PREFACE
Here is the key to the treasure of
eternity:
Bismi’llâhi’r-rahmâni’r-rahîm.
Saying the A’ûzu (A’ûzu billâhi min-ash-shaytân-ir-rajîm) and the Basmala (Bismillâh-ir-Rahmân-ir-Rahîm), I begin to write the book Se’âdet-i Ebediyye (Endless Bliss). Abdullah ibni ’Abbâs (radî-Allahu ’anh) says, Rasûlullah (Muhammad [sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam]) declared, “Respecting the Qur’ân is beginning to read it by saying the A’ûzu, and the key to the Qur’ân is the Basmala.” I, therefore, request my readers to begin our book by saying these two phrases. Thus, you will have embellished the book with two ornaments and will have attained the blessings that have been accumulated in these two treasures for the Beloved to get! Those who want to approach Allahu ta’âlâ must hold tightly to the A’ûzu, and those who fear Him must throw themselves upon the A’ûzu. Those with many sins have trusted themselves to the A’ûzu, and fugitives have looked for relief in the A’ûzu. Allahu ta’âlâ commands His Prophet in the 97th ayat of surat an-Nahl, “Say the A’ûzu when you are to read the Qur’ân.” It means, “Pray for yourself by saying ‘I trust myself to Allahu ta’âlâ, take refuge in Him, trust myself to, and cry out and wail Him against the devil, who is far from Allah’s mercy and who, incurring His wrath, was cursed in this and the next worlds.’ ”
Our Prophet (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) has declared, “When the teacher says Basmala to the child and the child repeats it, Allahu ta’âlâ has a voucher written down lest the child and his parents and his teacher go to Hell.” Abdullah ibni Mas’ûd (radî-Allâhu ’anh) says, “He who wants to escape from the 19 angels who will torment him in the next world, should say the Basmala.” The Basmala consists of 19 letters. It is the Basmala that was written first in the Lawh-i mahfûz[2]. It is the Basmala that descended to Hadrat Âdam first. Muslims will pass the Sirât[3] with the help of the Basmala. The Basmala is the signature on the invitation to Paradise.
Here the meaning of the Basmala is “I am able to write this book with the aid of Allahu ta’âlâ who has done favours to every being by creating it, by keeping it in existence and by protecting it against annihilation. The ’ârifs[4] knew Him as the ilâh. Beings found food through His mercy. Sinners are saved from Hell through His pitying.” Allahu ta’âlâ has begun the Qur’ân al-Karîm with these three names of His because man has three states, namely his state in the world, in the grave, and in the Hereafter. If man worships Allahu ta’âlâ, He facilitates his works in the world, pities him in the grave, and forgives his sins in the Hereafter.
Alhamdulillâh! If any person thanks any other person in any manner, for anything, at any place, at any time, all this thanks belongs to Allahu ta’âlâ. For He is the one who always creates, trains and develops everything, who causes every favor to be done, and who sends every goodness. He alone is the owner of strength and power. Unless He gives us thought, nobody can will or desire to do good or evil. After man receives the thought, he can will to do something, but unless Allah wills and gives strength and opportunity to that thought, nobody can do one bit of kindness or evil to anybody. Everything that man wants, happens when He wills and decrees it. Only what He wills happens. He sends us the thoughts of doing good or evil for various reasons. When His born servants (men) whom He pities wish to do evil, He does not will or create it. Goodness always arises from such people. He, too, wills to create the evil wills of His enemies, with whom He is angry. Since these evil people do not wish to do something virtuous, evils always arise from them. In other words, all people are a means, a tool. They are like the pen in the writer’s hand. Only using their İrâda-i juz’iyya (partial will) that has been bestowed upon them, those who will goodness earn blessings, while those willing evil to be created become sinful. Allahu ta’âlâ willed in pre-eternity to create the deeds of people through their will power. Creation of these deeds through people’s will power means that they are created by the pre-eternal İrâda-i ilâhî (Divine Will).
May all prayers and blessings be upon Muhammad Mustafa (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam), who is His Prophet and the most beloved of His born servants, and who is in every respect the most beautiful and the most exalted of all the mankind that ever lived. May prayers and blessings also be upon the highest of people, his Ahl-i Bayt, on his Ashâb (Ridwanullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în) and on those who love them and follow them.
I received my elementary education at Rashâdiya Numûna School in Ayyûb Sultan, in my home town of Istanbul. I acquired religious training and religious knowledge in my home and in elementary school. As I was beginning my education in Halıcıoğlu Military Junior and Senior High School, the Qur’ân al-Karîm and religious lessons were being abrogated from schools. None of our teachers taught religious lessons. I regarded my teachers as great, mature, and I wanted to respect them highly. But I was disappointed to see them attacking my sacred beliefs. I vacillated between belief and disbelief. Pondering with my young brain, I scrutinized all the information which I had learned as religious knowledge. I saw that all of it was useful, good, valuable, and I couldn’t sacrifice any of it. I remained between these two influences for six years. My friends, who and I had been fasting and performing ritual prayers of salât a few years earlier, were deceived by the slanders of the teachers and newspapers, and they gave up worshipping. Left alone, I was all the more confused. I wondered if I were wrong, if I were on a wrong path. In 1929, I was eighteen years old and in the last year of high school. It was the Qadr Night, and we had gone to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I jumped out of my bed, confused. I was alone in my thoughts, in my îmân (belief); I was uneasy; I was utterly exhausted. I went out into the yard. The sky was full of stars. Against the shrine of Hadrat Khâlid ibni Zayd Abû Ayyûb al-Ansârî, the sparkling waves of the Golden Horn sounded as if to tell me. “Don’t worry, you are right.” I sobbed and cried. I entreated my Allah. “Oh my Allah! I believe in Thee, I love Thee and Thine prophets. I want to learn Islâmic knowledge. Protect me from being deceived by the enemies of my religion!” Allah accepted this innocent and sincere supplication of mine. I dreamt of Hadrat Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî, the treasure of karâmats and ma’rifats[5], an ocean of knowledge, and later I met him in a mosque. He welcomed and invited me. While I was in the Faculty of Pharmacology, I attended his lectures in Bâyezid Mosque three times a week. Afterward, I would go to his home. He pitied me. He taught me sarf, nahw (Arabic grammar), logic and fiqh (commands and prohibitions of Islam). He read to me and and taught me many books. Also, he had me subscribe to the French newspaper Le Matin. He taught me Arabic and Persian. He had me memorize “The Eulogy of Amâli” and The Poems of Khâlid-i Baghdâdî. His company was so sweet, so useful that many a day I stayed with him from morning till midnight. Today, the moments which I live recollecting those days in his company are the happiest moments of my life. Until 1936, while a tutor in the Military Medical School, I both attended the Masters of Science classes of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and at the same time gathered knowledge and ultimate benefits from the preachings and from the company of that Islâmic scholar. The dirt of disbelief in my heart was cleared off. I realized that Islâm was the one and only source of happiness both in this world and the next. I saw that the persons whom I formerly had deemed great were like children when compared to Islamic scholars. I understood that some of the things which they described as knowledge were quite far from knowledge, science, and were nothing but enmity against Islâm, full of grossly made-up plans and slanders. After 1936, when I was in charge of Mamak Chemical Laboratory, he told me to learn German and read The Maktûbât of Imâm-i Rabbânî ‘quddisa sirruh’ continuously. At every opportunity I came to Istanbul and picked pearls and corals in that ocean of ma’rifat. After the setting of that sun of knowledge, I was accepted to the private class of his blessed son, the virtuous Sayyed Ahmed Makkî, the Mufti of Scutary and later of Kadıköy. With great mercy and proficiency, he trained me in fiqh, tafsir (interpretation of the Qur’ân), hadîth, ma’qûl (knowledge which can be acquired by means of the intellect, i.e. science), manqûl (religious knowledge), usûl (methods and basic facts), furû’ (a branch of Islamic knowledge) and he graduated me with full authorization on Sunday, 27th Ramazân 1373 [1953 A.D.].
After 1947, during my teaching career, I strove to pour my knowledge, which was like a drop of water from an ocean, into the souls of the youth, and to instill this knowledge in their fresh brains blooming like buds. From the light of îmân (belief) burning inside me, I wished to throw a spark into the pure heart of each of them. Alhamdulillah! Allah gave me the facilities, and in 1956, it fell to my lot to publish the first volume of Se’âdet-i Ebediyye, which I had prepared after many years of hard work. It was only a few pages, but it was filled with very useful information as is the sweet and healing honey collected from fragrant flowers.
That little book, prepared according to the Hanafî madhhab, had not been advertised in newspapers or magazines, nor had it notices all over walls. The book had been delivered to the shelves of a small corner bookshop. Noble-souled and faithful youngsters, who would not depart from the luminous and auspicious way of their ancestors, who always yearned to learn their faith, looked for this little book and found it. They rushed on it, and, in a short time, not even one copy was left.
The innocent children of those martyrs and ghâzis (fighters for Islâm), who many years ago had won the war of independence by fighting like infuriated lions against the enemies who attacked their motherland, today also, are following their fathers’ path with the same love and faith. And, likewise, they are striving to protect their îmân as well as their independence against every sort of aggression. They run towards right, reality, and truth. They cling to the Qur’ân al-Karîm.
History reveals to us the cruelties and evil ways of kings and the dictators who attacked Islam in order to conceal their massacres and perfidy, and who wanted to deceive everyone for the sake of their own comfort and pleasure. Cruel enemy commanders and bigoted armies of the crusaders were always thwarted by Muslim Turkish heroes. Being unable to pass over the îmân-filled chests of our ancestors, they fled, leaving their weapons and their dead behind.
History shows again that Islam has been the inspiration for developing more intellectual and more courageous people, who in turn develop superior, more up-to-date, and more scientific means of war and other civilized apparatuses. The irreligious have always been left behind in knowledge, in science, in arms and in courage. Every Islâmic army succeeded when the Sharî’at (commands and prohibitions of the religion) was followed in every respect, but a relative decrease in success was witnessed in the soldiers and the commanders of the same army when they deviated from religion. The establishment, the improvement, the decline and fall of every Muslim State has always been closely related to their adherence to the religion.
Irreligious dictators have bloodstained their hands and dominated lands, and by oppressing the people with cruelty and instigation and by employing them like animals, they have established heavy industries of war, tremendous factories, made superior weapons and threatened the world. Yet, in the course of history, they all quickly fell and have always been remembered with curses. Their traps, hastily set like a spider’s web, were blown away by even the slightest power, like the fresh morning breeze. They left behind nothing for humanity. And now, however great and powerful the states which are based on irreligiousness might seem, they will certainly fall; cruelty won’t endure. Such disbelievers are like a match, which will flare up suddenly and set fire to light things such as straw and sawdust. It may burn the hand and probably destroy houses, yet it will soon go out and perish itself. As for those administrations based on Islam; they are like the radiators of a central heating unit. The radiator does not burn anything. By heating the rooms, it gives comfort to people. Its heat is not excessive or harmful, yet it possesses a source of heat and energy. Likewise, Islâm is like a useful source of energy. It nourishes and strengthens individuals, families and societies clinging to it.
The mercy, the favors, and the blessings of Allâhu ta’âlâ are so great that they are actually unlimited. Because He felt pity for His born servants, He revealed through an angel to His Prophets the good deeds to be done and the evil deeds to be avoided. He also revealed the holy books wherein His orders were sent to them so that they could live on the earth brotherly, happily and in comfort, and thereby attain eternal happiness, and the endless blessings of the Hereafter. Only the Qur’ân al-karîm has remained uncorrupted, but all the other books were changed by malevolent people. The more you observe the fards (obligatory duties) and harâms (prohibitions), that is, the principles (ahkâm) in the Qur’ân al-karîm, the happier and the more comfortable a life you can lead, no matter whether you are an atheist or not, a believer or not, aware or not. This is similar to the fact that a good medicine enables everybody to get rid of his pain and problem, if it is used. That is why those who are non-Muslims, or even atheists, and some nations that are the enemies of Islâm are successful in many of their businesses, and lead a very happy and comfortable life by working in conformity with the laws in the Qur’ân al-karîm. On the other hand, many people who claim to be Muslim, and who do their worships as a mere formality, are living in misery and discomfort because they do not follow the divine rules and the high morality written in the Qur’ân al-karîm. To attain eternal happiness in the Hereafter by following the Qur’ân al-karîm, it is necessary to believe in it first, and then to follow it consciously and intentionally.
Those who are against Islâm because of ignorance, learned from the bloody, dismal experiences they had had for centuries that unless their îmân was demolished, it would be impossible to demolish the Muslim people. They attempted to misrepresent Islâm as hostile towards knowledge, science and bravery, while, in fact, it is the protector of such things, encouraging every kind of progress and improvement. They aimed at depriving the young generations of knowledge and faith, thus shooting them on the moral front. They spent millions for this purpose. Some ignorant people, whose weapons of knowledge and belief had been rusted and who had been seized by their ambitions and sexual desires, were easily destroyed by these attacks of the enemies. A section of them took shelter behind their posts and professions, pretended to be Muslims, disguised themselves as scientific men, authorities and religious scholars, and even, protectors of Muslims, while continuing to steal the belief of innocent youngsters. They misrepresented evil as talent, and irreligiousness as a virtue, a current fashion. Those who had faith, îmân, were called fanatics, bigots, retrogressive. Religious knowledge and the valuable books of Islâm were said to be reactionary, retrogressive and bigoted. By imputing the immorality and dishonourableness, which they themselves had, to Muslims and to great men of Islâm, they strove to slander those noble people and sow discord between children and their fathers. In the meantime, they spoke ill of our history, attempted to blacken its shining and honourable pages, to blemish the accurate writings, to change the events and proofs of it and sever the youth from faith and belief so as to annihilate Islâm and Muslims. In order to untie the sacred bonds which placed into young hearts the love of our ancestors, whose fame and honour had spread throughout the world, owing to their knowledge, science, beautiful morals, virtue and bravery, and to leave the youth deprived of and alien to the maturity and greatness of their ancestors, they attacked hearts, souls and conscience. In fact, the corrupted Muslims could not understand that as Islâm was becoming weaker and as we got further away from the path of Rasulullah (Muhammad) ‘sall-Allâhu alaih wa sallam’, not only were our morals corrupted, but we also gradually lost our superiority in making every kind of means, and in understanding contemporary knowledge, which this century requires. We could no longer maintain the accomplishments of our ancestors in military defence, in science and arts, instead we got worse. Thus, these masked disbelievers tried, on the one hand, to cause us to remain behind in knowledge and science, and, on the other hand, they said, “Islâm caused us to remain behind. In order to catch the Western industries, we have to abolish this black curtain and get rid of the oriental religion, laws of the desert.” In this way, they demolished our material and spiritual values, and brought upon our country the harm which the enemies outside had been wishing for but had not been able to do for centuries.
Allah has given all people numerous benefits and blessings. As the greatest, the best of these, He has sent prophets and messengers and has shown the way to eternal happiness, declaring in sûra Ibrâhîm, âyat 7 (interpreted as follows): “If you appreciate the value of My gifts and if you use them as I command, I will increase them. If you don’t appreciate them, if you abhor them, I will take them back and torture you vehemently.” The reason why Islâm has been in such a deplorable state for a century – especially recently, it has gone quite far away, leaving the world covered with the darkness of disbelief and apostasy – is solely because of Muslims not appreciating the blessings of Islâm, and thereby turning away from them.
As Allahu ta’âlâ employs those whom He loves as intermediaries for auspicious deeds, so He employs at evil places those who bear hostility towards Him. Those who cause loss of Islamic blessings are of two groups:
In the first group are disbelievers who divulge their disbelief and hostility. They strive to demolish Islam by using all their armed forces, their means of propaganda, and political tricks. Muslims know them and struggle to be superior to them.
The second group of disbelievers refer to themselves as Muslims, pretend to be Muslims, introduce themselves as religious men and try to turn Islam into a shape conformable to their opinions, pleasures and sexual desires. They want to make up a new religion under the name of Islâm. They try to prove their words correct through tricks and lies, and deceive Muslims with their fluent expressions. Yet, although most Muslims recognize these enemies from some of their statements and activities intended to destroy Islam, because they are very well organized, some of their sayings have become current and widespread among Muslims. The Islamic faith has been gradually degenerating and turning into the shape planned by these disbelievers.
Also, some others say, “In order that we may survive in the present century, we should be westernized ourselves altogether. This statement has two connotations. Firstly, it means learning and adopting what the Europeans have invented in science, art, in the mediums of improvement and progress, and to strive to utilize them, as Islâm commands. I explained in some parts of my books with documents that this is fard kifâya to learn. As a matter of fact, a hadith of Rasûl-i akram (the Prophet) states: “Hikmat (that is science and art) is the lost property of the Muslims. Let him take it wherever he finds it!” Yet, this is not following the Europeans; it is finding and acquiring knowledge and science even from them and striving to be superior to them. The second type of westernization involves abandoning the righteous and sacred ways of our ancestors; accepting all the traditions, customs, immoralities, and obscenities of the West; and also accepting their irreligiousness and idolatry, and thus convert mosques into churches or museums of ancient art, which is the most dismal stupidity of all. Calling Islam an “oriental religion,” a “backward religion” and the Qur’ân “laws of the desert” while at the same time referring to idolatry and the mixing of music with worship as “western, modern, and civilized religion” is in fact an act of abandoning Islâm, turning to Christianity, and worshipping with musical instruments.
The enemies of Islâm should know very well that the noble blood circulating in the veins of these people will not be westernized in this sense, neither today nor in the days to which they look forward to. And our people will not become communists or let the sacred beliefs of their ancestors be trodden underfoot.
Another force trying to demolish Islâm is those books and magazines which appear to be written for the purpose of spreading Islam and silencing the enemies of the religion. But when these religiously ignorant people, who know nothing about îmân and Islâm and who have not comprehended the reality, the inner spirit, the delicacy of tasawwuf (sufism), become authorities in worldly affairs, they assume themselves to be religious scholars; and they write religious books in order to propagate the things which they wrongfully consider to be Islâm, or solely to earn money out of it. It is seen with utter grief in these books of theirs that they cannot understand the words of great men of religion, and that, as a result, they write most of the delicate information erroneously. They introduce some lâ-madhhabî people and religion reformers, who have sprung up in some countries, as Islâmic scholars, âlims. Their books are translated and presented to youngsters as a source of religious knowledge. But, in fact, these books are destructive and divisive as a result of being written by those who are ignorant and have heretical ideas. They ignorantly and foolishly slander our brothers in order to prevent the publication and distribution of our books, which teach and elucidate how harmful, corrupt, and disgraceful they are. Also, we prevent them from making money, and from exploiting millions of people. We hear that those, the hypocrites, who sell the religion for worldly benefits claim that we have been practicing tarîqat, which is an ugly slander againsts us. They try to make us guilty in front of the law so that our books will be prohibited officially. However, nothing has been written about the tarîqat in any of my books. Yes, there is information about the tarîqat in my books, but these are translations from the books of some scholars of tasawwuf (sufism), who lived in previous centuries. Or, rather, we too are trying to read and understand them. I have never had any relations with a tarîqat or a shaikh.
It is true that I myself saw a real Islâmic scholar. I had the honor of learning the essence of Islâm and the highest Islâmic knowledge from him. He was like an ocean of Islamic, scientific and historical knowledge. Seeing his great moral character, which originated from Islâm, I had enormous respect for him. I never heard this noble person say anything to imply that he had to do with being a shaikh or murîd. He was constantly warning us that some practitioners of the tarîqats, whose names had been being heard of before and after the closing of dervish convents, were not following Islâm or the knowledge of tasawwuf, and that they were dangerous. Today, books of tasawwuf are being written in many languages throughout the world. Under the guise of sufism, it is a crime to derive personal benefits from the false and bad practices that are not tasawwuf. It is not a crime to write tasawwuf books, or to praise the knowledge of tasawwuf. The âlims of tasawwuf rejected the owners of this type of tarîqat and informed people that they were thieves of religion and that they were ruining Islâm itself. I, myself, say in my books and lectures, “A Muslim should not violate the law. It is haram to cause fitna.” Would a person advocating this do anything against the law? It is understood, then, that those jealous people, who are my slanderers, mistook me as a munâfiq (hypocrite) like themselves. They are absolutely wrong. I do not use the word “munâfiq” here to mean kâfir, but rather I mean those who are two-faced and whose interiors are not the same as their exteriors. Also, it is written in the book Hadîqa, in the section on the âfats (harms) of the tongue, that this type of nifâq (speech), which is done by talking or with the tongue, is not kufr (disbelief), yet it is haram. These poor people butter the bread of the enemies of Islâm on purpose or inadvertently and cause more harm to Islâm than their oppressors. The unsuspecting Muslims who read their books and booklets, or magazines, especially the innocent youngsters thirsty to learn the sacred faith of their noble and brave ancestors, deem them religious scholars and embrace their aberrant, wrong writings, supposing them to be embodiments of faith and belief. The ignorant people who exploit our holy dîn as a tool to earn money, position, rank and fame, in short, who try to gain worldly advantages, are called Ulamâ-i sû’, that is, yobaz (a seditious person), ill-natured scholars. These ill-natured people and those pseudo-scientists, that is, zindîqs who pose as scholastic scientists, misrepresent true scientific knowledge with their own treacherous ideas. Thus, they try to demolish and pull down Islâm. These people hurt this nation a great deal. They instigated enmity between brothers. They caused civil wars. The Islâmic religion commands us to be united, to love and help one another, to obey the government and the laws (not to cause fitna, that is, anarchy), to take care of and to protect even the rights of disbelievers, and not to hurt anybody. Our ancestors sacrificed their worldly comforts and advantages, and in order to protect the faith and belief of their descendants, they wrote precious books and left them as an inheritance to us. We should learn our holy faith by reading the sincere and virtuous books written by the blessed hands of our famed and honourable ancestors, whose beautiful morals, justice, diligence, and whose records in art, science, and bravery are written about in shining letters in the world’s history. They had also shed their blood for our faith, lest the enemy’s hands might touch it, and they left all these precious writtings in their original purity as an inheritance to us. We have to be very careful not to be deceived and not to let our sacred îmân be seized by reading the poisonous propaganda of irreligiousness veiled in adorned words written by enemy pens! Let me also inform you that Hadîh-i Sharîfs and explanations of Islâmic ’âlims (rahmat-Allâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în) strongly prohibit the interference of men of religion in matters of politics. Ahl-i sunnat ’âlims observed this prohibition very carefully. Muslims don’t exploit the dîn as a tool for politics. Therefore, I have never entered politics. I haven’t defended any type of political state in any of my writings. It has reached my ears that there have been people who, disliking this behavior of mine, try to prevent people from reading and learning my books by calling them corrupt, and who then are bewildered and unable to answer when they are questioned about which part of the books are corrupt. I make a dua (pray) for those who slander me so that they may wake up from their stupor and attain true guidance.
With the encouragement of those who read my book Se’âdet-i Ebediyye, which consisted of sixty pages and thirty chapters, I have prepared the second volume in three hundred pages, and I had it printed in 1957. These two volumes aroused so much interest and attraction among the innocent youngsters towards Islâm that I experienced a shower of questions. To answer these various questions by translating from current books and by adding seventy new chapters to the original thirty chapters of the first volume, the second edition was formed and printed in four hundred pages. Later by the blessing of Allahu ta’âlâ, and with exhausting labour, the accomplishment of the third volume was granted by Allah, and it was printed in 1379 [1960 A.D.].
Though I was not authorized, only as a reward for my admiration of the dumbfounding superiority of Islâmic scholars, for the love and respect which I had towards them, and as a reward for the prayers which I have sent with the utmost suffering in my heart so that these innocent people, these noble youngsters might escape the traps set by religion brokers and attain worldly happiness and the happiness pertaining to the next world, these three books, which were formed with the guidance of Allahu ta’âlâ, were put together and printed as a single book in 1963. This book was named Tâm ilm-i hâl. As new questions were asked, new additions were made in every new edition of our book. In this book there is no knowledge, no idea which belongs to this faqîr, myself. Besides translating and gathering, nothing else fell to my lot. I am so grateful to see that those who read this book enjoy it and benefit from it, because it comprises writings of great and blessed people, and that they escape the deceptions of the separatists and the non-madhhabite, who have been attacking and sland