We have just come out of the month of Rajab [2012] and many of us must be feeling spiritually good for what we have achieved during this month. It was not always easy. It was very cold. It was also very early. But part of our personal spiritual sacrifice is to be able to overcome these elements of weather or of time so that we can serve our Lord. I am sure, just by talking to some of you, that many of you covered the full monthly programme. And you did this not for yourselves. If it had to be for yourselves, you would have remained in bed.
I think now how each one of you took a major step forward in your striving. Every morning an additional step, every morning mention has been made to your Lord, although He knows about it, about His servants who, despite the temperature and the early hours, are calling words of Allah’s (ﷻ) glorification. We must understand what we have been busy with. Every morning about two hours before Fajr, we joined the cosmic chorus of His glorification. But that wasn’t all. There is also for every moment of time, an angelic chorus of His Glorification. Is that all? Are the glorifications that of the cosmos and that of His angels? Of course not. The greatest glorification, unequalled and infinite, is the glorification of the Lord of Himself. We, sitting on our beds under our blankets or sitting in front of heaters, whatever the case might be, were busy with a process of glorification, the extent of which we have not the foggiest idea. Can you imagine (and of course you can), as you call out your Lord’s Name and glorify Him, so every bit of existence in all of creation does exactly the same. Much more than this, Allah Almighty sends out throughout this creation, His “own personal” glorification upon Himself. And so, for every moment of time, there is this massive glorification of which we have no comprehension, and which we know so little about; but it is there. Do we think that the little bits of remembrance of our Lord that we do is the sum total of His remembrance in His Creation? Do we think so? Even if all of humanity should be busy for every single moment of time in the remembrance of their Lord what they do has no comparison to what the whole cosmos and the angels do, and what the whole cosmos and the angels do have no comparison to what our Lord does. That is why Allah Almighty says in the Qur’an:
وَ لَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ
And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest (xxix: 45).
So what we did during Rajab is a very, very small portion of the general remembrance that takes place all the time. Despite its minute amount, this performance of remembering our Lord during His month of Rajab, stands out as a major contribution by us to the general glorification of our Lord. Although small in amount, it is far from small in importance.
On many previous occasions, I have explained to you that we are only very small particles in our Lord’s creation; but our size is insignificant to our importance by Him. We are the only part of His creation that has been given the quality of decision-making in our lives. We can decide whether we want to do something or not. This is how we feel about the matter. And so, our worship of Him, according to our own understanding, has to do with a conscious decision on our part. This is how we feel about this matter of decision-making and this is how we gauge it, although we know that our Lord’s Decree with regard to all matters, prevails all the time. We do not understand this contradiction. All that it seems is that we are able to do things according to our own will. And so, there are times when we want our will to operate and not our Lord’s Will.
I am mentioning this to you, because I want us to understand that in the rest of His creation, His glorification is inherent. Every part of existence in all of creation has been programmed by Him to glorify Him and to remember Him in other ways. We do not understand this. We just know that it takes place. Our minds do not have this inherent programming, although the rest of our bodies have. So you can have a body that glorifies its Lord, but the mind of that body that rejects that glorification. All of these matters we do not understand. It lies within the knowledge of our Lord.
Let me come back where I started from; my concern with all the murids and the extent to which each one joined the chorus of glorification of our Lord in the early hours of the morning. Some joined, and some slept. Those who joined, at least for the month of Rajab, were a special group of His servants. Overcoming the problems of time and weather, they sat each morning in the candle light calling out to their Lord. It did not matter the extent of their concentration. What mattered was what they were busy with, and how this was recorded for them in their Records. Somewhere along the line, despite our weaknesses, Allah Almighty might have had us registered as the people of Rajab, because of what some of us were involved with in this month.
If I think of how we lived before and what we are doing now, then I lower my head in gratitude to our Lord for taking us along this path. It is not always easy within the confines of our homes and the social structures we operate in, to be involved in things which most people disregard. In a sense, one feels isolated but in another sense, one is part of the greater glorification of our Lord throughout all of existence and what comes from Him and His angels. We should be so grateful for what our Lord has granted us; so that when He asks us to take a step in His direction, to perform a small task on His behalf, there should be no hesitation. His is Lord and through His Generosity, involves us in some of His Work. This is a special grace granted to few, and those of us who have been granted this grace, should relish the grant. We relish it by showing gratitude and also by taking the necessary action that is required of us. We ask Him to keep us of those people of His greatest glorification and to let us do and say what comes from His command, amin.
[Letters to Seekers on the Spiritual Path Vol 2 – Unpublished 2012]
