To seek the lost heart

Seeking The Lost Heart : Notes of Abuzuhri 1995

The Beginning Steps

The Prophet as depicted by chinese scholars –Chin Sheng means
‘the glorious-Eminent Sage’ and ‘Teacher of a thousand generations’.
Shaykh Liu Chih write thus :
The inhabitants of Heaven knew him and his name
was inscribed at the Gate of the Garden’.
All creation originated from his light.
He is a mercy to all the worlds.

Hadith related from Ibnu Abbas from Rasul s.a.w :

Allahumma laka aslam-tu
Wa bika aman-tu
Wa alaika tawakkal-tu
Wa ilaika anab-tu
Wa bika khosam-tu
Wa ilaika hakam-tu
Faghfirli ma qoddam-tu
wa ma akhar-tu
wa ma asrar-tu wa ma a’lan-tu
Antal-Muqaddimu
Wa Antal-Mu’akhiru
La ilaha illa Anta

( Oh Allah, I put my submission, trust, reliance,
returning, protection, judgement with You,
unto You and upon You
forgive me of my future actions
my past actions
what is seen and unseen
Verily You are the Foremost One
And the Last/End of all affairs)

Now we shall compare what the Chinese philosophers say
about this Sage in their ancient texts of Lao Tzu, Mencius,
Confucius, I Ching, Ta Hsue and Chung Yung.

Seek you will find them (Tao)
Neglect you will lose them.
Hold it fast and it remains with you.
Let it go and you will lose it –

p.862 (James Legge: The Four Chinese Classics-
Ta Hsue,Chung Yung, Analects and Mencius)

When a scholar feels that his friendship with all the virtuous scholars
at the empire is not sufficient to satisfy him, he proceeds to ascend to study-
emulate the MEN OF ANTIQUITY (SAGES). p.850

The end of learning is nothing else but to seek
for the lost mind-heart ( marifa/tawhid/fitra) –p.879

One of the Qing scholar says:
‘ The ten thousand words and ten thousand sayings of the sages
and men of wisdom are simply to LEAD MEN to get hold
of their LOST MINDS (DIVINE KNOWLEDGE)
and make them enter again their bodies’.

Mencius said :
Those who follow that part of themselves which is great
are great men, those who follow that part which is little
-low are little men (hsiao ren).

Master Kung said :

To walk slowly by keeping behind his elders,
is to perform the part (duty) of a younger man.

To walk quickly and precede his elders,
is to vilate the duty of a younger brother.

Now, is it that a man cannot walk slowly ? p.896

(there is a riwayat of Sayyidina Ali r.a. being late to attend the group prayer of fajar at the Prophet Mosque in Madina. On being questioned, he said :
This morning, on my way to the mosque, I passed through a narrow street, there was an old jew man infront of me. So I thought to overtake him and then it would upset him. His days are over, being old, slow and no longer respected by the younger ones. So I restrained myself and follow him quietly behind until he was out of the street, thus I arrived late for the fajar prayer. But the Prophet s.a.w commended him for this supreme action and he get all the rewards of the group prayer’). At another time, Our Sufi Master tell his encounter of walking behind an old Chinese man in a garden in England with one of his murid. He says : ssshhh, keep quite and let his noble old man take his strides and practice the tai chi exercise infront of them. After a few steps, this old sensed something behind him and suddenly turned around with a defensive stance, face to face with him and his murid ! The Master make a friendly gesture and smiling to him. Then he understood, he was not in danger being tailed by some strangers. They parted ways in good spirits kow tow to each others.

This story was told by to us about more than 12 years ago while the Venerable Master summoned us to his presence at a private meeting in Bukit Tunku. He had high regards for the noble fitra of Chinese people. He commanded us to study the Chinese language and calling them to Islam. We presented him a Chinese book magnum opus or lexicon of basic meanings and characters. We also informed him that we had read the book of Dr.Isutzu on The Comparative Study of Taoism and Sufism Between Lao Tzu and Ibnul Arabi. He commented this Japanese scholar had not understood Sufism or Islam at all, you are better because you are Muslim ! You possess the secret of iman that Allah Taala put in your heart, not him. We nodded in agreement and had to reflect deeply on this matter.

Alhamdulillah, he saw through our hearts sincerity and later granted the Idhin-Authority as MUQADDIM especially to serve the Chinese people in the East. This is part of fulfillment of what Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib (SMH) envisioned more than 30 years ago that his DIWAN will be sung in the WEST and EAST, although that time in year 1968 there were hardly any murid from the East of Middle East.

When we read first book titled THE BOOK OF STRANGER (Luzac, London) published in 1972 , our wildest dream was fulfilled. The question of are there any Chinese sufic scholars or follower of this spiritual teaching until today were indicated metaphorically in the letter of a Chinese Sage to his disciple unfolded side by side with another letter of Shaykh Abul Hassan as-Shadhili who venture out to seek a Sufi Master. The Chinese sage digusted with the decay and decadent of the Empire (3 Kingdoms) and city life of Beijing, take a journey to the west and in fulfilling the gatekeeper request he wrote the wisdom aphorisms of TAO TE CHING comprise of 3,000 words for future generations. All this happen due to the encoded mantra BARAKATU MUHAMMAD.

Another stronger confirmation coming from our Master was the poem published entitled IHSAN in 1978 in the Journal of Darqawi Institute vol.2. Here the message was mentioned specifically about the intention and action of a man of marifa/hikmah to hunt for new murid in the West and East using the famous Chinese metaphor of A TIGER OUT THE CAVE MATCHING THE WORLDLY STRIPES.

Just remember, this chinese seeker was still not a muslim in 1978 ! Anyway, we found another powerful and secondary booster book entitled THE WAY OF MUHAMMAD in Jubilee Book Store in Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman with the strange kufic design on its cover. Several Chinese philosophical terms were quoted in this book such as : YIN YANG, TAO, CHI , FENG SHUI,
I CHING HEXAGRAM etc.

Back to the poem IHSAN, about dedicated 3 paragraphs using the historical Chinese characters and names to highlight that this ancient sufic teaching were ALMOST SIMILAR to the TAO and the public rejected it. Only a few grasped this wisdom teaching. He called the seeker to the OPEN SPACE OF OPEN SPACE. FEAR NO ONE. GAIN THE FREEDOM- WISDOM !