A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) wrote, in al-Maktubat , “A good scholar is the best of mankind.  The bad scholar is the worst of mankind.  Men’s happiness and disaster depend upon scholars.  A great man saw Shaythan sitting unoccupied and asked why he was unoccupied.   Shaythan replied, ‘The heretical scholars of the present age are occupied in doing my work.  They do not leave any work for me to lead people astray.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ One time, in Ramadhan, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) was invited by ten of his muridun to break fast with them.  He accepted the invitation of each of them.  When it came time to break the fast, he was present at each of their houses, breaking the fast, and they saw him in each of their houses at the same time.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ On prophetic inheritance, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “It is mentioned, in the hadits of the Prophet ( s.a.w. ), ‘Scholars are the inheritors of the prophets.’  The knowledge of prophets is of two kinds: knowledge of laws, and knowledge of secrets.  The scholar cannot be called an inheritor if he does not inherit both types of knowledge.  If he takes only one type of knowledge, he is incomplete.  Thus, the real inheritors are the ones who take the knowledge of the laws and the knowledge of the secrets, and only the saints have truly received and protected this inheritance.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ On the Path, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “In the journey leading to the unveiling of the Divine Realities, the seeker moves through various stages of knowledge of and proximity to His Lord.  Moving to Allah is a vertical movement from the lower stations to the higher stations; until the movement surpasses time and space and all the states dissolve into what is called ‘ilm al-wajib of Allah.  This is also called fana’ .  Moving in Allah is the stage in which the seeker moves from the station of Names and Attributes to a state which neither word nor sign can describe.  This is the state of existence in Allah called baqa’ .  Moving from Allah is the stage in which the seeker returns from the Divine realm to the world of cause and effect, descending from the highest station of knowledge to the lowest.  Here, he forgets Allah by Allah, and he knows Allah with Allah, and he returns from ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   In the Maktubat , Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, regarding the Naqshbandi, “It must be known that Allah has Placed us under His Obligations and His Prohibitions.   Allah Says:   سُوۡرَةُ الحَشر ... وَمَآ ءَاتَٮٰكُمُ ٱلرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَہَٮٰكُمۡ عَنۡهُ فَٱنتَهُواْ‌ۚ ... (٧)   … So, take what the Messenger assigns to you, and deny yourselves that which he withholds from you ... (Surah al-Hashr:7)   If we are going to be sincere in this, we have to attain fana’ and the love of the Essence.   Without these we cannot reach this degree of obedience.   Thus, we are under another obligation, which is to seek the path of taswawwuf , because this Way will lead us to the state of fana’ and the love of the Essence.   Each thariqa’ differs from the other in its states of perfection; so too does each thariqa’ keep the sunnah of the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) and have its ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) was so famous that the scholars of external knowledge in his time became jealous of him.  They went to the ruler and told him, “He is saying things that are not accepted in the religion.”  They pushed the ruler until he put him in jail.  He stayed in jail for three years.   His son, Shaykh Sayyid ibn Ahmad( q.s. ), said, “He was under strict security in jail.  Guards surrounded his room on every side.  Yet, every Friday, he would be seen in the big mosque.  No matter how much security he was under, he would disappear from prison and appear in the mosque.”  From this, they knew they could not put him behind bars and, therefore, they released him.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ One time, the ruler ordered that a man be executed.  That man came to Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) and said, “Please write a stay of execution for me.”   He wrote to the ruler, “Do not execute this man.”  The ruler was afraid of Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ( q.s. ) and pardoned the man.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ One time, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) looked at the sky and it was raining.  He said, “O rain stop until such and such hour.”  It stopped until the exact time he had said, after which it started raining again.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ One great shaykh wrote to Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ), asking, “The states that you reached, and you are speaking about, did the swahabah receive them, and if they did, did they receive them at one time or did they receive them at separate times?”   He answered, “I cannot give you an answer unless you come into my presence.”   When the shaykh came, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ( q.s. ) immediately unveiled to him his spiritual reality and cleaned the darkness of his heart until the shaykh fell prostrate at his feet and said, “I believe, I believe!  I see now that these states were all revealed to the swahabah simply by looking at the Messenger ( s.a.w. ).”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “Allah ( s.w.t. ) has Shown me all the names of those who are entering our thariqa’ , from the day of Sayyidina Abu Bakr ( r.a. ) to the Day of Judgement, both men and women, and all of them are going to enter Paradise, with the intercession of the shuyukh of the thariqa’ .”  And he added, “al-Mahdi will be one of the followers of this thariqa’ .”  He was referring to the Naqshbandi thariqa’ .

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “Allah Unveiled to me the secrets of the Unique Oneness and He Poured into my heart all kinds of spiritual knowledge and its refinement.  He Unveiled to me the secrets of the ayat of Qur’an so that I found beneath every letter of the Qur’an an ocean of knowledge all pointing to the High Essence of Allah Almighty and Exalted.  If I were to reveal one word of the meaning of it they would cut off my head, as they did to ibn Hallaj and to ibn ‘Arabi.  This is the meaning of the hadits of the Prophet ( s.a.w. ), in al-Bukhari , narrated by Abu Hurayrah ( r.a. ), ‘The Prophet ( s.a.w. ) poured into my heart two kinds of knowledge, one of which I have revealed and another which if I were to reveal they would cut my throat.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “The knowledge that is emerging from me is coming from the state of wilayat , but I am receiving it from the Nur of the Prophet Muhammad ( s.a.w. ).  Saints are unable to bring forth such knowledge, because it is beyond the knowledge of saints.  It is the knowledge of the essence of this religion and the essence of the knowledge of Allah’s Essence and Attributes.  No one before has spoken about it and Allah has Granted me to be the one to revive the religion in its second millennium.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “In a vision, the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) gave me good tidings: ‘You are going to be a spiritual inheritor, and Allah ( s.w.t. ) is going to Give you the authority to intercede on behalf of hundreds of thousands on the Day of Judgement.’  He bestowed on me with his holy hand the authority to guide people, and he said to me, ‘Never before have I given that authority to guide people.’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn 'Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “Abu Dawud said, in a swahih hadits , that the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) said, ‘Allah will Send at the beginning of every century someone by whom the religion will be revived,’ but there is a difference between the Reviver of the Century and the Reviver of the Millennium.  It is the difference between one hundred and one thousand.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “I accompanied, today, one who has reached the End of Ends, the Quthb of all Creatures, the Perfect Man, Shaykh Muhammad al-Baqi’.  Through him, I received incredible Blessings, and by his blessing, I was granted a power of attraction that allowed me to reach every human being that Allah had Created.  I was honoured to attain a station that combines the state of the Ending with the state of the Beginning.  I achieved all the states of Seeking and I reached the Ending, which is the meaning of ‘Reaching the Name of ar-Rabb’, by the support of Asadullah , ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib.  I was Raised up to the state of the ‘Arsh , which is the haqiqat of Muhammad ( s.a.w. ), by the support of Shah Baha’ ad-Din an-Naqshband.  Then I was Lifted even higher, to the state of Jamal , which is the state of the Haqiqah of the Muhammadan aqthab , by the madad of the Prophetic H...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ) said, “Let it be known to you that the Heavenly Guardians attracted me because they wanted me to be attracted, and they facilitated for me the passage through time and space in the different states of the seeker.  I found that Allah is the Essence of all matter, as it had been said by the people of taswawwuf .  Then I found Allah in all matter without incarnation.  Then I found Allah together with all matter.  Then I saw Him Ahead of everything, and then I saw Him Following everything.  Finally, I reached a state where I saw Him and I saw nothing else.  This is what is meant by the term, ‘witnessing the Oneness,’ which is also the state of fana’ .  That is the first step in wilayat , and the highest state in the Beginning of the Way.  This vision appears first on the horizons, then secondly in the self.  Then I have been lifted to the station of ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is extracted from the first Volume, 72 nd letter of Maktubat , the “Letters” of Imam Muhammad Ma’swum ibn Ahmad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ), the son and spiritual successor of Imam ar-Rabbani wa Mujaddid ats-Tsani , Imam Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ).   Attaining a high spiritual station requires a strong and affectionate attachment to the elite of the Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah .  A true devotee, owing to his affection towards the murshid , receives the faydh , spiritual emanations, coming from the murshid 's heart.  Gradually, he becomes like the murshid .  In other thariqa’ , there are mandatory practices such as dzikr , recitations from the Qur'an at stated times, physical hardships and going into forty-day seclusions.  Strong attachment to the murshid is not a condition.  This thariqa’ , however, is the way of the swahabah .  In this Order, ifadhah and istifadha...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi ( q.s. )  was the Pearl of the Crown of the Knowledgeable Saints.   He was the Treasure of Those who Came Before and of Those who Came After.   In him were combined all their favours and generosity.   He was the Sinai of Divine Manifestation, the Furthermost Lote Tree of the Unique Knowledge, and the Fountain of the Hidden Prophetic Knowledge.   He was the Genius of Scholar,s and he was the Sulthan of the Earth, which smiled when he was born and was honoured by his existence.   He was the perfect Perfected Guide.   He was the Caller to Allah’s ( s.w.t. ) presence, the One Quthb and the Unique Heavenly Imam .   He was the Reviver of the Second Millennium.   Sayyidina wa Mawlana , our Leader and Master.   Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi as-Sirhindi ( q.s. ), ibn Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ahad ( q.s. ), ibn Shaykh Zayn al-‘Abidin ( q.s. ), ibn Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hayy ( r.a. ),...