as-Sadiq

Below is the first part of notes from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s lecture series entitled “The Poor Man’s Book of Assistance.” The lecture series is named after a book written by  ninth century Moroccan scholar Sidi Ahmed Zarruq. Shaykh Hamza translates and gives commentary on this book in this series of 16 CDs. 

Tasawwuf is not tareeqah. Tasawwuf is a science; it’s been taught within tareeqah and without it. This has always been taught and has chains of transmission. This is just one of the sciences of Islam; you don’t have to be in a tareeqah to benefit.

Don’t let the knowledge that you’re not practicing something you know stop you from teaching it because hopefully the shame of teaching it without practicing it will cause you to start practicing it.

“If you claim something you don’t have, Allah will expose you to people.” -saying of Sidi Ahmad Zarruq

This book is about the human heart – English word comes from a Sanskrit word that means something which leaps, also core (similar to the Arabic lub). Heart is also used as a metaphor for courage amongst the Arabs – when they say ma `induhi qalb, they mean to say he has no courage.

The heart is a 4-chambered organ, has 2 functions, that it expands and contracts (qabd wal bast), similar to the names of Allah al-Qabid and al-Basit. Every breath has 4 beats, the faster your heart beats, the faster you will breath.

Ruh in Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese (shen), Greek means breath. Nafs in Arabic is the ruh, while nafas is breath.

They now know that there are over 40,000 neurons in the heart, brain cells are found in the heart!

The heart is an autogenic organ, it beats on its own. Your brain doesn’t have to tell your heart to beat. Even before your CNS is developed in the womb, your heart starts beating.

The Muslims have always believed that the intellect is centered in the heart, not in the head. Cardiac hormones are released in the heart that are sent to the brain. The thinking of the heart is not the same as the thinking of the brain. The intellect of the heart is rooted in the light of the human being. A heart that can think is one that is in harmony with Allah swt’s intentions.

“Did you come to ask about birr (righteousness)? Ask your heart. Birr is what the hearts/soul/nafs feels tranquil with. The wrong action is what troubles the soul, and the heart wavers.” -hadith of Rasoolullah saws

There is wavering in the breast when there is a wrong action, even when people are telling you to do a particular thing. Your heart has the potential to guide human beings.

A heart that’s sound is one without sickness, one that is saleem. There are diseased hearts and dead hearts. Somebody’s heart can be dead, and Allah can bring it back to life with iman. The difference between one who remembers Allah and one who doesn’t remember Allah is like the difference between the living and the dead.

One of the mysteries of the heart in Western medicine is that it can be diseased, and there are no symptoms. The arteries could be clogged, but they can look like they are perfectly fine, but they suddenly drop down dead from a heart attack. Someone can look like they are in perfect health but be diseased. This is regarding the physical heart, but the same goes for the spiritual heart. There are signs and there are symptoms in medicine – the signs are what the physician can see himself, but the symptoms come from the patient, they have to tell you what it is. The spiritual heart has signs and symptoms as well, and some people can recognize they’re sick while others cannot.

Bad adab – a student tells his teacher that he heard a line of poetry from them last year.

A believer never tires of khayr.

Adeeb – having perfect adab

A believer is the mirror of the believer. In Macbeth, he says that God made it such that we can only see our reflections in a mirror. We can’t see our own face without a mirror. A believer is a reflection of a believer because you see your faults in him. A mutakabbir has so much pride that he gets angry.

Imam Shafi’i was asked why he had such impeccable adab. He said “I always listened to my detractors, I listened to what they said, and then I worked to remove their criticisms.” Another scholar was asked how he learned everything he knows, and he said, “I took every person I ever met as a teacher. Either he was better than me, and I learned things to improve myself, or he was worse than me, and I learned things to avoid.” So everybody can teach you something. When you hear a rude person, you should remember that the way you feel is how others feel when you are rude to them.

Buddhists have 4 vows that they say every single day. One vow is that today I am going to overcome myself. Another is that today I am going to give up/overcome my desire. Another is that today I am going to master the sacred law. The last is that today I am going to help other creatures.

Once you realize that the only thing that benefits you on Yawm al-Qiyamah is the sound heart, then we should immediately get started on working on the heart. Everything that is wrong with the world today has to do with the human heart. Every foul act, of backbiting, of hypocrisy, theft, stealing, killing stems from corrupted hearts. If a heart is pure, the actions are pure. If a heart is corrupt, the actions are corrupt. The problem with the world is not pollution. Pollution is a symptom as is war. If you work on the symptoms without going to the root causes, you won’t get rid of the disease. That person will just get reinfected. You have to change the conditions that are creating the disease, and all this stems from the heart. That is why the Prophet saws said that his mission was to perfect noble character because character emanates from a sound heart. The Prophet saws’s heart was cleaned 3 times, and his heart was pure. Thus, the people around him were also purified because they were around him. When you’re around righteous, pure people, your heart becomes purified. For example, in the prison system, the prisoners might be trying to get better, are trying to change and really changing, but then they are thrown back into the same environment that destroyed them.

Sidi Ahmad Zarruq says, “Never trust the nafs. If you’ve fallen into disobedience in a place, never feel strong about going back to it.” You go and feel that you’ll be strong enough to handle it this time, but then you just fall back into it. The cycle starts over again. That’s why you have to be in company.

A monk said that every morning they get up in the morning at 3 AM and start their chanting. Someone asked him, isn’t that hard? He said, if I were by myself, it would be extremely hard, but because everyone is here, it’s easy. It’s easy to pray in the jama`a because everyone’s going to the jama`a. This is the strength of the jama`a. InnAllah ma` al-jama`a.

Mauritania – everyone is smiling all the time. But in America, one shaykh noted that no one really smiles that much. Smiling is a part of fitra; the Prophet saws was always smiling. It’s actually part of fitra to smile when you see somebody. The shaykh noted that the reason why people don’t smile as much in America is because they are always doing things alone. They have shayateen with them, they get depressed because Shaytan rides alone. One person who rides alone has Shaytan with them, 2 people alone is 2 shaytans, but 3 is company. Shaykh Khadri said the strangest thing he saw was that he saw a car go and turn around, roll down its window, talk to a metal box, saw some hands come out with a white box, and he didn’t talk to the person. It was a fast food restaurant. We grew up thinking this is normal, but this is not normal. When one person eats alone, Shaytan eats with him. If you don’t do dhikr when you eat, Shaytan eats with you and he gets fat. But if you say bismilLah when you eat your food or enter your house, then Shaytan gets weak. He doesn’t get any strength. The shayateen are getting bigger and bigger, and now people can actually come out and say that they are shayateen. Rock bands declare that they worship Satan.

The book discusses 3 stages/maqaam of elevating your spirit:
-takhliyya
-ta7liyya
-tajliyya

The maqaam of the past is tawbah. The maqaam of the present is istiqamah. The maqaam of the future is ta7qeeq. You have yesterday, today, and tomorrow. For yesterday, you say astaghfirulLah. It’s already in the past, and you wasted the opportunity. Today, maqaam, don’t waste the opportunity, so have istiqamah. For tomorrow, you hope for realization.

Zarruq starts the book with praising Allah and His messenger, sal Allahu `alayhi wa sallam. As for what’s before, after, and there throughout, fa laysa al-haqeeqa illa Allah. Any fraction of infiniti is zero… so any existence in comparison to Allah’s existence is nothing. Thus, He is the only reality. There is no real existence other than Allah. Everything else’s reality is contingent reality; it’s not a permanenet reality but it’s not an illusion. Our existence is only sustained by Allah’s qayumiyyah, and if Allah withdraws His sustaining support, it’s just gone. It came from nothing and it goes back to nothing. There is nothing to protect you from the command of Allah unless He’s had mercy on you, and there’s no guidance except through Shariah.

“Whoever learns shariah without working on his inner reality becomes a fasiq because he’s not sincere; he may be learning for riyaa’. Whoever learns about realities without learning about shariah, he becomes like a heretic (zindiq). Whoever joins the two, that’s the real one who’s realized.” -saying of Imam Malik

After you have removed every foul thing and every grotesque thing, preferring soundness and safety in his path, with a sound presence of mind, with a heart constantly turning to Allah and is witnessing Allah’s presence, he places everything in its place [and that is the definition of `adl (an oppressor puts things in places where they don't belong, which is thulm). So for example, if you take your book and burn it, that's muba7. If you take someone else's book and burn it, that is thulm. Allah can do whatever He wants to His servants, though, because they are His property. You can't question that. Tragedy is that the tragic hero never realizes that they brought it on them themselves; they'll never admit that they're wrong], he realizes knowledge and action according to the foundation, and this is especially difficult in certain places and days, but the gift of Allah is not specific to a certain time or place, nor is it prevented because of the difficult things in any place, and trust in your Lord as someone who will take care of you and take Him as your protector, for He will never forsake the one who seeks Him, and He will never neglect the one who seeks refuge in Him and depends on Him, and all the keys of good are in seeking refuge in Him constantly, and the foundation of all matters is in the existence of depending on Him, and whoever trusts in Allah, Allah is enough for Him. Allah will be enough to protect Him and give victory to Him. Doesn’t Allah respond to the one who is in need of Him and removes him from harm? Whoever trusts in Allah is guided to a Straight Path. If you ask Allah, then magnify your request. Ask Allah for big things, and have high himmah. Allahu akthar, if you do a lot of du`a, Allah will do more for you, i.e. a lot of answering. Whoever is given du`a, he will not be deprived of its answering.

Why are they feeding a cow, an herbivore, dead animals? Why are the human beings making them an omnivore? A pig is an omnivore; they’ll eat anything. Allah made omnivores haram to eat, but He made it halal to eat herbivores because that way we won’t be harmed.

Why do people do things when they know it’s bad for them? They’ve all run amok; they’re all stupid because even animals don’t do that. Animals do what they’re supposed to do, but if a human knows something is wrong and then continues to do it, they are worse than animals.

“Allah gave me the power to bring the dead back to life but He did not give me the power to cure stupidity.” -a saying of `Isa (as)

Mawlana Rumi was saying he saw a man making du`a, and he was saying Ya Allah. A cynic passed by and asked him, how long have you been asking? The man replied that he had been asking for many many years. So the cynic asked if he had received a response yet, and the man said no. Then the cynic asked, so why are you asking? Then the man fell into a confused sleep because that cynic put doubt in his heart. So the man saw a dream, and in it al-Khidr asked him why he stopped his supplication. He said because I’ve been doing it all the years and I never got the answer. Then al-Khidr told him that don’t you realize that the supplication was the answer. If Allah put you at the door, what greater gift do you want, what greater gift that you’re occupied with what you’re created to be occupied with while everyone else is busy with other things? That’s the answer, so why do you expect things when the greatest thing is to be remembering Allah swt. Ibn Ata’Allah says the point of du`a is to realize your `uboodiyya to Allah because Allah knows what you need, and that’s why there’s a hadith that says the one who remembers Allah and is so preoccupied with this that he forgets to ask that he’ll get even more reward than someone who asks from Allah, and whoever was provided with istighfar will not be deprived of forgiveness. If Allah has given you the gift of remembering to say astaghfirulLah, then you will not be deprived of being forgiven.