Lesson 5: Mujahada [Spiritual Struggling]
Taught By: Shaykh Yahya Rhodus
- Struggling against negative tendencies
- Degrees of the Souls
- The stations of certainty
_________
- “He struggles against the negative tendencies of his soul and through his continuous struggles; he is adorned with the stations of certainty”.
- Mujahidah - Important realities of our deen that we cannot do without.
- Quran states: “Those who strive (Jahadu) in our ways, we will surely guide them to our ways”.
- General application and applies to Muslims and non Muslims. It is one of the sunnahs of Allah on earth meaning this is how he deals with his creation on earth.
- Anyone and everyone who strive for our sake, who strive to come to know us, who strive to come to know the reality and accept that reality that indeed they will be guided to our paths; meaning the doors will happen. You are required to put in that mujahida. This applies to the one who’s in a state of kufr or they are covering the realities of the seeds of faith in their heart.
- Anyone from the time of Adam until now, who have sincerely sought to know their Lord, that God will guide them. Allah is just and merciful.
- Names of Allah show the good will Allah shows to Creation (Rehman, Raheem, Wadood, Lateef) Applies to the Good will he has towards his creation.
- He has given us freedom of choice. Everyone has windows and doors that will open up for them in their lives but it is whether or not we walk through those doors or take those opportunities. If we don’t try to go through the doors that open for us, it will be difficult to later on and eventually, these ‘doors’ will close. If someone continues to procrastinate and then the reality hits them, their whole life they spent in kufr (they covered the truth and didn’t spend time discovering the truth)
- We live in a time where there are so many things entertaining us and preoccupying us that people have forgotten the whole purpose of existence.
- Even though we know death is absolutely certain. Allah refers to death as Yaqeen (Worship your Lord until certainty (death)comes to you). Death is coterminous with Yaqeen because it’s something which we have absolute certainty about.
- Death spurs us to strive along the way (of the spiritual path and struggle)
- Mujahida – Inner struggle is the greatest Jihaad.
- This is haqq and this is reality. Almost all of the scholars throughout the century have referred to it as such.
- Heart is oscillating and the most volatile. It’s always chaning.
- Five minutes later you are in a totally different mood. Different moods, thoughts, experiences. You find yourself in a good state and then a thought comes and it drags you into something else. You have to get yourself back up. It’s quite tiring.
- When you start putting in the struggle, it has great rewards.
- Every single person has their own idiocracies and blind spots. We have our own spiritual blind spots. Meaning our own mistakes and faults.
- There are certain things that there is no way around it except you have to struggle with it.
- Nothing anyone can do to purify your nafs, you have to be self motivated. People can talk, encourage, sit in certain gatherings to assist you in it but in the end you have to roll up your sleeves and do it.
- If someone is not waking up for fajr, they just have to bear down and just get up or roll up our sleeves and control our anger.
- GEM: Struggling against your soul and putting in that energy will help move the soul to various degrees.
- In general there are 3 degrees: Nafs al Ammarah, Nafs Al Lawamah, Nafs Al Mutmaainah.
- For most of us, the default state is the soul that incites to evil but once you start putting in that spiritual struggle that it starts to become purified and it moves to Al Lawamah where you start to rebuke yourself and take yourself to task and then slowly you will move up to Mutmainah.
- Examples of the Saliheen – You seem them in states of serenity and tranquility; they make it looks so easy. Like a professional golfer – make it look so easy but it is not easy unless you put in the time.
- “Practice makes permanent.”
- GEM: To master anything, you need to put in 10,000 hours.
- Let’s just say this applied to the spiritual soul and Allah knows best. It may take some people less and some people move. If you put in five hours a day to this which takes you to 35 hours in a week and it takes you to 140 hours a month. Then over a year, 1,680 hours over a year. So you would have to do that for 10,000 hours so it leads you to about six years. This would probably lead you to a level where you have a basic mastery over the nafs. That’s if you put in five hours. What if you put only one hour? That’s 30 years.
- Thus this is a long process.
- GEM: It takes us forty years to inculcate one virtue into our students (Imam Al Haddad)
- There are certain things that you will be able to change quickly while some not so quickly. It might take you years.
- This is what mujahida is.
- But this ability and desire to want to sacrifice is one of the greatest things that Allah can bless you with. (Relates to Baa’ith – this powerful urge that comes to your heart which is the first step to the spiritual path)
- Exercise Example : Great Metaphor
- We should be eating health and exercising. If you exercise regularly, everything else you do will be made easier. Your thoughts will be clear, you will have more energy, you will feel better, and you will be healthier. When you are in the moment of exercising, there is a time when it will become difficult but if you think about the long term benefits and when you finish, you feel great.
- This is similar to the spiritual path. When you are struggling in that moment, it is BITTER. Striving against yourself. Trying to suppress your anger, its bitter but in the end the rewards are truly great.
- Teach ourselves meaning of spiritual exercise.
- Going against the tendencies of the nafs is the greatest Karamah.
- Nafs has customary things that you have to break. Once you break the customary laziness of the nafs, you will attain karamah that happen on your hands.
- Istiqamah is the greatest saintly miracle. We do this for Allah (SWT).
- And then they adorn themselves with the stations of certainty.
- There is a dual process:
- 1) Ridding your heart of what is blameworthy.
- 2) Adorning your heart with what is praiseworthy.
- Maqamat al Yaqeen – Stations of Certainty
- Maqam – standing point. Particular position. A spiritual station.
- This is what the heart is adorned with. The foundation of all of these stations is certainty. Meaning that when we discuss the stations of certainty, we speak of ilm, amal and haal.
- Now we are thinking about this in a slightly different order.
- Imam ghazali states that it comprises of knowledge then state then action. This knowledge here is different than the other order mentioned above. This is an experiential knowledge. Knowledge based upon the higher levels of certainty. Before one moves up in these stations of certainty, its already a given that they have explored the realm of Islam that pertains to the outwards submission and they have explored the realm of Emaan that pertains to the inner dimension of faith and that they have achieved certainty. And as our prophet said: Certainty is all of faith. It’s the reality of faith.
- And there are various degrees of certainty. Nothing more honorable has descended from heaven and certainty, the very fact that we can be certain about something in a world of relativism where people have relegated everything to an individual experience and that there is no truth with the capital T. That Alhamdulilah from the blessing of what our scholars have laid down because times people will look at our scholarly tradition, they won’t notice the greatness of what our scholars did until you study it in light of modern philosophy.
- Imam Ghazali – Hujjatul Islam. Why is he called proof of Islam? Long before the post modern world, he left for us a methodology that is perfectly applicable and untouchable at any time. It’s transhistorical, truly in sense of the word. He said that the way we attain the higher aspects of faith is through experiencing the realities of faith. Meaning, if Allah gives someone certainty that he removes the veil so they witness the reality as it is, it doesn’t matter what the philosopher philosophies or what the scientist pontificates at that point. If someone is witnessing the reality of things, then it doesn’t matter. Anyone can say what they want to say.
- GEM: No philosophy or scientific study can disprove the realities of your faith. They might confuse you if you don’t understand things correctly. But, if Allah manifests in you certain attributes and you start perceiving certain things, that’s it.
- Take companionship of the shaykh. The living saint is one of the greatest ways through which we can attain the higher levels of certainty and they are the links that link us back to the Prophet (SAW) and as long as we have a Muslim culture in the west that doesn’t recognize that and denies that it even exists is that there is no way for us to move forward.
- We can sit back and not talk about it and go with the flow or we can bring it up in a responsible way.
- None of the people we know – Shaykh Hamza didn’t become Shaykh Hamza except from the people that he saw. Imam Zaid didn’t become Imam Zaid except from the people he spent time with. Dr Abdullah didn’t become Dr. Abdullah except with the people he sat with.
- There is no way to attain felicity unless you are with the people of felicity.
- Aside from the fame and glory, we have to get down and deal with the real issues.
- If you look at people before us, they were links in the chain. In every generation, there has to be links in the chain.
- Do we want to be the broken link?
- Look at Imam Malik. There was a certain person he wouldn’t take hadith from because he saw him put food in front of his riding beast and was enticing it and not giving it the food. Or from someone who recited the hadith of the Prophet standing up. Look at how these people were. They were valid links. They had integrity.
- If we are going to be real with the spread of Islam in these countries, we have to live up to that standard.
- This standard is going to be gained after shedding bloods, tears and time..getting down to the heart of this tradition. Unless we are ready to do that, we are only playing games.
- Even with all of our weaknesses, and our brokenness, we should rely on Allah.
- We have to strive relying upon God.
- If you don’t think you can achieve something, you are having a bad opinion with your Lord. Every single person can make an incredible contribution, whether you are a mother, background, are 17, migrated etc can make a unique contribution. You have to think that.
- You don’t need to spend fifteen years overseas to do that.
- This is why we have a spiritual path to show us how to do this.
- More than anything, it is an internal state.
- GEM: We know people of Allah who if you were to see them they are people of Allah. They were simple clothes. No kufi. Very simple. Pray the five daily prayers. A little bit of nafl and they are Arifeen billah. They are walking saints. They have spiritual connections to the higher dimensions of Allah’s creation. These people exist and you would be surprised. Nothing is preventing you.
- GEM: Khalwah is in your heart.
- Yes, at times, we have to retreat but while mixing with people, you should have solitude in your heart.
- Dedicate and serve your lord and you will see wonders open up to you but you have to focus and be serious.
- We can’t let this thing go. We have to make a contribution. If you look at what the people of past did to preserve Islam. Habib mashur – During the time of the communist regime, they confiscated all the libraries and burned a lot of books and then presented to them that they should save them for cultural reasons, they kept them. They used to sneak in and take the books back little by little. They had to study secretly and hide the books – all to study the deen because if they wouldn’t have done that, how’s the next generation going to learn those same texts that the generation before them learned?
- The ways in which these people have striven to preserve the deen.
- Maqamat Al Yaqeen
- Fear, hope, gratitude, patience, repentance, detachment, complete trust, contentment and love.
- These are called Maqamat al Yaqeen.
- There are many difference of opinion in regards to their order etc
- Imam Ghazali mentions these in a particular order and we will go off this order.
- He starts with repentance. Taubah is the beginning of the spiritual path. It has a beginning but there’s no end to taubah.
- You constantly repent but for different things.
- Our prophet (SAW) would repent on a daily basis. As he was increasing in knowledge, in his witnessing of Allah (SWT), he repented from the state that came before it.
- Hadith: Indeed my heart becomes cloudy and I repent to my Lord seventy times in the day and night.
- Hassan shadhili r.a while trying to understand this hadith saw a dream. It was said to him in a dream that this is the cloudiness that comes from the incessant lights that are descending on the heart of the Prophet and not from any cloudiness related to other worldly things.
- Repentance has a beginning just as hidayah has a beginning but there’s no end to both.
- We begin be repenting from anything that will distance us from Allah. Brings us back to five stations of Taqwah.
- 1) We have to rid our lives of anything that will make us do kufr.
- 2) Remove sins.
- Repentance is based upon knowing the importance of it.
- Sincere repentance is what we should be seeking.
- 1) Remorse
- 2) Never return to the act
- 3) Stop doing it
- 4) Repair the sin if it was with someone else.
- If one does all of that and repent inshaa’Allah the repentance will be accepted.
- When you repent, what was you is now gone. It’s a new page. Allah (SWT) is Al Affuw, He will erase the trace of that sin from your scroll just as he will remove it from your heart. It is gone.
- This is why there are two different states.
- Sometimes it is good to forget the sin and at times it is good to forget it.
- If Allah has moved you to state of purity, to dwell upon the past is counterproductive, you move on.
- However, if you are struggling with it and keep going back to it. It’s productive to think about it in the way you felt after the sin and how it affected you because that should spur you to repent and leave it.
- Each state has what is appropriate to it.
- Daily litany of repentance.
- In the morning and evening. Polishing our hearts and flushing out the effects of what we have done throughout the day.
- The best worship is to leave acts of disobedience.
- Every little thing you do will have a great impact in your heart if you do this.
- If we do commit a sin, we follow up with a good deed.
- GEM: A mirror that is stained and polished and stained and polished is not like a mirror that remains clean and never gets stained. (Imam Ghazali)