About Book of wisdom:
“Muslim religious life not only consists of belief in orthodox tenets of faith and a determined effort to follow the Sacred Law, it also requires one to scale the heights of the spiritual path. The Kitab al-Hikam of Shaykh Ibn Ata illah al-Iskandari is the inspiring explanation of the soul’s journey through this life, as determined through the Qur an and Sunna. Along with his treatises and intimate discourses (munajat), the substantive feature of the work is the author s 264 spiritual aphorisms (hikam) concise, comprehensive and sublime sayings on self purification (tazkiya), and guidelines to help strengthen the relationship between humans and their Lord. These aphorisms, which have never failed to inspire, are presented in this edition according to the systematic arrangement of the great Indian scholar Shaykh Ali Muttaqi (d. 975/1567), together with the indispensable commentary of the twentieth-century sage Shaykh Abdullah Gangohi.” – From Amazon
as we move on in our series on the book of wisdom which is on page 198. he says anybody who this will resonate with those who want to be close to Allah and want some kind of evidence that they are close to Allah those who feel that they’ve made an achievement as being close to Allah and not lovers of the world or not lovers of fame and gain not lovers of material objects meaning they could have these things but they don’t love these things when can a person consider himself to have to to think that yes I’m there now but I’m not sure even if a person would think that way but this is a good test so what he says is that if when given something the giving expands you and if when deprived of something the deprivation contracts you then take that as the proof of your immaturity and the insincerity of your servanthood masha’Allah we’re getting either gift or we’re getting fame or we’re getting praises or things are just happening well in our life and that helps to expand us now, of course, you feel happy when things happen this is talking about you feel as if spiritually you’re in a better place
but then when you get deprived of something this is the true test when you get deprived it contracts you liked by Allah am I hated about this is a very constant feeling a lot of people actually have this feeling that when things don’t go well for them that’s when they start Allah doesn’t like me or something like that when everything is going well they think Allah likes them there’s a deception in both there could be deception in both so then what he says really interesting I mean the English doesn’t do justice to the Arabic it says take an evidence to take that as a proof of your immaturity he translates to fulia this is the victor.
Danis translation of tufulia as immaturity i mean consequently it is immaturity but i’ll explain what the exact what tufulia means it’s a really interesting idea that came from an incident right and the insincerity of your servanthood meaning you’re not truthful in your truly being a servant of Allah because as a servant of Allah subhanahu wa is supposed to be pleased and happy and status quo whatever it is so if we’re thrown left and right when it comes to being given things receiving things or not given things then it means we’re not there yet this is a difficult stage to reach where everything becomes the same for a person as long as they are as long as they know they’re pleasing Allah that’s what matters for them
so i think it’s not more about whether something makes them happy or pleased it’s more about as long as Allah is pleased and once that’s the main focus because it can’t be an absentee it can’t be this kind of idea that i don’t care if i get good or bad i’m in a like a stable state but with what what what are you getting from that stable state so the main purpose is that your love
for Allah is there and the connection with Allah is felt and that as long as you’re pleasing Allah that’s what you’re satisfied about then these things should not matter so it’s not talking about these things not mattering in a vacuum because what’s the point of that
that means you’re just careless you don’t care people like that people who don’t care about anything they’ve just given up with life or they
just don’t care they’re just relaxed or they just laid back they don’t care whether they get praised there’s lots of criminals they don’t care if they get if they get deprived they just they just want to be losers in the world so it’s not about this being an absentee
this is about you’re so satisfied with your connection with Allah then this does not matter because you feel you are pleasing Allah
so let’s look at this the the important word here he says is that if if you if this is if you do feel this way where you contract and expand when given when deprived or given respectively then it means that you should take this as evidence that you still have tufolia now what is tufulia tofu comes from this concept of tataful tataful
tufaili it’s essentially you’re not really invited and you end up you turn up there and you try to fit into the group either to get some food from there to eat you know in in the invitation at the restaurant at the reception or you just want to be part of something because i don’t know you know there’s some perks there whatever you want to be but you’re not really of them
so you dress up as them or you just get in or you get just slip in with somebody else that’s toofolia how did that come about to that as somebody who generally gets in gate crashes a walima like a dawat of some sort just for the sake of eating
so somehow access is part of the family or whatever and and just goes in right it actually came from this because tufool the the the roo of that is tiffel which essentially means child so now you can understand
why viktor dhani is saying it’s immaturity it’s still like a child but what really happened was that there was a person in kufa right there was a man in kufa from the banu abdullah ibn khattafan he’s from that tribe and he eventually became known as to weddings because he used to go to all of them without being invited there and he used to just dress up or pretend
that he’s part of the tribe or group or whatever and he used to go so essentially that’s where you get this idea for anybody who just kind of comes in to any kind of group or invitation or food or uninvited that’s essentially
where this word comes from from this banu abdullah ibn khattafan this man from that tribe so what the author is saying here the is that anybody who tries to now be part of a group and say that i’m a sufi or i’m close to Allah i’m a willie of Allah you know i’m a righteous man but then he’s going through these fluctuations it’s only good if there’s good things coming in if there’s good things happening if there’s materialistic achievements otherwise the person becomes dark otherwise the person’s life becomes miserable and dark when they’re not being given right so that’s why and this is the life of a lot of people in social media
this is the life of people in social media even those who claim i mean this is a challenge on social media even for those who claim that they’re doing something religious up there because if you don’t get the likes and you feel like what’s the point and then especially when you start comparing yourself with somebody else who gets even more likes or more hits or more followers then you’re even in a bigger mess
but if somebody is on there they’re trying to benefit people and there’s 10 people benefiting alhamdulillah they’re happy with that 50 people 100 people they benefit they not look at those who have a million or 500 000 or 100 000 or 50 000 or
whatever you know they’re just trying to do their best oh person who reckons this is what the author is saying that the person who reckons that they are somewhere with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and you’re only there when Allah subhanahu wa is opening the doors of his treasures and his bounties upon you worldly bounties
so you’re getting riches you’re getting money you’re getting wealth you’re getting praise you’re getting fame you’re getting likes you’re getting followers enjoying good health and you generally feel secure and everything else
and all of the other full desires that you get you get invited out and all the rest you know to eat and other places so you get really excited but as soon as there’s a setback as soon as you didn’t get something you expected or it stopped coming or you became sick
you became ill or something happened that’s why a lot of people became miserable in the downturn in in the lockdown a lot of people
became miserable they just didn’t know what to do they just didn’t know what to do of course it affects you when it changes your whole lifestyle but those people who are connected to Allah just adjust faster than those people who are not connected
because for them it’s all about the outside life it’s all about meeting someone it’s all about being somewhere and when
they could not do that it was difficult there was no adjustment adjustment was very very difficult because how life is of that style so if Allah now changes your prosperity your bank balance rather than going up is now going down your fame you’re actually losing people there’s criticism upon you you’re getting into controversy right and instead of you know your your dignity and everything like that people are abandoning you they’re not coming to you right they don’t care about you anymore so your internal feeling of expansion is now contraction and or maybe you you are very healthy very fit and now suddenly you’ve been overcome by some kind of debilitation weakness you can’t do what you were doing right or initially you had no challenges and now you’re full of challenges and you just don’t know you can’t really you know you even in challenges you have to remember it’s Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala provides them right so then what happens is that you become really really terrorized by that
the world becomes a very very dark place and you start thinking about Allah wa’ta’ala so now just understand that you were never there anyway like a righteous person you are not really a righteous person as i said this is probably not going to be relevant to people who never who never think there are anything anyway right because it’s not that
that macam and that station yet you’re just like that person who who used to get invited to walima’s and eventually they figured out so they told everybody who you are so now you can’t go into them you’re still in slumber but the main thing about that is that
it just goes to show forget about the place now the bigger problem here is not that you’re not there the bigger problem here i think that that is really effect that that is really detrimental here is that you’re not true
in your seeking you’re not true in what you’re trying to be you’re not true in the fact that you are a servant of Allah you’re not fully a servant of Allah yet you still feel like you’re a servant of other things because if you’re a servant of Allah then all of these things as long as you’ve got that focus of Allah in your mind then all of these things should be the same to you because you know that you’re with Allah so as i said this is not about a person who doesn’t care about that either who’s just a loser who doesn’t care that’s why a poet says regarding his friends about his truthfulness and his sincerity with his associates and his friends he says you are my beloved you are my friends whether life does well for me or for us
or does bad meaning if there’s a something that comes up in between us or not you are i’m i’ve sincerely offered you my friendship i’m gonna be your friend regardless come thick or thin so you be whatever you want but i’m gonna be truthful in my relationship in my friendship say that to your spouse say that to your friend say that to your brothers your sisters say that to people if you truly want to be a friend that’s the idea that i’m with you regardless of what comes regardless of what happens already Allah and he says the sight of Allah it can’t be accomplished in their in in their faith in their standing with Allah until four things become absolutely equal to them it sounds very difficult but if we don’t know this concept. we can’t even kind of adjust ourselves to try to even get to it so he says in being prevented from something in being given something makes no difference how i don’t know that’s a difficult one well and in dignity and respect or in humiliation there’s lots of stories of humiliation subhanAllah look at the palestinian people how humiliated they are the pretty much the whole world has abandoned them in a sense right especially governments and things like that there’s very few with them but the dignity there there they always have Allah on their lips masha Allah they’re always she’s become shaheed that was really amazing to think of Allah at that moment that she’s gone as a shahid just imagine what are these ideas you had all of these dreams you had what are these ambitions you had and this fiance is now gone what it what are you going to remember right now.
it’s only if Allah is in your heart you’ll be able to think oh but she’s gone to a better place so now generally when you’ve got a person who when they’re in the right state meaning when the circumstances are correct then they start acting up and they start acting like the boss but when hazimow in the but when they get attacked by the brave ones then they then they suffer defeat then really in reality very weak into the ranks of the true people of the true men now um the author he’s got another book i think it’s his book called the tenure he says in there that Allah sometimes through his wisdom
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala sometimes test the people who claim to be close to him right those who claim to others especially because you can’t claim to Allah i’m close to you because Allah knows and we know but when you claim to other people so
Allah tests them sometimes to see and he knows they’re not truthful so he does this to actually expose them the actual desire they actually have of the world so it becomes very clear that these people are very worldly they’re given a position of a worldly position you can tell now that they become indulgent in that and what they hide of their desires so then these people end up bowing down flattering the those that they think they can get some worldly benefit from worldly individuals um people who they think are they’re going to get something out of this world for them they start flattering those people they start becoming conducive to them and
they start appearing at their doors and they leave what they were originally doing that’s when they lose all of their pretense because now they seem to have used this system that they were involved in and now they’ve almost like reached
their price so they give up this system they give up their so-called worship the way they used to dress maybe the way they used to worship and the claims they used to make because now they’ve really got their objective which was a position somewhere the world some gifts money influence or whatever it is are not deceived by them that’s the main thing that these people don’t deceive others however the true ones they will recognize these peoplewill start seeing that these people were liars they were just making claims before assad ibadah these people thought that they were leading other peoples in people in the right direction but they were actually preventing people from true companionship with the awliya of Allah essentially these are people who are banging the drums of the war a good parable banging the drums of war putting on their armor spreading out their flags to go to war and as soon as the attack as soon as
they met the enemy then they turned back and ran they’re just claims on their tongue their hearts were actually completely devoid of any kind of fear of Allah subhanahu wa’ta’ala that’s why Allah subhanahu wa can you believe this that the truthful
ones Allah is going to ask them and question them about their truthfulness so imagine that if we’re not even
truthful we don’t even claim to be truthful then there’s clearly going to be a question there so the truthfulness are questioned about their purity and sincerity than those who are not truthful they’re going to be questioned as well
that’s why Allah wa ta’ala says you think he’s going to leave people without being questioned because questioning is for everyone the reckoning Allah says in surah verse 105 messenger and the believers will see it as well believers are seen as a proof as well for this not just Allah and his messenger the other obviously there are proof but even believers are considered to be proof we we take them to be proof if people if many people consider somebody to be a nice person we generally take their word for it we still have a bit of caution but we take their word for it and then Allah subhanahu wa this is all
in the world but Allah says then you will be returned to the knower of all the unseen and the seen and then he’s going to tell you what you used to do may Allah allow us to stand properly on that day so he says that don’t be like those people who seem to outwardly act and dress in other things as righteous people as truthful ones but inside they’re ignorant inside they are negligent sheikh abdullahi he adds a bit to this this is his conclusion of this aphorism he says
o traveler meaning o seeker if your condition is such that you worship and remember Allah with concentration and relish when he showers favors on you but when these favors are withheld you become and you become disappointed and despondent in worship
then know that in the divine court you’re not regarded as one of the people of Allah you may let other people know that but actually that your name isn’t recorded you’re telling everybody you’ve got this big degree but if you actually go on ask oxford you you actually didn’t do anything there right or wherever for that matter you’re not the people of Allah you are only claiming to be among the people of Allah but your claim is false if you are truly among the people of Allah then this would not have been your condition when things were withheld from you you would have dealt with it you would not have freaked out your attitude indicates that you are not true in your servanthood and worship your state indicates that the quest for pleasures of the ego still lurk in you you are still inclined to the acquisition of your ego’s goals and hopes this attitude is a negation of the state of servanthood and indicates slavery to the ego however now he clarifies something which is very important to clarify right because just because you feel a bit contracted in your heart when something goes wrong doesn’t mean that this is us insha Allah i mean i think i’m here i am this is my example anyway but however he says if the heart’s constriction is on account of fear of a trial imposed by Allah musa
you fear that Allah is putting you in a really bad test and that trial is a manifestation of the wrath of Allah most high so now you want to please him and you see this as a sign that Allah is displeased at you right and uh and and you want to try to
please Allah again see the person i talked about earlier who feels that Allah has forsaken them they start complaining about Allah that’s the difference between these people and that those people you start complaining about you know whatever this that and the other and then like i’m not going to worship what’s the point of worshiping i’ve been asking for so long nothing happens look what’s happened to me where’s my duas gone is Allah really there or not you know and so on and so forth these people they actually start turning back to Allah that if this is a wrath then i must ask for forgiveness and protection and the uncertainty of now the another thing they’re worried about is they have an uncertainty of maintaining patience and steadfastness during the trial am i going to be able to hack this trial see a you bodies on the story about him is that he just relaxed all the way even though it became worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and then eventually the only time he actually he was he had radha bilkava not even higher status he was actually satisfied whatever Allah had given him even though he lost everybody he lost his physical you know health and everything but
eventually when he realized that now i may not be able to actually you know it’s getting to a stage where i can’t even do what i need to do for Allah whatever like complete debilitation that’s when he asked Allah subhanahu wa’ta’ala so now these people are thinking the same way that i don’t know if i can deal with this i don’t know if i can deal with this i don’t know if i can go through it oh Allah help me Allah help me uncertainty of maintaining patience and steadfastness during the trial then such contract constriction will not indicate falsity of one servanthood such constriction constriction of the heart and fear are
natural human reactions that that’s fine the attributes of humanity basharia remain in the irif even when a person becomes close to Allah they’re still a human being they don’t become angels they’re still a human being there’s going to be human feelings that will overcome a person may Allah allow us to become his true audia and may Allah allow us to overcome our egos Allah make it easy for us are so many things happening in the world
oh Allah we ask you for steadfastness we ask you for a fiat we ask you for security we ask you for safety we ask you for connection
with you we ask you for your love oh Allah there are so many confusing things happening there are so many detractions there are so many distractions oh Allah there are so many temptations oh Allah there are so many issues of Allah the the world we live in you have brought us at a time in this world when there are so many distractions oh Allah only you can grant us steadfastness only
you can grant grant us the tools to remain straight oh Allah there is confusion out there there is there are so many different issues out there oh Allah we ask you for steadfastness we are we ask you for uprightness we ask you for piety we ask you for righteousness
we ask you for your mercy we ask you for forgiveness for the many many mistakes and errors we have committed for the many sins that we have perpetrated o Allah for our shortcomings our love for our problems our Allah for our excesses oh Allah what have we not done oh Allah what have we not done oh Allah we can only turn to you for your mercy Allah allow there to be righteousness and taqwa and god-fearingness in our lives and in our family’s lives and in the lives of our progeny in our community
we thank you for bringing us up in communities that have had scholars that have had righteous people that have had religious guides oh Allah we ask that you continue this tradition that you allow from our own children now on progeny those who will memorize the quran those who will learn the quran those who will teach the quran those who will practice the quran who will respect the quran will glorify the quran who will promote the quran who will teach it to others and of Allah who will live by the quran allow that to remain in our progeny Allah what good will be with for all the other wealth that you may have given us
all the other respect you have given us Allah what good is all of that if if we are not going to be able to stand on the day of judgment and love to meet you and you love to meet us oh Allah make us of those who say the kalima illah on our deathbed who are constantly in your remembrance who do not forget you you for too long at all o Allah who remember you many times who have your consciousness many times a day oh Allah allow us to do our daily chores in accordance to with your pleasure in accordance with your pleasure Allah bless all of those who are here who are listening oh Allah those who will listen or Allah bless us all Allah if you’ve given us the tawfiq to raise our hands to cover these topics to ask you like
this then we hope that this is a good sign that you want to give us Allah grant us and make us of your close ones of Allah accept our and raise their status especially the ulama who have recently departed this world allowed there to be a replacement
oh Allah allowed there to be a replacement do not deprive us with ignorance oh Allah do not deprive us and challenge us with ignorance so
Allah grant us awareness and grant us access to awareness and knowledge and sacred knowledge when we need it
oh Allah increase the odama in in our midst among our midst and all increase those who are close to you so that we can benefit from their blessings
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