Dear beloved son, the shaykh
‘Dear Beloved
Son’
From al Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali - First lesson
Introduction :
The book is a small book which is a compilation of advices given by the great sheikh Abi Hamid al Ghazali to one of his students.
This student told his sheikh al imam al Ghazali:
“After all the knowledge I have taken from you how can I summarize and implement this knowledge in my life?”,
Each of the advices must be implemented in our life in sha Allah.
There should be a communication between the seeker (mureed) or student and his sheikh, like letters for example. When the student is sincere and has a pure intention in seeking the advice then he will get and experience much more than he expected.
The condition is:
-To be sincere and true in the questioning
- To implement, put in practice the answer.
1rst advice:
“My dear son…
May Allah grant you a long life as an obedient servant to Him and to be in His service alone. May Allah guide you to the right path of those who love Him and are loved by Him. Know, my son, that real advice should be sought in the Revelation and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سام). If there has reached you advice from it, what need have you of my advice? And if not, then tell me what you have attained in these past years.”
When he addresses his student by saying “my son” he actually takes the role of the father.
The sheikh is actually:
- The father of the heart,
- The father of the soul,
- The father of our intelligence, our hearing, our sight that Allah sobhanawata3ala has given us.
To benefit from this association we must:
- Be humble
- Acknowledge that we are the child and that we need the advice.
- Take Imam Al Ghazali as our sheikh and love him and pray for him.
The other meaning is that the sheikh tells us,
“I will give you all that will benefit you like I would do for my son, so know that if sometimes I am harsh on you it because I love you and I want the best for you.”
The way that al imam is starting is the way of adab, (good manners)
Al Imam answers the student by asking him, “so tell me what did you do during the past years of your life?’
He is telling the student, if you passed by the book of Allah and the hadiths of rassulAllah, peace and blessings be upon him, you must thank Allah but then why do you seek advice from me? The imam shows his humility this way..
The sheikh is guiding his student to rise his hemmah,to have more aspiration, to seek a higher level.
He asks the student to look at what he has learnt in the past and
-to thank Allah if he has implemented it in his life
-to make tawba, to seek forgiveness if he doesn’t have implemented it.
On benefit of having humility is that it helps to acquire knowledge.
The prophet, allahuma sallem wa baarek 3aleh, even with his rank, when the angel Gibril 3aleihi salam sat before him and said “ Tell me about the Hour” (the day of judgment), the prophet (puh) in his humility said, “The one who is being asked doesn’t know more than the one who is asking” so Gibril 3aleihi salam said to him “tell me about its signs”, so the prophet (puh) went on.
We must remember to be humble in our seeking the advice and when we don’t know we must not feel shy to say “I don’t know”.
2nd advice:
“My dear son…
Among the many piece of advice which the Messenger of Allah gave to the Muslims was the following: “The sign that Allah has turned away from His worshipper is his busying himself in what does not concern him; and if a man has passed one hour of his life in other than for which he was created, it is certainly fitting that his grief should be prolonged [on the day of resurrection], and whosoever has reached [the age of] forty, and his good does not surpass his evil, let him prepare for the fire.” This piece of advice should suffice the people of knowledge.”
So the dissatisfaction of Allah is only the consequence of our own behavior, our actions, we built it with our own hands.
The dissatisfaction of Allah sobhanawata3ala of the servant is the consequence of the servant being dissatisfied with Allah.
The word assaa3a , the hour doesn’t mean 60 minutes but means a moment.
One indication of that is that the Day of judgment is also called the Hour.
On the word الساعة assaa3a:
Our life is divided in 3 saa3at, which are 3 moments:
These 3 moments are:
From al Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali - First lesson
Introduction :
The book is a small book which is a compilation of advices given by the great sheikh Abi Hamid al Ghazali to one of his students.
This student told his sheikh al imam al Ghazali:
“After all the knowledge I have taken from you how can I summarize and implement this knowledge in my life?”,
Each of the advices must be implemented in our life in sha Allah.
There should be a communication between the seeker (mureed) or student and his sheikh, like letters for example. When the student is sincere and has a pure intention in seeking the advice then he will get and experience much more than he expected.
The condition is:
-To be sincere and true in the questioning
- To implement, put in practice the answer.
1rst advice:
“My dear son…
May Allah grant you a long life as an obedient servant to Him and to be in His service alone. May Allah guide you to the right path of those who love Him and are loved by Him. Know, my son, that real advice should be sought in the Revelation and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سام). If there has reached you advice from it, what need have you of my advice? And if not, then tell me what you have attained in these past years.”
When he addresses his student by saying “my son” he actually takes the role of the father.
The sheikh is actually:
- The father of the heart,
- The father of the soul,
- The father of our intelligence, our hearing, our sight that Allah sobhanawata3ala has given us.
To benefit from this association we must:
- Be humble
- Acknowledge that we are the child and that we need the advice.
- Take Imam Al Ghazali as our sheikh and love him and pray for him.
The other meaning is that the sheikh tells us,
“I will give you all that will benefit you like I would do for my son, so know that if sometimes I am harsh on you it because I love you and I want the best for you.”
The way that al imam is starting is the way of adab, (good manners)
Al Imam answers the student by asking him, “so tell me what did you do during the past years of your life?’
He is telling the student, if you passed by the book of Allah and the hadiths of rassulAllah, peace and blessings be upon him, you must thank Allah but then why do you seek advice from me? The imam shows his humility this way..
The sheikh is guiding his student to rise his hemmah,to have more aspiration, to seek a higher level.
He asks the student to look at what he has learnt in the past and
-to thank Allah if he has implemented it in his life
-to make tawba, to seek forgiveness if he doesn’t have implemented it.
On benefit of having humility is that it helps to acquire knowledge.
The prophet, allahuma sallem wa baarek 3aleh, even with his rank, when the angel Gibril 3aleihi salam sat before him and said “ Tell me about the Hour” (the day of judgment), the prophet (puh) in his humility said, “The one who is being asked doesn’t know more than the one who is asking” so Gibril 3aleihi salam said to him “tell me about its signs”, so the prophet (puh) went on.
We must remember to be humble in our seeking the advice and when we don’t know we must not feel shy to say “I don’t know”.
2nd advice:
“My dear son…
Among the many piece of advice which the Messenger of Allah gave to the Muslims was the following: “The sign that Allah has turned away from His worshipper is his busying himself in what does not concern him; and if a man has passed one hour of his life in other than for which he was created, it is certainly fitting that his grief should be prolonged [on the day of resurrection], and whosoever has reached [the age of] forty, and his good does not surpass his evil, let him prepare for the fire.” This piece of advice should suffice the people of knowledge.”
So the dissatisfaction of Allah is only the consequence of our own behavior, our actions, we built it with our own hands.
The dissatisfaction of Allah sobhanawata3ala of the servant is the consequence of the servant being dissatisfied with Allah.
The word assaa3a , the hour doesn’t mean 60 minutes but means a moment.
One indication of that is that the Day of judgment is also called the Hour.
On the word الساعة assaa3a:
Our life is divided in 3 saa3at, which are 3 moments:
These 3 moments are:
- Moment
of obedience to Allah sobhanawata3ala
- Moment
of disobedience against Allah
- Moment
of neither obedience nor disobedience (a wasted moment)
1) In term of the 1rst moment, it can be divided into 2:
- The
moment of obedience of the general believers: when they are
engaged in an act of obedience with Allah they are happy of what they are
doing.
- The
moment of obedience of the one who are close to Allah (the muqarabeen):
when they are engaged in a moment of obedience with Allah their feeling is
regret that they didn’t do more.
2) The 2nd moment, which is the moment of disobedience, may Allah protect us will have for consequence:
- Hissab
and 3iqab which are account and punishment
Allah will address His servant telling him;” in this particular moment, this particular place, you sinned against Me who created you, who raised you, who gave you since you’re a child, how ill-mannered are you! “
b)Forgiveness
- The
3rd type is the wasted moment, the one in ghafla,
and the consequence of it will be that on the day of judgement the servant will have too much regrets. He will see the ones who didn’t waste their time with the prophet Mohammad (puh) and with special treatment and a higher rank and they will say:
“If only I had made more dhikr, if only I had been to this lesson or implement this knowledge, if only, if only...”
For not being in this situation on the Day of judgment we must:
- Organize
our time
(knowing what we are going to do for each hour the day and night. We can write
a schedule for the day and night and try to stick to it.
- Make
our own accounting, hissab at the end of each day (what have done,
what I have said, what I have not done…)
Some Advices concerning the accounting of nafs (our self), al hissab:
To have a brother or sister fillah who will be our brother or sister of the hereafter and show us our mistakes.
For the ones who are married we should do this between spouses and if it not possible to do it face to face then we can have a board on which we can leave a note for example; “today you almost missed fajr or didn’t pray in group”. Of course it should be done with words of love and care, so that the spouse accepts the advice.
Wa sallAllah 3ala saydina wa habibina Mohammad wa 3ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallem wal hamdulillah Rabbi al3alameen