Part 9

And praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the worlds, and may His Blessings and Peace be upon our leader Muhammad. insinuations of misconduct on the part of 'Aaishah, daughter of Aboo Bakr. These rumours were short-lived and her innocence was established beyond all doubt in the Qur'aan 24:11-20. The letter of Shaykh ul Islam from his prison in Alexandria to his companions urging them to turn to Allah and be attentive to Him. In the Name of Allah, ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem "And of your Sustainer's blessings shall you always speak" (93:5) I would like to inform my companions, may Allah please and favour them in this life and the next, that I am in a state of bliss the like of which I have never seen or experienced before. Allah has indeed opened wide for me the gates of His endless bounties. These blessings from Allah will only be tasted by those who have acquired insight into the realities of eemaan and tawhid and were granted a share in what all people endeavour towards: knowledge and faith. The subsequent pleasure and happiness, total joy and excitement, that are difficult to describe, are all found in and are a manifestation of, the higher spiritual wisdom and knowledge of Allah the Exalted in Might, believing in Him and worshipping Him Alone in the true way. One Shaykh used to say, "I experience a state where I think to myself: Lucky are the people of Paradise if they are in this state!" Another says, "There are times when my heart dances with joy due to the blessing of knowledge and belief, since there is not one blessing in this life equal to that of the Hereafter's, apart from those." In the same vein, the Prophet (saw) used to say to Bilaal:"Comfort us by prayer, O Bilaal". The Prophet had never asked to be comforted from prayer, as the sluggish might say. As Allah says in His book: "And seek help in patience and prayer, and truly it is heavy and hard except for the Khaashi'oon24". (2:45) Attentiveness is the total surrender to Allah. It is the inner peace derived from the confidence in Allah in heart and limb. The Prophet used to say: "It has become beloved to me from this life of yours, women and beautiful scent". Until he said, "And my total peace and ultimate delight are from prayer." The Messenger of Allah did not just pronounce the first sentence of the hadith. Some people today pronounce the first sentence and stop, although it was not the way that Imam Ahmad and Nasa'i had related it. Those Imaams explain the joy of attentive prayer and the subsequent satisfaction, to be more significant than the other things mentioned. 24 Khaashi'oon means those who are attentive and humble in spirit and fear Allah's punishment much. It is the heart where the whispers of the inner-self dwell. The Shaytan commands the following of desires, and makes them seem attractive. He whispers doubts and thereby turns life into a miserable existence. He who loves any other besides Allah is tormented in this life and the next. If that person attains his urges, he will then be punished for it. However, if he does not, he will be distressed and saddened. There is no complete happiness and total delight but in the love of Allah and in practising the acts instructed by Him. This love is attained through the rejection of all others, and this is the reality of Laa ilaaha ill-Allah. It was the reality of Ibrahim 'alayhis salaam, and the rest of the Prophets and Messengers, may the peace of Allah be upon them all. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) used to say to his companions. "Say that we are on the fitrah of Islam, the word of sincerity, the religion of our Prophet Muhammad and the way of our father Ibrahim, who was a true believer and never a mushrik." Yet man is wicked and ignorant, as His Creator, Allah said: "Verily we did offer the trust to the Heavens and the earth, and the mountains but they refused to hear it because they were afraid of it. Yet man took it up - for verily, he has always been prone to be most wicked, most foolish". (33:72) So the objective of those loyal to Allah, His successful party and victorious soldiers, is repentance. And due to this, this religion is a mixture of affirming Allah's true Oneness AND seeking His forgiveness. "Your God is One therefore, take the straight path unto Him and seek forgiveness of Him" (41:6) And so, the achievement of all the commands and abandonment of all the forbidden acts are a part of the tawhid of Laa ilaaha ill-Allah. When the willing servant of Allah is blessed with tawhid, and he has absolute confidence and conviction, then Allah will bless him with safety, happiness, joy and mercy. Alternatively, the fear that dwells in the heart is ash-shirk as Allah says: Into the heart of those who are bent on denying the truth, "We shall cast dread in return for their shirk". (3:151) Similarly in an authentic hadith, the Messenger of Allah (saw) said: "Grief unto the servant of dinaar and grief unto the servant of dirham (monetary units). Grief unto the servant of ostentatious clothes, and grief unto the servant of beautified cloth.