Michael Sugich & Peter Sanders: Readings from Hearts Turn and Meetings with Mountains

smellorama no Rahim allahumma salli wa sallim wa barik alaa say no Muhammad Ali Ali suffrage may not remain I would like to welcome each and every one of you to this beautiful event one of the beauty of our tradition is the concept of getting together and this is really the software in companionship is at the foundation of our teachings and tonight we are blessed to be amongst the people who have spent a lifetime searching for people to be in their company and this is really one of the great scholars as is adenine s ofey ofey in a book called in Santo camel he wrote that all of your study is everything that you learn in your life all of the struggles that you go through everything that you put all of the effort in your entire life is for one purpose and one purpose only in order to qualify for the meeting all of that is for the softball the companionship your knowledge your study is your struggle will take you to that moment of companionship because that is the moment that turns ink into gold being with people of God and our two distinguished speaker and presenters tonight both of them have traveled their entire life in order to be in the companionship of those who turn gold from the dirt and this is the nature of saints this is the nature of in Santo camel this is the nature of beautiful people that they would turn you they would change and it's called that this is why the city harus book the turning of the hearts this is a moment that we turn your heart and wants to turn hearts this is one of the most beautiful a hadith all of the hadees' are beautiful but when the sahabas they went to the wife of the prophet salallahu alaihe salam and they said from Salamah and they said what was it your father the prophet sallallaahu most in size de and she said that you are that he made most in Cessna was young palpable pollute a bit can be allergenic or the Turner of the hearts make my heart firm on UD and Allah is a Turner of the heart and this is why these books and these journeys are important because these this is all about the people who turn their hearts turn their hearts towards a loving God alwa dude turn their hearts to other toois the God that accepts their Toba and this is the concept of tobin Islam is a turning of the hearts in the abdullah ansari the great of us said of the fifth century said when you turn your heart towards allah subhanho wa taala also have a smile on your face because you're turning towards a loving god this smile in turns to Allah and that's that the greatest of Toba and this is our first speaker before we introduce him I wanted to say that we wanted to thank is a tuna college for putting this event the Zaytuna College Bookstore and kala Felicia who always beautify events and you can see the beauty of her work in the in the in the bookstore and in the reception room we also want to thank city author in the mecca books who have been doing it before this Dean for the Muslim community in North America may Allah protect them and increase them and give them TOEFL and all that they do for putting this store together and bringing City Peter Sanders who I've been trying to bring him for 16 years and they have been saying no I don't know how we got him to come so I'm a little bit hurt but anyways that's another story he promised he's here what he's gonna come back next year so we'll see maybe another 16 years I don't think I'm going to be here on this planet Earth please don't do that again so I'll have enough but we will have the schedule just sent to me and I will go over this schedule to make sure everybody so we'll have a shot of the speakers there's Mary talks at the beginning by City Haroon and then CD Peter Sanders will give a talk and then we'll have a Q&A after it talks and then after that there'll be book signing so inshallah they will sign your books and I've seen CD Peter because I got the copy of my book in rels about a month ago we were there together and the presentation I can look at it five more times and are selling you won't get bored because it's so beautiful it's a living history of the spirituality in Orleans and also it's for me when I listen to is if you just listen and just look at destiny if you want to know how destiny works just listen and you would see how it drives everything is in the hands of God and it takes you through this ocean of call the oceans of life so I would like you to do is city who are I don't know how to introduce this man I've been it's been about 25 years I've I wanted to meet him and finally I got to know how to see him tonight we are here because they tuner college this is the first building that was purchased by Zaytuna College if you remember an academic address in America this is it you are in the academic address in America before that we didn't have it and share Hamza house of Allah with the m'aimes a shocker in dr. Hutton Bosnian and Allah protect them they the cofounders of this of this institution they purchased this with the help of the community of the people who are here and the people from across the world this for building was purchased so we are here this is the man imagine being there when she humbly took his Shahada just imagine that when this 17 year old young man walked in and he said I want to become Muslim while he was there and I don't want to give more out read the book signs on the horizon in this story of the three hundred and so it's in their beautiful story to see what came out this is why people there are people who are one but there are people who are ten mother whom he said there are people who are thousands one person but one I think that I love about this the his book is the the concept of Tobin is at the center of the teachings of these books and then turning back to Allah subhana WA Ta'ala and it's time that we need to put that really back in the teaching especially to our teach our students and our children who are young because when October people go into hopelessness and Tova is so beautiful that the Puranas were luckily a to believe that Allah he he turns towards his his servant Allah subhana WA Ta'ala he wants to turn towards it the desire of God that he wants to turn while longing you read it on YouTube aleikum he wants to turns but the the people of the companionship this is why these books are important because companionship is at the end of the the this the story of our life is who you hang with the companionship the Quran says that those people well you read the lavinia tiburones sha Havarti and tammy domain and edema but those who you know they follow their desires they want you to deviate go against God go the opposite direction Allah wants to go towards you turns towards you but they are saying the people of their no no no it turns that and this is what my mother Rumi has a beautiful line who says to teach us that you either turn to God in this world or God will make you turn to Him and hereafter you don't have a choice it's one of the two and he said I got a passion but IV Sata's or Saul's a man but okay but Romano he came on to hot manna it's a menage Allah says o my servant and if you distance yourself away from me for a thousand years you will come back to me because I am the end of your affairs so we should turn to God in this world before we're humiliated and turns towards him in the hereafter and this is what I love about these books because at the core teaching of silly Hans sewage is is is a concept of turning to Allah in Toba in being in the presence of the people of righteousness without any further ado I would like to invite him to the mic inshallah to do his presentation smilla this book is about tawba about repentance so began with an introductory passage abdullah ansari of Herat wrote know that knowledge is life wisdom is a mirror contentment a protective wall hope a mediator and intercessor repent remembrance of God a remedy and repentance a cure repentance is the signpost on the path the leader of the kingdom the key to the treasure the intermediary that assists you to become United with God the condition for being accepted to the divine presence and the secret of all happiness we are living in dark uncertain times full of distraction turmoil and violence that are either upon us or impending we see this turmoil every day on television and movies in the headlines online we cannot escape it and as Muslims we're drifting as if in a Riptide away out into an open notional sea of uncertainty far from the heart of our belief I've watched this trend sometimes in the midst of it but mostly from the sidelines and I've seen its impact on the hearts of believers this book is a small attempt to ameliorate this insidious drift since signs on the horizons was first published I made several book tours that have put me in direct contact with many wonderful Muslims with beautiful hearts and the best of intentions and they fill me with hope yet I've been astonished by a deep prevailing insecurity and lack of confidence I hear from many the influence of a stark and rigid and frankly heretical form of Islam which focuses on externalities and equates sin with unbelief has had a pervasive and dispiriting influence on the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world whether they subscribe to these doctrines or not at the same time many have been raised with the distorted understanding of their faith or no understanding at all I've spoken to many young people particularly young Muslims who were born into the faith who have quite naturally fallen prey to many of the temptations of modern life or who have learned an ethnocentric interpretation of Islam that takes no account of the time and place we live in for those who enter Islam from another faith or from no faith at all exposure to a dysfunctional mainstream can have an unsettling impact on their new faith and practice and propel them to deviant versions of Islam that provides simplistic answers to subtle questions today young Muslims read books about the perfection of The Messenger of God peace be upon him his family and companions in the ancient Saints of Islam the Allah lien may God be well pleased with them all and feel by comparison doomed to perdition or at best inadequate to the spiritual path of asan that forms the very heart of our faith most young people have lost touch with traditional teaching they pick up where their parents left off for better or for worse or they're stuck with very and sometimes grotesquely imperfect teaching they feel weak and unworthy as if they've stepped beyond the pale somehow in the process they've lost sight of or never understood the fact that the purification of the heart is a process of continuous turning in English repentance is a forbidding word that suggests a puritanical finality but in Arabic the term Toba is dynamic meaning to turn or to return a table is one of the names of God the oft-returning it is an active constant an ongoing reality that renews every moment we are alive the Saints al-eman Abdallah to stary may God be well pleased with him wrote tawba is a duty incumbent upon a human being every moment whether of the elect or common folk whether obedient to God or disobedient tawba is therefore our default setting everyone's sins everyone even Saints but the sins of a saint or of a different order for an ordinary mortal a sin is usually gross for a saint forgetting God for a single instant is a sin requiring a return to God when someone asks the luenell miss may God be well pleased with him about repentance he answered that the common people repent from sins whereas the elect repent from forgetfulness this book is a declaration of mercy and certainty formed of a collection of stories I've experienced read or heard it is about how malleable the human heart can be and how wrongdoing remorse need and yearning intersect with divine compassion forgiveness and guidance it is also about the sudden transitions from confusion to clarity from sin to virtue from sleep to wakefulness from ignorance to knowledge from foolishness to wisdom and finally it is about the path of our lives which leads us gradually and for those whom God favors inexorably to salvation and City Mohammed even having wrote though my sins may surely weigh heavy upon me still I trust in your goodness to mend my brokenness favour us all most forgiving Lord with repentance that he faces the mistakes which were made in times past and increase us in blessings and light and unveilings and enabled us to guide with permission and the secret support us in what we say and do and make easy our provision from a place we do not know here we stand at the door of benevolence awaiting without hardship the kindness of the friend so the book is in seven parts the first part is called God finds you wherever you are and it concerns people who've done some very terrible things they've been criminals and the sort of depraved individuals and how they've turned their lives around and changed and come into Islam or started practicing again the second section is called turning points which involve is about changes people have made that have taken them to a deeper understanding of their own belief or to an introduction to Islam and an entry into a new faith the third part is migrations which concerns stories of people who have actually gone from one place to another in a search for the truth and for their own salvation the fourth is is called openings and it concerns stories about people who've had deep spiritual experiences or dreams that have led them to too knowledge and and to guidance the sixth part is about myself it's called a series of fortunate events and it's my own story and I may read something from that just there's a self-indulgence I guess and the seventh section is called the beginning of the end and it's a kind of a wrap-up and what I'd like to do is actually start at the end of the book this time I haven't ever done this before when the believer reaches 50 years of age god lightens his accounts when he reaches 60 sorry when when the believer reaches 50 years of age god lightens his account when he reaches 60 god grants him penitence or Inaba when he reaches 70 he is loved by the inhabitants of the heavens when he reaches 80 righteous deeds are recorded for him and God pardons his misdeeds when he reaches 90 his sins are forgiven he is allowed to enter intercede for his household and he is God's prisoner on earth and when he reaches 100 and is an unable to perform righteous works he would have he will have written for him all of the righteous works he used to perform during his period of health and youth and this is from the Prophet Muhammad and a senator said ah the later the better in recent times a sincere young novice implored his spiritual master to take him to the station of my Arafah or direct knowledge of God his ship his Sheikh said don't ask for this but the young disciple was insistent I beg you to take me to the goal the Sheikh repeated don't ask for this but the disciple persisted demanding that his master take him on the path toward fanaa fear or a Faceman tin god right then and there so the Sheikh replied all right if this is what you really want go now to your wife and divorce her settle your affairs say goodbye to your children and then come to me the young disciple was stunned I I I can't do that he said his master said then don't ask for this we have become impatient we want quick results instant coffee fast food speed dating speed reading overnight success accelerated learning enlightenment weekends instant nirvana we celebrate youth and mourn old age to be sure old ages to be mourned if we have wasted our time in this world and have nothing to show for the next that youth is wasted on the young is alas mostly the case but not always as evidenced by the sincere young novice nevertheless the search for knowledge is a continuum a long-haul we have no other way of knowing God except through ourselves this requires continuous repentance and constant purification of the heart this takes time this takes a lifetime there are exceptions of course but the idea that we should expect to be catapulted to great spiritual heights in record time is delusional when I was young and impatient my Sheikh said Omar Abdullah weeny America used to quote his Sheikh Habib omar bin summate may God be well pleased with them both who said the later the better what they meant by this was that it is better to receive spiritual knowledge later in life when one has reached maturity and attained a measure of wisdom and balance rather than to receive spiritual gifts prematurely before one is prepared to handle them the wisdom of our great sages and this time dictates a slow and gradual path I once asked to say it our mark why it was important to know about exalted spiritual stations such as Fanaa Fela which is effacement in God and baka be LA which is subsistence in God when we were so far from them and he replied that God is so generous that he gives his servants everything they desire before they die even it be if it be minutes before death persistence and patience is a common admonition from spiritual adepts to novices a friend of mine once asked the Moroccan saint CD Mohammed Sahara we what to do if one performs invocation of the Corolla and it never reaches the heart city Mohamed replied that he should persist in invocations sometimes he said the invocation doesn't reach the heart until more months before you die an old man came to a bush adi shakti ibrahim al as d and said to him o Shaykh I have sinned much and now I wish to repent Shafiq said you have come late the old man answered no I have come soon whoever comes before he is dead come soon though he may have been long in coming the medieval Egyptian saint the noon and missile had an incredibly devout disciple this man had entered into a 40-day spiritual retreat forty times he had made the pilgrimage forty times and for forty years he had stood the entire night in prayer and observed the supererogatory fat fasts for 40 long years he watched over the chamber of his heart and yet after all that he came to the noon in desperation after recounting his sincere exertions he said I have done all this and for all my effort self-denial and sacrifice the friend has not spoken one word to me nor has he favoured me with a single glance he takes no account of me and reveals nothing to me from the unseen world I am NOT saying this to praise myself nor to complain against God I am simply stating the facts I have done everything in my power to devote my heart and soul to his service I'm not saying this because my heart has grown weary of obedience I am only relating my sad misfortune for my entire life I have knocked on the door in hope but after all this time there has been no answer and the silence has become unbearable my fear is that if further life remains ahead of me everything will remain the same you are the physician of the afflicted and the sovereign prescriber of the sages please give me a cure for my sorrow though noone replied perhaps if the friend will not show himself to you with kindness and gentleness he'll reveal himself with reproach so tonight eat a big meal and go to sleep without performing any supererogatory prayers don't rise in the night but stay asleep until it morning if he will not look upon you with compassion then perhaps he will look upon you with severity the disciple left the company of his shave and returned to his home he reluctantly ate his fill but couldn't bring himself to emit his prayers he lay down closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep in his sleep the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him appeared to the troubled worshiper your friend greets you he says an effeminate unmanly wretch as he who comes to my court and is quickly satisfied the root of the matter is a lifetime of righteousness without complaint God The Exalted says to you I have given your heart its desire for 40 years and I fulfill your desire and I grant you the attainment of all you hope for but convey my greetings to that bandit and pretender the noon say to him pretender and liar if I do not expose your shame before all in the city then I am not your Lord see that you never again seduce the lovers away from my court the disciple awoke overcome with weeping he rushed at all noon and related his dream when the noon heard the words God spoke through his messenger denouncing him he wept for joy fell down and rolled on the ground in ecstasy no sincere effort for the sake of God has ever wasted the reward can be hidden for a lifetime but have no doubt it will come to you mawlana jalaluddin rumi said that the way of jesus was the way of purifying the soul by withdrawing from the world into solitude while the way of muhammad was the way of purifying the soul with the world there is no monasticism in islam by engaging with the world according to the revealed law the Sharia the heart can be purified over time one of the nineteenth-century masters from the Moroccan desert placed his disciples under fierce discipline they lived lives of intense austerity and asceticism enduring sleeplessness hunger continuous worship and perpetual remembrance of God there were those from the nearby village who esteemed the people of the way sometimes joined their circles of dhikr Allah and gave gifts of food and money to support these men of God these pious citizens were known as Mohideen those who had not taken an initiation of commitment to the spiritual path but who loved and respected those who did one from among them was a local shopkeeper who only had a casual association with the Sheikh and his disciples when he became old he retired gave up his shop approached the Sheikh and asked to be initiated the Sheikh received the shopkeeper into the order and immediately put him into a halwa or a spiritual retreat after one day the shopkeeper experienced phenomena and reached the goal of Mahadeva in astonishment and frustration the sheiks disciples protested we've been on this path for twenty years and during great privation and hardship for the sake of God and yet none of us has experienced Fanaa Fela how is it that this ordinary shopkeeper who has done nothing all these years other than to observe his obligatory religious and worldly duties has reached this exalted station so quickly while we are deprived of Madhava the Sheikh replied he was dry wood all I had to do was strike a spark and he was consumed you're all still green and wet you have yet to dry out even at the eyeless Gandhari wrote if you do not believe that God can take you at this moment and make you one of his friends his awliya than you were ignorant of his power my mother was born in 1920 in Grand Junction Colorado she was a small-town girl a country girl really she grew up in a more innocent time during the Great Depression she went off to university in California and graduated with a teaching credential she married the beginning of the second world war and adopted me in 1949 when I was three months old she wasn't my biological mother but in every other sense she was my real mother she instilled in me an interest in reading and learning she was curious and open-minded but was perplexed when I entered Islam for her it was a jarring turn of me dropping out of what might have been a successful career and joining this utterly strange religion was I becoming a religious fanatic was it a cult it certainly wasn't something she could relate with parental pride to her friends and family she didn't like it at all it wasn't normal we became estranged for a few years it was only after I got married that our relationship improved my mother fell in love with my wife and then head-over-heels in love with our daughter when she was born in her home I never spoke to my mother about his love she never really asked me questions she may have spoken to my wife I don't know when we moved to Saudi Arabia we kept in touch by phone one day out of the blue my mother said I think I should become a Muslim I believed in it that was all she mentioned that she had read Islam and the destiny of man by my friend gay Eden and this convinced her I can't remember whether I recommended the book to her or whether she discovered it on her own I was stunned and delighted we made arrangements for her to come to Saudi Arabia and stay with us in Makkah apart from some European tourism after she was widowed my mother had never ventured into such alien territory here she was at the very heart of Islam I introduced her to my Sheikh Habib Ahmed maschera had dead may God be well pleased with him I simply wanted her to sit in his presence for a few minutes Habib instructed me to personally push my mother in a wheelchair in the side between safa and marwah during the Umrah when she left the room he shook his head and said to me miss kena poor woman she has West Was with which is whispering this was true in old age inner chatter increasingly overwhelmed her we made the Umrah and I had the blessing of pushing her in her wheelchair in ie we made z-ro - and Madina my mother marveled at the Ottoman vestiges in the prophet's mosque she stayed with us for one month we wanted her to stay longer but she felt homesick and returned to California I advised her to keep her Islam prot a private matter so as not to alienate her from her close friends who she was greatly attached to and were her support system many of her relatives lived to very advanced ages and I used to tease my mother saying I thought she was going to be this increasingly ancient lady she demurred I don't want to live much longer she said she flew to Hawaii to visit one of her oldest friends a college classmate she had a wonderful time on the flight back she began to feel weak she had a checkup and discovered that she had suffered from a terminal blood disease similar to leukemia her body could no longer produce white blood cells she would be required to have blood transfusions in order in order to survive she related this news calmly with only a hint of surprise with the first transfusion she was able to carry on for about two months my wife came from Saudi Arabian raised her spirits god bless her keeping my mother continuously in stitches she stayed for some time and then returned to Mecca to resume work the second transfusion worked for about six weeks the third transfusion lasted less than a month her time in this life was quickly diminishing the next transfusion lasted two weeks I flew to California in time for what was to be her final transfusion I arrived and went directly to the hospital arriving immediately after the transfusion the doctor told me that this would this last transfusion was giving so that my mother could see me she was transferred home by ambulance and placed under hospice care I have never seen anyone so calm in the face of death my two younger brothers my elder my eldest son and I stayed by her side night and day her best friend who was 12 years her senior came by distraught Michael this is not supposed to happen I should be first I can't bear it she outlived my mother by many years passing away at the age of 102 I read Quran for her and recited earth car and beside my younger brother played the guitar and sang folk songs for her she never complained she was not afraid she was ready my mother was a good woman she was loving and kind she never hurt anyone she always had a favorable opinion of God at the back of my mind though I was unsure while my mother believed in the principles of Islam she rarely carried out any of its practices would that be enough during our vigil I was reading from the remembrance of death in the afterlife from email from imam al-ghazali's the revival of religious sciences I came across this passage it is related that the prophet salallahu alaihe wasalam once said watch for three signs in the dying man if his forehead sweats his eyes shed tears and his lips become dry then the mercy of God has alighted upon him I found this last statement wondrous and strange for its extraordinary specificity time passed until we began to think that my mother might actually recover she seemed to be gaining strength I had to fly to New York I wasn't sure what to do I asked my brother's they advised me to go on and return when I had finished my business the day I left my mother seemed to be to further revive she ate a relatively large meal things seemed to be looking up I drove down to Santa Monica to stay with friends so I could catch a flight to New York the next morning within minutes of my arrival the phone rang it was my son with the news that his grandmother had just passed he was beside her and when she when she took her last breath he recited the Shahada in her ear and the Athan I turned around and drove back to Santa Barbara by the time I reached home my mother's body had been moved I sat down with my youngest brother and asked him to tell me what happened he knew absolutely nothing about Islam nor had he ever had any interest in learning when he replied this is what he said when she died her forehead was wet with perspiration there was a tear dropped from the outside corner of each of her eyes and her lips were parched and dry a wave of relief swept over me God is the most merciful of the merciful we buried her as a Muslim may God cover her in His infinite mercy illuminate her grave and raised her close to him on the day of rising and may God give us the opening Union and the salvation we seek before we die and that's the end of the book there are lots of other stories that are not so I hesitate to say morbid but death oriented let's put it that way do you how much time do we have few five minutes okay let me see if I can find something short okay I think I have something here okay this is a short story many years ago I was taken to a gathering organized at the regents Park mosque in London I tend to be gathering a verse and only came along because my friend was the organizer and was working hard to bring Muslims together so we entered the foyer of the mosque complex' and I was standing off to one side when someone came up shook my hand vigorously and greeted me assalamualaikum waalaikumsalam said i he stood there grinning I grinned back you don't remember me do you he stated I was taken aback I studied his face to see if I could place him I shook my head I'm really sorry I said I have a terrible memory well you changed my life he said that was a conversation stopper he then told me the story of our meeting and as he told it I began to remember years before sometime in the mid-1970s I had been invited by one of my best friends at the time a Malaysian engineering student and Sufi acolyte to come up to Norwich and stay with a group of young Malaysians studying there the last time I had visited Norwich was in 1967 with a school Madrigal in ensemble I was part of we'd given a concert in the town hall and attended a party in an ancient dungeon where for the first time we all heard the Beatles just released sergeant pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album otherwise I knew nothing of the place until my Malaysian sojourn when I arrived the students insisted I visit a new British Muslim who had converted to Islam in order to marry a Malaysian woman they were eager for me to meet the new convert and I was happy to pay him a visit but as soon as we turned up at his door and were invited in I wanted to get out of there in the worst way I know that my memory is probably playing tricks on me but the image that came back to me that day was of a kind of lugubrious Stanley Kowalski type allowed his humorless working-class bloke with empty eyes the picture would have been complete if he had a beer in front of him he did not our host seemed dull and disinterested with a quizzical look about him as if he was trying to figure out why what we were doing in his house but there I was with my Malaysian friends eagerly looking to me to tell the new convert about Islam so I started talking I can't remember a word I said because all I could think about was finding a smooth and gracious exit line I bet on about Islam for about 45 minutes telling stories moving quickly from one subject to another looking for my cue his wife came in to serve tea there was something shrewish about her he looked dazed and didn't say a word or asked a question we drank tea I continued with my monologue until I found the right moment to announce our departure I shook his hand and thanked him for his hospitality we said our farewells and made our escape I remember that once we had descended a flight of steps turning on my Malaysian entourage in the stairwell and scolding them why did you bring me here what a waste of time hopeless when you came to my flat that day he said I never really knew anything about Islam but I kept thinking about what you said what you told me that day made me want to learn more about Islam and the more I learned about Islam the closer I came to the faith and the closer I came to Islam the farther apart my wife and I became we eventually divorced and now I am married remarried to a pious Turkish Muslim woman I think he told me that he owned an Islamic bookstore now it was my turn to be speechless and dazed I learned a lesson that day I learned that all guidance comes from God in whatever form he chooses and that we are nothing more than instruments he uses in his wisdom to guide whom He wills may God bless this sincere believer and forgive us our arrogance and delusion there is no power and no strength but from God and that'll be it see the Peter Sanders I don't know how to introduce him because I know him for I think over two decades I would say but one thing I people ask me how old you are I will tell you one thing about my age I'm younger than his book that's all I have to say this book meaning with a mountain took him fifty years to put it together and the journey that he went through is absolutely marvelous and this for me as I said before is the destiny that how God you know he he writes your destiny and what he had to go and if you can look at some of his works that he has done before he took his Shahada people like the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and a lot of the the from rock and roll he went to the the Moroccan roll then a mr. Morocco ended up there and then he went to the turning role in Turkey and masha'Allah and every photo if you look at the the Zaytuna College curriculum if you look at prefiguration of the hardcover all of most of shameless books is the covers are done the photos by CD Peter Sanders and one of the people who are sitting here our beloved sister novella who started Al Hamra productions and used many of the photos from City Peter who beautified all of the city covers of Chef Ramsay's lectures hamdullah so he's not unknown in our community I know you haven't been here in a while but everybody knows you here so I want you to see his journey because his journey is also a biography and his feet so before he bring him I want to play the videos and then he will come and do his presentation which is masha'Allah it's just just waiting here Peter Sanders was London's leading rock-and-roll photographers in the 1960s capturing images of some of the area's most iconic musicians and the cultural ferment of the hippie scene disillusioned by the excesses in witnessed around him in 1971 the young photographers set off on a year-long spiritual quest that ended in Morocco in the city of McNees he came face to face with one of the greatest Saints of the 20th century in a windowless room without a flash he captured two iconic images of sidi Muhammad Vinod Habib this seminal moment set the photographer on a 45-year quest to photograph the true saints of Islam over nearly five decades Peter Sanders has travelled the world seeking out these luminous inspiring men and women and in the course of this journey has become the Muslim world's most celebrated photographer his acclaimed photographic books exhibitions and the workshops he holds around the world have earned him international awards and a global audience Peter's astonishing Odyssey has culminated in an uplifting visual record and landmark photographic book meetings with mountains meetings with mountains is one man's pursuit to to create a photographic legacy of some of the most extraordinary people alive he has gone all over the world looking for saints and sages to capture a moment of light no one ever knows about these people yet we know about Saints in Hinduism and Buddhism and all the other religions but somehow other than Rumi people know about me you don't find them easy they're not celebrities they're hidden away they you don't anything to distract them from what they do their life is just praying and studying and they live in seclusion so it's been my mission to find them and photograph them and many of them have never been photographed before they don't like to be photographed because they said not because they think it's forbidden they don't want anything that exalts exalts yes to do it the ego yes and so for some reason they agreed to let me do it this unique celebration of sainthood of the true mountains of the Muslim world presents a critical alternative to the distorted image of Islam today this is the true picture of Islam this is a counter to all this extremist position which is nothing to do with the true world of Islam this is peace because these people are peace itself yes don't talk about peace they they are there living it just to sit in their company you feel peaceful all your concerns disappear that's true Islam so the book is really their pictures and then what happened when I met them [Music] [Applause] this this project as it was explained to you is it's it's in some ways it's a contradiction it's a it's a book about a very special group of people who do not want to be photographed and who do not want to be written about they prefer to remain hidden and for some reason I made it my mission to document them and I'll introduce some of the stories to you before I do that when we launched the book in in Bradford and habib ali Jeffrey came to assist with the launch he said a very interesting thing that evening he said that if when you're looking at the faces of the saints and sages if you reflect upon them a narration will narrative will begin to take place between you and God and I think this is a very is a very deep insight how we should relate to them and of course they are not bringing attention to themselves they are in fact signposts to God I dedicated the book to the next generation of peacemakers because they're the ones that will inherit the kind of mess we're leaving behind and the Prophet Muhammad sallallaahu Lewis Lim his constant prayer was oh Allah I ask you for your love and the love of whoever loves you and the love of deeds that will bring me closer to your love there's an ayat in the Quran which says bismillah r-rahman r-rahim have we not made the earth an expanse and the mountains as pegs and this analogy of mountains and these people it becomes very obvious if you think about the mountain you just see the certain part of it but there's much much more hidden beneath the surface of the earth so they really are pegs that hold down the earth and I met a mountaineer Mustapha Salama he his story is very interesting he had a dream where he was standing on the highest summit calling the call to prayer and when he he woke up he caught up a friend and said what's the highest summit and they said it's Mount Everest and he'd never climbed a mountain in his life but he learned to climb mountains and he climbed Mount Everest and he called the Athan and he prayed up there and he since climbed the highest the highest seven mountains around the world what's called the Grand Slam and he's also been to the North and South Pole but he said to me a very interesting thing that when he was ascending the last summit to the peak of Everest he felt like he was with the prophets and and so this analogy is very consistent through this project of course at the beginning of the book is the prophet muhammad salallahu alaihe slam because he really is the blueprint for these for the saints and sages his light which comes from God through him spreads out through these people another one of the Prophet Muhammad's constant prayers was Oh God put light in my heart and light in my grave and light in my hearing and light in my sight and light in my hair and light in my skin and light in my flesh and light in my blood and light in my bones and light in my nerves and light in front of me and light behind me and light to my right and light to my left and light above me and light below me how God increased me in light and make a light for me and this is the mountain of the cave in which Salah Lalo Islam withdrew from society so that he might know his creator God said I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known so I created creation so that I might be known and this is the view from that cave of the surrounding mountains of Mecca this is the cloak of the prophet muhammed sallalahu Aslam which was given to us all Quran II and I'm sure many of you know the story but briefly uways al qarani came to medina to meet the prophet muhammad salallahu alaihe salam at that time the prophet muhammad sallallaahu Slim was traveling and they Reysol quran 'yes mother was sick and he did not want to leave too long and so after a few days he returned back but when the prophet muhammed sallalahu slim came to medina he sense that there have been somebody there somebody quite special and he asked his companions and they described us he then took his cloak and he said find him and give him my cloak now often when the great ones give you a piece of clothing like this it's usually a sign of protection for you but I think in this case that it really was a sign of his will ayat that it that in fact he was a saint of God I now share with you something that was told to me that when they decided to display this cloak because it always was contained in a small wooden box they brought for textile experts to Turkey I remember one of them was from Italy I don't remember where the other experts were but each one of them looked at the cloak and they said that it could not have been made by human hand this is a true story it happened to me sometime in the early 1970s before really before this project began in earnest but once when I was in Morocco I was with a friend in Casablanca when we noticed the very distinguished gentleman wearing a golden turban he was tall and upright and I felt something there was something very special about him I thought maybe he was one of the righteous people but we didn't speak the next day in Marrakech some 150 miles away we noticed the same man but this time he came and spoke to us he told us the story of a man who came to Marrakesh seeking to discover the number of saints living in the city the man went to the local grocers to buy some sugar and tea the vendor behind the counter said you can put me on your list the man was startled because he had said nothing of his project to the vendor later that day he was at the butchers purchasing some meat and again without the man speaking of his project the vendor behind the counter said to him you can put me on your list at that point the man gave up his search because he knew then that the seeker and the sort were one not separate and that the one is the source of all things within every country within every city town and village there are Saints some known many unknown some are so unknown that if you were to expose them as a saint they would pack up and move somewhere completely different their role is to be completely hidden another true story this is the passport photo of Sid Imam habib in London in 1970 a young photographic printer by the name of John was given this passport photograph and asked to make a copy of it as he worked in his small dark room with its eerie red light this hauntingly beautiful face swathe thin white his head wrapped in a dark turban slowly began to appear on the white photographic paper through the developing chemicals unhappy with this print he left the photo in the development tray over the weekend when he returned on Monday morning the print had turned gold during the following weeks John's life took a different direction this was a path that would reach deep into his past and his future bringing him into the present he had become a Muslim at that time John was my photographic printer and close friend and we began to talk as I made that journey up those long stairs to then meet city mama Habib for the first time I was not prepared for this meeting I had been to India I had recently returned I had met gurus and saints but I was not prepared for this meeting people refer to him as in Sano comma the perfect man when I entered that room I could feel the peace and serenity it was palpable and I saw him as you see him in the photograph after being introduced to him he said something very interesting he said now you have two Imams or two guides Jesus and Muhammad peace be a bear sings on both of them he didn't separate what I came from he brought that brought it together it is there's great wisdom in this he used to say the whole world is a hospital and the Saints and sages are the nurses and the doctors in his d1 it says for if a person truly knew the worth of his heart he would give all he had without datian and if a person came to know the bliss within his soul he would shed a tear of joy with every breath he took his seal with which he signed his letters read it is the will of God there is no strength but through God his entire character was a reflection of these two great truths he looked at all creation with immense compassion he was outer peace inner peace and peace itself during his life city mom Belko she used to serve city mom and Habib he used to sleep outside his door at night ready to serve Him if the Sheikh should need anything but when his Jack died he left Magnus and buried himself deep down in the desert and hid himself away after a few years and it seemed no one had taken on his mantle I once went went with the delegation to confirm the belief that he had inherited the mantle of city mom the Habib and we were hoping to take instruction from him his reply was not what we expected he said I'm not a sheikh I'm not a yeah I'm not a deputy Sheikh he exclaimed I am nothing leave me alone his reply secretly confirmed to me of his high station this passport photograph was the only photograph of him that existed he never let anybody take a picture of him not because he thought photography was forbidden but he didn't want there to be anything that made him appear as if he was something he was his humility was such it was I never met anyone like it in 2007 I returned to visit city Marbella Khushi he was now 102 years old and quite frail but I still secretly hope to get the long-awaited photograph of at a time when the ego is everything meeting someone completely free of this phenomenon is like a miracle and I wanted to document it after flying to Marrakech we made the long 11 hour drive through the Atlas Mountains to arrive at his area I met his two sons and asked them you know I really wanted to photograph your father they laughed they said you know if you ask him he'll say no and I said thank you for that we sat in the sowhere and it was not till later that evening that city mumblecore she came down after greeting him he began we began to sing the d1 and I was sitting there thinking I still don't have permission to photograph him there was a Moroccan on our group and he looked at me and he said just take the sheiks picture I was saying no that's not the permission I need I want it I wanted from the share but the evening carried on and it didn't look like I was gonna get the permission but as I watched him it didn't look like he was just sitting there scrutinizing us he was in a very exhorted State and whenever I took courage I lifted my camera and I took a picture I just didn't want to upset the shark but it seemed he was oblivious of it and maybe the whole evening I took four or five pictures in total and they're not the greatest of pictures but I think you can see who he was he is after City mom now be died we continued to visit this area and always we would find city alley there ready to serve us and I learnt of his story he used to be a lumberjack and one day he was in an accident and a tree fell across his face and he went into a coma and while he was in the coma city mum Habib appeared to him and taught him his weird when he recovered he was blind and City Mahmoud before she told him you need to look after the Zarya and so he was there whenever we went there he was there calling the Adhan reciting the weird making the tea bringing us food despite his blindness he was there to serve us and we'd be sitting with him eating the food and he would look at us and he learnt a few words of English and he would say eat a lot sleep a lot wake up shreya and people would laugh like Oh City Ali he learnt some English some years later I was sitting in there in the Zarya just with shock hamza and i and city ali again said eat a lot sleep a lot wake up shreya and she comes a looked at me and said you know he's talking to you that's your medicine see these people have insight some people need to eat more some people need to eat less some people need to sleep more some people need to sleep less and some people need to do more and some people people need to do less so he was telling me what my medicine is because I'm somebody that struggles with eating a lot and sleeping a lot and I want to wake up a lot I used to I sometimes I would come to him and say you know I want to come and see you tomorrow where will you be he said if I'm not in the zowie or be out in the street begging there's no social security Morocco these people live on whatever people give them but that's not their main concern they don't worry about this thing anyway one time I came there and saw him and I said you know I want to go to the Jamaat tomorrow and I don't know where the friday mosque is will you take me he laughed and he said ok come and come tomorrow morning I'll take so I turned up at the Zarya he's dressed did you see him in his very threadbare robes and I was dressed in my posh Western clothes and he took my hand and he led me through the Medina and we must looked quite a pair together and we got to the mosque and he said leave me here and I went in and I prayed the Juma when I came out I saw him standing in the same place and he was standing always as he is when he's standing in the street with his hands like this as if he was praying I thought to myself he's working like he's earning some provision I don't want to interrupt him so I went quietly over I didn't say anything and I put some coins in his hand and I went back to the Zarya half an hour later he came back he said to me where were you I said I saw you were working so I left you and came back he said I wasn't working I was waiting for you see I made a presumption which was a wrong presumption say I often have this thought comes in my mind quite regularly you know contrary to what you think see we make a lot of sumption x' about what's happening in life this person did that this thing happened to me that shouldn't have happened that's not what's happening God is working with us all the time I made an assumption it was wrong his job was to take me to the mosque and his job was to bring me back his job was just to serve me as the years passed despite his continued poverty City Ali became more dignified even stately in his demeanor I was devastated when I received the news of his passing at the beginning of 2017 he has left a space in my life for my trip to Morocco would not be the same without him you know from the very early years of going to Morocco I never ever saw the waves of the shark if they spoke to us it was from behind the door and so I never knew what they look like obviously over the years they got to know us and then I would see a little bit of them they'd peer out from them by the door and they'd ask how is city so-and-so kuchela past a school about your family ask about all the uh as the book was kind of gaming momentum I realized there were very few women in there and I really wanted there to be women in this book but the culture of Islam does not really allow very often to photograph women particularly saintly women and we've asked the joke where are the women they say the men are hard to find the women are even harder to find but habib ali jeffrey said one thing at that lawyer he said it's half and a half half women and half men anyway we have a friend her and i have a good friend of ours he's a musician he's a musician from the 60s he became a muslim and he's never met any of these people and we're always talking to him about them and he said to us before i died because he's had a lot of heart problems he nearly died on the operating theatre table once and they brought him back to life he's had been an out-of-hospital with heart problems but he said before i die i want to meet some of the saints of god so we organized a trip for him very careful trip like just three days not too strenuous and he was about to go back into hospital for another yet another operation so we went to this area that was the first place we will go as we entered the Zarya we saw a leila zuleyka sitting by the tomb of her deceased husband she called Hamza over and said to him I've been waiting for you I've seen you seven times before and then she leaned over and put her hand on his heart and started praying for him we could not believe what was happening they've never met before some of our group were crying it was just such an incredible moment and I thought to myself he's having the pre-op before he goes back for the proper operation she said to him it will get worse and then it will get better so when I finished the book I wanted to show him the picture and everything and he said to me you didn't tell the story that I'm getting better I said well when I wrote the book you were getting worse but he said you know I'm losing weight I'm swimming every day so at this present time he's getting better inshallah Allah give him a long life and she was not dressed like this she was dressed very modestly when I say can I do your picture she went up and she put these beautiful clothes on and she sat before me and none of us knew 9 weeks later she would pass away she's buried next to her husband in this area you have to read this story I don't have a lot of time yeah this is a great story that this was a man who was a drunkard who lived in a brothel and he ended up being the chauffeur for the shack and driving him around it's a great story Murry Abdul Salam I saw this year when I entered this area once leaning up against the pillar he was clutching his stomach obviously an intense pain and he was saying over and over again alhamdulillah Allah Allah Hal and hamdulillah al are coolly how al hamdulillah eloquently Hal praise be to God in every state and these people see illness as a purification you know when we us mortals get sick we rush to the doctor or you rush to the pill cabinet and down some pills we just want to get better as soon as possible but they know there's wisdom in the illness and they just accept it with forbearance I once asked the blind wali of Bothnia if you get sick what should you do ask God or have patience he said have patience until your patience runs out and then ask God Shipman Robert al-hajj Chicana showed me quite some time ago a very bad in the days of video he showed me a very bad video of Schekman rbirtle Hodgins said I want you to come and photograph my ship I took one look at the bad video and said I'm coming we flew to Mauritania and it was a 24 hour car journey to get to to America and there I arrived in this incredible place with just a few tents a couple of mud buildings a lot of camels and camels and mountains and desert and a lot of students wandering around with wooden boards reciting whatever they're learning and I was introduced to visit to meet the shack and I was introduced and they told him my name now the only way I can describe this transaction is that when they told him my name he asked again now if it was a CIA they'd go on their mainframe computer and they would kind of checkout you out and probably come up with a lot of facts that are not true but Schuchman Robertson Hodge was quiet and then he said and he went somewhere far more excited and far more truthful and then he said nom nom and he raised his hands and he made a long prayer for me and that was the end of the transaction for me I do not speak Arabic I couldn't sit and discuss finer points of Fick with him or Quran and everything that was that was it and he gave me everything he made a long duel for me and that was it and then the rest of the time I just been observing him because you learn a lot just by watching these people how they spend their days how they hold themselves and this is a man of incredible presence and very few words and you'll see him doing what he did everyday sitting with his students correcting them if they made a mistake or expanding on it and if he wasn't doing this he would be praying if he wasn't praying he slept two hours a night and he only ever drank camel's milk and it was a very difficult photograph to do because it seemed such an imposition on what he just did on a daily databases but do you know he had never been photographed before and I felt it was important to document this because once he was gone that that picture would be gone and now he has disappeared lamu I got told about the island of lamu in 1970s by a Dutch painter he wasn't a Muslim but he's told me I've just been to paradise on earth of course I was very curious where's that he said lammle island there are no cars on the island and on every Friday all the men wear white when they go to the mosque so I was curious some 25 years later I went to namu they'd been some progress there now was one car on the island and one road and the road the car belonged to the district commissioner and the road went from his house to his office everybody else walked or used donkeys and mules and there and so every memory of the month of Mawlid they had big celebrations on the island and they have dhow boat races and quran competitions and the men do processions to go and visit the great saint happy saleh he's buried on the island and there i met sheikh rocket so Shaka Rockets story is very interesting in the 60s he was the Catholic missionary and he had a dream and he was told you're a Muslim your name is Musa Ali and you should keep company with the people who love God and every year he attends the Hajj and every year he attends the Mawlid in Lam but he doesn't have a passport and he doesn't have any money so they say to him how do you get there and he says by rocket hence he's called shake rocket and I've since learned there's a handful of people who don't have passports but they turn up at the border of Saudi Arabia and they're given something to wear and they're allowed to perform the Hajj I love this story because this is somebody who escaped my camera when I performed the Hajj in 1971 I met a dramatic figure at the Kaaba he was a Sudanese man and he had the most incredible dark ginger ringlets hair ringlets of hair and he was draped in a green robe similar to this one were trimmed with red around the sleeves and red around the bottom and he had two possessions one of them was a very large wooden prayer beads and the other one was a really beautiful can for doing for performing with who for washing before the prayer and he's one of the most beautiful cans I've ever seen I've never seen one like it in my travels around the world so I always wanted to get one like it it was beautifully made it was a still and it was trimmed with bronze and these were his two possessions anyway I was struck by him and I said if I come to Sudan Sudan where can I find you and he said ask for me under the date palm in underman okay so I took note of that and that was always in my memory of course it was some years when I finally went to Sudan and I went to underman to look for him and everyone I met I said you know Sheikh Othman he lives under the date palm when people shook their heads in bemusement and everyone I asked they must have been thinking is it's crazy English guy so it looks like I wasn't gonna find him and then someone told me there's a Shack could shake ass I mean he fast every day of the year except the two Eids but he I went to his area I thought well maybe I can meet him and I went there and they told me no he's travelling but come and sit we will have some tea we can talk and I was sitting there in there Zawiya and I heard outside the door someone's singing the Shahadah ray loudly and in walks check with Minh and sat right down in front of me I was shocked he raised his hands and started to pray he prayed for all the prophets all the saints and all the sages all the Sahaba all the Imams everybody in the history of Islam he prayed for them it seemed to last ten or fifteen minutes and then he got up and said salaam aleikum and he left and that whole time I never thought for once to pick up my camera and take his picture because I was so shocked to see him happy but bin mashallah dad one of the hardest ones to write about some of these people are so incredible and have such a big effect on your life and it's very difficult to write about them I'd asked dr. Ouma who are the key people in Jeddah he told me three people Habib Ahmed schürrle Haddad happy about the Cardosa cough and my own check is dr. muhammad abu bakr but he said my sheikh probably won't let me let you photograph him okay i went and met habib ahmed and of course i as soon as I met him this man was so full of love and mercy and compassion and empathy I fell in love with him immediately and I was just whenever I had spare time I used to go and visit him he used to travel around Africa where there was really very there was cannibalism I mean they were these were very difficult tribes but they he would present Islam it must have been in such a simple way that they just hold tribes accepted Islam they say that something like a hundred and twenty thousand people accepted Islam from his hands this was him just a few weeks before he passed away this Habib was a hundred and six years old I was taken to visit him he ran around like a man of 25 years old serving us with food and drinks he told me that he would live to a hundred and hunt until the age of 111 I never any ever heard of anybody predicting their their death before but some years later I went back and his name was brought up by a young man I was talking to and he said oh yeah he just died recently and I worked it backwards yes he was a hundred eleven I know I've been told five minutes but I need ten minutes sorry this story is great this is dr. Omar Sheikh at the time Sheikh Mohammed Abu Bakr we arrived and moment dr. Ahmad said he probably won't let you take he never let anybody photographed him before so we arrived at the non-anonymous accommodation of Sheikh Muhammad we greeted the Shack and had some polite exchanges before approaching the possibility of photograph him he quickly declined but invited us for lunch as compensation during the lunch I could tell he was mulling over my request he said what would be the purpose of the photograph he asked I explained my project by photographing the great spiritual masters I was hoping to present people with a true picture of Islam and added that I was sure that my colleague dr. Ouma would love to have some photos of his beloved teacher he'd never been photographed before still nothing was agreed and we carried on eating see it's one of my secret weapons is that when you ask these people something they do not like to say no anyway after the meal he looked me straight in the eye and he said you can take my picture if I can give you something I said chef I went on two accounts not one he said you can take my picture if I can give you something I want to give you my weird I said bismillah he gave me the weird and he went and got ready for the photograph and then I really saw who he was a man of incredible presence I sent some pictures to him a few weeks later just to check he was happy with the picture I got a message back he likes the picture but he wants you to come and do another one this time holding his sword there's no time to go this but you need they just that I told you the fact that they discovered the house of sada Khadija in the 1990s and it's probably one of the most important finds historically and when I photograph it there was three days before the bulldozers came in but as it is the actually house they told me later that it's covered with sacred earth it's underneath the marble there as it was discovered and anyway their reasons for not leaving it are their own but for me it really shows the reality of how small the house was that both he him salah louis lemon his beloved wife lived in very small for years i asked them to let me go up the minaret by the side of the green dome of course they always had of reasons to not let me go up there i wanted to put the green dome at the center of the picture not always as a small thing at the back of the big complex one of their greatest excuses was they'd lost the keys but I'm very persistent I asked him every year for five years until they run out of excuses so they said you can go up but you mustn't take any pictures of the green dome and I remember thinking what do you think I'm gonna photograph the air conditioning the loudspeakers I said yeah that's fine and did it and did it anyway of course you know this is the space where you greet the prophet sallallaahu islam but i heard that there was someone that was allowed behind this space to click keep it clean and then i heard that he was being he would be in a house near where I lived 20 minutes away grab my cameras and went to meet him I entered another very anonymous looking house and there i met sheikh mohammed iqbal Abbasi Qadri Ahmad Ani he told me for 23 years I was the doorkeeper of the prophet's mosque a Baba Sadiq he said then I had the honor of cleaning inside the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed for 10 years Salah lower limbs limb after which the authorities stopped his practice as he sat before me a man of very incredible presence he was a hundred and five years old when I took these pictures and he died at the age of 125 I met him regularly in medina and in england and towards later on in his life he was sick in his bed and I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask him what's actually inside there because I didn't had no idea I'd never seen any pictures so I asked him and he said light I thought he misunderstood me so I asked him again light he said three times I asked him each time he said light but he said if you have darkness in your heart you'll never see it you have to read this story there's no time to tell this but this is this was dr. Abdullah Hadees teacher and he kept on saying to me you need to come and photograph him but they do not allow to photograph the Sheikh the show you of Eastern Province and the story how we got the picture as a miracle beyond miracles I have to tell you this these two stories I have to tell I have to tell you this one this one is called the one who danced and laugh for God Hassan Allah we Sharif al-adel I met this man that the the the howl of happy bombers to mate in the Comoros Islands and I loved this guy he is always laughing he is always dancing he was his most happiest person I ever ever met I got him by his self and I said you need to tell me your story he said I had a dream and in a dream I saw somebody from behind and they were throwing their stick up in the air and he kept on throwing the stick up and then he threw it so high got caught up in the minaret so I ran up the minaret and got the stick and brought it down and presented it to him and when I presented it to him I saw it was Habib oh my soulmate but how much Habib almost a mate said my food is your food is not with me it's with Habib Ahmed ma sha so I went and found Habib Ahmed Maher sure and I used to attend all his gatherings and I used to love the food there and then Habib Ahmed said to me it's not physical food do you need it's my it's spiritual food he said then I began to serve the check and look after him so I asked them how come you're so how come you're always so happy he said I learned some time ago not to fight with life or battle with other people but to accept that everything is from God and that's why he's always smiling I went to Syria with habib ali and happy valley said i have to come with you because they'll never let you photograph them and he told me on the way to visit sheikh abu hassan murid in Kerdi that he looks like the Sahaba I remember asking myself how does Herbie Valley know what the Sahaba look like and he also told me that the shake does not like and has never been photographed after the difficult discussion the shake looked at me and said don't ask like if you ask after say no just do it so I did it before he changed his mind and now I'm just want to finish with one last story and you'll understand when I explain it the book was finished as far as I was concerned there was no one else ready to go in the book it was complete and two years ago I made a presentation of this and after the presentation this very sprightly 82 year old woman came to me and she was beaming full of light and I remember thinking she's really at home with all these people there like her extended family we started to talk and she began to tell me a little bit of a story and I said to my wife we need to go and visit her I need to photograph her and there's room for one more and I was really happy it was a woman I went to her house and she told me the story as a young girl whenever she got sick she would retire to her bed and she'd be laying in bed and she'd see her deceased grandmother sitting in a chair by the side of her and she would know that everything was all right and she would go back to sleep and she would recover and this happened several times during her childhood when she was at university she met a Pakistani man and the man said I want to marry you she said I'll marry you but I'm not changing my religion of course eventually she became a Muslim but her husband died quite young and after his death she decided to go and perform the Hajj but before she did the Hajj she got sick and she was in bed laying in bed but this time instead of her grandmother she saw a gentleman sitting there very aluminous and she just again she felt everything's okay she went back to sleep and she recovered she didn't know who the man was a week or so later she went to a bookshop as a Muslim bookshop she'd never been to before and she went in the store and she saw this book on a bookshelf she said to the man who's who's that man on the book he was in my room the other night he said that's Habib Ahmed my shul Haddad they said to uh when you go and do Hajj you should come visit him in Jeddah so she did the Hajj and she always loved the word mashallah so when she was in Mecca she bought a necklace which had the word mashallah on it and she put it on and tucked it inside her dress she went to Jeddah and she went to the house of amoebic med when she entered the room and saw habib coming towards oh he said marshal during the course of the meeting he gave her a set of prayer beads and he said to her don't let it go hungry so now in her sprightly age of 82 she goes to charity shops and she buys necklaces and she makes sets of prayer beads out of them and she gives them to people and she says to people don't let it go hungry and he was her share until his passing in 95 then let your thoughts range free before the mountains and you will find them without doubt to be the pegs of the earth they are among us though we may not see them and if we can learn as these mountains have the science of purifying our souls we can bring back into the world unimaginable balance beauty and serenity it is my sincere prayer that we do and I just want to add one thing you may have ever heard of the the snow leopard principle you know there these people who sit up in the mountains in Pakistan hoping to see the snow leopard they sit for days and days just hoping to get a glimpse of this animal the snow leopard principle is that beautiful things don't ask for attention in essence beauty attracts attention but true beauty does not doesn't seek it out and that's what I think these mountains are thank you for your patience [Applause] Sasaki laughs a city of the lobbying Sanders who masha'Allah this has been an amazing night but we want to continue get things needs to be continued if I can ask city I don't to come to the stage inshallah we'll have time for a few questions and answer from the audience but I want to be a little bit selfish and ask a question that's been on my mind since the beginning of the night how did the two of you met we met in actually we met in Berkeley in 1972 that's the time that I entered Islam and an upload theme had been a Muslim for a year or two and there was a group of followers of Sheikh Mohammed Habib who were gathering in Berkeley I think it was a either in Mel via street or chaning way I can't remember which one and I came up the code I was living in in LA and I came up the coast I heard about the group and became a Muslim at that time so that's how we met that's amazing how we're meeting back in Berkeley yeah yeah isn't it destiny is amazing but first of all thank you for that beautiful presentation both of you at I don't know why you guys but I feel like I'm levitating right now sitting next to you guys well bless you and to make this a reality and for us to have it in our home I have the book the copy of it and it's it's a blessing to have it and go through it with the family and friends and those who visit the home many of those stories that wasn't mentioned honestly you got to read those stories in the book obviously see the Holland's book it these are story not stories just to be read but also to be really reflected upon especially with our children in the next generation to come so we'll open for the questions in answer from the audience insha'Allah if anybody has any questions you can is there a mic city Harun or yes there is a Q&A mic if anyone has a question a mic right layer front left so you can just go and ask your questions in Shaba so Jays are qualified for taking the time to come this evening and share your work with us and also for doing the work all these years a very general question for both of you and solids might be difficult to answer but anything you could provide would be helpful when sitting with such people in life how did you get them to feel comfortable with you sometimes on your first meeting with them how'd you get them to feel comfortable with you enough to show who they were to you either by telling their story about sitting there and letting them and letting you take their photograph how how does that work to be honest I don't know they're very generous for a start and one thing I I kind of have been thinking about because you know it's very much to self regeneration where young people are having photographing themselves in all these different places this is me in this place this is me eating this thing and I've sort of thought about it a lot but you know why do people do this and I think they're trying to find an identity but the thing about these people is that they know who they are when they sit in front of you they don't bring anymore to the to the presence they are who they are because they know who they are you know this thing he who knows himself knows his lord they know who they are and therefore they learnt who their Creator is and so it's just a matter of me really just being myself with them and just sitting with them and then of course getting their permission because I can there's no stealing pictures from these people who you need a permission otherwise the picture is not a proper picture with presence in it and it's not easy you know some of these are quite frail some of them are over a hundred and some of them I didn't want you know I only had a few minutes to do the pictures but I've always felt that I wanted to do it because I had the good fortune to meet them and I wanted to share this with other people and I can't really say more than that I don't know what you want to add something well I would say from having watched I love him and and traveled with him and so on that his his priority is actually seeking knowledge from these people and in order to do that you have to have a debt you have to have the right kind of approach and the right courtesy and the right sense of being in order to be in their presence and I think this is what allows him to to capture these people there there are two very great photographers that we know who have done books that have approached dervishes and saintly people but they don't capture this because they're basically photographers they're they're almost like ethnographers they their photography is very beautiful but they haven't gotten to that kind of intimacy because that's the priority really and so I think that that what's allowed this book to materialize them any other questions okay no questions so we can go to the yes matches right there what was the most easier first step you think that we could benefit in pursuing a sincere relationship with the law and a direct one cannot some of these people seem to experience what's a little thing we could do as a first what's a what's a small or like something that you saw across all their lives the one thing that was a common denominator that they could people can do pursue a direct or or more relationship with the law what's something that you saw on all of them that kind of was a common denominator I would say the the the begin the sort of the beginning point is need you have to be in in in need one of our teachers in Morocco he used to say that Allah there is nothing Allah loves more than his servant with his hands outstretched in tears in his eyes asking Allah and it's that feeling of helplessness which is the key to really beginning on a path you have to get to that point and so I think that's that would be one beginning that that you you need to have people that have asked me how should you approach a shape [Music] one of the olya and I my answer is be needy feel needy if you come and you don't need anything and you're very happy with yourself and everything you're not going to get the same thing than if you if you're feeling almost desperate you know one of the idea said that if you knew the value of distress you would only ask Allah to give you distress because this is what makes the heart and and this is one of the reasons that I wrote the book on Taobao because Talbott is the thing that engages your heart you suddenly in your heart you your turban in turmoil and you feel remorse and you fear and this is a good thing it's not a bad thing we don't like to feel that these things we don't want to feel great about ourselves and everything but really that's the beginning I think I'd like to add that we were fortunate enough to have one of these people in my house just before I left and my son asked him a very practical question about you know how can I draw closer to God and I loved his answer because you know often you think sure you were gonna say to you you need to do 10,000 lele Alaris and some huge and the chick said to him just get up two minutes before dawn and recite 10 lele Allah Muhammad Rasulullah and then just before you go to sleep do the same thing and I was sitting there thinking that's amazing because he's making it so easy and of course after a while 10 is not enough right you need to do 50 and then after a while you need to get up half an hour before dawn and this is how the path you know if he'd said to him do 10,000 you'd never do it just do a little small and another one of my teacher said if there was a wooden barrel a wooden water barrel and I said to you could you fill that barrel by putting one drop of water in it every day you'd say that's impossible but sure enough if you keep putting a drop in every day eventually that barrel is overflowing with water and that's what we have to remember that a small amount done every day consistently accumulates into a big thing and that's what it's about it's about being consistent and you know there's a thing about that I've noticed about all these people is that they always pray on time whatever happening they pray that's one of their top priorities they said about Czech Maru Bertil Hajj that remaining weeks before he passed away he kept saying is it time to pray is it time to pray that's their priority and then you know their humility you know they're the most humble of people when you come to them there's zero judgment they're not sitting there in judge they may have seeing but it's coated in compassion and mercy and they see you at a certain point in your spiritual journey and then they make prayers for you if they see their obstacles coming they will pray for them to be lifted and that's the transaction it you know they always say it's easy and I say it's easy for them to say it's easy but that's the encouragement they give us any other question we're gonna take okay if anybody else's standard as we're gonna take these or you have do you have a question - okay can you stand behind her so we can and then so this is the last three questions in châlons will cosign go ahead okay it's long let go thank you so much for the book reading and the presentation our family has been enjoying your books for a number of years now and you're preserving our history and this is just a wonderful gift and we're very grateful to you my question was is are there any mountains you haven't been able to photograph yet you wish you were able to include in your book who are living right now no I just I just wish there'd be more women in it really it's just because it kind of looks like it's a kind of male-dominated well as Herbie Bailey said it's half and half half women half men you know when I went to the the Mawlid in lamu the great-granddaughter of Habib Sally whose said he's buried on on that on the island she was still alive after the Mawlid all the scholars and all the show.you kuennen greeted her they kissed her hand and I wish I could have photographed that no respect and a DAB they had and this was really you know she was incredible and very exalted woman really and you know the world needs to see them but there's some wisdom why they're hidden at this time maybe it's the way women are treated in this society a lot but they do exist they're hidden you just have to find them so now would it go actually my question kind of piggybacks off of your response because actually when I was reading signs on the horizon I what stood out to me and what impacted me in that book particularly all of the stories did but particularly your stories when you were talking about your interactions with your shifts your teachers and your experiences losing them and finding them and I came out of reading that book thinking Here I am a Muslim woman with a young child who's often at home and wondering how do I find my God where the women and where are they and how do I find them and how do I and it doesn't and and not particularly doesn't it it has to be a woman but how I find as a woman and the seeker someone who helped me on this path and when I read your second book hearts turn some of the stories started to show me that finding those people as a woman it's possible and that you can do that but I still how do you where are they how do I find them because I mean one thing that came to mind when I was reading was I was thinking as a as a mom it's my kid my she because she certainly feels like it sometimes and she lets me know what what are the worst parts of me and and you know what I used to work on and so I'm like okay I could take I could take my my little daughter as my Shia but she's not gentle and you know but yeah and I'm just where's the way where are the guides for us well I think first of all allies the guide and our lives present this is one of it we're living in a society where God generally is described as an absence but we know as Muslims that God is a presence he's present he's closer to us than our jugular vein so the first thing is to is to ask Allah and there's a doer that you can say and the sure you give this door allahumma Dulhaniya la Minya Dulhaniya day Allah Allah guide me to the one who can guide me to you and you ask that from from your heart and inshallah you'll find someone I asked Sifu do love Hawaii a long time ago how do I find a sheikh and he was actually he had the hidden to be a sheikh he couldn't do it he just he he it was too too much for him he said it's impossible that was his the way he looked at it he said so make the Sharia your Sheikh so you follow the Sharia from your heart and there are the there are people that you could and I think if you read the book there are there are people that you can connect to and so don't give up hope and you need a shave I used to visit Shaykh Abdul Kadir Issa who was a wonderful Syrian shape from the out of ala we drew from the outer weeow and he every time I went to visit him he said Haroon you need a sheikh you need to have a living sheikh he never once said he was my Shaykh he never he never said no you need to follow me and I didn't have a connection with him somehow so these things happen organically and I think if but remember that our lives present a lot when you ask a lot means he's listening you know we we anthropomorphize God we turned God into a person who's limited God has no limitations so when you're asking him he's present and remember that and ask a lot to you know help you guide you to the one who can guide you to him and inshallah you you will find someone and and take part and there are people after the this gathering we can maybe talk a little bit about that I just like to add it's a very small thing but there's a line in the D one of city mom and Habib it says if your heart is sincere you will see them without traveling and that's true really if if you can't travel they'll come to you in dreams or in visions or in physical it's possible anything's possible you just have to be awake make sure you don't miss sometimes they're very anonymous mashallah Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi said that what you're seeking is seeking you so inshallah life is a fields of dream if you build it they will come last that was the 1980s movies reference so all of you guys just aged yourself we laughed so I come so forgive me ahead of time if this is crass but I didn't know any other way to phrase it how do you know you're in the presence of someone who's a real deal that's California lingo since you're in Berkeley I have to translate you were nothing has changed so absolutely it's a good question it's actually something we're working we're working I'm working with the collaborator on a book about these kinds of questions right now but the first thing is the you have the whoever it is that you're that you're approaching has to rigorously follow the Sharia if someone is violating the Sharia the stay away you know go find somebody else it's and this is very important especially in these kinds of environments in America and with the west where there isn't a traditional matrix of you know knowledge so that's one thing the other thing that that characterizes everyone that I've ever met and they're incredibly humble incredibly humble and they're they're not necessarily charismatic you love them when you get to know them you fall in love with them but they aren't you know they don't have a spark necessarily or anything they can be completely like seedy Muhammad broke or she was like air and people would come into the room and they wouldn't recognize him monie Hashim Bennett 81 a cup a year or so ago some girls came to Morocco to see him and they went to a gathering that he was supposed to be in friend of ours saw them afterwards and they said did you see him and they said no no we're so disappointed he wasn't there there was another shake he was talking and he wasn't there anyway we didn't see him so then you know as people do someone had taken a video you know on their phone of the gathering and it was panning across and my friend was with the girls and he said no no he was there you see see that's that's him and they burst into tears because he was the one that was serving them tea and asking them if they were okay and they didn't recognize him and that can happen because they're really humble so you know yeah one of my teachers said that when you're sitting in front of the great ones your nuts is being chopped up into a thousand pieces so if that's happening you'll feel it if you feel different something is happening if you don't have a connection with them there's no connection one of the we asked one of the show yoke you know how do you tell who's a real shark he said you can have the best iPhone in the world but if you don't have a SIM card you're not connected I thought I loved that myth Alice yeah actually shake a blue car Theresa he said to me once in the same light he said he who is connected to the one who is connected is connected and he was connected to the one who is not connected is not connected which is a very concise way of putting it I thought you [Music]

Channel: Zaytuna College

Views: 34,392

Rating: 4.9086461 out of 5

Keywords: Islam, muslim, Quran, education, liberal arts, Zaytuna College, Berkeley, Peter Sanders, Michael Sugich, bookstore, Hearts Turn, Meetings with Mountains, repentance, righteous, saints, spirituality, book reading

Id: eEmB44Oh1Mg

Length: 118min 33sec (7113 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 07 2019