BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin. Wasalatu wa salamu ala rasulina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain nahmadulllahu ta’ala wa nastaghfiruhu wa nashadu an-lailaha ilallahu wahdahu la sharika lah wa nashadu anna sayyidina Muhammadin abduhu wa habibuhu wa rasuluhu salallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa azwajihi wa ashabihi wa atbaihi.

Khulafail Rashidin mahdin min ba’di wuzerail immeti alal tahkik. Khususan minhum alal amidi khulafai rasulillahi ala tahqeeq. Umara il mu’mineen. Hazreti abu bakr wa umar wa uthman wa ali. Wa ala baqiyati wa sahabai wa tabieen, ridwanallahu ta’ala alayhim ajmain.Ya ayyuhal mu’minun al hadirun, ittaqullaha ta’ala wa ati’uh. Inna allaha ma allathina-ttaqaw wal-lathina hum muhsinun. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu wa Salamu ala Ashrafil Ambiya’i wa Imam al-Mursaleen, Sayyidina wa Mawlana Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain.

All praises are due to Allah, Lord of the Universes. All praises are due to Allah, Who is One. All praises are due to Allah, Who is without partner. All praises are due to Allah, the Unique One- there is nothing like Him, and He is like no one. All praises are due to Allah Who has made His Beloved, Sayyidina Muhammad (asws), the Chosen Prophet and the Mercy to the Universes.

And may all peace and blessings be upon the Possessor of Power, the Possessor of Honor, the Possessor of Firmness, the Possessor of Might, the Possessor of Blessing, Sayyidina Muhammad (asws), and upon his noble family and blessed companions, especially upon the Four Khulafa-e-Rashideen, Hz. Abu Bakr el-Siddiq, Hz. Umar el-Faruq, Hz. Osman el-Ghani, and Hz. Ali el-Murtaza, and all those who follow them until the Last Day.

Ya Ayyuhal Mu’minoon! O Believers! Welcome to you in this Holy Day of Jummah, in the Holy Month of Zul Qaida, as we are approaching the Days of Zul Hijja and the Day of Kurban. May we be awake to understand the significance of these days, and to run to please our Lord and our Prophet during these times. Insya’Allah.

O Believers! Keep your faith fresh and alive. Keep your faith to be real. Do not let your faith to wither up and die. Because Holy Prophet (asws) is saying in his Hadith Sherif: Say “I believe in Allah” — and then be steadfast, stand straight.

Our ego, our desires, this dunya, and sheytan, they are constantly working against us to try to rob us of our faith. And there is constantly a battle going on inside of us, inside of our hearts, for our faith. If we are in complete ghaflat, heedlessness, of that battle, if we do not even know that it is happening, then we must be losing. We must be awake and aware to that. And we must take so many precautions to protect our faith.Because the Holy Prophet (asws), who is the Giver of Glad-Tidings but also the Warner, he had warned us to protect our faith. And he also warned us that times would come in our lives that we would feel like our faith was becoming weak. And he (asws) also gave us the medicine for this sickness, for this weakness.

Holy Prophet (asws) is advising us, saying, ‘There is no heart except that it has a cloud like the clouds of the moon: while the moon is shining, it gets covered with a cloud and it gets dark; but when the cloud leaves it, the moon goes back to its shine.’ So this Hadith is showing us that yes, there are going to be dark times that come to us. There are going to be difficult times that come. There are going to be times that we feel like there is no more light. But we have to know that those times are going to pass, and that the Light of Faith is just covered, it is just hidden and it is going to shine again. But for that Light of Faith to continue to shine, there is certain work that we must do as well. He is saying (asws), ‘Faith wears out in your heart as old clothes wear out, so ask Allah to renew the Faith in your hearts.’ And one Sahabi said, ‘Ya Rasulallah, how do we renew our faith?’ And he (asws) answered: Say “La ilaha il-Allah” often.

And in another Hadith he is saying: There are three qualities whoever has them, will taste the sweetness of Iman: To love Allah and His Messenger (asws) more than anyone else; to love a servant of Allah only for (the sake of) Allah; and to hate returning to disbelief after Allah has saved him from it as he would hate to be thrown into the fire (of Hell). An intelligent man is going to look at this Hadith not only as a prescription for what to do, but he will also realize that this Hadith contains a warning of the things a person should not do. Because if a person is doing the opposite of the things that are bringing the sweetness of Iman, then definitely he is killing his faith.

So, according to this Hadith, one of the things that will make our faith weaker is if we let other loves besides the Love of Allah and His Messenger to rule our hearts. If the love of other than Allah and His Messenger takes over the heart, then definitely a person is going to lose his faith. What is the biggest example of this? What is the example of this that our Sheykh, Sahib el-Sayf Sheykh Abdul Kerim el-Kibrisi el-Rabbani was always reminding us of? The story of Ibn Salamah.

Ibn Salamah was from the Eshab-i-Suffah, the Dervishes during the time of the Holy Prophet (asws) who were attached to the Masjid el-Nabawi. He was in full-time Hizmet, sacrificing everything for the Holy Prophet (asws), spending his time in the masjid cleaning, making zikr, living a simple life. But one day Ibn Salamah asked Holy Prophet (asws) to pray for him to become rich. And Holy Prophet (asws) told him, ‘ya Ibn Salamah, it’s not for you.’ But he insisted. He asked again and again. He said he wanted to become rich to help his brothers. And Holy Prophet (asws) told him, ‘Ya Ibn Salamah, you are not richer than Allah. Allah wants them this way. So, don’t interfere. Be happy with what you have.’ But because he kept insisting, Rasulallah (asws) opened his hands and prayed. And Ibn Salamah became an owner of sheep, and before long, he became extremely wealthy. And soon, that man who was counted from the Eshab-i-Suffah, he stopped staying in the masjid, he stopped coming for eating. He only came for Namaz. Then his business became more profitable, and he only started coming for Fajr and Isha. Slowly, it turned into only Jummah prayers. Finally, Ibn Salamah stopped coming completely. Holy Prophet (asws) was sitting with his Sahabis and he said, ‘Where is Ibn Salamah?’ All the Sahabis kept their heads down, so he asked again (asws), ‘Where is Ibn Salamah?’ And the Sahabis said, ‘Ya Rasulullah, it is known to you, he has so much wealth, he has so many animals. He cannot live in Medina. So he has to go out of Medina and it is pretty hard for him to go back and forth. So he’s not coming.’ Holy Prophet (asws) asked, ‘Who is he helping with that wealth?’ And the Sahabis answered, ‘not us ya Rasulallah.’

Not long after that, the Order came from Allah (swt) for Zakat to be collected. And some Sahabis came to Ibn Salamah to inform him and collect Zakat. He told them to go to another Sahabi and to come back to him. When they came back he said, ‘What happened to Muhammad? He’s asking for bribery now?’ The Sahabis were shocked and went back to Holy Prophet (asws) to report what had happened. What did Rasulallah (asws) say? ‘Oh Ibn Salamah, you have lost. You have lost, and you have lost.’

This is for you and this is for me. This is for the whole world. That is what happens to our faith when we let the Dunya enter inside. That is what happens when we let ego to enter. Do not think we are better than him. He is a warning to us. Ibn Salamah, understand, he was from the Eshab-i-Suffah. Those who are claiming to be “Sufis,” he is from the originators of Tasawwuf. He had dedicated his life to Rasulallah (asws) and serving Islam. But even from that honored position, he was not safe from falling all the way down. And what made him fall, what made him lose his faith? What made him go so low that he dared to say those words about the Holy Prophet (asws)? He fell in love with dunya. He let the love of dunya be higher than the Love of Allah and His Prophet. And for that, he lost his dunya and his Akhiret.

So Holy Prophet (asws) is also telling us that what gives us the sweetness of Iman is loving the Servants of Allah only for the sake of Allah. What is the meaning? Loving your brothers. Loving the people you are in association with. Helping them. Knowing them. Being familiar to them. And what is the opposite of that? Not really caring for your brothers. Looking down on them. Complaining about them. Backbiting about them. Just seeing each other, giving fake Selam, and returning home to our families and to our work. That is going to kill our hearts. And in reality, the company of our Brothers in Faith it is better for us than the company of our blood families. But some may prefer their own families to their brothers of faith, thinking they have more faith.Who is judging? You are? And who is saying that the company of Brothers in Faith is better than the company of our blood family? Hz. Hasan el-Basri (ra). He says, ‘Our brothers are dearer to us than our families, for our families remind us of this world, but our brothers remind us of the Ahiret.’ So being in Jemaat, loving our brothers, that is part of keeping our Iman alive. We have to check ourselves. If we are separating from the Jemaat, if we are separating from our brothers, if we are being like Ibn Salamah and keeping far away, then we know that our faith is in a great danger. And we must have feeling and love for our brothers in Faith everywhere. Holy Prophet (asws) is saying, ‘The Muslim Ummah is like one body. If the eye is in pain then the whole body is in pain and if the head is in pain then the whole body is in pain.’

Today’s Muslims, their faith is dying their faith is dead. Because they left their Hadith. They sit in their own comfort, luxury homes, and they forget everything else. Even when that reminder they are seeing in front of their faces twenty-four hours. Everyone is busy with the news on the fitna Facebook but our hearts has become so dead that even with these reminders, nothing is touching it except for things that would entertain us, except for things that will make us laugh, except for things that will put us into more ghaflat but then claiming, ‘we know Allah,’ claiming, ‘we know the Prophet,’ claiming, ‘we know our Sheykh. I don’t need anyone else.’ This week, the whole world is looking at the picture of that little boy who was rescued in Halep, in Aleppo. The whole world are looking at his eyes. And his eyes, they are looking at the whole world. Just like Seyh Efendi told us, what the eyes of the little children in those situations are saying. Their eyes are looking and they are saying, ‘You are all Dead. We are living. But you are all Dead.’

The only way that we can remind ourselves of this and to wake up is to remember what Sheykh Effendi, ‘That’s because you are not feeling anything at all. You are not seeing anything anymore. You are not understanding anything anymore. Because you have died. Worrying for your selfish, egoistic lifestyle. Yes, that’s what is happening. And that’s what happened to us. And yes, we should move. Wake up because Allah’s revenge is coming. It’s coming to everyone of us. I don’t know who is going to escape from that. But the revenge is coming.’ Those are real words. Thinking and feeling pain for our brothers, that is going to make our hearts to wake up. Because worrying and crying for the Ummat, it is the Way of Habibullah (asws). And the last thing that Holy Prophet (asws) is saying is that the person who hates to go back to Kufr the way that he hates to be thrown into hellfire, he has sweetness of Iman.

So we should us ask ourselves; is that how much we would hate to go into Kufr? Or do we look and say, ‘oh before I started practicing, I had such a nice life. I had such nice friends. I had such a nice family. Everything was so nice before I entered into my Faith, and now everything is so difficult. If that is in our hearts, our Iman is dying.’ But if you look to the scholars of today and when you look and you understand what they speak about love and tolerance, you know it is fake. Especially when they speak about unconditional love.Because that heart that has unconditional love cannot be there smiling and speaking about love when a child, such as that refugee is lying there covered in ashes and in blood and crying. The scholars, those Sheykh, they cannot stand and laugh knowing that this whole world, the innocent ones they are crying and suffering. They should stand up firm and straight and to warn those ones who are following batil to come back to Haqq, and to warn the whole ummat that we are following the way of batil. That’s why on the one hand, never before you have seen so much suffering in the Muslim world, but when you look at the scholars, they speak about love as if everyone is drown in the ocean of love and luxury and comfort and ease, east and west, north and south. This is not faith. This is the opposite of faith.

That Hadith of the Holy Prophet (asws) warning us about our faith dying, it is a proof that the Way to Faith is the Way of following a Friend of Allah. The Friend of Allah, his only teaching is to love Allah and His Prophet more than anything else, and to love those whom Allah and His Prophet love, and to hate those whom Allah and His Prophet hates. And the Light of Faith that enters into your heart through his blessing, it is more valuable to you than this dunya and everything in it.

O Believers! Our only honor is in that Faith. Sahib el-Sayf is saying: So we have fallen because our faith has fallen. So we have to turn back to that faith again, to strong faith. We have to make our faith to grow first. And the only way to do that is, we have to take the examples of our role-models the Sahaba-e Kiram. We have to look at them, we have to see how they lived, what was their behavior and how did they act in every situation. Then we may turn back to our own origin.

We are asking our Lord, Allah (swt), to give us that Real Faith, the Faith of the Sahaba-e-Kiram. We are asking our Lord to make Him and His Prophet and our Sheykh more beloved to us than anything else. We are asking our Lord to make us to love our brothers for His Sake. We are asking our Lord to make us to hate to return to kufr like we hate being thrown into a Fire. We are asking our Lord to give us the Faith of our Sheykh, and to keep us with him in this life and the Next. Amin.

Jumma Khutba by Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz,
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
OSMANLI DERGAHI- New York
16 Zul Qaida 1437
August 19, 2016.