BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin. Wasalatu wa salamu ala rasulina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain nahmadulllahu ta’ala wa nastaghfiruhu wa nashadu an-lailaha ilallahu wahdahu la sharika lah wa nashadu anna sayyidina Muhammadin abduhu wa habibuhu wa rasuluhu salallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa azwajihi wa ashabihi wa atbaihi.
Khulafail Rashidin mahdin min ba’di wuzerail immeti alal tahkik. Khususan minhum alal amidi khulafai rasulillahi ala tahqeeq. Umara il mu’mineen. Hazreti abu bakr wa umar wa uthman wa ali. Wa ala baqiyati wa sahabai wa tabieen, ridwanallahu ta’ala alayhim ajmain.Ya ayyuhal mu’minun al hadirun, ittaqullaha ta’ala wa ati’uh. Inna allaha ma allathina-ttaqaw wal-lathina hum muhsinun. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu wa Salamu ala Ashrafil Ambiya’i wa Imam al-Mursaleen Sayyidina wa Mawlana Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain.
All praises are due to Allah, Lord of the Universes. All praises are due to Allah Who is the First, the Last, the Manifest, the Hidden, the One Who has Might and Power over all things. All praises are due to Allah Who sent Sayyidina Muhammad (AS) as the Mercy to the Universes.
And may all peace and blessings be upon the Prophet of Allah, the Messenger of Allah, the Chosen One of Allah, the Beloved of Allah, the Most Honored One in Divine Presence, Sayyidina Muhammad (AS), and upon his noble family and blessed companions, especially upon the Four Khulafa-e-Rashideen, Hz. Abu Bakr el-Siddiq, Hz. Umar el-Faruq, Hz. Osman el-Ghani, and Hz. Ali el-Murtaza, and all those who follow them until the Last Day.
O Believers! We must thank Allah (SWT) that He has made us Muslims, and that He has let us to be the followers of the Deen al-Islam. What makes Islam unique from the other religions, from the other revelations that came before? Allah (SWT) has said in the Holy Quran, BismillahirRahmanirRahim. “This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.” (5:3). SadaqallahulAdzim.An intelligent man will ask, ‘what makes our religion perfect?’ If we compare Islam to the religions, to the revelations, what has been given to the Ahl-i-Kitab, we may find that they also believe in One Allah, like this or like that. They also believe in Angels. They also believe in Holy Books. They also believe in Prophets. They also believe in the Last Day. They also believe in Destiny, in one way or another, they believe in all these. So what is it that makes Islam, the religion, that makes it to be the completion of the Divine Favor upon mankind?
That perfection and that completion of the Divine Favor is only found in “Muhammadur Rasulallah.” What makes Islam perfect is that we believe in the perfect messenger of Allah, Sayyidina wa Mawlana Muhammad (AS) as the Final Messenger and the Seal of Prophethood. Whoever believes in Sayyidina Muhammad (AS) is a Muslim. Whoever denied Sayyidina Muhammad (AS), that one is an unbeliever. It is that simple. It is the essence of being a Muslim. And a Muslim must believe in respect, and love the Holy Prophet (AS). This is the condition of belief that is given by Allah (SWT) when He said: BismillahirRahmanirRahim. “Say (ya Muhammad AS): If it be that your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your mates, or your families; the wealth that you have gained; the business in which you fear a decline: or the dwellings in which you delight – are dearer to you than Allah, or His Messenger, or the striving in His cause;- then wait until Allah brings about His decision: and Allah guides not the rebellious.” (9:24). Sadaqallahuladzim.
And part of believing in Holy Prophet (AS) is to believe that He is the Greatest of Allah’s creation, free of any fault, that he is perfect. And we, as Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaat, as the one who has been promised by the Holy Prophet (AS) that is going to be on the straight path and to be safe from the hellfire, we believe that he is an extraordinary human. He is a human, but he is extraordinary than all the rest of the humans. We believe that he was a Prophet when Adam was between water and clay, as he, salallahu alaihi wa salam said. We believe that he is Noor from the Noor of Allah, as the Prophet (AS) says. We believe that Allah (SWT) created everything in creation for the Love of Sayyidina Muhammad (AS), as Allah (SWT) in hadiths e-Qudsi said. We believe in him completely and without any doubt.
To believe in the Holy Prophet (AS) is to believe in everything he brought. This is why the great Maliki scholar, Imam Muhammad ibn Sahnun said: “Anyone who doubts a single letter which the Holy Prophet brought, is a denying unbeliever.” This includes the belief in the miracles of the Holy Prophet (AS). Part of the belief of a Muslim is that the Holy Prophet (AS) performed miracles, that he did Mujizat. We believe and bear witness that the Quran is his miracle, that the splitting of the moon is his miracle, that the Isra and Miraj are his miracles, by the power of Allah – we believe in every single miracle that he came with and he came with thousands of miracles and it was all granted to him by Allah (SWT). In fact, it is from the denial of one of his greatest miracles, the Isra and miraj, that separated the believers and the hypocrite. But this kind of belief, this belief that the Holy Prophet (AS) is an extraordinary human, because how can an ordinary human cast no shadow when he walks. This kind of belief that he is one that can bend time and he can bend space, the belief that he is working miracles by the power of Allah, this has become controversial amongst today’s 21st century Muslims. Muslims today are very shy and they are very hesitant to say that Holy Prophet (AS) was anything more than a normal man. They are very scared to say that he performed miracles and his reality is beyond that of flesh and blood. They are shaky in their belief that his reality lies beyond the confines of the heavens and the earth.
Muslims today are insisting on saying, that he was a man just like you and me. He lived, and he died, and now he is buried in the ground. Just sometimes he used to get revelation, and people wrote that revelation down, and he finished his job. And this fitnah of denying the superiority and perfection of the Holy Prophet (AS), it is the essence of the attack of those who are against to Islam. Because once Muslims believe that there is nothing special about the Holy Prophet (AS), then they can begin to start doubting him. And once they can begin to doubt Allah’s Messenger, then they can begin to doubt the Message, and to doubt Allah (SWT) Himself. This is the game that is being played with Muslims, and Muslims are completely falling for it.
This kind of thinking it was unimaginable for Muslims for one thousand three hundred years. But Muslims now believe that we have to catch up to the unbelievers in every way. Muslims still have the inferiority complex maybe because of their colonization, maybe because in reality they are jealous because they want that kind of lifestyle that the unbelievers they have and maybe because the unbelievers came and told them that, ‘you are a backward and you are illogical because of Islam. We are scientific and we are forward because we deny Islam. If you want the dunya, then you must become just like us. You must only believe in what you can observe.’ And so they said to the Muslims, ‘how can you believe that this man was special? How can you believe that he split the moon? Or that water flowed out of his fingers? Or that clouds covered him when he walked? Or that he ascended to the Heavens and came back to earth in a single night. Or that animal spoke to him in perfect Arabic, that stones and trees declare him to be a messenger. These are just exaggerations, fairy tales that are making you stay behind. You must forget about all this.’ And Muslims have been sinking in this confusion for 100 years. What happened as a result? We lost our Guiding Light. Allah (SWT) calls Holy Prophet (AS) a Light-giving Lamp. And when Muslims reject that lamp, they are stuck in darkness. That is what has happened for the last 100 years.
Islam cannot exist without the Holy Prophet (AS). The Quran cannot be understood without going to the one to whom it was revealed. And yet Muslims are trying to invent an Islam and a Quran that are completely separated from the Holy Prophet (AS) or his inheritors, until judgement day. They are speaking without any knowledge, any authority and without any permission. And now they are coming up with wrong thinking that have never before been seen before in the world of Islam.
Muslims are interpreting the Quran and the Hadith in any way that they see it makes sense to them, without any methodology or without any isnad, chain of transmission. And intellectual Muslims today are saying, oh this is just what it was like during the first generations of Islam. Every Sahabi had a Madhhab, and everyone made their own ijtihad. This is just lies and deception. Yes, the Sahabis were authorities on Islam. But they all gave up their individual authorities and submitted to the Holy Prophet (AS). There was no confusion. There never was any confusion. In the time of Hz. Abu Bakr Siddiq, all the Sahabis listened to him in his rulings- not just his political rulings, but also his rulings concerning Islam. The same was true in the time of Hz. Umar, Hz. Osman, and Hz. Ali. Yes, the Sahabis they had small differences in their Fiqh, but these differences were the Mercy for the Ummat that Holy Prophet (AS) mentioned. They never had any differences on the principles and the essence of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan. And every Sahabi was in submission to the will of the Khalifa.
This structure of submitting to the authority, obeying the Sunnah, staying with the majority, this is Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah. And for 1300 years, this Prophetic structure is what protected the Muslims from every type of deviance. The Khawarij came. The Shiacame. The Mutazilites came. The philosophers came. The Atheist came. Every type of misguidance and deviance came, and the Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah was able to repel and defeat it and keep Islam pure, according to the teachings of the Prophet (AS). Why? Because Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah is unity of the Ummah. As the Prophet (AS) said, ‘my ummat they will not deviate as a majority. There is protection in the majority. And that unity comes with the ruling of the Khalifa, the ruling of a Sultan.’ Throughout the history of Islam, the Sultans, being advised by the Evliya and the Righteous Ulema, were able to fight against the deviants that tried to infiltrate the Ummah in different intellectual styles. And when the Khalifa was removed, that unity fell apart. Because the Khalifa is a shield that protects the Ummah. When that shield was taken away, then all those fitnahs were finally able to enter and infect the Ummah. Ideas that were once loudly proclaimed as being kufr they are now presented as normal.
That is why today so many Muslims feel free to criticize the Prophets, to insult and to slander them, to attack the Sahabis, to deny the Evliya, and to negate the Hadith. That is why today’s Muslims think that they are qualified to interpret the Words of Allah and His Prophet simply by looking them up on Google. That is why today, every Muslim who has a Facebook account believes that he has the power to make ijtihad. Because without the Khalifa, there is no unity.
Scholars today are claiming that they are continuing and upholding the tradition of Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah. But they forget that Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah by definition cannot continue without a Sultan, without the Khalifa. They are hiding the Hadith of Holy Prophet (AS) that makes this clear. Rasulallah (AS) is saying, “Nobody has the right vested in him to establish anything from the Hudud (limits of Shariah) without the Sultan.” (Bayhaqi). Nobody has the authority or the rights to establish Islamic ruling without the Sultan. And he (AS) is also saying: The (collection of the) Zakat, the (implementation of the) Hudud, the (distribution of the) spoils and the (appointment of the) Jumah are for the Sultan. (Tahawi). So we must understand- without the authority we cannot even have the basic functions of Islam. Which is why the Holy Prophet (AS) said, ‘if there is no Khalifah for three days, there is no Islam.’
The rejection of the Sultan by today’s Muslims is directly linked to the rejection of the high station of the Holy Prophet (AS). When Muslims believe that Rasulallah (AS) is a normal man, then they believe that he is like them and they are like him. When they believe that he is not special, then they do not believe that total obedience and submission are due to him. Although Allah has linked His name to the Holy Prophet’s name, in so many ayats, to obey Allah and to obey His messenger, again and again, because once we take the messenger out, we are in reality proclaiming ourselves to be the messenger of Allah. When we don’t believe in obedience and submission to his words, then we will reject submission and obedience to his inheritors. That rejection was clear made 100 years ago when the Muslims cried out in the streets that they wanted to remove the Sultan and instead they wanted to rule themselves. For 100 years, Muslims have tried ruling ourselves in our religion and in our worldly affairs. What have we gained? Did we become better servants of Allah? Did we become more successful in this dunya. Or did we become the most humiliated people on the face of the earth. We need to only look for a moment at the situation to get the answer.
Holy Prophet (AS) is above us. He is the Greatest in the Creation of Allah (SWT). Obedience to him is obedience to Allah. Submission to him is submission to Allah. Love for him is love for Allah. The name Allah and Muhammad cannot be separated, that is why our Kalima is La ilaha il-Allah, Muhammadur Rasulallah. And the inheritors of the Holy Prophet (AS) are owed obedience and submission after him. Until we remember this, and until we come back to this, we will continue to be in this humiliating state.
We must come back to Islam. We must come back to the Holy Prophet (AS). We must come back to obedience. We must leave the disobedience.When our grandfathers were obedient to Allah, when they believed undoubtingly in the Holy Prophet (AS), they were honored by Allah. This is the tradition that has brought Muslims to safety for 1400 years. This is the tradition that we must bring back to life, that we must follow. As our Sheykh is saying: “ if we want to be with those ones, with the prophets, with the Saliheen, with the righteous people, with the Awliya Allah, with the Friends of Allah, with the Shuhada, with the good ones then we must obey Allah and His Prophet (AS). And obedience to Allah and His Prophet (AS) is to obey those ones who are obeying them.”
We are asking our Lord, Allah (SWT), to count us as the ones who are obedient to Him, obedient to our Prophet, obedient to the Rightly Guided Leaders. Amin.
Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
Osmanli Dergahi, New York
9 Jamad al-Awwal 1439
January 26, 2018