EXPLANATORY NOTE by
M. R. BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN (Ral.)

Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. Al-hamdu lillah. In sha’Allah, ma sha’Allah. Tawakkul-‘alallah, Allahumma labbaik. In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. All praise belongs only to God. If God so wills, whatever God wills. I place my trust in Him and am obedient to His will.

May all responsibility be given only to Allah, the One who is limitless grace and incomparable love, the One who gives us His blessings.

Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. It is from Allah that all beginnings come, that everything begins. Because of Allah, our destinies and our lives continue. Allah alone is the Rahmatul-‘alamin, the mercy and compassion of all the universes. We praise You, we believe only in You, we have certitude only in You, and we pray only to You, O Allah. We accept with certitude that there is no God worthy of worship other than Almighty God, Allahu ta‘ala Nayan. Al-hamdu lillah, all praise belongs only to God.

O children of Adam(A.S.), we are the creations of Allah. He has created true man, insan, as the most exalted of all His creations. God has given the most exalted wisdom and the most exalted capabilities to man. Of all His creations, He has given man the most exalted qualities and actions. God has made man the king of all creation and has endowed him with all the forces, miracles, powers, and wisdom, and the ability to control them. God has given man the wealth of wisdom, the daulat with which he can summon and control all the angels, heavenly beings, jinns, and fairies. He impressed the resplendent light called Nur on the forehead of Adam (A.S.) at the time Adam (A.S.) was created.

O men who are human, there is something we have to realize. We must cut away the darkness which envelops and veils our hearts, the illusions which conceal our absolute faith, certitude, and determination, and the base desires which hide the truth. We must dispel satanic thoughts and qualities, the envy and jealousy which cloud our wisdom, satanic looks, and the deceitful and treacherous intentions which can turn life into death. We must cut away the desires for land, gold, and women which conceal our connection with Allah. We must cut away all the arrogance, selfishness, vanity, pride, and the color, class, and religious divisions which cut off the connection by which we can live in unity with Allah.

If we, who are men, can cut away these evil connections to satan and these sections of satan, then we will live in close association with Allah and His people, doing our duty toward Him and toward all lives. We who are human beings must realize this.

Allah has given the explanations of the wisdom of true man or insan, through His rahmat, which is the benevolence of His grace, through His words, His actions, His duties, His three thousand divine attributes, His ninety-nine wilayats, or powers, His behavior, and His conduct. If we can remove the veils of our evil qualities through wisdom, certitude, and faith, we will become the wise ones who can perform duty for the children of Allah, slaves giving service to Allah. We will become messengers in constant communion with Him, praying to and worshiping only Allah. May all who are human reflect on this.

It is for this purpose that Allahu ta‘ala Nayan has impressed on us that we must discard racial and religious discrimination and make our qalbs, our innermost hearts, stable and firm through faith, truth, and certitude.

The qualities of satan which cause divisions within us will come to attack our faith. When that happens, we must put our faith and certitude only in Allah. We must pray to Him without considering anything His equal. Without comparing anything to Allah, we must raise our hands to Him in worship. Believing that He is the only God, we must bow low in obeisance. Allah has given us the capacity for this kind of worship. May we reflect on this. Everyone who is human must reflect on it.

We must accept Allah. To do this He has given us the seven levels of consciousness: feeling, awareness, intellect, judgment, subtle wisdom, the divine analytic wisdom which is the explaining wisdom of the Qutbiyyat, and the divine luminous wisdom which is the Nur or resplendence of Allah. In the Qur’an Allah has given these seven levels of wisdom as the seven diacritical marks. By placing a mark above or below the letter alif, we can give it different sounds. God gives sounds to each of the consonants through the seven diacritical marks. It is through these seven marks that He makes the sound of the Qur’an resonant. These sounds become the sounds of the seven levels of wisdom within the heart, and the heart of a true man is the Qur’an. The sounds of the seven levels of wisdom must dawn within us.

In the same way that the sounds arise from the seven marks, the resonance of the revelations within the Qur’an are explained by the seven levels of wisdom. Allah uses the seven levels of wisdom to reveal to us the sound of the resonance of the Qur’an in the same way that the sounds of the revelations came to Prophet Muhammad(Sal.). The sounds of Allah resonate through these seven diacritical marks, do they not?

This is how each human being must take into his heart the sounds of the Qur’an. The Qur’an is the resonance which came from Allah. When it came to the Rasulullah(Sal.) in the form of explanation, it was a command. When it came from the Rasulullah(Sal.), it became a teaching. When that teaching rests within the qalb, the innermost heart, it becomes the writing of the Qur’an. Each of us who is human must open his qalb and read the inner Qur’an. With our faith, we must pick up the Qur’an inside our qalbs, open it, and read it with wisdom.

To give sound to the writings in the inner Qur’an, Allah uses the seven levels of wisdom. You can read the words of Allah in the Qur’an only by using these seven levels of wisdom, which are like the seven diacritical marks.

O mankind, O children of Adam(A.S.)! Open your qalbs and read the Qur’an. The qalb is the Qur’an. The qalb is the Ka‘bah which, in Islam, is the central place of worship. The qalb is paradise. The qalb is the station of prayer. It is the throne of God, or dhahut, the throne of the true believer, or ‘arshul-mu’min. It is His kingdom, the station from which He rules. We must read the Qur’an in the qalb. It is from the qalb that we must pray to Him and bow in obeisance to Him. Those of us who are human must realize this.

When satan and his actions and qualities come, we must utilize our faith and wisdom to face his attack. This is the holy war. The holy war must be the only war within our hearts; it is the fight between the qualities of Allah and the evil qualities of satan. At that time we will experience suffering, grief, difficulty, and trouble. This is the holy war, the jihad, the battles in which the armies of our evil actions confront us. This is the battle of Badr, the battle of Uhud. This is the real jihad. We must wage jihad against all the armies which attempt to cut off our connection to Allah, against the enemies within who attempt to disrupt the unity among people by dividing one man from another. Armies of monkey forces, horse forces, bull forces, vulture forces, eagle forces, lion forces, and elephant forces will come to fight against us. All the armies of illusion and the demons, ghosts, and dark forces of satan will attack. The war we wage against them internally is the holy war.

Evil forces will try to sever our connection with Allah. They will attempt to destroy our faith and shroud us in darkness. We must divide and destroy these ghosts and demons.

Everyone who is human must fight this war within his qalb. We must use the wisdom and the faith which we were given as the victorious sword of the Rasulullah(Sal.) to fight these forces. We who are born as human beings, as insan, must realize this with the seven levels of wisdom, strengthen ourselves with faith, and fight the inner war with certitude.

My very precious children, you who are insan, you who are true believers, you who have the firm faith, certitude, and determination in God called iman, you who have accepted God as the Father, you who have accepted God as the Creator, you who have accepted Allah as your God— the battles each of us has to fight are within the qalb.

The qalb is the place called Karbala’. Karbala’ is the sphere of prayer; it is heaven, the kingdom of God, the place in which He rules supreme. It is also called the ‘arshul-mu’min, or the throne of the true believer. The satans and the evil jinns and fairies wage their wars in order to capture this kingdom and bring it under their own control.

We must confront them there, fight them, and defeat them, using the mace of iman and the sword of dhul-fiqar, which is the double-bladed sword of iman and wisdom. Each of us must understand this and do it. We who are insan must realize what the Karbala’ truly is.

For this reason, God has sent down the 124,000 prophets, the qutbs, the saints, and the olis. He sent down His prophets so that our hearts and our wisdom would not become weary, so that our certitude would not fail. God sent down His prophets to help us stand up, fight, and win this war against satan and his forces. Each...