Try to be Collector’s Items
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
21 January 2010 Washington, DC
A`oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani ‘r-rajeem. Bismillahi ‘r-Rahmaani ‘r-Raheem.
Nawaytu ‘l-arba`een, nawaytu ‘l-`itikaaf, nawaytu ‘l-khalwah, nawaytu ‘l-`uzlah,
nawaytu ‘r-riyaadah, nawaytu ‘s-sulook, lillahi ta`ala fee haadha ‘l-masjid.
Ati`ullaha wa ati`u ‘r-Rasoola wa ooli ‘l-amri minkum.
Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you. (4:59)
We are in a gathering that is only for Allah and His Prophet (s). We are not coming here for dunya, we are coming to remind ourselves of something very important. Why do people come to such gatherings? Allah wants to remind them that, “O My servant, you are not living forever. You are going leave, as others left before you.” That is why when you go to a cemetery and you pass by the graves, Prophet (s) used to say, “You are the ones that passed before us and inshaa-Allah we are going to follow you.” He never passed graves without remembering that one day the ummah is going to leave this dunya. And Allah (swt) wants us here and brought us here tonight. Don’t think you came because you have a car; don’t think you came because you had a ride. Who inspired you in your heart to come?
إِنَّكَ لَا تَهْدِي مَنْ أَحْبَبْتَ وَلَكِنَّ اللَّهَ يَهْدِي مَن يَشَاء وَهُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِالْمُهْتَدِينَ
Innaka laa tahdee man ahbabta wa laakinn-allaha yahdee man yashau wa Huwa a’lamu bil-muhtadeen.
Verily you will not be able to guide every one whom you love, but Allah guides those whom He will and He knows best those who receives guidance. (28:56)
Allah (swt) is guiding us to come here. Allah (swt) said:
فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا
fa-alhamahaa fujoorahaa wa taqwaahaa,
And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right. (91:8)
He inspired the good self and the bad self. So Allah (swt) is bringing us together under the one whom He chose, under the name of that one. When you send an invitation to someone you say, for example, “Sayyid Muhammad ‘Ilyas has the honor to invite you to dinner.” This gathering is an invitation from Sayyidina Muhammad (s). He is inviting you by Allah’s order to come and remember the Lord. (Mawlana stands.) As-salaatu wa 's-salaam `alayka yaa Sayyidee, yaa Rasoolullah. As-salaatu was-salaam `alayka yaa Sayyidee, yaa Habeebullah. As-salaatu wa 's-salaam `alayka yaa Shafi`ee al-Mudhnibeen! (Mawlana sits.)
So that gathering is not because the owner of the house has invited us, but the owner of every house, the owner to whom Allah (swt) gave ownership has invited us. Why aren’t others coming? Only those whose names have been written are attending. That is why it is a good tiding that we are here by permission of Sayyidina Muhammad (s) and by permission of Sayyidee Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani (q), or else even if millions of invitations came you would not be here.
Allah said, la ilaaha illa-Llah Muhammadun Rasoolullah. Without saying Muhammadun Rasoolullah, Kalimah Tawheed is not complete, and without saying laa ilaaha illa-Llah it is not going to be complete. Yes, you are expressing, saying, “Yaa Rabbee, there is no Creator except You,” but without “Muhammad Rasoolullah (s)” it is like a tree without roots. So Allah made that entity that is carrying that essence. It is like a walnut shell; it has a walnut inside but without a shell the walnut will go bad. That shell is carrying the fruit inside, and Sayyidina Muhammad (s) is the reality Allah (swt) put within that entity, and Allah (swt) put within that entity the whole Creation. Without that reality there is no Creation! That is why he said, “What Allah created first is my light, my reality, my essence.” If you bring some perfumes and make them very concentrated, you say it is the essence, and from one small, concentrated bottle you can make thousands of small bottles with different fragrances. That entity, Muhammad Rasoolullah (s), is full of realities that have been scented with the fragrance of Sayyidina Muhammad (s)! (Mawlana stands, praising.) Yaa Sayyidee, yaa Rasoolullah. Ya Rahmatan li ‘l-`alameen, yaa Shafi`ee al-Mudhnibeen. Even if we stand 1000 times we are not giving the real rights to Sayyidina Muhammad, afdal as-salaatu wa 's-salaam! (Mawlana sits.)
The reality we are in gives us a fragrance, and that is why every believer has a fragrance, a flavor. If you go to a perfumery store every bottle has its own name, millions of bottles everywhere have brand names with designer signatures that fill all the stores, but all are coming from the reality of perfumes. And from every rose or every flower, even from the whale you get amber, the most expensive fragrance of perfume; from deer you get musk, from trees, from everything you get the reality of that pleasant smell. They have different names, they have different flavors or fragrances, but in reality all are coming from what Allah (swt) has created.
In Holy Qur’an, Allah says"
wa ma arsalnaka rahmatali ‘l-`alameen
And We did not send you (Muhammad) except as a Mercy to the worlds. (21:107)
What is mercy? Someone who is depressed and senses a nice smell and that depression leaves, that is a mercy. Someone is thirsty and drinks water, it is mercy. This means that everything Allah has given you has entered into the reality of Sayyidina Muhammad (s), the mercy that Allah dressed Sayyidina Muhammad (s) with. So mercy is not only shafa`ah, as many people think. Do you think that sins are going to be a problem for Prophet (s), when Allah raised him higher and gave him the ummah? Is it going to be difficult for Prophet (s) to take the sins away? The sins are easy for Prophet (s); he is the one that sucks the sins as if they did not exist. He (Allah [swt]) says, “We have sent you as Mercy.” It means anything that has mercy is coming from the reality of Prophet (s) that Allah dressed him with.
For example, scientists say when an asteroid is coming to Earth, it is destined to destroy the Earth. Although scientists are worried, it does not hit the Earth. That is a mercy also. It means that any planet in this universe, Seen and Unseen, whatever happens on it, whatever Creation is on it, is a mercy that Allah has put in the secret of Sayyidina Muhammad (s)! In his reality are all these secrets that today awliyaaullah are so astonished to hear about, the reality of Prophet (s).
I heard today from Mawlana (may Allah give him long life) who said Grandshaykh (may Allah bless his soul) said, “No way, not in dunya and not even in akhirah, no one will know the reality of Sayyidina Muhammad (s)!” They will be unable to know everything. They might know something but not the whole reality, and based on their levels, awliyaaullah know something about that reality. For example, not all Sahaaba (r) knew all the ahadith; each one got different knowledge. Prophet gave every one something different.
Awliyaaullah are taking from the heart of Prophet (s) and everyone is different from the other. If Prophet (s) gives everyone the same it means you are limiting the greatness of Prophet (s) that Allah gave to him.. The greatness is that he is giving every wali something different from the other. That is why Sayyidina Abu Hurayra (r) said, “I have retained from Prophet (s) two vessels of knowledge. I have disseminated one vessel of knowledge among people. But if I were to give the other vessel of knowledge, they would cut my throat.” Why would they cut his neck? It means that what Prophet (s) gave him, he didn’t give to others. What Prophet (s) gave to Sayyidina ‘Ali (r) he did not give to others and what he gave to Abu Bakr (r) he did not give to others.
Look at how merciful Prophet (s) was to the smallest detail. When Sayyidina Hassan (r) and Sayyidina Hussayn (r) were young, they climbed on him during sajdah and he did not move as long as they were on his back. Even if they stayed on him for one hour he would stay in sajdah for one hour, out of mercy. He said in a hadith, Laa yarhamu ‘Llahu man laa yarhamu ‘n-nas, “God will show no mercy to those who show no mercy to humankind.”
O Muslims! O Believers! We have to show mercy to each other or else Allah will not show us mercy. Today, unfortunately, brothers don’t show mercy to their brother, or sister to sister, or father to mother, or mother to father, or wife to husband and husband to wife, or children to parents. There is no more, “Yes, my mother,” or “Yes, my father.” No one says that. If the mother says something, you answer rudely; if the father says something, you answer as if he is from the Stone Age coming to teach you. Correct or not? That is a problem. No one is listening, there is no more mercy in the hearts because Shaytan is running in the heart and too much dunya is in the hearts. In previous times they threw dunya out of their hearts. If you throw dunya from your heart, dunya will run to you! Now we are slaves to dunya. Dunya makes you run and run, until you are exhausted and you die.
One time Prophet (s) took the Sahaaba (r) to the Mt. Uhud in the early morning when the sun was coming up and told them, “Stand towards the sun with your back to me, facing the mountain. What are you seeing?” They saw their shadows. He said, “Run to catch your shadow and I will give you a reward.” They kept running but they could not reach their shadows, and they reached the mountain. Then Prophet (s) said, “Look at me and turn your back towards the mountain,” and their shadow was behind them, and he said, “Run towards me!” They ran towards him and their shadows ran behind them. When they arrived to Prophet (s) he said, “If you run away from me you will never catch dunya (like your shadow), but if you run towards me, dunya will run behind you to give you whatever.”
Today, unfortunately, dunya is in our hearts. We are unable to throw it away. That doesn’t mean that you leave your daily work, no, you must work. But don’t use the rizq (provision) Allah gave you in the way of Shaytan; use it in the Way of Allah (swt)! If you use it in the way of Shaytan, you are disobeying what Allah asked you to do. Allah (swt) said, “Obey me and obey My Prophet (s).” We remind ourselves always to obey Allah and to obey Prophet (s) and to obey those who are guiding us, because they are more wise than us!
And we are asking awliyaaullah ; they are looking for collectible items and they will find antiques and they collect them, but they don’t like to collect something that there is too much of it. They look for something that is worth a lot, that is expensive, that people are not using anymore and that only those in the past were taking care of it and using it a lot. So they collect it in order to one day present them, and give them as a present to the wali that is higher than them, until they reach to the Sultan al-Awliya, who delivers it to Prophet (s). There is a hierarchy; don’t believe when they say there is no hierarchy in Islam. Look at prophets; who is higher than Sayyidina Muhammad (s)? They are inheritors and also they are in a hierarchy. Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jilani (q) said, “My foot is on the neck of every wali.” Today they say about someone in Qatar that he is the biggest scholar and everyone watches him on TV. This is a hierarchy.
So awliyaaullah keep these antique ones and in the end they have to deliver them to the owner. Who are they? You and you (points to the gathering). People today don’t like us. They say, “These people are coming from the Stone Age. Look at the way they dress with their turbans, their beards, their dress.” We are antiques, collector’s items! (laughter) Look at his turban! Look at everyone here, look at this one sitting here since the beginning. So they bring them from different backgrounds, put them together and after they clean them with such associations, they present them clean to Prophet (s). That is the importance of such meetings! Prophet (s) said, “If a group of people sit together remembering Allah, the angels will circle them, mercy will shroud them, peace will descend onto them, and Allah will remember them among those with Him.” (Muslim)
Then we must try to be better. You have to make sure when you come to such associations to clean your hearts and minds; throw away everything in your heart and mind. It means your focus, and your meditation and contemplation is only on the remembrance of Allah (swt) and His Prophet (s), and awliyaullah, nothing else. Don’t think about what is outside. If you think of what is outside, it is like praying on a carpet that has dirt on it: you have to clean it to pray on it. How can you come to Allah’s Presence with dirtiness in the heart? Husband is thinking about wife and wife about husband, children are thinking about parents, parents are thinking about children, and everyone has something that Shaytan brings to break his or her focus. That is why Allah (swt) said, Ati`ullaha wa ati`u ‘r-Rasoola wa ooli ‘l-amri minkum, "Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and obey those in authority among you." (4:59)
May Allah (swt) forgive us, and bless us, and bless this meeting, and bless everyone’s family, and make all of you here, by the barakah of Sayyidina Muhammad (s), the best of the ummah, and to always be with Sayyidina Muhammad (s)! (Mawlana stands and makes salawaat and du’a.)
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
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