3.
What is the new colonialism? It is this. Niger is a free 'self-governing' state. The french extract uranium to support their entire nuclear power system in france which keeps their country one of the most powerful among northern nations. Niger remains one of the world's poorest countries and gets absolutely no benefits from this rapacious policy. Travel is forbidden within the country and visitors are prevented by law from staying as guests of its citizens – designated 'natives'!
The take-away which was first slaves later became diamonds and gold. Now it is also phosphates, uranium, oil and all the other vital mineral products that make Africa so rich. It is also the military base. The most lethal high-tech military equipment is placed at strategically key points to protect the continued export of wealth from the colonised to the colonisers. Dijouti is one such base. Somalia with its horrific refugee problem – deliberately created in the inter-colonialist competition for African wealth – is another.
When the soviet union declared it was going to assist 'marxist' somalia a few years ago, it promised to help deal with the dire poverty of the region. Almost within hours of this agreement russian planes landed. The local people saw russian technicians hurrying backwards and forwards on the tarmac. But they were not unloading relief supplies, they were hurriedly loading uranium supplies which they were airlifting out of somalia as fast as they could! It was a perfect metaphor for the new colonialism.
People ask what cuban troops are doing in Africa. What then are english, french, and russian troops doing there? Yet that is not the source of the trouble. Political crises are merely the top of the volcano. A more cogent question would be to ask about the presence of the world banking system. What is the World Bank doing in Africa – and who is it representing? What is the multi-national corporation doing in Africa? What is the Aid programme doing in Africa – and who invited it and who sanctions it – and what does it do for the country? Who ARE the American Peace Corps? What is their role? (They are funded by the state department.) What are european church organisations doing in Africa? Why does the christian church try to undermine Islamic education and worship? Why are the christian bishops collaborators with the anti-Islamic political machine? Why are breweries seen as acceptable investments in poor 'developing' countries – to create alcoholism or to destroy the moral fibre of an Islamic society? Why was alcohol deliberately introduced into the Islamic city of Kano? What is the role of the catholic church in Africa? The Pope visited turkey – immediately afterwards a military coup took place smashing the rising Islamic movement. The Pope visited upper volta, and a coup prevented Muslims from ruling there immediately following his visit. Why is 'dumping' of dangerous products permitted by central governments? All these questions move around the inescapable issue of the source of power in an African country. It is not basically governmental at all. The processes in a new African state are processes of expropriation and the denuding of resources. They are processes of protective deployment of military hardware – to allow market extraction to continue as well as seeping off the new states' wealth by setting up unnecessary high-tech purchases and building contracts – luxury hotels, administration complexes, unworkable hospital systems. Africa provides a debt system which keeps northern economies buoyant and Africa enslaved.
High technology is the trojan horse of colonial power. With the promise of 'development' and modernisation (i.e. urban crime, sexual amorality, concentration camps, police torture, penitentiaries, etc.) token elements of development are displayed to the people. Gigantism in building – hotels and government offices – give evidence of a new society. In fact all that ever appears in Africa is the moon-landing module of technology in the desert of poverty that surrounds it. After twenty-five years of 'post colonial' development and aid, Africa has both the worst and most massive refugee problem in the world, and deliberately created starvation and drought in the Sahel. The latter in order to allow american intervention in somalia and israeli-american technology into the Sahara to turn it green and destroy the indigenous nomadic life (on which the future of the human race depends) so that it can be a granary for europe and the north.
The last ten years have seen: the establishment by west germany of a corporation in zaire producing satellite spy systems on hire to African states, aggravating political tensions to make a killing-ground, the manufacture and deployment of tactical nuclear systems by the south african government, the deployment of u.s. military equipment in the Sahara in the Saharan phosphates war, and now the unquestioned doctrine of u.s. bases on the African continent within egyptian territory.
The point of nuclear capability in south Africa could not have been reached without the active and sanctioned approval of the french, the german and the u.s. as well as with british investment. Now nuclear weaponry, conceived, invented and administered by the jews (Einstein, Oppenheimer, Lilienthal) is sold on an open market to make profit by nuclear conflict, as well as being set up for use against neighbouring African states who might try to alter south Africa's fanatical and demented policies.
If one abhors russian imperialist incursions into Africa, how is it possible to accept an imperialism so pervasive that it utilises every means to maintain and extend its economic and military control over the continent? When Aid programmes almost without exception can be openly traced back first from their 'charitable status' to being part of supra-national aid groups, then to being aligned to corporations and western military structures, as we have demonstrated with detailed documentation in the Journal of the Darqawi there can only be alienation in respect of western 'humanitarian concern' for the poor of Africa, particularly when any attempt made to examine this infra-structure is stone-walled.
With Peace Corps and Aid Programme and christian clergy all aligned with one view of Africa and its future and its people's right – all clearly part of a systemic and not even conspiratorial control system – it has to be asked how long one may expect the present 'national' alignments to continue? With national structures BEING THEMSELVES the foundation of the new colonialism, and with the supra-national organisations being the instruments of furthering these policies, it has to be asked whether Africa can gain freedom through conferences or five year plans or Project this and Project that which offer slivers of new technology in the place of justice, decentralisation, and the de-towning of wealth. When, as in mali, a national fishery is set up and then produces smoked salmon for the international aid and government personnel – when whole villages starve while the aid personnel breakfast off fresh croissant baked with aid-donated flour – it must be questioned how long this state of affairs may be expected to last.
A Current review of Africa from our point of view shows everywhere oppression and nowhere Islamic governance. Alongside the utterly unacceptable rule of the french in West Africa and its ghastly racism and systematic destruction of Islamic education and, most infamously, its virtual mass imprisonment of the great Tuareg nation – cut off and inaccessible to the whole world – we must recognise the continued activity of the english, german and other european forces. The destruction piece by piece of the great Islamic centre of Kano by the federal government, the puppet rule in local government of Muslim areas, these are the elements which will not long be accepted by a vitalised Nigerian Islam.
Everywhere that west totalitarian and masonic models of so-called 'socialist' government of the 'people' exist, they must be radically challenged as the archaic puppet regimes. But the struggle is not to be seen as the decapitation of leaders – it is to be seen in the re-education of the people. There is little doubt that young Muslims alive today will live to see the beginnings of Islamic rule again, the re-establishment of the shari'at, even to the return of permitted slavery, with the now ruling white colonists themselves become the slaves of the Muslims under halal and just control. Today you are the slaves when you cannot travel across Niger without police checks and humiliations every fifty kilometres, when you cannot be visited by people from other countries and in your own land are designated as 'natives'. When you cannot enter or leave a town without french police permission you are a slave and by cruel kafir rules and not the compassionate rule of Allah.
The time has now come for us to see what the Islamic strategy should be in order to bring about the revitalisation of Islamic teaching, the declaration of tawhid, and the civilising humanity of the Sunna of our beloved Messenger, Allah's blessing and peace be upon him.
4.
There is no question but that the future destiny of Africa is Islamic. It is important therefore that Islamic activists get their targets right and do not waste energy in useless argument and in divisive doctrine.
We have seen that the sufis are the sole authors of Jihad in African history, Theologically, also, there is no tenable case against the sufis for any men of intellect. If it could have been made, it certainly would have been hundreds of years ago by our able and devout 'ulama' with madrasah educations. It was not.
Al-Ghazali settled the matter once and for all. He was called the Proof of Islam. Imam Nawawi –much honoured by the Wahhabis – was a great sufi whose work The Garden of the Gnostics is a long study of wilayat and inner knowledges. Al-Qurtubi whose gigantic tafsir remains one of the monuments of the literature of commentary on the Qur'an was a sufi. So too was as-Suyuti, the great master of Hadith. Ibn Taymiyya was a sufi, only, regrettably he lacked the intellectual capacity to understand the profound insights of Ibn al-'Arabi and so attacked what he could not comprehend. Ibn 'Abdalwahhab himself was a sufi murid and in the words of a distinguished scholar working on the movement – 'Ibn 'Abdalwahhab never formally renounced his own sufism.'
The inescapable truth is that the opposition, and it is not theological at all, it is political, to the sufis was guided and cued by western academics and orientalists, both catholic and jewish. We have demonstrated the political power of the sufis and the significance as the masters of Jihad and the grass-roots – the only grass-roots movement in Islam. That is why we find that the Muslim Brotherhood – which some scholars claim was scripted and guided by british intelligence – has always been an elitist movement which never took the poor people along with it. Even at its height in egypt when it was, along with the imperialist british, opposing Nasser's policies, its main support was with the educated middle classes. The same is true in syria today where it opposes, along with britain, the leftist regime. This is not to say that there are not many sincere and pious men among them – but it may be that they have been ideologically betrayed. Results will reveal the realities of this matter, if examined further.
We are left with the inescapable conclusion that an Islam based on masonic structures – Islamic societies, Islamic centres with committees, chairmen (!), 'democratic' processes – all these, far from having strengthened Islam, have left it more divided and more distrustful. Islam is not going to be revived by Islamic associations, not by a 'Union of Islamic Associations' any more than it can be controlled and exploited to political ends by Islamic conferences and Islamic secretariats. Islam is with the people. It always has been. "look for me among the poor," said our beloved Messenger, blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, "for I was only sent among you on account of the poor."
A modernist critic said of our proposal for Ribats, which was a system that had created an Islamic empire that lasted over one hundred years and in turn merged into another similar Islamic society, that it was an elitist concept disconnected from the people. Yet critics like that lead bourgeois lives and are cut off experientially from the people. We, as sufis, move among the people of all lands and within our own large communities. We have hundreds of fuqara' and work closely on such matters as education, work structures and so on. We sit down on a quiet day to a table that feeds ten to twenty people.
It is by the already thrilling revival of the sufic path that Islam will revitalise in Africa. The most important factor is that there must on no account be rivalry or ill-feeling between the different Turuq. the french solution to defeating Muslims in morocco and the Sahara was to set up a conflict between the Darqawiyya and the Tijanniyya. They planted spies and did much damage, aided and abetted by the morocco jews, who infiltrated the ranks of the two groups. So today we most scrupulously avoid conflict between the great sufic orders. The two great Orders today are the Shadhiliyya-Darqawiyya in the west and the Naqshbandiyya in the east. Between our two Orders there is a deep and incorruptible love. When we celebrated the Moussem of our great master, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him, the Grand Shaykh of the Naqshbandiyya, Shaykh Aslam, came with a large group of his fuqara' to confirm our brotherhood and love in the path of serving Allah and calling the fuqara' to direct experience of the Lights and secrets of the Divine Lord. This should be the sunna of all the sufic Shaykhs in Africa today. Only the sufis can create and ambience of trust and brotherhood without which there will never be any Islamic revolution or resurgence.
Make no mistake – we are living in an age where there has as yet emerged no clear Islamic politique. There is, as yet, no flag we can with conscience fight under. Our job should be to work within the existing framework of society – if it is corrupt it will dialectically have no option but to break and change – and within that frame create a body of Muslims who trust each other, keep the salat, pay the zakat and call on Allah morning and evening. People who do dhikr kathiran – as ordered in the Qur'an – much, much dhikr, standing, sitting, and reclining on their sides.
We must work to unite the people in love of Allah. There has been far too much talk of Islam and far too little of Allah, the Fire and the Garden. These 'reformist' movements as well as clinging to the deen of the northern society simply do not believe in the Unseen, in angels, in the Sirat, in the Fire, in the Garden, and least of all in the vision of Allah. They are earthed, utterly identical in behaviour and psychological condition, by the kafir elements with which they are so associated. It is difficult to see what the 'point' of being Muslim is if they are matrix by which we must assess Muslims in the world. That is to say – the kafir who is challenged by the idea of Islam then looks to the Muslim to see the appreciable difference – the vital difference in his life quality that should persuade him too to become Muslim. When he looks at these modernists who cannot wait to persuade the modern man that Islam is compatible with his life-values, his universities, his award system, his materialism, his sciences, he simply loses interest, for such a man has already found out that all these elements and institutions are false and do not provide him with inner sustenance. The whole Muslim has two elements to life – one his outward behaviour which will be not only devout in 'ibada but will be courteous, welcoming, smiling, hospitable, wishing the best on men and praying with good heart for their growth and fulfilment. And two, his inward behaviour which will be enlightened by reflection and invocation, by being guided to understand the deep doctrine of tawhid, by watching the heart, by experiencing the lights from the Attributes and the manifestation of the Essence. He will not be, therefore, solid and opaque, grim and forbidding, he will not be long for the platform, the presidential party, the motorcade, but rather he will be a man who loves the poor, who prefers the company of the men of Allah to the men of a moment's transitory illusion of power. His power will be obliterated in the power of Allah – and by this the people will love him and trust him and follow him. Nothing can stand in the way of the lovers of Allah and His Messenger, blessings and peace of Allah be upon him.
Fill the different sufic orders with new life and new men, fill the nights with dhikr and the pre-dawn with still unmoving, fixed muraqabah, take initiation in the Supreme Name of Allah. See Allah by Allah and be annihilated in Him. Such a man will have died the meaning-death before the sensory-death – and so will be fearless like the great mujahideen before him – for he will have gone beyond. Our great Master Shaykh ibn al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him, said on his deathbed: "The people of dhikr do not die. And the people who do no dhikr, look at them, they are dead already!"
The road to the liberation of Africa and the raising up of Africa, and to being finished with this tragic hundred years just gone by, is clear. Liberation from exploitation and degradation and the horrible christian nexus of prostitution and alcoholism and the theft of resources. Liberation from the mythic fantasies of marxist materialism which nowhere liberates and everywhere enslaves, a doctrine created by jewish intellectuals (Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky were all rabbinically educated) to destroy her enemies, and that includes Islam. A new Islamic century is beginning. It must begin with the revitalisation of the sufic way in Africa and broad support and brotherhood among the individual Turuq. It means a new spiritual energy. This will vitalise us. The 'politicisation' of Islam was a necessary phrase. It is now over. Our work Jihad was part of that struggle. We have now moved into a new and more inspiring stage of our duties. It is time to assist in the creation of a new man. Sufic products of powerful dhikr, intense spiritual practice, brave material generosity towards the masakin – the bereft.
The sufis must work everywhere – among the personnel of central government – among the police – among the army. They must work too among the refugees. If the sufis had over-run the palestinian refugee camps and not secularists and marxist – their battle would already be over! Every abandonment by the state of the poor and the needy is a war-zone for the sufis. But their armaments are dhikr of Allah, brotherhood, assistance, trust and compassion.
As for overt targets – as we have said there is as yet no banner to fight under. There is, however, one vital target for the Muslims everywhere. That is the brewery and the wine factory. All liquor is haram in Islam and its distribution must be most vigorously opposed by all. The alcohol, where it is made, the vessels containing it, the places selling it, all these are proscribed by shari'at. On this there can be no compromise for Muslims. Also it is a significant and suitably symbolic area of resistance to kafir humiliation that has been tolerated long enough. It is not 'fanatical' to oppose alcohol – it is scientifically unacceptable, producing as it does brain shrinkage, sclerosis, insanity, the destruction of family life, and the work pattern on which modern society is based! The greatest single threat to soviet society is the apparently uncontrollable problem of alcoholism and heavy drinking both in the working and managerial classes as well as among children!
Allah has said in a well known ayat of the Qur'an that Allah will not change a people until they change what is in their hearts. This has always been and still is the business of the Islamic sufis. The modernists and the Wahhabis would like to see an Islamic sociology and deny the existence of an Islamic psychology. Yet it is the nafs that is our enemy as many hadith confirm. It is the heart of a man which must be assured if he is to gain the Garden.
A Word on Bida'
Nowadays there are many people who cry Bida'. We have already emphasised that while they accuse the sufis of this dreadful thing they themselves tolerate and sanction the worst bida' of their paymasters and their political masters. In this sense the eastern arabs have lost all credibility in speaking for Islam. Theirs is nothing less than a slander on Muslims who confirm the Unity of Allah and the Messengership of the Prophet, blessings of Allah and peace be upon him. The sufis are the guides and the inspiration and the core of a strong Islam in every age. Even the ones who oppose them can be seen to have come from them. Maududi is from a family of sufis! So with those mentioned earlier. The Tabligh movement in india was started by a sufi and is a pale copy of sufism. Only, where the sufis confirm their brothers and speak well of them, the Tabligh movement tells people that they are weak and lack Iman! This was not the practice of the Sahabah they are so fond of quoting. Da'wa is not for Muslims but for ignorant kafirun, this was the practice of the first community. We cannot presume of our brothers that they are astray, ignorant and lacking in Iman.
Calling bida' is a mentality. It is a mentality of arrogance, and distrust and divisiveness. Calling bida' has become a sunna and the Sunna has become a bida' in this age. Be in turn distrustful of those who ask you to denounce your brother Muslims, who accuse others of 'not being Muslims'. In our work Jihad we adopted the most radical position of judging by the narrowest limits of what the modernists accept and by that standard demonstrated that not one of them would escape condemnation. For as our master, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, said, speaking of such people: "Have nothing to do with the one who is veiled, unaware of his Lord, and in his extreme inner darkness unable to see the paths of Allah. Beware of ending up satisfied to be in the company of a sect who are possessed by evil in their words. Saying with their mouths what is not in their hearts, while at the same time doing every revolting act."
We must emphasise that we condemn the false doctrines of wahhabism for its narrowness, slanders and arrogance. We do not accept that there were no genuine Muslims until the arrival of a bedouin called Ibn 'Abdalwahhab two hundred years ago. We consider Islam a universal deen and so we honour the whole world community of Muslims confident that Allah alone will judge them with compassion according to His promise and not according to the narrow judgements of men. This does not mean that we condemn the Wahhabis themselves, however much we regret their deviant doctrines, and the hysterical rejection of the awliya' and the books of the great Muslim scholars. It is an anti-intellectual movement based on prejudice and condemnation. Allah the Exalted commanded in the Qur'an:
Speak to people in the best manner.
We accept any Wahhabi among us as long as his behaviour is what is expected of a Muslim. We do not exclude people – we wait patiently and guide them to what is better, for the noble Hadith has declared that 'The deen is nothing but good counsel.'
The Restoration of Shari'at Must Precede the Establishment of Central Islamic Government
These notes of bida' bring us to the final issue. Frankly, it would be pure romanticism, despite all that we have said on sufism, to imagine that the different tariqat as presently constituted and led could revitalise Islam. The decimation of their leadership and censoring of their doctrine – first by the colonialists and then by their wahhabi stooges who, calling bida', embody it – makes this impossible. Revival is needed by the new generation from whom will emerge the new leadership and mass. The efficacy of the sufic-centred, inwardly dynamic Islam of tomorrow is dependent on the triumph of the Islamic shari'at. There can be no knowledge of nor teaching about haqiqat without its containment within the hudud of shari'at.
Now it so happens that Africa has already in its hands the means of its liberty and future civilised splendour. Africa is the land of the fiqh of Imam Malik. It is necessary for Africans to grasp the nature of Malik's path (muwatta'). This is the way of Madinah. It is, in fact, the primal madhhab because it is the first Hijazi Islamic method. It is the great Islamic legal way. The other great pattern was that of Abu Hanifa – it was that of the Khalifate, but the jews destroyed it and it is no longer paramount. To function it requires Islamic central governance and by its nature is systematic, structural and didactic. Its epoch is over historically. Malik's rule, on the other hand is perfectly suited to this age. Indeed, we may do further and say that it is a method whose time is due.
Malik's path is existential. It is based on behaviour. The behaviour of the people of Madinah – it is a legal grid founded on a pattern taken from the community of the Prophet's city during the time of Sayyiduna 'Umar and also 'A'isha. So it is the madhhab of the great Companions, the first community. It is, we may say, the source system of Islamic society, the original blue print.
Do not let orientalist doctrine fool you. There is no suggestion of 'going back' fourteen hundred years. The point is to go forward to the future with it. Without it we may have no future. Firstly then, it is the method of Madinah and the source group.
Secondly, it is the path that survived and operated under the Abbasid/Umayyad tyranny. Such was its strength – it survived it and it made hijra and moved west to Africa. One could even say that with it went the 'real Islam' – which is why the Africans fought the colonialists but the Muslims in the middle east were utterly passive and indeed welcomed the english and french occupying force!
Thirdly, it came with the people of the House. It is the true shi'a way, brought as it was by the House of the Messenger, Moulay Idris and his family. Thus it is also the madhhab that can unify the Muslims.
Fourthly, it is, being existential, a method that can operate at group level, at street level, at community level. It is not dependent on an outward elite and legal system with specialist techniques. It can be applied. We must apply the shari'at with the same force that the kafirun do among their own people. Even criminal groups like the mafia enforce their law in open defiance of central government. By mutual acceptance so must we, as Muslims, by the technique of Malik.
Fifthly, it is easily acquired knowledge. The scholars of the group or community can soon acquire expertise in Malik's path. Its source books: Al-Muwatta' and Al-Mudawwana permit the immediate establishment of shari'at even for a nomadic group or guerrilla group. Its commercial section gives vivid guidance on the approach that should be taken to western banks and banking.
Sixthly, we recognise the superiority of Malik since ash-Shafi'i was his pupil and the one who acknowledged his superiority. Ibn Hanbal was in turn from ash-Shafi'i. So we see that the turning to Malik is not the revival of divisive madhhab competition but rather the clarification of a Salafi viewpoint. The Hanafi governance has been defeated militarily and sociologically. Now we revitalise Islam with its source way of Malik which is in its turn the way which enfolds the other two schools.
Seventhly, the organic and adaptable, even portable, nature of Malik's way allows us to deal with the situation we find ourselves in without falling for the modernist trap – orchestrated by westernised (systemic) thought. The so-called 'Islamic Movement' of Maududi and the Ministries and the Wahhabis declares its belief in 'Kitab wa Sunna' or in the rule of shari'at – while the practice of shari'at and the use of the Sunna is reduced to an abstract philosophical slogan no where in evidence. The shari'at has a pattern, is a path, and so by returning to Malik's Madinan path we have embodied what they have fantasised.
To summarise the activist principle: while the Muslim Brotherhood has twice been defeated and slaughtered by aiming to overthrow central government in the name of the Islamic shari'at they were accepting the structuralist principle out of due season. Not being 'madhhabi' in our approach we would be overjoyed with a logic which would suggest that the success of Maliki underground rule leading to total governance may necessitate the introduction of Shafi'i's principles from his Risala. Historically that stasis would in turn later demand a Hanbali purification of basic principles.
So we declare: the adoption now of Maliki method and the Muwatta' is the only activist route that can lead to the transformation of the current humiliation of the Muslims in Africa and indeed, in Turkey itself, the once great centre of Hanafi law. (Would they rather be theoretical Hanafis in a secular state than Malikis under a secular state yet governing themselves in defiance of it?)
So we conclude that it is possible now to vitalise Islam in Africa by the immediate adoption of the kalam of Ash'ari, the fiqh of Malik, and the sufism of al-Junayd. And was that not the great triad of learning expounded by Ibn 'Ashir when Islamic learning was alive in Africa? This is the road to immediate political activism and power according to the ensemble of Islamic learning that is nothing less than the great central tradition of Islam in Africa. Take it and use it. Now. With two books Islam can rule again in Africa: The Qur'an and the Muwatta'.
5.
THE FUTURE: THE PATH OF DHIKRU'LLAH
Only at the door of the sufis can the wide and tolerant spirit of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad flourish, blessings of Allah and peace be upon him, only among the sufis can be found the true spirit of Madinah, And to us, all those who possess that spirit are of us. So no one is excluded – this is the one vital and necessary condition of an UMMA. The spirit of the sufis is one which desires for the brother what is due the self. If the Garden is our reward then do we not yearn to share it with as many as possible? Did not our Guide yearn to see his own uncle enter Islam before death – beyond the bounds of what he had been instructed? Many a Wahhabi has turned from his wrong guidance and melted before the love and brotherhood that he has found among the sufis. For the difference in the end between them and the rest of the community is not intellectual, it is psychological. Our way is based on feeling incomplete and incorrect before Allah. Their way is to make you feel incomplete and incorrect before them! We seek Allah's approval only and turn from all that is other-than-Allah.
Enter the Way of Allah. Take the path. The path is dhikr of Allah, especially His Supreme Name, and it is the Name of Majesty, 'Allah'.
Our master, Shaykh Ibn al-Habib, said:
"Oh you who desire nearness to Allah immediately – you must perform dhikr of Allah openly and secretly. Fill the times with it and you will swiftly ascend to the pinnacle of gnosis with pure contemplation. Through polishing the mirror of the heart, the veil is drawn aside, and lights appear to it from the purity of the dhikr."
Speaking of the lovers of Allah he also said:
"So submit to them for what you see of their ardent love, and the dancing and singing at their invocation of the Beloved.If you had only tasted something of the meaning of our words you would already be experiencing every state.
And, oh my brother, you would have borne your troubles patiently, and you would have rent the robes of shame and self-importance.
You would have said to the caravan leader of the People, 'Make us love His Name! There is no shame in that song, nor in that love!'"
Take the green turban of the Darqawiyya and return Africa to the deen of Muhammad, blessings of Allah and peace be upon him.
Recite at dawn and at sunset:
1. Astaghfirullah. (100 times)
2. Allahumma salli 'ala sayyidina Muhammadin 'Abdika wa rasoolika'n-nabiyyi'l-ummi wa 'ala alahi wa sahbihi wa sallam. (100 times)
3. La ilaha illa'llah! (100 times)
This is the basic Wird of the Shadhiliyya- Darqawiyya Tariqah – each fragment of it commended in accepted Hadith. By the lights of this recitation Allah will lead you to the company of a Shaykh or one with permission from a Shaykh who can initiate you into the blessings and lights and secrets of your own heart by the halal and praiseworthy sciences of knowledge. And the highest knowledge is knowledge of Allah.
Fear Allah – and He will give you knowledge.
As it says in the Diwan of Shaykh Ibn al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him:
"All those who have obtained knowledge and dominion have only obtained it by accompanying a humble man, by whom I mean the Shaykh whose light has overflowed, and who has brought secrets and wealth with him.If you desire lights and the opening of inner sight, then copy him in exaltation of Allah and turn from conflict. And persevere in dhikr taught with idhn (permission) and neglect it neither in the state of distress nor of success."
He also said, and let it be the last word, insha'Allah:
"Oh Lord, bless the Prophet as long as the Suratu'l-Mathani is recited,And his family and Companions, as long as people profit by Iman.
I ask of the Real – bliss – for all whom my age comprises."
The Case Against Alcohol
The french, who drink more than anyone in the world, are paying the consequences. Alcohol figures in a third of the country's auto accidents, 25% of its suicides and the majority of violent crimes. There are 2 million (2,000,000) alcoholics and one out of four citizens is considered a problem drinker.
One-third of the social security budget goes toward treating sicknesses brought on by the nation's record consumption rate – an average of 16 litres of pure alcohol a year for every adult. Dr. John Bernard's commission found that each year there are 40,000 alcohol-related deaths in france, and official figures show the economy loses at least 4 billion dollars because of medical expenses and decreased productivity.
The wine and liquor industry provides a tenth of french jobs. The government has pampered the producers with generous tax exemptions and the e.e.c. give vintners special consideration too. The industry pours 10 billion dollars into the economy each year and seems impervious to attack.
Excerpted from NEWSWEEK/August 4, 1980
The Myth of Communism
1. In Sian, the Great Mosque – Ch'ing-Chen Ssu founded in 742 AD (christian dating) and rebuilt in the 14th century (ditto) was closed by the red guards during the cultural revolution.
2. Excerpt from a chronicle dated 300 BC (christian dating): 'As the day is divided into ten periods, so men are apportioned into ten classes in such a way that the inferiors serve the superiors while the latter serve the gods.' Tso Chuan (in the 7th year of Duke Chao).
The Culural Revolution did not alter the ten-class division of chinese bureaucracy and it remains today. (see YI-CHIU-WU-LIU NIEN CHUNG-YANG TS'AI-CHENG FA-KUEI HUI-PIEN - Peking 1957)
Africa - 4 Million Refugees
"International relief organisations estimate that four million (4,000,000) refugees – nearly half of the world's total of 8.4 million – live in Africa. That is out of every 200 persons in Africa (is a refugee) and a 300% increase since 1967."
(Excerpted from a report by Richard Timkins: Associated Press: Los Angelus Times Dec. 16, 1979.)
The Results of 100 Years of Progress and Development
"One fifth of the people of the world are destitute, and their condition will rapidly become even more wretched unless urgent action is taken to save them. This stark message emerges from reports before a united nations conference – which is looking at the failure of development to affect the poor in the past twenty years. Edouard Saouma, Director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organisation which is running the Conference describes the plight of the most wretched as 'below the margins of human existence'. In his opening address he said, 'The only wealth they have is of privation and disease – the oedema of famine, kwashiorkor, malaria, sleeping sickness, blindness. Their struggle to survive, to collect a few twigs to cook a handful of grain, is less dramatic in media terms than the quarrels of car owners queuing for a few litres of petrol. But it is of far greater consequence for the life of nations and the peaceful future of our children.
800 million (800,000,000) people are destitute say the Conference papers. Other reports show they are getting hungrier, although food production is growing faster than the population in the Third World, because they are too poor to buy enough to eat.
Fifteen million (15,000,000) children under five die every year, partly from malnutrition. Ten million (10,000,000) more children are paralysed, made blind or deaf, or suffer brain damage or stunted growth from disease."
(London Observer –Geoffrey Lean reporting from Rome: 1980)