Sultan Sheikh Mehmet Adil al-Haqqani (qs), sohbat, August 20, 2014.

As-salāmu ‘aleykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuhu. A’ūdhu Billāhi min ash-shaytāni r-rajīm. Bismillāhi r-Rahmāni r-Rahīm. Madad ya RasūlAllah, madad ya Sādātı Ashābı Rasulillāh, madad ya Mashaykhina, madad ya Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nāzim al-Haqqāni, dastur. Tariqatuna as-sohba, wa l-khayru fī jam’iyya.

May Allah always keep us busy performing good works. May Allah keep us busy with actions He loves. May He make us love such actions. May He make us cherish the straight path, for if He does not, our nafs will never like and never want any of those things. If Allah wills a thing, man cannot do anything but that. Thanks to Allah for having created us in this way, for compelling us towards performing good works, for making us like goodness, and appreciate the company of good people. These are very good things, which we must take good care of. These are things that we need for the afterlife; that we deposit in our storehouse for the trade of the hereafter, as supplies, transport and so on.

They serve as trading goods in the afterlife. Do not miss out on any opportunity that presents itself. Even the slightest bit of good, try to do it. Every act that you perform, do it for Allah’s sake. Even animals, if you feed an animal living in the streets, feed it for the sake of Allah’s good pleasure. Whatever you do, do it for the sake of gaining Allah’s good pleasure. Do and collect for the afterlife. We collect good deeds, but now in the world it is not so easy to store up such goods. There are thieves, or things may rot, a mouse may get into it and eat it up, it may get damp and turn mouldy; these are things that need to be safeguarded.

Once there was a man – in the old days, people here used to do their harvesting not as it is done nowadays. Now a great big machine, in a couple of hours or half a day, does the work a man would do in a month. Then he is free and can go off to do all kinds of improper things. Harm will come from lazy men. Man should not remain lazy. So this man went about his harvest, piling it up like this. It took quite some time, and when he was done he was in good spirits.

“Oh,” he said, he did not say thanks to Allah, he said, “now I can go and have a drink”. So he took his bottle, sat down with his wine and began to drink, pondering his work. He had completed a big task, and was happy it had turned out well. “Oh, now I am rich,” he said, “now I will begin to enjoy myself”. By the evening he was quite drunk. Night fell and it grew cool. He said, “I’ll light a little fire to keep me warm”. But a drunk man doesn’t know what he does. He lit his fire, as well, set his harvest ablaze. All his great harvest was destroyed.

The next day there was no harvest, and winter was coming, so he began gathering up from the ground little bits of corn that hadn’t quite burnt to ash. These he tried to collect. This story is about our life in the hereafter: we go on collecting good deeds, but finally, we cannot hold out any longer and we yield to our nafs and we ruin everything. Therefore, we must be careful that everything we do, it is for Allah, that we guard it, so that it does not fall prey to our nafs.

Do not fall into heedlessness. Heedlessness is not a good thing. You are on a difficult road, at the edge of a cliff. Any moment your foot may slip and you will fall and perish. You must take great care for that. Don’t say: but I have done all this, I am an accomplished person. Don’t say: I have spent all my life doing this. Be careful! Shaytan has many tricks. He intends to ruin you, to bring you down. If he finds even the slightest opportunity right away he will drag you down.

May Allah keep us safe from them. May our good works be continuous, insha’Allah. May they be guarded and protected. We do not trust our nafs. All our good works we entrust to our Shaykh, insha’Allah, so that he may keep us safe. We are doing what Allah likes, alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, we are following Allah’s order, Prophet’s way and way of Awliyaullah.

We are happy because Allah, He is doing what He likes to do. And alhamdulillah, He put us in this way, He liked to put us this way. Few people, they are coming to right way, we are happy. And when you are in right way, you are going for Akhira. You must do whatever you can do. Don’t be lazy. No, everything you do for Allah, with intention for Allah, Allah rewards you and makes your good-doing count more and more.

A trader, he not saying this is not good, this good. When he see some benefit for him, he can put everything. Quickly, he take and make it double, or triple, more and more. Never mind. He is happy. So we are happy and Allah rewards us more than ten times, hundred times. Don’t say it is enough. No, because Allah’s favour is coming to you. You must be happy for everything. For spiritual favour or material, or what Allah give for you from halal and good thing. You must be happy, you must accept. Don’t say it is too much, it is enough, no.

What you can do, do, because we are going to a place, there is nothing you can do there, only what you bring from this side. It is big favour. So you must take this to other side. But in this dunya also, you must keep this in right place. Don’t destroy it, because in dunya, when somebody bringing goods he must be careful. When you put it in some place, it must be strong place. To be away from fire, to be away from thieves, away from insect or from mouse, rat. Everything you must keep carefully. This trader, he puts it very carefully, keeps it very carefully.

We also, we must keep our doing from thieves. Thief, he is shaitan and ego and other things. They are all trying to take this, what you have, to leave you without anything. There is one story about farmer. Old time farmers, they were cutting wheat by their hand. And to cut one field, maybe, he need one month to cut it. Not like these days, nowadays, in 2 hours you can cut for one month. What they were doing? Cutting first by hand, after, they dried it, they crush it and take from inside. So it was long and heavy work but it was good because Allah gave baraka for them.

Mawlana Sheikh saying after reaping, ploughing earth with cows. More baraka, more better, it was. And it was to keep people busy. Now they do what they do in one month, in 2 hours. After they are empty, they are going to make every bad thing. But this man, also he was happy. That year it was too much, so much wheat. And he was making like small hill and he was looking, and he was very happy. And he said “I’m very happy today,” he bring one bottle alcohol. He was drinking.

He drink and drink and become drunk. And it was little bit cold. And he said “I must make fire because too cold, I will be more enjoying myself.” And when he made fire, it was all firing this wheat. All hill, it was finished, at once. And next, when he woke up, he said, “What we will do? We must look for something for winter”. Bringing one small bag and looking for no burning thing. Putting, to collect for his winter.

So we are also like this. We are doing very good thing, we are filling our whole depot. After we doing something wrong, all going away. But this man, only for one winter maybe, he will be half hungry. But for us, we are going to Akhira, it will be too bad for us. When you are going with all good things, Allah rewards you, but when you finish everything, there’s many thing to finish everything also, so it will be terrible for people.

For this, you must be careful from our ego and from shaitan, to not follow them and destroy what we are doing. Allah keep us away from our ego and our shaitan. Don’t say: I have too much thing. Allah, He can do everything. All at once you may not have even one gram from good things. Allah keep us and we are doing this and inshaAllah, we are not happy about ourselves, our egos. What we are doing, we are just trying to put in another place, safer place. We are putting with Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, with Awliya inshaAllah to keep this for us because we are weak, we cannot keep it. Allah accept this from us, inshaAllah.

Wa min Allahi tawfeeq Al-Fatiha.