Question:

Salam alaykoum warahmatullah wabarakatuhu Qubt-az Zaman Cheikh Mohammad Nazim ( Q S) . Salam alaykoum warahmatullah wabarakatuhu Ya Sayyedi Al Qutb Al Mutassarif Cheikh Hisham and all professors on this website .
Bismillahi rahmanil rahim . Allahumma Salle’ala sayyedina Mohammad wa’ala aalihi wasahbihi wasalam .
I have questions about:
– the 3 Sultans Selim.
According to the books of history,they said that Sultan Selim II drunk alcohol and his face was red because he drank a lot .Is it True?

– In Ottoman empire, Sultan Mehmed El Fatih decided, ,to publish a law which allow to execute his brothers.And lots of people use this argument for discredit Ottoman empire. And Ulemas of this age accept and make this law halal .How answer to his attack ?

-These 3 Sultan come back to put back the ShariahtAllah ?
. BarakAllahufik for your consideration.
Wasalam.

Answer:

Wa `alaykum as-Salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

According to traditional knowledge, historical conditions progress from the subtle to the gross. This natural progression is interrupted by the supernatural missions of the holy prophets and their inheritors, who remind people by word and example of the heavenly origin of humanity. Likewise within the era belonging to the Seal of Prophets, peace be upon him, there has been a progressive worsening of the characteristics of people. Now, how should the more subtle be understood by the gross? This in fact is an obstacle for modern people in their understanding of history, even when they bother themselves with it at all.

The Holy Prophet promised that an age of Sultans would precede the age of tyrants, and it is clear that we find ourselves at the end of the latter, while the Ottomans best embody the identity of the former. Perhaps modern people seek to find fault with Ottoman principles of dynastic succession because no single dynasty in history ruled for so long. Still, dynastic safeguards appropriate to the age of Sultans are not necessarily appropriate for other ages.

Moreover, Ottoman imperial law is not to be simply equated with the shari`at, of which it is but an extension appropriate for its specific historical conditions. Of course, it could also be said that the Ottoman `ulama generally knew better than the `ulama of today.

One characteristic of the age of Sultans is the involvement of the awliya in advising its rulers; in the words of the very great Khwaja al-Ahrar, may Allah sanctify his secret: “Our business is to protect the Muslims from the evils of tyranny. It is therefore our duty to make contact with worldly rulers, winning their hearts and turning them in the direction we wish them to take.”

Among the saints whose patronage extended over the Ottomans, the Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn `Arabi – may Allah sanctify his secret – holds a preeminent place. In his writings, Shaykh Muhyiddin relates a story that may be relevant to your concerns about Sultan Selim II; this story concerns a sovereign who, to quote Michel Chodkiewicz:

…one day found himself reproached for devoting himself in isolation to entertainments, to the pleasures of the table and of drink. He replied to the protestors by asking them: “The ways, are they sure? The judges, do they render justice? The enemy, is he subjugated? So, what more do you want?” Ibn `Arabi seems quite satisfied with this reply.

Furthermore, again according to Shaykh Muhyiddin, only rarely since the Rightly-Guided Caliphs has a political ruler been in reality a Qutb. This union of spiritual authority and temporal power belongs most fully to the end of time, that is, to the age following the age of tyrants when there will be a sudden reversal, as it were, of historical conditions.

Mahmoud Shelton

Question:

i have asked this qeustion before but have never got a responce,was guru nanak a muslim,has mawlana shaykh nazim ever taked about guru nanak..thank you

Answer:
I have not heard that Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani – may Allah sanctify his secret – ever mentioned Guru Nanak. As for Guru Nanak being Muslim, the accounts of his life relate otherwise, since he chose a way other than Islam. He belonged by birth to the Kshatriya caste of Hinduism, yet he also chose not to defer to Brahmin authority. At the very least his Kshatriya origin may account for the militant ornaments of Sikhism.

Guru Nanak’s life was conditioned by the encounter of Hindu and Muslim societies. The most profound implications of this encounter have been suggested by Shaykh `Abdul Wahid Yahya – may Allah have mercy on him – in his famous article “The Mysteries of the Letter Nun” (and in the present context, let it not be ignored that the name “Nanak” is composed of two nun):

“Returning to the form of the letter nun, a further observation may be made…in the Sanskrit alphabet, the corresponding letter na, reduced to its fundamental geometrical elements, is likewise composed of a half-circumference and a point; but here, the convexity being turned upwards, it is formed by the upper half of the circumference, and not by the lower half as in the Arabic nun. We thus have the same figure placed the other way up, or more exactly two figures that are strictly complementary to each other. If they are joined together, the two central points naturally merge into one another, and this gives a circle with a point at its center, a figure which represents the complete cycle and which is also the sign of the Sun in astrology and of gold in alchemy…”

Concerning this “reunion” of elements from the traditions of Hinduism and Islam, he concludes that “it is in the ‘intermediary world’ that the junction must be brought about; this junction is in fact impossible in the ‘inferior world,’ which is the domain of division and ‘separativity,’ and on the other hand it is always accomplished in the ‘superior’ world, where it is realized principially in a permanent and unchangeable manner in the ‘eternal present.’”

Nevertheless, the milieu of Guru Nanak suffered more than one attempt to bring about a junction of Hinduism and Islam in this “inferior world,” for example by the Mughal Emperor Akbar with his “Din Ilahi.” This innovation was not only opposed by Muslims, chief among them the Mujaddid Alf-i Thani (may Allah sanctify his secret), since a Hindu is reported to have told Akbar: “I certainly am a Hindu, If you order me I will become Muslim, but I know not of the existence of any other religion than these two.”

Even if the account of the pilgrimage of Guru Nanak is accepted as historically tenable, it is likely that he was mistaken for a Muslim Qalandar or wanderer whose blameworthy appearance expressed independence from Muslim society. In this connection, it is worth noting that despite the Qalandars’ lack of regard for the conventions of this “inferior world,” certain doctrines attributed to them suggest that they were instead focused upon a reunion in the “intermediary world.”

Mahmoud Shelton