Opening the Latā if under the Feet of the Ambiyā Strengthening the Heart by Practicing their Qualities Qalb : Adam (as) : Repentance Bismi-Llāhi-r-Rahmāni-r-Rahīm. Without getting into a theological discussion, the Christians talk about salvation. The implication is if you accept Jesus as your one and only Savior, then you are somehow saved; and in theory, it doesn t matter what you do. You have been saved. But when we talk about the essential salvation, when you were saved by Allah Swt (using their terminology) it was from disbelief. So we say a person is a believer, and take it at face value. But you realize that you have belief. So I m not going to get into to what degree you believe, or exactly what you believe, but that you believe. We have to be grateful, first of all that those of us sitting here have some degree of belief. Why? Because the disease of disbelief is basically a lack of acceptance of the unity that is Allah, tawhid. When you have a major illness, then there are usually some minor ailments that go along with it. Or, when you have symptoms, sometimes they precede a major illness. When we look at our confusions and entanglements with minor ailments and minor illnesses, it s a sign from Allah Swt that perhaps something major is coming. I m not just talking about physical illnesses, though certainly there are analogs to psychological and emotional illnesses. Simply said, these illnesses cast shadows on the heart. You know that is true. We have all had that experience. Emotional upsets, mental distractions, physical illnesses affect the qualities of our heart. In that state, we don t perceive through the lens of qalb, through the latifa. What we don t perceive is the magnanimity, the presence, the beauty, the love, the protection, the compassion, the meaningfulness of Allah s nearness. As I said yesterday, the way you continue to purify the heart is to continue to make dhikru-llāh, polishing the heart, because Allah tells us that by remembering Him, He remembers us. The Prophet (sal) prescribed this medication, this remedy, of dhikru-llāh. 1
By practicing dhikru-llāh, these minor ailments disappear, and the heart becomes healthy and strong, because with each name of Allah, there is a certain light. This is light therapy. If a person, after becoming more healthy and stronger, has become habituated to the attraction of the ailments and doesn t work / amal, then that person we say in modern terms has become challenged, has a handicap. The heart is healthy, but it is not doing anything worthwhile. It has torpor. It is running away from its duties and responsibilities. How is that possible? It s possible because you can become very comfortable on the spiritual path. You are not being distracted by evil things. You are not having bad thoughts. You are not doing bad actions. You believe. Do you believe in Allah? Yeah, sure. Of course I do. Do you believe in angels? Absolutely! Do you believe in the Holy Book? Of course, I read it every day! Do you believe in the Prophet? Yeah, sure. Do you believe you are making progress? Oh, I don t know. Are you happy? Yeah, I m happy. You are also lazy. So what? It s better to be like that than be negative and bad, sinful, whatever. Of course it is. I d rather live in a world of people like that than in the world we have today. But when you have been given the Way, and the teaching, and you are in the suhbat, and you are in the jamat / gathering of the Sufi, and you have the methodology, Allah is telling you, I have a use for you. There is a purpose to your existence. Not just that you glide through life and everything s fine. Look, everything s terrific! I have a nice job, a good family, a hybrid car, and a hybrid cat. Everything s fine. But you are isolated in your spiritual bubble. So the heart is strong, but it isn t turning toward Allah fully. If you go to some other khutbah on Friday (not ours), you will hear only this left and right story. I m talking about the middle, the gray areas. Why? Because we are talking about what? Latā if. So I have to talk about the subtlety. If qalb has started to become strong, and there is no change in your day to day life; if you are doing the practice, the wazifa, the sitting, but it has become like second nature to you and you do it, but you re probably not sitting fully, then we can say 2
that the person is lazy. One shaykh gave an example. He said, if bandits get you, they beat you. You feel sorry for the person who gets beaten. Maybe they don t have the strength to fight back. But if the person is strong, and has training or weapons, and still doesn t fight back, then you call them stupid. Unless of course he s a pacifist, then you call him a Jain. When this first latifa qalb is awakened, you now are expected to, by Allah, defend yourself against the attacks of Shaytan, because Shaytan targets the heart. It cannot target the rūh. One of the reasons why we begin with qalb is because you are building a strong foundation. You are putting up a parapet and a defense around this whole structure of the internal being, the internal self. Even if you are passive, you have the capability to defend yourself. By the way, even Gandhi said, there was a time when one would have to fight. Allah has blessed us with the tools and the capacity we need in our heart. What are some examples of those tools? You see someone in need; you are compassionate. Your compassion makes you act. You see someone who could suffer at your hands, and you are merciful. You see someone who is disturbed; you defend them with peace. I m talking about you and others, but it is also toward yourself. When you are hard on yourself, you become compassionate. You are required. Why? Because if you are too hard on yourself and I don t mean nafs lawwama, criticizing yourself for the purpose of raising the level of your nafsi. I mean if you are selfdestructive in any way, you are required to take the power that you have developed from your heart and be compassionate and merciful toward yourself, to strive for peace within yourself, nafs mut mainna. If you don t do that, the enemy is going to continue to destroy you, or at least attack you. One could say, that even worse than that, on the Day of Awakening, you will be questioned: why did you not protect your heart? Why did you not use the capacity that you had? You had acquired this wealth so to speak, but you hoarded it. You didn t use it for the good. You can understand that. If a person has acquired wealth but hasn t used it for any good, you can understand why that is negative. 3
The acquiring of it is not bad; it s the not using it. If you acquire this capacity in your heart, but you don t use it, first with yourself and then with others, that will be questioned. Parvez and Fatima brought me beautiful gifts from my student in Saudi Arabia, and from friends of the student also. They said, These are from Salman s friends in Saudi. If I said, Oh, okay, throw them over there in the garbage, when I have the power and the knowledge and the wisdom, and the instruction and guidance and example to say, How kind. Thank you very much! Thank you for carrying all this weight sincerely, and I don t do that, it has nothing to do with the gift. I m caught in a behavior that even though I have the capacity, I am not using it. I am ungrateful to the giver. Why should we be ungrateful to Allah? I think this is a very basic point. How many times today have we not been grateful to Allah for the blessings He has given us? Yes, I know this could be Friday s khutbah. Why do we not appreciate? When we say the latifa is open, there is more to it. It is not just opening the door of the latā if. It is allowing the transformation to take place. That s why we have to deal with our nafs. Opening the door to the latā if gives us the capacity and the tools to deal with the nafs ammāra, nafs lawwama, nafs mut mainna, etc. When you practice on a latifa, there are ambiyā/prophets associated with these latā if. When you are making dhikr not just as lā ilāha illa-llāh, but you are putting your attention on Allah through your niyyat you are saying that you are doing that under the feet of Hazrat Adam (as), under the feet of Hazrat Musa (as) or Hazrat Isa (as).the blessings of the Prophet Muhammed (sal) reach us through these prophets. A specific type of light, or nūr, blessing comes to us through these prophets. This is a much bigger discussion, because Rasūlu-Llāh (sal) says, I existed before Adam. What does that mean? I can t do that tonight, but know that the Nuri Muhammed is coming through Hazrat Adam, and it s coming through Hazrat Musa, and 4
Hazrat Daoud. If you want to understand this, look at the sun. The rays of the sun, when they reach us directly, have no color. But if they pass through a prism, then you can see the color that they contain. Each one of those colors is ambiyā. Another way of saying it is this glass is clear, but when I put tea in it, it takes the color of the tea. It takes on the quality of what is in it. There are qualities of these ambiyā that we need for us to achieve what we need to achieve. As Muslims, you get it through the stories. As Sufis, you get it through the stories and through the light of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal), which is like the carrier wave, the beacon, or the fiber optic cable that brings that specific light to your heart. Your heart has to be stimulated in each latifa, by each of these ambiyā s uniqueness. They were unique, and they each had a unique task. And how many prophets are there, according to Islam? 176,000. How many messengers? Not that many. If this glass were green, what color would the tea be? It would be a greenish brown. It takes on the color of its container, too. The Prophet (sal) we are told is the source of the blessings. Are we talking about a man, or are we talking about something else? That s where we get into the Nuri Muhammad. We are talking about the man, when the latifa is the one that reflects the Prophet Muhammad (sal). But we are talking about the nūr/light of Rasūlu-Llāh when we are talking about all the other latā if. In that sense, Prophet Muhammad (sal) is like this shining sun or this bright light in the universe, and all the blessings that we receive, and that were received by all the previous prophets, were actually originating from that light. We call it the Nuri Muhammad, and that s where people get put off by the way you say it. How could it all come from Muhammad who was later than these prophets? How can you say that? You Muslims are crazy; you want everybody to believe this.. Forget that. We are talking about a nūr/light. The prophets (as) are like intermediaries to convey the blessings, which in zaman / time were going to come from this man called Muhammad Abdullah later in time. But in Allah s time /dahr, there is no time. It s passing through this ambiyā s heart, and this 5
heart, and this heart, and this heart, then it s going to take the form of this man, who will say, On this day, I have completed your religion. Finished. No need for any more prophets at that point. Why? Because Allah says in the Qur an, If you don t understand this message, I will raise up from among you another people. He doesn t say, I m going to send you another prophet. Now, it s from among you. He is going to look at this community, and from the people among it, He will see a subset. I hate to tell you, but that s the world we are living in today. Although it seems a bit self-serving, I don t feel too bad about it because we have spent most of our lives serving others sincerely. He says there will be smaller groups of people who do get it. There is no question in my mind, and I hope in yours, that many, many Muslims are either in the lazy group go to any masjid where there are good people, and I wish the world was populated by those people or they are in the have no right to have the name Muslim group. In between, there are these crazy people called Sufis, of which you are striving to be part of a crazy group of people. The Light of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal) is transmitted through all these ambiyā until it gets manifest in the physical life of this person, Prophet Muhammad (sal). These prophets were virtually masūm. He was masūm. They were perfected human beings, in every respect, but each one had a particular attribute that distinguished him from the others. Why is that important? Because Allah has placed the potential for those attributes in us. Not only do you need an example, but you need someone to transmit, to activate that quality in us. So when we say, under the feet of Adam (as) we refer to a specific quality or attribute of Hazrat Adam (as) that has been enlightened by, enhanced by, activated by, the transmission of the Nuri Muhammad. It s not dormant, but it s been enhanced by. A person who is practicing these practices starts to feel the same attribute or quality in themselves. If you understand that, then you can say that you are following in the footsteps of Hazrat Adam. So we say, under the feet of Hazrat Adam. You may remember there is something called darūd sharīf. It has to be done at Isha. There is a 6
niyyat that goes with it. Does anybody know that niyyat? On the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad (sal). When we say we are trying to follow in the footsteps of someone, this is a great affirmation of the value of that person. We say there is something worthwhile. If I follow in those footsteps, I will acquire that person s qualities. That s how we say it in English. Hazrat Adam (as) we say gives us that quality. We have to remember that having strength and using it properly, having knowledge and using it properly, having understanding and being practical in its application are two different things. Power is one phenomena, and the result of using it properly is another phenomena. The result of using it improperly is another phenomena, which is why we as Sufis do not like to talk about karamat /powers, because power corrupts. We know that. If the power is being driven by those attributes of those ambiyā who are nearly perfect beings, the chances of it corrupting are very small. So you have the madad of these awliyā through your latā if, through Rasūlu-Llāh (sal), and through all the silsila that comes down to a really unworthy person like me, and that s true. But maybe you can extract a drop of nectar, whereas before, you can get a whole jar of honey. It s true. I m sorry to belabor this, but if you really hear it, it can be a revelation for you. If we possess the strength, and we use it properly, or the knowledge, or the understanding; if we follow this path and we use it properly; not only will wonderful things happen, but that is making progress. You are uplifted, and your heart and your soul are united. If you have that capability, and for some strange reason, you don t use it, you can now appreciate why you would have to answer for that. If the World Bank gives 100 million dollars, or a billion dollars or whatever, to a country (This is a terrible example. Do you know why? Because no one is ever answerable. That was a clever political statement.) But if you gave someone a million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars to do something for you, or even a thousand dollars, and they didn t do it, they would be answerable to you not just de facto, but de jure: by law. 7
This is a contract we made. We sold ourselves to our shaykh through ba īat. Our souls made a contract with Allah Swt in pre-eternity. We made an agreement. If you don t perform what your contract says you should perform, then you are answerable by law, or you are answerable in society, or you are answerable in your own heart s misery. A marriage is a contract, for example. It means we don t appreciate what we have. We are unfaithful to Allah, and we have developed such miserable habits that even when we are given the blessing of the path, and the ba īat, the teaching, the Qur an, the Hadith, all this great guidance, and the company of others, and the opportunity to serve, and we are given health and strength and we don t use it how can you call that person anything but an unfaithful, lazy, individual? But we get these habits, and habits are hard to break. That s why we use the example of illness. You don t want to condemn a person for being ill. This special quality that comes to the forefront, the quality of Hazrat Adam is what? Let s see how well you are connecting things. What do you think it has to do with? (Repentance.) Yes, but go back a step. It also has to do with Shaytan. Why? Waswisu. He whispers in the paradisical garden to Adam. He committed this error, because Shaytan whispered. It s an error but not an error; it is programmed by Allah to start off a series of events. And he feels what? Repentant, and he s ashamed. Has anyone here ever felt ashamed or repentant? He humbly asks for forgiveness of Allah Swt by words that are taught to him by Allah. O Allah, we have wronged ourselves, and if you do not forgive us, and do not bestow upon me your mercy, surely we are of the lost. Not just lost, but of the lost, implying that there are, or there will be, many people who are lost. If this other thing happens, and you don t repent, from the history of humanity there is going to be a tribe called the lost tribe. This quality of the human being, to repent when we commit an error or feel ashamed, to ask forgiveness is the primary first quality that Allah has bestowed upon human beings in their qalb. Where do you get hurt? In your heart. Where do you find forgiveness? In your heart. Where do you hurt someone? In their heart. Where do you repair it? 8
Through repentance and forgiveness. Sometimes you can t repair the other person s heart; they won t let you. But you have to ask Allah in your heart to forgive you for that. What happens now, with Shaytan? What s the opposite of this? In Surah al-a raf, Allah says, What prevented you from prostrating to me when I commanded you to do it? Allah asks Shaytan [this question]. Shaytan says, I m better than him! You created me from fire, and him from clay. He insisted, because he was arrogant. If you insist on something that is wrong or forbidden, and on top of it you are arrogant, that s the satanic quality in you. After this, qalb becomes awakened. All of us human beings make mistakes. We have to make tawbah. We feel ashamed; it s a blessing. The shame is a blessing. Immediately, we should ask forgiveness from Allah from the core of our heart, because the heart has been awakened. The subtlety of that light warns us when we start to go in that wrong direction from the siratal mustaqim. We are shown the right path right away again. But if we continue to do the wrong things, the light creates a feeling of repentance, and we seek the blessing of Allah. If we keep ignoring the warnings, and doing the wrong actions, the light goes away and we are in the darkness. That s why at the end of every day, we should make muhasabat. In effect, muhasabat comes about because of what has happened to Hazrat Adam (as). That s why we say under the feet of Hazrat Adam in the latifa qalb. I hope many of you have discovered this on your own in your meditation, but for those few of us who still needed to have it explained, it s a good explanation. Now, people say to me, Shaykh, you have been talking all these years, and a new person comes. How are they supposed to walk into the middle of that? You know how? Because the right thing is always said at the right moment to the right people, for the right reason, if the people are sincere, and it doesn t matter. How many of you have been on the path for 30 years? Did you learn something today? (yes). Khalas. Asalaam aleikum. 9