Saturday, February 18, 2017

'Reclaim Your Spiritual Self'

My Friday sermon is addressed to members of the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam and also to everyone. 

Each one of you must exhort to mutual love, generosity, the practice of Islam and the knowledge of oneself.

The Paradoxes in the 'Muslim'Condition

The one for whom the word Allah was a viaticum (that is, the Muslim) is now under the control of attachment to material goods and the fear of death. Drunkenness (in favour of Spirituality/ to lose oneself in Spirituality), fervour and joy have deserted him: His religion is found in the book, and he is himself in the grave. The soul has left the body of fasting and prayer and other pillars of Islam; And as the soul has left prayer and fasting, the individual is without harmony and people without discipline, hearts being empty of the warmth of the Quran. How can we hope for an improvement from such men? 

O Allah! The Muslim has abandoned the self, hold out Your hand to him, for the water covers him higher than the head. The prostration (in Salaat) that makes the earth tremble has the power to make the sun and the moon turn according to its desire. If it were to seek the meaning of this prostration, the stone would vanish in the air like smoke! But now the Muslim no longer knows humility, there is nothing else in him but the weakness of old age. Who still realizes the majesty of the words spoken during the prostration: "My Lord (Allah) is Most High" (Allahu Akbar)? Is all this due to our fault, or is it believed that there is some weakness (may Allah preserve us from this thought) in these words? 

Everyone moves quickly on his own path. Only our mount is without bridle and roams endlessly without a goal. Possessing the Quran and having no ardour for research is a very strange thing. If the Lord has endowed you with vision, look at the coming times: rash reasons and hearts without ardour, eyes without shame and drowned in illusion, science and art, religion and politics, intelligence and sensibility, everything revolves around material things. Young people have thirsty lips, but their cup is empty; The faces are well washed, but the soul is black; The intelligence is luminous but has only a weak vision, it is devoid of certainty and hope. The young people's eyes have seen nothing in the world: They are poor beings, denying themselves, believing others.

Acquire Knowledge of the Self

O my disciples, be always sincere in all your actions; Free yourself from the fear of kings, so-called superpowers and potentates. Do not renounce justice in anger or contentment; Keep moderation, whether you are rich or poor. The precept is difficult, do not ingeniously try to interpret it.

Do not look for a torch except in your own hearts. The support of the souls is the Zikr and the Fikr, and as for the support of the bodies, it is in the respect of oneself during youth. In this world as in the other, power is acquired only by the maintenance of the soul and the body. The purpose of the journey is the joy of contemplation (i.e. contemplation of Allah as the Unique Creator). The secret of religion consists in saying truthful words and abstaining from forbidden food. Solitude and companionship is to contemplate the Divine Beauty. In the way of religion, be unbreakable like the diamond. Bind your hearts to Allah, and live without vain scruples.


Cultivate Good Morals

The whole religion is to burn in research (seeking Allah); Its end is love and its beginning courtesy. The honour of the rose is its colour and its perfume; He who is ignorant of courtesy is without honour, like a rose without colour and without perfume. When I see an adolescent lacking in good manners, my day darkens, my breast fills with impatience and anger; I remember the time of my beloved prophet, the most perfect of all the prophets, Muhammad (pbuh), I am sorry for the epoch which I am living in (but Allah knows better why He raised me in such an epoch), and would have wish to retreat in the vanished (good) centuries. 

The safeguarding of the woman is her husband (and vice-versa), or the dust of the tomb; The safeguarding of men is to avoid bad companions. To pronounce wicked words is a sin: the wicked (and disbeliever) and the believer are both creatures of Allah. Humanity is the respect of man: therefore know his dignity. It is human solidarity that makes you a man; So walk in the path of friendship and Islamic brotherhood.

Embrace Piety for Divine Illuminations

The servant of love receives from God the indication of his way; He becomes an affectionate friend to the impious as well as to the believer. Get rid of impiety and embrace piety and drink at the Divine Source as a thirsty one for divine love. Although the heart is a prisoner of terrestrial contingencies, all its horizons are the horizons of the heart. Even if you are a lord (that is, someone of high status and wealthy), do not renounce the detachment, do not give it up! Its flame may be drowsy without your souls; This old wine exists since your forefathers. Seek in this world only the passion of the heart, that is to say, Allah, for it is to Allah alone that we must ask prosperity, not to the Sultan/ King or to anyone else! 

Oh how the man fearing Allah and endowed with vision is blinded by the abundance of goods! The abundance of (material) goods  removes warmth from the heart, it brings prosperity but carries away the thirst of the heart. During the journeys that Allah has allowed me to undertake in the last few years in the world, I have seen few tears in the eyes of the rich.

Oh how much I would like to give my life in the manner of my Holy Master, Muhammad (pbuh), the Chosen Par Excellence of God. He, of noble rank, but tender of heart fought with the satans of the world and of the self in order to allow the flight of his soul towards THE BELOVED (Allah). He wore the garment of (material) poverty in order to reach the stage of beloved of God. Woe to him who does not follow the path of the Chosen One (pbuh) and who is alien to Allah. Do not seek in the present Muslims this spiritual taste, this ardent desire of old. Do not seek that conviction, that colour, that perfume, that thirst and fervour of yore! Now, scholars do not need Quranic science. They rely on their own interpretation of the religion of Allah. They are like ferocious wolves and shaggy beings.


Then it is your duty O my disciples, and those who will listen to me to break the material barriers and vain desires that separate man from his Creator. Satan is an impious creature who is burning with jealousy. He cannot look at the Creator's love which He has for you. So drive away the jealous and come even closer with Him who gave you everything. He alone (Allah) is the salvation of your soul and the paradise of your heart. Trust in Him and build your future in obedience to His commandments and messengers. Insha-Allah, Ameen.

---Friday Sermon of February 03, 2017 (05 Jamad'ul Awwal 1438 AH) delivered by Khalifatullah Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Saheb (atba) of Mauritius