Our Lord is Asking, "Race To Me!"
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
25 September 2010 Private Home, New Jersey
Suhbah/Hadrah after Salaat adh-Dhuhr
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)
Nawaytu al-siyaam. Grandshaykh (q) said 40 years ago, with that niyyah, Allah opens for awliyaullah because of their "requesting" ("asking" is not as nice a word); their requesting Allah for His Mercy, supplicating Allah (swt), because human beings lost their way. For everyone Allah (swt) gave a way. fa aynamaa tuwalloo fa thamma wajhullah. Wherever you direct yourself you find your way, and there is no way to go through someone else's way. You have a way that Allah (swt) put you on, from al-`Azaal, from pre-Eternal, a point of intilaaq. When you race you have starting point, and the starting point for everyone is different; even the starting point of twins is not the same. Why? Even sextuplets come one after one, in a sequence, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. Like computers may launch a rocket, and it appears. No one has that starting point but you, and Allah said, fastabiqoo'l-khayraat, "Race to the best." It doesn't mean race to win a trophy for car racing or motorcycle racing, and then they get something big in their hands and (are proud) instead of praying two raka`at Salat ash-Shukr. Don't you see Mawlana pray two raka`ats shukr after his suhbat? What do they do win they win the trophy? They bring a bottle and open it and it begins to shoot rockets, and instead they should pray two raka`ats.
لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ la'in shakarum la-azeedanakum.
If you thank Me, I increase for you. (14:7)
And so Shaytan is bringing them something, and is that race dangerous? Ask anyone here. It is dangerous to get to your destination, and you kill (exhaust) yourself to get to your destination. Why don't you then exhaust yourself to get to the Divine Presence?
Allah said:
فَأَيْنَمَا تُوَلُّواْ فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللّهِ إِنَّ اللّهَ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ Fa aynama tawalloo thamma wajhullah inn'Llaha wasi`un `aleem.
See how patient Allah (swt) is with His servant! He knows you are waiting to come.
Inn'Allaha wasi`un `Aleem.
Allah is the Vast Knower. (2:115)
وَلِكُلٍّ وِجْهَةٌ هُوَ مُوَلِّيهَا فَاسْتَبِقُواْ الْخَيْرَاتِ Wa likullin wijhatun huwa muwalleehaa fastabiqoo'l-khayraat.And each one hath a goal toward which he turneth; so strive as in a race in all virtues. (2:148)
We have to race well to Allah (swt) and compete to get to what is there for us. Everyone has his starting point and everyone has his own way to go. But you cannot go without danger, since racing has danger. And what kind of danger can believers encounter in their way? Shaytan is trying to take them to an exit, like on the highway. This is your path, but an exit takes you out. "No, I am racing to the end." "No, a little bit makhraj. Come, there is a gas station off the path. Come, eat a little bit." But if you eat, you will lose the race. That means, "Don't give up what your ego likes; say, 'I am racing. This is my way. I cannot stop to eat.'" "No, you will die from thirst or hunger," and the ego decreases what is best for you. Do you think the ego comes to tell you, "This is best for you." No, we know the ego will tell you, "I have champagne for you, vodka. Drink a little bit, no problem." May Allah (swt) forgive us! So you continue on your way and you are not going to take someone else's way. Going this way, you are going to reach your destination, but with much struggle.
It was revealed to the Prophet (s):
الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِي وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الإِسْلاَمَ دِينًا Al-yawma akmaltu lakum deenukum wa atmamtoo `alaykum n`imatee wa radeetu lakum al-islaama deena.
This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion. (5:3)
That was in the last year of his life, after he was conquered Mecca with no bloodshed. And when that ayah came, Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq and the Sahaabah (r) cried. Some scholars say after that ayah was revealed to the Prophet (s) he lived 81 days. Sayyidina Abu Bakr (r) cried because he knew that after the full moon, there is no further perfection.
Awliyaullah don't say, "There is no struggle." There is struggle, for sure! Tell someone, "There is a job for you, we need a laborer, and we will give you $2,000." What do you do? You leave here and say, "O! For $2,000 I will come!"
Awliyaullah say you have no excuse to leave such an association except on three principles: 1) You have an important guest who will get upset if you leave him, so you stay; 2) You are traveling, and for sure you cannot attend, and; 3) You are sick and you cannot go. If someone were to come and give you three golden coins and say, "Can you help me in some issue?" and you replied, "Even though I am sick, I can help for these coins," but then you say, "I cannot come to such an association because I am sick," then you are committing a mistake. That means even if you are sick and you refuse to go for three golden coins, then it is alright. But if you would take the three golden coins, it is better to go to the association of dhikrullah.
وَلِكُلٍّ وِجْهَةٌ هُوَ مُوَلِّيهَا فَاسْتَبِقُواْ الْخَيْرَاتِ
Wa li kulli lahu wijhatu huwa muwalleehaa fastabiqoo 'l-khayraat.
For everyone there is a direction to their goal; then strive together (as in a race) towards all that is good. (al-Baqarah, 2:148)
Fastabiqoo 'l-khayraat, "Run for the best." This is not a meeting to make any business. They are stopping all their work, their holiday, and all their activities to come and listen. When Mawlana Shaykh sees people coming to listen, then he plugs in; he sees you are waiting for something and they open the plug, the electric breaker switch, and then it is flowing. It is like the Holy Ka`aba, why do people go there? Look, there are four walls in the picture, but it attracts you. That means there is Someone Who owns that. You don't own that, but Someone owns it and that One is calling you. When the call comes, you go directly.
There is in our way the teaching that when Allah (swt) sends you to dunya, that is when He sends the soul to the womb of the mother. At that point, life begins with what happens in the womb of the mother. The child will be raised according to the character and reflections of the mother and father. If the environment is pure, the child comes with no veils on its eyes or ears. And if the reflection of the mother and father is not as they like it to be, perfect, then the child comes veiled. It depends on the level. That is why when the child comes out, as awliyaa say, it cries. Why is it not laughing? Laughing will open the chest, just as crying opens the chest. Think about the One who made that person cry, that is what is important. Yes, he cries, but Who caused him to cry?وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَضْحَكَ وَأَبْكَى وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَمَاتَ وَأَحْيَا Wa annahu huwa adhaka wa abqa wa annahu huwa amaata wa ahyaa.
He is the One who causes people to cry and to laugh, to live and to die! (53:43-44)
Think about that. When the child comes out and cries, he is not crying to open his chest, as they say. Who caused him to cry and not to laugh? In the time of Prophet (s), a child refused to come out of the womb of his mother. When he finally came out he was laughing, because he was not veiled, and they say he was not veiled for seven years. You are in the womb of your mother receiving heavenly manifestations. Allah is raising us up in that small area full of water, and you are breathing! There is no intubation or respirator. How can you breathe there? To dive in the ocean you use diving tanks and gear. There is no diving gear for the baby in the womb of the mother. How does he or she breathe? (Mawlana asks the doctor.) What do doctors say about this? (It is coming from the placenta.) That is full of food. Don't they block each other? Lillah fee khalqihi shu`oon, "Allah has His reasons." Allah (swt) has ways to keep them alive and give them the chance to express and experience His mercy. That is what He wants from us, to feel His mercy, to experience it and to say alhamdulillah, wa la'in shakartum la-azeedanakum, to give thanks; that is what He wants. If you say alhamdulillah and shukrulillah every time you remember, you will enter Paradise without hisaab (account), because He is the Forgiver!
That is the race to Him and there are obstacles in that race. Now they have discovered that the child is reacting to what is going on outside the womb. So if the mother and father are always in wudu, they are not arguing or fighting, and not expressing any anger between themselves even though they might disagree, and that child is in this environment until delivery day, that child comes with no veils. There are people like that. According to what Islam asks, they follow. There are people who keep that kind of discipline, but not everyone can do that. There are some men who are rude and hard, even when the wife is pregnant. At that time, according to Islam, you cannot divorce her. If you come against Allah's order, that talaaq (divorce) is not accepted. But look at that anger. One lady came to me and said, “My husband wants to divorce me," and she doesn't want the divorce because she is pregnant. She said, "I don't want to lose my imaan and faith." It is a big test. May Allah (swt) save us!
The Seal of Messengers (s) came to build us up to go on that race and find our finishing point. When Allah (swt) calls you, there is no more call after that. All your life there is a call from Allah (swt), "Come to Me, come to Me." But what are we doing? We move a little bit and then we exit, then we move a little bit and exit. We don't reach our goal because we keep coming to an exit, and they are never going to end on the highway. If you don't exit and don't listen to the whispering coming in your ear but keep going and going, you will reach that destiny before that final call comes. There, all veils will be open to you and when that call comes you will be opened and you will see everything before you!
Awliyaullah are like that. From their starting point until they reach their destiny, they never exit. Our problem is that we exit too many times to go to the toilet on the highway. Now some people have a franchise coming out. It is not a bathroom, but it is Starbucks! It’s as if Starbucks has no taste until you put sugar in it. Put sugar in water and then what is the problem? I am speaking to them. They say coffee wakes you up. Doesn’t it? So buy some coffee beans and eat them, it is cheaper. (laughter) Why do you to have to go all the way to pay four dollars for a small cup like that, when you can have a whole can of coffee and put one spoon of it in water and stir it? One Starbucks, it’s a waste of money. Shaytan says, "Go waste your money, pay it to the coffee mafia!" When you go to the exit of dunya there are all kinds of things there. Don't exit. This is an analogy, it doesn’t mean you can't exit. In real life, you exit to make wudu and go pray. But don't exit for nonsense, for a waste of time.
So we ask Allah (swt) to forgive us and to support the work of our shaykh, Sayyidee Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani (q), and to all his mureeds and followers around the world who are trying their best according to their understanding. May Allah (swt) make all of us here able to serve as much as possible, and not to be stingy people. Wa man huwa al-bakheel, "Who is the stingy person?" Prophet (s) described who is the miser. And who is that one?
إن أبخل الناس من ذكرت عنده و لم يصل علي
Al-ladhee idhaa dhukirtu `indahu wa lam yusalli `alayy.
The miser is the one who, when my name is mentioned, he doesn't say prayers on me.
Say it: Allahuma salli `alaa Sayyidina Muhammad! How many are here? Maybe 100. Allah (swt) will multiply each salawaat by the number of persons here and then al-hasanatu bi ashra` amthaalihaa, "the good deed is rewarded tenfold" will give you thousands of hasanaat. What about if we are in the masjid doing salawaat? We were in Indonesia, in Jebara, where we went by plane, and there were people in the soccer fields and places everywhere,making salawaat. Count. Each salawaat is going to be multiplied by 250,000 then multiply by ten and how much is that? That is what we can count! Allah is "al-Kareem." Allah (swt) is Greater than that! He will give more, so ask for mor!
ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
Id`oonee astajeeb lakum.
Supplicate to Me and I will give you! (40:60)
What will He give us? “Say what you want and I will accept and respond.” Astajeeb, “I accept.” What will He give? Will He give what we ask? What we ask is like an ant asking in this universe. No, He will give according to His Greatness, but come to Him in a race, race to Him! People are racing to get a trophy and they might endanger their life. With this there is no danger of killing yourself, but there is a danger of killing the ego.
Look at these rich people who have thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are killing themselves because they are stingy; they don't give. If a poor person like you or anyone here, because Allah knows about the background of all of you here, if you give one dollar, it is better than a rich one who gives one-million dollars. Since the rich one has millions of dollars, what is going to change for him if he gives one million? You give according to your level. It is like the hadith of Sayyida `Ayesha (r), when she related what happened to her one day. She told Prophet (s) when he came to the house, "A lady came knocking at the door carrying two baby girls. She asked for food and the babies were crying and hungry. That lady was so exhausted from hunger that she could not walk." She knocked at the door of Sayyida `Ayesha (r), who asked, "What do you need?" The lady replied, "I need food." Sayyida `Ayesha (r) said, "I went to the cupboard." Was there a fridge in the time of Prophet (s)? Of course, for Prophet, bardan wa salaama, it was always cool and breezy in the house of Prophet (s) in Madinatu 'l-Munawwara. She looked in the cupboard and there was nothing. How many freezers do we have? All our freezers are full and still we are all complaining.
Allahuma salli `alaa Sayyidina Muhammad wa `ala aalihi wa saahbihi wa zawjaatihi! She didn't say, "My husband is coming and he is the Seal of Messengers, the highest of Allah's Creation, so I will save the dates because he might be hungry!” No, she took three dates and gave one to the lady. The lady gave one to the baby and one to the other and one to herself. And as soon as she gave one to the baby and to the other baby, they put them in their mouths and swallowed them with the seeds. She took the one in her mouth, split it and gave it to both of them, preferring them to herself.
And Prophet (s) said, "This lady's action saved her from all kinds of punishment and sent her with no account to Paradise." That lady preferred the children to herself and Allah (swt) saved her from all kinds of punishment! What do you think about those who are giving for a good cause, fee sabeelillah; what will they get? For sure they will get what that lady got! And we know that lady did it one time. We know about you, that you are giving and giving and preferring others to yourself. You are giving your best to make them happy, not like those who are lazy and waiting for the rich to give to us. If you have no work, then go dig in the garden or collect stones, go to the neighbor and collect their leaves! Do work and don't be lazy. And those who are working, help them, as Allah (swt) will help you in your life, your wealth, and He will help your parents. How many children were lost, but because their parents were good, because they were working for Islam and helping, Allah (swt) saved them later? So keep your faith in Allah (swt)!
Wa min Allahi 't-tawfeeq, bi hurmati 'l-habeeb, bi hurmati 'l-Fatihah.
