as-Sadiq

Below is the sixth 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.

After we look at what wrong actions do, which are three things, now he wants to stress something. This is that the vast majority of wrong actions that occur between a servant and his Master Allah swt, they result from appetites that prevent someone from being near to his Lord (shahawaat mani`a), and when these appetites are firmly rooted in the soul, this necessitates one’s inclinations toward them without any doubt.

So if these come, occur to the mind, one should reject them, turn away from them, without meeting them face to face. In other words, you don’t concern yourself with them because by meeting these thoughts, by attempting to refute them, by preoccupying yourself with them, this will actually make them more firmly rooted without you succeeding in you actually stopping them.

A famous qawaa`idah of a Mauritanian scholar is that which Shaytan whispers in the heart and the heart rejects it, that is iman. When you have thoughts that come to your heart that really trouble you, that’s iman. And one of the people came to the Prophet saws and said there are things that occur to my mind that disgust me, and the Prophet saws said that’s clear iman, the fact that you’re disgusted by thoughts that come to your heart that are foul, that is iman. If you didn’t have iman, you would actually enjoy them.

So don’t argue with Shaytan, don’t try to dispute him, don’t preoccupy yourself with these things. It will actually only increase him. And occupy your time with the opposite. And for that reason, we were commanded to do dhikr when Shaytan comes, when the waswaas comes. Fasta`idh bilLah. Because he said, la bil fikr, in other words don’t try to argue or rationalize, don’t do fikr, do dhikr. Because it’s come that Shaytan is sitting on the heart of Adam, so if he remembers Allah, he flees, but if he is heedless, he whispers.

The difference between Shaytan and the nafs, because there’s 4 types of thoughts, there’s 1) khaatir shaytani (Satanic thoughts), 2) khaatir nafsani (egoistic thoughts), 3) khaatir malakaani, and 4) khaatir Rabbani.

The difference between the Satanic thoughts and those of the nafs is that the nafs’s thoughts are compulsive, in other words it’s the same thing, it won’t let you go. So addictions are often nafs, they’re nafs, and that’s why people that are addicted to things it’ll just keep coming to them, go on just do it, do whatever it is that you’re addicted to; that’s nafs, not Shaytan, unfortunately. It’s easy to blame things on Shaytan. Shaytan comes with one thing, and if it doesn’t work, he comes with another thing. So that’s how you tell the difference between a thought from your soul and a thought from Shaytan. Shaytan comes, and if it doesn’t work, he tries something else, whereas the nafs is pretty pathetic, it’s not as clever. Although Shaytan isn’t very clever either, he’s more clever than the nafs.

And then the malakaani is a thought that come from the angels, it’s really from Allah in reality but it’s coming from the angels, and it’s an elhaam. They’re the ones that will encourage you to do good like why don’t you give charity, why don’t you fast tomorrow, and those are angelic, why don’t you read some Qur’an, pray some nafl… those are khawaatir malakaani.

And then a khaatir Rabbani is very powerful, it’s something you feel it so strong that you find it difficult to turn away. Now unfortunately there is a Rabbani thought that can come as a punishment for doing something, so you can actually have a Rabbani thought that can have negative result, but it’s a result of a clear disobedience or a serious breach of adab especially with the awliyaa’ (those who are close to Allah), and the worst thing you can do is have a breach of adab with the awliyaa’. It’s bad enough to have a breach with normal people, but with the awliyaa’ it’s even worse. And obviously the worst is the prophets, to have breaches of adab with the prophets. And that’s why, the Prophet saws once told a man to eat with his right hand and he said he couldn’t do it, and after that he couldn’t eat and just had a shaking. He could have done it, but it was just an `inaad, and that’s why he refused, and that’s not something the Prophet saws wishes on somebody, it’s an `uqubah from Allah swt. Another man made fun of the way the Prophet saws walked because he had an unusual way of walking, he walked slightly inclined and he walked fast, and that was not the norm. The Quraysh, the aristocrats, they mosied, very slow, an arrogant way of walking. The Prophet saws walked with intent. So somebody was imitating him, and the Prophet saws could see from his back, and he turned around and said “be like that,” and after that when that man walked he made all these funny movements, and people laughed at that. Reality is reality, and it doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not. There are two angels writing down what you do, whether you believe it or not. If a mad man in a rain storm says it’s not raining, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s raining just because his view of reality is not congruent with reality.

So if you respond to the things that occur to your heart in this way, then you will reach reality by it. And if you do it more, then it will become stronger in you. In other words, if you do it more and more you will become stronger in this practice to the point where you will actually prevent thoughts from coming into your heart that you don’t want. And there are people who if they don’t want a thought to come to their heart, they literally stop it, and this is not unique to the Muslim tradition (people do this in Zen as well), but what we would say is that the fruits of it are going to be different.

If you leave an appetite 7 times, then the ibtilaa’ of it will be removed from you, in other words if you can leave it 7 times (and this is a saying that the people of this science say), and Allah is more generous that He should punish a person for an appetite that he should abandon for Allah’s sake. So if you left something for Allah’s sake, Allah won’t punish you for it for the times you did it in the past, but the danger is to keep doing it, and that’s why Sidi Zarruq wrote this book. This is not theory to Sidi Ahmed Zarruq; this is a man who completed his sulook, whose karamaat were confirmed, and who is well known in the ummah, he reached a maqaam that is well known, so know this because it’s true what I’m telling you, it’s mujarrab and it’s wonderous. This has been experienced by many people, and it’s `ajeeb, and Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the Straight Path.

That’s the first milestone. There were 3 ma`aalim, and we were still in the first kutub.

So the second milestone is redressing rights that have been bypassed, that you’ve missed, and doing them in sound and confirmed ways.

This matter has 3 aspects, and each one of them has a hukm/a ruling and a direction.

1. The first one is that these rights that you have failed to perform are known in their number and their order in terms of your responsibility toward them. In other words, if you have prayers that you’ve missed, the prayers have a specific number, and you know their number, and you know their order. The same is true of fasting and many other huqooq, and doing this is an obligation and is of the greatest importance. So this is a way that you should have no doubts about it, and a means that has no shortcomings in it. So take the highest number and then be moderate in that, even if there might be more preferable ways of doing it, do it moderately because the capital of a merchant is that he completes his transaction.

   So if you’ve got a stock of goods and they never sell, there’s no benefit in it and anything that falls short of that, that’s just not acceptable. So be moderate, do what you can do, don’t be deficient but don’t go to extreme, for instance if you owe prayers, don’t try to do 100 prayers every day, be reasonable because you want to get it done and you want to keep your himmah up.

   Now if you have a lot of prayers – like Shaykh `Abdullah ibn Bayyah who is from the school of Ahmad ibn Hanbal gives a fatwa that if you have a lot of prayers, you make tawbah and you start new. The other imams say no, you have to make them all up, even if it’s 20 years. But if you do owe a lot of prayers, Imam ibn Ahdari says that if you do 5 at each prayer for a total of 25 a day, then that’s not deficient, but if you do less than 5, then that’s deficient. That means at dhuhr time, you make up 5 dhuhrs.

2. The second is that you know what the ruling is but you don’t know what the number is. In this case, you take the safest of the two numbers, in other words if you have a lesser and higher number, take the higher one because that is a more rewarded condition, but don’t go to an extreme in your cautiousness right from the start. Rather do some of it, and then look because resolution in going to an extreme will wear the self out, and you’ll become exhausted and won’t be able to complete. And using some strategy to get the nafs to do what you want it to do is more appropriate, better for you, than trying to return after leaving it, going back to it.
3. The third is that you have doubt about the ruling and the number. So there’s a certain number of possibilities, and one of them is that the one doubting should have some principle that should be considered that he can rely upon or he doesn’t and he has to use his own judgement.

   So the first is something that in what you’re attempting to fulfill, you should consider that, for example in gheebah you tend to know who you usually backbite unless you’re chronic backbiters and just backbite anyone, and the point is that there’s a principle in backbiting and that is to make du`a for those people, make tawbah for the backbiting, and then make du`a, so there’s an asl. You just do your best, and you make du`a for that person for at least 5 prayers.

   The Prophet saws said my life is good for you because you do things and then you get ahkaam, and my death is good for you. Why? Because if he stayed with us continously, we would keep doing things and we would get more and more rulings from Allah until nobody could follow this deen. So his leaving us was a rahma. And then he said that the actions of my ummah are shown to me in my grave (hadith sahih), and if he sees good he says alhamdulilLah, and if he sees bad he says astaghfirulLah li ummati, he asks forgiveness for his ummah. So the people that are closest to the Prophet saws are the awliyaa’ and they’re not normal people, they’re not prophets, but they have a maqaam with Allah swt.

   A hikmah from a shaykh in Fez:
   Allah hid 3 things in 3 things – 1) He hid his contentment in His obedience so don’t show any contempt for any act of devotion (means that you can give a million dollars in sadaqah and Allah might not accept it, but you can give a thirsty pilgrim in Mecca a drink from your water and Allah accepts that, maybe that’s what He accepts from you.. for example, a big shaykh, an `aalim was saved because he used to teach the fatihah to a group of old women in his village), and 2) He hid His anger in His disobedience (means that someone can fornicate, drink alcohol and Allah overlooks that, but he can do something cruel to another person and that’s where they get the wrath of Allah, you don’t know), and 3) He hid His beloveds amongst His creation (means that there might be a yahudi or a nasarani who’s a wali of Allah because Imam al-Qurtubi said that Omar ibn al-Khattab RA was beloved to Allah and he was prostrating to idols in Mecca because this is tawheed, where is sa`aadah… your felicitousness to Allah is in the womb of your mother… so you might treat some Christian woman with contempt and that Christian is going to become a Muslim later and she’s a wali of God, so don’t treat Allah’s creation with contempt. A man came and said I saw a Jew today and I knocked him off the road, and he was told that go knock your nafs off the road, leave the Jew alone, he’s just being who he is. All these animals got together and made a court, told humans to stop calling each other animal names because they’re just being who they are, but the humans are not being how Allah created us). So you don’t know who the wali of God is. There are some people we know and have belief about that they were the awliyaa’ of Allah and there are others that there is a consensus about, such as Imam al-Ghazali. But you can’t do jazam. With people, you judge according to the outward, and they have states etc.

To leave what you have to do is a type of treachery (khiyaana) so at this level, it is not appropriate for a beginner to attempt scrupulousness at this stage until he has removed, moved beyond, transgressed the level of wrong actions and he’s in a state of avoidance in order that he’s not one of those people that goes too deeply into things because the Prophet saws said, “Enter into this deen softly because no one will go to an extreme in this deen except he’s overwhelmed.” Extreme however… if you were to see a murabbi or a great scholar, to you his `ibaadah would seem extreme but for him it is not. The beginner should not try to do that, they should go slowly and not try to take it all on all at once.

Prioritize and root out things, first remove all the kabaa’ir from your live, and then start to work on the most important of the saghaa’ir and diminish it like that. First, work on doing all of your faraa’id, then work on doing all the mustahabbaat (the sunan, the nawafil). If you’re not praying all of your prayers on time, then that should be a priority over everything, and if your prayers are established, then you focus on perfecting your naafilah. Take this slowly and appropriately because what will happen is that the affair will end up causing you to actually leave the people of guidance. Rasoolullah saws said, “The best of the deen is the easiest of it.” Now obviously for the awliyaa’, it’s easy for them to do what they’re doing, so what he’s saying is that do what is easy for you. Now obviously, because you’re struggling with yourself, that doesn’t mean that you are like oh it’s hard to get up for fajr, but do what you’re capable of doing, and take on what you’re capable of doing. You’re still doing mujahadah, there’s still some difficulty, but do struggle that you can continue, you can keep it up.

Tanbihaat, i.e. some warnings:

The one who does the least amount of what he’s able to do will enter the path of reaching the furthest of what he’s able to reach. So what he’s saying is that if you begin by just doing the least amount of what you’re able to do, cause you might be able to do a lot cause right now you’re a shaab so you might feel like you can do the fast of Dawud but what’s the least you can do? 3 days a month. You can fast 3 days a month, so take that as a practice because you can do that the rest of your life.

One of the Sahaba RA said, “Ya Rasoolullah I want to fast every day.” The Prophet saws said, “No, fast three times a month.” The man said, “I can do more than that.” The Prophet saws said, “Then fast Mondays and Thursdays.” The man said, “I can do more than that.” The Prophet saws said, “Then fast the fast of Dawud, it’s the best fast, every other day.” So he did that, and when he got old, he said, I wish I would have listened to the Messenger of Allah swt and only done the 3 days because now it’s become hard for me. Now that’s a proof that the Sahaba RA took no extra acts that they maintained them for the rest of their life. So if you’re going to take on an act, then be consistent in it because Allah loves consistency. It’s better not to start it than to start it and stop it. So that’s what he’s saying that if you want to start on this path, take what you can handle, and take the least amount. Don’t try to be superhero.

The Prophet saws said, “The one who goes to an extreme (the one who breaks the back of the beast), you don’t traverse any of the land nor do you leave.” You destroy your beast of burden, so you don’t get to where you’re going. You wear yourself out, and you wear your camel out, meaning your nafs, your beast, your riding beast, and you never get to where you’re going. You’re spinning wheels.

And the diversity of states is commenced with the diversity of rulings. It is not appropriate that you become deluded by what is mentioned of the resolution of those men and women of great determination in being able to do the qadaa, what’s owed of many months, in one day. Nor should you simply limit yourself what would really be considered frivolity and would be blameworthy.

So don’t do nothing, or don’t do so little so that it’s of no weight or consideration, and don’t try to do what you read books of the awliyaa’, and then you start trying to be like these people, and it’s not your maqaam. Start where you are. Everybody should start wherever they are. What you should do is look at the least amount of what seems moderate. In a continuum, you’ve got some middle area; it’s not too little, it’s not too much. On that continuum, look at the least of moderation. Fi haqqeeqah, at your level, understand where you are – like if you just started praying, focus on getting your fard established, and if you’ve been praying for a long time, do other things – take things where you are. You have to know where you are, at which point you’re at. And look and consider the words of the `ulama in these matter because they are our pinpoint in this matter.

So as for what’s been realized of your responsibilities or one thinks one’s realized them, or there may be some doubt because theres’s some signs that maybe it hasn’t been fulfilled, then there’s no relinquishment from this responsibility until you complete what you need to complete by obligation in the first two. So if the first two are done, they’re not done until what you’ve completed with them. And as for that concerning the end, it’s out of waraa that you do that, when there’s some doubt because of some sign or something.

And whoever puts before him the extreme of what he wants, he rarely reaches what he desires. So set microgoals. Our goal is Allah swt, the highest goal, and we want to stand before Him with qalb saleem. We want to bring in front of Him something that is worthy of divine presence, and it’s a long journey. So you have to take it step by step, don’t try to get there today. But always leave open the possibility that Allah can open it up for you, in a moment, it’s possible.