The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship
Online Library
The Children of Adam (AS.)
A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life.
May God protect us from satan, the rejected one. (A'udhu billahi minash-shaitanir-rajim.) In the name of God, the Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. (Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim.) May all praise and praising be to Allah, the One who is limitless grace and incomparable love, the One who gives us of His infinite wealth of grace. May He bestow His beneficence and His grace upon us. Amin.
He is the One who is the most worthy. With Your grace and beneficence, may You protect us. We need Your help throughout our life. Even in death we need Your help. We need Your help for eternal life (hayat). We need Your help in the hereafter (akhirah), and we need Your help in this world (deny). You are the Father for our lives, the Father who protects us, the Father who sustains us, the Father who creates us and protects us. You are the One who gives us Your grace, the One who is the infinite wealth. You create the light of our soul with such beauty and You protect us. We need Your help everywhere. May You protect us, O God. Amin. Amin.
My love you, my brothers and sisters, my daughters and sons, my grandsons and granddaughters. My love you. The creations of God are of many different kinds. We are the children of Adam (AS.). We are all children of one father and mother. Adam (AS.) was created by God out of clay, without a father and mother. Then God took one rib from Adam (AS.) and created Hawwa' (Eve) (AS.). Thus, He also created Hawwa' (AS.) without a father. And in the same way, God created Jesus (AS.) without a father, without semen. So Adam, Hawwa', and Jesus (may the peace of God be upon them all), these three beings were created without semen.
The children of Adam (AS.), all who have faith in God and who trust in God are from the family of Abraham (AS.), while those who have lost their faith belong to satan and are from the family of satan. They have changed, and their lives have become lost. All who have faith and who have patience (sabur) belong to the tribe of Abraham (AS.), and it is this state which makes them followers of Muhammad (SAL.). They are the same tribe, the same group, with the same truth, all brothers and sisters in one family.
It is unity that creates one family, one tribe. There are three aspects to that unity. We all are in one family with the same father and mother, Adam and Eve (AS.). We all have one ancestry, the tribe of Abraham (AS.). And we all are the followers of Muhammad (SAL.); that is, we love, trust, and believe in the One God. Twenty-five prophets have been mentioned in the Qur'an. God gave the same teaching to each of these prophets, one after the other. These twenty-five were amongst 124,000 prophets that God sent down. They could speak with God. Allah spoke to them from within. Other times He spoke to them through Gabriel (AS.), with Gabriel (AS.) as the witness. At other times, He spoke from within them, as grace-to the wise men, to the saints of God, the prophets, the explainers of wisdom, the lights, the learned ones and scholars, the ancient astrologers, and many others.1 We have to reflect upon these things.
Our beauty is within us, our search is within us, and our paradise is within us. Heaven is within us. Each person's search, his paradise, his beauty, his light, his purity, and his radiance reside within himself-not elsewhere or within others. Thus, whatever we seek will emerge from within ourselves. It will emerge from our hearts. It will be revealed from our faces. It will manifest in the sounds we make and in our actions. It will show itself in our qualities and in our speech. It will be evident in our conduct. That is how God's beauty is revealed—His qualities can be seen as they emerge from His children.
God is the One who knows the state of each child. If you see a mother at the riverside, you do not have to go to the house to see what the child is like, because the mother's beauty and qualities will be reflected in the child. If the mother's qualities are bad, the child will have bad qualities. If the mother is terrible, the child will be terrible. On the other hand, if the mother is beautiful both in looks and in qualities, the child will be also.
Our Father, God, is perfect purity, the most Beautiful One, the Solitary One, ill-Allah who is alone. He is the One who rules so many millions and millions of souls and creations, the 8,400,000 different kinds of lives, things that move and things that do not move, things that speak and things that do not speak, things that crawl and things that do not crawl, every current and every energy. He is the cause for the rocks to grow. He is the cause that makes the seeds grow. He is the cause that makes the embryos grow and the atoms grow. If not for Him not even an atom would move.
The qualities, actions, and beauty of such a Creator, such an Almighty One, are passed on to us, because He is our Father and our Mother. God is the Pure One, the Beautiful One, the One who is alone, Allahu, our Father. When His qualities, His actions, and His conduct become ours, then He becomes our Mother and Father. Who was Adam's (AS.) Mother and Father? God. He created Adam (AS.). In the same way, when we become eternal beings, God becomes our Mother and Father. When we are transformed to the state of eternal life, God is our Mother and Father. In that state, we can know His beauty, His light, His sound, and His qualities, His three thousand gracious qualities and His ninety-nine attributes (wilayats).
He does not have the quality of differences. His qualities are those of protecting, sustaining, and giving food, the quality of embracing on the inside and the outside. He is the Emperor. He is the Protector of all the worlds. He is the Almighty One. He is the Great Father, Yahweh. Everything is within Him and He is within everything. Ya Rabbal-'alamin, O Ruler of the universes. Ya Rahman, the Most Merciful, Ya Allah! The One who never diminishes as you go on taking from Him. When His qualities and His beauty come to us, His sound will come to us. He is the Mother of the soul. When that beauty and those qualities come to us, He will embrace us as His children. What other approval do we need?
All the animals know God's fragrance, that fragrance. When they perceive that fragrance, all lives worship it. The cows, goats, chickens, and storks, all the animals bow down to it. To the satans, jinns, demons, and ghosts it is a fierce fire. It burns them and they run away. But to all other lives it is a beautiful fragrance. God's light is the fragrance. Evil runs away from it, and goodness embraces it. All that is good will come and join God. All that is evil will be burned. This is the great power of God's qualities.
When we receive this beauty, it is visible in our actions. No other proof is needed; the beauty is evident within us. It is apparent in every child. The beauty of the Father shines from the children. The beauty of the Mother is there. The beauty of the eternal Father is there. His sound is there. His qualities come to them. His patience comes to them. The Father's exaltedness is seen in them, and because of this they receive so much respect. They become younger. They do not look like old men or old women. Their faces are clear of wrinkles and shimmer and shine with the beauty of flowing milk. Such is the beauty and greatness of the sound, speech, actions, and conduct of our Father. And when we have that beauty, we will know ourselves. We will know the state where all lives bow down in reverence. Whatever we say will be respected. Everything that comes to our tongues will be sweet. It will be very tasty to the ones with wisdom. But those who have no wisdom will find it a little bitter. Many different kinds of concoctions and herbs and medicines are given to promote strength and vigor and to cure the illnesses of the body. In the same way, God's words, the ocean of 'ilm, of divine knowledge, are given for the freedom, the beauty, and the resplendence of the soul. The taste of that 'ilm is given in so many different ways, through speech, through the breath, and through actions. It nourishes the cage of the soul. It makes the soul young and beautiful and adorns the house in which the soul dwells. That beauty comes from that 'ilm and is seen in one's qualities and actions. We can see the proof of this in each child. We can see it in ourselves and in the other children around us.
My love you, my children. You will realize the purity of the words in yourself and see the great value in yourself. That greatness and beauty, that form, and those qualities will be seen in you, yourself. When all the words of your Father come within you and shine, that beauty of your Father's words, actions, and conduct will come also into you. The qualities of patience, contentment, surrender to God, and giving all praise to God (sabur, shakur, tawakkul 'alallah, al-hamdu lillah) will enter within you.
Allahu Akbar, God is Great. He is the Father to all of us. Is He not the One who is limitless grace? He gives grace. He is the One who gives His beneficence. He gives to all lives. For goodness He gives eight heavens, and for evil He opens the seven hells. Where each person will go is determined by what he sought in life. When we die, nothing will go with us except the good and the evil we have done. Not our race. Not our religion. Not our caste. There will be no inquiry as to what race we are, what religion we are, or what caste we are. Only one thing will be evident, whether we are male or female. That is all.
When death comes, our form will change. It will be made of our qualities. If our qualities in the world were like those of a pig, we will take the form of a pig. If we had the qualities of a donkey, we will take the form, the face, of a donkey. If we lived with the qualities of a horse, a snake, or a dog while we were in this human body, then we will assume that form there. The form that we created through our qualities in this world is the form we are going to take after our bodies are claimed by the earth. It is of those forms that the questions will be asked. These forms of dogs, lions, tigers, and others have tongues hanging out that are one-and-a-half feet long. When the word "Kun! (Be!) Arise!" comes, it is these corpses that are raised up. These are the forms you will see when they are raised up. The form each one takes will be according to the benefit each one sought, the property each one gathered, the capital each one earned, and the intentions each one had.
When the day of inquiry comes, they do not ask about your caste. The questions that are asked will be, "Who is your Rabb (Lord)? What is your tribe? To whose family do you belong?" "I am a child of Adam (AS.). I am of the good ones, the family of Abraham (AS.), and I am a follower of Muhammad (SAL.)." There are six questions that will be asked. As soon as you see the two angels, Munkar and Nakir (AS.), give them salams with love, saying, "Peace be with you. (As-salamu 'alaikum.) Welcome." Their flaming, fiery faces and fiery eyes will change and become subdued.2 Then one by one the questions will be asked, and you must answer. There will be no place for race, for this religion or that religion. The questions that are asked will be about the One who created us and about the one who was created, Adam, insan, mankind. This is what will be asked, and we have to answer these questions. We cannot say we belong to this group or that group.
For everyone, God has placed in heaven Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, David, Jesus (may the peace of God be upon them all), and finally Muhammad Mustafar-Rasul (SAL.), the chosen Messenger. God has sent Idris, Isaac, Joseph, Jonah, Job, Jacob, Salihu, and Solomon (may the peace of God be upon them all). All were sent by the One God, and that One God gave them their stations. We are all one tribe-human beings. We may be black or white or yellow or brown, but we are all one race-human.
What people do in the East, they also do in the West. They kiss the same way, they embrace the same way, they bear children the same way. They do exactly the same things. They eat the same way, although they may have different kinds of food, depending upon what is available in their country. The way a child wails there, a child wails here. "Amo, oh moh! Mow, mee!" A child makes the same sounds whether in the East or West. There, children sleep, wake up, and cry. Here too. No matter what race they belong to, no matter what religion they belong to, they cry in the same way. Do they say different things? No. When they start to talk, they make the same sounds. They sit up the same way. They sway and fall over. They crawl on all fours. This is the human race.
What the children come with is the original teaching. What we teach them after that in the schools and in other places is the temporary teachings of differences between races and religions. Before they were all one. If they were asked, "Who is your God? What is your tribe, your family?" they would have given these same answers, "We are the children of Adam (AS.), we are of the family of Abraham (AS.), and we are the followers of Muhammad (SAL.)." These are the three answers that will be given. All the prophets are included in this. These are the answers that come when Munkar and Nakir (AS.) ask the questions.
When we are raised up, we will rise up in the form that we have assumed through our qualities. They will say, "Write!"
And we will say, "We have no pen, no ink."
Then they will say, "Touch your finger to your saliva."
"But I have no paper to write on."
"Write on your burial shroud. Touch and write. You have the ink. Write down on your shroud all that you have done." When you are raised up tomorrow, you will have to go in the form that you have assumed, and then the judgment will come.
O God please protect us. Save us from the suffering in the grave. Save us from the suffering in life. Save us from the suffering caused by our evil qualities. Save us from the qualities of religious and racial prejudice. Save us from the battlefield of "I am different. You are different." Save us from the circumstances that surround these battles and murders, the situations where people drink our blood and where one being kills and eats the other.
Allah! Protect us and take us on the straight path. Please give us Your grace to always walk freely on Your path. Grant us liberation, divine wisdom (gnanam), Your grace, exalted-ness, light, and paradise in life. Grant us the heaven that is Your wealth (daulat). May You give these to us, O God. Please forgive us our sins, all the sins that we committed before, without knowing, when we were without wisdom. This does not mean that we have attained wisdom. You are the One of wisdom. You are the One of beauty. You are the One who has love and good qualities. You are the One of compassion and patience. You are the One who has equality and tolerance. You are the One with unity and the highest ideals. You are the One who brings us all together as one, and You are the One who rules over all as one. You are the Lord, the King of all kings, the Father of all lives. You are the Leader who protects all lives, the One who is everywhere, ill-Allah. You are the One who is as You are at all times, the One who is alone, the One who is One. You are the Father to the millions of lives, the Eternal Father, the Redeemer of all the worlds, the Eternal Treasure of bliss who exists everywhere as the Lone One, the Leader to all lives that exist as the many. We are Your slaves. May You protect us, O God. May You accept us, O God. May You protect us, O God. O being of eternal bliss, may You forgive all our mistakes. Please forgive us all our faults, O God. Even though we cannot see You, O God, we have trust in our heart (qalb). Even though we do not know You, our qalb trusts You with certitude. It is trying to know You. Even though we do not know how to recite, even though we do not know anything, we believe in You. With our foolish wisdom, we believe in You.
May You protect us. Save us who do not know anything. Please forgive us for all the faults we have committed. We do not have divine knowledge ('ilm). We have not learned anything. We do not know how to speak. We do not know how to pray. We do not know how to perform service to God ('ibadat) or the remembrance of God (dhikr). We are doing all this without knowing how. We do not know how to do it.
Prayer done without knowing how to pray,
Prayer done without knowing any method,
The prayer we perform in this world,
We pray without understanding prayer and worship.
Almighty God, we perform prayer without knowing anything.
I do not understand prayer,
I do not know about formal prayer (toluhai).
I have not learned how to recite or read,
I have not learned how to recite or read.
We are agitating in suspense, living here like corpses,
And we scream and wail without knowing divine knowledge ('ilm).
I am suffering, not comprehending the differences of race and religion.
Perfectly pure Almighty God,
I believe that You are One.
I am perplexed, not understanding the divisions of race and religion,
I believe that my Chieftain, God, is One,
And I praise You as the primal, all-pervasive Effulgence.
I am Your slave, Your slave, O God who rules us and bestows grace,
I am Your slave, Your slave, O God who rules us and bestows grace.
Show us how to pray,
Teach us how to recite and read,
Show us the way to pray and perform service to You ('ibadat).
O God, open and reveal the truth to me and my children,
O God, show the way to me and my children,
O God, show the way to me and my children,
Show us the purity of the heart.
With Your grace bestow the certitude and absolute faith (iman)
With which to worship Your love,
To worship that one Treasure in unity,
To live together always as one race,
To embrace all lives with love as one.
Feed us Your grace to embrace with faith and worship
The light of grace, the divine luminous light,
The radiance of the pearl of gnanam,
The light of wisdom, the divine luminous light,
The light of the pearl of gnanam, as God.
O primal omnipresent Effulgence,
May You embrace us and feed us with Your grace,
May You forgive all the faults that we have committed unknowingly.
You are the God who rules all three worlds,
May You embrace us.
We are sinners known to no one,
Embrace and rule us, O God, Allahu.
Feed us with Your compassion,
Open Your eye and look at us.
Earth, illusion (maya), and thoughts come
And entice us and make us lose our honor.
All the discriminations and differences of race and religion
Come and disturb and confuse us.
Discriminations of race and religion come and crush us,
Every second they torment us.
What can we do?
What can we do, O God?
They are tormenting us, what can we do, O my God?
Just as You escaped from all these,
May You help us escape from these, O Merciful One.
Protect us, O God,
Protect and save us, O God,
O God who is beyond all imagination,
Protect us, O God,
Look and bestow Your grace on us, O God.
The Treasure of eternal bliss, O Ruler,
Qadir, the Powerful One, Dastagir, the Lord,
The Eye, the Gem, our Causal Light,
The Perfect Completeness, God, Allahu,
May You dispel the sorrows of these poor ones
And protect all of us.
May You dispel the sorrows of these sinners
And protect all of us, O God.
Look at us all, save us all,
O Treasure of eternal bliss.
O great Father, O God,
O King, Rabbil-'alamin, Lord of all the universes,
O Rahman, O Merciful One,
We need Your beneficence.
Be the Life within our lives.
Open the qalb of truth,
Feed it the honey of grace.
Cause the blissful 'ilm, wisdom, clarity, and iman to flourish and grow.
You are the fruit of wisdom (gnanam) that makes them grow.
I must eat that fruit of wisdom,
The fruit of gnanam and the fruit of grace
And relish the taste.
Please help me and my children, O God of bliss,
O God, Ya Rabbal-'alamin,
O Lord of all the universes.
Amin.
As-salamu 'alaikum.
May the peace of God be with you.
June 3, 1984
Footnotes
1. gnänis, auliyä', ambiyä', qutbs, olis, 'älims, 'ulamä', nujumis
2. A further description of these angels and what transpires in the grave was given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen on June 6, 1984 and published in the pamphlet "The Questioning in the Grave."