#Remembrance of Light: Zikr Nur-I-Muhammad

[eyeoftheheart]

Remembrance of Light: Zikr Nur-I-Muhammad

[tasmiq]

Jumu'ah Khuthbah: 16 June 2023

This is how we were made to plunge in our deep ocean of heartfelt knowledge, only in the past week - Ya Shakur (Divine gratitude!)

#1. After listening to Shaykh Nishaat elaborate on an exegesis of a verse of the Qur'an; where Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth, and how it relates to our essence. I arrived at the very same place as Raeesa who was asked for opinion; sheer gratitude for our practice of daily Zikr, and I would add Wird and our deeply resonant Positivity Prayers. All of them combined contribute to channeling Allah's light / nur from our crown into our hearts and radiating Allah consciousness in our life's moments. So much so, we can better detect when we are enacting nafs vs our hearts.

After all, as Shaykh Nishaat clarified it is with our freewill that we shape our realities by using thoughts, intentions and actions. Our practice of our daily assignment makes it congruent with the flow of Allah's light in every moment. We are choosing to be with Allah and His light and our personalities are being shaped by this consciousness. Allah is thus not a distant entity, He is having a relationship with us right now!

#2. On reflection upon the notion of tefekkur / tafakkur (deep contemplation) that we performed on the Qur'anic verse quoted by Shaykh Nishaat above; also beautifully described here, as the helix of light. I came by Sufi "poetry" to explain what it actually means:

Deep contemplation means a person’s forcing oneself to think about one’s own inner world, constantly scrutinizing things that exist and take place, and opening to more immense and deep thoughts by taking all of these into consideration time and time again. The original Arabic word tafakkur is inflected in the form of tafaul, which denotes burdening oneself. That is a person’s making serious effort to realize something and forcing oneself to achieve something, and giving the willpower its due in this respect. For this reason, we can say that with respect to its word formation, the word tafakkur expresses an act of thinking that is systematic, deep, and constant, rather than thinking in a simpler sense.

#3. Medet which is the practice at the onset of a Sohbet (spiritual address which flows from the spiritual mentor's heart) drawing on the spiritual inspiration of our specific Sufi order by remembrance of their names, crowned by Allah Himself and followed by our Prophet Muhammad SAW, the companions of Rasulullah SAW, Imam Ali, his sons Imam Hassan and Imam Hussain - followed by our specific Tariqa. Subhana'Allah, that we reflect how all inclusive we are, when we include Imam Ali RA and his blessed sons that may be disregarded as symbols of Shia'ism.

However, it didn't end there; in the medet of this particular Saturday Sohbet, it included the Angels as the transmitters of Allah's word, and the wives of the Prophets, who are undeniably our mothers. It left me in awe and gratitude of the current leader of our Tariqa, Shaykh Taner Vargonen Ansari! Ya Shakur that he once proclaimed that our Tariqa to be a champion of the wives of the Prophets and their children (Allah's blessings be upon all of them!). This being that much more meaningful when our Tariqa is next to be steered by the wife of Shaykh Taner, who we refer to simply as Anne (our spiritual mother).

#4. Shaykh Taner continued to inspire when he relayed that there is Allah as the Creator and us as the created. Allah wanted to pour Himself into a being that has the ability to know Him which Is us, because our brain is balanced. We have the ability to think, if we make it free to come to the right conclusion. But Shaytaan wants to derail this thinking properly, at our every turn.

However, Allah gave us a heart which He occupies as dzat (essence) and everything else is from His 99 attributes. His dzat is in our heart. Our heart is the Auditor as the checkpoint of whether something is right or not. Shaytaan occupies our brains and emotions and makes us follow the opposite of what Allah says. This is our makeup as body, soul and the connection between our heart and our brain which has to be free of pollution and attachments. We start these attachments from birth!

#5. Anne and Shaylh Taner profoundly reflected that we learn the universe around and within us. We stay connected to and surrender to Allah's love! We choose to pay attention to our connection to Allah in the moment with love, and we strengthen what we pay attention to, Insha'Allah...

This ends our deep swim in the ocean of Sufism, that defines our Islam as surrender and peace. This is ahead of Sunday's Father's Day where we must pay gratitude to Allah for gifting us with your Abbu:

i. With his leadership through his daily involvement in our lives:

Ya Shakur × infinity

ii. His affection which acts as non-verbal reassurance that is labelled by Ammu as his "Chi / Qi" hands, inherited by our Paupat and learned by Ammu and Pauppy!:

Ya Shakur × infinity

iii. Financial security that Allah blesses us with through him, where we have been equally blessed to find means to stay connected to him, when he's away from us! Because of his work for us, Ammu can dedicate herself as Haqqiqa Apa, Haqqiqa TV remote and your friend who's your mum 🥹

Ya Shakur × infinity