be diminished, opposed and crushed.
If you are just doing Tasbeeh and Hajj and this and that Ibadah, then fine – do it. But Allah ta’ala says {وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُواْ فِينَا } – ‘This extra worship is not Mujahidah.’ Mujahidah is when you are the Gulam of the teacher. A horse, a wild horse, runs around all over the place because it is untamed. When somebody puts reins on the horse and takes hold of those reins, he needs only to tug slightly on the rein and the horse will go where he is guided. I was once sat in a cart and when I asked the driver to turn left, he pulled very gently to the left and the horse turned that way. I then said ‘No, turn right’, and with another very slight pull to the right, with no gear change needed, the horse turned right immediately. I said ‘SubhanAllah – how did you do that?’ I too was a wild horse, but when I went to Hadhrat Sahib, Allah ta’ala put the reins on me, and then, whenever Hadhrat Sahib hinted and guided me towards a certain direction, I went that way. Nafs tells you to do this and that, but the Wali of Allah says ‘No - this is rubbish. Whatever I guide you towards, do that.’ Whether you understand what the Sheikh is saying or not, just do whatever your Hadhrat Sahib tells you.
This was the glory of the Sahaba-e-Kiram radhiAllahu anhum. I am sharing with you the extraordinary feeling that the Sahab-e-Kiram used to have. When the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam would ask his noble companions the meaning of something, what would they reply? ‘Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam know best. We do not know; we cannot comprehend.’ If they were asked ‘Has the sun come out?’ they would say ‘We don’t know, oh Prophet of Allah. Allah and His Rasool sallallahu alayhi wasallam know best’, even though the sun was visible! There is a lesson in this for us. If a person does not enter into a student-teacher relationship, he will not be able to control himself. A person needs to be become a student and place himself under the control of the teacher. If you are doing Mujahidah on your own, you are like a lone sheep. You have to follow the guidance of the teacher. If he instructs you that you have to come here in the morning, and then you do come in the morning, eliminating your desire, he is giving you practice in obedience, in controlling the Nafs. If I tell you to come in the morning and you do so, following the instruction of your Sheikh and saying to yourself ‘I will do whatever my Sheikh tells me to do’, then when Allah tells you to do something, will you not obey that? What a great point! SubhanAllah – what a great practice is established. When a student becomes steadfast on the teacher’s Hukm, when Allah’s Hukm comes, will you listen to it or leave it? However hard the Nafs pushes against it, you will say ‘I cannot leave this – it is Allah’s order.’
This is how a person gets near to Allah through the Sheikh’s teachings and instructions. That’s what you learn from the company of the Sheikh, from the Wali of Allah. It is no good going to the Wali of Allah and taking Bai’ah, and then continuing to follow your own desires and implementing your own techniques, saying ‘I’ll come when I want, I’ll do Dhikr when I want.’ If you don’t listen to your Sheikh’s instructions, you can do whatever Ibadah you want all life long, but you will be deceiving the Mu’mineen and trying to deceive Allah. {يُخَـٰدِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ } You think you are deceiving Allah but you are not deceiving Allah or the Mu’mineen – rather, you are deceiving yourself {وَمَا يَشۡعُرُونَ} - without realizing it. Mureeds who don’t follow their Sheikh’s guidance are like this. Who are the Mureeds that don’t follow their Sheikh’s guidance deceiving? Allah says {يُخَـٰدِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ} - ‘Do you think you are deceiving Allah and the believers? Rather, you are deceiving your own self - {وَمَا يَشۡعُرُونَ} – but you don’t realise it.’
If you have taken Bai’ah and have pledged yourself to a teacher, the objective of your life has been realized. Why did you make the attachment to the teacher? Dhikr is not the objective. When we go to the Wali of Allah, what do we say in front of Allah? We say ‘We have come to you to be guided on the path. We want to learn from you, so please instruct us and guide us so that we can follow that path.’ If he says ‘Do this, leave that, don’t do this’, that’s totally fine. Whether you understand or not, continue to do as instructed and the result will be positive at the end of the day. But we start shaking and doubting as soon as he tells us to do something. You have to follow the instructions that your Sheikh says in whatever form they come, no matter what the reaction of the world. You just have to obey and implement.
My Sheikh ordered me to come back here to England, from where I had travelled to him, and to teach people here Dhikrullah. He said ‘Don’t spend time in wasteful talk, and don’t talk about or cause disputes between people – don’t create splits!’ My Sheikh gave me this order. And he also said ‘Earn with your own hands, and ensure your earnings are Halal.’ These were the Nasihas my Sheikh gave to me. So I came back having taken Bai’ah, and now many types of work were forbidden to me. I had to work with my hands and could not claim social security – I couldn’t do anything. Some might say ‘What sort of a Sheikh was this?’ But if I hadn’t obeyed, would you be sitting in front of me? I obeyed, and through the Barakah of Hadhrat Sahib, you are sat here today. If I hadn’t obeyed, how could we have this result today? In that case, I would be a thief and a fake.
So what could I earn with my hands? I had nothing. I had to earn Halal, so at first I couldn’t find work. Why? I had to avoid any connection with fraud or lying or cheating, and my previous jobs had been tainted with these; I had university degrees and had found those jobs from them, but now I stopped that due to the Hukm of the Sheikh. As a result, poverty and hardship came and I didn’t want to take social security, so the hardship got to the point of hunger and thirst – it was a bad situation. Previously, my life had passed in ease and comfort, having had a high standard of life. But that’s when a person gets success – when he obeys his Sheikh. If I hadn’t listened to my Sheikh, I could have earned in Haram ways, tricking people, cheating people, making false social security claims, taking jobs in wrongful businesses and so on. I couldn’t follow the professions that my degrees had set me up for, and these were high grade jobs that I had been heading for, but the work was not good in that it went against Shari’ah - and my Sheikh had told me not to work anywhere where I would have to do actions that went against the Shari’ah.
So then shaytan and Nafs started saying ‘This is weird – your situation before was good. You were praying and also doing things in the Dunya before, and now food and drink are scarce, and things are hard for you. What trick of life have you fallen into? It was easier before – what is this path that you are following?’ I said ‘No! Allah ta’ala has shown me this path, and the words of my Sheikh are correct. I will not leave this, no matter what happens in my life.’ I made this a promise. So for a few years, I did hard manual labour – I can’t imagine today how I did that manual work and all the hard jobs I took on. And then, one day, ease came – this is what happens. {إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلۡعُسۡرِ يُسۡرً۬ا} – Allah says ‘After hardship, certainly there is ease’ - so have courage and determination. Take the right path, and after the hardship ends, open your eyes, and when the Janazah prayer is being prayed, that’s when success is attained. You have to wait until that time to find out – {قَدۡ أَفۡلَحَ مَن زَكَّٮٰهَا (٩) وَقَدۡ خَابَ مَن دَسَّٮٰهَا}. Don’t take any other guidance, therefore. Who should you take guidance from? Say it out loud! From your Sheikh, from your teacher.
Have trust in your Sheikh and be obedient to your Sheikh. I am not saying ‘I am your teacher, so worship me and prostrate to me.’ People say things like ‘Oh, he makes people prostrate and they put their hands together in front of him and they’re like a cult or a sect; people worship him and follow him blindly, astaghfirullah, and people pick up his shoes.’ I don’t know why these stories spread in the community – you hear these things. I tell you that the Qur’an prescribes this path that I went down, and I am explaining and defining that path for you, SubhanAllah. There is no Shirk in this and it is not an innovation. What is the link with your teacher? A person’s Sheikh is the deputy of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam – that is how you should understand it. Allah has sent a guide to provide direction, and he teaches the Shari’ah and the Sunnah and right actions – this is the Niyyah a person should have regarding his Sheikh. This has nothing to do with prostration to the Sheikh or kissing this or that or bowing to him – no, no, no. This is not how we are connected to our Sheikh. It is a spiritual connection involving Adab and manners and your whole being - and you do submit yourself to the teacher, of course, inside and out. And if a person has totally submitted himself, can he ever repay those favours he receives? Tell me. If he introduces you to Allah, is he going to make you do Shirk? Is he going to make you worship him and pick up his shoes? This is wasteful talk. Just listen to what he guides you towards – the Sunnah and Allah’s Deen. He will take you to the right path.
All life-long, follow that one path and continue to follow whatever the Sheikh advises. You have to follow his advice and guidance in order to be successful. But if you turn left and right, and leave the path when you want, and do your actions according to your own desires and oppose what he says, then you will get a tracking system - what a great self-improvement program! If you practice this system with steadfastness, do the doors open or not? Tell me. Continue to follow the path, and if the Sheikh tells you to complete the sheets system and sit in the Majlis and leave the sins you have been told to leave, then stick at it – do Mujahidah and work hard. Will this bring you success or not? Don’t stop making the effort. Sticking to the hard work is what brings success. But if a person doesn’t have a Sheikh and has no-one to guide him or explain to him, then he will read this or that Hadith, listen to one person’s speech here and another person’s lecture there, and a human being can never be successful and steadfast on the path like this. I practiced for eight years like this, attending this gathering and that gathering, listening to this and that – you don’t attain anything that way, nothing at all. Rather, it makes you go downhill as you hear them criticize each other’s opinions. You hear ‘This is better than that, this person said this and not that, that opinion is better.’ Just take one path, one teacher and one guidance, and stick to that with Istaqamat. SubhanAllah. Do you understand what I am saying? Otherwise, a person will go off track and move away from {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ}
What we have discussed today is the definition of {ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ}. May Allah ta’ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to follow this path and this example, to do the actions which the Qur’an prescribes as Deen - { وَٱلَّذِينَ جَـٰهَدُوا} – and strive. Allah says ‘And as for those who strive hard in our cause’ meaning that we should strive against the Nafs. There is no striving against anything else other than the Nafs. Did Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam not say, when they came back from a battle ‘I am taking you to the greater battle after the lesser battle.’ The Sahaba asked ‘What is that greater battle?’ and he said ‘The battle against the Nafs, the battle against the desires.’ This is because the Nafs works hard to make you sin and to disobey, but the human being must say ‘I’m not going to listen to the Nafs and I’m not going to do this action.’ This is the solution.
May Allah subhana wa ta'ala give all of us the Tawfeeq to do His Dhikr, to be steadfast on Dhikr and to do abundant Dhikr. The more you do abundant Dhikr, the better – and even if Jinn and tricks and games continue, no power should stop you from doing abundant Dhikr. If you feel like Jinn are putting you off, or that ghosts have come, or you feel distressed or down or broken-hearted so you don’t feel like doing it – it doesn’t matter how you feel, complete the amount that your Sheikh has prescribed for you. That’s it. If you are not doing your Mu’amalaat, go and tell your teacher. Say ‘Hadhrat, I am not doing the right amount - make it easy for me. Give me a solution because I am not succeeding.’
Allah ta’ala has created us with an objective in this world, so don’t waste this life. Death can come at any time – no one can say ‘I will die today or tomorrow.’ You can’t plan it. Death will come at the right time, at the appointed time; Allah ta’ala has written and sealed that you will die from Corona, or from this, or due to that. You cannot control the time and manner of your death – these are pointless actions. Just think about the real objective, namely, ‘How can I reach Allah’s presence? Allah has created me for this and gives me food for this and has given me my body for this; this is all for one objective, which is to find out how I can attain the nearness of my Rabb. How do I attain the Qurb of my Rabb? That is the objective of my life from morning to night – one objective.’ Eating, drinking, standing, sleeping – these are not our objectives. These carry on in parallel, but our continuous objective is all day long to do actions that will please our Creator. End of story.
Wake up in the morning and make this intention – ‘Today, I have to please my Lord!’ If you are hungry, eat something, if you are thirsty, drink some tea – this carries on simultaneously – but focus your heart on actions that will please Allah, and say ‘I don’t want to displease my Rabb in any way today.’ That is the objective of life – to please our Rabb. Nobody can force you to die or beat you to death or do away with you; how you will die is written in your destiny. As long as we are alive, we have to do one action. Every second that you have energy in your body and are able to move, just do one action, which is to please our Rabb; do actions to please our Rabb.
May Allah ta’ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen