Through Muhammad Abdul-Haqq Adeyinka Mendes
Beginning with the Most Ancient and Blessed Name of God,
Allah, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate
May the Choicest of Blessings and Most Perfect of Peace Rest Upon our Masters Moses, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad, and upon their families and blessed companions. Amen.
This is so very key to understand.
Modern man realizes the impotence, hypocrisy, superficiality, and destructiveness of religion and has rejected it and wants an escape... this is one of the reasons why so many people are opting for a customized religion they call "spirituality". Ultimately, there are only two escapes from religion -atheism/agnosticism and Islam - the former leads to the gratification and worship of the self and the latter leads to the disciplining and illumination of the Self.
At the most fundamental level "organized religion" as we know it today is man-made, theologically anthropomorphic, anti-intellectual, anti-intuitive, isolationist/elitist, exploitive, cultural, reductive, judgmental, and controlling/manipulative; using fear, guilt. and the appeal to authority as its main tools-in a nutshell, organized religion is submission to man while Islam is submission to the Creator.
In contrast, Islam - if understood from its pure and living Muhammady source - is revealed, radically monotheistic, rational, intuitive, inclusive, empowering, holistic, nonjudgmental, and liberating; using Knowledge (transmitted, rational, and inspired) and Gratitude as its main tools to inspire love that blossoms into sincere service of the Creator and the creation.
The Middle Way is a glorious tree with more than seventy branches, each branch bearing its own unique fruit, the most exalted of its branches is realizing that there is nothing deserving of your absolute love and devotion except God, your Creator and Sustainer, and the least of its branches is removing harm from a path. Its root is humility. It elevates the entire body, mind, and soul of the one who climbs it so that he or she recognizes, experiences, and embraces the Oneness of the Four Brotherhoods: the Brotherhood of Creation, the Brotherhood of Humanity, the Brotherhood of those who believe in One Indivisible, Unseen, Unique, All-Knowing, Almighty, and Merciful Creator, and the Brotherhood of Islam, the Path of the Prophets.
There are those who have attempted to turn Islam into a religion by promoting man-made understandings as Divine Truth while in fact they are not, when this happens this religion is used to ultimately serve man-made interests rather than the six universal human rights, deduced from the Koran and teachings of the Prophets (peace be upon them), that protect and promote faith, life, intelligence, lineage, wealth, and honor for every individual and community. Wherever you find corruption and tyranny committed in the name of Islam then it is only because the perpetrators of these crimes practice Islam as a religion serving their egocentric and base desires rather than as the Revealed Path of Service to the Creator and Creation that it is.
Islam is distorted into a religion when it is taught and lived as a straight and narrow doctrine as opposed to a straight and wide Living Faith. Islam becomes a religion when it is limited to this or that person's aqidah (theological school), math'hab (jurisprudential school), tariqah (method of spiritual purification), ideology, philosophy, culture, or organization. Islam is loving submission of your body, mind, and soul to the Creator according to the sublime teachings elucidated in the Final Divine Communication revealed to a Prophet, the Glorious Koran. The Koran encompasses, distills, and clarifies the Truths and Universal Principles of all Revealed Scriptures and every authentic Spiritual Tradition known to humanity.
The greatest and most liberating of these Truths being that God is neither man nor woman, neither black nor white, neither spirit nor body, neither exists within space-time nor outside of it nor in the heavens nor in the earth, but that God is a Unique, Eternal, Everlasting, All-Knowing, Almighty, Loving, Just, and Merciful Being existing independent of time and space Who is absolutely distinct from us yet closer to us than our own consciousness. And that God alone is deserving of your unconditional allegiance, love, and devotion, not because He needs you but because you need Him. The doors to authentic knowledge of God, Allah, are through the invocation, meditation, and internalization of His Ninety-Nine Names of Beauty, Power, and Perfection.
Islam literally means "to enter a state of inner peace through willing surrender and submission to the Creator". It is primordial because it began with the first humans Adam and Eve, then it was the Path of Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Asiya, Mary, Jesus Christ, and finally of Muhammad, the Last of the Infallible Prophets (peace and blessings rest upon them all). Islam both encompasses and transcends what we know as religion...Islam is at its core The Science of Being Human, the science of reconciling your physical self with your spiritual self by living a life in harmony with Reality and nature. This alignment enables you to experience and manifest the spiritual bliss of the next life before death, and realize experientially that the Spiritual Universe is both the foundation and root of what we perceive in the physical realm. It is at this moment, that the ocean of wisdom and spiritual insight that is carried within every human being begins to flow from you for the benefit and service of creation.
The challenge for us all is not to practice Islam as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family) practiced it over 1,400 years ago. Our challenge is to discover how he (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family) would practice Islam today-in our time and place with our particular people. Our primary task is not to translate books from Arabic or Urdu or Persian into English (although there is immense benefit in this) but to translate the Universal Truth of Islam into the lived reality of our respective communities.
There is a jewel of a book I read almost two decades ago titled "The Natural Form of Man: Islam" by Sidi Abdal-Haqq Bewley (Allah preserve him) that eloquently explains this reality, if you seek it out you shall find it, Allah willing. Truly, Islam is just that, the natural form of Man. Just as plants and animals instinctively know how to "be" and manifest their essence, Islam is the Way to purify and illuminate the soul so that it realizes and manifests this intuitive/instinctive state of "being", anything less than this is a deficient and distorted Islam, anything less runs the risk of presenting Islam as just another religion on the menu of major and minor world religions, with its rites, rules, and regulations.
After all, is not Islam described as "Din al-Fitrah" in the Koran and teachings of the Master of Masters, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing rest upon his family)? Literally, "the Faith of the human's instinctual nature". These are profound meanings that are like pearls dispersed throughout the Koran, Muhammady Wisdom, and the teachings of our glorious spiritual luminaries throughout the ages that we must share with humanity. The point is not that Islam should be practiced without its rites, rules, and regulations, on the contrary, the point is that when these are stripped of their spiritual significance, lofty objectives, and deeper meanings our experience of Islam will not lead to this state of elevated being and awareness that is our inheritance as descendants of at least two Great Prophets, Adam and Noah, peace be upon them both. The point is that the river of your math'hab or tariqah not stop with your spiritual guide or leader but that it return you to the shore-less and floor-less Muhammady Ocean so that you too may cleanse, drink, swim, and dive for untold treasures in it as they did.
Too often we present Islam as merely the five pillars of Declaring Faith, Prayer, Fasting, Charity, and Pilgrimage and nothing else. No mention of the illuminating Sciences of Iman (Faith based on Reason), Islam (Devotion and Socio-economic Transactions based on Mercy), Ihsan (Spirituality based on Sincerity), and the Signs of the Finality of Time elucidated in the Quintessence of all Prophetic Narrations, the Narration of the Archangel Gabriel (peace be upon him). This four dimensional understanding of Islam is what resonates with those who are seeking authentic spirituality and true self knowledge.
At this point you may ask: "How does one learn and live this Path of the Prophets, Islam, as a Living and Empowering Faith as opposed to an anachronistic and suffocating religion?" In order to build the Home of Inner Peace and Authentic Spirituality that has been elucidated in these words you need a Foundation, a Frame, and a Finishing:
The Foundation is laid by studying and applying the Sciences of Iman, Islam, and Ihsan with teachers who are connected outwardly to a historical chain of transmission through their teachers and grand-teachers to the Last of the Infallible Prophets, Muhammad, and who are connected inwardly to the Spiritual Reality of Prophet Muhammad (God bless and grant peace to him and his family). The signs of this inward connection include but are not limited to consistent outward and inward adherence to the Prophetic Way, preferring the everlasting life of the Hereafter over the ephemeral life of this world, dollars not being of greater value than dirt in one's estimation, and indifference towards the praise and blame of people.
The Frame is erected by consistently purifying the Self with mandatory and voluntary acts of service, seeking spiritual proximity to God, coupled with studying and meditating on the principles, rational proofs, and sources of Islam, again with the guidance of teachers.
The Finishing is manifested in two ways: firstly, by adorning your heart and limbs with the praiseworthy Prophetic traits of repentance, sincerity, patient perseverance, indifference towards material things, acting with total trust in God, leaving matters ultimately to God, pleasure with the decree of God, devout obedience, fear of God's Justice, and hope in God's Mercy; and secondly, when your soul has been directly inspired with Knowledge of God's Absolute Beauty and Power so that you serve God and His creatures as if you are always beholding Him or at least cognizant that He is always aware of you. This is the stage at which one realizes the saying of God in the Koran: "Obey God and God will teach you."
This vast Middle Way safeguards the warding off of every clear material and spiritual harm and the attainment of every clear material and spiritual benefit. The Middle Way is what is in harmony with the unambiguous and definitive verses of the Koran and narrations of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family), the Consensus of the Community of Islam, and Sound Reason. The Middle Way preserves and promotes the sanctity of faith, life, the intellect, lineage, personal wealth, and individual honor for every human being, humbly accepting that our salvation and sanctification in this life and the Hereafter is solely by the Mercy and Grace of Allah, the Nurturer of all that exists.
This Middle Way has always existed, but it is often buried under the weeds of extremist paths some attempt to mask as Islam. But like a new lotus flower it blossoms in every age out of the muck and mire of religionism for the sake of those seeking a way to unearth the mine of Wisdom within their very souls. As the most widely read poet in the English language and one of the greatest spiritual masters who ever walked the Earth, Jalaluddin Rumi, wrote "The Middle Path is the way to Wisdom."
In sum, Islam - when understood and internalized from its pure and living Muhammady source - cannot be limited to one particular school of understanding or methodology, rather, it is truly universal, holistic, and comprehensive, and this is what the great awaited spiritual masters, Imam al-Mahdi and Jesus Christ (peace be upon them), and those connected with them will revive in the coming years. May Allah make us amongst those who prepare the people, time, and clime for them and are amongst their beloved companions and servants.
And Allah knows best.
Peace.
+ Shared via Facebook Note | Connect with the author, Sidi Muhammad Abdul-Haqq Adeyinka Mendes
Beginning with the Most Ancient and Blessed Name of God,
Allah, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate
May the Choicest of Blessings and Most Perfect of Peace Rest Upon our Masters Moses, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad, and upon their families and blessed companions. Amen.
"I have left you on the middle of a bright well-trodden path whose night and day are alike. No one strays from it after me except he is ruined."
~ Prophet Muhammad, the Beloved of God, peace and blessings rest upon him and his immaculate family
This is so very key to understand.
Modern man realizes the impotence, hypocrisy, superficiality, and destructiveness of religion and has rejected it and wants an escape... this is one of the reasons why so many people are opting for a customized religion they call "spirituality". Ultimately, there are only two escapes from religion -atheism/agnosticism and Islam - the former leads to the gratification and worship of the self and the latter leads to the disciplining and illumination of the Self.
At the most fundamental level "organized religion" as we know it today is man-made, theologically anthropomorphic, anti-intellectual, anti-intuitive, isolationist/elitist, exploitive, cultural, reductive, judgmental, and controlling/manipulative; using fear, guilt. and the appeal to authority as its main tools-in a nutshell, organized religion is submission to man while Islam is submission to the Creator.
In contrast, Islam - if understood from its pure and living Muhammady source - is revealed, radically monotheistic, rational, intuitive, inclusive, empowering, holistic, nonjudgmental, and liberating; using Knowledge (transmitted, rational, and inspired) and Gratitude as its main tools to inspire love that blossoms into sincere service of the Creator and the creation.
The Middle Way is a glorious tree with more than seventy branches, each branch bearing its own unique fruit, the most exalted of its branches is realizing that there is nothing deserving of your absolute love and devotion except God, your Creator and Sustainer, and the least of its branches is removing harm from a path. Its root is humility. It elevates the entire body, mind, and soul of the one who climbs it so that he or she recognizes, experiences, and embraces the Oneness of the Four Brotherhoods: the Brotherhood of Creation, the Brotherhood of Humanity, the Brotherhood of those who believe in One Indivisible, Unseen, Unique, All-Knowing, Almighty, and Merciful Creator, and the Brotherhood of Islam, the Path of the Prophets.
There are those who have attempted to turn Islam into a religion by promoting man-made understandings as Divine Truth while in fact they are not, when this happens this religion is used to ultimately serve man-made interests rather than the six universal human rights, deduced from the Koran and teachings of the Prophets (peace be upon them), that protect and promote faith, life, intelligence, lineage, wealth, and honor for every individual and community. Wherever you find corruption and tyranny committed in the name of Islam then it is only because the perpetrators of these crimes practice Islam as a religion serving their egocentric and base desires rather than as the Revealed Path of Service to the Creator and Creation that it is.
Islam is distorted into a religion when it is taught and lived as a straight and narrow doctrine as opposed to a straight and wide Living Faith. Islam becomes a religion when it is limited to this or that person's aqidah (theological school), math'hab (jurisprudential school), tariqah (method of spiritual purification), ideology, philosophy, culture, or organization. Islam is loving submission of your body, mind, and soul to the Creator according to the sublime teachings elucidated in the Final Divine Communication revealed to a Prophet, the Glorious Koran. The Koran encompasses, distills, and clarifies the Truths and Universal Principles of all Revealed Scriptures and every authentic Spiritual Tradition known to humanity.
The greatest and most liberating of these Truths being that God is neither man nor woman, neither black nor white, neither spirit nor body, neither exists within space-time nor outside of it nor in the heavens nor in the earth, but that God is a Unique, Eternal, Everlasting, All-Knowing, Almighty, Loving, Just, and Merciful Being existing independent of time and space Who is absolutely distinct from us yet closer to us than our own consciousness. And that God alone is deserving of your unconditional allegiance, love, and devotion, not because He needs you but because you need Him. The doors to authentic knowledge of God, Allah, are through the invocation, meditation, and internalization of His Ninety-Nine Names of Beauty, Power, and Perfection.
The challenge for us all is not to practice Islam as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family) practiced it over 1,400 years ago. Our challenge is to discover how he (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family) would practice Islam today-in our time and place with our particular people. Our primary task is not to translate books from Arabic or Urdu or Persian into English (although there is immense benefit in this) but to translate the Universal Truth of Islam into the lived reality of our respective communities.
There is a jewel of a book I read almost two decades ago titled "The Natural Form of Man: Islam" by Sidi Abdal-Haqq Bewley (Allah preserve him) that eloquently explains this reality, if you seek it out you shall find it, Allah willing. Truly, Islam is just that, the natural form of Man. Just as plants and animals instinctively know how to "be" and manifest their essence, Islam is the Way to purify and illuminate the soul so that it realizes and manifests this intuitive/instinctive state of "being", anything less than this is a deficient and distorted Islam, anything less runs the risk of presenting Islam as just another religion on the menu of major and minor world religions, with its rites, rules, and regulations.
After all, is not Islam described as "Din al-Fitrah" in the Koran and teachings of the Master of Masters, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing rest upon his family)? Literally, "the Faith of the human's instinctual nature". These are profound meanings that are like pearls dispersed throughout the Koran, Muhammady Wisdom, and the teachings of our glorious spiritual luminaries throughout the ages that we must share with humanity. The point is not that Islam should be practiced without its rites, rules, and regulations, on the contrary, the point is that when these are stripped of their spiritual significance, lofty objectives, and deeper meanings our experience of Islam will not lead to this state of elevated being and awareness that is our inheritance as descendants of at least two Great Prophets, Adam and Noah, peace be upon them both. The point is that the river of your math'hab or tariqah not stop with your spiritual guide or leader but that it return you to the shore-less and floor-less Muhammady Ocean so that you too may cleanse, drink, swim, and dive for untold treasures in it as they did.
Too often we present Islam as merely the five pillars of Declaring Faith, Prayer, Fasting, Charity, and Pilgrimage and nothing else. No mention of the illuminating Sciences of Iman (Faith based on Reason), Islam (Devotion and Socio-economic Transactions based on Mercy), Ihsan (Spirituality based on Sincerity), and the Signs of the Finality of Time elucidated in the Quintessence of all Prophetic Narrations, the Narration of the Archangel Gabriel (peace be upon him). This four dimensional understanding of Islam is what resonates with those who are seeking authentic spirituality and true self knowledge.
At this point you may ask: "How does one learn and live this Path of the Prophets, Islam, as a Living and Empowering Faith as opposed to an anachronistic and suffocating religion?" In order to build the Home of Inner Peace and Authentic Spirituality that has been elucidated in these words you need a Foundation, a Frame, and a Finishing:
The Foundation is laid by studying and applying the Sciences of Iman, Islam, and Ihsan with teachers who are connected outwardly to a historical chain of transmission through their teachers and grand-teachers to the Last of the Infallible Prophets, Muhammad, and who are connected inwardly to the Spiritual Reality of Prophet Muhammad (God bless and grant peace to him and his family). The signs of this inward connection include but are not limited to consistent outward and inward adherence to the Prophetic Way, preferring the everlasting life of the Hereafter over the ephemeral life of this world, dollars not being of greater value than dirt in one's estimation, and indifference towards the praise and blame of people.
The Frame is erected by consistently purifying the Self with mandatory and voluntary acts of service, seeking spiritual proximity to God, coupled with studying and meditating on the principles, rational proofs, and sources of Islam, again with the guidance of teachers.
The Finishing is manifested in two ways: firstly, by adorning your heart and limbs with the praiseworthy Prophetic traits of repentance, sincerity, patient perseverance, indifference towards material things, acting with total trust in God, leaving matters ultimately to God, pleasure with the decree of God, devout obedience, fear of God's Justice, and hope in God's Mercy; and secondly, when your soul has been directly inspired with Knowledge of God's Absolute Beauty and Power so that you serve God and His creatures as if you are always beholding Him or at least cognizant that He is always aware of you. This is the stage at which one realizes the saying of God in the Koran: "Obey God and God will teach you."
This vast Middle Way safeguards the warding off of every clear material and spiritual harm and the attainment of every clear material and spiritual benefit. The Middle Way is what is in harmony with the unambiguous and definitive verses of the Koran and narrations of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings rest upon him and his family), the Consensus of the Community of Islam, and Sound Reason. The Middle Way preserves and promotes the sanctity of faith, life, the intellect, lineage, personal wealth, and individual honor for every human being, humbly accepting that our salvation and sanctification in this life and the Hereafter is solely by the Mercy and Grace of Allah, the Nurturer of all that exists.This Middle Way has always existed, but it is often buried under the weeds of extremist paths some attempt to mask as Islam. But like a new lotus flower it blossoms in every age out of the muck and mire of religionism for the sake of those seeking a way to unearth the mine of Wisdom within their very souls. As the most widely read poet in the English language and one of the greatest spiritual masters who ever walked the Earth, Jalaluddin Rumi, wrote "The Middle Path is the way to Wisdom."
In sum, Islam - when understood and internalized from its pure and living Muhammady source - cannot be limited to one particular school of understanding or methodology, rather, it is truly universal, holistic, and comprehensive, and this is what the great awaited spiritual masters, Imam al-Mahdi and Jesus Christ (peace be upon them), and those connected with them will revive in the coming years. May Allah make us amongst those who prepare the people, time, and clime for them and are amongst their beloved companions and servants.
And Allah knows best.
Peace.
+ Shared via Facebook Note | Connect with the author, Sidi Muhammad Abdul-Haqq Adeyinka Mendes
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