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Shaykh Ahmed abdur Rashid June 8, 2013 www.circlegroup.org Saturday Subhat

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Khwaja Baqi Billah (ra) And the History of Orders after Him

Bismi-Llāhi-r-Rahmāni-r-Rahīm. I have been telling you a little about the history, and

I was quoting some of the historians regarding Khwaja Baqi Billah (ra), who did not

like notoriety, and he only had a few, very serious muridīn. As soon as he arrives in

Delhi, it is known that he has arrived. His reputation came before him. You

remember all the teachers that he studied with, and how he winds up where he

winds up in the Naqshbandi line. By the end of 1601, he has certain very

distinguished disciples in Delhi. The reason why his reputation came with him is

because there was an imperial encampment that had returned to Delhi. They had

come from Afghanistan and the area that is now Pakistan, and they had brought

news of these saints, these awliyā.

Shaykh Farid Bukhari (ra), who was a noted shaykh in Delhi at the time, welcomed

Baqi Billah because he came from his own homeland. By the end of 1601, Shaykh

Farid was asked to eradicate the collection of corrupt officials and the revenue

collectors from the road from Lahore to Delhi. His official duties brought him into

contact with the Khwaja Baqi Billah, who wrote many letters to Shaykh Farid. Ghaus

Shaykh Shatari was another famous shaykh who mentioned that Farid Bukhari paid

all the expenses of the Khwaja’s khanaqah. So he had the help of a number of

people. Later on, Mujaddid al-alf ath-thānī Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra) also

reinforced this understanding.

I am trying to give you a sense of how things work among these people. They

supported one another. They were very, very pious people. The Moghul empire at

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the time, as may empires did, gave out land grants and charity through people who

they felt were beneficial to them. Because Khwaja Baqi Billah was of such high

stature, the Shah Jehan Jehan would take advice from him. This was written by

Sadri Jehan about Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra):

There is a man in Sirhind named Shaykh Ahmed. He is very learned and very

strong in piety. For some days he is associated with Baqi Billah, who found his

achievements surprisingly impressive. It would be seen that he would be a lamp

to brighten the whole universe, and I am convinced of his mystical evidence.

The brothers and the relations of this Shaykh are all holy men and some of them

are known to his supplicant. They are talented and they are spiritual gems. The

children of the Shaykh are also embodiment of Divine mystery. In short,

however, in large families you see excessive poverty, unemployment and it has

made their material condition distressing. If some annual cash grant were

assigned to the family, it would be most meritorious. And even if it were not

exorbitant, it would be a much laudable step. It may be noted that the faqirs

are the gateway to Allah.”

Then Shaykh Baqi Billah made another gesture to Shaykh Ahmed when Miran Sadri

ad Jehan requested that the Khwaja teach him dhikr and muraqabah of the

Naqshbandiyya. The Khwaja acquiesced, but he advised him to learn the

muraqabah from Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra), who was his murīd. So you

see? This is the character of the awliyā of our tariqah. This is the way they are. They

don’t have a lot of followers. They took the teachings very seriously. They didn’t

kowtow to anybody. They were very honest.

Baqi Billah, in his own right, wrote some small essays on the understanding of the

Naqshbandi Ahrariyya Order. (Remember? ‘Ubaydullāh Ahrār (ra) was a Ahrariyya


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from the Khwaja Khwajagan.) They were also included in letters and other talks and

in his poetry. You remember what I told you that he was really wahadat wujudi.

Many of his Rubaiyya and his poetry were reflecting the philosophy of Ibn Araby

(ra). But Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra) wrote a very detailed tafsir, an

exegetical writing called the Shahr Pubaiyat, on some of the writings of his Shaykh.

And as far as I know, these have not been translated. I have never been able to find

a translation of them. It would be very interesting to see what they are.

The greatest successor of Khwaja Baqi Billah was Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī

(ra). The murīd who looked after his family and built his darga was Khwaja

Husamudīn Ahmed Kunduz; and his father, Qazi Nizam of Badraqshan migrated to

Agra. So the influences of these khwajas at the court, and then later in the family,

was very, very strong. They were all very devoted Sufis. They were all very devoted

students of Baqi Billah. Remember, he does not have many murīds. Delhi at the time

was a very political place. People did not like to be there. People had come back

from wars; they were war veterans like we have today. These were veterans, not of

the standard kind of war that you think of at the time, where people lined up and

fought each other. There was actually guerilla warfare going on, like we find today.

So people had lost a lot of heart and spirituality, and Khwaja Baqi Billah gave them

hope by giving them these teachings that you are supposed to practice—the

muraqabah and the inner mystical teachings of Islam. [So these people] had been

fighting wars, and fighting in the name of Islam. A lot of people are being killed, and

a lot of people are being injured. They would find their way back to Delhi, to the

court. These protracted wars have taken a toll on them. They have PTSD, truly. So,

he was sort of a threat to the rulers. They tried to get him to back off, but he didn’t.


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At one point, one of the Khwajas was being pressured to resign, Khwaja Husamudīn.

He was actually in the military, and eventually he does resign under protest; but

Khwaja Baqi Billah, protected him against the harassment of the rulers and the

other people. The point here is that these Shaykhs had a lot of influence, a lot of

power. He used it very, very sparingly. Then there were all these kinds of mystical

rumors going around. For example, that Khwaja Husamudīn was very dedicated to

Khwaja Baqi Billah and to Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra). He was given the

right to instruct people in the first practice of dhikr. In the beginning practice of

dhikr, he had an idhn to teach that. But that was the extent of what he was allowed

to do. He found it to be such a difficult challenge to teach people, because of their

attitude, that he asked to be relieved of the responsibility of it. He did not want to

do it.

At the time that Baqi Billah was very ill, Khwaja Husamudīn served him when the

senior disciples were absent from the khanaqah, and the Khwaja’s children were too

young. But after his death, what he did was spend his time keeping the khanaqah

going, against many odds, and educating the children of the Shaykh. He believed

that Khwaja Nasrudin Ubaydullāh Ahrār (ra) was re-born in the form of Khwaja Baqi

Billah. So now you see the Hindu influence coming in. Even after Khwaja Baqi

Billah’s death, he would continue to receive blessings from Khawja Baqi Billah’s

tomb. Having sat many, many hours at that tomb, I will tell you that it is a very

unique place. Some of my best meditations were at that tomb in 120 degree

weather. It was too hot for the bugs, even. There were no mosquitoes. It was too

hot.

Khwaja Husamudīn started every day, of course, with his Fajr prayer. Then after

about an hour, he sat in meditation, and then did his superogatory morning prayers.

Then he would visit the tomb of Khwaja Baqi Billah, which was about a kilometer


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and a half outside of Delhi, at the time. Now it is in the middle of Old Delhi. After

that, he would stay there until it was time for prayer again. He would pray there and

then he would sit and recite Qur’an. Before that, he would meditate and do some

nafle prayers. Then he would come home late and care for Baqi Billah’s home, and

care for the family of Baqi Billah (ra). This was the type of people. These are the

people who are your spiritual ancestors and predecessors. I wanted you to get to

know them to some degree.

Khwaja Husamudīn believed also in the wahadat wujud philosophy of Baqi Billah

and the Ahraris. He was not interested in the wahadat shuhud of Shaykh Ahmad

Farūqī Sirhindī (ra). He probably never participated in the practices. But the sons

of Khwaja Baqi Billah, and the other Sufis in the khanaqah, did participate in the

sama. You have the people of the same lineage, where Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī

Sirhindī (ra) is given a high status by Baqi Billah (ra), but he has this philosophy of

wahadat shuhud, so there is no sama, no dhikr. But the children of Baqi Billah (ra)

did participate in the sama, like we have on Saturday night. Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī

Sirhindī (ra) thought that it was bida; he didn’t like it.

Now you get the branching out. In Feruzabad, outside of Delhi, there are these two

branches. You have the people of the wahadat wujud, and the people of the wahadat

shuhud. Khwaja ‘Ubaydullāh Ahrār in the Chishtiyya practices of sama remained

distinct. You have our line of Chishti, then Qadriyya, and Shadhili, and Naqshbandi-

Ahrari. Then you have our line of Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi, which is from Shaykh

Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra). Among the followers of the Feruzabadi people was

Shah Waliyullah, who was the most famous writer and teacher, whose tomb I also

have spent a lot of time at. As you know from my many years of talking, he was the

one who resolved these two schools of thought and brought them back together.


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After the death of Khwaja Baqi Billah (ra) there was controversy over the

succession, and the strained relationships between the senior murīds of Shaykh

Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra). But Khwaja Husamudīn was neutral, and Shaykh

Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra) became very impressed by the service that this Khwaja

Husamudīn gave to the family, and the khanaqah, and the tomb. In turn, Khwaja

Husamudīn appreciated Shaykh Ahmed’s efforts to promote the cause of Shar’īah. It

was in this kind of environment that our lines come together. And it is why those of

us who followed in that line from Shaykh Adam Banauri (ra) down to Hazrat Azad

Rasool (ra) were able to do both of these practices, and to understand the blessings

and the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad Farūqī Sirhindī (ra) of wahadat shuhud, and

embrace and love the teachings of Ibn Araby, Shaykh al Akbar, and Ubadaiyya Ahrar.

This is very, very unusual in the history of Tasawwuf. You don’t see these types of

resolutions of differences, ever, anywhere. You will remember there is also this

relationship with the Suh’rawardi Order in Delhi at the time. We have to then come

back to a couple of things, and understand the real blessings of these teachings. I

predicated it tonight by doing more silent dhikr, to show you a meeting place

between the silent dhikr khafī and the dhikr jahri. This is why I didn’t want you to

be very loud tonight, but I wanted you to transition back and forth between the

silent and the aloud dhikr. It’s very, very difficult to make dhikr khafī. You begin to

understand the role of the Naqshbandiyya, the Qadriyya, the Shadhiliyya, in terms of

the remembrance of Allah Swt, and in this framework of Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn Araby.

Remember that these teachings of Ibn Araby (ra) spread all over the world. You find

them in Iran, in Egypt, among the Chishtiyya, in the Shadhiliyya, among the

Suh’rawardiyya, everywhere, Mevlevi. They are very, very profound teaching, but

underneath it all, you have this attraction in the hearts of some people toward what


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is deeply inward and silent. They meet mostly in the Shadhili and Naqshbandi and

Kwaja Ahrari teaching, but also the Mujaddidi teaching.

Historically, there was a real organic relationship between the social, and the

spiritual, and the intellectual life in the whole Muslim community. Understand that

at the root of everything is an interconnectedness/tawhidi. You eventually come to

see that there isn’t anything that isn’t connected to everything. You feel it. You think

it. You see it. It drives some people crazy. But it’s the truth: everything is

connected. If you understand where to touch that connection, it’s like acupuncture.

The energy changes; te energy moves around. There is always a connection

between the social, spiritual, and intellectual aspect in Sufic Islam.

In the contemporary world of today, the most outstanding, albeit not the most well-

known among the shuyukh in the world (today and traditionally), are those shaykhs

who have continued to act as the guardians of this integrated vision and the practice

of Islam. Those are the shaykhs who, inshā’a-Llāh, I feel myself associated with, who

are concerned with both averting misunderstandings and asserting the

preeminence of Shar’īah in society, but at the same time, the cultivation of spiritual

life. In this case, the Naqshbandi teaching of the Khwaja Khwajagan and the

Ahrariyya is really a very dominant and profound teaching.

The history of Naqshbandi as a Sufi order is identical in a sense with its silsila, with

the initiatic chain going back to the Prophet Mohammed (sal). It begins with the

sense of the origin of Islam itself. Clearly, neither the name Naqshbandi nor Sufism

is a separate kind of entity, but really almost [acts] as a verb, almost as a dynamic

verbal assertion. This is the dynamic mysticism in Islam. It is not a thing, but it is an

undercurrent. It is something that existed at the time of the Prophet (sal) without a

name in the first generation of Muslims, and it is the means by which we


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authenticate everything we do. We know the chain is not broken. Even if there is a

break in the years, which there is at the very beginning of the chain, the chain isn’t

broken, because the dynamic of Tasawwuf exists in the hearts of the believers. It is

because there is no break in the chain of Islam. It is as if Sufism is riding above the

wave and underneath the current, above the wave and underneath the current.

Mostly, you can see the wave and the current at the same time. The fact that you

don’t have documentation of every aspect of the silsila doesn’t mean much.

Sometimes the anti-Sufis use this as an excuse, or certain Orders. But for us, if you

sit in muraqabah and do the practices, if you read the Qur’an and have love and

respect in your heart; and if you allow the transition to happen in yourself, you pass

it on, generation to generation. Verbally or genetically, it is passed on.

I was telling this Christian translator today. As soon as I saw this man, I loved him—

a very special young man. Great translator, one of the best I’ve ever worked with.

He shadowed me. If I stood in front of the table; he moved to the front of the table.

If I raised my hands, he raised his hands. If I put my hands down, he put his hands

down. He shadowed everything I was doing. So when he was translating for me, he

was me translating. He did a really, really good job. He has started a nice NGO in

Indonesia, and he wants to work with us. Wonderful young man. I love him. You

see, these transmissions go from heart to heart. It doesn’t matter what religion, or

where you are from. This is the special knowledge we have of Sufis.

This initiatic chain is like that. We may not know every one of these people, or

exactly what they did. There are certain appellations that go with them when we

recite their names, especially in the Farsi recitation of the names. They tell us a little

about their character. That’s why, each one of us, when we become a shaykh in the

Order, we are asked ourselves to write about ourselves in either couplet or quatrain.

Mitra helped me write mine in Farsi many, many years ago. I had to write it out, get


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it approved by Hazrat, and then she had to put it in Farsi, and then he had to

approve the Farsi. Just like there is no rupture in history, there is no real break in

the initiatic line. Is there a time when history stopped, and then it started again?

There is no time. To understand Sufism from this point of view, I want you to begin

to internalize your Sufism even more. That’s why slowly, slowly, I’m trying to show

you how to do discordant dhikr—some of you remember from 25 years ago we did

it—and quiet dhikr. “I like quiet dhikr. I don’t like it loud.” Well, too bad for you.

There is a right time and a right place for everything. “Oh, goody, goody, goody,

we’re doing it quiet now. All those years of doing it loud, it drove me crazy.” Well,

they may have driven you crazy, but if you opened up your mind and heart to it, it

would have brought you to a point where you understand the next step. That’s why

in the history of the Naqshbandi Order, some of the shaykhs of the Khwajagan did it

aloud, and then their murīds did it quietly, and then they did it aloud, and then they

did it silently.

The other thing is nothing is more important than the nobility and dignity of the

Prophet (sal). In the Sufi circle, the Prophet (sal) is not just a man. It is understood

that all the light that illuminates your latā’if is the Nūr-i-Muhammad I have talked

about these past few weeks. Understand what the Nūr-i-Muhammad is. Once you

begin to understand what it is, you give up on this idea of a person almost totally.

You only identify the person as a way of recognizing the light. Now, that sounds a

little heretical, but how heretical can it be? Everybody lives; everybody dies. You

don’t forget your mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather when they pass. You

have a pleasant memory of them. Why? They made an impression on your heart and

mind. How, and with what? They etched it in with love, and care, and concern.

What is that? It is stronger than diamonds. You can etch material things with

diamonds, but only a heart can be etched with love. As Sufis, we should understand


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this. It’s not a kind of touchy-feeling, New Age, holistic life where everybody loves

everybody, and everything’s wonderful and terrific, where all the religions are the

same and all the people are the same. That’s so very superficial. It’s the LIGHT that

is the same. Respect the fact that someone sees the light as Jesus, and someone sees

it as the Buddha, fine. But when you get to the Prophet Mohammed (sal), if you are

really open-hearted and open-minded, you see how it’s all aggregated in him. All the

different roles I talked about 2 weeks ago. I gave you the proof of that, so I’m not

going to repeat it tonight.

You have Bahā’uddīn Naqshband (ra) from Central Asia. There are a couple of

important points that need to be made to clarify the understanding of the silsila.

First, the essentially initiatic nature of the whole Sufic tradition, and also of the

Naqshbandi Order, insofar as the purpose of a tariqah/path is defined in a way as

emerging. This path is necessary because each one of us has certain deficiencies and

certain limitations in our state of our being. Not in our being, but in the state of our

being. So it follows that the means to overcome that…. if you have limitations in

your own self, how are you going to change it in your own self? How are you going

to find the means within your own self to determine what those limitations are,

what those deficiencies are, to know how to fix them, and then develop the irada

and the intention to fix them? How would you do that? We say, picking yourself by

your own bootstraps. So you cannot invent something you don’t have a vision of.

How do you describe something you have never seen? How do you describe

something you have never accomplished?

So this is the basis of an initiatic chain, and it begins with admitting your own

helplessness, admitting that there are resources that you need to manage your own

self in a better way. This is basic environmental resource management. My

khutbah was very important the other day, if you didn’t hear it. It was on


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environment and the Prophet Mohammed (sal). All these resources, though the

essence of them are in each one of us, they lie outside of our self and they will only

enable us to understand our self when the external form of those resources come

into contact with the potential of the individual. It is by seeking ba’īat / initiation in

an Order and by affiliating oneself with a silsila that this essential, basic, necessary

confession, if you will, of helplessness is made. Some people say, “Oh. I am helpless.

I don’t know what to do. I am lost.” But very few people say “I’m helpless. I’m lost.

How am I going to find my way?” Obviously, none of us would be here without

teachers. None of us would be doctors or lawyers or professors or artists without

teachers, but it is much more than that.

By seeking initiation and having this ability to admit one’s helplessness, the ba’īat

gives the seeker a doorway/ bab. It opens up, accesses a means of receiving the

Divine Grace/Fadl/Nai’ma of Allah (swt) and the Tawfiq of Allah (swt), It is to be fed

by that, just like we ate dinner tonight, transmitted by a chain of hands—the

choppers, the carriers, the cookers, the bakers, the stirrers, the transporters. They

all made the food come to us, and then from our hands to our mouth. So, without

certain exceptional circumstances, there can be no effective entry into Tasawwuf.

Without guidance and without ba’īat, you are on the outside looking in. [You have]

the foam, but you don’t get the essence. Some people are happy with that. They

think that they can just get everything from the Shar’īah, but you can’t. If you could,

there wouldn’t be Shariah, Tariqah, Marifa, Haqiqah. It is a continuum. You don’t

leave the previous one, but you have to go one by one.

Another thing is that the means of standing under the tree of Rasulallah (sal), who is

not only the receiver of the revelation of Allah (swt), but he is also the voice, the

articulator, the expositor of that Divine Message. And for the Sufi, he is the first

chain in the initiatic link. He is the supreme guide. In the ultimate sense, it is


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incorrect, it is wrong to regard anyone other than the Prophet (sal) as the founder of

any Sufic Order. Others have tried to do that. But there is no such thing. Whoever

wishes to embark on this path, therefore, has to take permission. Permission comes

in many forms. You take the driver’s test, you have permission to drive. When you

are a child, you take permission from your parents to stay out overnight. Even when

you are an adult, you take permission from your parents for certain things: maybe to

move to another country, to come and visit at a certain time, to help them in their

life as they get older. Taking permission is no strange idea to human beings. The

better adab you have, the more you embrace this idea of taking permission.

So if you are going to come onto this path, you go to the shaykh and you say, “I would

like to give ba’īat to you.” “I would like to study with you,” even. Forget about

ba’īat. “By your leave, I would like to study with you.” You don’t know, at the time,

necessarily (unless you are a Muslim, or you are well-versed) that it is by the hand

of the Prophet over the hand. So whose leave are you taking? The Shaykh looks into

the heart and says, “By the leave of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal).”

By the way, today when I was speaking, there are times when I would say, because I

was listening to him, there were times when I would say “the Prophet Mohammed

(sal),” and he said, “Nebi Mohammed.” So it was very interesting that he said that.

He used that term of endearment and love also. It really is a love term as well as a

descriptive term.

So you take the leave of the Prophet (sal), and that leave finds its formal expression

in ba’īat. Through the pledging of the allegiance, if you will, to the teacher who once

offered the same pledge to his teacher, going back and back through the whole

silsila, the silsila then becomes a means of tracing one’s way back to the Prophet, of

gaining access in a very unique way to that time and that place, not just to the


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person, but to the time and the place of the revelation. That is one of the purposes of

a Sufi: to re-live the moments of revelations. Not to read about them in Qur’an. Not

to just understand the ‘āyāt of Qur’an. Not to just understand the history of the

Qur’an, but because if you take the ba’īat seriously, and you move back through that

line, then you are arriving at the time of the revelation. So when you are reading the

Qur’an, it is being revealed to you as if from the lips of the Prophet Mohammed (sal).

What does that mean? Well, it is a lot different from hearing something said as

hearsay and someone telling you something directly. Is this just a matter of faith

and belief? To some degree, but if you really sit and practice…

You know, sometimes when I speak, I don’t know where it comes from. I mean I

know where it comes from, and I know it is not coming from me. Even though I am

speaking from notes like this, I am only speaking a third of the notes, because

realization comes in the moment. Where is that coming from? From me? Well,

maybe I am using notes of somebody else. Fine. My heart and my mind are in

attunement with that shaykh, who is in attunement with his shaykh, who is in

attunement with the silsila all the way back to Prophet Mohammed (sal). You are

sitting with Shaykh Ahmed Abdur Rashid who is a really poor shaykh, but you are

also sitting with Rasūlu-Llāh (sal) in his light; because whatever the Truth is, that is

the light.

That is why, you understand, that Sufism was originally defined as that without a

name. It was kind of an undifferentiated reality. In that state, it only has the

impression of the Prophet Mohammed (sal). It has no name. It has only the

impression, the ring, the seal of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal). That is what you are hearing; that

is what you are receiving; that is what is impressed upon the heart of the believer.

But as you move away from that time and that place, it became more and more

necessary for that fayd, for that fadl, for that grace and spiritual energy and


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realization to come, to be differentiated into different forms. [It had to be]

formulated, in a way, in accordance with the needs of the different times, place and

people. So the silsila spread out.

As they spread out, they grew in complexity, because you had one shaykh and maybe

twenty or thirty khalifas. Each one has their own character and their own

personality. Each one has their own pre-disposition, their own strengths and their

own weaknesses – every one of them – so that you are getting all these different

faces. And whoever is not pointing you back to Rasūlu-Llāh (als), who is not getting

their strength directly from that, you are going to get some deviation. At the same

time, you are getting the impression of the different awliyā. You get the impression

of Rasūlu-Llāh (sal), but you also have the impression of all the awliyā. Hence you

have the impression of wahadat wujud of Ibn Araby, which has a profound influence

on people’s thinking; or the teaching of Imam Al-Ghazali, for example; or the

teachings of Ghaus Shaykh Abdul Qadr Jilani (ra); or the teachings of Abul Hasan

ash-Shadhili (ra), and Ibn Masheesh (ra), and Ibn Ata’la Iskandari (ra) and all these

people. They all have their own little impression impressed on them.

So now what you have, because they all love, and because they all embraced the

light, and they all took the ba’īat (in the real meaning of the ba’īat), you have all

these facets of this diamond. When you put that diamond back into your heart and

the light shines on it, you now have access to all this knowledge, external and

internal knowledge. What came from the Prophet (sal) automatically into the hearts

of people, as time goes on, needs to be explained, and becomes more complex. The

world changes. After the taba taba’ain, you don’t have that direct relationship as

much. Then you have the politicalization of it all.


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I was going to tell you the whole story of Mu’awiya, about the battle of the camel and

the water well. You should understand that story. It is a very, very important story

about Sidni Ali. I will tell you the story Sidni Ali and the camel/jamal sometime. But

it is really important story. Remind me to tell you.

Understand that the impressions of these different saints are named. We know their

names and we know their character. We know Gujduwani. We know Famadi. We

know Kashani. We know Khalal. We know Bayazid Bistami, Salman Farsi, Kharkani.

We know all these people. (May Allah bless all their names.) We know them. How

do we know them? Because their impressions are on these teachings. As you come

to realization of these teachings, their light is helping you. Their impression is

helping you, even if you may not know their name. I used to sit with Hazrat and he

would ask me, “Who do you see in the circle?” I would say, “Well, I see this man and

he is dressed like this or that.” I didn’t know whether I was making this up, or what

I was doing. I don’t know what I am doing, and I am thinking is it a figment of my

imagination? And he would say, “Ah, that is Shaykh Bayazid Bistami.”

We would go and sit at a tomb. Basically what is happening is Hazrat is saying, “Ya

Khwaja Gujduwani, I would like you to meet my murīd, Shaykh Ahmed Abdur

Rashid.” And then he says to me, “How did you like the meeting we were at today?

Who did you like especially?” And I would say, “I liked that man in the hat. I don’t

remember his name.” “Oh, you mean Shaykh Gujduwani.” That is the way it works,

because the right people appear at the right time, if you live the right life. When you

mess around with that, you get into trouble. When you stick your nose into a

business that it shouldn’t be in, you always get into trouble. Your nose gets cut off,

or you get your back up. You get upset about something that you don’t understand.


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Nobody knows my conversation that I had with you at dinner tonight, the little

conversation we had. Nobody knows what I said to you when I came into the door.

Nobody knows. You can’t tell. It is in the moment. It’s nobody’s business. You

might say, “Tell me a nice story” or “How was your day today?” Of course, you tell

those things, and half the time you forget because it is all in the moment. Well,

Tasawwuf is very much in the moment, very much in the moment. Who

understands who, really? No one knows what is in the core of your heart. You may

make a hundred mistakes, but your intentions are good. Allah tells you that He is

going to judge you by your intentions, not by what you accomplish. Why? Because

sometimes situations come about where you cannot accomplish what your intention

is. My intention is to fly to Mars. How am I going to fly to Mars? Why do you want

to fly to Mars? Well, because I want to spread the dīn in Mars. I want to make dawa

in Mars. That is a good intention, and I will get all the benefit of that. You

understand what I am saying?

So the first link in this golden chain of the Naqshbandiyya (and all of our chains,

Shadhiliyya, Qadriyya…), and in the Naqshbandi line there is Abu Bakr ni Sadiq.

This distinguishes the Naqshbandi line from all the other lines, because all the other

lines come directly through Sidna Ali. Certain scholars of silsila have concluded that

the Bakri descent was a deviation from the common Sufi practice, because the

people of Shi’a believe that it should have been Sidna Ali, and it was a mistake and

all of that stuff. Get away from all that political stuff. The reality is that the real

significance of the Bakri Isnad, lies in other considerations, other than the pseudo-

politica-personal ones. The Naqshbandi has always prided themselves that the path

is that of companionship, that it is about companionship and suhbat. The core of the

path is who are your friends, who are your companions on the path.


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Now that you have put that in mind, then it is very appropriate that it should be

descended from the one who, many traditions designated as the foremost of the

companions of the Prophet Mohammed (sal), related to him by marriage and his

nearest and dearest companion. This is where the tradition of companionship

begins in the first link of the chain. Of course, he is honored by indirect mention in

Qur’an. In addition to this, the Bakruddīn line has also given a certain distinct

method of dhikr, which most people do not know about, and it sets it apart because

it was said that the Prophet Mohammed (sal) instructed Abu Bakr in what is known

as dhikr khafī. It is also known as dhikr qalbi as opposed to dhikr jahri or dhikr lisan,

dhikr of the tongue.

The transmission of this dhikr, as you know, took place during the Hijra when the

Prophet and Abu Bakr (ra) were together in a cave. Abu Bakr (ra) faced the Prophet

(peace be upon him), and it is said that “with his breast turned towards him, sitting

on his heels, with his hands placed on his knees, with his eyes closed, the Prophet

(sal) silently enunciated a form of the dhikr, “illa-Llāhi, illa-Llāhi, lā ilāha illa-Llāh,”

three times, and Abu Bakr repeated it after him, silently. It was accompanied by the

statement “la hadhatu sampt dhikru-Llāh,” the ‘be silent’ dhikr. That dhikr signified

the beginning of our silsila. It was ultimately acquired the name Naqshbandi and

was the archetype of all the silsila to follow.

We are not going to talk about each person in the link of the chain, but every one of

those shaykhs was a link in the chain and added something, brought back something,

elucidated something, clarified something, transmitted something in a slightly

different way – every one of them, including me – and it is done by the authority of

Rasūlu-Llāh (sal). When I first had you recite the Qur’an all at one time, many,

many years ago, aloud, intellectually I did not know that this was a practice done. I

did not know it, because I was not raised in it. Khaled may have known it because


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he was raised in a Muslim environment. He may have known it or may not have

known it. But I did not know it. So where did it come from? And where did the

explanation come from which is exactly, the exact right explanation for it? Where

did it come from? My imagination? I read it in a book? I did not read that in a book.

You have to understand that if you do these practices, your intuition will develop.

You will receive things, and though it seems to be coming from yourself, you will

know it is not coming from yourself. That is when you should make two rak’as, or

mentally make two rak’as, or say thank you, or do whatever you want to do. And for

that to happen, you have to have ba’īat. You have to have initiation. It is essential

for the transmission of dhikr. It is essential for the understanding for that intuition

to come about. But we have to understand, even though we cannot talk about all

these people, you go from Abu Bakr ni Sadiq to Salman Farsi, to Kasim ibn

Mohammed, to Imam Jafar Sadiq, who is the sixth imam of the Shi’a also, and the

grandson of Prophet Mohammed (sal). We know the names, and all it takes is a little

Google and you will know about the person, too. Google is provided by Allah for that

purpose.

Once you start this process of understanding, you know it can’t be a fabrication. It’s

just impossible that anybody could think this up, make it into a fabrication, some

false history. It’s impossible. They did too many things, and it was too verified. You

can’t exclude from the silsila the elements that are capable of interpretation.

Because you don’t like the Shi’a, you can’t say, “Imam Jafar as Sadiq, oooh, he’s not

allowed to come in here.” “Salman Farsi (ra). He’s a Persian, not an Arab!” These

thoughts never occur, only if you are on the outside looking in. If you have these

thoughts, know you are on the outside looking in. From the inside, it doesn’t matter

who they are. It matters WHO they are. You know what I mean?


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It gets a little complicated, because the linkage between Imam Jafar Sadiq and Imam

Ali now brings the Alawi line into existence. It’s not long until this whole thing gets

reconnected again. This is referred to as the “silsila adh-dhahab,” the Golden Chain.

The links are drawn together by physical, as well as spiritual, descent from the

Prophet Mohammed (sal) – the bloodline, right down to my mother-in-law who is a

Sayyida.

Everything is balanced, so Prophet Mohammed (sal) gives dhikr khafī to Abu Bakr

(ra). It is believed he has transmitted the method of dhikr lisani to Imam Ali. Even

though the silent dhikr is sort of the central, most distinct part of the Naqshbandi

dhikr (dhikr lisani or jahri) you often find, too, among the Orders, like in our Order,

because it was deliberately cultivated by the Alawi Order and ancestry. The history

of that is a little more difficult, but it’s interesting about how this transpired. Again,

the dhikr khafī is given to Abu Bakr (ra), and the dhikr jahri or lisani is given to Imam

Ali (ra). All the bases are covered. I don’t know about you; I find that very

interesting. Then when you get into the different Orders… ah, that’s where I have to

end. So then, why are we five tariqah? We are very unusual, because we see where

they are all connected.

When you get into these tariqah, you see where the Chishtiyya come, and the

Qadriyya come, and the Shadhili come, and you see how they blend together in the

practices of awakening the latā’if. And of all of those Orders and of all the branches

of those Orders, whether Darqawi, Bushani, Qadriyya, the Chishti Nizami, the Chishti

Sabri, we are the only ones who focus the same transmissions on all the Orders to

awaken the latā’if. Then you move into each appropriate Order for you, or you have

the blessings of all the Orders by just doing one of the Orders. If you do one Order,

you have all the blessings of all the Orders. That’s why it’s important you get

through one Order. The question you will all ask me is why did we start with the


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Mujaddidi Order? I can tell you the easy answer. The easy answer is because that’s

what I was told to do, but the real answer is something different than that. Any

questions?

Question (Khaled): Where do the Rufaiyya fit in?

Shaykh: They come from Ahmed Rufai. If my memory is correct, there was a

Naqshbandi link to it way back. I think they came through the Caucasus and into

Turkey, and in Turkey they may be the Halaveti. But I’ll check it for you and find the

answer to it. There are certainly a lot in the Caucauses and Transoxiana, and

Tatarstan. There are a lot of Rufai there. There are some in Egypt….

Question (Abdun Nasr): I have a question about the Naqshbandi Order. Why does

the Naqshbandi Order go through Abu Bakr?

Shaykh: I just explained it at the beginning of my talk. It was based on

companionship. The root of the Naqshbandi Order was always based in

companionship. It derives from Abu Bakr’s relationship with the Prophet

Mohammed (sal). He was the dearest friend of the Prophet (sal). That’s where the

whole importance of keeping good company in suhbat and the love between friends

comes. There was no Sufism at this time, no Orders. There are no names to any

Order. That didn’t happen for hundreds of years later, but they had characteristics.

The people in the line of Abu Bakr ni Sadiq were noted for their relationships and

friendships, munasabat, nisbat.

Abdun Nasr: That would be differentiated from the people in the line of Imam Ali?


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Shaykh: Imam Ali’s line was slightly different, yes. But I showed you: they come

together in Imam Jafar Sadiq (ra). Suhbat is important in every order, but it’s very,

very important in Naqshbandi and Ahrariyya Orders (‘Ubaydullāh Ahrār (ra)), and

in the Shadhili Order. Not that it’s not important to others, but especially important.

These are the two lines that also deal mostly with the latā’if.

Question (Abul Hasan): What Order is Ibn Arabi in?

Shaykh: Well, no Order.

AH: So he’s not in our silsila?

Shaykh: Ibn Arabi was an ‘alim, a scholar. Everybody lays claim to him in some

way. The Qadriyya lay claim to him. The Shadhili lay claim to him, because many of

the Shadhili saints came from Andalus, Spain. They are called Akbaris by some, but

it’s hard to say. These people were in Spain at this time, and they were not broken

into Orders. They were deeply mystical people, interfacing with the Jewish mystics.

They were philosophers, but not just dry philosophers. They were mystics and

philosophers. They are the ones who came up with many of the methodologies in

meditation and things like that, but no identification with any Order. He was in the

order of the Prophet Mohammed (sal).

You know from his life, he was very affected by Christians and other ways of

thought. I quoted something to you a few weeks ago, do you remember? He said

that the teachings of Jesus brought him to understand Islam. They were very well-

read. This was the golden age. There were no identifiers like that, but you can’t

replicate it just because it sounds good. It is like Moses Maimonides. His grandson

became Muslim. Why? Because he came into contact with people of the stature of


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Ibn Araby and the great scholars of Islam. He wrote in Hebrew and in Arabic. He

wrote Sufic texts in Hebrew. Then as you move away, it becomes more and more

complex, because what are you talking about? Tariq the Great came to Spain in

1000 in the Christian era, approximately 400 after the Hjira, which was not very

many years from the Prophet (sal). This was around the time when Orders were

starting to become defined. Then they are there for 500 years, but the last hundred

years they were getting kicked out.

All this is taking place in this period of time between the 11th century and the 15th

century. Very compressed things are happening, and Islam is spreading throughout

the world again, in a different way now. It’s spreading by mystics, not by the wars,

not by the people who are just still remembering the Prophet (sal) personally, or

relatives of the Prophet (sal). It’s spreading out through the mystics. It takes on the

characteristics of the people who spread it. Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili never wanted

the Order named after him. It was after him, that they named it after him. There

was no Ghujduwani or Kushani Order; it became that after them. It is the same thing

with the Naqshbandi Order. It is an interesting period in history. Asalaamu aleykum.

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