Lessons In The Sto­ry of Jesus, The Son of Mary And His Most Blessed Mother

Trans­la­tion of a talk giv­en in Ara­bic at Dar al-Fat­waDar al-Fat­wa in Beirut is the chief Sun­ni body in charge of giv­ing fatw?n the Repub­lic of Lebanon and com­pris­es an Islam­ic Uni­ver­si­ty that deliv­ers bach­e­lors, mas­ters, and doc­tor­ate degrees in the Sharia. in Beirut, Lebanon on 10 Jan­u­ary 2003. Trans­lat­ed by G.F. Had­dad. Sub­head­ings and empha­sis added by the translator.

Intro­duc­tion

Upon our Prophet Muham­mad and his House and upon them the bless­ings and peace of God.

“Glo­ry belongs to God Who has sent down upon His ser­vant the Book and has not assigned unto it any crooked­ness.” (18:1)

I bear wit­ness that there is no god but God alone, with­out part­ner, and I bear wit­ness that our liege-lord Muham­mad is His ser­vant and Mes­sen­ger. Allah bless and greet and lav­ish His bene­dic­tion upon him and upon his fore­fa­thers and brethren among the Prophets and Mes­sen­gers — our liege-lords Abra­ham, Moses, Jesus and all the inter­ven­ing Prophets, and upon his House and Com­pan­ions and those that fol­low them faith­ful­ly until the Day of Judgment !

The Hon­our and Pur­pose of Religion

To pro­ceed : God Most High, the Exalt­ed, has grant­ed us immense hon­or and cho­sen us for this mag­nif­i­cent Reli­gion, the Reli­gion of Islam which He was well-pleased to make the seal of all reli­gions, the Reli­gion that is right and true for all times and all places. One that belongs to such a Reli­gion pre­pares him­self for a most impor­tant task and tremen­dous mis­sion : excel­lence in bring­ing forth to the peo­ple of the earth the man­i­fest proofs for the dis­cours­es, the direc­tives, and the man­i­fold guid­ance of heaven.

Thus, the great­ness of this Reli­gion is that it has come to pre­pare its adher­ents and fol­low­ers for an immense task, the most impor­tant task in this exis­tence : to warn the peo­ple of the earth against the errors in which they live and which sig­ni­fy, in this world, great destruc­tive strife and dis­sen­sion and all sorts of dis­eases and prob­lems while they sig­ni­fy, in the next world, great hin­drance from the con­voy of the blessed whom God the Most Glo­ri­ous choos­es for His good plea­sure. This is our mission.

Com­pre­hen­sion (fiqh) of the Mission

When the Mus­lim and the Believ­er becomes ful­ly aware and com­pre­hends his mis­sion, he is then able to under­stand oth­ers with that com­pre­hen­sion of his mis­sion. And to the extent that the Mus­lim and the Believ­er only dim­ly under­stands the great­ness of the mis­sion with which God entrust­ed him exclu­sive­ly of oth­ers, he is hard­ly able to under­stand well and widen the scope of his rela­tion­ship with crea­tures in all their variety.

When we say ​“hard­ly able” we do not only mean the wrong behav­ior that stems from inflex­i­bil­i­ty, prej­u­dice, and extrem­ism. We are say­ing that he is hard­ly able to under­stand in all the sens­es of being hard­ly able to under­stand, whether through inflex­i­bil­i­ty, or wrong­ing oth­ers, or harm­ing them with­out any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, or, on the oth­er hand, because of a debil­i­ty he finds in him­self which caus­es him to lose touch with his own mis­sion. From this debil­i­ty fol­lows the dis­so­lu­tion of his per­son­al­i­ty into his con­nec­tion to his sur­round­ings in this world. He is liq­ue­fied just like a liq­uid. He takes the form and col­or of his con­tain­er and can­not have the least influ­ence on oth­ers. Both mat­ters are wrong.

The Vast­ness of Comprehension

How­ev­er, when the Believ­er fears God and ful­ly com­pre­hends the grav­i­ty of his mis­sion, he real­izes that his Reli­gion is the one vast Reli­gion : vast — vast ! — and com­pre­hen­sive. If he com­pre­hends how to inter-relate with it, he becomes vast enough for the folk of the earth and the folk of the heav­en in his con­nec­tion and his rela­tion­ship. The mean­ing of ​“becom­ing vast” here is to give each and every thing its due right ; excel­lence in con­vey­ing the mes­sage of God regard­ing the path of right ; excel­lence in tread­ing the path of right ; excel­lence in deal­ing with the scale of the sacred law both toward those who act excel­lent­ly and those who act wrong — whether such be allies or ene­mies — with­out the least part nor gain in all this for the ego.

Incom­pre­hen­sion Caused by the Ego

Every inabil­i­ty that any crea­ture on the face of the earth expe­ri­ences in ful­ly com­pre­hend­ing [the Reli­gion] in the sense of under­stand­ing how to inter-relate with oth­ers around him — most­ly human beings but also jinn, inan­i­mate forms, veg­e­ta­tion, and ani­mals — every such inabil­i­ty is caused only because such a per­son has con­tent­ed him­self with his ego­tism and his exclu­sive attach­ment to the demands of his ego. The stronger the ego becomes in mak­ing one do its will or ful­fil its demands and its lusts, the weak­er does one become in under­stand­ing his sur­round­ings whether in per­cep­tion (fah­man) or abil­i­ty (ta’ah­hu­lan).

Thus, the weak­en­ing of com­pre­hen­sion is con­nect­ed with per­cep­tion ; and the weak­en­ing of com­pre­hen­sion is con­nect­ed with abil­i­ty. Per­cep­tion is the basis, after which it pro­duces inter­ac­tion (ta‘ala).

The Com­pre­hen­sive Good­ness of Islam

Also among the man­i­fes­ta­tions of the mag­nif­i­cence, vast­ness, pre­pared­ness (tahayyu’), and suit­abil­i­ty (salayya) of this Reli­gion for action in every con­text of time and place : the fact that this Reli­gion has pro­duced excel­lence in all of its past ages ; guid­ed us to con­nect us to every­thing right and good in what has passed ; and assigned for us in this a gold­en rule by which we know how to pro­duce every­thing right and good in all things to come.

This is why our Reli­gion is the only Reli­gion that com­pre­hends the total­i­ty of the Prophets and Mes­sen­gers in belief, con­fir­ma­tion, loy­al­ty, and love. You do not find any of the oth­er reli­gions believ­ing in all the Prophets. You only find, here, an excep­tion of this Prophet, there, an excep­tion of that Prophet, and there, yet oth­er excep­tions. As for us, the Mus­lims, God has made it reli­gion for us to have com­plete belief and faith in the mes­sage of all the Mes­sen­gers and the Prophet­hood of all the Prophets. More than that : the belief of any giv­en believ­er among us becomes invalid if he does not believe in the Prophet­hood of Abra­ham, Moses, Jesus, Noah and oth­er of the Prophets whom God Most High men­tioned in His Book.

The vast­ness of accep­tance we just men­tioned makes our Reli­gion encom­pass­ing and com­pre­hen­sive (ja‘). It is the quin­tes­sence (khu­lu) of what the Prophets have con­veyed and enjoined to their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. Any­one of us that reads and recites the Qur’an with con­tem­pla­tion of and affect from the mag­nif­i­cent great­ness of that Book, will find news from our liege-lord Noah ; before him, our liege-lord Adam ; after them, Hud after him, Nuh after him, Abra­ham ; after him, Moses ; just as the news do come regard­ing our liege-lord the Christ — upon our Prophet and upon him the best bless­ings and salu­ta­tions of peace !

Muham­mad the Quin­tes­sence of Prophets

What is the pur­pose of all this in the con­text of our receiv­ing our guid­ance from our liege-lord Muham­mad, upon him bless­ings and peace ? Would it not be enough that the news come to us [only] regard­ing our liege-lord Muham­mad ? No, because the ori­gin of the news con­cern­ing our liege-lord Muhamad is a vast capac­i­ty or recip­i­en­cy (si’a) into which was poured the quin­tes­sence of what all Prophets brought so that it would be embod­ied in the per­son of our liege-lord Muham­mad. The bless­ings of my Lord and His salu­ta­tions of peace upon him and his House !

On this basis we can know the high rank of our liege-lord the Christ, upon him peace. On this basis we can know the high rank of his moth­er — Mary, upon her peace. Thus do we know that the two of them have received an exalt­ed rank in the pres­ence of God Most Glo­ri­ous and Exalt­ed. We also know that our liege-lord Jesus stands out from the rest of the Prophets, in our rela­tion­ship with him, with a spe­cial characteristic.

Our Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship with the Prophets

Our rela­tion­ship with the entire­ty of our liege-lords the Prophets con­sists in belief, love, faith, and the learn­ing of lessons and wis­doms from their sto­ries, the reports that come from them, and their lives. We may hear, for exam­ple, that the father of Prophets, our liege-lord Abra­ham, upon him peace, stands out in his con­nec­tion to us, in a way, because Pri­mor­dial Monothe­ism (al-han?yya) is ascribed to him ; also, because he is one of the fore­fa­thers of our liege-lord Muham­mad — upon him bless­ings and peace ; and because he actu­al­ly sup­pli­cat­ed for God to send Muham­mad at the end of times.

Moses, upon him peace, obtained a spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tic in his con­nec­tion to us in the fact that he is the one that advised our liege-lord Muham­mad — upon him bless­ings and peace — to ask God Most Glo­ri­ous and Exalt­ed for lenien­cy when the prayer was made oblig­a­tory — fifty dai­ly prayers.

How­ev­er, our liege-lord the Christ, upon him peace, stands out in his con­nec­tion to this Com­mu­ni­ty of Islam (Umma). Togeth­er with the lessons we take from God Most High in the Qur’an and from the words of the Beloved in the Sun­na — God bless and greet him and his House and Com­pan­ions — in the reports about our liege-lord Jesus, the jihad of our liege-lord Jesus, the high char­ac­ter of our liege-lord Jesus, the val­ues of our liege-lord Jesus, the immense rank of our liege-lord Jesus before his Lord, the superla­tive knowl­edge of our liege-lord Jesus which he received from his Lord, in addi­tion, we, the mass­es of the Mus­lims, have a spe­cial con­nec­tion with a cer­tain great mis­sion of our liege-lord The Christ.

Our Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship with Christ Jesus

This great mis­sion is that, among the major signs of the final Hour and among the keys of the huge deliv­er­ance that will dawn upon this Com­mu­ni­ty of Islam there will come a time on this earth when the call to the pre-morn­ing prayer will be raised in Dam­as­cus — at the white minaret East of Dam­as­cus ; the imam will want to step for­ward to lead the prayer when — lo and behold ! — the peo­ple will watch in aston­ish­ment while our liege-lord Jesus descends from the heav­en, his two hands rest­ing on the wings of the angels, his head seem­ing­ly drip­ping with water, wear­ing clothes which our liege-lord Muham­mad — upon him bless­ings and peace — described in great detail. He said that the col­or of his clothes resem­bled saf­fron dye, as if his clothes had been dyed with saf­fron and wars. Our Prophet Muham­mad — upon him bless­ings and peace — described for us the very appear­ance of the clothes in which Jesus would descend ! Such ves­ti­men­ta­ry descrip­tion sig­ni­fies noth­ing oth­er than addi­tion­al empha­sis on reflec­tion, per­cep­tion, and dis­cern­ment (dhawq) for the mean­ing of our con­nec­tion with this great mas­ter who was thus hon­ored by his Lord.

The Descent of Jesus

He will descend. When the Imam Muham­mad al-Mah­di a scion of the Prophet­ic House — sees him as he was ready­ing him­self to lead the prayer, he will move back and say to our liege-lord Jesus : ​“Step for­ward, Spir­it from God!”

It has been men­tioned in the hadith that the breath of our liege-lord Jesus, the day he descends, does not encounter a dis­be­liev­er whose belief is despaired of, except that dis­be­liev­er will die on the spot. This is due to the great­ness of the spir­i­tu­al state in which our liege-lord Jesus will descend : a heav­en­ly state for one beloved of God among God’s ser­vants whom He caused to ver­dure in the near­est heav­en for more than two thou­sand years, after which he descends to this earth. Hence, as stat­ed in the hadith nar­rat­ed by al-Tir­mid­hi he does not breathe one breath except every dis­be­liev­er this breath reach­es will die on the spot, and his breath reach­es the extent of his gaze. That is, when our liege-lord Jesus descends upon this earth, his breath will reach as far as his eyes can see.

Jesus and the Mahdi

When our liege-lord the Mah­di sees him he will move back and say : ​“Step for­ward, Spir­it from God!” Jesus will say : ​“The call to prayer was raised but for you, there­fore, step for­ward!” Then our liege-lord Jesus will pray behind our liege-lord al-Mah­di. Because of this, it was said that among the immense mer­its of this Com­mu­ni­ty of Islam is that a Prophet beloved of God and brought near Him — one of the Mes­sen­gers of High Resolve (ulul ​‘azm) — will pray behind an indi­vid­ual from this Community.

After the dawn prayer, our liege-lord the Mahd?ill step back and hand over the lead­er­ship of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Isl?to our liege-lord Jesus. When our liege-lord Jesus receives the lead­er­ship of the Com­mu­ni­ty he will take up the flag and pre­pare the army to march to Jerusalem so as to seize it back and return it to truth and guid­ance and light.

The Great Deceiv­er (Daj­jal)

In that time the Great Deceiv­er or Daj­jal will have appeared. All the uproar and loud cries of the voic­es of mon­ey and mate­ri­al­ism in the world today, in all their man­i­fes­ta­tions, are only pre­lim­i­nar­ies for the Daj­jal. Every­thing that you see in this world pro­duc­ing weak souls and rais­ing entire gen­er­a­tions with the most ten­u­ous of links to prin­ci­ples and val­ues — peo­ple made into world­ly automa­tons, wor­ship­pers of the world, their sole con­cern the world, their thought the world, their reli­gion the world, their con­sciences the world — when the peo­ple are ripe in this sense, the Daj­jal will emerge onto this world in the form of a mis­sion­ary — a reformist missionary.

He will appear among the peo­ple then he will acquire fame and more fame. Many mir­a­cles will show at his hands. He will claim Prophet­hood. Then he will claim Divin­i­ty — our refuge is Allah We might very near­ly have to envis­age or imag­ine that a Mus­lim can actu­al­ly fol­low some mis­shapen crea­ture walk­ing this earth and whom he will con­sid­er his Divine Lord !

How­ev­er, the Most Beloved — God bless and greet him and his Fam­i­ly — told us about the Daj­jal He said he might enter an all-Mus­lim town and then exit it, all its pop­u­la­tion now dis­be­liev­ers ! God is our refuge from such a thing ! Some­one asked, what is the rea­son ? It was said that the rea­son is that he will go to peo­ple whose hearts have grown attached to love of the world and whose entire iden­ti­ties have thor­ough­ly mixed with the world and its train. For such, ​“who­ev­er pays leads” (man yad­fa‘ yut­ba‘)!

This is what the peo­ple are being trained for today. They are being pre­pared for the Dajj?and his sov­er­eign­ty. They are being edu­cat­ed today — in their econ­o­my, their pol­i­tics, their soci­eties, their rela­tion­ships, their com­merce, their under­tak­ings and dere­lic­tions — all on the debil­i­tat­ed foun­da­tion that is the attach­ment of hearts to triv­ial world­ly interests.

Who­ev­er pays leads. For this was it relat­ed that the Daj­jal will roam the earth. God will per­mit that peo­ple be tried at his hands. He will have con­trol of their sus­te­nance — agri­cul­ture, food, water — to the point he will say, ​“O heav­en, rain!” and rain will pour ; ​“O earth, sprout!” and veg­e­ta­tion will grow ; ​“O plan­ta­tions, bear fruit!” and fruit will ripen ; ​“O liv­ing one, die ! O dead one, rise!” and the dead will rise. God will grant him these dis­plays and watch those whose hearts have latched upon exter­nal­i­ties (mazhr) be seduced while those whose hearts have latched upon the Hid­den and Man­i­fest (al-batin al-zahir) remain obliv­i­ous to all but Him.

It was relat­ed that the Daj­jal will roam the entire earth. It was relat­ed from the Beloved that he said : ​“Let none of you ever wish to meet the Arch-Deceiv­er!” In addi­tion to the extreme grav­i­ty of the warn­ings of the Beloved against the Daj­jal he even said that there had nev­er been any Prophet except he warned his peo­ple about the strife of the Daj­jal Indeed, in every prayer, after recit­ing the final wit­ness­ing of faith (tashah­hud) and the bene­dic­tion upon his pure self, he would seek refuge in his Lord from ​“the tri­al (fit­na) of life and the tri­al of death and the tri­al of the arch-deceiv­er Masikh.” May God save us and you from his trial !

He — upon him bless­ings and peace — insist­ed so much on the ter­ri­ble grav­i­ty of the Daj­jal’s strife before the Com­pan­ions that some of them said, ​“We believed he was already among the date-trees of Madd.” They believed he had arrived and would appear any moment among the peo­ple because of the fear caused by the reports of the Prophet — upon him bless­ings and peace — about him.

The Divine Protection

Despite these inces­sant warn­ings and the fear caused by this forth­com­ing strife, the Mes­sen­ger of God — upon him bless­ings and peace — said : ​“Who­ev­er recites Sura al-Kahf the night before Jumu‘a and its day, God will pro­tect him from the strife of Dajjal”

O Mes­sen­ger of God ! You told us of a calami­ty that would shake the entire earth — a man that would con­trol the world from East to West, roam­ing the earth, in his hand many of the pow­ers that cause these calami­ties. The peo­ple of faith will expe­ri­ence hunger, pover­ty, dis­tress. Then you said, after warn­ing us of this ter­ri­ble dis­as­ter that would befall us — so great that the Com­pan­ions them­selves thought the Daj­jal had almost come out — that the rem­e­dy is to recite Sura al-Kahf the night before Jumu‘a and its day the Qur’an con­tain­ing one hun­dred and ten vers­es. Are you telling me that if I recite it, I will be safe from this huge disaster ?

He says yes ! So that you would under­stand that the great­ness of this safe­ty and sal­va­tion are linked to God Most High. We are a com­mu­ni­ty of Islam whose sal­va­tion and safe­ty and preser­va­tion do not depend on short-sight­ed exter­nal­i­ties and pow­ers nor on their ​“movers and shak­ers”. We are a Com­mu­ni­ty whose paths of sal­va­tion in the world and the here­after con­sist in the attach­ment of our hearts to this most glo­ri­ous Book, in the arousal of feel­ings in our hearts telling us of the great­ness of the mes­sage that comes from God. There is no

Mus­lim that reg­u­lar­ly reads Sura al-Kahf every night before Jumu‘a and every day of Jumu‘a except he obtains a guar­an­tee from the Beloved Elect — upon him bless­ings and peace — regard­ing his sal­va­tion from the tri­al of the Dajjal.

It was relat­ed from both Ibn Mas‘ud and al-Hasan al-Bas­ri that they received the news or rather heard the rumor that the Daj­jal had come out. Al-Hasan laughed. He was asked ​“What makes you laugh?” He replied : ​“If he came out now, the boys of al-Bas­ra would play with him the way they play with a foot ball.” Why ? Because in the time in which al-Hasan and Ibn Mas‘?re told of this rumor, the peo­ple had a firm foothold in cer­ti­tude in their rela­tion­ship with God. The sway of the Daj­jal and his pow­er can­not in the least affect hearts upon which the lights of cer­ti­tude have dawned. The sway of the Daj­jal holds only over hearts whose cer­ti­tude has wilt­ed and whose attach­ment to evanes­cent mat­ters have grown strong.

The Invin­ci­bil­i­ty of Madina

It was relat­ed that the Daj­jal would roam the earth and that when he reach­es Mad ? the Radi­ant — upon its dweller the best bless­ings and greet­ings of peace ! — and desires to enter it, the angels will stand in front of him at the gates of Madd and bar his pas­sage. They will stand in front of him at a place the Mes­sen­ger of Allah — upon him bless­ings and peace — has named for us — al-Jurf — a place known today in Mad­i­nah al-Munawwara. He will stand on a moun­tain there and look toward the Mosque of the Beloved and his grave, say­ing : ​“Look there, at that white build­ing : that is the palace of Ahmad.” He will try to enter but will be unable. Some of his fol­low­ers will bring some peo­ple. The Prophet — upon him bless­ings and peace — said that when the Dajjl stands at the gates of Mad­i­nah, Mad­i­nah will shake three times ; at that time, any­one in whose heart remain hypocrisy and dis­sem­blance or oth­er than firm attach­ment to God Most High shall be cor­rupt­ed and fol­low the Daj­jal One of the nar­ra­tions spec­i­fies they will reach eighty thou­sand. God is our refuge from that !

The Right­eous Witness

Some of the sol­diers of the Daj­jal will seize a man from among the right­eous whom they think to be a com­mon per­son. They will stand him before the Daj­jal who will say to him : ​“Do you believe that I am your Lord?” He will reply : ​“No ! You are none oth­er than the Arch-Deceiv­er.” He will say : ​“I am your Lord!” ​“No ! You are the Daj­jal” He will say : ​“I am your Lord!” ​“No ! You are the Dajj?” He will then order for a saw to be brought. The saw will be placed in the mid­dle of the right­eous man’s head and he will be sawed in half until he becomes two sep­a­rate pieces and the hors­es will pass between the two. Then the Daj­jal will give an order. He will be brought back togeth­er again and the Daj­jal will pass his hand over him, after which he will live a sec­ond time, by the pow­er of God.

When he comes alive the Daj­jal will look at him, think­ing that he has def­i­nite­ly gained con­trol over him, and say : ​“I have caused you to die and caused you to come alive again. Do you now believe that I am your Lord?” The man will reply : ​“My cer­ti­tude has only increased that you are the Daj­jal of whom the Mes­sen­ger of Allah — upon him bless­ings and peace — told us!” He will order him to be killed but will be unable to do so anymore.

The Killing of the Dajjal

Just as the Daj­jal orders the right­eous man to be killed he will hear a voice cry­ing out : ​“The Spir­it from God, Jesus, has descend­ed!” When the Daj­jal hears the name of our liege-lord ​‘Isa he will shake and trem­ble in fear. He will rush to Pales­tine. There, the army of our liege-lord Jesus and our liege-lord al-Mah­di will meet the army of the Daj­jal at the gate of Ludd. When the Daj­jal looks and sees our liege-lord Jesus, upon him peace, sur­round­ed with a halo of light, the Daj­jal will melt — as men­tioned in the hadith — just as salt melts in water. Our liege-lord Jesus will approach him and so will our liege-lord al-Mah­di. They will strike him with their two swords and kill him.

O nations of the Believ­ers, this mat­ter is not just a sto­ry we hear for our hearts to be moved a lit­tle. This is about liv­ing, this is a method one fol­lows, a path one takes, this is a trans­ac­tion that is going to take place and in which we are going to be involved. At this very moment, the armies of The Christ are get­ting ready and so are the armies of the Daj­jal. The mean­ing of this prepa­ra­tion is that cer­tain attrib­ut­es in the hearts are ris­ing and tak­ing firm root in the army of Truth and Right while cer­tain attrib­ut­es are also form­ing in the army of Falsehood.

Christ, Anti-Christ, and the Jews

It is also said that the wis­dom for which God has the killing of the Daj­jal take place at the hands of our liege-lord the Christ is that the Daj­jal is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the oppres­sion of mate­ri­al­ism while our liege-lord the Christ is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the suprema­cy of the spir­it in this exis­tence. The Daj­jal is also named ​“anoint­ed” (masih, but ​“the anoint­ed arch-liar and deceiv­er” (al-masih al-kad­hd­hib al-daj­jal). He was named mas?because at some point in his career he will claim that he is our liege-lord the Christ.

This is because when the Jews fought the Christ — the spir­it from God — and refused to believe in him and sub­mit to his mis­sion, they then denied that the Christ had appeared even as it was writ­ten in their books that the Christ would appear. There­fore, they claimed that our liege-lord Jesus was a great liar — and he is far exalt­ed beyond their claim ! — and they opposed him and tried to kill him. But God saved him :

“They did not slay him, nei­ther cru­ci­fied him, only a like­ness of that was shown to them.” (4:157)

Then our liege-lord the Christ was raised up to the near heav­en — upon him peace — and the Jews remained as they were, in their belief that the Christ had not yet come out. They are now wait­ing for a Christ to come, and their Christ is the Daj­jal. About ten years ago or more a man­i­fes­ta­tion took place in Tel-Aviv in which a large plac­ard was hoist­ed, say­ing : ​“Wel­come to the impend­ing appear­ance of the Prince of Peace.” This is the one they claim to be the Christ, but he is the Arch-Deceiver.

The Secret of the Cre­ation of Jesus and Mary

The entire mat­ter is con­nect­ed to the days in which God caused our liege-lord Jesus to exist. The time in which our lady Mary was born — the purest and most blessed, upon her peace ! — was a time in which the tyran­ny of mate­ri­al­i­ty held full sway over the Jews. The inter­ests of the world dom­i­nat­ed them com­plete­ly. They even altered the word of God for the pur­pose of their buy­ing and sell­ing — the rul­ings of the sacred Law. God for­bade usury in all the dis­pen­sa­tions, so they altered the rul­ings and made usury per­mit­ted to them­selves. They made per­mit­ted to them­selves much of what God had for­bid­den them. They made up clouds to obscure the order of the heav­en­ly call which had been direct­ed to them for the pur­pose of run­ning after mate­r­i­al con­cerns. They became slaves of materialism.

Among the Jews there remained some right­eous souls such as the Prophets and their entourage and those that affil­i­at­ed them­selves to them. Among these right­eous souls was our lady Han­na the moth­er of our lady Mary, upon both of them peace. Han­na was one of the right­eous women, one of the God-wary, wor­ship­ful, devot­ed to prayer and good works. She had great love for Prophets, saints, and the devo­tees that were in Jerusalem. When she became preg­nant from her hus­band, she felt that she might give birth to a boy and so she vowed that what she car­ried in her womb would be ded­i­cat­ed to the ser­vice of God.

“Lord, I have vowed to You, in ded­i­ca­tion, what is in my womb.” (3:35)

She vowed that the new­born would serve the tem­ple of Jerusalem so as to become pre­pared for the ser­vice of the Religion.

Han­nah’s Vow

Look at the effect of inten­tion. What is our goal when we want to have chil­dren, what is our inten­tion ? The very deliv­er­ance which the Com­mu­ni­ty awaits, at the hands of our liege-lord Jesus, upon him peace ! — there will be for Han­na an ample por­tion of its reward and ben­e­fit. For she pos­sessed an inten­tion with God ! Look at this for­tu­nate woman who, when she intend­ed that in her off­spring there would be some­one who serves God, some­one who would serve this Reli­gion, when she was truth­ful in such an inten­tion, God hon­ored her because of her inten­tion, but not in the way she thought. For she gave birth to a female child.

“And when she gave birth to her she said, Lord, I have giv­en birth to her, a female. And God knows very well what she had giv­en birth to ; the male is not as the female. And I have named her Mary, and com­mend her to You with her seed, to pro­tect them from the accursed Satan.” (3:36)

What was the reply ? {Her Lord received the child with gra­cious favor}. The sum total of what the hearts of the truth­ful seek is that their Lord receive them with gra­cious favor !

“Her Lord received the child with gra­cious favor, and by His good­ness she grew up come­ly. Zachari­ah tak­ing charge of her.” (3:37)

The inten­tion of Han­na made the one she bore to be accept­ed, even though it was oth­er than what she had envis­aged and wished for, since she had wished for a boy and she got a girl. Right­eous and truth­ful inten­tions are not in vain in the pres­ence of God regard­less of the judi­cial cal­cu­la­tions of humankind and even if human hope and human plans did not mate­ri­alise. A girl came, but inten­tions are nev­er lost in the pres­ence of God — and thou­sands upon thou­sands of men are not worth Mary’s foot !

Seclu­sions and Mir­a­cles of Mary

She gave birth to our lady Mary. Our Lady Mary grew up, fed with puri­ty, light, God-wari­ness, and right­eous­ness. Those of the Prophets, saints, and her­mits that were in Jerusalem drew lots to see who would take charge of her. The lot fell to Zachari­ah. He was a rel­a­tive of Mary. Zachari­ah placed her in a mihrab. The mihrab back then was not the prayer-niche we know today but con­sist­ed in an iso­lat­ed cell or tow­er that had no door nor open­ing except from the top. It could be entered only with a lad­der from the out­side and anoth­er lad­der down into it. Zachari­ah placed her in it. He would bring her food and go. She prac­ticed her devo­tions and wor­ship in absolute ded­i­ca­tion and chasti­ty, ori­ent­ing her­self whol­ly to her Lord in her cell.

God showed our liege-lord Zachari­ah cer­tain wonders.

“When­ev­er Zachari­ah went into the sanc­tu­ary where she was, he found that she had food. He said : O Mary ! Whence comes unto you this (food)? She answered : It is from God. God gives with­out stint to whom He will. There Zachari­ah prayed unto his Lord.” (3:37 – 38)

Con­sid­er the say­ing of God, {There}. Zachari­ah is a Prophet and there­fore bet­ter than our lady Mary who is a truth­ful saint (sidd). How­ev­er, because of the high rank which our lady Mary gained, upon her peace, she became in a posi­tion to teach one of the Prophets ! At that point, one of the Prophets actu­al­ly became her pupil in the Reli­gion. They said that our liege-lord Zachari­ah won­dered from where the fruits he found there came. They said he would find with her the fruits of win­ter in the sum­mer sea­son and the fruits of sum­mer in the win­ter sea­son. He knew full well that no one oth­er than he entered that place which was shut tight and inac­ces­si­ble — but, more impor­tant­ly, such fruits were not to be found in the land since they were out of sea­son ! She said, {It is from God}. Yes, O Prophet of God, the fact of the mat­ter is the cer­ti­tude that sus­te­nance is from my Lord and not from any cre­at­ed cause. We do know that we are com­mand­ed to deal with cre­at­ed caus­es and effects — how­ev­er, if cre­at­ed caus­es and effects have been sup­pressed, then the sus­te­nance of God Almighty can nev­er be sup­pressed ! {There Zachari­ah prayed unto his Lord}. He asked for a pious off­spring. God gave him our liege-lord John, upon him peace.

Then came the tremen­dous event in which God man­i­fest­ed Him­self and for which He had pre­pared our lady Mary.

“And make men­tion of Mary in the Scrip­ture, when she had with­drawn from her peo­ple to a cham­ber look­ing East.” (19:16)

The Ule­ma said that {East} was an allu­sion to the Ori­ent from where the sun rose — that is, to the East from her per­spec­tive. The peo­ple are accus­tomed to praise the East because it is the place from the direc­tion of which the light comes.

“When she had with­drawn from her peo­ple to a cham­ber look­ing East and had cho­sen seclu­sion (hijab) from them.” (19:16 – 17)

They said that the hijab meant she hid her­self from mankind to ded­i­cat­ed her­self to the Divine wor­ship. After she tast­ed the sweet­ness of wor­ship in her cell she wished to taste the sweet­ness of wor­ship in her trav­el­ling on the earth.

Annun­ci­a­tion

“Then We sent unto her Our spir­it and it assumed for her the like­ness of a per­fect man.” (19:17)

When she saw our liege-lord Gabriel, he assumed for her an excel­lent like­ness, the like­ness of a human being.

“She said : Lo ! I seek refuge in the Benef­i­cent One from you, if you are God fear­ing. He said : I am only a mes­sen­ger of your Lord.” (19:18 – 19)

She real­ized the secret behind his pres­ence — the receiv­ing of the man­i­fes­ta­tion (tajall?that dawned upon her from God.

“That I may bestow on you a fault­less son.” (19:19)

What is behind such a gift ?

“She said : How can I have a son when no mor­tal has touched me, nei­ther have I been unchaste ! He said : So your Lord said.” (19:20 – 21)

Con­sid­er now the pres­ence of food for our lady Mary as she was in her cell, ded­i­cat­ed to her wor­ship, with­out means nor sen­so­ry cause. This was a pre­am­ble so that our lady Mary would under­stand that for the exis­tence of the new­born, also, there was no pre-con­di­tion of means. The mat­ter was not, for our lady Mary, mere­ly a men­tal appre­hen­sion. Rather, it was a dis­cern­ment of cer­ti­tude and of the heart (dhawq yaqu qal­bun) For she wit­nessed and saw with her very eyes the Divine gift with which human cus­tom and cause-and-effect were breached right in front of her ! After that, she did not con­sid­er it strange that a cus­tom­ary cause be breached in the occur­rence of a new­born child for her.

Birth of Jesus and Fur­ther Tests of Mary

Then came the time for giv­ing birth. It was said that the spir­it [of the child] was breathed into her, the preg­nan­cy took place, and the time of birth came all at one and the same time. Do not think this strange. The mat­ter, from begin­ning to end, vio­lates cus­tom. The mat­ter is one of the man­i­fes­ta­tions of the pow­er of God Almighty ! When she felt the time of birth had come,

“And the pangs of child­birth drove her unto the trunk of the palm tree. She said : Oh, would that I had died before this and had become a thing of naught, for­got­ten!” (19:23).

When she reached this stage, the Ule­ma pon­dered why she had asked for death while she was in the very midst of Divine gen­eros­i­ty. One of them said : ​“Because she knows that the Israelites had reached such a low­ly state of vile attach­ment to the world and its over­whelm­ing lusts and mate­ri­al­ism that they would nev­er accept the sight of God’s favor and the breach of cus­tom­ary laws that took place with Mary.” Some­one else said, ​“No, she wished that she had not lived to see that day only because God had shown her that her son might one day be wor­shipped togeth­er with God Almighty.”

She gave birth to our liege-lord Jesus — upon our Prophet and upon him the best bless­ings and salu­ta­tions of peace ! The lights of Jesus dawned upon this earth. When he saw the [dis­traught] state of his moth­er he addressed her even as he was in her womb or from below her [after birth]. He caused her to appre­hend anoth­er mean­ing that remind­ed her of the mag­nif­i­cence of God Who is with her — High and Exalted !

“And shake the trunk of the palm tree toward you, you will cause ripe dates to fall upon thee.” (19:25)

Here we tend to recite this verse with­out paus­ing. The palm tree is sol­id. It is dif­fi­cult for a human being to shake it. A strong and mighty man would hard­ly budge a palm tree, even a num­ber of men ! The palm tree trunk at the bot­tom is very large while its top is thin so that the wind can move it. Try to move a ful­ly grown palm tree at the bot­tom of its trunk, you will not be able. How then can a woman in the weak­ness of giv­ing birth be able to shake it ? Yet this act is demand­ed of her and it is not suf­fi­cient for her to mere­ly see the Divine bounty.

In the first two phas­es, she saw the Divine gift before her. The first time was for her school­ing. Lo and behold, fruits and sus­te­nance descend­ed from the heav­en and were laid before her with­out her ask­ing. The sec­ond time she was told that she would give birth with­out out­ward nor sen­so­ry cause and with­out con­nec­tion to any man, again, with­out her ask­ing. Now, it is asked of her that she her­self move the palm tree.

Some of the Ule­ma said that this was an allu­sion to the world of cause and effect and to the fact that mankind is not to leave aside mate­r­i­al means even though they rely on their Causator. This is a fine expla­na­tion. How­ev­er, there is anoth­er mean­ing. The cer­ti­tude that had built up in our most blessed Lady Mary — upon her peace — the vir­gin, had tak­en root in her con­science with such strength that it was now wasked of her to do what no mind would accept to do whatsoever.

Lessons from Mary’s Certitude

The mind says that in such a state there is no way for her to move the trunk of the palm tree. How­ev­er, the order or direc­tive came to her from her own child — a breach of cus­tom in its own right, a new­born infant speak­ing — and with this same breach of cus­tom she was ordered to stretch her hand to do what she knew she was unable to do of her own pow­er how­so­ev­er ! And this is a mean­ing from cer­ti­tude to which our lady Mary ascend­ed. We own a share of this cer­ti­tude which we ought to grasp and follow.

When God Most Glo­ri­ous and Exalt­ed asks us to do some­thing from which we find our strength falling short, we ought not to pro­cras­ti­nate obey­ing the Divine order with the excuse that we are too weak or that oth­ers are stronger. The day the Umma reach­es the cer­ti­tude that when they are true in help­ing God, God will help them [47:7] — at that time the palm trees of exis­tence shall shake for this Community !

Jeal­ousy of the Israelites

Our pure lady the Vir­gin rose with her new­born child and returned to the Israelites. The Jews received her and saw her whom they knew to be cho­sen. Some of them might well have har­bored jeal­ousy in their souls against her because of her spe­cial sta­tion. Those whose hearts have mud­died or become dis­eased find it dif­fi­cult to watch those that are hale respect­ed and hon­ored in the society.

This is what is called jeal­ousy (hasad). The mark of jeal­ousy is rec­og­nized in the heart of the jeal­ous per­son by the fact that when he sees mark­ers of dis­tinc­tion before him — whether in Reli­gion or any­thing else — some­thing takes hold in his heart ; after this he bides his time patient­ly, patient­ly, until, when he hears the small­est sus­pi­cion or accu­sa­tion, he shouts ​“Yes!” loud and clear in its con­fir­ma­tion and is over­joyed at its news. Why ? Because in his heart there is filth and turbidity.

When such filth and tur­bid­i­ty had tak­en root in the hearts of those peo­ple, they felt that in the spe­cial dis­tinc­tion of our liege-lord Mary — upon her peace — lay an implic­it address to them­selves. They seemed to hear the mes­sage : ​“You ought to return to puri­ty, O those who have pol­lut­ed your­selves with the world and its lucre and its show to which you should nev­er have attached your­selves ! Here, before your eyes, is a weak woman that has been hon­ored with this high sta­tion of puri­ty while you, who lead your soci­ety, how far behind you have left purity!”

The Great Admo­ni­tion to Mary and Jesus’ Nation

Thus, the state of puri­ty of the Vir­gin Mary was a state of admo­ni­tion that had been over­turn­ing the beds of those pos­sessed of insight among the wor­ship­pers of mon­ey and mate­ri­al­i­ty. Now, as soon as they saw the nurs­ing infant in her arms, they became overjoyed.

“They said : O Mary ! You have come with an amaz­ing thing!” (19:27)

Why did they not ask when they had a chance to learn some­thing ? But their mud­died hearts could not bear to see the puri­ty of the Vir­gin before their eyes. This is the wont of those who have pol­lut­ed them­selves with the wor­ship of Mam­mon. It is too much for them to see puri­ty revered and fol­lowed among the people.

“Then she point­ed to him. They said, How can we talk to one who is in the cra­dle, an infant?” (19:29)

God did not give them pause for her to answer them. Lo and behold ! our liege-lord the Christ replied to them and spoke although he was a nurs­ing infant :

“He spoke : Lo ! I am the slave of God. He has giv­en me the Scrip­ture and has appoint­ed me a Prophet.” (19:30)

He list­ed the mean­ings which God Most High had espe­cial­ly bestowed upon him and the ranks with which He had hon­ored him. He made the key to that list the affir­ma­tion that he was the slave of God, his ser­vant­hood to God Most High. Then, pro­ceed­ing from the secret of his ser­vant­hood to God Most High, came the ranks : {He has giv­en me the Scrip­ture and has appoint­ed me a Prophet}.

Then he described him­self as blessed, then he described him­self as duti­ful so we would know that the secret of duti­ful piety is not bind­ing mere­ly upon those who pos­sess it but also applies to oth­ers. THE SOCIETIES THAT RECOGNIZE THE DEGREES OF PIETY AMONG ITS PEOPLE OF MERIT ARE THE SOCIETIES THAT RISE UP IN THE RANKS OF MERIT. God had said to her before she went back out to her people :

“And if you meet any mor­tal, say : Lo ! I have vowed a fast unto the Benef­i­cent, and may not speak this day to any mor­tal.” (19:26)

Pon­der this mean­ing. The rule would have been that He tell her : ​“Get ready to answer them. Say to them, God is able over all things. Give them the proof and the evi­dences : I car­ried and gave birth in a very brief time, you saw me just before and I was not preg­nant, if this had been a false­hood or a sin, this should have tak­en the nor­mal span of time, nine months.…” But He did not give her per­mis­sion to speak nor to prove her inno­cence. {Say : Lo ! I have vowed a fast unto the Benef­i­cent, and may not speak this day to any mor­tal}. Mean­ing, in fac­ing this [tri­al] I have turned entire­ly to my Lord Almighty and Glorious.

“Then she brought him to her own folk, car­ry­ing him. They said : O Mary ! You have come with an amaz­ing thing. O sis­ter of Aaron ! Your father was not a wicked man nor was your moth­er a har­lot.” (19:27)

Pon­der this here. It was said that {O sis­ter of Aaron} implied parent­age. It was also said that Aaron was prover­bial­ly known for integri­ty and puri­ty. That is : You who have reached, because of your puri­ty, a prover­bial lev­el. {Your father was not a wicked man nor was your moth­er a har­lot}. This is a pre­am­ble for the charge that is com­ing up. After false­hood set­tles firm­ly in the heart of the dis­hon­est per­son, he becomes refined in the art of bring­ing out that false­hood. ​“We know so well that you are right­eous and good­ly, but this — this ter­ri­ble thing you have done!!” They seem hap­py to see evil.

Jesus’ Attrib­ut­es

{Then she point­ed to him. They said, How can we talk to one who is in the cra­dle, an infant ?}.

The answer came.

“He spoke : Lo ! I am the slave of God. He has giv­en me the Scrip­ture and has appoint­ed me a Prophet and has made me blessed where­so­ev­er I may be.” (19:29 – 31)

So then bless­ing is with our liege-lord Jesus wher­ev­er he is. When he walked upon the earth bless­ing was with him wher­ev­er he walked, and after he ascend­ed to the heav­en bless­ing ascend­ed wher­ev­er he ascended.

“And He has enjoined upon me prayer and alms­giv­ing so long as I remain alive and has made me duti­ful toward her who bore me, and has not made me arro­gant, unblessed.” (19:31 – 32)

And now the fruit of what preceded :

“ ​‘Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive!’ Such was Jesus, son of Mary : a state­ment of the truth con­cern­ing which they doubt.” (19:33)

When this mean­ing came into broad day­light they were crest­fall­en and remained unable to say anything.

Jesus’ Mis­sion

Our liege-lord Jesus grew up, fed with puri­ty. When God willed to send him forth, his mis­sion among his peo­ple was the mis­sion of the spir­it : to link the hearts back with their Lord and revive val­ues and morals. This is the rea­son we do not find, in the Evan­gel, much talk about rul­ings and laws but instead find that the Evan­gel focus­es on morals, para­bles, and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. For our liege-lord Jesus said, as is men­tioned in the Evan­gel : ​“I was sent for the lost sheep of the Sons of Israel.” That is, God sent me to those whom the world has so over­whelmed that they have become as dumb beasts, uncon­cerned by oth­er than food, drink, and lusts, with­out the least heed to ris­ing to any Divine connection.

When they did not accept that mag­nif­i­cent mis­sion, deny­ing its truth, plot­ting against it, den­i­grat­ing it and defam­ing our liege-lord Jesus while some of them believed in him, God desired to cleanse him and raise him up to the sec­ond heav­en. He raised him up — upon him peace — and the days passed while they remained in their dis­be­lief, defac­ing the creed, far from spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and con­nec­tion, and so until the time came when our liege-lord Muham­mad appeared — upon him and his House bless­ings and peace ! Our liege-lord Jesus had giv­en the glad tid­ings about him in the Evangel.

The Prophet Muham­mad and his Inheritors

Our liege-lord Muham­mad appeared ! God gave him a Book and He gave him rul­ings. He guar­an­teed that they would not be altered nor changed. The peo­ple then remained, on this earth, in the fold of true sub­mis­sion and belief. The spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of our liege-lord Muham­mad’s proofs point­ing to God rose and became dis­sem­i­nat­ed in his Com­pan­ions and the peo­ple of his House as well as all those that fol­lowed. The entire Com­mu­ni­ty rose up in the lev­els of their con­nec­tion to God and showed such won­ders that the onlook­er can hard­ly believe that such deeds took place at the hands of human beings oth­er than the sin­less Prophets. These won­ders appeared in many of the indi­vid­u­als of this Com­mu­ni­ty and in their human trans­ac­tions. Their spir­its are inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed with the One True God, Most High and Exalt­ed — monks by night and knights by day. And so the cen­turies passed. The world began to enter many of the hearts of the fol­low­ers of this reli­gious Com­mu­ni­ty. The Prophet had pre­dict­ed — upon him bless­ings and peace — that every Com­mu­ni­ty had its [gold­en] calf. That is : a calf that is wor­shipped apart from God Most High. He said : ​“And the calf of my Com­mu­ni­ty is the dinar and the dirham.” He also said, upon him bless­ings and peace, as nar­rat­ed in al-Bukhari : ​“I do not fear that you will com­mit idol­a­try after me” — because the creed is well-pre­served — ​“but I fear for you the lure of the world.”

One day, the zakat funds came from al-Bahrayn, the poor among the Com­pan­ions came from the out­er lim­its of the city, hop­ing for the gen­eros­i­ty of the Prophet — upon him bless­ings and peace — with some­thing from that zakat The Beloved Prophet — upon him bless­ings and peace — turned around after the dawn prayer and saw that the mosque was full. He said : ​“Have the news reached you that the zakat of al-Bahrayn has arrived?” They said, ​“Yes, O Mes­sen­ger of God!” He said, ​“Receive the good tid­ings and be glad, then ! By God ! I do not fear pover­ty for you. How­ev­er, I fear that the world will be laid wide open before you just as it was laid open for those before you, and you will com­pete in it just as they com­pet­ed in it, and it will destroy you just as it destroyed them.”

He also said to some of his Com­pan­ions one day : ​“What will you do when a dish is brought to you in the morn­ing and anoth­er dish in the evening?” That is : what will you do when you start eat­ing twice in the same day ? For some of our liege-lords the Com­pan­ions might have spent three days with­out eat­ing, yet they took up their swords and fought in the way of God. Yet they prayed at night and fast­ed by day, learned and taught and called peo­ple to God ! They owned hearts that had become com­plete­ly dis­con­nect­ed from mate­r­i­al con­cerns in the sense of fol­low­er­ship. They remained con­nect­ed to mate­r­i­al con­cerns only in the sense of wor­ship­ping their Lord. They treat­ed such con­cerns pure­ly as ways and means, with­out any attach­ment to them.

As a result, one of them saw no harm in fac­ing an entire army alone. It should come as no sur­prise that Ja‘far ibn Abu Tal­ib took up the flag in his right hand, then his right hand was cut off, but his soul did not allow him to let the flag go down because his heart had lift­ed up the flag well before his hand ! The flag was in his heart. So the left hand took it up, then the left hand was cut off, then he car­ried it up with his two limbs, then he fell on the ground but the flag nev­er fell from him. In his body there were over eighty cuts from sword-blows, spears, and arrows. All these cuts were in the front of his body for he had been fac­ing the ene­my at all times and nev­er thought of flee­ing. Stranger yet is that when water was pre­sent­ed to him so that he could relieve his thirst in the throes of death, lips parched, com­plete­ly exhaust­ed, he said : ​“I am fasting.”

These are the attrib­ut­es with which God grant­ed them vic­to­ry. ​“I am fast­ing.” They said : ​“In such a time, on such a day ? Break your fast today and you will fast again tomor­row!” He replied : ​“I long to break my fast in Par­adise.” Such was his state. Then he gave up the spir­it [in Mu’­ta, Jor­dan], and the Beloved Elect — upon him bless­ings and peace — was sit­ting in the pres­ence of his Com­pan­ions [in Mad­i­nah] when he described the entire bat­tle in detail. After this, he — upon him bless­ings and peace — rose his head and said : ​“Wa-‘alayk as-Salam wa-rah­mat­ul­lah wa-barakatuh, O Ja‘far!” The Com­pan­ions expressed sur­prise, where­upon he said : ​“That was Ja‘far, the angels car­ried his spir­it to Par­adise and he refused to enter it until he first greet­ed me!”

Such were those who owned spir­its attached to the high­est real­i­ties — love and its heart­felt dis­cern­ment. Their spir­its were not ded­i­cat­ed to plea­sures nor moti­vat­ed by them. Rather, they rev­eled in and tast­ed the love of God and His Mes­sen­ger. Since these were their states, God exalt­ed their lights. ​‘Umar ibn al-Khat­tab, God be well-pleased with him, who used to nap or sleep under a tree on the dirt, then would get up and dust him­self off, is the one at whose hand the two great­est empires of cor­rup­tion at the time were con­quered — the Romans and the Persians.

The End of Tyran­ny of Materialism

Such was the state which the Mes­sen­ger of God — upon him bless­ings and peace — left behind when he left us. Then the Com­mu­ni­ty began to go back­ward. Love of the world crept for­ward. The calf held sway over the hearts. The peo­ple hanged back from true guid­ance. Mate­ri­al­ism cap­tured their hearts. The peo­ple stood in need of those that would return them to their spir­i­tu­al real­i­ties. Since the faith was pre­served from cor­rup­tion through the Divine guar­an­tee that it would nev­er be altered exclu­sive­ly of oth­er faiths, the rul­ings of the Law remained intact — in the books.

These rul­ings still have to be trans­formed into rules of liv­ing prac­ticed by the hearts. The Ummah needs, in this age in which mer­ci­less mate­ri­al­ism rules, the appear­ance of mas­sive spir­i­tu­al­i­ty con­nect­ed to the Almighty God with an unbro­ken link to the heav­ens. Through it God will return the com­mu­ni­ty to its spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and that event is linked to the descent of Jesus, upon him peace.

At that time, the man­i­fes­ta­tion of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty will descend, in this age of utter mate­ri­al­ism, and will link back the indi­vid­u­als of this Com­mu­ni­ty to their Book, their Reli­gion, and the guid­ance of our liege-lord Muham­mad — upon him bless­ings and peace. He will walk the earth, not with the dis­pen­sa­tions of pre­vi­ous times that were in use before him — since they have been cor­rupt­ed — but he will ori­ent the peo­ple and spread good­ness, peace, faith, and Islam in the earth through rules and rul­ings tak­en from the noble Qur’an and from the guid­ance of our liege-lord Muham­mad because these were not cor­rupt­ed. The rul­ings remain the rul­ings but our liege-lord Jesus will come in order to trans­form them into liv­ing rules that will reach to the hearts of all people.

After the man­i­fes­ta­tion of absolute spir­i­tu­al­i­ty appears in this exis­tence in the face of absolute mate­ri­al­i­ty, the lat­ter will crack and cave in before the for­mer, because mate­ri­al­i­ty comes sec­ond to the spir­it. Mate­ri­al­i­ty was cre­at­ed only as a ser­vant to the spir­it, were it not for the fool­ish­ness of the peo­ple and their cov­etous­ness that caused them to make of them­selves ser­vants of mate­ri­al­ism ! When the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the tyran­ny of mate­ri­al­ism looks at the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the suprema­cy of the spir­it it shall melt and be pow­er­less to resist. At that time the divine vic­to­ry will appear in plain sight, at the hand of our liege-lord Jesus, upon him peace.

Con­ver­sion of the Fol­low­ers of Jesus

Jesus will kill the Daj­jal and the earth will be filled, from east to West, with the lights of Isl?and faith. There will not remain a sin­gle house in exis­tence except the lights of belief and guid­ance will enter it. Those truth­ful and sin­cere fol­low­ers of Jesus that love him and are con­nect­ed to him will enter Isl?at his hands at that time. It is among the great won­ders that Jesus will descend ​“at the site of the white minaret East of Dam­as­cus” while at the very side of this minaret there is a Chris­t­ian church, as if, upon his descent, he will be greet­ed both by the Mus­lims and the Christians.

The Mus­lims will wel­come him in their salat so that he will pray among them. Then he will receive his fol­low­ers that lived their lives believ­ing in him and lov­ing him so that he will join them into his God­ly troops. After this, they will march one and all to fight the oppres­sion and the enmi­ty of the Jews at that time. Then God will raise up His light-tow­er over this world.

Final Rec­om­men­da­tion

We must remem­ber that what we just heard is not mere­ly a sto­ry for our souls to be moved a lit­tle or for our thoughts to perk up tem­porar­i­ly or become joy­ful or shed tears. The dis­course about our liege-lord the Christ is a method to be fol­lowed. Those that pos­sess this guid­ance and this dis­cern­ment and taste for the spir­it and for their con­nec­tion to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty will be the ones at whose hands God will open the gates of deliv­er­ance for this Umma. We must know that even if the great­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of the deliv­er­ance we await will take place at the descent of our liege-lord the Christ, nev­er­the­less, it is not part of our Reli­gion that we should wait until our liege-lord the Christ descend and be con­tent with the evil which we are experiencing.

The sto­ry of the Christ was assigned, and news of it came from the mouth of our liege-lord Muham­mad, only so that we would know that this is the path of right guid­ance. Name­ly, that the link­age of hearts must be to their Almighty and Glo­ri­ous Lord and that mate­ri­al­i­ty belongs under­hand and under­foot. Putting God first, before any­thing else, is the way of safe­ty and success.

It would have been pos­si­ble for the Mes­sen­ger of God nev­er to tell us any­thing about this. He could have said, You will be vic­to­ri­ous, end of the mat­ter. But why, O Mes­sen­ger of God, did you teach us and remind us of all this, that sal­va­tion and vic­to­ry will be at the hands of our liege-lord the Christ ? So that we would live this right here and now and be pre­pared for this vic­to­ry. Let each of you rise in the morn­ing and reach the night as he is prepar­ing the Umma of the Prophet for this final victory.

Let each rise in the morn­ing and reach the night with his heart bound to his Lord with hoops of steel, pre­fer­ring God to every­thing else. When the world comes to him with its pomp, try­ing to delay him from his con­nec­tion to his Lord, he prefers his Lord to every­thing else. He does not accept for the world to enroll him. He refus­es to cheat or deceive in his buy­ing and sell­ing, in his trad­ing, in his prop­er­ty. He is not a slave to the dinar and the dirham.

The Mes­sen­ger of God Muham­mad said : ​“Per­ish the wor­ship­per of gold and sil­ver and silk, who agrees when giv­en and, if he does not get any­thing, becomes angry. He has per­ished and failed ! [Or : Per­ish, and fail­ure to him!] If adver­si­ty come to him, may it not go away.” That is, his state is a state of afflic­tion. Con­sid­er the words of the Prophet, ​“If adver­si­ty come to him [lit­er­al­ly : If he gets pricked by a thorn], may it not go away [lit­er­al­ly : he does not remove it].” That is : when a thorn pricks him, he can very well remove it with pin­cers, but no ! It is not the case. What is the mean­ing of these words ? World­ly peo­ple, when dis­ease afflicts them, go to the physi­cian and under­go an oper­a­tion in the best hos­pi­tal, end of sto­ry. The mean­ing is that the thorn, as triv­ial as it may be, spoils one’s seren­i­ty. It embit­ters him and trou­bles his peace.

A thorn ! Ouch ! What ! But ! He feels dis­turbed, afflict­ed. The Mes­sen­ger of God says, in this con­text, that the one who is a wor­ship­per of gold and sil­ver, liv­ing for appear­ances — a silk shirt — when a prob­lem hap­pens to him, he sips its sequels and treats it as a dis­as­ter, so that even when the dis­as­ter is gone, its agony lingers in him­self. But the one who is con­nect­ed to God, God hon­ors him. Even in the worst afflic­tion, God caus­es to descend upon his heart the cool­ness of con­tent­ment so that he is at peace with God Most Glo­ri­ous and Exalt­ed and accepts His Decree that came to pass.

Reflect and nour­ish your feel­ings with such high mean­ings. Ask for your con­nec­tion and your por­tion of the mean­ing of your affil­i­a­tion to the army of truth and the ral­ly­ing-place (fust ? of belief so as to come out of the predica­ment in which we are. Who­ev­er neglects the purifi­ca­tion of his heart and the cor­rec­tion of his char­ac­ter, his heart will be over­come by hypocrisy — our refuge is God ! — lit­tle by lit­tle until he leans to the ral­ly­ing-place of dis­be­lief which is devoid of all faith.

The bat­tle of dis­be­lief and belief is com­ing whether we like it or not. How­ev­er, prepa­ra­tion for that bat­tle is not mere­ly with weapons or swords or strat­e­gy ! Rather, prepa­ra­tion for that bat­tle is by get­ting ready hearts whose fill is God — hearts that do not become full except with the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion of the Almighty. This is the real prepa­ra­tion for what is com­ing upon this Community.

Clos­ing Supplications

May God make us and you qual­i­fied for this prepa­ra­tion. May He bless us and you with it. May He awak­en us to its full mean­ings. May He make sweet for us its well­springs. May He cause us to stop at its con­tents and secrets. May He cause us to attain real­iza­tion with it out­ward­ly and inwardly.

Allahum­ma ! Thank and reward on our behalf our liege-lord Muham­mad with the best reward. Thank and reward on our behalf all the Prophets and Mes­sen­gers with the best reward. All?mma ! Refresh our eyes with a vic­to­ry for the army of our liege-lord the Christ Jesus when he comes. Make us of those You choose so that they will be on the side of truth and belief.

Allahum­ma ! Puri­fy and deliv­er our hearts from the dark­ness of hypocrisy. Puri­fy and deliv­er our hearts from the dark­ness of hypocrisy. Puri­fy and deliv­er our hearts from the dark­ness of hypocrisy so that no trace of hypocrisy remain in our inward selves nor its out­ward sign until, when You sep­a­rate the peo­ple and set apart false­hood from truth and hypocrisy from belief, we beg You to place us in the ranks of the peo­ple of belief. We seek refuge in the light of Your coun­te­nance which has dis­pelled all dark­ness from being placed in the ranks of the peo­ple of hypocrisy and falsehood.

Our God and Lord ! You see all that lies hid­den in our hearts. If You see in them any­thing that makes us deserv­ing of a bad end, we ask You to puri­fy us of evil and to cleanse us of faults and to make our records bright again and free from sins and to enlight­en our hearts and dis­pel all dark­ness in them until You bring us out of the dark­ness and into light and give us life again after we were dead.

Allahum­ma ! Make us of those You raised unto life and about whom You said,

“Is he who was dead and We have raised him unto life, and set for him a light where­in he walks among men, as him whose simil­i­tude is in utter dark­ness whence he can­not emerge?” (6:122)

Allahum­ma ! Make us of the peo­ple of light by which we walk among the peo­ple. O Liv­ing One Who nev­er dies ! O Most Gen­er­ous of the generous !

Allahum­ma ! Grant us love of You and love of those who love You and those whom You love and that which You love. Puri­fy our hearts from attach­ments oth­er than to You. Make us of those folk whom You love and who love You.

Allahum­ma ! The strifes and tri­als have become too much for the peo­ple. Vio­lence has over­come them. Evil and mis­chief have descend­ed upon them. But You are Allah ! What a fine reserve we have in You ! What a fine refuge ! There is no refuge nor res­cue from You except in You. We ask You for a glance from You toward us. We ask You for ten­der­ness on Your part for us. We ask You for Your mer­cy for us by which we may tread the paths of light and puri­ty and by which we will stand firm when cre­ation is shak­en with tribu­la­tions. Allahum­ma ! Pro­tect us from the evil of tribu­la­tions — those that have already appeared and those that are still wait­ing to appear. Make us of the peo­ple of wis­dom. Raise us to the high sta­tions with those whom You love. Take us to the ways of those You have grant­ed suc­cess. Place us among their elect ones.

Allahum­ma ! Bring us to life in faith. Cause us to die doing our best. Res­ur­rect us in the throng of the liege-lord of the worlds, Muham­mad, upon him and his House and Com­pan­ions Your bless­ings and peace !

Allahum­ma ! If You have decreed for us to live until the time our liege-lord the Christ, upon him peace, we ask You, O God, the char­ac­ter of those who are in his train, and excel­lence in serv­ing and aid­ing him and his army. We ask You for per­fec­tion in stand­ing firm in obe­di­ence to You and pre­fer­ring the Ever­last­ing to the mor­tal. And if we are not of those that will live to see that time, we call upon You to wit­ness, and upon Your Throne-bear­ing angels, and all Your cre­ation, that we believe You are Allah the One God besides Whom there is no god, with­out part­ner, and that our liege-lord Muham­mad is Your ser­vant and Mes­sen­ger, and that our liege-lord Jesus is Your ser­vant and Mes­sen­ger, Your word which You cast upon Mary, and that we love those that are beloved to You and we repu­di­ate Your ene­mies. There­fore, pre­serve this pro­nouce­ment of ours. Cor­rect our inten­tions in serv­ing You. Make us of the right­eous of this Com­mu­ni­ty. Grant us mer­cy in Your generosity.

Allahum­ma ! Look kind­ly upon the Com­mu­ni­ty of our liege-lord Muham­mad with a glance from you. Indeed, we com­plain to You of what has befall­en us — unbear­able harms, the oppres­sion of our ene­mies, our han­ker­ing after the fleet­ing things of this world, putting them first rather than You. We com­plain to You of los­ing the man­ners of our liege-lord Muham­mad in the hous­es of his Com­mu­ni­ty and los­ing his Sun­na in the hous­es of his Com­mu­ni­ty. We ask You to return the Mus­lims to You in a beau­ti­ful return.

Allahum­ma ! Relent upon us and the Mus­lims a most com­plete relent­ing. Puri­fy us with it heart, body, and soul. Allahum­ma ! For­give us our past sins and guard us in what remains.

Allahum­ma ! Who­ev­er You cause to live among us, cause them to live accord­ing to Isl?and Sun­na. Who­ev­er You cause to die among us, cause them to die upon belief and the wit­ness­ing of faith. Pre­pare for us an excel­lent abode, and more. Has­ten for this Com­mu­ni­ty the time of their reform and guid­ance in which the obe­di­ent will be hon­ored, the dis­obe­di­ent changed through Your relent­ing, and those who were not over­tak­en by Your relent­ing will be brought low.

Allahum­ma ! Bless this place. Bless this school. Bless this insti­tu­tion. Bless his emi­nence the Mufti [of Lebanon], his deputy and work­ers, our Shaykhs that are present, and the peo­ple of learn­ing in these regions. Help them in the duties and the trust with which You have entrust­ed them.

Allahum­ma ! Cause them to attain, through excel­lence in their ser­vice, what will pre­pare them to keep com­pa­ny with the most excel­lent Beloved, upon him and his House Your bless­ings and peace, and so all the Ule­ma of the Mus­lims. Bring the hearts togeth­er. Uni­fy the ranks. Chase out love of the world from the minds. Make us firm upon what You love and what sat­is­fies You. Thank and reward on our behalf his emi­nence the Mufti with the best reward. Bless him all his life, in his mis­sion and ser­vice, and so all the Ule­ma of the Mus­lims. Bless us in this gath­er­ing and grant us Your accep­tance in it.

Allahum­ma ! Tru­ly we ask You for accep­tance from Your side. If You accept us, there no lit­tle with such accep­tance just as plen­ty is noth­ing with rejec­tion. We ask You for Your accep­tance of our good deeds which You have grant­ed us suc­cess to car­ry out. We ask You to puri­fy them of any dubi­ous aspects and to raise us by them to the lev­els of Your good plea­sure. We ask You for­give­ness ; pro­tec­tion ; for­bear­ance ; par­don ; and Your clement dis­re­gard of the wrong we have done, O Liv­ing One Who nev­er dies, Whose sub­tle kind­ness nev­er stops ! Make us and all Mus­lims safe, safe.…

We ask You a vast expanse of guid­ance in these regions and in all the regions East and West and that You be well-pleased in using us to serve You in that with Your Attrib­ut­es of kind­ness, munif­i­cence, and lov­ing­ness, O Most Ten­der, O Most Giv­ing. And let our last words in this words be LA ILAHA ILLA ALLAH MUHAMMADUN RASULULLAH in full real­iza­tion of its real­i­ties in our minds and sens­es out­ward­ly and inward­ly, O Most Mer­ci­ful. The Bless­ings of God upon our liege-lord Muham­mad and his House and Com­pan­ions. Our last word is, Praise to God the Lord of the worlds. Al-Fatiha.

Dhul-Qi‘da 1423.