Mercy Oceans Rising Sun

Sheikh Nazim Adil Al Qubrusi Al Haqqani




The Station of Unity



“Oh my Lord, I ask You to grant me understanding, and to enable me, Oh my Lord, to make others understand.”
A prayer of the Holy Prophet Muhammed, Peace be upon him


Every time I address people I silently make this supplication, as I know that only he who himself understands can teach people anything useful. A visitor recently told me about a spiritual teacher whose lectures and writings were so difficult that only trained intellectuals could make sense of what he was saying. It is not a sign of a man’s understanding that his teachings be incomprehensible; a man of understanding will always try to make himself well understood by using clear and straightforward speech, adjusting to the level of his audience, and he will try to address as broad an audience as possible, otherwise his words will be scattered with the winds.

Even Allah Almighty, the Lord of all creatures, the Master of existence, in all His Glory condescends to the level of His creatures. This is called “Tanazzulat Subhani” or, as close as it can be translated, “the Condescension of Glory” (or “the Condescension of the Glorious One”). You may find Him Almighty with His creatures on every level.

If He were not with an ant, and knew not the conditions in which that ant lives and what are its needs, He could not, by definition be the Lord of that ant. He, the Lord of all, in His knowledge, is even with microscopic creatures; so what about mankind, the most distinguished of His creatures, is it saying too much to say that He is with us? “Does the Creator not know what He created?” asks the Lord, that we may understand His Omniscience, and that being the Lord of all creation does not detract from His being with each individual creature.

The Holy Prophets and their Inheritors in every age have been endowed with knowledge of Divine Realities which is hidden from the rest of humanity, and it is their main duty to make these realities comprehensible to mankind in general, and to individual people in whatever way possible, in accordance with the respective levels and capabilities of those people. As the teachers of humanity they have been granted the ability to communicate in this manner: to speak directly to people’s hearts. This they have been granted from the Attributes of their Lord. But only Prophets and their true inheritors may find such flexibility available to them; for others it is very difficult to address anyone other than those who share with them a similar background and manner of perception. But Divine Teachers may be to every people what they need, may say what they need to hear; that is why people of varying backgrounds and ranks in life may all find peace with the same man and follow him.

A Concorde could never land on the roof of this building, but a helicopter could. Most scholars are like Concordes: so proud of their immense wingspans, streamlined form and speed. Only a few statesmen and tycoons – men and women of distinction and endowed with great wealth – may enter and ride Concordes. So scholars may speak and write for the appreciation of other scholars. Concordes fly at tremendous speeds and require huge runways at international airports to land, but a helicopter can gland anywhere, even sometimes at sea, and can always hover in mid-air while lowering a lifeline to people trapped by a fire. So divine Teachers are accessible to everyone in every situation, whereas Concordes might crash in a place where only helicopters can reach to rescue the survivors. Therefore, I am not leaving them on the tops of Himalayan mountains, but bringing them to safety.

Seekers of truth must look for those qualities in a teacher who purports to be addressing subjects related to the Divine. Otherwise they will be pursuing useless studies, and, according to the Holy Prophet, a sign of a person’s perfection in Islam in his abandonment of useless activities (“that which doesn’t concern him”).

Our guest mentioned that this scholar was addressing the topic of “Fana and Baqa”, or “Annihilation and Permanence in the Divine”. I think that no one except those who have arrived at these Stations is qualified to speak of them, otherwise his description will be like that of a person who has never tasted honey trying to describe its taste from what he has read about it to others who have been deprived of honey. Or it will be like asking a little boy about the pleasures of a honeymoon ... useless.

These topics are Oceans. When you melt, dissolving in the Unity Ocean of Allah Almighty then you may understand the meaning of “Fani-Fillah” (Annihilation in Allah). When you abandon your position as a being in existence, when you become as a drop of rain falling from the sky and are immersed, united in that Ocean of Divine Unity, then no one can ask where that drop has gone : the drop became an Ocean.

As long as the drop is falling, it continues to say: “I am something”, but when it reaches that Ocean, it looks and says: “Where am I? I am finished. I am with Him. I am here, but not here; only He is here, but I am now with Him. I am in His Ocean. I feel this, but no more can it be said that I am a drop: this drop has become an Ocean”. That is only a very simple description of Annihilation in God.

“Baqa” or Permanence, is to be with Him always. In such a Station your personality does not appear; what appears is only Divine Existence. You have been dressed in Divine Unity. That is the “Station of Unity”, “Maqam at-Tawhid”. What Baqa means is that you will never lose sight, hearing, feeling, knowing, understanding – never, but they will be without limits. We must try to attain these stations, but the Way is difficult and requires severe training.

One of the aspects of that training is to try and see everything as proceeding from Him Alone. This is the sixth pillar of faith in Islam : The belief that everything that happens in this world, the good and the bad alike, are from God. This is referred to as “Tawhid al-Af’al” or “The Unity of Actions”. They way to begin to realise this point is to remember the source of all events, Allah Almighty, when events occur, and not to occupy one’s self with blaming or lauding those who are not really the causes of events, only the instruments to their occurrence. This means that if Ahmed comes and gives you a pound coin and then Fulan comes and slaps you and takes it away, you don’t think of Ahmed as the giver of the money, nor of Fulan as a thief. If you think like this you have fallen from that high level of faith. You must perceive the hand of Allah behind both hands – that which giveth and that which taketh away – as He is the creator of the actions of people.

When someone is generous or kind to you, you must remember that it was your Lord who sent him with that favour, and you must thank your Lord. But at the same time you are going to say: “Thank you” to that person, as without giving thanks to the carrier of that blessing your thanks to its origin is not going to be complete. Therefore the Holy Prophet said: “Who thanks not people thanks not Allah”. Our Prophet, upon whom be peace, is advising us strongly that we should not allow our vision of unity to distract us from perfecting our politeness with out fellow men. But you know that it is your Lord who sent him, and you are not forgetting that under any circumstances. And when you see that Ahmed has filled your hands with gold, you must say to him: “Oh Sheikh Ahmed, thanks you so much! And firstly thanks to your Lord, who sent you with favours for me, and thank you for faithfully delivering what was entrusted to you”.

And when that robber Fulan comes, hits you and takes all the money, don’t be angry with him! Yes, the Divine Law, the Shariah, permits you to retrieve that money if you can, and prescribes a punishment to be meted out by the society as well, but if you are on the way of Unity, then you must regard that action as coming to you from Allah Almighty too. He Alone sent that man to rob you, because the Creator of every action is only One : Allah Almighty.

Because it is not possible for all people to aspire to this high level of faith in which God’s Hand is seen behind every event, Allah Almighty in one verse of the Holy Qur’an, condones “a life for a life” in the case of murder, and goes on to call those who are capable of it to “turning the other cheek”. These are the levels, respectively, of Shariah, the Law, and Tariqah, the Path. Based on this verse, therefore, the Islamic Law concerning murder is balanced, making concession for the normal human feelings for vengeance in the face of such an abominable crime. Islam allows for the execution of the duly convicted murderer, and in this way assuages the feelings of the close relatives, thus preventing extended blood feuds. The law also allows for the payment of blood money in lieu of execution, to be paid to the victim’s close relatives. Lastly the verse calls those who are seeking the highest level of faith and unity of vision to forgiveness, saying: “And whoso forgives and promotes understanding, his reward is incumbent on his Lord”.

What Allah is saying to seekers of absolute truth is: “Now forgive him, because I sent him to do that action”. Then you realise that, in reality, there is no question of guilt nor need for revenge. But that is not the common level. That is the level to be striven for, and it is beyond us to forgive in such a manner because our egos are like volcanoes.

Now people may be very polite in their everyday dealings, as long as everyone behaves in accordance with their expectations and everything falls into place according to plan; but should, God forbid, the smallest thing go wrong – for example a small error in driving, even one that causes no accident – for such a small reason one may hear the ugliest obscenities pour from their mouths like a lava eruption. That ego makes people dangerously ill, and now that people are totally under their egos’ command, where can you find the tolerance described in that Holy Verse of the Qur’an?

So much hate and frustration is pent up in people – I see it in their looks – and so often a scapegoat is sought upon whom to release that torrent, and the best, the tried and true scapegoat throughout the world is always the “foreigners”; so I am quick to assure people here in the West: “We are just here as your guests. This is your homeland.” But is it? You can’t stay here either except in your graves. Your homeland is the grave, not above ground. Thank God, no one is begrudging us cemetery plots, no one is trying to prevent our being buries. The gravedigger wipes the dirt of his hands and goes away, and the Earth accepts us indiscriminately; but people on the Earth are busy making distinctions, and therefore, that high level of acceptance of actions as coming from God is rarely found. But He teaches us the lesson nonetheless, saying: “You must understand who I am: I am the Creator of people and their works: understand this, that you may attain peace and finally leave behind your quarrelsomeness.”

Once I was in Mecca with our Grandsheikh making Tawaf (circumnambulating) the House of Allah, the Kaaba. Grandsheikh said to me: “Look up!” When I looked I saw above the heads of the people another group of worshippers performing their Tawaf; but these people were of a different class: calm, peaceful and graceful. They too were of mankind, not Angels, but they were the ones who had reached the level of seeing every action as issuing from Allah Almighty, therefore they left the level of earthly struggle.

But, meanwhile, back on the ground, amidst the throng, with those who lack such certainty, we were being pushed, shoved and trampled upon. Some groups locked arms and shoved straight through the crowd, full-speed ahead, sending all who were unfortunate enough to fall into their path flying through the air, like discarded banana peels. Elbows in my ribs, heels on my toes …. But above us, the ones who concur with God’s Will have no need for earth under their feet. Now, perhaps, you are thinking that such a thing is impossible, that I am telling a “tall tale”, but yet, when you are told that aeroplanes fly you think nothing of it. If man can make metal fly, cannot God make man fly? They are at peace with their Lord and with everything in creation, therefore, everything carries them.

And so, we have been shown a higher way, the vision of Unity, and we have been asked to be patient with those events that are not to our liking, remembering their source. This is the best training for our egos. Undergo this training or you will struggle fruitlessly – up to the grave. We are being trained by our Lord to recognise the Unity of Actions, so that we can come to understand the Unity of His Holy Names which leads us to the knowledge of the Unity of His Holy Attributes; that knowledge will prepare us for that ultimate dive into the Unity Ocean of Allah Almighty’s existence – essence. That is the final goal: that raindrop falls, and it will not emerge again ever – and it is content because it has just gained everything eternally, forever.

Therefore, Allah Almighty addresses mankind, saying: “Oh man, verily you are striving towards your Lord, and you will meet Him”. He Almighty is teaching us that all our striving on Earth, our running from East to West, here and there, night and day, is, unwittingly, nothing else than our race towards our Lord’s endless Unity Ocean, but we can’t now understand. Our souls long for our Lord, therefore we move, and there is nowhere to move save towards the One.





Love is Lovely



Love is lovely to the Lord and to His servants. If you do anything with love it should be accepted by your Lord, and He should make it tasteful for you. If you love your work it will be easy for you to do, if not, it will only be a burden. The Lord says: “I am not inn need of your worship, I am only seeking the love with which it is offered.” Oh servants of the Lord, Oh believers, you must not overlook this point. Don’t be like slaves rowing in the galley of a ship – if you pray, you must pray with love not by force, as if a slavedriver were standing over you with a whip! Allah never appreciates such forced devotions. Now we are trying to perform all the practices but forgetting to ask for Divine Love, so we are becoming like mechanical robots, or like people performing gymnastics.

Allah has asked us to engage our bodies in His worship and in service to His creation through charity and good deeds, but what must be the fruit of those actions? If the fruit is not love it is a bitter fruit and is rejected. If our worship causes Love of God to grow in our hearts, then we must keep to that practice and continue on our way; and if we are keeping the company of a spiritual teacher, and find that through keeping his company love of God is awakening in our hearts, then we must follow him closely.

The Love of God is not easy to attain, for we cannot imagine Him; therefore, He Almighty has made the Prophets apostles of His Love. Allah’s Beloved, the Seal of Prophets, Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was such a pure medium for the transmission of that love that the hearts of his companions were overwhelmed with his love, and were transported to the love of God. He was the representative of Allah, who is the Absolute Truth; therefore, the Prophet declared: “Who has seen me has seen the Absolute Truth”.

When a delegation of non-Muslims came to visit Medina, they were amazed at the love and respect shown to the Prophet by his companions. When they returned home they said to their leader: “We have met many emperors, kings and tribal chiefs, but never have we seen one whose subjects or courtiers treated him with such sincere love and devotion. How can this be?” They were not able to comprehend the secret of this love, as their egos caused them to deny Muhammed’s prophethood. The love of the companions towards the Prophet was such that they used to say to him: “I am ready to sacrifice for you even my mother and father”, which, for the Arabs, is much stronger than saying: “I would sacrifice myself for you”. And in reality many of them underwent nearly unbearable hardships for the sake of their belief in the mission of the Holy Prophet: exile, disinheritance, boycott, torture and death.

Who represented the Holy Prophet after his life on Earth? Those who evoked such love. The Prophet himself described them: “Those who see them are reminded of God”. He who thirsts for Divine Love must seek out such people, but in our time they are mostly hidden, and Islam has come to mean for many people only a set of rules of conduct and forms of worship – an empty shell. Who can derive taste from such a thing? Shall mosques be only gymnasiums? And now the “gym teachers” are opposing Sufi Paths, which are the ways of the heart, ways that lead to the Love of God.

Our Lord has given us an instrument that measures not your blood pressure but our “love pressure” and our goal is to make it high! Yes, seek to improve with every new day, for the Holy Prophet said: “Whoever does not improve with each day is losing ground.” What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that if we pray forty rakats of prayer today, we should pray forty-one tomorrow and forty-two the next day. No, that is not required, what is intended is that you fill your worship with ever more love of your Lord, so that He will observe: “My servant has sent Me more love today than yesterday. “One of our Grandsheikhs summarised perfectly what I am trying to say: “An atom’s weight of love is worth more than seventy years’ worship without love”.





Love is the Mortar of all Prayer



As we were coming to the mosque today I saw a billboard that read: “Everyone Needs Standards”. I didn’t understand what this could mean, but just then the traffic light turned red, so that we stopped right in front of the sign. Then I looked more closely and noticed that someone had vandalised the sign, and with a pen had crossed out “Standards”, and written instead: “Love not Standards”, so that the billboard now read: “Everyone needs Love, not Standards”.

If one is open to wisdom he may take wisdom from every side, and so, Glory to Allah, this bit of vandalism has given me a topic for this lecture. Yes, that person was right, and this recalls to mind a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, in which he prayed to God :

“Oh Allah, I ask you to grant me the love of You and the love of those whom You love, and grant me, Oh my Lord, the love of those actions which lead me to the love of You”.

To ask our Lord to open up our hearts to His Divine Love is the most important request we can make of Him in our prayers, as nothing can take the place of love. The Holy Prophet, who is called the Beloved of Allah, whom Allah created with the yeast of love, and whom Allah loved some such He dedicated the creation to him, even this beloved Prophet asked Allah for Divine Love – why? Because who tastes of that love asks for more. Whose hart is like a rock will not ask God for this love, but those who have had the slightest taste of that love know that it is the key to all spiritual progress, to mercy, beauty, wisdom, to all favours that God may bestow upon His servants. Therefore, the Holy Prophet taught all mankind what is precious in this life.

And then his prayer continued: “And grant me the love of those who love You”. The first level, “Love of God”, is that Station of the Prophets, and you can’t step from the bottom of the stairway to the top in one step. Allah Almighty is the Transcendent Being – you can’t even begin to fathom anything about Him almighty – but it is easy to love those who represent His Love among mankind, for it is much easier for us to begin to understand and love human beings like ourselves. You will find nothing in their hearts but the Love of God; therefore, loving them is a means to approach the Divine Love.

Lastly, the Holy Prophet asks for the love of those actions which lead to the love of God, actions which carry blessings with them, which soften our hearts and weaken our greed and selfishness. These are the actions encouraged by our Lord through the example of His Prophets, actions ordered and recommended in His Holy Books. And, although in the beginning our inner state may not correspond to these saintly actions, by engaging our limbs in what pleases our Lord, He will strengthen our hearts thereby.

These are the three levels of love for which the Holy Prophet prayed, and the wisdom reflected in this prayer is proof enough of the veracity of Muhammad, peace be upon him. While Believers must always ask for that love, Satan is ever at war with such a notion, for he knows that once love has entered the heart of one of his slaves, that slave is lost to him, for he will not be able to snare him anymore with this world’s pleasures. He who has tasted that love may not even notice those pleasures, or may regard them as only a drop in an ocean.

Once, as Moses, upon whom be peace, was headed toward Mount Sinai, he passed the cave of a hermit. The hermit emerged and called after Moses: “Oh Moses, please ask our Lord to bestow upon me just an atom’s weight of His Divine Love”. Moses agreed to do this, then continued on his way. Later, when Moses was addressing his Lord, he petitioned on behalf of that hermit. The Lord replied: “I will grant that servant of My Divine Love, but not in the amount he requested. I will only grant him the tiniest fraction of an atom’s weight of that love”.

When Moses returned from the mountain, he quickly went to see what was happening to the hermit, to see what effect such a tiny dose of Divine Love might have had on him. When he arrived he was startled to see that where the cave had been a part of the mountain was blown away, and in place of that cave there was a deep chasm in the Earth. “Oh servant of my Lord”, he cried out, “What has happened, where are you?” Then Moses looked down the chasm and saw the hermit sitting down there as if in another world, completely overwhelmed by that love.

Why did that hermit ask for a portion of Divine Love? Because he was worshipping but feeling nothing; he felt an emptiness in his heart that could only be filled by that love. Without love, worship is tasteless and useless; therefore, we must be sure to build our worship upon a strong foundation of love and to bake love into the bricks of the building of our devotional practice. This is more than an analogy, for even physical buildings are either alive with the love of their builders, or dead from their hard-heartedness.. Therefore, old buildings often emanate a good feeling because of the love and goodness of those who built them. This is especially true of old mosques and churches, for their original congregations built them for the same of their Lord’s love and in an attitude of sincere piety. There is often a very strong feeling of the Divine Presence in old mosques, but have you ever felt such an atmosphere in the new showpiece – of – sterile – architecture – mosques? No, it is impossible, you may feel only an inner contraction side of such concrete hills. They have left the love out of the mortar: the most important ingredient is missing.