Advice of Seyyidina Sheikh Ahmed Tijani (may ALLAH sanctify his precious secret)
In the Name of Allah, may He be praised, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. May the peace of Allah be upon you, as well as His mercy and blessing.
I recommend to you and to myself to preserve the commandments of the following prophetic saying:
“There are three causes of salvation and three causes of perdition:
– As for the causes of salvation, they are the fear of Allah (taqwa Allah) in secret and in public, truthful speech in satisfaction as well as in anger, and moderation in wealth as well as in poverty.
– As for the causes of perdition, they are: surrendering to miserliness, a passion followed, and excessive love of oneself.”
And his saying (may prayer and peace of Allah be upon him) that “There is no deity worshipped below the heavenly vault besides Allah greater than a passion pursued.”
And his saying (prayer and peace of Allah be upon him): “It is part of a person’s beautiful Islam to forsake that which does not concern him”.
And his saying (prayer and peace of Allah be upon him) which says: “Do not wish confrontation with the enemy and ask Allah for salvation and if you fall in the face of the enemy, then be patient.”
Although this refers to the struggle on the path of God to fight the disbelievers, in our time it refers to the need to be indulgent in the face of the evils coming from people. Anyone whose heart desires to cause harm to others, Allah will turn those people against him, so that he will not be able to do anything against them.
The servant must ask Allah to safeguard his own person so as not to provoke the evils of people and discord. If their evils reach him without any prior cause on his part, the ideal of what the Law implies is to render good in exchange for evil. If he is unable to do this, let him show leniency, for forgiveness extinguishes the fires of discord. He must then be patient in the face of the unfolding of destiny and must not respond to their wrongs. If the fires of their evils are fanned, let them defend themselves in the most beautiful way, with gentleness and kindness. If this is still unsuccessful, he should, if possible, flee and leave the place where he is. If it is difficult for him to leave or he does not find the strength to do so, let him defend himself as little as possible against the damage he might suffer.
Let him do this in appearance, while at the same time multiplying his supplications to Allah, secretly and with endurance asking Him to remove the evils that befall him, until Allah brings him relief. All these steps are recommended by the Law.
Beware, and beware again, of those who suffer evil retaliating with evil, because of their impulsive temperament, the darkness of their ignorance and their self-love. Anyone who acts in this way, even if he is treated unjustly, will find himself flooded by the evil ocean of creatures and will thus have deserved perdition in this world and the Hereafter. This is his punishment, for he has turned away from Allah from the beginning.
Indeed, if he had taken refuge with Him, invoking Him with humility while presenting his complaints, acknowledging his own powerlessness and weakness, Allah would have removed the harm suffered, without cause, or with a cause without annoyance. Or He would have distracted His creatures with preoccupations, rendering them powerless. Or He would have sent down to this servant His complete gentleness or beautiful patience, thus enabling him to face his torments with the qualities mentioned, until Allah granted him relief. In this way, he would have been rewarded in this world and in the Hereafter.
The reward of the one who acts in accordance with this will be, first in this world, the best of ends and the manifestation of his victory over creatures, in accordance with his station. His reward in the Hereafter will be the acquisition of that which exceeds his hope, in accordance with Allah’s promise to the patient.
Allah – may He be glorified and exalted – says:
“And the most beautiful promise of Your Lord concerning the Children of Israel is fulfilled as the price of their endurance.” (Sura 7 Al Araf, verse 137)
“O believers! Seek help in endurance and prayer, for Allah is with those who endure.” (Sura 2 The Cow, verse 153)
“And if you punish, inflict a punishment equal to the wrong done to you. And if you endure, it is far better for the patient.” (Sura 16 The Bees, verse 126)
“Whoever fears and is patient, most certainly Allah does not cause the reward of the doers of good to be lost.” (Sura 12 Joseph, verse 90)
As well as other verses.
And because people pay little heed to what we have just mentioned, you will see them in perpetual suffering, each suffering the evils of the other. Thus, they suffer great loss in this world and in the Hereafter, except for those who benefit from divine preservation. The common people, given their distance from Allah and His prescriptions, only see in the manifestation of evils the image of the one who causes them. So he rises up to face the damage he suffers himself, through his own power and cunning, in the terrible grip of his ego. As a result, he never ceases to suffer harm and is forever a prisoner of punishment.
Certainly, the intelligent and reasonable person, when he suffers some evil from people, sees in it only a divine theophany which no one can face, except with divine support. His actions and reason lead him to flee to Allah and seek refuge with Him, while persisting in invocation and recognising his own powerlessness and weakness. With the help of divine protection, he makes himself immune to face the creatures. Undoubtedly, Allah will remove evil from him without any great difficulty. And even if the fires of evil flare up around him, they cannot harm him because he has taken refuge with Allah. Whoever clings to Allah, no one can dominate him.
Allah – may He be glorified and exalted – says: “… And whoever fears Allah, Allah provides him with a favourable outcome [2], and He grants him His gifts by means he does not expect. And whoever puts his trust in Allah, Allah is sufficient for him. [3]” (Sura 65 Divorce, verses 2 and 3).
In this day and age, everyone needs what we have just mentioned. Whoever strives to follow this path will have success in this world and in the Hereafter. As for those who deviate from it, Allah will leave them on their own. He will face the evils of the people by his own strength and his own cunning and is therefore a complete loser in both the short and the long term. All that we have covered on this subject is sufficient.
Next, focus on thanking Allah for His blessings, whether there is a cause or not, and thanksgiving is through obedience to Allah if it is possible to do it in its entirety, otherwise what is tainted is better than what is completely black. The lowest degree of thanksgiving is that addressed by the tongue, and there is no greater laziness than not being able to perform it by this means. Moreover, it must be done by means of the most complete formulas of thanks.
The highest degree of thanksgiving through the tongue is the recitation of the Fatiha to thank Allah for His gifts. When reading it, the intention must be to thank Allah for all the blessings which, in His Knowledge, He has bestowed upon us, whether apparent or hidden, palpable or abstract, known by the servant or unknown to him, immediate or future, old or recent, lasting or fleeting. With this intention, he recites the Fatiha one to a hundred times, according to his ability. Whoever does this, Allah registers him among the grateful and his reward will be the increase, proportional to his station, of the divine benefits towards him. This is in accordance with His truthful promise.
There are many integral formulas for thanksgiving, which we will not dwell on. Among them is the prophetic saying: “I cannot pay homage to You. Only You are capable of praising Yourself.
And this invocation: “O my God! Praise and thanks be to You, as far as the whole of Your knowledge can encompass Your Attributes and Your Names and Your praises with which You have praised Yourself by Your own word, and with which each of Your creatures has praised You, with all the expressions of praise with which You have mentioned Yourself and with which all of Your creatures have mentioned You and on the scale of what Your knowledge encompasses and for all the benefits to me that Your knowledge encompasses”.
This is a praise that includes all forms of thanks and extends to all benefits.
I warn anyone to whom Allah bestows a blessing from using it in what He does not approve of, such as buying wine and succumbing to fornication, using it for usury or to seize power and might in order to harm Muslims, shedding their blood, confiscating their property, and harming their honour or even causing them the slightest harm.
Whoever acts in this way with His blessings, he deserves that Allah deprive him of them and then risks His wrath and His abomination. If he does these things, or some of them, with what Allah has bestowed on him as blessings, without Allah stripping him of them, then let him know that he is among those on whom will fall the wrath of Allah and His displeasure in this world and in the Hereafter. As for the blessed, if he falls into this, he then fears the imminence of the punishment and his heart is put on guard with regard to Allah; he realises that the deprivation of Allah is a punishment for his actions…
Text translated from Jawahirul Maani
Zawiya Tidjaniya El Kubra of Europe