Naqshbandiya Foundation for Islamic Education

The Naqshbandiya Foundation for Islamic Education (NFIE) is a non-profit, tax exempt, religious and educational organization dedicated to serve Islam with a special focus on Tasawwuf(Sufism),

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Dr.Umar Faruq Abd-Allah's Talk at Chicago Grand Mawlid,January 2016


Youtube Link

Welcome to all of you.
May God bless all of you.
May He record among His angels this session tonight which you have made possible by your presence as one of the great majalis of the heavens & earth. May all of our names be written down in the book of illiyeen, the highest book of the highest secrets
and may all our sins be forgiven, all of our shortcomings be forgiven.

May all of us by the blessings of the Prophet(saws) and our attachment to him and our love of him,
may all of our wrongs be blotted out and all our sins be forgiven.

May we love each other and may we work with each other and may we bring this

love of the Prophet (saws) to life.
This is the secret, this is the victory and we live in a very difficult time. You know so much about this time and it looks like as if there is no hope, and it looks as if our enemies are about to finish us off but we have a secret, and that secret is in
your heart, and that secret is love of the Prophet (saws). We have to bring that out, cultivate it, nourish it and then everything changes because those who speak about Islam negatively and those who want us out, they do not know who he is
. They never dreamt of who he is and if they knew him, they would be
transformed because that is the kind of human being that he is. We have to
make that known with help of Allah . You, I and all of us have to radiate that light and then there is nothing to fear, and then you will even see that however great your enemy may be, he is quite likely or she is quite likely to become your
friend. So we have the obligation as Muslims to make our love of the Prophet (saws) and to teach why we have that love, and to take this message forward in an authentic way, and then everything begins to change. This ugly version of something they call Islam, this is a travesty of the truth and it has many defects. It has run up like a monster over the last eighty or hundred years in particular. One
mark of that beast is that, it does not know the Prophet (saws) all and it does not love him, it does not even follow him even though they think that they do. So we ask Allah to fill us with that love and to enable us to take that love to every one. When you think about time, what do you think of? Is there an image that comes to your mind? For many of us if we think about time, we think of a straight line and that is because when we went to school, we were shown timelines and that line is straight and this thing happened here and that thing happened there in another place. But time is not a line. That notion of time as a line is fundamentally mistaken and that is a notion of time which is very common today and is based purely on the idea of quantity that things are basically always the same. So here we are in the year 2015 (1437) in the beautiful month of Rabi al- Awwal. Maybe the moon was in the sky tonight, I did not have a chance to look . This is a blessed month but we have a tendency to think of time as a straight line
that would mean that basically everything that happens in time is about the same except that something happens earlier & something happens later but that is not the way time works. Time is fundamentally an embodiment of quality. Time is effected by the events that happen in it, by the people who live in it, by the places that exist in it and if the events are great like the birth of Jesus (peace be upon him) or the birth of Moses (peace be upon him ) who is put in the tabut & sent in
the Nile, or like the birth of the blessed Prophet Muhammad (saws) then that time is different & there are changes everywhere, there are changes in the earth, there are changes in the flowers, there are changes in the petals of the flowers, there are changes in the stars ,there are changes every where because great events qualitatively transform time. They make it something absolutely different just as blessed places effect space. We live in State of Illinois, this is our home and wonderful brothers & sisters who came from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and they are our neighbors. They are all beautiful homes for us but, are they equal to
the land in which the Prophet (saws) buried and in which he lived and in which he walked on the earth? Imam Malik (RA) would not wear shoes in Madinah and he was a wealthy man but he did not want to step with his sandals on any piece of
ground in the blessed city where the Prophet(saws) might have stepped & this shows you how much he understood about the greatness of time and the greatness of place and the greatness of space. Time is transformed by you. When you come
together tonight to demonstrate your love for the beloved , then the world is not the same after that, and time is not the same after that! Although this is the time of blessed month of Rabi al-Awwal, Rabi al-Awwal now has treasures & ornaments to wear. So, time is not a line. There are also events that happened in time that transform it in ugly way. So, for example when the great Muslims of Portugal & Spain were conquered and forced to give up what was dear to them than life and to silence their religion. That was not a good time. That was not the time that made the heavens rejoice, but it made the heavens weep. It was horrid and painful and it was too hard to bear. So, this is the way that time works, it goes
up and then it can also go down. It can also come back up and youare a maker of time, youare a transformer of time. How do you do that? By transforming yourself, by transforming your heart, by filling your heart with the love of the
Prophet (saws) tying yourself to him with knowledge ,tying yourself to him also with a Golden Chain, a Silsilah. A chain of living people who knew the
people, who knew the people, who knew the people who knew him and that changes everything. You are a blessed community and you can do amazing things. So we did not come here for entertainment, even though what we heard was extremely entertaining. We did not come here tonight just to be enraptured, even though the words we heard and the drum beats, the beautiful notes were enrapturing. But we came here to renew the covenant! Take my hand, take my
hand, I cannot live without (saws), I am nothing without you(saws) You are my light, you are my moon, you are my guidance, you are my every thing, take my hand O
blessed one . I give you my life, I will give you anything and you are the beloved (saws) You never saw him and if you saw him, you will not be able to bear it.
Many people cannot dream of the Prophet (saws) because they would not be able to bear it. Do you know how beautiful he is, even when he manifests himself to many people in dreams, he doesn’t come in his full beauty because you cannot bear it if he came as he actually is. I know a person who wanted so much to see
the Prophet(saws) but he would not have been able to bear it & one time he saw him a long way away, he saw beautiful but he was long way away because if he gets closer, you will melt and you will not be able to bear it. The Sahabah , they did dhikr, they loved dhikr. Quran was their dhikr. They had a dhikr which is superior to the one I have and the one that you have. They had a dhikr that has
no peer & what was that? It was to look on the face of the beloved and that is
the dhikr to look on the face of Prophet (saws) to hold his hand, to smell his blessed hand, to smell his fragrance. Maybe he will even give you a glow that is his. Maybe, a hair of his beard and that will be worth to you more than the whole world. That’s why they were transformed and then they transformed time itself.
So when the blessed Prophet (saws) born, it was a time when it seemed as if the world was going to end. Abrahah comes towards Makkah with his elephant to try to destroy the Kaaba, but in that same year when God rescued the Kaaba with little birds with stones as a miracle, in the same year was born the miracle, in that same year was born the blessed one, the chosen one, the Prophet (saws) the end of
days, the Mustafa Muhammad (saws) time begins to change, and time begins to
turn around. If we were to look at the world in the days of the beloved ,the idea that, that world could be renewed, that world could be changed, that world could be made civilized, was impossible. And by an orphan born in the city of Makkah among a people, who never had a state, never had a government, never
had an army or an administration, who were not civilized people and he was going to change the world? Speak about the impossibilities! But, he is the master of revolution, and he is faced by impossible obstacles and every one of them, he
overcomes beautifully. It is said when the Prophet (saws) was born, he became an island in a sea of chaos. If you and I think about that, maybe we think of Arabia because Arabia was in chaos. It was difficult to rule, difficult to control. The idea that this could be the cradle of civilization, who would have ever thought of that? But that ocean of chaos was not just Arabia, it was not just Hijaz, it was not just Najd, it was not just Tehama, it was not just Eastern provinces, it was the whole world. The whole world was a raging sea of chaos and those companions who within a few decades would come forth from Arabia with a light in their hearts &
faces, hearts filled with the love of Prophet(saws), would change it all! That is impossible! Do you realize how impossible that was and yet it happened? The transformation of time, the transformation of space, the transformation of people
and places! This is the gift of Prophet(saws). Then that island of stability, beauty and peace in the sea of chaos begins to grow and then comes Abu Bakr Siddique,. Sadiq, the man of truth, the man of sadaqa, he would give you anything, everything, his wealth never means to him more than you. He joins hands with
the Prophet (saws) . Imam Ali(RA), who is nothing but the embodiment of knowledge
and courage, he joins the hands with the Prophet . As a young noble youth he stands by the Prophet (saws) Then comes Umar(RA) and then comes Usman(RA) and all the rest of Sahabah & Sahabiyat, the great women around the Prophet(saws).
Khadija, paternal and maternal aunts of the Prophet (saws) The island begins to grow a little bit bigger and of course comes Hamza and the island grows & grows until finally it begins to claim the sea. Then all of the Arabia becomes an island of stability, an island of peace & beauty & it had never been that way. Now it becomes the miraculous transformation and then that word begins to spread to the whole world.
We ask Allah to fill our hearts with the love of the beloved(saws) because that is what that counts, that is what life is all about, that is what transforms us.
There was a great saint from in India, in the state of Orissa, & I happened to be very close to him. He was a great man. One day before he died, someone came to him and he said different things & said that there are people who do not believe
in the love of Prophet (saws) they do not believe that we should sing about the
Prophet (saws) we should do things that we are doing here. The saint was an old man & he said what is their Kalima? The person said “ La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah” , There is no god but Allah & Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. He said no, that is not their Kalima. Their Kalima is “ There is no god but Allah & Muhammad was the Messenger of Allah. But that is not the
Kalima. Muhammad is the Messenger of God. He is the Messenger of God before the creation of heavens & earth. He is the Messenger God when he is sent by angel Jibrail & he is now the Messenger of God (saws) & evermore.
We ask Allah to let us attach to him and to love him(saws) and to devote our lives to him (saws) that love. All of you brothers & sisters who made this possible, may Allah bless you. May God bless this Center, May God bless the Turks, bless the Bosnians, may He bless all the Muslims in the Arab World, all the Muslims in

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Indonesia, Malaysia, all over the world & enable Muslims here in USA & Canada to do this beautiful work. Amin.
O God make us worthy of your Prophet (saws). Let us walk in his sandals, live the life he guided us to and be filled with love and goodness, Amin