Topic: Islamic Stories

It was about seven years ago that I visited South Africa I went to Cape Town and found that many Malaysians lived there. Of the total number of Muslims there, Malaysians formed an eighty percent majority. I was anxious to know how they reached South Africa and was told of an interesting historical fact which, indeed, is worth learning from. These people were of the stock of those Malaysians who had fought the British Colonisers unsuccessfully and had failed to drive them out of their country because of inadequate weapons of war. The Britishers took them as captives and put them in fetters and brought them to Cape Town as slaves. These white people talk of democracy to day but they had subjugated, innumerable people and chained them at their feet. They disallowed them to offer prayers in accordance with their religion not even in their homes. They whipped anyone found offering prayers.

These people were made to labour hard and oppressed cruely. When their masters prepared to sleep in the night, they unchained these Malaysians so that they could go to their barracks and sleep. But they would sneak out one by one to the nearby mountains and offer they day's prayers all together in congregational form.

A man of Allah should never buckle under the unjust and oppressive pressure which his wife or even mother may apply in a bid to gain fulfillment of their haraam desires. Hadhrat Sa'd (radhiyallahu anhu) who was a senior Sahaabi was most obedient and kind to his mother. He was always engaged in serving his mother. When he embraced Islam, his mother became extremely annoyed with him. She threatened to commit suicide by starvation if he does not abandon Islam. She told him that if she had to die in this manner, all people would regard him as being her murderer.

When Hadhrat Sa'd (radhiyallahu anhu) refused to heed her command, she commenced her hunger strike. On the second day of her hunger strike, Hadhrat Sa'd (radhiyallahu anhu) said to his mother:

Raulullah (saws) has said, "A person is on the creed of his friend. Therefore a person should see who he is affiliated with". (Abu Dawud) In other words, if his friend is pious, he will also be pious, if he is pious, he is sure to be the same. Hence, the irreligiousness of his friend is a cause for his irreligiousness and the piety of his friend is a cause for his piety.This is the gist of this hadith. A person should ponder over his friendship and contemplate that the person whom I have selected as a friend, in terms of religiousness and piety, is he worth befriending or not? Think about the importance people attach to this topic, Nothing whatsoever! Let alone the worldly minded, even those that are referred to as religious are unmindful of this religious injunction. The "religions minded" who. other than Salah, Zakat, Hajj etc., are extremely keen on performing other optional devotions such as recitation of the Qur'an, nafl salah and so forth and they are considered to be great saints but none of them except a few arc really concerned about the company they keep.

Tasawwuf, tariqat, sulook, Ihsan are different names conveying the same sense. The basic aim of tasawwuf is not simply zikr (remembrance or mention of Allah) so that some people are under the impression that zikr is the sole aim of tasawwuf. They imagine that when they offer a bay'ah (allegiance) to a Shaykh, he will teach them the waza'if ( a rota of religious exercises inclusive of supplication, zikr, etc). There are some people who take tasawwuf to embrace certain practices and spiritual healing which they expect a Shaykh would prescribe for them together with amulets. We must understand it well that tasawwuf has nothing to do with these things. We must also know that even zikr is not the real objective of tasawwuf though it is a means to the real objective. There are some people, again, who suppose that tasawwuf calls upon them to seclude themselves in meditation, to shut themselves up for forty days or to engage in extraordinary effort. All these things are not the real objective of tasawwuf but different means and paths to it.

Who is the person speaking, and what should he be like? Also, what should be the condition of those who are listening? To listen to all and sundry [i.e. every Tom, Dick an Harry], and for such persons to deliver lectures, is contrary to the rules and principles in the Qur’an shareef. The principle in the Qur'an shareef is as follows: That person who has in him two qualities, can be listened to without putting forward any "whys?" and "wherefors?", any "ifs" and "buts". Proof of this is in the Qur'an shareef. In Surah Yaseen, in the second ruku’ Allah Ta'ala has related a qissah/story, which, briefly, is as follows: Zate Bari Ta'ala sent two Rasuls to Antioch for the hidayet (guidance) of the people. As on previous occasions in the past, the habit of the people was to oppose any Rasul sent to them, and to harass such a Rasul, to such an extent that a Rasul would be killed as well. The people were not prepared to listen to the haq (truth). When batil (falsehood) becomes so forcefully ingrained, then the ears and the heart cease to place any importance to the words of Haq Ta'ala..