A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ It is acceptable to feel down and lost, once ins a while.   Consider Moses (a.s.), when he had to flee Egypt.   He was bereft, where once, he was a man of power and authority.   Allah (s.w.t.) Stripped him of everything: power, material wealth, comfort and family.   He crossed that desert alone and ended up in Madyan.   Remember his du’a :   سُوۡرَةُ القَصَص … رَبِّ إِنِّى لِمَآ أَنزَلۡتَ إِلَىَّ مِنۡ خَيۡرٍ۬ فَقِيرٌ۬ (٢٤)   ... “O my Lord!   Truly am I in (desperate) need of any good that You do Send me!” … (Surah al-Qaswasw:24)   And then, he went down and helped some women water their camels.   He went and he served for the sake of Allah ( s.w.t. ), a single deed without thought of gain, true sincerity.   That is the swadaqah of one who has nothing left but his deeds.   And it is the best swadaqah .   Whatever was Taken Away was Replaced with something better because ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is an extract of “From Points of Light”, by Shaykh Harun Michael Sugich.   “It was late and I was tired after an intensive mawlid in Meknes.   He plopped himself down in front of me, beaming. ‘I know you,’ he exclaimed.   ‘I recognise you!’   I had never seen him before but I fell for him as soon as he sat down.   I put my hand on his shoulder like an old friend.   His eyes glowed.   We asked his name.   Sidi Ahmad.   He was in a worn out brown jillabah with a peculiar window pane pattern and faded, frayed red piping, coming undone in some places.   His yellow-gold turban looked more like a rag or a pile of threads.   I am an old man now but he was really old.   I would have been surprised if he was not well over 80 years of age.   But he was bursting with energy.   He said, ‘I came from Sawq al-Arba,’ and asked me where I came from.   I told him ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   It is acceptable to feel down and lost, once in a while.   Consider Moses ( a.s. ), when he had to flee Egypt.   He was bereft, where once, he was a man of power and authority.   Allah ( s.w.t. ) Stripped him of everything: power, material wealth, comfort and family.   He crossed that desert alone and ended up in Madyan.   We remember his du’a :   سُوۡرَةُ القَصَص … رَبِّ إِنِّى لِمَآ أَنزَلۡتَ إِلَىَّ مِنۡ خَيۡرٍ۬ فَقِيرٌ۬ (٢٤)   ... “O my Lord!   Truly am I in (desperate) need of any good that You do Send me!” (Surah al-Qaswasw:24)   And then, he went down and helped some women water their camels.   He went and he served for the sake of Allah ( s.w.t. ), a single deed without thought of gain, true sincerity.   That is the swadaqah of one who has nothing left but his deeds.   It is the best swadaqah .   Whatever was Taken Away was Replaced with something better bec...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) wrote, “Hear what I said to one of our brothers to give him courage.   He was afraid to marry because of the temptations that marriage would entail, as many of our people have been afraid.   So I said to him, we see that there are some men who, though not of the elect, yet manage to live in the midst of manifold occupations as though they had none, whereas others, responsible for nothing but their own head, befuddle it to the point of being always in great trouble.   This comes from the fact that they are forever making plans and burdening themselves with a thousand worries.   And so it appears to me, but God Knows best, that grown men do not allow themselves to be distracted from their Lord by anything at all and that concern for family is the least of things.   On what then does he rely, he amongst you who aspires to union and to that end give...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) said, “It is better for one to mention Allah ( s.w.t. ) once, pray one prayer, or recite one surah or the like of that with the state of the shari’ah of the Messenger of Allah ( s.a.w. ), than to do it a thousand times with the blameworthy state which is intense thirst for this world and devotion to idle talk, and absorption in misguidance.  Allah ( s.w.t. ) Save us!”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) said, “ Faqir , the great sickness is love of this world which strikes at the hearts.  It is not a sickness of ulcers which afflict the body.  Rather, this world is a cause for our distance from our Lord.  Had it not been for the love which fills our hearts, we would always be in the Presence of our Lord.  All that veils us from Him is the love of it which dwells in our hearts.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) said, “The self is an immense business.   It is the whole cosmos since it is a reflection of existence.   All that is in the cosmos is in it, and all that is in it is the cosmos.”

Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi, founder of the Darqawiyyah branch of the Shadziliyyah order, said, “All things are hidden in their opposites: gain in loss, gift in refusal, and honour in humiliation.”  This is not comforting filler for a difficult season.  It is a description of how Allah Structures reality, and modern culture has built an entire industry around denying it. Gain in loss.  The Prophet and his Companions left Makkah with nothing but their lives and their faith.  The Hijrah looked, by every worldly measure, like catastrophic loss.  Property abandoned.  Status erased.  Safety forfeited.  Yet that departure became the foundation of the Islamic calendar itself, and within a decade the very city that expelled them opened its gates to their return.  The loss was not incidental to the gain.  It was the mechanism of it.  Honour in humiliation.  Sayyidina Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi was...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Sometimes, we fall, and are broken.  In case any of us have forgotten, we have people who believe in us.  We are better than this.  We are greater than this challenge.  We are always somebody to somebody.  All Creation was Made for each and every one of us, and every sunrise and sunset a Gift.   Whatever it is, this is just a sudden downpour, and like all downpours, it ends, and the Sun comes out.  At its darkest, it seems like the night goes on forever, and the rains never cease to howl.  But it ends.  It seems like the road is unending, and the rocks cut.  And the soul is bereft, and the wind is biting and cold.  But it ends.  We all think we have lost something, but that is not true.  We have gained experience and learned a lesson.  And the pain, seems sharp and fresh and clear.  But it ends.   Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. )...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) said he did not believe that a learned man could deny the vision of the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) in the waking state, until the day he met some learned men in the Qarawiyyin Mosque, and had a conversation with them on this matter.  They said to him, “However is it possible to see the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) when one is awake, since he has been dead for over 1,200 years?  It is only possible to see him in a dream, since he himself said, ‘He who sees me, that is to say in a dream, sees me in reality, for the Devil cannot imitate me.’”   He answered, “Of necessity, he can be seen in waking state only by one whose mind- or let us say, whose thoughts - have transported him from this corporeal world into the world of spirits; there will he see the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) without the slightest doubt; there he will see all his friends.”  They were silent and said not a word when he...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is extracted from Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi’s ( q.s. ) “40 th Letter” to his student.   He wrote, “ Faqir , the secret action is seventy times better than the public action, as is reported in tradition.  Allah ( s.w.t. ) Knows best, but we think that the circle of dzikr which our brothers, the fuqara’ , hold publicly - standing and sitting, in zawiyyat and in houses, in isolated places and inhabited places - is in the same position as the secret action since this age is an age of heedlessness.  Heedlessness has overwhelmed people and taken hold of their hearts and limbs.  It has left them deaf, dumb and blind.  They have no intellect.  Fervour for the Diyn has suffered in a similar way, and thus making dzikr public and well-known is better than concealing it, especially the circle of dzikr .  It has great excellence and a clear secret since the Prophet ( s.a....

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ) instructed his followers in this most ancient dictum: There are three forms of knowledge.  The first is intellectual knowledge, which is in fact only information and the collection of facts, and the use of these to arrive at further intellectual concepts.  This is intellectualism.  Second comes the knowledge of states, which includes both emotional feeling and strange states of being in which man thinks that he has perceived something supreme but cannot avail himself of it.  This is emotionalism.  Third comes real knowledge, which is called knowledge of reality.  In this form, man can perceive what is right, what is true, beyond the boundaries of though and sense.   Scholastics and scientist concentrate upon the first form of knowledge.  Emotionalist and experientialist use the second form.  Others use the two combined, or either one...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is extracted from the “Letters” of Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-‘Arabi ad-Darqawi ( q.s. ).   He wrote, “The ruh and the nafs are the same luminous thing from the world of light.   Allah Knows best, faqir , but it is not two different things even though it has two descriptions: purity and turbidity.   The root is purity and the branch is turbidity.   If were to you ask, ‘How is that?’ I would reply that as long as the ruh retains its purity, excellence, radiance, beauty, nobility, height and elevation, then only the name ‘ ruh ” is true for it.   When it leaves its original purity, excellence, radiance, honour, height, and elevation, and becomes turbid by leaving its homeland and relying on other than its loved ones, then it is true to call it ‘ nafs ’.   We can designate it according to its low ranks – ‘commanding evil’, ‘reproachful’, and other names, and we can also designate it ac...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Running a da’wah campaign is akin to a branding exercise for a product line.   In this case, the product may perhaps be classified as afterlife insurance.   Truth be told, how do we brand Islam?   If we believe that it is a superior product, we must be able to convince the potential customer.   What makes it better?   What makes it a viable alternative?   What are the special features?   It is difficult to think like a non-Muslim. Does Islam offer salvation?   So, does every religion.   Would anyone join a religion that does not offer some form of salvation?   And what sort of salvation?   Gardens with rivers flowing seem so passé.   Or the tired slogan, “Islam is Peace.”   Then, how do we explain the fact that almost every other conflict involves Muslims.   Sometimes on both sides.   Or that Muslims get offended over food, over cartoons, over things people said and st...