Question:
Assalam u alayekum ya Syedi Sheikh Hisham!
I don’t know whether I should ask this question or not, but it has been confusing me since the last 2, or 3 weeks. I had read a sohbet transcript in which Syyedi Sheikh Hisham had told Maulana Sheikh Nazim (Q.S.H) that Pope Benedict is high in spiritual ranks.
Now that Pope Benedict is forcing the Pakistani government to release a Christian woman who has confessed to commit blasphemy about Our beloved Prophet (Salla’l la ho alaye hi wasallam.) The pope is also forcing the government to abolish the law which ensures penalty for such a culprit. The confusion is how can the Pope then be highly spiritual? I personally think that a sinner Muslim but having love of Prophet (S.A.W) is better than the Pope regarding this scenario.
Please explain and elaborate the point.
Forgive me if i sounded rude or offensive or if i hurt anyone’s feelings.
Shukran.
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
The news we hear about what goes on in the political world are not necessarily true. Mawlana’s comments about the Pope are relative, not absolute. In other words, they are not incompatible with a sinful Muslim still being superior to him or to you and me. They are also encouragement and an indirect invitation to Islam regardless whether our public approves of disapproves of such style of communication. In any case, Allah Most High knows the content of hearts and how one ends up at the time of death and in the hereafter, so may He keep us on the right path and take us back to Him safe from fitna.
With such issues it is best to make tafwid (resigning rather than probing) even if it is difficult. The proof of such difficulty is when we say “i personally think…” when in our Tariqa we are supposed to be toward our Murshid not only like the body between the hands of the washer but like a dead leaf carried by the wind and accepting to fall wherever it makes it fall. “I” (which is what the Latin word “ego” means) has no voice in the matter.
See also Post: “Hadith: Allah’s Preventing Self-Aggrandizing Worship“.
Hajj Gibril
