Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Dear reader, you have seen for yourself how great saints were raised from among out ancestors. Their contributions to spiritual enlightenment and advance are undiminished in value to this day. It is even possible to say that given today’s lack of faith and piety among all nations due to satanic people’s anti-religious efforts everywhere, our saint’s teachings are needed more.

In this lovely poem by our deceased brother in faith, Sheikh Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum (in Turkey), we are treated to a feast of gnosis (marifah) distilled from the spiritual odyssey of that great Sufi master. From my long studies of Islam and Sufism, I cannot imagine any true scholar or Sufi to disagree about a word in this poem. I, the humble admirer and well-wisher of this great brother of ours, hope I did my best to add the commentary I did to it and pray and hope that you the reader will be inspired with even more throughout your life. For, the word of truth is like a very healthy and hardy seed which germinates in hearts it is planted in and must and shall bear fruit, one day.

After making these plain, I want to say something more. I am noticing with dismay and sadness that today’s educated Muslims are so fascinated by the rational and scientific methods and achievements of the West that they become stuck in a formalistic and spiritually sterile form of debate on Islam. They are desperately trying to “prove” that our faith and practices are provable and explainable by the “findings” and methods of Western science and philosophy. As a result, a lot of arguments were put forward by them to prove various statements and requirements of Islam, some of which have obviously been brilliant while other not quite so. Still, even is all were brilliant, they could not move enough people, enough distance towards Islam and especially its moral perfections. Instead, they rather helped to form Islamic ideological groups on similar lines with socialist and fascist ideological groups whose most defects and shortcoming they could not help but share. Political ambition, rampant infighting and a lot of moral failure characterised all such groups. This is because man does not consist of only a rational mind, but he also has an emotional and spiritual side which is called the heart. The prophet (sws) emphasises the precedence of the heart over everything else. “Verily Allah does not look at your forms and acts but rather he looks into your hearts and intentions.”

Those hearts must overflow with love of Allah, and with all that Allah loves and the intentions emerging from the depths of such hearts can only be good. A brain crammed with tons of rational arguments and their warlike clatter and clamour is a defective asset in advancing the cause of Islam. The heart occupying the bosom of the owner of that brain should be even fuller with its own type of stores to ensure a really successful “Islamisation” first of the owner and then of those who are prepared to learn from him. Our first and foremost need is to be saved from the hell and it is our tears and repentance and not rational arguments that can do that. After putting out the fires of hell with our tears, our other aim is entering the paradise which again, is achievable by the heart’s actions and not by the rational mind’s. That action of the heart is mercy which includes love. It is absolutely true that a person endowed with sincere repentance and mercy in his heart can and shall be saved from the fire and enters paradise while a genius of rational argument without enough repentance and mercy in his heart is in grave danger. How many so-called Islamic idealists our history has recorded who killed their way to political power and continued to kill savagely in order to hold on to the same. In the process, they even killed the grandchildren of the very prophet they professed advancing the cause and espousing the love and later on many saints and innocent people.

What we need today as a nation (ummah) to prosper in an Islamically agreeable sense is a campaign of cultivation of the hearts in addition of the rational minds. One without the other causes debilitating illness of which enemies of Allah can and will take advantage and punish us as they have been doing for a long time now. Muslim youths must be raised and educated both as rationally, well-endowed thinkers and doers as well as thoroughly awakened masters of the affairs of the hearts in which good and evil should be known like day and night and cheats, demagogues and devils seen for what they are, no matter under what disguise or pretext they show up.

For this, we must set up schools more brilliant than Eaton’s, Oxford’s or Harvard’s in order that we may train an elite of highest mental calibre. Every nation to rise above its rivals, needs many assets (from wealth to knowledge) but the single greatest and most indispensable is human genius and in out case, the two-winged variety which constitute a rational wing and a spiritual wing. In other words, ideal Muslim leaders should be both veritable scholars and matured saints and not only either. In the mind of each there should be enough of true knowledge and justified opinions while in the heart of each there should be a full-fledged astrolabe of gnosis to read the signs of the Creator written all over the creatures and events happening to them and discern good from evil however skilfully obfuscated by the Devil.

Having Allah in their hearts and on their side, evil shall not triumph over them but they shall Insha’Allah triumph with Allah. Ameen.

The real converts evils into good

Do not think that He does otherwise

The insightful (‘arif) watches that

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beauty

Leave your affairs to the Real

Surrender and find comfort

Be content with everything He does

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beauty

Attach your heart to Him

Understand His providence

Abandon your measures

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

He is the Merciful Great Creator

He is the Generous Provider

He is the Wise Actor

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Know the Satisfier of Needs

And pray Him with your supplications

Abandon vain desires

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Do not be obsessed with an outcome unduly

If something already happened, do not obstinately reject and resent it

It is from the Real, do not refuse

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

All affairs shall become the Real’s

Vain are sorrows and anxieties

He just works His Wisdom

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

All His works are victorious

And befitting of each other

Whatever He does is acceptable

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Banish the gloom from your heart

Find tranquillity with the presence of your Lord

Commission your affairs to Him

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Do not confuse justice with injustice

Just submit and do not burn in fire

Keep patience and beware of feeling fed-up

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Don’t say “why is that so?”

It is as it should be

Look and wait to see what will result

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Do not look down on anybody

Do not hurt, do not ruin hearts

Do not take sides with your ego

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

The believer’s (mumin’s) affair cannot be colour changing

And his mental habit cannot be militancy

The arif’s tongue cannot be venomous

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

It is good patience that is pleasant

It is Allah’s preordination that is my guarantee

Allah is my dependable

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

On every tongue His name

In every soul His remembrance

To each servant His succour

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Where one is helpless

He opens up another veil

And applies a remedy to that affliction

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Every instant to every servant of His

He is showing favour or ire

Every instant He is in another affair

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Now giving, now withholding

Now harming, now benefiting

Now abasing, now elevating

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Sometimes He makes His servant arif

Sometimes safe, sometimes in fear

He is the One who rotates hearts

Let us then what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Sometimes He makes your heart empty

Sometimes HE makes your morals pleasant

Sometimes He brings you face to face with His love

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Sometimes plain, sometimes colourful

Now lively, now like stone

Now merry, now gloomy

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Eat little, sleep little, drink little

Turn away from the rubbish heap called the body

Emigrate to the rose gardens of the heart

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Do not tire yourself with people

And do not keep yourself either

Do not stray away from your heart

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Do not be stuck in the past

And do not busy yourself with dreams about the future

And do not be concerned even with the present

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Remember Him every instant

Put aside being clever

Instead, admiring the Real say:

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Come on and dive into the sea of wonderment once

And forget yourself and find Him

Throw away heedlessness and be aware

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

In every word there is advice

In every object ornament

In every situation a profit

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

All are signs and portents

All are winks of good news

All are the very favours

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Listen to all who talk

And understand what the One who causes then to speak

Wants to tell you through them

And accept with joy the messages received

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

Know the tongues of the creatures

They are all pens, o Haqqi, of the Real

Learn good manners and high morality

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful

I swear that He has done well

I am sure that He has done well

I have no doubt things couldn’t be better

Let us then see what the LORD DID

WHATEVER HE DID COULD ONLY BE THE BEST

THE END

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