۞ وَمَآ أُبَرِّئُ نَفْسِىٓ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلنَّفْسَ لَأَمَّارَةٌۢ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ إِلَّا مَا رَحِمَ رَبِّىٓ ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّى غَفُورٌۭ رَّحِيمٌۭ
Surah Yusuf : 53
“And I do not seek to free myself from blame, for indeed the soul is ever inclined to evil, except those shown mercy by my Lord. Surely my Lord is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
Indeed, the ego commands evil, except for whom my Lord has mercy. Without a doubt, the ego prompts humans towards falsehood, deception, envy, fraud, murder, and plunder, and those who heed its call fail and are disappointed in the sight of Allah. In contrast, fortunate is the individual who does not obey it but subdues the ego, remains pure from all moral impurities, and lives according to the divine commandments, thereby achieving success and victory. Allah Almight Says in the Quran:
قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّىٰهَا ٩
وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّىٰهَا ١٠
Surah Shams: 9-10
“Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul, and doomed is the one who corrupts it!”
Human Faults
Human faults are of three kinds:
- Bad beliefs
- Bad deeds,
- Negligence.
Upon these rests the success or failure of a person. Through Tasawwuf (Sufism) and spiritual progress, a seeker (salik/mureed) can stay safeguarded from these faults. The great Sheikh of the Naqshbandi order, Hazrat Khwaja Baqi Billah, may his secret be sanctified, states that our Naqshbandi way revolves around three things:
- firmness in the beliefs of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah,
- continual presence (with Allah), and
- worship
Anyone who falls short in any of these three has exited from our esteemed path. We seek refuge with Allah from being disgraced after being honored and from being rejected after being accepted.
Hazrat Imam Rabbani, may his secret be sanctified, states:
The purpose of following the path of Sufism is to gain certainty in the beliefs as per Shariah, which is the reality of faith, and also to ease the practice of Shariah’s rulings, not anything beyond that.
On this subject, Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi writes: To these venerable figures, the essence of Sufism was merely to strive utmost in following the Quran and Sunnah, to consider the way of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and his companions as the guiding light, to comply with the commands and prohibitions, to regard acts of worship as the purpose of life, to detach the heart from love and attachment to other than Allah, to overcome the self with the fear of Allah, and not to spare any effort in purifying transactions and inner self.
The renowned scholar and Sufi of the Indian subcontinent, Hazrat Al-Haj Fakirullah Alawi Hanafi, may Allah have mercy on him, whose internationally acclaimed book “Qutb al-Irshad” was considered by the complete guide, Hazrat Sohna Sain, may Allah sanctify his secret, as equivalent to Imam Ghazali’s famous work “Ihya Ulum al-Din,” states on page 532 of the mentioned book:
Indeed, scholars, theologians, jurists, hadith scholars, juristic scholars, and Sufis, whether adherents of Unity of Existence or Unity of Witness, have unanimously agreed that the path of the Sufis is the most correct path to Allah, revolving around the Quran and Sunnah, free from innovation and misguidance.
On the same page, supporting his claim, Hazrat Al-Haj Fakirullah Alawi Hanafi, may Allah have mercy on him, quotes from Imam Ghazali’s famous book “Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal” his autobiography in his own words:
Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal
I knew for certain that the Sufis are those who are on the path of Allah especially, and their way of life is the best of ways, their path the most correct of paths, and their manners the purest of manners. Their movements and stillness, both outwardly and inwardly, are derived from the light of prophecy, and there is no light on the face of the earth that can be sought after prophecy.
As Hazrat Alawi, may Allah have mercy on him, wrote, Sufism and the spiritual path are means to attain closeness to Allah; there is no other ultimate destination. The final destination for the seeker is the knowledge of and closeness to the Divine, for which the Sufis have utilized various means and methods throughout different eras. For brevity, we will only outline those principles and rules customary and practiced in our sheikhs of the esteemed Naqshbandi order.