#MSNSohbah: Mi‘raj and the Way of Ascent

Bismi Llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm

Maulana Sheikh Nazimق’s (MSN) Suhbah

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By the Name of Allah, All-Mighty, All-Merciful, Most Beneficent and Most Munificent.

If Allah Almighty helps His servant, everything becomes easy. If Allah Almighty does not support His servant, no one can support him, and everything becomes difficult, more difficult, most difficult!

My Grandshaykh, may Allah bless him, was always saying, and I am still listening to him, that Allah Almighty loves His servants when they are humble and recognize that they are nothing and most weak. Therefore, Allah Almighty mentions in His Holy Book, the Glorious Qur’an, that if anyone feels he is strong, rich, powerful, intelligent, or knowledgeable, every support will be taken away from him and he will be left in the hands of his ego.

We are such weak people. For every breath, we are in need of our Lord ﷻ’s help. If our Lord’s help does not reach us, we are not able to breathe. If, in any unit of time, even the smallest, Allah Almighty leaves us alone, everything will vanish and finish.

Therefore, the most lovely attribute of servants toward their Lord ﷻ is to recognize that they are poor and needy and must always be supported by Him. Then Allah Almighty supports them and grants them His Divine help.

Allah Almighty is angry with those who look at themselves and think that they possess power, wealth, beauty, knowledge, or intelligence. Allah Almighty is very angry with those who suppose that everything comes from themselves and not from Him ﷻ, not as a grant from Allah Almighty, imagining that they themselves possess such attributes.

The first example is shaytan. He thought that everything came from himself, from his knowledge and his worship. Therefore, Divine anger fell upon him and took everything away from him, except knowledge. Allah Almighty left him with knowledge, and he knew the Torah, the Injil, the Psalms, and the Holy Qur’an.

But his pride prevented him from gaining wisdom from the holy words and verses in these holy books. For the one who sees everything as coming from himself and is proud, everything that has been given to him will eventually leave his hand.

Whoever learns and keeps knowledge while seeing it as coming from himself, Allah Almighty punishes him with forgetfulness. He will soon forget. Therefore, we must ask our Lord ﷻ for beneficial knowledge, knowledge that remains with us and carries us forward. That is beneficial knowledge, and we have been ordered to seek it. Learning is ordered by the Prophet ﷺ for both men and women. Everyone must learn.

Learning is not only through writing or reading, but through listening. Everyone can hear, but not everyone listens. We must listen. The Companions of the Prophet ﷺ sat and listened. Some people came and heard, but did not listen, and what they heard never stayed in their hearts.

But the Companions listened, and they became oceans of knowledge. If one Companion was present in a gathering, no one would speak, and all would listen to him. Because they took even one word of the Prophet ﷺ and planted it in their hearts, they became oceans, manifesting knowledge.

But we are in need of looking, reading, writing, and storing in memory. What is taken only by memory is forgotten. What is taken by the soul and the heart is never forgotten. Beneficial knowledge is a power that pushes people toward the Divine Presence and carries them forward. Once that power is set in motion, nothing can remove it from its foundation.

We have been given that power, and in order to establish a connection within everyone, Allah Almighty sent the Prophets (AS) to teach people how to activate it. All the prophets are examples for mankind, and the final one is the Holy Prophet ﷺ.

During the Night Journey, Israʾ Miʿraj, he demonstrated to all people what Allah ﷻ has placed within the human being. Whoever follows him with sincerity may be granted a share of these realities and guided to turn toward the Heavens.

But where is the one who truly follows the Prophet ﷺ? One cannot abandon any Sunnah of his ﷺ way. If anything is left aside, the journey remains incomplete, and one is not ready to travel to the Heavens. Therefore, he advised his Ummah to preserve his way. The more perfectly his way is kept, the easier the ascent becomes. If it is not kept, the journey becomes most difficult. One cannot even lift a foot from the earth.

The Prophet ﷺ’s way must be kept completely, and its first step is purification of the heart. The path to miraculous realities passes through the heart. If any share of them is granted, it is received through the heart, and through Divine support everything becomes easy.

Without Divine support, nothing is possible. Divine support comes through the Prophet ﷺ. A transformer transmits power, and the transformer of Divine powers is the heart of the Prophet ﷺ. Whoever is ready to take it may take.

There are light bulbs in which electricity does not flow. Why? Because something is wrong! The wires are cut or burned, or the bulb is broken. If power does not reach our hearts, something is wrong within us. We are like broken bulbs, and we must look inward and repair ourselves.

Therefore, even the smallest part of any instrument must be perfect to give perfect results. But in our time, people care only for outward appearance and neglect the inner state. Everyone’s concern is to make the outside beautiful.

But in the sight of Allah Almighty, what matters is the heart.

If our hearts are truly connected, we can reach from the earth to the Heavens in less than the blink of an eye. One may be safe at the farthest point visible in the skies. Nothing will harm him, no matter the distances or the heat, even if it is millions of degrees. Thousands of times more light than the sun may appear, but it will not affect you, because you have been granted Divine light. The spirit itself is formed from Divine lights.

Yes, we have been given Divine light from our Lord ﷻ. When the light of one spirit appears, all darkness throughout space up to the stars is filled with light. No darkness remains when that light appears.

Therefore, man is the most honoured creature in the universe, because he has been appointed as the deputy of his Lord ﷻ. A deputy is entrusted with authority and responsibility. We were not created only for the earth. The whole universe was created for us.

When the Prophet ﷺ was shown the universes on the Night Journey, he opened a path for his Ummah as well. Whoever follows him may travel upon that same path, according to their sincerity and readiness.

O people, brothers and sisters, believers, time is passing quickly. Our lives will come to an end. We have been offered the means to take our spiritual powers back to the Heavens.

We must take more care of our spiritual lives. Today, most care is given to the body and its pleasures, yet those pleasures end in suffering. True pleasure comes through spiritual life. When the heart is connected to the Heavens, that pleasure becomes endless, flowing from the Heavens into the heart.

All of us have been ordered to move from the earthly realm to the Heavenly realm. No one is meant to remain on earth. We must prepare for the day of return to our stations in the Divine Presence. Everyone has been given a destination, a private station, and everyone has a mi‘raj, an ascent, by which to reach the station prepared for them by Allah Almighty.

People look at the stars and imagine flying like Superman. That power exists, but not as fantasy. It exists within us. Everyone has miraculous powers within himself, but where is the connection? Bringing pieces together externally is easy, but connecting the inner power is not possible for an ordinary person without Divine support.

Therefore, our advice, first to myself and then to you, is to care more for our spiritual lives. From our most precious time, we give almost all to the body and almost nothing to the soul, when it should be the opposite. When spiritual life is strong, the body is supported. When spiritual life is neglected, the body withers.

My Grandshaykh lived beyond one hundred years, with strength and vitality that never declined. The one who cares for the spirit tastes sweetness, while the one who cares only for the body loses the ability to taste.

Now we are in a holy month when we usually care more for the spirit, but we must continue after this, day by day, without stopping, always improving. The Prophet ﷺ said that the one whose two days are equal is a loser. Each day we must increase care, and as care increases, Divine support increases.

That is enough for today. We ask forgiveness for neglecting our Lord ﷻ’s worship and service, saying, Astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah. And we give endless praise and thanks to our Lord Almighty for allowing us to hear such Heavenly wisdom from His Prophets and His Awliya, saying, Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, wa shukru lillah.

May Allah ﷻ purify our hearts from pride and self-reliance.

May He support us at every breath and raise us through the Way of His Beloved ﷺ.

Al-Fatiha.

• Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqaniق

More by Mawlana Shaykh Nazimق can be found here.

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This series was initiated by the SufiHub Team in honour of the 2nd Urs of our beloved Sheikh, the late Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Sattar Khan, who lovingly dedicated himself to transcribing and summarising the daily sohbahs of Mawlana Sheikh Nazimق.

It was through this blessed service that he began his journey on this beautiful Way in 2008, remaining steadfast upon it until his final breath in 2023. Today, his legacy continues at our Zawiyah at A’Posh Bizhub Singapore through his representatives Sidi Shalihin, Ismail, and Syed Muhammad, who humbly carry forward the path he sincerely paved.

We pray that our dear Sheikh Abdul Sattar has been reunited with his beloved Mawlana Sheikh Nazimق and all our Grandshaykhs, and that their light continues to guide us always on the way of Haqq.

The text was originally taken from Liberating the Soul – A Guide for Spiritual Growth by Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqaniق. With love and sincere intention, parts of this sohbah have been gently revised by the SufiHub Team for clarity and contextual relevance.

If you wish to share it on your platforms, kindly post it in full and ensure that proper credit is given to all its sources. For this is adab, the very core of our beautiful religion and way.

Should you have any queries or concerns, you are always welcome to reach us at thesufihubteam@gmail.com.

Wassalam.

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