To Become Sweet

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is adapted from a swuhbah by Shaykh Muhammad Nazhim Adil al-Haqqani (q.s.) on the 05^th February 2010. 

We have been placed on this Earth to know ourselves.  One who knows himself, knows his Lord, and one who knows his Lord, seeks to please Him by doing good.  Despite this, many people do evil things and this stems from the wild behaviour in themselves.  Each of us is like a garden filled with trees.  If a farmer found a wild cherry tree in his garden, he would chop it down and replant a domestic cherry plant.  A domestic cherry plant would provide a bountiful harvest, compared to the wild cherry tree which, in all probability, would produce fruits that were unfit for human consumption or would take ages.  If time were of the essence, the best step would be for the farmer to graft a branch of the domestic tree, onto the wild tree, and if the graft is successful, the wild tree can start producing edible and tasty fruits. 

Some of us are like wild animals.  A wild animal is a danger to domestic creatures.  It has wild characteristics, and many would wound or kill another, if provoked.  Allah (s.w.t.) did not Create us to be wild.  He Created us to be the best of Creation.  He Created us to strive against our animal-like nature, to purify ourselves, to perfect ourselves.  Allah (s.w.t.) Sent us guides to help nurture us and tame our unbridled egos. 

Yesterday, we did not exist on this planet.  Tomorrow, we will no longer be here.  So we have a short stint here and must understand our mission during this sojourn.  Allah (s.w.t.) has Sent us guides to train and teach us, but we have begun to seriously believe the notion, that we can learn, by simply reading books.  That is a terribly wrong assumption, and many have been misled by this. 

Books are the products of the mind.  Whatever a person believes, he puts it down in writing and publishes a book.  Books are man-made creations, products of the ideology and experience of the author.  We cannot depend on that to lead us to the Divine.  Only someone Sent by the Divine and authorised to guide, may lead us along the journey to perfection.  Many authors of books are like us too.  They too are veiled from all four sides.  They are blind themselves, so we cannot hope that their books will lead you to the light, when the authors themselves are groping in darkness.  Neither the author, nor us, know what lies beyond that veil, so all parties are simply sitting in darkness.  Only one who has seen the light can guide us to it. 

Reflecting is very important for our spiritual progress.  Many matters cannot be understood by simply thinking.  We are in need of a guide to unlock bolted doors, to show the way around an obstacle, or to teach us how to evade a well-set trap.  Many treasures of knowledge lies beyond such hurdles.  We need a guide, not a book, to walk us through. 

A huge ocean of locked treasures is the world of males and females.  Though they live on the same planet, the same dunya, they actually exist on two different planes.  Men lead very different lives from women.  They have different mentalities, different psychologies, different worries, different physical limitations and organs, different ways of tackling issues and different approaches to faith and practices.  Even the darkness within men and women are different.  The dark suggestions thrown up by their souls and desires are different.  Allah (s.w.t.) has Sent them different lights to enlighten their darkened souls.  Shaythan has always been trying to muddle things up, by preaching equality of sexes, by trying to make them into a single confused group, instead of the separate groups that they are.  This is the greatest foolishness, the greatest corruption of the people of the 21^st century.  It is only a great fool who tries to equal an apple with an orange, or a chicken with a duck.  Men and women have different roles and responsibilities.  They undergo very different burdens and tests.  It is absurd to pretend that they are one and the same. 

We are wild trees or wild animals.  We are filled with darkness.  We are in need of a guiding light to achieve purity and understanding.  Allah (s.w.t.) had Sent the prophets, and now the saints for the sole purpose of grafting tame and domestic human-like characteristics into us.  If we reject them, we shall continue to wallow in darkness, in this world and in the hereafter, for whosoever is blind here, will be blind in the hereafter.  Those who humble themselves before a guide, and undergo the difficult grafting process, will attain enlightenment.  The world is full of wild trees and animals today.  The saints try to take our hands to guide us to be good and kind.  Yet, people are fleeing from the guides.  They do not wish to attain perfection and goodness.  One who rejects Divine teachings, will always be unhappy and will never attain peace.  He will find life tasteless, as pleasure in life is a Divine Gift.  We cannot find it on the shelves in any store.  We cannot buy it with money.  We cannot find it in this dunya. 

The choice is ours: to remain a wild tree, producing tasteless fruit or to be “grafted” and to start bearing sweet fruit.  That tasteless existence is actually Divine Punishment.  For as long as we reject the prophetic teachings, our life will be under the cloud of Allah’s (s.w.t.) Punishment.  It will remain so until we return to the fold and repent.  When people do not shed their wild behaviour, they co-exist, not as humans, but as dangerous beasts that maim and hurt one another.  Today, we see conflict within families, communities and nations.  Because this is what wild beasts do.  They fight, and this is part of the Divine Chastisement for those who abandon the ways of the prophets and saints by either refusing to study and to be guided, or by trying to self-guide by reading books. 

Rasulullah (s.a.w.) said, in a hadits, that even if all the previous prophets were alive today, they would abandon their own books and follow only the teachings of Rasulullah (s.a.w.) completely.  None of them would be holding on to any teachings from their own books.  They would abandon their books in favour of what Rasulullah (s.a.w.) brought.  So we should abandon our animalistic behaviour and follow Rasulullah (s.a.w.).  We should be “grafted”, to become sweet cherries.