Salaams
Brother i couldn't have put it better myself.  Indeed the situation makes one cry.  The most simple facts of the matter are that unless our Ahle-Sunnah ulema can converse with the masses in an organised, united, non-elitist manner and in the English language, more and more people will go to persons who can give them this.

PS.. the link to the email in question above is http://www.sunnipath.com/Resources/Questions/QA00003154.aspx">http://www.sunnipath.com/Resources/Questions/QA00003154.aspx">http://www.sunnipath.com/Resources/Questions/QA00003154.aspx

Just on a personal note i find it very difficult to understand how many of the Ind-Pak Hafiz-e-Qur'an in this country can memorise the Qur'an by the grace of Allah (swt) but find it so difficult to learn some English.  Surely, it can't be difficult for them, having been graced with such memories.

Anyway enough of the moan.......let's pray for a brighter future.
Wa'salaams
KM

as salam 'alaikum Aqae 'Abdul Mustafii, khelii tashakkur!!!!!!!!!

You mentioned baradar about the fiscious inter fighting between the barelwi 'ulama, I have seen it, its also all here in this forum, as yu say.
Being an Iranian and outsider, I am surprised the way people talk to eachother and judging each other, and as Sheikh Nuh tells me it reflects their shuyukh immensely.

Whatever one does as a mureed, it reflects most of the times what he has been taught by his Sheikh, this is what Sheikh Nuh told me. He also said that when tasawwuf becomes a story only, in other words, just an oral tradition of passing down stories of the pious, then it is dead.

He says we do need the stories of what our awliyah did, but we need to do less of talking and more of tazkiyah.
Tazkiyah when done goes into a circle, yu will be surprised to see what is in this circle

• Tazkiyatu Nafs .......leads to



• Muhasaba and mashwara ...which leads to



• GAINING 'ILM (knowledge)........which then leads to (this involves all the islamic sciences)



• Tawbah ....which then goes up to tazkiyah again

'Ala Hadrat by knowing his books and written works is a Master of the Sunni creed. He is one of the stars to me.

You see Murabit al Hajj hafizuhullah, he is an old small man sitting in the desert in some deep corner of Mauritania, with only one pair of sky blue thowbs on his body, sitting on a twig bed under a twig shade. He has spent his life like that. If yu go with Sheikh Hamzah Yusuf (his mureed) to see him, yu will say that this person is certainly a faqeer, he has nothing there and yu might want to just ignore him. But before yu do that yu must know that he is among the most learned men on earth!!, a hafiz of Qur'an, all of hadith, all of fiqh, master of tasawwuf, master of arabic, such and such that Habibi Ali Jifri could not help it but hold his feet with his bare hands and cry.

Brother, Habibi Ali Zain Al 'Abidin Al Jifri ( a direct descendent of our Nabi saws from Imam Hussain radiallahu 'anh) then came out of the place and said, that he knew Yemen is the land of hikmah, as he is yemeni himself, and also of zuhud as a consequence of that hikmah, but compared to the zuhud of the murabitun somewhere in the sahara desert, it is nothing.

There are hundreds there in the madrassah of this faqeer in the Kavir of mauritania, and believe me they never quarrel among eachother, they are so nice, such excellent manners, it truly shows who their sheikh is. They are all doing zikar all the time. I havent seen such nice people in my life.

What are these students studying there? the sciences of islam under Murabit ul Hajj. They are becoming 'aalims in fiqh, Sarf, Nawh, Balagha, Mantiq, tafseer, hadith, Qiraat, Khattati, Tasawwuf, even poetry and prophetic medicine.

The school is not a buliding. It is spread in the desert as a bunch of some tens of tents, under which they study, while they are surrounded by fresh green desert shrubs, a miracle of Allah subhanahuu. Their toilet is the desert and their water is a well.

What have I done even by now, I have also been sucked into the fighting here on this site, to which I have been trying to amend,

Habib 'Umar says the closest to Allah is the one with the best adab.

I have lived with deobandis, in the UK, here in Toronto Canada, in Afghanistan and so on, you could say 99% of them are united against barelwis. They do not fight among themselves and they claim to follow tasawwuf all the time, to which I disagree. I have seen so many speeches of these scholars while sitting next to them, they include the latest person Dr Zulfiqar Ahmed, but what I saw they do not interfight, though this cannot be generalized. I know salafi interfighting, but at the moment in saudi arabia, they are all united under the banner of oil money. I have lived in saudi for more than 10 years with them and know them very well.

Once Sheikh al Akbar Ibn al 'arabi radiallahu 'anh had a small very tiny tiny argument of some kind with Abu Madyan radiallahu 'anhu, one of the Qutub of Allah here on earth and then Sheikh al Akbar had a dream in which our Habibullah saws ordered him to agree to what Abu Madyan has said to him, and he did it in the morning, when Abu Madyan radiallahu anhu inquired as to why he did it, Sheikh al Akbar replied because I was ordered by Nabiallah saws. Abu Madyan cried and apologized to his mureed Sheikh al Akbar and everyone around them were in awe and couldnt believe it.

Imam al Haddad radiallahu 'anhu says that even the smallest bad deed is multiplied innumerable times once it reaches yu in the heavens on the day of judgement, so be ware, this is so terrifying.


You see, if your adab is not right, if yu are an attacker, insulter, then where is the tasawwuf in you?
You can prove all your opponents wrong in engaging them in debates what after that, are yu satisfied? Could yu have proved your opponents wrong in some other way?

When one calls oneself as Qadiri or Naqshbandi or Chishti or whatever, it means he belongs to the tareeqa, it means he follows tasawwuf.
Now Tasawwuf demands yu do not fight with your brother, yu do not break yourselves in sects, or groups that envy eachother.

The above are nothing but the basic islamic good habits and have not even touched the surface of the field of tasawwuf. If our scholars dont even do them, then how can they claim to know the secret of our Nabi salalaho 'alaihi wa aalihi preserved in the noble tareeqas i have mentioned above.

Tasawwuf is practical not oral, it is the foundation of 'Ala Hadrat's followers. The shi'a have nothing in them, yu seem them interfighting all the time, since I an Iranian know this, as I have seen it in Iran, Saudia, Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain.

Did Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani try to hurt anyone?
Did he ever insult his opponents?

5000 jews and christians in Baghdad al Shareef accepted islam on his hand by just looking at him, his adab, his kindness.
They saw how their priests and rabbis hated muslims and islam, but they saw how this Wali of Allah loved everyone and hated all that was evil.
So many shi'a in 'Iraq left their evil ways and became the mureeds and sunni under Ghawth al 'Adham. That now the former shi'a area of Karkh is nothing but a sunni area.

The deobandis make their madrassahs for dunya. Their scholars are dunya people, it is general. They like money.
We still dont have such kinds of madrassahs, so if we start now and make them for the ilm of TASAWWUF and islam they will surpass all, that is the real revival of us. You mentioned two madrassahs in the UK and some in the subcontinent that made me so happy, inshallah I will pray more for them.

Imam Ghazali radiallahu anh says that all the ilm yu get in madrassahs is still dunyavi 'ilm. The 'ilm of akhira is 'ilm al Tasawwuf.
If one does insulting, backbiting (so much on this site against ones own sunnis,deobandi scholars, wahabi scholars, even by me against shi'a), nameema (bad talk that one dislikes face to face), pride (like of being a syed), or ones bullies others and wants to subjugates others, fights, ARGUES, one does not follow  even the basic adab then how does one claim to follow tasawwuf then? Why should one then claim to be Qadiri, Naqshbandi, Tijani etc. I saw Tijanis in detroit backbiting their opponets, I asked them dont yu want to give them a chance to defend themselves and I asked them about whether backbiting is in TASAWWUF?

Winning over deobandis and every sect of shias (9 today) by arguments, attacks, fights, insults, or proving them wrong is not winning for sunniyat. 
Once a deobandi insulted me, he said yu barelwis are ignorant, I did not even know what barelwi meant at that time since I was only 15 in Saudi. I asked him why ignorant? he said all your 'ulama do is spend their lives proving others, among themselves or outside, as wrong while our 'ulama write books and study. I did not know what he meant. Now i understand everything.