Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Third Fascicle

private rooms to serve them. Their approaching the sultans is
intended to sweep and dust their rooms.
Sufferings shower upon the afflicted from every direction.
Some people look for a pretext to blame or slander a poor
person. May Allâhu ta’âlâ give them reason! They should have
looked for a way to protect a lonely dervish from slander and
calumny. They should have striven to protect a Muslim’s chastity
and honour.
Those who calumniate the sâliks who are made to ascend to
those grades may be of two groups:
If they say that the sâlik thinks that he is equal to the owners of
the grades, they have deemed the sâlik as a disbeliever, a zindîq.
For, if a person considers himself equal to Prophets, he becomes a
disbeliever. It has been communicated by the Sahâba and the
Tâbi’în unanimously that the Shaikhayn [Abû Bakr and ’Umar]
‘’alaihimurridwân’ are superior to all other Muslims. Our religious
imâms write this unanimity in their books. One of them is Imâm-i
Shâfi’î ‘rahmatullâhi ’alaih’. In fact, all the Sahâba-i-kirâm are
superior to all other Muslims who came after them. For, no
superiority can equal the superiority attained in the sohbat of the
Best of Mankind. In that age when Islam was so weak and Muslims
were so few, a minimal effort made by the Sahâba to strengthen
Islam and to help the Master of Prophets ‘’alaihi wa ’alaihim-ussalawât-u-wa-t-teslîmât’
was given so much thawâb that others
cannot get that much thawâb even if they spend all their lives with
austere riyâdhât [1] and heavy mujâhadhât [2] and by worshipping all
the time. For this reason our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa
sallam’ stated: “If any one of my Ummat gives alms in gold as big
as ’Uhud mountain, he will not attain so much thawâb as that
which is given for my As’hâb’s alms of one mudd of barley.” [One
mudd is equal to two ritls; one ritl is a hundred and thirty dirhami
shar’î. One dirham-i shar’î is 3.365 grams. One mudd is a unit of
weight which weighs 875 grams.]
The reason why Hadrat Abû Bakr Siddîq ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ is
the highest of the Ummat is because he was ahead of others in
[1] Riyâdhât is the plural form of riyâdhat, which in turn means not to do
what one’s nafs desires.
[2] Mujâhadât is the plural form of mujâhada, which means to do what
one’s nafs is against doing.
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