1. ADAB
Deen sarasar poora Adab hai. It’s been said that “be-adab insaan kabhi baa-Khuda nahin ban sakta. Adab here means adab towards ALLAH in terms of respecting & obeying him. When we sin, it means we’re not obeying Him, hence the criteria of Adab is not being fulfilled. It also means Adab towards Prophet’s (SAW) Hadith & Sunnah and following both of them as well.
Allah is bay-niaaz, He could throw us all into Hell-fire. It wont matter to Him. He would still be ALLAH, He doesn’t need us. We need Him. Even the Wali of ALLAH doesn’t care (beyond a certain point). But Prophet (SAW) always cared, he(SAW) cared for his Ummah so so much that he’d wake up for Tahajjud prayer & shed tears for us, uttering the words “My Ummah, my Ummah, my Ummah”. Prophet (SAW) was Fanaaf-il-Ummah. He cared about his Ummah more than anyone else. Thus, the sunnah of Prophet(SAW) is the real path to attain Qurb. Sunnah to this day is very powerful and iski barkat se Qurb haasil hota hai.
Another point Shaykh mentioned was that sometimes a good deed’s idea comes to our mind/heart, that is nothing but Taufeeq granted to us by ALLAH. If we fail to out it into action due to our laziness or whatever reason, it’s sad & unlucky of us to do so.
2. ILM-UN-NAAFAY (Beneficial Knowledge):
Ilm-un-naafay –> Ilm (knowledge) that benefits. And by Ilm (knowledge) we mean Ilm leading to practice. For example, most of us know that whoever uses Miswaak(which is a Sunnah) on a daily basis, would inshaa ALLAH be granted Kalima at the time of death. It’s simple knowledge that needs to be practiced, we dont need any Fatwaa or need to have learnt all the tafseer of Quran to know this piece of knowledge that could benefit us.
It is said that it took Hazrat Umar (RA) 12 years to learn Surah-al-Baqarah. And it was not because of the length of the surah or the difficulty, what it meant is that it took him 12 years to practice what he learnt in this surah.
3. AMAL-E-SAALEH :
Once a person attains (1) & (2), he gets to the third stage that is Amal-e-saaleh, where he practices all his learning in real life.
4. HIKMAH (Wisdom):
(1), (2) & (3) are at the person’s end, his efforts towards Qurb-e-Ilaahi. Hikmaah(wisdom) is what ALLAH grants us for our efforts that we put in the earlier three stages. And the person gets to know the reality (asliyat) of this world. There have been many many well-educated people but they lack Wisdom. True Wisdom can only be granted by ALLAH to those who put in efforts towards Him.
5. ZUHUD:
At this stage insaan ko dunya ki asliyat samaj ajati hai k dunya ki koi asliyat nahi. The person’s heart, at this stage, does not have dunya or it’s love. His/her heart is for Qurb of ALLAH. Their hearts are not fascinated by the luxuries of this world. To them sitting in a luxurious lounge is not different than sitting on barren land. These are the Wali of Allah.
It is to be noted that a Wali’s profile will exactly be the same as any other normal person, he may own a bungalow, a fancy car, etc. But the only difference would be that his heart & life are disconnected with this dunya. His heart yearns for ALLAH only. A Wali tastes the love of ALLAH & Aakhira. Nothing (of this dunya) effects him anymore.
6. INA’BIT-ALLAH:
A person’s heart has only two states; either it’s filled with the Darkness of this world’s love or filled up with the noor of Love of ALLAH. It can’t be both at the same time. Today, we’re filled up with this world’s love, we need to vacuum our hearts. We need to repent to ALLAH to fillour hearts with His love. Only then can we attain His Qurb.
“Koi ALLAH ko mananey wala toy banay”
At this stage, these people miss ALLAH. They wait to pray & do more & more amal-e-saaleh.
7. TRUE IBADAH:
The person wakes up to every tahajjud every prayer w/o anyone(his parents/friends) asking him to wake up. He prays with all his heart. He knows the Reality. It’s all about “ibadah, ibadah & ibadah“. Here, he reaches his real Maqsad i.e to worship ALLAH. The very purpose of his existence.
8. MAARFAT-ALLAH:
This is the ultimate stage that a human attains. The Wali craves for ALLAH. “Wo chalta phirta Jannati banjata hai.” He begins to understand what ALLAH feels & looks like. He feels ALLAH to be right beside him every second & minute of his life.
We used to have Khaanqahein i.e Institutes for Qurb-e-ilahi where one would learn to attain Yaqeen & Qurb. These were the ishq ki dukaanen (khaankahein of Love of ALLAH) and the special things about them was that they were all available for free. Today we pay high amounts of fee to the institutes where we study, but these institutes we all for free.
Today, we have a shortage of people who attain Qurb & Maarfat of ALLAH. When there’s a shortage of something in the market, it’s price(return that we get) increases. Hence we find that reward of reviving a Sunnah in times of fitnaa is equivalent to the sawaab of 100 shaheeds. Thus, the return we get is way more when there’s a shortage of it (in this case it’s the shortage of Sunnah being practiced)
Purifying Our Hearts 