Sheikh Effendi on Manners and Discipline

BismillahirRahmanirRahim

MANNERS AND DISCIPLINE
Sohbet given by Sheykh Abdul Kerim el-Hakkani el-Kibrisi Friday 20 Muharram, 1425

March 12, 2004
39^th Street Dergah, Manhattan, New York.

Selamun aleykum. Meded Ya Sayiddi, Ya Sultan Evliya,
Mevlana Sheykh Nazim al-Hakkani. Meded.


The most important thing that we are concentrating on is good manners. The Prophet (alayh salatu wa salam) said, “I have been sent to complete the good manners.” All the other prophets came to teach people how to have manners; manners among each other, manners with the environment that they are living in, manners within themselves and with their Lord, manners with their holy ones, manners between the women and the men and manners between the children and the adults. If a man does not have these, then someway somehow on the road he will fall to the wrong sides.

Manners and discipline are very important in man’s life. The laws everywhere, in every country, here and there, are to put people into certain disciplined ways. We are not animals. We are humans. We cannot live alone in the mountains by ourselves. We have to live with each other. We have to respect each other’s rights and we have to learn how to love each other. Understand what I am saying to you. Learn how to love each other. We are not loving each other. We have to learn how to love each other.

Holy Prophet (alayh salatu wa salam) is saying, “You will not enter Paradise, you will not be considered as someone who has faith, if you don’t say La ilaha illallah.” He says, “If you don’t say La ilaha illallah you are not entering Paradise,” meaning, if you are not believing in the One God then you cannot enter into that God’s Paradise. I think that’s fair. No? You are not going to accept him and later you are going to say, “I want to enter into your Paradise”? He will say to you, “I gave Dunya. Stay there. Don’t come to Paradise.” Accepting Allah and accepting Dunya and Akhirat gives you the right to enter into His Paradise. Otherwise, you will be knowing yourself that you are not welcomed. If I come to your house and you are the authority in that house then I have to accept the laws that you are putting on me in that house. If not then you
are going to say to me, “You cannot do whatever you want in my house. Get out!” You wouldn’t accept me in your house.

So the Creator Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) is saying, “Your origin,
your reality is from Paradise. You came from Paradise. That’s your
house. The only one thing that you are going to do in this Dunya is
accept Me as your Lord and come back to your house. Otherwise, I
have sent you there, stay there. Don’t come back to your house.” As
much as you can stay in this Dunya, stay. That’s why so many don’t
want to go back to their houses. They say, “There is no God. There
is no creation. We die and we finish.” You don’t finish but your
head is finished there. Your understanding is finished there.

So, you cannot enter into Paradise if you don’t say La ilaha illallah. If you don’t say La ilaha illallah then you will not be considered as a believer. You have to say La ilaha illallah to have
faith. That is the step towards having faith. La ilaha illallah means what? It means, “I believe in a Creator. I believe that someone has created me.” You call Allah, God or whatever you call
Him, He is only One and that One is not sharing that power with anything. The Divine Name of that one is Allah. He is saying, “That’s My name.” For instance, I can call you Hamdi,
Gandhi, Mindi, Bindi, Yandi but you will say to me, “My name is Ali.” I say, “I still want to call you Hamdi.” You are not going to fight with me yet but you will say, “When you come to my house you are going to call me Ali.” So Allah is saying, “My Divine Name is
Allah. You call God, Jehovah or whatever you call, I am the Creator. I have created you and your parents.” He doesn’t finish there. He says, “Not only you but your grandparents and everything else, I am the One who created. So I am the Lord of the Heavens and the earth. If you accept Me then you are entering into My Paradise. If you are not accepting Me then you have no right to ask to be in Paradise.”

So the Holy Prophet (alayhi salatu wa salam) is saying, “Accepting the Oneness of Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) is a visa for entrance to Paradise. That’s why if a Christian accepts saying, “Allah is only one God. There is no separation. There is no Trinity or this or that,” then that one has faith. He is entering into Paradise. If a Jew says, “There is a God who created Muhammad (saw) and Moses, Adam and the other ones,” then that one is entering to Paradise too, but they will be questioned according to what they did. But the visa for entering to Paradise is saying La ilaha illallah. That is the visa for entering to Paradise.

So the Prophet (saw) says, “When you say that then you will be
considered to have faith.” But he says (now he is talking to the
Muslims), “But if you don’t love each other then you will not be
considered to have said that La ilaha illallah properly. That means
you didn’t have faith properly.” Islam is not concentrating here (on
one’s self), Islam is not concentrating on individualism. Islam is
concentrating on that one who is in front of you. Concentrate on
that one who is in front of you. You give to that one and Allah
gives to you. So love comes from giving. Not from saying,

”I love you honey.”

”What? You love me and I go to work from this side and you bring
another man to the house from the other side? Mashallah.”

Or, the same thing is true when the man says, “I love you honey.”

”You love me and turning to the corner you are doing foolish things
on the other side?”

It is the same thing with both men and women in these days. Terrible
days. This is the time that is the most ignorant time. This is the
time that is the dirtiest time of Mankind. Of course, the majority
are doing that behind the walls and they are thinking that nobody
knows. But Allah knows. This is the one thing you must know. And the
ones that Allah wants them to know, they know also. Don’t think
about how they know. They know. Your face is your book. What is here
(in the heart) can be read from there. The ones who have a special
vision, the ones who have the binoculars, they put it on and they
read (from your face). When the heart opens you can read what is
there.

Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) is the most Merciful One, especially for
these days, because this time is the heaviest time of ignorance. At
least in the time of the Prophet (saw), in the first ignorance time
people didn’t know. That’s why they weren’t believing. When the
Sahaba went and told them certain things, they listened and they
accepted. Today, the people know and with that knowledge they become
more ignorant because they are stubborn, they are selfish and they
are denying everything because they think that they know. So they
don’t listen to you and they don’t open any ways to realize, “Maybe
it’s going to come to something.” Don’t you see that they say, “What
is your degree? Which university did you finish?” ‘X’ is saying
that he finished Columbia and I tell him that I finished Harvard. So
now he starts listening to me. If I told him that I finished Fordham
University then he was never going to listen to me.

Alhamdulillah. I am saying that in general. But so many people today
are looking at the diploma that others have saying, “I go according
to that.” The diploma can easily be bought too. Don’t make any
mistake. You can buy that diploma very easily these days. You ask
the people working behind the computers, “Put my name in. Put in
this year I studied in this place, da da da da, give me a diploma.”
Tak, it’s printed out and he has another diploma. But having that
diploma is not giving you that knowledge. You are ignorant.

So people today, the majority, millions and billions do not know any
knowledge of the Hereafter life. But they are ignorant. They are
shutting every door to that knowledge saying, “There is nothing.
Nothing exists (after this life).” Do you know why? Because this is
what Shaytan is saying to them, “Don’t accept anything. Live your
life. If you accept then you are not going to live like animals. If
you accept then you are going to live like man. You are going to put
some discipline in your life. You are going to put some authority in
your life. You are going to put some laws.” He says, “No laws. Leave
the laws because all the doors that say, ‘there is no law’ is going
to bring you to the fire where I am entering.” This is the direction
that Shaytan is ordering to the Mankind.

So today’s Jahiliyyat, today’s ignorance is worse than the ignorance
of the Prophet’s (alayhi salatu wa salam) time. Those people were
ignorant because of the knowledge they didn’t know. When somebody
was speaking to them about that knowledge they were sitting and
listening. A couple of the heads like Abu Jahil were not ignorant.
They knew certain knowledge. That’s why they became ignorant. They
didn’t listen. But the ones that didn’t know listened and accepted.
Abu Jahil said, “I know. I have diploma.” Abu Lahab said, “I have
diploma. I am an educated man. You are not educated.” So they became
the fathers of the ignorants.

This time is worse than that. Ten-years-old kid stands in front of
you saying, “There is nothing.” (I say,) “You don’t even know how to
enter into the toilet, kid. From which side is the sun rising?”

”North.”

”They didn’t even teach you that yet.” (Sheykh smiles).

So they don’t know anything and they don’t accept anything because
the parents in the house teach them how to be selfish and how to
give orders. Little kids give orders to their mothers and to their
fathers. Mashallah to discipline. Mashallah.

So Holy Prophet (saw) came to complete the good manners. People
first must have manners and then when they follow the footsteps of
the Prophet (alayhi salatu wa salam) they will be completing their
good manners. Following the Holy Prophet (saw) must bring you to the
highest station which will then make you understand, “Oh, my Lord
created me in Ahsani Taqweem.” Yes, the most perfect creature. Most
perfect in every way, in the shape, in the form, in the material, in
the spiritual, in every way the most perfect. So, that one who is
accepting what Allah is giving to him will become the most perfect.
One day he will reach to that station.

That one who says, “My skin is black and I don’t like it,” your
fight is with Allah. The one who says, “My skin is white but I want
it to be black,” your fight is with Allah. Others look at themselves
saying, “I am too pale, I am too white, I am too green, I am too
this and I am too that, my hair is too curly and I want it to be
straight.” The one who has it straight says, “I wish I had my hair
curly.” The one who has blue eyes say, “I have to have black eyes.”
That’s why they are going, taking these things (contact lenses),
putting them in their eyes, making themselves blind too, getting
chips in their eyes, and when I am saying, “Look, your eyes look
like a cat,” they don’t like it. (Sheykh smiles). When I say, “It
looks like a cat,” they don’t like it. But if I say, “It looks like
a lion,” they (get puffed up and) say, “Ah, must be.” (Sheykh mildly
laughs).

You don’t like what Allah is giving you? How ignorant man is! It’s
granted to you. It’s given to you. Not to anybody else (among the
creation). What a blessing is that! He is giving that perfection
only to you. Your shape and everything is perfect. Are you happy?
(When you understand this) then you will find happiness. Otherwise,
you will not come out from the doctor’s office, pulling here,
putting this, putting that, (I don’t like to use names but it’s
necessary now), later you will become like Michael Jackson, you have
nothing to pull and the nose starts falling and everything starts
falling. Don’t make any mistake. Be happy with Allah has given to
you. Whatever He has given to you, His blessing is in it and He is
happy with you in that form. Be happy with that. Otherwise, you will
never find happiness in Dunya and you will never find happiness in
Akhirat.

Holy Prophet (saw) came to bring the most perfect discipline and the
most perfect station to man. Anyone who is really following the
footsteps of the Prophet (alayhi salatu wa salam), never mind about
going and harming innocent people, they cannot harm an ant and they
cannot harm anything around them. But when those ones will fight for
the sake of Allah under the ruling of that one who is going to come,
then you will have no place to run too. You cannot escape.

Wa min Allahu taufiq

Bihurmatil Habib

Bihurmatil Fatiha.