You must take care that everything you are doing will please your Lord.  That is the never changing rule of all religions and particularly of Islam; and it is the highest form of belief and of good manners (adab).  The acts of your physical body are visible, but your intention is to make Allah Almighty pleased with you.

            Don’t worry about how to make people pleased with you. No! People’s pleasure in you is never going to be of any importance.  [Politicians] say, “Oh Sheikh, they may vote for us, we may get elected.”  What are they giving you?  One day the populace carries you aloft, the next they trample you down.  That is the fate of those who seek to please the populace.  The populace is fickle – taking you up, then tiring of you, putting you down and stepping on you, and taking up another one. 

The biggest no-mind person is the one who tries to please the mass of the people, because they are like a person pleased with new clothes but throwing them in the dustbin as soon as they get old.  The wisest ones are those who ask to make their Lord pleased with them.  That is the balance you must seek.

It is also foolish to ask [for other than your destiny].[1] Once upon a time a Sheikh put his murid into seclusion but ordered him to tell the Sheikh whatever ‘opening’ came to him. One day the murid was looking and Allah Almighty opened to him Lauh alMahfudh, the Preserved Tablet,[2] and he saw written there that his Sheikh was destined for hell.   This made him very sad, and he prayed, asking Allah Almighty to change this.  And Allah Almighty accepted his prayer and the Sheikh’s name was moved from the list of those destined for hell to the list of those who would enter paradise.

In the morning the murid came to his Sheikh who asked him “What opening came to you last night?” The murid replied “Oh my Sheikh, I saw the Preserved Tablet, and on it I saw that your name was written among those who were destined for hell.  I was so distressed that I made sajida (prostration) and asked Allah Almighty to change your name from hell’s people to those of paradise; and it happened.”

Now the Sheikh was very angry, and said “It was not your place to do that!  For 35 years I have been looking and seeing that my name is on the tablet of hell’s people, but never have I asked my Lord to change it from there to among those of paradise.  I am the servant and He is my Lord.  He alone has the right to do anything with His servants.  I haven’t any right to choose for myself.  I belong to my Lord. It is not my choice what happens to me.  It is His choice.  His choice is the best for me, and I am happy with it. Go quickly and pray again as you did before, and make my name come back to its original place - other wise I am throwing you off the tariqat.”

The murid ran and made sajida asking “Oh my Lord, oh my Lord – astagfirullah. Tauba Ya Rabbi, Tauba Ya Rabbi  (forgive me oh Lord)– I have involved myself in something I should have left alone.  It was not for me to do that.  I interfered in something that belongs to my Lord, to my Sultan.  Tauba Ya Rabbi, Tauba Ya Rabbi, Tauba Ya Rabbi.  Your will is best.”

And the name was restored to its former place.

Allah Almighty – His choice is best.  This is the training for every Sheikh and for every murid.  A person may be a sheikh, a saint a companion of the Prophet or even a Prophet, but it is not for them to put their will in front of the Will of Allah Almighty.  They should be ashamed to do so. If something is Allah’s Will why are you putting forward your will.  The worst sort of bad manners.

For 35 years Allah Almighty was testing that Sheikh, and the Sheikh was showing the best adab, never coming and saying “Please change my name from hell’s people to paradise people.”  Allah was looking at him, trying him testing him; and when He found him to be OK, then there was no need for such a one to be in hell.

And then there came from the heaven an opening from Allah Almighty’s Divine Addressing – and it changed the Sheikh’s name from the list of hell’s people to that of the paradise people, because of the high adab of the Sheikh.

            Allah’s Divine Wisdom is in everything.  It is a teaching for murids and for everyone.  Everyone wants to be in paradise, but if his name is written for hell he must say, “That is what I deserve. I would like paradise, but I know that I am unsuitable for paradise.  I am so dirty with sin, with disobedience, with lack of respect to my Lord, that I don’t see myself as worthy of paradise. I always thought myself to be destined for hell, but if Allah Almighty takes me out from hell’s people and puts me in His paradise, that is His grant from His endless favours, from His endless blessings.”

That is how we all should be;  but always our egos are asking something from Allah Almighty as a sort of payment for what we are doing. Someone makes a sajida, and then says, “Pay me!” He gives zakat, (annual charity) and says “Reward me;” he recites the Holy Quran and says to [Allah] “Pay me;” fasts and expects ‘payment’ –“All day I was not eating or drinking – pay me, pay me.”  Such ones are going to be like the stamp on Customs declarations, ‘Duty Paid’.  They will come on Judgment day and Allah will say, “It is stamped, ‘Duty paid.’  You have been paid.  What more do you want?” 

May we be forgiven.

Leave it that He decides. You may ask only for forgiveness - nothing else.  Say “Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, I beg Your forgiveness.  I am unworthy to be Your servant. Oh my Lord forgive me, forgive us.”

This is the teaching of the most Distinguished Naqshbandi Order, - unchangeable laws.  From the first man up to the last you can’t find any adab better than this.   This is the spring perfume of adab, - the perfume of servanthood.

Talk given 24.11.99