Last Day and Islamic Spirituality The Forgotten Path

Islamic Spirituality - The Forgotten Path

 

A lecture delivered by Maulana Imran Nazar Hosein

at the Maulana Abd al-Aleem  Siddiqui Masjid, Singapore

The stranger asked question four. When will the last day come? The Holy Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘The one who is being questioned has no more knowledge than the one who is questioning.’ Next question please! That’s the way to respond to anybody who wants to engage us on this subject. Only Allah ﷻ knows when the world will come to an end. None of us knows. I said in my previous lectures  that by my calculation  using the  hadith and external  observation  that  I expect  sometime within the next fifty years. The Muslim army will come and destroy the state of Israel. One fellow responded to me from Pakistan saying, ‘Shaykh, I can’t wait for fifty years that is too long.’ This next fifty years is going to be the worst in our history. The greatest suffering and oppression will come this next fifty years. The wickedest  of  the  wickedest  of  the  people  will  be  the  rulers  of  the  people. Mercilessly  and shamelessly they will be attacking  Islam whilst hiding behind a curtain called terrorism. So watch it! If you want to be a part time Muslim, no problem, but the minute you want to be a true servant of Allah ﷻ they’re coming after you.  When they come after you, you had better have protection from Allah ﷻ. If you are not reciting Suratul Kahf every  Friday they are going to cut you down. While it is only Allah ﷻ who knows when the Last Day will come, the Holy Qur’aan tells us that the heart of the believer always feels that it is close while the disbeliever always thinks its far away.

Then came question five which teaches  us the application of spirituality of al- ihsaan. How do you apply it?  What  is its practical  utility?  The  stranger  asked, ‘What are the signs of the Last Day?’ The Holy Prophet ﷺ  replied and he said:

1. ‘You will find a naked, barefooted shepherd – [meaning  people who have the brains; the intellectual acumen of naked, barefooted shepherds] – competing with each other to build high rise buildings.’

I have the tallest building in the world. They have the intellectual acumen of naked, barefooted shepherds because they measure progress in this way. Hence we have built the  tallest  building, the  grandest  airport in the  world and all  these  PR projects that make our place look like heaven we have achieved progress. So they measure progress with PR projects. Allah  ﷻ says [in  the 49th  Sura, al-Hujeraat [The Inner Chambers] in verse 13]:

Indeed the more honourable among you, in the sight of Allah, is one who is more pious among you

You  shouldn’t  measure  progress  with  high  rise  buildings  but  rather  measure progress with how much fear of Allah ﷻ is there in the heart. You have made no progress. You may have built the tallest building but you have no fear of Allah ﷻ in your heart. So you and all those that stand with you represent no progress at all. He is underneath a mango tree, a shoemaker making shoes but in his heart there is the fear of his Lord, so he is superior to you. When you see a world acclaiming  those who build these high rise buildings, the tallest  building in the world and the world considers that to be progress and the world looks down upon his one who has the fear of Allah ﷻ in his heart, you know that is a major sign of the Last Day. How many can see it today and how many are fooled? Then he came to the last one:

2. He said, ‘You will find that the slave woman will give birth to her mistress.’

 

Source:  Islamic Spirituality - TheForgotten Path

 to be continued  . . . .