1 - Endless Bliss - Hüseyin Hilmi Işık

40 – FOURTH VOLUME, 29th LETTER
This letter was written to Mirzâ Ubaydullah by
Muhammad Ma’thûm. It notes down the necessity of advice
and the importance of jihâd.
Some people suppose that Tasawwuf means to care for
one’s own business, not to interfere with others and not to deal
with anybody. This is not true. This kind of thinking causes the
religion to be wounded. I wonder whom he remembers, when
he talks like this about men of tasawwuf and sofis? If he means
the great men who were attached to Hadrat Abû Bakr Siddîq
‘radiy-Allâhu anh’, (we yould give the answer that) it is written in
their books that the way of these great people was to cling to
the Sunnat-i saniyya [the Sharî’at] and to abstain from bid’ats.
But, Amr-i ma’rûf and Nahy-i munkar and Bughd-i fillâh and
Jihâd-i fîsabîlillah are the sunnats of our Prophet; that is, they
are of the fards and wâjibs of the Sharî’at. [‘Bughd-i fillâh’
means ‘to feel hostility (towards disbelievers) for Allah’s sake,’
and ‘Jihâd-i fîsabîlillâh’ means ‘to struggle for Allah’s sake.’ We
have explained Amr-i ma’rûf and Nahy-i munkar before]. Then,
to abandon Amr-i ma’rûf means to abandon the way of those
great people. As a matter of fact, Imâm-i Muhammad
Bahâaddîn-i Bukhârî ‘quddisa sirruh’, who was one of them,
said, “Our way is to cling to the Urwa-i wusqâ, that is, to follow
the way of Rasûlullah and of his Ashâb.” For this reason, an
insignificant deed on this way gives birth to a great profit. He
who abandons this way falls into great dangers. If tasawwuf
meant that you abandon Amr-i ma’rûf, Muhammad Bahâaddîn-i
Bukhârî ‘quddisa sirruh’ who was one of the chiefs of tasawwuf,
would not have performed Amr-i ma’rûf to his own master,
Sayyed Amîr Kulâl. While it was incompatible with manners to
warn his master, he still did Amr-i ma’rûf. Gathering the savants
of Bukhârâ, he proved in the presence of them all that it was not
acceptable in the Sharî’at to repeat Allahu ta’âlâ’s name loudly,
thus explaining to his master the importance of stopping it.
Being very pious and in love with a true word, his master
admitted it and stopped doing it. Men of tasawwuf wrote
thousands of books in order to communicate the things that will
cause men to attain salvation and those things which will draw
them to annihilation. What are these works of theirs, if not Amr-i
ma’rûf? Khwâja Mu’îniddîn-i Chashtî, one of the great men of
tasawwuf, was told by his master, “The darling’s way is very
- 138 -