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Reply To Mr Haddad's Criticism Of The Book 'Esoteric Deviation In Islam'

Bismillah irrahman irrahim

My name is Umar Vadillo, I am the author of the Esoteric Deviation in Islam.

I would like to reply to Mr Haddad's criticism of the book.

He is angry that we have reveiled what Shaykh Nazim says. Let us start with the issue of the Mahdi.

I do not have a problem with the coming of the Mahdi. I say that in my book. What I say is that it is not an essential believe. If it was it would have been mentioned in the Qur'an. It is not necessary to believe in him, as it is essential to believe in Allah and His Messenger, salallahu alaihi wa salaam. This is in sharp contrast with the Shi'ah whose believe in the Mahdi is essential to their creed. This is Mahdism, and this is what I am oppossed to.

This Milenmialism of the Mahdi, is contrary to our religion. When the Mahdi comes and how it comes is not our business, but Allah's business. To bring the issue in the way the Shi'ah do is not Sunna. It has nothing to do with us.

The prediction of the coming of the Mahdi has been in every century in our Muslim history. Needless to say, He has not come yet. In the last century one of the most verbal individuals on the coming of the Mahdi was Shaykh Nazim. He had several predictions throughout several years, but he was convinced that He was coming before the year 2000. I wrote those articles about Shaykh Nazim, before the year 2000, so imagine the thrill I had when the year 2000 ended, and suddenly we discovered He had not come. Smiles apart, this is what Nazim wrote:

"We must bring the sultanate of satan down and ask Allah to send us an umbrella, to send us one of His miraculous servants. We need such a miraculous person to bring down technology. It is against humanity. It is killing every value of humanity. If not, humanity cannot be saved. Muslims are now expecting that miraculous person, Mahdi alehi salam, just like Christians are expecting Jesus to come and the Jews are expecting the Messiah to save them. ... We believe that this miraculous person will come before the year 2000 and the new century will be a century of belief, truth and peace." 

And also:

"This world must change. The last limit for this change to take place is the year 2000. If people want to continue in this way after then, this world will finish. But we are full of hope that a spiritual person will come. His name is Mahdi." 

And also:

"Allah has a limit for everything. When that has been reached, it will be finished. According to the knowledge which has come to me, the limit will be reached before the year 2000." 

And also:

"Time is over. Don't think that this world will last more than this century. …The 21st century of the Christian calendar is approaching, but I don't think that we will have a 21st century. Time is finishing. Prepare yourself!"  

And also:

"Insha'Allah we hope that we will be able to do that soon, in the coming years, before the year 2000, to clean up our followers and through that get a Heavenly Connection." 

And also:

"People cannot imagine the tragedy which will happen in the war to come. It will come in 1996, or in 1997, or in 1998, or in 1999. I will not wait for the year 2000 to come." 

And also:

"Another world war will maybe come before the 21st Century." 

"He [the Mahdi] will come soon. In a few years. The year 2000 will not be completed. It is impossible for the year 2000 to be completed. He will be with us before then."

"This world is approaching Armageddon. Everything will be destroyed." 

He has made an attempt to explain why the end of the world will come in the 21st century:

"According to the hadith, Muhammad [salallahu alayhi wa sallaam], who knew everything about his nation until the end, was telling us, that if his nation would keep the rules of the Sharia, He would grant them one day. If they would go against the Sharia, He would give them half a day. Muhammad [salallahu alayhi wa sallaam] explained, that in the accounts of Allah, one day is equal to 1000 years. So it means that his nation, the people of Islam, would be on this earth for 1500 years. No more than that."

He also claims to have other sources like the 'heavenly command' that he received or was made aware of in the 15th of Shaban of 1995:

"The time we are expecting is coming closer. Everyone must believe....A huge storm will appear suddenly and unexpectedly...No-one can escape, because it is in the middle of the world. Like a volcano, too powerful for man to control or prevent. ...So many things are approaching, because time is over. A Heavenly Command was issued on the 15th of Shaban [1995] which we will see coming into force next Ramadan. That is why we need protection. No-one can bring a protection to anyone, only Allah Almighty can protect,..." 

He had already predicted the end of the world before, by the year 1980:

He said in a speech in London in 1978:

"Allaah Almighty will send to each camp a head, a leader. In our books we call one of them (one of such leaders) Mahdi, who will lead man to Allah Almighty... Before this camping will be a great war... The greatest war that history will witness will ensue... These signs that have been given us indicate that the last day is coming, is nearly exactly now. I don't know if this will happen today or tomorrow, this month or next month, this year or perhaps the second year. We shall witness that great event within two years."

He said in a speech in Cambridge in 1986:

"There must be a Great War between East and West... This year it will not be because this year is not Hadj ul-Akbar... And 1988 will be the year when Israel is 40 years. We do not think that they will be more than 40 years old. During the war Mahdi ‘alayhi salaam will come... In these next 2 years dangerous and big things are expected."

These concepts call to mind the career of the Reverend Samuel Miller, an American baptist minister of nineteenth century New England who predicted that the world would end no later than December 31, 1843. When the fatal day approached, the followers grew to many hundreds. They donned special "resurrection robes" and gathered to await the day of judgment. But Samuel Miller found another mistake in his arithmetic, and postponed the end of the world once again, this time to the October 22, 1844. The faithful were undeterred. Their numbers rose so high that on the appointed day, business came to a halt in parts of New England. But Samuel Miller revised his numbers yet again and went on prophesying until his end arrived -without warning-in 1849 .

These are hardly credible to educated Muslims, but there are, also among the Muslims, those who are inclined to follow such teachings blindly without the capacity to question. Such doctrines sprout up from time to time, although only rarely in Islam to the extent of making dates for the end of the world. In the eighties Shaykh Ashari, the founder of Dar al-Arqam, on the basis of his supernatural capacities, predicted that the end of the world would come in 1986. The more gullible Malay students believed that the end was approaching. But when the year 1986 finally arrived and nothing happened, he simply postponed the date. Most followers accepted it. Nevertheless, the government of Malaysia decided finally to judge Ashari in front of a panel of Shafi'i  'ulema, and he was put in prison and asked to repent, whereupon he denied his claims. The movement was then outlawed.

Shaykh Nazim's effect was reflected in the press like in the following article of France Press:

BKAASIFRINE, Lebanon, Sept 30 (AFP) - Hundreds of wealthy Beirutis, harkening to the appeal of their Sufi Moslem mystical leader, are moving to the mountains to avoid "catastrophes" as the millennium approaches. In their luxury cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles, members of the Naqshbandi sect drive their veiled wives and children up to the Denniyeh mountain range of northern Lebanon to rent homes.

Their leader, Sheikh Nazem Rabbani Haqani, known as al-Kobrossi (the Cypriot), has predicted that the "worst catastrophes" will strike the world by 2000. "The world stands on a time bomb. The great explosion can occur at any time by 2000 ... save yourself with prayers, good actions and good intentions ... to witness the arrival of the messiah Jesus and the establishment of the kingdom of justice," reads page 609 of Kobrossi's book.

"Go and live in the countryside near the waters because the times of the cities and towers are bygone," reads the thick blue leather book with gold inscriptions and Kobrossi's picture on the cover.

Sect member Fatima Kabbani asserts that "we are preparing ourselves to spend the winter here. We are afraid of Israeli attacks and natural catastrophes like in Taiwan, Florida, Turkey and Greece. "All the families came here upon the advice of Sheikh Kobrossi and are followers of the Naqshbandi sect," she said.

 …However, the Naqshbandi millennial craze is angering many other Lebanese Moslems. Sheikh Taha Sabunji, the Sunni Moslem official of the northern port city of Tripoli, denounced "such superstitions, rejected by orthodox Islam" and called on the faithful "not to follow such infidels who pretend to know the future."

Where does Shaykh Nazim get this 'great news' from? In the same book we find Nazim claiming what his own chain of transmission is. And in the context of what we have presented before, the following sentence, "what is not to be found in books. It is 'new news'", is even more distressing:

"I was intending to speak on a different subject altogether but this lecture came instead. This is proof that I don't speak as I would like to but as inspiration comes to me from Allah by means of spiritual transmission. He Almighty instructs His Prophet, the Prophet instructs Grandsheikh and Grandsheikh relays the message to me - even now from the other world. Yes, my Grandsheikh directed me to deliver such a talk and it contains what is not to be found in books. It is ‘new news'."
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Did you have enough?

All the quotes and other fantastic material is gathered in my book. This is just a small section. I do not want to give you the impression that the book is about Nazim. He is just a good example of extreme Mahdism, gone out of control.

The effect of all that is the worse thing. If the Mahdi is coming tomorrow, then why should you be bothered with capitalism or Riba. Let them continue plunder our wealth, the Mahdi will come to save us.

This is outrageous.

Nazim's group do not like the fact that Murabitun is working to introduce the Islamic Gold Dinar and replace the present model of Dollar World, based of faked paper money. They attack us for doing this, because they say we are obsessed with Riba. Yes, I am obsessed with fighting against Riba. How could you not?

Capitalism has become the religion of the secular world. We have to fight it. It is not my command, it is Allah's command. The use of the Gold Dinar is Sunna and it is the only way in which we can get rid of banking.

I firmly believe that Islam will replace capitalism. The reason I say this is because I also believe that the other religions: christianity, judaism, hinduism, are over. They were all reformed to accept capitalism. This process of reform is what I explain in my book. Christianity was reform in order to reduce morals to a puritanic morality around sexual behaviour and to christianise the banks. An attempt was made in Islam, to reform our deen on the same basis. The father was al-Afghani. He saw himself "as the Muslim Luther". And consequently try to do the same. A whole school of modernist teachers followed that basically reduced the Islamic morals to puritanic morals, and Islamised the banks.

This Islamic Reform means that Muslims can get on with their capitalist life, but be worried enough making "pure" the dress code of their wives. Furthermore, they produce for you Islamic Banks, which is as absurd as an Islamic brothel. No world about the Dinar, of course.

My book is about the religious reform. The concept of an esoteric deviation, is because of the methodological and ideological nature of the reform process. This has a lot of esoteric themes, many borrowed from freemasonic thinking.

It is true that al-Afghani was a freemason. It is more than just interesting. It is part of the puzzle. I wanted to know more about freemasonry and I investigated the matter in great depth. The result is that I dedicated a chapter to this issue because it is important to understand they way they think and operate. Essentially my conclussion was that they are simply christian reformers. Their constitutionalism, tolerance, perennialism and brotherhood of mankind are so embedded in our society, that some people believe they must be Islamic doctrines.

They are not. They are kaffir concepts. They are concepts against Islam, that play a key role in undermining the Islamic Khalifate. There is not Islamic constitutions in Islam. The Qur'an and the Sunna is the Law. A full discussion on this issue is found in the book.

Finally, I want to say to Mr Haddad, that when Shaykh Kabani says that

the Haqqani Foundation in America defines its objectives as:

"The mission of the Haqqani Foundation in America is to spread the Sufi teachings of the brotherhood of mankind and the unity of belief in God that is present in all religions and spiritual paths. Its efforts are directed at bringing the diverse spectrum of religions and spiritual paths into harmony and concorde. In recognition of mankind's responsibility as caretaker of this fragile planet and of one another."

This is not our deen. The humanist and freemasonic doctrine of the brotherhood of mankind is not a Sufi doctrine. And the Unity of believe in god of all religions and spiritual paths, is a doctrine of the Bahais and the perennialists, but not ours. We are very clear in differentiating from them when we affirm that believe in Allah implies necessarily believe in Rasulullah, salallahu alaihi wa salaam. And this is why we are not monotheistic, but we believe in Tawhid, which is not a theological concept. Monotehism, polytheism, atheism are all the same. Tawhid is different to all of them. See my book for deeper analysis of this difference.

 
Allah has given us Islam as the right and only religion. There is no power besides Allah. Allah has given us all the means to succeed. We must struggle to establish the deen of Islam in its full manner in our time. We are not waiting on the Mahdi, nor we are paralysed by false fears and powers. We must act now. The world we are living in is dominated by an economic network based on Riba, but nobody can believe that is omnipotent. Riba will go. Only the Muslims have the alternative. We must apply our deen, find our models, and implement them. Our busines is not to reform Islam, to adapt to capitalism in an endless row of absurd islamisation: Islamic banks, Islamic insurance, Islamic paper money, Islamic Nasdaq, Islamic credit cards, etc. Our business is to establish our own model: Dinar, Dirham, suqs, caravans, guilds, shirkat , qirad, etc. Once we have discovered and established what is halal, then capitalism will be dismantled like you get dust of your coat.

Can it be done? This is an spiritual question, which is not about capitalism, but about ourselves. This is where you need Sufism, to find who you are and to eliminate all the fears, except one: fear of Allah. Rumi says: "the hypocrite is the one who says that what is halal is not possible. Because indeed what is halal is possible". If you accept that, the challenge is in ourselves. If we trust in Allah we can restore the Dar al-Islam and the Khalifate. The matter does not depend on the kuffar, it depends on us.

One element is this struggle is the restoration of the Gold Dinar. Murabitun is working on it. To find more about this initiative visit

http://www.e-dinar.com

There is hundreds of thousands of Muslims already issuing the gold Dinar soon we shall be millions.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah

Umar Vadillo