2008 introduced the natural process of death into the Dayemi Community flow of life. On September 26, Sheikh Din offered the following `Eid ul-Fitr Khutbah, “Purification and Death,” at the end of Ramadan to his Community in Carbondale, IL. 

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar wa lillahil hamd. Let us declare Allah’s greatness that is greatness upon greatness – greater than greatness. There is nothing worthy of our praise other than Allah. Let us proclaim Allah’s greatness. Greatness upon greatness, magnificence upon magnificence, light upon light, secret of the secret, the oil that is the essence of the kernel, heart of the heart and the truest of Self. Let us proclaim Allah’s greatness. Allah, the Creator, the Sustainer, the Final Reconciler, the One who is Sovereign in Dominion, the One who returns us, brings us to life and retires us again. Let us also bid peace and blessings upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saws) and seek blessings upon the Prophet’s family, the Prophet’s household, the followers of the Prophet, the companions of the Prophet, the Prophetic way, upon all of those who are in the sunnah, the shuyukh of the mystic orders, all of those who have come to Tariqat, the believers both men and women, the Muslims both men and women and upon all of the human community at large. Let us pray for peace and blessings upon the appearance of humanity from the start of Hadrat Adam (as) until this day. Let us ask for peace and blessings upon our Community in America, Europe, Bangladesh and Japan. Let us give thanks, on this day, that we are in Ramadan and that the Holy Qur’an has been revealed to us that we might review it and reflect upon its signs. Let us give thanks for the practice of fasting. It has been given to us that we might become more Godconscious and strengthened in our minds and hearts. Let us give thanks on this day for Ramadan which is the month of community that we might be together, and in so being together, we might feel strengthened in the bonds of mutual love. Let us give thanks today for our loved ones, our families and also for that which leads us on the path. Let us pray for forgiveness and fulfillment.

Alhamdulillah, we are still in Ramadan. We all regard Ramadan as a time of intensification for our remembrance and focus. We undertake a fast from those things that we normally would subscribe to during the day, especially from the many things that we ongoingly use to distract ourselves. In so doing, we get in touch with deeper levels of ourselves. The one thing we all universally experience regarding Ramadan is both the sense of, as well as the anticipation that, purification is taking place. In reflecting on the idea of purification, it is quickly evident that “purification” means a “change or transformation” that sheds that which is old, allowing it to die, coming to something new and allowing it to be born. Thus, purification means a radical change.

Coming into this year’s Ramadan, we have seen a lot of changes in our Community. Within the last few months, we witnessed the passing of Malaka and the change for a whole family. We also witnessed the passing of Omi and how the Community gathered around her. We also saw the passing of Kalima’s mother and how she was so affected. We watched people move from where they lived and  relocate here. Having been in Bangladesh with Sheikh Faize and the health issues that he is undergoing, alongside the other issues in the Bengali Community at large, there is this radical sense of transformation and change coming into this year’s Ramadan. The theme of purifying, shedding the old and approaching the new, is predominant.

If you chit chat with anyone in the Community these days, you get this kind of buzz. There is a dynamism that something is afoot and that things are changing – becoming more dynamic. What is the source of these changes? What is the real root, the heart of the matter, in terms of change, purification and transformation? Upon reflecting on the Qur’anic readings this month, the topic clearly emerges – Death.

Death – the great grandfather and great grandmother of all change. Death is part of the eternal circle, the eternal cycle. Death is so eternal, that in contemplating the unlimited attributes of Allah, the idea that Allah is the Lord of Death reveals God’s aspects of Ever-living, Ever-lasting and that Allah/God is Permanent.

There aren’t many things that we can say are truly permanent. We all seek a permanent solution for our suffering through longing. We seek permanent happiness and permanent love. We are given reason to believe that the peace we so long for, and hope to realize, is permanent peace. However, until these ultimate ideas of love, peace and happiness are fully realized, the only permanent thing that we have around us, that stands in our face, is death. Death is permanent. There is just no way to escape it.

Death is our earthly reflection of permanency until our own spiritual permanency is realized. Once we accept death, we have an easier time in establishing the maqamat or stations of spiritual certainty and confidence in ourselves.

Serve your Lord until there comes to you an hour that is certain. SURAT AL-HIJRAH, 15:99

Do you ever wonder, what is that hour? That hour is the hour of death. In thinking of death, we have a hard time simultaneously and synthetically bringing along the subject of life. The reason why death is so scary to us is because we fixate upon death in a static manner. In our minds, death is the end of something, and if it’s something that I’m attached to or prefer, I anticipate the missing of that which I fear will die away from me.

Death frightens, because one does not know what comes next. People are afraid of death, because they cannot simultaneously hold life and death together. Do you realize that in the course of the last ten “boring” minutes that I’ve been speaking to you, each one of us has died repeatedly? You cannot go back to the past other than what you might have reflected or learned from it, so that you may indeed fulfill your future.

All too often, unfortunately, what we substitute for learning from our past isn’t learning at all. It is actually an attachment to our history. The attachment to one’s history, and therefore repeating it, isn’t really learning. Learning is to have had the experience, to have realized its meaning and to have used the experience as the fodder and food for future growth. Death challenges our past by changing it into the future and then challenges us to let go.

Death is the impetus that leads us from a previous cycle to the next cycle. So when speaking of death, are we actually talking about death or is it birth? Death cannot exist without birth, nor can birth take place without death. This is one of the reasons that we refer to Allah as both “Before the Beginning” as well as “After the End.” The oft-repeated phrase in Qur’an Kariim in the remembrance of death, that could also be used for the remembrance of the Source and Sustenance of life is, Inallahi wa inna alayhi rajiiun. From Allah we come and unto Allah we return. Too often this phrase is only reserved for hearing “bad news” such as someone’s death. I would suggest that it’s a perfectly legitimate wazifah (recital) and reflection for the realization that each moment we exist here in this dunya (world) is a temporary moment as well as it is literally dying before us.

We among the Sufis have proclaimed that we are “Muslims” and want to be among the surrendered servants that fully embrace the path of submission to God’s Will. Listen to the words we use, “Islam, surrender, submission.” Surrender ultimately means death. Surrender means to relinquish that which you think you are and thought you have been. It is “surrender” that remains to be. Because of surrender, that which you hold onto or consider yourself to be cannot be or remain. Nothing in or of this world can stay the same perpetually. All and everything is subject to change and, therefore, is subject to the laws of death.

Surat al-Anbiya, the twenty-first surah of the Holy Qur’an reminds us, . . . every soul (self) shall have a taste of death. Expand the definition of soul beyond the romantic notion of your individual, personal soul. Regard the “soul” as the true spiritual essence of any and all things. All things are guided by the nature of their spiritual essence, their soul.

Nothing that comes into this realm is fixed. It is all temporal until such a time that it realizes the certainty of its hour and then it becomes permanent by dying. The one permanent thing, the absolutely common thing that every soul tastes is the ongoing process of death. The creation has been caused to be created and it will die – it will always change. Mountains become sand, and rivers become the ocean as the raindrops return to the sea. The trees that were once small seeds eventually reach high into the sky only to be toppled by a big storm and now lay across the middle of our road at Dayempur. The uprooted tree is then chopped, so we can pass through it and later use it for firewood.

From where we moved, we no longer live. To where we move, we start a new life. The new life doesn’t always easily incorporate what we thought our old life was.

Death from this mortal world is not an end, just as birth into this mortal world is not a beginning. The death of any particular moment is not an end, as the death of that moment becomes the beginning of a new moment. Let go and consciously participate in the death process, in the purifying process so that you can be more fully engaged in life’s journey.

How can you reject the faith in Allah, seeing that you were without life, Allah gave you life, then Allah caused you to die, and will again bring you to life and again to Allah will you return. SURAT AL-BAQARAH, 2:28

The contemplation of death is necessary for us in life, not as a morbid preoccupation, but as a subject of great and tremendous spiritual reflection. The contemplation of death can offer us an idea, a glimpse as to what a life eternal might mean. Isn’t that a paradox? The contemplation of death brings you into contact with the subtle, the ineffable idea of eternal life!

Was your religious idea of the “life eternal” so infantile and adolescent that you thought if only you followed the “good rules” and earned the “good favor” of your God that somehow, in someway that you don’t really know, God will save you? As if after you die from this life, you get to enjoy yourself just as you know yourself now, but only in a prettier, happier, skinnier, younger, virile and more enjoyable form. Picture yourself lying across brocaded couches, eating grapes with doe-eyed fantasy lovers, and you get to be just the way that you are now . . . only more. The real idea of death puts you up against the edge. That is why people do not like to think about it. It is impossible to achieve the adage, to have your cake and eat it, too. The problem is if you eat it, you don’t have it; and if you have it, you don’t get to eat it.

Actually, the contemplation of death brings us into a mature realization of eternal life. We must die to our fantasies of what we think ourselves to be in order to find out the truth of our real Self.

At times, the process of purification can be a painful one. Every Ramadan you can feel among the lovers of Allah two different moods. One is an excited anticipation. Ramadan is here and special, because Ramadan intensifies our focus and remembrance. Simultaneously, however, you can sense the anxiety of the believers as Ramadan approaches. “Oh, no! What will I have to go through now? What will I have to give up, and will I have to burn in this month of great heat?” The purifying fast of Ramadan has us face issues that have normally been kept buried beneath the surface and they inevitably come out: health issues; emotions; mental concepts; struggle with hunger; schedule and work; etc.

With each issue faced during a period of purification, whether it be in Ramadan or any other time of year during a phase of personal growth, you will be confronted with what you are holding onto. You can count on it, especially in the process of transformation. How deeply rooted are your attachments, and how readily available are you . . . to let go?

Let me give you a little tip about how to die (transform) with satisfaction as opposed to dying with suffering. Dying with satisfaction is to participate fully and to graciously surrender into the dying process. A Muslim is one who consciously surrenders. Dying with satisfaction is to actively let go. Dying without satisfaction, or dying with suffering, is the attempt to postpone, pause and resist the dying process. To die with satisfaction could be one definition of the “rewards of the garden.” To die without satisfaction, to be holding on and resisting transformation and change, could be one of the definitions of the jahanam or the hellfire.

Dying with satisfaction leads to “heaven.” Dying without satisfaction is “hell.” To die with satisfaction brings peace. The inability to die is indeed a hell given the fact that everything is always in a process of dying. To be dying without allowing yourself to be dead is a frightening thought.

True death (acceptance) allows the past to come to rest. Do you know why you feel guilt, shame, self-loathing and why you beat yourself up? Do you understand why you continually do not feel good enough for even the simplest, best efforts that you make? There is only one reason. You are still attached to the past, and you use the past as the weapon against yourself which diminishes and cuts yourself off from the effulgent Self that is truly you. This means that you do not allow yourself (past) to die. Not dying is hell. You can’t die, because you will not let go of the past, and therefore, come to rest.

There is an old western tradition, upon hearing of the death of a loved one, that says, “May he/she rest in peace.” Resting in peace means that the past has come to rest . . . no more suffering. In other words the past is dead, has been brought to rest and is now at peace. But . . . will you let yourself die? The Qur’an asks, “If you profess your faith in Allah, then volunteer for your death.” But will you? Will you allow your past to come to rest? One of the purposes of a Ramadan fast is to shed the attachments of the past in order to become renewed for the future.

What is the enemy of our transformation? What are we up against? The answer is the piling up of personal attachments. Things, ideas, projections, expectations, preferences, materialism, emotionalism, etc.

Material rivalry for piling up diverts you until you visit your grave. But no, you’ll soon know the reality, and indeed you soon shall know. If only you were to know with the knowledge of certainty, you will surely see the hell. You will surely see with the eye of certainty, and you shall be questioned on that day about the joys that you previously thought you indulged in. SURAT AL-TAKTHUR, THE PILING UP, 102

How did we previously define hell? Don’t trip out, and run off to your hellfantasy real estate, you know, the one across the tracks on the wrong side of town where the devils live. That is not hellfire. We defined hellfire as the suffering that comes from not being able to let go and allow the transformation to take place. Hellfire is not being able to die, as one keeps reliving and repeating the past.

How do we “rival” for piling things up? We rival through the distortion of our self image. We rival by our arrogant sense of independence. We rival by who we think has more, knows more, controls more and gets more. We are completely diverted in our false effort to try to accumulate things. The very same things that we desperately attempt to accumulate are also dying (changing and transforming). How long does anything last? How long have even your previous ideas lasted? Forever? Your ideas and opinions last only until they are changed by circumstances. What really lasts? However, we rival at the piling up of false attachments and temporary things. Certainly we see hell in doing so, the suffering for being attached and the suffering for not being able to let go. We must be able to remember and realize the eternal.

It is We (Allah) who will inherit the earth and all beings thereon. And to Us will they all be returned. SURAT AL-MARYAM, 19:40

Who is that We, and who is that Us? What is meant by all beings? All beings are every part of the creation (everything), and We and Us are the True, Eternal Self that is the One God. The false identities of self are all in a process of dying into the Eternal Self, the One God. All beings circumambulate (tawwaf) the axis that is the nucleus of Reality. All things that come into being are born, live and must die.

May the Ramadan effort that we make in order to realize Allah, and the transformation that goes with it, shed us of the attachments that we have piled. As we are purified and transformed in our active process of dying we are promised:

They are the ones that say of their brothers (and sisters) who are slain, while they themselves sat at home in ease, well, if only they had listened to us, they would not have been slain. Say, avert death from your own self if you speak the truth. Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. No, they live finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord. They rejoice in the bounty provided by Allah and with regard to those left behind who have not yet joined them, their bliss and the martyrs’ glory are in fact that is on them. There is no fear, nor do they grieve. SURAT AL ‘AL`IMRAN, 3:168-170

Again, let us declare Allah’s greatness. Allah’s greatness brings us into iman (faith) as well as brings us to the remembrance of faith in Allah the One, Allah’s Messengers, the divinely revealed Word, all those things seen and unseen, the angelic realms and of the eternality of the akhirat (afterlife). Let us praise Allah for all that is good, for God is good. God has breathed into us life with a single command, and from death we have been commanded to be. Let us praise Allah, for we shall return to Allah, and in so returning, we will face what it is that we must in order to know the Reality of what is to be known. Let us bid peace and blessings upon the Prophet and upon all of the Friends of God. Let us pray for forgiveness, and let us pray for true death into eternal life. Aamiin.