Riyadat an-Nafs

Two Muslim brothers who were studying overseas were sharing a room which had bunk beds. So one of the brothers requested to sleep at the bottom bed, and the other was more than happy to grant his request because people usually prefer the upper beds.

One day they were both out at night, and the one whose bed is on top came home very late, and he was so tired and sleepy that he couldn’t bother go up to his bed, so he slept on his roommate’s bed. The roommate had still not come home yet.

When he woke up, he found his roommate sleeping on the floor. He said to him: I took your bed, why didn’t you climb up to sleep in mine?

So he answered: You are a hafiz, you carry the Qur’an in your breast. I didn’t want to sleep above it.

…that I heard today from a shaykh I like:

1) Try to stay up the night in Qiyam al-Layl, praying many rak’as, not just for your sake, but for ppl around you. For example, if you are praying many rak’as deep in the night, and in the corner of the room a child is sleeping, perhaps Allah will bless the child and forgive him because of your salaats. The companions used to pray hundreds of rak’as.

2) Try to recite Qur’an and pray salaat in as many places of your home as possible, especially rooms that people don’t pray in. Pray in the rooms of your family, when they’re not there, perhaps it might benefit them.

And two pieces of advice from another shaykh who was also there:

1) This Ramadan, pray for the Muslims of Palestine, of Iraq, of Afghanistan, and everywhere else, in every rak’at, in every sujood, in every qiyam, in every breath you take. Keep praying for the Ummah.

2) Remember the first night of Raman (the night before the first day of Ramadan). On that night, Allah Most High looks upon His servants, and whoever Allah looks upon (with the eye of care), they will never taste the fire.

go to www.soufia.tv, and find the channel on your satellite dish!

And if you can read Arabic, remember to download this free book: Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari’s Asraar al-Siyaam

riyada.hadithuna.com/the-secrets-of-fasting/

Ramadan Mubarak!

wassalam!

Bism Allah ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem, wassalaatu wassalaamu ‘alaa nabiyyihil kareem wa aalihi wa sahbihi ajma’een.

I went this week to visit a cave that is said to be the cave of the sleepers mentioned in Surat al-Kahf. There are other locations that claim to be that cave: at least one in Syria and one in Turkey. Evidence for this one is that they found the bones of seven men and the skull of a dog, and that the place has engravings and other remains from Roman times. It was also thought to be the Cave of the Sleepers since Umayyad Times, and there are Umayyad, Abbasid, Tulunid and Mamluk remains preserved inside the cave.

Raqeem

The Qur’an says “the People of the Cave and the raqeem” (18:9), and there has been great controversy among the Quranic commentators on what the word raqeem means. Most said it refers to a book or inscription on which their story was written down after their death and placed in the cave, but it is all guessing. However, it seems that the area where the Cave exists is called Raqeem, and if this name was really there since before the revelation of the Qur’an, then the mystery is solved! Raqeem is the name of the area of the cave! This possibility is mentioned in the famous commentary of shaykh as-Sawi who said that it is said that it is either the valley, mountain, or town in which the cave is found.

Waseed

On a similar note, the Qur’an says that their dog was stretching his arms in the waseed (18:18). One time shaykh Ahmad Abd al-Jawad ad-Doumi, who was Cairo’s Mudeer al-Wa’dh (i.e director or supervisor of the preachers in Cairo),  went early to the Azhar Mosque on a Friday morning to read Surat al-Kahf (as it is sunna to read it on Fridays), and when he got to this verse, he wanted to know what the word waseed meant, but his home was far away so he couldn’t look it up, so he decided to go give his lesson and then look it up when he went back home later in the day.

After the Jum’a prayers was the regular lesson of Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari, and shaykh ad-Doumi went and sat among the listeners to listen to Shaykh Saleh’s dars. He had been explaining a verse from the Qur’an not from Surat al-Kahf. Then he stopped and went quiet, and began reading verses from Surat al-Kahf, until he got to verse 18:18 and said: “The dog stretched its arms in this-and-that manner, and the meaning of waseed is the dooryard. Now, back to our lesson, my beloveds!”

Shaykh ad-Doumi says: “I said within myself: Jazak Allah Ta’ala Khayr. And this is from the light of Allah.”

An Important Qur’anic Principle

“(Some) say: (They are) three, the fourth of them being their dog; and (others) say: Five, the sixth of them being their dog, making conjectures at what is unknown; and (others yet) say: Seven, and the eighth of them is their dog. Say: My Lord best knows their number, none knows them but a few…” (18:22)

The Qur’an uses the expression: rajman bil ghayb, which literally means: throwing into the unseen, and has been translated here as “making conjectures at what is unknown”.

Imam Ibn Kathir says: Allah Most High gave three sayings, which indicates that no one has said a fourth possibility. Then, He weakened the first two sayings by saying “rajman bil ghayb“, meaning: without knowledge, as one who throws something at a place he doesn’t know, for he can barely hit the target, and if he does then it is not intended. Then He mentioned the third saying and remained quiet, which indicates its correctness, and that it is the reality of the matter.

Imam al-Shatibi explains this better in his book al-Muwafaqaat when discussing important principles in the Qur’an. He says that the Qur’an never quotes something false or presents a false belief without showing its falseness and giving the right answer instead. Then among his examples is this verse, saying that because the first two sayings were incorrect, the Qur’an showed that by dismissing the guesses as “rajman bil ghayb“, but when it said nothing dismissing the third saying then we know it has to be true. For the Qur’an can never leave something untrue without explicitly and clearly denying its truth.

Blessed Names

The early commentators even wanted to know the names of the People of the Cave, and it was almost agreed upon that the name of their dog is Qatmeer.

Ibn Arabi says that it has been related in the hadith that the Messenger of Allah (salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam) said: “Teach your children the names of the People of the Cave for if they were written on the door of a house it would not burn down, and upon belongings they would not be stolen, and on a ship it would not sink”.

(However you should note that this hadith is not in any known collection.)

Ibn Arabi continues by saying: Their names are:

يمليخا مكسملينا مثلينا مرنوش دبرنوش شاذنوش كفشططيوش قطمير

“Copied from the noble book The Treasury of Secrets and we have written it as we found it.”

(That’s seven and the last is Qatmeer the name of the dog).

Shaykh as-Sawi relates the same hadith, but without attributing it to the Prophet, only saying “It was said by some: Teach your children..etc”

But he says that Ibn Abbas, radi Allahu ‘anh said: The names of the People of the Cave have a special benefit for nine things: requests, escape, for extinguishing a fire it is written on piece of cloth and thrown on the fire and it will be extinguished inshaAllah, for the crying of babies… for riding on the land and in sea, for the protection of money, for the growth of the intellect, and the salvation of the sinners.

( I skipped three that were hard to translate. Also, except for the dog and the first name, there are slight differences in the names between the list by Ibn Arabi and the list by as-Sawi.)

In the Islamic Gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London you will find a historic fireplace with the names written on the tiles for protection.

“I Don’t Know”

Al-Hasan al-Basri was asked: “What is the color of the dog of the People of the Cave?”

He said: Allahu a’lam.

The questioner said: You sit, and you teach, and you say “I don’t know” ?! Is this a place for the ignorant?

He replied: “Yes, this place of mine is the place of he who does not know, as for he who doesn’t not know, he has no place, for he might give a fatwa on something on which he has no knowledge.”

Lucky Dog

Scholars have listed the animals that will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment and entered into Paradise, and among them are the camel of Prophet Saleh (alayhi assalaatu wassalaam) and the dog of the People of the Cave.

Because of this, a famous line of poetry says:

فاز كلب بحبه آل كهف * كيف أشقى بحب آل النبي

A dog has won by loving the Ahl al-Kahf,

How can I be of the wretched when I love the Ahl al-Nabiyy?

Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari expanded this by saying:

A dog has won by loving the Ahl al-Kahf,

for they are awliyaa of a Lord Most High (aliyy)

So the dog was saved from being lost, ever dead,

how can I be of the wretched when I love the Ahl al-Nabiyy?

A dog has won by loving the Ahl al-Kahf

we have loved totally the Ahl of Ali

Those who praised them have won their kindness

How can I be of the wretched when I love the Ahl al-Nabiyy?

A dog has won by loving the Ahl al-Kahf

we have loved totally the Ahl of Ali

And the lover of the generous ones receives the best kindness

How can I be of the wretched when I love the Ahl al-Nabiyy?

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

From Anas ibn Malik radi Allahu ‘anh that the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi said:

“If you pass by the gardens of Paradise, then eat from them!” They said: “And what are the gardens of Paradise oh Messenger of Allah?” He said: “The circles (halaqas) of dhikr“. (Narrated by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Tirmidhi, and al-Bayhaqi).

Sayyidi Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari said that his shaykh sayyidi Muhammad ash-Sharif ibn sayyidi Abd al-’Aali ibn sayyidi Ahmad ibn Idris, may Allah be pleased with them said:

“It is taken from this the desirability of coming together in circles of dhikr, and that the knowers find pleasure in the dhikr of Allah Most High like the people of Paradise find pleasure in its bliss”.

I wanted to explore the gardens of Paradise in the little desert country of Jordan, so I contacted someone who’s been to most of them and got some information on where to go.

I began with Dar al-Iman, home of the Khalwatiyya Rahmaniyya Jaami’a tariqa. The tariqa was founded by shaykh as-sayyid Abd al-Rahman ash-Sharif. The shaykh began as a Khalwati, but later took all of the following tariqas and combined them all into his tariqa: The Qadiriyya, Rifa’iyya, Ahmadiyya (of sidi Ahmad al-Badawi), Dasouqiyya, Shadhiliyya-Yashrutiyya, Naqshabandiyya, and the Idrisiyya (aka Ahmadiyya Muhammadiyya) through the line of sidi Ibrahim ar-Rashid. Thus the tariqa is called the Khalwatiyya Rahmaniyya Jaami’a: Al-Khalwatiyya because it was his first tariqa, al-Rahmaniyya because of his name Abd al-Rahman, and al-Jaami’a, meaning: combining and bringing together many.

Dar al-Iman was founded by his grandson, the current shaykh of the tariqa, shaykh Husni Hasan ash-Sharif. It is an absolutely impressive place: It has a large cultural centre that teaches the religious sciences and is mainly concerned with teaching memorization of the Qur’an for free to anyone or any group that needs it, at about any time and any day. They also have an orphanage and a charity center, with a group of minivans to help with their work. Then they have the mosque which includes a room that is considered the zawiya. In it the murids meet every day after maghreb to read their daily wird until Isha time. But the shaykh reads his wirds in his own time I think, and because of all his busy work, leaves his deputy to lead the wird. I only went once, on a Saturday, and there were about 10 people, but they said that on Thursdays it’s much bigger so they do it in a bigger hall beneath the mosque. The wird consists of salawaat, a few beautiful poems by the founder of the tariqa, one of which is modelled after the Burda, and a selection of Quranic suras. The people there were beautiful and I loved it. Very quiet and serene. You get the feeling that this is such a blessed place: that Allah Most Generous blessed them in their actions and their charity work, and in the teaching of the Qur’an, and made from this place a great centre of light for the city.

Next was the Zawiya of Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, where the Shadhili-Darqawi-Hashimi tariqa is lead by shaykh Nuh Keller. I went there twice. Once a few weeks ago, for the Latifiyya dhikr, and yesterday for the hadra. The zawiya is absolutely beautiful, full of noor, very serene, and immaculately designed. When you first enter the zawiya, there is a door on the right to a room in which lessons are taught, and the door is called Bab al-Qurb (The Door of Nearness).

I took my friend Humzah who’s visiting from London yesterday to the Hadra, and was explaining to him my previous experience of the Latifiyya. I said to him: The shaykh came in and sat down, did the dhikr, then began giving a lesson with a very faint voice, as if only talking to himself, and then stood up and left. It was as if there was no one else in the room. You had to strain to hear him talk. He said to me: Maybe that’s because there was no one in the room. Maybe if we had a shaykh with us, it would be different. I said: You’re right, maybe none of us matter!

The shaykh said a couple very important things:

1) If you want to know if you are one of the elect, or on the path of the elect, then ask yourself one simple question: Do you pray Fajr in the mosque with the jamaa’a? If you do, then glad tidings! And if you don’t, then you have none to blame but yourself!

2) He read to us some of the ishaaraat, the signs that sayyidi Abul Hasan al-Shadhili understood from a verse of the Qur’an that talks about how some people are blessed by daughters, others by sons, others by sons and daughters, and others bear no children. Sayyidi al-Shadhili said that the daughters stand for the actions, and the sons stand for the spiritual states. Having both is combining both, and having none is to be at great loss, having neither actions nor states! The important thing that shaykh Nuh said is that such an interpretation is NOT a deeper meaning of the verse. This meaning is not in the verse itself. It is simply something that occurs to the shaykh according to his spiritual state at the time. It’s more of a meaning that is inspired by the words of the verse, not a meaning from the verse itself.

After hearing these very important words from shaykh Nuh, I found the following while flipping through the teachings of sayyidi Shams al-Tabrizi:

Listen to the Qur’an’s exegesis from God. If you listen to any exegesis other than God’s, that is the exegesis of the speaker’s state, not the exegesis of the Qur’an.

Finally is the Mosque of Imam al-Rawwass, which seems to be the unofficial centre of sufism in Amman, or the great sufi mosque of Amman. I had planned to visit it tonight, this Thursday, but passed by it on the way to visit the Cave of the Seven Sleepers a few days ago, which I had not been to before, with a guest from America. Coming up near the mosque, I spotted beautiful green domes with the same shade of green as the domes of the Masjid Nabawi of Madina- salla Allahu alaa sayyidina Muhammadain wa ‘alaa aalih!- and I thought, wow, what a great looking mosque. So when I passed by it I read “Imam al-Rawwass Mosque” and I thought: SubhanAllah! I found the mosque I want to go to on Thursday! So on the way back from the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, I stopped by it, to have a look, and was amazed. I had never seen anything like this mosque. On the outside, the mosque has three doors. The first one you pass by is the Bab al-Tawba (The Door of Repentance). Then you continue to the one in the middle of the mosque, which is called Bab al-Quds (The Door of Purity/Sanctity), and finally, the third door, from which we were told to enter, was the Bab al-Hadra (The Door of Presence).

When you step into this mosque in the daytime, you are transported into somewhere else. The carpets are green. The paint on the walls is green. The windows are colored green, so that the entire mosque is completely green. You are swimming in the color green. I have never seen anything like it. The wall around the mihrab is painted gold, and this gold seems to mix greatly with the green. It’s like the air around you is colored green! We found two Jordanian shaykhs from the Tableeghi Jamaa’at, who had been out in the area for da’wa, and were having a break at this mosque. Of course I couldn’t escape the 10 minute talk, but I like tableeghis and inshaAllah will write about them very soon!

Then we went up to the second floor and found a halaqa of ‘ilm: A young man was teaching nine young boys, about 12-years old, about death and resurrection. SubhanAllah, mashaAllah, Laa ilaaha illa Allah! I joined them for 5 minutes to be blessed by the gathering, knowing that the Angels and the spirits of the awliya surround such halaqas.

Then I came again this night with my friend Humzah, for the hadra after Isha. But turns out we were truly fortunate, as because of the 15th of Sha’ban, it was a very special night. There were a group of young turbaned Ulamaa there, as well as important shuyukh, including the famous shaykh Hazim Abu Ghazaleh, a shadhili shaykh with a large following in Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. He had given a lesson between maghreb and Isha, we were told.

After being led by shaykh Abu Ghazaleh in the Isha prayers, we were taken up to the second floor to eat dinner: large trays of mansaf, the Jordanian national dish, were brought to feed the very large number of people. After that, we went back down for the dhikr.

Imam al-Rawwass was a great wali of the Rifa’iyya tariqa from the late 19th century, and so this was a Rifa’i mosque. We read from three different books written by the current shaykh and imam of the mosque: The scholar Nasir al-Din al-Khateeb. First we read from the book of awraad some praise of Allah Most High, then from the Book of Salawaat, some salawaat on the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, then from the book of the poems of Imam al-Rawwass. Then there was a hadra, followed by Quran recitation and lessons of ‘ilm by two of the scholars.

For the blessings I will mention this Hadith Qudsi that one of the scholars mentioned:

He said that the sky said to Allah Most High: Let me fall down in pieces upon the people of this Earth, for they have eaten what you have given them of blessings, and have not thanked you. And the oceans said: Let me drown the people of this Earth, for they have eaten of your blessings and not thanked you! And the Earth said: Let me swallow the people, for they have eaten of your blessings and not thanked you! So Allah Most High said: Leave them, for if they thank me  then I am their Lover, and if they do not, then I am their Doctor!

He also said that a righteous shaykh was seen in a dream after he died and asked what Allah did with him. He said: I stood before Allah, who said to me: What have you brought to me, what do you have to offer me? So the shaykh said: Oh Allah, I am a slave, and what can a slave possibly bring to offer his Master? So Allah said: Go (to Paradise), for I have forgiven you!

Both ulamaa talked about Tassawwuf and its place in Islam, then shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Khateeb talked about the satellite TV channel that this mosque was creating, which should start airing in about four days. It’s called Soufiyya, and it will air the lessons of ‘ilm that take place regularly in this mosque, as well as the dhikr. He said: I don’t want to say that the time of the deniers has come to an end, but I will say that the time for the real Sufism, that is based on Shari’a, to appear and flourish!

The person who was next to me in the dhikr, in his early twenties, said to me: It’s been three years since I last did a hadra! I feel so good! We used to do dhikr like this every Friday after Jum’ah in Nablus (Palestine), and people would come from all over the country, from inside Israeli cities, and from Jerusalem, to join it. You could see lights coming out of the place, it was marvelous!

I said to him, why haven’t you gone for three years? He said, I was in an Israeli prison! Then he showed me his bullet wounds. He had been shot by a rubber bullet in his left knee, and by one of those special Israeli bullets that explode inside the body for maximum damage, on the right chest, leaving a huge wound across his chest and into the beginning of his shoulder! He said: “They shot me then captured me!”

He was just released last month and came to Jordan, and will go back to Palestine inshaAllah next month. If you do not know, Palestine used to be a completely Sufi country before the Israeli invasion, with a very high concentration of ashraaf (descendants of the Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam) and Sufis. I think it came third in both after Madina and Mecca.

Everyone there was given a free copy of each of the three books (awraad, salawaat, poems), all beautifully published.

After the night ended, Humzah and I went to talk to shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Khateeb. He said that he liked us and wanted us to come again, and then looked at Humzah and said about him: “He is a moon but he hides it! Many great people hide their greatness!” Then he told us many wonderous things, but this has become too long, so I will have to end it here.

والحمد لله رب العالمين على نعمه كلها

اللهم صلّ وسلم وبارك على سيدنا ومولانا محمد خير البرية

وعلى آله في كل لمحة ونفس عدد ما وسعه علم الله

There are two beautiful lines of poetry by one of the greatest Arab poets, and one of my personal favorites, the warrior-poet Abu Firas al-Hamadani. These lines have become a favorite of Sufis, and for example, shaykh al-Arabi al-Darqawi tells us that when his shaykh Ali al-Jamal was asked what his favorite poem was, he recited these lines. Shaykh Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din (Martin Lings), rahimahullah, translated them in his Sufi Poems: A Mediaeval Anthology, despite the fact that they were not in origin Sufi poetry, because they have been “as it were annexed into Sufism”. 

A third line is sometimes added to them by Sufis, and Sayyidi shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari  used to repeat them often in his lessons.

I translated the third line as well and, for extra benefit, I will also include the context in which shaykh Saleh quoted the lines in one of his lessons:

Sayyidi shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari said that the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam said:

“Oh Allah, you took me out of the most beloved place on Earth to me, so put me to live in the most beloved place on Earth to you!” (Narrated by al-Haakim and Ibn Sa’d).

According to this hadith, Madina is the most beloved place on Earth to Allah Most High.

The Ka’ba is the House of Allah Most  High, and the Prophet- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- is the beloved of Allah. Allah the Transcendent loves Madina for the sake of the beloved, and loves Mecca for the sake of His House.

So the Prophet- salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- is more beloved to Allah Most High than the House.

Allah does this with his Messengers, alayhim assalaatu wassalaam:

Leave your family for His sake, and leave your home for His sake. So if you turn to Him then don’t say: My home! Don’t say: My loved ones!

فليتك تحلو والحياة مريرة * وليتك ترضى والأنام غضابُ

وليت الذي بيني وبينك عامرٌ * وبيني وبين العالمين خرابُ

إذا صحّ منك الودّ فالكلّ هيّنٌ * وكل الذي فوق التراب ترابُ

So Thou be sweet, let life run bitterly;

So Thou be pleased, let men be wroth with me;

So all things flourish between me and Thee,

Let all between me and the world in ruins be.

All is easy if  true is Thy love for me,

And all that’s above the dust is dust to me.

The Night of Forgiveness

Imam Ahmad, al-Bayhaqi, al-Tabarani, al-Daraqutni and others narrated that the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam said that Allah will forgive everyone on the night of the 15th of Sha’ban except one who associates partners with Him, and the mushaahin (one in whose heart is shahnaa’: spite and enmity).

And al-Daraqutni and others related that the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam said, that on the night of the 15th of Sha’ban, Allah will forgive the believers and delay the punishment of the disbelievers, except the people of spite (hiqd), whom He will leave until they leave it.

قال ابن المبارك : سمعت الأوزاعى يفسر المشاحن بكل صاحب بدعة مفارق للجماعة.
وفى رواية عن الأوزاعى : ليس المشاحن الذى لا يكلم الرجل، إنما المشاحن الذى في قلبه شحناء لأصحاب رسول الله – صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم – .
وروى عن عمر بن هانئ : سألت ابن ثوبان عن المشاحن فقال: هو التارك لسنة نبيه – صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم – الطاعن على أمته، السافك دماءهم.

Imam Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak said that he heard Imam al-Awza’i explain the mushaahin (one in whose heart is spite and enmity) as: every person of innovation, who has left the jamaa’a and the ummah.

And Umar ibn Hani’ said: I asked Ibn Thawban about the mushaahin, he said:

He is the one who has left the sunna of his Prophet – salla Allahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sallam- who speaks ill of his ummah, and spills their blood.

It is also called The Night of Life (Laylat al-Hayaah) because of the hadith:

“He who brings to life the nights of the two Eids and the night of mid-Sha’ban, his heart will not die on the day when hearts shall die.” (Narrated by al-Mundhiri)

Meaning: His heart will not be corrupted by love of the dunya so that it keeps him busy from good works and the duties of the religion, as it has been related: “Do not sit with the dead”, meaning: those whose hearts have been corrupted by love of the dunya.

And the meaning of “his heart will not be corrupted” (on the day when hearts shall die) :

That it will not be confused when his soul is taken, in the grave, and during the Resurrection.

———-

For more in Arabic, see the Risalat al-Kashf wal Bayaan ‘an Fadaail Laylat an-Nisf min Sha’ban by shaykh Salem al-Sanhouri, edited by Shaykh Saleh al-Jaafari:

(www.algaafary.com/ar/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Itemid=1)

For more in English, see this translation and summary of what is in the Ghunya of Shaykhul Islam Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani:

(riyada.hadithuna.com/15th-of-shaban/)