Al-qawaa’id Our Shaykh Abul ‘Abbaas al-Hadrami - Hamza Yusuf)

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00

From al-qawaa’id Our Shaykh Abul ‘Abbaas al-Hadrami said:

Spiritual training was elevated [to a science] due to the development of a Technical vocabulary, but benefit from it is derived only as a result of aspiration and spiritual states, so adhere to the Book and the prophetic practice without omitting or adding anything.

This applies to all of your transactions with your Creator, the creation, and yourself.

As for what is between you and God, three matters are concerned:
fulfilling obligations, avoiding prohibitions, and submitting completely to His decrees.

As for dealing with the self, this also involves three necessities:

an unbiased approach to the truth;
abandoning defence mechanisms, such as self-justification;
and guarding against the dangers of the self in respect to its attractions and aversions, its acceptances and rejections, and its comings and goings.

As for dealing with people, this concerns three requirements also:

ensuring their rights are fulfilled;
virtuous lack of desire for their possessions;
and absolute avoidance of anything that adversely affects their hearts unless it concerns an obligation to the Truth that cannot be ignored.

Any aspirant of this path who inclines toward the following preoccupations will perish:

horseback riding;

general self-interests;

occupation with changing social wrongs or with fighting in military jihads while neglecting the acquisition of personal merit and virtue believing that he is in no need of rectifying his own soul or that he can obtain all of the virtues;

seeking out the faults of his brothers and others;

excusing himself by claiming abandonment of the world;

spending all of his time in religious devotion;

spending a good deal of time in public gatherings or seeking company, not for teaching or learning but simply for human companionship;

inclining toward the people of wealth, claiming he is doing so for religious reasons;

preoccupying himself with spiritual matters of the heart before learning the basis of sound transactions or the rectification of his faults;

thrusting himself forth as a spiritual teacher without being appointed by a true spiritual master, scholar, or Imam;

mindlessly following anyone who says, “follow me,” whether his words be true or false, without ascertaining the details of his state;

belittling someone who is among the people of Allah, even if he should deem that person insincere based upon some proof he has;

inclining toward dispensations and interpretations;

putting the inward before the outward;

being satisfied with the outward to the detriment of the inward;

extracting from one what contradicts the other;

being content with knowledge devoid of action or with action devoid of an inward state or knowledge;

believing that an inward state suffices without the other two;

or having no principle to which he has recourse in his actions, knowledge, states, or religious practices from the accepted principles in the books of the Imams, such as the books of Ibn ‘Ata Illah concerning inward matters, especially at-Tanwir, and, concerning outward manners, the book of Ibn al-Hajj, Madkhal, and those of his Shaykh, Ibn Abi Jamrah, as well as of others who follow the same path from among the realized masters; may Allah have mercy on all of them.

Any aspirant who is of the above mentioned types is in fact ruined and has no salvation on this path, but whoever holds to the Book and the prophetic practice will be safe and Godspeed arrive. Protection is from Him alone, and success is by Him.

The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, was once asked about Allah’s words, “Tend to your own souls.”

He replied, “If you see covetousness obeyed, passions and whims followed, and every opinionated person marvelling at his own opinions, then tend to your own soul.”

He, may Allah grant him peace and blessings, also said something to this effect:

In the Tablets of Abraham, upon him be peace, it is written, “An intelligent person should know the age in which he lives;

he should hold his tongue and mind his own business.

An intelligent person should have four portions of his day for the following: a portion to take his soul to account, a portion to converse with his Lord, a portion to spend time with his brothers –

meaning those who help him to see clearly his faults and direct him to his Lord –and a portion to indulge in his own personal recreation from the permissible appetites of man.”

May Allah provide us with that and help us to fulfill it. May He always maintain us in a State of grace, for we cannot survive without His bestowal of grace and prosperity. Allah is enough for us, and God is the best of protectors.

May prayers and peace be upon our master Muhammad and his family and his companions.