[P1international]

Jazak Allah.. you confirm what I said.. It is a Haal and the attaining of that haal is through means.. some by awraad but preferably by masnoon ways.. All the Ibadiyaat Jamat Tabligh does are masnoon, and top that with sincerety and a kamil spiritual guide, you have the making of a best candidate for that "Haal".

Neither the mashaikh of Tablighi Jamaat or The khankahs attached to them claim to provide intelectual ma'rifa.. It is attained the same way your silsila would attain it. However in Tablighi Jamaat you will continue to strive in dunya much more than secluded muraqbas. It is nothing of secrecy in Marifa..as you said yourself it is a Haal, the secrecy in it is ONLY that it cannot be explained in meagre wordings.. But nonetheless Ihsaan is the goal..

salamu `alaykum

Sidi, as you know i never denied the positive influence and effect joining tabligh has on an individual. These positives are undoubted. My only point was that the reality of tasawwuf is really beyond and above putting into words or describing or anything we can ever truly imagine. This is coupled with the fact that "states" have levels. Even people of great piety may not necessarily be `arifin of the highest level.

For example, there is no doubt that the scholars considered Sayyidina Mansur al-Hallaj to be a wali with a strong ihsani haal. However, they also mention that he did not complete the path, he did not reach the goal but only a specific stage within the path. This is not saying that Sayyidina Mansur was not pious, that he had no "state" of ihsan, and so forth but merely that he only sipped a little bit from the divine vessel. This is for a man who was so annihilated in Allah that he said "ana al-haqq". Imagine the annihilation and subsistence (baqa') of those who went far above and beyond him, those who drank the whole vessel till they were quenched.

This is a state that I am talking about, one that is found to be very rare. It takes years and years and years of companionship with one's murshid to reach it.

Shaykh Nuh said once that Shaykh Hashmi, the shaykh of Sayyidina `Abd al-Rahman Shaghouri, sometimes gave ijaza to people whom he saw nur in. However, many of these individuals never materialized into `arifin in the truest sense of the word, or individuals who inherited the murshid's secret. However, this is not to say that such people had no haal at all. They did, but even haal has levels.

Also, I am merely repeating what I heave learnt from my shaykh. I neither claim to be one actualized in tasawwuf nor one who has tasted the reality of it.

Wasalam
Salman