The Discourse on Tawhid of Allah , Cape Town 2004

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

For example, the Shah of Iran in his heyday held a great pagan, pre-Islamic celebration in Iran and he gave all his guests golden lavatories, and he exalted them in the most vulgar way. When one sufi saw that one said, “Now he is absolutely finished,” but they said, “Why? It is not possible! He has the CIA, he has the American support, he has the worst secret service in the world, Savak, he cannot be defeated.” “But he has gone too high, so he will be defeated when someone goes into sajda, because that is the opposite, and the thing will turn over.”

So things are hidden in their form. That is what inspires the people of this spiritual quality to have wara’, to be careful. You want to be careful because you want that the form you are on is not one which is going to crash. That is why it is said that the true Sufi is like a black insect on a black stone in a room in the middle of the night — you do not even see him, because his carefulness, his wara’, his scrupulousness is his protection against the inexorability of the world’s actions.

Thus you will realise causes, and at last you will step on the path of iskat. You will step onto the path of being able to cast away the viewing of new events. This is an extraordinary statement: “The casting away of new events.” The people who see new events think that the world is in command of itself, that things are being determined by other people’s actions whereas the reality is that the new event has no newness and there is no reality of events — Allah is the Actor. Allah is making it happen. So what looks like a victory is a defeat, and what looks like a defeat is a victory.

When the Mongol armies came pouring down from Asia into the Subcontinent towards Europe, on the face of it, it was the greatest catastrophe possible. When Rumi’s father, who was a very great ‘alim, got to Baghdad he went to warn the people, but they did not listen. He told them this thing was happening. When the great Khan came and slaughtered these people, he mounted the mimbar and made his famous statement, “I am the scourge of Allah.” He did not say that he was the scourge against Allah, but, “I am the scourge of Allah.” He had the tawhid which they had lost! — because it was a punishment from Allah.

Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “The child is the hidden secret of the father,” and the grandchild of the Mongol leader became the first of the Muslim rulers who then dominated the whole world. All the Moghul inheritance came from his sons. So what had looked like a disaster had in fact, hidden in it, this tremendous event.

Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi puts it another way, he says, “There is nothing in this world that is not a blessing for one person and a curse for somebody else.” He said, “The sultan dies and some of his family are executed and the others are mourning and they lose their positions, their palaces, and at the same time the new sultan comes and he gives amnesty and hundreds of prisoners are released from prison.”

So the one event, for some it brings them low and for others it raises them up. This is the tawhid of the khass and it comes with fana’ and it is clarified by jam’. Jam’ is a very important word for the Sufis, and it means gatheredness. It is when the slave does not experience himself as separate and distinct, but where all existence is somehow gathered together in his experience, so his reality does not end with his limbs or his intellect.

This knowledge will be one which attracts those who aspire to tawhid. In other words, the people of the elite are like the red sulphur. They draw to them those people who wish to have this same quality of knowledge. This understanding of tawhid is something that transmits, and the model of this is Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, who poured out this knowledge onto the people around him, and it pours from the people of knowledge onto the ones who desire this knowledge. It is an alchemical process that transforms the hearts.

Allahumma! Oh Allah give us an Iman that is lasting.

O Allah, give us knowledge throughout our life that draws us near to You.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to keep us among the company of the Salihun.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, for a taste of the company of the Salihun.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to keep us in the circles of knowledge,

to keep us in the company of the people of knowledge.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to make us lovers of Him.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to give us a destiny

which draws us always nearer to Him.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to give us a great expectation

of His mercy and His light.