A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi ( q.s. ) said, “With life as short as a half-taken breath, do not plant anything but love.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Husayn al-Bayhaqi ( r.a. ), in his Shu’ayb al-Iman , recorded that Imam ‘Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal ( r.a. ) said, “I heard my father say, ‘I performed haj five times; thrice on foot and twice riding,’ or he said, ‘thrice riding and twice on foot.’   ‘Once when I was on foot, I lost my way; I started to exclaim, ‘O Allah’s servants, show me the way.’   I kept on repeating this until I came back on track.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu al-Fadhl ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuthi ( q.s. ) wrote, in Jami’ asw-Swaghir , “Abstain from committing and hearing backbiting, and forbear from tattling and listening to it.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu Muhammad ibn Abu Swalih ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani ( q.s. ) said, “I am not alone.   I am keeping Allah ( s.w.t. ) company.   When I wish for Him to Converse with me, I read His Book.   When I wish to converse with Him, I perform the ritual prayers.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Detachment of the world is not absence.   It is to walk with the constant knowledge that all this will pass away, that we are travellers going home to the Presence.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina Abu ‘Amr ‘Utsman ibn ‘Affan ( r.a. ) said, “The world is proud.   Leave it alone, lest it entrap you by its guises, and teach you pride, which will keep you away from Allah ( s.w.t. ).”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Dzu an-Nun Abu al-Faydh Tsawban ibn Ibrahim al-Miswri ( q.s. ) commented, “Sincerity is complete only by being truthful in it, and having patience for it.   Truthfulness is only by sincerity in it, and constancy throughout.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu Sa’id ibn Abu al-Hasan Yasar al-Baswri ( q.s. ) said, “Beware of procrastinating, for indeed you are in your present day, and not in your tomorrow.   So, if there is a tomorrow for you, then be in tomorrow as you are in today.   And if there is no tomorrow for you, then do not regret over what you neglected today.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu Sa’id ibn Abu al-Hasan Yasar al-Baswri ( q.s. ) said, “The world is all darkness except the gatherings of the scholars of religion.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Alawi al-Haddad ( q.s. ) said, “One action influences a thousand people more than a thousand words influence one person.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina Abu Hafsw ‘Umar ibn al-Khaththab al-Faruq ( r.a. ) said, “Allah ( s.w.t. ) Gave us Honour through Islam, and if we seek glory in anything other than what Allah ( s.w.t. ) has Given us, Allah ( s.w.t. ) will Disgrace us.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib ( k.w. ) said, “Put aside your pride, set down your arrogance, and remember your grave.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib ( k.w. ) said, “Any wealth of yours that teaches you a lesson has not been wasted.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi ( q.s. ) said, “There is a King Who is Aware of every mask you put on.”

Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali said, “How many are the Blessings which began before asking and praying, and indeed without one being worthy of them.” The blessing, in his account, frequently precedes the asking altogether.  It arrives before the prayer, before the visualisation, before any claim of merit could conceivably attach to the recipient.  A newborn breathes, and a heart beats, before either has ever prayed for the privilege of doing so.  The capacity to think, to reason, to eventually formulate a prayer at all, was itself a blessing that arrived unrequested and unearned, the precondition for asking rather than its reward. The manifestation framework reintroduces a transactional theology into daily life, where gratitude becomes conditional on having correctly performed the ritual of desire.  Imam al-Ghazali’s framing removed the transaction entirely.  If the greatest blessings arrive before the asking and without worthiness, then gra...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i ( r.a. ) said, “Knowledge is not that which is memorised; knowledge is that which benefits.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi ( q.s. ) said, “Character is what defines a human being, not the outward form.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Utsman asw-Swiddiq ( q.s. ) said, “He who is not impressed by sound advice, lacks faith.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Malik ibn Dinar ( q.s. ) said, “I swear to you, no servant believes in this Qur’an, except that his heart is left aching.”

Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi said, “Until man destroys his self, he is no friend of God.”  Modern spiritual culture has built an entire industry on the exact opposite premise.  Find yourself.  Love yourself.  Honour your authentic self.  Mawlana ar-Rumi’s verdict does not merely disagree with that premise.  It demolishes it. The self, in Sufi terminology, is not a discovery.  It is an obstacle.  The nafs , the ego-self, is the accumulated weight of pride, appetite, and self-regard that stands directly between a servant and Allah.  It is not a treasure buried inside a person, waiting patiently to be unearthed and celebrated.   It is the very screen obstructing the view.  Mawlana ar-Rumi’s statement makes this a binary condition, not a matter of degree.  Friendship with God does not become easier as the self shrinks.  It does not exist at all until the self is destroyed.  That is a considerably harder st...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi ( q.s. ) wrote:   “If you wander far from the Lover’s Shade, You will suffer in the glare of the Sun. Like a shadow, stick close to the Lover’s Side, Until you glow like the Moon or the Sun.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Imam Abu ‘Abdullah al-Harits ibn Asad al-‘Anazi al-Muhasibi ( q.s. ) said, “The truthful is he who would not be concerned if the welfare of his heart demanded that all his fame among men should vanish.   He does not want even one jot of his good works to be known by men, nor does he care if men were to know his wrongdoings.   Any desire to be held in the good opinion of men is not the characteristic of the truthful.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu Muhammad ibn Abu Swalih ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani ( q.s. ) said, “Woe to you!   You claim to be a Sufi, yet you are impure!   The Sufi is one whose inward and outward have become pure by following the Book of Allah, and the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ( s.a.w. ).   As his purity increases, he further emerges from the sea of his existence and gives up his will, choice, and volition.”

Shaykh Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Atha’illah as-Sakandari, author of the celebrated al-Hikam al-‘Atha’iyyah , said, “Your desire for isolation even though Allah has Put you in the world to gain a living is a hidden passion.  And your desire to gain a living in the world even though Allah has Put you in isolation is a comedown from lofty aspiration.” This aphorism refuses the comfortable binary.  Retreat is not automatically holy, and work is not automatically profane.  The question that actually matters is whether the position you occupy matches the position Allah has placed you in, not which position happens to feel more spiritual on the day. The First Failure: Mistaking Escapism for Piety A person with dependents, debts, and a livelihood to build, who dreams constantly of withdrawing from the world into contemplative solitude, is not experiencing elevated spirituality.  Shaykh ibn ‘Atha’illah called this a hidden passion.  The desire...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu al-Fath Ghiyats ad-Din ‘Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyami an-Nishaburi ( q.s. ) wrote: “Blame not the drunkards, you who wine eschew, Had I but grace, I would abstain like you, And mark me, vaunting zealot, you commit A hundredfold worse sins than drunkards do.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ There are many types of anthropomorphism, which is a form of idolatry in Islam.   When we speak of anthropomorphism, Muslims have this idea that it is likening Allah ( s.w.t. ) to Creation, which is obvious.   This is the disbelief of groups such as the Wahhabi sect.   However, a more subtle form of anthropomorphism, when we have “created” God in our own image, is when we assume to speak for Him in deciding who is Saved and who is Condemned.   When “god” hates all the same people we do, it is not merely arrogance in faith, it is idolatry.

Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i said, “I have never faced a battle harder than the battle between my self and my heart.” Imam ash-Shafi’i had memorised the entire Qur’an by age seven, memorised Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Malik ibn Anas’ al-Muwaththa’ by age ten, and travelled between Makkah, Madina, Yemen, Baghdad, and eventually Cairo in pursuit of knowledge, at a time when travel itself carried genuine physical risk.  He founded an entire madzhab , one of the four schools that continue to govern Sunni jurisprudence today.  A man of that discipline, describing his internal battle as harder than anything else he faced, is making a claim worth taking seriously. Imam ash-Shafi’i developed his legal reasoning in Iraq, producing what scholars now call his qawl qadim , his old position, on numerous questions of fiqh .  After relocating to Egypt later in life, he revised a substantial portion of these rulings, producing his qawl jadid , his new position, based on fre...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Abu Sa’id ibn Abu al-Hasan Yasar al-Baswri ( q.s. ) said, “O People!  Work for akhirah .  For indeed I have seen in my life, anyone who works for the hereafter also gets dunya .  Dunya runs after him.  But I have not found anyone who works for dunya ever getting any piece of akhirah .”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Dr. David Samuel Margoliouth, the famed Orientalist, wrote, in the preface of “Mohammed & the Rise of Islam”, “I regard Mohammed as a great man, who solved a political problem of appalling difficulty — the construction of a state and an empire out of the Arab tribes.   I have endeavoured, in recounting the mode in which he accomplished this, to do justice to his intellectual ability and to observe towards him the respectful attitude which his greatness deserves.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Dr. William Montgomery Watt wrote, in “Mohammad at Mecca”, “His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his fundamental integrity.   To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves.   Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al-‘Abidin ( q.s. ) said, “Beware of the company of the miser, for he will not part with his wealth to help you when you need it most.   Avoid the company of a liar, as he is like a mirage, he will present the distant as near, and the near as distant.   Moving with the pious invites you to righteousness.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Hasan ibn ‘Ali al-Askari ( q.s. ) said, “The worst servants of Allah ( s.w.t. ) are those who are two-faced and two-tongued; they praise their present friends and backbite the absent; they envy them for obtaining graces and disappoint them when they suffer a misfortune.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Truth is, and falsehood is merely the absence of truth.   Falsehood does not exist independently of truth; any more than the shadow exists independent of light.   As such, in every bit of knowledge, even in the most egregious lie, there is at least a speck of truth. Discernment is the ability to separate that which is truth, and that which is not.   Lacking that discernment to a degree does not make a person any less sincere.   As such, even in a lie, there are sincere believers.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sayyidina Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Utsman asw-Swiddiq ( r.a. ) said, “If the tongue is corrupt, people cry; and if the heart is corrupt, the angels cry.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali ( r.a. ) said, “In the sorrow of love, we console ourselves.   We are distracted and bewildered by our own work, bankrupted by our own fortune, ourselves the hunters, ourselves the game.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ A Christian arrived in Heaven and was being shown around.   The angel pointed out the various communities: the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Jews and so forth. The Christian then noticed an area surrounded by a high wall and asked the angel what it was for?    The angel said, “Those are the Muslims; they like to believe they are the only ones Saved.”