Letter from Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib
There is no power nor strength except by Allah and may Allah bless our master Muhammad and his family and Companions and grant them peace abundantly
To our brothers in Allah, those we love in the Essence of Allah, our masters of the tribe of Turoug At 'Ata in the Wadi Amagha, each of them by name, young and old, male and female, especially their community and their notable people, their fuqara' and the people of authority among them. May Allah give you success and help you and may He establish me and establish you in what pleases Him - Glory be to Him! General, complete, all-embracing peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings and on all your people and children and all who are from you and to you. May Allah make all of us thrive by the rank of the Interceding Prophet by His favour. Amen.
I have heard about your visit and the help you have given to the zawiyya in this blessed month whose worth in the sight of Allah is immense. May Allah accept it from you, turn to you and disburse to you some of His vast treasures which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and which have not occurred to the heart of man, in the sensory and the meaning, outward and inward. We ask Him to bless you in your deen, in your faith, in your crops, in your horses, in your water, in your herds, and in everything Allah has granted you by His favour, Amen.
I advise you, my masters, to persevere in doing the prayer at its time and in the recitation of the noble wird, morning and evening, and to stay awake on the night before Jumu'a without overburdening yourselves and to fill your moments with that whose good and benefit will revert to you in this world and the Next. Allah, jalla wa 'azza, says, "Remind, then, if the reminder benefits. He who has fear will be reminded; but the most miserable will shun it." (87:9-11). Allah - glory be to Him - says, "And as for the blessing of your Lord, speak out!" (93:11)
Know, masters, that our Master, tabaraka wa ta'ala, has honoured you and has bestowed on you some of His pure generosity and nobility in a land full of blessings, possessing abundant bounty, and great good. He has favoured you with mutual friendship, mutual agreement, peace and security. He also favoured you with unity for many long years until your land was the best, most excellent noblest, most luminous, highest, finest and most beautiful of the lands of Allah. Your position was unified and your state was unified. Your mosques flourished and your children recited the Qur'an. You were merciful to your weak and followed the path of your Prophet and repented of your wrong actions. All intelligent people wanted to live with you. Your crops flourished, your fruits were plentiful and the water in your wadis was abundant. There was mercy among you towards one another. It seems to me that Allah, tabaraka wa ta'ala, gave you the Garden in this world and let you live in it by His pure bounty and generosity.
Then when the accursed shaytan saw these incalculable and countless blessings which were Allah's bounty to you, he envied you for that and wanted to make you ungrateful and to remove these immense blessings from you by causing you to be ungrateful for them and not respecting and valuing them. He proceeded to make you disobey Allah and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and to do what angers our Master, 'azza wa jalla, and does not please Him. What master likes it if His slaves envy one another, are angry at one another and confront one another in front of Him, when He sees them in possession of His gifts?
So we want you, our masters, to stop following Shaytan and not to go with him, even a single step. Allah, blessed is He and highly exalted - says, "O you who believe, do not follow in the footsteps of Shaytan. Anyone who follows in Shaytan's footsteps should know that he commands indecency and wrongdoing." (24:21) He, jalla wa 'azza, also says, "O you who believe, wine and gambling, stone altars and divining arrows are filth from the handiwork of Shaytan. Avoid them completely so that hopefully you will be successful. Shaytan wants to stir up enmity and hatred between you by means of wine and gambling and to debar you from remembrance of Allah and from salat. Will you not then give them up?" (5:90-91)
We want you, my lords, to repent to Allah with the sincere repentance of someone who turns from all that angers Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala and from anything with which He is not pleased, especially your mutual opposition and separation from one another. Allah, tabaraka wa ta'ala, made you brothers by His words, "The believers are brothers, so make peace between your brothers." (49:10) We want Allah to help you to oppose shaytan and disappoint him and not to allow him to achieve his goal among you, because what shaytan wants for you from what you do is something you will definitely not like, meaning the anger and wrath of your Lord towards you.
Beware, my lords, lest you make peace with your enemy. There is no good for you in his company nor in following him nor in obeying him because he is the enemy of Allah. Allah the Immense says, "Shaytan is your enemy, so treat him as an enemy. He summons his party so they will be among the people of the Searing Blaze." (35:6) Allah, tabaraka wa ta'ala, says, "Do you take him and his offspring as protectors apart from Me when they are your enemy?" (18:50)
The end of my advice to you is to renew your contract with Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala, to be enemies of Shaytan and not to obey anything he commands and nor avoid what he forbids, because Allah, tabaraka wa ta'ala, forbade us to obey him and commanded us to disobey him, oppose him and to be far from him. Praise and thank Allah often for His blessing and His bounty.
Allah the Immense says, "Remember Allah's blessings, so that hopefully you will be successful." (7:69) "Speak of Allah's blessings to you and, by the strength and power of Allah, you will obtain everything that delights you and makes you happy and joyous. Allah the Immense says, "If you are grateful, I will certainly give you increase." (14:9) Allah has bestowed on you His bounty, generosity and goodness and so you must receive His blessings with increased gratitude and praise in order to ensure that they are always with you. You must set out to get rid of dispute and mutual aversion in all dealings between yourselves and you must also hasten to eliminate the causes of rancour and hatred between you and to show forbearance and mercy to one another. Allah, ta'ala, says, "Those who believe and urge each other to steadfastness and urge each other to compassion." (90:18) The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The All-Merciful shows mercy to the merciful. Show mercy to those who are in the earth and those who are in heaven will show mercy to you," It is also related: ""If someone does not show mercy to other people, Allah will not show mercy to him, nor will He pardon the one who does not pardon, nor turn to the one who does not repent."
Remember, masters, what occurred to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, when he went out one day to specify the Night of Power to people and found two men quarrelling. The Night of Power was not specified to people because of the quarrel. Allah the Immense says, "Do not quarrel among yourselves lest you lose heart and your momentum disappear" (8:46) and "Hold fast to the rope of Allah all together, and do not separate. Remember Allah's blessing to you when you were enemies and He joined your hearts together so that you became brothers by His blessing." (3:102)
We ask Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala to undertake to guide us and you by His favour. Make supplication for us, and may you remain in good and well being, and may we and you abide by the contract of Allah and have his love until the Meeting with Him.
Peace.
In the month of Allah, Dhu'l-Hijja 1371 with the idhn of our shaykh, Sayyiduna Muhammad ibn al-Habib Amghari al-Husayni, the wali of Allah.