MSH.3 Sept 2009.POST.ENG.

Stories of Awliyas and Their Mureeds- Ubaydullah al-Amawi (Volume 8)

 

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani

3 Sept 2009    Fenton, Michigan

 

   

A`udhu billahi min 'ash-shaytaani 'r-rajeem
Bismillahi 'r-rahmani
'r-raheem

Nawaytu'l-arba`een, nawaytu'l-`itikaaf, nawaytu'l-khalwah, nawaytu'l-riyaadah,
nawaytu's-salook, nawaytu'l-`uzlah lillahi ta`ala fee hadha'l-masjid
ati` Allah wa ati` ar-rasula wa uli 'l-amri minkum

So we discussed yesterday about the questions that Ubaydullah al-Amawi asked Sayyidina Abdul Khaliq Ghudjawani after he had brought him to the first step in his journey to realities and put him in the level that he can be in.  And no one can be in a level higher than what he can take.

 

And after he put him, he said, "Ya sayyidee, I have problems that I need to resolve."  Should we repeat the questions?  We will summarize it.  He said, "These are still going through my mind."  He said, "Of course, because you didn't submit completely.  Even though you reached that level you are still shaking." Because as you reach level after level, above every knowledge there is knowledge and above every knower another knower. For example, you reached level a, there is level b, level c, d - so any level you reach you have questions about level that is above.  As much as more knowledge comes to you, then as much more questions come to you, unless you submit completely to Allah as Prophet (s) used to submit to Allah.  He never asked one question in Qur'an.  He used to wait for the answer to come.  

Sayyidina Musa (as) is example; whatever level he was going, more questions, more questions.  This is teaching, that through Sayyidina Musa, Allah teaching Ummat an-Nabi.  And that is to show between different messengers and our Prophet (s).  And that is why Sayyidina Khidr said to Sayyidina Musa, "You cannot have patience with me. Whatever I am going to do, you will have questions."  So that big scholar Ubaydullah al-Amawi, he asked those questions.  He said, "When Allah offered us our trusts and all our promises and duties, that uhood, (that means everything that we have accepted in Day of Promises from duties of worshipness), when Allah offered us our trust and we accepted all these duties, and all these worshipness that we accepted, when we said 'Yes', who said, 'Yes'?  Who accepted?  Is it the ruh that is mentioned in Verse "وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِي  - wa nafakhtu feehi min roohee - I breathed into him of My spirit,"?  Is it qudrah?  Is it the secret of al-Khaaliq, the One who creates, that ocean from endless oceans?  From where is that?  Who answered?  What is that ruh?  That is one of the questions I am asking.

For what to ask?  You want to show you know something?  Wait until Allah opens it!  Why asking as if you know something?  "Or is it the ruh that the two angels blow in the womb of the mother, after four months pregnant?  Or is it ruh - there is difference from wa nafakhtu feehi min roohee and the other ruh mentioned that angels blow in the mother - or the ruh in the 366 different aduw, joints or points in human beings, that there are 366 points.  Is it the ruh that makes these points work together at the same time in a systematical way?"  One point touch on another point, when it moves on one point, the other will move and that is how the 366 move together.  And every point has a ruh by itself that make it working.  It means, what kind of angelic power makes these points work?  "What kind of ruh is that?  Or is it the ruh that Allah (swt) put between dunya and akhira when a person dies?  There is `alam al-barzakh, the world in between dunya and akhira.  Allah has His servant there in the grave.  What kind of ruh is that in the grave?  After all these different ruh, I am asking which one on the Day of Promises answered?  Is it all of them or one of them?  Then, if they answered, it means they have an existence?  What kind of existence they are existing in?  What kind of that existence?  Is it a combination between dunya existence and heavenly existence?  What combines them, is what?"  So all these questions coming into his mind.  After they gave the answer, the combination of different ruh that we mentioned, "Did Allah amaatahum?  Did Allah took back that power that he gave to answer, that ruh to answer, and left them deceased?  And if He left them deceased where they died?  In heavens?  They are not in earth.  If they died, they don't exist anymore.  Then where are they and what is the name of that level?  If Allah put them in a certain level in paradise, what is that level where they are waiting their turn to come to dunya?  That is my question for that period."  He said, "That is too much questions.  Is there more questions on the next level?"  He said, "Ya Sayyidee, I have too many questions."  

That means no one knows unseen except Allah. Don't try to dig, as the people of Musa, when Allah ordered them to slaughter a baqara (cow).  "Oh, where can we find that?"  "Find outside."  "But what color?  How many eyes?  How many ears?"  And it became very complicated, until they could not find any one like that except one.  And that one, you know how they found it?  They were looking to find that baqara -

وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَى لِقَوْمِهِ
إِنَّ اللّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تَذْبَحُواْ بَقَرَةً قَالُواْ
أَتَتَّخِذُنَا هُزُواً قَالَ أَعُوذُ بِاللّهِ أَنْ أَكُونَ مِنَ
الْجَاهِلِينَ  قَالُواْ ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ
يُبَيِّن لّنَا مَا هِيَ قَالَ إِنَّهُ يَقُولُ إِنَّهَا بَقَرَةٌ لاَّ
فَارِضٌ وَلاَ بِكْرٌ عَوَانٌ بَيْنَ ذَلِكَ فَافْعَلُواْ مَا تُؤْمَرونَ  قَالُواْ ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ
يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا لَوْنُهَا قَالَ إِنَّهُ يَقُولُ إِنّهَا بَقَرَةٌ
صَفْرَاء فَاقِـعٌ لَّوْنُهَا تَسُرُّ النَّاظِرِينَ  قَالُواْ ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُبَيِّن لَّنَا مَا هِيَ إِنَّ البَقَرَ تَشَابَهَ عَلَيْنَا وَإِنَّآ إِن شَاء اللَّهُ لَمُهْتَدُونَ قَالَ إِنَّهُ يَقُولُ إِنَّهَا
بَقَرَةٌ لاَّ ذَلُولٌ تُثِيرُ الأَرْضَ وَلاَ تَسْقِي الْحَرْثَ
مُسَلَّمَةٌ لاَّ شِيَةَ فِيهَا قَالُواْ الآنَ جِئْتَ بِالْحَقِّ
فَذَبَحُوهَا وَمَا كَادُواْ يَفْعَلُو

Wa idh qaala moosa li-qawmihi inna Allaha yamurukum an tadhbahoo baqaratan qaaloo atat-takhidhuna huzuwan qaala a`uthu billahi an akoona mina 'l-jaahileen.
Qaloo 'd`u lana rabbaka yubayyin lana maa hiya qaala innahu yaqoolu innaha baqaratun laa faaridun wa laa bikrun `awaanun baynadhalika fa'f`loo maa tu'maroon.
Qaloo 'd`u lana rabbaka yubayyin lana maa lawnuha qala innahu yaqoolu innaha baqaratun safrao faqi`un lawnuha tasurru an-naadhireen.
Qaloo 'd`u lana rabbaka yubayyin lana maa hiya inna al-baqara tashaabaha `alayna wa inna inshaa'Allahu la-muhtadoon.
Qaala innahu yaqoolu innaha baqaratun la dhaloolun tutheeru 'l-arda wa laa tasqee al-hartha musallamatun laa shiyata feeha qaaloo al-aana ji'ta bi 'l-haqqi fadhabahooha wa maa kaadoo yaf`aloon.
AND LO! Moses said unto his people: "Behold, God bids you to sacrifice a cow." [53] They said: "Dost thou mock at us?" He answered: "I seek refuge with God against being so ignorant!" [54]
Said they: "Pray on our behalf unto thy Sustainer that He make clear to us what she is to be like." [Moses] replied: "Behold, He says it is to be a cow neither old nor immature, but of art age in-between. Do, then, what you have been bidden!"
Said they: "Pray on our behalf unto thy Sustainer that He make clear to us what her colour should be. "[Mopes] answered: "Behold; He says it is to be a yellow cow, bright of hue, pleasing to the beholder."
Said' they: "Pray on our behalf unto thy Sustainer that He make clear to us what she is to be like, for to us all cows resemble one another; and then, if God so wills, we shall truly be guided aright!"
[Moses] answered: "Behold, He says it is to be a cow not broken-in to plough the earth or to water the crops, free of fault, without markings of any other colour."Said they: "At last thou hast brought out the truth!"-and thereupon they sacrificed her, although they had almost left it undone.
2:67-71

One question.  Look, it gave a whole journal about that cow! One cow took so much.  What do you think about the questions that Ubaydullah asking about trust and ruh etc.?  Dunya will end and not get the answers.  So when they began to make difficulties, then Allah made more complicated.  "Then what kind of cow?  Bikrun, a virgin, whether virgin or not?  Is it virgin or not?"  How they are going to check?!  Ask.  It means a young cow.  "What color?"  "Yellow, you can find a yellow cow?"  "Faqi`un lawnaha tasurr an-nadhireen", so bright that people likes to look at it.  They were looking, they cannot find.  Then they found.  One said, "When I was taking my goats on the mountain, on this mountain, very high mountain, Ararat mountain."  (MSH speaks to assembly)  You know Ararat mountain?  Where is Ararat?   Ask this one.  Where is Ararat?  (someone answers: "Between Armenia and Turkey.")  "There on Ararat mountain we saw a very old lady."  We don't know how old - 300, 400, 500 years.  And you know Sayyidina Nuh (as) lived 950 years?  And she has something like that.  

Then they have to send someone all the way to Ararat, from Jerusalem, all the way to find that cow.  They found that lady and they look at her and said, "How old are you?"  She said, "I don't know.  Raining on that mountain day and night until the water coming up the mountain."  It means she was from time of Sayyidina Nuh.  If Allah want to save, he will save.  So that is why in time of Mahdi (as) Last Day will not come until big war comes, big explosion in front of you and you are saved by Allah's will.  And so they found that cow and that is from time of Sayyidina Nuh.  But young also, a virgin.  That is the cow.  So they said, "Can we get it?"  "No, that is my only cow."  "What we give you to take it?"  "One thousand cows."   Where to get one thousand cows?  They were going to refuse Sayyidina Musa's order, they are so tight, stingy.  "We give you one thousand cows, we take one cow."  "Yes.  You like, you like.  If you don't, go."  So for those who are patient in their lives, you don't know what Allah reward at the end.  Be patient.  Because they cannot see future.  If they don't see future... surrender.  They can see what kind of reward they take for patience.  If not patient, they take these bottles and drink vodka, whiskey, wine.  They get drunk, because they cannot take it.  So Allah reward that lady with one thousand cows for that one cow.  So they took it and slaughtered it.  So that one asking question and question:  "What is it going to change from prayer and fasting and zakat?"  So if it opens, it opens, else keep quiet.

One time Mawlana Shaykh Nazim was in our home in Beirut, may Allah give him long life.  This was 1967 and he was explaining something and the verse of Qur'an came, "fa li kullin wijhun huwa muwaliha fastabiqoo al-khayraat".  I will explain the meaning.  He didn't, but it mean everyone has a direction that Allah put him in.  So compete for good.  Everyone has a way, direction to follow in his life.  You cannot say, "I want this or I want that."  Whatever is in your direction that is what you get.  Like a train on track.  So you are going to see what is there.  You cannot say, I want to jump to someone else's track.  No.  You are yourself and you are the one that Allah took the promise from you. That you will follow that direction, nothing else.  But what kind of ruh answered?  That still coming, but might delay till tomorrow.  Is that not better?  Or till end of Ramadan.  So I asked, like this one, asking Shaykh.  I asked Mawlana Shaykh.  He said, "No, I am not the one.  That question has to be asked to Grandshaykh when you go to Sham."  As Mawlana was having some problem, he could not visit.  "So when you go, ask him what is the meaning of that."  Because I was asking.  I was like many others today, like all of us today.  "Oh Sayyidee, where is my trust?"  "What is my real name?"  "Oh, what kind turban I put and how long the turban?"  "What is my real name?" and "Give me my amanah."  Too many questions.  He said, "Ask Grandshaykh.  In that verse is the secret:

وَلِكُلٍّ وِجْهَةٌ هُوَ مُوَلِّيهَا فَاسْتَبِقُواْ الْخَيْرَاتِ

Wa likullin wijhatun huwa muwalleeha f'astabiqoo 'l-khayraati - to each is a goal to which Allah turns him; then strive together (as in a race) (2:148) 
In that ayat the secret is there, he will explain it."  

So I went there and very anxious to reach.  I went up to Grandshaykh's room and I can't wait, I want to ask the question.  He looked at me and he didn't answer, and I knew he is not happy.  So then I said, "Mawlana Shaykh told me to ask you,".  And I threw it on Mawlana!  "So what is meaning of li kulli wijhun ...?  What is meaning?  He said, There is grand mufti in Damascus.  He can answer such question.  Go to him and ask. Here this is tariqah.  Here you sit with adab.  Come and wait for order."  I never saw anyone come to Grandshaykh, say, "I have this burden.  No.  Just come and take baraka and go.  Now people coming to Mawlana Shaykh, "I have this problem and this problem, etc."  Go and ask his prayer, that is enough.  He knows.  It will be more effective for your problem.  So he said, "Go to grand mufti."  Here is spirituality, and awliya don't like followers to ask questions, especially in knowledge.  They open for you what you can take; they don't open more than what you can take.  The mind always like to take more than it can take when the heart is not ready.  Like Ubaydullah al-Amawi, the answer come they know.  Like my uncle when he want to ask about ismuLlah al-`azham - Allah's Greatest Name - and Grandshaykh brought it without him asking.  He knew that is a miracle.

He said, "Oh my son, if you had looked at me, law nadharta ilayya bi 't-taslimiya al-mutlaq.  (May Allah give us that taste) If you looked at me with submission you will never need to ask." That means, "Although I put you in that level you are not yet ready to know the reality because you are not yet fully submitting to me."  Like Sayyid 'Abdul Wahhab ash-Sharani, when asked about `ilm al-batin wa `ilm al dhaahir.  He said, "We don't have inner and outer knowledge.  For us, we have already seen the hidden knowledge and they became for us outer realites.  Have become apparent to us so we have only one knowelge, that of reality."  Like Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi (we told many times the story) when he finally submit to that wali.  That wali took all his scholarly knowledge and remove and throw it.  All he knows is he is on the track.  After awhile he reappeared and pour into his heart real knowledge that he is no longer needing to ask.  Before he was asking Allah, "Open for me Your door." 

"Why you didn't take the key when he came to you" "Because you didn't submit."  Then Sayyidina Abdul Khaliq said, "listen now with submission. If not submitting I am not giving."  At that moment Ubaydullah al-Amawi found himself in complete annihilation of the Shaykh, that he was in complete submission, that he will receive without asking anymore.  Shaykh Abdul Khaliq said, "And that is to prevent you from falling into difficulties that Ahmad al-Badawi fell into it.  I don't want you in ta`b.  I want your submission completely."  

When Allah gave and offered the trust and where heaven and earth and mountain said, "We cannot,"  so who is in heavens?  Angels.  They said,  "Oh, our Lord, that is difficult!"  "We offered them the trust, they said, 'No we cannot. Worship we can do, but when you give burden of amanah,...'

 

When you are giving an amaanah and someone says, "Keep it," you have no right to use that amaanah.  Even if your children dying, you have no right to without permission.  If I give you 1,000 euro, yen, dollar and 10, 15 years I leave you, then even if your children are dying you cannot use that amaanah without permission, calling and asking.  Now if two years pass, they say, "Oh, he died - use it."  

 

And they (heavens) said, "Leave us, we are worshipping.  Leave us as we are."  And then Allah offered to earth and earth said, "How I can take that amanah?  That is too heavy on me.  I cannot take it."  And earth that has all creatures on it and it is always praising Allah as it is turning.  And what is the fuel making it turning?It said "no".Then Allah offered it to mountains, and mountain means awliyaullah and anbiyaullah, but they were worried they said, "no". And we, we said "yes, we take it!" innahu kaana dhalooman jahoola - He was ignorant and oppressor.

He said, "I will give you when Allah offered that amaanah, who answered and who took it and accepted it. What was that essence - if we can call it essence - that has accepted to take that trust?" If someone knows it means he will combine himself in dunya with his essence. (He continued) "What kind of essence, what kind of ruh?" There are 4 or 5 questions in the question. If you combine yourself with that you will know that Allah ordered us and you promise to do in dunya. That is where awliyaullah connect their students. I will leave this until tomorrow.

 

In order to see who answered, who said Ya Rabbee, who answered Him on Day of Promises and is it still there waiting to come to dunya or Allah amaatahum thumma ahyahum thumma amaatahum thumma ahyaahum - He caused them to die, then caused them to live. Are they dead there? Or they are still there glorifying Allah?

 

We will see tomorrow.

Wa min Allah at-tawfeeq bi hurmati 'l-fatiha

Some people say why he is.. come directly to the subject. Come and answer, then they will not listen. They move to another subject.
Keep dragging it. Else they will not come.