Unke Andaz e Karam- Pir Naseeruddin

Quite a unique qawwali and one of my favuorites. A magnificent rendition by Ustad Nusrat of the kalam of Pir Sayyid Naseeruddin Naseer (ra). Listen and experience!

Part 1

Part 2

Dil Dil Pakistan!

Happy Independence Day to everyone!

A Great Naat- Qari Zubaid Rasool

A Few Gems from Shaykh Ahmad Sam’ani (ra)

I first encountered Shaykh Ahmad Sam’ani’s beautiful book on the Divine Names many years ago through an article by Prof. William Chittick written as a response to comments by Pope John Paul II that the God of Islam was distant and unloving (not his exact words). This is a common criticism/misunderstanding of many Christians who seem to think their faith has a monopoly on Love. Shaykh Ahmad’s commentary on the Asma al Husna is an elegant exposition of the very subtle sufic understanding of the Divine and Its relationships with creation generally and with the human being in particular.

Khadim has rendered a valuable service by making these translations of Prof Chittick available on his blog. I encourage all readers to read his posts on Shaykh Sam’ani in detail. Here are a few extracts:

” From the Throne down to the earth, no love whatsoever is sold except in the house of human grief  and joy. Many sinless and pure angels were in the Court, but only this handful of dust was able to carry the burden of this body melting, hear burning verse: “HE LOVES THEM, AND THEY LOVE HIM”.

“God gave news of the attribute of His Knowledge –Surely God knows everything 29:62.
He also gave news of the attribute of our ignorance –Surely he is very ignorant, a great wrongdoer 33:72

He gave news of the attribute of His power –Surely God is powerful over everything 2:109.
He also gave news of the attribute of our incapacity –God strikes a likeness: a servant possessed by his master, having no power over anything 16:75.

He gave news of the attribute of His exaltation –Surely the exaltation, all of it, belongs to God 4:139.
He also gave news of our abasement –And faces are humbled to the Living, the Self subsistent. 20:111”

“However when he gave news of Love, just as He affirmed love for Himself, so also He affirmed love for us –He loves them, and they love Him 5:54

Ajmer Sharif (may God increase its eminence)

Aasra hai ghareebon ka ghar aap ka

sajda gah e jahan sang e dar aap ka

hai nishan e Haram, hai zameen ka bharam

aastan aap ka Khawaja Hind ul Wali!

Love for You Took Away My Rosary

Love for you took away my rosary and gave verses and songs; I
cried “No strength (save with God)” and repented oft, but my
heart did not heed.
At Love’s hand I became a singer of odes, hand-clapping; love
for you consumed reputation and shame and all that I possessed.
Once I was chaste and self-denying and firm-footed as a
mountain; what mountain is there that your wind did not carry away
life chaff?
If I am a mountain, yet I hold the echo of your voice; and if I
am chaff, in your fire I am reduced to smoke.
When I saw your being, I became nonexistent out of shame;
out of the love of this nonexistence the world of soul came into
being.
Wherever nonexistence comes, existence diminishes ˆ brave
nonexistence, from which, when it came, existence augmented!
Heaven is blue, earth like a blind squatter on the road; he who
beholds your moon escapes from blind-and-blue.
The likeness of the soul of a great saint, hidden in the body
of the world is the likeness of Ahmad the Messenger amidst the
Guebres and Jews.
To praise you in reality is to praise oneself, for he who praises
the sun thereby praises his own eyes.
Your praise is as the sea, our tongue is a ship; the soul voyages
on the sea, and its end is praiseworthy.
The tender care of the sea is for me like wakeful fortune; why
should I grieve, if my eye is stained with sleep?

– Translation by A. J. Arberry
“Mystical Poems of Rumi 1″
The University of Chicago Press, 1968

Mander on the Homogenization of Global Consciousness

“One of the main goals of economic globalization is that every place on earth should be more or less like every other place. Whether it’s the US, Europe, or once-distant places like Asia, Africa, or South America, all countries are meant to develop the same way. The same franchise fast food, the same films and music, the same jeans, shoes, and cars, the same urban landscapes, the same personal, cultural, and spiritual values. Monoculture. If you’ve traveled a lot, you’ve seen that this is rampantly happening already.”

A series of important posts by Greensufi on the ever pertinent topic of how modern technologies shape our thinking and just how destructive they are to the true human spirit.

The Station of No Station

The name and sign of the sage do not appear

‘Tis not wisdom to be “son of such- and- such”

Who leaves his place has no space

The people of Truth possess no signs

They leave no trace that they should be known by their trace

They raise no dust that they should be known by their dust

Do not think they can be known by their words

The people of Truth possess no signs.

-Niyazi  Misri

Love is a Lion

In God’s eyes, whoever has no tint of Love is
naught but wood and stone.
Love wrings water from rocks, Love cleans
rust from mirrors.
Unbelief has come in war, faith in peace – Love
strikes a fire to both peace and war.
In the ocean of the heart Love opens its mouth
and like a whale swallows down the two worlds.
Love is a lion, without deception and trickery,
not a fox one moment and a leopard the next.
When Love provides replenishment upon
replenishment, the spirit gains deliverance from this dark and
narrow body.
From the beginning Love is all bewilderment – it
stuns the intellect and dazzles the spirit.
Oh east wind, my heart is in Tabriz – take my
salaams there without delay!

– Ghazal (Ode) 1331
Translation by William C. Chittick
“The Sufi Path of Love”
SUNY Press Albany, 1984

Clarification on Shahab Sahib (ra)

Visitors to this blog will know that I have posted a number of pieces on the life and teachings of Qudratullah Shahab (ra) in the past and I can say (based on the feedback I get) that these posts of been very popular with people. To my mind this is an indication of the immense impact that people like Shahab sahib have had on generations of Pakistanis since the mid-eighties at least. The fondness and reverence with which people remember Shahab sahib is also (to me at least) a reflection of the this verse of the Indian poetess Hina Timuri:

Khusboo ke tarah pehl gaya kainat mein

Us nein jise bhi zikr ke qabil samjh liya

However occasionally I also hear from people who want to prove that we’re all a bunch of enthusiasts who have got it horribly wrong about Shahab sahib. In their view Shahab sahib was just a scheming bureaucrat who helped to prop up various dictatorships during his days of service or at best a very worldly man who allowed various myths about himself (e.g his sufi connection) to be propagated  due to a taste for self adulation. Most of these people have great difficulty in squaring a very active outer life with an inner spiritual life. Here’s a comment by a recent visitor which is quite typical of this mentality :

“I dont want to be disrespectful, but Shahab Sahib was a very much worldly person and left property of crores in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and London. I don’t understand why did he not give any of that away as charity. His son has moved to Canada about 14 years back, for no specific reason. He had all one needs here in Pakistan. He has sold all of his property and taken this money to live comfortably in Canada. So much for for the son of waliullah and his teachings.”

Now I for one don’t know the extent of  Shahab sahib’s wealth and assets at the time of his death but is it really relevant? Must a sufi (or wali if you prefer) always be poor? Is it wrong for the offspring of such a person to sell their property and move elsewhere? Should such a person be judged by the actions of his children? A moments reflection should suffice to show just how confused and meaningless such accusations actually are.

The awliya appear in many guises and one of their greatest disguises is the cloak of human ordinariness. It is the truly fortunate who are blessed with seeing beyond it. As for the majority, their response from time immemorial has been the same: ” nay, you are but a mortal like us!”