Encounter With Mr Shu Ming at Putrajaya Mosque

Encounter With Mr.Shu Ming at Putrajaya Mosque

Dear Matrix Friends,

Last night 29 November 2006, we are blessed by Allah Taala to welcome a visit by Mr Shu Ming from Beijing, China. He got a twin pair of sons, one now studying Brisbane and another at England. Who brougt him to Master Izi Tea Hut in western Lake of Zhuhai ? How old is this seeker who dared to Travel on the Express Path or Rail that eventually lead him to a Lake ?. 'Master Izi, are you free tonight, we got a friend interested to talk about Buddhism, Sufism and Tao ?".

Just to flash back. Around Asar time, my little Ronin son Athaillah was despatched to Az-Zahra to sharpen his Sword of Manhood. Where ? In Big Bang Galaxy or Garden of the First Step where many rich fuqara once tasted the White Rabea Jasmine Tea. It Was sold in Makkah and Madinah. Imagine if Mr Shu was caught by someone at the Putrajaya Mosque (Malaysia capital city) while following the Maghrib prayer just like Taiji movements. He did not Fatihah, neither he know about anything of Quran in arabic. Our architect friend Mr.Lua wanted to leave him at the mosque as-Souq walkway while we rushed to join the Maghrib prayer. The old 15 years Proton full of Sagacious Blue Cliff Records had to be parked at the Dataran Bourlevard facing majestically the Prime Minister Green domed office facing the northen direction. Do Mr Shu overhelmed by this unexpected sights ? He only twice to Malaysia many years ago, very short stopover at Kuala Lumpur and to Malacca visit the renowned Admiral ZhengHe muzium.


After doing the Purification by Water at the lower level, we quickly went up to join the prayer. We abandoned the idea of leaving Mr.Shu at the mosque entrance. He passed the Main Gate of Peace easily. Nobody checked him or us. Now he prayed between two friends in the gloriius company of the faithful believers. Even the residents of Putrajaya also not always willing took the long 3km detour around the lake to pray in this beautiful mosque, almost floating at the lakeside, shimmering in the early night. We just forgot to collect our Shoes which we left at the Right side of the mosque when wanted to Stream out after enjoying the cool lakeside view at the left wall of the mosque.


Master Izi commented-" Many seekers in haste to get enrolled at the Dailin Nur College forgot to wear the proper Shoes.Some still wear their expensive useless Bally or Culdini or Nike shoes..where the muddy Path to the college will teach them the first lesson in Humility. Walk in the Mud and Wet fields. Second lesson, dont carry a Big Bagge of your worldly belongings. Each student individual huts only measured 4 feet x 8 feet ! Four in one of the chinese tonal meanings (SHI) is Death ! And another meaning of Eight (FATT) can also means- Blessed/Prosperous !.


In all above mix of stories, characters and events, what STAND OUT as the most RADIANT PATH and PURE SOURCE OF OUR DRINK ? Master Izi insights into the 28th Letter of Shaykh Darqawi which the fortunate fuqara managed to jolt down two weeks ago are as follow :

a. How you will ever LEARN if you as students dont bring along your PEN and NOTES !

b. If you manage to remember all the bits of wisdom, how long you can HOLD IT ?

c. We dont talk about those fuqara who are LOST, ABSENCE or FEAR TO COME.

d. Shaykh Darqawi ask us to KNOCK on ONE DOOR, my questions are which TEA HOUSES and which DOORS to knock ? In Masjidil Haram in Makkah, there are about 30 DOORS or more, not even the seasoned Hajjis and Hajjah can remember HALF of its NAMES. What more to enter or passing through.

e. Many seekers speak about Shuyukh and Awliya in the East and West, when a few passing by through our GARDENS and BACKYARDS, we cannot RECOGNIZE ! Those who RETREATED to the MOUNTAINS, dont ask me. Go, make your CLIMBS.

f. Many fuqara dig big HOLES, make NOISES and abandon it a FEW DAYS LATER.

g.Some of the students who sit with me many years are STILL UNRIPE. They afraid to EXPOSE to the sulights of TAO, I CHING, ZEN and CHUNG YUNG. They ask questions to expect easy and quick answers. How mistaken. My durian TREE still not yet flowering.

h. If people FIGHT you because of or over a NAME, POSITION, POWER or KNOWLEDGE, then throw all those THINGS into the LAKE. If they STILL want it, go take a PLUNGE.

i. At the end of this 28th Letter, it speak about DRINK and GIVING OUT DRINKS. If my students dont like TEA, why in the first place, they come to get ENROLLED ?

j. What happens to the ENCOUNTER of Mr. SHU MING and Mr.LUA that night.? We heard that he is GIVEN THREE BOOKS...for LIFE STUDY. Allahu akbar. We sang a VERSE of LAKAL HAMD and make DOA for him before Mr. Lua take him to the STATION to JOURNEY ONWARD and RETURN TO CHINA SOON.


We like to end with a verse from the Divine Book –First Chapter of al-Baqara :

“ Those who possess light of iman

and those who suffered exile (make hijra or travel for truth and openings)

and fought ( jihad- strove and struggled, wage war on self and enemies)

in the Path of Allah – they have the Hope or Reward of Mercy of Allah

and Allah is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful “



Recorded and posted

by the advice of Abu Zhulixin

Attendant of Dailin Nur Institute

The Tea Hut Discourse on Stilllness (Yin-Shade)

THE TEA HUT DISCOURSE
ON STILLNESS ( YIN –SHADE)

Last week we are blessed by Allah Taala to be invited and hear the discourse of Master Izi, the founder and sagely caretaker of Dailin Nur Tea Institute, Miyazaki Prefecture situated in South east of Kyoto, Japan. He asked one of his Malaysian student Zuigan to read several passages from the renown modern sufic text – The Hundred Steps written by a contemporary Darqawi Sufi Master from the West – Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi which he personally met and granted the special idhin or permission to revive the old decayed and remnants of Zen Shobozenbo school in the East.

Master Izi other close associates and occidental Japan scholars in the early 1970s are T.Izutsu, D.Suzuki, Dr.Sachiko Murata, Nakura Nakajima, Narushi Kawabata and Eka Kurashowa. Here are the excerpt of discourses that jolted down and retype again by petit Masako San :

One – Between Madness and Stillness

Sidi Zuigan read the text from page 38 of The Hundred Steps :
“ Sufism or the Path begins as a madness; its middle is a science (specific knowledge);
its end is stillness”. In arabic, it is junun, funun and sukun.

Master Izi commented – ‘How are we going to define what is madness in our society today ? Do we had to rely on descriptions by medical doctors, the psychiatrists and the psychologist like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Boss, RD Laing and Eric Fromm ? Or we can learn from the famous sufic metaphor of madman Majnun and his lover Layla ? In the European, we also had the Italian version of Romeo and Juliet. Is madness relative to what we want to see and what destruction or confusion it brought on its initially unsuspected encounters ? Eric Fromm book got its famous title as ‘The Sane Society’. The great German thinker philosopher F.Nietzsche who finally succumbed to madness had written several brilliant books such as – Thus Spoke Zarathustra (A book for everyone and no one), Ecce Homo , Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science and The Wanderer and Its Shadow. How we wish to walk, travel, listen and response to Zarathusra sagely sermons !

“One can be silent and sit still only when one has arrow and bow (long reach);
otherwise one babbles and quarrels. May your peace be a victory !
I do not spare you, I love you from the deep heart, my brothers in war ! “

It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it STATE: they hang a sword and a hundred desires over them. The state is the coldest monster. Coldly it lies, too and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘ I , the state, am the people !’. Now open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.

In wickedness, the arrogant and the weak man meet. But they misunderstand one another. I know you. Here the metamorphosis, your spirit becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be a master in its own desert. A light dawned on me : I need companions, living ones.

Sidi Zuigan read on : “ Kufr itself is a madness, a refined one because it cannot see itself wrong. The state as told by Nietzsche will be manipulated by later forces to bring destruction upon mankind, no religions can hold against this tribe called democracy and free market capitalism. Their power lies in a magic formula. A Ring of Niuebeliung as subtly depicted by Wagner”.

The Quran warned us : ‘ they have eyes but cant see, they have ears but cant hear and they have hearts but cannot perceive…the divine command/realities’. When it was told –don’t spread destruction on the earth (la tufsidu fil-ardh), they answered- we only intend good action (islah) or progress and development ! They treat mankind as equal, one man one vote..the way to mass madmen and to bring down the elites, nobles and sagely rulers, kings and sultaniyya !

The science fiction film- MATRIX – unfold this deception, entrapment and freedom that the hacker hero Neo must submit, learn, deceive, fight and discover the mystical power from Oracle, Morpheus and Trinity in order to escape and defeat the forces of agent Smith and the vast network of Matrix simulated world that none can break out, except death and transformation of self subtle Qi.

So what the next step this Path opens up to the seeker ? The faqir has now entered into the arena of contemplation and its fruits. Hal (spiritual lights) does not come from event, or from outside or from feelings, or from nafs in any of its modalities (appearances that distract the seeker).

The faqir must learn to move with its motions as the sailor changes sail with the winds. Do not tell what comes on the heart to others..he can only report this inner experiences to his Shaykh or to a recognized one among the salihun. Hal put in motion what was still, then it calms it and finally gives it rest. These are the effects of love (from Allah and His Awliya). Now only now, can we talk about love for the first time. (Matrix must fall in love with Trinity to realize his folly and subtle feelings and be free from it)

Master Izi says- ‘ One cup of real Tea refresh the spirit. Two cups of drink will indicate the host is appreciating your travel, your struggle, your trust and friendship’ . Zen masters take elaborate preparation to set up a tea hut meeting with guests, always with several tea attendants or disciples to serve and take notes of exchange of knowledge and wisdom of Tao’. No weapons are allowed inside the tatami tea hut and the tea pot, cups, boiled water and some cakes are arranged to indicate each guest/host ranks.

Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi further elaborated about this seeker ‘warid-refreshing experience’: “ It is the lights from the Absolute Lord of Majesty and Generous Gifts ( Dzal Jalali wal Ikram ). He may still think it flows from him to existence, but in truth, flows over existence that engulfing him. All actions becomes his actions, all other have his spirits. This is the first dissolution of the barriers of separation. He is temporarily without time, space melts, and he tastes from the Sea of Oneness “.

Nietzsche says in Thus Spoke Zarathustra : “ Shatter, shatter the good and just ! O my brother, have you understood this saying too ? Do you flee from me ? Are you afraid. Do you tremble at this words ? Now you shall be sea farers, brave, patient seafarers ! The sea is stormy ! “.

We go back to topic on The Stillness of Hundred Steps –Sukun (page 98). This stillness is the heart of the Wali, is not a state, but his condition, filling him both in jihad and in contemplation ! He may taste the excitement of battle (or war) but his stillness (marifa) rules him and he drinks the vision of the Face and he glorifies Allah. Oh what praise and what glorification may pour from the heart of a man (like this- a perfected one )

Master Izi commented : “ What a poor copy of box office films heroes like Neo, Jet Li Hero, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, James Bond, Brave Hearts, Hidden Tiger and Crouching Dragon, Dances With Wolves, BenHur, Genghis Khan and poor elected Popes and all dead canonized Saints. Once time they were burned and hanged alive when they challenged the church powers. Now the Modern State bestow the highest awards to its most loyal, richest, obedient politicians and senile citizens..some pothomously (after many years of death- ghosts titles) for contributions to the State (almost sacred/supreme entities, legally cannot be changed except by force and revolution and wars). This is the opposites of madness and stillness (enslavement of life in our current society where the billions and trillions of false wealth and banking power elites hold mankind in ransom and enthralled).

They have only one ENEMY, that is a free man that will bring their RULE and STATE to pieces. Or we don’t need them. We survive, we hide, we speak language of separation and gatheredness, we trade, we teach, we submit, we lose small wars but prepare for Big War, we do zikir and Ismul azim. Some in the seat of powers, some trained in elite groups and mergers warfare, some teach in universities, some get annihilated and some returned with robes of honour.

The People of Wisdom
The people of this Wisdom, call it Islamic Zen or Tao of Islam or I Ching of Tawhid or The Middle Path or Sufism, The Life Transaction, The Straight Path… some of them have retreated to mountains, others became rulers and scholars, imams and shuyukh, some are rich in their poverty, mighty in their helplessness, some exiled and cast out, some moved in the sea of sensory and the sea of meanings. Do you want to become a Warrior in His Path ? Are you satisfied with what the State offers ? Are comfortable in your High Offices ? Are you still not Rich enough ? Set out.

“ If you seek power or renown or reward from men by this Noble Path then knowledge that is has in it nothing but sorrow for you. One who knows that will be content with with tajrid (stripping away) and rich in it, a king even if Allah puts him in rags, as he will remain a faqir (one of the poor in the Tariq) even if Allah robes him in the robes of a king.

Every king dies like a faqir while every faqir dies like a king. The sufi is universal. He has reduced and then eliminated the marks of selfhood to allow a clear view of the Cosmic Reality. “
He has rolled up the cosmos in its turn and obliterated it. He has gone beyond.

It is the self chosen pattern of life one has adopted in order to deepen knowledge until one reaches one’s own source, one’s spring of life, to drink of the Water of Illumination.

Shariat is submitting.
Tariqat is handing over.
Haqiqat is victory.

It is coming out from the safe place of ordinary existence into the alien existence of search. It means the abandoning the autobiographical project of fame and fulfillment, for the self/nafs has become for the seeker, an enemy..until it is transformed into its luminous reality which is pure spirit-ruh.

The time is short. It must be seized. Cut through !
Breaking norms is the Path. Its fruits are witnessing and illumination.

The Darqawi Way fuqara are sober as they are majestic/beautiful. They are beggar /kings as they are warrior/saints….what more do we want and desire ? “ Wake up Sidi Zuigan ! , take this empty tea cups away and bring in the lotus moon-cakes from Xi-an and the dragon red fruits from Mr. Malik’s Bandung highland farm !. Masako San, lift up the left bamboo window for morning sunlight to enter ! Mr. Shuyu Min and Ridha Lua, we sincerely hope you may visit us again next summer.

Shaykh Abul Abbas Mursi said :
‘ It is difficult to reach a Teacher. It is easy to reach Allah (vast sign/indications leading to such men and friends of Allah). The pleasure of life is only in the company of the fuqara-they are the sultans, the masters and the princes’ (Madinah Press 1998) .

Dailin Nur Tea Hut 5th December 2006.

The Bamboo Koans For Chinese Seekers

First Bamboo Koan : A Quarter, Half and One Sufi

A Quarter Sufi speaks to Half Sufi while traveling through the Zen Forest of Schizuan Province. Look, we put to test :

“ Don’t believe in that One Sufi ahead of us from the West”. Two wandering Eastern sufi who happen to pass nearby heard this remark at the road junction of Lu Xun and scolded the quarter, half and one sufi , “ All Sufis are charlatans, beware ! From North and South, they pretend to drink the Tea of Ecstasy, while the Oolong and Pue erh Tea leaves still not dried in the Summer”.
Three sufi are too much and too heavy for my words to carry.
Exposed. Broken. Collapsed. What more to understand ?

(Rabbi habli hukman wa ahiqni bis-salihin)

A woodcutter non-sufi who still alive today recounted this events to Master Izi and he ordered tea hut attendant Zuigan of Eastern Lake Precint of Kuang to record this in the Blue Bamboo River Koans Collection.

Abuzhuli xin Commentary :

Many seekers are being called travelers of the Path,
but no one can claim to be a full sufi yet.
A traveler may arrives or get lost on the Way.

The Forest of Dunya is never kind to travelers
who enter it without a tested Guide.
Without a Weapon of Tawhid.
Without a Light of Discrimination-Furqan.

Buying sufic books and reading many old jawi
or Arabic kitab/texts of commentaries cannot help one
to see in the night of modernists anti-sufi.

On daytime the goats from the University Farms
will attack and chew up the green books
because they are very hungry and not trained well
by their Masters and Dukturs who prefer to feed
them with spiritual empty grasses
and syllabus from the Orientalist wastelands.

Neo-Hsue Tou Verses

Nizami Mountain collect clouds
Shattari Mountain pour the rains
Half falls north of River Osama Abuya
Half falls into Bayan and Reformasi Valley
Others may be stuck at Pondok Madrasah

(Wa man yataqqi’Llah yaj-allahu makhraja
Wa man yataqqi’Llahu yaj-allahu furqana
Inna Awliya Allahu la khaufun
alaihim wa la hum yahzanu)

Do not say I have not warned you
A sufi a zen a monk still a name
Forest, desert and mountains
They cheat people most time
Or make them fight in politics

Sichuan Lu Xun Pur Erh
The Tea of China never Smells
Three sufi will make loud Noise
One solitary wali sat facing a city Wall
Music and drums they sell Tariqats

Dr. Abdad ar-Rauwi is my Friend
Leave all books journal and papers
Took the Sun burning Path
Where Universities cannot teach
Tea Hut or Tea Shop, most welcome.

Dr. Fuad Yeoh got Three Degrees
With envy I wrote it with gold
Master in Engineering and BA
Quranic studies from Yarmuk
Islamic Ph.D from Aberdeen !

He leave all and he possess all
Children and wives full of energy
Chinese, Malay and Maghrib
Wisdom and light shines through
Still remember the Night of Melawati
(La Syarqiyya wa la Gharbiyya
Kaukabun dhurriyun …Nurun alan nur
Yahdi’Llahu li-nurihi man yasyaau
Wa Allahu bi-kulli syain Alim)

We ask Allah ,the Majestic, the Exalted to
Enlighten our hearts and life journey…

Second Koan : Many Doors of A Tea Hut

Sufism is a science of madness and stillness.
It depend where you are and how rich you are.
Ha ha ha , only the poor speak this Way.
Dust, dust..kuntu turaba . A sufi hut had many doors,
why none dare to seek, travel and make a visit ?
To enter and drink Tea is another matter.

To test, we put this question to you :

Master Dogen asked his students one day in the assembly hall – who got a new sms today ? Where does he built his Dailin Nur College ? Do the Japanese Government approved his spiritual teaching overseas ? How many students from Granada, Weimar, Zurich, Cape Town, Jakarta, Bandung, Johor Bharu and Penang recently get enrolled for an eight weeks course in Blue Heiddegerian Studies and to organize an seminar called ‘The Time of I Ching ‘ ?

Here is the Maxis Message from Dr. Abdad Rawi of Penang University, Grey Rock Garden (Taman Batu Uban lah) former chief editor of Nusantara Journal received on 8.00pm dated 2 of Dec. 2006 :

‘This piece of koan need fathom.
When the door opens, whirl follows you.
You cross the line, feel that touch on the shoulder
by one that beckons.
The cups are there all the time
Perfumed wine waiting for the lips

The second whirl arrives and the touched
Shoulder warming up to a larger circle.
The flirting fire ambers till dawn
The whispering hearts need no filled cup now.

Another door yonder closing in
Sufi doors opens more of whirl,
cup , touch, heart and wisper.

Suddenly Master Izi attendant Masako San brought an old message jumbled up in Chinese mandarin from our old Melawati garden Companion Dr. Muhammad Fuad Yeoh, Deputy President of Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (Macma) after a quick translation by Sidi Zuigan…it is decided to be included in this Blue Bamboo Collections as follow :

‘Traveller has not been endowed with the honour
to enter any of Master’s doors for the chosen only
is able to taste and be intoxicated by Master’s spirits, wisdom, aura and fun.
It is not a question of fear but simply to whom the bounty the Almighty grants .
For which Traveller unfortunately is not one ‘.

Attendant Sidi Zuigan Commentary :

We are extremely thankful to Allah Tabaraka wa Taala this blessed morning where two of our long time Companions and ardent readers of Zen and Sufism send us their warm greeting of peace beside penning out new koans for all of you ! You shall not forget to record this in your diary.

When you finished this short course, go seek and pay visit and respect to them on my behalf.
My old bones and feets not strong enough to make travels to Malaysia, Indonesia, Europe or Africa this winter.

Bow three times to this two wise scholars, we feels that their Islam and Sufism are our true ally and will transform our future Way and revive the lost Wisdom !

Attendant Yung Ming Versify thus :

To sit in sunlight or to sit in shade
It doesnt matter the sun is East or West
This light from the blessed oil and Olive
From the star, the lamp and niche
Allah guides to His light whom He will
One man enrich a whole community

Let wage war against Number and Papers
O Sages of China and Nippon let appear!
The Time of Spring is here. A Tea Hut.
One traveller falters, ten will comes !
Once the door shut, the hut is gone !

By order of Master Dogen and Master Izi

Oh my new readers and are you my friend now
Do you understand that this Path under your very foot
Path that leads to Makkah and Madinah
A blessed sanctuary and an illuminated city.

Make your journey oh seeker, you will see wonders !
May i lend you the Haji Abu Zhulixin Journal of 2004
Thirty three days full of dusts, sweats and lights
Names, embraces, kisses and doa/prayers you never forget
in your life..where we received oud green Dalailul Khayrat

Where we pray and do zikir at top of Jabal Syubaykah in Makkah
Where we met Sidi Muhammad al-Kuryn of Damascus,
Sidi Abu Bakar ad=Darqawi from his father izin of Fez
Sidi Abdullah al-Mouneni of Meknes and his doa and
recitation from heart the Salawat Shaykh Ibn Mashish :

Oh Allah, we cannot thank You
by our every breath
and every glance and
every letters and words
we put forth and what is lost
and unwritten.

Alhamdulillah wa syukriliLlah.



Zuigan Added Another Jambu Koan No.Four:

Kill one, two will appear
Endgame you win and nobody lose
Bow four time times before retreat
Bow three times to cut off your enemy
Still we owe him two bow… ha ha what ?

Our venerable and wise Master Izi commented :

Confucius says the more one attack the false systems, the stronger it will becomes.
Democracy is a multi-headed monster. You cannot weakened it by blowing up buildings, Shooting the presidents and leaders. It merely make the government more repressive and curtailing its citizen freedom.

What is our endgame – to put our trust in the Economy, the Government, the Law and the Free Market and the United Nation ? What a pity people cannot see beyond the paper money and number currencies as real wealth, a source of power ? The usurious system that make money grow itself by a mathematical sacred formula –interest rate, compound interest and credit based derivates…will destroy this planet and enslaved its population…we are just another numbers and economic unit of consumer, producer or customer to the market and production system.

Bowing four times is the Islamic fardh night prayer of Isyak consist of 4 (ruku/rakaat) bowing and 8 sajda (prostration face touching the ground). After this late night prayer, normally the muslims can retire peacefully to bed, to sleep or to continue doing extra nawafil prayer, to do extra Quranic recitation or various zikirs…to polish the heart, deepen the slave yearning and supplication to the Generous and All Hearing Lord . Some fuqara will do extra salawat –prayers on the Prophet in various forms. The most famous and lengthy salawat compiled is the Dalailul Khayrat by Shaykh al-Jazuli, a sufi master from the Shadhilyya Path in north Africa. Millions of muslims and Sufis/fuqara still reciting some part of this old texts everyday, every week or every month or every joyful occasion like marriages, births of children, aqiqah, celebrating the Maulid and Awliya annual gatherings etc.

Bowing three times refer to rakaat of Mahgrib prayer, very important to seek protection of Allah for the beginning of the night from evils of shaytans, whisperings and whatever harms from creation that Allah Taala created and in His Knowledge and Power.

There are endless enemies among mankind also. Those who are jealous and envy and hypocrisy and direct enemies among the kafirun. The muslims still owed another prayer consist of two rakaat/bowing….that is Salatul Fajr or Subuh in the morning before sunrise as commanded in the Quran. As-salatul fajri kana masyhudan. The Angels of Daytime begin to record the affairs of the day after exchanging duties with the Angel of the Night from maghrib time.

(reproduced from Blue Diary of Zuigan dated Nov.2006)

Maulana Rumi Discourse and Sidi Khairuzin

We cannot recall what year this discourse text was handed over to poor memory of abuzuhri. But what we cannot forget is that one malaysian student Sidi Khairuzin whose father was a chinese muslim from Johor, Malaysia had stayed more than 15 years in England and learned many wisdom of Maulana Rumi through genuine masters such as Hajji Issa Bryce, Hajj Abdal Haqq Bewley, Sh.Abdal Aziz of New York who embrace Islam in Konya that had recounted to us the amazing stories from Rumi. He was given 6 volumes of Mathnawi edited by Nicholson.

He even got izin and learned the whirling dervish Melvlevi dance. One day his teacher in Norwich bought a six volume translation of Rumi poems Mathnawi and presented to him : 'It is yours, read it and we will going through its commentaries every week after the dhikr'. He was dumbstruck but manage to survive and blessed with opportunity to attend one annual meeting in Istanbul with the murids of Sh.Abdal qadir as-sufi.

He went to Hajj in 1990s with Hajj Abdal Aziz, the man who drawn into islam by the baraka and love of Rumi. Here is the beginning of such great journey blazed by a perfumed presence from Konya.

The Mevlevi Discourse – Instanbul, Turkey

Maulana, our Master Maulana Rumi , tells of this instance. There was a kafir master who had a slave, who was Muslim, and the Muslim slave was walking in the street with his master and they passed the mosque. And the slave said to him, "Please just let me go into the mosque to do two raqats." And the kafir said, "I will wait outside. Go and do your two raqats." So he went into the mosque, but he did not come out until the kafir put his head into the mosque and said, "Come out at once." And he heard the slave say, "I cannot come out, this thing is beyond the bounds." And the kafir said, "I do not believe you. Who is stopping you from coming out?" The Muslim said, "The same one who is stopping you from coming in." Here Maulana shows the secret of the destiny and the proof of the Deen.

You see, we have to recognise the life of the awliyya and the knowledge of existence that Allah has given to these awliyya and it is unconquerable, indestructible. Look at the miracle of the unseen world that has brought us all together today. Look at the connection that we have to the tariqa of Maulana. Look at the connection you have from Konya with Maulana, the master of Konya. Now, we know there was an attempt to destroy it utterly. We know the names of the blessed men who were hanged because of no other thing than that they were the masters of this secret.

The great tekkes were shut, they were turned into museums and their libraries were rendered unreadable by changing the alphabet. What an amazing thing that the man who holds the army under his command is afraid of these fuqara turning round and round and round yearning for Allah. What a tremendous thing, what a great thing, what a great light Maulana Rumi, radhi"allahu anhu. What spiritual power was released in those days and those nights in Konya. Kuffar came on their hands and knees to taste something of this. But though they see the tree they do not understand the root.

This is the miracle of the great wali Jalaludin, our master. And this is the miracle by which, drawn to this light, one of our brothers came all the way from America and went to Konya to learn with Suleiman Dede, radhi"allahu anhu. Shaykh Aziz, radhi"allahu anhu, studied under Suleiman Dede and his two sons are here.

Shaykh Aziz went on Hajj and after the Hajj he had a dream and he saw the earth just bursting with flowers. Flowers burst out of the earth and Rasulullah, salallahu alayhi wa salem, came to greet him. He got to Madinah. He fell ill. When they saw he was very ill, they said, "We must take you to hospital." They said, "Do not worry you will soon be well." He said, "I am very very happy. I have seen the Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem, and he has told me something." They took him to hospital, the next morning he was dead. He was buried in Baqi alongside his Imam, Imam Malik, and close to Sayyedina Uthman. Two hundred people fought to carry his body to the grave.

So the light of this knowledge and the love of this knowledge was not dead. And the destiny had taken this servant of Maulana to Madinah to unite him with Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem. But one thing has happened, and that is that they have shut the book of the Maulana, they have shut Mathnawi.

The tariqa will recover by the turning and by the opening of Mathnawi. Because there is a special message to the lovers of Allah in the Mathnawi and it is that you are unconquerable, that the world belongs to you, both the worlds belong to you.

This is the message to those ones who love Allah. When I came out of khalwa my Shaykh said to me, "Now" he said, "no hand is over your hand." It is this freedom of slavery that is that power from Allah that the kafir fears because he cannot get it, cannot take it, cannot conquer it, so that even when the Shuyukh of the Mevlevi were hanged their bodies on the rope turned to Qibla.

This path of knowledge is the path of the power of Allah. It is a great, great thing in this world because it is indestructible while the world is here. Look what it is founded on. They shut the tekkes, but what were they going to do, kill everybody? There had awakened in a man and awakened in a woman, a desire for Allah that cannot be destroyed.

But once you realise that you have been taken by Allah all the people are raised up by you. The reality of Maulana"s tariqa was the glory of the Sultan and his government. His Shaykh, Shaykh al-Islam, his Qadis, his army, his order to Jihad. It was the dynamic of the Mevlevi that gave the dynamic to the court of the Sultan. The elite of the country were turned to Allah, they were not turned to the gaining of the victory. They were free from that.

So when the Mevlevi were strong the whole of the Sultaniyya were strong, the whole "Ummah of Islam was strong. The Shari'at was strong because the Haqiqat was strong. So the ones who follow the path of this are the ones who will restore the Shari"at to its glory, not because they think it is a great thing, but because they know it will be pleasing to Allah and Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem. And victory will come because to the faqir this world is a little thing. But we must make it clean for Allah, we must give Allah what He wants. And what does Allah want? He wants "ibada, He wants the poor to be protected, He wants the Zakat to be collected by force,

He wants a Sultan to rule his people in the image of the Topkapi like the shepherd looks after his flock. He wants an army of Jihad to follow the orders of Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem. He wants His juma"ah to be complete with his dua for his Sultan. How does he achieve it? Because he (Fqdir) does not care, he does not care about this world. He has moved from fear of creation to fear of Allah. And the kuffar, the enemies of Islam, they care and their care weighs them down. And that is why the victory is with the people who love Allah.

When I was last in Istanbul, I said, "I want to speak in the mosque, I want to hold dhikr in the mosque." Everyone said, "Do not do it, it is impossible. We cannot do it." We sent a representative to Istanbul, spoke with various people and suddenly the Imam of the mosque of Sultan Salim, radhi"allahu anhu, said "Yes, you can have the dhikr here." They then said, "You will not get the State permission." The permission came from Istanbul. The permission came from Ankara. And we said, "Look! Sultan Salim has done this." If he could take Makkah and Madinah alive is he not going to open the door of his own mosque from the grave?


When we came to Sultan Salim's mosque I said, "I will not set foot in it until I go to greet him in his tomb." They said, "you cannot, the guardian is gone, he lives on the other side of Istanbul." I said, "I cannot go until I have greeted him." They said, "but it is impossible." "I must greet him." Suddenly they said, "Look! Amazing. Here he is. He has come back." He said, "I was just going to catch the tram and I thought I had to come back." He opened the door and took us in and then he showed us on the wall a plaque. He explained that when Sultan Salim reached Damascus, at that time the grave of Ibn al-Arabi had been desecrated and no one knew where it was. Sultan Salim then had said, "We must find it, we must honour this wali." They walked around and everything was covered with filth and dirt. He said, "What is that piece of metal, what is that plaque?" And they cleaned it and there was something written in Arabic. It said, "What you are looking for is under your feet."

Now look at this, Shaykh al-Akbar, Muhiddin ibn al-Arabi, leaves instructions noticeably put by his grave and he is put under the earth. What is this meaning for us? Why does he want this for us? He was buried honourably in his place. The time passed, the tomb was desecrated and covered with grass but the message was waiting. Who was it waiting for? Sultan Salim Yavuz. Look how Yavuz was. Commotion comes into his heart and he says, "Find it! Find it!" And it happened with Sultan Mehmet and the guardian of the banner of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa salem, Moulay Ayyub. That was the same, was it not? And so he restored the grave of Ibn al-Arabi, built the tomb, recovered his final testament where he had ordered a waqf by which every day the poor should be fed a bowl of soup and a certain weight of meat. So he re-established the waqf. And from that day until this, in Syria, in Damascus the poor are fed from the waqf of Ibn al-Arabi.

This is why the kuffar are afraid. They are afraid that we will not come out, and they know that by their fear, they cannot go in. Victory is with the Muslims. The establishment of the Khalifate will be by the hands of the people who love Allah, not only by an army with swords, but also by the passionate love and yearning of the people who love Allah. Open the Mathnawi. The more he goes into the knowledge of Marifa, the more he recognises the reality and importance of the Shariat and of the Sultan, because the Muslim moves in two worlds. He moves in the world where he is under the orders of the Shariat and that is the necessary condition of this exalted event which is the turning. So it is by this that we will turn everything upside down. This is why by turning, the faqir is let loose, he is set free. Like you open the cage of the tiger. Passionate desire for knowledge of Allah. And with this everything will change. Look what happened to Maulana Jalaludin Rumi, raheemallah. He was an Alim, he was a Sufi, he was perfectly behaved and then through the doors came a wild half-crazy-to-the-world faqir, Shams at Tabriz and the world turned upside down. Tariqa turned upside down. Maulana turned upside down. His Sultan turned upside down. His fuqara turned upside down. He was gone. There was no price to pay, he was gone. If that had not happened, this could not happen. Without that drunkenness there would not be this sobriety. This is the truth and this is the inextinguishable. And once it awakens it never will be put out and such a man does not die, he does not die. He leaves this world but he continues working in the Unseen. Awliya work continuously.

How is it that when we meet among us there is recognition? Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem, said, "If there is recognition in the world of bodies it is because there was a meeting in the world of spirits." We are from before the worlds. Maulana Jalaludin said to the "ulama who were arguing about whether the world was created or eternal, he said, "You cannot prove it is eternal, but we can prove it was created because we were there before it was created. And Allah said to us, "Alasta bi rabbikum?" "Am I not your Lord? And all of us said, "Yes!" Where was the world then? So we know what you do not know."

Now, by this path everything opens to you. Understanding of the Message. The most difficult thing to know, knowledge of Allah by His opposite meanings. The maqam of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq who when he was asked in an illness, "Who made you better?" replied, "The same one who made me ill." Allah had manifested by majesty, but He then recognised when He manifested by beauty, because it was the same. One of the great sufis said, "I reached Allah by His opposite Names." Rumi explained, he said, "What is joy? It is the end of suffering. What is the suffering? It is the end of joy." The suffering needs the joy and the joy needs the suffering, but you do not understand them until you realise that they are both from Allah. This is the commotion set up by love of Allah in the faqir. It is crazy but it is not mad. It is not mad by Shariat, but it is mad by the wisdom we know, which is why wildness of the heart is draped in the somber, majestic robe of black. All that happened to Maulana, was that he was set ablaze and then suddenly the source of it vanished.

And then people tell the story that after that he turned in grief for the loss of Shamsuddin. This would not last a thousand years! No! Shams had done it! Shams had won! He had set him free! He says himself in his Mathnawi, "When you get to Makkah where do you go?" When you are Hajji you struggle and struggle but when you get to Makkah where do you go? What do you do when you have got there? Maulana explains that one who is on a journey has a goal, the one who has reached the goal is free, the bonds are broken. So he stood. What did he do? He turned round his own heart, like the Hajji who has arrived at the Kaaba. He cannot go in, it is Allah's house. So he goes round and round and round. Go to Makkah, go to the Kaaba. I have seen a man do tawaf until he was on his knees and falling on the ground. But is that not what this is? This is a tremendous thing.

Now one last thing. Who were those who could best realise the power of this? The people whose days were worn out and weighted with the responsibility of the world. They saw, "This has attained what I have not attained. One sip of this glass will refresh me." Though I do not turn, their turning will refresh me." So the Bey and the Beylerbey and the Wazir, they saw from this that Allah was the Mighty. The Qadi, the Shaykh al-Islam, he heard the remonstrance of Maulana that is not anything but the inscription of the knowledge. So all these people are lifted up by the turning of the Mevlevi and this is the great victory.


Please take from this place to Konya the greetings of your brothers and sisters here. Tell them we are not stopped from anything by the laws. Allah has done it to awaken us to a great passion. And when our hearts burst open, the tekkes will burst open. When the tekkes burst open then the mosques will fill up with people who will say, "Not just the mosque but also the awqaf to look after the poor. Not just sadaqa but zakat." Until again there is someone in Yildiz for all the Muslims.


Konya is the guardian of the future of Islam in all the world. You are the ones who by the light that Allah gives you will change the whole face of the Muslim world. You will not believe what you will see. Inshallah you will live to see great things. Because victory of Konya, is the victory of Maulana, Shams at-Tabriz, and it is the victory of their master Rasul, salallahu alayhi wa salem.

We ask Allah to increase the light of Konya.

We ask Allah to open the gates of the tekkes to allow the turning
to be spread throughout all of the Muslim world.

We ask Allah to bless all the Effendis, and all the Salihin and
all the Tariqa of Mevlevi through the ages since this terrible tragedy.

I ask Allah's blessing on Suleiman Dede.

We ask Allah to bless Shaykh Aziz and give him light
in the grave and we ask Allah to put his sons on the Tariqa of the Mevlevi.

We ask Allah to bless all of the Shuyukh in this age
and Allah to give light to the tomb of Sultan Abdalhamid.

By the light of the dhikr restore all the Muslims under one leader.

We ask Allah to give safety and protection for all
of the brothers from Konya who have come to visit us.

And we ask Allah to increase and
overflow the lights of those who do the turning.
We ask Allah to give them baraka from the act of the turning.

By their having come here solely for the sake of Allah,
to make them leaders in the land, to spread the teaching of Maulana.

And we ask Allah's protection on this mosque,
restore it to its position as a place of leadership.

And we ask Allah's blessing on all the Muslims of Turkey
who are working towards the establishment
of the Deen in Turkey and Arabistan.

Endnote:
Tabarakallah, until now our Dailin Nur teahut library already stacked with 3 fine essays and poems related to Maulana Rumi, Master Izi, Dr.Anqaravi and Dr.Abdad ar-Rauwi. We hope to edited and repost more such gems old notes by many of our Rumi lovers in Nursantara.

The Difficult Journey : A Review

THE DIFFICULT JOURNEY
by Haji Ahmad Thomson
( Taha Publisher,London 1994)

Book Review by Abuzuhri shin

I bought this book in 1995 at Saba Media Bookstore, Setiawangsa Branch. Its owner Hajjah Sabariah Abdullah was an active and dedicated chinese muslim to the causes of da'wa around Kuala Lumpur. Saba Media had in the past successfully invited many renown islamic speakers to lecture to the public and educational institutions. Just to add a little spices, Haji Ahmad Thomson is no stranger to us. He travelled to Malaysia and stayed briefly with us at the Bukit Kerinci Apartment near University of Malaya, KL in 1980.

This book review was written mainly to show an important aspect of the author journey to perform Hajji or Pilgrimage to Makkah which encompassed his his understanding, guidance, connection and transmission of the living Islam from his Sufic Master of amazing european background. The author himself was a British citizen raised up in Zimbawe, Africa and studied Law at Exeter, Oxford University. He embraced Islam at the blessed presence of sufi Raja Mahmudabad a descendant of the mughal rulers of India. To discover who were this two men blessed by Allah Tabaraka wa Taala and how life changed around them, we need to read more books or encounter the men who actually meet them. He also the author of other books such Jesus The Prophet of Islam, Dajjal The Emperor Without Clothes, The Way Back and Blood On The Cross. He visited Malaysia in 1980, gave talks, attending dhikr circles , visited the pondoks in Kelantan and unsuccessfully attempting his land trip back to Europe through Thailand, Burma and India.

Life is but a journey of return to Allah. I will not using my own words to review this wonderful book but merely make a selection of passages by the author. Each passages or quotations are indicated by the sub-title of the chapters and events related to the journey. The most important thing to remember is to see Ahmad Thomson as a faqir, murid, seeker and traveler on the Path Allah so we may experienced differently the moving nature of the story. Not as a travel book but the reflection of a seeker going out to test his resolve and trust in his sufic teacher and Allah’s vast mercy and gifts along the Way. This book was available in most muslim bookshops in Kuala Lumpur (e.g Saba Media at Setiawangsa and Specialist Bookshop at KLCC).

A Short Preamble : London , Spring 1994

This book would not have been written had it not been for Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi who showed me the beauty and majesty and truth of Islam and who sent me out on the hajj.

Author’s Note

Most of the definitions in the glossary of Arabic Terms are taken directly
or derive from the books listed.. ..which should all be read in oder to arrive at an understanding which is beyond the scope of this book. They are from the overflowing wisdom of Sidi Shaykh , by the permission of Allah and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and his family and his companions and all those who follow in his footsteps, and grant them peace.

Preface

Each of us lives in a different world, in a different universe, each one true, in a subtle unified patterning that can only be described as perfect. We travel through life, learning as we go, and sometimes we pause.. it was in the summer of 1977 that Abdal Jalil ( another faqir) and I decide to set out to go on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the House of Allah in Makka, the Difficult Journey as it called. ( I bought the book in 1995 at RM 32.50 . I had read it many times. Ahmad Thomson had traveled to Malaysia in 1980 to visit the fuqara and two muqaddim of sidi Shaykh. He stayed a few days with us in KL. we had gathering of dhikr, sung the Diwan of shaykh Muhammad ibn alHabib and doing the hadra with the students of Yayasan Anda. He also visited the pondok of Tar Tujuh in Kelantan.Now Sidi Ahmad Thomson actively serve at the Europe Muslims Lawyer Society and wrote many books and contributes to magazines etc)

London

‘what do you want ? Shaykh Abdal Qadir looked keenly at me and through me as he spoke, as if he already knew exactly what I wanted to, but was just asking the question so that I would discover the answer for myself. I looked into my heart…I seemed to be living in books. I was tired of words, especially printed ones. I wanted action. I wanted adventure. I wanted to be out on the open road , traveling in the way of Allah. ‘ I want to go on hajj – on foot’, I replied. ‘ it would take far too long! Grinned sidi Shaykh with delight, and that seemed to be that….our only instruction from Sidi Shaykh were to visit the awliya and to sing the Diwan wherever we went. ( There is a malay translation of the Diwan for personal use of the fuqara. UKM is editing a new version to be published soon). We have ticket to Athen and visas to enter Egypt..somehow we quite not sure to make our way to Alexandaria and then down to Sudan, trusting in the truth of shaykh Muhyiddin ibn arabi’s words,’ whoever engages in travel will arrive !’ ( this quotation was found in the the Sidi Shaykh book- The Way of Muhammad 1974. I bought a copy before embracing islam in 1978).

Athens

Accordingly I passed much of the time singing my heart out, sometimes singing my favorites pop songs, sometimes reciting what little Quran I knew by heart, sometimes singing from the Diwan, and sometimes repeating the various forms of dhikr which Sidi Shaykh had given me to do, such as :

Astaghfirullah
Hasbuna Allahu wa ni’mal wakil
La ilaha illa Allah
Allahumma salli ala sayyidina muhammadin abdika
wa rasulika nabiyyil ummiyyi wa ala alihi
wa ashabihi wa salim taslima.

Shaykh Abdal Qadir once said that the effect of reciting ‘ Astaghfirullah’ on the heart is like sweeping away dust with a brush, and that the effect of repeating the prayer on the Prophet on the heart is like washing clothes by hand, and that the recitation of ‘la ilaha illa Allah’ purifies one’s innermost secret.

Having found a secluded spot, we held a short gathering of dhikr, singing from the Diwan of shaykh Muhammad ibn alHabib for an hour or so, and the doing a long strong Hadra – which is the invocation of the name of Allah al-Hayyu done standing. Al-Hayyu means the Living, the Alive, the One who gives Life. Having completed the hadra, we sat down in a small circle, and I recited the ayatul –kursi in the calm serenity that always follows the invocation of Allah.

Alexandaria

In no time at all we had been swallowed up in Alexandaria’s busy street. We have arrived. Alhamdulillah wa syukrillah. We decided that the best and first thing to do was to to go to the tomb of shaykh Abul Abbas alMursi, one of the exalted teachers in the long line of teachers that stretched , without a break in the chain of transmission of wisdom, from the Prophet sallaLlahu alaihi wasallam, and all his true followers, to our teacher (Abul Abbas alMursi was the teacher of Shaykh ibn Ataillah, author of the famous book Hikam ).

We spent the rest of the day resting and catching up with ourselves, not exactly sure what to do next, but in no particular hurry, soaking in the baraka of the presence of abul abbas almursi’s ruh, which is undeniably there. The baraka of the awliya is subtle energy which emanates from the ruh which is pure light. Whoever is near the ruh of a wali, whether it is be in his body or in his grave or in a true dream, experience its baraka, just as those who stand in the sunlight feel its energy, and just as those who dive in the ocean feel its wetness. It was during this resting space, we decided that we must visit the tomb of Shaykh Abul Hassan Shadhili, the renowned teacher of shaykh Abul Abbas alMursi, although we have no idea where he was buried.

Cairo

Perhaps our most memorable meeting in Cairo was with khalifa Ibrahim, the representative of Shaykh al-Fayturi (the second teacher of shaykh Abdal Qadir after shaykh Muhammad ibn alhabib passed away in 1971 ) who was in Benghazi, in Cairo. Just as all the world’s political leaders have representatives in different countries, so do the world’s true spiritual leaders. Just as the world’s embassies are characterize by formality and protocol, so the world’s zawiyyas are characterized by sincere courtesy and good behaviour.

At last we arrived at the tomb of Shaykh Ahmad Ataillah, and the beautiful mosque which had only recently been built there by a wealthy businessmen who loved Allah and His Messenger and His Awliya.

Humaysara

This was a rough country. It is said that it is never easy to reach a great Wali, and that the greater a Wali is, the more difficult the journey is to reach him. If this was true, I thought, then Shaykh as-Shadhili must be a very great wali ! Humaysara was an extraordinary place. We had traveled all day through the desert ,without seeing another living being, and yet here, in the middle of nowhere, suddenly tere was life: a tomb, a mosque, a small village, and people…Like many great walis, shaykh Shadhili knew when he was going to die. When the time was close, he summoned his closest murid, Abul Abbas al-Mursi, and told him to prepare two camels for a long journey. ‘ What for ?’ asked Abul Abbas.’ You will see in Humaysara’ replied his shaykh. Shaykh Abul Hassan as-Shadhili spent the rest of his life on the top of a small hill immersed in the remembrance of Allah.

Aswan

Shaykh Abdal Qadir once said that outwardly the fast of Ramadhan is like an illness, while inwardly it is a journey. We were well and truly on on our way to the Sudan in the all pervading baraka of Ramadhan. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace said that those who fast have two rewards: One when they break their fast, and one when they meet their Lord. The custom official looked at us, at our passports, at our declarations, and back at us again. ‘ No money ?’ He said. ‘ Yes , we had no money’. He paused significantly, looking at our documentation, perhaps s not quite sure what to do about us, and in that moment a bearded turbaned man on the other side of the barrier called out, ‘ Shaykh Abdal Bourhani !’ in a clear strong voice. ‘Yes, I replied, ‘Shaykh Abdal Bourhani’ . ‘ Good’, he said firmly, stamping our passports and letting us through the barrier as if there was nothing more to say. The man who opened the way for us was the muqaddem of the Bourhaniyya zawiya in wadi halfa, and had receive a message from hajj Mustafa in alexandaria that we were on the ferry.

The flat desert reminded me of the descriptions I had read of what will be like on the Last Day, when the oceans have all dried up, and the mountains have disintegrated into dust and dissolved like clouds, so that all that remains is a very vast silvery plain of sand, on which all the people who have ever lived will be brought back to life and gathered together and then separated between the Garden and the Fire.

Omdurman

Only one task remained: before we had left England, Shaykh Abdal Qadir instructed us to visit the awliya and to sing the diwan of shaykh Muhammad ibn alHabib wherever we went. This, to our best ability, we had done. Sidi Shaykh also asked Abdal Jalil to bring him back a hand written Quran from Sudan. This we still had to acquire. Strangely enough, the matter had been clarified for us when we had been in the crater of Daribe. During that very cold night I had a dream just before dawn, that a figure wearing a white robe and turban and holding a tasbih had said to me’ ‘ Whatever you do , don’t visit shaykh Hamza again’. On first awaking, I had not really had time to reflect on the dream….on rerunning the dream through my mind, I had realised what struck me as being rather strange about it. Although the figure in the dream had been dressed like a muslim, there had been fire in his eyes. It must have been shaytan trying to deflect us off course, audhu bi’Llahi minas-syaitanir rajim.

Accordingly, now that we were back in Omdurman, we went round to visit shaykh hamza one vening after maghrib, and told hm what our shaykh had requested. Shaykh Hamza paused. ‘ Hand written Quran are worth a lot of money ‘, he said. ‘ we have only 6 pounds between us’, replied abdal jalil. ‘ keep your money’, he replied’. ‘I was testing your sincerity’. You rea welcome to have one of my hand written Quran. Please give it to your shaykh with my greeting. Only a couple of weeks ago I had a dream in which I met Shaytan riding on a camel . ‘where are you going off now ?’ I asked him. He replied that he was going to England. ‘why there ?’ I asked. He replied, ‘The people over there are intelligent, so I have more work over there than in places like here where people are half asleep !’. Shaykh Hamza who was a large man, laughed heartily. Now we could leave Sudan without regret.

I spent some time making dua , asking Allah for all that I wanted, including a safe journey to Makka, and an acceptable hajj and a safe return to England. I also asked for a wonderful life and an easy death, and peace in the grave, and no fear on the Last Day, a swift entrance into the Garden, both for myself and for everyone that I loved and everyone that I met. Finally, I asked to be given what all the the true Awliya are given, the highest deepest knowledge that there is, gnosis of Allah. We had just left the tomb when the adhan of maghrib rang out.

Perhaps we were just tired from our travels, or perhaps we had just enough of visiting awliyas, whether in their bodies or in their graves. After all the meeting we had had along the way, I knew for certain that the only shaykh with whom I really wanted to be was my own Shaykh. Although one should not really be concerned with comparing different shaykhs, for it is like comparing different mirrors- whatever their outward forms, they are bound to give you basically the same reflection - I met no one who was as balanced or as knowledgeable or as wise or as correctly behaved as Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi. I realized how pure an Islam it was that he embodied and transmitted, and just how accurate and perceptive and truthful his words were. I could not wished for a better guide and teacher.

Everyone Is Right

The beauty of it all is that every sincere follower of a Shaykh is certain that his or her shaykh is the best Shaykh in the world – and they are all right, for every one is given the Shaykh that they deserve, in accordance with their own sincerity and strength of resolution, the Shaykh who is best suited to guide them along the path that leads to knowledge and wisdom. One may visit many Shaykhs for the baraka and for spiritual gifts and knowledges, but one only takes one Shaykh as one’s spiritual healer and guide along the path that leads to self knowledge and gnosis of Allah.

Loyalty to one’s shaykh and trust in him is part of sincerity. One of the gifts of our journey so far had been the realization and confirmation of this basic truth. I had always trusted Shaykh Abdal Qadir from the first moment that we had met, but it was good to realize more fully just how good and realible a guide he was, and to know with greater certainty that I had no desire or need to look for any other shaykh.

Perhaps also, I realized soon , insya’Allah , we would be visiting the tomb of the man through whom all the Awliya receive their knowledge and wisdom, and without whom there would not have been any Shaykhs to visits or any Hajj to do…even the greatest Shaykh is only a drop compared to the ocean of the Prophet ..further more ,beyond all these considerations was the fact that in only a few more days we would be in Makka, insya’Allah, immersing ourselves deeply in the worship of the One who is the Source of all the Prophets and all the Awliya and indeed everyone and everything in creation. (p.195)

Khartoum

Suddenly, swiftly at the speed of light, time had flashed by. We were at Khartoum airport, waiting for our flight to be called. It had been truly wonderful. Never knowing what would happen next or whether we would ever make it, the adventure had unfolded, permeated with baraka and rahma, until finally , here, we were safe, sound and just waiting to make that short hop over to the Arabian peninsula ! I felt as if I was the most fortunate man in the world !

(review not complete)

Tuscon Discourse and Faqir Abdullah Koya

Preface by Abu Zuhri Shin of Dailin Nur

In early 1980s, my friend from Petaling jaya, Malaysia named Sidi Abdullah Koya got his father blessing to study in Baytudeen Zahra Institute, San Antonio, Tuscon, USA. He was a great servant among the younger students and children in the small sufic community established by Sh.Fadhllah Haeri. However as Divinely decreed, he passed away and buried there due to a drowning incident. He cannot swim but in reality his spirit fly to the highest realm. His father Hajji Koya Kutty was an active publisher of islamic books and magazines such as Reading of Islam, Islamic Crescent weekly and Islamic book trust. May Allah shower His mercy and forgive Sidi Abdullah Koya and place him among the righteous.

This accompanying discourse by a travelling sufic master many years earlier had briefly visited this small community in a caravan style da'wah trip that finally ended at the coast of Berkeley, California USA. We dedicated all the baraka and affected hearts by this excellent discourse to our readers especially from Malaysia. We were informed one chinese faqir from Penang named Sidi Hashim Lee had also studied briefly at this center in 1990s since then no more news from him but a letter which he stated: " I hope to die in the land of my Teacher'.
Here are the opening lines for you...

Tucson/USA Discourse May 1978 : The Path
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim

Fuqara'- faqirat. I would like, insha'llah, to say something about Tariq of Allah, the Path to Allah. It can be talked about in different ways, and it can be talked about in different languages, different vocabularies. It is can be talked about using the language of the Qur'an, the language of Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala. It can be talked about using the special language of the people of the Qawm, of the Folk, who have created their own technical vocabulary to describe their ahwal wa'l-maqamat, their inner states and their stations with Allah; the inner states, that only they know about and the maqamat that only Allah knows about, and that the awliya' recognise in them. In other words, they do not recognise their maqam, but they know their hal. You can talk about it in this way.

You can talk about its extraordinary exterior, turuqs: Naqshbandiyya, Shadhiliyya, Darwaqiyya, Chistiyya; about shuyukh: this shaykh and that shaykh; about karamat, about the maqam of this one and the maqam of that one; about Aqtab, Awtad, Salihun – all these different ways you can talk about Tasawwuf. Or you can make up your own story and still talk about it, no one will contradict you. Shaykh al-Fayturi said, "We're not interested in wirds; we're not interested in wazifas, this shaykh and that shaykh, the sadiqun are only interested in one thing: ma'rifa. Recognition of Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala. Nothing else matters. One of the Sufis of the east in Pakistan has said, "Shuyukh do not fly; their murids make them seem to fly. The shuyukh do not fight each other, their murids make them seem to fight each other." In other words, the ahl al-haqiqat, the people of reality, are in complete agreement, in complete harmony, there is no debate between them.

So how are we going to talk about Tariq, about the Way? There is Tariq, and there is Sabil, Sabilillah, fi-sabilillah, in the way of Allah. The tariq, tariqa sufiyya, properly speaking is sabil. Sabil is from a root which means rain. Rain comes out of non-existence, out of the cloud-form and becomes rain. It was cloud, it becomes rain, and it disappears. It completely disappears, and only its results are seen, which is grass and flowers, and food for others. Imam Junayd, radiya'llahu 'anhu, the Imam of the 'Arifeen, and the People of the Tariq, the Tariq of Allah, said, "The Sufi is like dung, turf on the earth and all the different seeds are thrown onto it, and from this, roses and all the beautiful flowers spring up and bloom.

If we want to understand the Tariqa, the Way properly, we must remember the hadith of Sayyiduna Muhammad, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam. He said, "From my time till the end, there will be no time that is not worse than the time before it." He also said, "If anyone in my time omits one of ten things that are commanded, he will go to the Fire" because he has this tremendous example before him of Sayyiduna Muhammad, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam. "But a time will come when, if anyone does one out of ten things, he will achieve the Garden." So we have to things to understand. There is a diminishing of knowledge, a diminishment of knowledge, a disappearance of knowledge off the face of the earth. Also Allah ta'ala's baraka, Allah ta'ala's karamat, the fadl of Allah is so overflowing. Shaykh Ahmad al-Badawi said, radiya'llahu 'anhu, "The fadl of Allah lies in increase." His overflowing is increase. More, more more. This meaning is in an ayat of Qur'an al-Karim, "He never removes an ayat, a sign, but he replaces it with one equal to it, or better than it," meaning in one of its meanings, that when a wali is removed, he is replaced with another wali as good or better than the one who has been.

In this meaning, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "My maqam..." and because of his high station, he spoke of his maqam. But this is not the way of the people of understanding, but he said in a moment of delight, "My maqam, when I was teaching at the Qarawiyyin," this was therefore at the whole beginning of his affair, when he was just begun, on the tariqa sufiyya. "My maqam, when I was teaching at the Qarawiyyin, has never been equalled by any wali except Moulay 'Abdal-Qadir al-Jilani, radiya'llahu 'anhu. Moulay Abdal-Qadir al-Jilani is the great Qutb, to whom we all turn, and to whom we all trace our footsteps. He was indicating by this, that according to the darkness of the age and the ignorance of the age, Allah ta'ala increases blessings among His people. The wali of Bahlil, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said one day while talking with us, "This is an age of shuyukh and no murideen." It's an age of teachers, teachers by the idhn of Allah, and no one will follow them. They are here, there and there, and nobody wants to know. One of the people of the Way used to go into the city and beat a drum and say, "There's knowledge going, who wants knowledge? Come out!" to see who would come, and a few people would come.

Another story told by the men of knowledge is that a faqir was travelling, and he recognised by his heart a great man of Allah coming towards him, and the man was running out of the town, and he said, "Don't go in there." He said, "What is the matter? Is it the plague?" He said, "No, there is a town in which people do not want knowledge." I am speaking in the language of the people of tasawwuf, knowledge, to the people of tasawwuf as we were talking about this morning with one group, is not contained within the realm of information. Information is the lowest, most limited, and first degree of knowledge after which there are two degrees, each one of them higher than the other, each with its own language, each with its own science, and each with its own zone in which it may be experienced. And people do not know it exists, and when they hear it exists, only a small group of people want to have this experience, to have this knowledge. Why is this? Because we are in an age of outward expansion, and inner contraction. People want to expand outwardly, and therefore they contract inwardly. It's an age where people have no adab, as we say, they have not got manners; and manners are the Path: "at-Tariqa, kulluha adab."
The tariqa is nothing but good manners, and people do not have good manners. They are not able to sit properly. They sit like babies, like children in perambulators: they lounge. Why? Because they are outwardly free. Why? Because they are inwardly imprisoned. Islam is Shari'at. Islam is shahada, salat, siyam, zakat, hajj. All of which are imprisoning, all of which have their conditions, all of which trap you, all of which shrink you, all of which constrict you outwardly, and all of which have their expansion inwardly.

This is an age of freedom. People are free: "I do this. I do that. I go with the flow. I do what I like. It doesn't suit me. I don't like it. I have an opinion." What is opinion? Opinion is something you have been taught by others to have, imagining it is from yourself. Sufis say, "beware of opinion". Why? Not because it is evil or bad or dangerous, but because it gives you kingdom. It enthrones, and it enthrones you in ignorance. Speculation is the way of ignorance. You speculate when you do not know. Tasawwuf is science. Science is from knowledge, and it has no speculation: in its beginning, in its middle, or in its end.

So here we have something called the Tariq of Allah, which has always been used about it, a special vocabulary. This vocabulary has divided people into three groups: the common, the elite, and the elect of the elite, and in every definition the sufis say: the common have this understanding, and the elite have the opposite understanding, and the elect of the elite have both understandings. We have three knowledges, but who takes these knowledges? Who takes them? Who wants them? And where will he get them, and where will he get them? And where will he know he is not getting rubbish? Where will he know he has got the right thing?

Abu'l-'Abbas al-Mursi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "The murid will get the shaykh in accordance with the quality and degree of his himma and his yearning. One shaykh was asked, "Who is the perfect shaykh?" He replied, "Bring me the perfect murid and I will show you the perfect shaykh." Why? Because it's all in the hand of the muridin, but who are the muridin? Murid is from a root which is irada, and irada means will, and it means one who has handed over his will completely to another, that the murid has handed his will completely to his shaykh. Where can you find such people? Only a handful of people. Good weather obedience is no use to anybody. It is only of use when the nafs is constricted, and the nafs rebels and it still obeys: that is the murid. And in that conflict, and in that obedience, is the victory, and the gnosis is glued on to it, by the secret of Allah. And where is that person? That is the murid. That is the one who has the secret already right there at that point, that is the rajulu'llah. It is a tremendous thing. It is a tremendous, tremendous thing.
If I start now, I could go on and never finish, with simply singing the praises of the murid; because all the love of Allah is on him. He is the lover, moving to the Beloved; why is he called the elite if he is not the elite? They are the elite. "The fuqara'," Shaykh Abu Madyan, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "are the Sultans." They are the princes. If you are this person, you are this. If you are not, you are not. If you are outwardly a Sultan and outwardly a prince, then know you are not this, because these are sultans of the inward and princes of the inward. Outwardly they are dust and inwardly they are gold. What a rare person that is now.

Imam Junayd, radiya'llahu 'anhu, walked through the streets of Baghdad and said, "Where will I find one man in the whole of Baghdad?" One man is all of Baghdad, at the time of Shibli, Hallaj and Junayd, and all these great awliya', radiya'llahu 'anhum. Al-Hujwiri, radiya'llahu 'anhu, speaking about the time the Companions, said, "Sufism is a name without a reality." So what is it now? "I am this tariq, or I am this tariq. I have this shaykh, or I have this shaykh." Now you have something that is the opposite of Imam al-Junayd. In the days of al-Junayd, if Junayd was there, you clung to him, you would cleave to him, you would not be separate from him, except under his order, and then you wept, and fought, and resisted being separated from him.
And in this age I crossed Islam from one end to the other, and then everywhere in the Umma, I meet people who say, "Oh, I go to Damascus." They say, "I have a shaykh in Cairo. I go to Cairo," and they say, "I have a shaykh in Pakistan. I go to Pakistan." They say, "I have a shaykh in Morocco." What is this? Is this tasawwuf? It's just a picture on the wall. What is that? "I want to be near you." "Go and do your business." "Then we can leave our business and come back": That is the lover. "I don't want to be separate from you." "Go, you have to." Then in going there is a secret, but otherwise you cleave to the shaykh.

Why? Why should you cleave to the shaykh? Is what they say about the Sufis true? Then is it all bida', and someone is being interposed between a man and Allah? No! Who are the Sadiqun? They are those who when you see them, remind you of Allah. They are a mirror for you, in which you may reflect more deeply on the reality of existence, on the truth of existence. What a big thing it is, and when you see these people, when you meet these people, and when you sit with these people. What is it? What is it that passes between you. Someone said to me, "If they knew what we had, they would try to steal it from us." But you cannot steal it. How can you steal it? But what is the murid? Let us go to the source. 'Abdal-Qadir al-Jilani, radiya'llahu 'anhu, is the source of teaching, of tasawwuf. He says, "Be with the shaykh like the dead body is in the hands of the washer." This he says in the 'Ayniyya. Who is this? Who is this person? This is the one who is interesting.

When Hajj 'Isa came out of the khalwa, Shaykh al-Fayturi said to him at the very point that he had arrived at knowledge, gnosis and lights, "Now you are a slave and servant of the fuqara'." When I made Abdal-Kabir muqaddim, and he went to the wali of Bahlil who had told him in advance that he would be made muqaddim, and there was no sign of him being made muqaddim, and he was a perfect nuisance, and he went to him and said, "Now what do I do?" and he said, "The muqaddim is before the fuqara' like a donkey on which all the fuqara' place the load of their troubles and their burdens, and he is behind the fuqara' like a dog, who runs behind them protecting them without them even knowing it. And what is muqaddim? It means the one who goes ahead, and it is a name of Allah, al-Muqaddim, and it is a name of Sayyiduna Muhammad, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam.
What a tremendous name, and in it are the secrets of 'ubudiyya, in it are the secrets of slavehood, because everything that has an attribute of Allah, exalts Allah, and when it relates to us it brings us low. Because He cannot be associated with anything. He is Exalted and High, and we are low. The Lord is the Lord and the slave is the slave. Look at this, can you do this in five minutes? Can you reach it in five minutes? Can you get me this in five minutes?

Can you put a hat on it and be it? Can you give a hand? I have met again, again, and again people who say, "Oh, I've given my hand to a shaykh." Well, what is he doing with this collection of hands? Is he keeping them in a box? What is this? Is this tasawwuf? Where is your heart? I'm not interested in your hands. I don't want one-handed people. Shari'a tells me you are a thief! Shari'a tells me you are a thief! This is not ba'yat. You cannot say it. Lovers hide their love. Real lovers hide their passion. They do not speak about it. False claimants boast about their amatory adventures. The lover hides, quiet, when everyone else is talking, because they are drinking the experience of love. I have given my hand to a shaykh: What use is that to him? What is he to do with it? It is a big thing.

After Moulay 'Arabi ad-Darqawi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, his khalif was Shaykh Ahmad al-Badawi of Fes. This great wali had two zawiyyas: one zawiyya in Fes, and in this zawiyya there were a group of men who great, great awliya' and salihun, the most exalted among the 'arifeen. There was Sidi Tayyib, Sidi Muhammad ibn Huwari. These men were all very exalted walis, and they were all in the zawiyya of Ahmad al-Badawi, radiya'llahu 'anhu. The shaykh was quite old, and one day as happens in the nafs of the great, there rose up in them this desire for leadership, and they started to question who would be the next shaykh, and by ishara the shaykh knew and became very angry. He came in and he said, "All of you fuqara' here get up. I want you to sweep and clean the zawiyya so that there is not one speck of dust." So they rolled up their burnooses and their djellabas and they took the broom and swept the zawiyya until it was spotless. He came down and said, "This is disgusting. Do you call that clean? Look at that over there - it's filthy. Clean it." And they cleaned it. He came down and said, "Tut, tut, tut. You haven't listened to me. What is this? Are you making fun of me? Look at that. Look at that there. Clean it up. Clean it up or you'll all be thrown out," and he went away. And they scrubbed, and they scrubbed, and they scrubbed, until the thing was like mirror. The shaykh came back and said, "What is that? Look there's dust," and the heart of Muhammad al-'Arabi was breaking in his breast, as he got down on his knees and he swept the floor with his beard, and it was by this that Ahmad al-Badawi saw his khalif and his inheritor, and it was this moment the ahl as-sufiyya said in Morocco, at this moment was demonstrated the greatest manzil with Allah that could be shown on the face of the earth. And on this action his name spread right across North Africa, all the way into the Hijaz, to Makka.

Do you understand? Do you understand what I am saying? Not obedient: in love. It is poetry. It is a song. What a thing to do from the heart! How beautiful! It is Majesty becoming beauty. This is tasawwuf. This is knowledge. Where is that out there in the mall? How, where would you begin? What are you to talk of? What are you to talk of? Haqiqa? To savages? Sayyiduna Muhammad, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said, "Speak to people according to their understanding."How the understanding of Sufiyya, the understanding of ahl al-haqiqat is so great, is so tremendous, their intellects begin where everybody else's intellects stop.

Not by ratiocination, not by thinking, but by hal, by dhawq, by khawf, by fear, by weeping, and by trembling, and by darkness and dhikr in darkness, outward darkness, inward light, By muraqaba. Muraqaba is watching. You cannot talk about it until there are people who are attuned to it. You cannot attune to it if you cannot even sit down. You cannot attune to it if you cannot sit still. Shaykh Sidi al-Jamal, radiya'llahu 'anhu, used to say, "Fold your hands, lower your eyes, don't move, or I'll fly away and leave you." Do you see? Outwardly you do this, inwardly you do that. That is all. But who can do it for a minute, for five minutes?

How interesting, how fascinating for the human creature is that he wants something he is not prepared to pay for. He would not do it in the mall. He would be arrested, but he will try to do it with haqiqat. You can steal the object, but you cannot steal the subject. Knowledge is not given away, It is already yours. You discover you have it. How do you discover you have it? By adab. at-Tariqa kulluha adab. Manners. You have to start from the beginning. There are groups of Sufis from here to Karachi, from Karachi to Bangladesh, from Bangladesh to Malaysia, from Malaysia to Indonesia, back around to California. But this, a few, just a few, but it is nothing new. There have always been a few. Why are they called the elite?

Shaykh Abu'l-'Abbas al-Mursi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, 'It is easy: it is easy to find Allah. It is easy to be gnostic, but it is very difficult to find the shaykh." In other words, when you have found the shaykh, he means then the meeting with Allah is an easy business. Allah is hidden in the matter of the finding of the shaykh. And who is the shaykh? Shaykh Sidi Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said openly who they are: "There is a light before he speaks, and by the dhikr of la ilaha'llah he removes temptation from you, and he lifts you up. He lifts up your hal, just by a glance, just by looking."

Shaykh Ahmad al-Badawi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "One glance from the shaykh wipes out a thousand wrong actions." But for whom? There is beauty in the glance, and there is majesty in the lowering of the eyes. And the murid is a lover who flutters between beauty and majesty, now looking, and now hiding, stealing glances of the shaykh; and the shaykh, according to Ibn 'Ashir, radiya'llahu 'anhu, makes du'a, presenting his slave to his Lord when he encounters Him, the shaykh puts his slave before his Lord in supplication, that is why Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "If you see me you will reach Allah. If you see one who has seen me, you will reach Allah. Because it means this is your mirror. You are the eye looking into your mirror, the world is before you as a mirror, and if you have come to look here, you have come to look into yourself, to see into your heart, that you are the gnostics of Allah. That you are the elite, that you are the selected ones, that you are the beloved ones, of whom Allah ta'ala has made this special compact, and of whom the ordinary ones among you speak of nearness for that would imply two. That would imply dualism, and not tawhid.

These are knowledges, these are awarenesses, these are experiences. Look at the title of al-Makki's book Qut al-Qulub, Nourishment of Hearts. Is your heart nourished? From where will it be nourished? From where will it be nourished if not from the light of Allah? Are you animals or are you khalifs of Allah? Are you khalif? Are you really khalif? One who stands in? In the absence of Allah. What a tremendous thing Allah has made you. Do not belittle yourselves.

The fuqara' they are the princes, they are the sultans. Abu Madyan says, "When will my ear have news of them? When will my eye have the sight of them? "This yearning, this longing for fuqara', why? Because they are the dhakireen, they are the people who love Allah, who speak Allah, who yearn for Allah, whose life is for Allah, who love Allah, who act by Allah, whose existence is by Allah, who cannot settle for dunya, cannot settle for shirk, cannot settle for idolatry, despite themselves, because of themselves, despite themselves, and because of Allah. Because you belong to Him. Even if your love of Him is His decree, gnosis is a gift, but you are a gift, what are you to say of this? Where are you in it? Do you yearn for a gift being already a gift? What place have you? What right have you? What claim have you on anything? Nothing exists except Allah.

Haqiqa is tremendous. If I went out now to the mall and said this, I would be arrested as a lunatic, not as an evangelist. You cannot declare this except to the lovers. When he talked of matters to do with gnosis, Imam Junayd, radiya'llahu 'anhu, locked seven doors. He did not speak until he had locked seven doors. They were behind seven doors before he opened his mouth. Why? Because it is pure knowledge of hadith, because obeying orders of the Allah, "speak to people according to their knowledge," and more than that from that, from the hadith of Abu Hurayra, radiya'llahu 'anhu, in the Sahih collection of Imam al-Bukhari when he says, "I have two bags. I took two bags from the Prophet, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam. One of them I have told you. If I revealed the other to you this throat would be severed from my body."

Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyid-din Ibn al-'Arabi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, says in reference to the throat indicated that he was talking about dhawq, about taste, because the throat is the organ of taste, and so he meant these: I took from him, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, the knowledge, dhawq, that if I had spoken these, I would have been killed." It is the Sufis who say, 'If he speaks these things, he is halal meat for us." These are the Sufis who say this, not the people of the Shari'a. Outside Shari'a, inside haqiqat. Zawiyya in Thursday, Jumu'a on Friday. The true tariqa sufiyya do not go to their own place on Jumu'a. They go with the people because they are 'abd, they are slave of Allah. Everything confirms Shari'a outwardly. They pray with them, and they fast with them, and they pray 'ids with them. Because all this is nawafil, all this is extra, all this is nobody's business. It is Allah's business. If you speak about it in the market-place, you are not speaking about it among the people of Allah.

Tasawwuf has three rules. One is keeping company, which is what we are doing, sitting, because by this everything happens, transformation of the inner awareness happens. The lubb is transformed by keeping company. Two: listening, listening means that you do not move, not a muscle, that you sit like a slave, not a child, not like a prince. Listening means you listen with your ears and your knees, all of you. Thirdly, acting on what you have heard, in other words when it comes your way and it is for you, you do not spit it out. That's tasawwuf, finish. Who is ready for that? Who wants that? A handful of people. Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq, radiya'llahu 'anhu, shaykh of our shuyukh, has said, "There is nothing worse than an ignorant Sufi." Who is an ignorant Sufi? An ignorant Sufi is a Sufi, say I, who is unbridled, who is not tied up.

When Sidi Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiya'llahu 'anhu, took a faqir, he said, "I put a halter around your neck. Will you accept it?" That was his opening. If they said, "Yes," there was a contract between them. What a tremendous thing, what a wonderful thing, and how utterly incapable of access to those whose hearts are not desirous of the face of Allah. Al-'Aziz. Huwa'l-ÔAziz, al-'Azizu. 'Aziz means "the Hard of Access, Difficult of Access, Mighty," and the 'Aziz is the Hakim, the Wise. There is wisdom in this, because ma'rifa is for the 'arif, as honey is for the bee, filth is for the fly and honey is for the bee, so the advice of Ahl as-Sufiyya is to advance quickly when you hear this news from the realm of thinking and talking to the realm of action.

Shaykh al-Fayturi says, "Quickly move to deeds. Quickly move to action." What is action? It is to move into the practice of dhikrullah. "Ya ayyuha'lladhina amanu'dhkuru llaha dhikran katheeran wa sabbihuhu bukratan wa asila." (33:41) Dhikr, dhikr, dhikr, with the tongue, dhikr with the members, until you have dhikr of the heart. But dhikr is dhahir, dhikr is outward, on the tongue. Fikr is inward: move from the sensory to the meaning, from the hiss to the ma'na, that you move from ma'na to sirr, from ma'na to secret. This is our business.
It is tiered, it is built on stages, and what are the stages? The stages are service of the fuqara', adab among the fuqara', adab with the shaykh, and the highest adab: adab with the shaykh, and adab with the ikhwan. Then you will arrive at knowledge, you will reach the goal in a short time, Shaykh al-'Alawi, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "We do not ask years of you." But to whom does he say this? Not to the common people, but to those people who yearn, at the cost of their life's blood if necessary. Many people have a romance of Sufism, because when they read the thoughts of the east, they thought it was poetry. When they read that the cost of this was tears of blood, they thought it was poetry, romance, and how beautiful, and yes, yes, we all love Allah. And they meant it. Until you're broken, until you're finished, until there's nothing left of you, you are a lover.

[NOTE: The transcription ends at this point, which was not the end of the talk.]

Dallas College Cape Town 2005 and Dailin Nur

An Introductory Note by Abuzuhri of Dailin Nur affiliated Teahut of Miyazaki :

Recently in early 2007 our friend Assoc.Professor Dr. Hakimi Ibrahim , Science University of Penang visited us in Putrajaya enroute to KLIA airport. Together with wife Dr.Norizan , they are travelling to visit Dallas College in Cape Town, south Africa and to present a paper in a youth seminar organized by its director Dr. Abdal Basir Ojembara. This college is unique due to its combination of islamic, sufic and contemporary subjects taught and inclusive of leadership cum service training to produce a new core elite capable of understanding the kufr forces and transformation of the self-heart and society. Here we give a glimpse of this hope.

Dallas College Opening Speech By Rais Abu Bakr Rieger
Cape Town , October 2005

One of the weaknesses of the recent Western analyses from Heidegger to Rufin is that despite the obvious urgency of the situation, they fail to define any guidelines for action. Asked about the possibility of action, a concerned Heidegger proclaimed in an interview with Der Spiegel: “Only a god can save us!”

It is here that the masterwork of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir, ‘Technique of the Coup de Banque’, comes into its own. The book adds to the numerous modern analyses by clearly and boldly naming the ‘invisible hand’ in European history: the Banking Elite. The book completes the story of the much-vaunted Enlightenment by a portrait of the power-games of the financial elite. As in Aristotle but in the modern context, the ‘princip contra naturum’, usury, is openly described in its effects and consequences. After reading this book, the thinking man becomes open to the Qur’anic categorical imperative on the Muslims: Trade is permitted - usury forbidden. The guideline has been found, the lost unity of knowledge and action once again made possible. The European question of how to limit unbridled capitalism is revealed in Islamic Law, since only there is the endless increasing of capital forbidden.

In this place - and here we have Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi to thank - the transmission of knowledge will once again become possible. With the help of the Qur’an and the Sunna, the zone of action of this College and its areas of study in this moment in history can be illuminated:

- In the field of language we move within the contrast between language as Revelation and language as excessive information on the internet.
- In the field of geopolitics we move within the contrast between World Statism and the possibility of order and location.
- In the field of law we move within the contrast between genocidal oligarchies and a just nomos for the Earth.

It is in the field of technology in particular that we confront modern nihilism, which Heidegger described as “a confrontational challenge to the creation”. Of course, this College will also teach all the modern methods of information technology, but in a way which Heidegger defined as “composed”. Only with inner and outer laws can man escape the modern law of technology, a law which Heidegger expressed as follows: “Man believes he has technology in his hands, while in reality it is the other way around.” In other words - in our words as Muslims - man is either a slave of Allah or a slave of the technical project.

This attitude of “Yes” and “No” towards technology is portrayed by Heidegger in his book Gelassenheit, a book which moves unusually clearly towards the Sufic outlook on life. In it he says:

“We can say yes to the inevitable use of technical objects, and we can say no at the same time, in that we refuse to allow them exclusively to make demands on us, and thus bend, confuse and finally make barren our innermost nature.”
Heidegger was asked thereupon, if we are to simultaneously say “Yes” and “No” to the technical objects in this manner, will not our relationship to the technical world become ambiguous and unsure? Heidegger answered as follows - and here his viewpoint peaks in a Sufic confirmation of our relationship to the “Dunya” :

“Quite the opposite. Our relationship to the technical world becomes simple and calm in a most wonderful way. We allow the technical objects into our daily life, yet we leave them out of it at the same time. That means we leave them to be as things; not as something absolute, rather as entities reliant on something Higher. I would like to describe this attitude of a simultaneous Yes and No to the technical world by means of an old word: ‘Composure, in regard to things’.”

The overcoming of the dominance of technology is undoubtedly an inner and an outer project. Every Muslim has the knowledge to undertake it. It requires that we remember Allah and establish a just economic order. It is also doubtless the project of all of the authentic Tariqas and their traditional, living knowledge which peaks in the creative insight that man already knows everything, but that he must remember it.

Even the German founder of the kindergarten, Friedrich Fröbel, was aware of this foundational principle of every education. He taught that “Education means having to bring something out of man, not put something in.”

It is one of the basic principles of our world-view to see people, and especially young people, as our true capital. Above all else, Islam and its great communities bring about People. In this, every Muslim is a knower. Foucault was of course absolutely right when he saw the end of every society and every politique in the establishment of christian, pastoral power. In the secular State this depoliticising function continued with the idea of representation, in the end resulting in the consumer, devoid of meaning and offering up his affairs. Our political thinking is the old platonic concept of the Political embodied in the image of the weaver. The process of weaving does not separate, it joins, reconciles opposites, founds societies, brings about unity, thus revealing in the pattern of the cloth the invisible Hand of Allah ta’ala. So it is that the graduates of this College will not represent - they will weave.

The College, therefore, prepares the last stages of education. “Education,” Mark Twain once said, “is what’s left over when the last dollar is gone.”

I wish the teachers and the students and the community in Cape Town every conceivable success. As Allah says in Ayat 282 of Surat al-Baqara: “Have taqwa of Allah and Allah will give you knowledge. Allah has knowledge of all things.”

Prayer of Ibnu Abbas

We would like to dedicate this excellenet prayer-doa from the Prophet s.a.w related by Companion Ibn Abbas ( in as-Shifa p.41) to all those who seek knowledge and truth in order to live according to the Divine Command and in the footsteps of Rasul al-Mustafa :

“Oh Allah, I ask You for mercy from You
By which my heart will be guided,
My scattered affairs joined together,
My affairs put straight, my unseen part put right,
And part of me that is visible elevated,
My actions purified, by which I will be inspired
To right guidance, my intimacy will be returned ,
And by which I will be proctected from every evil,

Oh Allah ! I ask You for good outcome (husnul-khatima)
In the Decree (Qadha’), (to gain) the food of Martyrs
The life of the blissful and victory over my enemies!”

Maulana Rumi, Master Izi dan Dr.Anqaravi

KISAH DR.ANQARAVI DAN MAULANA RUMI

Kita mesti mencari kitab Maulana Rumi dalam terjemahan bahasa Jepun sekarang. Musim gugur akan tiba dua minggu lagi. Rumah usang the ditepi lereng pekan kecil Miyazaki semakin sibuk. Beberapa tetamu dari Morocco dan Malaysia akan bermalam disitu. Kenji berpesan pada Masako: ‘Jangan lupa masak sup qusqus dan masukkan lebih terung serta Kentang ! Bubuh sedikit gula batu’. Hanya mereka menjilat lidah dari bekasan mangkuk-mangkuk porcelain zaman Shogun Shirata selepas makan akan merasa keberkatan rezeki Ilahi. Dinegeri matahari terbit, tiada lebih mahal dari silau satori. Lupakan semua politik Koizumi dan matawang yen jatuh lagi.

Sementara itu, Atiqako sedang mengemaskan bilik tatami dan memanaskan air. Hidangan teh china shu shien bercampur jasmine akan menjadi pembuka bicara. Chanado memang kaya dengan unsure mistik Tao dan zazen yang mengelirukan akal. Diluar pohon-pohon sakura mulai diselaputi warna kuning dan coklat. Daun-daun akan gugur kebumi dipijak para pendita Zen, murid-murid, tetamu asing dan seorang professor Furuzanfar Anqaravi dari Konya. Institut Andallas Nuri diasaskan oleh Bapak Abu Uraira Shan kira-kira 40 tahun lalu. Sudah beratus-ratus pelajar Malaysia menerima segulung ijazah dan pulang ketanah pertiwi selepas lulus dengan kelas ming-qing. Ada seorang dua anak ulamak sufi berjaya memikat gadis Nippon-nin, dijadikan isteri salihah lagi wara dan dibawa pulang ke semenanjung emas. Ada yang bertemu jodoh disana ketika bunga sakura mengembang dimusim autumn. Ming bu fu shi, hui jia. Sayang aku hanya tahu dua patah : sayonara dan kura-kura !

Masako, gadis berkulit putih merah dari Kyushu sudah dua tahun mengaji dan memasak di Andalllas. Dia amat meminati siri tv Iron Chef dimana 3 Master Chef dibidang masakan China, jepun dan barat akan diuji dan dipertandingkan dengan para pencabar istimewa. Guru Masako bernama Izi Kurosawa berumur hamper 80 tahun mengajar subjek falsafah Zen dan Confucius. Kini di Amerika tertubuh beberapa istitut zen antarabangsa, satunya di Big Sur, California yang sentiasa riang dipukul deru ombak dan tempias angina lautan pasifik. Disanalah 5 tahun dulu aku berkenalan dengan ibu Masako, Nafisa Wan. Gadis kacukan Yunnan dan Melayu Patani. Bapanya telah meninggal semasa menunaikan haji ke Mekah pada tahun 1960. Ibunya amat meminati bahasa dan sejarah China kuno, segala perabot rumah besar pekan Kutan Ali dipenuhi bahan klasik china dan seni kaligrafi dinasti Ming.

Satu malam pada bulan Julai ketika menziarahi sahabatnya di Setapak Indah, Dr.Zulhilmy membongkar rahsia isterinya yang berdarah china satu perempat. Sebab nenek Masako adalah wanita keturunan China yang dikawini oleh Atuknya seorang alim yang pernah mengembara hingga ke Kwangtung, Fujian, Shanghai dan Beijing. Dia hidup sezaman dengan Sheikh Ahmad al-Fatani dan Sultan Abdal Hamid Khan, pemerintah-khalifah Uthmaniyya yang terakhir. He said: ‘ look deeply to your father, there are jewels of knowledge hidden in him. If you managed to acquire even ten percent of his vast erudite wisdom, count yourself lucky’. The river of Knowledge flows endlessly. From whom, where, when and who receives it.

Aku risau, pondok jamuan teh disebelah bangunan zawiya pengetua Izi Kurosawa masih belum disapu bersih dari daun-daun kering dan sampah sarap yang ditiup ribut kecil dua hari lalu. Cuaca musim ini tak menentu. Minggu lepas hurricane Pasifik melanda Taiwan, harta benda rosak teruk dan ramai hilang rumah. Sahabatku Iqrami menelefon dari putrajaya bahawa asap mini tsunami telah melanda lembah klang dengan teruk. API mencapai 500 mata. Sekolah di port klang dan kuala selangor terpaksa ditutup. Lapangan terbang Subang ditutup dan Menteri Eka Firada sakit lutut terjatuh dari tangga ketika menaiki kereta Perdana Execuitive WZA 444 di Bukit Fraser. Aku pernah bermalan di Silver Clouds Park Resort semasa berkursus pada tahun 2000. what a majestic view and sunset beside chilly coldness. At that time, Athaillah still one year old baby wrapped in thick rabbit clothes.

Sayyida Aisha Bewley menukilkan kira-kira 20 tahun lalu:’ A butterfly fluttering its wings in Fez can caused a thypoon in Kyoto, how to explain ?. One thing leads to another in chain reactions across the world. Not atom is destroyable, it only changes form, to energy, movements or disappear into Unseen and reemerged as karma.’ Very sad to hear that a great philosocuter Irtan Nings just passed away in London weeks ago. Maka, Uhan Fajar bekas ketua pengarang NST yang kini bertapa di Ulu Kuang dengan computer Streamyx menukilkan, ‘ seorang pemimpin jatuh dan dijatuhkan atau terjatuh sama saja, dia akan rasa sakit. Dia orang lain dapat menolong. Jika buah tak jatuh kebumi mana ada bibit atau anak pohon baru akan tumbuh menggantikan pokok tua yang hampir reput akarnya dimakan anai-anai’. Maulana Rumi 800 tahun dulu telah menasihati kita : ‘ Hantuk kepalamu ke tembok, hantuk lagi hingga engkau faham bahawa jika orang munafik berkata yang halal itu tidak boleh dipraktik dalam zaman ini kerana yang haram telah dihalalkan.

Ketika menatap Majalah elit inggeris berjudul Islamica Summer 2005, dicetak diTurkey, beribu pejabat di Amerika dan sidang editornya di Amman, muka surat dua: “ HSBC provide the foremost and wide ranging Islamic financial service to customers around the world’. Khwaja Ali Yusuf Hamadhani juga telah berkata: ‘ zaman ini tiada orang mengetahui rahsia nikmat teh timur hakiki, sebab pokok teh pur erh hanya ada dinegeri China. Apa yang manusia jual hari ini adalah teh tiruan. Campur dengan gula dan susu, dipetik dengan tangan-tangan kotor yang tamak, restoran dan kilangnya dibina dengan hutang riba. Pemiliknya Four Seasons adalah elit yahudi bercampur Swiss dan belanda. Titus Bekharth, Frizoj Zuon and Rine Guenun, semua sepakat mempromosi faham mistik Sophia perinnis. Comparative philosophy.

Menjelang esok pagi, Isnin 15 Ogos 2005, semua makanan dan minuman sempurna disiapkan dan disusun rapi dekat pondok Tatami. Tunggu dicurahkan air panas dan sup dituangkan kedalam mangkuk kecil biru. Dr.Anqaravi, Izi Kurosawa, Masako, Atiqato, Sidi Fudul, Amir Rieger dan Nafisa Wan, ah terlupa diriku sendiri Athaillah Shintaro, pencatat nyanyian setia dan pencinta Rumi. Kami akan memasuki pondok Tatami pada pukul 9.00 pagi ketika cahaya Dhuha memancar terang menembusi dinding buluh dan atap bata-bata bakaran gunung berapi Fuji dan lantai kayu cengal yang diimport dan digergaji dari ulu Long Passia,Borneo Utara. Nasib baik Bruno Manser hilang tanpa berita selepas masyur diEropah menentang pembalakan hijau di Sarawak.

Dong …dong .. dong..ding…ding…ding. Loceng besar setinggi 5 kaki dibuat dari tembaga dan besi dipukul oleh sidi Fakirato tepat 9.00 pagi. Tuk..tuk ..tuk, Atiqato knock slowly at the door of room 108 of Western View Block. She greeted the honored occupant: Zhao shan ! Dr. Anqaravi san, we are pleased to invite you to attend the tea ceremony at the request by Master Izi. You will be joined later by Sidi Fudul and Amir Rieger from Fez. Two other Malaysian students of zen and eastern philosophy, Athaillah Shintaro and Masako Arifu will also present to serve you and record your blessed discourse with Master Izi. May I assist you in carrying you brief case and the large painting by Sifu Kitaro ? Arigato..hsie-hsie ni. Wo hen hao.

Sebenarnya pada jam 7.00 pagi, aku mengintai ke arah balkoni Western View tingkat 3 dan mendapati dicelah kabus putih halus dan udara nyaman sejuk kebanggaan penduduk Miyazaki Prefecture sesuatu pergerakan ala tai ji quilin qigong. Kedua tangan diangkat keatas perlahan, membuka dada melayang ke kiri dan kanan, kaki diangkat sebelah melengkung. Sedut nafas dalam-dalam dan hebus diakhiri gerakan bangau. Crouching tiger and the hidden dragon. Baju ala mao tze dong warna biru muda yang pakai oleh Dr. Anqaravi memang unik. Separuh jelabah dan separuh jubah Maharaja Ching, hanya membezakannya lukisan pepohon dan bunga halus pada baju sutera tersebut. Seluar warna coklat tua yang longgar dan lebar memang sesuai untuk senaman pagi dan amalan qigong. Shaykh Alawi, seorang guru sufi pernah berkata:
‘the clothes that the fuqara wear will definitely have effects on them, be careful of what you are wearing.’ Pride, arrogant, humility, wealth, sensuality or detachment can be reflected from what they wear ’ ooops, ini tambahan fiktif dan tiada dalam nota draf cerpen .

Menjelang jam 9.05 pagi, semua tetamu telah masuk dan mengambil tempat khas dalam pondok Tatami. Master Izi disebelah kanan dan duduk betul-betul ditengah meja Tazkiyaten yang tingginya satu kaki dan panjangnya 10 kaki. Lapan cawan teh kecil dan dua teko Kahfizika. Dr.Anqaravi disebelah kiri, Amir Rieger dikanan dan diikuti Sidi Fudul, Masako ditempatkan dihadapan sudut kiri, Nafisa Wan dan aku disudut kanan jauh sekali. Penuang teh adalah Masako dan Nafisa pula akan mengangkat kuih halveti dan biskut oriyagi untuk setiap tetamu dua keping. Tiada gula untuk teh. Lukisan dinding pondok dihiasi potret abstrak zaman Seljuqi Turki abad ke1300. Berpetak-petak empat segi dan Master Izi pernah 3 tahun lalu membisik pada ku : ‘ Jika engkau dapat membaca dan meleraikan maknawi dari lukisan mantra ini yang dikaitkan dengan mistik Bayazid Bistami, aku akan berkan kamu hadiah istimewa !’. Sampai saat ini aku masih belum faham lukisan itu.

Setahun lalu, sahabat karibku Sidi Ridha Lua dari Universiti Urumqi, Xin Qiang, China telah menghantar surat padaku menegaskan :’ Mantra itu mungkin berisi ayat-ayat Quran yang ditulis secara empat segi atau kata hikmah orang sufi. Aku pernah terlihat mantra mirip yang engkau ceritakan dalam sebuah buku terbitan Diwan Press, London, 1974 bertajuk –The Way of Muhammad’. Cuba saudara cari buku ini di Men tzi Bookstore, Ronin Street No.7, Kota Fukuoka. Tuan punya kedai bernama Muhammad Ali Nayabashi adalah kawan rapat kepada mendiang bapaku, Sidi Ariffin Bey. Terdapat sebilah pedang Sahabat Nabi dipamirkan atas dinding kedai buku ini yang diukir dengan perkataan ‘Dzulfiqar dan Qurratul ain’. Aku tersentak bila Master Izi berteriak: ‘Masako, sila tuangkan teh untuk tetamu terhormat kita. Athaillah, biskut dan kuih sila letak dekat sini ‘. Selepas itu…Masako berehat dan termenung sebentar ditepi dapur pondok tatami. Titisan peluh mula mengalir dari wajahnya yang comel merah putih. Mungkin lama tak kena sinar cahaya mentari musim sejuk yang agak panjang tahun ini. Baju kimono warna biru cerah dan bunga-bunga sakura merah halus memancarkan lagi kejelitaannya. Tiba-tiba dia teringatkan Buku ChainnanDo karangan T.Suzuki yang tersimpan dalam beg kecilnya untuk dihadiahkan kepada tetamu istimewa pagi ini.

….bersambung jika ada inspirasi