Abu Hafsat

Long ago we often heard of those who left everything behind in search of God .... the Sufis, the Saints, the Dervishes and the Wandering lovers of the Divine who walked through deserts, mountains and lonely paths. People ask, why would they search for the One who is everywhere? If Allah is present in every atom of existence, why must one travel miles to ''find Him"? The truth is subtle yet simple. The Beloved was never lost: it is we who are missing, Allah never disappears, the human heart does. Man loses himself in the noise of the world, in its glitter, desires and illusions until his own light becomes hidden beneath dust. The real journey of spirituality, therefore, is not across lands or oceans. It is the journey back into the heart. It is said that 'he who knows himself, knows his Lord', and when a servant begins to seek the one who breathes within him, he realizes the secret that the Throne of Allah is not above the clouds, it resides within the heart of the believer. A Saint once said the Real is not found by walking, He is found by turning within, because Allah Himself declared in the Qur'an: -- ''WE ARE CLOSER TO HIM THAN HIS JAGULAR VEIN'' (50:16) Then why do we search for the near in what is far, why do we look to the sky when He whispers from within. When Sayyadina Musa, alaihi salaam, asked, ''my Lord, where shall I find You?'' Allah replied, ''You will find Me with the one whose heart is broken for My sake.'' That is the secret of all spiritual search .... broken becomes the door through which the light enters, because the heart that has been humbled, purified by longing and softened by tears, that heart becomes the Throne of the Almighty. The Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said: ''The heart of the believer is the House of the Lord.'' So the true Ka'aba we must visit daily is not in stone and marble, it is within our chest. And every sincere Sujood we perform cleans the dust from its walls. When Allah wishes good for His servant, He grants him awareness of his own soul. And the first sign of Divine mercy is that the seeker begins to see the impurities within, the pride, the envy, the deceit that once hid in shadow. He becomes aware of his weakness, his sins, his helplessness. This is not humiliation, it is purification; the beginning of awakening; for the ignorant boast of their good deeds but the truly enlightened weep over their flaws. And in those tears lies their nearness to Allah.

Taking a little closer look, you/we will notice that your inner reality is nothing but a mirror reflecting Allah's Divine Names. These Names are not merely external attributes to be memorized; they are living forces; flowing narratives and ever unfolding manifestations woven into the very fabric of creation. Every atom in the universe moves by a Name, stands by a Name and speaks through a Name. In his 'FUTUHAT AL-MAKKIYAH', Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah be Merciful to him, wrote: ''There is no created being except that it is an image of one of the Names of Allah, and there is no human being except that it is a collection of Names. He is the most perfect mirror of the manifestation of the Truth.'' Inanimate matter manifests through the Name al-Qahar (The Subduer), plants thrive through al-Hayy (The Living), animals move through al-Rahman (The All-Merciful); and all these manifestations are gathered within the human being.... When you feel severity within yourself, know that the Name al-Jabbar (The Compeller) is being unveiled within you. When you bow your neck in repentance, it is al-Tawwab (The Acceptor of Repentance) touching your soul. And when you love, it is al-wadud (The Loving) flowing through you. You are not walking an abstract path; you come to know Allah through your own self; through His Names within you. The journey is a journey from the Name to the Named, from the manifestation to the Source. That is why the Gnostics say: 'Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord'.... meaning he knows the Names manifest within him, and thus he knows their Origin.

He appeared as someone born in the middle of a desert, raised as an orphan, engaged in trade, but that is not the truth. He was not just a soul carried in a body; he was a Divine sign imprinted upon time itself; carrying a depth that pushed the limits of human reason. Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, was human- yes, but he did not carry an ordinary mind. His intellect was not a mind that merely tried to make sense of what it saw, nor a memory that only repeated what it had learned. His mind had the strength to bear revelation (Wahy); the vastness to carry the weight of truth. Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah be Merciful to him, said that everything was given to the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, yet he never claimed anything as his own; for he was not chosen to possess but to carry a trust. And that trust was not simply a Book, a Law or a set of words. The Qur'an came to him- was revealed to him; but first it touched his heart; it did not descend upon his reason. It descended upon his being. ''We will send down upon you a weighty word'', he was told. And he carried that weight not with rebellion, not with escape but with surrender. The mind of the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasalla, never sought credit for itself; it attributed all to Allah. That is why his mind could forgive his enemies, because forgiveness is not the act of reason, but the movement of a heart guided by Allah's permission.... And his mind never glorified itself with blessings because he knew the one who gives is Allah; and to claim what is given is betray the trust; his mind never placed itself at the center; for he knew who stood at the center - Allah was there and so the greatness of his intellect cannot be measured by miracles or extraordinary events. It was the clarity of a mind walking in the path most aligned with Allah; pure, true, unbroken and wholly directed toward the Real. This is why Ibn Arabi holds that the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, is the perfection of the intellect, for he is the final point to which the human mind can arrive. And that point is not reached by knowledge alone, but by surrender. Your mind may always want to ask: why, how, for what reason, but his mind found peace only by entrusting those questions to the Divine mystery. The mind of the Prophet was not confined to his own age; it was a reflection that could reach across centuries; that is why when he spoke his words did not remain in the streets of Madinah; they echoed centuries later in Tokyo, Istanbul, Andalusia...... His intellect was never imprisoned in time. It carried an awareness that transcended time itself. ALLAHUMMA SALLI ALA SAYYADINA MUHAMMADIN; WA ALA AHLIHI, WA-ASHABIHI; FI KULLI LAMHATIN, WA NAFASIN; BI-ADADI KULLI MA'ALUMIN LAKA.

Not one Du'a you have ever made was ignored; the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said every Du'a receives a reply. That is the ground under your feet, but the reply comes in a shape you did not order. You asked for a door to open; He may open a different one; you asked for the pain to stop; He may make you strong to carry it. The asking was heard; the shape was His to choose. This is not a trick, and it is not a spell. You are not saying words to bend the sky; you are speaking to the One who already knows your need better than you do. The mistake is small and it ruins everything; you decided what 'Yes' looks like before He answered. Sheikh Ibn Ata'illah, a master of the inner path, wrote a line that cuts straight to it. He said, ''Do not let delay in getting what you asked for make you lose hope. Allah promised to answer in what He chooses for you, not in what you choose for yourself.'' Allah's response to your (our) Du'a, as you must have known, comes in one of three (3) forms. The Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, named all three. The first form is the one you hoped for; you ask and the thing comes; the door opens; the illness lifts; the hard heart softens. This is the form everyone wants and it is real, and it happens more than you notice. The second form is a trade you cannot see. You ask for something, and instead Allah turns away a harm that was heading straight for you; what you wanted did not arrive, but a disaster you never knew about was quietly moved off your road. You felt silence; what truly happened was rescue. The third form is the one that changes everything. Allah takes your Du'a and keeps it; He stores it whole and untouched for the day you will need it most. On that day, you will see what your unanswered prayers became -- saved, multiplied, waiting for you. Now, feel where this leaves you. From the inside, all 3 can feel like nothing. You made Du'a, life went on the same; and silence pressed on your chest; sitting where you sit; refusal and rescue look identical. You cannot tell a stored answer from a rejected one by feeling alone -- and that's the whole trouble. And this is a trap almost everyone falls into; you count only the first form...... You decided that (Du'a) means the exact thing you asked for; arriving the way you pictured it; on the day you chose. So, 2 and 3 answers turn invisible; you could be handed rescue and reward every single day and still feel abandoned. You are only watching one of the 3 doors; the way out is simple to say and hard to live. You/we should stop grading your prayers by what lands in your hands; start trusting that that the other 2 doors are real and open and busy on your behalf. Best Wishes.

As-Salaam alaikum, The Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said that Surah Ikhlas (chapter 112 of the Holy Qur'an) equals one-third of the Qur'an. Four short lines, 57 letters in Arabic, yet somehow equivalent to over 200 pages of revelation. How wonderful. Most people read this Surah daily, they know it protects them; brings blessings; opens doors; but Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah sanctify his secret and be Merciful to him, discovered something that scholars whisper about but rarely explain in public. The Surah is not just about Allah's Oneness; it is about the the dissolution of everything that is not Allah, including you. The Sheikh in his 'Futuhat al-Makkiyyah', notes that Surah Ikhlas begins with 'Qul'- Say. This is a Command from Allah to the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, but Ibn Arabi saw deeper layers. The command to 'say' itself is a teaching about the nature of speech and existence. When you say something, where does the sound come from? -- from breath; from vibration in the throat; from the intention in the mind. But who gave you breath, who created the vocal cords, who placed the thought in your consciousness? Every word you speak is ultimately Allah speaking through the instrument of your body. So when the verse/ayat commands Qul (Say) it's reminding you even your act of recitation is not truly yours, it's Divine Speech manifesting through a human form. Then comes 'HUWA ALLAHU AHAD' -- He is Allah, the One. Ibn Arabi spent years meditating on the word AHAD because it's different from WAHID, another word for one. WAHID means one in number -- implying the possibility of a second. You can count 1, 2, 3 but AHAD means the Absolute One beyond all counting; beyond all comparison; beyond all conceptualization -- it's the Oneness that cannot even be thought about properly, because thinking requires a subject; an object; a thinker and a thought. But AHAD dissolves that duality. Ibn Arabi wrote that when you truly say Ahad, your mind reaches for something it cannot grasp. And in that failure to grasp, something happens; the ego which survives on categorization and separation finds nothing to hold on to. The verse continues: ALLAHU SAMAD -- Allah the Eternal Refuge. The word SAMAD has multiple meanings that Ibn Arabi carefully unpacked. On one level, it means the one who needs nothing but whom everything needs; on another level it means solid without hollowness, without internal parts. Most beings are composite made of parts dependent on those parts staying together. Your body is made of organs, your organs are cells, your cells are molecules. You are a temporary assembly that will one day disassemble, but Allah is SAMAD... Absolute, noncomposite, Eternal. He has no parts, no dependencies, no internal structure that could fail or decay. When you say 'Allahu Samad' with understanding you're acknowledging that only Allah has true self-subsisting existence; everything else including your sense of 'I' is borrowed, contingent and destined to return to the source. Then the Surah delivers the blow: LAM YALID WA LAM YULAD -- He begets not, nor is He begotten. This verse destroys the concept of origin and derivative. Everything in your experience has a beginning and an end. You were born; you will die; your thought arise and pass; your feeling come and go; the entire universe emerged from the Big Bang and will eventually end...but Allah was never born, never originated, never came from anything and He never begets, never produces offspring, never creates something that is His equal or shares His Essence. Ibn Arrabi saw that this shatters the ego's attempt to understand Allah by analogy. We understand things by comparison - this is like that; this came from that; but Allah cannot be understood that way. He is not like anything. He did not come from anything; He does not produce equals. This verse forces the mind into a corner where all its tools fail. You cannot think youur way to Allah because thinking operates through relationship; and this verse says Allah has no relationship of origin or derivation. The final blow comes with WALAM YAKUN LAHU KUFU'AN AHAD -- And there is none comparable to Him.... the word KUFU'AN means equal, comparable, similar. This is the Absolute negation of all comparison -- nothing is like Allah; not metaphorically unlike, but absolutely, categorically incomparable. Every time you think you understand something about Allah, this verse says no! you don't. Whatever you imagined is not Him, whatever concept you formed is not Him, whatever feeling you had is not Him. Ibn Arabi calle this the via negativa - the path of negation; you cannot say what Allah is, only what He is not. And this final verse negates everything.

As-Salaam alaikum, You are praying, you are fasting, you are doing everything right, yet something inside you feels dead, heavy, empty. The Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, called it the silent disease of the heart. Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah sanctify his secret, described it as the hidden death that kills the soul, while the body still works. Right now, this is spreading faster than ever. The heart becomes sick when it forgets who is watching. The first silent disease of the heart is forgetfulness of the Divine Gaze; not forgetfulness of Allah's Existence. The deeper danger is forgetting that Allah is witnessing them right now. A person may say I believe in Allah, but their heart acts as though Allah is far away; they speak carelessly because they forget Allah hears; they look carelessly because they forget Allah sees; they plan sins quietly because they forget Allah knows; they delay repentance because they forget tht their next breath is not guaranteed. This is not ignorance of religion; this is absence of presence. In the path of inner knowledge, the greatest poverty is not having little money but living under the gaze of Allah while feeling unseen by Him, because when the heart truly knows it is seen by Allah, it becomes careful, it becomes softer, awake. This is why Ihsan is the medicine of the heart. To worship Allah as though you see Him, and if you do not see Him, to know that He sees you. The Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, did not teach Ihsan as decoration. He taught it as the highest state of worship, because the heart cannot remain diseased when it is truly aware of been seen by the One who created it. A man alone with his phone at night is not alone; a woman crying quietly into her pillow is not alone; a person hiding bitterness behind a smile is not alone; a businessman cheating in a transaction is not alone; a student lying to escape blame is not alone; a believer standing in prayer without focus is not alone. Allah sees the movement before it becomes an action; He sees the intention before it becomes a word; He sees the wound before it becomes anger; He sees the desire before it becomes sin; He sees the repentance before it reaches the tongue. So, the question is not whether Allah sis watching. The question is whether your heart is awake to His watching. This is where many hearts become sick. They begin to live as if people are the real witnesses and Allah is only an idea. They fear embarrassment more than sin, they fear losing reputation more than losing sincerity, they fear being exposed in front of people more than being exposed on the Day when nothing hidden remains hidden. And when the gaze of people becomes greater in your heat than the gaze of Allah Ta'ala, your worship becomes performance, your morality becomes strategy and your religion becomes a routine. This is a serious disease. We must Beware!!

As-Salaam alaikum, What if the greatest distraction in your life isn't your phone but your own self, you sit after Sallah and within moments the same thoughts return, did I pray with enough focus, why didn't I feel anything, am I getting any closer to Allah or am I only pretending? You recite the Qur'an, but your mind quietly drifts towards tomorrow's meeting, last night's conversation or version of yourself you hope other people see.... Most of us think distraction comes from social media, endless notifications, or the noise of modern life. Those things certainly distract us, but there is another distraction that follows you everywhere. It sits besides you in Sallah, it opens the Qur'an with you, it whispers during your Zikr, it even joins you when nobody else is around -- it is the endless habit of watching yourself - am I sincere enough, did I pronounce that correctly, do people think I am religious, why can't I concentrate, why don't I feel what everyone else feels. Without realizing it, many of us have become experts of observing ourselves while forgetting to observe the One who created us. And the more we watch ourselves, the more exhausted we become. The irony is painful, we long to become close to Allah while remaining trapped inside our own thoughts. Shiekh Ibn Arabi, may Allah be Merciful to him, diagnosed this illness in a way that feels astonishingly modern. He teaches in the 'Futuhat al-Makkiyyah', that the heart becomes truly alive when its attention leaves the prison of the ego and rests in awareness of the real Allah, whose perfect knowledge never leaves His servant. Muraqabah is not forcing yourself to think about Allah every second. It is learning to live as someone who finally realizes that no one breath, not one thought, not one hidden tear has ever existed outside Allah's knowledge. For Ibn Arabi, Muraqabah is not an isolated mystical exercise practiced only by spiritual elites, it is a transformation of perception, it is learning to live beneath the Divine Name al-Raqib - the Ever Watchful - not imagining Allah, not visualizing Allah, not confusing the Creator with His creation. Allah remains utterly transcendent, completely unlike His creation yet His knowledge encompasses every hidden thought, every whispered prayer, every forgotten disappointment, every sincere intention.

As-Salaam alaikum, The Noble Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said: ''I smile because of 2 men from my Nation, who shall knell in the Presence of the Lord of Power. One of them says: 'O my Lord, grant me retaliation for the wrong which my brother did to me.' And Allah says: 'Give your brother that in which he was wronged.' 'O Lord, he says, 'none of my righteous works remain.' Then Allah Ta'ala [the Exalted] says to the man who made the demand: 'What shall you do with your brother, seeing that none of his righteous works remain?' And he replies: 'O my Lord, let him bear some of my burdens in my stead.' And Allah's Messenger wept, as he said: 'Truly, that shall be a fearsome Day, a Day when men have need of others to bear their burdens.' Then he said: 'Allah shall say to one who made the request: 'Lift up your head and look to the Gardens.' This he does, and he says: 'O my Lord, I see high cities of silver, and golden palaces wreathed about with pearls. For which Prophet shall they be, or which Saint or martyr?' And He said: 'They belong to whomsoever pays Me their Price.' 'O my Lord, he says, 'And who possesses such a price?' You possess it', He replies. 'And what might it be?' he asks, and He says: 'Your forgiveness of your brother.' 'O my Lord, he says, 'I have forgiven him!' Then Allah the Exalted says: 'Take your brother's hand and bring him into Heaven.' Then Allah's Messenger recited part of 1st verse in Surat Anfal of the Holy Qur'an: ''...Fear Allah, and make reconciliation among yourselves'' (8:1) (Al-Hakim al-Nisaburi: al-Mustadrak ala al-Sahihayn) IV, 576.

As-Salaam alaikum, Our Teachers, the 'Ulama of the Islamic tradition teach that the true homeland of peace is the Heart (qalb) when it is polished by dhikr (Zikr), Imaan (faith) and surrenders to Almighty Allah. External threats, insults or hardships can shake our body, but not the heart that has been anchored in the Divine. Says our Lord in the Holy Qur'an: -- ''Indeed, in the Remembrance of Allah [Zikr] do hearts find peace.'' (13:28) The peace referred to in this verse/ayat is not fragile; it is not given by people, and so it cannot be taken away by them. When faith flowers in the heart, the inner garden becomes a paradise before Paradise. Here, if you like you may recall that Hadith in which the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said: - ''Paradise is closer to you than your shoelace, and so is Hellfire''. (Musnad Ahmad). And Sheikh Abu Madyan al-Ghawth, may Allah be Merciful to him, said: ''The true faqir is the one who is at peace in the storm, for his heart is with Allah while his body is among creation.'' So, no matter what others say or do, if your heart is with Allah [rooted] in Tawheed, you carry a sanctuary with you. This is what the Sufis call Sakina .... the tranquility Almighty Allah sends into the hearts of believers.

As-Salaam alaikum, The complete one (Kamil) does not worship Allah for any motive, except one or, if necessary two. The first is that one worships Allah, the Exalted so that Allah, the Exalted will love him for his following His commands and adhering to what he was created for. For, if Allah Ta'ala loves him, He will subject all of the universe to him and everything will obey him. If he says to it, "Be", then it is, by the indication of His saying, (When I love him, I am his hearing by which he hears....)/ Hadith-Qudsi. However, he does not say to anything "Be", out of courtesy with his Lord, and in light of the station of slave-hood (al-Ubudiyya). Because, verily, the slave does not exceed his degree by giving orders. And his station is only to receive orders, unless his Lord gives him permission, so that he speaks with the tongue of his Lord, not with the tongue of his self (nafsihi). And the second purpose is that one worships Allah Ta'ala, for the sake of (seeing) His Honored Face in the place of eternal bliss (Dar al-na'im al-muqim).

To be on course in our bid to reach our Lord and Creator with Imaan (faith), we need to be mindful of four things, as follows :-- "Zikr, the basis of which is righteous works, and the fruit of which is illumination. Meditation, the basis of which is perseverance, and the fruit of which is knowledge. Poverty, the basis of which is thankfulness, and the fruit of which is an increase of it. Love, the basis of which is dislike of the world and its people, and the fruit of which is Union with the beloved. " Abu Hasan Shadhili. " There are 3 (people) who will enter Paradise without accounting : a man who, when he is washing his garment, has no other one, a man who has no more than one pot on his fireplace, and a man who, when he asks for a drink, is not asked 'what kind of drink do you want'? " - - Abu Najib

As-Salaam alaikum, Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam told me:- "O Abu Huraira, be scrupulous and you will be the most devoted of people, be content and you will be the most grateful of people, love for people what you love for yourself and you will be a believer, be a good companion to those in your company and you will be a Muslim, and decrease laughter, for truly, a lot of laughter kills the heart. "(Ibn Majah).

As-Salaam alaikum, "I DID NOT CREATE THE JINN AND MANKIND EXCEPT TO WORSHIP ME" (51:56) The final purpose of the world is nothing but Divine Worship. Devotion or worship, ultimately, is in 3 stages:- (1) Devotion of ordinary people: obedience to God's Commands. (2) Devotion of the elect on the mystical path: Increasing of intention and will and cultivation of sincerity. (3) Devotion of the elect of the elect (akhassu l-khassa) : Serving God with love. In all these 3 forms/stages, Devotion should/must be seen as the presence of the heart, whereby one gets immersed in the ocean of love and connecting to the Divine in his/her acts of worship.

As-Salaam alaikum, In addressing him, the Holy Qur'an says about Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam:- "Truly, though art of an exalted (azim) character" (68:4) And it was lost on no one that the Qur'an uses the same adjective to refer to itself - 'the Mighty (azim) Qur'an' (15:87). The Exaltedness of the Prophet's character derives precisely from the fact that he had assimilated the Qur'an into his very being. This is how Sufis have understood the saying of the Prophet's wife Sayyada A'isha, may Allah be pleased with her, when she was asked about his character after his death. She replied : "Have you not read the Qur'an? His character was the Qur'an". (Sunan Ahmad 10, No. 25,240). Indeed, among all of Allah's servants, the one who had the most exalted character was/is Muhammad, literally 'the praised one', also called Ahmad, 'the most praiseworthy' (61:6). The Qur'an speaks of Allah as "the Praiseworthy" (al-Hamid), the implication being that no one else is truly worthy of praise. If the Qur'an calls the Prophet both "Muhammad" and "Ahmad", that is because his character conforms to Allah's "character", which is to say that "his character was the Qur'an", Allah's Speech and Self-Expression.

"This world is the prison, and we are the prisoners: dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out! What is this world? To be forgetful of God, it is not merchandise and silver and weighing scales and women. As regards the wealth that you carry for religious sake, "How good is righteous wealth (for the righteous man)"! as the Prophet recited. Since he cast out from his heart (the desire for) wealth and possessions, on that account Soloman did not call himself (by any name) but "poor". Although the whole of this world is his Kingdom, in the eye of his heart the Kingdom is nothing. " After Jalaluddin Rumi in his 'Mathnawi, Trans. by Prof R. A Nicholson.