Which Deed Makes Allah Love You?
By His special Grace and Mercy, Allah subhana wa ta'ala gives the Tawfeeq to His servants to perform good deeds. Within this, there are different conditions for different people. Some people, alhamdulillah, implement the orders of Allah with a lot of passion and interest; they shun sins and put in a high level of effort - they work hard. These people are the Muttaqeen, the Saliheen, the Abideen – they have titles; they are the pious people who we also call the friends of Allah. And then there is a second grouping or level; they do practice good deeds, but sometimes they practice and sometimes they leave them. They are weak and do not practice to that high level of practice kept up by the first group; but these people continue along their path with the deeds that they do. And then there is a third group of people, and these people practice A’maal but they commit sins as well in parallel. They pray Salah, but then they do bad actions; they do Hajj, but then they do bad actions. They practice A’maal on the one hand, and on the other, they do evil actions. And the fourth level of people do not perform good deeds, and neither do they cease to commit sins – Allahu Akbar. They will not stop sinning, saying ‘What can we do? We are forced to do this – it is the way of the world. We try, but how can we leave it?’ They make excuses – you hear this don’t you? People make excuses for not leaving sins and for not practicing good deeds. They say ‘I’ll start from tomorrow – I’ll try from tomorrow inshaAllah. Make Dua for me – I’ll start praying Salah from Jumu’ah. I’ll do this and I’ll do that’ – and so they continue not doing good deeds and not leaving the sins.
So there are four levels of people – four groups or grades. All four of these grades have different Maqams – they all have a different standing with Allah. A person who does more will see the fruits of his efforts – he will attain more. So if we look at all of these four levels, there is an Amal which Allah ta’ala has given which benefits all four levels and grades, MashaAllah. For example, the the Saliheen get benefit from it, and the second and third groups also, and even the fourth group who are in a state of great loss will benefit – they will get immense benefit. You cannot imagine the amount of benefit that even those in the fourth group get from this. We realise from this that Allah’s Mercy and Rahmah looks at everybody in the same way; whether a person is sinful or is a Muttaqi or is a high level Wali of Allah, Allah ta’ala puts them all on one level, and weighs them on one scale as Insan, as one creation - say SubhanAllah.
Do you understand what I have said up to this point? Okay, let’s proceed. So the question arises here as to what Amal benefits the Qutb and Ghawth and Abdal, as well as a person who is on the lowest level, who commits Zina and does all sorts of evil actions? Even the latter benefits very greatly. What it is this Amal that gives so much to both? Say SubhanAllah - and if you now come to realise what this is, will you practice it? Do you promise truly? Is that a proper promise? Now this is a high-level action and is very easy. If bone-idle people like us can do it – and I am talking about myself here – then that Amal must be so easy. Think about it, if a low-level, bone-idle person can practice this deed, then it will be very easy for the high-level people; it will be like food for them. It is so simple for them to do this deed, which is why it is so sad that today, this group - for whom this deed would be very easy - have turned their faces away from it.
According to my understanding, we are passing through a very dangerous period of time in this Dunya, in this generation. May Allah forgive, but the reality is that there is Iman in the morning and then none by the evening, or Iman in the evening and then none by next morning. We are in a very dangerous era, and we will realise this in the grave – may Allah keep us in His protection. Ameen. This era is very dangerous, and every day, issues are coming – disasters and so many negative circumstances - and an Ajeeb Fitnah develops within a person on a daily basis; the Hadiths of the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam predicted and foretold these things. It is simple to understand in that the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘As time passes further away from my era, the Deen will diminish.’ Today we are in the era of Dajjal, and we are seeing with our own eyes all those things that have been foretold; and there can be no more unfortunate person than the one who sits down, folds his arms, and gives up.
In this day and age, to be able to hold Majalis to revise the Hadiths is a tremendous Rahmah of Allah, an Atheem Rahmah, but there has to be someone who values and appreciates this, and the truth is that there are very few people who appreciate this today. Those who do attend are people who have been selected by Allah, and Allah’s Karam is upon those people. Understand what I am saying – listen to me clearly, for this is the case. It is as if a severe earthquake or a flood is coming; the shock has hit, and big buildings are collapsing as the earth is splitting and breaking up. What would you say to someone who survives that earthquake? You would say ‘What a fortunate person he is – he didn’t even get a scratch on his body!’ Do you understand this example that I am giving? This is the era and the generation in which we are living – such a big earthquake is happening around us today, an earthquake of disobedience to Allah that shakes Iman; the heavens are shaking from this at this time. People utter such terrible statements from their mouths, and such deviant sects and ways of thinking and ideologies have arisen. You cannot imagine the statements and invitations and claims that are made today, and they are made openly and flagrantly - even proudly. From every side and every angle that we can see, we are surrounded with this; this is worse than the worst earthquake.
So if you can sit and do the Dhikr of Allah in this situation, tell me - what an amazing condition you are in. Say SubhanAllah. The earth and the heavens are proud of those people - and envious of them. I am talking about Dhikr particularly because Allah subhana wa ta'ala says that even if you do Dhikr with Riya, with showing-off, with pride and with fraud, even then this Amal is acceptable to Allah ta’ala. This is such a high-level Amal that we are doing that even if we are affected by the earthquake such that our other A’maal are impacted by that storm that is raging around us – because a Zalzala, an earthquake, is not a minor thing and it can overwhelm everything – yet Allah ta’ala has protected this Amal from that earthquake. What Amal is that? SubhanAllah – there are Hadiths that confirm this: it is Dhikrullah, the remembrance of Allah.
Dhikrullah is such an action that not only is it accepted, but it also saves you from the effects of the earthquake. Should we leave it? But shaytan makes us leave Dhikr, and Nafs makes us leave Dhikr – this is the case, isn’t it? Look – why do we need to do this Amal? Every deed is affected by this earthquake and every family is affected. The buildings are affected by a physical earthquake, and even if you are far away from where it strikes, you can still be affected by an earthquake; and in a similar way, every Amal is affected in this age of Fitnah and Fasaad. We might say ‘What Fitnahs?’ but that doesn’t matter if you take advantage of Allah ta’ala’s insurance policy by doing Dhikr in parallel with every deed; this will protect you. People say ‘No, no – they are the Jamat of Dhikr; they do Dhikr, but we don’t need to do it.’ Oh servants of Allah, there is no Jamat of Dhikr, no special group of people who do Dhikr. Allah has given us the understanding and awareness that if you want to be saved, then do Dhikr. What Jamat, what group and what sect are they talking about? Is there a Jamat of Salah? Is there a Jamat of fasting? Tell me. Is there a Jamat of Hajjis? Tell me. No, these are A’maal, different deeds. Yes? If you are doing this action collectively, that does not make it a Jamat or a specific sect or group that has split off, leaving the rest to go on their own while they are a Jamat.
Never say this. These are just those people to whose minds Allah ta’ala has given the realisation that this action saves you – from what? It saves you to such an extent that even if Dajjal comes or Dajjal’s father comes, whatever Fitnah comes, even if the heavens are destroyed, yet Allah ta’ala says ‘Until the final moment comes, I will keep the Universe in existence as long as My Dhakir is present.’ This comes in Hadith. Allah is saying ‘I won’t let anything affect that person because My Name is the strongest. Every pillar of the Deen will be crumbling or dropping or breaking up; the Qur’an will change and everything will change, but Allah says ‘There is one thing that I will give you for protection, and the people who understand this will understand, and if they don’t, they don’t.’ This is the one thing that will save you until the final seconds – and what is that? It is that thing about which Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘Qiyamah cannot come while this is present’ – and can there be a bigger earthquake than Qiyamah? Say SubhanAllah. There cannot be any greater earthquake than Qiyamah, and yet even Qiyamah cannot come – this is how fantastic is this action of Dhikrullah; whoever does the Dhikr of Allah is protected and secure.
So should we do Dhikr of Allah or not, my brothers? Do you understand what I am saying? Well then? Why say ‘This Jamat does it, and that Jamat does it’? What Jamat? What group? What sect? There is no sect and no Pir - rather this is Allah’s Fadhl and Karam and grace and mercy that Allah has given us the colour of His Name, the effect of His Name. Look, say for example that you sell flowers, and another person also sells flowers. One has a shop here in Bolton and the other sells his flowers in Burnley. If they meet and one says ‘What do you do?’ and the other replies ‘I sell flowers,’ the first will say ‘I sell flowers too - which sort of flowers do you sell? What varieties do you stock?’ They have the same occupation, so they sit down and start talking – say SubhanAllah. They will question each other, asking things like ‘How does your shop run? Where do you buy your stock from?’ And all the flower sellers will come together now and again to discuss what they do – this is the same! ‘I recite the Name of Allah – what do you do?’ ‘Oh, I recite Allah’s Name also.’ So when we gather together in a Majlis, we all say Allah’s Name collectively, and thus it becomes like a Jamah or a group. Do you understand what I am saying?
So these people are like this. It is not as if we get together in the morning and shake hands with each other, saying ‘Oh this person is in our Jamat and that person is an outsider; he is not in the Jamat and is not one of us.’ No, this is not how it is. It is just that they are all flower sellers; they have the same occupation, so they gather here. ‘What are you doing here? Dhikr? Okay, we will sit down and do Dhikr here as well then.’ We have this practice in common. ‘Are you doing Dhikr? I am also doing Dhikr, so I will sit down with you.’ In this way, people come together and sit together, and an assembly is formed. Say SubhanAllah – that is all it is.
This is the Dhikr of Allah, and I have explained to you how important it is, which is why the greatest person in this day and age until Qiyamah will be that person – SubhanAllah – whose every Amal, whether it be recitation of the Qur’an or any other Amal that they do, will be sure to have Dhikr of Allah performed alongside, in parallel, every morning and evening. This practice should always be maintained, and this will save you from destruction, and from Fitnah and Fasaad, and from weakness of Deen, and from Kufr and Shirk, and from all innovations. Dhikr will protect you and insulate you from these – and I am talking here from Qur’an and Hadith; I am not pulling these statements out of my own pocket.
So what was I saying? Sometimes when I am speaking, the topic changes direction, so we will go back to the topic now, because it is a good topic, and I don’t want to lose those points that were in my mind. We were talking on the topic and then we went somewhere else. Yes – it was about what you do when you sell flowers, which is that you obviously start talking about flowers. We are sat here for Dhikr, MashaAllah, so the discussion about Dhikr starts. And discussions about Dhikr will continue as long as the world lasts! It has been sixty or seventy years that I have been speaking about Dhikr of Allah – what can I do? I can’t help it – words about Dhikr just come out. Ask those brothers who have been with me for decades – fifty years some of them – and those that were born in front of me as well. There are some families listening today which have four generations who have been hearing these talks. His father, and his father’s father, and that man’s father as well – four generations are listening to my words today. They have listened and listened, and many such people have gone to their graves as well, and all the while, I’m talking to you in the same way I did when I was a youth! Make Dua for my health and ‘Afiya and well-being so that these gatherings continue to come together, and I keep on speaking and you keep on listening, and I keep on looking at you while you keep on looking at me. How beautiful are these words!
Listen - another beautiful point has come into my mind, SubhanAllah. These are words that we are sharing, but Allah tells us ‘I also sit with My angels and speak in the same way that you are speaking!’ SubhanAllah! ‘You sit on the earth and talk, while I sit in the angels with My special, select angels, and I talk about you.’ So what else is Dhikr? Tell me. This is Dhikr. Do you understand now? So now you won’t say ‘This is his Jamat and it is a group and a sect.’ No – close your eyes and remember Allah. I also want to sit down and purify myself; I also want to be included amongst those people who are correcting themselves. It is an unfortunate person who doesn’t understand this, one who Allah brings and yet he leaves and turns his back, saying ‘No, I don’t want to do Dhikr. This happens and they do that.’ He makes these hollow statements, but he is destroying himself with his own words. I am so grateful - and we should all be so grateful – and we should pray ‘Oh Allah, tomorrow please don’t take away this Ni’mah that You have given to me today. We are living in the era of Fitnah, so please Allah, take away the Waswasah from my ears. Take deceit away from my ears so that I do not listen when people say that he is not doing right.’ Beware of any whisper that may come into you, for an attack can come from any angle – beware. Beware and remember one thing – whatever they say, this is the Dhikr of Allah, isn’t it? We are reciting Allah’s Name. aren’t we? In that case, it doesn’t matter what you hear or what people say. The matter has been made clear – is there anything to say beyond this?
Anyway, let’s go back to what we were discussing in the beginning, which is a beautiful point, and this is the real message that I wanted to share today. MashaAllah, we spoke of the four categories, the four levels of people – I described these four groups, didn’t I? And Allah ta’ala has given an Amal that benefits all four levels and categories of people. How much does it benefit? To the extent that even those at the poorest of levels, the beggars who could be described as the worst and most sinful of people, acquire a top-class benefit from this Amal. They don’t get a minor benefit - rather, through this deed, Allah takes them from the dust and elevates them to the heavens. Yes? Via this Amal, the person who commits Zina and consumes alcohol and does immodest actions is elevated by Allah to that group of people who perform Sujood - what an Amal! So what will be the reward for the first grade of people, for those who have already attained? Where will they reach if they do this action? If a sinful person in grade four is elevated to grade one, then what condition will the men and women who are already in grade one attain through this action?
Will you do this action, brothers? InshaAllah. You may be thinking that I am making this up myself, so first I would like to recite a verse of the Qur’an to you for Allah’s sake. I am not saying this – my reference for saying that Allah gives this Darajah through the greatness of this Amal is Allah Himself. If you will practice this deed, put your hands up. Ah - it is a fantastic action! Whoever didn’t put up his hand has cut his name off from that list; such an individual is a Mutakabbir person – Allah is saying that he has shown Kibr and pride. Allah says ‘I was distributing Khairaat in that gathering, but his hand would not even lift up in acknowledgement. I will lift up his hand at that time when the reality of Kibr becomes clear!’ You know, Kibr is such that it immediately makes a person a friend of shaytan – he becomes a true friend of shaytan due to Kibr. A person who displays Kibr is a true friend of shaytan – may Allah ta’ala save us from Kibr and pride. The elevated person is he who considers himself the lowest and the worst. When asked to raise his hand, the one who considers himself the biggest sinner will put both his hands up, thinking ‘I am the biggest sinner in this gathering.’ Both hands should be raised, and one should not think ‘I am a Muttaqi; the person next to me is sinful, but I am not.’
No – don’t do Kibr! It needs just a few words: ‘I am the worst person; no one present is worse than me’ - that is what we should say. Allah ta’ala says ‘When you consider yourself to be lowly, then I give you a high level; if you lower yourself, then I will elevate you. You put yourself down, so I will lift you up. You are not lowly at all - rather you are fearful of your Rabb and question yourself as to whether you are a wrongdoer. You have adopted humility and simplicity.’ The greatest of the AwliyAllah, when someone called them great, would say that such statements were lies and say ‘Tawbah, Tawbah, Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah – no, I am a sinful person.’ If you look back at the pious predecessors, if someone would call them pious and a person who prays Tahajjud, they would say ‘Oh no, no – he is lying. Don’t say that about me - these words are contrary to what Allah has ordained. Don’t consider me to be pious and good.’ When they addressed him as someone pious and good, he would say ‘No, no, no, I am nothing – I have no connection with this.’ If asked why, they would explain that all their attributes that seemed pious could be contaminated with showing off or lying or fraud or deceit, such that all their Ibadah might not be accepted. They would cry to Allah, saying ‘Oh Allah, if You don’t accept it, then where will it go? People think that I am pious and good, but You may regard me as a thief, so where can I go? I am nothing at all until and unless I hear the good news from You!’
Allahu Akbar – Allah says {ٱرۡجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً۬ مَّرۡضِيَّةً۬} – ‘Come to Me – you are happy with Me and I am happy with you.’ That is when the embrace will come, isn’t it? That is when he will be able to be broad-chested and big-headed, when he is in Jannah; see the walk of that person at that time. He won’t be a Mutakabbir person when he is in Paradise, but he will be proud, and he will be happy and doing Shukr to Allah for all the Ni’mahs he receives. Then he will walk with pride. The person who walks in a lowly fashion in the world will be raised high at that time, and he will say ‘Is this my palace? What else?’ Then Allah will show him his rewards, and he will look at them and say ‘MashaAllah!’ He won’t have pride there, but he will be happy and broad-chested – say SubhanAllah!
The words of the Faqir are unique and weird, some might say, but they are different. Are you enjoying what I am saying, or not? So brothers, what is this Amal? Allah ta’ala has announced an Amal in the Qur’an that is so fantastic that the thief is elevated to the level of a Wali of Allah. What is this action? Allah says {إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلتَّوَّٲبِينَ} – ‘I make those who do Tawbah My beloved servants!’ The guarantee has come, has it not? Do you understand the Amal now? What Amal is it? Astaghfar, Tawbah, repentance – SubhanAllah. This is such a great deed, such a big action about which Allah is speaking here. And who does Tawbah and Astaghfar? A person who is sinful. Yes? So a person who is in the lowest grade, an alcoholic, a thief, a bandit and more, if he does Tawbah then Allah has promised that the life of that alcoholic and thief will change, and he will become a Wali of Allah. Allah is saying ‘I love those people who do Tawbah, who repent. I make the Tawwabeen My beloved - I take them to the level of Mehboobiat’ – even though people may think that person is still a trickster and a thief and a deceitful person.
Look, Allah ta’ala has prepared the means for His servants to do Tawbah. Listen carefully to what I am saying, and afterwards, listen again. This Tawbah is for every individual; Astahgfar is for every human being. Yes? Allah is saying that Tawbah elevates every human being to the highest level – a Ghawth, a Qutb, an Abdal, everybody. Tawbah is beneficial for everyone, because that is how Allah takes a person up from one rank to the next and then the next, but I am talking also about the most sinful person, because for him, when he does Tawbah, he instantly gets raised to the level of Wilayat. What a fantastic action! And what is the preparation that Allah has made for this? Allah has prepared the means for this and tells us that this is the easiest Amal. You don’t have to go out, and you don’t have to speak to anyone, and you don’t have to meet anyone, and you don’t have to share your issues with anyone, and you don’t need to share your issues with anybody or request anything from anyone, and you don’t have to look for a prayer mat or a special place to perform this worship. No, Allah ta’ala says that a human being has the total capacity and preparation inside him; Allah has sealed that ability within him.
Today, I will explain to you what Tawbah is – what is in my mind, I am sharing with you directly. Remember this, that Allah has created three levels of passion inside a human being, three elements of Jadhbah, you could say, and Tawbah is made up of those three elements. You will all have experienced this in your life, which is why you are sat here, MashaAllah, wearing Imamahs and white clothes, with your faces adorned with the beautiful Sunnah. Where has this come from? Were you like this before? Tell me. What happened? So Allah ta’ala has placed three elements inside a person that enable him to do Tawbah – remember this.
The first element that Allah ta’ala has placed in a person is regret and remorse – shame. This is the most basic element, because when a person is sinful, he feels shame and remorse. Even if someone is a sinful person - whether a man or a woman – regret and shame will be felt; and this regret and shame, this pang of remorse, is what invites a person towards Tawbah. Understand this point – SubhanAllah, this is a Faqir’s explanation here. This is something that is felt by everybody. Allah ta’ala develops that feeling, that emotion, so that a person thinks ‘Oh - I have committed a sin when I swore at that person; he had a while beard on his face and yet I slapped him; I was disrespectful to my mother today; I spent someone else’s money today; I missed my Salah today; SubhanAllah, I missed Salah in Jamah.’ Each person has his own level and capacity, to the extent that some do not pray Salah, not even on Jumu’ah or on Eid, and they stand there smoking cigarettes whilst others are walking past on the way to Salah! Wa’llahi, from my feelings and emotions, I believe that there is a knocking in his heart at that time, and he thinks ‘Oh! One day, I will pray as well.’
So this pang of regret is inviting a person, and Allah is calling ‘Come towards Me and do Tawbah!’ The important thing is to catch that feeling when it arises at that time – say SubhanAllah. This is what we need to do today. A human being definitely feels remorse and shame after sinning, and when he catches that and doesn’t waste it and responds to that invitation and does not let it pass, when he latches onto that Jadhbah and doesn’t suppress it, then by Allah, he will immediately run towards Tawbah. These opportunities come in life - they definitely come. I will give you the example of high-level people, those who do Tahajjud and all the various types of Dhikr; even they sometimes look at the phone and look at dirty things, or do wrong here or there – things happen, don’t they? Somewhere down the line, somehow or other, some sins are committed, some disrespect is shown, or the eyes are attracted towards a female. It happens, doesn’t it? Both old and young are susceptible to this, and also to saying something disrespectful with their tongue, but after doing that, SubhanAllah, the feeling of remorse arises inside – it definitely comes. A person thinks ‘What have I done?’ They become ashamed automatically – this emotion arises. And when the emotion comes over you, don’t let it go and don’t hide it – immediately run to Allah. If a person suppresses that feeling, he will never be able to do Tawbah because he suppresses the invitation.
Do you understand what I am saying? So now – what is the second element, the second factor that enables you to do Tawbah? When a person does an impure action, such as Zina or any sinful action, what happens? Regret comes, but another feeling arises as well. He thinks ‘Oh – I committed a sin when I was rude to my mother, but I am not going to do that again.’ This is the feeling that comes after regret – a desire to reject that sin comes over him, a desire to leave that sin develops within him, and he thinks ‘It would be much better if I did not commit this sin again. What will happen if someone sees me do this tomorrow? Today I have been saved, but what if I am seen doing this? What would happen then? I cannot carry on doing this.’ This is the second element that is needed to leave the sin, and Allah ta’ala develops this dislike, this distaste and hatred for the sin. First, he feels ashamed, and regrets having committed the sin, and then suddenly the second element comes, and Allah says to him ‘Leave this’ and so he develops a dislike for that action.
I will give you a beautiful example of when you sit down to eat some delicious food – a top-class rice pudding for instance. You sit down to eat the food, but then you see a spider wandering around on the food. When you see a spider crawling on the food, you will leave the food, won’t you? Will you leave it or not? Tell me. If you see a spider or a beetle on the food, you will say ‘I can’t eat this food now – leave it.’ In the same way, when a sinful person develops that feeling and starts to dislike the sin, he will say ‘I’m not going to do that action again.’ So when this feeling comes over him, SubhanAllah, and he has the feeling that he dislikes the sin, he will treat it like the person who sees that his food is dirty and leaves it as a result. He won’t just remove the spider and start eating the food, but that is how people who suppress their sins behave – they take the spider out and then carry on eating. That is wrong, isn’t it? But a refined person who develops the proper level of remorse will say ‘I can’t eat this food – I saw that there was an insect in the food, so I can’t eat it.’ This is because purity has come into his thinking and into his approach to life.
So the first factor or element was regret and shame, and the second element is rejecting the sin and shunning the sin. And there is a third factor or element that Allah ta’ala develops inside a person, and this completes the action of Tawbah. This is when a person says ‘Oh! This food is so dirty!’ I will use this example of food again. Imagine that you go to a take-away, and you look behind the scenes at the kitchen and see that the place looks okay from the front, but behind, it is something else. You look at the kitchen and see that the workers’ hands are dirty, and someone grabs the chicken roughly after wiping their nose, and someone else is coughing and spluttering, and a mouse is scuttling around on the floor. So after you have seen all of that, if someone suggests that you have a take-away from there, you will say ‘No! Tawbah, Tawbah – I will never ever eat from here again!’ Say SubhanAllah – you will totally shun the food from that place, because you have seen with your own eyes how filthy the environment is in the kitchen.
So a person who sins, and first has remorse and regret, and then sees that the action is very dirty so he doesn’t want to eat it anymore, and then thirdly he sees and experiences first-hand how much filth is behind the sin, he will say ‘I will never come back here again to eat.’ The third element means that the sinful person develops so much dislike for the sin in his heart that he says ‘Tawbah, Tawbah! I will never do this sin again – I turn my back on it today.’ So when you get these three feelings – firstly regretting, secondly leaving the sin, and then thirdly promising never to do it again – when these three elements combine, that is called Tawbatan Nasuh.
Allah says {يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ تُوبُوٓاْ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ تَوۡبَةً۬ نَّصُوحًا}. The Qur’an says this, doesn’t it? Allah is saying ‘Come - come back towards Me! But how should you come? With the combination of these three elements that I have developed inside you – use them and don’t suppress them!’ Don’t be scared of shunning sins – utilize these three elements. If you have been doing Zina, don’t worry – you have been created with the ability to commit sin, so you will commit sin and do wrong actions, but these three elements will keep coming back to you. If you suppress them, that is very bad; but if you use them, then Allah is saying ‘I am your Rabb, and I promise you – {إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلتَّوَّٲبِينَ} – I love you and I will make you My friend. I won’t look at how many crimes you have committed and how much Zina you have done.’ As for all those things she used to do and all those things he used to do, Allah is telling them not to worry!
As soon as you feel these three feelings, don’t suppress them or hide them, because the biggest loss is when we suppress those feelings. Regret comes, and we think ‘Oh no, I don’t really regret it – forget that.’ You feel dislike for the sin, but you tell yourself ‘Oh, it’s okay – everyone is doing it, so it’s alright,’ and so you don’t even consider leaving that sin forever - what a big deception shaytan visits upon such a human being. When you combine these three elements, Allah is saying ‘I will take you to that Maqam.’
And you see this if you look at the lives of all the great Walis of Allah; I will name one for you now – Abdullah bin Mubarak rahmatullah alayh. He was a Muhaddith, a Muhaddith of a very high level - the respected scholars will know this. Both his outward and inward level of knowledge were very high; he was a very elevated individual. There were two other Walis of Allah living at the same time as Abdullah bin Mubarak rahmatullah alayh, namely Fuzail bin Ayyaz and Sufyan bin Thawri rahmatullah alayhima, and they said that from the west to the east, this man was the foremost Mujahid of the men of his age; they said that no-one could compare to him in that generation – this is how high his Maqam was.
Now he did not suppress these three elements, and he was a person who was from the streets when he was a boy – say SubhanAllah. Look at your lives – think about your lives. Here was a street boy who used to whistle at girls and chase them, and he did this wrong action and that wrong action and became passionately in love with a woman. And you know what happens when passion and Ishq overcomes a person – he becomes madly obsessed with the woman. He was young and he developed Ishq for this woman and became preoccupied with her in everything he did; whether he was in this or that alleyway or street, he would be found speaking about her and mentioning her – he was madly in love. He thought about her all the time – what could he do? So one day he was standing waiting for his beloved, which is the sort of thing people who are in love do, isn’t it? He didn’t think about the fact that she was to become old, as people do. By contrast, ask a Wali of Allah who is in love with Allah’s Tajalliat about his Hal. Yes? Allah is Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum – Allah’s Husn is never going to change or go downhill. And though you cannot see Allah’s Husn in this world, never mind that, just look at Allah’s Creation such as a flower – think about how beautiful that is. If someone is in love with the flowers of Allah, then can such a true lover of Allah sleep at night? No, he will recite Allah’s praise and Hamd, and his greatest Hamd will be reciting the Qur’an. Recite the Qur’an and do Tilawat and become an Ashiq of the Qur’an, SubhanAllah, and then all of the knocking will come out. The difference between just doing an Amal and doing an Amal as an Ashiq is very great indeed. One person may feel forced to do it under threat of a stick, while another is doing it for Jannah and reward, but an Ashiq practices in the same way as a person who has fallen in love with a woman. He will stand in the freezing cold and snow, and if you ask him why, he will say ‘Oh, I am just waiting for my Mehboobah to come out so that I can see her.’ He stands there all night long just to catch a glimpse of that woman, because that is his definition of success – look at this level of craziness and madness.
Today, if people see a Wali of Allah, they say ‘Look at him – look how crazy he is. He must be mad – what is he doing? He doesn’t eat or drink and he is always awake.’ But how can a person remain conscious if he has fallen in love with Allah? Tell me. How can a person remain conscious? But we are fake people who make empty claims. Where there is genuine love for the sake of Allah, a person attains success. Allah ta’ala looks after that person, saying ‘Come to Me and I will tell you. I will put everything else on one side, and I will reward you for your tears. You cannot imagine the value of one tear that you shed – I will compensate you for it in full!’
So when we do Dhikr of Allah, the objective of doing Dhikr of Allah is that Allah’s vastness and greatness and glory should come into our hearts, and we should be thinking ‘Oh Allah, how beautiful You are! Allah, Allah, Allah.’ Keep remembering Allah until every portion and atom of you remembers Allah, and you think ‘What are You, oh Allah? I am remembering You, oh Allah – how are You so great? I cannot understand who You are!’ When you become an Ashiq like this, that is called doing Dhikr. This is the real meaning of Dhikr; it is not about just repeating ‘Allah, Allah.’ No, remember Allah’s Name because you have fallen in love with Allah. Keep repeating it, just as the lover repeats the name of his beloved, saying ‘Laila, Laila,’ and running after her in the Dunya. Will he call out some other name? If so, then Laila will take her shoe off and throw it at him, saying ‘Do you claim to be my Ashiq, and yet call the name of another person?’ This is the case, isn’t it? So whose name will the person who is an Ashiq of Allah call upon? He will say ‘Allah, Allah, Allah’ – what else will he say? He will keep on reciting Allah’s Name – and that is what Dhikr of Allah is.
A beautiful verse is coming to my mind now, but I will recite it some other time – or should I share it with you? Maybe it will come into my mind – let’s see if it does.
My lips are silent, and my eyelashes are lowered in submission
New ways of thinking and desires have arisen in my heart.
This is how it is, isn’t it? For example, you won’t look here and there.
My lips are silent, and my eyelashes have lowered
But now, all thoughts of sleep have diminished.
See what kind of sleep patterns the lover has now!
What has increased in its place? Love for you has increased
And the connection at this moment is fresh and new!
So see what happens when you start calling out to Allah; see how that love will increase and multiply and see where it will take you. When you sit down to remember, you lower your eyes –this is the feeling, isn’t it? The eyes are lowered, and the lips are silent – what is this? This is a new feeling and connection that we are talking about here - it is the first bloom!
So, as I was saying, the lover of Allah is an Ashiq, and Abdullah bin Mubarak rahmatullah alayh once waited for his beloved all night until the morning came. And then the Adhan of Allah was made, calling ‘Come towards Salah, come towards Salah,’ and as I said, regret will definitely be aroused in a Mu’min, so regret and remorse swept over that sinful person; at that time, he was the most sinful person in his generation. What a big sinner he was, but when the feelings of regret seized him, he realized and said to himself ‘What are you doing? Are you not ashamed to have stood here all night long in the cold?’ Regret and shame welled up inside him and he said to himself ‘You should wake up! You have been stood here waiting for so long in the cold just for a woman? Look at the condition you are in, oh foolish person, while Allah ta’ala is calling people towards His Ma’arifah, towards His ‘Irfan and towards His nearness. And look, while Allah ta’ala is calling you towards this, you are standing here for a woman, making yourself look like a ridiculous person, standing in the cold! Are you not ashamed?’ The passion of regret swept over him, and he didn’t suppress it - whereas we do suppress it.
He didn’t do so, and instead he magnified it - and then the second element suddenly arose in him. What was that? Dislike of the sin came upon him, and he rejected the sin, saying ‘Tawbah, Tawbah! Am I like this? Am I doing this action? I shouldn’t be doing this at all!’ And then immediately, the third element came upon him, and he said to himself ‘Promise right now that you will leave this dirty action! Oh Allah, I am here now, I am here now, I am here now! I was diverted and deviated – what was I doing? I had rejected Your call and have spent my time in the other way. Allah, I do Tawbah! My Maula, I do Tawbah, and I seek Your forgiveness. Forgive me, oh Allah!’ SubhanAllah – he made this call, and then the promise of the Qur’an was activated. {إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلتَّوَّٲبِينَ} Allah promised that the person who does a Tawbah in which these three emotions seize him and come to life, then Your Rabb’s promise comes to life: ‘Come - I make you My Mehboob!’ So what a Mehboob he became – what a beloved servant he became! Imagine – until today, his name is so high and elevated. Who was he? He was a sinful person, a sinner, but what happened to him? He did Astaghfar and made Tawbah - he grabbed it! So look how Allah subhana wa ta'ala gives the opportunity to the most sinful of people and elevates them to the heights if they do Tawbah and act on their regret and remorse.
Now here is a point that I would like to explain to you in passing. There is one action that we need to do here. The process can only start when we release those three elements that we have inside us; and if we bury them and suppress them, then shaytan will win. This is the case, isn’t it? We bury these three elements, and thus remain the same as we were before. A person sitting here without a beard amongst all these people with beards thinks ‘I should be ashamed here – I should keep a beard.’ The pangs of that feeling hit us, don’t they, when you see other people. If Allah ta’ala sends you somewhere where everyone is praying Salah and wearing Imamah, and we don’t wear Imamah, we are bound to think ‘Oh how sad – they are all doing this, but I am not’ - then this feeling and those pangs seize us inside. But a person buries that feeling and those pangs, and he thinks ‘Oh, I can pray like this – my prayer will be accepted. This beard I have got is okay, isn’t it?’ He buries that emotion and feeling with these false claims that he makes, and that is a very dangerous action. Then it is all over and he loses out, and he remains content with what he was before.
So understand this point, which is that we have to fight at this time; we have to oppose those false thoughts. As soon as the first elements of regret arise, grab them straightaway. Run to Allah immediately, saying ‘Oh Allah – save me! How come I am like this today?’ And remember – this occurs with everybody, with the Wali of Alah, with the Qutb, with the Abdal, with the Mujaddid; everyone has this experience - Astaghfar elevates their level. Who doesn’t get this? Allah’s Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam gave us the prescription for this himself, for at every gathering he would recite Astaghfar one hundred times; he gave us the example himself. A high level is attained in this way for everyone; the sins of a sinful person, for example, become Hasanaat, but the Muttaqi person and the Ghawth and the Qutb don’t do these sins, do they? Na’oodhubi’llah, they don’t look at women and do sinful actions like that. No, those people who do high-grade actions consider the small wrongdoings that are nothing for us to be big sins, and so as soon as they do Astaghfar, their rank is elevated and raised up high. Their Darajaats also increase through this same action of Astaghfar, just as the sinful person’s rank is also elevated through Astaghfar and regret.
So how dare we bury that passion of regret? How should we eliminate this danger? Let me give you the prescription. When you get the feeling that you wish you were doing good deeds, and you question why you are committing sins, and you desire to control those sins and not bury that feeling, implement this Amal that I will give you now that the Qur’an has prescribed, so that you don’t eliminate that feeling of Tawbah. If you bring this action into your life, then inshaAllah, the pious predecessors have said that the most sinful of people will become a Wali of Allah. What is that Amal? Never reject that Amal – what is it? Dhikrullah! Dhikrullah has this quality, and that is why I tell you that you should not leave Dhikr due to sins. It doesn’t matter how dirty or sinful you are, do not leave Dhikr, because there is a quality inherent in Dhikr, which is that through that Dhikr, Allah will develop that Jadhbah inside you, and when that Jadhbah comes, due to the Noor of Dhikr, it will not be buried but instead that desire to do Tawbah will increase. Say SubhanAllah! These are the feelings and emotions that take a person to Allah, so it doesn’t matter what situation a person is in; whatever action he does, if he commits any type of sin, he should never leave Dhikr of Allah. Perform your Dhikr steadfastly, even if you are a thief. Whatever you are, tell yourself ‘I am not going to leave my Dhikr.’ If people say ‘Are you committing these sins and doing Dhikr as well?’ just say ‘Yes I am. I do Dhikr as well.’ One day, that Dhikr will take you out of those bad actions by elevating that Jadhbah such that you are lifted up.
You will see this – experience it for yourself. Before you did Dhikr, it was extremely hard to leave sins, but now, with the Barakah of Dhikr, it is so easy to reject sins - say SubhanAllah! It is, isn’t it? Before you would go ‘I have missed a Salah – oh, it doesn’t matter.’ We would sometimes pray Salah in Jamah, and we didn’t even know what Tahajjud was, and we did sinful actions which we couldn’t even imagine leaving, but now, after doing Dhikr, as soon as you commit a sin, the thought arises simultaneously ‘Oh no – it is out of the question that I should be doing this! This is such a big sin - I can’t do this again.’ What has made this feeling develop? It is the Dhikr of Allah, so the most sinful of people should never leave this action. Otherwise, it is impossible in this day and age to be saved from sin. Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam asked his Companions ‘If you have to walk through a river while you are on a journey, will your feet get wet, or not?’ The Companions said ‘Of course they will get wet.’ So then Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said ‘This world is worse, so how can a person live in this world and claim that the dirt of the world will not come onto him?’
So brothers, don’t be afraid. Whether man or woman, admit that you are sinful, take up the Tasbeeh Dhikr and sit in the company of the Wali of Allah. The Walis of Allah do not hate the sinners. If Allah ta’ala does not hate the sinners, and says ‘I am always ready elevate the sinful people,’ then how could a Wali of Allah hate someone who is sinful? No way! Whatever you are doing, come and sit down in front of him – say SubhanAllah. His Tawajjuh, his attention, will be directed towards you. Just as a pious person gets the Sheikh’s attention, so the sinful person will also get his attention; in the same way that the Sheikh gives Faidh to a pious person, the Sheikh will also give Faidh to a sinful person. Yes? There is no differentiation and no lack of attention. Never say to yourself ‘Oh have committed too many sins – I have done Zina – so I will stop practicing.’ No – do Astaghfar. And if you Dhikr, Astaghfar will come quickly, but if you don’t do Dhikr, then you will have to go through hardships.
May Allah subhana wa ta'ala give us the Tawfeeq to practice on these words that we have discussed today. Ameen. And may Allah ta’ala give us the assistance of Astaghfar. We always have a need for Astaghfar – we need Astaghfar in every second. So do Astaghfar and think about yourself: ‘Why am I thinking like this? Why am I sinning? Why is my mentality leading me towards this?’ What will happen?’ Then you will do Astaghfar and your rank will be raised; even if you commit a sin, your rank will be elevated. If you are walking along and bad thoughts come to you, one after the other, ask yourself why these negative thoughts are coming. Then immediately do Astaghfar, and as soon as you do Astaghfar, the sin will disappear, and your rank will increase. Everybody benefits through this action.
May Allah subhana wa ta'ala give us all the Tawfeeq. Ameen
Recite Durood Sharif.
17th Sep, 2021
خاموش لب ہیں جھکی ہیں پلکیں
ابھی یہ الفت نئی نئی ہے
10th Sep, 2021
کیا شاعری کی حضرت صاحب نے واہ سبحان اللہ
بلکل حسب حال اور سالکین کی ترجمانی
پیارے اور محترم حضرت صاحب ہزار بار ہاتھ جوڑ کر اور معافی مانگ کر، آپ کو واسطہ ہمارے دادا پیر یعنی آپ کے مرشد و مربی کا دے کر، یہ عاجزانہ التجا ہے کہ یہ مکمل کلام عنایت فرما دیجئے
