Month: April 2011

There is much talk of truth and freedom these days as tangible things or goals to be achieved; the overthrow of tyranny; the establishment of democracy and human rights. People bandy these words around in public as though they are the masters of them or their proponents. They are deluded liars and they permeate societies at every level; they are the vociferous ones, who stand for justice, liberty and equality. They claim the moral high ground in the name of humanism and demand the changing of the order for the security of the masses. They are enemies to themselves, one section seeking dominance over another, snarling and biting each other like dogs over a carcase; their sign is that they say exactly the opposite of what they do. Continue reading “Truth and Freedom”

Hasan al-Basri, radiallahu anhu, said that Sufism was a reality without a name and that in his time it had become a name without a reality.

This sahabi was the first of our shaykhs who took from Sayyiduna ‘Ali, radiallahu anhu, a man that had sat on the knee of the Rasul, sallallahu alayhi wa sallim. In saying this he was indicating a change that had happened in a very short space of time, but what I find significant is that he talks of a reality that existed among the sahaba, a quality of existence and knowledge that did not have a form or language of its own; it was not codified; it was the very substance of everyday life. So these people were not Sufis; they were Muslims; Muhajireen, Ansar, Bani this and Bani that, Arabi, Ajami’. The description of the ahlus-Suffa’ was that of men who did not work but stayed next to the Prophet’s house in order to learn from him and in that you see them as part of society, only functioning in a unique way, but not outside of it. The reality of Ihsan, that shaykh Hasan al-Basri was talking about cannot, of course, disappear or re-appear but its manifestation in doctrine and practice indicates a more general change in society. Continue reading “Miskῑn”

There are very few Muslims today who have lived under an amir or khalifah ruling according to the Book and Sunnah. Most of the Muslim lands had been overrun by the colonising kuffar ending with the suspension of the Khilafah in Istanbul in the early 20^th century.

The battlefields have long been cleared, the Muslim populace subjugated, imprisoned or killed, and the future puppets sent back to the Kafir heartland for education and preparation for the next stage of imperial domination. Once everything was in place the lands were handed back to the people, puppets installed and ‘independence’ granted, while the ownership of wealth and real power lay squarely with the old masters.

Nothing has really changed since then except that now the people are being subjugated, imprisoned and killed by their own family at their own expense, all in the way of ensuring the flow of oil, minerals and other commodities to their former and in fact, current oppressors. Continue reading “FORWARD TO MADINAH”