Nur-e-Muhammadi
Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam
BISMILLAH
AR-RAH MAN AR-RAHIM
Allah,
for as long as day turns to night and night recedes into day, for as long as
the ages succeed one another, as day and night unceasingly follow upon each
other and as the glowing stars remain suspended in the firmament, we beg that
You bestow Your grace and favours upon our Master Muhammad and that You transmit
unto his blessed soul and unto the souls of the people of his house our greetings
and our respect, and that You bestow upon him Your peace and blessings in great
abundance.So
may Allah bestow His peace and blessings upon our Master Muhammad and upon all
the prophets and messengers; upon the saints and the righteous servants; upon
the angels and upon those who reside by the Throne of Grace; and upon the obedient
and vigilant servants among the people of the earth and those of the skies.
And may Allah Most High be pleased with His Prophet and with all His companions
and people. Amin.He
is the one who is "sent as a mercy upon the universe" (Surah Anbiya', 107).
The light of his soul was the first creation from the light of Allah, and all
else is created from his light. He said, "0 Jabir, the first creation that Allah
created is the soul of your prophet." When he was asked when he became a prophet,
he answered, "I was a prophet when Adam was between water and clay." He said,
"Whoever sees me sees the truth."Allah
says:
And whoever
obeys Allah and His Messenger, He will cause him to enter gardens wherein
rivers flow.(Surah Fath, 17)
And
he has said, "As long as you do not love me more than anything else you have,
your faith is not complete." For Allah says:
Certainly
a Messenger has come to you from amongst yourselves; grievous to him is
your falling into distress; most solicitous for you; to the believers he
is merciful.(Surah Bara'at, 128)
He
upon whom "Allah has bestowed the noblest of characters and most excellent of
actions," is sent to teach us to be noble in behaviour, morals, and character.
"Whoever prays to Allah to bestow upon His Messenger His peace and blessings,
receives Allah's blessings tenfold, and may hope for the intercession of His
Prophet on the Day of Last Judgement, and to enter Paradise."…………O
Allah, bless and salute the Prophet of Mercy, the intercessor of the community,
Muhammad, and all his family and all the prophets and messengers.His
being was of light; he had no shadow. His beautiful face shone like the sun
and radiated light around him. At night people saw by this light. It is written
in the Holy Qur'an that in the darkness of the Day of Last Judgment the light
of faith of the believers is going to illuminate the space around them, and
the hypocrites, envious, will come close to them to profit from this light.Allah,
addressing His Beloved, whose name is written with His upon the firmament as La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun rasulullah "There is no god worthy of worship
except Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger" -says, "If it were not for you,
I would not have created the creation." Therefore the greatest gift bestowed
by Allah upon the universe is His Beloved. He says in the Holy Qur'an:And
if you count Allah's favours, you will not be able to number them.(Surah
Ibrahim, 34)Thus
if we try to count the beautiful attributes of our beloved Prophet (peace be
upon him) the best of Allah's favours, we will be unable to number them.1.Muhammad (peace be upon him)The most praised oneHe
is praised upon earth and in the heavens, from the beginning to the end, by
men and jinn and angels, rocks and trees and animals, by prophets before him
since Adam, by saints until Doomsday. As all of this cannot give him due praise,
we beg Allah to praise him. He is the only One who truly knows the value and
the mystery of His Muhammad (peace be upon him) and He is the only One who can
truly praise him.2.
Ahmad The most praiseworthy of those who praise AllahThis
is the celestial name of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Allah, the Ever-Existing,
the All-Powerful, 360,000 years before He created the creation, created from
His divine light a sacred light. That light upon light praised Allah before
and during the creation of heaven and the heavenly and earth and the earthly.
The inhabitants of the heavens named that light Ahmad. As his praise
of Allah is greater than the praise of all that is created, he is called ahmad
al-hamidin- the greatest of givers of praise.Reference
book:-The Most Beautiful Names, Section – The Divine Names of Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) page 139By
Sheikh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti
The
spirit is luminous and comes from the world of light and Allah knows best. There
is no doubt that Allah-ta'ala "Took a handful of His light and said to it,
'Be Muhammad!"' It was. Everything took on form from his light, may Allah
bless him and grant him peace, so understand! The spirit is the self. It only
became turbid because of its reliance on the world of turbidity. Had it left
this world and alienated itself from it, it would have returned to its homeland
from which Abu Zayd Sayyidi 'Abdu-r-Rahman al Majdhoub, may Allah be pleased
with him, said: From where do you come, Spirit, beside yourself with love, ruhani,Perfectly
still on the carpet of might, with states of lordship?Reference
book:- page 80 letter 44, The
Darqawi Way- The letters of Shaykh Mawlay Al-‘Arabi ad-Darqawi
The
great veil over all existence is the ultimate form, the form of Sayyidina Muhammad,
salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam. He is the great veil because he is the first
of the Lights.Allah
says in a hadith qudsi, O Muhammad we would not have made creation If it
was not for you. Allah took a portion of His light and He said, Be Muhammad! The Messenger said, "I was prophet before Adam was between water
and clay."lbn
al-Mashish, radhi Allahu 'anhu, said, "If it was not for the means the end would
have escaped us." If it was not for Muhammad, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam,
we would not have known the secret of tawhid.Reference
book:- page 22Qur’anic
Tawid by Shaykh AbdulQadir Al-Murabit
It
was, Sahl at-Tustari (d. 283 A.H./896 C.E.), who first expressed the entire Heilsgeschichte in the terminology of the Light of Muhammad (may Allah
bless him and grant him peace), and he too derived his ideas from the Light
verse. As his modern interpreter, Gerhard Bowering, writes in his fundamental
study of the Prophet's role in Tustari's theology:
God,
in His absolute oneness and transcendent reality, is affirmed by Tustari
as the inaccessible mystery of divine light which yet articulates itself
in the pre-eternal manifestation of the "likeness of His light," mathalu
nurihi, that is, "the likeness of the light of Muhammad (may Allah bless
him and grant him peace) " Nur
Muhammad. The origin of the Nur Muhammad in
pre-eternity is depicted as a luminous mass of primordial adoration in the
presence of God which takes the shape of a transparent column, 'amud, of divine light and constitutes Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant
him peace) as the primal creation of God. Thus, explaining the terminology
of the Light-verse, Tustari says: "When God willed to create Muhammad (may
Allah bless him and grant him peace), He made appear a light from His light.
When it reached the veil of the Majesty, hijab al-'azamah, it bowed
in prostration before God. God created from its prostration a mighty column
like crystal glass of light that is outwardly and inwardly translucent."1
Interestingly,
Tustari also connects Sura 53 with the Light of Muhammad (may Allah bless him
and grant him peace), He
does not interpret this Sura either as pertaining to the Prophet's initial vision
or to his heavenly journey but claims instead that the words "And he saw Him
still another time" (53:13) mean "at the beginning of time," when the column
of the Light of Muhammad was standing before God,
before
the beginning of creation by a million years. He stood before Him in worship, 'ubudiyya, with the disposition of faith, and [to him] was unveiled
the mystery by Mystery Itself "at the Lote Tree of the Boundary" (Sura 53:14), that is the tree at which the knowledge of everyone comes to an end. 2
Then,
when creation began, God "created Adam from the light of Muhammad (may Allah
bless him and grant him peace)." The light of the prophets is from his, Muhammad's
(may Allah bless him and grant him peace) light
and the light of the heavenly kingdom, ma1akut, is from his light, and
the light of this world and of the world to come is from his light.
Bowering
continues with his interpretation of Tustari's doctrine:
Finally
when the emanation of the prophets and spiritual universe in pre-eternity
was completed, Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) was shaped in
the body, in his temporal and terrestrial form, from the clay of Adam, which
however had been taken from the pre-eternal column of Nur Muhammad. Thus the pre-eternal creation of light was perfected: the primal man
was moulded from the crystallised light of Muhammad (may Allah bless him
and grant him peace) and
took the corporate personality of Adam.3That
means, as Ibn Arabi was to state three centuries after Tustari, that the
Prophet is "like the seed, bidhr, of the human race," 4 and the poets have never tired of alluding to the paradox that Muhammad
(may Allah bless him and grant him peace) is prior to Adam in essence though
outwardly his descendant.
Tustari's
disciple Hallaj, who says in "Tasin as-siraj" (Tasin of the Lamp), the first
chapter of his Kitab at-tawasin:
[He
was] a lamp from the light of the Invisible . . . a moon radiating among
the moons, whose mansion is in the sphere of mysteries; the Divine Truth
[God] called him ummi because of the collectedness of his noble aspiration (himma)……The
lights of prophethood - from his light did they spring forth, and their
lights appeared from his light, and there is no light among the lights more
luminous and more visible and previous to pre-existence, than the light
of this noble one. 5
Reference
book:- And Muhammad is His Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him
peace) Chapter 7:- The Light of Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant
him peace) By
Annemarie Schimmel ISBN:-0-8078-4128-5Notes
and references used from Chapter 7:- The Light of Muhammad (may Allah bless
him and grant him peace) 1
G. Bowering, "The Prophet of Islam," pp.49-50.2
G. Bowering, "The Prophet of Islam," pp.51-52.3
G. Bowering, "The Prophet of Islam," pp.55.4
Deladri¢ ère,
La Proession de foid’Ibn ‘Arabi. P.130.5
Hallaj,"Tasin as-siraj," in Kitab at-tawasin, pp .9. II
Chapter
2:- The Interpretation of Fitrah
1.3.2
Sahl at-Tustari (d. 283 A.H./896 C.E.)a
Sufi Perspective
Fitrah,
which is integral to man's soul, was created by Allah so that man may acknowledge
Him as the Lord Who has power over all things. Tawhid is integral to
man's fitrah because Allah, in His infinite wisdom, intended man to know
Him as the One God. This
is why man was able to acknowledge his Lord before his existence on earth. This
period before man was born into this world is called the pre-existential state
of involuntary submission to Allah and of acknowledging Him. Allah, exalted
is He, confirms this in the Noble Qur'an:
'When
your Lord drew forth from the children of Adam from their loins their descendants,
and made them witness concerning themselves (saying), "Am I not your Lord?"
- they said, "Yes! We witness!"'(Qur'an
7:172)Thus,
in the above ayah, man, in his pre-existential state, acknowledges
Allah as his Lord. He has sealed a covenant with Allah which he is expected
to fulfil in his terrestrial career by worshipping Him. Sahl at-Tustari
viewed pre-existential man as 'particles or specks endowed with intellects'
and as 'embryonically enshrined in their prophetical prototypes'.1 He proceeded to examine the significance of pre-existential man's covenant
with Allah:'Summoned
with their prophetical prototypes to acknowledge Allah's oneness and Lordship
in the presence of the manifestation of His omnipotence, they enter into
a covenant with Allah by their affirmative answer to the question, "Am
I not your Lord?' Their answer, "Yes! We witness' to Allah's
address is engraved upon the intellect of man as a proof which reminds man
of Allah's Lordship. Although this primordial decision of man to affirm
Allah's Lordship in the face of this manifestation implicitly entails the
original and ultimate destiny of man, it is to be verified and tested in
the period of Divine trial which is man's phenomenal existence in the world
of creation." 2
At-Tustari
further added that the 'self-consciousness of man derives from the moment of
affirmation of Divine Lordship (rububiyyah) with their first profession
of faith'. 3 Thus, there is a difference between pre-existential
submission and earthly submission; the latter condition is a conscious and willing
practice whereas in the former case the submission is involuntary. The earthly
submission involves the acceptance of Islam which complements man's inner nature:
'If
anyone desires a religion other than Islam (al-Islam), it will not be accepted
from him' (Qur'an 3: 85)'Truly,
the din in the sight of Allah is Islam (al-Islam).'(Qur'an
3:19)
The
Divine purpose and functional value of fitrah in man's pre-existential
state also lies in its value as testimony against the polytheist and disbeliever
who may plead ignorance or may claim, on the Day of Judgement, to have followed
their forefathers. Allah responds to this kind of argument as follows:
'(Of
this We remind you) lest you say on the Day of Resurrection, "Truly, we
were unaware of this", or lest you say, "Truly, it was our forefathers in
times gone by who began to ascribe divinity to other beings besides Allah,
and we were only their offspring. Will You then destroy us for the doings
of those inventors of falsehoods?"'(Qur'an
7:172-173)
The
role of the prophets, then, is to remind people of tawhid so that they
might come to know their inner nature, their fitrah. 'So remind (O
Prophet) you are only a reminder' (Qur'an 76: 29). At-Tustari affirms the
role of prophets as prototypes 'like the seed of progeny in the loins of man'
whose mission is to effect within man the recollection of his primordial perfection'.Man
must be faithful to his fitrah to qualify him for the khilafah, the
vicegerency of Allah on earth. Fitrah can also be described as man's
original state in pre-existence which he still possesses in his earthly career.
Man in this original state is a microcosm of the Universal Man (al-Insan
al-Kamil) who is a manifestation of the Logos, the Divine light in
pre-existence. Earthly man is potentially a perfect khilafah, a microcosm
of the Universal Man. For man to be perfect and to have knowledge of Allah he
has to be faithful to his fitrah, and realise the Universal Man within
him by emulating the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
as spiritual prototype.The
Universal Man is in fact synonymous with the Nur Muhamnad (the
light of Muhammad) which is the primal manifestation of the Divine names and
attributes in pre-existence. The whole of creation is derived from this light
which illuminates it. The heart of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him
peace, which absorbed the Divine realities becomes the source of pre-existential
man's knowledge and his love of Allah. The light from the heart of Muhammad,
may Allah bless him and grant him peace, illuminates the hearts of men and the
inaccessible light of Allah becomes accessible through the light of the heart
of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Allah, the Absolute Good,
caused the light of the primordial good (Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant
him peace) from which issued the light of the goodness of pre-existential man.
Existential man, In turn, retains the essential goodness of this light and it
continues to illuminate his heart in the phenomenal world.Reference
book:Fitrah:
the Islamic Concept of Human Nature, Chapter 2:- The Interpretation of Fitrah,
page 44. ISBN 1-897940-26-2by
Yasien MohamedNotes
and references used from Chapter 2:- The Interpretation of Fitrah
-
G. Bowering,
The mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam (The Qur’anic Hermeneutics
of the Sufi Sahl al-Tustari (d.2328A.H./896 C.E.)),Walter de Gruyter, Berlin
and New York, 1980), p.156.
-
Ibid., p.156.3. Ibid., p.157