To Love is the greatest grace..

Mercy in Creation

Mercy in Creation
Hadith Qudsi says that Allah said, “I was a hidden treasure, and I wished that I be recognized, and this is why I created.” Hence the reason for creation was love (mohobbah). Allah created everything out of love, and therefore He loves what He has created. Subsequently He loves the believers even more intensely.

Hadith also says that Allah divided His Mercy into seventy parts, and distributed one of those parts in the creation around us. Let us think of all the love in this world; be it between a mother and child, a husband and wife, a brother and sister, be it between animals and their young, be it between friends. All the love amongst these people and in this world comprises just one part out of seventy of Allah’s Mercy. This brings to mind the question that what tremendous mercy might Allah show on the Day of Judgment?

A bird is a very weak little thing. It builds a nest for its young and leaves to get food. Now if the nest was in a house and the door is closed upon the bird’s return, this little bird will frantically search for some way to get to its nest, flapping its wings at one wall and then the next. She gets tired but keeps struggling to find a way to her young so she can feed them. If the door opens she flies hurriedly to feed her young, but if it remains shut then she will die flapping against the door, looking for some passage to her young. This bird is such a little thing but Allah has put such love inside it that she is willing to die but cannot tolerate her young going hungry.

A chicken is also a very delicate little creature, but it protects its young in its wings against a cat. It knows that it is no match for the cat, but the mother’s love inside this chicken compels it to stand up against the cat, because it knows that the cat will harm its children. Such is the love that Allah has put inside this chicken that it is prepared to give its life in defense of her children.

Only a mother can know and understand how much love Allah has put in her heart for her children. This love is a mountain and no one has been able to scale its heights; this love is an ocean and no one has been able to calculate its depths.

A mother loves her children unconditionally, with no display. A mother loves her child whether the child is obedient or disobedient, honorable or dishonorable. After Allah and His Messenger, only a mother can love even the disobedient. This world likes the successful and good, but hates those who are hateful and disrespectful and rejects them. However, a mother is a mother and loves her children no matter is they are obedient or disobedient, kind or unkind. A mother cannot be separated from her child.

A Woman’s Yearning
A woman’s greatest wish is to become a mother, because that is how Allah has made her. She gets worried if after marriage she somehow cannot have children, and prays day and night in every prayer and in tahajjud. When she goes for Umra and Hajj she will pray for children. She has such a yearning in her heart for motherhood that this becomes the first thing that she prays for and it starts to consume her. Allah might have given a big house and a successful husband who loves her, but something will be missing from her life and she will be sad. She will only have one wish despite all this, and that is the wish to become a mother.

This same woman’s life will be transformed if Allah blesses her with children. Her face will gleam and she will say that spring has come to her house. She spends all day running after this child and stays awake all night catering to this child’s needs. She stays sleepless and hungry for this child’s sake, but this struggle and hardship seem easy for her. Why? This is only because Allah has put the love of her children in her heart.

Now she forgets herself after begetting children. She goes to the market but does not look for adult clothes for herself, but searches for little clothes for her child and anything else she can decorate the nursery with. If she becomes tired, one look at her child relieves her of her fatigue; if she is worried, she hugs the child close to her and forgets all these worries, and thinks that she has gained all the happiness in the world.

She even forgets her relations, in that if her sister dislikes the child then she does not consider her a sister. Now the child becomes the purpose and focal point of her life. This child grows up and starts working, but the mother keeps worrying and stays up late waiting for him. The rest of the household sleeps but this mother stays awake waiting and worrying about whether the child has eaten or not.

If the child hurts the mother to such a degree that the mother says that she will never speak to him again, the child only has to come and beg forgiveness and the mother will immediately do so because she is a mother. If the mother has been hurt worse than this and says that she will not forgive him, then if the child falls to her feet she will immediately pardon him since a mother cannot bear to see her young son begging her thus. If the mother is hurt worse than this and is angrier still, vowing not to forgive him because he is so disobedient and hurtful, then he cries and begs for forgiveness. The mother’s heart melts because she cannot bear to see her child cry. Just a minute ago she was angry, vowing not to speak to her child, but now she wipes his tears with her own shawl forgetting how this child had hurt and angered her.

A mother loves her children so much that she cannot bear to see tears coming from their eyes. Allah loves His creation much more than a mother loves her children and cannot bear to see tears either. No matter how much someone has strayed from the right path, Allah will forgive this person if he begs for forgiveness with a sincere heart and vows to amend his ways. If an ashamed servant of Allah comes to Him asking for forgiveness with a true heart, Allah forgives him because of the tears that he sheds.

Examples of Mercy
Allah is extremely merciful. An idol worshipper used to worship an idol named Sanam. He sat up calling the name “Ya Sanam” all night, and towards the dawn he started getting drowsy and so he mistakenly took one of the Glorious Names of Allah, “Ya Samad.” Allah immediately turned His attention and asked, “What do you want My servant?” The angels said in astonishment, “O Allah, this is an idol worshipper and only took Your Name in forgetfulness.” Allah said, “This person calls on these idols all night and they don’t answer him. What difference is there between Me and the idols if I don’t answer him either?”

Allah wants us to seek forgiveness and come towards Him. Hadith says that the Messenger of Allah was traveling and stopped on the way at a village. A woman was cooking at a fire nearby and he noticed that she constantly had to push her child back who would come forward. She said to the Prophet, “I work with this fire all day, my son wants to play with it but I have to push him back all the time because I’m frightened for him. If Allah loves us more than we love our children, how can He put us in Hell?”

Hearing this the Messenger of Allah sat with his head bowed and his eyes filled with tears. He cried for some time and then said, “Allah does not want to send His creation into Hell, but it is man himself who buys Hell for himself through his disobedience to Allah. He forgets where he has come from and who his Caretaker is. He does not seek forgiveness from his Creator.”

The Merciful Creator
Allah is a Merciful God who wants to forgive us and His Mercy tries to find excuses for forgiving us. We must take advantage of the time that we have in this life and seek forgiveness and amend our ways. May Allah give us the ability to seek His forgiveness and amend our ways. Ameen

Extracted from al-ihsaan.blogspot.com

Sweeter than Sugar

Shaykh Jalãludeen Rumi (R) says:

“0 Heart! Is Sugar sweet?
Or is the Creator of sugar
sweeter.”

Mad Lover

Shaykh .Jalãludeen Rumi (R) says:

One will never attain success,
until he does not
Become a mad lover of Allah,
but first You have to meet one
who is already mad with the
love of Allah.”

Salawat Al-Fatih

Salawat Al-Fatih

English Translation :

O God bless our Master Muhammad (pbuh) who opened what had been closed, and who is the Seal of what had gone before, he who makes the Truth Victorious by the Truth, the guide to thy straight path, and bless his household as is the due of his immense position and grandeur.

Arabic Transliteration :

Allahumma salli ' wa sallim was baarik ala Sayyidina Muhammadilnil-fatihi lima Ughliqa wal khatimi lima sabaqa wan-naa-siril-haqqibil-haqqi wal-hadi ila Sirati-kal-mustaqima sal-lal-lahu 'alayhiwa 'ala alihi wa-ashaabihi haqqa qadrihi wa-miq-da rihil-'azim.

Don't Worry

Extracted from Shaykh Nazim's Ocean of Unity Sobhets

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Don't Worry

The Seal of Prophets, Sayyidina Muhammad, peace be upon him, imparted this good advice to mankind: "If you awaken in the morning and find that you are lacking nothing in the way of material sustenance, and that you and your family are in good health, then don't burden yourself with worry".

The Holy Prophet advises us not to make problems for ourselves. If there are immediate and pressing problems, that is another story, but so many "problems" in people's minds are not problems at all except in their minds. They are only "projected problems" which may or may not ever materialize. This is the affliction of twentieth century man: anxiety, or suffering inflicted upon oneself over the possibility of future suffering. As a result of this neurotic anxiety people may suffer intensely over a long period of time, although none of what they fear ever materializes This is the epitome of foolishness.

We are shouldering weekly, monthly and yearly burdens each day. Why carry such baggage when you may walk unburdened and find all that you need awaiting your arrival at each station of your journey? You only exist here and now. Tomorrow's "you" is only a fantasy, as you can't even know if you'll live that long. By inventing so many problems for yourself you are only making yourself ill. Is this advice of the Prophet not enough evidence of his adherence to a way that leads man to felicity?

Allah Almighty doesn't want His servants to suffer needless self-inflicted misery, and He says: "Oh My servants, don't load heavy burdens on yourselves by worrying about the future. Just bring yourselves in line with My will; accord with my purposes this moment, and then rest assured that I will help you keep your future moments similarly aligned with My will".

Perhaps you may understand my point from the following example. When a new railway track is laid, before a locomotive and train are ever sent over it, a two-wheeled cart is first drawn over it to check whether the tracks have been laid straight.

In the same way, if you can align your will to that of your Lord even for one moment, without carrying a heavy burden, you may be sure that your way is right, and that, even should times get rough, and so many burdens be coupled to your locomotive, your track is straight and true and you will pass along it smoothly and safely.

A solution to this moment's problem is the solution to next year's derailment.

When I am here in western countries I daily encounter people carrying the weight of anticipated problems, It is so difficult in the modern world to escape from having this perspective, and to concentrate on the moment in order to put it right.

With tens of thousands of problems in front of you all at once how should a solution seem possible?

I often see people running into the mosque, saying the obligatory prayers quickly and running out.

Sometimes I ask them: "What's the rush?"

Then they nervously look at their watches and say: "We have tarried in the mosque too long already. We have so many things to do today!"

I reply: "It is laudable to be industrious and to look after your affairs well, but who would look after your affairs were you to drop dead here and now?"

I am not encouraging people to spend their whole days in the mosque, but only trying to remind people who are not only running after their sustenance, but leaping, head over heels after ambitious all-encompassing undertakings that it is impossible to "master the world", and destructive to devote so much energy to their attempt, and with so much abandon.

First of all, the world already has a Master, and addressing Him humbly and with presence of mind (not hurriedly) in your prayers is even more instrumental in attaining your sustenance than rushing through the city.

Secondly, far from attending to your affairs more efficiently by running, you are only likely to have a heart attack and die young!

Don't live in a world of great big-time schemes, for such schemes will not save you from trouble, but entangle you in it even further.

Simplify your problems so that the solutions may be simple, also don't regard your problems with a magnifying glass, so that they are out of perspective: that habit will destroy you physically and spiritually.

Loneliness

Loneliness is just a shell
A wall created for irony
Expressions free but meaningless illusions

People coming, talking and going
With so much things to share
Yet there was silence

No whispers, no connection
No warm, no love

When finally it hits me,
That the Real self is infact missing.

By MK Aslan

Love Couplets

You talk about loving God while you disobey Him;
I swear by my life that this is something very strange.
If you were truthful in your love, you would obey Him,
For a lover obeys whom he loves.

by Sufi saint Rabi'a al-'Adawiya r.a.*

*Rabi'ah al-Adawiyya, a major spiritual influence in the classical Islamic world, is one of the central figures of the spiritual tradition. She was born around the year 717 C.E. in what is now Iraq

Nail In the Fence

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.

His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence.

Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, The number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.

He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.

He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy
Now, pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father
That all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence.

The fence will never be the same.

When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.

You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there.

" A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Family and friends are very rare jewels, indeed.

They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.

They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us."

Show your family and friends how much you care.

Please forgive me if I have ever left a hole.

(by anonymous)

Power and Recognition

Power and recognition are conditions conducive to worldliness.

The ego will never neglect such an opportunity to demand its share of the excitement and admiration, and by so doing taint the whole process of spiritual endeavor.

So beware . . .

The Persian, the Arab, the Turk and the Greek..

Four persons, a Persian, an Arab, a Turk, and a Greek, were travelling together, and received a present of a Durham.

The Persian said he would buy "angur" with it, the Arab said he would buy "inab," while the Turk and the Greek were for buying "uzum" and "astaphil" (staphyle), respectively.

Now all these words mean one and the same thing, viz. "grapes."

But, owing to their ignorance of each other's languages, they fancied they each wanted to buy something different, and accordingly a violent quarrel arose between them.

At last a wise man who knew all their languages came up and explained to them that they were all wishing for one and the same thing.

Signs of relying on one's deeds...

Extracted in most parts from "Book of Wisdoms: al-Hikam al-'Ata'iyya" by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller


"Allah created you and that which you do" (Qur’an 37:96).

The method of the spiritual ascent is threefold, consisting of knowledge (‘ilm), practice (‘amal), and the resultant state (hal) bestowed by Allah. Knowledge here means everything conveyed to us by the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), which is the content of the Sacred Law or shari‘a.

The practice of this knowledge, inwardly and outwardly, with heart and limbs, is the spiritual path or tariqa.

The resultant state, Allah’s drawing near to the heart that thus draws near to Him, is the dawning of the Divine Presence upon the soul, termed by Sufis "ultimate reality" or haqiqa.

Ibn ‘Ata' Illah, as a spiritual guide, is concerned in this work with the second moment of this ascent, that of way and works, so begins his book by letting the traveller know that the matter of his spiritual progress is in Allah’s hands alone.

Discouragement at the inevitable mistakes one makes in the path is a sign of relying on one’s deeds rather than on Allah.

Works, whether prayer, or the dhikr or "remembrance" of Allah, or fasting, or jihad, do not cause one to reach the end of the path, but are merely proper manners before the majesty of the Divine while on it.

Just as putting one’s net in the sea does not produce fish, though one must keep it there so that if Allah sends fish they can be caught—so too works are a net, and their spiritual outcomes are from Allah.

Abu Hurayra (Allah be well pleased with him) heard the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) say:
"None of you shall be saved by his works." A man said, "Not even you yourself, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "Not even me myself, unless Allah envelopes me in mercy from Him. But aim to do right" (Muslim, 4.2169: 2816).

The Master was Present..and then, quietly he was Gone!

"It is related about one of the great Sufis of Khorasan: That he worked for long hours as a brickmaker, and when people offered him money in return, he refused it. He also used to have long talks with people, teaching them, encouraging them, and then was not to be seen for a long period of time, sometimes months on end. This confused the people who tried to learn from him.

One day, a man who used to be his student and now has since left him, complained bitterly to him about it and asked for an explanation of his conduct, saying: "If i have failed to understand, tell me, so that i may again be your student." The Sufi said: "I am afraid that i can say nothing to you about all this". This man then talked to others about the Sufi (whom he abandoned as his teacher) and soon, more and more complaints were heard about the Sufi from the other students. Gradually, more students began to lose interest in the Sufi. They instead, now attach themselves to all manner of frivolous and more exciting things of the world.

Eventually, a small group of them found another teacher - a venerable dervish - to whom they later confided their dissapointment of the Sufi, their teacher whom they have abandoned. Their new teacher replied to them the following:
"O you luckless one!

(1) He was working as a brickmaker because to take your money, raw and vulnerable as you were, would have harmed you - and he took on the harm upon himself, preferring to labour, sacrificed his life and sweat in the burning sun for just a small salary;
(2) When he left you on your own, it was sometimes his attention, through your own weaknessess, would have inflated you and made you worse;
(3) At other times, he forsook you because he had to make supplications to ask from Allah that you, should not die before he could help you;
(4) At other times, he left you alone because other people in greater need than you were to be attended to.
You are the kind of people who see all his actions, which are all worthy ones - as faults, because you cannot perceive goodness and reality, and because you think only of your ownselves and that the whole world revolves around your ownselves!"

When the students heard this, they were ashamed, and they said: "O teacher! Give us permission to return to our ex-Master, to make amends to him!"
He answered, "The permission is easy, and you have it; but the performance is impossible. He is now dead, because his earthly life had to stop the moment you deserted him; the moment you stopped listening to him; the moment his hand could not hold your hand to guide you. When he had nobody to attend to him, he had to continue on this journey, on his own - in another world - where he is more useful, and loved."

They cried upon hearing this and regretted deeply, for their great Master was now gone! They asked their teacher : "How did you know all this?"
He said: "I am the solitary remaining disciple of that same Master of yours whom you have all abandoned! Only one in a thousand people really want to learn. We were, at the outset, that one thousand people. As for the rest of your friends who are not here today and like you, have also abandoned the Sufi: they are not dead, but they - like you - have long ago decided that our late Master was insufficient to their needs. The consequence of this added belief, born out of the madness of the world, is that they are all still alive, and now more than proud of themselves, and all of them are flourishing in this world, and all of them are doomed for their attachment of this world - without that guiding hand to guide them out of this labyrinth!"

... by Idries Shah

Blindness in the way of the wilaya

Extracted from Al-Hikam Al-'ata'iyya : The Book of Wisdom by Sheykh Nuh Ha Min Keller

Desire means change,

1) first by takhliya or "ridding oneself " of the acts, motives, and states unacceptable to Allah; then
2) tahliya or "adorning oneself " with good traits such as sincerity (ikhlas), trust (tawakkul), remembrance of Allah,
and finally
3) ma`rifa or knowledge of the Divine with which Allah remembers the person of dhikr who perseveres in these.

To rely on one's own efforts to bring about what Allah has already decided is "your striving for what is ensured to you," while not to change oneself is the "neglect of what is sought from you."

Both are blindness in the way of wilaya.

Lack of knowledge...

Do not belittle people who seemingly lack of knowledge but instead strive to guide them with love and compassion..

Knowledge by itself is not only useless but may be a mortal trap that leads to Satanic pride. Neither the proud nor the ignorant are excused; yet the loving, sincere, and repentent Sufi who suffers even severe gaps in his knowledge and adab is closer to Allah Most High and to knowledge of Allah than the knowledgeable Sufi who harbors a speck of pride in his heart. May Allah protect you and us!

Ibrahim al-Khawwass said knowledge is not to know much but to obey the Sunna and practice what one knows even if a little. Imam Malik said knowledge is not to know many things but is a light Allah casts in the heart.Imam al-Shafi'i said knowledge is not to know proofs but to know what is beneficial.And when someone said of Ma'ruf al-Karkhi, "He is not very knowledgeable," Imam Ahmad said: " Mah! Allah forgive you! Is anything meant by Knowledge other than what Ma'ruf attained?!"


Much of this was extracted from http://sultanulawliya.blogspot.com/2005/06/glimpse-at-our-beloved-mawlana-shaykh.html