Dalail-us-Sulook Urdu eBook
By Hazrat Maulana Allah Yar Khan RA
The Prevailing Situation
I seek Allah’s refuge from Satan, the outcast. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Peace be upon Muhammad, the glorious Prophet of Islam, his Companions and his followers.
A number of doubts exist in the hearts of not just common people, but even the ulema regarding sufism and sufis. They often brood misunderstandings such as the misconception that Shariat and Tareeqat are two separate entities, or that sufism is synonymous with non-Arab mysticism foreign to Islam, or that sufism is the name of freedom from religious obligations. To help remove such misunderstandings and for the intellectual satisfaction of a common person as well as the scholar, Allah the Lord of Glory has endowed upon me the capacity to author this book.
Although I have spent most of my life reaffirming Islam’s truthfulness and rejecting misguided sects on the pattern of Islamic debaters, a field of knowledge that appears to be quite removed from sufism, the only difference between expounding the truth with arguments, and creating a state of faith and belief with tasawuf, is that spoken arguments speak to the ear, whereas the hidden feelings of tasawuf speak to the heart. Nevertheless, people cannot help but feel amazed to hear that a person they knew as a debater and preacher of Islam is not only talking about the principles of tasawwuf such as Zikr, halqah, tazkiyal, and the stages of sulook, the sufi path, but also claiming to be inwardly connected to Sufi Masters of the past. Their amazement is obviously out of place in view of the Quranic injunctions:
“Is it they who apportion their Lord’s mercy” (43:32)
To which the natural reply is
“This is the bounty of Allah, which He gives to whom He will” (62:4).
Tazkiyah, or the purification of soul, was always an essential part of the main mission of all the prophets, which was to disseminate or spread the Divine Message. After the last Prophet ﷺ the responsibility to impart tazkiyah to this Ummah of the last Prophet ﷺ rests on the shoulders of the true ulema, who, as his genuine successors, have continued to shed the light of truth like luminous lamps in every dark age of materialism and blasphemy. The importance of discharging this responsibility has increased many times in the present age of catastrophic confusion and temptation. In these times, the moral and religious depravity of Muslims has reached a stage where their bonds of faith and spirituality with Allah and His Prophet ﷺ have become flimsy and weak. The decay and decline in their beliefs and the extreme nature of their actions is so perverse that when a servant of Allah wants to pull them out of this ignominious ditch and wake them out of their heedless slumber, inviting their attention to the sacred Shariah and reformation of soul and inner self, they become highly skeptical. Instead of answering such a calling, they drive themselves into the dark valleys of doubts and suspicions, creating a picture of "layer upon layer of darkness”.(24:40)
Allah has taken it upon himself to uphold the Truth. It is far from His infinite mercy and love to let humankind, his dearest creation, wander astray in the dark valleys of waywardness. Therefore, he raised his chosen servants in every age to support the truth and lead people to salvation. There is no parallel to the utmost devotion and selflessness with which the illustrious sufis performed this service.
The sufi method of imparting knowledge and reforming the soul involves induction (Ilqa) and (Inkas)—the process in which the sufi masters project their inner light upon the seekers. And this is the practical aspect of sufism, which depends upon the company of a sufi master. According to Hazrat Mujaddid Alif Thani ``Tasawwuf is about inner feelings or states. It is not something to be described in words”. However, when it comes to the aspect of sufism as a knowledge, it is extremely important to determine the characteristics of true Islamic tasawuf and introduce the intelligentsia with its reality; for what is today understood and represented as tasawwuf does not have the remotest relationship with it.
This misrepresentation is the reason why even true Islamic sufism is viewed with suspicion and doubt. The need was therefore felt to enable common Muslims to recognize genuine Islamic sufism, which is founded in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, so that they could use its light to reform their thoughts and actions and achieve eternal welfare. This book is the outcome of the realization of this sacred duty.
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