#14 Serving the Deep Love of God - with Dr. John Laird Wadude

Secrets of the Heart Retreat Details:

Markfield Conference Centre Ratby Lane Markfield LE67 9SY

Fri, 5 May 2023 18:00 - Mon, 8 May 2023

Secrets of the Heart

Secrets of the Heart: The journey into love, healing and divine proximity

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About the Guest:
Dr. Laird has practiced integrative patient care in a variety of outpatient settings for forty years. As an early member of the holistic medicine movement, Dr. Laird noted with concern that "body-mind-spirit" medicine generally lacked deeper understandings of spiritual transformation.
In early 1980's, he organized several major conferences exploring scientific and spiritual perspectives on healing. He founded the Great Smokies Medical Center and co-founded the Great Smokies Diagnostic Lab in North Carolina to expand innovative and comprehensive patient care options.

Although schooled in several spiritual traditions, Dr. Laird's personal spiritual practice for over thirty years has been classical Sufism. Spiritual healing in this tradition is based on deep and subtle understandings of the human heart.

As a co-founder and past president of the University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism, Dr. Laird played a leading role in shaping academic and clinical instruction on the application of these classical perspectives.

He has provided personal healing sessions to hundreds of people with a wide variety of physical, emotional and spiritual concerns. Having taught these approaches to several thousand people in the past twenty years, Dr. Laird is widely recognized as a sincere, engaging, fun and uniquely effective teacher.

Transcript and Podcast Summary:

Transcript Summary:

Serving the Deep Love of God – with Dr. John Laird Wadude

In this podcast physician, healer, and Sūfī teacher Dr John Wadude Laird, who also serves as a Murshid in the Shādhulīyya Sūfī community in the United States (US), shares through his experience the deep meaning of surrender on a spiritual path and what it means to be, paradoxically, both empty and full.

Our conversation starts by honoring the late Shādhulī shaykh Sīdī Muḥammad al-Jamal ar-Rifʿai ash-Shādhulī, who Wadude took hand with back in 1998, committing to the promise to carry Allāh’s message of peace, love, mercy, justice, freedom, and beauty. It’s a heart to heart exchange inspired by the courtesy to continue the healing work of a sacred trust.

We visit, through multiple stories, the essence of ṣūfī walking, where the traveler intentionally embarks a journey of deeper bowing and humility, working to purify the heart in order to receive, without distortion, Allāh’s knowledge, healing, mercy, and favor. Ṣūfī healing acknowledges our innate ability to receive and give as a vessel of light, the central axis where humility meets wisdom and the witnessing of the One true absolute reality governing all existence.

Wadude’s journey into Ṣūfism began during his residency program as a medical doctor. He participated in a humanistic psychology workshop where he was invited to whirl and before he knew it, he entered the music of the spheres, tasting what Rūmī’ said so eloquently: “We came home drunk from the cavern”.

There is much to appreciate in this conversation, particularly the sincerity and commitment to serving humanity on a large scale. Wadude describes the period between the 70s and early 80s as very intense; from starting a ṣūfī community (Light of the Mountains), to building a home, building a birthing center, establishing an integrative medical practice, to birthing children at home. Around 1995, he dipped into energy healing, just a few years before his plane ride to meet Sīdī.

After meeting Sīdī, a series of events set the groundwork for Wadude to serve at a higher level. Essential to this was cleaning the heart of images, particularly pictures formed through other spiritual practices where the lines between truth and falsehood were blurred. Cleaning to see only Allāh. Wadude traveled across the US with Sīdī, supporting him and the teachings; he also helped build a new ṣūfī community and served as part of the faculty in the Sufi University.

Sīdī is described as classical old school. An activist with a very, very strong stand for justice. A learned scholar and gnostic who was already acknowledged as someone who reached a significant level of completion in terms of the outer exoteric and inner esoteric sciences by the age of 17. One could infer that his traditional teaching method of reading and writing the text was handed down as a sacred vehicle to receive transmission, supported by the story where his father/grandfather who had him write the Qurʿan by memory. Most striking is the subtle inference to the loving patience Sīdī held for his students. He was determined to prepare students to serve at their highest potential, being absolutely clear, very difficult and strong times were coming.

Through the recounting of timeless stories, we are invited to reimagine the mystical miracles unfolding of a true gnostic saint, graces bestowed upon the inheritors of the Muḥammadan Light, inspiring our hearts to participate in the awakening and a pulsating hope, to be written amongst those who are drawn near.

The principle subject at hand is love, shaping the contour and context of the alchemical transformative process of healing. Wadude, true to the essence of the name that emanates God’s quality, holds the space for our listeners to flow and merge with the outpour of a quintessential teaching from The Music of the Soul. Wadude reminds us that this book has everything; it is a doorway to the inner mystical realms and a foundational blueprint for any seeker traveling the path of love. A book that is layered light upon light.

Beautifully relayed are statements, encounters, and stories that really bring an auditory visual feel to who this guide was and what makes him relatively important to us today. He paved, as sensed by Wadude, something intangible, real, raw, authentic. Unabridged are the old school classical teachings, containing, and perhaps laying down light for years to come.

Serving the Deep Love of God – with Dr. John Laird Wadude

Speakers

Host: Saqib Safdar

Guest: Dr. John Laird Wadude

Saqib

Greetings, السلام عليكم (as-salāmuʿalaikum), my name is Saqib, I'm your host on The Ḥikmah Project Podcast and today we'll be speaking to Dr. Wadūde, who's been on the path for many, many years with his guide سيدي محمد الجمل (Sīdī Muḥammad al-Jamal) and he is a medical doctor as well as somebody who's deep in the صوفي (ṣūfī) tradition of healing; which, he learned from his guide so he'll be talking to us about that and he will also be talking to us about the stations and sharing various stories, teaching stories, that he's experienced along the way.

So, incidentally, he is also running a retreat in the UK, early May. I put details in the notes of this podcast and on the website and that's near Leicester so you may want to sign up to that if you want to know more and meet him in person. But we had a spectacular, fascinating discussion in which he spoke about how he arrived to the path and how his guide really worked with him on all sorts of levels and cleared things and, you know, it's just fascinating to see. And if you meet him in person, الحمد لله (al-ḥamduli’llāh), he just carries a deep level of humility and presence and you can tell his soul has gone through an alchemical transformation. So, al-ḥamduli’llāh, that was, I met him last year in fact, and I suppose one of the memories I have of being with him and doing some work with him.

So just a few other announcements, we are planning to run some more circles. So if you go onto the website www.thehikmahproject.com there are circles being advertised there and we're looking to do something around ابن العربي (Ibn al-ʿArabī). There's the circle currently being run on the Secrets of Divine Love, the book by A. Helwa; we're doing a reading and journaling circle and that's still open so we are on the chapter on theالقرآن (Quʾrān) and so we're gradually sort of working through that but you're more than welcome to join that circle at any point.

So, details on the website; any questions, please do email us on thehikmahproject@gmail.com and as always your support is always valued. So please do consider supporting this project by becoming a member and I think it’s something like five pounds a month but that really does help to carry the project forward and to support us in developing this further.

So, without further ado, here's the podcast.

Saqib

Welcome, Sīdī Wadūde, lovely to have you with us today.

Wadude

Glad to be here. Thank you for your invitation.

Saqib

So, today we're going to be talking about the teachings of سيدي محمد سعيد الجمل (Sīdī Muḥammad Saʿid al-Jamāl), who is your teacher. Before we do that, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and how you came to be here?

Wadude

Okay, let's see. I went to medical school to become a family practice doctor and during my residency training I took a workshop, it was a humanistic psychology workshop, and the leader of the workshop said, “Let's go out and take a break,” and it was like the first day of spring, we're in the North Carolina mountains, and she said, “Let's whirl,” and I said, “What's whirling?” and she said, “Well, that's what you did as a kid. You just go outside and you put your arms out wide and you turn around and around,” and I said, “Look, lady, when I was a kid, I didn't play. I didn't whirl. I played football, baseball and ice hockey.” She said, “Try it,” and I said, “Okay.” I was immediately in the music of the spheres—that's all I can describe it as; it was like abstract music, it was stunning, and after a 15 minute break outside, the rest of the workshop went back inside, and I kept whirling for a whole other hour. Never had any experience like that in my life and I was just in ecstasy and… and then I knew it's like oh when Rumi said, “We came home drunk from the tavern,” I knew exactly what he was talking about, I really tasted it.

So, that person who led the workshop was actually a ṣūfī. I never heard of ṣūfīs, I didn't know ṣūfīs, but that led me to her teacher, which is a man named John Johnson or Himayat Inayati who was in Pir Vilayat Khan's order and so I took one year in my residency training in medicine, I wasn't interested in learning what they were teaching, I was looking for something much more transformative. So once I had enough training to get my medical license, I left the residency program and then helped start a ṣūfī community called Light of the Mountains, which is outside of Nashville, it was outside of Asheville, North Carolina. My wife moved there, we built our own house, we built out a hospital birthing center, I started integrative medical practice, we birthed our children at home; and that was a very intense time, that was back in the late 70s and early 80s.

So, after about seven or eight years, for anyone who's lived in a spiritual community, you know, it's really intense, and ours was very intense. So we moved out of this rural community, our daughters were old enough that we had to drive them to soccer or I guess what you guys call football and other different things that young girls do or want to do after school. So it was about 1999, no excuse me 1995, I started studying with an energetic healer. I guess you could say spiritual healer, sort of energetic healing, and that opened my vision in terms of healing, which I didn't get in medical school. And so I started learning about you know, clairvoyance, reading auras, helping people with their chakras and their issues, and so on so forth.

And then, in the early, maybe about 1998 I would guess, I had the opportunity to meet Sīdī Muḥammad al-Jamāl who lived in the Holy Land and was coming to the United States, or sometime before that actually, but is coming to the United States. He had a son, two of his sons lived out in Marin County in San Francisco and so I felt called on the inner to go and meet him. And so as I got on a plane, I think I lived in Santa Fe New Mexico at the time, and I knew what it was like to take the hand of a teacher, that's like a big deal, you're really committing to surrender and I really look at it very classically, which is: that’s the role of the student to surrender completely and to be one with their guide.

So I was in the plane, I think: ‘Gosh, should I take the,’ different ways people say it, take the promise or take hand, ‘should I take hand with this شيخ (shaykh). Should I not take hand? Should I take hand? Should I not take hand?’ That was just going around in my spirit. I landed in San Francisco airport; I rent a car, I drive it out to Marin County, I show, you know, I come to the front door and I knock on the door, the door opens—I'm told to open the door, so I open the door, and there's this man just sitting on a mattress in an empty room and the first thing he says to me, he looks up at me and says, “Take the promise.” Like, “Take hand, now is the time.” So, I did that, of course, and he gave me the name Wadūde and I knew ودود (wadūd) was the quality of God which is love but I asked him, I said, “Sīdī, what is the meaning of that name for me?” And he said, “Oh,” he said, “Wadūde, wadūd is the one who brings the deep love of God to the people.” And it just immediately felt like a piece of soul guidance and it was even higher than that it was—it was… it's not about you anymore; it's about bringing the light of God to the people.

Interesting thing was the first name I received from a completely different طريقة (ṭarīqa), this first ṭarīqa I talked about, I was قلبي (qalbī)which, قلب (qalb), the Arabic word for heart, so qalbīwas translated to me as the heart of someone who has been in love with God, you know, his whole existence. So it's just interesting I got two names that were really about the heart and about love and it definitely felt like with this teacher who saw very deeply you know my purpose, my role, how to serve; I’m just incredibly grateful.

He, interestingly enough, so right after taking hand, taking and giving the promise to my guide, there was a new ṣūfī community being built, in this case by his students, by his beloveds and that was in Napa County, one county over from where he lived, and that center was really a major focus of our efforts and he would come often to give teachings there. People would come from all over the country and then after a while, he started going around to, you know basically there were communities or local communities, groups of beloveds in some of the major areas in the country, there's like eight or nine places in the country, where every summer he would go and spend a weekend or a longer time in each of these places. So I was blessed to be able to travel with him and support him and the teachings and to learn.

Saqib

So Sīdī, what was his message? How would you summarize his teachings?

Wadude

What was his message? Well, a little bit about his background. He like, I think most true teachers, didn't talk much about his background, it wasn't about him, it's about the message that he was given to deliver. But it was very clear, you know, he memorized the Qurʾān at a very early age. I remember the story he told where his, it’s either his father or his grandfather said, ‘It was time for him to write out the Qurʾān,’ you know, to write it out by memory. And so he did it and his father/ grandfather looked at it and said, “Well, there's three mistakes in here you need to correct it.” So he we went and wrote it again and there was one mistake in it. So, “There's one mistake and you need to correct it,” so of course, this isn't copying, this isn't copying the Qurʾān, this is like from memory, writing it exactly. So, that was, you got the classical training at home. He took all of the Islāmic sciences; by 17 I think he was acknowledged as someone who had reached a significant level of completion, like weight in terms of the outer exoteric and inner esoteric sciences. So he was clearly destined for playing a significant role.

On the outer, he had, I believe he had mastery of at least four of the major schools of jurisprudence, and King Hussein, the father of the current king, King Hussein I believe made Sīdī Muḥammad the head judge of all of the judges in the Holy Land. Sīdī Muḥammad was the lead jurist, I guess we'd say.

And so he was old school. I remember he, you know, we heard reports of judges who would make people wait in line for them, they'd be impolite. I think within the first very short you know early part of his term he just reassigned every single one of them to completely new jurisdiction and said, you know, “Now let's do it right, be servants of the people.” You know, be just. He was… he was, he was tough. He was given the job. One of his projects I remember was to when the Dome of the Rock had a new gold… I don’t know what you call it? Gold…

Saqib

Dome?

Wadude

Dome. Yeah. New gold put on it.

Saqib

Oh, I see.

Wadude

Yeah and I think when, you know, one dinar was missing in the project he caused, as we'd say in English, holy hell to come down to make sure that everything was done exactly right.

So he was also involved in creating one of the universities in Jerusalem. And he was as you and I talked a little bit, he was an activist, very much an activist. He was red haired, I think as a younger man. He was a real lion: he roared. And I think he said he had been arrested and put in jail by seven different governments in the Middle East. So wherever he saw injustice, it didn't matter, he was a very, very strong stand for justice. So he would, his calling card if you will, he would always say that Allāh's message is the message of peace, love, mercy, justice, freedom, and beauty. And it's our blessing to be able to carry that message to whatever degree we can.

So justice was important. There's a story well known in the Middle East; there was a demonstration and an Israeli sharpshooter came and fired whatever number of bullets and then didn't hit the shaykhand the troop’s leader came up to him, this Israeli soldier, and said, “I know you're a holy man because at,” whatever it was, 100 yards 500 yards, 100 meters 500 meters, said, “I never miss and you have to be a holy man because my bullets didn't hit you,” and Sīdī reached into his pocket and pulled out the bullets and he says, “You mean these? Here actually I should give these back to you.” So widely known and reported in the Middle East. But also another, he would be like I said old school; he would go to different villages, he'd go with a donkey, load up a donkey; and there was the time he got the calling to bring food to some villagers and now this obviously before, you know, before the last 20 years, it is a long time ago but still, you know, Israeli’s used real bullets and the same thing, he comes to the checkpoint and he just walks right through the checkpoint with his donkey full of foodstuffs and, “Stop, stop! You have to stop old man,” and he’d just keep walking and they would, you know say, “we're gonna shoot,” and their guns all caught—I don’t know what the word is, catch—they're caught—and then fire off and he just goes to deliver the food and a couple hours later comes back to the checkpoint says, “‘As-salāmuʿalaikumbrothers.”

Wadude

So he wouldn't talk about these but, you know, having studied with him or you know, late night conversations, he's a great storyteller. You know sometimes you hear these things and piece it together.

And I do want to say, you know it's not all rosy, you know it's not always sort of these magical outcomes. There was… he spent many years to get a school, a nursery, a community center started someplace in Jerusalem, you know, as people know, it takes many, many years just to get permits and a lot of opposition. He was a lawyer, I mean, he knew how to work the system, but it took many, many, many years. So finally they have a structure built and one day he lived on the جبل الزيتون (Jabal az-Zaytūn, Mount of Olives), الطور (Aṭ-Ṭūr, 'the Mountain') and I don't know how far away this was from the Mount of Olives but people came running up to him and said, “Sīdī! Sīdī!” The people are really, really upset; and, “the Israelis and the three military bulldozers”, the three of the big bulldozers they used to knock down structures. So people came and it was almost like a riot obviously, people were really upset at the threat of this building being bulldozed down.

So I remember Sīdī, Sīdī told me the story, so he said, “Allāh!” and one of the bulldozer drivers just kind of went unconscious and slumped over the wheel. Second bulldozer driver, got up, went to his Commanding Officer and said, “I just can't do this anymore,” and just walked, went AWOL, you know, just left. I said, “Sīdī, what happened to the third—you know, driver?” He said, “He bulldozed down the whole thing.” You know, it probably took two minutes, these big, big machines they have. I was talking to him, I was talking to Sīdī on the phone, and I said, you know the natural human question, I said, “Well Sīdī, how did that make you feel?” It was kind of not the question you usually ask a guide or a shaykh it’s like, “How does it make you feel?” And I mean, I’m in the United States and he's in Jerusalem and he said, “Oh, it made me very happy.” And I—and I said, here's my نقس (nafs) coming it’s like, “No Sīdī really, how did you really feel?” You know it's kind of like subtext: Sīdī, I'm one of your senior students, you can tell me how you’re feeling.

You know, استغفر الله (ʾastaghfir’llāh). So, “How did you really feel?” He said, “Oh, Wadūde, makes me very happy.” And then I knew I was in way over my head, I had no idea what was going on here, so I humbled, humbled down a little bit and I said, “Well, Sīdī, tell me why—why does it make you happy?” He said, “Well, Wadūde, over the…” and he didn't have the word in English at that time but what he was saying that rubble, the rubble, over the rubble, over the trash building; he said, “Over the rubble, there were many, many angels.” I still didn't get it. So I said, “Yes. And?” “It makes me very happy,” he said. “That means this school is Allāh’s school, and if it’s Allāh’s school, that means Allāh will build this school.” And sure enough, a few years later, they got it built.

Wadude

So, he was, you know he was engaged with governments, he was engaged with them in you know supporting his community. I remember one of the Pope's came to Jerusalem. It was like a major visit. Not the current Pope, a couple of Popes’ ago, I think, and like I said, Sīdī can be very strong, and he was very strong with the Pope, he said, “How can you claim to be a follower of Jesus? Your…” what's the center of the Catholic center in Rome—Vatican, “Your Vatican has billions of dollars worth of treasure when there are people all over the world that need food, they need medicine, how can you call yourself a follower of Jesus?” And the Pope's security detail move into like, ‘Got to move this old man out of the Pope’s way,’ and the Pope said, “No, this is the first man who's spoken to me honestly in my whole trip.”

So, you know, this was something we didn't see a lot of this in the United States because his United States time was basically spent teaching, teaching the teachings; and I think he had to be careful about what he could say, because he was on some kind of visa or something like that so he couldn't be politically active in the United States.

But he had an amazing track record, you know, when you're working with a mystic, you never know what's going on. I remember early on he was asked to give a presentation at a Muslim conference in San Francisco, or some kind of conference, and at the last minute, for reasons I don't know, because this is like my first couple of weeks with him, he wasn't allowed to give the talk. So he said, “Let's go outside, we'll go outside at the front of the hotel,” he had this big long banner, I don't know if it was a banner for the Palestinians or I don't know what it was, and the hotel entryway was like a half a story above the sidewalk in the street area of San Francisco; so there's probably about 20 or 30 of us holding up this banner and Sīdī is just speaking, at the top of his lungs, giving his message, to who knows who.

And you know, it’s San Francisco, so periodically, it's a demonstration, so people drive by honk their horns, give the victory for victory’s side and it wasn't till later I realized that he was talking to everyone in the world who has a heart and ears that could listen, and he was not only talking in 1999 or whatever it was, he was talking and it's very clear to me that his work, his books, the ones he's published originally, the ones he's republished from some of the classics, my sense is he is, what do I know but I'm just saying subjectively my sense is, he was laying down information and laying down light for the next two or three hundred years, I think that's the universe in which he was playing in. ʾAstaghfir’llāh that might be a complete illusion or maybe he's laying down stuff for five hundred years I don't know, but I got that sense, you know, there's a lot more coming through him than obviously meets the eye and that's true for all the shaykhsin our way, you know, in all the different ṭarīqas, the real shaykhs.

Saqib

Sidi, could you tell us a bit about the الطريقه الشاذليه (Shādhulī way) and the role of love in the Shādhulī way or what makes the Shādhulī way distinct from other ṣūfīpaths?

Wadude

It's a beautiful question that I'm not qualified to answer in the following sense, the only Shādhulī teachings I really know are the ones that were you know, Allāh gave to me through my guide and there's many, many different Shādhulī you know all over the world, so I really can't compare with anything, if you'd like I can kind of give you a sense of how that teaching came through this particular guide Sīdī Muḥammad.

Saqib

Please.

Wadude

I didn't know you were going to ask about love but, I did—my name is Wadūde, I did pull out a short essay he wrote on love, it's one of the first things you read as a student. So I think that might be of interest to our listeners.

So, بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم )Bismil’llāh ar-raḥmān ar-raḥīm), and he writes: When you find the love, you find yourself. The secret is in the love. You are the love, not another. Everything is in the love and everyone needs the love. If you find this, what more could you want? And when you know this, what more could you want? When you have the knowledge of the love, you feel peace in your heart. The jewels are inside you and this is the holy meaning. When you understand then you are the meaning, the holy meaning, but look, and reach, so that you find every meaning and do not hesitate because inside every meaning is the quality of the love.

The love has seven qualities and this love knows no differences. If the Muslims, the Jews, the Christians, and the people of any other religion knew their religion well there would only be one religion, the religion of love, peace, and mercy.

Should I continue?

Saqib

Please, please.

Wadude

This is good stuff. That line by the way, if the Muslims, Jews, Christians and people any other religion knew their religion well there would only be one religion, the religion of love, peace and mercy. I can't tell you how deeply that has impacted so many people just that one simple utterance; and very profoundly, really opened the door for people to look into Islām and Sūfism, actually to many people. And his message was always about unity. But the unity, ultimately unity is through Islām, but very deep message and he carries, he carries—what made it work is that he carries the love.

Continuing: Leave everything outside that is not useful and give everything to God to live inside His garden of love. Remember the name of God at every waking moment and you will find Him beside you, to help you to walk in the way. Be courteous with everyone you meet. Give them mercy to help them to know the meaning of this love. Give and listen to everyone who speaks to you. Listen with the ear of your heart because this is the voice of God speaking to you trying to help you to know Him. If you hear another voice it is wrong. Open your heart to God and God will give you everything and then your heart will feel quiet, and you will see, you will only see the love. Only the love.

You are the reflection of God, there is nothing only Allāh. Where is another? Give everything to God and you will begin to know yourself. When God made you He made beauty. Live with the people on the outside but hear only your God. Those who live in the outside world are like jewels that need cleaning. They need the fire to burn away all the imperfections so the jewel may reflect its inner beauty. If you are not clean on the inside, how can you find the love? The ṣūfī way is the straightway, walking a straight path to God letting nothing on either side, blocked division of the straightway.

I will ask God to send mercy and peace to everyone because He is the peace. If you want God Remember that he gives you what you want. Don't be afraid. God will not give to you anything that is not good. We must see God in the face of every human being. When you walk and when you sleep remember the name of God. When you pray to God pray only to love Him. Do not pray for Him to put you in the garden. God throws out a net and when he catches you in this net then you are in the garden.

Every student needs God. When He helps you to find him then pray and when you look into another person's eyes, see the reflection of God looking at you. Understand that inside every word is a message or sign from God. See the image of God in every person that you meet.

All the troubles in the world are necessary. If there was no darkness how could there be light? If you did not see sadness how could you see happiness? Be courteous to everyone and see the face of God in every person. But know that the people on the outside carry two faces. On the inside, they carry the face of God, when on the outside, the face of شيطان (shayṭān). Be polite with both faces and when you see someone angry or shouting, know Who speaks with you, who is with a capital W.

Know Who speaks with you. Everyone has put himself in his place and this is the station for that person. Be polite with him and give him mercy. Be with God all the time and do not speak with anyone from the outside unless it's necessary. Give your time for God and God will change you from station to station, cleaning your heart of everything that is not good. This is the message of the prophets. It is a difficult way and at the same time a very easy way. When anyone wants to know God, He will help anyone to walk in the straightway.

And the last paragraph: Follow one guide to take you by the hand to guide you from the darkness to the light. The guide will make the walking easy for you and then you can rest. If you go from here to there and here to there, you lose your time. The student of the family of God rests because the student lives in the garden. When anyone knows why he lives and walks in this created world, then he begins to know himself. We are here only to know Allāh. Live all the time in the garden of love. When your heart feels the love, then everything around you is quiet and at peace. This is from the message but not all the message. Live to love and live to know God.

Saqib

Amazing. Sīdī, could you say something about his relationship to Ibn alʿArabī? I have come to learn how he was quite steeped or well-versed with Ibn al-ʿArabī’s books.

Wadud

Again, a question I can't answer, it's above my paygrade, but I can share a couple of things. I once asked him that kind of question, “Sīdī, I understand that you had a deep connection with Ibn al-ʿArabī, is that true?” He goes, “Oh Wadūde,” and then he tells me where times where he was major—I’m not sure what his actual title or role was, but it might have been in Damascus in one of the major mosques there where he would give and… I wonder whether it was actually Damascus, anyway, so he said, “Yes, I just would open my heart and open my mouth and it was just…” I mean, I think he is basically saying he was just channeling Ibn al-ʿArabī, Ibn al-ʿArabī week after week after week after week. He was a young man and finally this guy said, “Enough of this Sīdī Muḥammad.” So, I took that to mean he probably got a pretty deep connection on the inner. More helpful for the people here is that he wrote a book called The Realities of Imagination. I'll tell people where they can get these books.

The Reality of Imagination, I have been told, I haven't studied Ibn al-ʿArabī, so that's why I say I really can't answer your question but I've been told by people who have, this book carries a lot of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s message, you know in different languaging and Sīdī when he writes he goes right to the essence of things. So that's why I'm thinking of it. The person who has published most of his books, Amīna al-Jamāl, her website is www.sufimaster.org; so the book The Reality of Imagination, I highly recommend.

A book I just read from is called The Music of the Soul and you were asking earlier before, I think it was before we got on the recording, how did he teach his students? Well, The Music of the Soul was the first book that he had that was published before the year 2000 and contains many of the earliest teachings that he gave Westerners; there were a group of Westerners who were, you know, searching for a spiritual leader, a spiritual guide, and Sīdī ended up vacuuming them up over several years, Shaykh Nooruddeen Durkee, as you know, is one of them, and many other beautiful people, many of them who live in England now would receive teachings from him and these were transcribed into the book The Music of the Soul.

Relevant for your people who are listening is The Music of the Soul is a very clear guide on the inner planes if you will, for this cleaning of the heart, cleaning of the personality, presented in a very unique form. So classical Sūfism describes the journey from a life guided by the darkness to a life by one with Allāh that has seven stations. Those are the classical seven. In The Music of the Soul, there's right in the first section, there's 28 stations, and our best understanding is these 28 stations are really an expansion of those classical first four stations.

So for someone who wants to, you know, get the inner and outer transmission, that's what Sīdī would have people do is what we call ‘write the stations’, which is the classical old copy it, literally, exactly in a notebook, and be in remembrance while you're doing this and sit in remembrance around certain, you know, passages or paragraphs, and it was a way that he could, he may have had a million students, I don't know how many thousands, tens and tens of thousands of students, and this was a way that it's kind of a vehicle on the outer so that people could drink from him on the inner and drink really from Allāh.

So we would, that's how I started this, that’s how everybody starts, and I remember, I asked him I said, “Sīdī,” we call that writing the stations, I said, “Sīdī, you know I'm supporting people writing the stations, you know the people really want to know deeply what, you know, what's here, what are the teachings? And should I have them, you know pray that, you know pray to your spirit and pray that your spirit will come to them? And you know, teach them on the inner?” and he said, “Oh no Wadūde!” Right, I didn't know the mistake that I just made. He said, “No, they should pray to Allāh and if Allāh wants to send my spirit, al-ḥamduli’llāh.” So he was very careful not to be between the student and Allāh.

But when you have, you know, someone who's given you love and it's full of the wisdom and you know, it was just natural—natural for me and I think, students probably in any spiritual tradition, to you know the guide the spiritual teacher is a veil; and even Prophet Muḥammad عليه السلام (ʿalayhi as-salām) is described as the last and greatest veil. So he was—he was very careful.

I remember when, you know, of course people feel gratitude when they receive, you know truthful teachings that are loving counsel, and you would just say, “Sīdī, thank you,” and he would say, very brusquely, “Thank Allāh!” Every single time. And then, being a smart alec, once I said, I was just full of gratitude, I said, ‘Okay, I know what's gonna happen if I say, thank you Sīdī,’ so I said, “Sīdī! I've already thanked Allāh for everything that Allāh gave through you and now I want to thank you!” He sort of grimaced on that one, I realized that I overplayed my hand, but you know he didn't—you know he would say constantly, you know this, he taught by example. He taught through his books, he taught through—just before he’d come to the United States I know, every year, I know my wife would feel like her nafswas being crushed about two or three weeks before he even set foot on the soil. So you kind of knew who was guided and I had a milder experience of it but so you're taught by his presence, taught through his prayers.

I remember he came to me once, maybe people know about حجامه )ḥijāma( or cupping; Islamic practice of cupping where incisions, in this case where he taught incisions are made and blood is sucked out as part of the treatment. And he came to me early on, and he said, “Wadūde, I told my grandy, my grandfather, that I would only teach the ḥijāma, the cupping, to someone who I deeply and completely trust, and I want to teach that to you.” So, it is an incredible gift and I don't think he taught it right at that moment but he was basically saying what he was going to do and so I stepped away and through the rest of the day, my dark medical mind went crazy. It’s like: ‘Cupping! That's bloodletting! That's like barbaric! That's… why that's medieval!’ And I realized that the shayṭān was just exploding inside me. And, you know, I've been walking enough with Sīdī that it wasn't about defending any opinion I had, it was just asking for help to clear things when I'm in trouble and so I went to him and I said, “Sīdī,” and again, the English, his English wasn’t as good as it eventually was. So I just said, “Sīdī,” and I'm sure he could see it, you know energetically, I said, “Sīdī, my dark mind is—I’m just having trouble with my dark mind about this cupping thing.” He said, “Oh Wadūde, don't worry, I'll pray for you.” And like I said, it was early on and I thought, ‘Well, that's kind of a throwaway line’, you know, astaghfur’llāh, I had no idea who this man was. So Sīdī’s gonna pray for me and I have no idea what he did and a lot of the times he'd shift things that were just in me, it was very clear things shifted, I had no idea what it was. Anyway, I wake up in the morning, and I have a completely, completely new creation around this. It's like, I would go up to you if you were there, Saqib, and I’d say, “Brother, would you like to have a cupping session? I learned cupping! This is the most amazing thing! Come here let me tell you about it.” So in his prayers, he just turned my medical mind to mush! I guess you'd say porridge over in the UK. So, I forgot how we got into that but that was one of the ways he taught through his prayers and…

Saqib

Sīdī, just for our listeners, particularly listeners who are seeking a guide, and may have never encountered الولياء (al-ʾawliyaʾ), a ولي (walī), a saint and, could you say something about what it was like being in his presence? And what—I'm just thinking, you know, in that time, in the United States, I'm sure you've had lots of spiritual movements going on, through experimental sort of drug taking, and, you know the 60s movement to Zen Buddhism and New Age spirituality and yogic sort of paths so I'm sure you've probably had exposure to many forms of spirituality. What—how did you know he was more than just a learned pious person? What was it that—what was it like being in his presence, and I dare say compare it to others but there must have been something that made you surrender and for you to say, “Actually, I don't need to go anywhere else, this is my path; I'm completely content here and I've got everything that my soul is yearning for.”

Wadud

Just in my own life I was clearly brought to Sūfism, like the story I told you, I went to a workshop and all of a sudden I’m swirling and I’m in the music of the spheres and then turns out there's a ṣūfī teacher behind it. So I think that the first thing for me is that I was willing to follow, I was blessed with a willingness to follow, you know, the breadcrumbs where they left from one step to another step to another step.

I think when, you know, as I went and took hand with a guide and when he said, “Wadūde is the one who brings a deep love of God to the people,” I think I started weeping, it was so deep and so profound. So, anyone who interacted with him, if their heart was sincere, would be—their heart would be touched, they would be inspired; they would be inspired to study to walk to clean to contribute to support; he was full. So I think it's—my wife was a little bit different. First time she saw him, she said she'd never been with a person who emanated God so completely, thoroughly. Other people saw him in a dream, you know years before, and then when they saw him in the دنيا (dunyā) they’re like, “Oh, this is my guide.” So I think, you know, for any of these ʾawliyās, meaning the friends or beloveds of Allāh, Allāh brings students to them through destiny I think, and, and often through the insights and the magnetism and the lights that Allāh gives these people. It was kind of like a tractor beam.

I mentioned sincerity. I think I remember Sīdī would often say, he'd say, “Wadūde, the deep sincere is the most important quality.” So what's sincerity? Sincerity is a sincere desire to know God. It's the willingness to surrender anything, anything that's not in the truth, that's not in the highest, and I think what is the hardest for people to surrender is their identities. So, you know, I think it's important to recognize, maybe you guys have talked about this in a previous podcast, Sīdī republished a book called He Who Knows Himself Knows His Lord and I don't know if that was the classical title and I think it's a classic, I think it was published maybe 150 years ago, and it's kind of a companion to The Music of the Soul.

The Music of the Soul book is sort of a lyrical, would you say it's a lyrical—it opens up the inner and Sīdī would give, I think one of the reasons why he was so attractive to us is he would open up inner mystical realms, meaning through experience, through direct tasting, and reveal, he probably had the order to reveal you know the secrets of the way.

And I remember we had a—we had someone from another ṭarīqa, I don’t know if it was الطريقة النقشبندية (Naqshabandī) or I don’t know which ṭarīqa it was but it was completely another ṭarīqa with wonderful, wonderful teachers, authentic teachers, and she was at our one week healing intensive at our mother Ṣūfī Center out in California and we were just reading his stuff from The Music of the Soul, which is, Music of the Soul it’s like an intro book that has everything. So there's some chapters there I've read literally fifty times and still more gets revealed. I don't know how he just sort of wrote in a way that was layered light upon light; and any way we, you know, as part of our healing retreat, we’d read passages, maybe like the one I just read around the love, and I remember she was absolutely stunned that, you know she had been in ṣūfī work for 15 years, she was actually stunned by what this guide Sīdī Muḥammad was revealing; things that had never been revealed to her at all in her way and I don't know why but we've had several people from other ṭarīqas, even other maybe Shādhulī groups, where honestly I don't think we realize how unique it was what was being revealed to us.

It was just a constant stream over 20 years. Part of it was, toward the end of his life, he was—ranting is not the word, urgence is not the word, but somewhere in there wanting to pour as much teaching and as much light into people as possible. He was very clear that very difficult and strong times are coming, absolutely clear about that; and he wanted people to be able to be in these strong times without losing their witnessing of Allāh in their alignment with Allāh and their guidance that they receive from Allāh. So I have no doubt that, you know, this sort of polycrises world that we live in is, you know, maybe just the beginning, who knows, but he was trying to prepare people; to help provide people who could help during strong times.

So he was, you know, a lot of the New Age movements you mentioned, and I was involved in several of them, you know very attractive and they can sort of open the heart and open the spirit; Sīdī was very old school though. When he was in the United States apparently he was sort of much more—I don't know what the word would be, but he said, I remember he said, “Fifteen years ago, when I was teaching if somebody didn't open their heart to Allāh within three minutes it was like I was done with them.” So he was, I mean he, on the outside he looks kind of gruff; if you're only looking, he looks austere, might be a better word, he looks austere most of the time, but by the time he was in the United States, I mean, you know, we have, united the Americans we have so many nafs and some ways we're so informal and some ways so clueless and we don't have the traditional patience of Islām; I'm sure he had to be very, very tolerant of our culture and our nafs and so he was very patient, very patient.

He did teach healing, so that goes to another piece, is: a lot of us, a lot of us had been energetic healers, spiritual, so called spiritual healers before he came and so I think that was a hook. You know he was a Master Healer, his grandfather was a Master Herbalist, so he was a Master Herbalist, and he had this deep, deep tradition in Islām. So he would teach us healing, a lot of it which was just piece after piece of, you know,القرآن آيات )Qurʾānic ʾāyāts(and دعاء )duʿas( and stuff like that.

Like I said, we came from a kind of a strong clairvoyant background, which isn't necessarily an Islāmic trait but some of our teachers would, you know, you could talk to Sīdī and say, you know, “I see this on the inside, and this is what's going on the outside,” and, you know, get some of those avenues of perception cleaned.

But it was different than the New Age and how can I explain it? So there's our senior teachers right from the beginning, so one of them her name is Salīma Adelstein, and she co-founded and is kind of Co-Director now at the Farm of Peace, which is in Warfordsburg Pennsylvania, established center there. Anyway, she was a very accomplished clairvoyant, fully clairvoyant, spiritual healer, very accomplished and Sīdī called her over to Jerusalem in the early days and where she spent a month in his زاوية (zāwiya), you know we were talking a little bit about before. And so she would be writing the stations and doing whatever practices he suggested of her and Sīdī’s wife had a, as I understand it, I never met her, but she had a kind of a congenital lung ailment. So she had pulmonary problems her whole life. So Sīdī said to Salīma, he said, “My daughter, go, go into the next room where my wife is, and please give her a healing.”

So when word got out that the shaykhhad sent this American healer in to heal his wife, and what I picture is kind of a small room, and just dozens and dozens of people crowding in around, you know the wife's on the bed, and Salīma’s you know standing there, maybe sitting near the foot of the bed, and everybody's around, you know, the pressures on, you know ‘What's—what’s this healer going to be able to do?’ and she goes to her, you know her go to clairvoyance, to try to get a sense of what's really going on. And she like I said she's very energetically sensitive and she became aware that Sīdī was in the next room watching CNN International News and while he was watching the news, she was very aware that his spirit came and completely closed down her clairvoyance. And so she was blind you could say. And I can only imagine even if you only have a little nafs that must have been really stressful. So, what happened was, you know, she just you know she’s like, “Okay, what is Allāh making? What is my guide making?” and how I understand it happening, you know I think it would make sense, is that in terms of how it came out in the end is Sīdī’s spirit guided her to see through the eye of the heart rather than to see through the eye of the third eye. And this is seen through the eye of the heart that is in deep and complete surrender to Allāh and then Allāh puts the knowledge and wisdom in your heart. And that started a whole new way of healing for us.

And it’s… yeah, it's just opening the eye of the heart and then of course, opening, healing is really a fantastic weaning system or walking to Allāh. Because when—I wasn't gifted in the beginning with those kinds of clairvoyant impressions and so it took me a while to realize that I was given the information in different ways through my heart, but healings were kind of scary for me, somebody sits down in front of you, and you know it's not psychology, I can do psychology and inner child work and some personality work and all that stuff, but this is a much deeper way. And so, we've had a chance to teach hundreds, probably thousands of people in healing, and it's great because you're sitting there, you want only the best; you want for the person who it is for Allāh; you're praying deeply for them; you have to show up you know truly that: “Allāh, I have nothing. You are everything. Without your Life there's no healing, without your Knowledge there's no knowledge. You know, I'm clueless.”

And to be constantly in that deep praying, that deep sense of not knowing but not collapsing into ‘I don't know anything!’ but you know, opening your heart, your soul, your spirit, trusting what you get, giving it, and being in a place of not knowing and deep praying and you know just, constantly like being in service in that deep way, being in the deep praying, being in the not knowing, trusting and giving what Allāh gives you. It's—it’s rocket fuel for one's walking and so I think Sīdī was smart enough to see we had a, you know, a deep hunger for this knowledge.

And it wasn't always easy. You know, Ibrahīm Jaffe, was essentially kind of the teacher of this former energetic way of healing, a medical doctor like myself. When—when he came to Sīdī, next to his stories in another way, you know, how do people come to a guide, Ibrahīm had felt that his—he’d had gotten an inner message that he was—he was going to die of heart disease in six months and he said, “Wow, if that's true, I better find a Master of Love.” So he went on the guru hunt for a Master of Love. He was brought to Sīdī and he went to Sīdī, and Ibrahīm had been in a Hindu tradition, so he went to bow down at Sīdī’s feet and he said, “No, no, no! We don't do that in this tradition.” And so Ibrahīm said, well Sīdī said, “I have a message from Allāh for you.” And Ibrahīm said, “Well what's that?” and he said, “Well, Allāh wants you to know that you didn't understand His message. His message wasn't that you'll die in six months. His message was, if you don't change your ways, you'll die in six months.” So the fact that this guide had picked up this inner guidance that Ibrahīm had gotten a couple months ago, you know, it was enough for him to say, “This guide knows and I don't.” But, with the story being, the first thing that the guide told him was: “Close your school.” “Close your healing school for six months and go rest,” and you know, essentially, you know you’d think maybe you're enlightened but in our way you're a beginner.

So that's a pretty strong, strong, strong opening and from Sīdī, it's like Rūmī’s, Shams throwing Rūmī’s academic works in the well. So, you know, to Ibrahīm’s credit, he did that, and then came back and step after steps, you know, Sīdī taught us the healing work. And so that has blossomed into what's now called the Sufi University in the United States and there's even some students from Europe who come over, mainly the UK. So that work is sort of evolving, and they're, you know teaching people basics of ṣūfī walking, basics of the healing, and some of the advanced healing to.

Saqib

Sīdī, could you say just a bit more with regards to the healing? You mentioned it’s energetic healing. Is it similar to Reiki? What sort of happens when you do this? And how did Sīdī learn of this healing tradition? I mean, you mentioned his grandfather was a herbalist, but was this part of the Shādhulī way? Or was this something distinct?

Wadud

I honestly don't know that. I don't know. Like I said I don't know other things that may have been something that he brought through from the guidance he was receiving. Like I said there's you know there's a lot of Qurʾānic ʾāyāts of healing and classical duʿasso in that sense it’s very, very similar, you know, it's classical Islāmic, you know remedies, duʿas, herbal preparations, as essential oils, so on and so forth. You know I think that because we were a group of energetic spiritual healers, you know we had a chance to, I don’t know how to say this, it's a very subjective thing, to look into the inner, and there's definitely strong streams of Islām that says that's not possible, you know only the Prophet ﷺ sees, or nobody can see, you know in inner worlds in the hidden, but it is very, very clear that our guide could see into the inner worlds and I’ve already given half a dozen stories today, it was very clear, you know, this is given to people and I remember when Sīdī was teaching me the cupping for Lyme disease and we had people in our healing tradition, I mean people after they'd been in Sīdīs teachings, would often say to a client, “Allāh shows me this,” and “Allāh shows me that,” and Sīdī would be very strong with us to not say that for all variety of reasons. So, and then some people would, you know, say, “Oh, yeah, well, nobody can see in the inner so nobody should ever say that.” So we had some sort of doctrinal disputes in our organization over the years.

I remember when he was teaching me where to place cups, there's a Lyme’s patient there, and he goes, “So Wadūde, put the cup here,” and he’d say, “Wadūde, Allāh shows me to put the cup here.” He said it three or four times and I said, “Sīdī, when I'm giving cuppings to people, my, you know, my feeling, my interpretation, my experiences, that Allāh is showing me often where to put the cups. Is that true? Or am I in illusion?” You know, because I didn't want to be in illusion. He said, “Of course Allāh shows you!” So I think he was saying that, for any of us, like when Allāh shows us anything, it's a jewel and it's not to be shared, it's not to make claims. You know, “Saqib, you should do this, because Allāh shows me.” No, you know, if we have advice for other people we can be indirect, we can offer it, but you know, don't make any claims because then it sounds like lordship.

And so how does the healing happen? I think in essence it's prayer and to Allāh there's—I should say there's a lot of expansion to this work at the Sufi University where they're looking at, you know encouraging students to be able to perceive the different lights of the different qualities, so they have a sense of what qualities Allāh is sending and then supporting it very directly. So in that sense you could say there's an aspect of it that's quality centric. Another aspect that sort of grew out of the work is that you know there's these 28 stations, there's the seven classical stations, so the healing work is often tied to what station might the person be in and what is the primary issue or quality that Allāh is asking them to transform or to heal. And then, so the healing session is not just: “I'm really upset at my brother in law today,” or “I've just lost a job,” or “I'm feeling depressed,” it's more, it has a much larger context and it's like, “What is Allāh making?” and “What are the steps to—what are the steps to take?” so that not only there can be a resolution you might say, the physical psychological level, for that one's nafs, their soul, their spirit, are walked closer and closer to fulfillment, like literally walking through the stations. So I don't know if anyone else does that. I'm sure there's streams in Islām would say this is innovation but you know our guide watched it very carefully.

When he came, like I said, there was already this healing school that was going on, this sort of energetic healing school, and he would be you know in this public, you know these weekends at different centers around the country, and he would just be banging on us senior teachers, I mean, just banging on us and wanting to clean these habits we had which was sort of clairvoyant or energy medicine or energy healing, and, you know, something that's not directly from Allāh. That's basically for him you know there's only Allāh so you need to learn how to heal only from Allāh; and that’s your images of, you know, the divine female or the divine male or the archetypal angel or whatever like that. So he spent years cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and he would, he would bring us over the coals indirectly without naming any names in public, but we all knew who he was talking to.

So, like I said, he was a strong classical teacher. So, we're in Florida one day, and, one year, and people would come up to him, you know, in between lectures, people would come up to him and somebody came up to him and Sīdī said, “You should go to the Sufi University.” It was probably about seven or eight years ago, or 10 years ago. He said, “You should go to the Sufi University!” and apparently his mic was on so you could get to hear everything. So he said, “You should go to the Sufi University,” and the student said, “Well Sīdī I have already gone to the University, I got a degree three years ago.” He said, in a booming voice, he said, “You got a degree from the University of the Rubbish! I have cleaned that university now!” And I remember it because I was sitting next to Mary Ḥalīma Fleming who was kind of the center leader in Florida but also she had a day job of doing marketing for the Sufi University and she was just like—I think I just imagined she was like horrified by what he just said and I just said to her, I said, “Mary Ḥalīma just look at the bright spot, you can just go back to everybody who's graduated from the University, they only got a degree from the University of the Rubbish and now they need to go back again.” Always market to your existing customers first.

So, so I think it was, I mean, it's very clearly Allāh centered and, you know, as you know, the farther one walks—how to say this, the farther one walks the narrower the path gets, the less room there is for illusion and nafs and shayṭān and the more bowed and surrendered one must be so the healing, and I'm not sure how or why this is true, I mean I have ideas, but as I watched students, the further they have walked in let’s say this classical way, this classical ṣūfī way, which I think is very, very, very common in all the ṭarīqas, it's delivered in different ways, but the more one walks, the further one walks, the higher one walks, whatever languaging you want to use, we would say through the stations, the level of healing, the light of healing, the purity of healing, it's reflected in their walking.

Now obviously Allāh could send a complete healing through a beginner and someone who's very advanced might not be able to heal anything. But when I see you know, dozens, dozens, hundreds of people there's a difference. So this healing is dependent on Allāh and it's dependent on one's walking, their purification, that is absolutely central. It's true in some ways, to some degree in some of those healing modalities, you mentioned some of the New Age things, and in a lot of them it's not really true at all. So it has some additional things like I said it's really tied to the walking; there's an interest in many people on you know what is being shown on the inner, which is really Allāh revealing Allāh’s knowledge.

So there's, relative to this conversation, there's another book that Sīdī published, and this may have Ibn al-ʿArabī in it too, but it was called, this one is called The Realities of Gnosis, and actually that's another thing, so The Realities of Gnosisis about developing gnostic abilities and that's, you know, that really comes in the fifth and sixth classical stations in the walking. So I think it's a book, that and The Realities of Imagination, I think support the walking in the fifth and sixth stations of the seven classical stations.

A last thing I'd say in answer to your question, and I hope this is of interest to people, this book that I mentioned He Who Knows Himself Knows His Lord, one sec, lost that thread for a moment, I think also goes to your question about ṭarīqa, training, and Sūfism, but also healing. So in this classical book and it's kind of a deep dive into the first three stations of the seven, in the second station of the nafs in that book it talks about the difference of the path of the righteous versus the path of those brought near. Have you run into that or anyone talked about that?

Saqib

Yeah, yeah.

Wadud

Yeah, so just to be brief, in case people haven't heard of that, the path of the righteous would be someone who you can say fulfills the first and second stations of the nafs, and the first and second stations of the nafs meaning of the first two of the seven, and that person is like what we might call in English a good person. Maybe they get angry, and if they get angry, then they do what's necessary to clear the anger and you know, not be an angry person; maybe they go apologize to the other person; you know if they make a mistake they try to correct the mistake and generally like a good person. So I mean lots and lots of righteous people. But the classic author here basically was saying that Sūfism, and honestly, by extension, Islām, we shouldn't be making a separation between Sūfism and ʾIslām, but Sūfism is the path of the ones brought near or to put it this way, anyone who was attracted to and finds themselves in front of a teacher like Sīdī Muḥammad in the ṣūfī way I think should assume that Allāh is putting them on what this book calls the ones of the paths brought near.

What's the difference? The author gives an example of a tree that produces poisonous fruits, and one who's on the path of the righteous sees the poisonous fruit and cuts it off the branch, gets rid of that poison. But, you know next time there's rain or whatever, the tree branch produces another poison and then the traveler has to cut that poison off and then the next poison off and the next poison. And as the author said, there's no rest. Because these, metaphorically these faults of the nafs keep showing up. The ones brought near are—their journey is to take these classically called blameworthy qualities: anger, lust, greed, power, all those things, to take it out by the root. So how do you do that? In the metaphor you pull up the tree or you cut it off from all water or you know so that there's no more poisonous roots being done.

In anger, say someone comes to me and they have anger, you know there's all sorts of, there's psychology and different approaches that could help someone express their anger, it can help someone you know maybe understand why they're angry, maybe walk them to forgiveness or know what their trigger is, you know all—all praiseworthy. But how do you pull anger out by the root so that there's no more anger in the being? And we're not talking about, you might say healthy righteous anger, but we're talking about anger that comes from the nafs, anger that comes from the shayṭān, which is 99% of the anger you and I experience.

So, how do you pull anger out by the root? Well, these authors say, what's the translation? Boasting and conceit is the root of anger. So when I you know explored this teaching with students, how it would come out at least in American English it would be arrogance. “How dare they?” “I don't deserve it.” “I know they don't know.” So yes, you can, you know in this work if someone has anger, we would be asking Allāh where do they hold it in their body. So anger might be held in the heart, it might be held in the gut, the solar plexus, and then bringing the remembrance if you will, bringing the remembrance to that part of their body, encouraging the person to open their heart to the name Allāh or لا اله الا الله (lā ilāha illā’llāh), those are different ذكر (dhikrs) that have different healing qualities let's say, but helping the person open to receive Allāh’s Light, which may be specific qualities or maybe just Allāh’s general Light and we may not know what the specific qualities are, but helping to receive and receive and receive and receive and open and open and open until that clears. And then to see what's behind that and what's behind that and what's behind that. So some of it is, our guide would always say, “Don’t stop with the outside pictures,” to keep going behind. And you know that from our workshop, we're doing that a lot when we're leading people in terms of clearing shayṭān.

So ultimately, a lot of times the root of anger, like the anger is a doorway to arrogance; and so cleaning, arrogance, boasting, conceit, kind of the same process, you know what are the voices, pictures, beliefs, identities, experiences from the past? You know, we talked a lot about in the workshop we were with at with you there’s conceptions from childhood, things that we've, you know, hold as true which are not true, idols that we bow down to as certain identities.

So, same thing, though, basically, the healing is encouraging the people, supporting them in opening to Allāh’s Light and helping to wash the heart or the solar plexus. There are healings that take place in the soul there are healing issues that are in the secret. So all of these things become fair game and hence where Allāh guides it and so it's—it’s worlds away from the healing that I was taught, you know, initially. And, you know when Allāh sends the Light and these things clear, there's nothing you can say other than al-ḥamdulil’llāh. There are ways in which the healers, might encourage the flow of the Light themselves, it's not totally passive, but you know Allāh’s the boss, it's in Allāh’s hand. I hope that gives you a little sense of the healing process.

Saqib

Yes, al-ḥamdulil’llāh.

Sīdī, last question, did, and I’m weary of time.

Wadude

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Saqib

And I've taken a lot of your time already. Did Sīdī ever mention or talk about his own training he received from his teacher الشيخ عبد الرحمن ابو ريشة (Shaykh Abdul-Raḥmān Abū-Rīsha), al-Ḥalab from Syria?

Wadude

Not to me. I think there might have been one or two people maybe in our group he talked to, probably his family or friends. But like I said, he didn't talk much about his own.

Saqib

All right.

Wadude

He loved to say that he was nothing and he was less than the ant.

Saqib

سبحان الله (subḥan’llāh(. Sīdī, it's been absolutely wonderful talking to you and I do hope we can continue this conversation in another dialogue, another podcast, another time.

Wadude

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you and to be with your listeners and I hope there was something of real value here that people can take and enrich their lives and find more beauty and health and healing and they’re very beautiful and sacred topics. They're all dear to my heart. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to dialogue with you and wish your podcast much success.