A Du’a of Sayyidi Shaykh al Akbar (ra)

‎”May God place us upon insight in our affairs and not allow us to transgress that which is demanded by our station!….May He preserve us from His deception and not place us amongst the people of imperfection (ahl al-naqs)! May He provide us with increase (mazid) and advance (taraqqi) in this world and the next!”

as-Shaykh al-Akbar, Sayyidi Muhammad Ibn al-Arabi (radhi Allahu anhu)

Rare Interview of Hz Shahab (ra)

I came across this today and felt I ought to share it here. It’s a pleasure to hear his voice. May God be well pleased with him.

The Message of Iqbal

Allama (Muhammad Iqbal) has been in my thoughts a great deal lately. He has been a faithful and inspiring guide since about the age of 13 and I feel deeply indebted to him. As it happens Allama passed away on the 21st April so this is a good time to reflect once again on the man and his teachings. Perhaps this is a worthy subject for the future, insha’Allah. For now, I am posting a beautiful rendition of his poem “La ilaha illAllah” from Zarb e Kaleem. This sums up his message in many ways.

The Universality of the Arif

Imam al-Junaid of Baghdad (ra) said:

“The Arif (knower) could not be an Arif untill he is like the earth upon which the pious and impious walk; and like the clouds that spread over everything; and like the rains that descend upon all places quite without any likes and dislikes”.

An Interesting Quote on al-Hallaj

Nicholson sums up the case of Hallaj in the following words:

“Hallaj was so deeply in earnest that it was impossible for him to compromise his conscience. Against the public authority of the Muslim Church and State he sets up the personal authority immediately derived from God with whom the saint is one. And he was no theorist like Junaid; he was suspected of dealings with the Carmathians, he had preached his faith to infidels and believers alike, and, above all sought to win converts by working “evidentiary” miracles. On these grounds he was justly condemned. His crime was not that, as later Sufis put it, “he divulged the mystery of the Divine Lordship”, but that in obedience to an inward call he proclaimed and actively asserted a truth which involves religious, political and social anarchy.”

Pg 46- The Life, Personality and Writings of Al-Junaid.

Shaykh Abdal Hakim on Modernity

This is an excellent talk by Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad of Cambridge University on what the Muslim response to Modernism ought to be.

The Prophetic Beauty

 

“Mine eye has not beheld one as beautiful as you

Nor has a woman ever given birth to such perfection of form”

Sayyidna Hassan Ibn Thabit (ra)

“The Prophet’s complete beauty has not been fully manifested, for if it was disclosed to us in full, our eyes would be unable to behold him. The similes, therefore, that are used to describe him are only for the sake of approximating and drawing similitudes, for the Prophet’s essence is far too exquisite and his honor is far loftier.”

Imam al-Qurtubi

See Glimpses of Prophetic Beauty for some wonderfully detailed accounts.

Salat al Azeemiyya

I wrote about the wonderful and precious  ijaza of Shaykh Saleh al-Jafari, the great saint and scholar, to all for recitation of this great prayer on the Holy Prophet (alayhi salatu wa s-salam) here. As we are in  the blessed month of Rabi al Awwal, the month in which the Messanger of God, Sayyidna Muhammad (alayhi salatu wa s-salam) was born it seemed fitting that the text of this durood sharif be shared with all that visit this blog so that they may partake of its immense blessings.

Salat al Azeemiyya (Arabic Text)

“O Allah, I ask by the Light of  Face of God, the Great

Which filled pillars of the Throne of God, the Great

and by it are upheld the worlds of God, the Great,

To send blessings upon our Master Muhammad of tremendous worth, and upon the family of the Prophet of God, the Great,
as much as the greatness of the Essence of God, the Great

In every glance and in every breath, as numerous as all that is contained within the Knowledge of God, the Great.

A prayer that is perpetual in the perpetuity of God, the Great

In glorification of your worth, O our Master Muhammad, O you of the a nature most great ,

and send peace upon him and his family just as much,

and join him with me, just as You joined the spirit with the soul,outwardly and inwardly, in wakefulness and in sleep

And make him, O Lord, a soul for my body in every aspect,
In the here and now, before the next world to come, O God the Great.”

Love is a Stranger

Love is a stranger to the two worlds:
in it are seventy-two madnesses.
It is hidden; only its bewilderment is manifest:
the soul of the spiritual sultan longs for it.
Love’s religion is other than the seventy-two sects:
beside it the throne of kings is just a floorboard.
In the moments of sema* Love’s bard strikes up the melody:
“Servitude is bondage and power is a headache.”
Then what is Love? The Sea of Not-Being:
there the foot of the intellect is shattered and can no longer swim.
Servitude and sovereignty are known:
the way of the lover is hidden by these two veils.

Hz Mevlana Rumi

East and West

All civilizations are fallen, but in different ways: the fall of the East is
passive; the fall of the West is active.
The fault of the fallen East is that it no longer thinks; that of the
fallen West is that it thinks too much, and wrongly.

Frithjof Schuon- Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts