Praise

[Darqawi]

Praise (From Ibn Juzayy's Tafseer)

 

Translated by Sidi Abdas Samad Clarke

 

Hamd (praise) is more general and inclusive than shukr (thanks or gratitude), because thanks and gratitude are only a recompense for a favour, whereas hamd is both a recompense like thanks and is also spontaneous praise. Similarly, shukr may be more general and inclusive than hamd, because praise is expressed by the tongue, and thanks is expressed by tongue, heart and limbs.

 

If you understand the universal nature of hamd you will know that your saying "al-hamdu lillah" requires praise of Him for His majesty, vastness, unity, might, bestowal of favours, knowledge, ability and power, wisdom and other attributes, and that it encompasses the meanings of His ninety-nine beautiful names, and that it requires thanking Him and praising Him for every favour He has given and mercy He has bestowed upon all His creation in this world and the next. What a word [it is] which gathers together that which volumes find difficult to express, and the intellects of created beings concur upon as being unable to enumerate! Let it suffice you that Allah made it the beginning of His Book and the conclusion of the supplication of the people of the Garden.

 

Thanks with the tongue is praise of the Bestower of Blessings and speaking about the blessings. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "To talk about blessings is gratitude." Thanks expressed by the limbs means to act in obedience to Allah and to abandon disobedience to Him. Thanks with the heart is recognition of the magnitude of the blessing and the knowledge that it is a gracious bestowal and not from the slave's own merit.

 

Know that the blessings which require gratitude cannot be enumerated, but they can be expressed in terms of three categories:

 

worldly blessings such as health and wealth; blessings of the deen such as knowledge and carefulness (taqwa); and other-wordly blessings, which are one's being recompensed with much reward for few actions in a short life. People have two ranks with respect to gratitude: there is the one who shows gratitude for the blessings which come to him particularly; and there is the one who thanks Allah on behalf of all His creatures for the blessings which reach all of them.

 

There are three degrees of gratitude: the degree of the ordinary people is gratitude for blessings; the degree of the elect is gratitude for blessings and for misfortune, and in every state; and the degree of the elect of the elect is that they are absent from blessing through witnessing the Bestower of blessings. A man said to Ibrahim ibn Adham, "Who are the best of men?" He reflected and said, "The poor who when they are refused, are grateful, and when they are given something they prefer others to themselves."

 

One of the virtues of gratitude is that it is both one of the attributes of The Truth [as well as] an attribute of people, because one of the names of Allah is ash-Shakir (the Recompenser, literally: the Grateful) and ash-Shakour (the Fully Grateful), both of which I have explained in the dictionary of terms (ash-Shakour is the name of Allah, "the One Who Recompenses His slaves for their actions with plentiful reward". It has also been said [that it means] "The One Who Praises the slaves").

 

Our saying, "Praise belongs to Allah the Lord of the worlds", is better, according to the people who ascertain [statements], than "There is no god but Allah" for two reasons: one is that which an-Nasa'i narrated of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, "Whoever says, 'There is no god but Allah' then twenty virtues will be recorded for him, and whoever says, 'Praise belongs to Allah Lord of the worlds', has thirty virtues recorded for him"; the second is that the tawhid that "There is no god but Allah" requires is [already] present in your saying, "Lord of the worlds" and is increased [over and above that] with your saying, "Praise belongs to Allah" and there [also] are the meanings in it which we have already presented.

 

As for the saying of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, "The best that I have said, I and the prophets before me, is 'There is no god but Allah'," then that is only because of the tawhid which it contains, and "Praise belongs to Allah Lord of the worlds" participates along with it in that [meaning] and has increase beyond that. The believer says it seeking reward, but as for the one who enters Islam then he is required to say, "There is no god but Allah."

[Darqawi]

Sabr (Steadfastness)

 

Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi (translated by Sidi Abdus Samad Clarke)

 

Sabr is mentioned in the Qur'an in more than seventy places. This is because of the tremendous importance that steadfastness has in the deen. It has been said that every good action has a limited reward, from ten-fold up to seven-hundred fold, except for steadfastness whose reward has no limit. That is because of Allah's words "Only the steadfast are paid their reward without reckoning."

 

Allah mentions eight types of honour shown to the steadfast: The first is love. Allah says, "And Allah loves the steadfast." The second is help. He says, "Truly, Allah is with the steadfast." The third is mansions in the Garden. He says, exalted is He, "They will be recompensed with mansions because of how they were steadfast." The fourth is a full and ample reward. Allah says, "Only the steadfast are paid their reward without reckoning." The other four are all mentioned in one ayah (in al-Baqarah) in which they (the steadfast) are given the good news. Allah says, "Give good news to the steadfast." And there is mention in the same ayah of mercy, compassion, and guidance as rewards for the steadfast ones. Allah says, "Those, there is on them mercy and compassion from their Lord and those they are the guided ones."

 

There are four aspects of steadfastness: Steadfastness in affliction, which is the act of preventing the self from becoming discontented and impatient; Steadfastness in good fortune, which is to bind it fast to gratitude, without overstepping the limits or becoming proud and self-important because of the good fortune; Steadfastness in obedience by safeguarding it and becoming constant in it; Steadfastness (in refraining) from acts of disobedience by withholding oneself from them.

 

Above steadfastness there is surrender, which is abandoning opposition and discontentment outwardly and abandoning dislike inwardly.

 

Above surrender there is contentment with the decree, which is the self's happpiness with the act of Allah; it issues from love, for everything the Beloved does is beloved.

[Nur]

Mansur al-Hallaj: The Sufi

 

 

Manur al-Hallaj was born in the province of Fars in Persia in 858. ... He was the close follower of several well-known Sufis of his time, including Sahl al-Tustari of Basra, Amr al-Makki and Imam Junayd of Baghdad. However, later on, on account of his saying 'Ana'l Haqq', meaning 'I am the Truth', he was accused of propagating an unacceptable and dangerous religious claim, for which he was executed by the orthodox establishment in 922. From the surviving fragments of his work, we surmise that he was a Sufi intoxicated with divine love. His poetry is a very tender and intense expression of spiritual yearning and love. For example, he sang:

 

 

"Kill me, O my trustworthy friends,

For in my being killed is my life ."

 

 

Love is, in fact, the central themes of Mansur al-Hallaj's prayers and sayings. Describing divine love, he says:

 

"Love is that you remain standing in front of your Beloved:

When you are deprived of all your attributes,

Then His attributes become your qualities.""

 

 

The later Sufis, until our own time, have quoted Mansur al-Hallaj as being the epitome of those intoxicated by divine love.

 

 

 

His Most Memorable Statements:

 

 

1. ana'l -Haqq - I am the Truth.

 

this is the saying which apparently earned al-Hallaj his martyrdom - al Haqq also means God )

 

 

2. You know and are not known; You see and are not seen.

(Akhbar al-Hallaj 44, 1.4)

 

3. Your Spirit mixed with my Spirit little by little, by turns, through reunions and abandons. And now I am Yourself, Your existence is my own, and it is also my will.

(Diwan al-Hallaj)

 

4. I find it strange that the divine whole can be borne by my little human part, Yet due to my little part's burden, the earth cannot sustain me.

(Akhbar al-Hallaj, 11)

 

5. I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: "Who are You?" He said:"You." "

(Diwan al-Hallaj, M. 10)

 

6. I do not cease swimming in the seas of love, rising with the wave, then descending; now the wave sustains me, and then I sink beneath it; love bears me away where there is no longer any shore.

(Diwan al-Hallaj, M. 34)

 

 

Compiled By

 

Nur

[Darqawi]

The execution of al-Hallaj was accomplished by the signature on the death warrant of the great Imam of the Sufis, Imam Junayd, who wrote: “In the eyes of the Shariah he is guilty. In the eyes of the Haqiqat, only Allah knows.â€

 

Don’t bag around about what the people of the past have done for you don’t really know your own final end, your own final fate and how you will die.