Videos:
History of Freemasonry
Secret control of the Globe.
The Light behind Masonry
Very interesting.
Masonry behind closed doors
Freemasonry behind the scene.
The Brotherhood of Darkness
About Council of Foreign Relations.
Monday, August 28, 2023
Resources on Freemasonry, by Ahmad Nor
Videos on the Vatican and their Global power, by Ahmad Nor
Revealing.
Illuminati created by the Jesuits.
Vatican Assassins
Powerful revelation.
The Da Vinci Code: A Response
The reality behind the International best seller.
Jesuit Infiltration
Roman Catholicism rules the World in secrecy.
Very interesting.
The Last Sermon of the Prophet Muhammad, by Everything
Two months after Muhammad's (pbuh) first and last Pilgrimage to Mecca, he fell ill. On the Ninth Day of the Islamic month Dhul Hijjah 10 A.H. (632CE) in the 'Uranah valley of Mount Arafat' (in Mecca), he gave a sermon to his people after leading them in prayer.
After praising, and thanking God he said:
"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and TAKE THESE WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.
O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity. God has Judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to Abbas ibn 'Abd'al Muttalib (his uncle) shall henceforth be waived...
Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.
O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.
O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God and answer your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Quran and my example, the Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray.
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people".
When he finished his farewell speech, the following revelations come to him, the final verse of the Quran.
"...This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion..." (Quran 5:3).
Soon after this sermon, his last in the mosque, Muhammad (pbuh) became so weak that he could not move. He then appointed Abu Bakr, his right-hand man, to lead the prayers. He spent the rest of his illness in the apartment of his beloved wife Aishah. On the early morning of twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal, three months after, the Prophet's fever abated and he went to the mosque with assitance. He sat on the right of Abu Bakr and completed the prayer while seated.
Hours later, he lost consciousness. His last words were "My Lord, grant me pardon" though some sources say "The prayer! The prayer!" and some say he tried to make some motion, as if to write something. There is also a hadith narrated by his wife, Aisyah, where she heard him tell the angel that he'd rather die and meet God than stay on Earth.He died in the evening of the twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal (June 8, 632 C.E.) at the age of sixty-three, in the arms of his wife Aisyah.
The news of the Muhammad's death was so hard upon close companions and Muslims that some of them refused to believe that he had passed away. (At the close of his death, he looked youthful as if in his forties and his face always shown a great radiance). Upon hearing this, Abu Bakr, who was later to become the first caliph, went to the mosque and delivered one of the noblest speeches:
"O People! If Muhammad is the sole object of your adoration, then know that he is dead. But if it is Allah (The One God) you Worshiped, then know that He does not die."
He then recited the following verse from the Qur'an, 3:144, which was revealed after the Battle of Uhud:
"Muhammad is no more than a Messenger: many were the Messengers that passed away before him. If he died or were slain, will you then turn back on your heels? If any did turn back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to God; but God (on the other hand) will swiftly reward those who (serve Him) with gratitude." The Prophet was buried the next day at the same place where he died. The place of his burial was decided by his saying as related by Abu Bakr: "God does not cause a prophet to die but in the place where he is to be buried."
"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and TAKE THESE WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.
O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity. God has Judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to Abbas ibn 'Abd'al Muttalib (his uncle) shall henceforth be waived...
Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.
O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.
O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God and answer your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Quran and my example, the Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray.
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people".
When he finished his farewell speech, the following revelations come to him, the final verse of the Quran.
"...This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion..." (Quran 5:3).
Soon after this sermon, his last in the mosque, Muhammad (pbuh) became so weak that he could not move. He then appointed Abu Bakr, his right-hand man, to lead the prayers. He spent the rest of his illness in the apartment of his beloved wife Aishah. On the early morning of twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal, three months after, the Prophet's fever abated and he went to the mosque with assitance. He sat on the right of Abu Bakr and completed the prayer while seated.
Hours later, he lost consciousness. His last words were "My Lord, grant me pardon" though some sources say "The prayer! The prayer!" and some say he tried to make some motion, as if to write something. There is also a hadith narrated by his wife, Aisyah, where she heard him tell the angel that he'd rather die and meet God than stay on Earth.He died in the evening of the twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal (June 8, 632 C.E.) at the age of sixty-three, in the arms of his wife Aisyah.
The news of the Muhammad's death was so hard upon close companions and Muslims that some of them refused to believe that he had passed away. (At the close of his death, he looked youthful as if in his forties and his face always shown a great radiance). Upon hearing this, Abu Bakr, who was later to become the first caliph, went to the mosque and delivered one of the noblest speeches:
"O People! If Muhammad is the sole object of your adoration, then know that he is dead. But if it is Allah (The One God) you Worshiped, then know that He does not die."
He then recited the following verse from the Qur'an, 3:144, which was revealed after the Battle of Uhud:
"Muhammad is no more than a Messenger: many were the Messengers that passed away before him. If he died or were slain, will you then turn back on your heels? If any did turn back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to God; but God (on the other hand) will swiftly reward those who (serve Him) with gratitude." The Prophet was buried the next day at the same place where he died. The place of his burial was decided by his saying as related by Abu Bakr: "God does not cause a prophet to die but in the place where he is to be buried."
Introducing Paul Findley, by Ahmad Nor
Paul Findley served in Capitol Hill for 22 years during which time he encountered strong Zionist lobby inside The White House. He had written several best-selling books, among them is 'They Dare To Speak Out' which sold out millions of copies worldwide, revealing how America is under occupation of foreigners who have interest in Israel. The book is very much worth reading because it came from a high level American government insider attempting to oppose Israeli domination in American political decision making.
Findley argues that America has changed due to her invasion by the Zionists.
'They Dare To Speak Out' is a treasure for Conspiracy theorists worldwide.
The Senator is well respected among American senates as well as leaders from among Christian and Muslim worlds. Findley is a supporter of Palestinian opposition towards their injustice. He is a hero to those who fight for freedom.
Profile of the 'Christian Evangelist terrorist' George W. Bush, by Ahmad Nor
We have compiled here resources on the terrorist activities of Bush, from the US Intelligence planned attack on The Twin Towers on September 11, to slaughtering of millions of innocent civilians in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and recently Lebanon.
For the attention of readers, George W. Bush is a 'born again Christian', the term well known to fundamentalist Masonic Christians, denoting the initiation of new members into their (Masonic) form of Christianity.
The Evangelical Christian Movement of Bush can be traced back to The Crusades and The Knights Templars under whose occupation of Palestine in 1066 A.D., 60,000 Palestinian civilians had been ruthlessly slaughtered. And today, their descendants while holding the highest level of American governmental positions are launching the same Crusades, towards not just Palestine but also Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq.
We believe that the American occupation of the Muslim world is just continuation of centuries long Crusades between Anti-messianic Christians and the Muslims.
Truly, The White House is under occupation of Fundamentalist 'Anti-christian' Christians, working in collaboration with Israel. Both together with Iran are waiting for the same Messiah; Christ, Moshiach and The Twelth Imam may possibly be the same person.
&
Videos:
2000 Presidential Election
How Bush stole The White House.
Why Bush invaded Iraq
The real reasons behind the occupation of Iraq.
The Apocalypse
The Evangelical Christian influence in The White House.
With God on Our Side
Bush Junior's devotion as an Evangelical Christian and how that influenced his policy towards the Islamic World.
The World according to Bush
Bush as a puppet of the elite behind the scene.
Videos:
2000 Presidential Election
How Bush stole The White House.
Why Bush invaded Iraq
The real reasons behind the occupation of Iraq.
The Apocalypse
The Evangelical Christian influence in The White House.
With God on Our Side
Bush Junior's devotion as an Evangelical Christian and how that influenced his policy towards the Islamic World.
The World according to Bush
Bush as a puppet of the elite behind the scene.
The 1948 Deir Yassin Massacre and Gog and Magog, by Ahmad Nor
Despite being one of the greatest tragedies befalling the Muslims, the massacre also served the mission of Zionists in establishing the terrorist State of Israel. They strove hard to drive away the Arabs from their homeland in order to make way clear for the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Two Zionist terrorist organizations, Irgun and Haganah were responsible for the 1948 carnage, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children while leaving many orphans.
Terrorism of this nature and degree was unheard of among the Jews living during the Prophet Muhammad's time. What kind of Jews are today's Jews? Why are they much more cruel and violent in treating non-Jews? Is it just to generalize all Jews as enemies of Islam?
The Quran in Chapter of the Cave (Arabic 'Surah Al-Kahf') made mention of the ferocious tribes called Gog and Magog who were locked up behind thick wall made of copper, built by a just Emperor named by God Himself as 'The Two-Horned One', and that one day the wall shall collapse clearing the way for Gog and Magog to terrorize the lands.
Why did the Prophet Muhammad advise the Muslims to read the last 10 verses of Chapter of the Cave, as protection from the Antichrist (Islamic 'Al-Masih Ad-Dajjal')? What possible relationship exists between the Antichrist (whom the Prophet mentioned would be a Jew) and Gog and Magog? In order to answer that, we may have to research further on the World Jewry today.
Jews today constitute two main ethnic groups, first are called the Sephardim, those who came from the Middle East and had been Jews since the time of Moses and the prophets. They are considered the original Biblical Jews, descendants of the Hebrews and also of those Jews in Arabia who had direct encounters with the Prophet Muhammad. Most can speak Arabic with fluency and are well versed with Arab culture, they generally live in peace with their Arab neighbours.
And the second group are called the Ashkenazim, they reside mainly in Eastern Europe as well as various parts of North America and many can now be found in Israel; the Ashkenazic Jews speak Yiddish as their mother tongue.
It is interesting to note that Ashkenazim, being majority of today's Jews, were the main force behind the Zionist movement. Theodor Herl, the Zionist visionary is an Ashkenazic Jew. Those terrorists responsible for the Deir Yassin massacre were all Ashkenazic Jews too.
According to Arthur Koestler, the author of The Thirteenth Tribe, Ashkenazic Jews descended originally from Turkish tribes collectively called The Khazars. Around 740 A.D., their King embraced Judaism as a well planned strategy to maintain Khazaria as a buffer state between the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate and the Christian Byzantium. The conversion was not religious in motive at all.
Over time the Khazar converted Jews began to really consider themselves as biological descendants of Abraham, although in fact they are descendants of Togarmah, descendant of Japheth, Father of the Turks. Abraham was a Semite and direct offspring of Sam, son of Noah. Eventually the Khazars began to establish their Judaic Khazar Empire around the Black Sea.
They were so powerful that even the fierce Vikings around them feared their military might. The vast Jewish empire was destroyed a few centuries later due to military alliance between the Byzantium and the Vikings, and since then the Khazars moved westward towards Europe, and were subsequently known as the Ashkenazim.
Are Ashkenazic Jews of today descendants of the ancient Gog and Magog? Is God through Chapter of the Cave informing Humanity about the coming Zionist Movement, by mentioning the barbarity of Gog and Magog? Is the term 'Anti-semitism' a misnomer? Shall it be replaced with 'Anti-Khazarism'? Are not the Arabs purer semites compared to majority of Jews who are Turkish in origin? These are the questions that need serious research and pondering by us all.
Links:
Gog and Magog and the Kingdom of the Khazars
Benjamin Freedman Speaks
Are Today's Jews True Israelites?
The Dark Side of the Israeli Connection
B'nai B'rith and ADL hypocritical, says critics
Early Russian History
Scythia
The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Islamic World
Presence of Freemasonry in Malaysia, by Ahmad Nor
Freemasonry, considered a philanthropy organization working for the good of Malaysian society was banned in the 1970's due to pressure of several Islamic figures inside the Malaysian Parliament at the time. They argued that the Organization was being used to further the plans of the Zionists in their Global Conquest by using charity, based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Freemasonry arrived in Malaysia by way of the British officers working here from the late 19th century.
However, it began to resurface in the form of other Masonic fronts like Rotary Club and Lion Club. The highest Government leader ever being a Rotarian is arguably Tun Dr. Mahathir himself, who had been 'openly' active in lashing out at the Jewish conspirators and the West.
According to Maurice Pinay's The Plot Against The Church, the Founders of Freemasonry were Jews, although not believers in Torah nor Elohim (God in Hebrew).
We cannot help but wonder whether Dr. Mahathir's anti-Jewish remarks about the Jews were sincere or just rhetorical?
We stand firmly on the principle that Jews and Zionists are different. We are not against peace loving Jews worshipping God in synagogues, our enemies are the Zionists who had usurped the Judaic religion and now stealing Palestine of the Arabs using Torah as their source, even when many of them are in fact atheists.
There is no evidence so far regarding Anwar Ibrahim's involvement in such secret societies. We are still conducting research on the present UMNO leaders relating to any ties with Masonic organizations.
Despite being formally banned a few decades ago, Freemasonry itself still exists but in deep secrecy. In Malaysia, Masons are based at Dewan Freemason, 213 Jalan Tun Razak, 50400 Kuala Lumpur according to Review of Freemasonry.
Links:
Freemasonry in Malaysia and Singapore
List of famous Malaysian Masons
The present Libyan President is Jewish by origin, by Ahmad Nor
As startling as the discovery of Theodor Herzl to be an anti-semite, recent evidence from The Jerusalem Jewish Voice stated: 'Yet the Rebbe might indeed have become Messiah Now. A Chabad L'Chayim tract told the tale of Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchav, who took his pupils to visit a notorious murderous anti-semite. After the latter failed to kill them, he broke down, admitted his Jewish origins, and repented on the spot. Gaddafi has a Jewish mother and is thus Jewish. If the Rebbe would have left his headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway and flown to Libya, his holy soul might have pierced Gaddafi's hard shell and reached his Jewish soul. Then Gaddafi would have appeared on satellite TV and brought the Moslems back to Torah, dragging the Christians in their wake. Then the Rebbe could have them all from Jerusalem's Capital TV Studios.'
According to Nodeworks Encyclopedia, Gaddafi's 'mother was a Jew converted to Islam at age nine. This technically makes Qaddafi Jewish according to Judaism.'
Indeed contrary to his open confrontational stand against the State of Israel, looking at his Jewish background.
Resources on the present Iraqi War, by Ahmad Nor
Videos:
George W. Bush and the Apocalypse
Bush is a fanatical fundamental Christian.
The war on Iraq is definitely 'The New Crusade' perpetrated
by Freemasons, inheritors of The Knights Templars.
Pilger breaking the silence
A famous journalist reveals all.
Who are greater terrorists than Al-Qaeda?
Iraq: The Continuous War
About Iraqi occupation.
Mission Accomplished
Iraqi situations after the war.
The whole truth about the Iraqi War
Former high Government and Intelligence officials about Iraq.
The quest to invade Iraq.
Iraq Veteran speaks out on war crimes
Testimony from a US Army ranger.
Iraq: The Hidden Story
What was not reported by the mainstream media.
Iraq: The Women's Story
Sufferings of innocent Iraqi civilians under the American occupation.
&
Prophecies of the Prophet Muhammad regarding
the present Iraqi situation (from Sahih Muslim):
THE LAST HOUR WOULD NOT COME UNTIL THE EUPHRATES UNCOVERS A TREASURE OF GOLD
*'Allah' is God in Arabic.
Gold may possibly refer to 'black gold' i.e. oil.
Book 041, Number 6918:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come before the Euphrates uncovers a mountain of gold, for which people would fight. Ninety-nine out of each one hundred would die but every man amongst them would say that perhaps he would be the one who would be saved (and thus possess this gold).
Book 041, Number 6919:
This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Suhail with the same chain of transmitters but with this addition:" My father said: If you see that, do not even go near it."
Book 041, Number 6920:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come unless the Euphrates would uncover a treasure of gold, so he who finds it should not take anything out of that.
Book 041, Number 6921:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Euphrates would soon uncover a mountain of gold but he who is present there should not take anything from that.
Book 041, Number 6922:
'Abdullah b. Harith b. Naufal reported: I was standing along with Ubayy b. Ka, b and he said: The opinions of the people differ in regard to the achievement of worldly ends. I said: Yes, of course. Thereupon he said: I heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Euphrates would soon uncover a mountain of gold and when the people would bear of it they would flock towards it but the people who would possess that (treasure) (would say): If we allow these persons to take out of it they would take away the whole of it. So they would fight and ninety-nine out of one hundred would be killed. Abu Kamil in his narration said: I and Abu Ka'b stood under the shade of the battlement of Hassan.
Book 041, Number 6923:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Iraq would withhold its dirhams and qafiz; Syria would withhold its mudd and dinar and Egypt would withhold its irdab and dinar and you would recoil to that position from where you started and you would recoil to that position from where you started and you would recoil to that position from where you started, the bones and the flesh of Abu Huraira would bear testimony to it.
Prophecies of the Prophet Muhammad regarding
the present Iraqi situation (from Sahih Muslim):
THE LAST HOUR WOULD NOT COME UNTIL THE EUPHRATES UNCOVERS A TREASURE OF GOLD
*'Allah' is God in Arabic.
Gold may possibly refer to 'black gold' i.e. oil.
Book 041, Number 6918:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come before the Euphrates uncovers a mountain of gold, for which people would fight. Ninety-nine out of each one hundred would die but every man amongst them would say that perhaps he would be the one who would be saved (and thus possess this gold).
Book 041, Number 6919:
This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Suhail with the same chain of transmitters but with this addition:" My father said: If you see that, do not even go near it."
Book 041, Number 6920:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come unless the Euphrates would uncover a treasure of gold, so he who finds it should not take anything out of that.
Book 041, Number 6921:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Euphrates would soon uncover a mountain of gold but he who is present there should not take anything from that.
Book 041, Number 6922:
'Abdullah b. Harith b. Naufal reported: I was standing along with Ubayy b. Ka, b and he said: The opinions of the people differ in regard to the achievement of worldly ends. I said: Yes, of course. Thereupon he said: I heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Euphrates would soon uncover a mountain of gold and when the people would bear of it they would flock towards it but the people who would possess that (treasure) (would say): If we allow these persons to take out of it they would take away the whole of it. So they would fight and ninety-nine out of one hundred would be killed. Abu Kamil in his narration said: I and Abu Ka'b stood under the shade of the battlement of Hassan.
Book 041, Number 6923:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Iraq would withhold its dirhams and qafiz; Syria would withhold its mudd and dinar and Egypt would withhold its irdab and dinar and you would recoil to that position from where you started and you would recoil to that position from where you started and you would recoil to that position from where you started, the bones and the flesh of Abu Huraira would bear testimony to it.
The Coming World Leader (the Antichrist), by Koinonia House Online
Will he be the next Pope?
The 12th Imam of Islam?
Is he currently in Europe...or America?
Who is the rider of the white horse?
Listen to Part 1 »
The False Peacemaker.
What is the 'Abomination of Desolation'?
Listen to Part 2 »
Interesting.
Who is the coming world leader?
Listen to Part 3 »
The Antichrist appearing simultaneously
as Christ, Moshiach and The Twelth Imam.
What is the significance of '666'?
Listen to Part 4 »
Mark of the Antichrist.
Where do I find '3rd' Thessalonians?
Listen to Part 5 »
Amazing.
Videos on Israel, Zionism and Judaism, by Ahmad Nor
How Israel came into being.
Moses and the Sea
About Moses and how he saved the Children of Israel.
Perished Nations 1
Perished Nations 2
Ancient nations who were destroyed in the past.
History of Zionism
How Israel came into existence.
Hitler serving Zionism
Behind the scene's assistance of Fuhrer to the Zionists.
The Holocaust behind the scene
What the public does not know about the Holocaust.
David Cole at Auschwitz
Shocking information.
Zionism and Herzl
Herzl as pioneer of Anti-Semitism, and hater of the Jews.
Shocking revelation.
Crimes of Zionism
True revelation.
Germany and the Jews
Benjamin Freedman, an ex-Zionist leader, revealed all.
Jews against Zionist genocide in Palestine
Sufferings of Palestinian people by the hands of Zionists.
Neturei Karta's War on Judaism
Interesting.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Interviews with Americans.
Secret WMD in Israel
Very revealing.
George Galloway's view on 2006 Lebanese massacre
MP defending Lebanon.
Lebanon destroyed by Israel
Recent 2006 massacre.
Tragedy in the Holy Land
On thoughts of the Founder of Zionism.
Anti-Zionism Rally May 17 1998
Anti-Zionism Rally July 11, 1996
By Torah Jews who are Anti-Zionists.
Israel Air Force
The strongest air force in the Middle East.
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media and Israel-Palestine Conflict
American and International Media Coverage.
Tour of Israel
About Israel.
Collection of resources on Iran, by Ahmad Nor
'The Antichrist will appear with a following of 70,000 Jews in Isfahan.' (The Prophet Muhammad)
Videos:
Iran-Israel secret 'close' relationship
Given by an Iranian political analyst and expert on the Middle East.
Shocking revelation.
Israel urged the United States to support Iran after invaded by Iraq.
Khomeini wanted Iran to be loudest in verbal support for Palestine but the least in actual opposition to Israel, if not at all.
Ariel Sharon reinstated good relationship with Iran behind the scene.
Visit to Iran
Touring Isfahan.
Iran versus the World
Iran emerging as the next Global
Superpower, fulfilling prophecies of Nostradamus.
&
Articles:
Iran converted from Sunnism to Shiism by sword
The Antichrist appearing in Iran
Resources on the Antichrist, by Ahmad Nor
For the benefits of the readers we have compiled these:
Antichrist Conspiracy
The Antichrist Conspiracies
The Antichrist Prophecies
The Antichrist Identity
Antichrist
Koinonia House Online
Dajjal System
Mission Islam
Sufism in Traditional Islamic Sciences, by Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Perhaps the biggest challenge in learning Islam correctly today is the scarcity of traditional scholars. In this meaning, Bukhari relates the sahih, rigorously authenticated hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowedge by taking it out of servants, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars [in death], until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and who give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding." (Fath al-Bari, 1.194, hadith 100).
The process described by the hadith is not yet completed, but has certainly begun, and in our times, the lack of traditional scholars—whether in Islamic law, in hadith, in tafsir ‘Quranic exegesis’—has given rise to an understanding of the religion that is far from scholarly, and sometimes far from the truth. For example, in the course of my own studies in Islamic law, my first impression from orientalist and Muslim-reformer literature, was that the Imams of the madhhabs or ‘schools of jurisprudence’ had brought a set of rules from completely outside the Islamic tradition and somehow imposed them upon the Muslims. But when I sat with traditional scholars in the Middle East and asked them about the details, I came away with a different point of view, having learned the bases for deriving the law from the Quran and Sunnah.
And similarly with Tasawwuf—which is the word I will use tonight for the English Sufism, since our context is traditional Islam—quite a different picture emerged from talking with scholars of Tasawwuf than what I had been exposed to in the West. My talk tonight, Insyaallah, will present knowledge taken from the Quran and sahih hadith, and from actual teachers of Tasawwuf in Syria and Jordan, in view of the need for all of us to get beyond clichés, the need for factual information from Islamic sources, the need to answer such questions as: Where did Tasawwuf come from? What role does it play in the din or religion of Islam? and most importantly, what is the command of Allah about it?
As for the origin of the term Tasawwuf, like many other Islamic discliplines, its name was not known to the first generation of Muslims. The historian Ibn Khaldun notes in his Muqaddimah:
This knowledge is a branch of the sciences of Sacred Law that originated within the Ummah. From the first, the way of such people had also been considered the path of truth and guidance by the early Muslim community and its notables, of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), those who were taught by them, and those who came after them.
It basically consists of dedication to worship, total dedication to Allah Most High, disregard for the finery and ornament of the world, abstinence from the pleasure, wealth, and prestige sought by most men, and retiring from others to worship alone. This was the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims, but when involvement in this-worldly things became widespread from the second Islamic century onwards and people became absorbed in worldliness, those devoted to worship came to be called Sufiyya or People of Tasawwuf (Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima [N.d. Reprint. Mecca: Dar al-Baz, 1397/1978], 467).
In Ibn Khaldun’s words, the content of Tasawwuf, "total dedication to Allah Most High," was, "the general rule among the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims." So if the word did not exist in earliest times, we should not forget that this is also the case with many other Islamic disciplines, such as tafsir, ‘Quranic exegesis’ or ‘ilm al-jarh wa tadil, ‘the science of the positive and negative factors that affect hadith narrators acceptability’ or ilm al-tawhid, 'the science of belief in Islamic tenets of faith' all of which proved to be of the utmost importance to the correct preservation and transmission of the religion.
As for the origin of the word Tasawwuf, it may well be from Sufi, the person who does Tasawwuf, which seems to be etymologically prior to it, for the earliest mention of either term was by Hasan al-Basri who died 110 years after the Hijra, and is reported to have said, "I saw a Sufi circumambulating the Kaaba, and offered him a dirham, but he would not accept it." It therefore seems better to understand Tasawwuf by first asking what a Sufi is; and perhaps the best definition of both the Sufi and his way, certainly one of the most frequently quoted by masters of the discipline, is from the Sunnah of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) who said: Allah Most High says: "He who is hostile to a friend of Mine I declare war against. My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him." (Fath al-Bari, 11.340–41, hadith 6502); This hadith was related by Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bayhaqi, and others with multiple contiguous chains of transmission, and is sahih. It discloses the central reality of Tasawwuf, which is precisely change, while describing the path to this change, in conformity with a traditional definition used by masters in the Middle East, who define a Sufi as Faqihun ‘amila bi ‘ilmihi fa awrathahu Llahu ‘ilma ma lam ya‘lam, ‘A man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know.’
To clarify, a Sufi is a man of religious learning,because the hadith says, "My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him," and only through learning can the Sufi know the command of Allah, or what has been made obligatory for him. He has applied what he knew, because the hadith says he not only approaches Allah with the obligatory, but "keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him." And in turn, Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know, because the hadith says, "And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks," which is a metaphor for the consummate awareness of tawhid, or the ‘unity of Allah,’ which in the context of human actions such as hearing, sight, seizing, and walking, consists of realizing the words of the Qur'an about Allah that, "It is He who created you and what you do." (Qur'an 37:96).
The origin of the way of the Sufi thus lies in the Prophetic Sunnah. The sincerity to Allah that it entails was the rule among the earliest Muslims, to whom this was simply a state of being without a name, while it only became a distinct discipline when the majority of the Community had drifted away and changed from this state. Muslims of subsequent generations required systematic effort to attain it, and it was because of the change in the Islamic environment after the earliest generations, that a discipline by the name of Tasawwuf came to exist.
But if this is true of origins, the more significant question is: How central is Tasawwuf to the religion, and: Where does it fit into Islam as a whole? Perhaps the best answer is the hadith of Muslim, that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said: As we sat one day with the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), a man in pure white clothing and jet black hair came to us, without a trace of travelling upon him, though none of us knew him.
He sat down before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bracing his knees against his, resting his hands on his legs, and said: "Muhammad, tell me about Islam." The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and to perform the prayer, give zakat, fast in Ramadan, and perform the pilgrimage to the House if you can find a way."
He said: "You have spoken the truth," and we were surprised that he should ask and then confirm the answer. Then he said: "Tell me about true faith (iman)," and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His inspired Books, His messengers, the Last Day, and in destiny, its good and evil."
"You have spoken the truth," he said, "Now tell me about the perfection of faith (ihsan)," and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered: "It is to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you see Him not, He nevertheless sees you."
The hadith continues to where ‘Umar said: Then the visitor left. I waited a long while, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to me, "Do you know, ‘Umar, who was the questioner?" and I replied, "Allah and His messenger know best." He said, "It was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion" (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: hadith 8).
This is a sahih hadith, described by Imam Nawawi as one of the hadiths upon which the Islamic religion turns. The use of din in the last words of it, Atakum yu‘allimukum dinakum, "came to you to teach you your religion" entails that the religion of Islam is composed of the three fundamentals mentioned in the hadith: Islam, or external compliance with what Allah asks of us; Iman, or the belief in the unseen that the prophets have informed us of; and Ihsan, or to worship Allah as though one sees Him.
The Quran says, in Surat Maryam, "Surely We have revealed the Remembrance, and surely We shall preserve it" (Qur'an 15:9), and if we reflect how Allah, in His wisdom, has accomplished this, we see that it is by human beings, the traditional scholars He has sent at each level of the religion. The level of Islam has been preserved and conveyed to us by the Imams of Syariah or ‘Sacred Law’ and its ancillary disciplines; the level of Iman, by the Imams of Aqidah or ‘tenets of faith’; and the level of Ihsan, "to worship Allah as though you see Him," by the Imams of Tasawwuf.
The hadith’s very words "to worship Allah" show us the interrelation of these three fundamentals, for the how of "worship" is only known through the external prescriptions of Islam, while the validity of this worship in turn presupposes Iman or faith in Allah and the Islamic revelation, without which worship would be but empty motions; while the words, "as if you see Him," show that Ihsan implies a human change, for it entails the experience of what, for most of us, is not experienced. So to understand Tasawwuf, we must look at the nature of this change in relation to both Islam and Iman, and this is the main focus of my talk tonight.
At the level of Islam, we said that Tasawwuf requires Islam, through ‘submission to the rules of Sacred Law’. But Islam, for its part, equally requires Tasawwuf. Why? For the very good reason that the Sunnah which Muslims have been commanded to follow is not just the words and actions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), but also his states, states of the heart such as taqwa ‘godfearingness', ikhlas ‘sincerity,’ tawakkul ‘reliance on Allah,’ rahmah ‘mercy,’ tawadu ‘humility,’ and so on.
Now, it is characteristic of the Islamic ethic that human actions are not simply divided into two shades of morality, right or wrong; but rather five, arranged in order of their consequences in the next world. The obligatory (wajib) is that whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished. The recommended (mandub) is that whose performance is rewarded, but whose nonperformance is not punished. The permissible (mubah) is indifferent, unconnected with either reward or punishment. The offensive (makruh) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished. The unlawful (haram) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished, if one dies unrepentant.
Human states of the heart, the Quran and Sunnah make plain to us, come under each of these headings. Yet they are not dealt with in books of fiqh or ‘Islamic jurisprudence’ because unlike the prayer, zakat, or fasting, they are not quantifiable in terms of the specific amount of them that must be done. But though they are not countable, they are of the utmost importance to every Muslim. Let’s look at a few examples.
(1) Love of Allah. In Surat al-Baqarah of the Quran, Allah blames those who ascribe associates to Allah whom they love as much as they love Allah. Then He says,
"And those who believe are greater in love for Allah" (Qur'an 2:165), making being a believer conditional upon having greater love for Allah than any other.
(2) Mercy. Bukhari and Muslim relate that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Whomever is not merciful to people, Allah will show no mercy" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1809: hadith 2319), and Tirmidhi relates the well authenticated (hasan) hadith "Mercy is not taken out of anyone except the damned" (al-Jami al-sahih, 4.323: hadith 1923).
(3) Love of each other. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "By Him in whose hand is my soul, none of you shall enter paradise until you believe, and none of you shall believe until you love one another . . . " (Sahih Muslim, 1.74: hadith 54).
(4) Presence of mind in the prayer (salat). Abu Dawud relates in his Sunan that Ammar ibn Yasir heard the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) say, "Truly, a man leaves, and none of his prayer has been recorded for him except a tenth of it, a ninth of it, eighth of it, seventh of it, sixth of it, fifth of it, fourth of it, third of it, a half of it" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 1.211: hadith 796)—meaning that none of a person’s prayer counts for him except that in which he is present in his heart with Allah.
(5) Love of the Prophet. Bukhari relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "None of you believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his son, and all people" (Fath al-Bari, 1.58, hadith 15).
It is plain from these texts that none of the states mentioned—whether mercy, love, or presence of heart—are quantifiable, for the Syariah cannot specify that one must "do two units of mercy" or "have three units of presence of mind" in the way that the number of rakaahs of prayer can be specified, yet each of them is personally obligatory for the Muslim. Let us complete the picture by looking at a few examples of states that are haram or ‘strictly unlawful’:
(1) Fear of anyone besides Allah. Allah Most High says in Surat al-Baqara of the Qur'an,
"And fulfill My covenant: I will fulfill your covenant—And fear Me alone" (Quran 2:40), the last phrase of which, according to Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, "establishes that a human being is obliged to fear no one besides Allah Most High" (Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi, 3.42).
(2) Despair. Allah Most High says,
"None despairs of Allah’s mercy except the people who disbelieve" (Quran 12:87), indicating the unlawfulness of this inward state by coupling it with the worst human condition possible, that of unbelief.
(3) Arrogance. Muslim relates in his Sahih that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "No one shall enter paradise who has a particle of arrogance in his heart" (Sahih Muslim, 1.93: hadith 91).
(4) Envy, meaning to wish for another to lose the blessings he enjoys. Abu Dawud relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Beware of envy, for envy consumes good works as flames consume firewood" (Sunan Abi Dawud, 4.276: hadith 4903).
(5) Showing off in acts of worship. Al-Hakim relates with a sahih chain of transmission that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah . . . ." (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.4).
These and similar haram inward states are not found in books of fiqh or ‘jurisprudence,’ because fiqh can only deal with quantifiable descriptions of rulings. Rather, they are examined in their causes and remedies by the scholars of the ‘inner fiqh’ of Tasawwuf, men such as Imam al-Ghazali in his Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din [The reviving of the religious sciences], Imam al-Rabbani in his Maktubat [Letters], al-Suhrawardi in his ‘Awarif al-Ma‘arif [The knowledges of the illuminates], Abu Talib al-Makki in Qut al-qulub [The sustenance of hearts], and similar classic works, which discuss and solve hundreds of ethical questions about the inner life. These are books of Syariah and their questions are questions of Sacred Law, of how it is lawful or unlawful for a Muslim to be; and they preserve the part of the prophetic sunna dealing with states.
Who needs such information? All Muslims, for the Quranic verses and authenticated hadiths all point to the fact that a Muslim must not only do certain things and say certain things, but also must be something, must attain certain states of the heart and eliminate others. Do we ever fear someone besides Allah? Do we have a particle of arrogance in our hearts? Is our love for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) greater than our love for any other human being? Is there the slightest bit of showing off in our good works?
Half a minute’s reflection will show the Muslim where he stands on these aspects of his din, and why in classical times, helping Muslims to attain these states was not left to amateurs, but rather delegated to ulama of the heart, the scholars of Islamic Tasawwuf. For most people, these are not easy transformations to make, because of the force of habit, because of the subtlety with which we can deceive ourselves, but most of all because each of us has an ego, the self, the Me, which is called in Arabic al-nafs, about which Allah testifies in Surat Yusuf:
"Verily the self ever commands to do evil" (Qur'an 12:53).
If you do not believe it, consider the hadith related by Muslim in his Sahih, that:
The first person judged on Resurrection Day will be a man martyred in battle.
He will be brought forth, Allah will reacquaint him with His blessings upon him and the man will acknowledge them, whereupon Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" to which the man will respond, "I fought to the death for You."
Allah will reply, "You lie. You fought in order to be called a hero, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face and flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward who learned Sacred Knowledge, taught it to others, and who recited the Quran. Allah will remind him of His gifts to him and the man will acknowledge them, and then Allah will say, "What have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I acquired Sacred Knowledge, taught it, and recited the Qur'an, for Your sake."
Allah will say, "You lie. You learned so as to be called a scholar, and read the Quran so as to be called a reciter, and it has already been said." Then the man will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire.
Then a man will be brought forward whom Allah generously provided for, giving him various kinds of wealth, and Allah will recall to him the benefits given, and the man will acknowledge them, to which Allah will say, "And what have you done with them?" The man will answer, "I have not left a single kind of expenditure You love to see made, except that I have spent on it for Your sake."
Allah will say, "You lie. You did it so as to be called generous, and it has already been said." Then he will be sentenced and dragged away on his face to be flung into the fire (Sahih Muslim, 3.1514: hadith 1905).
We should not fool ourselves about this, because our fate depends on it: in our childhood, our parents taught us how to behave through praise or blame, and for most of us, this permeated and colored our whole motivation for doing things. But when childhood ends, and we come of age in Islam, the religion makes it clear to us, both by the above hadith and by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) "The slightest bit of showing off in good works is as if worshipping others with Allah" that being motivated by what others think is no longer good enough, and that we must change our motives entirely, and henceforth be motivated by nothing but desire for Allah Himself. The Islamic revelation thus tells the Muslim that it is obligatory to break his habits of thinking and motivation, but it does not tell him how. For that, he must go to the scholars of these states, in accordance with the Qur'anic imperative,
"Ask those who know if you know not." (Qur'an 16:43)
There is no doubt that bringing about this change, purifying the Muslims by bringing them to spiritual sincerity, was one of the central duties of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), for Allah says in the Surat Al ‘Imran of the Quran,
"Allah has truly blessed the believers, for He has sent them a messenger of themselves, who recites His signs to them and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom" (Quran 3:164), which explicitly lists four tasks of the prophetic mission, the second of which, yuzakkihim means precisely to ‘purify them’ and has no other lexical sense. Now, it is plain that this teaching function cannot, as part of an eternal revelation, have ended with the passing of the first generation, a fact that Allah explictly confirms in His injunction in Surat Luqman, "And follow the path of him who turns unto Me" (Quran 31:15).
These verses indicate the teaching and transformative role of those who convey the Islamic revelation to Muslims, and the choice of the word ittiba‘ in the second verse, which is more general, implies both keeping the company of and following the example of a teacher. This is why in the history of Tasawwuf, we find that though there were many methods and schools of thought, these two things never changed: keeping the company of a teacher, and following his example—in exactly the same way that the Sahaba were uplifted and purified by keeping the company of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and following his example.
And this is why the discipline of Tasawwuf has been preserved and transmitted by Tariqahs or groups of students under a particular master. First, because this was the Sunnah of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in his purifying function described by the Quran. Secondly, Islamic knowledge has never been transmitted by writings alone, but rather from ulama to students. Thirdly, the nature of the knowledge in question is of hal or ‘state of being,’ not just knowing, and hence requires it be taken from a succession of living masters back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), for the sheer range and number of the states of heart required by the revelation effectively make imitation of the personal example of a teacher the only effective means of transmission.
So far we have spoken about Tasawwuf in respect to Islam, as a Syariah science necessary to fully realize the Sacred Law in one’s life, to attain the states of the heart demanded by the Quran and hadith. This close connection between Syariah and Tasawwuf is expressed by the statement of Imam Malik, founder of the Maliki school, that "he who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself. Only he who combines the two proves true." This is why Tasawwuf was taught as part of the traditional curriculum in madrasas across the Muslim world from Malaysia to Morocco, why many of the greatest Syariah scholars of this Ummah have been Sufis, and why until the end of the Islamic caliphate at the beginning of this century and the subsequent Western control and cultural dominance of Muslim lands, there were teachers of Tasawwuf in Islamic institutions of higher learning from Lucknow to Istanbul to Cairo.
But there is a second aspect of Tasawwuf that we have not yet talked about; namely, its relation to Iman or ‘True Faith,’ the second pillar of the Islamic religion, which in the context of the Islamic sciences consists of ‘Aqidah or ‘orthodox belief.’
All Muslims believe in Allah, and that He is transcendently beyond anything conceivable to the minds of men, for the human intellect is imprisoned within its own sense impressions and the categories of thought derived from them, such as number, directionality, spatial extention, place, time, and so forth. Allah is beyond all of that; in His own words, "There is nothing whatesover like unto Him." (Qur'an 42:11)
If we reflect for a moment on this verse, in the light of the hadith of Muslim about Ihsan that "it is to worship Allah as though you see Him," we realize that the means of seeing here is not the eye, which can only behold physical things like itself; nor yet the mind, which cannot transcend its own impressions to reach the Divine, but rather certitude, the light of Iman, whose locus is not the eye or the brain, but rather the ruh, a subtle faculty Allah has created within each of us called the soul, whose knowledge is unobstructed by the bounds of the created universe. Allah Most High says, by way of exalting the nature of this faculty by leaving it a mystery,
"Say: ‘The soul is of the affair of my Lord’" (Qur'an 17:85).
The food of this ruh is dhikr or the ‘remembrance of Allah.’ Why? Because acts of obedience increase the light of certainty and Iman in the soul, and dhikr is among the greatest of them, as is attested to by the sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Shall I not tell you of the best of your works, the purest of them in the eyes of your Master, the highest in raising your rank, better than giving gold and silver, and better for you than to meet your enemy and smite their necks, and they smite yours?" They said, "This—what is it, O Messenger of Allah?" and he said: Dhikru Llahi ‘azza wa jall, "The remembrance of Allah Mighty and Majestic." (al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn, 1.496).
Increasing the strength of Iman through good actions, and particularly through the medium of dhikr has tremendous implications for the Islamic religion and traditional spirituality. A non-Muslim once asked me, "If God exists, then why all this beating around the bush? Why doesn’t He just come out and say so?"
The answer is that taklif or ‘moral responsibility’ in this life is not only concerned with outward actions, but with what we believe, our ‘Aqida—and the strength with which we believe it. If belief in God and other eternal truths were effortless in this world, there would be no point in Allah making us responsible for it, it would be automatic, involuntary, like our belief, say, that London is in England. There would no point in making someone responsible for something impossible not to believe.
But the responsibility Allah has place upon us is belief in the Unseen, as a test for us in this world to choose between kufr and Iman, to distinguish believer from unbeliever, and some believers above others.
This why strengthening Iman through dhikr is of such methodological importance for Tasawwuf: we have not only been commanded as Muslims to believe in certain things, but have been commanded to have absolute certainty in them. The world we see around us is composed of veils of light and darkness: events come that knock the Iman out of some of us, and Allah tests each of us as to the degree of certainty with which we believe the eternal truths of the religion. It was in this sense that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said, "If the Iman of Abu Bakr were weighed against the Iman of the entire Umma, it would outweigh it."
Now, in traditional Aqidah one of the most important tenets is the wahdaniyyah or ‘oneness and uniqueness’ of Allah Most High. This means He is without any syirk or associate in His being, in His attributes, or in His acts. But the ability to hold this insight in mind in the rough and tumble of daily life is a function of the strength of certainty (yaqin) in one’s heart. Allah tells the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Surat al-A‘raf of the Quran, "Say: ‘I do not possess benefit for myself or harm, except as Allah wills’" (Qur'an 7:188), yet we tend to rely on ourselves and our plans, in obliviousness to the facts of Aqidah that ourselves and our plans have no effect, that Allah alone brings about effects.
If you want to test yourself on this, the next time you contact someone with good connections whose help is critical to you, take a look at your heart at the moment you ask him to put in a good word for you with someone, and see whom you are relying upon. If you are like most of us, Allah is not at the forefront of your thoughts, despite the fact that He alone is controlling the outcome. Isn’t this a lapse in your Aqidah, or, at the very least, in your certainty?
Tasawwuf corrects such shortcomings by step-by-step increasing the Muslim’s certainty in Allah. The two central means of Tasawwuf in attaining the conviction demanded by ‘Aqida are mudhakara, or learning the traditional tenets of Islamic faith, and dhikr, deepening one’s certainty in them by remembrance of Allah. It is part of our faith that, in the words of the Qur'an in Surat al-Saffat, "Allah has created you and what you do" (Qur'an 37:96);
yet for how many of us is this day to day experience? Because Tasawwuf remedies this and other shortcomings of Iman, by increasing the Muslim’s certainty through a systematic way of teaching and dhikr, it has traditionally been regarded as personally obligatory to this pillar of the religion also, and from the earliest centuries of Islam, has proved its worth.
The last question we will deal with tonight is: What about the bad Sufis we read about, who contravene the teachings of Islam?
The answer is that there are two meanings of Sufi: the first is "Anyone who considers himself a Sufi," which is the rule of thumb of orientalist historians of Sufism and popular writers, who would oppose the "Sufis" to the "Ulama." I think the Quranic verses and hadiths we have mentioned tonight about the scope and method of true Tasawwuf show why we must insist on the primacy of the definition of a Sufi as "a man of religious learning who applied what he knew, so Allah bequeathed him knowledge of what he did not know."
The very first thing a Sufi, as a man of religious learning knows is that the Shari‘a and ‘Aqida of Islam are above every human being. Whoever does not know this will never be a Sufi, except in the orientalist sense of the word—like someone standing in front of the stock exchange in an expensive suit with a briefcase to convince people he is a stockbroker. A real stockbroker is something else.
Because this distinction is ignored today by otherwise well-meaning Muslims, it is often forgotten that the ulama who have criticized Sufis, such as Ibn al-Jawzi in his Talbis Iblis [The Devil’s deception], or Ibn Taymiyyah in places in his Fatawa, or Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, were not criticizing Tasawwuf as an ancillary discipline to the Syariah. The proof of this is Ibn al-Jawzi’s five-volume Sifat al-safwa, which contains the biographies of the very same Sufis mentioned in al-Qushayri’s famous Tasawwuf manual al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah. Ibn Taymiyyah considered himself a Sufi of the Qadiri order, and volumes ten and eleven of his thirty-seven-volume Majmu‘ al-fatawa are devoted to Tasawwuf. And Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin, a detailed commentary on ‘Abdullah al-Ansari al-Harawi’s tract on the spiritual stations of the Sufi path, Manazil al-sa’irin. These works show that their authors’ criticisms were not directed at Tasawwuf as such, but rather at specific groups of their times, and they should be understood for what they are.
As in other Islamic sciences, mistakes historically did occur in Tasawwuf, most of them stemming from not recognizing the primacy of Syariah and Aqidah above all else. But these mistakes were not different in principle from, for example, the Isra’iliyyat (baseless tales of Bani Isra’il) that crept into tafsir literature, or the mawdu‘at (hadith forgeries) that crept into the hadith. These were not taken as proof that tafsir was bad, or hadith was deviance, but rather, in each discipline, the errors were identified and warned against by Imams of the field, because the Ummah needed the rest. And such corrections are precisely what we find in books like Qushayri’s Risalah, Ghazali’s Ihya’ and other works of Sufism.
For all of the reasons we have mentioned, Tasawwuf was accepted as an essential part of the Islamic religion by the ulama of this Ummah. The proof of this is all the famous scholars of Syariah sciences who had the higher education of Tasawwuf, among them Ibn ‘Abidin, al-Razi, Ahmad Sirhindi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, al-‘Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, Ibn Daqiq al-‘Eid, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Shah Wali Allah, Ahmad Dardir, Ibrahim al-Bajuri, ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Imam al-Nawawi, Taqi al-Din al-Subki, and al-Suyuti.
Among the Sufis who aided Islam with the sword as well as the pen, to quote Reliance of the Traveller, were: such men as the Naqshbandi sheikh Shamil al-Daghestani, who fought a prolonged war against the Russians in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century; Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdullah al-Somali, a sheikh of the Salihiyya order who led Muslims against the British and Italians in Somalia from 1899 to 1920; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Uthman ibn Fodi, who led jihad in Northern Nigeria from 1804 to 1808 to establish Islamic rule; the Qadiri sheikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, who led the Algerians against the French from 1832 to 1847; the Darqawi faqir al-Hajj Muhammad al-Ahrash, who fought the French in Egypt in 1799; the Tijani sheikh al-Hajj ‘Umar Tal, who led Islamic Jihad in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali from 1852 to 1864; and the Qadiri sheikh Ma’ al-‘Aynayn al-Qalqami, who helped marshal Muslim resistance to the French in northern Mauritania and southern Morocco from 1905 to 1909.
Among the Sufis whose missionary work Islamized entire regions are such men as the founder of the Sanusiyya order, Muhammad ‘Ali Sanusi, whose efforts and jihad from 1807 to 1859 consolidated Islam as the religion of peoples from the Libyan Desert to sub-Saharan Africa; [and] the Shadhili sheikh Muhammad Ma‘ruf and Qadiri sheikh Uways al-Barawi, whose efforts spread Islam westward and inland from the East African Coast . . . (Reliance of the Traveller,863).
It is plain from the examples of such men what kind of Muslims have been Sufis; namely, all kinds, right across the board—and that Tasawwuf did not prevent them from serving Islam in any way they could.
To summarize everything I have said tonight: In looking first at Tasawwuf and Syariah, we found that many Quranic verses and sahih hadiths oblige the Muslim to eliminate haram inner states as arrogance, envy, and fear of anyone besides Allah; and on the other hand, to acquire such obligatory inner states as mercy, love of one’s fellow Muslims, presence of mind in prayer, and love of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). We found that these inward states could not be dealt with in books of fiqh, whose purpose is to specify the outward, quantifiable aspects of the Syariah. The knowledge of these states is nevertheless of the utmost importance to every Muslim, and this is why it was studied under the ulama of Ihsan, the teachers of Tasawwuf, in all periods of Islamic history until the beginning of the present century.
We then turned to the level of Iman, and found that though the Aqidah of Muslims is that Allah alone has any effect in this world, keeping this in mind in everhday life is not a given of human consciousness, but rather a function of a Muslim’s yaqin, his certainty. And we found that Tasawwuf, as an ancillary discipline to Aqidah, emphasizes the systematic increase of this certainty through both mudhakarah, ‘teaching tenets of faith’ and dhikr, ‘the remembrance of Allah,’ in accordance with the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about Ihsan that "it is worship Allah as though you see Him."
Lastly, we found that accusations against Tasawwuf made by scholars such as Ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Taymiyyah were not directed against Tasawwuf in principle, but to specific groups and individuals in the times of these authors, the proof for which is the other books by the same authors that showed their understanding of Tasawwuf as a Syariah science.
To return to the starting point of my talk this evening, with the disappearance of traditional Islamic scholars from the Ummah, two very different pictures of Tasawwuf emerge today. If we read books written after the dismantling of the traditional fabric of Islam by colonial powers in the last century, we find the big hoax: Islam without spirituality and Syariah without Tasawwuf. But if we read the classical works of Islamic scholarship, we learn that Tasawwuf has been a Syariah science like tafsir, hadith, or any other, throughout the history of Islam. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Truly, Allah does not look at your outward forms and wealth, but rather at your hearts and your works" (Sahih Muslim, 4.1389: hadith 2564).
And this is the brightest hope that Islam can offer a modern world darkened by materialism and nihilism: Islam as it truly is; the hope of eternal salvation through a religion of brotherhood and social and economic justice outwardly, and the direct experience of divine love and illumination inwardly.
Iran's Shocking 50 Year Plot to Rule the Middle East and Beyond, by Iranian Sunni Group
The Prophet, Muhammad prophesied that The Antichrist will appear in Iran accompanied by 70,000 Jews, bearing that in mind and the treacherous history of Shiites throughout centuries, this secret letter is quite a shocking revelation.
Will the Antichrist appear as The Twelth Imam and usurp the so-called Iranian Islamic Revolution?
Top Secret Letter From Cultural Revolutionary Council to Iranian Mayors:
If we are not able to export our revolution to neighboring Islamic countries, then undoubtedly the culture of these countries, mixed with Western culture, will attack and conquer us. Thanks to God and after centuries of brave sacrifice of the nation of the 12 imams in Iran, we are now – according to the revered Shiite leaders’ guidance – carrying a heavy and dangerous responsibility: that is, the exportation of revolution. Based on that, we have to admit that our government, besides its mission in keeping the sovereignty of this country and the people’s rights, is an ideological government. We must make the exportation of the revolution one of our top priorities. But because of the international status quo and international laws – as generally agreed upon – we cannot export the revolution without facing grave and disastrous consequences.
After three sessions with the semi-consensus of the attendees and committee members, we have implemented a five-year plan, including five stages, each stage lasting 10 years, by which to export our Islamic revolution to neighboring countries with the initial aim of unifying Islam. This is because the danger we are facing from the Wahhabi rulers and those of Sunni descent is much larger than the danger posed by the East and West because they – the Wahhabis and Sunnis – resist our movement and are the fundamental enemies of the clergy’s guardianship (Wilayat al-Faqih) and the impeccable imams, to the extent that they consider embracing the Shiite sect as a religious sect and as a constitution for the country as a matter contrary to custom and Syariah.
Therefore they are dividing Islam into two opposing branches. Accordingly, we must increase our influence over the Sunni territories inside Iran, and especially in the border towns, and increase the number of mosques and Husseinite and ceremonies of creed more than before. We must provide the atmosphere in the cities that are inhabited by 90-100% Sunnis until scores of Shiites are deported from cities and villages of the interior of the country to live and work in these border towns forever. The nation and governmental circles must provide direct protection to these settlers in order to take over the management of cities and social and cultural centers that have previously been controlled by Sunni citizens.The plan we drew up to export the revolution – in order to avert any reaction from world superpowers – will utilize money that will not be spent without benefit.
The way to establish the pillars of the state: We know that establishing the pillars of each state and sustaining a nation is based on three foundations: First: the power possessed by the governing authority; Second: the learning and knowledge of the scholars and researchers; Third: the economy, which is concentrated in the hands of business leaders. If we can shake the government by inciting conflict between rulers and scholars and disperse capital in these countries and attract capital from their country to ours, we would undoubtedly be very successful because we would cause them to lose these three pillars. Regarding the rest of the people, who form 70-80% of the population of each country, they are just followers of power and influence and they are indulged in their way of life earning their livings and providing themselves with shelter. This is why they defend those in power.
In order to get to the roof of a house one must begin by stepping on the first rung of the ladder. Our Sunni and Wahhabi neighbors are Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and some of the Emirates to the south at the entrance of the Persian Gulf that appear to be united on the surface, but the facts are different. For this exact region has a huge impact on the past and the present as it is considered the throat of the earth due to the oil in the region. There is no place in the world as delicate as this region, and their rulers, because of the sale of this oil, have the potential for a better life. The populations of these regions are divided into three sects:1) The Bedouin who have been there for hundreds of years.2) Those who have immigrated from islands and ports which are considered part of our land today. Their immigration began in the era of Isamal al Safawi and continued through the eras of Nader Shah and Karim Khan Zind and the rulers of the Gajar and Bahlawi families, and there was some dispersed immigration at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution.3) Those from other Arab countries and cities of Iran’s interior. Trade, and the importing and exporting of goods, as well as construction of buildings is generally controlled by non-citizens; people living in the interior make their living by renting buildings and buying and selling land, while the relatives of those with influence live on salaries earned from the selling of oil. Most of the citizens of those countries are indulging in a socially and culturally corrupt lifestyle and other acts that are openly contrary to Islam. Many of these people are concerned only with purchasing apartments and shares in factories, depositing the capital in Europe and the United States, and especially in Japan, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland in fear of the future devastation of their countries. The control of these countries means the control of the world.
To implement the prepared 50-year plan we must, at the outset, foster our relations with our neighboring countries. There must be mutual respect, strong relations, and friendship between us to the degree that our relations will improve even after the war with Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s downfall: the fall of 1000 friends is a much easier burden to bear than the fall of one of our enemies. With good cultural, political and economic relations between us, many Iranians will immigrate to those countries and through them we can send agents who are apparently immigrants but who, in reality, are working for our regime. Their jobs will be determined as we enlist them into service by sending them abroad.
The influence of our sect, which is enjoyed to some extent in thses countries and their circles, was not a plan for just one or two days. Do not think that 50 years is a long time. Our revolution needes a plan that lasts 20 years, and our sect must enjoy a certain amount of influence in many countries and circles. At that time we did not have any employees or ministers or deputies or rulers, even the Wahhabi, Shafii, Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali groups were considering us as apostates, and some of the followers of these sects killed the Shiites repeatedly. It is true that we did not exist at that time, but our grandfathers did, and our lives today are the fruit of their thoughts, opinions and efforts. Maybe we will not be here in the future, but our revolution and sect will remain. That is enough to be committed to this creed to sacrifice life, bread, and what we hold dear; but it is also important to have a well-studied program. We are committed to making plans not for 50 years, but for 500. We are the inheritors of millions of martyrs who have been killed by the Islamist devils (Sunnis). Their blood flows through history since the time of the death of the Prophet. The blood that has been spilled did not dry, and it will not dry until all Muslims believe in Ali and the Prophet’s family and admit the mistakes of the grandfathers and that Shiism is an ingrained inheritance of Islam.
Important stages along our way: In the first stage, we do not have a problem spreading our creed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq and Bahrain. We will make the 10-year plan the first plan in those five countries. That is why it is the responsibility of our immigrant – who are really agents – to carry out the three responsibilities they are charged with :1) To buy land, houses, and apartments, find jobs and provide the necessities to the sons of our creed and live in these homes, and to increase their numbers. 2) To form relations and friendships with business leaders, factory managers, etc., and especially with businessmen, commercial leaders, and famous people and others who enjoy influence in government circles. 3) In these countries there are scattered villages that are still under construction. There are plans to build scores of villages and small towns where none exist.
Agents arriving in the form of immigrants to these countries must buy as many houses in these villages as possible and then sell them at a reasonable price to those who have sold their properties in the city centers. In this way control will be removed from those in densely populated towns and cities. In the second stage, we must spur the people (Shiites) to respect and obey the laws and those who enforce them, as well as government employees; they must obtain official license for their creed and sectarian sermons, building mosques and Husseinite, licenses that will be regarded in the future as official documents. To start businesses and become self-employed they must think of places with a highly dense population to spread their businesses in targeted locations. The person must, in these two stages, seek the nationality of the country he is living in by taking advantage of friends and giving valuable presents; furthermore, they must encourage the youth to work in government sectors and enlist in the military.
In the second half of the 10-year plan we must secretly and indirectly agitate the Sunnis and the Wahhabi scholars against social corruption and those acts in opposition to Islam that prevail in these countries by distributing critical pamphlets from other countries in the name of the religious authorities. Undoubtedly, this will cause the agitation of scores of people in these countries. In the end those religious leaders will be arrested or they will say that what has been written in their names are lies. These pious people will defend those pamphlets rigorously and suspicious acts will take place leading to an edict either to seize their authority or replace them. These acts will result in mistrust between the rulers and the pious in the country; therefore they will not be able to spread religion and build mosques and other religious buildings. The leaders will consider religious sermons rhetoric and celebrations of creed as acts opposed to their regimes. Furthermore, it will increase the grudges and alienations between religious scholars and rulers.
Even Sunnis and Wahhabis will lose the protection of their interior centers, and they will not have external protection at all. In the third stage, when our agents have established good relations with the business leaders, the military and executive powers and are doing their jobs quietly and with good manners and not interfering in religious actions, the result will be that their rulers will be reassured by these people more than previously. When disagreement arises between religious leaders and rulers, our famous scholars from this country will at that moment disclose their loyalty and defend the members of their countries, especially during the sermons of the creed and presents Shiism as a creed that does not pose a threat to religion. If they can declare that to the people through the media they should not hesitate to attract the attention of the rulers and get their approval so that they will give them good jobs without fear at this stage. Because of this transformation that will take place in our ports and islands and in other cities in the country, and with the funds we will invest, we will implement plans to strike a blow to the economy of neighboring countries. Undoubtedly the business leaders, for the sake of gaining safe profits and economic stability, will send all their funds to our country, and when we make others free in their businesses and the banking funds are in our country, the result will be that their countries will welcome our citizens and give them economic facilities by which to invest.
When we reach the fourth stage, everything will be ready. We have before us countries whose scholars and rulers have disagreements, and whose merchants are about to become bankrupt and are leaving their countries. The people are disturbed and ready to sell their properties at half price in order to be able to leave the country for safer places. In the middle of this chaos, our agents and immigrants will be considered the only protectors of rule and authority. All of our agents by being alert enough will take the most important jobs in the civil, military and government sectors, shrinking the gaps between them and government established rulers. From such a location we are able to easily point to the loyalists in government as traitors. All of this will result in their downfall and eliminating them to be replaced with our agents. This job has two positive results:1) our agents will gain the trust of the rulers to an extent greater than previously; and2) the discontent of the Sunnis towards the ruler will increase due to an increase in the Shiite in government circles. Because of this, Sunnis will carry out more acts of resistance, and during this phase our agents must stand by the rulers and call for calm and reconciliation.
At the same time, the agents will buy the houses and properties of those about to flee. At the fifth stage of the plan, the final ten years of the 50 years, the atmosphere will be ready for revolution, because we will have achieved the three elements of security, calm and comfort. The authority will look like a ship amid a typhoon, about to sink. At that time it will accept any suggestions for survival. In this period we will suggest, through famous people, the formation of a popular assembly to calm the situation and aid the rulers in monitoring these circles, as well as keeping discipline in the country.
Undoubtedly they will accept this suggestion and our candidates will win the majority of the seats. This will result in the flight of merchants and scholars, and even the loyal servants; thus we can export our Islamic Revolution to many countries without waging wars or shedding blood. If the plan does not bear fruit and give us power in the last ten years, we could create a popular revolution and strip power from their rulers. Even if apparently our elements – Shiites – are citizens and inhabitants of this country, nevertheless at that time we will be able to say that we fulfilled our responsibility before God and our creed. It is not our target to put one person in control of power. Our target is merely to export the revolution, and by then we can raise the banner of this Godly religion. We will go forward to the world of infidels with more strength and grace the world with the light of Islam and Shiism until the coming of Al-Mahdi Al-Mawud.
Rome linking Catholicism, Judaism and Shiism, by Ahmad Nor
The Catholics had for centuries been deceived by the Vatican Popes who formally alleged their first Pope to be Simon Petrus (Saint Peter), in fact it was not him but a magician by the name 'Simon Magus'. The Roman Catholic Church is essentially The Universal Church established by the Simonites, followers of the Mithraic-Babylonian Magician.
The Holy See had always been the Centre of paganistic Christianity, having little to do with the original Unitarian teachings of Christ. Trinity was formalised as the 'only true' Christian doctrine by the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., which resulted to countless Unitarians being subjected to death and torture for going against the innovated creed. The persecution was afterwards directed against the subsequent followers of Muhammad, who shared the same Monotheistic creed of the Unitarians. Spain was reconquered as a consequence.
According to the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.), Christ will come for the second time to destroy the Cross, symbolically signifying the complete destruction of the Mithraic-Babylonian cult called 'Christianity' and establish The Kingdom of God on the Globe. However, prior to his advent the Antichrist will emerge first and make false claim of being 'The Christ' awaited by Muslims and Christians. The Prophet prophesied that The Antichrist will appear first of all as a pious person (The Twelth Imam?), and then claim to be a Prophet (The Christ?), and after that the Son of God and finally God Himself. Isn't that similar to present day Trinity? What a coincidence.
It is intereting to note also, that according to Maimonides, the great Jewish rabbi-physician, 'The Moshiach' of the Jews is hiding in The Holy See.
The Shiite Al-Muntazar Magazine, informs us that mother of The Twelth Imam, is a Roman, and that her father was Yusha, son of Caeser of Rome.
Thus, we have here Rome as the link that unites Catholicism with Shiism and Judaism.
The Antichrist as antithesis to the Christ, by Ahmad Nor
Jesus Christ was sent by God as Messiah to the Children of Israel, confirming what was sent before in Torah, but with special emphasis on spirituality as the Rabbis and the Pharisees at the time were concentrating on the legal issues, neglecting matters of the heart and relationship with God.
The Jews with their arrogance rejected him, as they had rejected countless of prophets in the past. And eventually their attempt to publicly execute Jesus, however God through His divine mercy saved Jesus from crucifixion and turned someone else into his look alike and the person was crucified, and subsequently deified into 'Son of God' for the centuries to come.
The Quran, sent to the Prophet Muhammad confirmed the attempted crucifixion on Jesus and cleared the Jews from guilt of being killers of Christ.
Filled with guilt of thinking that they have eliminated Christ Jesus, the Rabbis had for centuries sought to replace Jesus with another 'Messiah', after they themselves through Paul and Simon Magus succeeded in inventing 'The Trinity' myth and subsequently creating 'Christianity' itself as a cult and later on an accepted religion, making the original Unitarian followers of Christ, like Arius and others, deviant and heretics.
This alternative 'Messiah' to Jesus, is now being awaited by the highest Rabbis in Israel and other parts of the Jewry. Who is this 'Messiah'?
The Universal Biography of Ibn Taimiyyah, by George Makdisi
Ibn Taimiyyah (AH 661-728/1263-1328 CE), more fully Taqi al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Abd al-Salam al-Harrani al-Dimashqi; jurisconsult, theologian, and Sufi. He was born in Harran, and at the age of six he fled with his father and brothers to Damascus during the Mongol invasions. Ibn Taymiyyah devoted himself from early youth to various Islamic sciences (Quran, hadith and legal studies), and he was a voracious reader of books on sciences that were not taught in the regular institutions of learning, including logic, philosophy, and kalam.
Early Career.
Ibn Taymiyah studied law under the direction of his father and Shams al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi (d. 1283). Under several teachers of hadith he studied a number of works, in particular the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, (a hadith collection that he read several times), the six books of hadith, and the bibliographical Mu'jam of al-Tabarani. He studied Arabic grammar and lexicography for a brief period under Sulayman ibn Abd al-Qawi al-Tuft (d. 1316); then, on his own, he mastered Sibawayh¡'s text on grammar. He became qualified to issue legal opinions before the age of twenty; at twenty-one, upon the death of his father in 1283, he succeeded him as professor of hadith and law at Dar al-Hadith al-Sukkariyah, a Sufi monastery and college of hadith founded around the middle of the thirteenth century in Damascus. Ibn Taymiyyah was a prolific writer, described as fast to learn and slow to forget: it was said of him that once he learned something, he never forgot it.
Ibn Taymiyyah also succeeded his father at the Umayyad Mosque, where he gave lectures on Quranic exegesis. His biographers record that, lecturing without notes, he would give materials for two or more fascicles. On one of these Fridays of Quranic exegesis in the Umayyad Mosque in 1291, Ibn Taymiyyah lectured briefly on the divine attributes. This was his first known public venture into controversial dogmatics. The reaction was quick among his opponents, who tried to prevent him from lecturing further in the mosque but failed in their attempt. Ibn Taymiyyah's treatment of the divine attributes was given as part of his profession of faith. The Chief Qadi Shahs al-Din al-Khuwayyi declared: 'I am in agreement with the creed of Shaykh Taqi al-Din [Ibn Taymiyyah].' When he was reproved, he continued: 'because he has sound intelligence, speaks from extensive knowledge, and says only what he knows to be sound.'
In 1292 Ibn Taymiyyah went on the pilgrimage to Makkah, where he gathered materials for his work 'Manasik al-Hajj' (Rituals of the Pilgrimage), denouncing a number of practices in the rituals of the pilgrimage as condemnable innovations.
The Shafii historian Ibn Kathir, in the events of the year 1293/4, treats of the affair of Assaf al-Nasrani (the Christian), who was reported by witnesses to have cursed the Prophet. Ibn Taymiyyah and a companion, al-Faraqi, apparently implicated in the affair for encouraging the assault and battery to which Assaf and his bedouin protector were victims, were flogged and put under house arrest.
In 1296, at the death of his Professor Zayn al-Din ibn Munajja, Ibn Taymiyyah succeeded to the chair of law thus vacated in the Madrasah Hanbaliyyah. His biographer Ibn Rajab said that he read an autobiographical note in Ibn Taymiyyah's own hand to the effect that Ibn Taymiyyah was offered, before the year 1291 (thus before the age of thirty), the post of 'Shaykh al-Shuyukh', or head of the Sufis, and the post of Chief Qadi, but he refused them both. Refusals to assume such posts usually meant that the scholar wished to stay aloof from the central power, out of desire for a private scholarly life, or in order to pursue the ascetic life, or to remain free to criticize practices he deemed not in keeping with the tenets of Islam. When Ibn Taymiyyah's subsequent life is taken into consideration, his refusal clearly appears to have been based on the last of these reasons.
Opposition to the Asyarites. Ibn Taymiyyah lived in a period between those of two notable propagandists of the rationalist Asyarite movement in theology: Ibn Asakir (d. 1176) and Subki (d. 1370). The attempt of the Asyarite movement to obtain legitimacy by infiltrating the Shafii school of law-an attempt that surfaced in the eleventh century-was still developing and had to face two implacable forces blocking its goal. The traditionalist movement was represented particularly by two schools of law: the Hanbali and the Shafii. The former was the obvious obstructive force, while the latter included the Asyarite faction, which was hard at work to gain the adherence of fellow Shafiis to Asyarite thought, an effort destined to fail in the face of the alliance between the traditionalists of the two schools.
Already in the days of Ibn Asakir the traditionalists had introduced an institution that was conceived to correct, among other things, the detrimental consequences of the exclusory principle in the madrasah, according to which only those students who chose to belong to the school represented by the madrasah were admitted. This policy tended to be divisive, separating members of the traditionalist movement who belonged to all the Sunni schools, while allowing the Asyarites to stay within one school, the Shafii.
The new institution that helped to correct the situation was Dar al-Hadith, wherein the principal subject of instruction was hadith rather than law, and students of any of the four schools could attend. Thus a Hanbali professor, such as Ibn Taymiyyah, could have students belonging to the Shafii school, such as al-Birzali, Mizzi, and al-Dhahabi. The first Dar al-Hadith was founded in Damascus by the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din (d. 1173).
To the philosophical theology of the Asyarites, Ibn Taymiyyah opposed this famous profession of faith (aqidah; pl., aqaid). His first full-length work of creed, written at the request of the people of Hama in the year 1299 and therefore known as 'Al-Aqidah al-Hamawiyyah', was very hostile to the Asyarites and their kalam-theology. According to Ibn Rajab, Ibn Taymiyyah wrote this creed in one sitting. His other important profession of faith is the 'Aqidah Wasitiyyah', written for a group of religious intellectuals in Wasit (Iraq) before the arrival of the Mongols in Damascus. Both professions of faith were attacked by his enemies, and he was taxed with anthropomorphism. In a meeting in the house of the Shafii Qadi Imam al-Din Umar ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Qazwini (d. 1299) 'Aqidah Hamawiyyah' was studied; Ibn Taymiyyah was questioned regarding various points, and it was deemed to be satisfactory. Regarding Wasitiyyah, even the Ashari-Shafii Safi al-Din al-Hindi (d. 1315) found it to be in conformity with the Quran and Sunnah. Nevertheless, his enemies tried hard to keep him in prison, even to have him executed, but failed on both counts.
Ibn Taymiyyah's polemic activity extended to the philosophers, especially the logicians, against whom he wrote a refutation, 'Al-Radd ala al-Mantiqiyin'. He wrote extensively against the monistic (ittihadiyyah) and incarnationist (hululiyyah) Sufis and condemned as heretical innovations many of the Sufi practices of his day. Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyyah was praised by the Sufi Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Qawwam, who said: Our Sufism became sound only at the hands of Ibn Taymiyyah, implying that Ibn Taymiyyah was not an outsider to Sufism.
Recently discovered evidence shows that Ibn Taymiyyah belonged to the Sufi order of the Qadiriyyah, named after the Hanbali Sufi Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, whom he praised and preferred to the other Hanbali Sufi, al-Ansari al-Harawi.
On the theological question of the divine attributes, Ibn Taymiyyah held that God should be described as He has described himself in His book and as the Prophet has described Him in his Sunnah. This classical traditionalist doctrine goes back to al-Shafii (d. 820) and to Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), the two great leaders of the movement, in whose works Ibn Taymiyyah was thoroughly versed. Ibn Taymiyyah and his famous disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1350) drew much of their inspiration from the works of al-Shafii and Ibn Hanbal. From the genesis of the traditionalist movement the principal message has always been that the basic sources for belief and practice are the book of God and the practice of the Prophet.
Ibn Taymiyyah, in the title of one of his numerous works, emphasized the place of the Prophet in relation to the two fundamental sources: The Steps Leading to the Knowledge That the Messenger of God Has Already Made a Clear Exposition of the Roots and Branches of Religion.
For the Prophet, as Messenger, brought the book of God and was himself a living example of what should be followed. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah quotes from the introduction to al-Shafii's 'Risalah': 'Praise be to God . . who is as He has described himself, and who is exalted above all the attributes given to Him by those among his creatures who have described him.' And again: 'No event shall befall an adherent of God's religion but that there is a guide in the book of God showing the right way to be followed.' These two statements were quoted against the Asyarites, the rationalist movement of the period of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim, as al-Shafii had said them some five centuries before in condemnation of the Mutazilites, the rationalist movement of his day.
Under Attack. Ibn Taymiyyah's troubles came chiefly from his opposition to Asyarite thought working from within the Shafii school, and also from his criticism of extremist Sufi thought and practices. His troubles were treated extensively by his Shafii disciples al-Birzali, al-Dhahabi, and Ibn Kathir, and by the Hanbali biobibliographer Ibn Rajab.
Ibn Taymiyyah's enemies finally succeeded in removing him from the scene. The opportunity was presented by one of his legal opinions (fatwas) entitled 'Travel to the Tombs of the Prophets and Saints' in which Ibn Taymiyyah prohibited such travel. His opponents pounced on this fatwa and charged him with demeaning the prophets and with unbelief. Eighteen jurisconsults, led by the Maliki Qadi al-Ikhnai, wrote fatwas condemning him. The four chief qadis of Cairo issued their decision that he be imprisoned in the citadel of Damascus. Other jurisconsults, including the two sons of the leading Maliki jurisconsult Abu al-Walid, had issued fatwas condemning that decision. They stated that it had no valid basis against Ibn Taymiyyah since he had simply cited the divergent opinions of the jurisconsults on the subject of the visiting of tombs and had given preponderance to one side of the question, a choice that was legitimate to make. But the decision stood without appeal. Ibn Taymiyyah was never to leave the citadel alive; he died there some two years later. Three months before his death, his enemy al-Ikhnai, against whom he had written a refutation, complained to the Sultan, who ordered that Ibn Taymiyyah be deprived of the opportunity to write; his ink, pen, and paper were taken away from him. But to the very last, his enemies could not quite get the better of him.
The biographers cite a number of statements made by Ibn Taymiyyah during his imprisonment that show the man's stature and state of mind. 'A prisoner is one who has shut out God from his heart.' ' A prisoner is one whose passions have made him captive.' ' In this world there is a paradise to be entered; he who does not enter it will not enter the paradise of the world to come.' ' What can my enemies possibly do to me? My paradise is in my breast; wherever I go it goes with me, inseparable from me.' ' For me, prison is a place of retreat; execution is my opportunity for martyrdom; and exile from my town is but a chance to travel.'
In reference to his enemies who strove to have him imprisoned: 'If I were to give all the gold it takes to fill the space of this citadel, I could not possibly reward them for the good they have done me.' And he often repeated the following prayer: 'O God! Help me to move my tongue incessantly in your praise, to express my gratitude, and to serve you in perfect worship.'
On 20 Dhu al-Qa¡dah 728 (26 September 1328), Ibn Taymiyyah died in the citadel at the age of sixty-five. The populace turned out in the hundreds of thousands for the funeral procession, which was compared to that of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. He was buried next to his brother, Sharaf al-Din Abd Allah, in the Sufi cemetery where other Sufi members of his family were buried.
Ibn Taymiyyah's influence has reached modern times. His teachings, first followed by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), became the basis of the Wahhabi movement in the nineteenth century and the guiding principles of the Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia. Again, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, they influenced the modernist Salafi movement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arabic Sources
Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali. Shadhardt al-dhahab fi akhbar man dhahab. Vol. 5. Cairo, 1931. See pages 80-86.
Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar. Al-biddyah wa-al-nihdyah fi al-tarikh. Vol. 14. Cairo, 1937. See pages 135-141.
Ibn Rajab. Dhayald tabagat al-Handbilah. Vol. 2. Edited by M. Hamid al-FigI. Cairo, 1953. See pages 387-408.
Studies
Laoust, Henri. Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-al-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya. Cairo, 1939.
Laoust, Henri. La biographie d¡ Ibn Taimiya d¡apres Ibn Kathir.¨ Bulletin d¡ etudes orientales 9 (1942): 115-162.
Laoust, Henri. Le hanbalisme sous les Mamlouks Bahrides.¨ Revue des etudes islamiques 28 (1960): 1-71.
Laoust, Henri. Ibn Taymiyya.¨ In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. Leiden, 1960-.
Laoust, Henri. L¡ influence d¡ Ibn Taimiyya.¨ In Islam: Past Influence and Present Challenge, edited by Alford T. Welch and Pierre Cachia. Edinburgh, 1979.
Makdisi, George. Ashari and the Asharites in Islamic Religious History.¨ Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 37-80.
Makdisi, George. Ibn Taimiya: A Sufi of the Qadiriya Order.¨ American Journal of Arabic Studies 1 (1973): 118-129. Makdisi, George. The Hanbali School and Sufism.¨ Hamadard Islamica 11 (1974): 61-72.
GEORGE MAKDISI
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)