Fundamentals of Tassawwuf..............[ part 1 & 2 ]

[ of Tassawwuf, Aqidah, and the kalimah Shahadah.....a Ma'al Hijrah special ]

I have always been curious and open-minded about a particular group of Muslims labelled as sufi/ tasaswwuf / tarekat [ ter- ikat, to their Malaysian detractors as per 'tied by the necks', an unfair labelling no doubt without firm basis and without any scholarly dissection ! ] etc etc.

To be frank, personally , beyond the straight 'jacketing' and dry stuff of the 'fuqahas',[ who oftentimes resort to serious name-calling ] I do find these 'travelers' have more to offer to millions of ordinary people like you and me who want to get beyond the level of practising Muslims, towards love for HIM, improved spirituality and Ihsan.

But this is just a personal opinion. This is still a free world, even within the realm of faith and Islam.

They called themselves, 'travelers in this life'.
What make these 'travelers'/ salik/ lovers, tick ? How they 'thinks'? What moves them ? etc etc and etc.

They come under many labels but as we already know, labels are pretty misleading. Let us examine a 'traveler',Dr 'Shakyh' Hussien Abdul Sattar. By most standards he seemed pretty young, 39 or at the most 40. He lectures here on 'The Fundamentals of Tassawwuf. Give him say 3 hours of your valuable time, just listen to him. Make your own judgement on Tassawwuf after that. The 1st lecture is quite didactic but I find the 2nd part very meaningful. If we can 'tolerate' him I will publish his remaining discourse later, if we can't, we will throw him into the dustbin of obscurity, and forget about him.

About the speaker :
........................

"Shaykh Husain [may Allah preserve him] was born in Chicago (USA) in 1972. After completing his primary education at schools in his hometown near Chicago, he joined the University of Chicago where he studied Biology, Arabic and Islamic Civilization. It was during this period that he began his study of sacred knowledge, studying Arabic grammar (nahw), Hanafi Fiqh and Usul al-Fiqh under ulama (scholars) in Chicago. In 1994 Shaykh Husain also began training in tasawwuf (Islamic spirituality) under Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad, one of the leading shaykhs of tasawwuf.
After obtaining his undergraduate degree, Shaykh Husain enrolled in the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. Along with his medical studies, he continued his studies of sacred knowledge. In his final year he took leave from medical school to focus on his religious studies, traveling to Syria and then Pakistan, where he studied a traditional curriculum for a number of years under some of their greatest scholars.
Throughout his years of study, Shaykh Husain continued his training under Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad. He was blessed with the close company of his Shaykh, learning the science of the purification of the heart. The deep taqwa and firm adherence to the sunnah and Shariah that characterized his teacher were eventually transferred to the student and Shaykh Husain was formally authorized in tasawwuf by Shaykh Zulfiqar in July 2001.
Shaykh Husain has completed medical school and currently works as a Physician at the University of Chicago Hospitals. During his free time, he teaches and lectures across the United States on various subjects of Islamic knowledge, including purification of the soul.
Shaykh Husain is presently engaged in editing and publishing the translations of his teacher’s books into English. In addition, he is completing his own written works including the popular series, “Fundamentals of Classical Arabic” and a manual on Hanafi fiqh entitled, “The Stairs to Bliss.”






Introduction to Tassawwuf:
click here

2nd part:
Allowing the soul to blossom; Looking for that 'one moment in time'
click here,


It is imperative and goes without saying that, a 'traveler' need a very firm, unshakeable foundation of faith [ Aqidah ] and this had been discussed previously by Dr Abdullah Yasin in this blog.
Dr Abdullah Yasin was in my neighbourhood last night giving a scintillating lecture, as typical of Dr Abdullah yasin, on Aqidah, Tauhid Rabbibiyah, Tauhid Maksud etc and etc.
Down here I load a previous lecture of his on Foundation of Aqidah. Please give him some time and listen. Aqidah is foundational and of prime importance. It is a difference between eternally gravitating as the living firewood and fuel of Hell or gracing the High Heaven, despite a life full of prayer and ignorant piety :
click here,

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, dealt in great length and depth on the meaning and ramification of The Shahadah, "La ila haillllalah, Muhamadarasullallah "
A 6 hour lecture altogether. We Muslims in this Nusantara take lightly our understanding of the kalimah and thus our aqidah, stressing too much on the details of the solat etc and etc, to the point we as an ummah are easily mislead into the greater error of 'syiriq' and 'bidaah'.
click here,

Today is the eve of Ma'al Hijrah. I am presenting to you guys a soothing symphony of 'Bach & Mozart' equivalent for your souls. Do listen and ponder.
Islam is for those who THINK!

May Allah give us all blessing and Rahmah in the Here and the Hereafter....

Al Ghazali, The Man and His Teaching : The Beginning of Guidance

Before we embark on Part 1 of this highly rarefied theological discourse, cut and dry stuff of 'The Beginning of Guidance' by Al Ghazali , let us revisit him in a documentary, ' The Alchemy of Happiness '
click here

What triggered Al Ghazali's existential crisis was in part due his sufi-poet brother, Ahmad Al Ghazali, who challenged his relative 'bookish' and non-experiential approach with respect to faith.
click here,

'The Beginning of Guidance' is a compendium of short treatise written by Al Ghazali for seekers of knowledge. A road map of sort.

While the IHYA is his magnum opus, 'The beginning of Guidance', much less voluminous than IHYA, is no less important. Beginning this week I would 'insert' once weekly this 30 or so segment of the book, discussed by Mufti Abdul Rahman Yusuf, of Darul Uloom, UK
Part 1,click here,

Alone In The Crowd : Looking back...........

Sha,

You asked Papa to list out Papa's top 50 blog articles for your perusal.

My God !
That is a lot of work , having written more than 450 articles over the last 3 years.
The last 3 years Papa have been writing only with you guys in mind, and only for posterity, and you are telling me indirectly you have not yet peruse through. You guys are too much , you and your brothers.

To be frank though, I wrote to keep Papa's sanity. If I dont write I would end up shooting someone very important. That is the amount of anger a simple raayat like Papa had to endure looking at the clowning and the clowns going about their daily business in this 'Malaysia Boleh' of ours. That is the political part.
95 % of the rest is pure daaawah...this constitute pleasure. Proselytising in our profession is not politically correct but Papa, on a daily basis do see more people than patients who has problem within their souls than 'pain' from their hearts !

All are my favourites, as most are written from the heart. Like the 1st one on Lina Joy. You guys were sleeping then, Papa could not sleep thinking of the future fate of all the Lina Joys of the world.

At my age I can't help but occasionally feel 'alone in the crowd' knowing some of the people I 'see through' today,I may not see in the next 6 months; knowing I need to seriously realign some 'souls' close to Papa but out of political correctness and politeness I cant; etc and etc and etc.

Here are my favourite 20 or so.

Wrote about my form-mate Hasan Marican some 6 months before he was'unjustly' sacked from his position [ in my book, he was sacked , they don't even dare give him a farewell dinner at Petronas ]. Now Madame 'R' has been noted to visit The Tower with impunity. My God ! tak cukup lagikah 'precious stones', bajus and shoes of this lady ?? !

I enjoyed visiting the Grand Old Man of Kota Bharu. Despite walking around with an implantable defibrillator now, in the affectionate words of Tuanku Sultan sometime ago, "TGNA is an 'old diesel engine' and despite all, very tahan lasak" . I am happy that TGNA and the young sultan are getting along fine. Monarchies in the Non Federated States enjoy more unwritten 'power' than their brother sultans elsewhere. Cordial 'Istana- MB' relationship is of prime importance in states like Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis and Teganung.

Papa had a brief but very telling altercation with the present NSTT and Prima Apakahnamadiadah CEOs during the BERSIH period. Our rogue politicians had their ways mainly because our journalists have no balls ! I dont apologise for repeating this !
To Papa, a free press is more important than a free judiciary. A free press is 'more preventative medicine', 'judiciary' is ' repairative' after the damage has been done.

Your dad had 'played god' in his favourite sport 'endurance' several years back. The current state of the sport is dismal, full with people who are always ready to please but nothing positive to offer. Despite millions of tax payers money spent in the last local WEC, we are going no where vertically. Short on substance , very huge on forms ! As usual.Typical Malaysia Boleh. Thank God, Papa has retired from this sport. NonethelessIt is very painful to see and watch from the sideline all the nonsense going on in a sport that papa and the good old Dato Awang helped popularised in the early 98's.

Papa am a firm believer in exercise but exercise per se without doing something to our mind is a lot of wasted time, thus, " Mixing The Profane and the Sublime' article. Ther was also a series of articles on longevity and my favuorite amongst them is 'Longevity : A Muslim's perspective"
Sometime last year papa felt elated in being able to 'turn around' a dear friend who had some small quarrel with his God.

Sha,

As you know, Kelantan is 95 % Malay and Muslim. Papa has no quarrel with Dr M but all of us Kelantanese can hold him accountable in a big way, rightly of wrongly, for the level of poverty and iniquities happening in that state. Read 'From Libya to Tok Bali' for a full account.

There seem to be a lot of flak in the parliament lately about the Corporate Lembu. I brought it up some 4 years ago when a friend also in the lembu/kambing business complained his lot did not get the 250 million soft loan. I told him it must be OK and should not complain as they already got MAS earlier on !

And finally Sha, what have Sutan Amir Kaharuddin [ Mandor Diman ],Tok Jeleha Raub, Tok Gajah, Mat Kilau, King Ghaz, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah and Haji Yusuf Rawa share in common with us ?
We are migrants from Pagar Ruyong some 200 years back. We are Rao's.
Our fighting motto is : 'Bior mati di terkam harimo, jangan lari di kejor anjing ! '

You and Papa Sha, we have got to work on all our fours....let us not go for all these nonsense, TIDAK BERKAT .

Our prophet advised us that a clever Muslim lives in 2 worlds, The Here and the Hereafter. It is not meant to make us less than excellent in our conduct and thinking. On the contrary by so doing we should be the perfect khalifah for the world. In all papa wrote 18 articles on ' Death and Dying'.

وَقَالَ ٱرۡڪَبُواْ فِيہَا بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ مَجۡر۪ٮٰهَا وَمُرۡسَٮٰهَآ‌ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّى لَغَفُورٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬ (٤١)
Bismillah himajreha wa mursaha inna Rabbi la Ghafur ru Rahim.
{Hud , 11 : 41 }
[ In the name of Allah be its course and its mooring. Lo! my Lord is Forgiving,
Merciful.]..Prophet Nuh alaihisalam on the eve of 'The Big Flood'.

Children,

In life, do not be afraid to 'be alone in the crowd', because at the end of our time we all will be alone in that small hole in the ground.
The quantum that will differentiate us, is at the end of the day, our individual level of piety [ taqwa ] and remembrance of HIM [ dzikr ]


Papa.




Lina Joy Revisited, click here
Alone In The Crowd : Power of Dzikr, click here
Hasan Marican, click here
Case History, click here
TGNA in Conversation [ French ], click here
BERSIH, click here
Playing God, click here
Mixing the Profane and the Sublime, click here
A Letter To An Agnostic Friend, click here
Life Changing Lecture, click here
Advice I Wish My Children Will Read and Heed, click here
longevity, A Muslim Perspective, click here
From Libya to Tok Bali, click here
Redza , click here
Remembrance of Death, click here
Unto HIM is the journeying, click here
Let us All Burn The Quran , click here
Tan Seri, Let Us use The ISA !, click here
Read My Friend, Read This Universe, click here
Prayer of The Cicadas, click here
Leh Budu, Corporate Lembu, Shah Apakahnamadiadah, R'fidah and all that jazz, click here
Big Bang, Surah Al Anbiya and A Century of Science, click here
Bior mati diterkam harimo, jangan lari di kejor anjing, click here
On Life, Dying and Life after Death, click here
Let Us Have One School System PLEASE ! ,click here

Alone In The Crowd : The Power of Dzikr

I was a wee bit 'un-eased' last night.
Tossing about in bed unable to sleep. Three hours earlier just back from a glittering Malay wedding reception held in a KL five star hotel, sitting dinner and all; guests resplendent in their best three piece suits; innumerable number of young people going up stage giving their glowing eulogies to the bride and groom; served a fusion 10 course dinner and finally a 'band and dance' to top it all up. A glittering event indeed. A A1Malaysia event par excellence. Najib Tun Razak would have been proud of this.


Could not pinpoint was it the 'fusion dinner' or was it the chay kwaey teow with 'kerang' I had for lunch. Something was not right,perhaps I am getting too old for my age.


3 AM, still could not sleep. My hp rang. A friend [ a much junior medical colleague actually ] in JB rang to tell me that his dear father who was just admitted into the medical ward of GHJB for observation of a recent onset 'central chest pain' [ 'unstable angina' in medical parlance or acute coronary syndrome, will be dealt later in another blog article ] , suddenly collapsed at 1 AM in the general medical ward while under 'observation'and now transferred to a CCU bed, in coma.

Duly intubated and ventilated. Pulse thready and BP on the floor at 60/ ?? Despite being on heroic measures of quadruple inotropes [ intravenous heart muscle stimulants ]. Sounds to me like his father had had a massive heart attack followed by cardiogenic shock following too much muscle loss. Dismal prognosis from the sound of it. The GHJB guys have lost that 'small and short window of opportunity' to change the 'possible outcome'. A primary infarct angioplasty and stenting earlier in the evening before the 'complete closure of the coronories' could have made all the difference. A common fallacy and mistake in being admitted for 'observation' but not really 'observed'.

Maximal modalities of medical treatment all up and situation still dismal. Doing too much now but too late . The 'bus' has already left the terminal. Muscle loss from the infarct has occurred. All the 'iblis Ifs' playing in my mind at 3 AM.


I consoled my 'junior 'friend but told him him that 'as it is now', situation sounded dismal. 
" Please do not leave your father. Have someone always reading the Yasin into his ears. He may not be able to hear it now , but his soul may. It sounds like it is a matter of hours before the old heart will pack up ! ".
I was not sure how this kind of advice rub on my friend but at 3 am that was the best I could offer. The window of opportunity was already lost in the evening of 'observation'!

How people respond to your sincere and honest counsel/ advice ??
In my experience,at the worst of time, it differ greatly from people to people depending on their level of piety and ilm, or rather their level of 'secularism' for want of better term. A perfect position and timing for 'the messenger' to get shot !

Could still recall an incidence some 15 years earlier. A Tan Seri in his late 70's, not my regular patient, suddenly admitted with a massive heart attack [ his third one this time ]and shortly in the ward, also had a stroke. All modalities of possible treatment used up and to no avail. The old heart wanted to just go and stop beating.He was dying, full stop.
I summarily called a meeting with close family members and told them the plan : A NO PLAN.
"I have run out of all plans. All that need to be done has been done. Prognosis is dismal. We have reached the end of the road.Your Dad is dying. Let him go gracefully. let us do the 'Yasin' bit.", all to that effect. Family accepted it calmly.

All went OK. The old man died surrounded by close family and all. 'Alhamdullillah' I thought to myself, 'this is the typical ideal Muslim setting related to death'. Prayers and all, no 'ai ya ya ', no howling etc etc.
Four days later, two daughters and son [ one , a law student, another a budding young doctor and a third , a university lecturer ] came barging into my outpatient consultation room and demanded an apology from me for use of 'language' inappropriate. 'Their mother utterly depressed because of that !'
I thought I was doing well, but my Malay may have been 'lousy'. They got my 'apology'.

Just recently I got a  full frontal barrage from a dato' and datin for reminding them that 'in death oftentimes there is relief'. Their 90+  mother  was very sick and things could go either way. I was anticipating the worse case scenario and preparing them 'emotionally'. That was misconstrued.

That is medical practice for you. It has it ups and down. Even when you think you are doing right, you can be perceived to be 'wrong'. With these sort of people, if you dont apologize readily enough you could get a very hot lawyer's letter on your desk in no time !

I put all these to our current relative lack of REMEMBRANCE and on this aspect let us all listen to Shaykh Al Yacoubi :

[   click here   ]


quotable quotes on dzikr :

'The Chain of Quintessences'............
The quintessence of the world is man. The quintessence of man is religion. The quintessence of religion is prayer. The quintessence of prayer is invocation. Here lies the meaning of the Quranic verse: The invocation of God is greater [than anything else]. If man had no more than a few instants to live, he would no longer be able to do anything but invoke God. He would thereby fulfill all the demands of prayer, of religion, of the human state.

'The Two Great Moments'.............
There are two moments in life which are everything, and these are the present moment, when we are free to choose what we would be, and the moment of death when we no longer have any choice and the decision belongs to God. Now, if the present moment is good, death will be good; if we are now with God -- in this present which is ceaselessly being renewed but which remains always this one and only moment of actuality -- God will be with us at the moment of death. The remembrance of God is a death in life; it will be a life in death.

Martin Lings


Other related articles in the blog :
On Life, Dying and Life After Death, click here

Stressed ??..try 're-intrepreting' your reality

Feeling stressed lately ?
Tell me who is not stressed in this world !

As Muslims we do not need Yoga to deal with stress. We are in contact with HIM at least five times a day.
We have Tahajjud.
We have DOA.
We have Zikir.
We have Astagfirullah. WE have Istikarah.
We have 99 beautiful names, Asma al Husna.
And finally, we have REDZA
A whole load of 'system' and armamentarium to help us deal with 'Stress'.

Use them in your daily struggle thru this 'stressful life' if you have to.
Use them.

I want to share my 'secrets' with you guys on my personal 'destressors'.
Whenever I am stressed or feeling down, I 'mix' the 'profane and the sublime'. It has become an art form of sort to me after doing this for years !
I may be swimming 20 laps in the pool and doing my mental sum with the '99 beautiful names'. I may be 80 feet down at the ocean sea bed doing the 'subha nallah'. I may be riding on my horse for hours doing the 'zikir'.
If every thing failed, I go back to my Quran. There somehow I will stumble on some 'ayats' that would make the pain and suffering 'endurable' and clear up the misty , black clouds above me.

Some of you guys may want to try the 'Quran'. Try you must.
We Muslims must have ilm and forget about Yoga , pleassssseeee !...
[ I know Datuk Marina and Zuraidah Apakahnamadiadah of that certain Cancer NGO like Yoga and could not see and comprehend why majority of the scholars are against it.
Wise up Madams ! Why expose our already fledgling 'Aqidah' to uncertainties when we already have a fail-safe system on dealing with STRESS ? ]

Listen to this young man here,insyaallah we may benefit from him :
Reality is in the interpretation, click here
Choose your own Reality, click here
Check in your feeling, click here
The concept of 'Muraqabah' in interpreting Reality, click here
Fear, click here
Tuned to the DUNYA, click here
...and finally,the journey is INWARD, not outward, click here


Similar link on the blog :
Shaykh Hussien Yee on Stress, click here
Mixing The Profane and the Sublime, click here

Living With Ourselves : Prof T J Winter aka Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

WUKUF,
at Arafah,
Makkah :

On this very eve of the opening of the 'veils within the seven heavens' between the abdals and 'The Master', when there is no 'check and balances between your prayer and doa and HIM, on this very important moment in time that only occur for a few hours in any one year, I find Prof T J Winter's discourse on ' Living with Ourselves' very succinct.

We live in an age where forms over rides substance, where words no longer carry its proper meaning, where being politically correct seem to be more important than being true.

We live in an age where we know the particulate and the subatomic, the vastness of the universe is so and so billion light years from one extreme edge to the opposite extreme edge.

But we also live in an age where the souls are subjugated to the body and mind, at least in people who still believe they do have souls at the centre of it all. We live in an age where the profane and the secular take center stage. As to the sublime, who cares ?

Let us listen to this December 2010 lecture by one of my favourite Muslims in the West. Prof T J Winter :
click here