BismillahirRahmanirRahim
THE CLOUDS OF CANAKKALE
Sohbet given by Sheykh Abdul Kerim al-Hakkani al-Kibrisi
Friday 9 Ramazan, 1428
Septermber 21, 2007
Osmanli Naks-i’bendi Hakkani Dergah, Siddiki Center, New York.
[After the Juma prayer someone asked Sheykh Efendi about the Canakkale War of 1915 saying, "Many are now saying that the clouds that appeared in Canakkale taking in British soldiers and disappearing, it's just astory. Is it true?"]
Sheykh Efendi: Auzu billahi min ash-sheytanir rajim.
BismillahirRahmanirRahim.
Medet Ya Seyyidi Sultanul Awliya, Medet.
Millions today are making jokes about how the cloud appeared in
Canakkale and took one group of British and just disappeared and still
their bodies are not known anywhere. Now they are making stories. But
people from that time believed because they saw and they witnessed.
After them their children, they are also not believing because it’s
something extraordinary. It’s showing (to the non-Muslim forces that
came against the Ottoman Empire) that the God that you are worshipping
is helping these people and it’s not helping you. So it’s not such a
good position that you want to be in, right? How are you going to say,
“The side that we were fighting against, they were right and the Lord
helped them by sending clouds and everyone disappeared in it.” It
wasn’t just ten people in it.
Not only that but so many other unusual things happened there. Who was
in Canakkale? Our Grandsheykh (Abdullah Daghestani QS). So is it so
hard for us to understand who is making all these things? Heh, there
was a General who didn’t like the Grandsheykh. And a bomb flew and
fell into the area where the Grandsheykh and everyone were in. Almost
everybody died or became wounded. Where Gransheykh was, where it fell,
it just became a big hole and Grandsheykh was sitting and praying
there. The General was shocked and he came down to the Grandsheykh. He
kissed his hand and said, “I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t believe
in anything but I believe you from now on because I have seen with my
eyes what had happened.” He said, “You are a different individual from
everything else.” And that General started following the Grandsheykh.
Not only Grandsheykh but so many other sheykhs and saints entered into
that war. 250,000 people died. It’s not 250. Two hundred and fifty
thousand people died there in that short time. Only from the Turks.
Almost 300,000 died from the other side. Over 300,000 people. You are
talking about more than half a million people dying in those waters
and in those lands there. Everywhere you are stepping on there are
bodies underneath it.
I spent three nights there and early in the morning when I was calling
the Azan… I was calling the Azan very strongly early in the morning,
(there was one tomb, that of Suleyman Pasha, he did great things there
too) near his tomb and I was going there for prayer and you can see in
far distance the lights of the Greek islands there, right on the
border. People came from the other side. In the morning when I was
calling the Azan right before dawn, things were setting down and I was
seeing all these beautiful rains of light coming down. Like rain drops
light was coming down and with that different smells were coming. And
there was a voice speaking to me saying that all those drops are
representing all those soldiers, and everyone has a different smell.
So everywhere I was walking I was seeing different lights. I was
walking, passing through their tomb sites and you would think that
there are so many tombs there but it’s not. In the mountains and
everywhere you see that light connection coming from the Paradise to
there, from their tombs going up.
That’s why people who don’t have strong spirituality cannot live
around there. It’s pretty heavy for them. People who have high
spirituality want to live there all the time but they don’t leave them
too because you discover so many secrets there. It opens up. Unless
you are keeping the secrets, then they keep you there for some time.
Otherwise (they don’t). You can see that all those areas are not
packed up with things. Everywhere is almost empty. In the villages,
you see the people, you look at their faces, no arguments, just peace
coming from their faces and they are always walking, going back and
forth but no talking. No sound. It’s like a dead valley. No sound.
It’s like a different world that you are living in. Even just an
ordinary person can feel that right away and understands that it’s
completely different here now.
Huh, all those soldiers, British, ANZAC, all those are very happy to
be buried there. They are saying, “Mistakenly we have fallen into
Paradise.” (Sheykh Efendi smiles). Everything smells different. The
flowers smell different there, the mountain flowers, they all have
different smells and different colors. You can see that heavenly look
on everything there. All the stones they put there are symbolic. They
are not underneath there. They just carried so many of them and they
buried them in mass graves and they put those stones there. But there
are special places where special incidents happened. Those areas are
completely different. You see how it is there. But you can see it on
the stones. Every stone that you pass, the age that all died were 19,
20, 21.
Did you see the trench? The war trench behind which they were hiding?
You didn’t go there?
`X’: No, I didn’t.
Then you didn’t see anything what the soldiers the built. Do you know
how close they came to each other? From here to there where `Y’ is
sitting [approx. 10 meters]. The world has never seen a war like that
before. Never. No way that it can get that close. You have trenches
here and you have trenches there [Sheykh Efendi pointing to the two
opposite walls of the dergah and the distance between them is about 30
ft.]. That’s how close they got. Everything was so close there. The
fear and the smell of death and the smell of the love of Paradise that
kept those people keep on coming and going. People without faith
cannot stand there. The other ones had no choice because they were
dumped there with ships. So they had no place to go now. So many were
brought from the Subcontinent countries. They were Muslims. Afghanis
and [today's] Pakistanis. So many were put in ships and brought there
[by the British] to fight the Khalifah’s soldiers. Khalifah’s
soldiers! They didn’t know. They tried to give up but they [the
British] said, “You cannot go anywhere. We will shoot you down into
the water.” So they were fighting.
People are having everything easy now, everybody speaks on everything
and Islam became a game to everybody. A game. Nothing but a game. Not
accepting anything. People gave lives! Not life. Lives! One house
giving three, four sons to die in that war. Can you imagine? Four
sons, five sons died in that war. Three sons died and the husband
died. I met a lady. Looking at her face is like looking at a heavenly
person, as if heaven appeared through her face. It is not sad and it
is not khek khek khek. It is a beauty that is appearing. So beautiful
and calm. She was talking, she was praying and she was saying to me
what happened. The husband died and three sons died. And she was
saying, “Alhamdulillah. I hope I didn’t make a mistake. But I have no
regret. If I had ten sons then I will give again. But I am looking at
the situation of this country now and I am very sad. I think those
ones will be sad too.” Looking at her face, (I saw) Paradise coming
out from her face. And she said that she didn’t cry. She cried from
the pain but she didn’t cry for anything and she was very happy with
what Allah did. Then she was living all these years after that by
herself. She had another daughter and she died too after some time.
And she is still living. Allahu Akbar! People going through all that
pain, do you think it’s easy? Think on it. Just to think on it. So
many people I say these to, they say `Eh.’ I say, “Compare, just
compare with yourself and look what happens.” No comparison.
Impossible to compare. They were believing. That’s all. They were
believing in what they were doing. They were sincere with what they
were doing.
I met another lady. She fixed the whole village with her father’s
death money that was coming. The government was not taking care of the
tombs of the people, okay? And he was one of the persons who died in
Canakkale and it’s near the village there. So they brought him to the
village and they put him there and at that time the government put
money out saying they have to take care of those areas. They did it.
Then [later] everything was falling down. So she was showing me the
tomb site that she fixed and she was saying to me, “He fixed it
himself.” I said, “How it happened?” She goes, “Everything was falling
down and the little money that they were giving me from the government
for my father’s death, I saved little for me for whatever was
necessary for me to live on, and the rest to this village. He is in
the grave and with his money we are still living. He is in the grave.
With his money we are still living. The village is still living with
the money that is coming because of him. And they are fixing his tomb
with his money.” Allah, Allah. Unusual things are happening around
there.
Astaghfirullah al-Azim wa atubu ilaih.
Sohbet given by Sheykh Abdul Kerim al-Hakkani al-Kibrisi
Friday 19 Rajab, 1428
August 3, 2007
Osmanli Naks-i’bendi Hakkani Dergahi, Siddiki Center, New York.
[After the Juma prayer someone asked Sheykh Abdul Kerim Efendi:
"Sheykh, please pray for the Ummat."]
Sheykh Efendi: Auzu billahi min ash-sheytanir rajim.
BismillahirRahmanirRahim. Medet Ya Seyyidi Sultanul Awliya, Medet.
There are hadiths for Ahir Zaman, for this time. Holy Prophet (sws) is
saying, “You have to know what you are asking and for whom you are
asking, on whose behalf you are asking.” Today’s Muslims, mashaAllah.
No prayer will help them unless they help themselves. Today’s Muslims
left the main safe road and they entered into the jungle road. And
warning is coming day and night but they are still going in the jungle
world. No prayer can reach. Prayer is only going to reach when they
are making a sincere intention to understand what the mistake they did
and turn back. That is the only time the forgiveness is given to this
nation.
Holy Prophet (sws) is saying, “When you reach to those times in Ahir
Zaman, there is going to be curse coming everywhere”, and the signs of
curse we are seeing now. It is not a blessing of course when the
planes are running over countries and dropping bombs, huh? It’s a
curse. Or everywhere when something is blowing up. You can say
whatever you want. It’s happening there. Why is it happening? What is
the reason and purpose, we have to know. Are we living on the road
that the Holy Prophet (sws) left to us or have we deviated from that
road? We have deviated from the road. The first thing, for the help to
reach to us, we have to turn back to that road again. It is easy for
Allah but it is not easy for us. Allah is looking at our sincerity.
Allah is looking at us and saying to us, “When you turn yourself to
me, your way back to me sincerely, I make the long distances very
short. I can turn all this upside down again the other way.”
NO REVENGE IN ISLAM AND NO JIHAD WITHOUT KHALIFAH
So now the Muslim nations first have to know, “What is our mistake?
Where have we fallen?” The problem is that the Muslim nations and the
Muslim Ummat are not looking to understand to say, “Where have we
fallen?” They are only running to get revenge, nothing else. And that
is not accepted in Islam. The Sahaba-e Kiram fought, they pulled the
sword and they fought for the sake of Allah. They didn’t fight to get
revenge. They fought because they were tyrannizing them and they were
not even letting them to continue with that Shahadat. And order came
to them to fight only then. When power reached to the hands of the
Muslims and the Muslims came back to Mekkah with a big army, what did
the Prophet (sws) do? He took revenge from them? Or did he forgive
every one of them?
This is what happened to us. Today’s Muslims, today’s Ummat that we
are talking about, the ones who are taking the gun and fighting
saying, “We are making Jihad”, their mind is not with them. That mind
is not controlling them. They lost their mind. Without a Khalifah you
cannot declare Jihad. Where in Islam are you finding that Jihad is
being declared without a Khalifah? Who are you to declare Jihad? You
are just another individual. Are you heavenly supported? No. Because
you are not heavenly supported, you are under the tyranny of tyrants.
They are also the servants of Allah subahana wa ta’ala. There are good
servants and there are bad servants. It doesn’t matter. Sheytan is a
servant of Allah also. We cannot say in our prayers, “Remove this
Sheytan from this world.” Can we make that prayer? No. He put the
Sheytan. So Sheytan is coming and whispering. Sheytan is not
committing the wrongdoing, the man is the one who is doing it. Sheytan
is doing his duty. Sheytan’s job is to come and whisper wrong things
to man and if man follows that wrong thing, he will become the tool of
Sheytan. And if he does the wrong thing, it is not Sheytan but the man
is doing it. If the man is doing right and he is following the order
of his Lord and his Prophet (sws), he becomes a tool of the Lord Allah
subhana wa ta’ala and Allah does good through his hands.
So there are two kinds of people now. Now leave Ummat. Now, especially
now because Holy Prophet (sws) is saying, “Ahir Zaman is completely
going to be different. You are going to have nations that will declare
that they have faith but when you search them you are not going to
find a drop of faith in them.” And there are going to be nations who
are going to be called unbelievers, kafirs, but so many of them are
going to be faithful ones. This is it now.
So now if a person comes to you as an individual asking for prayers,
for that one’s behalf you may ask saying, “Ya Rabbi, You are the one
who sent this person to me to ask on his behalf.”
[The questioner says: "I am asking your prayer for myself."]
Sheykh Efendi: Ah, for yourself. That we pray. For the Ummat we pray
differently. We pray differently for this Ummat to turn back, to ask
forgiveness and to say, “Ya Rabbi, we did wrong. Now we realize it. We
are turning back to Your door.” Then as Ali (ra) is saying in his
prayer, “If You close your door to me, I have no place to go but come
back to You again because there is no other door.” He said, “I am not
a perfect one.” He was a perfect one, he was a Murshid, he was
perfect. But he said, “I am not a perfect one but I am not the worst
one also from the ones that are doing the wrong things. I am not the
worst one among them. I am a weak servant, I have my weaknesses and I
am asking for Your forgiveness.” Any person today in this world
sincerely taking this prayer, sincerely believing on it and asking,
instantly the message is coming back to them saying, “I accept your
prayer.”
HOW DID THE UMMAT SEPARATE INTO NATIONS?
Muslims don’t do prayer. Muslims don’t do worship anymore. They don’t
pray. Pray means they don’t make Salat. But Salat is a worship that
you are doing. Asking prayers, asking du’a on your behalf and for the
nations, Muslims don’t do that anymore. They know how to scream and
cry going to doctors, going here, going there and I say, “How many
times a day do you sit somewhere, you open your hand and you ask your
Lord saying, “I am a weak servant. You are giving this to me but I
cannot carry it. Please help me.” How many minutes a day the Muslims
are doing this? If they do it sincerely then we are going to see that
the help is going to reach because Allah is nearer to you than your
own self. But man is not asking today. They only know how to ask from
doctors. The doctor needs a doctor. The doctor needs another doctor.
So we have fallen because our faith has fallen. So we have to turn
back to that faith again, to strong faith. We have to make our faith
to grow first. And the only way to do that is, we have to take the
examples of our role-models the Sahaba-e Kiram. We have to look at
them, we have to see how they lived, what was their behavior and how
did they act in every situation. Then we may turn back to our own origin.
Once upon a time, it’s not centuries ago, it’s not even a century ago.
Up till 1923, hmm? The Muslim nations, the Muslim Ummat was under one
ruling. Now how many rulings? How many nations of Muslims? We say,
“Muslim Ummat.” How many nations this Ummat became? Who put them in
separation like that? Who made that separation? Islam or the Christian
world? They say, “We are following the footsteps of the Christian
world.” Then we turn around and instead of running to the masjids of
Allah to ask forgiveness, we run in front of the United Nations or the
embassies saying, “Help us! Our rights are taken away!” Or going to
Europe, to European countries complaining saying, “We want our
rights!” Your rights? You are running to a wolf saying, “We want our
rights”? (Sheykh Efendi smiles). They are prepared to finish these
nations. That’s what their aim is. You are running to ask help from
them? How heedless these Muslims are becoming. They became real
heedless because they left the way, the traditions of the prophets.
NO GENERAL PRAYER ON BEHALF OF NATIONS
Holy Prophet (sws) is saying, “When those nations leave the ways of
the prophets and they leave according to their ego again, don’t ask
general prayer for their behalf. Ask for yourself and for those who
are running to become obedient to their Lord. Ask for their behalf.
Otherwise, you will be responsible for interfering in the work of
Allah then.” These are dangerous times. When we check all traditions
and Islam, we are seeing that we are coming almost to the end. Still
these nations are sleeping. They are finding some heedless ways and
running. Supermarkets and markets are full, keeping people busy that
way. That’s not the way that the Muslims should do. Muslims are under
this curse because they left their faith. Islam is a lifestyle. Islam
is not only a couple of words. Islam teaches man how to live, how to
eat, how to sleep, how to work, where to work, when to work, where is
woman’s right, where is mAn’s right, where is children’s right, where
is adult’s right, where is olderly’s right, Islam is teaching all this
to us. We lost all this and because we lost, warnings are coming back
and forth to us. We are still not waking up. We are picking up this
wrong lifestyle and continuing to go on that lifestyle. We say,
“Enough! It’s enough! Are you waiting until you are going to fall down
from the cliff? Stop! At least stop on that road. Sit and think a
little bit. When you sit and think you are going to come back to your
own senses saying, `Oh, I am doing wrong.”
WE HAVE SEPARATED AND WE HAVE FALLEN
So when the Muslims and Muslims nations sit and think what they are
doing wrong, they are going to see and they are going to understand,
“Where have we fallen?” That we have to understand first. Now we are
weak. One and a half billions Muslims are weak. But they have
everything. They have all the money in the world and they can get
anything they want too. But they are weak again because we have been
separated. (Sheykh Efendi holds up the palm of his right hand with his
fingers spread out). It is easy to break this finger now. When you are
separated into small nations then it’s easy. They are attacking one,
they are finishing that one. They are attacking the other one and they
are finishing that one, slowly. When they come together, it becomes
strong. (Sheykh Efendi puts his fingers together into a fist). A fist
is not that easy to bring down.
Muslims left Islam. The name of Islam (only remains). Holy Prophet
(sws) is saying, “In Ahir Zaman, their masjids are going to be very
beautifully designed but you are not going to find believers among
them inside the masjids.” The name of Islam is going to stay (only).
People they are going to recite the Quran but the Quran that they are
reciting is not going to enter into their hearts. The masjids that are
going to be so beautiful are going to be empty.” Is that the time we
are in? Tell me. Tell me. Of course we are. Go everywhere and look.
They are building, they are running saying, “Help the masjid brother,
help the masjid.” At every Juma, “Help the masjid. Money, money,
money, help the masjid.” They are building masjids. What are you using
the masjids for? Not even a social gathering anymore. At least if it
was a social gathering and some activities happened, people would at
least be praying there too. They say, “No, you cannot do this, you
cannot do that.” No social gathering too and so the masjids turned
into empty places. No life inside. In the masjids there aren’t any
people with authority to speak to people because people are now
saying, “You cannot tell me this. I paid this much money for the
masjid.” (Sheykh Efendi smiles).
So everyone is thinking. It became like Christian ways now. Christians
go to churches once every Sunday now. Other than that it’s empty.
Muslims, eh, so many are not even going to Juma now. No Juma. Allah is
saying, “This is a holy day for you. The holiest day! Leave
everything. It will become haram to you.” They say, “I am busy. I am
working.” So now I don’t think that at that time we can pray. We can
pray for the Savior, for those who are going to change the way, to
come quickly inshaAllah. Otherwise, the way that it is going, the
patent that the Western countries put into our countries, the way that
they are doing it in Pakistan now, twenty years from now, the way that
it’s going, you will be finding Pakistan like another European
country. Shutting down so many places, this is what Musharraf is doing
too, running and shutting down the Quran recitations and everything
because Western countries are ordering, western countries are saying,
“Don’t teach them Quran now. No need for them to learn.” So they are
going and they are burning the masjids, those squarehead Imams are
fighting with the government, the masjids are burned, people are
burned and everything is burned. This is not Islam. Who are you
fighting for? (Sheykh Efendi smiles).
WE HAVE LOST THE GUIDES, NOT THE QURAN
So, all this happened because we left, not the Quran, they claim that
they have the Quran but they don’t have a guide to show them the
Quran. People they lost the guide and they think that they are going
to find ways. It’s impossible. Allah is giving us to understand saying
to us, “Read and understand.” But reading and understanding is not for
everybody. There are fifty people here for instance. If you read
something, from that fifty people maybe three of them are going to put
it together to summarize. The rest are going to forget the beginning,
middle and they cannot put it together. So reading is something else,
reading and understanding is something else, reading, understanding
and living according to that understanding is something else. So Allah
subhana wa ta’ala is putting guides to us saying, “Those ones read,
they understand and they live according to that, they apply it to
their lives. So they turn around and they bring it down for you, for
you to easily understand.
Opening the Quran is the Surah Fatiha. You make the opening. Right
after the opening, “BismillahirRahmanirRahim. Alif, Lam, Mim.” How
many Muslims are sitting to think, “As soon as we are opening, Allah
locked us with these alphabets. Why is He putting these alphabets to
us? What is the meaning of these alphabets now?” They are not
considering that and they are diving inside thinking they are going to
take something. You are going to take something according to your ego,
according to your ego means according to your level of understanding.
Your level of understanding! You cannot give explanation of the Quran
according to your level of understanding. Quran is speaking the past,
the present and the future. Now what is for you there you may take it
to yourself. But there are so many ayats there that are not applying
to you. It’s applying to these nations, it’s applying to these leaders
and it’s applying to these people that are saying they are the nation,
the Ummat. So then when you take that according to your understanding
and you have power in your hand, like some figures in Islam, they have
money-power and they have gun-power in their hand, they read the Quran
and they say, “Oh, this is the meaning.” That is your meaning, for
you. You cannot take that meaning and apply to whole nations to say,
“Follow me, we are making Jihad.” Huh? This is what happened today.
DON’T ASK PRAYERS FOR THE TYRANTS
Now Holy Prophet (sws) is saying, “If the Nation, Muslims nations,
this Ummat, stays without a Khalifah for three days, Islam is no
longer ruling.” These nations are without a Khalifah for almost a
century now. And never mind about them even to think, “How we can fix
this?” They are standing in front of it. They are standing and saying,
“What you are doing doesn’t fit to Western ideas. We must get rid of
it.” And this is what’s happening in Muslim nations. And if we pray
for the Ummat then we will be praying for all wrongdoers too. Then we
will be sharing their wrongdoings too. We are asking safety from that.
Ask for yourself and for your family members. If they are tyrants then
don’t ask. Check it out. If they are tyrants then don’t ask because if
you are asking safety on behalf of a tyrant then the fire of that
tyrant is going to reach to you too. And tyrants come in so many
different categories.
InshaAllah this Nation will wake up before it’s too late. But we are
reaching to those last days that the Holy Prophet (sws) promised us
and we have very heavy, loaded, painful and difficult days waiting in
front of us. We did not finish it yet, we are just entering into that
era, the time of Dajjal, when the confusion is everywhere. Nobody is
listening to anybody anymore. Everyone is very happy with their mind,
with what they know only, but with what they know they cannot even
move from here to short places. Kids know, adults know, men know,
males know, females know, everyone is knowing. If you say something
saying, “This is from the Prophet (sws)”, they say, “It doesn’t fit
for this time.” (Sheykh Efendi laughs). It doesn’t fit?
Wa min Allahu tawfiq
Bihurmatil Habib
Bihurmatil Fatiha.
Afterthought Immigrants and Introducing Self-Hating South Asians
This American Islamic culture is one that Imam Zaid Shakir is asked about on his recent PBS interview:
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: I think as the American Muslim community itself become more integrated and more mature, faith will probably trump culture. And, you have a new culture emerging. You have an American Muslim culture emerging, which is very important, because then you can get a unique understanding of the religion that would allow the American Muslim to take his or her rightful place amongst the various Muslim communities of the world.
BILL MOYERS: How do you define that American Muslim community? What’s it’s profile?
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: It’s profile is African Americans, increasingly large numbers of Latino Americans and European, Caucasian Americans, and immigrants – South Asians, Pakistanis, Arabs and others. And, collectively I think you’ll see a common American Islamic culture emerge. It’s already happening.
“And immigrants”.
I don’t want to single out Imam Zaid here because of the way he may have phrased this answer, as it may have been less than his ideal intention. However, for discussion purposes, it is interesting to note the order that he lists the American Muslim makeup. Immigrants are placed dead last, and second generation Muslims aren’t even mentioned at all.
While this may be a simple aspect of unorganized speech during a dynamic interview, it’s also indicative of the way popular American Muslim leaders have subconsciously dealt with immigrants and their children: as afterthoughts in the larger scheme of American Muslim culture.
CAIR, on the other hand, notes that the largest community of American Muslims are in fact: South Asian. As of their 2001 report, South Asians are the largest Mosque attending population at 33% of all Muslims, with African-Americans coming in a close second at 30%. Another report which simply examines faith and not mosque attendance is also cited by CAIR. This report lists South Asians as 25% of the overall Muslim Population in North America, with Arabs coming in at 23% and African-Americans at 14%.
So looking at the above numbers, isn’t it difficult to understand why Qawalli hasn’t penetrated into American Islamic culture. Why hasn’t South Asian poetry, art and dress impacted any of the large American Islamic organizations of today? Why are nearly all Muslim converts distinctly Arabic in appearance, style, and culture? Why are there no ‘rock star’ South Asian Imams and Sheykhs who have retained their South-Asianness? Why are so many South Asians apparantly not attending the mosque, but identifying themselves as Muslim?
Imam Zaid in his book “Scattered Pictures”, reflects on the impact of not knowing his paternal grandfather due to the context of his society, the impact of slavery and segregation. The odd thing is, most South Asians who have had no such harrowing experience also cannot name their grandfathers, much less identify and understand how they practiced their faith.
A large part of this is a result of the first real case of Muslim immigrants who have brought along their own inferiority complex. Truly practicing first generation or second generation immigrant South Asian Muslims are afraid of their heritage, they look down upon the very faith that is practiced ‘back home’. Second Generation South Asians are particularly excellent at mocking their parents accents and habits. They do all this while they struggle to figure out if they are white or black, and how that impacts their jean’s bagginess. Most second generation children have no idea how to read in Urdu or Punjabi, and have little appreciation for the wealth of art and poetry that their parents culture produced.
This viewpoint though is not unique to immigrants, as native South Asians themselves have had an inferiority complex going back to times of colonization.
(continued with “More Manifestations of the Marginalization“)
Noted by SeekersDigest
They link to my site for Sheykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (rad) at the end.
Details here:
Reuters reports that 33 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. Karrada took mortar fire, which left 8 dead and 35 wounded. McClatchy reports that on Sunday night, guerrillas had taken 40 persons hostage in Salahuddin Province, in a bid to counter the operation of a new anti-Salafi tribal council. There were other bombings, shootings and assorted mayhem in Baghdad, Mosul and some other places.
But one above all took the cake. Guerrillas detonated a huge bomb in front of the shrine of Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (Jilani, Kilani) in central Baghdad on Monday, killing (according to Reuters, above) some 24 persons and wounding 90 according to late reports. The bombing damaged the dome and the base of the minaret of the mosque attached to the shrine.
Shaikh Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (d. 1166 A.D.) was a great mystic who founded the vast Qadiriya Sufi order.
An Ottoman mystic, Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi, later wrote of him,
‘ “The venerable ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/ 1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is still a place of pious visitation. He is noted for his extraordinary spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings and wise teachings. It is rightly said of him that ‘he was born in love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.’ May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual influence!” ‘
The Qadiri Sufi order is very important in Iraq, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and India, among other places.
The shrine was likely attacked by radical Sunni Salafis, with several objects in mind. First, Salafis hate Sufi shrines (see below). Second, the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq are trying to mobilize all Iraqi Sunnis behind them, and do not want rivals from among the Sufi orders and tribal shaikhs. Third, the Salafi Jihadis want to throw Iraq into ever greater chaos, such that they strike at all national symbols. Fourth, they are probably hoping that at least some Sunni Arabs will blame Shiite militiamen for the attack, or will blame the Shiite government for not preventing it, so that the bombing has the effect of heightening sectarian tensions further. The guerrilla attack on the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra in February, 2006, set off an orgy of sectarian violence, and was the most successful single act of terrorism the guerrillas have ever carried out.
One saving grace is that Sufis are oriented toward symbolic meaning, and physical places are therefore not central to their worship. One famous medieval Sufi, al-Hallaj, famously thought that it was better to visit God in your heart truly than to undertake a perfunctory pilgrimage to Mecca. (The orthodox were outraged.) It is a little unlikely, therefore, that there will be a backlash from this bombing in Nigeria or Senegal or India. For Iraqi Sunnis, likewise, it seems a little unlikely to produce further violence, since the imam himself blamed the radical Salafis (takfiris), themselves Sunni.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Muhammad al-Isawi, the prayer leader and preacher at the mosque attached to the shrine, said, “I send condolences not only to myself but to all Iraqis for what befell this mosque for everyone, for Sunni and Shiite, for Turkmen and Kurd. Who venefits from blowing it up? We must be patient and resigned and deny any opportunity to the enemies, the Takfiri terrorists.” [Takfiris are radical Salafis who declare Sufis and other non-Salafis to be non-Muslims and deserving of death.] He added, “They have idled the charitable works in the mosque, which provides food to widows, orphans and the needy; it also contains a library, to which seekers after knowledge resort. It was, truly, a cowardly act.”
There are lots of strands of Sunni Islam. Many of them are better thought of as tendencies than as sects in their own right. If we make an analogy to Christianity, so there are scriptural literalists (fundamentalists), and there are mystics seeking union with God, and there is everything in between.
The mystics organized into orders or brotherhoods (tariqa) are called Sufis. (The etymology of ‘Sufi’ is disputed. Some say it refers to the early mystics’ preference for woollen (suf) cloaks. Others say it is derived from the Greek Sophia or wisdom.) The mystics typically get together on a Thursday night (or other occasion) at the mosque and sit in a circle and chant spiritual verses and listen to the teachings of their spiritual master or shaikh (in Persian, pir). Some Sufi meetings, with their chanting and rhythmic dancing, resemble Pentacostal services in Christianity. When the shaikh died, often a shrine grew up around his tomb, which was thought a center of blessings and people would come there to touch it and be cured of infertility and other woes.
Sufism was so successful as an organized movement from about the 1100s that it took over Islam, and there were very few Muslims who were not in some sense Sufis in the period 1200 through about 1850. From the mid-1700s, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab in Arabia began attacking Sufism. The attacks were taken up and refined by the Salafis (revivalists) of the late 19th and early 20th century. It began being argued, under Wahhabi and Salafi influence, that it was wrong to attend at shrines, wrong to seek the intercession of saints, wrong to chant and to dance for God. Modern Wahhabism (mostly a Saudi Arabian phenomenon) and Salafism (much more widespread) have a “Protestant” character to them, emphasizing puritanism and the casting down of all images (iconoclasm) and saints’ shrines.
Sufism has rapidly declined in much of the Muslim world. The Sufi orders still have a central place in society and even politics in Senegal. The Sufis of Morocco are not inconsiderable. But they no longer are in the mainstream in Egypt and are minor affairs in Palestine, Syria and Jordan. The Sufis of the Hijaz in western Arabia are said to be having a bit of a revival, but Wahhabism has reduced them to a shadow of their former selves. Aside from Morocco, Iraq may have been the Arab country with the biggest Sufi presence, both among Sunni Arabs and among Kurds (a lot of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey are Sufis and some are Qadiris).
Some of the Sufi orders, including branches of the Qadiriya, have at one time or another joined the Sunni Arab insurgency (a major guerrilla leader at Falluja was a Qadiri shaikh). Other branches of the Qadiriya have, however, been quietists and avoided politics (the shrine keeper is in that category, another reason that the shrine may have been hit).
There is a whole web site on al-Gilani and his order by an adherent.
Continuing the description of my ancestor, I have provided this excerpt:
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At least twenty to twenty-five Qidwais have been Sufi Saints of very high status; their biographies have appeared in some of the original works on Sufis and Ulemas of Hindustan. The books were written in Persian as far back as the days of Emperor Shahjehan (Mirat-ul-Israr). These Auliyas were descendants ofQazi Qidwa and had settled from one corner of India, i.e., Sind (now in Pakistan) to the other corner, around Bengal. These saints left their marks on the people in the areas they visited, and Urs ceremonies are regularly held at their tombs even today with great reverence and devotion. These sufis could not be distinguished earlier as Qidwais because writing “Qidwai” as a suffix to their names was not the regular practice in the past, even though the first mention of surname of Qidwai appears in Mirat-ul-Israr. Efforts have therefore been made to isolate these saints from other Sufis and bring descriptions of their lives together in one place so that readers may learn some details about their ancestors. This chapter will therefore give biographical sketches of the renowned Qidwai saints.
Qazi Moiz Uddin, also known as Qazi Qidwatud-Din or Qazi Qidwa. Qazi Qidwa’s exploits as a crusader have already been described in Chapter III. The intention here is to bring out his spiritual standing among the sufis of Hindustan. As mentioned earlier, Qazi Qidwa came to India at the behest of Pir Khwaja Usman Harooni. He came with a mission, to spend the rest of his life in the service of Islam and to help the downtrodden in India by preaching the tenets of the dynamic new faith. This is not an easy task to achieve in a single lifetime, unless an individual has a firm conviction of his own faith and the capacity to bear the negative forces that act against people with such convictions. He must have had some supernatural powers, and his contacts with the needy brought certain worthwhile results. This was necessary in those days, when ordinary human beings were ignorant and isolated from the main stream of the society. The average individual did not have any aptitude to grasp things that were told to him but was receptive to occurrences he observe himself and happenings he could register with his own perception. Sufis therefore had to have some powers to perform extraordinary acts, known as Kashf. These powers were mostly exhibited in the form of healing touches and the warding-off of bad influences.
Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Qazi Qidwa did posses some extraordinary powers. His adventures in subjugating the local Rajas of Avadh was of special significance because the victories in those battles of Jaggaur and Baragaon are attributed to his spiritualism; his army was always very weak compared to the combined enemy forces.
Hazrat Abdul Nabi has said that Qazi Qidwa, being from Sa’dat, had vast influence on the masses around Ayodhya. The people there were Orthodox Hindus, and even then, they used to flock in hundreds to obtain Qazi Sahib’s blessing. No one will ever know the exact number of people who were converted to Islam by his teaching, but the clan became so large that all neo-converts and Qazi Sahib’s descendants settled themselves in a separate locality known as Qidwai Mohalla. This locality was subsequently eroded by the river, and the inhabitants were forced to move to other parts of the town, which later came to be known as Faizabad.
Tariq Sheykh Abul Fazal Arabi (as quoted in Tariq Abu Said) elaborates on the qualities of Hazrat Qazi Qidwa by attributing to him the titles of Maghzan-i-Haqiqt, Anwar ul Hai, Namantaha-ud Dahar and Sultan-ul-Arifin, etc. Maulana Wajih Uddin Ashraf remembers Qazi Qidwa as Umadat-ul-Abrar, Sargarda-i-Akhbar, Sahib-e-Takhat and Makhzan-ul-Auliya. These titles are not merely decorative; they had real meaning–Qazi Sahib was a renowned sufi saint. These titles seem appropriate when we learn that Qazi Qidwa’s saintly disposition has filtered through the next 600 years and produced more eminent sufis throughout the generations. Unfortunately, Qazi Qidwa died within three years of his stay at Ayodhya and did not have time to establish himself with authority. If he would have lived twenty to thirty years preaching Islam, his name would have be listed along with those of famous sufis like Khwaja Moin Uddin Chishti, Baba Farid Shakarganj, Nizam Uddin Auliya and others.
[Biographical sketch of Kidwais of Avadh : with special reference to Barabanki families pub. 1989
by Riaz-ur-Rehman Kidwai, out of print]
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 