Following

Recently we were blessed to hear a few weighty words from the Honorable Minister Farrakhan. There is one thing that he said that I want to look into and parse more deeply, and in doing so share some of what I have learned in the Naqshbandi Sufi Way.

Firstly, let us look at the need for a guide. The famous saying of the great Sufi sage Bayazid Bistami is: “Whoever has no shaykh, their shaykh is the devil.”¹ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad also spoke on our need for a human being to guide us:

We could never ask a formless spirit to lead us because we are not a formless spirit ourselves. Man can only listen to man. Man cannot listen to other than man. And I have proof: we just never were able to obey anything but ourselves.²

Now on following. This is the passage from the Minister that I want to highlight:

Malcolm was my teacher but Yusuf Shah was my maker. You can’t be a great minister unless you become a great follower. And if you’re not a strong follower of a great teacher, you’ll never achieve the greatness because your vanity will rob you of the power that you need to equal the masters that teach you.³

Of course, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was the source of the Teachings. But at that time the Minister was receiving them from Malcolm. He was not living in Chicago, where he could regularly be around the Leader himself, and a man needs another man to observe and emulate. So the vessel through which the Teachings were passed to him was Malcolm, and his Captain, Yusuf Shah, was training him. There has to be a chain that links back to the Leader and Teacher. The Qur’an gives us an image that speaks to this principle:

And it is not righteousness that you enter houses by their backs, but he is righteous who keeps his duty. And go into houses by their doors; and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful. Maulana Muhammad Ali’s translation of Qur’an 2:189

There is a story told in the Sufi tradition about Ahmad al-Badawi. Through his devotion he had reached the door of his Lord. I will reprint a version as narrated by Shaykh Hisham Kabbani:

Ahmad al-Badawi asked, “Open Your door, O’ my Lord!” and someone came and said, “I have your keys; surrender yourself to me.” He answered, “Who am I, to surrender to you?!” To surrender to Allah, OK, but there is a discipline: first surrender to the teacher, then to the Prophet (peace be upon him), then to Allah. So he replied, “I won’t take the key from a person like me, I take the key from Him. I don’t want it from you, I want it from The Keymaker.”

Then that man left and Ahmad al-Badawi heard a voice, “Do you want your key? I left your key with that wali (saint) whom you kicked away!” So now he knows he must take from that man, but his ego came in the way. Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi was looking for that man, running, running for six months, to teach him patience. Then finally that wali appeared in front of him.

Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi said, “O my brother! Where were you?” The wali answered, “I was here but you could not see me.” “Can I have my keys?” “No, too late my brother. When I came and offered, you refused. Now you want it, and now I will not give it; I need the price for it.” Ahmad al-Badawi said, “I will give whatever wealth I have, my home.” “We are not after your dunya wealth.” “What I have to give then?”

“I want your knowledge, all the knowledge you have been taught and what you have learned from books and what you have done of worship, (saying) ‘I did, I did, I did.’ Always you were selfish and branding everything to yourself. I want that selfishness, that selfish knowledge that you have built up your ego on.”

Al-Badawi wanted to go straight to the Source, though the Source has established a structure, and there is a system, a means, and a method by which He is reached. But the story also carries something I believe is critical for those of us who sincerely want to reach Allah.

It makes me reflect on a personal experience. The one time I met the Minister and spoke with him, I asked him for a Holy Name. (This was partly due to a dream I had had.) His response was very brief. He asked me, “Aren’t you with the Shaykh?” In other words: he has your key.

Pride and arrogance are among the worst of the spiritual diseases, and they show themselves most often in those of us who claim religion. This is why the Prophets and Messengers had to demonstrate the lesson to the community: that Allah is with the poor, the sick, and the needy. It is easy to look at the one we see as holy and love him. The question is how we treat the ones we look down on. Let us look at two hadith.

From Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet ﷺ said that Allah (ﷻ) will say on the Day of Resurrection:

“O son of Adam, I was sick and you did not visit Me.”

He will say: “My Lord, how could I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds?”

Allah will say:

“Did you not know that My servant so-and-so was sick, and you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him, you would have found Me with him?”

“O son of Adam, I asked you for food and you did not feed Me.”

He will say: “My Lord, how could I feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds?”

Allah will say:

“Did you not know that My servant so-and-so asked you for food and you did not feed him? Did you not know that if you had fed him, you would have found that with Me?”

“O son of Adam, I asked you for drink and you did not give Me to drink.”

He will say: “My Lord, how could I give You to drink when You are the Lord of the worlds?”

Allah will say:

“My servant so-and-so asked you for drink and you did not give him. Did you not know that if you had given him to drink, you would have found that with Me?”

Hadith Qudsi, recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2569

Abu Huraira also reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Perhaps a disheveled man, driven away from people’s doors, if he were to swear an oath to Allah, Allah would fulfill it.”

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2622

We should reflect on these. As one saying transmitted in the tradition puts it, one hour of contemplation is worth more than seventy years of worship.⁴

Now to followership itself. The Dagestani shaykhs tell a story that illustrates the degree of following required on the higher planes.⁵

Here Mawlana Sultan al-Awliya⁶ [Shaykh ʿAbd Allah Daghistani] recounts his situation. He was in seclusion in Turkey at the time of Seferberlik (1913–1918)⁷ with a group which he counted as 16 men who had left everything to devote themselves solely to worship. Mawlana said:

“One day, I was going with them to visit my teacher—Shaykh Sharafuddin—and the Shaykh was sitting with some of the ulema in his house that looked over the road. When his gaze fell upon me and he saw me coming he said to the ulema, ‘Look. I want to show you something about the reality of followership. See how true following is understood by the people of spiritual reality, how the murid must follow his shaykh, how the Umma must follow its Prophet and how the servant must follow his nurturing Lord. For if I sent right now to my son ʿAbd Allah this young boy and told him to tell ʿAbd Allah to head towards the qibla, no sooner will he hear “my Shaykh has ordered me to head towards the qibla” that he will walk until I myself order him to stop. He will walk and not ask what is in front of him—a sea, a river, a fire, a valley. He will only walk and the thought will not cross his mind that “this is a child and I want to go up and ask the Shaykh.”’

“If it were us we would climb up and ask, ‘O our master, this one said such and such. Where do you want me to go? For how many days? What distance?’ When such questions creep into your mind—at that time followership is cut off.”

Mawlana says if a person follows with this perfection and takes some steps, at that time, even if there appears a wall or a sea or a river, then the power of the Shaykh will open a way for him to walk on water. For whoever commands in this fashion has this power with him, and whoever obeys in this fashion will subsequently have everything with him. You might walk two or three steps and you will be present in front of the Kaʿba. Nothing prevents it. This is the blessing of followership, just as there is not found with the people of reality lovelier than the attribute of the followership of the murid for his shaykh.

“Shaykh ʿAbd Allah has complete followership. If you ordered him to head towards the qibla by means of this small child he will walk without turning right or left. It would not bother him if there was a mountain in front of him, a sea, a river, a fire. He will walk until I order him to stop. This is the perfection of followership.”

This was the testimony of the state and the perfection of our liege lord the Shaykh by the witnessing of his Shaykh. Also, the shaykhs do not bear witness to their murids. That is very rare. Yet our liege lord Sharafuddin bore witness to the venerable Sultan al-Awliya. This is from the excellences of our liege lord the Shaykh as spoken by his Shaykh.

I leave the reader to ponder over two questions. Who has our “keys?”, and where are we with regard to true following?

How should I call him “king of the gnostics”? He’s not even the prince. Where is following Muhammad (upon him be peace!)? Where is following in form and meaning? I mean that the same light and brightness that was in Muhammad’s eyes should be the light of his eyes. His eyes should become his eyes. He should be described by all of his attributes, such as patience and the rest, each attribute without limit.

— Shams-i Tabrizi⁸