A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Shahab ad-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Mursi ( q.s. ) said, “At the beginning of the business, I was in Alexandria and went to someone who knew me.   I bought something I needed from him for half a dirham .   I said to myself, ‘Perhaps he will not take it from me.’   An invisible voice said to me, ‘Safety in the diyn lies in abandoning greed for creatures.’   I also heard him say, ‘Someone with greed will never be full.   Do you not see that all its letters are hollow: ta’ , mim and ‘ayn ?’”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Shahab ad-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Mursi ( q.s. ) said,  “ When the common people are frightened, they fear.   When they are made hopeful, they hope.   When the elite are frightened, they hope, and when they are given hope, they fear.”   Shaykh Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Atha’illah as-Sakandari ( q.s. ) said, in Latha’if al-Minan , “The meaning of these words of the shaykh , is that the common people stop with the outward business.   So when they are frightened, they fear since they cannot pass beyond the expression by the light of understanding which the people of Allah possess.   When the people of Allah are frightened, they hope, knowing that beyond their fear and beyond their fear are the attributes of the One they hope for.   One must not despair of His Mercy nor give up hope of His Grace.   So they, therefore, strive for the qualities of His Generosity, knowing...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Shaykh Shahab ad-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Mursi ( q.s. ) said, “Whoever has no shaykh in this business has no joy.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ This is extracted from Latha’if al-Minan , of Shaykh Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Atha’illah as-Sakandari ( q.s. ).   Shaykh Shahab ad-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Mursi ( q.s. ) said, “When I was a young boy, there was a shadow play being put on beside our house, so I went to see it.   When I went the next morning to see the teacher at the Qur’anic school, who was a friend of Allah ( s.w.t. ), a saint, he uttered the following lines of poetry when he saw me:   You who behold shadow images in wonderment, You yourself are the shadow if only you could perceive it!”   He also said, “One night, I had a vision in which I was in the celestial realm, when there appeared to me, a dark-skinned man of short stature with a large beard.   He said to me, ‘Say, ‘O Allah, Forgive Muhammad’s people.   O Allah, have Mercy upon Muhammad’s people.   O Allah, Cast Your Veil of Protection over Muh...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is adapted from Signs on the Horizons by Shaykh Harun Michael Sugich.   “‘Abd al-Halim Mujahid was not a Sufi.   In fact, he was a Salafi who was against the practice of Sufism.   But he had a business acquaintance that encouraged him to consult with the Shaykh of al-Azhar before deciding on where to build his mosque.   When they met, the Shaykh of al-Azhar immediately recommended that the businessman build a mosque beside the newly re-discovered tomb of Shaykh ibn ‘Atha’illah ( q.s. ).   ‘Abd al-Halim came away from the meeting with profound misgivings, and went back to his Salafi friends who talked him out of building a mosque beside the tomb of a Sufi.   Then he had a vivid dream. In the dream he was standing before the famous Mosque of Abu al-‘Abbas al-Mursi, in Alexandria.   Abu al-‘Abbas al-Mursi, the heir of Imam ash-Shadzili, was ibn Atha’illah’s spiritual master and predecesso...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Atha‘illah as-Sakandari ( q.s. ) wrote, in Taj al-‘Arus al-Hawi li Tahdzib an-Nufus , “I heard our shaykh , Abu al-‘Abbas al-Mursi, say, ‘The gnostic has neither this world nor the Hereafter, because this world is for his Hereafter, and his Hereafter is for his Lord.’  The states of the companions and the pious predecessors are to be understood in light of this.”