The Humility of Humbleness

What is the best and most lovely attribute of a servant to his Lord Almighty Allah? What is it that Almighty Allah likes his servants to be? Yesterday and on the day before yesterday, a Swami (Priest) came to visit us. He came very humbly, not asking for anything and never expecting any respect from this community. His Holiness, the Swami was acting as if he was a guilty person and as if he had done something wrong. Such was his humbleness. I was looking at him and he came in a very humble and simple manner looking for a place only to sit down. He was very happy that our community was accepting him. He was so humble, not like some of us. Our Egos are not like that of His Holiness. We are always asking that we should be respected. Our Egos are always trying to take first place, never, the second place, that person (swami), was trying for thirty years to be humble and has now reached this point. He does not ask respect from anyone and he is happy even if he is not accepted as the first one in the community.

This is a very good attribute which Almighty Allah loves. This is also an attribute of the Awliyas (Saints). This person was far away when the call for prayer (Azan) was made, and he waited till all the people came into the mosque, and then he entered the mosque and joined the prayer at the very end of the line, and then quickly moved away after the prayer was over. Yes, he was very happy that Allah Almighty had opened the doors of this mosque to him, to enter, and to have accepted him.

Moreover most people think and claim that they are very important people who may be even famous through the East and West, but in front of Almighty Allah they have no value even as much as the wing of a mosquito. As I said before, this person was so very happy to enter this mosque knowing also that there are millions of other people who cannot enter into a mosque. He was also thanking Almighty Allah for covering his faults from all of His servants who may otherwise have known his Ego and then have him thrown out. He was thinking that if people knew about his bad actions they would have thrown him out of the mosque and therefore he was happy and thankful that he had been accepted even to be able to pray in the last row of the Jamaah. He was not expecting to pray in the first row of the Jamaah nor was he expecting to be respected. That is one of the best characteristics of servants towards Almighty Allah. Everyone must think “Oh my Lord please cover my bad actions from your servants”.

There was a Grandsheikh by the name of Abu Ahamed us Sughuri (he was the Grandsheikh of our Grandsheikh’s Grandsheikh, Sheikh Sharafudeen). He was a Qutub for thirty seven years. No person could have carried this heavy burden for thirty seven years. Allah Almighty gave to him the power to look at every creature through every continent and through every ocean and he was given the power also to look after them. But he was such a humble person and he was saying: “If people know about my Ego as I know about it, they would throw me out of their houses and throw stones and rubbish at me”. It was through this humbleness that he reached to the Divine Presence. He was humble because he was a Qutub (Pole) , and this is one of the attributes of a Qutub.

The biggest and the thickest veil between the Lord and His servant is for the servant to give “value” to himself. Our Grandsheikh was saying about a certain saint by the name of Abdul Qadir Omar Ibnu Safar, who was an Aashik ( a person who is in love with the Prophet) who refused to give himself any value, not even the least value of even one penny, as he was saying that even if his value is one penny he might have to take upon very great burdens upon himself, and because of this he did not place any value whatsoever on himself.

There is a story about a certain Grandsheikh who lived in Bukhara, Samarqand (a country close to Pakistan). The Moguls invaded this country and took all the people as prisoners. This Grandsheikh was also taken as a prisoner by a certain soldier. When this soldier was traveling with this Sheikh who was his prisoner, he noticed that many people were coming upto this Sheikh and offering their respects to him. The soldier thought “This Sheikh is a great and important man and I would be able to sell him for a large sum of money”.

As they were going together one person came and offered, for an example, a sum of Rupees ten thousand, for this Sheikh. But the Sheikh said “This is not my price”. The soldier then thought that the Sheikh’s price must be very much more than this. Then again another and another came up and offered larger and larger sums of money for the Sheikh, and the Sheikh kept on saying “that is not my price”. This went on from morning till evening. At the end of the day the Sheikh was walking beside the soldier who was riding on a horse, when a certain person came with a bag of straw on his shoulder and approached them saying, “I will give this bag of straw in exchange for the Sheikh”. The Sheikh immediately accepted saying “that is my price”. This man took the Sheikh and gave the bag of straw to the soldier. As the soldier had said that he would give the Sheikh to any person who could give the price that the Sheikh was asking for himself he had to keep his word and give away the Sheikh. The soldier was very angry as he went away, giving away the Sheikh for this bag of straw. His horse was however very happy to be able to eat the straw.

When a person comes nearer to Almighty Allah, the greatness of Almighty Allah makes him disappear. For example, when you look at the Sun you are not able to see anything else. Therefore Awliyas are on this level. The level of humbleness. As they have to vanish in front of the greatness of Allah they will never put a price or value on themselves.

Likewise this Swami was a very humble person acting as if he was an accused person. The Egos of the other people around this Swami were acting as if they were thinking that they were very important people. They asked “who is this person? He is a dirty one, he is a Kafir, a Hindu, we are Muslims, therefore we are more important!” This is not good adab (manners). He was coming very humbly and also accusing himself through his humblessness. That was very good manners. These other people who were thinking badly about him were keeping bad manners. You must keep, adab, a good manner with other people. You must not try to be on a high level looking down on other people, and there are so many types of people throughout your country. You must be humble and that is a good manner for every one. May Allah grant us good adab. We are in need of this.