Economic Man and Kufr Is A System

Kufr; is a system that weakens people. The economical system is a disaster for the people, internally and externally. Our job is not to fight the economical system but to get out of it before its disaster falls on top of us. By getting out of it you are also actively helping in its collapse. In order to do this we have to look at things in a different way: think differently and behave differently. In this, the Muslim is the opposite of the economic man. The economic man - the man who lives within the patterns given by the economical system - is trained to think as the absolute observer (subject) who looks out at the world (object).

This is the foundation of traditional western philosophy in which modern sciences and economics are based. Within this basis, the economical man thinks that usury is an economical problem with some economical answers. He may question, how can I fight the problem of usury? In this way of questioning it is assumed that usury is something over there, while the person questioning is in plastic bubble isolated from it, but this is not how things are. The questioner is actively participating in usury, what he may consider a problem, and yet, he is part of the problem. He is the problem. Without this recognition you will be fighting your own illusion.

This recognition has an explanation in the knowledge of Ihsan by which we can understand that we are not the observers of the world, we are not the measurers of the world but we are being observed. Allah is observing us. He is the Measurer, not us. Only on this basis can we understand our responsibility, rather than escape from it. Only thus we can become masters of our condition, rather than slaves of our condition.

We understand that nothing stops us from getting rid of usurious practice except ourselves. Then the question "How to fight usury?" should be replaced by "How should we change our behaviour so that we do not need usury anymore?" If we think in this way we are in a better position to suggest proper answers. Nowadays our own behaviour demands the existence of the banks and their monetary system.

Therefore if we get rid of the usurious banks but continue to behave in the same way, we will end up again creating a bank. Nothing will change if we call it an "islamic bank". We have to change our behaviour. To do that we have to think differently. And to think differently we have to deny that the main characteristic of man is an economic characteristic. We are not economic units.

We deny what Islam denies. We deny the usurious practices of the modern economy and we deny the way of thinking they call Economics. We deny the banking system and its system of paper money. We deny the administrative nature of the state.

We declare the end of economics based on two affirmations: commerce without usury, and government without state.

We are calling for a free man who is free to behave within our Law. We will create a differently shaped society. The society where the qirad was normal was a different society without banks or necessity of banks. It was a society with agents, not banks but agents. The agents brought the people together, without themselves forming an institution. They brought this man with this other man to make business. The agent is like the old woman in the village who says this young man can marry this young woman and so arranges marriages. Without her some marriages would never have happened.

The agents are there in the middle of the society, forming an organic part of it, bringing people they know together and not necessarily for money. The wealth of the agent is his honesty and good reputation. He competes in honesty with the others. The best of them is the one who is more honest; therefore more people will trust him with their wealth. Then he does not need to go to the people but people come to him.

Knowledge of Allah is what prevents the agent from being a robot like the 'economic man'. This is a time where there are people, some of them Muslims, who regard themselves as being unemployed. 'Unemployment or employment' is economic conditioning. The Muslim does not regard himself within these categories. We are above that because we have knowledge.

The Muslims use this metaphor to explain knowledge; "Man is like an ant who is so close to the carpet that he cannot see the design." Knowledge is elevation from the carpet, and the carpet is dunya.

The person who is 'unemployed or employed' is spiritually so close tot he carpet that either he finds himself totally useless or in need of the salary in some business of the usurious system. All business today are usurious on their bases because they all are forced to dealwith usurious paper money, which is banking-money. He knows that the bank for instance is no good, but he thinks he has no better choice. He works for the state, although he knows the state is criminal. Even the businessman profiting within the usurious frame is a slave. All these people have failed to understand the nature of dunya and they are slaves of it. The way out lies in Islam. We need the most pure Islam.

It is, by Allah, in the hands of the Muslims. The Jihad of our time is to abolish usury.
This is the easy way and the path of success. Success belongs to Allah.

In Memory of Great Grandfather of Maryam Alice Richardson

Hugh E. Richardson (1905–2000) was a British diplomat and Tibetologist.

His academic work focused on the history of the Tibetan empire, and in particular on epigraphy. Born in St. Andrews, he studied classics at Keble College, Oxford. He joined the civil service in 1930, and represented Britain in Lhasa, capital of Tibet, from 1936 to 1940 and again from 1946 to 1950, in the final years having become the diplomatic representative of the recently independent India. After his retirement from public service he returned to St. Andrews and spent the remainder of his life as an independent scholar.

He was an accomplished linguist who spoke Bengali fluently, a skill he put to use when conversing with Rabindranath Tagore, and his fluent Tibetan was described by the Tibetan politician Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa as "impeccable Lhasa Tibetan with a slight Oxford accent." ^[1]

He was an advocate of the right of Tibetans to a separate political existence, a case he made in two books, Tibet and Its History (1962) and A Cultural History of Tibet (1968), and at the United Nations when the issue of Chinese oppression of Tibet was raised by the Irish Republic. There, in the words of one commentator, "he acted valiantly as a man of honour in a cause which has been largely lost because of the notions of political expediency, where sides are taken without regard to principle and in order not to risk aligning oneself with a potential loser, however deserving he may be" - a position which reportedly earned him the displeasure of both the British and Indian delegations to the UN Assembly.^[2]

He later wrote: "The British government, the only government among Western countries to have had treaty relations with Tibet, sold the Tibetans down the river and since then have constantly cold-shouldered the Tibetans so that in 1959 they could not even support a resolution in the UN condemning the violation of human rights in Tibet by the Chinese."

Richardson also said that he was "profoundly ashamed",^[3] not only at the British government's refusal to recognise that Tibet had a right to self-determination, but also at the government's treatment of the 14th Dalai Lama.^[4]

Obituary -- Dr Hugh Richardson (The Scotsman)

---

Thursday, 7th December 2000
The Scotsman. Dr Hugh Edward Richardson, civil servant and scholar

Born: 22 December, 1905, in St Andrews Died: 3 December, 2000, in St
Andrews, aged 94

RENOWNED as one of the world's leading authorities on Tibet, Hugh Richardson
was the son of the late Colonel Dr Hugh Richardson, a general practitioner
and lecturer at St Andrews University.

He was educated at St Salvator's School, St Andrews, and Trinity College,
Glenalmond. He later went on to study Classics at Keble College, Oxford.

As officer-in-charge of the British Mission in Tibet for many years he
acquired an extensive knowledge of the country, its language and its people.
His unrivalled collection of artefacts and photographs of Tibetan life and
customs formed a significant part of the Tibetan exhibition staged at the
British Museum in 1981.

Dr Richardson was a tireless advocate of the right of Tibetans to a separate
political existence, living their own lives, enjoying their own culture. It
was a case he made in two books, Tibet and Its History (1962) and A Cultural
History of Tibet (1968), and at the United Nations when the issue of Chinese
oppression of Tibet was raised by the Irish Republic. There, in the words of
an informed commentator, "he acted valiantly as a man of honour in a cause
which has been largely lost because of the notions of political expediency,
where sides are taken without regard to principle and in order not to risk
aligning oneself with a potential loser, however deserving he may be" - a
position which earned him the displeasure of both the British and Indian
delegations to the UN Assembly.

Richardson later wrote scathingly of the British government's attitude
towards Tibet: "The British government, the only government among Western
countries to have had treaty relations with Tibet, sold the Tibetans down
the river and since then have constantly cold-shouldered the Tibetans so
that in 1959 they could not even support a resolkution in the UN condemning
the violation of human rights in Tibet by the Chinese."

Richardson confessed that he was "profoundly ashamed", not only at the
British government's refusal to recognise that Tibet had a right to
self-determination, but also at the government's treatment of the Dali Lama.

Dr Richardson was appointed to the Indian Civil Service - regarded as the
cream of British administrative services - in 1930 and was posted to Bengal.
It was during his vacations that he visited Sikkim and then set foot in
Tibet for the first time and began the start of a long love affair with the
country and its peoples.

In 1934 he transferred to the Foreign and Political Service of the
Government of India and held a number of appointments before taking over as
trade agent at Gyantse in 1936. He was a member of the British Commission
which visited Lhasa under the leadership of Sir Basil Gould that year and
was put in charge of the British Mission, recently established to
counterbalance Chinese influence. He remained in Lhasa, the first white
representative to function in the capital, from 1936-1940 and again from
1946, having held a number of offices in the intervening years.

During the Second World War he served as secretary of the Indian Agency
General in Chungking and was a signatory to the Sino-British Treaty on
behalf of India in 1943.

He returned to Lhasa after the end of the war as British representative and
when Britain left India in 1947 after it was awarded self-government he
remained in Tibet as the representative of the Indian government as officer
in charge of the Indian Mission.

His involvement within the country was total, mastering the language and
becoming a friend of the leading people of Lhasa, who sought his help in the
problems they faced after 1946. He also met and became a friend of Tibet's
spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. during his time in the country.

Dr Richardson eventually relinquished his post in 1950 after a total of 14
years in Lhasa - the same year that the Chinese invaded Tibet - and later
returned to his native St Andrews.

In 1944 he was appointed OBE and two years later was again in the Honours
list as a Companion of the Indian Empire.

He also published a number of other books, including A Corpus of Early
Tibetan Inscriptions (1985), which is a major source book for the study of
Tibetan history, Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year (1993) and High Peaks, Pure
Earth (1998).

A keen golfer, he joined the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St Andrews in
1946 and was a very popular figure who enjoyed playing a few holes each
Saturday until earlier this year. He also had a great enthusiasism for
gardening and plants.

He was predeceased by his wife, Huldah Rennie, several years ago.

Faqih Lagi Sufi

Berbalik kepada "Diwan al-Imam asy-Syafi`i" maka pada halaman 47, Imam asy-Syafi`i radhiyaAllahu `anhu bersyair dengan katanya:-

Faqih lagi sufi, Engkau jadikan dirimu

Kedua-duanya sekali, Jangan hanya salah satu

Demi Allah, Sungguh - sungguh aku menasihatimu

Faqih semata tiada merasa takwa, kerna hatinya membatu

Manakala semata sufi itu jahil, Kurang faham, tiada ilmu

Justru bagaimana si jahil, menjadi baik sholih lagi bermutu ?

Oleh itu, janganlah meremeh-remehkan ilmu fiqh dengan anggapan ianya tidak penting kerana ianya kulit sahaja. Berusaha menjadikan diri kita orang yang faqih dan sufi sebagaimana nasihat dan pesanan Imam kita asy-Syafi`i tersebut. Insya-Allah, kita memperolehi keselamatan dan laba di akhirat nanti.

Jangan jadi sesetengah manusia zaman ini,

Dengan thoriqat dia menisbah diri

Saban hari berkhayal dirinya wali

Namun lalai syariat Ilahi

Majlis ilmu ia jauhi

Para ulama tiada ia hampiri

Rasa dirinya sudah mencukupi

Lagi pula guru thoriqatnya wali

Kalau pun sungguh bagai yang dirasai

Maka yang wali itu si gurunya tadi

Sang Guru wali

Ilmunya penuh amalnya selari

Memadaikah bagi si murid hanya dengan bangga diri

(Nota: dinukil dari blog bahrus shofa)

Live for Allah. Die for Allah. Obey your Amir-Sultan

Sohbet given by Sheykh Abdul Kerim el-Hakkani el-Kibrisi.Tuesday 2 Shawwal, 1427 / October 24, 2006. Osmanli Naks-i’bendi Hakkani Dergah, Siddiki Center, New York.

An incident happened. It just fits to you and to me to understand the story of a man who was still in the way of Allah and who was keeping the orders one hundred percent. Only one thing he did.

LAST DAYS OF THE CALIPHATE (1920s)

In the time of Sultan Abdul Hamid Khan (Jannat Mekat), during the last
days when there was confusion everywhere and Sultan Abdul Hamid Khan
is almost alone. He doesn’t have too many helpers around. So many helpers
became betrayers and he cannot trust them. And among some of them whom
he was trusting there was one general in the army, high level general.
Mehmet Aqif Ersoy is saying, he is giving the story how it happened.
He said that after the Sultan passed from this world, Khilafat was
removed and curse started coming down on mankind. When the Khilafat is
removed then curse is coming anyway. You don’t need to hear it for
yourself. Non-stop curse is coming down to mankind saying, “You are
the ones who removed the Khalifah.” And curse is coming down. From
that time until now. That’s why we are not accepting their system,
their democracy-hypocrisy system. Anyone who is accepting that, it’s
showing that they don’t want the Khalifah, they don’t want that
ruling. That’s why they are praising democracy. The Khilafat, that’s
what Allah wants.

THE OLD MAN IN SULTAN AHMED MOSQUE

So Mehmet Aqif Ersoy is saying, “Every morning I go to Sultan Ahmet
Mesjid, mosque, Jamii. I go early in the morning and next to the
Mihrab I see an old man. His hair and his beard is complete white,
snow-white. He is continuously crying. Anytime I am going I finding
that man crying. From the outside I am seeing that he is the first one
in the mesjid. But he is continuously sitting, making tesbih and
crying. One day I came near him and I said to him, “Oh holy one, why
are you crying so much? Are you cutting yourself from the mercy of
Allah? Is that why you are crying? The mercy of Allah is coming.” He
(also) said, “Oh, you are looking at outside and what they did (by
removing the Khilafat.). What a foolish thing they did. That’s why you
are crying.”

He (the old man) said to him, “Don’t make me speak. My heart will
stop.” He said, “Please Speak. Say.” He said, “I will tell you.” He
said, “I was a high general in Sultan Abdul Hamid’s (Jannat Mekan)
time. My parents passed away. In the area of Izmir we had so much land
and farm. So I sent my resignation letter to the Sultan asking for him
to acquit me from the army. And Sultan right away send me the message
back saying, “No, we cannot afford to send you away anywhere now.
There is a big problem waiting for us and I need a couple of people
like you. So I will not approve what you are asking.” He said, “I was
sad. But we had so much work to do. One day I needed to go to Istanbul
and I said to myself, `Now that I am here, let me go to visit the
Sultan.’” He said, “Because I had a big authority, I could just go and
visit him.” The Sultan’s door at that time was open early in the
morning for everybody. Not even the Mayor open the door today for
people. The door of the Ottoman Sultan was open. People were coming
and complaining, asking and saying. This was in the worst time.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SULTAN

So he said, “I came to the Sultan. He was sitting on his table. He
looked at me and he put his head down. He was not looking at me
anymore.” He said, `Your Majesty, I sent you a letter’, and instantly
he said to me very strongly, `I sent you the answer back.’ He said,
`Yes, that’s why I am here now to ask you because this is the excuse I
have.’ The Sultan was shaking his head. He was not looking at me and I
asked to be released again. So he just raised his head, looked at me
so strongly and said, `So what can I do?’ He said to me, `What can I
do? You are asking so much? Go away.’ He released him. Finished. The
Sultan just waved his hand like that. In our tradition, if someone
speaks to you and says, “Okay, go”, it means, “I am not happy with you
anymore”, and they move the back of their hand to you. When they say,
“Go with blessings”, it’s like this, with the palm of the hand towards
you. But when it’s with the back of the hand, in proper manner it
means, “Get lost.” He said, “That action just finished me. But what
can I do? I cannot take that back anymore too, and I came.”

HOLY PROPHET (SWS) INSPECTING THE OTTOMAN ARMY

“Very short time later, so many incidents happened that I understood
why Sultan didn’t want me to be released.” He said, “But one night I
saw a dream. In the dream I saw the Ottoman Army. They were all in
straight lines. All generals were in front of the army and Sultan
Abdul Hamid Khan came and he was saluting them. And the Prophet (sws)
was standing in front of him and he (the Sultan) was saying, “Ya
Rasulullah, the army of Islam is ready. As you like. Give order. We do
as you like.” He (the old man) said, “Everyone was seeing the Prophet
(sws) except me. When I was looking from far I was seeing the Prophet
(sws) like a moon, shining. But I couldn’t see the Prophets (sws). But
the Sultan and all the army were seeing the Prophet (sws).”

“And Prophet (sws) looked at the army from the beginning and he came
to the end and the battalion, the group at the end was supposed to be
under my authority. But I wasn’t there. So all the soldiers were very
sloppy. They were not in order. The Prophet (sws) looked at the Sultan
very strongly and said to the Sultan, `Ya Sultan! Where is the general
of that group of people?” And the Sultan put his head down saying, “Ya
Rasulullah, that one wanted early retirement. I didn’t want to send
him to early retirement but he asked several times. So I couldn’t say
`no’ to him anymore. So I sent him to retirement. I sent him away.”
The Prophet (sws) looked at him and said, “Ya Sultan! The one that you
send away, we are also sending away from our association.”

He said, “After that day, I never slept at night. I am crying non-stop
but I am not seeing any dreams. After that day I left everything. I
left all the belongings to the people. Allah is sending my sustenance
but I lost. I didn’t see the Prophet (sws) and after that I have never
seen any good dreams anymore.”

ALLAH IS NEVER SECOND

This is not a joke. This is real. Real-real, if you understand what
that means you will cry a lot then. If you don’t understand then you
are a donkey. What can we do? The way you live, that’s how you will
die. The way you will die, that’s how you will be raised. This is
hadis-e sharif. If you keep Allah priority then Allah keeps you
priority. If you keep Allah second class then you just finished
yourself. Allah is never second. If the whole world says, “We keep
Allah second”, Allah is not second. Allah is first. It is a blessing
for man just to understand (the favor of) Allah’s granting permission
to man to praise Allah. As Sheykh Mevlana is saying, “Live for Allah.
Live for Allah and die for Allah.” It is a blessing to you. And Allah
is asking then, “What does My servant want? Give it to him.” And when
you say, “Ya Rabbi, I want, I want”, He says, “Whatever you want. When
you are in My service I give you everything. You say that you love me,
I love you and I am yours too. I am in your service.” Allah is in our
service. What service do we give to Allah? What do we do, huh? Just
getting up and going up and down. Is that the service we give to
Allah? Does that fit to His Majesty?

He gives everything to us and we cannot give anything back. The only
thing is just to keep His orders, to try to keep His orders. Then you
are honoring yourself. Allah is granting you more honor all the time.
Anyone who leaves Allah, who runs away from Allah, they are losing
their honor in Dunya and they are losing their honor in Akhirat. This
much is enough for you and for me. No? Also for me, and for you, and
for `X’. Are you sleeping `X’? Or did he leave? Do you get it now?
Hmm. Anybody who takes it, takes it to themselves too. Anybody who is
saying, “This sohbet does not include me”, it’s okay. You don’t have
to say IT. Just keep it inside to yourself. Look what happens.

THE RETIRED GENERAL OF TURKEY

Priority is Allah. If you are not living for Allah then Allah is
saying to us, “If you are not opening your hand to ask from Me, what
is your value?” Understanding? He says, “What is your value?” Value of
a donkey or a horse, or an animal? No. He is saying, “No. Not even
that because that animal is valuable. You, those who are not keeping
Allah priority have no value in Dunya and Akhirat. You can give them
as much titles as you want. It’s only temporary.” They are saying,
“Retired. Take that name from the table, take out the uniform, go home
and wait to die.” Retired. That’s what it means. So all titles are gone.

Yesterday there was a General in Turkey, the General of the whole
army, the head master. The man had all power in his hand. Last month
he was the General. This month the uniform is out, everything is out
and he is just a normal person in the streets. Finished. All power is
gone. He cannot even go back to his office anymore, that office which
he was occupying. He could’ve turned the country upside down if he
wanted. He cannot (even) enter to that office (now). Finished. Titles
are gone and everything is gone.

Whatever he did for Allah in that station that’s what he won. If he
did something for Allah then he won. If he didn’t then he lost Dunya
and he lost Akhirat. This one at present now, the same thing will
happen to that one. This one at present in this country, the same
thing will happen to that one. To everywhere. Don’t look at how many
people are saying `mashallah’ and cheering. No. How many days? How
many years? Four years, five years or ten years? Eight years. Not more
than that. Later, go home. After having all that power they cannot sit
home too. Big problem then to them.

So be happy with what Allah has given to you. If you are happy with
Allah then Allah is happy with you. If you are not happy with Allah,
you are not going to bother Allah because you are not happy with
Allah. But if Allah is not happy with you then disaster is waiting.

Wa min Allahu taufiq

Bihurmatil Habib

Bihurmatil Fatiha.

(Note: When Turkey was cheated and forced to use paper money and banking by western powers. this poison of riba,debt and democracy eventually bring the khilafate down....)

What Is Freedom and Iman ?

Freedom:

Not holding on to anything of this world

To be like Earth, it receives everything
including dump and gives as return life and riches

To believe Allah is Ar-Razzaq,
as one believes fire burns, job or no job

To feel no pain holding on to burning coals
and crawling over ice for Allah

To not betray the Ur-form of man and realise
the gestalt of an eagle is destroyed
when it is forbidden to hunt

To care less whether rich or poor,
in practice to not care at all

To leave the management of all affairs to Allah;
to depend on Him, rely on Him and on Him alone

To live with no financial anxiety

In the collaborative couple who support each other
in their project for justice (beyond family)

To live a dead man taking death for a life companion

To finish planting a seed, that was commenced,
even if the Last Day comes

A journey that never ends

Taqwa

Ma'rifatullah


(by Hasbullah Shafi'iy from Tumasik Trade Network, Singapore)

GRATITUDE TO MOROCCO

I would also like to express an enormous gratitude to the people of Morocco, who have always shown us the deepest generosity. At first, filled with longing and excitement to be a part of a tariqat in Morocco, I went to Meknes to the zawiyya of our shaykh thinking it would be a kind of perfect Utopia, and it was perfect, but not in the way we think. It was perfect the way the world is perfect. And at the same time, the intention, the niyyat, of everyone, even the imperfect ones, like us, like me, was to be in a circle of dhikr, and to find the Presence, the Hadrat of Allah.

There is something deeply imbedded in the heart of the Moroccan people that is very beautiful and essential, full of iman, having available to it the various steps toward real knowledge of God, and as a citizen of the world with spiritual thirst, for that I am deeply grateful. When our little community of European Muslims passed through the market streets, in our djalabas and turbans, purchased in Tangiers before we went south into the Moroccan heartland, people would stop and weep to see obviously Muslim westerners respectful of Moroccan culture, instead of as with the earlier influx of Europeans who came as hippies in the 60s, and who seemed only to indulge in some of the less Islamic aspects of Moroccan culture.

Although I was born in Oakland, in the North American state of California, I consider Meknes, Morocco, my real birthplace, where I met Shaykh ibn al-Habib, raheemullah, wali of Allah, Qutub shaykh of the time, and where I also lived for a time that had the taste of eternity in it, in his zawiyya with his disciples.

It was there I saw the old men (and some of the women as well, most especially his wives) of his spiritual community who had been with him for decades, who were now like trees, forests of trees — I was living in a forest of ‘ilm and ma’rifa. Among all the variety of people we encountered there we found these giant trees, like towering redwoods. That was the world of our shaykh’s domains. So when my wife and I visited Meknes a few years ago, in early 2000, I suddenly felt at home again.

HAJJ IN 1972

I was with a group of us living in the zawiyya during the last Ramadan of Shaykh ibn al-Habib’s life, and I went on Hajj in 1972, with Shaykh Dr. Abdal-Qadir, Shaykh Abdalhaqq Bewley, Abdal-Aziz Redpath and the great photographer, Peter Abdal-Adheem Sanders. It was a truly momentous Hajj for us. We were meant to meet the shaykh in Jeddah. We had asked permission in Meknes at that Ramadan to go on Hajj and he had said, “Meet me in Jeddah.” But we arrived in Jeddah and he wasn’t there. So we went on to Mecca, and still didn’t see him.

Then the sheriff of his zawiyya, Sidi Moulay Sheriff, came running up to us, greeted us very happily, asked how we were, how our travels were, and if we were satisfied with our accommodations (which we were not, our mutawwif had not really taken care of us). He then went and found us a good place to stay, took us to a place to eat, for we were all very hungry, and after all that, which must have taken over an hour or so, took Abdalhaqq Bewley off to speak to him privately.

When Abdalhaqq came back he had tears streaming down his cheeks. Shaykh ibn al-Habib, raheemullah, wouldn’t meet us in Mecca, for he had died on his way from Meknes by automobile, in Blida, Algeria. So our Hajj was one of deep grief as well as the deep experience of the Hajj itself, and was therefore a doubly difficult journey, and continued to be so when we returned to England to tell the community there the very sad news. But I’ve always felt, and this has been a constant in my own spiritual life as a living example of true ‘adab, that the way in which this faqir greeted us, carrying such a terrific burden of news, was so extraordinary, in that he didn’t run up to us saying, “The shaykh is dead! The shaykh is dead!” But in fact, he made sure we were comfortable, and fed, and then spoke the right words to Abdalhaqq privately.

We found in all our journeys to Morocco and our visits with the people, that with the natural beauty of the country itself, with its lavender valleys and rolling green hills, and its variegated and rich culture, among the people there’s an innocence and a deep wisdom, there’s a depth, a beauty in the people, and certainly in the profound tradition of Sufism and Islam that is so much a part of Morocco, in all of its manifestations. And the tradition is still very much alive that makes available, through the living scholars and shuyukh and awliyya, the Path to Allah, The Ultimate Reality, through correctly and sincerely receiving the proper initiation and ‘idhn, from a real shaykh of m’arifa, of whom there are many great and magnificent living exemplars today.

May Islam and Sufism continue to grow and thrive among all humankind everywhere, with Morocco again at its peak of a golden age of Sufism and true Islamic teachings, and constant nourishment for all those who go with a hunger for true spiritual experience and deep-rooted foundational learning. Amen.
____________________
Visit Daniel Abdal Hayy Moore’s website: www.danielmoorepoetry.com, where you can read many of his poems.

Diwan of Sh Muhammad Ibn alHabib

You will say, “Dear God,
You are what I seek!


My impregnable refuge from
wrongs injustices and deceit
You – my only Hope in answering all my needs

You – the One who saves me
from every evil and every harm
You – the Compassionate One
Who answers all who call

You – the wealth that provides
the needy in their need
O Sublime One to You I raise my voice in prayer –

Hurry to me the Opening and the Secret O dear God
By the honor of that sublime one
all our hopes depend on

On the Day of Distress when
we’re assembled at the Gathering
Upon him God’s blessings as
long as Gnostics journey

Through the lights of God’s Essence
in His every Self Revealing
And his People and Companions
and all those who follow

The Divine Commandments by
the sweet nobility of his Way.

Abdal Hayy Daniel Moore:
So, insha’Allah, the task as a writer or poet is to always put oneself in the midst of what may come, wherever Allah’s manifestation may be happening. Of course, it is happening everywhere, whether we are aware of it nor not, but we want to be in a state of dhikr to recognize it as often and as deeply as possible. This requires a certain training, which, for me, came partly from the time I spent with the muqaddem and shaykh, as well as my earlier Zen Buddhist meditation, and something I became more aware of as I traveled in other parts of the world, and saw what Allah has done with other civilizations, present and past, as Allah ta’ala counsels in the Qur’an.
In the late 1970s, six of us western Sufi Muslims, fuqara of Shaykh ibn al-Habib, traveled throughout northern and south-eastern Algeria in the late 70s, when it was still easier to travel there, and met many awliyya, some wellknown and some more hidden. Every moment you sit with a wali is worth many years of ‘ibada, as it is said, because these men and women of Allah, who have reached a high station with Allah, show us more than words can tell what the grace of Allah and the Prophet, peace be upon him, really is, and how they manifest among us in our present life.
We also spent time living and traveling in Morocco, and attended many mawlids and moussems. In the tomb of Ali al-Jamal in Fez we discovered the book that was translated and published by The Diwan Press as The Meaning of Man. We were told his fuqara, even today, are still coming down to his tomb, which is situated in a low place in Fez, to read from and study his book. We photographed each hand-written page and later transcribed it and translated it into
English, a first-time event of great importance.
We also journeyed to Shaykh Ibn Mashish’s mountaintop tomb in Larache, raheemullah, and did dhikr and prayer among the wild cork trees, prostrating in sajdah on the flat cork-floored crest above the canyons as if flying among clouds.
In a way of nourishing the heart and soul, all of these experiences have invested my poetry in a way that I really can’t even explain, and it may not be obviously evident. To this date, I have not written an account about the trip to Shaykh ibn al-Mashish’s tomb, because I’m not a scholar-historian nor memoirist, but a writer of poems. If you remain an open field, from the creative, poetic point of view, Allah works through you however He wills.
Back in the beginning when I was first a Muslim, the poets that I knew and loved, in San Francisco and California at that time, were mostly Buddhist, and they wrote poetry out of their Buddhism, both philosophically and through their love and interest in nature and our natural “enlightened” consciousness. Their poetry is often meditative, recognizing the essence of stillness, and above all, recognizing the goal of the end of mankind’s suffering, which is spiritual wisdom.
At the time, when I thought about my poetic intentions, I said to myself, “This is what I want to do, insha’Allah, for Islam, for Sufism, I want to be a voice that isn’t specifically only speaking to Muslims,” because this time in our history is the era of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa salam, where Islam is the deen of Allah. We “Muslims” in particular have to remember that the Prophet came for every human being, and it will be so until the end of time — we must speak to everyone.
At the inception of my being Muslim and Sufi, I wanted to create a body of work that reminds people, and myself, about Allah, praying and hoping that every poem I write is a dhikr for me, and insha’Allah, also a dhikr for other people. Because as Allah says in Qur’an, “When you forget, remember!” which is an ayat of tremendous mercy. When we go through a moment of unconsciousness, or torpor, ghafla (forgetfulness), then we turn and remember, we remember Allah and His beloved Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa salam, we remember who we are and the path of life we are on, and the heart ticks back into a wider consciousness.