Bismi Llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm
Maulana Sheikh Nazimق’s Suhbah
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By the name of Allah, All-Mighty, All-Merciful, Most Beneficent and Most Munificent.
O people, you can find peace only in Dhikrullah! Most people are suffering, drowning in miseries. Most are asking, “Where can we escape?”
Allah Almighty informs us in His holy books and in the Holy Qur’an that a time will come when people will cry out, “Aina-l-mafar, to where can we escape?” This is terrible news, and I see it happening now, every day.
Wherever they try to escape, they find more troubles, more miseries, more sufferings than before.
At last this world will finish. Nobody will remain on earth, nobody in the heavens. Every living being must die and taste death. This is our Lord ﷻ’s holy command and His Divine Will. No one can escape. Only Allah Almighty is Ever Living and Never Dying.
At the end, Allah Almighty will order the Angel of Death, Sayyidina ‘Azrā’īl (AS), to take the soul of shaytan. When ‘Azrā’īl (AS) appears, shaytan will run.
When ‘Azrā’īl (AS) races to take his soul, shaytan runs from East to West saying, “Maybe the West is a safer place for me. So many people there followed me in my time.”
Running from East to West, shaytan finds ‘Azrā’īl (AS) rushing at him to take his soul.
He turns to the North to find safety, but ‘Azrā’īl (AS) is there also.
He runs to the South, and again finds him waiting.
Wherever he runs, ‘Azrā’īl (AS) comes from every side. At last shaytan cries, “Aina-l-mafar, to where can I escape?” But now he cannot escape!
As it is now, people are also asking to escape. From East to West, from East to North, from North to South. People are running. From countryside to the cities, from cities back to the countryside.
Most people are falling into troubles everywhere and then they are asking, “Aina-l-mafar, to where can we escape?”
The Prophet ﷺ informed us that a time will come when people will pass through cemeteries and graves and they will say, “O you are such fortunate ones! We wish we could be where you are now. You are resting in peace, while we are here suffering. You are fortunate to have gone before these days!” They will say this.
Therefore, people are searching for a shelter from miseries and sufferings. They are asking for a place to run into. But more is coming, for each day the troubles are only increasing and mounting, never becoming less.
Each day will be worse than the day before. Tomorrow will be worse than today. Allah Almighty has already informed us through His ﷻ prophets that such days are coming.
In the Holy Qur’an, Allah Almighty says, “Aina-l-mafar, to where is the escape?” For those who are falling into troubles and sufferings and asking where that shelter may be, He ﷻ answers, “Fa-firru ila-Llah, so flee to your Lord.” Simple!
Yet each time, after one hundred and twenty thousand years of leaving shaytan in Hell and then bringing him to the entrance of Paradise, Allah Almighty orders him, “Make sajdah to Adam (AS) and enter.” Shaytan replies, “Never! I am not going to make sajdah to Adam (AS).”
From beginning to end shaytan never made sajdah, so stubborn. And the same characteristic is found among people.
When Allah Almighty calls, “O My servants, O mankind, come to Me!” the ego answers, “No, come to me, not to anyone else.” And then sufferings only increase, both individually and collectively.
From beginning to end Allah Almighty sent Prophets (AS), asking people to come under His ﷻ shelter, but most people are refusing. They are trusting in their knowledge, their wisdom.
If they truly had wisdom, they would come under the shelter of their Lord ﷻ. They may have knowledge, but no wisdom. Those who are not coming under the divine shelter, there is no wisdom with them. They are trusting in their minds’ products, mind productions.
Allah Almighty is showing and informing us, giving news about nations that have passed away from beginning to end. This is a lesson, a clear example for those who are living now.
Allah ﷻ sent Sayyidina Nuh (AS) to his nation, to all nations, to all the people living in his time, and they rejected him. For nine hundred and fifty years he called them, and each time they rejected him and denied his prophethood.
Every day he stood and called his people. They threw stones at him, they beat him, they attacked him, and then they left him saying, “He is dead and gone.” Yet the next day he stood again and called them.
For nine hundred and fifty years he gave his message.
Finally he said, “O my Lord, do not leave a single unbeliever on earth, not even one household that holds such people.”
Then Allah Almighty ordered him, “O Nuh (AS), I will do as you asked. I will punish every unbeliever. I will send a flood to cover the earth and destroy everything upon it.
Build an Ark, take with you the believers, and take from every kind of animal two by two. Keep them safe in Our Ark.”
As his Lord ﷻ commanded, Sayyidina Nuh (AS) built the Ark. He made it not at the beach but in the countryside.
People were passing by, saying, “O Nuh (AS), what are you doing?”
He replied, “I am making an Ark, because a flood is coming.”
They laughed and said, “An Ark? In the countryside? It will never move. Why do you not go to the seaside?”
He said, “No. The flood will come and lift this Ark, and it will float.”
They mocked him. “Madman, mad old man. He was speaking nonsense when he was young, and now that he is old, he is still the same. Always the same message, the same nonsense!” they said.
Finally, he completed the Ark. He called the believers to enter, and he called his sons as well. Some entered, but one son refused.
That son said, “I do not believe in this flood. If it comes, I will climb the mountains. A flood can only fill the valleys, it will never reach the mountain tops. My knowledge tells me that when a flood comes, I must go up, and I will escape there.”
Nuh (AS) answered, “O my son, you think you know, but I am calling you to safety. Come, enter the Ark.”
But his son replied, “No. I will go to the mountains, for I know where to be when a flood comes.”
Then Allah Almighty sent the flood. Water filled the valleys, rising higher and higher, reaching to the tops of the mountains, and even flowing over them. And that mountain on which the son was thinking to be, waves went seventy yards above the highest point of that mountain.
This is an example for those who trust in their ideas, their thoughts, their mind productions. Look at the end of the son of Nuh (AS). He climbed to the mountain, but he could not escape. He drowned.
And now people, nations, all mankind are the same. They are not keeping the rules of their Lord ﷻ, not seeking His divine shelter.
Instead, they invent ideas and say, “You must follow this.” Another group answers, “No, that is wrong, you must follow ours.” Then another comes, “Both of you are wrong, follow this one, our ideas.”
“Your ideas!” “Our ideas!” “Your way!” “Our way!” And while they are fighting, the flood is coming and covering them.
It is not a flood of water, but a flood of sufferings, a flood of miseries, Allah Almighty sinking people into it! And each day the waves are rising and rising, reaching even the places where people think they will find safety. Soon there will be no shelter for anyone. That is a terrible end for humanity on earth.
Therefore Allah Almighty is calling, “O people, come to Me!” He ﷻ saved the believers in the Ark of Nuh (AS). When the flood came, every part of the earth burst forth with water, and from the skies poured rain, but not like our rain. It was one block of water, solid, pouring down.
And the Ark floated, not like a boat on top of the water, but like a submarine under the water. How did they breathe? From where came their air? Subhanallah!
Allah Almighty, when He ﷻ wants to preserve someone, is able to preserve him. If He wants to protect, He is able to protect.
As He ﷻ protected Sayyidina Ibrahim (AS) in the fire, a huge fire, so He protected Sayyidina Nuh (AS), before Ibrahim (AS), inside the water. From where did Ibrahim (AS) breathe, and from where did Nuh (AS) and his believers breathe in the water, those huge waves?
Now Allah Almighty is sending a flood of miseries and troubles and problems and sufferings and wars. Everything, like a flood on earth, is increasing now, rising, rising, so that only one group of people can be in safety, those who take an Ark.
Is there any Ark now in our days? Yes! Safinat an-Najjah, the Rescue Ship. It is here. If you take that ship, you will be safe.
Therefore, you may flee to your Lord ﷻ. The Rescue Ship is floating, sailing on the flood of sufferings, and anywhere, at any moment that servant wants to put his foot in it, he may find it in front of himself. So easy!
Say, “La ilaha illa Llah, la ilaha illa Anta. Subhanaka inni kuntu min adh-dhalimin.”
Sayyidina Yunus (AS) was in the belly of a whale, yet he was sitting freely and glorifying his Lord ﷻ. He was alive, not dead. If Allah Almighty wills death, they die. If not, no one can die.
His glorification made him safe. When he glorified his Lord ﷻ, that narrow prison opened, and he was in safety and peace. Yunus (AS) found peace and safety by glorifying Allah Almighty.
As Allah ﷻ says, “Kadhalika nunji-l-muminin, and thus do We save the believers.” Yes, every time!
Whoever wants to be in safety from the flood of sufferings, he must glorify his Lord, Allah Almighty.
Once a man was complaining too much, annoyed by a frog’s croaking.
He was shouting, “What is this? Every night brak brak brak! What is this?”
“But, O son of Adam, I am not like you, sleeping. I am glorifying my Lord Almighty one thousand times each night. Are you glorifying your Lord even ten times? No.
You are sleeping and you are saying, ‘I cannot sleep because of your brak brak’ the whole night!”
Yes, be consistent in glorifying Him ﷻ, and miseries and sufferings are going to go away.
Any time you feel that those miseries are reaching you, say, “Subhanallah, Subhanallah, Subhanallah, glory be to my Lord Almighty.” Then those waves will leave you, going away.
Glorify your Lord, Allah Almighty! Then you will be glorified in the Divine Presence. You will be an admired one in the Divine Presence. This is our way, this is our solution.
“Nasu-laha fa-nasiyahum.” As much as we forget Allah Almighty, we are going to be forgotten. Allah ﷻ never forgets anyone, but as a punishment He leaves them to themselves, and then the flood comes and people may sink into it.
Every day so many people are coming with problems. Newspapers are full of sufferings. Each night that shaytan box shows thousands of miseries. Before, such news was hidden, but now every misery is brought before our eyes.
This too is a punishment. Every night we are looking. Even if you are made of iron, you will be affected.
And people are coming to me, so many hundreds of people. Everywhere I go, they are running to me to complain. People are without peace, agitated. It means that the flood of suffering is rising.
My heart is becoming too much affected, and I am asking my Lord ﷻ forgiveness for myself and for them, because they are also loading their burdens on me.
Sometimes we may find a way to help people. But most of the time they are running straight into suffering, because they are running into the very causes of their suffering. If a person does not stop the cause, how can the suffering stop?
May Allah Almighty grant us a place in His Divine Shelter and protect us from the floods of miseries and sufferings of this time.
May He ﷻ make us among those who remember Him, glorify Him, and find peace only in His Divine Presence.
Al-Fatiha.
• Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqaniق
More sohbahs from the Liberating the Soul Series 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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