Tasawwuf and Character Building
SECTION 1
CHAPTER 8
THE SEVENTH LATIFA SULTAN UL-AZKAR
Surely the hearing, the sight and the heart, all of those shall be questioned of ( 17:36)
The six lataif, their training, their influences on the salik and their relationship with the salik’s practical life have been explained. Today the seventh latifa shall be explained. The technical name of this latifa is Sultan ul-Azkar. It is also called latifa Qalbiyah.
Then the heart is illuminated, the whole personality is affected. When the inside is purified, the outside displays it. When a battery becomes charged it illuminates bulbs, makes motors work. When new cells are put in a torch it starts spreading light. Without cells a torch is merely hollow, a toy. It cannot carry out the job it is designed for. No matter how expensive the motor car is, if the battery is down or dead, it will not act as a means of conveyance. Unless the inside is not purified the outside will be rendered worthless and aimless. As long as the heart is not illuminated, the person is surrounded by darkness. Purification of the inside or the illumination and strength of the lataif is like the charging of a battery, the storing of steam power. Now we must make use of this battery or steam. This was all preparation for the field work, the foundation of practical work.
When man does some sort of work, his limbs become his tools. The intention materialises in the inside and sets the limbs into motion. The human body is a collection of a few limbs. The training of Sultan ul-Azkar is such that while, doing the Zikr of ALLAH’s Name, its influence flows throughout and envelops the whole person. It is like touching an electric wire, when the current flows through the whole body and every single cell feels its effect. Similarly, through Sultan ul-Azkar the whole body, all the limbs, every single strand of hair and every single drop of blood is suffused by the remembrance of ALLAH. The sincerity of the latifa means that the blood rushing through our veins and arteries has been induced with the corpuscles of peace and piety. The strength that it gives to the mind diverts the direction of its thoughts to the Will of ALLAH. If a hand is to rise it will rise for the welfare of all creations and to aid justice. The eyes will refuse to witness injustice. The ears are only prepared to hear truth. In short, every limb in the body is engaged in the exaltation of justice and the welfare of all creations. Since the seat of acquiring the nearness of ALLAH, rests in actions and the instruments of these actions are the limbs, the questions concerning the execution of the Divine injunctions will be directed towards the limbs. The ordinance o the Creator is:
Surely the hearing, the sight and the heart, all of those shall be questioned of. ( 17:36)
Most of the information is acquired by man through the senses of hearing and sight, and in the light of this information the intentions of actions arise from the heart. Therefore, questions will be directed towards these faculties and those who misused these powers, will so acknowledge it. And they will say:
Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we should not (now) be among the dwellers of the Blazing Fire. (67:10)
Over here a point of wit has, by the way, come before us. One usually comes across two types of human beings. The majority are those who put their confidence in learned people and, by listening to them, determine the road of life. They can only be called the following cadets. There are others who, instead of putting their confidence in skilled people, try to ascertain things all by themselves. If they are really capable of ascertaining and adhere to the requirements of objective judgement, they find the path of guidance, they only hesitate to follow any particular scholar formally. And since all those who claim to do their own research and reject the idea of following scholars, are not capable enough to carry out thorough research work, they simply end up following one of the schools of thought without even realising it. Therefore, from this verse of the Holy Quran we have found out that there are only two ways to escape from the torment of hell and acquire salvation, one is in following the accomplished people of true verification, and the other by thorough individual research and acquisition of knowledge.
Now that we are talking about responsibilities and accountability, never let this question arise, that will the tongue, which we use for speaking the truth as well as telling lies, become mute at that time? All the actions in our life are not solely carried out by the tongue. Acting to their ability, all the limbs take part in the business of life. Then mankind is habituated in using this tongue for both truth and falsehood. For example, someone imprints his thumb on paper but later on denies that it is not his thumb print. But when the matter is might before an expert he concludes that the thumb print is his. The tongue had denied this but the hand couldn’t. Similarly, on the day of judgement, when we are called to account for our lives on this earth, the situation will be as described above.
The ordinance of the Creator is:
That Day shall We set a seal on their mouths. But their hands will speak to Us, and their feet bear witness to all that they did. (36:65)
In the second occasion the picture of the calling for accountability is drawn in detail:
At length when they reach it (the Fire) their hearing, their sight and their skins will bear witness against them, as to all their deeds. (41:20)
On hearing this those people will drown in amazement because those organs were the witnesses of their innocence, what has happened to them? These thoughts will not be limited to their minds. On the contrary:
They will say to their skins, “Why bear you witness against us.They will say: ALLAH has given us speech; He gives speech to everything. (41:21)
The influence of the illumination of latifa Qalbiyah and its demand is that, a human should keep a strict eye on his practical life. In the use of his ears, eyes and all other organs he should keep in mind the approval of the beloved. His ears are not ready to hear anything improper. His eyes cannot lift up to see any obscenity, no matter how attractive it may be. His tongue cannot utter anything improper. His feet refuse to walk in the wrong direction and his hands can never be a source of pain to others. The centre of his thoughts and reflections is nothing but the pleasure of ALLAH and the ways and means achieve this goal.
If the purification of the innerself does not take place, or if the latifah Qalbiyah is not affected, then the example of a person is like a car whose tie-rod is loose and though the steering is in the hands of the driver, the car is out of his control. It may either smash into a wall or fall into a ditch. The driver cannot stop the car as it is beyond his control. If you want to observe this practically, all you have to do is look around you, at the younger generation of today and their engagements. You will cry out instantly that these youngsters are like vehicles with damaged tie-rods, or in other words they do not have any tie-rods at all. Look at our youngsters who gather round radios or television sets, the song has not started yet but just by listening to the music they can tell you the film for which it has been recorded. The thoughts, the visions have all gone astray. In the past, when the elders would come across such scenes they would look on in stunned silence. But now it is a different story. Our elders very proudly gather the family in front of the T. V. to watch programmes which are vulgar and shameful in nature, and the most surprising part is that they enjoy every moment of it along with the youngsters.
You might say that there is no one who can claim to be absolutely pure, and above committing mistakes. This is very true as there is no one who is absolutely free of faults except the Holy Prophets
, but there is a difference between making a mistake unintentionally, and doing something wrong purposefully and insisting on it. The latter form is like committing suicide knowingly and the former condition is like a disease, and every disease has a cure and the following cure has been prescribed by the Holy Prophet
. “He who repents after stumbling in the darkness, who feels grieved after committing a sin, shall be as if he committed no sin.” After repenting, if he continues with his efforts towards righteousness and ALLAH’s Pleasure, then ALLAH says for such people:
Indeed the good remove the evil. (11:114)
ALLAH is Great and Ever-Forgiving to his servants. He erases all sins committed and replaces them with goodness when a person sincerely asks for forgiveness. Do you not see that ALLAH has endowed His super creation with such intelligence and capability that, he himself can erase all his evil doings so that not a trace of the past can be found? You might ask as to how this can be possible? For example, let us suppose, a lover of vulgar songs records some songs in a cassette so that he can hear them to his heart’s content, but later his conscience starts to prick him and he finally awakes from the deep sleep of ignorance. He now wants to erase all the vulgarity he has heard in the past. To start with he has to get rid of all the vulgar songs he used to hear which acted as a stimulant for his deeds, he does not want to throw away the cassettes, so he records Qir‘at (Recitation of the Holy Qur-an ) or Nat (Verses in praise of the Holy Prophet
) over the songs he had previously recorded. We know now that the cassette is the same, but the vulgar contents have been replaced with the heart soothing Qir‘at or Nat. Similarly, virtue and piety can take the place of evil and bad, if a person sincerely repents and asks for forgiveness from ALLAH. An evil doer is bad indeed, but there are some who are not so bad after all. They are the ones who do indulge in sins, but when their conscience pricks them, they do not stubbornly insist on their deeds but feel grieved and repentant and cry desperately in front of ALLAH for forgiveness and firmly resolve never to indulge in anything wrong again.
When this latifa is illuminated and strengthened, a salik should observe all the aspects of his practical life, individual or collective. Whether the purification of the innerself has influenced his outward behaviour or not, as the beginning of this journey towards ALLAH’s Pleasure requires that the innerself and the apparent self of a person should both be corrected. By doing this he becomes a good person individually, and a noble member of the society. Maulana Thanvi says that when the innerself is illuminated with the Divine Lights, the limbs and the vital parts of the physical body become a witness to this fact. The main base for the spiritual journey are the lataif. That is why a devotee is taught the lataif as the first chapter of Tasawwuf or the spiritual Journey. Therefore, in every chain of the Sufi Order whether it is Qadriah, Naqshbandiah, Chishtiah, or Suharwardiah, the lataif are accepted as the basis of Sulook. In Naqshbandiah the training and education of these lataif are through Zikr ALLAH. A devotee starts his training by Zikr Khaffi (Hidden) and the final lesson is also Zikr Khaffi. In the other Orders, a devotee is first taught Zikr Lisani (Zikr by the tongue) and later when his concentration gets deeper he goes on ahead to practice Zikr Khaffi. In the order of Naqshbandiah the Khaffi Zikr of Divine Name is taught to devotee and it superiority is quoted in the Hadith. In other Sufi orders, the seeker is made to practice Zikre Lisani Jehri, which means Zikr in an audible voice. The Zikre Jehar which has been declared Bidah or innovation is never taught in any Order. Only the recommended form is practised, that too conditionally. Firstly, it should not be done excessively, secondly, the tone should be moderate and should not disturb people. If the seeker cannot achieve concentration by moderate Zikr, then he is sent away from habitation so that he can practise Zikr loudly and attain concentration. Zikr Ilahi was either Negation and Affirmation (Nafi Athbat) or of the Divine Name. There are four stages of Nafi Athbat. Firstly Zikr Nasooti i.e. La Ilaha Ila ALLAH,secondly Malakooti i.e. ila ALLAH, third Jabarooti i.e. ALLAH and fourth Lahooti i.e. Hu, Hu. The Naqshbandiah Order practise Zikr of the Divine Name. The other Orders recommend Zikre Jehri only to the beginners, but later on they all teach Zikre Khaffi, since the true Zikr is Zikr Khaffi Qalbi.
After all the lataif are illuminated, the Ruh finds strength to direct the body in the right direction. Secondly, it becomes strong enough for its flight to its native land. In other words, the thoughts and reflections are in the right direction and a firm belief in ALLAH is created. A change is brought about in the character and conduct of person and he becomes an obedient servant of ALLAH in the true sense in order to live a perfect life in this world and in the Hereafter.
After practising Zikr ALLAH upon all the seven lataif individually, the devotee is directed back to the first latifa that is the latifa Qalb, which means that the centre of all inward and outward qualities is the heart. There is a Hadith of the Holy Prophet which asserts that if the heart is reformed, then the whole body is reformed, but if the heart is sick, then every deed and action of the body goes wrong. The heart is the fountainhead of reflections and thoughts, resulting in deeds and actions. The heart is the reservoir of spiritual strength and energy. It is very important to repeatedly remind oneself exert all efforts in adorning the heart. Since it reflects on all the other lataif; friends have used ‘heart’ as a scapegoat for inactivity, whereas by ‘heart’, we mean that heart which desires and loves. And one should learn to have control over these desires, otherwise a heart desire something bad, the motives may not be proper, the desires may be evil. Even if a person happens to go to the Holy K‘aba and his cart is full of sin, what will he be able to gain? If a cup is dirty we cannot even think of drinking water in it. A heart should be capable of absorbing Divine love before going to the Holy K‘aba. The direction of the heart should be towards ALLAH, and if it leans towards others than the Divine Power, how can the body work for ALLAH’s pleasure and love, as the body always obeys the commands of the heart.
It may occur to you that people claim to have reached very high stations in their spiritual journey, but their practical lives do not corroborate this claim. In fact, their acts are not proper and they become a centre of accusations. As a result, the field of Sufism suffers criticism and is said to be a way of abandoning the world. These people are considered as a burden on the society. Why is this so? The first answer o this is that there is a big difference between claiming a certain thing and actually acquiring it. Every claim uttered by the tongue does not turn to reality.
Secondly a precious thing will always have a counterfeit. The fabricators come into action as soon as they find a chance. You must have noticed that in counterfeit currency, the forgers do not counterfeit coins or small bills, but they try to forge a thousand rupee note or atleast a five hundred rupee note. No matter how hard they try, they are ultimately caught, or the bills which they have forged are discovered. But does the fear of counterfeit currency deter us from transacting in money? No it does not, since we cannot carry on without money. Then again we see a lot of quacks who claim to be roadside doctors, and many innocent people fall victim to these quacks and even suffer for their lives at the hands of these deceitful people, but because of those quacks no one can deny the importance of medical science, it won’t be wise? Therefore one should not be disillusioned by such incidents and refuse the acceptance of reality, as this would not be wise, but very foolish.
If you want to see examples of real Sufis, then let us go back in time and peep into the lives of these great masters. Look at that aspect their lives in which they had preached Islam so that the servants ALLAH should lead a perfect life according to His Divine Pleasure. I am quoting only a few examples:
• Shaikh Ismail Lahori had come to Lahore in the year 1005. Thousands of people embraced Islam by his preaching every day.
• Syed Ali Hajweri (RUA) left his country in 1072 in the period of Ghaznavi to preach Islam and spread the light of Islam in Lahore.
• Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti (RUA) in 1237 during a journey from Delhi to Ajmair, he converted 700 Hindus in Muslims.
• Bu Ali Qalandar (RUA) converted the Rajputs of Pani Pat into Muslims in the year 1324.
• Bahauddin Zakaria Multani (RUA) in 1180 spread Islam in the city of Multan.
• Syed Jalal Bukhari (RUA) in the year 642 Hijri, had set up the city of Jhang. Many tribes of Rajputs embraced Islam at his hands.
• The king of Kashghar, Taimur Khan embraced Islam at the hands of Syed Jamaluddin (RUA) from Bukhara.
• Syed Jalaluddin Tabrezi spread the teachings of Islam in Bengal in the year 1244.
• In the fifteenth century, the great saints of the Qadriah Order spread the teachings of Islam in Sudan.
• In Sind, Syed Yousufuddin converted seven hundred families into Muslims.
The list is very long, so if anyone is interested in finding out more about these great men, he can look up their biographies.
Take the example of the Waliullah family in our country. Besides the work of Islamic literature, which is a source of light for many, they had to face a lot of opposition from those in power. Read the life history of Hadhrat Mujjadid Alif Thani. The Mogul King Jahangir had to finally yield to this great Sufi. You will come across many such incidents in history if you read the biographies of these sincere servants of ALLAH. Therefore, it is necessary that you learn to recognise the difference between what is real and what is not, and if you do come across something fake, do not in anyway feel discouraged and deny the reality altogether. The main aim of Sufism and Sulook is to change a person practically. He should be a true servant of ALLAH and help mankind to follow the commands of ALLAH. This should be the main purpose of his life in this world.