While fayds and blessings flow abundantly in sohbats, the second method will yield them only in drops. But, only a single drop of it is more valuable and delicious than all earthly earnings. Visiting his grave will cause an increase in the number of drops, but falling into the traps of lâ-madhhabîs, heretics, impostors, and false shaikhs causes a full stoppage of the drops. Connection between hearts and souls results from believing, loving, and desiring. If a Muslim attends the sohbat of a...

Muhammad Ma’thûm Fârûqî ‘rahmatullâhi ’alaih’ writes as follows in the hundred and forty-second letter of the third volume of his Maktûbât: “It is very good for you to come to the city of Serhend with the intention of making a visit to the qabr-i sherîf (honoured grave) of Imâm-i Rabbânî ‘quddisa sirruh’. You will obtain fayd and blessings here. You will profit from the lights and secrets coming from the source in Madîna-i Munawwara. Even though the darkness of kufr and wickedness in India...

Attaining the grace and love of Allâhu ta’âlâ requires havig ikhlâs and a qalb-i selîm. Purification of the heart is possible only by believing Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, by loving and being adherent to him. To do this, the shortest and easiest way is to know a Walî and to establish râbita with him, that is, to become attached to him by heart, provided that we learn the i’tiqâd (creed) of Ahl-i sunnat, the Ahkâm-i-islâmiyya, and manners of Tasawwuf from his words and books. A...

Walî means ‘an Ahl-i sunnat scholar who has attained the love and the grace of Allâhu ta’âlâ; and ‘The Ahl-i sunnat Madhhab’ means ‘the way shown by Qur’ân-al-kerîm and hadîths.’ The savants of the Ahl-i sunnat learned this way from the Ashâb-i kirâm. They respected not what they understood, but what they heard from the Ashâb-i kirâm. ‘To dissent from the Ahl-i sunnat’ means ‘to dissent from the right way of the Qur’ân and hadîths.’ Of these people, the ones who dissent from the Ahl-i sunnat...

Let us mention also the fact that as each person has a different illness in his heart and soul, likewise everybody has a different property, a different tendency called “idiosyncracy: Uberempfindlickheit gegen bestimmte Reize.” Rasûlullah has not only communicated the diseases of the heart and its treatment, but he has also given hundreds of thousands of different kinds of facts regarding individuals, families, societies, wars, and problems of inheritance, that is, all kinds of matters...

Knowledge of the body has been learned from the four sources and has reached us through Fiqh books. Those who want to obey Rasûlullah must worship as taught in Fiqh books. The knowledge of the heart, which purifies the heart, the soul, and the nafs, has come to us by means of the hearts of the Awliyâ. Those who want to adapt themselves to Rasûlullah in the knowledge of the heart and soul, should stay near a Walî and acquire this knowledge from his heart. A Walî is a means, a path between the...

The religious knowledge conveyed by Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ falls into two categories: knowledge of the body and knowledge of the heart. It was his duty to teach his Ashâb the knowledge of the body, which included all the tenets of îmân and teachings pertaining to acts of worship that the heart has to believe and which have to be done and those which have to be practised with the body or avoided. He taught all of them personally and directly. The spiritual teachings...

Imâm-i Rabbânî ‘quddisa sirruh’, in his 260th letter says, “Fayds, nûrs, which are in the heart of a murshid, like sunlight, shine on everybody. They flow towards the hearts of those Muslims who love him and who adapt themselves to the Ahkâm-i-islâmiyya. They are unaware of the reception of these fayds. They don’t understand that their hearts are purified. Like a watermelon maturing under the light of the sun, they reach maturity. The Ashâb-i kirâm ‘ridwânullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în’...

Imâm-i Gazâlî ‘rahmatullâhi ’alaih’, at the end of his book (Ayyuhal Walad), says: “Every Muslim is in need of an education from a murshid. A murshid, by training him, saves him from bad habits. He supplants good habits in the place of bad ones. Education is similar to a farmer’s efforts to make the plantation on his land strong and improved by cleaning away harmful weeds. Allâhu ta’âlâ sent Prophets ‘’alaihim-us-salâm’ to show his creatures the correct path. He created murshids to represent...

Question: Since no Murshid-i kâmil has been seen after the first half of the fourteenth century of the Hegira, why don’t we attach our heart to the heart of Rasûlullah, and thereby receive his strong nûr, instead of attaching our heart to the hearts of past Walîs by reading their words and thus knowing them? Besides, isn’t it an essential of îmân to be attached to him, that is, to believe and love him? Answer: No doubt it is better to follow Rasûlullah directly ‘sallAllâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa...

It is written in Irshâd-ut-tâlibîn: “When a Murshid-i kâmil dies, he does not stop giving fayd. He gives more. But, men’s contact with the dead is unlike their contact with the living. For this reason, little fayd is received from the soul of a dead one. Those who have reached Fanâ and Baqâ have extensive relations with a dead one, almost as well as when he was alive. Therefore, they get much fayd; yet still they get more when the latter is alive. Murshids facilitate those in their company to...

Hadrat Sayyid Sherîf Jurjânî, one of the great savants of the Hanafî Madhhab, writes at the end of Sharh-i mawâqif and at the beginning of Hâshiyatu Sharh-ul-matâlî’ and in Berîqa, p.270, the figures of the Awliyâ show themselves to their murîds even after their death and give them fayd. To see them and receive fayd is not easy; it is necessary to hold the belief of Ahl as-sunnat by learning it from books, to obey the Ahkâm-i-islâmiyya, and to like and to respect the Awliyâ.  It is written...

A fortunate person who reads and understands the book Se’âdet-i Ebediyye[1] will both learn religious knowledge and get to [1] i.e. the six fascicles of Endless Bliss.know Imâm-i Rabbânî; thus, his heart becoming inclined, he will become attached to him. Receiving the nûr which he (Imâm-i Rabbânî) radiates over the world, he will, unknown to himself, begin to approach perfection. As an unripe watermelon ripens and sweetens under the rays of the sun, so will he mature, thus becoming a perfect...

Sultân Mahmûd Ghaznawî, the founder of the Ghaznawî Empire, which was a great Islamic empire, was born in 357 and died in 421 A.H. in Ghazna. One day, this great emperor of Asia visited Hadrat Abul-Hasan-i Kharqânî, one of the higher ones of the Awliyâ. In the course of their conversation, he asked him, “What kind of a person was your leader Bâyazîd-i Bistâmî?” Hadrat Shaikh answered him, “Bâyazîd was such a perfect Walî that those who saw him attained the right way. They joined people loved...

The Ashâb-i kirâm (the companions of the Prophet) and the Tâbi’în-i izâm (people who saw the Ashâb-i kiram) are called Salaf-i sâlihîn. The Ahl-as-Sunna savants who succeeded them and who lived until the end of the four hundredth year of the Hegira are called Halaf-i sâdiqîn. Halaf-i sâdiqîn always followed the Salaf-i sâlihîn in the knowledge pertaining to faith, deeds and heart; they never deviated from the way of the Salaf-i sâlihîn. It appeared to be impossible to see insân-i-kâmils...

He who does his best to attain love of Allâhu ta’âlâ is called a Sâlih. He who has already attained this love is called an ’Ârif or Walî. He who is a means for others to attain love of Allâhu ta’âlâ is called a Murshid. These three people are called Sâdiq. It is purported in the thirty-first âyat of Sûra-t-u-Âl-i-’Imrân: “Tell them!: ‘If you love Allâhu ta’âlâ, adapt yourselves to me! For, Allâhu ta’âlâ loves people who adapt themselves to me.’ ” The symptom of loving Allâhu ta’âlâ is to...

The heart is dependent both upon the nafs and upon the sense organs and is attached to things which the sense organs are preoccupied with. When man sees something lovely, hears a beautiful voice, or tastes something sweet, the heart becomes attached to them. Man cannot help this attachment. Also, when man reads something beautiful, the heart becomes attached to the author and its meaning. By ‘beautiful and sweet’, ‘what comes beautiful and sweet to the heart’ is meant. Most of the time, man...

Suppose we put a mirror against the sun, a second mirror against this, a third one against the second one, and a fourth one against it...; the sun will be seen in each of the thirty mirrors put in such an order. For, each mirror reflects the sun to the other. By the same token, the heart of each of the Ashâb-i kirâm ‘’alaihimurridwân’ was brightened like a mirror by the nûr radiated by the blessed heart of Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allahu ’alaihi wa sallam’. Seeing his beautiful moral qualities,...

Electricity is conducted through copper wires. The sender and the receiving set of a radio are attached to each other through electromagnetic waves. It is written in the twentieth letter of the fourth volume of the book Maktûbât that what attaches hearts to one another is love. When a person sees a Walî and talks with him or reads his books, he loves him, seeing that he adheres to Islam perfectly, that his knowledge is like an ocean, that he has excellent morals, and that he does favours to...

By “the heart,” we do not mean the piece of flesh on the left hand side of our chest, which also is called “heart,” and which animals have, too. The heart proper to man is different. The heart is an invisible force. It is noticed through its effects. An electric current is not seen, either. But, because it causes the resistance wire to radiate light by heating it up when it passes through the bulb, we understand that it exists in the bulb. However, electricity is not matter. It does not...

As we now know, ultraviolet rays kill microbes. Tuberculous patients have their lungs cleaned through radio therapy in sanitariums. As ultraviolet rays clean the lungs, likewise, there are rays that clean the heart. These rays are called nûr and fayz. The heart’s sickness is its following the nafs, liking and being fond of the harâms. The sun radiates ultraviolet rays. And the source that radiates nûr is the heart of a Walî. The hearts of the Awliyâ are like full moon. The moon reflects the...

Useful things providing men with a healthy, salutary, comfortable and cheerful life (in this world) and endless happiness in the Hereafter are called Ni’met (blessing). Allâhu ta’âlâ, being very compassionate, created all the blessings His born slaves would need. And through His heavenly books, which He revealed to His Prophets, He instructed us on how we should use and utilize them. These instructions are called Dîn. If any person, Muslim and disbeliever alike, leads a life in conformity...

Europeans have derived most of their scientific knowledge and its basis from Islamic books. While Europeans assumed that the earth was flat like a tray surrounded by a wall, Muslims had known that the earth was spherical and was rotating. This fact is written in detail in the books Sharh-i Mawâqif and Ma’rifatnâma. They measured the length of the meridian in the open plain of Sinjar between Mûsul and Diyâr-i Bekr, finding the result as it is found today. Nûr-ud-dîn Batrûjî, who passed away in...

Another Islamic savant was Imâm-i Rabbânî Ahmad-i Fârûqî. It has been unanimously stated by religious authorities that his depth in religious knowledge, his high grade in ijtihâd, and especially his perfection in Tasawwuf were above mind’s ability to comprehend. The books that have appeared recently in the United States have begun to be illuminated by the rays of this sun of happiness. Imâm-i Rabbânî ‘rahmatullâhi ’alaih’ was specialized in the scientific knowledge of his time, too. In the...

Religiously ignorant people cannot attack Islam through cleanliness, either. When some youngsters among the Tâbi’în asked the Ashâb-i kirâm ‘ridwânullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în’, “Allâhu ta’âlâ loves you. He praises you in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. What is the reason for this love? Tell us, and we will be like you, so that He will love us, too,” they answered, “He loves us because we have been extra careful about being clean.” Allâhu ta’âlâ declares at various parts of the Qur’ân al-kerîm: “I...