Jewels and Pearls

Jewels and Pearls: The Life and Legacy of Imam al-Ghazali

Opening Invocations

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon you too.

There is no power nor strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great. O Allah, teach us what is beneficial and benefit us with what You have taught us, and increase us in knowledge. O Allah, open Your wisdom to us and spread Your mercy upon us, O Lord of Majesty and Honor.

O Allah, teach us what is beneficial and benefit us with what You have taught us, and increase us in knowledge. O Allah, there is no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

Peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon you too. There is no power nor strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

Introduction to Imam al-Qahtani's Dream

In the name of Allah, we will start with that, inshallah. Based on Imam al-Qahtani's dream. Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Bismillah. The other night we were looking at the life of Imam al-Ghazali, and inshallah what I'd like to do now is look at his intellectual and spiritual contribution specifically, and then the Ihya and what the importance and the centrality of the Ihya Ulum ad-Din is to this Ummah.

The Three Phases of Imam al-Ghazali's Life

The first thing is that Imam al-Ghazali's life is clearly two distinct parts, or you could put it into three: his education, which goes up to about the age of 27, and then the period that he spent with Nizam al-Mulk in his entourage, and then his appointment in the Nizamiyyah in Baghdad. So this is the second period.

His primary period, which is his education, begins obviously when he's orphaned with his brother Ahmad. He trains with some very formidable teachers and ends with the great Shafi'i and Usuli scholar Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni. Then he goes and impresses the minister of the Seljuks, Nizam al-Mulk, and he eventually is appointed a lecturer and then a head lecturer at the Nizamiyyah in Baghdad, which is at that time probably the most prestigious university in the world. That would be akin today to being a senior lecturer at Yale or Oxford, something like that.

Comparison with Modern Intellectuals

But unlike today when you have certain people that are well-known, like Stephen Hawking is a good example of somebody who has the chair of physics there─I think it's Newton's chair—somebody like Hawking is a genius in one area. I mean, he might be very educated in a lot of different areas; he probably is, he's probably

very well-read in literature and things like that because English intellectuals tend to be. But the area that he has written in and that he's known for is cosmology and physics and higher mathematics—certainly one of the great intellectual geniuses of the 20th and the 21st century and recognized as such.

It's rare for intellectuals in our age to have that type of celebrity. You have certain intellectuals, public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky is a good example. Noam Chomsky is an example of somebody who's a polymath; he's very adept in several different areas, but he's known and his genius is recognized particularly in linguistics and in politics. There's a real split—some people love him and some people hate him—but he's a public intellectual and an activist as well, which is quite unusual for a lot of public intellectuals.

And then you have in our age what I would call intellectual ronins. The ronins were Japanese samurai who lost their feudal lords in battles but they survived, and they would go and basically they were like "have sword, will travel" they were for hire to people and they would go and fight for anybody who would pay them, like mercenaries. So we have intellectual ronins like that, and I think somebody like Christopher Hitchens is a good example of that.

Imam al-Ghazali's Unique Celebrity

I would say that Imam al-Ghazali's celebrity was like one of these incredibly well-known people today, but he wasn't just known for one thing like Stephen Hawking for instance, or Dawkins, or one of those people. He was known for so many different things, and that's one of the most extraordinary things about him.

The Four Categories of Imam al-Ghazali's Early Works

In his first period, and he's writing early on—he's writing while he was still a student—but in his first period his books can be divided into four categories:

1. Books of Tools and Logic

He writes books that are tools, and these are called the tools of knowledge. So he writes books, for instance, he writes in logic, and he's very interested in logic, and logic is important to him. Ibn Taymiyyah, who was also a great logician—and to such a degree that his famous book Refutation of the Logicians is not an attack on logic per se but on certain aspects of logic—but Ibn Taymiyyah was a logician.

What he finds reprehensible in Imam al-Ghazali's position is not that he was a logician but that he deemed logic—he considered logic was one of the necessary sciences for a scholar, especially a mujtahid, to master. And that comes out of the school that he was in, that these were great logicians, people like that, and obviously the mutakallimun also logic became part of ilm al-kalam and syllogisms.

But I think what Imam al-Ghazali shows very clearly in his books on logic is that the Quran uses reasoning. There is a lot of reasoning in the Quran, and he has a book, al-Qistas al-Mustaqim (The Upright Standard), which is a book of Quranic logic. It is teaching you logic using the syllogisms and the enthymemes in the

Quran. So Imam al-Ghazali argues that this is a Quranic science; it is not simply a Greek science, it is a Quranic science. Aristotle identified logic, but people were not illogical before Aristotle. He just identified certain tools that people were doing naturally in their reasoning.

2. Books on Fiqh and Usul al-Fiqh

He has books that are designed for fiqh and usul al-fiqh. So he writes in usul, and his Mankhul and the Mustasfa are very important usuli books, especially the Mustasfa. And then he writes in fiqh itself. So he is a Shafi'i scholar of absolute extraordinary capabilities, and his teacher was one of the great Shafi'i scholars of all time.

So he writes al-Basit, al-Wajiz, he writes the Khulasa, which is a very important book in Shafi'i fiqh. And obviously he has his own ijtihadat, so he is not always in agreement with the dominant school, or in kalam for that matter he is not a pure Ash'ari, he does not always agree with the Ash'aris, and he also says things that some of the Ash'aris considered to be too far out, and that was one of the criticisms that some of the people had about him.

3. Refutations (Rudud)

Then he writes also in the rudud, which are refutations. He was very preoccupied with refuting the esotericists, and the esotericists were Batini—they are called the Batiniyya—and the particular esotericism that was predominant in his time and place was that of the Ismailis. And so he wrote some refutations of the Ismailis and other books and letters also.

4. Works on Philosophy

Then the other area is the philosophers. And he wrote one book just explaining philosophy, which is almost like "Philosophy for Dummies"—it's Maqasid al-Falasifa—and then his famous book, Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers).

In fact, there is a Christian—he is an Arab Christian, Antonios Karam—who actually argues that Imam al-Ghazali is the cause of the fall of Islam and the Arabs because he destroyed philosophy. And that is not really fair to say that. First of all, you can't put the fall of anything on one individual, certainly not a civilization. But Imam al-Ghazali did not destroy philosophy per se, and there is a strong argument that he is actually a philosopher, and there are people that actually argue that—that he is actually much more sophisticated and there is a whole hidden Ghazali in his writings. There is a strong case to be made for that, and people have made that.

Ibn Tufayl is one of them—the great Andalusian philosopher argues that Imam al-Ghazali is actually a philosopher and what he is trying to do is bring back philosophy to religion. Because he says he is trying to convince religious people to become more philosophical and to try to convince philosophers to become more religious. That is really his goal, and I think there is a strong argument for that.

The Importance of Philosophical Training

My own teacher, Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, really feels that one of the reasons for so much misunderstanding and confusion is the loss of the philosophical training, because philosophical training is important. It is central to a civilization—you have to have people that can think philosophically. And some of the most influential people in the West, as you know, are actually trained philosophers, and they have massive impact on how the West thinks. A good example of that is somebody like Joseph Nye or Kennedy, the "fall of civilizations" historian philosopher like Ibn Khaldun.

The Third Phase: The Ihya Ulum ad-Din

So that is another area, and then the area that is central to his teaching and becomes his predominant obsession after his transformation, after his crisis—and this is the third, or you could look at the second phase of his life if you want, the pre-crisis and post-crisis phase-in the second phase of his life, he begins with the Ihya, and he writes that in the first couple of years of his retreat after he has abandoned the world really.

The Purpose of the Ihya

What is important to understand about the Ihya is he wrote it with the intention of giving the Ummah a book that in classical Christianity could only be compared to the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is the foundation of the Catholic Church. What he was trying to do was really give a Summa Islamica—a book that beside the Quran would be enough for an educated Muslim.

And there are ulama—some consider them hyperbolic in their statements, but there are ulama that have argued, and the Ba'Alawi are certainly one group that would argue this from Yemen—there are ulama that have argued the Ihya is all you need as a book for your journey back to God. And so Imam al-Ghazali's Ihya-the importance of it is absolutely phenomenal, and it really becomes a central book.

Controversies Surrounding the Ihya

Despite the fact that it was burned in Andalusia—it was burned outside the masjid of Cordoba—Ibn Hamdun was one of the Andalusian scholars who burnt it. Another famous Moroccan scholar burnt it and actually made tawbah. The story that's related is that the Prophet came to him in a dream and actually had Imam al-Ghazali whip him, so he apologized afterwards.

They were bothered by a statement that he made in the Kitab al-Tawhid wa al-Tawakkul, the book of divine unity and reliance upon God, which has been written about. Imam al-Ghazali himself wrote about it, and it's a very sophisticated, intriguing, and complicated statement. But that bothered a lot of people, and also 'Aja'ib al-Qalb, which I talked about the other day for those that were there—the 21st book—a lot of people were bothered by statements that he made about the ruh and the nature of the ruh.

The Question of Weak Hadith

As for the hadith, the other criticism about the hadith: Ibn Kathir says that the Ihya is a great book—he was a student of Ibn Taymiyyah he said it was a great book, one of the most extraordinary books, and he mentions the weakness of the hadith in the book, and he said you'll find in there, and he says, but then he says, "But it's well known that this is not really a big deal in books of that ilk"-in other words, books of Tarbiyah that aren't books of the ahkam, so to speak, like books of fiqh. The ulama are much easier in the same way they're much easier in sirah. Sirah is the weakest form of knowledge in the Islamic tradition; there are many stories in the sirah that some of them don't even have isnad, but they're still told because they engender love in the heart for the Prophet, and because they fill in the gaps of the sirah, and they are there and they were transmitted, and they don't go against anything in the religion.

So if a hadith goes against the religion, then clearly it's rejected. But if it's weak, and I've likened it to a D or a C—a D or a C is not thrown out, you don't throw out a D or a C paper, it passes, but it's not an A or a B. So you're not going to use it as your standard or model in a classroom. So Sahih Bukhari is A and A+, and Sahih Muslim A and A+, and maybe some A minuses, and then you get into the other hadiths and you get A's and B's and then B's and C's, and then you start getting into really weak collections.

And a lot of the books of ragha'ib or fada'il, which are the books enticing people to do good deeds and actions, have weak hadiths in them, and that's part of the tradition. So that was not in the early period that was not a big deal to a lot of people.

The Story of Imam al-Zuhri and the Two Taslims

I mentioned also the other day that ulama have said that they were also working with a different set of hadiths. A lot of the hadiths were destroyed. Only recently some completely unknown hadiths that were in the Musnad were discovered in Egypt that aren't even in any of the printed editions of the Musnad of Imam Ahmad. There were some hadiths from the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq that were discovered in Yemen about ten years ago that weren't in the Musannaf that's printed or the Musannafat. A lot of hadith work is still there to be done.

So this idea somehow that because we don't have any specific source for it, to say that it's not it has no basis—is a dangerous thing to do. And that's what Imam al-Ghazali—the people of adab with him usually say things like, "I didn't find any source for this," or "I couldn't find this." But to say "mawdu" is a very difficult thing to do because it means you know every single hadith.

And there's a famous story of Imam al-Zuhri—it's actually one of my favorite stories of the ulama because Imam al-Zuhri was one of the greatest muhaddithin of his time. He's a source for many hadith in the sahih collection of Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim. He was in the masjid in Medina—he was Imam Malik's teacher-but he was in the masjid in Medina.

And Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi mentions this in his book, which is a sharh of Imam al-Tirmidhi, in the hadith about from Aisha, which is in al-Tirmidhi, that Aisha said that the Prophet, when he used to give the taslim, that he would go out of his prayer with only one taslim. He would just say "al-salam 'alaykum," and that's the Maliki madhhab. And the Malikis don't just take it from that hadith, which is weak—it's a weak hadith from Aisha— but in the sharh, Qadi Abu Bakr wants to prove that it's from the 'amal of Ahl al-Madinah, which to Malik is mutawatir; it's the highest form of transmission. It's as good as a hadith or a verse in the Quran to him, if all the ulema in Madinah are agreed upon it.

And so Zuhri sees a man give two taslimas, and so when he finishes his prayer, he says: "أَيْنَ لَكَ هَاتَانِ التَّسْلِيمَتَانِ؟ " )Where did you get these two taslims from?) And he says, he said: "عَنْ فُلَانٍ، عَنْ فُلَانٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِذَا خَرَجَ مِنْ صَلَاتِهِ سَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمَتَيْنِ" )From so-and-so, from so-and-so, from Ibn Mas'ud, that the Messenger of Allah, when he exited from his prayer, gave two taslims).

He says, "I've never heard that hadith." And the man says to him: ("أَتُحِيطُ بِحَدِيثِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ كُلِّهِ؟" )Do you know all the hadiths of the Prophet ) He said: "لا أُحِيطُ بِثْلُثَيْهِ" )I don't know two-thirds of them). "You know half of them?" He said: "نَعَمْ" )Yes(. "اجْعَلْهُ فِي النِّصْفِ الَّذِي لَمْ تُحِطْ بِهِ" )Put it in the half that you don't know(.

And the nice thing about that story is it says "ضَحِكَ الزُّهْرِيُّ" )al-Zuhri laughed)—Zuhri himself was acknowledging that is the case.

Imam Malik and Forced Uniformity

And Imam Malik, when al-Mahdi wanted to "يَحْمِلُ النَّاسَ عَلَى الْمُوَطَّأ" )force the people to follow the Muwatta), and he said to Imam Malik, "You know, I want to make everybody—I'm going to write your book, copy it out, send it to all my governors and force people to follow what's in it," and Imam Malik said: "لا تَفْعَلْ" )Don't do that(, because the sahaba "تَفَرَّقُوا فِي الْبِلَادِ" )they split-they went all over), and he said, "People are on what they learned from those people." And so he said: "اتْرُكْ النَّاسَ عَلَى مَا هُمْ عَلَيْهِ" )Leave people on what they're on), because if you go trying to force people to do things that they don't know and leave the things that they know, then you'll cause fitnah. And this is one of the great wisdoms of Imam Malik.

The Beauty of Ikhtilaf (Difference of Opinion)

And this is something a lot of modern Muslims don't seem to understand: that because you don't know something, or that's not the way you do it, doesn't mean that's not the way it can be done. And that's one of the beauties of Islam and the ways in which Islam preserves hearts and enables people to live together is that we've always acknowledged ikhtilaf.

And Sidi Ahmad Zarruq says that one of the most important things for a Muslim is to know the difference between khilaf and ikhtilaf to know the difference between opposition and between difference. You know," إِذَا أُخَالِفُكَ" )if I oppose you), but "إِذَا اخْتَلَفْتُ مَعَكَ" )if I differ with you) about something, it's a different thing.

And the Prophet said: "اخْتِلَافُ أُمَّتِي رَحْمَةٌ" )The difference of my Ummah is a mercy). The sound hadith-and many proofs for that, irrespective of what the sanad of the hadith is, the meaning is sound. Umar ibn Abd al- Aziz said it's a great mercy : "اخْتَلَفَتِ الصَّحَابَةُ رَحْمَةٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ عَلَى هَذِهِ الْأُمَّةِ" )The difference of the Sahaba is a mercy from Allah upon this Ummah). So the difference of opinion is very important.

The Importance of 'Amal (Practice)

To allow that —and that there's only one way of doing something is the worst thing that you can do to people. In fact, in the Maliki madhhab, if people are following a "قَوْلُ مَرْجُوحٌ" )weaker opinion) but they've been on it for a long time and it becomes the 'amal, you don't correct it—you leave them on it. So in other words, if you have a stronger proof but they're following something they've been doing it for a long time but they have their proof for it, you don't try to force them to do what you think-you just leave them on it. And this is "مَا جَرَى بِهِ الْعَمَلُ" (what has become the practice).

Example: Standing for People

There are many examples of that where we really have problems that are caused in our community. One of the things people argue, for instance, about standing-you know, getting up for people—and I don't want people to stand. I don't like it, and that's what I learned from my teachers, and that's the best thing. But in certain cultures, standing is part of their 'urf (custom). If you go to certain places in Arabia, they get up for the people. If you don't get up, it's an insult.

Now there's these kind of guys that come in that are following the sunnah exactly as the sunnah is, and they will be going to that majlis, and they'll purposely sit down. And then when people come in, they won't stand up.

Now Imam Ibn Abd al-Barr was asked about that, and others, and one of the things that he said the Prophet said-sorry, Izz ibn Abd al-Salam was asked about that, and he said that the Prophet said: "Don't hate one another, don't cut off one another, don't turn away from one another." So unity—that is a wajib (obligation).

And he said the qiyam (standing) in some places is the 'urf now, and even though the salaf didn't do it, if you didn't do it it would create animosity and enmity in hearts-people would get angry at you. So he said it's not even far to say that it's wajib in some places to stand. This is fiqh—this is understanding.

One of the great Maliki scholars from Baghdad—one of the Christian ministers of the Abbasids came into the majlis and he stood up, and you know, the ulama that were in the gathering, they were upset about it. And when he left, he said, "I notice you all got upset because I stood up for this Christian minister." And they said, "The Prophet taught us not to do ta'zim (exaltation), especially for Nasara (Christians)."

And he said, "The affairs of the Muslims is in this man's hands, and if I don't show him respect as a scholar, he's going to take that out on Muslims." Fiqh—this is understanding and tawazun (balance), and this is what people have lost.

The Books Following the Ihya

So Imam al-Ghazali wrote this book, and the books that follow it are either summaries, like the Kimiya al- Sa'adah is a Persian summary of the Ihya Ulum ad-Din, or Kitab al-Arba'in, which Imam Zaid is teaching you. He writes khulasa (summaries) of these things, and his final summation is Ayyuha al-Walad, which is a tiny little book, and this is basically—it's an amazing book.

Because he basically—a man asks him to give him really something that he can hold on to, and the book is—it's translated into English, you should all read it—"O Youth," I think it's called. Though walad in spiritual tradition is somebody who hasn't realized yet, so you could be 70 years old and be a walad. A walad is an immature— spiritually immature person—as opposed to a rajul. And women go under that category of rijal as well, because at a certain point, rijal, 'ilm al-rijal, is men and women—there are many women in 'ilm al-rijal.

The Structure of the Ihya

So Imam al-Ghazali writes this book, and this book has an immense impact. And I just want to look at the structure of the book to help you understand the architecture and the importance of the architecture.

The Four Sections (Arba' Ruba')

The first thing that he tells us is that the Ihya is in four sections. They are called rub' (a fourth), from arba' (four), and he basically puts in each section ten books. So altogether there are forty books, and forty is a sacred number. And Imam al-Ghazali—there is definitely an element of sacred numerology in Islam.

Numerology is very dangerous, obviously, as most of you know, because there is a type of madness that goes with numerology, and you can go insane with numerology-people become obsessed. Twenty-three is an obsessive number for some people in the West, and then gambling is a lot about numbers and lucky numbers, and people become very obsessive about numerology.

But undeniably, there are seven is a sacred number—and in reality, all numbers are sacred in that they are part of revelation, that they come from God. Our ability to know mathematics—Allah says one of the reasons that He even gave us the heavens was that we would learn how to reckon and arithmetic. So arithmetic is part of Allah's intention for human beings, and immense good has come out of arithmetic—also immense bad. So they perish who go too deeply into things.

The Significance of Forty

But forty is-Musa is promised that he will meet God; he is given forty days to prepare to meet God in the Quran-forty nights. Ribat is when you go to defend the lands of the Muslims at the borders, and the Murabit is one of the great rewards you get for doing that. And there is a hadith that indicates that it is forty days that you need to go out there to become a Murabit, to get the maqam. And the Murabit has a high maqam—the fire won't touch him, many things. So forty days and then that's obviously where you get in the Tabligh idea of forty

days, right, because they go out for forty days, same idea. Forty days—if you live with the people forty days, you'll become like them. So forty is an important number.

The Purpose of the Ihya

And he puts he tells us that in the introduction that he is writing this book in order to rectify what he sees as a death that has occurred in the real sciences of the religion. And he divides the sciences into two branches: Mu'amalat and Mukashafat.

The Mukashafat are things that are ineffable, but he will do something—and I mentioned this earlier he will do something throughout the Ihya in that he weaves these hints of the Mukashafat throughout the Ihya. In some ways, in the ocean of the Ihya, it's like the white whale that will appear every once in a while and then disappear. That's what he does—he shows the head and then it sinks back in, and he will titillate you by this; he wants to draw you in.

And he will say many times, "Enough said, I could say more, but let's leave it at this." And he said, "If you do what I'm telling you to do, you will see like I have seen." So he will tell you this, and there is arguably a secret narrative in the Ihya that if you study it long enough that will begin to emerge. I mean, I think that could be argued that the Ihya does not give its secrets without—in the same way, and not in the same way, but similarly, the Quran does not reveal itself without great effort.

The Quran's Hidden Treasures

"لَا يَمَسُّهُ إِلَّا الْمُطَهَّرُونَ" )Quran 56:79) - "None touch it except the purified."

"فَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِمَوَاقِعِ النُّجُومِ . وَإِنَّهُ لَقَسَمٌ لَوْ تَعْلَمُونَ عَظِيمٌ" )Quran 56:75-76) - So I swear by the positions of the stars and indeed, it is an oath, if you only knew, that is tremendous."

"فِي كِتَابٍ مَكْنُونِ" )Quran 56:78) - "In a Book well-guarded." Or you say, "On a book, miss," they will be intimate with the book, because it's the same word that can be used for intimate relations with your spouse—that you will not be able to taste or experience this book without being purified. And this is what Imam al-Ghazali is arguing: that if you are willing to do this work, these things will begin to manifest.

The Stars as Metaphor

The Quran says that this book is like the stars—the mawāqi' al-nujum—and mawāqi' al-nujum in the tafsir are the places of the constellations. You know, it's interesting because you know how many constellations there are? Anybody? Well, you have north and south, but all together, astronomers—there's 88 official constellations.

Now, the 85th verse of the 85th surah in the Quran is al-Buruj—it's the only time buruj is really there—al- Buruj, the constellations. And the first ayah is three words, right? So it's 85th, first ayah-this is my little istighfar, it's just nuqta, it's not—don't take this too far, but it's like little nuqta. There's only three words in the

first verse: "وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْبُرُوحِ" )Quran (851) - "By the sky containing great stars"—the heavens have constellations. Allahu Akbar.

So the Quran swears by the mawāqi' al-nujum, but also that means the positions of the verses in the Quran. Now, we use "وَبِالنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ" )Quran) 16:16) - "And by the stars they are guided." By the heavens they are guided, by the stars. So the heavens up there are the guide for our outward journey in the land, to our destinations on land and sea-we use the stars.

The Story of the British Airways Flight

And I mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning for those who've never heard this story. I was on a British Airways flight to England, and they have that little screen in front of you—it tells you where you are— and I saw the plane's over Denver, Colorado. I almost passed out because I was coming from San Francisco going to London. So I ran to the stewardess; I said, "We're way off course!" And she's like, completely panics, and literally almost─I think—runs and goes to the telephone, calls the cabin.

So she comes back and she says, "No, no, it's okay-the captain said it's alright." So I go sit down. I'm wondering why we're going over Colorado—we should be over Alberta or something in Canada. And so a few minutes later she comes back and she says, "The captain would like to"—this is before 9/11 when you could do these things she said, "The captain would like to see you in the cabin."

So I go up there and come in, and in one of those nice big cabins where they had actually a seat, and he says, "Have a seat." So I sit down, and it was at nighttime, and he says to me, "Are you a pilot?" And I said no. He said, "How did you know we were off course?" And I said, "Well, I know the great circle route to Mecca-you go over, you go over close to the North Pole, and that's the way generally they travel to England from San Francisco by the great circle. So when I saw you're over Colorado, I'm just wondering like what's going on."

He said, "No, that's true, because we actually have two routes." And he said, "In the wintertime we go over the North Pole, but in the summertime we go the rhumb line," which is a compass route. And he said, "Although it's longer, there's a jet stream that we get into, so we save time and fuel, so we actually get there faster with less fuel expended, and that's why we're going that way."

And so then we had a conversation, and then I asked him, I said, "Listen, if you lost all the GPS and you lost your bearings, how do you—what would you do?" And this is a true story—he turned out the lights in the cabin.

The cabin went completely dark, and the stars all came out, and he just said, "We've always got the stars."

And that is that is the reality—that in the end, that's how we find our coordinates. It's celestial navigation—by our outward journey and by our inward journey. So the mawāqi' are the places of the verses, because the verses are ayat. "My companions are like stars"—so stars are the things that you guide—they're the lights in the darkness. And so these verses are the things that guide you.

Learning the Patterns of the Quran

But just like the night sky needs constant observation to learn it—you have to go out, and if you go out initially, it looks all jumbled, just like people who look at the Quran who aren't used to the Quran—they think, "What is this book? It's changing order all the time, it's talking about this and it's talking about that, it's just it's jumbled." A lot of Western people—that's their response to the Quran. They don't feel that there's patterns.

But the more you penetrate the Quran, the more the patterns emerge, just like as you look up into the night sky for the first time—it's just a jumble of stars, there's no patterns. But then suddenly you start—"Oh, hey, look at that one that was there last night, and now it's a little different." And if you went out your whole life, you would see you could work out, just like the ancients—you don't have to do that anymore. You can just study astronomy and learn from the people that went before you, just like a lot of what we can know about the Quran is already been done by the astronomers of the Quran, who are the Mufassirun. They're the ones that went every night—I mean, they were all night with the Quran reading it and thinking about it and reflecting on it, and all these patterns emerged. And that's why you have these great tafsirs like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi or Imam al-Biqa'i and many, many of them—Ibn al-Zubayr, amazing book on Tanasub al-Ayat, how the ayat are all related to each other.

The Two Branches of Knowledge: Mukashafat and Mu'amalat

So Imam al-Ghazali is basically-he tells us that you have the Mukashafat, and these are things that we don't speak about, although he does speak about them, but he does in a way that is ambiguous and is only giving you a taste. And some of the isharat that show up—I read an amazing isharah today from Sidi Ahmad Zarruq, who mentioned that Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi said about:

"He gives to whom He wills females, and He gives to whom He wills males, or He makes them [both] males and females."

He said that's ibadah without the 'ilm—it's worship without knowledge. He said that's knowledge without worship. And then He gives the two to some-"يُزَوّجُهُمْ" )He pairs them)-He gives them both ibadah and 'ilm. That's an isharah. It doesn't negate the outward of the meaning, because if you negate the outward and say, "This is what it really means," you're a Batini. But an isharah can come—these are insights that come out of the Quran.

The Science of Mu'amalah

So Imam al-Ghazali says the second aspect of it is what he calls al-mu'amalah—'ilm al-mu'amalah—and this is the behavior that is needed on your journey to God. He's saying that there is a behavior that you need to get to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that's called al-mu'amalah. And he said, "This is the subject of my book. I am writing a book of mu'amalah. I'm not writing a book of mukashafah, but what I'm telling you is if you practice this book of mu'amalah, you will begin to taste the mukashafah." That's what he's arguing in this book.

And so he divides it into four, because he says that the mu'amalah has a zahir and a batin—there's outward aspects of the mu'amalah and inward aspects of the mu'amalah. The outward has also two: al-'ibadat wa al-'adat -it has devotional practices and customary practices or habitual practices. Devotional practices like prayer and fasting and zakat and these things. And then habitual practices like eating and drinking, the marriage life, companionship, friends—these are all the outward. So he said the outward has two: al-'ibadat wa al-'adat. That's the first twenty books.

The First Section: Kitab al-'Ilm (The Book of Knowledge)

How does he begin it? He begins it with Kitab al-'Ilm, because he says this is ghayat al-muhimm—it's of the utmost importance in studying this knowledge. So he gives you the basis in the book of knowledge, and he tells you one of the problems with knowledge is that we have a crisis of understanding because meanings have been changed—words no longer convey the meanings that they were intended to convey when they were given to us by the Prophet ﷺ or from the Quran.

The True Meaning of Fiqh

The central words that he is disputing are things like fiqh, which he says has been reduced to renting and menstrual cycles and buying and selling. He said that's not what fiqh meant—that's an aspect of fiqh, undeniably, but he's saying that is not the fiqh of the sahaba, that's not the understanding. He said very few of the sahaba were fuqaha—they gave this type of fatwa—but all of them were fuqaha of the religion.

Because Allah wanted good for them, and the Prophet ﷺ said in the sahih hadith: "مَنْ يُرِدِ اللَّهُ بِهِ خَيْرًا يُفَقِهْهُ فِي الدِّينِ" (Sahih al-Bukhari 71, Sahih Muslim 1037) - "Whoever Allah wants good for, He gives him fiqh in the religion."

Now all of the sahaba—God wanted good for them, or they wouldn't have been sahaba—so they were all fuqaha. But he's saying they weren't all experts in Islamic sharia, so that can't be the meaning of fiqh at that time. It's a deeper meaning, and this is why the faqih is the one who sees the reality of things—he sees beyond the outward appearances.

In fact, the ancient Arabic word faqih was the one that could tell the pregnant sheep amongst the other sheep. So yastanbiqunahu—yastanbiqunahu is what the fuqaha do. But istinbat—istinbat is to derive from—istinbat is to find out what's in the batin, what's in the batin, what's in the meaning, the real inner meaning.

So what he's saying is, "You've killed fiqh, you've turned it into all these rituals and outward practices, and you've made it dry, and you yourselves are dry. And I know because I was one of you. I know exactly how you think, and you all admitted I was the best of you. And now I'm saying it was all the completely wrong path— everything that I was doing, I was doing them for the wrong reasons." And he calls these ulama al-dunya, as opposed to ulama al-akhirah.

He says the people that seek stature, the people that seek the outward trappings of this world, are those people.

The True Meaning of 'Ilm

And then he says the 'ilm itself has changed—the meaning of 'ilm-because he said Ibn Mas'ud said when Sayyidina Ali—when Imam Umar died, the Caliph Umar, he said, "Nine-tenths of knowledge went." And they said, "What? We still have all these fuqaha." He said, "I'm not talking about that knowledge—I'm talking about al-'ilm billah, knowledge of Allah."

So he said that was 'ilm khashyah. He says many ulama of the outward don't have any khashyah. You will find —and Sheikh Muhammad al-Sharif can verify this for me, because he went to al-Azhar and he knows you will find ulama that make jokes with the Quran. I've heard it myself─yunakit bi kitab Allah. If they had any ounce of khashyah or knew what the book of Allah was, they would never do that.

You ask them about ijara, you ask them about shuf'ah, you ask them about hayd or istihadah or nifas they'll give you the fatwa. Ask them how many goats you owe if you have so many camels—they'll give you the fatwa. But they don't have khashyah. So Allah says the ulama are the people of khashyah—the people who have awe.

And khashyah is not khawf—an average person can have fear, a dog can have fear. You say "al-kalb yakhafuni," but you don't say "al-kalb yakhshani" in Arabic, because khashyah is only with knowledge.

The True Meaning of Tawhid

So he is arguing, and then tawhid—he says, "You've reduced tawhid to a series of formulaic dogmatic principles that you memorize by rote: 'Yajibu lillah al-wujud wa al-qidam wa al-baqa',' and you memorize these things, and that's tawhid, or usul al-tawhid, right? The usul—that's tawhid, the muwahhid, because he says Allah is one." He's saying that's not muwahhid—that's not what that means.

The muwahhid is the one who doesn't see the asbab-yubsir al-khaliqa fi al-makhluq—it's the one that sees the Creator in the creation, wa yubsir al-raziqa fi al-marzuq—and he sees the provision, the Provider in the provision. So when he's eating, he sees where the provision comes from that's tawhid.

And that's why, what does he put in his book on tawhid? He puts with it tawakkul—tawakkul, trusting. Because when you know God, you trust God. When you have tawhid, you trust God.

The Dua for Certainty

Look at the dua of the Prophet: "وَمِنَ الْيَقِينِ مَا تُهَوِّنُ بِهِ عَلَيَّ مَصَائِبَ الدُّنْيَا" - "And give me from certainty what will make the tribulations of this world easy for me."

So if you have yaqin, if you have certainty, the tribulations of the world become easy—they're not difficult. But when you don't have certainty, every little thing"إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ خُلِقَ هَلُوعًا" )Quran 70:19) - "Indeed, mankind was created anxious."

The State of Anxiety and Modern Life

When the child comes out of the womb, what's the first thing it does? "What am I doing here? I want to go back! I want to go back into the womb!" It was all warm in there, it was nice, there was a nice beat going, it was perfect temperature, it had like this amazing food hooked up, everything it needed was there. Babies dream— the fetus dreams now, they know that. They're in a whole world—we don't know what's going on in there, but they're very happy in there. And when they come out, they're like, "This is a mistake," because it's hala'—that's what it is, it's complete anxiety.

And then they get pinched according to the hadith—Shaytan comes and, "I got you! A new one-can't wait, get a little older, wait till I start showing you my little tricks, I'll have you dancing to my tune soon enough."

So anxiety is part of the human condition. The only thing that reduces anxiety—tranquility—is according to this civilization, not this one here in Turkey, but according to our civilization, where most of us are coming from, is anxiolytics. You take Valium, and you take all these nice drugs that just calm you down—mood-altering drugs. "I feel fine," right? That's what they do.

In fact, a lot of people in the West, they say if they start meditating, they have anxiety attacks, seriously, from meditation. That's the state they're in. It's so bad that if they actually stop and just turn everything off and start just relaxing and breathing, they get anxiety attacks. "I need to make a phone call! Where's my iPhone? Turn on the TV, quick!" Right? Because it's all outward stimulation that is putting them in these states where they don't have to think about anything.

The Remedy: Certainty Through Tawhid

And so that state of anxiety that people find themselves in is only relieved by certainty. And that tawhid is what gives you that certainty—that everything that happens is from Allah, there's nothing to worry about, you're in good hands, the universe is in good hands, everything is going according to plan.

That doesn't mean that you don't change what's wrong and work in the world and try to do what you can, but you do it with that deep knowledge so that it doesn't destroy you. Because so many people out there working and struggling become debilitated, become crestfallen, become cynical. There's so many people that the world makes them cynical.

I saw a man with a t-shirt that said, "Losing faith in humanity one man at a time"—that was his t-shirt, "Losing faith in humanity one person at a time." You know, and that's their experience of the world, and so they become cynical.

But if you have certainty and you know" وَجَعَلْنَا بَعْضَكُمْ لِبَعْضٍ فِتْنَةً أَتَصْبِرُونَ" )Quran 25:20) - "And We have made some of you as trial for others. Will you have patience?"—we made some of you a test for others. Allah made some of you a test for others.

Family is a test, right? Everybody knows that—you can nod. It's a big fitnah—family, brothers and sisters, sometimes fathers and mothers—they're a tribulation for people. But Allah says, "Will you show patience?" Because they're there to teach you. They're there to learn. Your children are there to teach you patience. And if you have rahmah, part of rahmah is patience. If you have mercy, you're patient.

The Book of Knowledge: Foundation for the Journey

So he says tawhid is misunderstood, and then he says that in the Kitab al-'Ilm, he gives you what he says is the foundation of knowledge, the basis of knowledge. It is things that will prepare you for this immense journey that you're facing. And so he gives you this introduction.

The Second Book: Kitab al-'Aqa'id (The Book of Beliefs)

And then the next book is Kitab al-'Aqa'id. And the reason that he does Kitab al-'Aqa'id that way is because he wants you to make sure that you have the foundation about God before you start this journey. You have to know who your Lord is.

The Third Book: Asrar al-Taharah (The Secrets of Purification)

And then you have to know the basic taharah—asrar taharah. One of the things that—from the secrets of taharah-is the limbs that are heedless with God are the limbs primarily that we do wudhu with. So five times a day you do your wudhu, or more.

The Example of Murabit al-Hajj

Murabit al-Hajj does wudhu-for people that have been there, have you been to—has anybody been to the city of Ahwaz? Murabit al-Hajj does wudhu every prayer, and if you watch him do wudhu, you will realize that wudhu is 'ibadah-it's devotion.

Most people do wudhu as a prerequisite to the prayer—they don't know that wudhu is 'ibadah mustaqillah—it's independent worship. And you can do wudhu as 'ibadah just to do wudhu—you don't have to do it to do a prayer. And you can do wudhu on wudhu-" نُورٌ عَلَى نُورٍ" )Light upon light)—you can do wudhu on wudhu, which means that it's not wudhu itself. Because if you're in wudhu, why do it again if it wasn't something in and of itself?

The degree of your presence in the prayer is dependent upon the degree of your presence in your wudhu. The more present you are in wudhu, the more present you are in your prayer.

The Meaning of Lustrations

We have a nice word in English—it's not ablution, ablution I don't like, I don't like the sound of it—but there is an older term called lustrations, which is actually ritual washing. And if you look at the word lustrations, it has

The Secrets of Ghusl

And then one of the things that Sidi Ahmad Zarruq says about ghusl is that when Allah gave as one of the blessings of human beings the act of intimacy with their spouse—and the act of intimacy is—he says that because he gives—it's a culmination of complete tranquility and istighraaq—like they are completely annihilated in that state. And he said because it's for them, He gives them ghusl immediately after, which is to come back to God. So it's to come back and to remember that it was God that gave you that, if you forgot.

For the highest—like in the Fusus, he mentions that it is actually for the 'arifin one of the highest adhkar to be in a state of intimacy, because they see it on a completely other level. It's not a shahwah, and that's why the Prophet ﷺ—that Imam al-Nawawi in the hadith about "in your private parts is a reward"—the Imam al-Nawawi says that intimacy is beloved to the prophets, that they actually love that.

And Imam al-Nawawi says of all the shahawat, it's the only one that does not harden the heart. Zina will harden the heart, but halal intimacy is the only shahwah that will not harden the heart. The more that you do it, it actually softens the heart. And you can see, like, I've seen some of the youth that are overzealous and very hard-hearted in their religion—they need to get married, I mean literally, because they need to have their hearts softened with the intimacy of halal mates and things like that.

The Books on Worship ('Ibadat)

So he gives you that, and then:

Kitab Asrar al-Salah (The Secrets of the Prayer)

And the prayer—Imam al-Akhbari in his beautiful little treatise on Maliki fiqh has a section where he talks about the light in the prayer, that there is a vast light in your prayer. And don't let Shaytan play with you in your prayer and take that light away from you, that there is a light that will illuminate your heart in the prayer.

Kitab Asrar al-Zakah (The Secrets of Zakat)

And then he gives you the asrar of zakat.

Kitab Asrar al-Siyam (The Secrets of Fasting)

And the asrar of fasting, the mysteries or secrets of fasting.

Kitab Asrar al-Hajj (The Secrets of Hajj)

The mysteries or secrets of hajj. And these are all to infuse these rituals with real meaning, because people, when they understand these meanings, it will give them more desire to do them, because one of the problems with a lot of Muslims is these become rituals that don't have an effect on them.

The Books on Quranic Practice

Kitab Adab Tilawat al-Quran (The Etiquettes of Quran Recitation)

And then he gives you the adab tilawat al-Quran, the comportments or courtesies of recitation of Quran. And Quran is central, and we're going to get into that inshallah together, looking at Imam al-Ghazali's theory of the Quran. But the Quran is central to Imam al-Ghazali's teaching, and he puts it here.

Kitab al-Adhkar wa al-Da'awat (The Book of Remembrance and Supplications)

With Kitab al-Adhkar is the next book—the book of adhkar and da'awat, the prayers and the litanies that one does.

Kitab Tartib al-Awrad (The Book of Organizing Daily Practices)

And the tartib—and then the book of Tartib al-Awrad is getting your times for doing your awrad, because this is very important is the practice. You have to have a practice.

The Importance of Spiritual Practice

And one of the things that many Muslims—they don't—they say, "Oh, you know, I don't—I just never really get anything out of the prayer, and I don't feel anything when I pray, and this—" Well, it's because they're not doing anything to prepare for that. That if you're not doing practices to prepare for that, then that's a problem, because you have to learn how to empty your mind, which is called tahliyah, the emptying of the mind.

Because the mind is fettered by nature—the mind is disquieted, it's disturbed. And meditation and dhikr will still the mind—sakinah will give the mind sakinah and tranquility. And if you don't do that as a practice on a regular basis, then when the time comes—and one of the amazing things about the prayer is all you have to do is do "Allahu Akbar," and suddenly, like, things will happen, come to people-"Where did that come from? Why am I thinking about that?" They weren't thinking about anything, but right as he said "Allahu Akbar," that bill that I have to pay, or "I need to go there, I better call so-and-so, and if I don't do that"—all those things flood the mind because the mind is untrained. They haven't-people haven't done the work on the mind.

So those are the ten books that he gives.

The Second Section: Rub' al-'Adat (The Quarter on Customs)

And then in the Rub' al-'Adat, it's also got ten books. In the book of al-'adat, he begins with:

Kitab Adab al-Akl (The Etiquettes of Eating)

The adab of eating. And this is very important to Imam al-Ghazali. One of my teachers, Sheikh Bashir al-Shaqfah, great scholar in the Emirates—really great scholar and a scholar of spiritual insight—whenever I have visited him, I always bring a notebook and end up writing about half of everything he says, because he just speaks pearls.

But he wrote a book on the zakat of the Maliki madhhab—like the book of halal food, and he wrote an incredible introduction about the importance of food in our religion. And we tend to forget this. So here's a little pitch for Zaytuna—we tend to forget the importance of halal and good food, because the Quran talks about halal and tayyib—it's halal, but it's also tayyib.

And in Surat al-Kahf, he tells him to go find the purest food (أَزْكَى طَعَامًا - Quran 18:19) - "the purest food." He didn't just say, "Go find some food for us"—he said, "Go find pure food." And so the idea of eating pure food is very important. But the adab of eating, the ritual that goes with food, is very important.

The Problem of Modern Eating Habits

Traditionally, Muslims did not eat and walk. Now people eat on the run—we have fast food, and then we have slow digestion. And then there's a whole billion-dollar industry of antacids for people out there because their digestions are so shot, because they eat—first of all, if you don't say Bismillah or some type of grace—if you don't—and I really think, like in America, they stopped saying grace. They used to say grace, and some people still do, but a lot of people don't. But when people stop saying grace, the barakah of the food is gone.

And the Prophet said: "If you don't mention God's name over food, Shaytan eats with you." And the hadith of the shaytan who's really fat, and he meets the shaytan who's skinny, and the fat one says, "What's wrong with you? You look really bad." And he said, "I've got a really bad assignment." "What's up?" "Every time he eats, he says Bismillah—I'm starving to death. And every time he sleeps, he says prayers, and I'm not getting any sleep." So his shaytan is getting weaker and weaker and weaker, because this person is in a spiritual state.

He says, "Oh, you poor guy! I've got a great"—he eats, never mentions God, I eat all I want. When he goes to sleep, he doesn't do anything—I get good rest." So his shaytan is really strong.

So the more heedless you are, the stronger your shaytan gets. And the more present you are, the weaker your shaytan gets, until it stops influencing you. And that shaytan, obviously, all those negative things, those negative impulses because that's what shaytan in the end is, it's just the negativity in the world that is working and flows in our blood, according to the Prophet. He said the shaytan flows in our blood.

The Spiritual Impact of Food

So the importance of the adab of food, of eating good food, of healthy food, and eating then not too much—because if you overeat, it slows you down, it slows your mentation down, you can't think. That big stomachs will cause the intellect to diminish. So the more you eat—and that's spiritual intellect. You can be fat and be a genius—Henry Kissinger is an example of that. You can be very hefty and be very smart, but that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about spiritual intelligence—it will dull your spiritual intelligence.

And that's why one of the foundational aspects of Abu Madyan's path is ju'—the way of the abdal is ju'. It's hunger and sahar, getting up at night, and samt and 'uzlah. Those are the four things of the abdal: silence, seclusion, hunger, and getting up at night. So that's a very important aspect, and that begins his book of the 'adat, or the norms and behavioral aspects of the religion.

The Remaining Books of the Second Section

And then:

Kitab al-Nikah

- The book of marriage.

Kitab Ahkam al-Kasb

- And then kitab ahkam al-kasb, livelihood. If you're going to get married, you have to earn a livelihood, and so that's important.

Kitab al-Halal wa al-Haram

- And the book of halal and haram, because if you're going to go out into the world, you better know what's halal and haram.

The architecture of this book is really quite extraordinary. It's really amazing how he did this.

Kitab Adab al-Suhbah

- And then kitab adab al-suhbah—when you go out in the world, you're going to have friends and companions, so you better know how to be with people.

Wa al-Mu'asharah ma' Asnaf al-Khalq

- How to live with different types of people. There are different types of people in the world—there's good people, there's bad people, there's people that are "sharr la budda minhu"—they're bad, but you have to deal with them, right? So all of these aspects are out in the world.

Kitab al-'Uzlah

- And then the idea of seclusion and spending time with you and your Lord. You have to have time for yourself and for your Lord.

Kitab Adab al-Safar

- And then kitab adab al-safar, the journey. Now, this also—safar is one of the great metaphors of the spiritual path. The whole world is a metaphor—everything in the world is a metaphor—and one of the great metaphors is traveling, because we're all on a journey. We came into the world on a journey, and the world itself is a journey.

The Metaphor of the Spiritual Journey

Your breaths are like your steps. Your days are like the miles. Your weeks are like the farasikh, the four miles. And then your months are like the marhalah. And then your years—you go on this journey. So the longer it gets, and then finally the arrival to the destination is your death.

Now, just like in this world, when you go on a journey, you have to have provision—tazawwadu—you have to get provision. So you get your provision, and then you have to have like the map of where you're going—you have to know where you're going. You have to have the passport and visa—you need passport and visa, right?

In the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, Salman al-Farisi said: "No one enters Paradise without a passport and a visa." Now, they didn't even have passports in those days—they didn't call them jawaz, jawaz is a later term—but he said the visa says, "Enter my paradise safe and sound."

Now also when you go now on travel, you get scanned, seriously. According to the sound hadith, the kalalib will scan you on the sirat before you go into Paradise-you have to get scanned. And it checks all your sins. So just like you have scanners now—like you have scanners that will see if there's a gun, or you go to the hospital and they have scanners that will see if there's a tumor or something—these scanners see if there's arrogance.

The Prophet said it's suspended and programmed—suspended and programmed—and it will literally scan the person on the sirat. And if it sees something, it has makhalib—it has like a hook—and he said it's made of hadid, it's iron, and it latches on to the person who's got sins and pulls them. If there's good, the soul will struggle against it. And the Prophet said some of them will be—they get flesh ripped from them that will heal by the time they get past, so it doesn't get—and other ones it pulls them and throws them out because they're not ready to go in. Those are called the jahannamiyun—they have to go to get like pasteurized, you know, to get purified, because they didn't do the work here.

So it's all the safar is very important. "سَافِرُوا تَصِدُّوا" - "Travel on this journey and become well"-spiritually well. So that's the spiritual journey. "سِيَاحَةُ أُمَّتِي الْجِهَادُ" - "The siyahah (tourism) of my Ummah is jihad"—that's the siyahah, the traveling in the earth of my Ummah is to go and do jihad. And first of all, jihad al-nafs—that's the real jihad, which is not to negate the other jihad, and we have to believe in that. It's not how it's being defined today, as far as I believe, but jihad is part of our religion. Defending the lands of the Muslims is a sacred duty, binding on Muslims. How and when you do that is another matter.

Kitab al-Sama' (The Book of Sacred Listening)

And then he has the book of sama', which is audition, sacred listening. And you know, people say really-people say that Imam al-Shatibi mentions in his book that somebody came, a group of people, busybodies, came to Umar, and they said, "We have a problem with our imam." He said, "What's the problem?" He said, "Every time he finishes praying, he sings."

Kitab al-Wajd (The Book of Ecstasy)

And then wajd is ecstasy. I would like to talk about that.

Kitab al-Amr bi al-Ma'ruf wa al-Nahy 'an al-Munkar (Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil)

The hisbah, because it's very important. Because time is running out.

Kitab Adab al-Ma'ishah (The Etiquettes of Livelihood)

And then the adab of livelihood.

Kitab Akhlaq al-Nabuwwah (The Character of the Prophet)

And then finally, Akhlaq al-Nabuwwah—he finishes at book 20. The heart of the Ihya—and I think you're doing that with Imam Tahir—the heart of the book is the akhlaq of the Prophet. He makes that the midpoint of the book, because the Prophet is the center of all of this—he's the heart.

And then he begins the second section. Inshallah, I'll talk about that because I would like to talk about this.

Qasida al-Munfarijah: The Poem of Relief from Anxiety

I'll just finish—I wanted to do a little bit of the Munfarijah. The Munfarijah is a qasidah that was written by Ibn Nahwi, one of the great scholars, great poets, and a scholar. This poem was written for to get rid of anxieties and tribulations. And interestingly enough, it's actually written—and inshallah we'll see it if we get to go into the throne room of the Ottomans at the Topkapi—the poem is written around the throne room of the Caliph, this poem.

And this poem is considered mujarrab—it's been tried and tested many, many times for getting rid of qurub. The great scholar Shaykh al-Islam and when you say Shaykh al-Islam, who do you mean first and foremost, primarily? Shaykh Muhammad Zakariyya al-Ansari—I mean, that's traditionally, if you said Shaykh al-Islam, everybody knew it was Zakariyya al-Ansari. Everybody—there are other shuyukh al-Islam, and Ibn Taymiyyah by many scholars considered him a shaykh min shuyukh al-Islam.

Now he's become Shaykh al-Islam as if he's the only one that ever existed. But he's a scholar—there's a lot of difference of opinion about him, like Ibn 'Arabi. And it's very fitting that the great Sufi scholar Ibn 'Arabi—is a lot of ikhtilaf about him. Ibn Taymiyyah said, "I benefited greatly from his books." He says it in the fatawa. "Ibn 'Arabi has amazing things in his books that you won't find anywhere else." But he said, "I benefited greatly from his books, especially from the Futuhat." But he said, "When I read the Fusus, I saw the kufr of the man." Then he goes on, attacks him.

Now Ibn 'Arabi—anyway, that's a whole other story. I don't want to go there.

The Structure of the Poem

So this book is called Qasida al-Munfarijah, which is—it's getting free from this. It's very beautiful in Arabic, the poem. It's written in a bahr that al-Khalil did not—it's the 16th bahr, it's called al-khabab. And it's al-Akhfash is the one who identified it. The bahr is basically-for people that are studying Arabic-it's fa'ilun fa'ilun fa'ilun fa'ilun. So that's the way it works. Khabab is fast, it's quick, so it's because it's a quick—it moves very fast.

But he begins it by saying: (اِسْتَدِي أَزْمَةُ تَنْفَرِجِي - "Get worse O crisis, so you can get better. Your night has declared the coming of the morning.")

And one of the alamat of crisis is the coming of the dawn, because they say the most—the darkest time of the night is right before fajr. And so when things get very bleak, it means that the faraj is coming.

Waiting for Allah's Opening

And to wait for Allah's opening is a type of worship—it's devotional practice to wait for Allah's opening. And the Ummah is in a time of real tribulation. Like we're in Turkey right now—there's refugees on the border from Syria right now, good people that are really suffering. There's suffering going on right across the way in Libya—horrible things happening. There's Yemen is a mess. Egypt's been through incredible tribulation. Iraq-hadith wa la haraj. Afghanistan, Chechnya—there's just so many places where the Muslims are suffering, and other peoples as well, but our Ummah has particularly been really hard hit of late.

And there were many things that people used to do that they don't do anymore. But during these times, they used to get together and do khatam—they would do Khatam al-Bukhari, Khatam al-Shifa' of Qadi 'Iyad. They would recite al-Munfarijah, they would recite Du'a al-Nasiri if you were in North Africa or West Africa. There were a lot of things people did, and people now—it's just these things happen and there's no people don't really do anything, they just kind of moan about it.

But in the end, it's all in the hands of Allah. And so this is ashidda—asma is shiddah—it's a crisis, it's difficulty. And tanfariji means to be removed, tankashifi. Adhana is the balaj, is the ishraq—it's the light that comes at the dawn.

Quranic Verses on Hope and Patience

And there are many verses in the Quran about this:

"Don't despair from the grace of Allah. Only the people of disbelief will ever despair from the grace of God."

"Say to the believers who have been extravagant with themselves"—in other words, they've oppressed themselves or wronged themselves.

"And then We gave this book to those whom We have chosen from amongst Our servants, and among them are those who oppress themselves"—the people of ma'asiya. But they're still from the chosen if they believe and if they don't deny the prophets—they're still from the people of istifa. And that's what Allah is saying here.

Don't despair, no matter how bad you have become—don't despair, because you can get to a point in dunya where everybody rejects you. That's the nature of dunya. Somebody can become so degraded in this world that everybody rejects them, but Allah will never reject His servant if he turns to Him, ever. That door is always open.

And so, you know, the only people that despair from the mercy of their Lord are people who are astray.

"And then Allah says that He will test us with fear and hunger and deficiency in wealth and selves and fruits. So give good news to the people of patience."

The Four Levels of Patience

And patience is of four—there are four levels of patience. You know, you have to have a sabr 'ala al-ta'ah, to be patient with ta'ah. And sabr 'an al-ma'asi, to be patient with avoiding the ma'asiya. And then also you have to have patience with the shada'id—this is rida, contentment.

The Prophet of Allah said: (الرّضَا كَنْزٌ لَا يَفْنَى - "Contentment is a treasure that's never exhausted"-being content and accepting the decree of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, whatever happens.

And then also patience in blessings by using them for the right things. So being patient is very important.

A Different Way of Looking at Things

And so he begins—that's how he begins the qasidah. So he doesn't really mean "get worse," but he's saying that when things get really bad, expect the faraj. And sahaba used to say that whenever we were in a state of inbisat, we had trepidation because we knew difficulties were coming after it. But whenever we're in a state of difficulty, we felt really good because we knew things were—it was going to get better after. So it's a different way of looking at things.

I remember once—and I'll conclude with this one of the Mauritanian people, beautiful man, the father of Mokhtar Ould Dambala-he's one of the scholars from Mauritania, but his father is a shaykh from the Qadiriyyah and we were in this thing, there were these flies, and he asked me, "Do you have flies in America?" And I said I said, "We have flies, but in the area I am, we don't—I hardly ever see flies. There's no flies where I am."

And he said he just thought that was a bad sign, like dunya should have flies, because if it's too much like Jannah here, it might be all you get.

Conclusion: Welcoming a New Muslim Sister

I just wanted to congratulate and also welcome into our─welcome into the Ummah our sister Maravik here. Maravik, could you stand up so people know you? Thank you. She embraced Islam today with us, so Sheikh Abdullah al-Qadi and myself—and she is with 'Aqil and his family. She came here from Dubai, and she is originally from Philippines, but she read the Quran and read the sirah of the Prophet and wanted to become Muslim, so she said shahadah today. So the sisters, just welcome her, inshallah.

So it's a good thing to renew your faith.

Final Du'a

"Our Lord, give us in this world good and in the Hereafter good and protect us from the punishment of the Fire."

"Exalted is your Lord, the Lord of might, above what they describe. And peace upon the messengers. And praise to Allah, Lord of the worlds."