Dream:
Salam Alaykom wrwb ya Mawlana and repected staff,
I had a dream last night, which I don’t remember clearly, but I still wanted to write what I do remember to see if there was any instruction for me.
I saw that I was visiting Mawlana in Michigan and I intended to go for a couple of days like I usually do, but Mawlana and Hajjah (I specially remember Hajjah) ordered me not to leave and to stay for 30 or 40 days. I saw myself interacting with other people who help in Mawlana’s house and I think I voiced my concern that I didn’t tell my work that I’d be gone and I had pending things I had to take care of at home.
I did stay the duration and it seemed tumultuous, but I can’t remember the events that happened. I can’t remember if it was seclusion.
Interpretation:
wa `alaykum salam,
As Shaykh Hisham wrote in Levels of Murshids:
When one seeks the way of Allah I in any of the forty-one tariqats, and did not reach the level of high-ranking wali, the order will come for him to complete his seclusion, khalwah, in the grave. The duration of that seclusion will be from forty days to five or seven years and is 70,000 times more difficult that the seclusion in this world! One who completed his seclusion in this world and who has attained the subtle state of existence here in dunya will be higher in spiritual station than one who reached a subtle state of existence in the grave.
Mawlana Shaykh Hisham then informed us from Grandshaykh `Abdullah al-Fa’iz ad-Daghestani (q) that whoever sits in a majlis of dhikr or Khatm or sits in the dergah or mosque and makes the following intention:
نَوَيْتُ الأرْبَعين، نَوَيْتُ الاعتِكاف نَوَيتُ الخَلْوَة نَوَيتُ العُزْلَة، نَوَيْتُ الرٍياضَة نَوَيْتُ السُلوك، لله تَعالى في هَذَا المسجد
Nawaytu ‘l-arba`een, nawaytu ‘l-‘itikaaf, nawaytu ‘l-khalwah, nawaytu’l-riyaada, nawaytu ‘s-salook, nawaytu ‘l-`uzlah, nawytu ‘s-siyam lillahi ta`ala fee hadha ‘l-masjid ,
I intend the forty (days of seclusion); I intend seclusion in the mosque; I intend seclusion; I intend isolation; I intend discipline (of the ego); I intend to travel in God’s Path for the sake of God in this mosque.
that the time he spent there will be written for him as part of his obligatory 40 days seclusion and will be deducted from the time a murid is obliged to spend in such a seclusion in order to receive his or her heavenly trusts, amanaat, from his shaykh.
Keep that practice and insha-Allah you fulfill that dream.
w ‘Allahu `alam,
Taher Siddiqui
