Sheikh Aleey, asked me to convey something of immense importance. Sheikh said that ‘this is very important’ for all of us. I just hope and pray that I convey it well inshaAllah.
If Sheikh gives instruction and you have to first try to understand it first before you try to take heed, then you have to ask yourself, are you trying to understand so that you can implement it better? Or are you trying to understand whether it is wise to implement exactly and precisely how Sheikh has instructed you to implement?
You have to look at what your own understanding is, what is it based upon? Do you think your understanding is better than that of Sheikh Aleey? What is your understanding based upon and what do you think Sheikh Aleey’s understanding is based upon?
I knew that I had to understand something myself before I could commit to something. Even if there were so many other evidences to point to something making sense, if it did not make sense to my understanding then I would not feel at peace with it. Hence, when Sheikh gave me something, I would find myself questioning. Yes Sheikh says if you have any questions or queries bring it up to him, don’t try to come up with your own conclusions without any consultation whatsoever, especially in regards to instructions that Sheikh has given us.
Beware that to try to understand & scrutinise instructions first, before submitting & obeying, is giving room to not submit & not obey, and what is this based upon? Your own feeble restricted understand?!
Now, something had been going on and I felt that I needed to necessarily offer my help. I showed concern to Sheikh and said I desperately want to help, though subtly on the inside, I was saying I feel as if not enough is going on or what is going on has something wrong with it that I could or should somehow put right.
Though outwardly it seemed yes even to my own self, I was convinced that I was just concerned, because I was troubled, and I out of the goodness of my own heart wanted to do something to help. However, I had to think deeply, and look deeply. I realised, that if Sheikh needed help, he would ask. Not that he really needs help, we need help. What may outwardly seem as though we are helping him, the reality is that he is getting us to help ourselves, though we see not. Ponder on this; do you think that Sheikh is “self-serving”
Know that Sheikh is one who sacrifices, indeed he has sacrificed much, greater than anything many of us may see here and now, when he was much younger, when he was in Malaysia. Could it be, that one who grow up sacrificing all that he could throughout childhood and adolescence, grow up to be one who then sacrifices for oneself?
So now, why was I troubled by something? It is because I did not understand the Wisdom of Allah and the wisdom of my Sheikh, our Sheikh. So something troubled me and it concerned me, well is not Sheikh the one who shows the most concern and is most caring, most compassionate amongst us? If he is not, why are you and I still here with him? Indeed anyone who has spent time with him and learned anything of his history with honesty and truth will undoubtedly conclude that here we have a Sheikh of such care, mercy and compassion, you have no idea! I have no idea; I just know that there is so much, though it is within the bounds of immense wisdom.
You can be very caring, compassionate, and merciful but with faulty wisdom and understanding you end up doing much more harm. How many times have we done harm yet meant good? So love is not enough, hence why in the Four Steps you cannot have Love of Allah without Knowledge of Allah and you cannot have Knowledge of Allah without Love of Allah. One who says he knows his Lord but does not love Him, does not know his Lord. One who says he Loves his Lord but does not know his Beloved and follow his Beloved does not love his Lord the way his Lord is meant to be loved.
Now you can see why this is dangerous, so dangerous. I am sure many of us fall in this trap and have fallen in this trap in our pasts. Hence why Sheikh Aleey stressed very much how important it was that I address this and relate this to every one of us. Sheikh very rarely tells me with such seriousness something like this and especially more rarely so to address something seriously with everyone. It is both an honour and a big responsibility, that I pray I can carry out and I do not want to be in a state of needing to seek forgiveness for carrying it out not well, I wish to carry it out well.
Sheikh told me that, “Without Murabitah you can not do anything.” What is Murabitah? Murabitah is your reference but more than that, it’s your heart linking. We are meant to have Murabitah with our beloved Sheikh, right? But what does this mean? You see, many people just stop their Murabitah at Sheikh and thus get veiled. This has a problem that is evident in much disobedience and neglect in obedience.
Some people when saying they have Murabitah with Sheikh, when Sheikh gives them instruction, the first thing they refer to is their own understanding. This is the ‘I’ that looks to itself! How so? Let me state and I hope everyone can agree, that the way you see yourself is the way you see other than yourself. IE – if you stop your Murabitah at just Sheikh as himself, you are then seeing Sheikh the way you see your own self. This is very subtle. Of course you see you are a person and Sheikh is a person; that from this you conclude instantly that yes you are both different and that hopefully yes Sheikh is so much more than you. However, there is a problem. Sheikh is not like you, i.e. – you cannot relate to Sheikh the way you relate to your own self.
How to free yourself from this? Well, if your understanding is based upon your own self, i.e.- your own experiences and your own understandings of your own experiences, then that is how you will think Sheikh Aleey is. As in, you will see guidance coming from him, coming just from his own understanding of his own experience. Yes, his understanding and his experience is superior to you, however this still gives room to you to say, Sheikh doesn’t really know my situation he can not see from my point of view, as he has not and is not experiencing the way I am, therefore his understanding is based upon himself and your understanding is based upon himself.
Okay, now check this. If your Murabitah is with Sheikh, i.e. your heart linking and your reference is with him, then what about his Murabitah? Is his Heart Linking and reference to his own self? Astaghfirullah! Not at all! For then he would be no different from either of us. His Murabitah is with his Sheikh, who linked with his Sheikh, and so on all the way to Rasul (s.a.w.) and back to Allah. Now, you should see that Sheikh has been sent directly from Allah by Allah to us all! When his Sheikh told him to go to London that was not from his own self. His Sheikh didn’t speak English and had not physically travelled to England. His Sheikh I don’t think knew exactly what it would mean when Sheikh came to England and what would transpire here thereafter (I may be wrong, Allah Knows Best), but he placed faith in Allah and did not question, for then that would show that there is doubt in the Wisdom of Allah for Instructions from Allah are not free from His All-Knowing Wisdom. It was indeed an instruction coming down from the highest of the high.
So now, when you see Sheikh, yes see Sheikh, but know what he represents. He does not represent his own self! His understanding and his guidance are not solely from his own self, but other than his self, beyond himself. Thus see Sheikh, and remember he is from Allah, he is Wali Allah!
Now if you understand you cannot do anything without Murabitah and know what Murabitah means and know what your Murabitah really is. Then by doing everything by Murabitah, it starves the ‘I’ that looks to itself. Whenever you go ahead and do without Murabitah, you are feeding your ‘I’ that looks to itself.
Sheikh does not represent himself; he is not another ‘I’ pointing to himself, NO! He does not move except by Rabitah, and who does he respresent (i.e. - have Rabitah with)? Who is his Rabitah with?
Allah and Rasul (s.a.w.)
Now let us understand, that it is thus more correct to submit & obey, then relate back your understanding from this back to Sheikh. This is what Sheikh Aleey means by “report back”. You do what you are meant to do, and then report back to Sheikh to go from there. It should be that our understanding is from guided experience, rather than our own feeble understanding guiding our own experience. Sometimes we may even face difficulties in hearing instructions, let alone carrying them out, which again is another issue with some of us, I myself included. When this occurs, check your RABITAH! How many times does Sheikh say this and has said this in the past? Are you doing with or without Murabitah? Check back with Sheikh for further instructions, if problems persist.
Now Alhumdullillah, I now know to take Tawheed much more seriously, and the lessons more seriously. It’s all connected. If your Tawheed is not there, that’s a big problem. I intend to implement the meems, and memorise the Tawheed that Sheikh Aleey has instructed Brother Aleem to instruct us in. Then we do not stop there. For then I shall inshaAllah go into the ‘I’-Ness lessons, for there is deep subtle wisdom in there, that will help us all understand ourselves and help us follow our Sheikh better.
You have to understand; the instructions are there for our own good, yet we do not see. You will not see, with an ‘I’ that looks to itself, which is soo subtle. Soo subtle, and as it is unseen very much, it can have disastrous consequences, as left unchecked over a long period. You can now understand how, a new student under Sheikh can suddenly over take older students. It doesn’t matter how long you have been with Sheikh, for many years with him, with an ‘I’ that looks to itself will mean that any understanding you received from obeying and submitting to him, you had not given back to him, instead subtly it has added to your own understanding and thus then we are in danger of then thinking, okay now its time for us to lead ourselves a bit. Unless, Sheikh gives you instruction to lead yourself, check yourself before you wreck yourself. I’ve spent many years of wrecking myself. I used to say to Sheikh, 'I know I am going to learn either from obedience or disobedience, but I’m afraid I’m just going to have to learn from disobedience', astaghfirullah.
What I mean from this, is its like when a child is told not to press the Big Red Button, then the Child Presses it, because the Child want to know why am I not to press it, what happens why I do press it. Yet as one person once told me, you don’t have to drink the poison to know it kills you, otherwise what is the point of knowledge and wisdom?
Remember the idea of Philosophy and Prophecy? How Philosophy must be led by Prophecy not the other way round. You see Philosophy refers to self-understanding or usually one’s own experience. Science is a bit better as it attempts to refer to other than itself. With philosophy there is no experimenting and investigating, with science there is. So the thinking and understanding in Science is based upon trial & error experimentation and investigation. With philosophy its just thinking deeply within oneself with what one has of themselves. However, Prophecy is when you refer to the Ultimate of Reference, this is Guidance from the All-Knowing.
However, now having understood now truly who Sheikh is, or rather, who I thought Sheikh was before was not sufficient in knowing him. I just saw Sheikh as a Sheikh, I didn’t see him as a Wali-Allah, I did not see what sort of Sheikh he is, that he is not like any other Sheikh to me, but he is my Sheikh, an enormous blessing and gift direct from our Creator.
I prayed many times during Hajj, with all our names. That Allah brings us closer to Him (SWT), to His Beloved (SAW) and to our Sheikh. Now I realised, how getting close to Sheikh is getting close to our Result (SAW) and Allah. So inshaAllah, I have carried out the instructions that Sheikh has given me, which was to convey to you all what I gathered from a very deep conversation on the phone yesterday together regarding quite a few things. Alhumdullillah, I said to Sheikh, its like a whole new perspective has been uncovered for me, that I did not know I was blind before and now I can see, but now I have to learn to use my new sight and understand my new surroundings, and not fall back into the comfort of my blindness of before.
May Allah also make everyone benefit from this and also be brought closer & ever closer to our Sheikh, to our Beloved Rasul (SAW) and to Allah (SWT).
Illa Hadratin Nabiy (SAW)…
Al-Fatiha!
So now, take some serious ACTION POINTS FROM THIS!!! (I speak to myself first)
· If you have not learnt Tawheed, i.e. – memorised it, then get with it. It is the FIRST of KNOWLEDGE!
· Then report back to Sheikh, take your Mudhakara’s seriously and the Dhikr seriously, take Sheikh seriously.
· Check with Sheikh Aleey if you are checking yourself correctly, if you have understood correctly.
May Allah make it easy for us. Though I fear, I really hope I can implement this, but I am scared, but at the same time, yes I am scared I am weak, but boy, do I really want to be one who obeys and submits, I want to be one is Close to Allah and Rasul (saw), not far. So however scary or difficult it may seem, I know really that we all want to be with Allah and Rasul (saw), even if it seems so far if we truly look at our states, we are so poor, but we know that we really want to be with Allah and Rasul (saw), we don’t really want to be away from them.
Asalaamu wa Alikum, Wa RahMatullah!
