The Karāmāt in Naqshbandī Ṭarīqah

Bismi Llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm

Our meeting here, al-ḥamdu liLlāh, with our Mu’min, Muslim, Mu’minat, Muslimat: all are following ṭarīqah. Some of them are Naqshbandi, some of are Qadiri, Rifa’i, Badawi, Chishti. All together are the same: going to Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla. This is the way of Allāh ﷻ. And the Imam Hazrat [host] said, “Awliyā’ of Ahlu s-Sunnah.” There are no awliyā’ out of Ahlu s-Sunnah. Clearly. All awliyā’ are Ahlu s-Sunnah. There are no others because they do not accept other people, they do not accept Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, not accept Ahlu l-Bayt, not accept Ṣaḥābah. They are making – There cannot be awliyā’ from these people. The only awliyā’, in shā’a Llāh, and surely are with Ahlu s-Sunnah wa l-Jama’ah.

They are claiming, “This wali doesn’t believe in the Ṣaḥābah.” This is cannot be. Many times, we see places in which they say – because these people don’t have awliyā’ – an example of one of them is in Beirut. There was war and the whole bazar was burned and destroyed. Under one building there was a maqam. This building was under the control of an Armenian. And he built the building around it to hide it. Because if they see it, they will take his shop because it’s waqf. It cannot be sold for anybody to use it. So, he was hiding it. And when it was destroyed, this maqam appeared. And these people who do not accept the ṣaḥābah were controlling there. Thousands of people were coming to visit saying this and that. After many months, they knew this maqam was for Ahlu s-Sunnah wa l-Jama’ah. So, they quickly disappeared from there. Nobody was coming there.

This is an example, one example. But there are many examples about this. Because without going on the way of Prophet ﷺ, which is as he ﷺ said: to love Ahlu l-Bayt and to love his ﷺ ṣaḥābah; you cannot be from Ahlu s-Sunnah. And this cannot be for them. They cannot be awliyā’uLlah.

AlhamduliLlah, awliyā’uLlah from Ahlu s-Sunnah wa l-Jama’ah are different. There are many Awliyā’uLlah. All of them have karāmāh, miracle; all of them. Normally, our ṭarīqah, Naqshbandi ṭarīqah, do not show karāmāh, miracle. They don’t want this; “This is not our thing”, they say. But other ṭarīqahs, masha’Allah, they show. Many, until now, can use karāmāh. Karāmāh for awliyā’. And miracles for Prophets, ‘mu’jiza’, we say. This is the difference between karāmāh and mu’jiza. Mu’jiza is for Prophets, and karāmāh is only for awliyā’uLlah.

So, in our way, we are not showing. We don’t want – not us but Sayyidina Shaykh Baha’uddin Naqshbandī and others, all of them do not show karāmāh to prove what they are saying. But karāmāh is coming through them without asking because maybe others say karāmāh and it appears directly. But what Shaykh Baha’uddin Naqshbandī, Imamu t-Ṭarīqah was saying is that we keep this power for ākhirah, to make shafa’ah for the ummah in ākhirah. Here, it can be. But what happens is that somebody comes asking the Shaykh. Mawlānā Shaykh many times hadn’t said anything special for making karāmāh. They ask for du’ā’, and he asks for the sake of our Prophet ﷺ. This man or woman are coming and believe in Allāh ﷻ. She is asking something she wants. She is sincere. For their sincerity, Allāh ﷻ gives them this. They believe, and come with iʿtiqād. Awliyā’uLlah are beloved for Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla, and Allāh ﷻ will accept through them. Therefore, Allāh ﷻ accepts this. Because of the love of these people, Allāh ﷻ accept insha’Allah.

Mawlānā Shaykh has many karāmāt without asking, without saying this and that. Karāmāh is coming by itself. Not saying, “Come, jump from here, there will not be anything for you. Don’t do this, you will be like this and that,” no. Just giving his naṣīḥah, advice, the good thing. If you follow, you take what you want. But it’s not like we are painting a jar; you put it and take it looking different. No. When you ask, you must believe, be sincere and patient. You ask, you wait. When Allāh ﷻ wants, it will be in shā’a Llāh. This is the way of the Naqshbandī ṭarīqah.

Other ṭarīqahs, there is permission for them to make karāmah, many karāmat among people; no problem for them. But for Naqshbandī, as we said, we are not allowed to do karāmah directly. But what happens also is that if anybody wants badness for the Shaykh or a Muslim, he can be beaten by the karāmāh of the Shaykh. There are many, countless karāmāh. Every day, we hear from people. Even when you hear this – Mawlānā Shaykh lived for 92 years, but when you hear his karāmāt, you think he lived for maybe 500 years or more. Everybody tells us the karāmāt and how Mawlānā was speaking to them. But it is impossible to be like this. This is also a karāmāh without appearing. Only to be helpful for believers, for Muslims. And alhamduliLlah, those who follow this [way] spread goodness, spread happiness, spread Islām all around the world. This is also a big karāmāh for them. The biggest karāmāh is to put belief, īmān in people’s hearts. They put nūr, nūr ul-Islām, light of Islām in their hearts. This is the biggest karāmāh.

Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam has countless mu’jizat, miracles. But the biggest miracle is Qur’ān. Qur’ān which looks like it’s easy to make like it, but Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla says, if the whole world, the whole universe was to come, from mankind or jinn or other kinds of creatures, they cannot make one sentence from the Qur’ān. Many people after Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam were coming and claiming they are Prophets. But they made something and people were laughing at them. Because in Saudi Arabia or Hijaz, or this area, they speak Arabic and they are very clever in poems and good speeches. But all of them were astonished with Qur’ān ‘Aẓīmu sh-Sha’n. Even kāfirs, when Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam was in Makkah – of course, in that time there was no light, no electricity. They were coming to where Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam was, in Dar ul-Arqam, listening to Qur’ān. It was like a magnet pulling them to it and they were becoming very happy. Because they like poems, and they said “This is like one, but we cannot do something like this.” For this, the Qur’ān is also the biggest miracle for Islām; from Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam to all humanity. It is oceans. Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla described this: not any pen or ink can be enough to describe what the Qur’ān is saying.

This is a miracle. And the miracles of awliyā’uLlah also is to follow the Qur’ān and to give light through the Qur’ān for people. To take away the bad ways. Those in which many people sell themselves for dunyā. They leave ākhirah. They are selling ākhirah for dunyā. They are claiming they are prophets. They are claiming they are a new thing from Islām. “You don’t know Islām. We must renew Islām. We must make it modern. You must take this ḥadīth. You must take that ayah”, and they are cheating people.

For this, the (most) strong defender for Islām, for Muslimin, and whom Allāh ﷻ defends, are awliyā’uLlah. Awliyā’uLlah, alhamduliLlah, what people don’t know, is that in every time, there is 124,000 awliyā’ in the world. 124,000 Prophets came, and for each Prophet there is one awliyā’ in this world. They are alive. When somebody passes away, another one comes in his place because they have a mission. Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam says, “بِهِم تُمْطَرُون، بِهِم تُرْزَقُون ، بِهِم تُنْصَرُون”, “Bihim tumṭarūn, bihim turzaqūn, bihim tunṣarūn.” “Rain falls upon you by their Barakah. Rizq (provision) comes to you by their means. You reach victory by their means.” Prophet ﷺ is saying, by this man of Allāh ﷻ, awliyā’uLlah, Allāh ﷻ sends rain, sends rizq and sends victory also; through them.

For this, it is not empty. Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla does not leave earth only for shayṭān and their followers. You are all the time fighting, jihad. They make jihad. Jihad is also to make jihad with your ego. Jihad ul-Nafs, Jihad ul-Akbar (The struggle against the ego is the greatest struggle). This is very important because we now have a very bad war upon us. War without weapons, but worse than weapons. So, we are all in jihad to control our egos, control ourselves to not follow, to not be beaten by these people. You must stand up strongly. Children, young and old people also. We hear stories every day that make you unhappy. Not young ones but old ones, by following their egos, do something that is a shame for everybody to do.

For this, who controls himself is in jihad and is taking the reward of mujahid insha’Allah. First, you must kill your ego; not killing people. Before people; your ego is bigger than others. If you kill your ego, others cannot do anything for you; nothing affects you. This is our war. Not with weapon, but with our strong will. We must make our will strong, not to follow them for even one small minute. Don’t follow your ego at all. Every time, you must be strong and attack your ego. Until dying, saying, “Ok, I heard.” But also, don’t believe it. It can wake up quickly if you turn your back, and jump on you and beat you also. With the barakah of awliyā’ and mashāyikh insha’Allah, with listening to naṣīḥah, you will be ready all the time, not cheated by your ego.

May Allāh ﷻ help us. We are in a really terrible time. Why a terrible time? We have everything. We have cars. We have planes. In old times, people couldn’t travel with planes; they couldn’t afford it. Food, we have many, masha’Allah. Everybody here is oversized. What terrible time? It’s a terrible time because it is very easy to find every ḥarām. To do every ḥarām is so easy. So unbelievably easy. In one second, you can find all ḥarām and you can do them. This is the terrible time, as we said. In old times you cannot find. You cannot find it. You must look and ask. Now there’s no need to ask. Just in one minute, you can find everything. For this, we are saying we are in a terrible time.

May Allāh ﷻ keep us safe from this time, in shā’a Llāh. May Allāh ﷻ save the old, the young and the children, in shā’a Llāh. May Allāh ﷻ save us also, in shā’a Llāh. Don’t think, “We are imam, we are Shaykh, we are this,” we all have this ego. When you are more [higher], you can have a (more) stronger ego. So, for this, be careful and all the time ask Allāh ﷻ to keep us safe, to be with us, to give us victory on our ego in shā’a Llāh. Bi ḥurmati l-Ḥabib, bi ḥurmati sirri Surati l-Fatiḥa.

• Mawlana Sheikh Muhammad Adil ar-Rabbani 

9 February 2025/ 10 Sha’ban 1446

Madina Masjid – Sheffield, UK