The Role of Sufism

In the Name of Allah, All-Beneficent, Most Merciful

The Role of Sufism in Building Good Character Today Dr. Gibril Fouad Haddad / Brunei Darussalam^[1]

Praise be to Allah the Lord of the worlds. Blessings and peace on our master Muhammad the leader of Prophets and Messengers, the Truthful, the Trustworthy, who was sent as a mercy to the worlds, and on his pure and excellent House, all his Companions, his Wives the Mothers of the Believers, and his progeny to the Day of Judgment.

To proceed: I was asked to speak on "The Role of Sufism in Building Good Character Today." I am unqualified and the most in need of this knowledge and of applying it, so I fear it will be bad manners to speak in front of you, whom I consider my teachers, and especially in front of my Master Mawlana Shaykh Hisham, but we hear and we obey.
It has been said that obedience comes before adab, and that obedience is adab.

In a nutshell this role of sufism in building good character has two principles:
KEEP GOOD COMPANY AND SHOW PEOPLE MERCY.

But I would like to begin by mentioning the story of the conversion to Islam of two American ladies which took place in the nineties with our Murshid and teacher Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Naqshbandi al-Haqqani and his Deputy our teacher Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Hisham al-Kabbani &#ndash; may Allah grant them long life and good health. They were walking on Fifth Avenue in New York City with a large group of disciples (Murids) all dressed in jubba, turbans, and modest, flowing robes. Of course people would stop and stare. All of a sudden two American women came up to Mawlana Shaykh and expressed their interest in meeting him and his group. One of them said: "You look like such a wonderful Shaykh, and your group is so attractive! What do you call yourselves?" Mawlana as usual treated them with respect and made them feel happy; he answered: "We are Sufis." Shaykh Hisham then said to them that Mawlana Shaykh Nazim would be travelling to California shortly and stay there for a while. Not a week passed before these two New York women flew over to California (6 hours by plane) and sat in the company of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim in Shaykh Hisham's house. They made dhikr, took shahada and became Muslim, and they wore hijab, and became excellent Muslim women. What was the secret of that instant attraction and spiritual opening for them? And what was Mawlana Shaykh Nazim's secret in attracting them to Islam with such speed?

Before trying to answer, let us first look at the expression "Good Character Today," meaning moral values for our contemporaries. We can say in all honesty that there has been no period in human history in which humankind had weaker belief than today, or less patience and aptitude to worship and and know Allah, or less understanding of the Revealed Books. Yes, the number of people professing religion may be growing but we are discussing the quality of their belief whether Muslims or non-Muslims.

The Holy Prophet Muhammad (upon him blessings and peace) warned about this state of affairs when he described the end of times as filled with strife and problems, among them the disappearance of true knowledge, the reversal of values, falsehood becomes truth and vice-versa, ignorant people are in charge of religion and trustworthy people are shunned. He said: "Hurry up and do good deeds before dissensions that will come like deep chunks of dark night, in which a person will wake up as a believer and go to bed as an unbeliever, or he will go to bed as a believer and wake up as an unbeliever. He will sell his religion for scraps of this world." (Sahih Muslim) Umm Darda' also narrated that her husband Abu al-Darda' (Allah be well-pleased with him), whenever he saw someone who died a good death &#ndash; i.e. as a pious believer &#ndash; he would say to the dead man: "I wish I were in your place!" Umm Darda' said to him: Why do you say that? He replied: Don't you know that a person wakes up a believer and goes to bed as a hypocrite? She said: How? He replied: "His belief is taken away without him realizing. To die early in the state of belief is better for me than keep praying and fasting!" (Ibn 'Asakir, Tarikh Dimashq). Meaning: out of mere tradition, without real understanding or real belief.

The Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) also said: "The one who patiently holds on to his religion at that time is like someone grabbing a hot coal or sharp thorns." (Musnad and Sunan)

Allah Most High mentioned the best medicine for that situation in His Holy Book when He said { O Believers! Keep your duty to Allah and be with the truthful ones } (9:119). The Sufi Shaykhs have left no stone unturned in trying to implement that verse in order to build good character in their societies as we will show.

Similarly the Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) emphasized for us to show mercy to human beings. He said: "Show mercy to those on earth, the one in heaven will show mercy to you." (Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi &#ndash; hasan sahih). He also said: "Give glad tidings and do not make people run away! Make things easy and not difficult!" (Bukhari and Muslim). They also narrated it in the wording: "Make things easy and not difficult! SPREAD TRANQUILITY and do not make people run away!" Meaning: Tell people what they love to hear, do not make run away by mentioning fearful things or threats of punishment, don't say to them: Allah will burn you and you parents and punish you all! So although the Prophet is both "Bashir and Nadhir," i.e. giver of good news and warner, he did not command us to warn others, he only commanded us to give them glad tidings!

Of all the different groups in Islam it is probably the Sufis who have done the most efforts to obey the above orders and implement them to the utmost. They said: Be strict with yourselves but be easy on everyone else. Be lenient with people and let them take the easiest choice so that they will have energy for good deeds. Spread tranquility among them (sakkinu), peace, serenity, as opposed to spreading agitation. Make people to be among those who believe and their hearts are at peace with the remembrance of Allah.

{ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَتَطْمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكْرِ اللّٰهِ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ اللّٰهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ }

{ Behold! Truly with the remembrance of Allah hearts are at peace! } (13:28). So teach them dhikrullah, instead of dividing them into parties and movements and making them run after dunya with anger in their hearts.

So sufism has a very important and unique role in implementing these two teachings for building excellent human beings in our time: One, keep good company in this world; Two, facilitating what is beneficial for people in their hereafter. In this way sufism teaches people to obey Allah and His Prophet and to give people their rights in full. These two teachings are the secret of the Divine support for Sufis and Sufi paths in sha Allah today as it was yesterday. Because IN A NUTSHELL SUFISM IS SUHBA AND RAHMA, COMPANIONSHIP AND MERCY. In other words: improving our characters by keeping the company of the righteous servants of Allah generation after generation, from the earliest Muslims to our time, and helping one another in acquiring an excellent character, and attracting society to it; but this objective can be reached only through mercy, gentleness, kindness, and compassion towards all people on earth so that the One in heaven grants us mercy. In reality these two teachings reap success only through the Divine generosity and miraculous support, by which Allah guides whomever He likes through whomever He likes, as in the case of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim and the two ladies. Allah Most High said in His Book, { Say: If you love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. Allah is ever forgiving, merciful }(3: 26). He also said in the Divine Hadith narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari: "When I love My servant, I become his hearing with which he hears, etc." It is also narrated that Allah said to His Prophet Musa (upon him peace): "O Musa, make Me beloved to My servants by reminding them of My bounties."

There is no doubt that love is the strongest motivation to follow and be attracted to the Prophet Muhammad (upon him blessings and peace) and from him to Allah Most High, as proved by the Companions' recognition that, first, they were attracted to the Prophet because they considered him truthful and they loved him. Only after that, he taught them belief and religious rulings. This is a manifestation of the power of with in the verse { be with the truthful ones } (9:119), and the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) explicitly said that "a human being is with the one he loves," as in the authentic hadith narrated from several Companions in Bukhari and Muslim and elsewhere. This means he is with him in his different states, in his thoughts and beliefs, in his aspirations and dislikes, even if the lover is not able to conform to the beloved outwardly or inwardly; nevertheless he would love to conform. One might even acquire even the smallest aspect of the personality of the one he loves, for example Anas said that after he saw that the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) loved to eat pumpkin (dubba') he also started to love pumpkin.

More importantly, the Holy Prophet (upon him blesings and peace) made this attraction and love an avenue of salvation in the hereafter, as is clear from the context of the above hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, in which a desert bedouin asked the Prophet: "Messenger of Allah, when is the Day of Resurrection?" He replied: "What have you prepared for it?" He said: "Nothing, except that I love Allah and His Prophet." The Prophet said: "You are with those you love." Meaning: not only in this life but also in the next life. It means that your love for Allah's sake has made you reach the company of the one you love. So even if "the precondition of company is conformity" (shart al-murafaqa al-muwafaqa) and we certainly fail to conform, nevertheless, as Imam al-Junayd said: "When love is truthful, etiquette is no longer enforced." (Risala Qushayriyya)

So it is clear that LOVE, ATTRACTION, COMPANIONSHIP, AND TOGETHERNESS WITH RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE all form A LAWFUL RELIGIOUS METHOD FOR BUILDING GOOD CHARACTER AND LIVING RIGHTEOUS LIVES. It is as if Allah and the Prophet are saying to us: O Believers, be conscious of Allah and stay with those whom you love among the saints, you will be safe here and hereafter! All of the Companions bore witness to this interpretation as revealed by the Companion Anas b. Malik who said, after narrating the hadith that "You are with the one you love": "I never saw the Companions happier about anything they ever heard before than when they heard that hadith! Therefore I myself love Allah and His Prophet, and I love Abu Bakr and 'Umar, and I hope to end up with them even if I did not do their good deeds." Similarly we also say that we love Allah and His Prophet, and we love the four Rightly-guided Caliphs and all of the Companions and excellent Successors, and all the Friends of Allah, especially our beloved teachers, and we hope to be with them here and hereafter even if we did not do anything like their good deeds.

The scholar al-Munawi said of the above hadith: "It emphasizes loving special people in the hope of joining with them in Paradise, safe from hellfire, and be near Allah. It emphasizes love for the sake of Allah and staying away from hatred among Muslims, because the latter automatically means you will be deprived of that excellent company."

So the Companions of the Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) were immensely happy to hear that love will carry the one who loves to the presence of the beloved and make one share his company, his states and his stations here and hereafter. But we are much more deserving of that happiness, because we are much farther away from the Prophet than they were, and we are much more in need of him, and of protection and salvation in the hereafter than they are! Note here the role of silsila, the connecting chain between us to the Messenger of Allah (upon him blessings and peace): that chain is what the person taking initiation from his master holds on to as his means when he or she says: "I accept you as my teacher and guide (murshid) just as you pledged to your shaykh, who pledged to his shaykh… to the end of the chain that reaches to the Beloved of the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace), our Master Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (Allah be well-pleased with him) or to the Door of the City of Knowledge, our Master 'Ali al-Murtada (Allah ennoble his face), and from them to the Prophet.