Abdul Qadir Gilani

What follows is the opening of this book, The Etiquette of Conduct.

Authored by Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani May God sanctify His noble secret.

The Book's Chain of Transmission In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, in Him I place my trust.

My grandfather, the learned, wise, pious, ascetic, devout imam, the exemplar of the sheikhs, the pole of Islam, the beacon for the ascetics and the guide for the worshippers in religion, the vanquisher of innovation, the supporter of the sunnah, informed me.

People were like, this is the west, this is the western civilisation Not just that, they attacked America and they attacked London That's a big thing That is what I want to get into your minds Now imagine if an invading force came and they destroyed London And the cities were filled with hundreds of thousands of bodies How impactful do you think that would be? For us who live here in London We would feel like that's the end of the world The idea of the UK and the US and that Western superpower The idea of that not existing in reality Is something that we probably couldn't conceive of So imagine if that was the case for a moment How that would make you feel, how disillusioned you'd be You'd feel like you don't know what's going to come next You'd feel like literally this is going to lead to the end of the world and this is it The reason why I'm giving you this introduction is because around 651 years After the death of the Prophet Muhammad An event of this scale took place amongst the Muslims A civilizational shock Where the Muslims who were present The Muslims at present, there's narrations of them saying things like I wish my mother had never given birth to me That I had to see that day Some of the people described it as the death of Islam That's how they felt When this attack happened in the Muslim lands What I'm referring to is the Mongol invasion of Baghdad The Mongol invasion of Baghdad This was so devastating, why? Because Baghdad was the peak of Muslim civilisation for so long This is where all of the giants were coming from this town.

Imagine in this town you had people like Imam Ahmed, Imam al-Ghazali, you had Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, you had all of these giants that were from Baghdad.

And this city that was housing all of this knowledge, that was the center of the Muslim lands, the center of the Khilafah, was destroyed and it wasn't just destroyed it wasn't just invaded we're talking decimation imagine according to some of the reports when the Mongols came in to Baghdad they captured the Khalifa and they put him in a cage and they made him watch as everyone else in the city was destroyed and then once he saw everyone his towns the libraries burned and chucked into the river Then they rolled him up in a carpet and they made the horses trample over him.

Can you imagine what it would have been like as a Muslim in that time period? That the Khalifa, the one who is the successor of the Messenger of Allah , the one who serves as the political entity carrying out the law of Allah on earth, Is destroyed and disgraced in such a manner How would the Muslims feel at that time? The libraries The scholars mention That the books that were in the libraries at that time They were thrown into the river such that the river turned black from the ink That's what these reports say And then they say then the river turned red With the blood of the scholars that were killed And thrown into it Some say that the streets Turned red with the blood of the people that were killed This is the backdrop Or the time in which Shaykh Usama Ibn Taymiyyah grew up This exact event happened five years before his birth So in this time period of when that happened For around five to six years after this event He was living in his birth city, Harran, which is between Syria and Iraq.

Then the consul made a contract between Allah al-Din and the man, appointing that the youth should be to him as a son, and gave him into his charge, saying, Take these hundred gold pieces for thy people.

moreover he bought his son threescore mules and a lamp and a tomb covering for the side abid al-qadir of ghilan and said to him o my son while i am absent this is thy sire in my stead whatsoever he biddeth thee do thou obey him So saying, he returned home with the mules and servants, and that night they made a kitmar, or perfection of the Koran, and held a festival in honour of the Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani.

And when the morrow dawned, the consul gave his son ten thousand dinars, saying, O my son, when thou comest to Baghdad, if thou findst stuffs easy of sale, sell them.

But if they be dull, spend of these dinars.

So the imams of the school, they speak of a created qudra, as we've discussed in Mubalban, and created properties, but those are always under Allah's direct ongoing creating and sustaining.

And this is beautifully captured in the words attributed to the great Sultan al-Arifin, Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani.

And I've already mentioned these words in the opening, but this is perhaps the most benefiting, or I should say befitting, a point in the text to mention them again.

And that's when he explains that the sword does not cut by itself.

Or choose another name, Zaid ibn Bakr for example, and he is committing shirk.

In this situation, you establish the proof against them before you give a ruling that he is a musharik because here we have a specific ruling a specific ruling you must establish the proof against the person before accusing them of being disbelievers or polytheists and this is what the ulama have said in their books and this is what Shaykh Abdul Mohsen is saying clearly defending Muhammad Abdul Wahab and those who are upon this blessed path so from the examples he gives in defending Muhammad Abdul Wahab in this state because Muhammad Abdul Wahab he has been accused falsely of taking people out of Islam and of falsely going against the Ottoman Empire And here, Shaykh Abdul Mohsen defends him by saying, first and foremost, that Muhammad Abdul Wahab , he says, وَإِذَا كُنَّ لَا نُكَفِّرُوا مَنْ عَبَدَ الصَّنَمِ الَّذِي عَلَىٰ عَبْدُ الْقَادِرِ وَالصَّنَمَ الَّذِي عَلَىٰ قَبْرَ أَحْمَدَ الْبَدَوِينَ وَأَمْثَالِهِمَا لِأَزْلِ جَهْلِهِمْ وَعَدَمِ مَنْ يُنَبِّهُهُمْ فَكَيْفَ نُكَفِّرُ مَنْ لَمْ يُشْرِكْ بِاللَّهِ إِذَا لَمْ يُهَاجِرْ إ سُبْحَانَكَ هَذَا بُهْتَانٌ عَظِيمٌ So in دُرْرُ سِنِيَّة, which is a collection of some of the letters that Muhammad A.S. wrote, in volume 1, page 66, Muhammad A.S. says, that if we ourselves do not say that a person specifically is a disbeliever for worshipping idols at the grave of Abdul Qadir, And the idols at the grave of Ahmad al-Badawi and other than them too.

Due to their ignorance and due to others not clarifying the truth for them.

So how is it that we are accused of? of saying that those who do not even come to us, and do not migrate to us, that they are disbelievers.

As for the one who worships Allah and along with worshiping Allah he worships or he worships or he worships then indeed this one has not established.

As for the one who does not worship Al-Bajawi, and he does not worship Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani, and he does not worship Isa Alayhi Salam, and he does not worship Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but along with that he does not worship Allah, and this one has not established La Ilaha Illallah.

The one that worships Allah Jalla Wa Ala alone and without partners, but he does not disbelieve upon his tongue in that which is worshipped besides Allah Jalla Wa Ala, then he has not established La Ilaha Illallah.

He has established la ilaha illallah when he worships Allah with his heart and with his tongue and with his limbs.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem.

First blessings upon Hazrat Abdul Qadir al-Jilani.

This is his verse and to show him our respect and blessings.

We remember him and remember him in our prayers.

As you do it, you get better at understanding how it works.

It doesn't mean that it gets less.

And as Abdul Qadir al-Jilani found out, you don't get to throw away your nafs.

Hmm.