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QUESTION: Which precepts of the second station did Allah’s Rasul demonstrate by putting them into practice? ANSWER: In the same way that Allahu ta’ala Nayan, with compassionate love and without any discrimination, provides nourishment to all of His created beings, regardless of whether they are good or evil, Allah’s Rasul gave his compassion and love, without any discrimination, to all of Allah’s created beings. He looked at them all with the same eye, and, standing in the form of compassion, he bestowed his compassionate love on those lives. In accordance with Allah’s command, he conducted himself in a way that did not deviate by even an atom from the truth. Thus did he resplend, as a shining example, upholding integrity as that which is eternal and enduring. He dedicated himself to others, ignoring the well-being of his own body. Knowing the feelings of others, he would comfort the sorrows and needs of each and give them the compassionate love of his kindness. Whenever he met elders of wisdom, he would, with reverence, pay his humble respects to them. And he would always give the respect due to those of learning. Obeying his conscience faultlessly, he treated all people alike, no matter what their religion was. Further, if there was a death in a house, no matter what religion the deceased person had belonged to, the Rasul would first go to the funeral home, perform the required duties for the corpse, join the family in completing the required rituals, and later help to carry the corpse and bury it in the proper manner. Moreover, he would raise both hands to Allah and make a supplication (du’a’) on behalf of the person who had died, begging of God with melting heart, “Ya Allah! Regarding this person’s good and evil, may You forgive him for the evil he committed during his life, restore him to the good path, and gather him into the fold of Your devotees. Ya Rahman! May You give him a place in heaven and keep him there!” In addition, he would console the relatives of the deceased, saying, “Do not feel sad. All the creations that leave Allah and come forth to this world (on His command) must later return to Him. This is inevitable. And so, there need be no weeping, grief, or sorrow. Allah sows His creations as seeds in the garden of this world, the dunya. When those seeds have sprouted, grown to maturity, flowered, and borne fruit, and when Allah perceives that mature state, He Himself reaps the harvest of the crop He sowed. That crop belongs only to Him. The world is but the land on which He sows the seeds that become His creations. “We must know this without the slightest doubt and have certitude in Allah. He is the Emperor (Budushah) and King to all things and all beings. All the things that have appeared as His creations belong only to Him. So we should not feel sad. After all, we too belong to Him. We too have sprouted in this world as His crop. When we flower and fruit and mature, He Himself will reap us as His harvest, just as He reaps all of His creations. “However, the various seeds of His creations may be sown at different periods and therefore may grow and mature at different times. Thus the crops have to be watched carefully and harvested at the right time for each—some earlier, some later. Only Allah has the authority to decide when to harvest each crop, for all the harvests rightfully belong only to Him. Therefore, there is no need to feel sad. This world is but the field in which God does His farming, and all of us are the crops He has sown. “Further, buried within these crops and existing naturally are certain beneficial things from His essence, His attributes, and His secrets (dhat, sifat, and sirr). And within them is a most wondrous elixir, which has the excellence of the subtle clarity of these three. However, also within these crops (the created beings of Allah) are some worms, insects, and poisonous creatures, along with certain tendencies, all of which can ruin and destroy them. “Therefore, in order to save Allah’s crops from being destroyed by these evil, poisonous things, Allah’s wondrous elixir that lies naturally buried within the crops needs to be distilled with the clarity of man’s divine analytic wisdom and sprayed on those harmful insects, thus protecting the crops from disease, pestilence, aging, and death. We must do this. It is the command of God, the duty of the subtlety of man’s intellect, and the duty of the clarity of his divine analytic wisdom. Therefore, my fellow beings, whatever may happen, you must not feel sad.” With words such as these the Rasul would bring solace and peace to the hearts of the sorrowing ones. Further, he would offer supplications on behalf of each and every life. He would advise them to avoid wrong actions, demonstrating this by his own actions. Not heeding his own hunger, yet being aware of the hunger of others, he would control his hunger with his inner patience (sabur) and give his own food away to satisfy the hunger of others. When danger threatened other lives, he would pledge his own body and life to save theirs. When he observed people speaking untruths, he would preach truth and wisdom to them, saying, “These lies will result only in harm and evil for you in both worlds, making you suffer the pain of a tormented mind both here and there.” In this way he would make those people aware of the truth. He would tell them, “Do not covet the wives of others. Do not commit adultery by your intentions or your actions, for that is forbidden (haram). If you do, Allahu ta’ala Nayan will have you cut up by His angels piece by piece and dropped into the vilest of hells. Moreover, if you forfeit your wisdom, forsake your good qualities and virtuous behavior, and turn bad, then tomorrow, on the Day of Judgment, Allahu ta’ala Nayan will have your flesh cut slice by slice (1) and thrown into hell.” Allah’s Rasul would say further, “O man! Do not cause pain to the heart of another human being. For Allahu ta’ala Nayan has created the house of the innermost heart, the qalb, in a most excellent mold, using the secret of His attributes and His essence. And He stands resplending within that house of the heart, conducting His justice. Therefore do not cause pain to the heart, where Allahu ta’ala Nayan resides. If you do, because you caused pain to Allah, you will be consigned to that burning hell tomorrow.” In this way, our Prince of prophets would teach the people by his words and his actions, which conformed to the truth. Shining in the form of the qualities of Allahu ta’ala Nayan, our Prophet (Nabi) treated neighbors and others (even those who were not his relatives and those who belonged to other religions) without any discrimination, loving all lives as much as he loved his own, thus setting an example that people could see and emulate. He spoke Allah’s truths to them, explaining with firm certitude that Allah is one. Moreover, if there were stones or thorns lying on paths where people walked, he would pick them up and throw them into the shrubs and thickets, so no one could tread on them. Pointing this out to the people, he would say, “Imagine how much pain you would suffer if a thorn pricked your foot! In the same way, if blind men, or those who go about gazing upward all the time, or ignorant people, or those who lack acuity of intellect should happen to go that way, and if a thorn should prick them, would not these men suffer a great deal also? Before that can happen, if those with wisdom were to notice such thorns and stones lying on the path and pick them up and throw them aside, would not all that pain be avoided?” In this way he would feed the people with wisdom, patience, truth, and the awareness of such things. In addition, if someone hurt him by word or by deed, he would not heed that pain even for an instant, but would instead send out his love, which is Allah’s love, to salve and relieve the other man’s pain. To those who committed robbery or murder, our Prophet, with his compassion and with Allah’s truth, would demonstrate the pain they had caused to the lives of others and then tell them, “For these acts, tomorrow, Allahu ta’ala Nayan will order the hand that robbed, the hand that killed, and the tongue that lied to be cut away by His angels. He will cause the heart that is dry of pity to be split open, and He will have them all thrown into the most horrible hell.” Explaining these things, our Prince of prophets would demonstrate the excellence and truth of inner patience (sabur) to those who are human beings. Further, our Prophet would say, “Realizing that Allahu ta’ala Nayan is the only one who is eternal and endures forever and ever, you must know that tomorrow, on the Day of Qiyamah, the Day of Reckoning, He is the one who will inquire into the good and evil we have committed. On that day questions will be asked of you and me directly, face to face. Those who are human beings must know this. He is Allah, who, having created all of us, protects us, provides nourishment for us, and redeems us. Since He is imperishable and eternal, then, now, and forever, He will be the Lord who will inquire into the truths and the good of all creations.” Explaining thus, and cutting away all evil, our Prophet practiced what was good and demonstrated it to the world. Our Jewel among prophets would also caution them, “My fellow beings born with me! Do not indulge in lust, theft, murder, falsehood, envy, treachery, hypocrisy, the pride of the ‘I’, haughtiness, usury, marijuana, opium, beer, gin, arrack, toddy, the tormenting of other lives, evil acts such as sinful anger, or the like. If you do, Allahu ta’ala Nayan will have you burned and scorched tomorrow in that vilest of hells, called uwayil. He will have the tongue that drank, the hand that committed the act, the eyes that looked, the nose that smelled, and the teeth that bit—sliced and cut off one by one and apportioned among the seven hells. Thus will He have you tortured by His angels. Therefore, my fellow beings who are born with me! Please save yourselves from this horrible fate.” Our Prince of prophets would further exhort them, “O my fellow beings! Please acquire Allah’s qualities. Accept His truth, follow it, and cherish it. Establish His compassionate love firmly within you. Never deviate from integrity. Do not act outside of Allahu ta’ala Nayan’s justice. Beautify yourselves by taking on the patience of Allah as your patience.” Thus would our Rasul explain the qualities of Allah and also demonstrate them by His actions and behaviors. When he observed the hunger of another, he would give up his own food, place the stone of contentment (shakur) called Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim on his stomach, and secure it tightly, using the rope of inner patience (sabur), saying, “My fellow beings born with me! You must realize the glory of Allahu ta’ala Nayan. He is the one who gives nourishment (rizq) to all created beings. He is the Emperor for creation, life, and death. You must know this. All the pleasures He gives to man in this world are given merely as worldly trials and temptations. These tests are given by Allah to find out: ‘Does man realize the hunger and pain of those born with him? Or only his own hunger and pain? Does he dwell in My qualities? Does man know himself? Does he live in fear of My final judgment?’ Please understand this, you who are insan, human beings. Walk on the good path and save yourselves from being tested by Allah. “Therefore, you who are born with me! Whenever you are faced with suffering, not matter how great it may be, you must take on Allah’s qualities, His action, His virtuous conduct, His behavior, His contentment, His justice, His honesty, His calmness, His serenity, His sense of duty, and His truth. Make your inner heart (qalb) beautiful with His patience and relieve the hunger, illness, and suffering of others in the same way as you would your own.” Saying this, our noble Prophet would practice these things himself, as an example for us. Even if we counted, one by one, every grain of sand in all the seven worlds, still the good actions and duties performed by our great Prince of prophets and the good things he preached to us would far outnumber them. He made us aware of these qualities, actions, and duties and taught us about truth, patience, justice, honesty, calmness, serenity, and love, by practicing them all without deviating even an atom from them. An insan kamil shaikh (2) teaches his children some of the things that our Prophet, our Rasul, told us and showed us by example. My son! Our noble Prophet, who carried out those actions with such qualities—he alone has borne the greatness, the beauty, and the name of dinul-Islam, the path of purity. One who is man, living with the qualities of our Nabi Muhammad Mustafar-Rasul (3) and performing the duties appropriate to the conditions of man’s life in this world, must know, through his wisdom of awareness, about his coming to this world, the dunya, and his going to the other world, the akhirah, later. He must inquire into: Where did we come from? Where will we go later? Who is it that sent us here? Who will call us back? Having found the answers to these questions, if a man comes to realize himself and to know the truth (in the same way that our Prophet realized himself and came to know his Lord), that will be the right action required for the first and second stations, or maqams, in Islam. Further, in the same way that Allah’s Rasul lived, conducted himself, and demonstrated these realized truths by his actions, if a man acquires Allah’s qualities, and, using the qualities of the Rasul, puts the aforementioned truths into practice as did the Rasul, and explains them through his actions—that will be dinul-Islam. This is the second station, the station of the actions of Allah’s Rasul. Thus says the kamil shaikh, completing his discourse on the second station, to those born with him. Footnotes: 1) [M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen explains that the torment and the punishment we experience come from out own bad qualities, such as anger, vengeance, deceit, treachery, divisiveness, bigotry etc. Every quality that attack or hurts another brings terrible suffering to us, both in life and in the grave. They are the ‘angels’ that torture us and the fire that burs us—in hell. It is not God that punishes us—not now, or later. Each one falls into the fire that he himself builds. This is what hell is. On the other hand, it is our own good thoughts, qualities, and actions that become the heavenly youth and maidens who serve us in paradise. They are our ‘angels’. They can end any kind of hurt. Thus if we function with good qualities such as patience, tolerance, compassion and forgiveness, we will be living in heaven right here on earth.] 2) Divinely wise teacher; a man perfect in iman, faith. 3) Prophet Muhammad, the chosen Messenger.
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