The Pious Pretender
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
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Eighth Discourse from Al-Fath ar-Rabbani
Hadhrat Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani (RA)
It was in the schoolhouse, in the late evening of Tuesday, the 19th of Shawwal, A.H. 545, that the Shaikh (may Allah be well pleased with him) said:
The
pious pretender [mura'i] wears clean clothes, but his heart is filthy.
He abstains from permissible things, and is too lazy to earn a
livelihood. He eats off his religion, and exercises no self-restraint at
all. He consumes things that are explicitly forbidden [haram]. His game
may be hidden from the common folk ['awamm], but it is not concealed
from the Elite [khawass]. His asceticism [zuhd] and obedient worship
[ta'a] are all superficial. His external facade is splendidly fashioned,
but his interior is a ruin.
Woe unto you!
Obedient service to Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) is performed by
the heart [qalb], not the outer mold [qalab]. All these things are
connected with hearts, innermost beings and spiritual qualities
[ma'ani]. Strip yourself bare of what you now have on, so that I may get
for you from the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He) an outfit
that will never wear out. Get undressed so that He may clothe you. Take
off the garment of your indifference to the rights [huquq] of Allah
(Almighty and Glorious is He). Take off the garment of your attachment
to creatures and your idolization [shirk] of them. Take off the garment
of lust, frivolity, conceit and hypocrisy, of your love of being
acceptable to people and having them approach you and bring you gifts.
Take off the clothing of this world, and put on the clothing of the
hereafter. Divest yourself of your power, your strength and your very
existence [wujud], and throw yourself down before the Lord of Truth
(Almighty and Glorious is He) without power, without strength, without
attachment to material means [sabab], and without idolatrous worship of
any created thing. Then, if you do this, you will see His gracious
favors all around you. His mercy will come to join you, and His blessing
and benefit will clothe you and enfold you in their embrace. Flee to
Him. Dedicate yourself wholly to Him, naked, with no you and no one
other than you. Move toward Him in isolation, distinct from any other
than Him. Move toward Him separately, apart, until He joins and connects
you to your inner and outer forces [quwa zahirika wa-batinika]. Even if
He were to close the whole universe [al-akwan] against you, and make
you carry all its burdens, this would do you no harm; not at all, for He
would protect you throughout.
When someone blots
out creatures by virtue of his realization of Unity [tawhid], blots out
this world by virtue of his renunciation [zuhd], and blots out
everything else apart from his Lord (Almighty and Glorious is He) by
virtue of his longing, that person is completely prepared for
righteousness [salah] and success [najah], and he will enjoy the all the
blessings of this world and the hereafter. You must experience the
mortification of your lower selves, your desires and your devils, before
you die. Experience the special death [al-mawt al-khass] before the
common death [al-mawt al-'amm].
O my people!
Respond to me, for I am the crier of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is
He), calling you to His door and His obedient service. I am not calling
you to myself. The hypocrite does not call the people to Allah (Almighty
and Glorious is He); he is a self-promoter. He is looking for favors
and acceptance, seeking worldly gain.
O ignorant
one, you give up listening to words like these, and sit there in your
cell, with only your own self and your passions for company! What you
need first is the fellowship of the Shaikhs [shuyukh], and the slaying
of the lower self, the natural instincts and everything apart from the
Master (Almighty and Glorious is He). You must stay by the door of their
houses, I mean the Shaikhs', then after that you may go off by
yourself, and sit in your cell alone with the Lord of Truth (Almighty
and Glorious is He). When this has been fully accomplished by you, you
will come to be a remedy for the people, a rightly guided guide [hadi
mahdi] by permission of the Lord of Truth (Almighty and Glorious is He).
As you are now, your tongue is pious [wari'],
but your heart is immoral [fajir]. Your tongue praises Allah (Almighty
and Glorious is He), while your heart resists Him. Your outer being is a
Muslim, but your inner is an unbeliever [kafir]. Your outer is a
monotheist [muwahhid], but your inner is a polytheist [mushrik].
Your
asceticism [zuhd] is part of your facade. Your religion [din] is part
of your facade. Inwardly, you are a mess. It is like whitewash on the
water closet, i.e. the toilet, or a lock on the garbage can. Since this
is how you are, Satan has set up camp in your heart and made it a place
for him to live in.
The believer starts with the
development of his inner being, then tackles the development of his
outer being. Someone who is constructing a house will spend large sums
of money on its interior while the gateway is just rubble; he will leave
fixing the entrance until after he has completed the main building. One
must likewise begin with Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) and
earning His good pleasure [rida], and then pay attention to creatures
with His permission. The first stage is to acquire [tahsil] the
hereafter, and only then to obtain one's allotted shares [aqsam] in this
world.
Reference url: http://archive.islamkashmir.org/radiant-reality/jan-2006.htm#article-9
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