Noor-e-Nisbat by fighting Ghaflah!

Our Mashaikh of Tazkiya have a term ‘Noor-e-Nisbat’.

Nisbat means connection and attachment to Allah. Nisbat means to have such a strong attachment and connection that the lower party is elevated by the higher party. It means that the adna party is raised higher by the ala party.

What you’re attached to makes a big difference. This is why Allah Swt attaches things to Himself. He sent Quran as a book and attached it to Himself as Kitaabullah. He sent Nabi SAW and attached him to Himself as Rasool-Allah. This means Allah Swt wants us to attach ourselves to Him.

What types of Nisbat Allah Swt wants to give us:

That is Jannah. Since Allah Swt will live forever, He wants us to live with Him forever. This is the Nisbat Allah Swt wants to give us. This is what is ‘ya khafi-ul-lutfi adrikni bi lutfikal khafi.’ This is the meaning of Allah Swt’s name Al-Latif which means unfathomable. He wants to give us unfathomable Nisbah, an eternal Nisbah with Him.

The person who tries to get that Nisbah in this world, Allah Swt will enable him to get that Nisbah in the next world. That is why Allah Swt sent down the Quran, Nabi SAW etc. So this is the maqsad of Tariqah; that the Salika becomes ‘Raziatam marziya’ that I become such that Allah Swt is pleased with me.

So deen is not that you pray five times a day. You have to make your aspirations, your dreams, your words and thoughts such that they become close to Allah Swt. They become as close to Allah Swt as possible. We cannot become one with Allah Swt but we need to become as close while maintaining that distance. This is called Wassal.

Allah Swt says in Quran that they are such people that Allah Swt has drawn them closer to Himself.

And when Allah Swt draws someone close to Him, He draws them closer to Him perfectly. This is what the Sahaba had. They tried to draw themselves as close to Allah Swt as they could and then Allah Swt drew them closer to Him. This is either through zuhad or mujahida  etc.

In the beginning, we make you do tauba, fear and love Allah Swt and love the Nabi Swt and after a woman has done that we want to proceed to the next goal. First goal is to leave sin and to live a life according to Shariah. That may be ongoing but if you have made efforts and are still making them and you know what’s wrong, you should make another goal which is to make yourself pleasing to Allah Swt.

Those who love Allah Swt, they love Allah Swt madly. They love Allah Swt more than anything in the world. And there are two obstacles in this.

1. 1.       Sin
2. 2.       Ghaflah

Ghaflah means to forget Allah Swt. Allah Swt says in Quran:

Don’t you dare forget Allah Swt for even a second.

As critically important it is to stay and leave sin, it is the same for ghaflah. Whenever we forget Allah Swt, we will forget that we have to please Allah Swt. Whenever we are ghafil of Allah Swt we are in danger of sinning.

If you look around yourself, everything is such that you forget Allah Swt. This is the beauty of zikr, that it makes you remember Allah Swt. The malls and roads are designed such that you stay trapped in this world and forget Allah Swt. Every single thing in the dunya that you can imagine is for this sole purpose. You know which is the nicest doughnut and the nicest soap dispenser; you will find beauty and attraction in the most trivial part of your life. Every single beauty of this world is to make you forget the beauty of Allah Swt.

Allah Swt says in Quran:

O Insan, what has made you forget your kind Rab?

When you get the candies of this world you forget Allah Swt. First the dunya tries to make you ghafil of Allah Swt and then it makes you forget that you even have ghaflah.

Ghaflat is progressive. It is evasive. Allah Swt wants us to remove ghaflah from our hearts. We cannot remove the ghaflah from today’s society. So we have to remove ghaflah from our heart. This is what Shaytan does. He makes us forget the remembrance of Allah Swt by making us enter into ghaflat.

So don’t think that I’ll leave my sin first and then I’ll attack ghaflah. No. You have to stay away from ghaflah.

Mafhoom of Hadis:

The beauty of excellence of the imaan and deen of a person is such that they leave (tark) those things that don’t concern them.

Hence, the whole concept of Tazkiya is to make people leave ghaflah by making them remember Allah Swt. The second step is to do qasad. Qasad means to have determination. That is to become resilient on doing zikr. One is like zikr is good; I think it’s nice, sign me up. This is the first step. The second step which is qasad is that I am going to chase zikr. You have to broaden the horizon of your zikr.

I am a zikr seeker. I am a zikr chaser. I am a zikr lover.

This is what we want you to do. We want you to take the second step.

The problem with you is that you are willing to do only that amount of zikr which is within your reach. You are willing to do only as much of zikr as it falls into your lap. That’s not qasad.

3 things you have to do if you want to be successful in deen

1. 1.       Want it BADLY
2. 2.       Work for it. HARD.
3. 3.       Pray for it.
4. 4.       Over and over and over and over again.

Eg: If there is a woman who has a family member and the family member is sick. If you ask her to do some specific zikr, she will do it. She will do it over and over again and she will come to you asking for more.

So you have to do it more. You have to do it with a different approach. Not with I have to do it 15 mins a day. You should do it with the approach that I have to do this to get closer to Allah Swt, to become a beloved of Allah Swt. You have to make a conscious, deliberate, long term effort. This is what is qasad.

This is why you have to do Zikr-e-qalbi since it is the zikr you can do 24/7. And it takes effort. It is possible to do zikr with your tongue and forget Allah Swt in your heart but it is not possible to do zikr in your heart and not remember Allah Swt.

This is why zikr-e-qalbi is a direct attack on ghaflah.

I want every moment of my life to be interlaced with the remembrance of Allah Swt. I want to remember Allah Swt with my every single breath. 100 % doing zikr of Allah Swt. This is zikr-e-qalbi.

There are two ways to do zikr-e-qalbi:

1. 1.       Muraqabah

Whenever you get free moments, you must remember Allah Swt to fight ghaflah. You must do muraqabah whenever it’s possible. Even if you are free for 2-3 mins, now you might think that it won’t do anything but you underestimate it. Even if you do it 2-3 mins for a few days, you will feel a difference.

1. 2.       Waquf-e-qalbi

This is remembering Allah Swt while multi tasking. So you must remember Allah Swt before and after when doing some time and this way that task will inshAllah be counted as zikr.

You have to do effort. You have to spend years of effort. You have to spend years and years scrubbing so that your heart can shine with the remembrance of Allah Swt. And with these things, you should remain in wuzu, follow Sunnah and keep making effort of remembering Allah Swt by fighting Ghaflah.

Another thing you need besides this is to feel the love for Allah Swt.

You need love for Allah Swt.

There is no relationship in this world where you will know that if the other person will be happy with me or not. The easiest love in this world is that of Allah Swt. And that is the Quran, Sunnah, and Shariah.  You have to follow them to become a beloved of Allah Swt. Allah Swt has done this to make it easier for us to reach His love.

And you can ask your heart whether this thing you are doing is pleasing to Allah Swt or not?

Another important thing is that a woman should fill her heart with the love of Allah Swt.

And you should love Allah Swt more than anything in the world. If you are a mother, you can wake up a hundred times for your children in the middle of the night. So that’s what you should do for Allah Swt. You should be able to wake up and do anything for Allah Swt.

Allah Swt used the words ‘kasrat for zikr and shidat for love’ that we should do zikr-e-kaseer and we should have intensity of love.

This is what you need to do. You don’t have to change your environment. You don’t have to change your husband. That is not something you can do. You have to change the environment of your heart. You do what you can do and Allah Swt will do the rest for you.

As for leaving sin, you must make the niyyah. The sin of loving the world, the sin of laziness, the sin of sacrificing for the world more than you do for Allah Swt etc. And you have to make this niyyah everyday. If you mess up at work, you still make niyyah everyday to fix that mess. You don’t give up.

You should make a list whether literally or in your mind. Make a list of all the sins you do and all the things Allah Swt loves. And one by one knock the sin list and check the things that Allah Swt does. You make lists for you dunya. So you should do this for your deen. Make a plan for your deen and tazkiyah. Look at that paper everyday and renew your niyyah and inshAllah Allah Swt will give it to you.

Those of you who have been with us for more than two years, we want you to be stronger. So,

1.   Zikr-e-Kaseer

2.   Leave sin

3.   Fight Ghaflah

We want you to do these three things. May Allah Swt curb us of ghaflah and make us of the muqariboon.

Ameen.