The Shaykh urged the importance of purification and upbringing.
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : And so we have a word, a brief heading: purification and... purification and... are necessary for establishing the Muslim state. Without purifying this Islam of what is not in it... I was thinking just now when Professor 'Aid Abbasi was speaking; he mentioned among the reasons that caused Muslims to become atheists or to distance themselves from their religion that they understood Islam in an inverted, reversed way, or something to that effect. This is a bitter, painful truth. When you go to the disbeliever countries, unfortunately, you do not see a car with an old sandal hanging on its front or back, but in the Muslim countries, this thing exists. What does this indicate, people? It indicates the corruption of the mind. Now, what corrects the mind? The correct religion or empirical scientific culture. But empirical scientific culture is limited, and very limited. But Islam, which the Wise, the All-Knowing sent down, is what corrects concepts and awakens minds. So if Muslims have fallen into a jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance) more ignorant than the disbelievers, that is the greatest proof that they did not benefit from their religion. Do you see the reason for not benefiting? Among them is what was previously mentioned: their understanding of Islam is inverted and reversed. And we are not taking you far; you have now a grave that is visited called Qadi al-Hajaat (Judge of Needs). Do you know it?
The questioner : It perished, it perished long ago.
The Shaykh : It perished long ago?
The questioner : It perished...
The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, they removed it. That is good. This also indicates awareness and progress. This is Qadi al-Hajaat.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : It was.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : His miracles and karamah (a miracle granted to a righteous person)... the barren woman rides on his saddle, she rubs against it, and she goes home pregnant, by the permission of Allah, absolutely... yes, your Qadi al-Hajaat... yes, there are many examples of this in these Muslim countries, unfortunately. And why do we go far? Is there any of you who does not know of Muslims who pray who come to Qadi al-Hajaat from the awliya (close friends of Allah) and the righteous? You denied Qadi al-Hajaat, and praise be to Allah, can you deny this reality? The going of tens and hundreds of good, righteous people to the awliya and the righteous, seeking nearness to Allah through a means (tawassul) with them, calling upon them other than Allah to fulfill their needs, and circumambulating their graves. Do you know them or not? Do you know what is in it? Did you see this thing? Are these French or Muslims!
The questioner : Muslims!
The Shaykh : Muslims. What brought them here? A misunderstanding of Islam, inverted. They call this a "middleman." They call it tawassul (seeking nearness to Allah through a means). And we are often asked, "What is your opinion on tawassul?" So we answer: Tawassul, like visiting graves, is of two types: prescribed (mashru') and not prescribed. And we enter into the details. This is from the heart of the truth: that a Muslim comes seeking healing by a way that Allah has not prescribed, and that medicine and science do not believe in. All of medicine does not believe in the awliya or the righteous; it knows only empirical things. But we Muslims believe in the awliya and the righteous. But these Muslims are two groups. One group believes in the awliya and the righteous as Allah the Exalted said:[Yunus 10:62] Who are they? The answer is: [Yunus 10:63] That is the group, and we are among them, and may Allah will that you all be among them.
The questioner : Amen.
The Shaykh : A second group believes in the awliya; among them are those who act in the universe... and poles (aqtub) and abdals and naqibs and anjib and a state, a state. And these, our brothers, our young people today, this is their understanding of Islam. And those who do not understand have no news of these delusions. And as it is said: "And of safety is that you do not find" But your deviation with people from these who are called "blessed" (barakah), even if he walks on the stones of the road, because this one is taken, attracted (mujdub), meaning, this one is attracted. So you hear from them about wilayah (sainthood) in the other sense. And I am now going to tell you a story, not... that you have tired your brains, no, I have approximately tired my throat. I am going to tell a story. I once visited the village of Dayr 'Atiyah. Some of you may go to Sham (Damascus); it used to pass through it, but now a new road passes by its side. I stayed there as a guest for one night. The room was on the road, like this entrance but wide, with a door here and low windows. And when the window was knocked on, the owner of the house came out. We were gathered, about ten people, I was one of them. He came out of the room to receive the knocker. We heard nothing but a very strange welcome: "Welcome, Abu So-and-So" ... The man entered. We all had our eyes toward the inside to see who the noble guest was. And it was a shocking surprise for me. And there was the hashish smoker, the one who breaks his fast in Ramadan, the one who leaves off prayer, the one who is attached to... the mosque, my neighbor from outside the mosque, not from inside. I never saw him in the mosque at all. His eyes were wide and yellow from how much he is hashish-smoked. And he was also surprised by me. So the first thing he did when he sat was to act... he started bowing and prostrating and speaking words like what the grammarians call: "an incomplete sentence" meaning, for example, "eggs, tomato, eggplant," what is with them? And the complete sentence, do not say, "but from these crazy ones, no, you have in your adhkar (the remembrance of Allah), Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, what is with Allah? Allah knows best." That is an incomplete sentence. This man sat pretending that he did not know what he was saying. I knew that this man was, in the house owner's view, one of the great awliya. So I was given a terrible shock. Then I started to speak about the previous verse:[Yunus 10:62] I spoke, may Allah be pleased, I spoke, and we have no concern in this regard. The house owner said to me, "By Allah, Professor, we used to believe like this, just as you are speaking, perfectly, until a Shaykh named such-and-such came to us, following the order of the previous brother... of the persons, we will not name him. The Shaykh came from al-Azhar and had studied and stayed in al-Azhar for twenty years. He started giving lessons in the mosques, the village mosque, the mosques of the village, in the houses. Among the teachings he presented to us was: what do we say? "The weakest of His creation, His secret is in the weakest of His creation." Yes. And he said that Allah Mighty and Majestic has righteous servants who worship Him in the unseen. You see them, you despise them, or rather you declare them disbelievers. So beware of them... you see one of them, you deny them, then you fall down, you get sick, etc. And the point is here: my host was telling me about that Shaykh who told him the following story. So listen, O you who have insight!
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes, he studied twenty years in al-Azhar, yes, yes, meaning the old al-Azhar, circles and circles... first, of course, not the al-Azhar of today. I wish the old al-Azhar had remained. In summary, Allah, Allah: "And if it had been one arrow, I would have aimed it" What is the story that the Shaykh told him? He beat them, he gave them a beating, and he robbed them, he gave them a robbery, and he left them believing in it. This crazy man, the one who is considered one of the great awliya and the righteous, told them the following story. He said: "In the past, there was a man, a scholar, a virtuous one, who enjoined good and forbade evil, seeking reward. He would go down to the market, and whenever he saw a wrong, he would change it. He said: One day he went out as usual, with his companions and followers, his students. He stopped at a spice seller or a perfumer and saw him selling hashish, an intoxicant, to a person. So he rebuked him and denied it: 'Are you not ashamed? Do you not fear the Lord of the Worlds?' He said this. He had not finished his speech when the man robbed him and he became like a beast. The preacher, the scholar, the virtuous one. His companions who were with him were astonished. They led him by his hand, as a beast is led, to the house. And then they started asking: 'What is the story of this man, the scholar? What happened to him?' They kept asking, they kept asking, until Allah threw upon them a person. The Shaykh said: 'He is from the group called the ones with two wings.' The ones with two wings means he knows the apparent and the hidden, meaning he combined the reality (haqiqah) and the Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law), because the reality is not the Shari'ah and the Shari'ah is not the reality. So Islam is two Islams: an apparent Islam and a hidden Islam. A thing, a thing, O Beautiful, a managed, a plot against Islam, terrible. In summary, they went to the man, the one with two wings, and told him the story: the scholar was enjoining good and forbidding evil, and he became like...
The questioner : The one with two wings...
The Shaykh : Two wings. He said to him: 'No, I know what the story is. This spice seller, the hashish smoker, is one of the great awliya and the righteous. So take your Shaykh to him and apologize to him, and make the heart of the hashish-smoking wali (close friend of Allah) happy. Make his heart happy for the scholar. And I guarantee that the state of the scholar will return to what it was before!'
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes.
Another questioner: The one with two wings.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : The one with two wings.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : To summarize the story, they went to the wali, the hashish dealer, and spoke to him gently, apologizing to him. They said, "You know that our Shaykh, our learned and virtuous man, with his sincerity and religion, and so on, only wants to forbid what is wrong. He does not know your status or your rank, and so on." Until the heart of the wali, the hashish dealer, was softened... upon him. All his previously stolen gifts returned to him!
The questioner : ... anew.
The Shaykh : And the wali, the hashish dealer, returned to admonishing the scholar. He said to him, "O esteemed Shaykh, do you really think that I sell narcotic hashish? May Allah forgive you. I sell hashish from which the hashish user takes a small piece, and it cancels out the hashish. This is against hashish. You are looking at hashish. This Al-Azhari, who has been in Al-Azhar for twenty years, told him this story. The owner of the house is telling me that we used to believe, just as you are saying, that the wali is the one who fears Allah, and the more he prays and worships, the closer he is to Allah, and so on. Until this man, the scholar, said that these awliya (close friends of Allah) have a state with Allah that is different, different. You see them on the surface as open sinners and wrongdoers who do not pray, but they are praying in Makkah. They close their eyes and pray here. So, the bottom line is that this is the most severe inversion of Islam. You find that the calamity among Muslims today is double... Some of them think that they are doing good, but they are not on the religion. Is this religion, O our brothers? That the closer a person gets to Allah, the further he is from Him? What is this combining of contradictions? A hashish user who does not pray in congregation, does not fast in Ramadan, smokes a cigarette containing hashish... in front of people, unfortunately, and no one forbids it. This is a wali. A wali who is careful to pray the prayers at their times, is he not a wali? This is of the utmost danger, inverting the facts. This is a type of Muslims. The second type will tell you, "This is Islam? The Islam of a hashish user, a narcotic user, and so on, who is considered one of the great awliya and the righteous?" This is illogical talk. You see him and him in the house, but he is praying in Makkah. This one is studying modern studies today. He will tell you, "If this is Islam, I have disbelieved in it." I believe that Islam in the Qur'an and the Sunnah has matters that one must believe in, whether he is cultured or not... one must believe in them and submit. And therefore, I believe that in the Book and the Sunnah there are matters that are sufficient to test people: do they believe in the unseen or not? The unseen matters present in the Qur'an are not enough for us to then bring them nonsense and myths, dress them in the clothing of Islam, and adorn them with the attire of Islam, and tell them, "O people, come to Islam." It means you are telling them in the language of reality, "Stay away. Your Islam will delay you, it will not advance you." Truly, and therefore.
The questioner : It perished, it perished long ago.
The Shaykh : It perished long ago?
The questioner : It perished...
The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, they removed it. That is good. This also indicates awareness and progress. This is Qadi al-Hajaat.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : It was.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : His miracles and karamah (a miracle granted to a righteous person)... the barren woman rides on his saddle, she rubs against it, and she goes home pregnant, by the permission of Allah, absolutely... yes, your Qadi al-Hajaat... yes, there are many examples of this in these Muslim countries, unfortunately. And why do we go far? Is there any of you who does not know of Muslims who pray who come to Qadi al-Hajaat from the awliya (close friends of Allah) and the righteous? You denied Qadi al-Hajaat, and praise be to Allah, can you deny this reality? The going of tens and hundreds of good, righteous people to the awliya and the righteous, seeking nearness to Allah through a means (tawassul) with them, calling upon them other than Allah to fulfill their needs, and circumambulating their graves. Do you know them or not? Do you know what is in it? Did you see this thing? Are these French or Muslims!
The questioner : Muslims!
The Shaykh : Muslims. What brought them here? A misunderstanding of Islam, inverted. They call this a "middleman." They call it tawassul (seeking nearness to Allah through a means). And we are often asked, "What is your opinion on tawassul?" So we answer: Tawassul, like visiting graves, is of two types: prescribed (mashru') and not prescribed. And we enter into the details. This is from the heart of the truth: that a Muslim comes seeking healing by a way that Allah has not prescribed, and that medicine and science do not believe in. All of medicine does not believe in the awliya or the righteous; it knows only empirical things. But we Muslims believe in the awliya and the righteous. But these Muslims are two groups. One group believes in the awliya and the righteous as Allah the Exalted said:
Unquestionably, [for] the allies of Allah there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve
ألا إن أولياء الله لا خوف عليهم ولا هم يحزنونThose who believed and were fearing Allah
الذين آمنوا وكانوا يتقونThe questioner : Amen.
The Shaykh : A second group believes in the awliya; among them are those who act in the universe... and poles (aqtub) and abdals and naqibs and anjib and a state, a state. And these, our brothers, our young people today, this is their understanding of Islam. And those who do not understand have no news of these delusions. And as it is said: "And of safety is that you do not find" But your deviation with people from these who are called "blessed" (barakah), even if he walks on the stones of the road, because this one is taken, attracted (mujdub), meaning, this one is attracted. So you hear from them about wilayah (sainthood) in the other sense. And I am now going to tell you a story, not... that you have tired your brains, no, I have approximately tired my throat. I am going to tell a story. I once visited the village of Dayr 'Atiyah. Some of you may go to Sham (Damascus); it used to pass through it, but now a new road passes by its side. I stayed there as a guest for one night. The room was on the road, like this entrance but wide, with a door here and low windows. And when the window was knocked on, the owner of the house came out. We were gathered, about ten people, I was one of them. He came out of the room to receive the knocker. We heard nothing but a very strange welcome: "Welcome, Abu So-and-So" ... The man entered. We all had our eyes toward the inside to see who the noble guest was. And it was a shocking surprise for me. And there was the hashish smoker, the one who breaks his fast in Ramadan, the one who leaves off prayer, the one who is attached to... the mosque, my neighbor from outside the mosque, not from inside. I never saw him in the mosque at all. His eyes were wide and yellow from how much he is hashish-smoked. And he was also surprised by me. So the first thing he did when he sat was to act... he started bowing and prostrating and speaking words like what the grammarians call: "an incomplete sentence" meaning, for example, "eggs, tomato, eggplant," what is with them? And the complete sentence, do not say, "but from these crazy ones, no, you have in your adhkar (the remembrance of Allah), Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, what is with Allah? Allah knows best." That is an incomplete sentence. This man sat pretending that he did not know what he was saying. I knew that this man was, in the house owner's view, one of the great awliya. So I was given a terrible shock. Then I started to speak about the previous verse:
Unquestionably, [for] the allies of Allah there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve
ألا إن أولياء الله لا خوف عليهم ولا هم يحزنونThe questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes, he studied twenty years in al-Azhar, yes, yes, meaning the old al-Azhar, circles and circles... first, of course, not the al-Azhar of today. I wish the old al-Azhar had remained. In summary, Allah, Allah: "And if it had been one arrow, I would have aimed it" What is the story that the Shaykh told him? He beat them, he gave them a beating, and he robbed them, he gave them a robbery, and he left them believing in it. This crazy man, the one who is considered one of the great awliya and the righteous, told them the following story. He said: "In the past, there was a man, a scholar, a virtuous one, who enjoined good and forbade evil, seeking reward. He would go down to the market, and whenever he saw a wrong, he would change it. He said: One day he went out as usual, with his companions and followers, his students. He stopped at a spice seller or a perfumer and saw him selling hashish, an intoxicant, to a person. So he rebuked him and denied it: 'Are you not ashamed? Do you not fear the Lord of the Worlds?' He said this. He had not finished his speech when the man robbed him and he became like a beast. The preacher, the scholar, the virtuous one. His companions who were with him were astonished. They led him by his hand, as a beast is led, to the house. And then they started asking: 'What is the story of this man, the scholar? What happened to him?' They kept asking, they kept asking, until Allah threw upon them a person. The Shaykh said: 'He is from the group called the ones with two wings.' The ones with two wings means he knows the apparent and the hidden, meaning he combined the reality (haqiqah) and the Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law), because the reality is not the Shari'ah and the Shari'ah is not the reality. So Islam is two Islams: an apparent Islam and a hidden Islam. A thing, a thing, O Beautiful, a managed, a plot against Islam, terrible. In summary, they went to the man, the one with two wings, and told him the story: the scholar was enjoining good and forbidding evil, and he became like...
The questioner : The one with two wings...
The Shaykh : Two wings. He said to him: 'No, I know what the story is. This spice seller, the hashish smoker, is one of the great awliya and the righteous. So take your Shaykh to him and apologize to him, and make the heart of the hashish-smoking wali (close friend of Allah) happy. Make his heart happy for the scholar. And I guarantee that the state of the scholar will return to what it was before!'
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes.
Another questioner: The one with two wings.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : The one with two wings.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : To summarize the story, they went to the wali, the hashish dealer, and spoke to him gently, apologizing to him. They said, "You know that our Shaykh, our learned and virtuous man, with his sincerity and religion, and so on, only wants to forbid what is wrong. He does not know your status or your rank, and so on." Until the heart of the wali, the hashish dealer, was softened... upon him. All his previously stolen gifts returned to him!
The questioner : ... anew.
The Shaykh : And the wali, the hashish dealer, returned to admonishing the scholar. He said to him, "O esteemed Shaykh, do you really think that I sell narcotic hashish? May Allah forgive you. I sell hashish from which the hashish user takes a small piece, and it cancels out the hashish. This is against hashish. You are looking at hashish. This Al-Azhari, who has been in Al-Azhar for twenty years, told him this story. The owner of the house is telling me that we used to believe, just as you are saying, that the wali is the one who fears Allah, and the more he prays and worships, the closer he is to Allah, and so on. Until this man, the scholar, said that these awliya (close friends of Allah) have a state with Allah that is different, different. You see them on the surface as open sinners and wrongdoers who do not pray, but they are praying in Makkah. They close their eyes and pray here. So, the bottom line is that this is the most severe inversion of Islam. You find that the calamity among Muslims today is double... Some of them think that they are doing good, but they are not on the religion. Is this religion, O our brothers? That the closer a person gets to Allah, the further he is from Him? What is this combining of contradictions? A hashish user who does not pray in congregation, does not fast in Ramadan, smokes a cigarette containing hashish... in front of people, unfortunately, and no one forbids it. This is a wali. A wali who is careful to pray the prayers at their times, is he not a wali? This is of the utmost danger, inverting the facts. This is a type of Muslims. The second type will tell you, "This is Islam? The Islam of a hashish user, a narcotic user, and so on, who is considered one of the great awliya and the righteous?" This is illogical talk. You see him and him in the house, but he is praying in Makkah. This one is studying modern studies today. He will tell you, "If this is Islam, I have disbelieved in it." I believe that Islam in the Qur'an and the Sunnah has matters that one must believe in, whether he is cultured or not... one must believe in them and submit. And therefore, I believe that in the Book and the Sunnah there are matters that are sufficient to test people: do they believe in the unseen or not? The unseen matters present in the Qur'an are not enough for us to then bring them nonsense and myths, dress them in the clothing of Islam, and adorn them with the attire of Islam, and tell them, "O people, come to Islam." It means you are telling them in the language of reality, "Stay away. Your Islam will delay you, it will not advance you." Truly, and therefore.