If you want to understand Islam, what it thinks of terrorism, what it thinks of democracy, respecting people (Muslims and Non-Muslims)… all of that you must watch this. It is a half an hour. If in your day you have 24 hours, spare one half hour for this. It may change your outlook on everything.
Sheykh Maulana Nazim al-Hakkani is the worldwide leader of the Naksibendi Hakkani Sufi Order, he is a scholar of traditional Islam of the highest station today. He is recognized wordwide as an authority on Islam and its true message.
I have done a poor and incomplete job of transcribing this, but inshaAllah I will finish and make it better. It does not help that my space key is broken,but inshaAllah. I will make it better.
Transcription:
Audhu bi-llahi mina shaitani rajim,
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim,
La haula wa la quwatta illa bi-llahi-l Aliyu-l Adhim.
It is not..
Medat Ya Sultan Awliya..
It is not a good sitting for me, but… I am trying to take my rest.
And… I am asking forgiveness and apologizing that I am sitting in such a way in front of you.
[Someone says, "You can sit on us!"] Astaghfirullah
Really. Our really Islam, coming to… to show people about their values. If Prophets not coming, no one knowing the value of mankind. Now, because people they lost value of mankind, when they are losing value of mankind, they’re losing also respect to each other.
Allah created man, and He Almighty honored them. That means He is giving respect, that extraordinary, or most distinguished creature, through whole creation. Most valuable, most honored one.. is mankind.
That means Allah Almighty giving His Respects to them, therefore he order to angels to bow to Adam.
Sajdah [Sheykh shows] To bow to Adam
That is the limits of respection! Sajdah, to bow, to make Sajdah only for Allah. But He ordered to angels, that just I honored these new ones. These new creatures. I am giving my respect and honor , and my blessings on him! Beware, not to give, not to be not to be unrespected to them. You must respect.. to mankind.
Even they (angels) were saying “Oh our lord, why are you going tomake a khalifa on earth? They are coming and making.. They are going to be trouble makers .. first-class! On earth. Killing themselves, making every badness, every wildness violence and you are giving honor to them? Let to be that Honor for ourself”
Allah said No no… You don’t know, I know! I am not in need to remind me, you! I know! Don’t say it! Such things. I know what I am doing, I know about what I am creating. I know there is such a characteristic, but even I am making them my representatives or deputies on earth.
[Sheykh shows bowing]
Shaitan says… says, no I am not making…. democracy! [smiling]
Let to make angels to say if they are saying yes to Adam or for me. Must be election, democracy! Teaching democracy to.. that Shaitan.
[Speaks to the side, Sheykh Abdul Kerim was on this side in other video's] First democracy, they are!
He (Shaitan) saying I’m not accepting such a thing from you, no.. we must do an election, or, Referandum!! As we are making referandum in Cyprus! Even if referendum, if people saying Adam is in trouble, I am happy. If not I am must do it. Even he was saying in himself, even referandum coming for him (Adam’s favour) … I am not accepting that. I am going to say no. As our President saying, if whole world saying yes, referendum, I am not saying. He learned very good lesson fromShaitan. Referendum. Democracy!
Allah saying … demon! Jahanamigate. Who are you to speak in my Divinely presence to say this. I am making that King on you, I am giving that honor. You can’t give honor, therefore democracy is Batil.. Honor just give to people from heavens. Not common people making President,, prime minister. You are doing that? Bengali people you are voting also? You are so foolish ones also?
We are foolish, but you also? What is that?
Persian? That they are saying first class Muslims, Persian. And they are making elections. From which bookare they bringing that election? French people.. ahhhh if we are not making this one, this one, prime minister, we are bombing you. And Chirac.. Chirac? Chirac trembling (saying) “yes sir yes, we? we are changing quickly this prime minister, away.”
Americans, saying “what is happening? We are not fearing from you. from Arabs. from China. from Russia.”
Let trouble.. let what Allah giving respect and honor.. you must respect. Whole creation respecting man. And only we are not, only 21st century people not respecting each other. Making the value of mankind less than a mouse. Less than a small creature. They are claiming.. Animal’s rights. Hm? Hm?
They’re some foolish people making such a.. [arabic] They are saying Oh! we must keep rights of animals. There are no rights for mankind? They are making mankind like dustbin? Garbage? Killing? Not Asking? And asking rights for Animals?
Allah saying rights of animals.. yes, they have rights! but rights of mankind that is important! No nations giving respect to other nations. Even nations they are not giving through themselves. Through their citizens, through their nations, respect that Allah respecting. That is the sources of troubles and fightings now.
I am coming because I am making my feets towards you, it is not a seating of respect. Because Allah respected you. I must respect you. Everyone much respect each other.
That is Islam!
No .. fundamentalist. No.. terrorist. No.. such a… a groups of such a people. Trouble makers. That is another name, that is another name. If anything happen. explosion, they are saying we are that one. we are making this. That is because of Islam.
That is not Islam, No! No, Allah should ask them, should punish them.
[arabic]
There is something that must be written to hang everywhere, Islam preventing to harm people or to make harm. If anyone harming you. Allah preventing, saying don’t come to him with, harming him.
No Harm in Islam! Islam keeping respects of everyone. Particularly Islam taking much more care of non-Muslims, to keep their rights, who are living with ourselves. Not to touch them, not to harm them! Because it is so difficult thing, Day of Resurrection. Allah is saying you may take, what he harmed you, takingyour rights. Not keeping your rights. Now take from him, give to Him, your rights! Finish..
People, people not taking any care.
Islam just coming to keep [arabic] rights of mankind. [arabic] Give everyone their honors according to their levels. And to bring lowest level person to highest level person, it is also forbidden. Because his level is first level, you can’t bring him top level. Therefore this democracy taking the lowest level person to be highest level position, that is Batil. Muslims.
But Muslims no mind now.
Whole misunderstanding. No more good understanding people from Muslims, finish!
Yeah.
Respect.
[Arabic]
You must give the value amoung yourselves… That is teacher. That is professor. Don’t do that one as student. Must be between you, a line for respecting. He must be honored one. At home. Women must give her respect to her husband. Children to must give their respect to parents. Younger ones must give their respect to elder ones, their brothers. In such a way. That is the essence of Islam. Islam just coming to give honor or…[arabic] tradition?.. to give back the respects that people lost.
For the time of Jahiliyya.. period of ignorant.
Arabs, they never taking any respect for poor people, for women, for weak ones, for old ones, for … servants, for slaves. They never taking any care, any respect. They are only giving who are powerful [Sheykh Maulana taps arms], who their pockets with golden. They giving respect. Others no. Therefore Islam coming to give back the respects to everyones respects. Everyon should be respected on their levels. Because Allah Almighty making also so many levels, people must be on their levels. To give respect, the high level people. The high level people they are carrying the responsibility of the whole nation of the whole ummah. It is not only the top level person, if reaching to highest positon. High level. They also loaded on their shoulders heavy responsibility. They should be asked, from their nations from their people in divinely presence, if he gave the rights of that ones. That he was over them.
And Shaitan, thousands of years always trying to make people into two parts: powerful ones and weak ones. And powerful ones never taking any respect or kindness, or mercy on weak ones. Islam coming and giving everyones rights, even weakest ones. They are going to be most pwoerful ones for their rights. The state must look after weak ones! Not powerful ones, no! Therefore Abu Bakr (R) first Khlaipha of Rasulullah (Sallahu’alaiheeWassalam) He was saying, Oh people you must know that if a weak one, anyone taking not giving his right, we are going to support him. That weak one to be the most powerful one through community. And who we are claiming that we are powerful ones, we are rich ones, and asking to take the rights of weak ones. He must know that he is the weakest one in community.
Where is this? W here is Islam? Finish. Where is humanity? Just on name. Finish.
Yes we must.. Therefore I am asking forgiveness, I am making my feet my towards to you. I must keep your respect. But for some reasons, I am making my feet like this. This i s essence of Islam. In Islam mankind, through their obediency. Going to be much more valuable in Divinely presence. According to obediency and good manner, Allah Almighty giving you much more honor here and hereafter. And Islam never making a difference between people, except what we said that, according to their good dealings with people, and dealings with their lord. And Islam ordering to try, to give their most high respects to Allah and to make their best to servants. Two only.
You must try to give your most high respects to Almighty Allah and to do you best for his servants for his creatures. Who is harming people is not Islam!
Eh, saying, that is African person. That Asian person. That is European ones. Western people thinking that they are first class people, because their color. white. If different colors going to be no value, no.. not with color but through your actings, your dealings, your respect to Allah Almighty and respect to Allah Almighty passing through respecting His servants. Keep everyones respects, then coming to your respect also. Everything giving through your respect. Give for everything respect. And they are giving to you respect also. May Allah forgive us. And blessings to you, for the most honored one in His Divine Presence, Sayiddina Muhummad (Sallalahu’alaihewassalam). Fatiha.
Taqlid is a powerful and divisive word for Muslims. Even its very definition is a point of contention between practicing Muslims of all types. For its opponents it is often translated as “Blind Following”, by its proponents it is translated as “Following qualified scholarship”.
I have a problem with the common definitions. Taqlid is not “blind” in any way, and neither is it limited to “qualified scholarship” in an Islamically legal sense.
Rather, Taqlid is the fulfillment of the Quran’s commandment of following the righteous.
BismimgSurat Yasin : 21 “Follow those who ask of you no fee, and who are rightly guided.” (tran: Pickthall)
This is the power of Taqlid, which is represented in this holy verse as simply “follow”. It relates the masses to the righteous, and within this is the true secret of a Muslim’s success in this world and in the hereafter. It is clear from this verse and others that the rightly guided are those who believe and work in righteousness and call us to do the same.
For me, Taqlid is far more than a tool to debate details of authority within Islamic Law, it is the pragmatic way of Islam to push Muslims towards righteousness.
But what does this vague term ‘righteousness’ mean? In direct contradiction to certain neo-cons who believe Islam is evil, we see that righteousness is clearly defined in Islam. Specifically in the Quran:
BismimgSurat al-Baqarah: “It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces Towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah-fearing. ” (tran: Yusuf Ali)
Looking at this verse alone, we find that Allah tells us that righteousness is to believe in the principles of faith and be honest, patient, charitable and otherwise be good people. People of manners. In this regard we have been told that the best example is the Holy Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم).
It is clear that the ‘belief’ aspect of this verse is absolutely important and has implications on the intentions (niyyat) of all those actions which follow. So let us be careful and not say that Islam is mere humanism, whose ethics stem solely from the enhancement of mankind’s well-being in this world.
While Islam is not limited to worldly humanism, the Quran is emphasizing a goal towards righteousness in this world, which translates to what is universally understood as ‘good’ by most people (Atheists, Christians and Jews alike). Islam also holds that a recognition of this good is also something which is innate in all of mankind since birth.
It is also clear that mankind is very easily capable of forgetting righteousness and manners. As our worldly pursuits begin to precede our spiritual pursuits we began to calculate various compromises and give various excuses as to why it is best for this or that to happen. On a global scale this represents itself as our politics turn to protectionism and our economies into greed-factories. Our armies become death bringers and our souls are lost in the process.
Is reading and studying the answer to this? No. We return to the verse in Surat Yasin, where it is made clear that we must follow the righteous.
Hence, Taqlid.
Taqlid is the key which unlocks all the doors of Islam’s inner beauty as well as outer sucess, including all the references in Islam to the ego (nafs).
Muslims on the path of Taqlid are simply following the righteous in their manners as they themselves have learned from other righteous ones, who have learned from other righteous ones until we reach the most righteous: The Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم).
This was the approach of Islam in the past, traditional Islam. The best Caliphs were those who were righteous in themselves, not those who fell into some legal framework. In examining their lives we see that they followed the saints themselves and gave respect and took council from them.
The opposite of Taqlid is the approach taken by the Ahl ul Hadith (People of Hadith), otherwise known as Salafi’s or Wahabi’s. Their influence has been far and the printing press has been their friend indeed. Wrapped in source texts they seek every answer in between marks on paper, not realizing the heaviness of those texts and the burden they bear.
Hadith were an attempt at capturing the Amal (Manners) of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم) in a supplementary way for future generations. They were not meant to replace those who the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم) himself described as his inheritors and those who the Quran praises. Reading Hadith to achieve those manners is possible for pieces here and there, but at the same time it is quite like parents communicating to their child only through one way text messages. Such an approach is insufficient to handle the needs of transmitting the fundamental expressions of our faith (including ritual prayer) much less raising a well rounded person.
Today’s Muslims are, for the most part, like such children. Disconnected from the true means to finding the Prophet’s (صلي الله عليه و سلم) example they delude themselves by believing the truth is somewhere between the lines of text. It is this preoccupation with the legal source texts which gives us ‘scholars’ who use falsified textual interpretations to justify what is anti-righteous, whether it is clerics who support gaining and threatening the use of nuclear weapons or madman bombing innocents. For those preoccupied with the text, the world becomes binary: allowed or disallowed, permissible or not. There is no room for a living, growing understanding of righteousness which is necessary as the world encounters new evils and situations.
The reason that we find that the Muslim leaders of our past were so tolerant and malleable was because they worked through the filter of Taqlid and hence it was not source texts which were given priority but righteousness itself.
Babur Shah’s (d. 1530, founder of the Mughal Dynasty of India) will to his son Humayun Shah
“My son take note of the following: Do not harbour religious prejudice in your heart. You should dispense justice while taking note of the people’s religious sensitivities, and rites. Avoid slaughtering cows in order that you could gain a place in the heart of natives. This will take you nearer to the people.
Do not demolish or damage places of worship of any faith and dispense full justice to all to ensure peace in the country. Islam can better be preached by the sword of love and affection, rather than the sword of tyranny and persecution. Avoid the differences between the shias and sunnis. Look at the various characteristics of your people just as characteristics of various seasons.”
[wikipedia]
Could today’s Muslims have come to tolerant conclusions such as this?
It is with Taqlid that Muslim’s advanced and carried Islam with strength, compassion, tolerance, mercy, and a rich developing tradition from the time of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم) to today.
The Ahl ul Sunnat (People of the Example of the Prophet صلي الله عليه و سلم or Sunni Muslims need to remember that Sunnat is living today in the inheritors of the Prophet (صلي الله عليه و سلم ), the Awliya (Friends of God), those who have dedicated their lives to Him. It is not dead in the index of dusty books or electrified within search engines.
The main purpose for every Muslim needs to be to find the righteous and be with them. This is where one’s intelligence comes into play, and this is what opens up Islam to a marketplace of ideas. Taqlid isn’t “Blind”. Come to your own determination on who is on the right path, using your intellect and asking Allah for support. But once you have used your intellect and found a righteous one, someone who is learned in the tradition of other righteous ones, someone who “asks you no fee” (as the holy verse orders), then hold tightly to them. Use the tools which Allah has provided you, intellect and judgement (which some are so keen on using against source texts) to apply instead towards this direction.
Taqlid represents the true fight of the nafs (ego). Who is superior, your ego or that holy, righteous one? Allah has put degrees and stations on earth and everyone has rights over each other: parents over children, employers over employees, governments over their citizens. This is a natural order.
But what happens when the one who needs to obey abandons his or her duty? This is the state of Muslims today, most of whom have rebelled in every way, taking their own ego’s as their guides. In such cases we find Muslims taking themselves greater than the Islamic rulers of yesterday, who carried far greater burdens and reached high worldly stations but are still historically recorded as putting their ego’s aside for the Awliya.
When you realize you need to submit yourself in Taqlid to the righteous, for no other gain except peace for your soul, that is when you have won the first battle against your ego.
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This series of “How to Criticise Islam” is simply to instruct critics on some actual points of contention that are worth discussing with traditionalists. I believe there are answers to each and every criticism I will list, but I believe the discussion with traditionalists from reformists needs to go in this direction, in order to solidify the traditional position on these issues.
Such a direction is far better than the accusations of immorality and other polemic that I have seen so far.
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I remember being onthe ICNA YM list where a link was sent out to Chenyan Mujahids who were performing the zikr of the type described below.
Theymocked them, their zikr, andmade accusations of bidaat and shirk(as most of them are trained to do). These were men, who as described below, continued their rememberance of Allah while Russian bombers flew overhead. They knew where their protection came from.
I have since heard from my Sheykh, who had and has relationships with the Chechens, that nearly all of those men in that video died as a mujahids in the battle.
Here is the article (emphasis mine):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/world/europe/24grozny.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Religion Returns to Chechnya
The New York Times
GROZNY, Russia Three circles of barefoot men, one ring inside another, sway to the cadence of chant.Grozny is the capital of Chechnya, where secessionism has been rife.
The men stamp in time as they sway, and grunt from the abdomen and throat, filling the room with a primal sound. One voice rises over the rest, singing variants of the names of God.The men stop, face right and walk counterclockwise, slowly at first, then fast. As they gain speed they begin to hop on their outside feet and draw closer. The three circles merge into a spinning ball.
The ball stops. It opens back up. The stamping resumes, softly at first, then louder. Many of the men are entranced. The air around them hums. The wooden floor shakes. The men turn left and accelerate the other way.
This is a zikr, the mystical Sufi dance of the Caucasus and a ritual near the center of Chechen Islam.
Here inside Chechnya, where Russia has spent six years trying to contain the second Chechen war since the Soviet Union collapsed, traditional forms of religious expression are returning to public life. It is a revival laden with meaning, and with implications that are unclear.
The Kremlin has worried for generations about Islam’s influence in the Caucasus, long attacking local Sufi traditions and, in the 1990′s, attacking the role of small numbers of foreign Wahhabis, proponents of an austere Arabian interpretation of Islam whom Moscow often accuses of encouraging terrorist attacks.
But Chechnya’s Sufi brotherhoods have never been vanquished not by repression, bans or exile by the czars or Stalin, and not by the Kremlin of late.
Now they are reclaiming a place in public life. What makes the resurgence so unusual is that Sufi practices have become an element of policy for pro-Russian Chechens. Zikr ceremonies are embraced by the kadyrovsky, the Kremlin-backed Chechen force that is assuming much of the administration of this shattered land.
Post-Soviet Russia tried to make zikr celebrations a symbol of Chechen aggression, portraying zikr as the dance and trance of the rebels, the ritual of the untamed. Now zikr is performed by the men the Kremlin is counting on to keep Chechnya in check.
The occasion for ceremony on this day was the blessing of the foundation of a mosque that will be named for Akhmad Kadyrov, the Russian-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in 2004.
The mosque, whose foundation rests on the grounds of the former headquarters of the Communist Party’s regional committee, is meant to replace older associations. Not only is it an implicit rebuke of Communism, it is situated beside the ruins of another, much smaller mosque that was being constructed by the separatists in the 1990′s.
Its scale and grandeur are intended as public statement. At a cost of $20 million, it will be a sprawling complex, with room for a religious school and a residence for the mufti, said Amradin Adilgeriyev, an adviser to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin premier and son of the slain president.
The mosque will hold 10,000 worshipers, making it the largest in the republic. Its minarets will rise 179 feet in the air. It will speak not just of faith, but of power.
And so on this day the men dance. And dance. Tassels on their skullcaps bounce and swing. Sweat darkens their shirts. They are perhaps 90 in men in all, mostly young. They look strong. But zikr is demanding. As some of them tire, they step aside. Others take their place.
Their stamping can be heard two blocks away.
The entrance to the construction site is controlled by gunmen who make sure that none of the separatists enters with a bomb. Other young men boil brick-sized chunks of beef in caldrons of garlic broth, stirring the meat with a wooden slab.
Zikr has several forms. This form traces its origins to Kunta-Haji Kishiyev, a shepherd who traveled the Middle East in the 19th century, then returned to Chechnya and found converts to Sufism. Initially his followers pledged peace, but in time many joined the resistance to Russia, and their leader was exiled. They fought on, becoming a reservoir of Chechen traditionalism and rebellious spirit.
In 1991, when Chechnya declared independence from Russia, the Kunta-Haji brotherhoods, long underground, fought again. Sebastian Smith, who covered the Chechen wars and wrote “Allah’s Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus,” noted that they became a source of rebel resolve.
At one zikr ceremony he observed, the men were dancing, he wrote, until a Russian bomber screamed low overhead, buzzing the village. Mr. Smith watched their reaction. “No one even looks up,” he wrote. “The whooping grows louder.”
The Sufis resisted the influx of Wahhabis who came to fight Russia beside them, but whose version of Islam aligned more closely with that of the Afghan Taliban.
Mr. Kadyrov said in an interview that he hoped to help restore Chechen Sufi traditions as part of an effort to preserve Chechen culture. He has reopened the roads to Ertan, a village in the mountains, where Kunta-Haji Kishiyev’s mother is buried. Her grave is a shrine and a place for pilgrimages, which for years were not made. This spring the roads to Ertan are crowded with walkers, who visit the grave to circle it and pray.
Still, efforts to incorporate Sufi brotherhoods into a government closely identified with the Kremlin contain contradictions. Some see manipulation on Mr. Kadyrov’s part, noting that Chechen self-identity has never been suppressed, even by some of the most repressive forces the world has ever known.
Whether Mr. Kadyrov can control the forces he taps into is unknown. The zikrists dance on this day with state approval. But for whom?
“Kadyrov wants to show that he is a supporter of Chechen traditional Islam,” said Aslan Doukaev, a native of Chechnya who is director of the North Caucasus service of Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. “But Sufis always wanted Chechen independence, and that signal is being sent here too.”
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Brought to you by the Osmanli Naksibendi-Hakkani Tariqat
After a long day of travel from upstate and a night spent inremembrance of Allah, the murid’s pulled out some of the instruments to add some additional barakat to the night.Recorded in New York City, 39th St. Dergah.
After Hours 2 – Mp3 5MB Running Time: 3:56 -
Talented fellow murid’s, good times. Much Barakat.
NOTE: String instruments present for those who avoid them.
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