LEARN ABOUT AKHIRAT AND LIVE FOR IT
Jummah khutba by şeyh Abdul Kerim al-Hakkani al-Kıbrısi
Friday, 16 Jumad al-Thani 1429
(June 20, 2008)
Osmanli Naksibendi Hakkani Dergahi, Siddiki Center, New York
Auzu billahi min ash-sheytanir rajim
BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Medet Ya Seyyidi Sultanul Awliya, Medet.
Alhamdulillah, astaghfirullah. We are thanking our Lord that He has created us from the children of Adam (as) and He has granted us faith. How much should we thank? Non-stop. Non-stop we should be thanking. But Dunya is fooling us. This world. And Allah subhana wa ta’ala is saying to us in one ayat, `This Dunya life is only very temporary and very little enjoyment you are going to get out from it. It’s only a game. The real life is the life of Akhirat. Hereafter. Prepare yourself for that.’
Today, from the kindergartens to the universities, from the workplaces to anywhere you go, Imams, masjids, mosques are concentrating people for Dunya, the world. 124,000 prophets came to the world. None of them came to the world to live in the world. None of them came to tell people, `Come to Dunya. Have better jobs. Have better education.’ No. Education, studying and learning is obligation, it is farz in Islam. It is obligation to the boys and the girls. It is obligation for the child from seven-years-old up to seventy-years-old. From the crib to the grave, it is obligation to learn.
But to learn what? What is it that we have to learn? Are we going to learn this Dunya? This Dunya that Allah is saying to us, `It’s only temporary and there’s only very little benefit in it’? Or should we concentrate on Akhirat? All prophets were coming to tell us, `Turn your face’… face means, your love, your attachment, `from this Dunya to Akhirat. From Dunya to Mawla. From this life to the Akhirat life. From this temporary life to the eternal life that is waiting for you.’
This is what we have to concentrate on. This is what we have to be busy with. This is what we have to sit and think all the time. `How I did today? Today I got up again. Why did I get up? Did I get up for the sake of Allah, to live for Allah’s sake or I got up for this Dunya?’ If you’re getting up for this Dunya then there’s very little benefit, Allah is saying. If you’re getting up for Allah’s sake to live for Allah’s sake then this Dunya is coming free with it because you’re aiming for Akhirat life. It’s just like a farmer who’s planting grain. When he’s planting the grain no farmer is planting grain to collect straw. Everyone’s planting the grain to multiply the grain, to get more out from it. But the straw comes free. It grows with it and you take the straw free. This Dunay is just like that straw. The Akhirat life is just like that grain you’re planting.
So the Holy Prophet (sws) is saying to us, `When the angel of death comes to you, three things go with you to the grave. Three things accompany you to your grave. One is your family, the other one is your wealth and the other one is your good deeds. Your good deeds, your good actions, your good way of lifestyle stays in the grave with you. Your family and your wealth turn back.’ Huh, in the 21st Century not even your family comes to your grave anymore. As soon as you die they leave you over there and they don’t bury you until they finish the fighting of Dunya.
So for what? For what all this? For a little bit of food that we’re going to eat? Or to say, `I’m going to leave it to my children’? Which children? Those children who are going to fight for who’s going to take more and they’re not going to even turn to look at you? Allah subhana wa ta’ala is giving us a lesson, teaching us who we are and what we are. We’re all like this. Yes. The children of Adam are all like that. Exceptions are those ones who turn around and take their ego under their control. And their mind, their faith and their spirit is ruling on their ego. If the man is saying, `Yes, I’m that one’, then that one must be aiming to Akhirat. If the man is saying, `Yes, I’m controlling my ego, my ego is under my control, my faith is strong, I have high intelligence, my spirit is very happy’, that one’s aim is Akhirat. He’s looking to Akhirat. He cannot look for Dunya. As soon as you turn and you look at Dunya, the burden starts, the heaviness starts.
So this is a lesson to us, to you and to me, to the whole mankind. Allah is speaking to us, saying to us who we are, what this world is, what is waiting for us on the other side and who is He and what is it that we have to do with that One. You may delay it. Delay as much as you want. The Holy Prophet (sws) is saying, `If you’re delaying today’s job for tomorrow, you’ve already lost. You’ve already perished.’ Do you know when the angel of death is going to come to you? Instantly. When you’re making the corner, he’s waiting. Sometimes we go through that and we’re still not waking up to understand, `Azrail was there.’ You didn’t see the figure, that’s true. But all actions are showing that you were just a second away from death.
So you think you’re brave then? Challenging? Challenging death? Challenging Akhirat when you’re not ready for it? That is an ignorant man. Ignorant man is he who doesn’t know he’s challenging death. Yes, the ignorant man is that one who’s sitting on two wheels, going on top-speed and he’s giving his life to one little stone on the road. That one is ignorant. He’s not knowing what’s waiting for him there. There is no protection. Yes, you may say, you’re standing here and the building may fall on top of your head. That is beyond your control. It’s not in your hand. But certain things are in your hand, it is in our hand and we have to take control on that. And if we don’t then we pay a price for that too.
So one day the Holy Prophet (sws) was passing through next to a wall and that wall was cracked. Anytime it may collapse. And when he came to that station near that level he started moving fast from there. He moved fast and after he passed that wall he slowed down. The Sahaba said, “Ya Rasulullah, are we running away from Qadar? From destiny?’ He said, `No, we’re running away from the open signs of Qaza, accidents, to the destiny of Allah.’ We’re escaping from here. We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. But Allah is showing us the danger there. So we should not play here. We should move. We should move from here fast to our destiny.
This is what we have to do. Death is waiting for us. We didn’t taste the death yet. Everyone of us are going to. We cannot escape from it. No man is going to escape from it. There’s only one man who escaped from it until now for over two thousand years. Isa (alayhi salam). He’s coming back to the world to die. One of the biggest reasons that he’s coming back to this world is to taste the death because he went up with his spirit and with his physique together and he’s going to come back to this world to die, to give that spirit and that body will go under the ground to be prepared for the Judgment Day. No man is going to escape from that. We cannot.
Yesterday we were inside our mother’s womb. Today we are standing on top of this ground. Tomorrow we are going to be in it. So as much benefit you’re going to get from this Dunya, run to Dunya. Holy Prophet (sws) is saying to us, `As much as you’re in need of this Dunya, run to this Dunya. As much as you’re in need of Akhirat, run to Akhirat.’
So an intelligent man must sit and think, `How much I need this Dunya and how much I need the Akhirat?’ That is according to your faith.
Wa min Allahu tawfiq
Bihurmatil Habib
Bihurmatil Fatiha.