Dr. Nour Ali Tabandeh (majzoobalishah)
In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
In the holy Quran, God says:“Tell them: “I f you love Allah, then follow me, Allah will love you and forgive your faults. Allah is forgiving and merciful.”2
The Prophet had two sides:
the sharia; announcing the rules in the Quranic verses revealed to him,
and
the tariqa; which means leading those who obeyed sharia rules to walking on the path of God if they deserved,
these two sides gathered together in the Prophet’s being. But after the Prophet, the 12 Imams were not sharia legislators, in other words, they did not legislate sharia, but they expressed their opinion based on the existing laws, like when you have a sharia question how to say prayers; what to do if we get distracted and confused during the prayers, how to fast, what things break the fast, and so on. You can ask a jurisprudent or a sharia teacher these questions, they may give you an answer you do not like very much but you carry it out. For instance, you ask a sharia teacher that how many of forty gold coins you should give away for zakat (the Islamic donation), he may take one and say: “pay only this much for zakat”, but when you ask a mystic like Shibli3 what to do with these forty gold coins, he would want you to donateall of them and say: “Besides, bring one more gold coin, that one for zakat and the rest of them to punish you so as why you have not donated them so far.” This is the difference between a shariateacher’s and a mystic’s order.
Now, the Prophet has to act like these two simultaneously and it is the most difficult task. The Quran addresses the Prophet: “You are only a warner; be aware that there is a guide for every generation”4, awarner means someone who warns against punishment, misdeed and committing sins; saying, you just announce the laws and surely every generation will have its own guide. No doubt that the Prophet was also the guide for that nation, but here, God insists on telling the commandments only. The guides will excavate the guidance from the innermost parts of these commandments and move on toward the faith. In the above-mentioned verse: “Tell them if you love Allah …” both sharia and tariqa commandments have come together. The first phrase reads: “If you love Allah”and if you ask any jurisprudent what it means to love God, they will go: God cannot be loved, He must be worshipped. He who is a tariqa practitioner realizes“If you love Allah”. He understands what it means. After this phrase, God wants the Prophet to say: “then follow me”, as such Quranic verses address the whole mankind and generally there are people among non-Muslims who love God, especially in Christianity in which Jesus (AS) paid a lot of attention to love and said all the time: “My religion is the religion of love”. Therefore Jesus said to his people: if you love Godthen follow me and put into practice whatever I say. Here, both sharia and tariqa are there. The above verse continues:“Allah will love you”; i f you follow me, then Allah will love you.
This is a higher level; it is the greatest award for a lover to be loved by his beloved in return.The prophet elaborates mystical attitudes via Qudsi (holy) hadiths or some of his words. Take this Qudsi hadith for example which reads: When God loves a man, He will be their ears so that they hear through Him, He will be their eyes so that they see through Him and He will be their tongue so that they speak through Him.5 It means God owns their whole being by one hundred percent. At the beginning of the practice, “If you love Allah”seems logical since the practitioner has free will. This attitude does not mean they are not practicing; on the contrary, they are on the way and have reached this stage. Just like the story of Moses and Khidr when Moses made the first complaint. He was only paying attention to the regular laws and comparinghis action with that of Khidr’s and that, in case the boat had been scuttled, they would have been sunk. That was why Khidr said to him “I did it”6. In the second stage, Moses was payingattention to God and also himself, therefore Khidr said to him (suitable to Moses’s mood): “Wedid it”7. But in the third stage, “Allah will love you” takes place. God is behind whatever that takes place in this stage. So, Khidr said: “YourGod did it”8.Here, the God’s lover will be in comfort and peace.
They subconsciously fulfill whatever God the beloved desires; they do as they are expected to by God; Allah will love you and forgive your faults. Allah is forgiving and merciful.”Since Allah does not love people with blemishes on their souls, if anybody happens to reach this level to be loved by God, what He does is to remove those blemishes. It is said that an old woman said to the Prophet: “I hear you have said there are no old men or women in heaven”. “That is the truth” he said. The old woman cried: “There is no place for me then”. He replied: “If you deserve it, you will become young again and then enter into heaven”. God will remove all the blemishes; “and forgive your faults”, and this forgiving (ghofran) means ignoring the sins based on compassion, unlike the rejecting or denial (kofran) which is based on hostility. “He will forgive your faults. Allah is forgiving and merciful.” He is bothforgiving and merciful.
On the one hand, He has mercy on you so that you would not feel ashamed if you entered somewhere and saw that nobody other than you had any stains, He would mercifully forgive you and remove your stains. The same meaning lies also in a different verse: “And we will remove whatever of ill-feeling is in their hearts”9. It means all the filthiness and uncleanness will be removed from their hearts. Those believers who successfully pass the judgment and are supposed to enter into the heavens will be purified. It is said that there are many gates for heaven; in essence, there is no door such as usual doors in our home, and these are just figurative expressions to realize the idea. Of the doors of heaven are repentance, love, kindness, contribution, sacrifice and so on. These are the gates of heaven.
We will be washed and cleansed at the gates, so to speak. There is no room for dirt or filth in heavens. Any kind of uncleanness will be washed away and then everyone will get along well as if they are blood brothers and sisters. Since God is merciful, He will purify those who have passed these stages. There is no doubt that those who pass have been among the loved ones, as He says: “If you love Allah”, “then follow me”, follow God then “He will love you”. He has annunciated everyone that if they follow the Prophet He has sent, He will love them. When it comes to this stage, God will never leave any stain remaining; He will remove them out of mercy and pardon. This is an abstract of the stages of walking towards God from the beginning until the end; Fana-e-fe-Allah(Extinction of the self in God). How much we succeed depends on God as He has said:
“there is no power and will but God Almighty”10, whatever we do, no matter good or evil, is determined by the will of God Almighty”.
1- A transcript of two speeches made by his honorable Haj Dr. Nour Ali Tabandeh in the public Sufi gatherings made on Dec 30, 2001 and Jan 20, 2002 in order to reply to some questions.
2- The Quran, Al-e-Imran (The family of Imran)
3- Shaykh Abu Bakr Shibli (861 – 946) was an important Sufi of Persian descent, and a disciple of Junayd Baghdadi.
4- The Quran, Al-Rad (The Thunder),
5- لا یزال الغبد یتقرب الی بالنوافل حتی احبه فاذا احببته کنت سمعه الذی یسمع به و بصره الذی یبصر به و لسانه الذی ینطق به
6-The Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 79: “But the boat, it belonged to some poor men who worked onthe sea and I thought that I should damage it, and there was a king who seized every boat by force.
7- The Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 81: “We did it so that their Lord might give them a better son instead of him in purity and nearer to having compassion”
8- The Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 82: “So your Lord desired that they should attain their maturity and take out their treasure, a mercy from your Lord, and I did not do it of my own accord.
9- The Quran, Al-Araf (The Heights(
لا حول و لا قوه الا بالله العلی العظیم -10