Tariqah is a spiritual haven for us from the onslaughts of this world. By onslaught I am not referring to physical attacks on one, but onslaughts that are mainly in the form of egoistic and satanic whisperings. So, when I speak of a haven, that the structure of Tariqah within which we function provides for us, through our shaykh, then I am speaking about a very special protection against these whisperings. So, one can still be assaulted or killed, but satanic whisperings will find it very difficult to penetrate the hearts of those within the structures. We must understand that as murids, in relation to our shaykh, we are all under an umbrella of Divine protective love. When we are primarily involved in the affairs of the world, we are outside the dome of His protection. I want to say that our Lord’s protection flourishes best where His obedience flourishes.

I am just about done with a book on The Arab World, its history by E. Rogan. I think that I am still in a bit of shock at the extent of the killings, selling each other out, massacres, environmental destruction or whatever goes with these; in the Arab world over the last few centuries. Some of these matters I can perhaps understand, but I cannot understand the killing of Muslims by Muslims all over this world because of the struggle for power and territory. I ask myself on so many occasions: Is this part of the nation of the Messenger (ﷺ)? Some of the atrocities committed against innocent people, even women and children, are best left to the pages of the book. Everything that Islam stands for, has been trampled under their feet by people who refer to themselves as part of the Islamic Ummah and even, my word,

Each one of us has a different consciousness of things, and this consciousness dominates our lives and governs our behaviour. So, one might be God-conscious, class-conscious, colour-conscious, consciousness of other physical features, sectarian-conscious, or whatever the case might be. Many of the attitudes that we have towards people are formed during our childhood and depend on the attitudes and ideas prevalent in the home or the community in which we live. So, to a large degree, how we feel about others is determined by the domestic or community culture in which we had lived. Later on in life, we might acquire other attitudes with regard to people by certain events in our lives and by what we acquire from the dominant culture of the country. Another important attitude-forging activity is education. Because the education in this country is, for example, mainly Euro-centered, and here I also include the media, we

If one looks back at one’s life, as in the case of many of us, Allah Almighty provided us with free periods during which we could have acquired knowledge. The periods were there, the teachers were available, but many of us were not prepared to take the initial step of using these periods and going to the teachers to acquire knowledge. Today, for many of us, it appears to be too late. Being too late is in fact only an appearance, because if we wish to we can still organise our free time to acquire knowledge. On numerous occasions I have appealed to you to go to the Azzawiyyah Masjid to attend the lectures there, by either Shaykh Achmad or Shaykh Siraj. The response was very poor. I find it quite embarrassing to sit in Shaykh Siraj’s class with a few odd murids. At one time, I had also encouraged

There are some murids that I would like to give my right hand to. When it comes to work in the cause of Islam, they never have any excuses or explanations or justifications for not doing the work. They also have jobs, have family commitments and the normal disturbances in their lives. It doesn’t matter where they have to go. They do this even if they have to make special arrangements in their homes for their children, but they go. They are the salt of our organisation. Without them the organisation will collapse or rather, our work for Islam will collapse. There are so many of them like this, and they are prepared to make whatever personal sacrifices are necessary to do the work. Sometimes I tell some of them that I need the establishment of congregational dhikr in some place. Without any contacts or even acquaintances in that area,

Anyone to whom Allah Almighty has granted a special station will tell you that in his practice of ibadat, he tried to be as consistent as possible. And so, even if he did a small amount, he would do it consistently. I’ve been amazed at what appears to me to be large-scale inconsistency by many of the murids. Some of them would only attend congregational dhikrs occasionally, would not attend dhikrs in the poor areas at all, seldom attend our functions, and so many more things. Those who have been able to achieve so far just do the opposite. They are there every Friday night, work in the poor areas, attend all the functions, organise congregational dhikrs in their homes and so many more positive things. Of course, many of us are doing tasks which few people know about, but I am talking about the public face of our tasks.

When I was a young student, I went to many of the homes of my fellow students. In some of these homes, although “Muslim” homes, there were no indications of Islam; no rakams or prayer mats or photographs of prominent Muslim personalities or verses from the Qur’an or other matters. The names of the family members had either been anglicised or Christianised. The only people who visited these homes were either non-Muslim or what we might call “unorthodox” Muslims. The general “atmosphere” in these homes was un-Islamic or non-Islamic. The years passed. It is now more than fifty years later. What has happened? In so many cases there has been a major degeneration of attachment to Islamic beliefs and practices. Many of the female offspring married non-Muslim men or participated in un-Islamic sporting or recreational activities, but in most cases, although some of them still have what we call Muslim

Because of our backgrounds and also the way we have participated in Islam, each one of us, strangely enough, has his or her own path that he or she walks in the religion. There are no two or more individuals with the same attitude, understanding and practice of our religion. We can in fact safely say that for each person there is a unique Islamic or spiritual individuality or identity. That is why when some of the Sufi masters speak of the multifarious paths to Allah (ﷻ), they mean that each one in fact walks his or her own unique path. Of course, we all have certain basic beliefs and participate in certain basic practices but the extent of these beliefs, and our commitment to them and their influence on our lives, for each person it is different. The same applies to practices. Whatever is involved from one’s heart and

Because of the nature of our organisation, we draw people from all walks of life and different domestic cultures. In other words, almost each person’s socio-economic conditions differ from that of every other person. But this is the nature of the community in which we live. In dealing with these matters, Allah Almighty cut across all divisions in Muslim communities or in the Muslim Ummah by declaring that: “All believers are brothers or (sisters) to each other”. This statement reduces all Muslims to a common set of people of similar belief. Although Islam teaches us this, this is not the reality at ground level for any of us. A large number of factors, generally out of our control, impact on our behaviour, thinking and attitudes. And I sometimes wonder whether the absence of certain people from the poor areas is not related to bad attitudes that some of us have

There are times when some of us commit even the smallest transgression, and we “run” to our Lord seeking repentance or forgiveness. Our repentance is not governed by the size of the transgression but by a heart that is fearful of its Lord. And so, whether it is a minor and insignificant transgression or a major one, the depth of the repentance and its extent are sometimes very similar. At other times the extent of the repentance and the cry of the heart depend on the size of the transgression. All in all, matters depend on the response of the heart to the situation it finds itself in. Although the heart is under the control of our Lord, it has the ability to call on Him when the need arises. We must understand this call. It is not what we imagine it to be. It doesn’t involve the words we