Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim

Sultan ul-Awliya Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Al-Haqqani An-Naqshibandi (Qs), Sohbat of the 11th of July, Ramadan 2013.

As-salamu ‘aleykum, ayyuha l-hadirun. Come closer, seat yourself comfortably, be easy. Allah has commanded us to be at ease. Formality; He has not imposed formality on us, no. We are not animals. An animal carries its burden, but it is happy to do so. We are human beings; mankind has a special kind of honour. Man is not a beast. Man has honour.

Dastur, ey Shah-i Mardan. Ey Yaran Shah-i Mardan! How lovely you are! Be beautiful. When we can be beautiful, why should we be ugly? Allah has created us to be beautiful. He has not created us to be ugly. inna-llaha jamilun yuhibbu l-jamal – Allah is Beautiful and He loves beauty. Masha’Allah la quwwata illa bi-llah. There is no power but with Allah. qawwi dhafi fi ridak, O Lord, strengthen me in my weakness for Your Pleasure.

Marhaba. Ey Yaran Shah-i Mardan. A greeting comes to us, and we, too, give a greeting, to the Lovers of Shah-i Mardan, to his beloved friends. Mashā’Allahu kān, wa mā lam yashā’ lam yakūn. Welcome, O head of this gathering, travelers of the way, and people in general. Welcome! May you be happy and joyful. Thanks be to Allah. May our assembly here be blessed. May our assembly be the assembly of Shah-i Mardan. A pure assembly. Let us at least be listeners in the assembly of that Lion. Come to us, ey Shah-i Mardan. Come and speak to us. Awaken us, Wake us up. To awaken, that is Shah-i Mardan’s task, al-hamdulillah wa shukru-li-llah, wa salātu wa s-salām ‘ala Habībillah, Sayyidi l-awwalin wa l-akhirin.

Thanks to Allah. It has been granted to us once again to live to see this blessed month. We are in the blessed month of Ramadan. May our faces shine with light, may our hearts be filled with light. This is what our Lord Almighty wishes. Allah is Beautiful, inna-llaha jamilun yuhibbul jamal, Allah Almighty is the Master of Absolute Beauty. Allahu Dhu l-Jalal, He says: I love what is beautiful. He created everything in Beauty. Allah Almighty created us to be beautiful. He did not create us to be ugly. O our Lord, You who possess Absolute Glory and Sovereignty, the servants of such a glorious Lord cannot be contemptible. You must know this. Jalīl Allah, Jalla Jalāluhu.. The servants of Allah the Glorious, Subhānahu wa Ta‘āla, cannot be contemptible. He is such a Sultan that He does not dress His servants in contempt. God forbid! Impossible!

O our Lord. You have dressed us in the loveliest dress, for which even the noble angels envied us, but He told them, No! This robe of honour is not for you. I will dress you in another one. This one is My khalifa, My representative. Amān, ya Rabbi. What an honour! Then the angels fell silent. Come, O Shah-i Mardan, your words have power. The saints are dressed with the attribute of Shah-i Mardan, every saint possesses this attribute. Shaykh Mehmet Effendi, every saint must have some of Shah-i Mardan’s awe-inspiring quality. He cannot be piteous and detestable. Those servants who are spiritually linked to Shah-i Mardan can never be contemptible. Allah created the sons of Adam, and He did not make them despicable. Shaykh Mehmet Effendi, God forbid! Allah did not say: I created him to be pitiful and he is My representative, God forbid! masha’Allahu kān. Allah, Allah. What Allah has willed came to be. Would Allah say: This is My deputy, and I have made him despicable?

O ignorant people, you simply will not learn. Learn from Shah-i Mardan, what beautiful speech. Allahu Dhu l-Jalal says: wa la-qad karramna Bani Adama (17:70) The children of Adam have been given Divine Grace, He said. O our Lord, dress us too in that grace, said the angels. No. I have given it to them. Come, O Shah-i Mardan, the news you bring is exactly suitable for your beloved friends. Let us say: Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. If you forgot the Basmala, you have forgotten everything. If you forgot the Basmala, they also will forget you. When you speak the Basmala, they will not overlook you.

Come, O Shah-i Mardan, Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. O Lovers of Shah-i Mardan. He came with the Basmala, the source of adab. The face of one who says Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim will be beautiful, it cannot be ugly. Allah has not created the sons of Adam to be ugly, God forbid! Our Lord has not created the sons of Adam, whom He named as His deputy, to be ugly, God forbid! What makes us ugly, and what wishes to make us ugly is the evil devil. The evil devil and our own nafs are what make us ugly. O Lord, thanks be to You, praise and glory be to You for the Lights that descend in this blessed holy month of Ramadan. Let us love, O my listeners, O Lovers of Shah-i Mardan who are assembled here. Let us rejoice.

What do they say when looking into a mirror? Allahumma ahsanta khalqi fa ahsin khuluqi. How lovely You have created us. Look in the mirror and speak these words. How lovely You have made us to be, O our Lord. For the sake of the Beloved of Allah You have given us, You have dressed us with a drop from that Beauty Ocean, O my Lord. To reach that great honour, to give thanks, that is our duty, our very first duty. Look into the mirror, and say: al-hamdulillahi lladhi ahsana khalqi Praise and thanks to our Lord who has created us to be lovely. Praise Him. The Lord says, I will increase the blessing.

Come, O Shah-i Mardan. Speak of the enemy of man. When Allah Almighty raised and seated man upon the throne of grandeur, on the throne of majesty over all creation, shaytan flew into a rage. For shaytan harboured jealousy in his heart, it seems. He had maliciously tried to seat himself on that throne. When it was given to another, he rebelled against the Lord. Aman ya Rabbi. Make us not of those rebellious ones! He said, I was going to occupy that throne. I have filled all heavens and earths with my worship, and it was my wish to settle upon that throne of authority. Word went out to him: No, this is not for you. I have given to My deputy this robe of dignity and grandeur which is made of beauty from My Divine Beauty, majesty from My Divine Majesty, from My Divine Perfection and My Divine Glory and Honour. Him I have seated upon this throne; Man, the sacred human being.

Thanks be to our bountiful Lord who has made us to be of the sons of Adam who have been honoured. wa la-qad karramnā Banī Adama (17:70) The Sultan of Awliya, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi, Grandshaykh used to mention this verse in every assembly: wa la-qad karramna Bani Adama (17:70) For the sake of My illustrious Glory, I have placed mankind at such a high station as no other creature may ever reach. Thanks be to Allah. He does not give us weakness. Ey yaran Shah-i Mardan. O my beloved friends, O my companions! Mark my words. What we are given to say, what comes from above, it is from the words of Allah’s Beloved, from the word of authority of him whom Allah created as the Prince of Creation. He was given the ability of addressing people, our noble Prophet (sallAllahu ‘alaihi wa sallam). He was seated upon the throne, Haji Mehmet.

Abu Bakr, you don’t know him, you never knew him. Did you? The daughter of Abu Bakr, she had a child. He sat like this, in the assembly. This is a story. But I, we saw this. There were flies. This child, maybe he was a little stupid, or simple? He was a slow child. There were flies buzzing all around. His mother said to him, Drive them away. Wave your hand to drive the flies away. The child went like this. He wouldn’t raise his hand any higher, only up to here. Like a fool, a simpleton. Allah has not created us to be fools. God forbid! God forbid! Man is not stupid. He is not a fool. He does not go about aimlessly, nor is he shameless. Man is the Sultan of that throne. Man is decorated with the rank of authority conferred upon him by the Lord of Might and Glory.

Know yourself, O mankind. If you know who you are, you will have adab. It is when you do not know yourself, that you lose your adab. Come, O Shah-i Mardan. The human being, Allahu akbar. khalaqa l-insan; ‘allamahu l-bayan. (55:3,4) Is it not so, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi? ar-Rahman. khalaqa l-insan; ‘allamahu l-bayan. (55:3,4) Shah-i Mardan, the Prophet’s inheritor, who was given of this knowledge, the legacy of the father of the Prophet of the Last Times, Sayyidna ‘Ali, Shah-i Mardan, it was given to him. Addabanī Rabbī, said the Prophet, ‘alayhi ssalatu wa s-salam. My Lord has taught me adab. Who is there? Who could be more advanced in adab than he?

Who makes man to be lacking in adab? It is shaytan. Shaytan tries by all his means to separate people from the honour of humankind. Even now, and up to the Day of Judgement, shaytan is working to take away men’s honour. You cannot take it, He(swt) says. What We have given, you cannot take away. He makes them act as he wants. If the Sultan’s son behaves in an unruly manner, nobody can interfere. He is the son of the Sultan. Everybody says, He is the Sultan’s son, we won’t get mixed up in this. Being the Sultan’s son is one thing, but to be the servant of the Lord of Glory is another.

Look into the mirror. You should see the Light on your face. If you are not blind, you must see it. Allah, Subhānahu wa Ta‘āla has given Light to every human being. Ya Rabbi. Do not leave us without Light, O Lord. For the sake of this holy month, O my Lord. Send us, O my Lord, a Sultan who will bring down shaytan’s number to zero, so that we might walk in Your way. O my Lord, increase our love and longing, so that we might know what we must do. Nowadays mankind does not know what it must do. People think that they are in this world in order to kill each other. My throne is higher than yours, yes, or my country is bigger than yours, or it should be larger. These are the worthless aims they are pursuing. Whereas compared with the Divine blessings, which Allah Dhu l-Jalal has bestowed upon us, what is this world? It is rubbish.

O our Lord, our Lord who makes us speak. Ey Shah-i Mardan. Come to us, O Lion of lions. Send us one of your pure descendants to teach and to train us, so that mankind might be disciplined and trained. Otherwise, He(swt) says, I will make them fall upon each other and attack each other. If man does not realize the potential of mankind, I will destroy the dominion of man; I will let it be destroyed, He says from on high. Man must know what the human being is worth. What is the value of Man? When man does not realize what it is to be human, he falls down to below the level of four-footed beasts. Whereas Allah, Jalla Jalāluhu, granted us Divine gifts and glories, you go ahead and slaughter men, you beat and destroy them. For the possession of land you cause pandemonium to break loose. You have no humanity, if we may say so. Therefore, the world has lost all its adab; they crush one another. Adab has been lifted from us and calamity has landed instead. May Allah keep this far from us.

Let us say: Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. The throne of the great prophet-king Sulayman had the noble Basmala written upon it. A throne of gold. You did not see this, Mehmet, there was this ‘Ayn ul-Fija, far away, but then you were not yet born, in Sham. Water gushed forth from there, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi, for a distance from here to the upper mosque, such water sprang from there. The people of Sham used to say, this spring, the water springing forth from here, is the water of the Queen of Sheba. Allahu Akbar. The Queen of Sheba, the Prophet Sulayman asked, Who is this? They said, it is she, the Queen of Sheba. Water flowed from below her. You have not seen this, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. From here as far as the upper mosque, water gushed out, like this. Now they have shut that off as well. Allahu Akbar ‘ala man takabbara wa tajabbar..

The arrogant tyrants have it coming. Those who do not know the value of man to whom Allah has given greatness, who do wrong and oppress men, they will be punished. In this world they will meet their punishment, and in the hereafter their place will be in the fires of Jahim. Aman ya Rabbi. Be mindful of justice. Come, O Shah-i Mardan. Kun adilan, wa la takun zaliman. Be just, do not be unjust. I am not an unjust oppressor, says Allah Almighty. I have restrained Myself from injustice. fa la tazalamu – so do not, you, act unjustly. This news, has the Muslim world not heard it? Has it not heard of this? I am not a tyrant. Injustice does not please Me, says Allah Almighty. I will speak up for the rights of the oppressed. I will crush, I will crush the tyrants, He says. Allah Almighty’s order from above. This is Shah-i Mardan’s address. I will crush them, He says, I will leave none of the oppressors. I will not leave innocent victims to cry. I will exact My revenge on the tyrants, I will crush them.

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar innahu min Sulaymana wa innahu Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. (27:30) Speak this and rub it over yourself seven times, Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim, and all your pains will be gone. No grief or anxiety will remain. No want or neediness will remain, O my Lord. Give us strength, we are so weak. We haven’t even the strength of an ant. The ant, when it warned its fellow ants – qalat namlatun, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. ya ayyuha n-namlu udkhulū masākinakum (27.18) O you ants, said the leader of the ants, enter your dwellings! This is an order, do not come out! Do not come out! la-yahtimannakum Sulaymānu wa junūduhu. (27:18) So that the armies of the prophet Suleyman will not crush you. Go into your nests. You are not ordered to come out into the streets. The order is for you to stay at home, to remain in your houses. In times of fitna, do not go out.

When we were very young, Haji Mehmet, I was very young then. There was a preacher, an old preacher who spoke very nicely. “I look forward to the afterlife”, Allah, Allah, he used to say that. He would say: You must not stick your head out of your house. Whoever sticks out his head and then wants to pull it back in, horns will have grown on his head, he said. He can’t get it back into the house. Do not leave your house. Allahu Akbar. O you women, wa qarna fi buyūtikunna. (33:33) What kind of Muslims are you? You fill the streets. Have you no shame? No chastity, no good name? Do you have no honour? No virtue, no chastity? Where do you stand?

O Shah-i Mardan, the world will collapse from your majesty. We will show you, he says, our dignity will show you. They think it is easy to live as a Muslim. We will destroy the Muslims, with guns and cannons. You will see how you yourselves will be destroyed by cannons and guns! May Allah make us of the junūdullah, the Lord’s armies, my son. Let us be among the fighters of Allah. O our Lord, we are at Your service, we should say. To serve the dunya is worth nothing at all. It is rubbish. innahu min Sulaymana wa innahu Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim (27:30) Vroom, it fell down, the palace of Balqis.

So there was this spring, at Fija, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi, it flowed over a stretch of about 100m, water welling up from below like this. There was a building of old stone there too. The people of Sham used to say, This water which springs from below Bilqis’ throne gives Sham its blessed abundance. No other place is as blessed as Sham, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. innahu min Sulaymana wa innahu Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. (27:30) There are forty holy saints there, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. If one of them were to let out a shout, Sham in its entirety would collapse. What is this rubbish of theirs?

Come, O Shah-i Mardan, let us be revived in faith, may the blessing of this holy month descend on us. Show them what lies hidden within Islam! What the Muslims have in store – let us see and know it. Let us live within Islam. Let us live as servants of our Lord. Let us have no other worry than that. O our Lord, all we care for is to be Your servants. It does not matter if our house, our land, is burnt or destroyed. The only important thing is that they do not destroy the faith in our hearts. That they cannot destroy. This is what Grandshaykh told me: Sham will be destroyed, it will be destroyed. However, in one night all the rubble will be taken away and thrown in the sea. On the second night, instead of the Sham they destroyed, a new, identical Sham will be built up by troops of Jinn. Long may he live, kiss your master’s hand. Kiss your master’s hand.

I wish for the blessed Sham. It will be the same as before, a new one will be built, he says. Thanks be to Allah, what a blessing to give thanks. Anta l-Qawiy, Anta l-Qadiru l-Muqtadir, ya Rabbi. la taqnatu min rahmati-llah. Those tyrants will all go away. That water will be seen again, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. What sweet water, once I saw it, below some old stone buildings. In the old days the water gushed up from underneath them. From here maybe for 50 metres the water bubbled up from below. The people of Sham said that this water comes from underneath the royal palace of Bilqis. Yes, indeed, it comes to Sham and makes it so blessed and fruitful. Such a blessed place is the much-honoured Sham.

Ah, Sham-i sharif, aah, Sham-i sharif. Because of our injustice this punishment has come upon it. They followed the latest fashion, the latest fashion. The ladies of Sham – we will make the girls into soldiers, so they made soldiers of them. They left no religion, no faith, no chastity. But vengeance will overcome all of them. I will not let them be, speaks the Lord Almighty Allah, Allah. Allah Allah Allah. Subhansın, ya Rabbi. Sultansın. He will let them suffer the same and even more than that. Not one of the cruel and unjust ones will be left in Sham. May Allah save us from being cruel and unjust.

al-Fatiha.

What a sense of ease I am feeling, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. He also loves Sham more than any other place, my son loves it; my other son also, may Allah protect him and give him life. Both of them are of the generals of Sham, I am informed. They are viziers to the rest, as well as generals. They belong to those who support Sham, they bear great weight. Kiss his hand. Ruqiya resembles him a lot. She is severe. This one, and that one, too. Bahauddin is not like that. Bahauddin and Naziha, they are not so much like that. Especially Bahauddin, not at all. But this one has that quality of wrath, Shaykh Mehmet Effendi. And in that one also.

O my God, let us see those good days. Allah Almighty has said, I will take My revenge on the tyrants He will send it, He will cleanse that place. Who wishes for the old Sham, the old Sham will be rebuilt in one night. In one night all the concrete will be dumped in the sea. Would that I could see it in those days, jāmi‘u l-Mahdi, maqamu ‘Isa. That place has so much blessing. I wish they would lay me to rest there by the feet of my Shaykh..

al-Fatiha.