MERCY OCEANS, Book 04 (Rising Sun, Shaykh Nazim, 112 pages, 3/4)
https://www.nvrislam.net/index.php?j=eng&post=5791
n in our sides.
Once, in the time of Moses, peace be upon him, as he was headed toward Mount Sinai to engage in private discourse with the Lord Almighty, a poor man approached Moses and said: “Oh Moses, I am so poor. Please ask your Lord to give me something to alleviate my poverty’. Moses promised him that he would remember him to his Lord, then went on his way. When Moses addressed his Lord, he pleaded the case of that man as promised, and in response Allah said: “Oh Moses, tell him that whatever he asks I will grant him, under the con- dition that whatever he asks he must also ask for his neighbour, and I will grant it to both of them. Whatever his heart desires — herds, riches, land - I will give them both to him and his neighbour, for I am the Owner of Endless Bounties, I am the Lord, your God.”
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai that man was anxiously awaiting to hear the Lord's response to his plea. “What news, Moses?” “Good news! The Lord will give you everything you de- sire, the only condition being that you must ask
nS a it for your neighbour as well.” Then the man became very angry and said: “If He is not going to give it to me to the exclusion of my neighbour, I am not asking for it, nor will I accept it!”
Now we claim to be civilized pecple, but who among us may be heard asking: “Oh my Lord, make her as beautiful as I am! I am not happy being a beauty queen while such a nice girl re- mains ugly.” Or who can be heard saying: “Oh my Lord, please give that person a Rolls-Royce too! Iam ashamed to drive rnine unless he has one as well.” Or what Prime Minister can be heard saying: “Oh God, make everyone Prime Minister!” I don't think that I can find anyone praying or wishing for these favours on others.
Our egos give us this wild selfishness, but the goal of the Sufi Path is to transform such wild characteristics into beneficial ones, as one may araft bark from a sweet fruit-bearing tree onto the trunk of a wild tree that gives only sour fruits. Then, when the graft takes hold, the branch- es of that wild tree give sweet fruit, although the rcots are still wild. Generally, mankind grows as it was planted with no care being taken to transform, its sour fruits, ancl if given no attention, people die in the same condition. You must under- stand that all of the Holy Prophets were “garden- ers” grafting divine characteristics onio people's wild personalitiss.
Most of you attending this meeting are Chris-
aut Gi) tians and Jews, Christ's mission was to impart div- ine attributes unto people, and the same is true of all of the Prophets of the Old Testament, but you have lost sight of that fact. After Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhaimmad came with the same mission, but we lost sight of that too. What was the result of all this heedlessness? Throughout history each group wanted to think of itself as “possessing God to the exclusion of others”, and has never liked the idea that God hears the prayers of the other group as well, and considers its merits by His own criteria. Net only do our greedy characteristics blind us to the truth of our Lord being the Lord of All, but even within religiens so many sects have sprung up, mainly so that people can claim to have the sole possession of God. The result of this has been that Muslims hate Christians and vice versa; but our Prophets were not sent to teach us to hate each other: And now Christians hate Christians, and Muslims hate Muslims, and in general every- one has turned even on his own brother.
Look, our Lord said: “Tell that person to ask for his neighbour what he asks for himself’, that’ is the commandment which is called the golden rule, but now, just as gold currency has been re- placed first by silver and then by papor, so the golden rule has long been out of circulation in our relations. But you must know that your worth is determined by the magnanimity of your heart. In earlier times virtues were recognized as such-
él
though perhaps seldom attained- nowadays they are held in no esteem. People are valued solely ac- cording to their beauty or wealth, and one has come to evaluate relationships on the basis of the potential for material gain. This is a shame, and I am asking our Lord to forgive us.
The Disappearance of Virtue from the Face of the Earth
hen the Angel Gabriel made his last visitation to the Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon both of them, he inform- ed the Prophet: “This is the last time I shall come to you with revelation, and, furthermore, with your passing, Prophethood will be a closed book: no more will I come to Earth with Divine Commands”. The Holy Prophet then asked him: “Is it really to be so that you, who have brought Divine Guidance to Allah’s Prophets throughout history will never again visit the Earth?’ Gabriel replied: “Indeed I will return in accordance with my Lord’s Divine Command, not to deliver guidance, but to take back, one by one, all of the virtues that have flou- rished through Divine Guidance. This is my Lord's plan: that the spiritual condition of mankind, should deteriorate before the coming of the great events of the Last Times.”
“First, I will come to take away Divine Knowl- edge, so that ignorance will cover the Earth like an ocean, and the people of that time will fall into it in hordes. Those people will not declare,
— 63 — ‘There is no gad but the One True God, Allah’, but will claim, ‘There is no God’. (This is the epitomy of ignorance, for you may know everything, but if you don’t recognize the Owner of all and the Creator of your own being, you are ultimately ignorant). Yes, I will come to remove the knowledge of all higher realms and leave them in the darkness of ignorance.”
“Then, again I will come and take away “barakah’” (Barakah means being blessed by God with adequate sustenance, and consequently feeling contentment with our allotted portion). Nowadays, people’s needs have proliferated to such an extent that no one can begin to possess a tenth of what they imagine themselves to need. Despite the fact that their pockets are bulging with money all they can be heard saying is: “Not enough, not enough”. I can remember, during my childhood that people used to earn about three piasters a day-it was just a small silver coin. Now in our country I don’t think that one can subsist on five pounds a day - and what about here in England! Yet, in countries where there are kings and queens there is still more “barakah” than in republics. There used to
be shepherds who earned only one piaster a day plus food and shelter for themselves and their families, and they were happy-for what does a humble person really need beyond food, shelter and some money for clothing etc.? But those are bygone
saa Ayame days... “barakah” has been taken up and people are swimming in an ocean of discontent.
Then Gabriel said: “I will come to take away mercy from the Earth”. For exampie, I saw in the newspaper yesterday that some people who looked like robots went on the rampage at a football game and killed many people. Surely their heads are like footballs, full of air, and their hearts like rocks, containing no mercy. This is but a simple example of how beastly man can become when there resides no mercy in his heart, and indeed, worse than beasts, for beasts kill for food, not for fun. Islam always opposes such barbarism, as our Prophet is the Prophet of Mercy; but look, in our time, two Islamic countries have been engaged in a useless, protracted and bloody war, mercy has been taken from their hearts as well, and they also can boast of having attached footballs to their shoulders where the head should be.
“And finally”, continued Gabriel, “I will come to take away modesty and chastity’. It is not diffi- cult to see that this has been accomplished already. Nowadays, people walk the streets in attire that their mothers and grandmothers would have been ashamed to wear in their bedrooms.
And this is what the Angel Gabriel informed the Holy Prophet of fifteen centuries ago, and he, in turn, informed us that the time we are living in is Virtually bereft of the qualities that make human life human. And, indeed, we find ourselves
— 6 — F.:5 living in such a time as he described. There is no more knowledge leading people to goodness, to honesty, to honour, here and hereafter. People are studying, but to what end? They are only learning to support the kingdom of Satan on Earth, to help perpetuate that state of affairs that is rapidly bringing the whole world to the brink of disaster, and creating such alienation in people that so many would rather throw themselves out of windows than go on living, and so many others live only to inflict suffering on others. Even in religious schools, where the elements of godly living should be taught, that knowledge has been distorted out of recognition and soured, like a glass of milk into which a lemon has been squeezed, so that even those with a basis in Divine Knowledge can barely distinguish right from wrong anymore, what to speak of doing what is right.
Islam brought the world respect and mercy, but we have lost them both. And despite the odds we face, we must ever strive to develop those virtually extinct good characteristics in ourselves. And we are comforted by the knowledge that our Merciful Lord will not fail to judge us leniently, as we are trying our best to see something through the obscurity of these times, and we are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.
Js there no Escape ¢
ae feel shemnelres to be suffering , to be in misery, and the question most often asked is: “To where may I escape from my problems?” The coming of such times is predicted in all Holy Books, and finally, also, in the Holy Qur’an, which describes suffering people who ask: “To where may we escape?” The portrayal of such times makes the hearts of believers shrink in horror, but, as I look at the human beings of our time I see pain written on their faces and hear them shouting this very question. But no matter where you run, you are bound to find a mountain of troubles even more formidable than the one from which you have escaped.
Now people are ail trying to escape from their situations. Orientals flee to the West in search of freedom and wealth, while Westerners flee from a sea of materialism to the Orient to find a tradit- ional way of life. Peasants can no longer stand to live in the countryside and flee to cities seeking the “civilized” life, and city-dwellers, ill with civil- izaticn's diseases flock to the countryside to seek a wholesome lifestyle. But so often, even when people manage to escape from one place to another, one culture to another, one climate to another or from one marriage to another, seeking relief from their miseries, they only find themselves faced with another set of miseries, and then they fall into disilusionment and hopelessness.
The present state of affairs is the fulfilment of the prophecy of the Holy Prophet in which he predicted that there would come a time when people would pass through cemeteries and say: “If only we were among you, or if only you could be in our places and we in yours! You are at rest, but we are in torment; oh, how lucky you are to have lived in earlier times and never to have seen these days!”
So where is a shelter from these miseries to be found? Allah Almighty answers the quesiion of those desperate people, saying: “Flee to your Lord!’ The answer is very simple, but our egos rebel against our fleeing in that direction, saying: “No, I won't permit you to flee to anyone but me alone, nor to take another shelter than mine, be- cause 1 have my own will, my own knowledge and my own ideals: they are all we need, so come into my shelter!” But verily the ego's shelter is full of leaks, it cannot keep cut the downpour of tribu- lation!
Both the Torah and the Qur'an tell us the story of Noah, peace be upon him, and even now may we derive wisdom and a valuable lesson from the
samen) GE same events that occurred during the life of that most ancient Prophet. No event in history shows us more plainly how the only real shelter is with our Lord, and how the shelter created by our minds will be swept away. Noah was sent to his Nation and to all people living at his time. No Prophet was ever granted such a miraculous lifespan - nine-hun- dred and fifty years - but no Prophet was ever afflicted with such persistent rejection and per- secution either.
Whenever he would arise and exhort his people they would stone him until he was knocked uncon- scious. The story is well known. Finally, after so many centuries of vain attempts to guide the peo- ple, he prayed: “Oh my Lord, You must not leave on the face of the Earth even one household of these hard-hearted people, for no child is born to them except that he becomes an even greater tyrant than his parents. If You leave them be they will lead astray even those few people who have be- lieved in You. Oh my Lord, spare and forgive me and my family and those believers who are with us.”
Then the Lord granted his prayer and resolv- ed to destroy the wicked by sending a flocd to cover the Earth, and He commanded Noah to build an ark as a shelter for the few believers and for a male and female of each kind of animal. Then Noah set out to build the Ark, not at the seaside, but in the midst of dry land. Some people asked
== BG o=
RR him: “Oh Noah, what are you building?” “I am building an Ark as a shelter against a great flood that the Lord will send upon the Earth.” “Then why don’t you build it by the sea instead of on this high ground, for even if it rains as you say it will, here there will only be wild torrents rush- ing to the sea, and you may have a rough ride down such a wild river”, they said sarcastically. “No”, Noah said, ‘this will be a flood like no other, a flood that will leave nothing high and dry, and no rivers rushing to the sea: when this rain falls all will be sea.” They only laughed scornfully and went off saying; ‘Such an old, old man, and yet he preaches the same nonsense he always has, along with threats of a flood to scare us into his religion!”
And finally, when Noah had completed the construction of the Ark, he bade his family and all the believers to enter. All of them hastened aboard, except for one of his sons, who had been influenced by the logic of those who had ridiculed his father. He said. “I don’t need to board that rickety vessel. If it really rains as you say, I will seek refuge on the top of a mountain. It never floods there, only in valleys. This is a clear natural law, and I trust my own perception and logic. I know where floods go and where they don’t.” Noah pleaded with him: “Oh my son, you think that you know, but you are wrong: come aboard and you will be safe!“ But the son stubbornly held to his
ey | judgement, a judgement that would have heen cor- rect in the face of any other flood the world had ever known, save this one, which inundated the Earth up to seventy yards above the peak Noah's son had climbed, and he perished.
In this tale is contained a lesson for all men who have placed their trust in the products of their own minds, and for their sake we are re- counting the story of the fate of Noah’s son when he took to the mountain instead of to the Ark. And in our times whole nations are seeking to escape from the ever-rising level of the misery-flood by adopting solutions that accord with their mental calculations, while not opposing their egos’ dic- tates — they are climbing mountains instead of boarding the Ark. The proponents of such concocted solutions to the world’s problems stand on mountain tops and call people to their own “high and dry” shelters. Each one calls out: “Come here! Climb this peak, not that one: Ours is the safe peak!” But slowly, slowly their island-peaks shrink in the face of the rising waters, and soon all will be submerged. To drown in the sea of misery is a terrible end.
But the key to redemption is repentance, and, therefore, in the sight of Allah, even the case of those who have run to the mountains instead of the Ark and have fallen into the sea is not hope- less, for Allah heard the prayer of Jonah from the belly of a whale: “Oh my Lord, there is no
— FL=- God beside You. Glorified be Your Name! Verily, I have been a wrongdoer!’ He turned to his Lord completely, and Allah saved him from that dark and terrible prison. “And this is how we rescue the believers’, says the Lord; and so we must glo- rify Him that we may find safety from the flood of sufferings.
One person used to complain bitterly about the croaking of the frogs at night. Angrily he shouted at them: “What’s all this racket about? Will you please quict down! Every night you keep me awake with your ‘rak! rak! rak!’” Then the spokesfrog of that pond replied: “Oh son of Adam, I am not lazy like you, sleeping the whole night through, | am keeping this nightly vigil and prais- ing my Lord a hundred-thousand times. Are you not ashamed to complain that I keep you from your sleep?”
Yes, we must flee to our Lord in the face of suffering by engaging ourselves in devotion to Him. If you feel yourself being overwhelmed by waves of misery, then say: “Subhanallah, Glory to Allah”, and those waves will subside, Glorify your Lord and you will be exalted in the Divine Presence, that is our solution.
The Holy Qur'an observes:
“They forgot their Lord, so He forgot them”,
In reality He never forgets anyone, but as a punishment for our forgetfulness, He permits us to feel forgotten, so that we are overwhelmed by
misery. Therefore, every day people are coming to me, trying to unload a heavy burden of misery and the newspapers are bursting with stories of suffering, and, nowadays, through the television, we are presented with the highlights of the day’s disasters and misery. Yes, now we must face it all rather than the small sample we would encounter in our everyday lives, and the disasters we see on television would affect even a heart made of iron.
Nowadays, in order to give people an outlet, to enable them to unburden themselves of some of their pain, a new branch of medicine, psychiatry, has been founded, and those doctors are paid high salaries just for listening to the details of people’s mental and emotional chaos. And despite the expense involved in consulting such doctors, their offices are now found on every corner, as green- grocers used to be: that is a sign that mental illness is on the increase. The hearts of those psy- chiatrists must be so expansive to be able to listen to such tales of woe and to try and help their patients, but mostly they too find themselves overwhelmed, and come to me to unload their heavy burdens. My heart sometimes feels as if it too will sink, as I become affected by the misery of people. Sometimes, I may help put someone on the right track by pointing out the causes of his misery, and I am seeking my Lord’s support and His forgiveness...
ae WB ass The Heavenly Homeland
= he homeland of the soul is the heavenly #realm, just as the homeland of our human personalities is wherever we were born and raised. People have tried to describe the goal of the Sufi Path in so many ways, but the best description is to say that it is the way by which the soul may return to its homeland. Our souls long for that heavenly homeland, just as we may dream of returning to the scenes of fond childhood memories. That attachment to our childhood homes is a re- flection of the soul’s longing for its original homeland; therefore, its existence is a sign of faith, and the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, in a tra- dition, is to have said: “Love of one’s homeland is of faith”.
Therefore, you may come to spend Ramadan here in London, and you may feel by the end of your time here a longing for your homelands. The same holds true for pilgrims to Mecca and Medina: Allah plants in people’s hearts a love that enables them to bear all of the hardships of the journey and the pilgrimage, so that people may do their duty to their Lord: then He changes that longing for the Holy Places to a longing to return quickly home.
It is normal that a person should long for his homeland. We have a saying: “You may put the nightingale in a golden cage but it won’t be happy, and will lament: “Oh that I were back in the nest I made from sticks and straw’. One may see this in the community of our Cypriot immigrants here in London, or with other groups, that have come seeking “streets lined with gold”. You may hear them moaning: “Oh our village, our mountains, our rivers, our seas, our old friends!”.
That longing is only the longing of the personality and the physical body for a place it associates with good memories; but the longing of the soul goes much deeper. And just as it may sadden a person who returns to the home of his youth, and finds not there the people he loved, so, for the soul Heaven is empty without the Counten- ance of the Lord. Foreign dignitaries don’t go to Buckingham Palace unless the queen is there - for what should they go, otherwise, for sightseeing?
And yourselves: you would not come to London to this humble place unless the person you love is here. Would you come from Canada to London for at least the fifth time to take a sightseeing tour? London is empty for you if that person is not here. But now London is full for you, and even if that person were to be sitting in a cave, London would be full for you because you have found that person. The longing of the soul is for its Lord: what is the Divine Realm without Him?
ees BR ne God is our Guarantor e pray to our Lord to lift the heavi- ness off our hearis: and no one can
Ay lift those burdens except He Alone.
79)"8) Nowadays, huge industries have been built up whose only function is to provide diversion and amusement for people. Indeed, most industry falls under this category: the product that sells is not simply the one that fulfills a need, but the one that diverts people from the awareness of their misery -thus, television, videos, sports cars, fash- ions, games etc. etc. are the new necessities of life.
All of these products of diversion have to compete with each other to gain their portion of the market, thus, another huge industry: Adver- tising. So, as we drive through the streets, beautiful people with clean white smiles come to meet us from their billboards and testify that, if only we buy such -and-such a product, we will look as good as they do, and always be surrounded by other beautiful people. The same is true of television ads: all are happy and laughing people.
But he to whom Allah Almighty has granted penetrating vision may observe that these people are smiling the “smile of the skeleton’, the smile
sami FB cms
which always appears on skulls: all is just show, inside of themselves they are empty. This is a strange glimpse of reality that has been shown to me many times: what people call pleasure is only a kind of forced enjoyment.
Very young people may perhaps really feel enjoyment, as everything new is tasteful, but as they continue on this way, more and more they feel boredom setting in, that pleasure becoming but a routine. As a result they go further and further on the same way, to see if they can outrace the shadow of routine that makes ail pleasures tasteless. Though they cannot win this race, they keep on running, progressing towards extremes of stimulation, but still feeling no pleasure. This disappointment and the consequent misery result from the mistaken assumption that “more is better’. For example. a spoonful of honey is sweeter than a cupful which will only make you sick. But because the philosophy of endiess greed is now the common creed, people think that finding a beehive would be their greatest good fortune. How wrong they are!
Oh people who claim to possess understanding, you must understand that your Lord has placed a hindrance before the fulfilment of some of your desires only for your own good, not because He enjoys depriving you of something good. If some- thing is prohibited by religion it is only because that so-called pleasure is a trap to catch you into
—7— suffering. But nowadays no one accepts this re- ality, or even if one does accept, or is attracted to any religion, seeks to ignore moral codes, because he has been taught that exercising absolute free- dom is the only way to fulfilment. This is the doctrine that is burning people’s faith, and it is in conflict with all world religions, East and West; but onward they march, with grimaces that are supposed to be smiles. They pretend to taste, but taste nothing, because you can’t enjoy eating un- jess you are hungry, can’t enjoy drinking unless you are thirsty. Their way is the way of the total destruction of their physical bodies and their spiri- tual lives.
Later in the day I saw something else that deeply affected my heart. As I looked outside I saw some sparrows hopping about on the roof. We also have sparrows in Cyprus, and I wondered what the living conditions were like for sparrows here in London. So I asked the sparrow: “Are you in any difficulties living here in London? If so, I may ask the sparrows in Cyprus to send you some aid.” It replied: “Thank you, but we are all satisfied and we are not in need of any assistance at all. It doesn’t matter to us that we are living in such an expensive country-even in Moscow our kind are alright. We are happy and free, never caught up in any crisis. Our salaries are sufficient and always paid on time, and it is all the same to us whether we live in Hampstead or Brixton, East End or
— 72 —
Buckingham Palace: we receive our sustenance and glorify our Lord, saying, ‘Allah, Allah’. If you can be more like us you may be happy- no suffering, no hospitals, no prisons, no passports - we are travelling freely from country to country, and we require no expensive insurance policies, our Lord is our guarantor. Oh Son of Adam, you must be more like us, then you will be happy, and have no need to fight and quarrel.’ Then he flew away.
Look, those sparrows are pleased with their Lord, and Allah is pleased with those who are pleased with Him. Therefore, you must seek ways to make Allah pleased with you. We walk this earth with a heavy burden of ego, and, of course, it is impossible for us to be so light, to flutter and twitter without a care in the world like sparrows, but we can emulate their ways in the trust of God. He Almighty is the Only One who can guarantee your future: you cannot determine what will happen to you, and you cannot know what accidents or misfortunes may befall you, your spouse, your children, nation or business. Don’t put your trust in your job, your power, your knowl- edge or your beauty, for it may be that none of this will avail you when you are most vulnerable. This is an undeniable fact, and somewhere within themselves people know this. Therefore, those skel- eton-smiles, when dropped, revert to the frowns that reflect how the people are really feeling.
— 79 —
But the Prophets and the Friends of God have received a guarantee from their Lord, a guarantee of protection and care: and according to the level of your faith you too may attain a guarantee of protection and care, and the serenity that results from such assurance.
The shadow of worry pursues the “uninsured”, and just as an aspirin may temporarily alleviate the symptoms of a migraine headache, but not cure its causes, so do temporary pleasures make people temporarily oblivious of their miseries. The guaran- tee of our Lord gives us permanent pleasure, and its source is in our hearts. Whoever has such a fountain in his heart need not be a consumer in the amusement market. Why should he need to escape from his house every night to the discotheque, theater or gambling casino when his heart provides him with all he needs to be happy?
We must aspire to take the keys to our inner treasures, lest all we achieve in our lives is to make ourselves “stimulation addicts”; and ulti- mately, we must carry responsibility for wasting our lives in such a manner. Those enjoyments are only pain-killers, and you may live for a while on a diet of pain-killers if you wish, but ultimately those pain-killers will kill you.
ere See
— $7 — Seek your Sustenance
Rhe Holy Prophet advised his Nation Hto work for a living, though our stay in this world be only temporary. He advises us to seek out our sustenance, not to wait for it to find us. It is best for us to work for our livelihood, to engage our- selves in any type of work that does not transgress the Law, as the most tasteful of food is that earned with cne’s own hands. For man to sesk his susten- ance within the bounds of the Divine Law is most pleasing to our Lord, and is also conducive to good mental and physical health. So whoever is able- bodied must work. Don’t argue that, since the sus- tenance of every creature is already destined for him you need neither pursue it nor avoid it — these are the excuses of lazy people-and Allah does not favour laziness. As Jong as you are in this world there must be some work that you can do with your hanas.
King Solomon, who was both a Prophet and a Divinely Ordained Monarch was granted by his Lord opulence far beyond the imagination of even the richest man of our time, for Allah Almighty granted him knowledge of the exact location of
— 81 — F.: 6 all the treasures in the Earth, and also empowered him over armies of Jinn who not only guarded those treasures but would bring up any of them upon command. Solomon was also granted the power to discourse with the animals, and they too were his servants.
Even such a magnificent emperor as Solomon never in his life ate food except the proceeds from the sale of baskets he himself wove. Can we find such scrupulousness anywhere? King Solomon set an example for all of his subjects, and people of all time by not using the wealth of the Nation for his personal needs. But nowadays, on the contrary, the government is expected to supply everyone’s needs, so that many people, other than those who are truly handicapped or in need, un- ashamedly take government handouts and demand that they be increased. Don’t be unemployed! Perhaps you can cheat the government, but you can’t deceive Allah; and He Almighty punishes such people in this life by making that money a cause of discontent for them. No “barakah” comes from unearned money, and the result of such a life will be both physical and mental illness. Therefore, if you value your health and your sanity, eat from the work of your hands!
Sultan Abdul Hamid, the last Khalifa of the Ottoman Empire was a great personality of his time. By virtue of his great stamina and charisma he was able to not only hold together the crumbling
San GR Tk empire, but to actually effect a kind of revival of spirit throughout the vast realm. He was the last ruler to be mentioned in sermons all across the Muslim World, and he was the last keeper of the holy relics of the Prophet which are in Istanbul.
In the midst of all the affairs of his empire that needed his attending to, he found time to engage in a craft and eat from the proceeds of that work. Not only this, but he never ascended his throne to attend to court until he had recited his Naqshbandi exercises and read a portion of the Qur'an and also of the prayer book “Dalail-ul- Kkairat’, as well as praying the two sets of supererogatory prayers of the early morning. It is enough of a testimony to his strength to mention that he sat on the throne for thirty - three years in a time when most kings could not manage to retain their power for even ten years because of the many intrigues and the growing chaos of the times. The magnitude of his majesty was such that Kaiser Wilhelm II once said: “I have met many monarchs and rulers in my life and have found them all to be my inferiors, or at best my equals, but when I entered the presence of Abdul Hamid I began to tremble.”
The Holy Prophet once said: “You must work for your honest provision as if you are going to remain in this world forever, and for the afterlife as if you will die tomorrow”. Now why would the Prophet, whose mission it was to call to eternal
— 93: == life suggest that we work as if we will always be in this world? Because when hope for the life of the world is abandoned man will die. Hope for the future of this world and for cur position in it is necessary for our being able to devote ourselves to our duties in this life. Besides this, the Holy Prephet declared that man’s good deeds live on after him in this world, through the benefit that future generations derive from them.
And with regard to the afterlife, the Holy Prophet was reminding us that we will cross that barrier, and it could be tomorrow, or even today: So, should we not be prepared? In order to put the matter in perspective, the Holy Prophet also said: “Oh people, you must consider how long you may remain in this world and work for it in accord- ance with the length of your stay; and you must consider as well how long you will be in the life of the hereafter and strive for if accordingly”. This saying may seem to contradict the previous one, for if you balance the time you will spend in this world againsi the time you will be
Link: https://www.nvrislam.net/index.php?j=eng&post=5791
n in our sides.
Once, in the time of Moses, peace be upon him, as he was headed toward Mount Sinai to engage in private discourse with the Lord Almighty, a poor man approached Moses and said: “Oh Moses, I am so poor. Please ask your Lord to give me something to alleviate my poverty’. Moses promised him that he would remember him to his Lord, then went on his way. When Moses addressed his Lord, he pleaded the case of that man as promised, and in response Allah said: “Oh Moses, tell him that whatever he asks I will grant him, under the con- dition that whatever he asks he must also ask for his neighbour, and I will grant it to both of them. Whatever his heart desires — herds, riches, land - I will give them both to him and his neighbour, for I am the Owner of Endless Bounties, I am the Lord, your God.”
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai that man was anxiously awaiting to hear the Lord's response to his plea. “What news, Moses?” “Good news! The Lord will give you everything you de- sire, the only condition being that you must ask
nS a it for your neighbour as well.” Then the man became very angry and said: “If He is not going to give it to me to the exclusion of my neighbour, I am not asking for it, nor will I accept it!”
Now we claim to be civilized pecple, but who among us may be heard asking: “Oh my Lord, make her as beautiful as I am! I am not happy being a beauty queen while such a nice girl re- mains ugly.” Or who can be heard saying: “Oh my Lord, please give that person a Rolls-Royce too! Iam ashamed to drive rnine unless he has one as well.” Or what Prime Minister can be heard saying: “Oh God, make everyone Prime Minister!” I don't think that I can find anyone praying or wishing for these favours on others.
Our egos give us this wild selfishness, but the goal of the Sufi Path is to transform such wild characteristics into beneficial ones, as one may araft bark from a sweet fruit-bearing tree onto the trunk of a wild tree that gives only sour fruits. Then, when the graft takes hold, the branch- es of that wild tree give sweet fruit, although the rcots are still wild. Generally, mankind grows as it was planted with no care being taken to transform, its sour fruits, ancl if given no attention, people die in the same condition. You must under- stand that all of the Holy Prophets were “garden- ers” grafting divine characteristics onio people's wild personalitiss.
Most of you attending this meeting are Chris-
aut Gi) tians and Jews, Christ's mission was to impart div- ine attributes unto people, and the same is true of all of the Prophets of the Old Testament, but you have lost sight of that fact. After Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhaimmad came with the same mission, but we lost sight of that too. What was the result of all this heedlessness? Throughout history each group wanted to think of itself as “possessing God to the exclusion of others”, and has never liked the idea that God hears the prayers of the other group as well, and considers its merits by His own criteria. Net only do our greedy characteristics blind us to the truth of our Lord being the Lord of All, but even within religiens so many sects have sprung up, mainly so that people can claim to have the sole possession of God. The result of this has been that Muslims hate Christians and vice versa; but our Prophets were not sent to teach us to hate each other: And now Christians hate Christians, and Muslims hate Muslims, and in general every- one has turned even on his own brother.
Look, our Lord said: “Tell that person to ask for his neighbour what he asks for himself’, that’ is the commandment which is called the golden rule, but now, just as gold currency has been re- placed first by silver and then by papor, so the golden rule has long been out of circulation in our relations. But you must know that your worth is determined by the magnanimity of your heart. In earlier times virtues were recognized as such-
él
though perhaps seldom attained- nowadays they are held in no esteem. People are valued solely ac- cording to their beauty or wealth, and one has come to evaluate relationships on the basis of the potential for material gain. This is a shame, and I am asking our Lord to forgive us.
The Disappearance of Virtue from the Face of the Earth
hen the Angel Gabriel made his last visitation to the Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon both of them, he inform- ed the Prophet: “This is the last time I shall come to you with revelation, and, furthermore, with your passing, Prophethood will be a closed book: no more will I come to Earth with Divine Commands”. The Holy Prophet then asked him: “Is it really to be so that you, who have brought Divine Guidance to Allah’s Prophets throughout history will never again visit the Earth?’ Gabriel replied: “Indeed I will return in accordance with my Lord’s Divine Command, not to deliver guidance, but to take back, one by one, all of the virtues that have flou- rished through Divine Guidance. This is my Lord's plan: that the spiritual condition of mankind, should deteriorate before the coming of the great events of the Last Times.”
“First, I will come to take away Divine Knowl- edge, so that ignorance will cover the Earth like an ocean, and the people of that time will fall into it in hordes. Those people will not declare,
— 63 — ‘There is no gad but the One True God, Allah’, but will claim, ‘There is no God’. (This is the epitomy of ignorance, for you may know everything, but if you don’t recognize the Owner of all and the Creator of your own being, you are ultimately ignorant). Yes, I will come to remove the knowledge of all higher realms and leave them in the darkness of ignorance.”
“Then, again I will come and take away “barakah’” (Barakah means being blessed by God with adequate sustenance, and consequently feeling contentment with our allotted portion). Nowadays, people’s needs have proliferated to such an extent that no one can begin to possess a tenth of what they imagine themselves to need. Despite the fact that their pockets are bulging with money all they can be heard saying is: “Not enough, not enough”. I can remember, during my childhood that people used to earn about three piasters a day-it was just a small silver coin. Now in our country I don’t think that one can subsist on five pounds a day - and what about here in England! Yet, in countries where there are kings and queens there is still more “barakah” than in republics. There used to
be shepherds who earned only one piaster a day plus food and shelter for themselves and their families, and they were happy-for what does a humble person really need beyond food, shelter and some money for clothing etc.? But those are bygone
saa Ayame days... “barakah” has been taken up and people are swimming in an ocean of discontent.
Then Gabriel said: “I will come to take away mercy from the Earth”. For exampie, I saw in the newspaper yesterday that some people who looked like robots went on the rampage at a football game and killed many people. Surely their heads are like footballs, full of air, and their hearts like rocks, containing no mercy. This is but a simple example of how beastly man can become when there resides no mercy in his heart, and indeed, worse than beasts, for beasts kill for food, not for fun. Islam always opposes such barbarism, as our Prophet is the Prophet of Mercy; but look, in our time, two Islamic countries have been engaged in a useless, protracted and bloody war, mercy has been taken from their hearts as well, and they also can boast of having attached footballs to their shoulders where the head should be.
“And finally”, continued Gabriel, “I will come to take away modesty and chastity’. It is not diffi- cult to see that this has been accomplished already. Nowadays, people walk the streets in attire that their mothers and grandmothers would have been ashamed to wear in their bedrooms.
And this is what the Angel Gabriel informed the Holy Prophet of fifteen centuries ago, and he, in turn, informed us that the time we are living in is Virtually bereft of the qualities that make human life human. And, indeed, we find ourselves
— 6 — F.:5 living in such a time as he described. There is no more knowledge leading people to goodness, to honesty, to honour, here and hereafter. People are studying, but to what end? They are only learning to support the kingdom of Satan on Earth, to help perpetuate that state of affairs that is rapidly bringing the whole world to the brink of disaster, and creating such alienation in people that so many would rather throw themselves out of windows than go on living, and so many others live only to inflict suffering on others. Even in religious schools, where the elements of godly living should be taught, that knowledge has been distorted out of recognition and soured, like a glass of milk into which a lemon has been squeezed, so that even those with a basis in Divine Knowledge can barely distinguish right from wrong anymore, what to speak of doing what is right.
Islam brought the world respect and mercy, but we have lost them both. And despite the odds we face, we must ever strive to develop those virtually extinct good characteristics in ourselves. And we are comforted by the knowledge that our Merciful Lord will not fail to judge us leniently, as we are trying our best to see something through the obscurity of these times, and we are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.
Js there no Escape ¢
ae feel shemnelres to be suffering , to be in misery, and the question most often asked is: “To where may I escape from my problems?” The coming of such times is predicted in all Holy Books, and finally, also, in the Holy Qur’an, which describes suffering people who ask: “To where may we escape?” The portrayal of such times makes the hearts of believers shrink in horror, but, as I look at the human beings of our time I see pain written on their faces and hear them shouting this very question. But no matter where you run, you are bound to find a mountain of troubles even more formidable than the one from which you have escaped.
Now people are ail trying to escape from their situations. Orientals flee to the West in search of freedom and wealth, while Westerners flee from a sea of materialism to the Orient to find a tradit- ional way of life. Peasants can no longer stand to live in the countryside and flee to cities seeking the “civilized” life, and city-dwellers, ill with civil- izaticn's diseases flock to the countryside to seek a wholesome lifestyle. But so often, even when people manage to escape from one place to another, one culture to another, one climate to another or from one marriage to another, seeking relief from their miseries, they only find themselves faced with another set of miseries, and then they fall into disilusionment and hopelessness.
The present state of affairs is the fulfilment of the prophecy of the Holy Prophet in which he predicted that there would come a time when people would pass through cemeteries and say: “If only we were among you, or if only you could be in our places and we in yours! You are at rest, but we are in torment; oh, how lucky you are to have lived in earlier times and never to have seen these days!”
So where is a shelter from these miseries to be found? Allah Almighty answers the quesiion of those desperate people, saying: “Flee to your Lord!’ The answer is very simple, but our egos rebel against our fleeing in that direction, saying: “No, I won't permit you to flee to anyone but me alone, nor to take another shelter than mine, be- cause 1 have my own will, my own knowledge and my own ideals: they are all we need, so come into my shelter!” But verily the ego's shelter is full of leaks, it cannot keep cut the downpour of tribu- lation!
Both the Torah and the Qur'an tell us the story of Noah, peace be upon him, and even now may we derive wisdom and a valuable lesson from the
samen) GE same events that occurred during the life of that most ancient Prophet. No event in history shows us more plainly how the only real shelter is with our Lord, and how the shelter created by our minds will be swept away. Noah was sent to his Nation and to all people living at his time. No Prophet was ever granted such a miraculous lifespan - nine-hun- dred and fifty years - but no Prophet was ever afflicted with such persistent rejection and per- secution either.
Whenever he would arise and exhort his people they would stone him until he was knocked uncon- scious. The story is well known. Finally, after so many centuries of vain attempts to guide the peo- ple, he prayed: “Oh my Lord, You must not leave on the face of the Earth even one household of these hard-hearted people, for no child is born to them except that he becomes an even greater tyrant than his parents. If You leave them be they will lead astray even those few people who have be- lieved in You. Oh my Lord, spare and forgive me and my family and those believers who are with us.”
Then the Lord granted his prayer and resolv- ed to destroy the wicked by sending a flocd to cover the Earth, and He commanded Noah to build an ark as a shelter for the few believers and for a male and female of each kind of animal. Then Noah set out to build the Ark, not at the seaside, but in the midst of dry land. Some people asked
== BG o=
RR him: “Oh Noah, what are you building?” “I am building an Ark as a shelter against a great flood that the Lord will send upon the Earth.” “Then why don’t you build it by the sea instead of on this high ground, for even if it rains as you say it will, here there will only be wild torrents rush- ing to the sea, and you may have a rough ride down such a wild river”, they said sarcastically. “No”, Noah said, ‘this will be a flood like no other, a flood that will leave nothing high and dry, and no rivers rushing to the sea: when this rain falls all will be sea.” They only laughed scornfully and went off saying; ‘Such an old, old man, and yet he preaches the same nonsense he always has, along with threats of a flood to scare us into his religion!”
And finally, when Noah had completed the construction of the Ark, he bade his family and all the believers to enter. All of them hastened aboard, except for one of his sons, who had been influenced by the logic of those who had ridiculed his father. He said. “I don’t need to board that rickety vessel. If it really rains as you say, I will seek refuge on the top of a mountain. It never floods there, only in valleys. This is a clear natural law, and I trust my own perception and logic. I know where floods go and where they don’t.” Noah pleaded with him: “Oh my son, you think that you know, but you are wrong: come aboard and you will be safe!“ But the son stubbornly held to his
ey | judgement, a judgement that would have heen cor- rect in the face of any other flood the world had ever known, save this one, which inundated the Earth up to seventy yards above the peak Noah's son had climbed, and he perished.
In this tale is contained a lesson for all men who have placed their trust in the products of their own minds, and for their sake we are re- counting the story of the fate of Noah’s son when he took to the mountain instead of to the Ark. And in our times whole nations are seeking to escape from the ever-rising level of the misery-flood by adopting solutions that accord with their mental calculations, while not opposing their egos’ dic- tates — they are climbing mountains instead of boarding the Ark. The proponents of such concocted solutions to the world’s problems stand on mountain tops and call people to their own “high and dry” shelters. Each one calls out: “Come here! Climb this peak, not that one: Ours is the safe peak!” But slowly, slowly their island-peaks shrink in the face of the rising waters, and soon all will be submerged. To drown in the sea of misery is a terrible end.
But the key to redemption is repentance, and, therefore, in the sight of Allah, even the case of those who have run to the mountains instead of the Ark and have fallen into the sea is not hope- less, for Allah heard the prayer of Jonah from the belly of a whale: “Oh my Lord, there is no
— FL=- God beside You. Glorified be Your Name! Verily, I have been a wrongdoer!’ He turned to his Lord completely, and Allah saved him from that dark and terrible prison. “And this is how we rescue the believers’, says the Lord; and so we must glo- rify Him that we may find safety from the flood of sufferings.
One person used to complain bitterly about the croaking of the frogs at night. Angrily he shouted at them: “What’s all this racket about? Will you please quict down! Every night you keep me awake with your ‘rak! rak! rak!’” Then the spokesfrog of that pond replied: “Oh son of Adam, I am not lazy like you, sleeping the whole night through, | am keeping this nightly vigil and prais- ing my Lord a hundred-thousand times. Are you not ashamed to complain that I keep you from your sleep?”
Yes, we must flee to our Lord in the face of suffering by engaging ourselves in devotion to Him. If you feel yourself being overwhelmed by waves of misery, then say: “Subhanallah, Glory to Allah”, and those waves will subside, Glorify your Lord and you will be exalted in the Divine Presence, that is our solution.
The Holy Qur'an observes:
“They forgot their Lord, so He forgot them”,
In reality He never forgets anyone, but as a punishment for our forgetfulness, He permits us to feel forgotten, so that we are overwhelmed by
misery. Therefore, every day people are coming to me, trying to unload a heavy burden of misery and the newspapers are bursting with stories of suffering, and, nowadays, through the television, we are presented with the highlights of the day’s disasters and misery. Yes, now we must face it all rather than the small sample we would encounter in our everyday lives, and the disasters we see on television would affect even a heart made of iron.
Nowadays, in order to give people an outlet, to enable them to unburden themselves of some of their pain, a new branch of medicine, psychiatry, has been founded, and those doctors are paid high salaries just for listening to the details of people’s mental and emotional chaos. And despite the expense involved in consulting such doctors, their offices are now found on every corner, as green- grocers used to be: that is a sign that mental illness is on the increase. The hearts of those psy- chiatrists must be so expansive to be able to listen to such tales of woe and to try and help their patients, but mostly they too find themselves overwhelmed, and come to me to unload their heavy burdens. My heart sometimes feels as if it too will sink, as I become affected by the misery of people. Sometimes, I may help put someone on the right track by pointing out the causes of his misery, and I am seeking my Lord’s support and His forgiveness...
ae WB ass The Heavenly Homeland
= he homeland of the soul is the heavenly #realm, just as the homeland of our human personalities is wherever we were born and raised. People have tried to describe the goal of the Sufi Path in so many ways, but the best description is to say that it is the way by which the soul may return to its homeland. Our souls long for that heavenly homeland, just as we may dream of returning to the scenes of fond childhood memories. That attachment to our childhood homes is a re- flection of the soul’s longing for its original homeland; therefore, its existence is a sign of faith, and the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, in a tra- dition, is to have said: “Love of one’s homeland is of faith”.
Therefore, you may come to spend Ramadan here in London, and you may feel by the end of your time here a longing for your homelands. The same holds true for pilgrims to Mecca and Medina: Allah plants in people’s hearts a love that enables them to bear all of the hardships of the journey and the pilgrimage, so that people may do their duty to their Lord: then He changes that longing for the Holy Places to a longing to return quickly home.
It is normal that a person should long for his homeland. We have a saying: “You may put the nightingale in a golden cage but it won’t be happy, and will lament: “Oh that I were back in the nest I made from sticks and straw’. One may see this in the community of our Cypriot immigrants here in London, or with other groups, that have come seeking “streets lined with gold”. You may hear them moaning: “Oh our village, our mountains, our rivers, our seas, our old friends!”.
That longing is only the longing of the personality and the physical body for a place it associates with good memories; but the longing of the soul goes much deeper. And just as it may sadden a person who returns to the home of his youth, and finds not there the people he loved, so, for the soul Heaven is empty without the Counten- ance of the Lord. Foreign dignitaries don’t go to Buckingham Palace unless the queen is there - for what should they go, otherwise, for sightseeing?
And yourselves: you would not come to London to this humble place unless the person you love is here. Would you come from Canada to London for at least the fifth time to take a sightseeing tour? London is empty for you if that person is not here. But now London is full for you, and even if that person were to be sitting in a cave, London would be full for you because you have found that person. The longing of the soul is for its Lord: what is the Divine Realm without Him?
ees BR ne God is our Guarantor e pray to our Lord to lift the heavi- ness off our hearis: and no one can
Ay lift those burdens except He Alone.
79)"8) Nowadays, huge industries have been built up whose only function is to provide diversion and amusement for people. Indeed, most industry falls under this category: the product that sells is not simply the one that fulfills a need, but the one that diverts people from the awareness of their misery -thus, television, videos, sports cars, fash- ions, games etc. etc. are the new necessities of life.
All of these products of diversion have to compete with each other to gain their portion of the market, thus, another huge industry: Adver- tising. So, as we drive through the streets, beautiful people with clean white smiles come to meet us from their billboards and testify that, if only we buy such -and-such a product, we will look as good as they do, and always be surrounded by other beautiful people. The same is true of television ads: all are happy and laughing people.
But he to whom Allah Almighty has granted penetrating vision may observe that these people are smiling the “smile of the skeleton’, the smile
sami FB cms
which always appears on skulls: all is just show, inside of themselves they are empty. This is a strange glimpse of reality that has been shown to me many times: what people call pleasure is only a kind of forced enjoyment.
Very young people may perhaps really feel enjoyment, as everything new is tasteful, but as they continue on this way, more and more they feel boredom setting in, that pleasure becoming but a routine. As a result they go further and further on the same way, to see if they can outrace the shadow of routine that makes ail pleasures tasteless. Though they cannot win this race, they keep on running, progressing towards extremes of stimulation, but still feeling no pleasure. This disappointment and the consequent misery result from the mistaken assumption that “more is better’. For example. a spoonful of honey is sweeter than a cupful which will only make you sick. But because the philosophy of endiess greed is now the common creed, people think that finding a beehive would be their greatest good fortune. How wrong they are!
Oh people who claim to possess understanding, you must understand that your Lord has placed a hindrance before the fulfilment of some of your desires only for your own good, not because He enjoys depriving you of something good. If some- thing is prohibited by religion it is only because that so-called pleasure is a trap to catch you into
—7— suffering. But nowadays no one accepts this re- ality, or even if one does accept, or is attracted to any religion, seeks to ignore moral codes, because he has been taught that exercising absolute free- dom is the only way to fulfilment. This is the doctrine that is burning people’s faith, and it is in conflict with all world religions, East and West; but onward they march, with grimaces that are supposed to be smiles. They pretend to taste, but taste nothing, because you can’t enjoy eating un- jess you are hungry, can’t enjoy drinking unless you are thirsty. Their way is the way of the total destruction of their physical bodies and their spiri- tual lives.
Later in the day I saw something else that deeply affected my heart. As I looked outside I saw some sparrows hopping about on the roof. We also have sparrows in Cyprus, and I wondered what the living conditions were like for sparrows here in London. So I asked the sparrow: “Are you in any difficulties living here in London? If so, I may ask the sparrows in Cyprus to send you some aid.” It replied: “Thank you, but we are all satisfied and we are not in need of any assistance at all. It doesn’t matter to us that we are living in such an expensive country-even in Moscow our kind are alright. We are happy and free, never caught up in any crisis. Our salaries are sufficient and always paid on time, and it is all the same to us whether we live in Hampstead or Brixton, East End or
— 72 —
Buckingham Palace: we receive our sustenance and glorify our Lord, saying, ‘Allah, Allah’. If you can be more like us you may be happy- no suffering, no hospitals, no prisons, no passports - we are travelling freely from country to country, and we require no expensive insurance policies, our Lord is our guarantor. Oh Son of Adam, you must be more like us, then you will be happy, and have no need to fight and quarrel.’ Then he flew away.
Look, those sparrows are pleased with their Lord, and Allah is pleased with those who are pleased with Him. Therefore, you must seek ways to make Allah pleased with you. We walk this earth with a heavy burden of ego, and, of course, it is impossible for us to be so light, to flutter and twitter without a care in the world like sparrows, but we can emulate their ways in the trust of God. He Almighty is the Only One who can guarantee your future: you cannot determine what will happen to you, and you cannot know what accidents or misfortunes may befall you, your spouse, your children, nation or business. Don’t put your trust in your job, your power, your knowl- edge or your beauty, for it may be that none of this will avail you when you are most vulnerable. This is an undeniable fact, and somewhere within themselves people know this. Therefore, those skel- eton-smiles, when dropped, revert to the frowns that reflect how the people are really feeling.
— 79 —
But the Prophets and the Friends of God have received a guarantee from their Lord, a guarantee of protection and care: and according to the level of your faith you too may attain a guarantee of protection and care, and the serenity that results from such assurance.
The shadow of worry pursues the “uninsured”, and just as an aspirin may temporarily alleviate the symptoms of a migraine headache, but not cure its causes, so do temporary pleasures make people temporarily oblivious of their miseries. The guaran- tee of our Lord gives us permanent pleasure, and its source is in our hearts. Whoever has such a fountain in his heart need not be a consumer in the amusement market. Why should he need to escape from his house every night to the discotheque, theater or gambling casino when his heart provides him with all he needs to be happy?
We must aspire to take the keys to our inner treasures, lest all we achieve in our lives is to make ourselves “stimulation addicts”; and ulti- mately, we must carry responsibility for wasting our lives in such a manner. Those enjoyments are only pain-killers, and you may live for a while on a diet of pain-killers if you wish, but ultimately those pain-killers will kill you.
ere See
— $7 — Seek your Sustenance
Rhe Holy Prophet advised his Nation Hto work for a living, though our stay in this world be only temporary. He advises us to seek out our sustenance, not to wait for it to find us. It is best for us to work for our livelihood, to engage our- selves in any type of work that does not transgress the Law, as the most tasteful of food is that earned with cne’s own hands. For man to sesk his susten- ance within the bounds of the Divine Law is most pleasing to our Lord, and is also conducive to good mental and physical health. So whoever is able- bodied must work. Don’t argue that, since the sus- tenance of every creature is already destined for him you need neither pursue it nor avoid it — these are the excuses of lazy people-and Allah does not favour laziness. As Jong as you are in this world there must be some work that you can do with your hanas.
King Solomon, who was both a Prophet and a Divinely Ordained Monarch was granted by his Lord opulence far beyond the imagination of even the richest man of our time, for Allah Almighty granted him knowledge of the exact location of
— 81 — F.: 6 all the treasures in the Earth, and also empowered him over armies of Jinn who not only guarded those treasures but would bring up any of them upon command. Solomon was also granted the power to discourse with the animals, and they too were his servants.
Even such a magnificent emperor as Solomon never in his life ate food except the proceeds from the sale of baskets he himself wove. Can we find such scrupulousness anywhere? King Solomon set an example for all of his subjects, and people of all time by not using the wealth of the Nation for his personal needs. But nowadays, on the contrary, the government is expected to supply everyone’s needs, so that many people, other than those who are truly handicapped or in need, un- ashamedly take government handouts and demand that they be increased. Don’t be unemployed! Perhaps you can cheat the government, but you can’t deceive Allah; and He Almighty punishes such people in this life by making that money a cause of discontent for them. No “barakah” comes from unearned money, and the result of such a life will be both physical and mental illness. Therefore, if you value your health and your sanity, eat from the work of your hands!
Sultan Abdul Hamid, the last Khalifa of the Ottoman Empire was a great personality of his time. By virtue of his great stamina and charisma he was able to not only hold together the crumbling
San GR Tk empire, but to actually effect a kind of revival of spirit throughout the vast realm. He was the last ruler to be mentioned in sermons all across the Muslim World, and he was the last keeper of the holy relics of the Prophet which are in Istanbul.
In the midst of all the affairs of his empire that needed his attending to, he found time to engage in a craft and eat from the proceeds of that work. Not only this, but he never ascended his throne to attend to court until he had recited his Naqshbandi exercises and read a portion of the Qur'an and also of the prayer book “Dalail-ul- Kkairat’, as well as praying the two sets of supererogatory prayers of the early morning. It is enough of a testimony to his strength to mention that he sat on the throne for thirty - three years in a time when most kings could not manage to retain their power for even ten years because of the many intrigues and the growing chaos of the times. The magnitude of his majesty was such that Kaiser Wilhelm II once said: “I have met many monarchs and rulers in my life and have found them all to be my inferiors, or at best my equals, but when I entered the presence of Abdul Hamid I began to tremble.”
The Holy Prophet once said: “You must work for your honest provision as if you are going to remain in this world forever, and for the afterlife as if you will die tomorrow”. Now why would the Prophet, whose mission it was to call to eternal
— 93: == life suggest that we work as if we will always be in this world? Because when hope for the life of the world is abandoned man will die. Hope for the future of this world and for cur position in it is necessary for our being able to devote ourselves to our duties in this life. Besides this, the Holy Prephet declared that man’s good deeds live on after him in this world, through the benefit that future generations derive from them.
And with regard to the afterlife, the Holy Prophet was reminding us that we will cross that barrier, and it could be tomorrow, or even today: So, should we not be prepared? In order to put the matter in perspective, the Holy Prophet also said: “Oh people, you must consider how long you may remain in this world and work for it in accord- ance with the length of your stay; and you must consider as well how long you will be in the life of the hereafter and strive for if accordingly”. This saying may seem to contradict the previous one, for if you balance the time you will spend in this world againsi the time you will be
Link: https://www.nvrislam.net/index.php?j=eng&post=5791