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We will
postpone our discussion about the cordiality because of the occasion
of Hijra. So we will discuss Hijra this
month;
He makes
Hijra to me
[He
migrates [makes Hijra] to me,
he who aims his face to Allah
and he
is dead without Hijra, whoever
seeks
others] qasida
1:282
They made Hijra all
those generous companions, those who migrated with the Messenger of
Allah [PPBUH],
and they got for it all the recompense, the rewords, the
advancement, and the victory. So do Muslims, of the generations that
followed the beloved Messenger, have Hijra? One that gathers there
hearts with love and give them victory over evil?
The answer is:
Yes. Allah, the All-Just, judged that they will have Hijra. This
verse of Imam Fakhreddin is clarifying, among other things, another
meaning for transcending our souls just like the earlier companions
did when they migrated with the beloved [PPBUH]
to the place of Hijra, belief and heart intimacy.
Imam Fakhreddin
[AAH]
says:
[He
migrates, to me,
he who aims his face to Allah] No
wonder, if he said [to me] because he also said in qasida
15:40
[All what is prohibited, I forsook, and my bed
and I went to
Allah as a pilgrim]
This means that
he left all what Allah prohibited and he deserted his bed also for
Him. The Qur'anic verse says: [Whom
sides forsake their beds to cry unto their Lord in fear and
hope, and spend of that We have bestowed on them]
al-Sajda 32:16,
which is the description of the believers who are not arrogant
mentioned the previous verse. That verse says: [Only
those believe in Our revelations who, when they are reminded of
them, fall down prostrate and hymn the praise of their Lord, and
they are not
supercilious]
al-Sajda 32:15.
Now consider how they glorify Allah Almighty, by keeping their sides
away from their beds for Him.
 Ibn
Ajiba said: they keep their sides away from the physical beds to do
the physical worship, and these are the righteous ascetic
worshipers. [No
soul knows what joy of
the eyes is kept hidden for them,
as a reward for what they used to do]
al-Sajda 32:17.
So the people of physical worship, no soul knows about what is kept
hidden for them, of bliss, palaces, beautiful eyed maids, children,
and many other things.
Ibn Ajiba also
said: Other people keep their hearts away from the beds of
inattentiveness to the state of awakening and attention, and from
the beds of desire to the state of continence... these people keep
praying, worshiping even in their sleep, advancing to Allah in all
their conditions, and touring in the ascensions of the sea of
knowledge, so no soul knows what is hidden for them of continuous
looking and permanent presence. Those people's worship is heartily
and hidden even from the writing angles, from meditating,
witnessing, considering, and contemplation. A whit of their work is
like mountains of the physical worship. Abo-ad-Darda' [AAH]
used to say: "an hour of meditation is better than a whole night of
worship". Ibn Abbas [AAH]
said something similar. That is for the meditation of thinking, but
for the meditation of witnessing, an hour is better than a thousand
years. It was told that the Prophet [PPBUH]
said: (an hour's meditation is better than seventy years)
in the interpretation
of al-Bahr al-Madid, al-Alosy, ar-Razy, al-Qurtoby, and others.
Amr ibn Qays al-Malaly said: "I was told that an hour's meditation
is better than an age's work". Al-Daylamy narrated from Anas [AAH]
the Hadith: (an hour's meditation, about the succession of the
day and night, is better than the worship of eighty years).
Nevertheless, they occupy their times with the physical worship to
thank Allah and stand for the rules of conduct of the slavery to
Allah, which is considered as perfection for them.
It was narrated
that: "The people of paradise, while they are in the bliss, a
light illuminates to them from above. All there houses would light
from this light, as when the sun lights the for the people of the
worldly life. So they look up to the people of the
Illiyin
[the higher rank], and they see them as one would see a glittering
star in the sky. They would find that the people of Illiyin
are preferred to them in bliss and in lights as a moon is preferred
to all the stars. They look at them to find them flying on pedigreed
rids that floats with them in the air to visit the Exalted,
All-Generous. They would call on them saying: «O, brothers. You have
not been just with us. We prayed and fasted as you did, so why were
you preferred to us?» The call will come from Allah Almighty: [They
used to starve while you were eating, thirst while you were
drinking, disrobe while you were dressing, do Dhikr while you were
resting, weep while you are laughing, stay awake while you are
sleeping, and feel fear while you were feeling safe, that is why
they are preferred to you now]".
 It
was said that [the
joy of the eyes]
means: the look to the great face of Allah. So when Imam Fakhreddin
says: [He
is making Hijra [migrating] to me,
he who aims his face to Allah],
"to me"
here means; the higher rank that Allah Almighty prepared for those.
So one should be preoccupied with Allah Almighty, never by anything
else. One should be surrendering his face to Allah, as Allah told
us: [Nay,
but whosoever surrenders his purpose to
Allah while doing good, his reward is with his Lord; and there shall
no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve]
al-Baqarah 2:112,
in another verse: [Who
is better in religion than he who surrenders
his purpose to Allah while doing good and follows
the tradition of Ibrahim,
the upright?]
an-Nisa' 4:125,
and another verse: [Whosoever
surrenders his purpose to Allah while
doing good, he verily has grasped the firm
hand-hold. Unto Allah belongs the sequel
of all things]
Luqman 31:22.
So whoever migrates to the sheikh of foster who inherited the
knowledge of the Prophet [PPBUH],
in fact he is migrating to Allah, and the sheikh is the one who
teaches him. Allah the Exalted said: [And
whatsoever the messenger gives you, take
it. And whatsoever he forbids, abstain
from it]
al-Hashr 59:7.
The beloved Messenger [PPBUH]
says: (the knowledgeable are the inheritors of the prophets).
Abo-Dawoud, al-Turmozy,
Ibn Habban, and al-Bayhaqy.
He [PPBUH]
also said: (Hold on to my Sunna and the Sunna of the rightly
guided orthodox caliphs after me. Bite unto it with your teeth
[an expression for holding on hard to something])
Imam Ahmed, Abo-Dawoud, and
Ibn Magah.
He [PPBUH]
also said: (Allah sends to this nation, at the beginning of every
hundred years, someone to revitalize its religion for it)
Abo-Dawoud.
So whoever follow a sheikh who is knowledgeable of the right
religion, is actually following the the right guidance of the
beloved Messenger [PPBUH],
and his face is only directed to Allah Almighty.
Then Imam
Fakhreddin says: [and
he is dead without Hijra, whoever seeks others].
and by "others"
he means "anyone but Allah". And when he says "seeker",
he tells us about it in another verse [and truly, my seeker is
the one who seeks my will]
qasida 1:266. And what is the
will of the Imam? He said about it:
[My will is
accepted and responded from Allah
because the
will of Allah is my delight]
qasida 1:70.
So the will of
the Imam is the will of Allah Almighty. That is why Allah says about
his people: [He
whom Allah guides, he indeed is led
aright, and he whom He sends astray, for
him you wilt not find a guiding
body]
al-Kahf 18:17,
i.e. your guidance on the hands of a guiding body is actually a
guidance from Allah Almighty.
 So
the seeker of the
foster
sheikh is a
seeker of Allah and doing Dhikr of Allah. On the other hand, a
seeker of others (other than Allah), will not be guided to a saint
of Allah to guide him. So the seeker of others is dead, i.e. he is
heedless of the Dhikr of Allah, as the beloved [PPBUH]
said: (The one who does Dhikr of his Lord and the one who does
not are like an alive one and a dead one)
al-Bokhary.
Anyhow, Allah has clarified the goal and contents of the Hijra in
the Qur'anic verse: [Lo!
as for those whom the angels take in death while they wrong
themselves, will be asked: In what were
you engaged? They will say: We were
oppressed in the land. They will
be told: Was not Allah’s
earth spacious enough
for you to
migrate therein? As for such, their
abode will be hell, and an evil
destination it is]
an-Nisa' 4:97.
Imam al-Baydawy
said, about the basic meaning of this verse, that it has an evidence
for the obligation for Hijra from a place, where one is unable to
practice his religion. This is very true, right and correct, but the
meanings of Qur'an are endless. So what was the hidden other
meaning? the one they call the signal meaning. Ibn Ajiba [AAH]
said about this verse:
Anyone, who
does not spread through the divine knowledge, will die wronging
himself, because of what he made it miss of the fine witnessing and
the knowledge of the Deity King. His interior will not be free from
insisting on the heart diseases, which are among the biggest sins.
So when the angles come to take his soul while he still like that,
they would say to him: what were you engaged in so deep that you
could not migrate to someone who would purify you from your defects?
and would take you to the presence of the Knower of the Unseen? He
would say: I was oppressed in the lower knowledge and I could not
accompany those with the higher knowledge. I was detained by the
love for the homeland and the company of women and children. They
would say to him: Was not Allah's Land vast enough for you to
migrate to someone who can liberate you from the veil and release
you from the doubts? This one, who did not migrate to a foster
sheikh, will, no doubt, be imprisoned in the jail of the universe,
deprived from the witnessing, except those who would confess their
weakness to his Lord and ask Him for help to get rid of himself.
Then Allah may guide him to a knowledgeable saint of His so that he
may join Allah's beloveds and purified ones, which not far from
Allah.
So one should
try to find and get to know one of Allah's saints to show him how to
migrate to Allah leaving the bad morals to the fine ones. This way
he will migrate from the falseness to the truth, from the
preoccupation with worldly life to the everlasting hereafter, from
the satisfaction with one's qualities to embracing Allah's
qualities, and from being satisfied with the world to being occupied
with the creator of the world. Those will be with [those
unto whom Allah has shown favour, of the prophets and the saints and
the martyrs and the righteous. The best of company are they]
an-Nisa' 4:69,
and those will be [In
the seat of truth
with an
Omnipotent King]
al-Qamar 54:55.
May Allah group
us with them in this worldly life and in the hereafter. Prayers and
peace be to sayyduna Mohammad the great Prophet, all his family and
companions.
Written
by Mohamed Makbool
Translated
by
Mohamed
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