Tareeqat – Bay’t

After my first trip that I remember, I kept going to Darbaar whenever feasible. The feasibility was solely determined by my father, and was normally based upon the day of the week, on which they would go, so as not to disturb my school. They normally tried to arrange for Darbaar trips on Thursdays, as people were supposed to come back after Fajar time, and after staying up almost whole night, and travelling for 3-4 hours, and as Friday was a holiday at that time, they can relax a bit, before getting to work on Saturdays. But that was not necessary, as Shab-e-Baraat, for example, can fall on a Monday or a Wednesday, and they have to go for the nightly mehfil. Such trips were, off course, a no no for me, but I was, sometimes, considered for the weekend ones or whenever there was a day off, in Ashura for example.  I had travelled to other darbaars as well, after that.

I think I was 14 or 15 at that time, we were preparing for Darbaar, when my father told me that I would do Bay’t on Pir Sahb’s hand this time. I had seen people going for Bay’t before this, but I didnt know what they actually did, or what was the process, as I was never part of such a group before this. But I always used to think, when would I be part of that group, as you can imagine from a child , well I think at 14-15 you are still a child, arent you? According to my father, I wasn’t, and thats why he took me for Bay’t, as he thought I am of enough age to go for this.

Bay’t was normally done seperately from Mulaqaat, at the darbaar. Before or after Mulaaqat, somebody from the darbaar staff would come to call for Bay’t. So did it happen this time, and when he called, my father sent me along others who came for bay’t. It wasn’t much crowded outside, as it was not Mulaaqat time. We went into Pir Sahb’s hujjra. For men, normally, Bay’t is done by taking one’s hand into PS’ hand and repeating whatever PS say, after him. But as we were a group, and it was not possible to do it individually, PS held a piece of cloth in his hand, and gave the other end in our hands. He would do the same way with women, i.e. using the piece of cloth. Once we held the piece of cloth, he started with Bismillah, repeating Shahaadah, then Taubah for all the sins you had done in past, and a promise to stay away from sins in future, particularly from Kabaairs, by name, and then acknowledging the acceptance of Naqashbandyyah Silsilah, and PS’ bay’t. That was it really. After coming out of PS’ hujjara mubarak, we were given a small card which has Wazaaif printed on it, which were to be repeated after every Salah. Wazaaif were literally, Darood Sharif, Al-Hamd Sharif and Surah Al-Akhlaas, in different numbers after different prayers, assuming you’d be offering all the 5 prayers off course We were also handed over a copy of Shajra Sharif, which actually is the spiritual lineage of PS, tracing back to Prophet Muhammad (SAW). We were then asked for our names and addresses to be added to the Darbaar database, which was on big registers, so that we can be contacted via postal mail for any correspondence.

I was formally introduced into Naqashbandyyah silsilah now.

This was the theoretical bit about bay’t, I will come to spiritual bit in my next post insha’Allah.

Tareeqat – First Encounter II – continued …

Apologies for being absent for this long. First it was Ramadhan, that changed the whole routine for 1 month. You literally dont get any time when you have to prepare iftari and cook food & sehari yourself. Over the weekends, it was my kind friends who wont let me do iftar alone, and would either invite me to their place or would come over for some company.

Then it was my trip to Pakistan. You dont have to do anything, except meeting people, and still you dont get time for anything. And this time I am working from home too, so a bit busy.

I am still in Pakistan.

Anyway, without getting lost into unnecessary details, lets get back to the subject:

We were talking about Langar. The concept of Langar is an amazing one. Langar is normally a 24-hrs service. Doesn’t matter what time you come in, you would be welcomed with a warm smile and warm food. OK, the smile bit can be missing sometimes , but the food will always be warm. Langar is also normally, a 24/7/365 service, minus Ramadhan days offcourse, but nights are served untill sehar. And Langar, normally, never finishes. Regardless of the number of guests present, its always sufficient. And this is not something specific to Pir Sahb’s darbar, you can verify these traits of Langar at any darbar, be it Data Sahib in Lahore, Golra Sharif in Islamabad, or anywhere else.

Next is Zikr. Zikr is remembering Allah. About Zikr, Quran reads:

ألا بذكر الله تطمئن القلوب

Without doubt in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find satisfaction. Quran [13:28]

Every silsilah has some specific Zikr for its mureeds. Naqshband has 4 of them:

- لا إله إلا الله -    نفي اثبات

This is the foremost Zikr. Its called Naffee Assbaat, as the first part, Laa Ilaaha, there is no God, is negation, hence Naffee, and the second bit, IllAllah, but Allah, is affirmation, hence Assbaat.

-    إلا الله إلا الله

I dont know the exact name, but this Zikr is to enforce the notion of oneness of Allah, onto one’s heart. To repeat the fact that there is nobody but Allah, who can forigive, who can fulfill your needs, who has authority over everything, its Him and Him alone.

-    الله هو

Again, I dont know the exact name, and I dont know about the origin of this Zikr as well, but I was told that it means Allah is present.

-    الله هو  – ذكر خفي

All the above Zikrs are loud zikr, i.e. spoken from one’s tongue, except this one. This is Allah Hoo, without speaking from your tongue. Its rather done with your breath. When you take breath in through your nose, you think Allah, and when you release your breath through your nose again, you think Hoo. This is a practice to train your breath to sync with Allah’s Zikr. And if you train well on this, you dont need to do any effort for Zikr, its in your breath. As long as you are breathing, you are doing Zikr. Some people call it Pass-Infaas as well. Rest of the Zikrs are common between different silsilahs, but Zikr-e-Khaffi is unique to Naqshband.

One can remember Allah in anyway one wants, as long as it subscribes to the laws of Islam. Specifying these patterns just make things easy for us. You know what to say, kind of thing. And also, this is a psychological principle, when certain words are repeated a good number of times, they have effect. Hence keeping the words same over time, and repeating them, has its effect over one’s heart. And these are no ordinary words, but Zikr-u-Allah. Same is the logic with Wazaaif, but we’ll come to that latter.

Zikr can be done individually, or in a Mehfil. There normally is a weekly Mehfil-e-Zikar at Darbaar, over the weekend. Khulafaa, and mureeds, also conduct weekly Mehfil-e-Zikr at their local places, in mosque or at home, in groups. Mehfil has a pattren which is uniform in all the Mehfils. It starts with Khatam-e-Khawajgaan, which is a collection of Ayats of Quran and Asmaa-ul-Hassanaa of Allah (SWT). After that above mentioned 4 Zikrs are repeated. Then there is Khatam Sharif, as we do after Khatm-e-Quran, this is followed by reading Shajrah Sharif, which is a Duaa’ including the names of all the links of the silsilah starting from The Holy Prophet (SAW). After that there normally are Naats. And if its an occasion, like Shab-e-Qadr, Ulema are invited for bayan. And then Mehfil is concluded with a Duaa’.

During Zikr, you are supposed to sit with respect, as you are remembering Allah. Normally you are supposed to sit as you do in prayers. This gets a little tough sometimes to sit like that for long, as a normal Mehfil last for about 50-60 minutes, unless you have been in training for long

I think thats it for First Encounter. I have probably covered most of the terms and concepts introduced earlier. If I have missed anything, please shout, and I’ll explain that. Next time I will try to narrate some other experience.

Tareeqat – First Encounter II

 In my last post, I wrote about my first encounter with Pir Sahb. I used a lot of teminology/concepts which are context specific. In this post I shall try to explain some of those concepts, and provide a little more context to my narration. Infact I am thinking to follow this patteren, i.e. to write an experience, and then explain how it relates. Dont worry, I wont bore you

In Pakistan, the word Sufi, does not mean the same, what it means to the outer world, neither is Sufism, as rest-of-the-world, or west, understands it,  a good translation for Tareeqat. Sufi, in everyday language in Pakistan, is anybody with a beard. We although have another word for a Saint, Walli. Walli, comes from the phrase, Walli-u-Allah, literally meaning  ”friend of Allah”. And the phrase itself is derived from verses of Quran, such as:

أَلَا إِنَّ أَوْلِيَاءَ اللَّـهِ لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ

Behold! verily on the friends of Allah, there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. [Quran 10:62]

When we talk about a Walli, we also ask about his Silsilah, or Tareeqah as some people call it. A sisilah is a spiritual lineage, or spiritual order, of the Walli, that normally traces back to The HolyProphet Muhammad (SAW). There are different sisilahs based on this lineage, with 4 major ones. Most of the rest are derivations of any of these 4:

1. Naqshbandiyyah

2. Chishtiyyah 

3. Soharwardiyya

4. Qaadriyyah

I am not sure about Chishtiyyah and Soharwardyyah, but Nashbandiyyah order derives its lineage to The Holy Prohet (SAW) through Hazrat Abu Bakar Siddiq (RA), and Qaadriyyah order derives it through Hazrat Ali (RA). These names represent what these orders are called today, and in past, they may have different names. The names are normally based on some highly respected Walli’s name, who either founded the order, or had so much influence on the practices that it caused a change in the name. The lineage existed, before the order would be named, but it was only named later on.

Pir Sahb belonged to Naqshbandiyyah silsilah.

The silsilah moves forward by means of Ba’ait and Khilaafat. A Walli, when permitted to do Ba’ait, by his Murshid (spiritual leader), can then take people into his Ba’ait. Ba’ait is like a membership to a club. In other words, when a person does Ba’ait on a Walli’s hand, he joins that Walli‘s club, and hence becomes a part of the silsilah. I will  not go into Ba’ait’s detail for now, and would come back to this topic in a later post. Once a person has done Ba’ait, he is called a Mureed (follower) of that Walli. Mureeds are then trained by the Murshid into Tareeqat, by means of different Wazaaif (normally reading practices for different verses of Holy Quran), Nawafil and Muraqba. Some mureeds follow and excel in those trainings, and some others, like me , are too lazy to do anything. Its a volunteer training, and cannot be forced. Those who excel, are moved to higher levels. As in a class room, some students are better than others, similary, some mureeds are better than others. From amongst the ones who are better than others, Murhsid then picks his Khalifahs. A khalifah is like a deputy. Its an honor as well, as a recognition of one’s hardwork. And the training continues, and then amongst Khalifahs whosoever are better performers are permitted to do Ba’ait, and the silsilah continues. This category of Khulafaa’ is called Khalifa-e-Majaaz.

Khalifah-e-Majaaz, is normally ordered to move to a different locality than his  Murshid himself. This is normally because of three reasons: 1) To spread the message of Allah, and invite more people towards remembering Allah. 2) To serve the community at a larger scale. 2) When Murshid himself is present at a place, out-of-respect, Khalifah wouldn’t do Ba’ait.

When a Walli moves to a locality, by the time he reaches this stage, he has mastered some stages of spirituality, and can help people with their small problems, the word normally spreads. We will come to this helping topic in detail as well, in a later post. As the word spreads, people start coming to see him. These people are his guests, and he has to be hospitable. Here comes the concept of Langar. Langar is the name given to the food served on the Darbaar of a Walli.

… to be continued.

Tareeqat – an insider’s perspective

The discussions on Pirs & Murshids have always been around, people normally denouncing them for different reasons such as taking gifts & cash from their followers and making fortunes over that and few more. But these discussions were revived recently, at least in my circle, when a couple of videos surfaced on Facebook & Youtube, including the one where some (so called) Qawwal publicly abuses everbody around in front of his Pir, and another when people shaking hand with their Pir Sahb apparently get a high voltage shock. I dont know about the later one, but the former clearly is a question mark on Tareeqat. If this is Tareeqat, we are better off from it.

While such things having nothing to do with the actual teachings/activities of a Sufi (or Walli as it is called more commonly), from an outer perspective, they look resembeling, and hence strengthen the notion of denouncing the whole system.

I have been thinking about it for sometime, myself belonging to a family who respects genuine Sufis/Wallis a lot, and pays visits to them. My father, may Allah bless his soul, was an active practitioner of Spirituality, and I have seen things happening myself. Having known the system from inside, upto some extent, I felt it as a responsibility, to clarify certain bits, the ones I know about atleast, and to try to remove some misconceptions. There are few things, about which I am confused myself, and can’t make sense out if it, as I dont know everything about the system, but then there are certain other things that I know for sure. I would mostly talk about the later, so as to avoid writing about confusions, but I will mention those confusions as well, in brief.

What I write here is from personal experience, and at some places, my opinion. As I am no scholar, and just an ordinary observer, because of my lack of knowledge, I will be wrong at many places, and will welcome any critisism. But then the purpose is not to give an authentic verdict on the question of Tareeqat, rather to share my experience with it and how I understand it, and in the process, possibly, try to clarify some misconceptions. You obviously reserve the right to disagree and correct me.

I will try to be regular on this.

First Encoutner

I am not sure, but I think I was 8 or 9, when my father told me that he is taking me along to visit Pir Sahb (PS onwards). I had visited PS before with my mother, but then I was too young to remember anything about him. He himself used to visit PS quite frequently, who was based at a drive of almost 3.5 hours from Pindi. We didnt have a car at that time, and he used to travel either on public transport, or on vans privately hired when there was a group of people going to Darbaar, in the capacity of deputy leader of Qaafla, . The leader of the Qaafla was a Khalifa sb of PS, whom we used to call Hajji Sahb. Hajji Sb was a very nice human being.

I was very excited to know this, as a kid, anything new excites. I didnt remember seeing PS before but my father used to talk about him, and I already had an impression of him in my little mind. As per my father, PS was normally a very serious man, in his late 70s. It was not very often to see him smiling, rather very seldom. And when he would smile, Mureeds who would be present at that time, would qoute the incident to others, that such and such thing happened and because of that PS smiled. He had a very strong & controlling personality. And I would later on realize that probably his personality was one of the reasons that helped keep a strict dicipline on the Darbaar, that we normally dont see at other Darbaars. Nobody, among the Darbaar staff, could do a single thing against the unwritten code of conduct, and because of this strict adhering, their personalities too seemed very serious and rigid.

Khair, it was a qaafla going, as it was some occasion; Ashura, Milad-u-Nabi, Shab-e-Miraj, Shab-e-Baraat, Laila-tul-Qadar (27th of Ramadhan), Eids would all count as occasions, and a very big number of mureeds from all over the country would come to Darbaar for the nightly Mehfil, which included Mehfil-e-Zikr, Naats and speeches from maulana hazraat. It would start after Isha’, and would last untill a little befor Fajar. I had seen these people going to Darbaar before, as Qaafla normally started from our place, but for the first time I was part of the group. It was a group of around 60-70 people.

On our way to Darbaar, we did one stop to freshen everybody up, with a cup of tea and some snacks, and a couple of prayer stops.

When we reached in the proximity of Darbaar, and as people saw the minarets of Darbaar mosque, they started Zikr. It was Allah Hu, all around. Zikr could be heard from the Darbaar mosque as well, and it could be heard from distance, as there was no other population around Darbaar, except the Darbaar itself. Soon we arrrived at the Darbaar, and everybody was told to do Wadhu, and meet at a specified point. After everybody came back, we went to Mehmaan Khana for Langar.  Mehmaan Khana was more like a havvely, with many small rooms, each with only a carpet and no other furniture.When we arrived, staff over there came to see Hajji Sb, and then brought big dastarkhwans, followed by large sums of food. After food, tea was served.

After having dinner, we were told that we are going for mulaqat. We gathered in the form of a small procession, led by Hajji Sb, and moved towards Hujjra of Pir Sahb. And it was only after reaching in front of the Hujjra, when I realized that we were going to stay ther for some time, as there was a big crowd outside, all there for mulaqaat with PS. There were 3-4 other processions as well, like ours, with their respective khalifah sahiban leading them, and then there were a lot of people who were not part of any procession, and were randomly trying to get in through the small door of hujjra. What I gathered from my first visit and following visits with Hajji Sb was that, waiting in procession was a better option, as you have a Khalifa leading you, and after the wait of 7-10 mins, the procession was allowed to enter, and the staff at the hujjra-door would actually make way for you. It was a task to enter that door, as there were at least 300-400 people trying to get in, and unless Darbaar staff makes way for you, it was almost impossible for somebody like me, a kid of 9-10 years of age, to enter. Some people, on seeing the procession moving towards the door, would join in, instantly. While waiting for permission to enter, Zikr would continue. Infact that was one thing that you would do everytime you have to wait. Be it outside hujjra, or for langar, or waiting for your car getting out of the traffic when mehfil ends, anything, you’ve got sometime, start Zikr, and anybody around would join you.

Khair, as our procession was entering through the door, I was expecting to see Pir Sahb on the other side of the door. To my disappointment, it was a waiting room. As so many people cannot go for mulaqaat at a time, so you enter that room and wait, and people go into the actual hujjra in small groups. As we were waiting for our turn, doing Zikr alongwith, I started thinking about how it will be inside. Having never been to any darbaar befor this, and having seen some dramas/movies, darbaar had only one image in my mind, that of a king. So I thought it would be a very large room, and there would be a takht on which PS would be sitting, and then there would be chairs in front, where his Khulafa would be sitting, and then there will be place for visitors, who would go to meet PS one by one, ditto as in a Mughal king’s darbaar

Finally the moment of truth came, and our group entered the main room. I was dissapointed again. There was no takht, no chairs, no anything. It was a small room, divided into two halves, by means of a small wooden divider. There was no furniture except a carpet, but the room was very clean and well kept. On the other side of divider, there was Pir Sahb sitting on the ground along with some of his Khulafa. Pir Sahb was an old man, wearing white clothes and a green cloak. He was wearing a white turban. And on my following visits I would observe, that he wore the same white-green combination all the time. I dont know what was in his eyes, but I couldnt look at him for long. Probably I was scared. On my side of the divider, there were people sitting, asking PS to make duaa.

On our way to Darbaar, my father was telling someone who was visiting PS for the first time, that to check if any Pir is genuine or not, there is a litmus paper test. In his words,  “Agar to us bande ko dekhte hi tumhen Khuda ki yaad aa jaye, to banda thik he, warna nahi“. I dont know if I remembered God when I saw PS or not, but I knew for sure ke “banda thik he“, because my father brought me here

After doing individual duaas, PS did a collective dua, and then we left the room, so that next group waiting outside can get in. After mulaqaat, we went to mosque, as it was Isha’ time. After salah, mehfil started, which lasted untill a little before Fajr. After mehfil we did breakfast, which was Qehva with Halwa And that qehva had something special in its taste, which is still there if you go there today. After breakfast, we reached for our vans and headed back home.

I cant believe I wrote all of that … I mean its a very long post