This is the journey
for those who search for the real soul for themselves and for
the heart.
It is the walking on the Path which leads
to the knowing of who you are and Who Allah is, which is one and the
same thing.
I want to give you
the key to open the door of the Path so that you can live inside
it.
When you live
inside it, then you are a Sufi and you begin to be complete.
The Sufi is the
person who searches for completion and for the Truth of Allah.
Sidi Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Jamal
ar-Rifa‘i ash-Shadhuli
Know, my
brother in heart, that what I have said to you in the last
meeting about Tasawwuf, the
Sufi way, is one of the most important things in life, and the
greatest thing in knowledge – the science of His light. This
knowledge, Tasawwuf,
illuminates the knowers like the sun. It is the source of all
the lights and of all the secrets. How could this not be, when
it is the heart-mind of the way of the Prophets? It is the way
of the courtesy, the love, the knowledge of God, from Him to
Him. It is the way one can reach God, Who is his Master.
Jibra’il and all the angels and all the believers will be his
support and his guidance if he wants to follow the way of God
and to realize the secrets of His knowledge. For this, he must
be ready to make his heart the house of God, filled with love,
to be present at God’s table, and to know by God, in God. On
that day, he will be helped by Him.
Tasawwuf
is the way of wool (as-suf)
because the Sufi is like wool between the hands of God. The wool
has no will of its own. It is soft and easy and it goes with the
waves of the will, whichever way the breath blows.
God knows all the secrets of the Sufi, as the Sufi knows the
secrets of God which He has taught him. He is the reflection of
the qualities of God, refusing all the qualities which are not
of the truth. He is empty of everything but God, forgetting all
of the unnecessary sciences. As he is following the way of the
truth, he is subsisting (al-baqa’) in the presence of
God. The Sufis are sitting in the first row seats, face to face
with the immediate presence of God. This knowledge is
transmitted by the masters of the earth, the Prophets, may
Allah’s peace and blessings be upon them all, with whom God
speaks.
And keep yourself with those who
call on their Lord morning and evening, desiring His good will,
and let not your eyes pass from them, desiring the beauties of
this world’s life. Do not follow him whose heart We have made
unmindful of Our remembrance, who follows his low desires and
his case exceeds due bounds.
(Qur’an 18:28)
Muhammad, son of Abdullah, may
the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, is the master of
this science, and the one who helps me. As he received it from
Jibra’il, who received it from God, he gives it to all the
lovers of God and the believers in Him, as it was written for
them, that each should receive grace from the divine source.
That which God sent down to His Prophets is the word which was
given before to all the Prophets from Adam through the chain of
transmission (as-silsilah) of the tree of the essence
of God which gives shade to all the lovers of God. We ask Him to
keep us with them to be with Him, and not for anybody else. We
know nobody but Him. And where is another?
How can we count? Where are the numbers? There is only the
unity. Know that the word which I want to share with you and
which is coming from the essence of God is
la ilaha illa-llah. There is
no god, but God. So it was in the beginning and so it will be in
the end without end. The word has been transmitted from one to
one, from prophet to prophet, from believer to believer, until
it reaches us with His wishes.
‘Ali is the esoteric message of Muhammad. He is the keeper of
all the secrets of the knowers, like a cave which is holding the
pearl of truth. As he received it from Muhammad, he is the
gateway to the presence of God, and so his hearing is as the
hearing of God. Muhammad is the city of the presence of God and
‘Ali is the gate to the city. ‘Ali strikes his heart and says,
“Take from me before you lose me! Take all of the secrets of God
from my heart. Within my heart is His boundless knowledge.” He
is the perfect vessel for the most precious gift. He carries the
secret and he is the secret. Which is the name of God. After
that, the message was carried by the son of the daughter of the
Prophet, al-Hassan, and the knowledge was passed on from one to
one as it was originally written.
What is the importance of the science of
Tasawwuf? As its essence is
God, of all the sciences, it is the greatest. It gives you the
knowledge of the secrets of the spirit and the soul, and guides
you to be in fear of God in the beginning, and know Him – to
leave everything and be one with Him in the end. Those who trust
in this science are the most special, the believers in God.
Those who study and understand it are the most special of the
special – the most near of the near. He who speaks it with
courtesy is like a shining star on a sea, the depths of which
cannot be fathomed. You must come to the shore of this sea to
being to know the subtle secrets of the soul, and to be washed
in its water, which takes you from the density of this earth to
the world of the soul and the light.
So, do not turn away from the path of light, because if you are
turned away from it, you will be in a place of darkness, pain
and suffering, as those who are lost. I ask God that we may be
among those who listen with the remembrance of the heart, who
have a heart and this heart is God, who listen with the hearing
of God and God tells them everything. Then listen to what I say
to you and understand. There is no god but He. So it was in the
beginning, and so it will be in the end, without end. The word
was transmitted from one to one, from prophet to prophet, from
believer to believer, until it reaches us by His will.
(excerpt from Tasawwuf
from Sidi's book Music of the Soul. Courtesy of Sidi
Muhammad Press.)
The Story of Sidi ‘Ali Abu-l-Hasan
ash-Shadhuli
Abu-l-Hasan was born in the
village of Ghumara in Morocco in 593/1196. His early education was by his mother, father and a local imam.
Around puberty he went to study with Abu ‘Abdallah M. b. Harazim
(d.633/1236), who himself was a pupil of Abu Madyan, one of the
great medieval Sufis.
He went east in 615, where he was drawn to the Rifa‘i school,
accepting Abu-l-Fath al-Wasiti as his shaykh in 618.
While here he became obsessed with the search for the Qutb
(Pole) of the time. Abu-l-Fath told him to return to the west
where he would find him. He returned and eventually found the
Qutb in ‘Abd as-Salam ibn Mashish of Fez who, after some trial,
gave him bay‘ah, marking, as Abu-l-Hasan states, “the end of my
beginning”.
Later, on the advice of ‘Abd as-Salam, he left Morocco to go
into retreat in a cave near a village of Ifriqiya called
Shadhila.
Although Shadhuli sounds like Shadhila, our shaykh Abu-l-Hasan
received his name from Allah, the Blessed, Who told him in a
vision, "O ‘Ali, you are ash-Shâdhdhu-lî, meaning one who is set
apart (shâdhdhu) for Me (lî)".
The final words of Ibn Mashish to Abu-l-Hasan, may Allah hallow
their secrets, were, “O ‘Ali, Know that Allah is Allah and
people are people. The remembrance of Allah will live in your
heart. The guidance of Allah will always be with you. Do not
refer to people other than as Allah commands you. Refrain from
dependence on them and keep your heart from inclining to them.
Your spiritual sovereignty (wilaya) has been perfected by
Allah”.
In Ifriqiya, he periodically went out on preaching and teaching
tours, thereby incurring the hostility of the Tunisian ‘ulama.
So bitter did the persecution become that, in spite of the
support of the sultan, Abu Zakariyya al-Hafsi, he was driven to
take refuge in Egypt where he spent most of his years and won
great renown.
Abu-l-Hasan made a practice of going on hajj every year. He was
told in 656/1258 that he would die while on hajj.
Abu-l-Hasan had idea that he may die on during pilgrimage, going
as far as order a shovel and shroud be
packed as he and his followers were preparing to leave.
When they reached the midway point, which is a well in a place
called Humaythirah,
he spoke to all his students and gave them the reading of Hizb
ul-Bahr (The Litany of the Sea) saying,
“Teach it to your children for in it is the greatest name of
Allah”.
He talked in private with Abu-l-‘Abbas al-Mursi and told all of
his students,
“When I am dead look to Abu-l-‘Abbas for he is the khalifa to
succeed me”.
That evening, Abu-l-Hasan asked one of his murids to bring him a
jug of water from the well.
The student said, “Sidi, it is salty”. Abu-l-Hasan said, “My
intention is other than what you think".
So the murid brought him a jug of water from the well. Abu-l-Hasan
drank some, rinsed his mouth and then spat into the jug,
saying, “Put it back in the well”. He put the water back and it
turned sweet, fresh and abundant.
To this day the water in that well is sweet.
Abu-l-Hasan spent that whole night in dhikr. Many of students
heard him, and at fajr, he was still.
Thinking he was asleep one of the students shook him, finding
him dead.
From there he was washed, wrapped in the shroud, prayed over and
buried in Humaythirah. His murids continued on hajj.
The existence of a Shadhuli tariqa is mainly due to Abu-l-‘Abbas
al-Mursi, the successor of Abu-l-Hasan ash-Shadhuli and his
successor, Taj ad-din ibn ‘Ata Allah al-Iskandari, may Allah
hallow their secrets & perfume their tombs. Ibn ‘Ata Allah was
the first in the Shadhuli line to write books. Included in his
works is an account of the life and sayings of both ash-Shadhuli
and al-Mursi. He also wrote the Miftah al-Falah, "The Key to
Salvation", a manual on invocation and the Kitab al-Hikam, "The
Book of Aphorisms".
The
Shadhdhuliyya Way
It is the same way
as that of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. If you want to know the way to reach God, then pray five times a
day and make adh-dhikr. This way of the Shadhdhuliyya is the straight way.
You do not need many months or many years, but one hour is all
that is necessary to know the tariqa and to know your God. All of you come as children to Him, and so I must give you the
understanding of who you are.
You are from the knowers (al-‘arifun). If you are not in
knowing, then you are in the beginning of knowing, and this is a beginning which the ends of most of the ways have
not yet reached.
There is only one way, no more ways. All ways converge here.
This way is the way to know God.
I knew this after a meeting of only one hour when I first met my
shaykh, ‘Abd ar-Rahman as-Shadhuli.
No way is faster than this way, and no way has more knowledge.
The shaykh takes the hand of the student (al-murid) and says to
him, “Now you are facing God, face to face.” And the shaykh
says, “This is who you are (ha ant).”
You see that your eye is really the eye of God. There is only
one eye.
The tariqa Shadhdhuliyya is the way of the person who forgets
all things and returns to the truth as in the beginning,
a child in the presence of God. You cannot see more than Him or
hear of any other place. You cannot speak without Him.
You are with God, in God, to God in the origin of all things.
You do not sleep, you are not tired, you watch everything.
And so you meet your Love to the end which has no end. You are
together. You are one thing only, without borders,
without above or below, without right or left. You are in this
station and this station is in you – fana’ al-mutlaq,
the annihilation in the freedom of God, the start which has no
start, then end which has no end.
The stations and steps begin in the first moments with your
shaykh. Your good is the love of politeness and peace and
agreement to all the orders, without saying why or what. You are
always a witness in the garden and the garden is the truth of
God.
You say only what He gives you to say because you are near the
King of kings. God cares for the people who seek the truth.
He takes the hand of the lovers in knowing and always takes
their hearts to Him forever, face to face.
(excerpts from Tariqa Shadhiliyya
from Sidi's book Music of the Soul.
Courtesy of Sidi Muhammad Press.)
The Promise: Bay‘ah
Sidi Shaykh Muhammad
al-Jamal says: “This is the Promise to Allah (God). This is a great Order and a
secret Order. Not every one can taste the real meaning of the Bay‘ah if he does not walk. One who has walked through
all the stations and is complete can really taste the meaning of
the Bay‘ah. It can only be fully understood with the Order from
Allah. Many students come and do not really taste the meaning of
Bay‘ah. It is a very holy Order because this is a very special
Way. Allah has made everything in this Way for the student to
walk straight, cleanly, and quickly. There is no way like this
Way. The meaning of the Bay‘ah is:
"I am a
slave and I believe that You are my God.
I believe in all the Orders that You have sent with all
the Prophets. I do not make a difference between any of them. I promise to walk straight and not to make mistakes. I promise to give the Mercy to everyone and to send the
Love and the Peace to everyone.
Help me, my God, to be special for You.
This is what I promise.”
Ibrahim Jaffe, a Muqqadam (spiritual
teacher) - says:
“In this Bay‘ah, or Promise to God, you
consciously choose first and foremost to commit yourself to God.
This promise is very special and important. You promise to
follow the way of the Prophets, from Adam through Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. You commit to living purely, and
walking in a sincere and truthful way. You are then accepted
into the Shadhiliyya spiritual lineage. The Bay‘ah of the Sufis
is handed down directly from the Prophets. Like Abraham, who was
asked by God to sacrifice his beloved son, you are also asked to
sacrifice yourself for God. As Abraham's son was spared his
death and a sheep exchanged for him, from you, too, a sheep is
asked. This sacrifice, like that in the Bible and Qu’ran, is
considered one of the most holy and sacred ways of giving
yourself to God. You are asked to donate something for the
sacrifice. In Israel, the cost of a sheep sacrifice is $500. If
you can give this amount, it is good. If you cannot, please look
into your heart and give what you feel is the right amount for
you. Any sincere offering is accepted. Again, this sacrifice is
a sacred ritual that has been given by God to us and carries
very deep and holy meanings. The meat from the sheep is used to
feed the poor. This is symbolic of you sacrificing your self/ego
to live completely in God and to live for the people. I hope you
can look deeply into this and understand the inner meaning
behind this practice.”
