Safeguarding Faith (Iman)

People of wisdom state:With the approach of Doomsday, darkness gathers. As darkness increases, so does people's bumping against one another; everybody bumps against one another. What turns daylight into darkness is the gloom of unlawful things [harams], religious innovations [bida'], and disbelief [kufr]. It is such that Hadrat Imam-i Rabbani, speaking in reference to his own time, said centuries ago, "Religious innovations have become so prevalent that the world has darkened." What caused the world to get dark at that time was religious innovations. As for the time period close to Doomsday [Akhir az-Zaman, Last Age, Last Era], what causes the world to get dark is the gloom of disbelief.

What is meant by one-tenth that is mentioned in the hadith-i sharif "If my Ummah of the Last Age perform one-tenth of the commandments, they will attain salvation" is to safeguard the faith and die with the correct faith. Those who accomplish this will attain salvation because the greatest disaster in the Last Age is to die faithless. People who die without faith will go to eternal Hell. Today, lawful [halal] and unlawful [haram] things have become so mixed that the majority of people do not know what is lawful. But the truth is that whoever takes a haram lightly loses his/her faith. As a matter of fact, our Master the Prophet stated, "The biggest trouble of my Ummah that will come in the Last Age will be to protect and save their faith. Their biggest disaster will be to lose their faith." Acts of worship cannot rescue us, but they are highly valuable as they help us protect our faith. It resembles this: Let us say a fierce storm has broken. In order to protect a candle against this storm lest it should burn out, it is necessary to put it within 20 or 30 glass globes placed one inside the other. A candle that is left in the open burns out quickly. Therefore, people need to do more acts of worship and have much more sincerity in the Last Age to save their faith. Interestingly enough, it was not so difficult to save one's faith in the past, for there was not such a storm in those days. The candle was still burning even if there was not a glass globe surrounding it. Everywhere was in tranquility, so candles were burning without going out. Furthermore, there were many candles. As there is no light today, disbelief and harams have become normal practice, which is a very dangerous situation. Considerably worse days will come, and increasingly, the situation will deteriorate further.

Dying sinful is a great felicity compared with dying a disbeliever because the sinful will attain salvation sooner or later. Acting on the hadith-i sharifs "I will intercede for those with grave sins" and "Die with faith, and do not interfere in the rest," we should strive to save our faith. This, in turn, is fulfilled by having the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah, avoiding what is prohibited, and performing acts of worship. To be able to safeguard our faith, we should recite the prayer, "Allahumma inni a'oodhu bika min an-ushrika bika shay-an wa ana a'lamu wa astaghfiru-ka li-maa laa-a'lamu innaka anta 'allaamul ghuyoob," which was prescribed by our Master the Prophet, in the mornings and in the evenings. It means "O my Allah, I take refuge in You from ascribing any partners to You knowingly. If I did it unknowingly, forgive me. You know everything." Repeating the statement "La ilaha ill-Allah Muhammadun Rasul-Allah," we should frequently renew our faith. Also, steering clear of words and actions that cause disbelief, we should endeavor to protect our faith. May Allahu ta'ala keep us all from the disaster of disbelief and falling into faithlessness!

Our nafs is not a creator

Question: In the books of Ahl as-Sunnah, on the one hand it is written that both good and evil are from Allah, but on the other hand it is written that humans are responsible for the sins they commit. Is it not a contradiction? Is it not our nafs that creates sins?

ANSWERThere is no contradiction in our religion. The Creator of everything is Allahu ta'ala alone. There is not any other creator. Our nafs (a negative force within humans that prompts them to do evil) cannot create anything. To consider the nafs as the creator is the view of the Mu'tazilah. Our nafs is not even an accountable creature unlike humans and genies. When a human dies, his/her nafs will be annihilated. How wrong it is to call a thing creator that is not even held liable and is doomed to annihilation! One of the six fundamentals of faith is to believe that both good and evil are from Allah. A person who does not believe in this cannot be a Muslim.

Ahl as-Sunnah scholars, inheritors of the Messenger of Allah, state:

Allahu ta'ala is the one who always creates, trains, and develops everything, who causes every favor to be done, and who sends every favor. He alone is the owner of strength and power. Unless He gives us thought, nobody can will or desire to do good or evil. After man receives the thought, he can will to do something, but unless Allah wills and gives strength and opportunity to that thought, nobody can do one bit of kindness or evil to anybody. He creates everything that man wants if He wills it. Only what He wills happens. He sends us the thoughts of doing good or evil for various reasons. When His born servants (men) whom He pities wish to do evil, He does not will and create it. When they wish to do good, He, too, wills and creates it. Goodness always arises from such people. He, too, wills to create the evil wills of His enemies, with whom He is angry. Since these evil people do not wish to do something virtuous, evils always arise from them.

In other words, all people are a means, a tool. They are like the pen in the writer’s hand. Only using their partial will that has been bestowed upon them, those who will goodness earn blessings, while those willing evil to be created become sinful. Allahu ta’ala willed in pre-eternity to create the optional deeds of people through their will power.

Our nafs causes us to commit evil
Question: While it is our nafs that causes us to commit evil, is it true to say, "Both good and evil are from Allah"?

ANSWERIn terms of causing it, of course evil is from the nafs. However, in terms of creating it, both good and evil are from Allah. The nafs desires evil and causes it, and Allahu ta'ala creates it. That is, it is Allah who creates and wills evil, too. A fly cannot move its wing unless He wills and creates it. Every adversity that befalls us takes place by Allah's will and creation. Our nafs is not a creator. It cannot create either good or evil. It is Allahu ta'ala alone who creates everything. The Qur'an al-karim says (what means):

(The Creator of everything is Allah.) [Az-Zumar 62; Al-Mu'min 62]

(It is Allah who creates you and what you do.) [As-Saffat 96]

(Your Lord creates what He wants, chooses what He wills. They do not have the right to choose.) [Al-Qasas 68]

If a servant deserves a disaster, Allahu ta'ala sends it to him/her. As a matter of fact, a Qur'anic verse says:

(Any disaster that befalls you is because of what you commit with your own hands, yet Allah forgives most of them.) [Ash-Shura 30]
(This means to say that disasters are being sent because of our sins, but the Sender is Allah. It is declared in this verse that Allah forgives most of them. That is, the One who sends disasters is He, and He forgives most of them.)

(Whatever good comes to you comes from Allah [as a grace of His]. Whatever evil befalls you comes from yourself [in return for your sins].) [An-Nisa' 79]

As is seen, this Qur'anic verse says that evil befalls us because of our sins, but it is Allahu ta'ala who creates evil. The verse preceding the above one says that evil, too, is created by Allah. The meaning of this verse is as follows:
(If any good reaches them, they say, “This is from Allah,” but if any evil reaches them, they say, “This happened because of you.” Say: “All things are from Allah.”) [An-Nisa' 78]

It is a condition of faith to believe that it is Allah who creates both good and evil. A hadith-i sharif says:
(A person who does not believe that qadar, good, and evil are from Allah is not a Believer.) [Tirmidhi]

Of the ahl al-bid'ah (people of innovation), some reject qadar, and some reject the fact that good and evil are from Allahu ta'ala. There are people who reduce fundamentals of faith to less than six or who increase them to seven. Moreover, there are even people who say that there is no such thing as the fundamentals of Islam. This stems from the disease of blaming the early scholars and thus trying to rise by treading on them, which is a very abominable act. It is stated in a hadith-i sharif that it is a sign of Doomsday for upstarts to blame the scholars who lived in the past with a view to make reform in the religion. Our Master the Prophet stated, "Scholars are the inheritors of the Messenger of Allah." Does blaming the scholars of old, who are the inheritors of the Messenger of Allah, not sadden the Messenger of Allah, the owner of inheritors? One must recover from the disease of blaming the early scholars.

Spiritual Luminance and Islamic Manners

People of wisdom state: 
The sun radiates heat and light to everybody. People make use of them and continue living. Though all beings on earth benefit from the sun, it never says, "You warm up thanks to me, and it is I that provide you with light." So is the case with Islamic superiors. Though they emit fayd [outpouring that flow from the guide’s heart to a heart, which thus gains motion, purity, and exaltation] to the whole world, they use such expressions as "This weak person" or "This faqir [the one who recognizes his complete dependence on Allah in all of his affairs]" or "We are nothing" to refer to themselves. We, Muslims who hold the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jama‘ah, know the Sun [the spiritual guide showing the path]. Furthermore, we know such suns as Shah-i Naqshband, Imam-i Rabbani, and Mawlana Khalid-i Baghdadi. We owe everything we have, including our faith, to these superiors. If we had not known them, how would our lives be now? We would be worse than other people.

Our Master the Prophet stated, "Mercy descends where the pious are mentioned." From this mercy, a person whose pot is completely open gets much, and another person whose pot is slightly open gets a little. However, the one whose pot is upside down does not get any. The coming of mercy and fayd is beyond the power of humans.

The coming of fayd
Fayd is like sunbeams and it sends light everywhere. Fayd certainly flows from those superiors. Receiving or not receiving it is within the power of humans. In fact, fayd comes up to the level of the chest, but there are some requirements to be fulfilled in order for it to gain access:

1. To believe that fayd is coming,
2. To have a firm belief in the greatness of the person from whom the fayd flows,
3. To love the person from whom fayd flows, that is, to be obedient to what he instructs,
4. To perform obligatory religious duties and to abstain from forbidden things,
5. To be respectful and well mannered toward that person to the utmost. This last requirement is the most important and the most difficult one because it is stated that anyone who does not observe [the Islamic manners called] aadaab cannot win the pleasure of Allahu ta'ala, nor can he become His friend.

In this context, Hadrat Imam-i Rabbani said:
"Among all kinds of acts of worship and perfections that bring one closer to Allahu ta'ala, suhbah [being in the presence of a spiritual guide and his delivering religious speeches and their being listened to by those in attendance] is ranked first, but its condition is heavy. This condition is the adherence to the manners. If one transgresses the manners by as much as an atom's weight, one cannot derive benefit."
Obeying orders and manners

Manners are two kinds: (1) to know one's place; (2) to obey orders, to perform what one is told. Our religious superiors stated, "Al amr-u fawq al-adab." That is, obeying an order is above observing manners because following an order is the highest of good manners.

The essence of the path of Islamic superiors is manners. We may do excellent and highly beneficial deeds, but they are of no avail, of no use if they have not been done in compliance with manners. As a matter of fact, Hadrat Shah-i Naqshband declared, "The essence, the beginning, the middle, and the end of this path is manners."